Should the AI be allowed to freely intervene in your wars, breaking truce and war reparation pact as result?

[paulxiep]

Currently that is the case. I didn't think much with the AI breaking truce to intervene in wars it has absolute no diplomatic relationship with any participant of.

This time is different, my Burundi won a war against US a few months prior, enforcing war reparation as a result. I was on my way to using extra income to speed up my construction.
I tried to puppet Sokoto, a country in inland west Africa. US intervened. It has no relation with Sokoto, yet it was allowed to break truce to intervene.
In so doing it also broke the war reparation pact.
I thought, fine, it might just resume paying once I win this war.
Sokoto capitulated, US forced-continue the war to retake its lost territory, while I who added no war goal against it thinking it should allow me to truce out after Sokoto capitulate had to play along. Fine, I waited until US too capitulated.
US didn't resume paying its war reparations it still owes me for 4 1/2 years.

This is definitely not fine by me.

 

[Fawr]

The main part of the humiliate war goal is to keep the other country out of your wars during the truce. If that happened automatically then you wouldn't need that war goal anymore.

 

[paulxiep]

The main part of the humiliate war goal is to keep the other country out of your wars during the truce. If that happened automatically then you wouldn't need that war goal anymore.

And how do I get the option to humiliate? It never seems to appear as a war goal option to me.

What's the point of war reparation if it can be broken freely?

 

[FocusedHope]

And how do I get the option to humiliate? It never seems to appear as a war goal option to me.

What's the point of war reparation if it can be broken freely?

Humiliate is available on, and only on, countries you've declared a Rivalry toward.

War reps can't be broken freely, only by opposing you in a diplomatic play (that goes to war, I suspect). This means (a) they can't do it unless there's a diplomatic play involving you, so if you just stay peaceful they can't break it unless some third party happens to attack you; (b) they end up with whatever economy-wrecking effects the war brings, so it might be cheaper for them to just pay the war reps; and (c) you can just add war reps as a war goal and refresh it if you want. So yeah, this doesn't qualify as anywhere near "can be broken freely" IMO.

And to answer your original question, I'm generally in favor of "yes, AI can intervene against the player if it's in their interest, which if you're going crazy conquering it almost always is". It would make sense to me if countries with a truce with you can't join a diplo play attacking you, I can't remember if that's a mechanic in the game or not. But if you're attacking other people, I'd think except for the Humiliate option, yes AI should be able to and should intervene.

 

[Fawr]

And how do I get the option to humiliate? It never seems to appear as a war goal option to me.

What's the point of war reparation if it can be broken freely?

I think you can only humiliate rivals.

War reparations continuing during the next war would be equally odd. Going to war to break the reparations is hardly doing it freely.

 

[Question]

The main part of the humiliate war goal is to keep the other country out of your wars during the truce. If that happened automatically then you wouldn't need that war goal anymore.

It is completely illogical and very exploitable. You cant just say "ohhh im going to disregard the truce to fight you now xdddd" right after signing it. Real life does not work that way. If you want to do that, you should need to break the truce incurring penalties for it, just like in EU4.

The main problems are :

• AI will lose a war, then immediately side against you in the next war without recovering, then get beaten down again and again. The AI cannot recognize this is a bad idea.
• You can use sway offers to keep taking states from AIs you have a truce with.

The only times where you should be able to side against someone you have a truce with is if you have a diplomatic pact with the target. Humiliate as designed is pointless anyway, if you can beat down an AI once, you can do it again...all this does is make the AI easier to beat down since they cant recover. Humiliate should prevent the AI from participating in ALL diplomatic plays unless they have a diplomatic pact with the target, this would mean preventing the target from participating in world affairs and would actually be very useful.

 

[Kyoumen]

It is completely illogical and very exploitable. You cant just say "ohhh im going to disregard the truce to fight you now xdddd" right after signing it. Real life does not work that way. If you want to do that, you should need to break the truce incurring penalties for it, just like in EU4.

Napoleon would've really liked it if reality didn't work that way. He might've been able to ever get Britain (or Austria) off his back.

In fact, there is literally nothing that obliges countries to stick to your humiliating treaties besides your willingness and ability to beat them again and impose even more punitive ones. I suppose there could be a prestige penalty for doing it, but honestly even that wouldn't apply if you were infamous or especially pariah.

Humiliate should prevent the AI from participating in ALL diplomatic plays unless they have a diplomatic pact with the target, this would mean preventing the target from participating in world affairs and would actually be very useful.

That isn't humiliating, that's making them into a puppet state.

 

[paulxiep]

The main part of the humiliate war goal is to keep the other country out of your wars during the truce. If that happened automatically then you wouldn't need that war goal anymore.

I think you can only humiliate rivals.

War reparations continuing during the next war would be equally odd. Going to war to break the reparations is hardly doing it freely.

If humiliate is such an important and crucial war goal, then it should be available freely. I shouldn't require me to have to reciprocate US's obsessive interest in me by rivaling it. (actually, the tooltip even says I need to spend my Interest quota on US's capital region too to even have the option to humiliate it. This makes absolute zero sense.)

Freely being able to war again to break the reparation with no repercussion is definitely a problem. I just painstakingly took US's war support down to -100 like 1 week ago, and now its pop is fully willing to support another consecutive war against me? There should be heavy penalties in doing so. Like taking legitimacy hit, getting worker strike, and of course heavy infamy points. The only way to break any truce terms would have to be to have a certain fascist Adolf regime take over or something similar. The same regime, same gov, same entity, should only be allowed to break it with serious repercussions.

It is completely illogical and very exploitable. You cant just say "ohhh im going to disregard the truce to fight you now xdddd" right after signing it. Real life does not work that way. If you want to do that, you should need to break the truce incurring penalties for it, just like in EU4.

Exactly. Nothing should be definite, but breaking certain rules should have serious repercussions.

A Vic3 comparison would be akin with to go over credit limit. You aren't forced to bankrupt yourself in any way, but your throughput (I think, if I remember correctly) gets quickly and progressively increasing penalty.

The main problems are :

• AI will lose a war, then immediately side against you in the next war without recovering, then get beaten down again and again. The AI cannot recognize this is a bad idea.

I only wish that were the case. I was playing Burundi and was only painstakingly catching up with other great powers. I hadn't yet caught up in tech. US already had tanks and chemical weapons, while in the previous war I only used trench infantry the first time. I only painstaking beat it by utilizing the home turf advantage. The US had colonies on my home continent, so I just took the coast and used the more evenly-matched navies to keep the US from ever landing.

In fact, there is literally nothing that obliges countries to stick to your humiliating treaties besides your willingness and ability to beat them again and impose even more punitive ones.

It should have both domestic and infamy penalty. You just lost a war 1 week ago, what kind of docile pop would ever support going to war with the same opponent again? What would that look like in the eyes of the world?

 

[Question]

Napoleon would've really liked it if reality didn't work that way. He might've been able to ever get Britain (or Austria) off his back.

In fact, there is literally nothing that obliges countries to stick to your humiliating treaties besides your willingness and ability to beat them again and impose even more punitive ones. I suppose there could be a prestige penalty for doing it, but honestly even that wouldn't apply if you were infamous or especially pariah.



That isn't humiliating, that's making them into a puppet state.

Clearly, truces in the napoleonic era were a lot shorter than 5 years. Or maybe they truce broke and the rest of europe didnt care? The 5 year limit in paradox games is an arbitrary limit to slow down expansion anyway, otherwise you would just go to war constantly.

Not being able to participate in diplomatic play for 5 years is very different from a puppet system. If i can humiliate a country, i usually do not care if they want to participate in diplomatic plays against me specifically...because i am strong enough to beat them down again. Stopping them from participating in most diplomatic plays would have a sizable impact on world politics however.

 

[Kyoumen]

Clearly, truces in the napoleonic era were a lot shorter than 5 years. Or maybe they truce broke and the rest of europe didnt care? The 5 year limit in paradox games is an arbitrary limit to slow down expansion anyway, otherwise you would just go to war constantly.

Not being able to participate in diplomatic play for 5 years is very different from a puppet system. If i can humiliate a country, i usually do not care if they want to participate in diplomatic plays against me specifically...because i am strong enough to beat them down again. Stopping them from participating in most diplomatic plays would have a sizable impact on world politics however.

And how would that work, precisely? How are you enforcing it? You brought up how unrealistic that something that repeatedly happened in a timeframe a couple of decades before Victoria 3 can happen in Victoria 3 as well, but I don't see how this suggestion is realistic in the slightest. Honestly, "humiliate" making them unable to oppose you for an arbitrary length of time is already pretty unrealistic.

The only way I know of that countries normally had their diplomatic options curtailed like this was by turning them into one form of puppet state or another (indeed, it was often a crucial step in colonisation by turning a formerly independent state into a client state - notably, the British tried to do this to Afghanistan).

Now, if you want to argue that they should be less eager to jump into war again, sure I can see that in many circumstances (though there are plenty of historical examples of countries ITCHING for round 2 pretty much as soon as the war was over despite being battered). But there's nothing really stopping them besides "this is a terrible idea", which has less than perfect effectiveness for stopping states from doing things.

(This should also be true for the player, really, though I can see the argument for it not being so.)

 

[Kyoumen]

It should have both domestic and infamy penalty. You just lost a war 1 week ago, what kind of docile pop would ever support going to war with the same opponent again? What would that look like in the eyes of the world?

And yet the English government was not overthrown by crowds calling for the heads of those leading them to war against Napoleon for the umpteenth time that decade. For several reasons, not least of which being they presented it as being something they were forced into rather than deliberately choosing, something you can assume many governments would also be doing in Vicky.

Plus, of course, depending on the country, how much what the populace at large thinks about the war actually matters can vary a fair bit. It varies a fair bit in real life right now, in fact.

Like, I can see an argument for raising radicalism due to truce breaking but it's kind of... simplistic. It really just depends. It depends on the hows and whys of how the war was lost, what exactly is the threat posed by the enemy country, what the prospects of victory are in renewed hostilities. Even then, you still have Napoleon's return, where France rather enthusiastically celebrated the return of a war they'd just been thoroughly beaten in, against a coalition of much of Europe that they couldn't realistically hope to overcome.

I think a better focus would be the AI learning to pick its fights a little better rather than trying to make truces an iron-clad thing that they pretty much never were at any point in history. Like, if you beat the snot out of Prussia, they might hate your guts and itch to jump in against you, but they're also inclined to wait for other GPs to jump in first that can meaningfully occupy your attention so they have a better shot at victory or getting you to back down.

 

[L-Histidine]

In fact, there is literally nothing that obliges countries to stick to your humiliating treaties besides your willingness and ability to beat them again and impose even more punitive ones. I suppose there could be a prestige penalty for doing it, but honestly even that wouldn't apply if you were infamous or especially pariah.

Okay, but that's a general argument for letting countries break truces at any time if they're willing to eat an infamy/radicalization cost.

...Actually, why can't we do that already?

 

[ConstantineTheGreat]

What's hilarious is that if you declare two diplo plays and the same country joins both, you can get twice the wargoals on that country.

 

[Marirosa]

You cannot start a diplo play if you already started one.

 

[Lazy Sorcerer]

In fact, there is literally nothing that obliges countries to stick to your humiliating treaties besides your willingness and ability to beat them again and impose even more punitive ones.

You would have point if AI could recognize this. As of now, it can't and it just throws itself into a war after war it can't win.

 

[Kultakala Siika]

Regarding breaking truces and its effects on population, I agree with some kind of infamy penalty, but here I think there could be a productive interaction with IGs. Jingoist IGs would like breaking truces. Patriotic IGs would approve breaking a truce that followed a war where you lost ( war goals imposed on you). Pacifist IGs would always disapprove of war, and extra dislike breaking truces specifically. Plutocrats' opinion depends on whether you have gold reserves (approve) or debt (disapprove). Nihilist leader would disapprove or approve depending on the whether it looks like you are winning. Moralist, Liberals, Populists, Republicans, Nationalists, etc would have different opinions about different wargoals. (Finally a reason for including "Abolish Slavery" wargaol: you'd need to make your Intelligentsia approve of breaking truce, Ethno-Nationalists would love "Liberate Nation" of primary culture, Radicals would love all "Liberate Nation" of any and all nations.)