Stubborn enemy=never-ending war

[pontifex_medius]

So I'm playing as France, and decided to sphere Spain which had devolved to a civilized nation. I finally got the necessary points in 1871, and hit sphere. I got an event to either declare war or plummet in prestige. I had just made peace with the North German Federation, and decided to go for it. Spain was however backed by the Netherlands and GB, but I figured I'd pull through because I had a sizeable army and few colonies. The war went well, and I quickly got to the necessary 50 war points.

Now to the problem: GB won't accept my peace offers and I can't get past 50 points. No matter how many armies I crush, no matter how much of Spain I occupy, I still fluctuate between 49-50%. The war has gone on for years, and I'm decisively crushing anything their coalition throws at me - yet my economy is deteriorating and I was forced to demobilize long ago. I'm thinking of just tag switching to GB and concede, if it's a bug. What do you guys think? Is this a common bug or is there something else I haven't taken into account?

Also, I have only a few colonies, so GB's occupation of them don't count much towards the score.

 

[Owl Raider]

So I'm playing as France, and decided to sphere Spain which had devolved to a civilized nation. I finally got the necessary points in 1871, and hit sphere. I got an event to either declare war or plummet in prestige. I had just made peace with the North German Federation, and decided to go for it. Spain was however backed by the Netherlands and GB, but I figured I'd pull through because I had a sizeable army and few colonies. The war went well, and I quickly got to the necessary 50 war points.

Now to the problem: GB won't accept my peace offers and I can't get past 50 points. No matter how many armies I crush, no matter how much of Spain I occupy, I still fluctuate between 49-50%. The war has gone on for years, and I'm decisively crushing anything their coalition throws at me - yet my economy is deteriorating and I was forced to demobilize long ago. I'm thinking of just tag switching to GB and concede, if it's a bug. What do you guys think? Is this a common bug or is there something else I haven't taken into account?

Also, I have only a few colonies, so GB's occupation of them don't count much towards the score.

It's not a bug, it's a lack of understanding of certain game mechanics on your part combined with low expectations from the AI compared to the player. When it comes to wars, the war leader is the only nation that really matters. When GB joined Spain's side in the war against you they became the war leader, which in turn made Spain irrelevant despite being the target of the war goal. Now it became a war between you and GB, which means that in order to get GB to surrender you need to hurt them directly, not Spain, as hurting Spain doesn't affect GB whatsoever. Also, as you pointed out, you can't seem to hurt GB and already maxed out on your battles war score, so if you were playing GB and fighting France, would you as a player surrender in that situation? I dare say no player would ever surrender in that situation as there's no need to do so whatsoever. So why should the AI be held to lesser standard than those of any reasonable player? Sure, the AI often messes up, as it's significantly poorer than the player. But there's a huge difference between saying the AI is incompetent and saying the AI is buggy because it actually did something right, in fact you should rejoice at the AI being somewhat competitive, not trying to bypass the system and calling it buggy.

 

[pontifex_medius]

It's not a bug, it's a lack of understanding of certain game mechanics on your part combined with low expectations from the AI compared to the player. When it comes to wars, the war leader is the only nation that really matters. When GB joined Spain's side in the war against you they became the war leader, which in turn made Spain irrelevant despite being the target of the war goal. Now it became a war between you and GB, which means that in order to get GB to surrender you need to hurt them directly, not Spain, as hurting Spain doesn't affect GB whatsoever. Also, as you pointed out, you can't seem to hurt GB and already maxed out on your battles war score, so if you were playing GB and fighting France, would you as a player surrender in that situation? I dare say no player would ever surrender in that situation as there's no need to do so whatsoever. So why should the AI be held to lesser standard than those of any reasonable player? Sure, the AI often messes up, as it's significantly poorer than the player. But there's a huge difference between saying the AI is incompetent and saying the AI is buggy because it actually did something right, in fact you should rejoice at the AI being somewhat competitive, not trying to bypass the system and calling it buggy.

I'll concede that I'm new to Victoria 2, but I would consider myself a seasoned PDS player. As such I recognize a lot of the same mechanics from other titles. I do know that the best way to win wars is by damaging the war leader. I also know that the relative strength of the parties are relevant for peace offers, and that my war score decreases with time when I'm the attacker. What I didn't know, and what I couldn't possibly know, is that there's a battle score limit. Especially when the post-battle screens keep telling me that I've gained points.

And no, I would not consider it reasonable for GB to reject any peace offers when France occupies everything north of Toledo and has obliterated the standing armies of GB, Spain and the Netherlands. By that logic, GB would have still waged war against the Thirteen Colonies. If I were the human GB in this scenario, I would have cut my losses instead of haemorrhaging resources to a war I couldn't possibly win.

In any case, it's probably not a bug then. Guess it's time to CTA my allies, so I may get a boost to relative strength. Also I haven't seized Gibraltar yet. There's no way I'm giving up on this war.


PS: I tag switched to NGF and hit unpause - the war ended immediately and France sphered Spain. So if that wasn't a bug, then something isn't working right.

 

[Owl Raider]

I'll concede that I'm new to Victoria 2, but I would consider myself a seasoned PDS player. As such I recognize a lot of the same mechanics from other titles. I do know that the best way to win wars is by damaging the war leader. I also know that the relative strength of the parties are relevant for peace offers, and that my war score decreases with time when I'm the attacker. What I didn't know, and what I couldn't possibly know, is that there's a battle score limit. Especially when the post-battle screens keep telling me that I've gained points.

And no, I would not consider it reasonable for GB to reject any peace offers when France occupies everything north of Toledo and has obliterated the standing armies of GB, Spain and the Netherlands. By that logic, GB would have still waged war against the Thirteen Colonies. If I were the human GB in this scenario, I would have cut my losses instead of haemorrhaging resources to a war I couldn't possibly win.

In any case, it's probably not a bug then. Guess it's time to CTA my allies, so I may get a boost to relative strength. Also I haven't seized Gibraltar yet. There's no way I'm giving up on this war.


PS: I tag switched to NGF and hit unpause - the war ended immediately and France sphered Spain. So if that wasn't a bug, then something isn't working right.

Since you mentioned the Thirteen Colonies, so the Revolutionary war than, you do realize that it lasted much longer than it should have, right...? The UK was fighting tooth and nail to keep the Colonies from gaining their independence and sent reinforcements to America multiple times to try and keep on going. What broke the UK in the end was the French assistance to the Colonists, which meant that the British fleet was being threatened and Britain's fleet was its main strategic asset. So in that regard because their fleet and with it their nearly absolute naval dominance was being threatened than there was a strategic reason for the UK to get out of the war. In Britain's position losing naval influence and power was more devastating than losing bits of land somewhere across the world so that's what they did.

As for your tag switching to the NGF, yes it was indeed "something else". The AI treats the player differently than it treats other AIs. Notice that when the AI fights wars among itself(as in AI nation vs AI nation) these wars are typically quick. When the player gets involved the AI turtles up and becomes incredibly stubborn. This was done to reflect the player's own stubbornness with the AI and the fact that the player couldn't care less about war score, only about the actual odds of winning or losing and the financial costs of war. So when it comes to AI vs player conflicts the AI is much more reluctant to peace out simply because that's what how the average player behaves. So when you tag switched suddenly France was AI and so was the UK, so the player's special treatment was dropped and the war instantly ended.

 

[pontifex_medius]

Since you mentioned the Thirteen Colonies, so the Revolutionary war than, you do realize that it lasted much longer than it should have, right...? The UK was fighting tooth and nail to keep the Colonies from gaining their independence and sent reinforcements to America multiple times to try and keep on going. What broke the UK in the end was the French assistance to the Colonists, which meant that the British fleet was being threatened and Britain's fleet was its main strategic asset. So in that regard because their fleet and with it their nearly absolute naval dominance was being threatened than there was a strategic reason for the UK to get out of the war. In Britain's position losing naval influence and power was more devastating than losing bits of land somewhere across the world so that's what they did.

As long as Great Britain itself is not threatened, the Britons could have simply avoided exposing their fleet. Then they could have lasted for decades, even if the war was fought in name only
On a serious note though, I welcome mechanics that make the game more challenging. I just don't agree that I should not win the war when the only thing keeping GB's relative strength at place, is its fleet - which in this case is useless at protecting Spain itself.

As for your tag switching to the NGF, yes it was indeed "something else". The AI treats the player differently than it treats other AIs. Notice that when the AI fights wars among itself(as in AI nation vs AI nation) these wars are typically quick. When the player gets involved the AI turtles up and becomes incredibly stubborn. This was done to reflect the player's own stubbornness with the AI and the fact that the player couldn't care less about war score, only about the actual odds of winning or losing and the financial costs of war. So when it comes to AI vs player conflicts the AI is much more reluctant to peace out simply because that's what how the average player behaves. So when you tag switched suddenly France was AI and so was the UK, so the player's special treatment was dropped and the war instantly ended.

Fair enough, that makes sense.



PS:
What's the deal with the event that lead to the war BTW? Is it tagged to certain larger powers?

 

[Fiftypence]

PS:
What's the deal with the event that lead to the war BTW? Is it tagged to certain larger powers?

They fired the decision to leave your sphere due to being a secondary power and having negative relations, I'd assume. Always make sure any secondary powers in your sphere have positive relations with you

 

[Owl Raider]

As long as Great Britain itself is not threatened, the Britons could have simply avoided exposing their fleet. Then they could have lasted for decades, even if the war was fought in name only
On a serious note though, I welcome mechanics that make the game more challenging. I just don't agree that I should not win the war when the only thing keeping GB's relative strength at place, is its fleet - which in this case is useless at protecting Spain itself.

If your war had a war goal with a ticking war score in it than you would have eventually won based on that, but add to sphere doesn't get ticking war score. With that said, eventually GB will surrender in your war, it'll just take forever and ever because they have no motivation to do so. Generally in cases such as that you want to separate peace the nation you got your war score against than eventually get a white peace with the GP defending them. However in this case I don't think you could do that because there's no remove from sphere war goal and a war can't continue with no war goals on either side, so you should have either built a fleet to contest the British fleet, wait for them to leave the English channel so you can move troops to the Isles via Dunkirk or just wait it out until they'll eventually give up(which could take forever), or you could just white peace and lose some prestige than sphere Spain diplomatically again.

Fair enough, that makes sense.

PS:
What's the deal with the event that lead to the war BTW? Is it tagged to certain larger powers?

The deal is that when you have someone in your sphere the sphered country has the option to leave your sphere, much like a nation you invested in has the option to cease your investments and nationalize them(like the Communists did in real life). Spain chose that decision against you, which in turn gave you the event to put you at war with them to maintain the status quo(them being your sphereling) or you had 2 other options(call in allies for a cut down to size CB or let them be and lose a lot of prestige). It's not tagged to anyone, it's an option available to any minor partner in a sphere. When you're playing a minor power like for example Greece you typically get sphered by a GP, in Greece's case it's usually the UK. Than you have the option to denounce your sphereling and risk getting into a war with said GP.

As the player it's rarely wise to choose that decision as you typically abuse the fact that your sphere overlord typically allies you despite massive penalties like civilized vs uncivilized or whatever and also often comes to assist you even in offensive wars thanks to that opinion bonus. If you watch some of the lets plays on Youtube with Greece you see that a lot of players actually take advantage of being sphered by UK or another GP to declare offensive wars, let the GP do all the fighting and reap the rewards since the war goal is yours. Also whenever you want to leave the sphere just rise to GP status, which is much easier for the player than it is for AI nations, so there's really no need for the player to take this decision unless a very specific strategy requires it. The AI on the other hand doesn't abuse itself in the way the player does, nor can it easily rise to GP status(usually by farming prestige) like the player does, so for the AI this option is more necessary and therefore happens quite frequently. If you pay close attention you will see a bunch of add to sphere or cut down to size wars between 2 AI nations, these are almost always caused by that event.

 

[pontifex_medius]

If your war had a war goal with a ticking war score in it than you would have eventually won based on that, but add to sphere doesn't get ticking war score. With that said, eventually GB will surrender in your war, it'll just take forever and ever because they have no motivation to do so. Generally in cases such as that you want to separate peace the nation you got your war score against than eventually get a white peace with the GP defending them. However in this case I don't think you could do that because there's no remove from sphere war goal and a war can't continue with no war goals on either side, so you should have either built a fleet to contest the British fleet, wait for them to leave the English channel so you can move troops to the Isles via Dunkirk or just wait it out until they'll eventually give up(which could take forever), or you could just white peace and lose some prestige than sphere Spain diplomatically again.

Okay, thanks. It seems I was lucky enough for the Netherlands to add one of my colonies to its war goals, so I can now settle for peace with Spain separately (I’d wondered why I couldn’t do that before). I need some more war score, but it’s getting there. This has turned into one of the least profitable wars I’ve started myself, so I just won’t accept a white peace out of mere principle.

The deal is that when you have someone in your sphere the sphered country has the option to leave your sphere, much like a nation you invested in has the option to cease your investments and nationalize them(like the Communists did in real life). Spain chose that decision against you, which in turn gave you the event to put you at war with them to maintain the status quo(them being your sphereling) or you had 2 other options(call in allies for a cut down to size CB or let them be and lose a lot of prestige). It's not tagged to anyone, it's an option available to any minor partner in a sphere. When you're playing a minor power like for example Greece you typically get sphered by a GP, in Greece's case it's usually the UK. Than you have the option to denounce your sphereling and risk getting into a war with said GP.

As the player it's rarely wise to choose that decision as you typically abuse the fact that your sphere overlord typically allies you despite massive penalties like civilized vs uncivilized or whatever and also often comes to assist you even in offensive wars thanks to that opinion bonus. If you watch some of the lets plays on Youtube with Greece you see that a lot of players actually take advantage of being sphered by UK or another GP to declare offensive wars, let the GP do all the fighting and reap the rewards since the war goal is yours. Also whenever you want to leave the sphere just rise to GP status, which is much easier for the player than it is for AI nations, so there's really no need for the player to take this decision unless a very specific strategy requires it. The AI on the other hand doesn't abuse itself in the way the player does, nor can it easily rise to GP status(usually by farming prestige) like the player does, so for the AI this option is more necessary and therefore happens quite frequently. If you pay close attention you will see a bunch of add to sphere or cut down to size wars between 2 AI nations, these are almost always caused by that event.

Okay, thanks guys. That cleared things up :happy: I was too preoccupied with the opinion of Spain to notice their relations until war broke out.

 

[Thrake]

Sometimes, when I have enough WS for peace, I just rush and occupy the war leader's capital and it commonly happens to be enough for the AI to surrender. It seems that the AI values more capital than other provinces. Also, I don't know for sphere, but sometimes, you can just negociate a separate peace and get what you want with secondary participants; it's sometimes easier than asking for all your wargoal against the war leader.

 

[degen83]

Sometimes, when I have enough WS for peace, I just rush and occupy the war leader's capital and it commonly happens to be enough for the AI to surrender. It seems that the AI values more capital than other provinces. Also, I don't know for sphere, but sometimes, you can just negociate a separate peace and get what you want with secondary participants; it's sometimes easier than asking for all your wargoal against the war leader.

You can negotiate peace separately for nations that are not the war leader or a puppet of another nation. The warleader negotiates peace for the entire coalition.

When you receive a peace offer, if you read it carefully it will say near the end "they are negotiating for their themselves" if it is a separate peace, or "they are negotiating for their entire alliance" if the offer is to end the entire war.

You can also send peace offers to nations that are not the war leader and are not puppets to offer them a separate peace.

Occupying enough provinces of a nation at war with you that is not the war leader nor is it a puppet can cause them to send a separate peace offer to you, for either white peace or whatever your wargoals on them are. If you accept you will peace with only that one nation while the rest of the war remains, so you could knock several nations out of a war and keep the war going against your real targets.

You cannot get a separate peace in a crisis war.

If I'm fighting a war to gain some territory and that nations allies all attack me, I'll blitz the allies to force them into a peace while playing defensive with the target. Once the targets are in a much more manageable positions after knocking their allies out I'll send in the rest of my troops to take territory, getting warscore and allowing me to take what I want much easier than having to continually fight a multi front war.

 

[The Silent Hero]

Look at it from their point of view. You haven't actually defeated the war leader and you're quickly running out of men and money to continue fighting. Why should they give in to your demands when it is you who will have to tap out soon?

You should have gone for London first. It wouldn't be too hard, and they would have readily surrendered. Once you crushed the bulk of Britain's armies and occupied the country, you could move on to Spain.

 

[Thrake]

You can negotiate peace separately for nations that are not the war leader or a puppet of another nation. The warleader negotiates peace for the entire coalition.

When you receive a peace offer, if you read it carefully it will say near the end "they are negotiating for their themselves" if it is a separate peace, or "they are negotiating for their entire alliance" if the offer is to end the entire war.

You can also send peace offers to nations that are not the war leader and are not puppets to offer them a separate peace.

Occupying enough provinces of a nation at war with you that is not the war leader nor is it a puppet can cause them to send a separate peace offer to you, for either white peace or whatever your wargoals on them are. If you accept you will peace with only that one nation while the rest of the war remains, so you could knock several nations out of a war and keep the war going against your real targets.

You cannot get a separate peace in a crisis war.

If I'm fighting a war to gain some territory and that nations allies all attack me, I'll blitz the allies to force them into a peace while playing defensive with the target. Once the targets are in a much more manageable positions after knocking their allies out I'll send in the rest of my troops to take territory, getting warscore and allowing me to take what I want much easier than having to continually fight a multi front war.

In some wars, I seem to be able to white peace with secondary participants, but not always (it wasn't a great war; rather, there was something saying like making a separate peace would end the war, so I couldn't, although there's more to it: starting with MExico for exemple, I can annex Texas when the US join in their side and then I'm left alone against US).

 

[pontifex_medius]

Thanks for replies everyone, I did win the war shortly after resuming the game, so that was nice. I did provoke a communist revolution later though, so I lost my SOIs including Spain o

Unrelated question while you guys are still here: My military rank plummeted following losses after the war for Spain and numerous rebellions while waiting for the commies. As of now I have rebuilt my army, but my army size don't count for anything towards my military score. Even though I have caught up with the military techs, have 90+ regular regiments, and military supplies in abundance - my army size only counts for 0.2 towards the score. Including my leaders and navy size (which contribute more soberly), I'm ranked at 13 with about 110 military score. What gives? I expected army size to count for a lot more. Does it have anything to do with the fact that I'm stuck with pacifism and 50% military spending? Is it because my seasoned soldiers have mostly been replaced by noobs?

Look at it from their point of view. You haven't actually defeated the war leader and you're quickly running out of men and money to continue fighting. Why should they give in to your demands when it is you who will have to tap out soon?

You should have gone for London first. It wouldn't be too hard, and they would have readily surrendered. Once you crushed the bulk of Britain's armies and occupied the country, you could move on to Spain.

I demobilized after I had crushed their mainland forces+conscripts, and subsequently used my regulars alone to occupy Spain and hold the Britons at bay. After demobilizing, my economy was booming, so I suffered little in terms of money and production. I couldn't cross the Channel because their fleet kept blocking me, and I had an inferior navy.

 

[Owl Raider]

Thanks for replies everyone, I did win the war shortly after resuming the game, so that was nice. I did provoke a communist revolution later though, so I lost my SOIs including Spain o

Unrelated question while you guys are still here: My military rank plummeted following losses after the war for Spain and numerous rebellions while waiting for the commies. As of now I have rebuilt my army, but my army size don't count for anything towards my military score. Even though I have caught up with the military techs, have 90+ regular regiments, and military supplies in abundance - my army size only counts for 0.2 towards the score. Including my leaders and navy size (which contribute more soberly), I'm ranked at 13 with about 110 military score. What gives? I expected army size to count for a lot more. Does it have anything to do with the fact that I'm stuck with pacifism and 50% military spending? Is it because my seasoned soldiers have mostly been replaced by noobs?

Military rank is determined by your army's supply consumption. It's not about the experience of your troops nor even their quality, only how much they consume. The most likely explanation for a sudden drop in military rank is switching political parties. If you pay attention to it, Jingoism increases your troops' consumption the most, and also allows you to pay them the most, whereas Pacifism decreases your troops' consumption and limits your military expenditure(the slider at the bottom on soldier+officer salaries not the maintenance slider at the top). So basically if you down ranked your attitude towards your military due to switching political parties than that would explain the sudden drop in military rank. Remember, Jingoism>Pro Military>Anti Military>Pacifism.

 

[pontifex_medius]

Military rank is determined by your army's supply consumption. It's not about the experience of your troops nor even their quality, only how much they consume. The most likely explanation for a sudden drop in military rank is switching political parties. If you pay attention to it, Jingoism increases your troops' consumption the most, and also allows you to pay them the most, whereas Pacifism decreases your troops' consumption and limits your military expenditure(the slider at the bottom on soldier+officer salaries not the maintenance slider at the top). So basically if you down ranked your attitude towards your military due to switching political parties than that would explain the sudden drop in military rank. Remember, Jingoism>Pro Military>Anti Military>Pacifism.

Ah, thanks! That explains it. I had assumed that the communists were a bit more favourable towards defending the revolution, but apparently not in France.

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

As for your tag switching to the NGF, yes it was indeed "something else". The AI treats the player differently than it treats other AIs. Notice that when the AI fights wars among itself(as in AI nation vs AI nation) these wars are typically quick. When the player gets involved the AI turtles up and becomes incredibly stubborn. This was done to reflect the player's own stubbornness with the AI and the fact that the player couldn't care less about war score, only about the actual odds of winning or losing and the financial costs of war. So when it comes to AI vs player conflicts the AI is much more reluctant to peace out simply because that's what how the average player behaves. So when you tag switched suddenly France was AI and so was the UK, so the player's special treatment was dropped and the war instantly ended.

Nope, never noticed that, what i have seen was quiet the opposite actually.

 

[Gnorf]

Ah, thanks! That explains it. I had assumed that the communists were a bit more favourable towards defending the revolution, but apparently not in France.

Well they're the French. All the other parties usually have pro-military. The Bolsheviks even have jingoism.