Stuck wars

[Madrick]

Hi,

Those stuck wars are freaking me out !!
I just played a GC as Burgundy. I'm in 1540 now and following things happened:
1. The OE never got big because since the beginning Byzantinum has been at war with OE (captured Thrace) and Athens & her allies (captured Morea). Now there hasn't been moving anything for about 120 years ! The OE just got two additional provinces on Andalusia but nothing more.

2. France never built since they are stuck in a war against Auvergne. Here the situation is even more curios: France is allied with Orleans, both captured one of Auvergne's two provinces. So the alliance warscore should be up to 100% (unfortunately I dunno if there is any Auvergne army left but i think no) but they still don't make peace. So France couldn't diplo-annex her vassals

3. The Knights, Wallachia and Poitou attacked Moldavia (3 prov.) with the Knights taking two and Wallachia taking the capital. Moldavia took both Wallachian provinces and still had 22k men in one of those but she didn't even think of retaking her homelands. Finally, as I got involved in the Poitou-Wallachia-alliance (The Knights already left it) I could defeat the Moldavian army an retake the Wallachian provinces.

Such wars are really bad. The countries are stuck in those wars and can't develop very well. I don't know if that could be fixed easily (Johan ! ) but it would be fine if it worked. What do you think ?

 

[unmerged(5205)]

Are you sure Auvergne hasn't captured more provinces?

 

[Cakravarti]

Sometimes reloading the latest savegame helps as the ais might have fallen asleep.

 

[Madrick]

I reloaded several times.

extract from Savegame:

...
lastpeace = { year = 1425 month = november day = 0 } // I'm in year 1524
...
ownedprovinces = { 420 421 }
controlledprovinces = { }
...
// no land or naval unit entry

Auvergne has an ally, Brandenburg which is still at war with the other countries but which has probably done almost nothing.

 

[unmerged(3931)]

...France is allied with Orleans, both captured one of Auvergne's two provinces. So the alliance warscore should be up to 100%...

Neither France nor Orleans has a 100% victory because neither country controls 100% of Auvergne. France and Orleans probably have little more than 10% victory each since mountain provinces do not count for much war score. It used to be that the nation that captured the capital in such cases had the 100% war score, but that has changed due to exploitations.

I think what really needs to change is the valuation of a small nation's provinces in relation to war score. If a nation has less than 100% war score in provinces, adjustments should be made to the war score value for the provinces captured. If a nation has only two equally valued provinces and one is captured, that should be good for 50% war score. If one province was worth twice as much as the other, then the provinces should count for 33% and 67%. The way things stand now, winning wars against small nations is usually tougher than against major powers.

 

[unmerged(20077)]

I reloaded several times.
Auvergne has an ally, Brandenburg which is still at war with the other countries but which has probably done almost nothing.

Type "event 94001 bra" a few times to cause revolts and bring down the government of Brandenburg. This will knock them out of the war and might just bring Auvergne to the negotiating table.
Hmm... would "event 94001 orl" bring down the government of Orleans as well, or would it not because they control one of Auvergne's provinces? If it does, that would knock them out as well, allowing France to move in and get that 100% war score.

 

[Incompetent]

I think what really needs to change is the valuation of a small nation's provinces in relation to war score. If a nation has less than 100% war score in provinces, adjustments should be made to the war score value for the provinces captured. If a nation has only two equally valued provinces and one is captured, that should be good for 50% war score. If one province was worth twice as much as the other, then the provinces should count for 33% and 67%. The way things stand now, winning wars against small nations is usually tougher than against major powers.

The whole percentage warscore thing is misconceived, because some demands should scale and others shouldn't. Vicky employs your system even for large countries, and it's even sillier than EU2: basically, to take provinces off a country, you have to take 10-20% of their total territory per province. So if you're Germany and you manage to successfully take over the whole of Great Britain proper, you apparently haven't done well enough to demand say half of Nigeria as tribute.

What we need instead is a system of 'war points', which accumulate like war score but with no limit (or a limit depending on enemy size). Provinces would then cost a fixed # of WP to demand, regardless of the size of your enemy. But the cost of global demands like vassalisation would scale with the total worth of your enemies' provinces. This way, it's quite easy to trim one or two provinces off say China, but vassalisation is much harder, requiring you to go out and occupy 70%+ of the country.

At the moment, the ease with which powerful majors can be force-vassalised after relatively minor defeats (and then the way the AI just accepts the vassalage for centuries) is one of the biggest exploits in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if people have force-vassalised France by invading Canada and the like and leaving the Hexagon alone - when would the French ever have accepted that?

 

[unmerged(5205)]

Neither France nor Orleans has a 100% victory because neither country controls 100% of Auvergne. France and Orleans probably have little more than 10% victory each since mountain provinces do not count for much war score. It used to be that the nation that captured the capital in such cases had the 100% war score, but that has changed due to exploitations.

I think what really needs to change is the valuation of a small nation's provinces in relation to war score. If a nation has less than 100% war score in provinces, adjustments should be made to the war score value for the provinces captured. If a nation has only two equally valued provinces and one is captured, that should be good for 50% war score. If one province was worth twice as much as the other, then the provinces should count for 33% and 67%. The way things stand now, winning wars against small nations is usually tougher than against major powers.

Sounds like a good idea to me but they obviously won't be changing the system anytime soon

 

[unmerged(3931)]

At the moment, the ease with which powerful majors can be force-vassalised after relatively minor defeats (and then the way the AI just accepts the vassalage for centuries) is one of the biggest exploits in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if people have force-vassalised France by invading Canada and the like and leaving the Hexagon alone - when would the French ever have accepted that?

Well to force-vassalize, a nation must at least gain control of the other nation's capital. I don't think France is going to agree to force-vassalization unless you have some other cores also.

It is pretty silly to be able to force vassalize China in the early game before they move their capital. All those high valued war score provinces with no fortresses! China's capital in Anhui with no fortress! A few thousand cavalry are all that is required if you have the diplomat to DoW soon enough. Ha! :wacko:

Sounds like a good idea to me but they obviously won't be changing the system anytime soon

BTW: The exploitation was that you could DoW a nation that was nearly conquered and besiege the capital to get 100% war score. You could also join into an alliance that had almost conquered a nation but then steal the siege in the capital. Or, in any war, you could just focus efforts on the capital and had no concern about anything else except maybe one or two provinces you wanted. At 100% warscore you could get quite a bit of money under the old system.

 

[Ciçatrix]

What we need instead is a system of 'war points', which accumulate like war score but with no limit (or a limit depending on enemy size). Provinces would then cost a fixed # of WP to demand, regardless of the size of your enemy. But the cost of global demands like vassalisation would scale with the total worth of your enemies' provinces. This way, it's quite easy to trim one or two provinces off say China, but vassalisation is much harder, requiring you to go out and occupy 70%+ of the country.

Like CK?
EDIT: I think it would be a good idea.

 

[von Rosen]

Vassalization rules the culprit

I have encountered stuck wars several times in my latest games. The game isn´t only wrecked because several nations fail to develop, but with three of these wars, sometimes dragging in dozens of nations in alliances and all the AIs desperately seeking a way to win, my computer is actually overloaded, and the game speed comes to a crawl. (I have a 2000+ Athlon).

Most often this appears when Duchy of athens occupies part of, or all of, Byzantium, but Prussia occupying some one province german minor is also common.

Since vassals can´t agree to a separate peace when in a war on their masters side, they are forever locked when they occupy one province (ie Morea) and another alliance occupies the capital (ie Thrace) of a two province nation.

Also, an alliance may at times occupy a one province minor and not be able to annex it or vassalize it because of this bug where a vassalization is forever saved in the game after the actual treaty is cancelled.

I take time now to parse Europe after such wars regularly and edit the save to give control of any locked provinces to the vassal´s master. And I save and reload after removing the faulty records every few decades.

 

[Madrick]

If a nation has less than 100% war score in provinces, adjustments should be made to the war score value for the provinces captured. If a nation has only two equally valued provinces and one is captured, that should be good for 50% war score. If one province was worth twice as much as the other, then the provinces should count for 33% and 67%.

That sounds good and would be relatively easy to implement because you don't need to change the percentage system (I guess/hope).

What we need instead is a system of 'war points', which accumulate like war score but with no limit (or a limit depending on enemy size).

In my opinion that would be a good solution for EU3 but I think it is almost impossible to implement in EU2.

Perhaps a rule like following would help: "After ten years of not having any military actions (like combats, sieges) peace is automatically signed by returning to status quo (before the war)."

 

[Madrick]

Perhaps the rule should be corrected:
"After ten years of not having any military actions between members of the opponent alliances, peace is automatically signed by returning to status quo."

Remarks:
-The ten year period can also be another period of time that makes sense.
-Military actions are e.g. combats, sieges, loots but not just owning a captured province.
-Status quo here means "like it was before the war"
-Peace is only signed between opponent ALLIANCES, not league members
-Peace will be signed, too when other league members not being in the affected alliances have fought within the last 10 years

What do you think ?

 

[unmerged(3931)]

One problem is in the implementation. It might not be a simple fix because a new field might be required in the save game for the "ten-year" white peace. The three-year white peace date might be used if it is changed such that it is not modified by nations having control of a province and white peace is not declared in three years but rather ten years (or whatever time) if a province is controlled. That could be a simple fix, but limits the triggers of the "ten-year" white peace to be along the same lines as the three-year white peace.

 

[Madrick]

As user-made mod this would be impossible, that's true.
But what about a new beta patch ?