Suggestion: Defensive Pacts

[The_Boominator]

I've been browsing the forums for a while now and I have noticed players consistently complaining about their AI allies calling them into pointless wars and/or refusing to make peace until they get ~100% warscore. While some players have suggested a "force peace" button for war allies similar to the "enforce peace" option that non-belligerents have, I think the logistics of creating this system are too complicated. I also recognize that there is an option to disable joining offensive wars, but this option erodes trust and favors to the point that the alliance will end or be rendered void over time. I personally dislike this option because I typically forget to manage it and end up losing the alliance (and sometimes end up called into wars immediately after enabling it again).

What I would suggest is the introduction of a new alliance option: defensive pacts. I think this mechanic could operate largely the same way guaranteeing independence does, except it would be a bilateral agreement. Therefore both nations would ensure the other's independence, independent of the aggregate development of either country. This would still take up a relations slot. I think there is also a possibility to make defensive partners join offensive wars (it happened sometimes in history), but the willingness to join should be modified by a "-50 Defensive Pact" modifier so that only countries that can gain land or really hate the war target will be called in. It could be a simple defensive pact with no call to arms for offensive wars, too. I'm just spit balling ideas here.

What are your thoughts on this? I would love to see a mod add this to the game (if one already has, please let me know), but better yet I hope it could be incorporated into the base game.

Edit: Any feedback and suggestions made here will be added to the suggestion thread I post in the suggestions tab in a few days. I wanted to refine this idea a bit before formally suggesting it.

 

[PtY]

This already exists. You can toggle whether an alliance will allow offensive calls to war in the trust and favors tab on the diplomacy screen.

 

[The_Boominator]

This already exists. You can toggle whether an alliance will allow offensive calls to war in the trust and favors tab on the diplomacy screen.

This was addressed in the post, along with why I don't like it.

 

[PtY]

This was addressed in the post, along with why I don't like it.

Unless I'm mistaken, your understanding of the effects of toggling offensive calls to war off is incorrect. It doesn't erode trust or favors; it just allows both to decrease naturally, as they would under any circumstances other than a full alliance or overlord-subject relationship between two countries. What you're asking for isn't a bilateral guarantee of independence; it's an alliance with most of the benefits and none of the drawbacks.

In practice, if favors and trust don't decay in the absence of an option to make offensive calls to war, players could easily exploit your proposed mechanic: ally a country, toggle the option to join offensive wars off, wait for 10 favors to accumulate, and then toggle the option to join offensive wars on one day before you want to declare a war with that country's support. And, even if the AI can still reciprocally call the player to arms despite the pact "defensive" nature, it wouldn't solve the problem outlined in the first paragraph of your post, and wouldn't eliminate easy player abuse of your proposed mechanic.

 

[Cookiepie]

Seems like it'd promote a very stale experience.

 

[The_Boominator]

Seems like it'd promote a very stale experience.

Why? They work the same way as alliances. They still take up a diplo slot. They can be entirely ignored, but I would rather have the option.

 

[Cookiepie]

Why? They work the same way as alliances. They still take up a diplo slot. They can be entirely ignored, but I would rather have the option.

Both for ai and players having alliances that only work defensively but not offensively would make offensive wars far more scarce. Guarantees/enforce peace are often banned from usage in mp because it promotes inactivity, this would be a similar thing but far easier for the ai to use (compared to enforce/guarantee) meaning it's negative impact would be much more noticable in sp.