Suggestions for Diplomatic Plays and Wargoals

[Cedwig]

I like the new system, but there are some things aren't working for me at the moment.

1.
Wargoals should be more dynamic.
I've started as Two Sicilies and formed Italy in a war against the Church State and Austria with the help of the Ottomans. After I occupied the Church state I incorporated them instantly but still had to fight against Austria. They fought now just for war repartions, this seems counter intuitive to me. They should receive new war goals to free the Church State, I mean they still don't have to and could settle for war reparations, but at least there should be an option for Austria to free them again. I mean it's the sole reason they went to war.

2.
You should be able to offer your allies something, when they join a war.
A couple of years later I was dragged into another war with Austria because my now ally the Ottomans declared for them. I received nothing, later when I declared war for Venice the Ottomans just left the war and cancelled the alliance. So where is the advantage of an Alliance?

3.
You should be able to declare claims for potential diplomatic plays..
When I start a diplomatic play I can see what every potential war ally wants, but it's not possible at all to declare what I want. I play as Italy and there are still 4 italian states under the Austrian joke, so what could I want? But instead a get favors thrown at me all the time.
I see two ways there how this could be solved. You could be able to declare what you want in the diplomatic play directly when you lean in one or the other direction. But this would probably be too easy, because you just could jump into every diplomatic play to start a war.
Instead I would prefer that you can use a diplomatic action, which costs influence to uphold the claim and needs time to be fullfilled (so that you can't just switch your claims with every diplomatic play). To avoid blobbing the influence cost should raise very quickly for this, maybe with a big discount when the target states are from your own culture (and you are playing the formed nation of this culture).

 

[StelarCF]

I really like these suggestions.
I'd like to pitch in some suggestions of my own, sort of turning this into a general "DP suggestions":
1. It should be possible to add multiple DPs to the list of things you want if your enemy backs down; It's silly (and ahistorical) to be stuck on a 5 year timer as, say, the Ottomans, because you were too successful in gaining international support and Egypt backed down only giving you Lebanon. It should be possible to just set all of your return state/conquer state/liberate country wargoals and then
2. On that note - liberate country. It's pretty specific, but it should be possible to start a DP with just it as a wargoal, and it should have variants where you 'liberate' it in a customs union with you, as a puppet, as a dominion etc. The way it's done now is pretty restrictive.
3. This has been asked for again and again - but please, let us escalate wars after a while. If I've been stuck in a prolonged 2-year war certainly I should be able to ask for more in the peace deal after I've had 500k casualties, right?
4. Diplomatic plays should have an impact on IG approval based on ideologies and traits. Pacifists shouldn't just be at +20 while you're going on an imperialistic conquest spree in Europe, jingoists shouldn't just be apathetic while you back down on a diplo play that takes away one of your homelands, abolitionists should keep existing and DEMAND not only that slavery is abolished at home but overseas. Domestic politics should be both a reason to start wars and a reason not to back down in wars, and it's a BIG missed opportunity, possibly the biggest missing feature with DPs in launch Vicky 3.
5. Let us offer (or asked for, if that feature is added) multiple sways to a country. Maybe it's too little for Romania to gain Southern Transylvania to join WW1, but they would join if they were offered all the 5 states they claim from Austria-Hungary. Or perhaps Prussia will not join your war against Russia for anything less than all the rest of Poland.
6. On that note - allow us to offer our own territory in exchange for countries joining our wars. It's niche, but there were instances where it could lead to a more historical outcome. It could certainly be better represented through events for the actual historical instances where this could be helpful, but Vicky 3 is as much about the engaging alt-hist as it is about history, so why shouldn't I be able to offer Germany Alsace-Lorraine in exchange for them helping me against my communist revolution?
7. Late game wars should have way more maneuvers the more powers are involved. In a sense this is the missing "great war" mechanic at the moment - no matter what you do, you will never be able to have more than around 120 maneuvers in a war, which is barely enough to justify at times what is exchanged between two major nations. In that sense, I'd propose a system where an epoch 4 or 5 societal tech enables you to get more maneuvers for every country that joins against you, to the tune of 30 maneuvers per GP down to 5 maneuvers per insignificant power.
8. You should be able to give extra war goals for your allies and subjects. It should probably be possible for them to decline the war goal, and you should be able to get an obligation out of this. Corollary to this, it should be possible to start diplomatic plays on behalf of your subjects, at least in the case of the more integrated ones (puppets).

 

[Somberg]

6. On that note - allow us to offer our own territory in exchange for countries joining our wars. It's niche, but there were instances where it could lead to a more historical outcome. It could certainly be better represented through events for the actual historical instances where this could be helpful, but Vicky 3 is as much about the engaging alt-hist as it is about history, so why shouldn't I be able to offer Germany Alsace-Lorraine in exchange for them helping me against my communist revolution?

I just want to echo this as it's something I was thinking of suggesting since I want to do a Sardinia-Piedmont game and it would be nice to be able to offer France Savoy and Nice in exchange for joining in a war against Austria like happened historically with the Plombieres agreement. It just seems much better to make something like this a more general mechanic rather than say a journal entry for this specific circumstance because one can definitely imagine potential scenarios where the player and the AI would do this. I think though that it probably should be restricted to the state being a homeland of the country you want to give it to and for the AI the state should be seen as less valuable (lower pop, non-accepted culture, less resources) for them to want to give it up.

 

[Cedwig]

Great additions. Point 6 I wanted to add myself now.

I started a new game for an Italy-Run, after my first one became unplayable because of the trading loop. I founded Italy and Austria, my rival, which helped the Church State fight against me in the Foundation of Italy, was dragged into an war with Prussia. Prussia itself wanted to conquer Bohemia and Vienna(!) Prussia also added Russia and France to the picture.
Now Austria tried to sway me in, there probably biggest enemy behind the Prussians. In this severe situation were they were at risk to lose their Capital to their biggest rival, they could have easily swayed me by just offering me the freedom of Lombardy and/or Venice for my help. Tough times, Tough measurements. Could have been an epic story and a total reasonable excuse to help my biggest enemy in war.
Instead they offered my to free Schauenburg-Lippe from the Prussians. Altough a very enticing reason to risk the lifes of 100 of thousands of my people in a war, I decided to decline politely...