Swiss Cheese Syndrome

[Doomdark]

Time to air another of my EU concerns.

The AI seems to accept (or even prefer) distant or even landlocked provinces in peace negotiations. Most recently the esteemed yndenwal mentioned that Sweden looked like a Swiss Cheese in his French AAR. Sapura and others have had similar developments in their games.

IMHO, this is completely unacceptable. Every human player would prefer a bordering province or money to a landlocked or undefensible position somewhere else in Europe (colonies are another matter).

The way I see it there are two solutions to this problem:

1) The AI is tweaked to spurn landlocked or lone, distant European provinces in the peace talks. Instead it will ask for more money or bordering provinces.

2) Players are allowed to demand provinces they have not actually occupied, but it would require more victory stars. This would both be more realistic and help the AI acquire reasonable provinces.

I think this is a serious problem that requires a fix before the game ships.

(Take a look at Sapura's screenshot of France from his timeline report:
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forums/Forum6/HTML/000047.html )

 

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If a beta tester is ready to tackle this concern, can I ask that they also describe the negotiation process in some detail so we can learn which provinces become candidates for tranfer?

I'd also like to know if the beta testers would speculate that the AI is coded to choose the juiciest provinces first. By this I mean, perhaps they consider only economic / income potential of a province and exclude the practical aspect of how to protect it.

 

[unmerged(13)]

I've mentioned to the beta testers on several occasions, its up to them to voice their concerns. I'll say no more about it.


Sapura

 

[Oranje]

Originally posted by Sapura:
I've mentioned to the beta testers on several occasions, its up to them to voice their concerns. I'll say no more about it.


Let's just hope they will react to these concerns as yet; I fully agree that some tweaking of the AI in this respect seems justified.

greetings Oranje

 

[Dark Knight]

Since there's no reason for a country to occupy an inaccessible province, the AI should simply demand provinces that either border one of their own (easy to implement) or that has a coast easily accessible from their country's ports (harder to implement).
I also don't understand why it's impossible to obtain provinces without actually occupying them.

 

[unmerged(177)]

In the same sense as Doomdark remark, I think that involvement of countries, particularly minor countries, in war far from their homeland is a matter of concern. Isn't it strange to see Venice be involved in a war in the baltic, for instance ? Or Köln get involved in a war against, say, Ottomans (supposed not to have expanded in HRE) ? Even if the country has an economical interest or must respect an alliance, I don't think Venice or Köln would have gone in wars so far away from its territories and economical interests. If they really wanted to do something, I suppose they would have sent subsidies to one of their allied closer to the enemy. And I'm not sure of that even, because Venice had more important financial needs for italian or mediterranean matters, and Köln had enough worries in HRE not to spend money for so few interest.

But I know this is difficult to program. Because some countries could be involved in far away wars, like England, Spain, France, etc., and some not. I suppose that declaration of wars are function of distance between own territories (either european province or colonies or trading posts) and enemy ones. But the malus for long distances should be really heavier for minor countries, I guess. That would help come closer to historical possibilities of minor countries.

I also suppose that these far away wars are one of the reason for these far away annexations. So reducing the possibility for these wars would also reduce possibilities for swiss cheese.

Raphaël

 

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Oranje

Let's just hope they will react to these concerns as yet; I fully agree that some tweaking of the AI in this respect seems justified.

I'd expect changes to the game, if and when the consumers start voicing their concerns over these sorts of problems after the release. I doubt anyone at Paradox has the time to clean these 'minor' problems up at the moment, most of the testers are working like Japanese businessmen to clean the game up before release at this very moment.


DK,


I also don't understand why it's impossible to obtain provinces without actually occupying them.

It's just the way EU is structured. You know as well as I that software programs can be very restrictive, or usually function in only a limited amount of specific ways. Basically, the idea of taking provinces without 'tagging' them with occupation is impossible in EU, it would need weeks of coding at least to change this, and then other areas of the game would need to be tweaked the same - not an option. It is something to think of for EU2, and believe me Johan has gigs of top dog suggestions for that game, if it ever comes out.


Raph,

Isn't it strange to see Venice be involved in a war in the baltic, for instance ?

In 95% of cases the Venetians declare war only in name, not deed. This is proper and correct. Remember EU is not just a rigid historical / strategy game, I want the Venetians (or any other nation) to do some unpredictable things..


Sapura


[This message has been edited by Sapura (edited 18-08-2000).]

 

[Doomdark]

Raphael,

I also suppose that these far away wars are one of the reason for these far away annexations. So reducing the possibility for these wars would also reduce possibilities for swiss cheese.

I agree with you that distant wars are one likely cause of Swiss Cheese in EU. However, I don't think that it is the declaration of war per se that is the problem. The way I see it, it is alright for a distant nation to send an expeditionary force to aid an ally, but it is not alright for the distant nation to demand provinces in the peace talks. If it happened in reality, it would be much more likely for the distant nation to either ask for money or to cede occupied provinces to its ally.

Let's take an example:

Denmark is allied to Holland and Venice when the Danish king decides to attack Sweden in order to take back Skåne and Gotland. (Sweden has no allies.) Both Holland and Venice honour the alliance and send modest forces to aid the Danes. The Danes occupy Västergötland, the Dutch take Gotland and Venice somehow manages to wrest Skåne from the Swedish forces. In the ensuing peace talks, Denmark can demand neither Skåne nor Gotland (since they are held by her allies), so she only gets a sum of money. Holland could actually have use for Gotland as a trading centre in the middle of the Baltic, and could probably defend the island with her mighty fleets, so she decides to keep it. That leaves Venice, which has no use at all for Skåne and could not possibly defend it. In EU, the AI might try to keep the province anyway, but a real Doge would have asked for money or ceded the province to her ally, Denmark.

IMO, the only reasonable solution for EU is to improve the AI's ability to discern what use it has for a province and whether it can defend it or not. For EU 2, I also suggest a more advanced diplomacy model. (Where Venice could have given over Skåne to Denmark prior to the peace talks.)

 

[Oranje]

Originally posted by Doomdark:

IMO, the only reasonable solution for EU is to improve the AI's ability to discern what use it has for a province and whether it can defend it or not. For EU 2, I also suggest a more advanced diplomacy model. (Where Venice could have given over Skåne to Denmark prior to the peace talks.) [/B]

Hello Doomdark,
I agree, except that it is probably easier to implement something like a second round of peace talks between allies after they get their money and/or provinces from the defeated foe in order to renegotiate between them and change provinces for money where that is attractive for both allies.

greetings Oranje

 

[Dark Knight]

Originally posted by Doomdark:
That leaves Venice, which has no use at all for Skåne and could not possibly defend it. In EU, the AI might try to keep the province anyway, but a real Doge would have asked for money or ceded the province to her ally, Denmark.

It might be in Sweden's interest to refuse monetary compensation to Venice as they know it will be easy to retake the province from such a distant power. Thus, it would make sense for Venice to be able to give control of the territory to Denmark prior to peace talks in exchange for money (payment for services rendered).

 

[unmerged(177)]

Hi Sap and Doomie

Sap : In 95% of cases the Venetians declare war only in name, not deed.

I'm happy to hear that. Thanks.

Dommie : I agree with you that distant wars are one likely cause of Swiss Cheese in EU. However, I don't think that it is the declaration of war per se that is the problem. The way I see it, it is alright for a distant nation to send an expeditionary force to aid an ally .. '

Hum, I would like to agree with you, but, to cancel my doubts, have you got one example of an expeditionnary force send in a far away theater to help an ally ? It probably happened, but I can't remember one. Of course, I'm not an historian and my historical knowledges are limited.

Sap : Remember EU is not just a rigid historical / strategy game, I want the Venetians (or any other nation) to do some unpredictable things..

I know, Sap, that you don't want the game to follow history, so you could probably introduce behaviours that never happened. You defend freedom of play and that's to your honor. But I think the opposition between people like me, who care about more historical flavour, and you, who care very much about letting player (and AI) as free as possible, is a misunderstanding. The people who want historical flavour don't
want historical FACTS to happen in the games, but they want historical POSSIBILITIES to be the ones players (and AI) have. We want to feel like monarchs having the same choices (but not doing the same things of course). In fact, introducing more rules (or lines of programmation) to gives new historically accurate possibilities offers at the same time the historical flavour we want and the liberty you're looking for. Indeed, the more new possibilities there are, the more combination of possiblities can happen, so the more rare what happened historically will exactly happen. That's a logical conclusion I guess, maybe a little abstract. So that's why I care so much about historical possibilities (not facts) ; I just ask : was it historically possible ? Of course, if it happened once only, that means that it was possible. So finding one case (here, of an expeditionary force send on a far away theater) is enough to prove the possibility.

Doomie : .. but it is not alright for the distant nation to demand provinces in the peace talks. If it happened in reality, it would be much more likely for the distant nation to either ask for money or to cede occupied provinces to its ally.

It could ask for money, for provinces to her ally, but also it could ask for a royal marriage (to try to prevent future possible wars) ; it could ask for a promise not to declare war to its ally for a period of time, etc. You're right, Doomie, when you say that a more complex diplomatic phase would be welcomed.

-----

Another point. The declaration of war was all the time officially motivated by a Casus Belli in XVIth to XVIIIth (we already have talked about that point, I think you remember, and we both agree, conceding of course that some CB were only excuse).

But if you have a specific reason for war, then you have target for this war linked to this CB. If it's a religion war, you want to convert the enemy, and that's waht you will try to make happen during peace negotiations. If it's a vassal that rebel against your fate, you want its submission (and maybe replace the chief of the rebels by his son or someone else more submitted), etc. But in the war where you send expeditionary forces far away from home, you don't have any real CB. That's the reason why the annexation don't have sens sometimes. Well, maybe you could say that your CB is that you want to help your ally. In this case, the only things you would ask in the peace negotiations should be something that help your ally : provinces for him, treaty with him, marriage between the enemy and your ally, etc.

So i come back with an old idea I submitted once. If wars were only declared with a CB (and the CB notion should of course be very enlarged), then results of peaces would follow CB and be more logical : provinces would be annexed if annexation is logical after the specific CB used, i.e. in most of the cases, no annexation far away from home country would never occur.

Bye

Raf

 

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Raf,

We all want the game to play out events and movements which were historically possible. Although I am all for more random gameplay, I still want these random factors to stick very closely to the possibilities that, that particular country or region could have experienced in history. There is an option in one of the menus asking if the player wants random events on / off, they can be switch off if you so desire. I play with these events on 90% of the time because they are tailored very suitably to the historical events in the game.

Sapura

 

[Doomdark]

Raph,

In all honesty I can't say that I can recall a case from the period where a nation sent a non-naval task force to help an ally any greater distance away. (Except perhaps the forces sent to help Austria against the Turks.)

So, expeditionary forces should at least be rare. However, even a distant ally can put its navies to good use; if it can't send troops then it can at least combat the enemy on the high seas!

results of peaces would follow CB and be more logical : provinces would be annexed if annexation is logical after the specific CB used

This would be a nightmare to implement, not to mention that the CBs were often just diplomatic fluff that had nothing to do with the real motives.

Now, I feel that we are getting a bit sidetracked, since the major cause for 'Swiss Cheese' is a simple AI deficiency in peace negotiations. If Paradox could just fix that, I am sure we could live without the extra features... (At least until EU 2 comes along. )

 

[Johan]

Originally posted by Doomdark:
Now, I feel that we are getting a bit sidetracked, since the major cause for 'Swiss Cheese' is a simple AI deficiency in peace negotiations. If Paradox could just fix that, I am sure we could live without the extra features...

Have no fear It was a simple bug of sorting the list in the exact opposite order...

/Johan

 

[Doomdark]

Thanx Johan, once again you vanquish my fears and worries!

I am running out of suggestions here... You had better get this game on the shelves soon, or I'll have nothing more to post about.

 

[unmerged(13)]

See Henrik, what more can you ask for?

If only other development houses had skilled programmers like Johan the lad in charge of their games. It'd be a much happier world.. and no I'm not sucking up I already have the game!


Sapura

 

[Sidney]

Hum, I would like to agree with you, but, to cancel my doubts, have you got one example of an expeditionnary force send in a far away theater to help an ally ? It probably happened, but I can't remember one. Of course, I'm not an historian and my historical knowledges are limited.

England would be the only example I can think of who mounted expeditonary forces. They are, however, the only ones I can think of offhand. The expense and difficulty kept most countries from doing so. Even more important, most folks wanted to keep their army at home in case their neighbors got frisky.

I'd love to know what difficulties face a power like Venice who tries to project force into the Baltic (for example). What kind of supply issues does the game create and does it cost more to maintain this army?

 

[unmerged(90)]

have you got one example of an expeditionnary force send in a far away theater to help an ally ?

France's expeditionnary force to help Americans in their fight for independence against Britain.
Most of the time, expeditionnary forces are not huge however. In EU we can still see 25k armies landing where they were not expected.

 

[Dark Knight]

Originally posted by yndenwal:
France's expeditionnary force to help Americans in their fight for independence against Britain.

This was essentially colonial warfare, though. The best land example of an far-off expeditionary force I can think of is Marlborough marching all the way to Blenheim.
Can a beta-tester tell me how often in the CG nations contribute money to far-off allies rather than send troops?

Glad to see that the province annexation problem has been fixed .

 

[unmerged(90)]

Glad to see that the province annexation problem has been fixed .

Very effective change indeed. Now, Sweden is being rationnaly annexed by its neighbours. No more holes, no more swiss cheese, welcome to the salami slices.