Hi!
This will probably be a long post, but it is something that has really been bugging me. The new focus trees for Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria are, IMO, amazing (especially Turkey). However, the fact that they focus on a later game makes something really apparent - Peace conferences are absolutely, 100%, broken. I always thought they could be better. But never had I been so upset with them.
Let's start with the obvious: diplomacy is nearly non-existent in this game. Everything is mostly tied behind the 3 major ideologies and there is not much besides factions. Paradox themselves have stated countless times that developing this system is a priority for the future. But maybe you think "gah, it's a WAR game... why would I care about diplomacy?". And the answer is: "because peace deals".
What made me write this post is my recent Ottoman game. I joined the war in '41, when I saw an easy opportunity to grab Italian occupied Jordan and Palestine, to make them cores. I then proceeded to ABSOLUTELY STOMP Germany and Italy, which is shown by the fact that I occupied the ENTIRETY of their countries. But this is where the main topic comes in. In the peace conferences, I literally got NOTHING, not even my cores on the Dodecanese, an island worth nothing to anyone else...
And that is because I only had 10% war participation. For whatever reason, this allowed the Soviets and British to take turns redefining the world order, without any other country having any other say in the matter. And they only had such war participation because they stupidly threw 3 million men at the Germans for free. I.E, the current system supports awful gameplay, punishes me from destroying the Axis alone and left me out of the ensuing peace because I joined too late. Had I joined in '39 (which is impossible if you plan to, you know, win), I would have lost and killed a lot more men, giving me more participation.
Since two of the three focus trees take quite a while to get going, this problem repeats itself quite a lot and just shows how awful things are right now. I don't think there is much use in complaining without a solution, though, and I think I have one. Of course, the devs are still going to come up with their own ideas. But, funnily enough, they already have a solution implemented in the game! And it comes in the form of "Pre-arranged Bulgarian Territorial Expansion" and "Divide Yugoslavia".
The first is a state modifier that makes any ally in Bulgaria's faction that does NOT have a core in a given state to transfer it to them should they occupy it. I think this should be the default for all "Claims" and "Cores" in the game - should any AI occupy it, they should immediately transfer it to the country with core/claim if they don't have one themselves. If there are multiple allies with a claim, transfer it to the one with the most War Score (which will most likely be reworked, but I don't have any ideas here myself). This alone would make me so much happier! I mean, why would the SOVIETS, who can't even leave the Black Sea, take the DODECANESE ISLANDS in a peace deal? It makes no sense, given that an ally of theirs has a core in the state.
And the second is the Romanian "bidding" mechanic. Why not add that as a sort of "Treaty" system, in which a few countries can bid for states of a target country, and then have that treaty be fulfilled in the peace deal? This was rather common in the time period, with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Yalta Conference being prime examples of pre-arranged splitting of countries according to zones of influence.
I honestly can't wait for a diplomacy update - it's my favorite bit of the game, and will bring SO many QOL changes that the game may become unrecognisable. I know it is coming at some point, but I couldn't help posting my opinions on the subject, especially since, the more the game progresses without it, the more its need becomes apparent.
This will probably be a long post, but it is something that has really been bugging me. The new focus trees for Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria are, IMO, amazing (especially Turkey). However, the fact that they focus on a later game makes something really apparent - Peace conferences are absolutely, 100%, broken. I always thought they could be better. But never had I been so upset with them.
Let's start with the obvious: diplomacy is nearly non-existent in this game. Everything is mostly tied behind the 3 major ideologies and there is not much besides factions. Paradox themselves have stated countless times that developing this system is a priority for the future. But maybe you think "gah, it's a WAR game... why would I care about diplomacy?". And the answer is: "because peace deals".
What made me write this post is my recent Ottoman game. I joined the war in '41, when I saw an easy opportunity to grab Italian occupied Jordan and Palestine, to make them cores. I then proceeded to ABSOLUTELY STOMP Germany and Italy, which is shown by the fact that I occupied the ENTIRETY of their countries. But this is where the main topic comes in. In the peace conferences, I literally got NOTHING, not even my cores on the Dodecanese, an island worth nothing to anyone else...
And that is because I only had 10% war participation. For whatever reason, this allowed the Soviets and British to take turns redefining the world order, without any other country having any other say in the matter. And they only had such war participation because they stupidly threw 3 million men at the Germans for free. I.E, the current system supports awful gameplay, punishes me from destroying the Axis alone and left me out of the ensuing peace because I joined too late. Had I joined in '39 (which is impossible if you plan to, you know, win), I would have lost and killed a lot more men, giving me more participation.
Since two of the three focus trees take quite a while to get going, this problem repeats itself quite a lot and just shows how awful things are right now. I don't think there is much use in complaining without a solution, though, and I think I have one. Of course, the devs are still going to come up with their own ideas. But, funnily enough, they already have a solution implemented in the game! And it comes in the form of "Pre-arranged Bulgarian Territorial Expansion" and "Divide Yugoslavia".
The first is a state modifier that makes any ally in Bulgaria's faction that does NOT have a core in a given state to transfer it to them should they occupy it. I think this should be the default for all "Claims" and "Cores" in the game - should any AI occupy it, they should immediately transfer it to the country with core/claim if they don't have one themselves. If there are multiple allies with a claim, transfer it to the one with the most War Score (which will most likely be reworked, but I don't have any ideas here myself). This alone would make me so much happier! I mean, why would the SOVIETS, who can't even leave the Black Sea, take the DODECANESE ISLANDS in a peace deal? It makes no sense, given that an ally of theirs has a core in the state.
And the second is the Romanian "bidding" mechanic. Why not add that as a sort of "Treaty" system, in which a few countries can bid for states of a target country, and then have that treaty be fulfilled in the peace deal? This was rather common in the time period, with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Yalta Conference being prime examples of pre-arranged splitting of countries according to zones of influence.
I honestly can't wait for a diplomacy update - it's my favorite bit of the game, and will bring SO many QOL changes that the game may become unrecognisable. I know it is coming at some point, but I couldn't help posting my opinions on the subject, especially since, the more the game progresses without it, the more its need becomes apparent.
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