The wonderful cascading alliances

[unmerged(205148)]

there are extremely good reasons why Trebizond didn't invade Corfu.

Well, Trebizond didn't invade Corfu because of logistics and its small army being much inferior to the one of Venice (I actually think that Venice in 1399 is a bit weaker then it should be). It was not because it feared England, Castille, France, Sweden, Muscowy, Poland, Brabant and Danzig.

I'd also like to point out that when the Byzantines in Morea invaded Achaea, nobody did care much, and when they invaded Athens, they were stopped from going further by the Ottomans, not by England, Castille, France, Sweden, Muscowy, Poland, Brabant and Danzig.

 

[Dafool]

I have to admit, this feature is really making me rage sometimes. I'm Bohemia. A small Italian state gets inherited. HRE to the rescue to liberate the oppressed! I'm at war with 2 or 3 Italian minors. One calls in Hungary. Hungary is now the leader. Hungary calls in Poland. Poland is now the leader. Poland calls in Sweden. Sweden is now the leader. Sweden calls in France. France is now the leader. France calls in all her vassals. Hmm. I'm pissed. I won that god damned war too. I destroyed Poland, Hungary, and France. It was probably the most epic war I've ever had. Does that mean I enjoyed it? Hell no. You know what's worse? I was at war with Sweden, France, and Poland again within 5 years due to a similar issue. That's way too often for massive wars. It's clear that not every war is like this, but when one small conflict escalates so quickly as to involves all of Europe and the player could have had no idea that this would have happened, then something is broken. I'm not one for knowing full well what the outcome of a war is, but I think it's pretty bad when a DoW is essentially a crap shoot as to who I'm going to be fighting. Alliances need to be fewer, more concrete, and based on relative power.

 

[Gauge]

One problem with the cascading alliances is how "friendly" the AI is with each other. Do they even have a rep system like the player does? The AI can very quickly rack up alliances where players have to work their butts off to get them. And it's stupid countries that have nothing to offer. Miessen gets like 4-5 alliances right off the bat....WTH is that. They have NOTHING to offer these massive countries allying with them. If you're an OPM and you try to get all those alliances, they will deny you and there goes your prestige for a decade or two.

 

[brifbates]

I havn't had much of a problem with this, in fact I like this feature.


Have allies, as France right nwo I have spain and the papacy and i'm fairly well protected.

The current iteration is fine to advantageous for the major powers as the cascades bring in more smaller meat to chew up when they go OPM bashing. The problem comes for the small/medium powers trying to fulfill their missions and expand-in some cases historically-and getting dogpiled by the cascades of steadily larger powers and their friends. For example: as Muscowy you can comfortably crush 2-3 of the Russian minors at once, it gets a bit more interesting if they get lucky and Nov jumps in against you. But when an added alliance Nov then calls Poland who calls Lith and HRE Boh...? The truly frustrating thing is when your siege is sitting at >100 but your troops failed you that the alliance that dooms you happens...

 

[Ooi Wenyao]

Finally got sick and tired of the excessive cascade alliance wars and decided to downgrade back to HTTT until something is done to it.
Actually all this argumments stems from personal perferences. Ultimately this is a GAME, and ppl play it for FUN rather than REALISM. No one likes to fight against the world even on very easy difficulty. Maybe an option to turn off the cascade alliance will do the trick.
Anyways, good job with HTTT.

 

[steelabjur]

I really feel the problem is linked to the fact that it starts a cycle. Every time a war leader change happens, they call their allies, one ends up being slightly higher prestige than the rest and becomes war leader, they call their allies, one ends up being slightly higher prestige than the rest and becomes war leader, they call their allies, one ends up being slightly higher prestige than the rest and becomes war leader, etc. until the attacker lucks out and the war leader becomes someone whose allies are all already involved or only has the ally that called them. At least until a new alliance is made and enters the fray, in which case there is a chance that the cycle begins all over again.

I'd suggest that to combat this getting out of control, while keeping the flavor that people seem to like about this feature, would be to make war leader changes happen only if an ever increasing step of prestige is met. So if Mainz is war leader, a potential new war leader must not only just have more prestige than them, they must have X amount more (which would be an ever increasing number based on the number of war leaders the alliance has already had added to the current war leaders prestige). This I feel, would keep the unpredictability of the cascade, while keeping the number of war leader changes from being so fluid that a small clash between two France bordering OPMs extends to the point that Novgorod comes steamrolling into Europe going "paaaaaarty!"

 

[Johan]

It has NOTHING to do with prestige.

Only countries that have MORE provinces AND higher military power will take over as leader in a war.

 

[wilcoxchar]

The current iteration is fine to advantageous for the major powers as the cascades bring in more smaller meat to chew up when they go OPM bashing. The problem comes for the small/medium powers trying to fulfill their missions and expand-in some cases historically-and getting dogpiled by the cascades of steadily larger powers and their friends. For example: as Muscowy you can comfortably crush 2-3 of the Russian minors at once, it gets a bit more interesting if they get lucky and Nov jumps in against you. But when an added alliance Nov then calls Poland who calls Lith and HRE Boh...? The truly frustrating thing is when your siege is sitting at >100 but your troops failed you that the alliance that dooms you happens...

So get some allies yourself to balance out your enemies'. I'm sure Sweden or Hungary would provide a nice balance of power in your situation.

 

[unmerged(215997)]

I am one of those who think the cascading effect should stay but I do agree there should be limitation on who you can ally in early game. And someone earlier in tread suggested to link it to trade range, which I think is a very good idea. And if implemented I think there should be an exception for the HRE and royal marriage who can ally with each other even if not in range.

Basically I think the best way to prevent insane cascading is mostly just an alliance range, if no linked to one of the range already in game then create a new range and link it to government tech. =)

It would make some sense in early game, but mid- & late-game, where some countries go global, this would still cause world wars. Overall I disagree that range could be a solution to this problem.

 

[unmerged(231678)]

I have to admit, this feature is really making me rage sometimes. I'm Bohemia. A small Italian state gets inherited. HRE to the rescue to liberate the oppressed! I'm at war with 2 or 3 Italian minors. One calls in Hungary. Hungary is now the leader. Hungary calls in Poland. Poland is now the leader. Poland calls in Sweden. Sweden is now the leader. Sweden calls in France. France is now the leader. France calls in all her vassals. Hmm. I'm pissed. I won that god damned war too. I destroyed Poland, Hungary, and France. It was probably the most epic war I've ever had. Does that mean I enjoyed it? Hell no. You know what's worse? I was at war with Sweden, France, and Poland again within 5 years due to a similar issue. That's way too often for massive wars. It's clear that not every war is like this, but when one small conflict escalates so quickly as to involves all of Europe and the player could have had no idea that this would have happened, then something is broken. I'm not one for knowing full well what the outcome of a war is, but I think it's pretty bad when a DoW is essentially a crap shoot as to who I'm going to be fighting. Alliances need to be fewer, more concrete, and based on relative power.

Pretty much 100% this, there's absolutely nothing fun about the way this mechanic currently works. It's really sad, because it's my only real complaint with DW, and I can't really myself to play it again until this is fixed.

So get some allies yourself to balance out your enemies'. I'm sure Sweden or Hungary would provide a nice balance of power in your situation.

That's great, but... as someone posted before- They decline the call when you DoW, and then less than a month later jump in on your enemy's side.

 

[Kaelic]

Conceptually I love it, practically it just doesn't work most of the time. EU3 is about simulating historical circumstances, not history. With this in mind, shouldn't limitations be considered?

 

[No idea]

Oh yes, that famous Pommeranian crusade to Trebizond...

For your information, the crusaders were predominantly southern French and Italians (some Germans too) and later the English. None of them went to Trebizond. And the Swedes (!) never came close. Incidentally, when the crusaders did arrive in Byzantium, they required the help of Byzantine, Turkish and Armenian guides to get them to the Holy Land. It's not like they hopped on a ship up in Hinterpommern and sailed all the way to Trebizond and launched an amphibious attack without any support...

A bit off topic but Godfried of Bouillon and Bohemund of Taranto have to be turning in their graves¡. The crusaders of the FIRST crusade mainly come from the Languedoc (they were southern franks), south of Italy (although you can hardly call them Italians, they were NORMANS) and from modern day Belgium (they were northern franks). In successive crusades people from most places in Europe went to the Holy Land. I don´t know about the Swedes but I know for sure that a Danish (or he was Norwegian?) king went on crusade during the first half of the XII century.

 

[Kyoumen]

Well, Trebizond didn't invade Corfu because of logistics and its small army being much inferior to the one of Venice (I actually think that Venice in 1399 is a bit weaker then it should be). It was not because it feared England, Castille, France, Sweden, Muscowy, Poland, Brabant and Danzig.

You missed my point, which is that the poster was complaining those countries would never DOW on Trebizond because they were so far away - but Trebizond invading Corfu is much less believable than Sweden invading Trebizond.

I'd also like to point out that when the Byzantines in Morea invaded Achaea, nobody did care much, and when they invaded Athens, they were stopped from going further by the Ottomans, not by England, Castille, France, Sweden, Muscowy, Poland, Brabant and Danzig.

Which can quite possibly happen in the game as is. But it's also quite true that expansionism of the Orthodox powers in the area WAS curtailed repeatedly by threats from larger Catholic powers (to say nothing of them ripping apart the Byzantines in a war in the first place, when they were originally allied). It is absolutely possible that a Trebizond quixotically trying to smash Venice's vassals in a moment of presumable Venetian weakness would be stopped by the action of Western powers. Or they might not have been if they were smart with diplomacy, those powers were otherwise occupied, or they were just really lucky. It could work fine or backfire catastrophically and have Trebizond end up as a new Cyprus - and there'd be no way to be sure beforehand. Which is exactly how it actually is in the game at the moment, and that's exactly how I like it.

Expanding with a OPM is still quite possible so long as you are piggybacking along with a great power (and your big boy allies will usually join your offensive wars provided they trust you and are in reasonably good shape themselves). Which, other than extremely lucky breaks, is pretty much true to how those kind of countries survived and expanded in real life (the few that weren't annexed, anyway). Putting it another way, it's a common complaint with EUIII that even with a OPM, in a hundred years you're so big there's no chance you can have more than a minor setback in an AI war. Well, now that's no longer the case. You have to play with real cautiousness as a small power because any aggressive war can backfire spectacularly and end up with you biting off far more than you can chew (as it certainly did for many, many countries in real life), and it will be a long time before you can simply enforce your will on Europe. Even France will have to worry about fighting Austria, Spain and England at once by picking on the wrong German minor at the wrong time. And good, because that's exactly why France is only the biggest Western European country, and not the only remaining Western European country.

 

[geiseric]

I like the idea of ally with a regional power to curtail the new alliance system, Austria has been a great asset in my Byz game. Every war they get involved when I call them, maybe you guys should get higher relations if they dont come. Although I hate Pisa, they screwed me over.

 

[unmerged(205148)]

You missed my point, which is that the poster was complaining those countries would never DOW on Trebizond because they were so far away - but Trebizond invading Corfu is much less believable than Sweden invading Trebizond.

Both strike me as quite unbelievable. Especially if it's all over Corfu.

Trebizond quixotically trying to smash Venice's vassals in a moment of presumable Venetian weakness would be stopped by the action of Western powers.

Genoa or Naples joining in I can buy. England or Castille less likely. Like I said, no one gave much thought to Byzantine annexation of Achaea. When Nicaea annexed Latin Empire, it didn't find itself at war with half of Europe. Few nations also cared to help the Byzanties - local power of Hungary and the Vittorio Amadeo episode are only two cases that come to mind. That, and the French knights at the battle of Nicopolis. But these knights didn't come to Achaea's help.

But it's also quite true that expansionism of the Orthodox powers in the area WAS curtailed repeatedly by threats from larger Catholic powers

Generally true, but not exactly true when considering the post-4th crusade period. The Latin Empire received few support from Europe, and local European powers - Bulgaria, Serbia, Genoa, Venice, not England and France were Byzantine headaches. Point being, early in the game the episodes when a nation at one end of Europe cared much about the events on the other end were few.

And it's not like everyone in Europe loved Venice and was always ready to help it against the dastardly Greek imperial remnants. Just because Milan is an ally of Castille, who's an ally of England, who's an ally of Venice, it doesn't mean that Milan is on Venice' side.

Mind you, Venice should be strong enough to repeal a Trebizond attack on Corfu by itself, unless Trebizond is close to reforming the Byzantine Empire. But in that case, I wouldn't mind a more extensive dogpile on Trebizond. Frankly, Corfu should be a Venetian province from the beginning, and independent cores on Crete and Corfu should be removed, so that they wouldn't be releasable and could only appear as revolters.

My problem with human OPM's is not the ease of their expansion in general, but the fact that a human OPM, surrounded by AI OPM's is like a wolf among sheep.

 

[Steph]

I have not yet bought DW, I plan to do it during my coming holydays, starting in... 2 hours!!!$

So my comments are only based on what I read and me be innacurate.

First, I think it is good that after the war started, you can try to seek new allies and drag them into the war. If I play as Savoy and I'm attacked by France, I'd for sure try to get help from as many countries as possible!

So overall, I think the CTA is a great addition. However, it needs some balancing to avoid degenerate. First, a country should only be able to call allies which have a reasonnable chance to do something in the war. As Savoy, I could call the Swiss to fight France, but I shouldn't be able to call Finland.
Why not use something like the trade range? You can only call an ally which is close enough to your ennemy.
Or use region. You can only call allies which are in the same region as the original conflict (link to the CB perhaps?).
If France DOW against Austria using a CB linked to Milan for instance, then the Italian states could join, but not the German ones? And so the allies of the Italian states would not join as they are not in the same region?
This could also avoid having the Creeks join France in a war against England if France DOW with a CB against Calais, but they could if France DOW using a colonial CB, on a colony in the same region as Creeks.

Or instead of an absolute, use it to weight the chance a country will CTA or join the war?

 

[iniudan]

It would make some sense in early game, but mid- & late-game, where some countries go global, this would still cause world wars. Overall I disagree that range could be a solution to this problem.

Explain to me how it would not work, I think your are in tunnel vision and losing that it is exactly the point, basically a colonial war degenerating in European war, througt I should have added that this range should also be an involvement range, for most power would not see the point of warring local power on other side of the world, if they don't already interest in the region and that colonial power are only involved on a single side of the war, but I can see other colonial power taking control of the war on the other side and making it degenerate into an European war.

In short the point is exactly to limit it to more local power in early game and for low tech, while leaving it global for those with colonial and commercial interest.

 

[Falc]

After reading some more, perhaps one solution would be to have the AI more carefully consider who it invites as Allies.

Let's say you're a minor. You've allied yourself with a bigger fish, because that's a god way to keep yourself safe.

You get attacked by a bigger nation so you call in all the allies you can find. Including your own bigger fish, who of course assumes War Leader position.

That nation can now call in its own allies. Now, while I see no problem in them calling up more minor nations to help shore up their troops, I feel that the AI should now very carefully consider whether it invites anyone bigger than themselves. Because that would cost them the War Leadership, and in real life that probably meant that any spoils of the war would no longer be theirs either.

Being War Leader should be important and it should be valuable enough that the AI will think twice about just giving it away, and certainly in the early stages of the war. As long as the offensive party is only threatening their original target and maybe some other minors who got involved, the War Leader should not escalate the conflict and should try to keep control of its side of the War.

As soon as the war starts going really bad and the agressor starts invading the War Leader, then they should call in their own even-bigger allies to try and tilt this war the other way again.

As long as their side stands a good chance of winning the war, handing over the War Leader role should be a case of nothing to gain, everything to lose.

 

[Steph]

That's actually a good idea, and it may help keeping some balance : avoid dragging new allies in a war if you don't really need them and your war capaciy is good enough.

 

[iniudan]

After reading some more, perhaps one solution would be to have the AI more carefully consider who it invites as Allies.

Let's say you're a minor. You've allied yourself with a bigger fish, because that's a god way to keep yourself safe.

You get attacked by a bigger nation so you call in all the allies you can find. Including your own bigger fish, who of course assumes War Leader position.

That nation can now call in its own allies. Now, while I see no problem in them calling up more minor nations to help shore up their troops, I feel that the AI should now very carefully consider whether it invites anyone bigger than themselves. Because that would cost them the War Leadership, and in real life that probably meant that any spoils of the war would no longer be theirs either.

Being War Leader should be important and it should be valuable enough that the AI will think twice about just giving it away, and certainly in the early stages of the war. As long as the offensive party is only threatening their original target and maybe some other minors who got involved, the War Leader should not escalate the conflict and should try to keep control of its side of the War.

As soon as the war starts going really bad and the agressor starts invading the War Leader, then they should call in their own even-bigger allies to try and tilt this war the other way again.

As long as their side stands a good chance of winning the war, handing over the War Leader role should be a case of nothing to gain, everything to lose.

Could be good idea for can be linked to data that is already in game (in other word war capacity, the leader of the defensive alliance only call, beyond the original war declaration, call only if offensive side war capacity is mostly equal or higher)