The wonderful cascading alliances

[Heradite]

Under the terms of the alliance, yeah. But NATO was specifically a defensive alliance with a somewhat narrowly defined casus foederis to which the Iraq war didn't apply, as was the Triple Alliance; there is no such beast as a casus foederis in any EU3 alliance, much less the extremely complex ones that obtained in typical eighteenth- and nineteenth-century agreements. If the alliance system is going to be reworked like that, I think that different varieties of alliance ought to be permissible, like the classic Franco-Swedish "join this war and I will give you cash monies" or specifically offensive alliances geared against a specific country with a time limit on the casus foederis (e.g. the Italo-Prussian alliance of early 1866).

Or we could have just three different kinds of Alliances:

Defensive Alliance: Only obligated to defend eachother if called upon
Alliance: Obligated to defend eachother, optional to help eachother in aggressive wars if called upon
War Alliance: Obligated to defend and to help eachother in aggressive wars if called upon

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I'll look into the AI being far less likely to ally with someone at war.

nice,
though there could be a few modifiers to that likelyhood. for example:
+ if opposing camp has high WE and low WC
+ if nation asked to ally has a claim on a province of someone (warleader?) in the opposing camp

- if asking camp has high WE and low WC
- if opposing alliance has claims on provinces of the nation that is being asked to join the alliance
--- if ally cannot reach opponent.

---> have these tier 2/3 allies sign seperate peaces as soon as they think their goals have been achieved (if at all possible)

that would probably help simulating the histoical tendence of nations joining a war half-way if they thought they could make some quick gain while maintaining a significant amount of state-rationale for going or not-going to war.

 

[unmerged(215997)]

I'll look into the AI being far less likely to ally with someone at war.

Thanks.
Also if nation A is allied with nation B, and nations A & C are at war, would it be possible to make alliance between B & C impossible?

 

[Zenith Darksea]

Particularly I think the -5 stab hit for truce-breaking should apply even to defensive wars if they're jumping in partway through...

This.

I've always thought this, actually. If a nation has a truce with me, they should take the stability hit for joining in one of their allies' wars against me.

I must say, the 'cascading alliances' are a real problem as things stand. Everyone gets called into everyone else's wars, which turns Europe into an absolute pig's breakfast in a very short space of time. I started a Byzantine game yesterday, and in 1450 not only had Castille eaten all of North Africa and a large chunk of Syria (as DoF it gets called into all the Muslim nations' wars - and mine, for that matter - and then brings its own allies, who bring their own allies, who bring their own allies etc...), but I got to see such laughable situations as this:

Yes, that is Scotland getting gang-raped by Brittany and the Teutonic Order. Come on. Frankly, the old 'Alliance' casus belli was much better, since allies weren't compelled either to join a war or dishonour a treaty, which meant that nations only entered allies' wars if it was realistic and practical for them to do so.

However, I am nothing if not constructive in my criticism. What I would recommend right now is that only the alliance leaders get the right to call allies, rather than every man and his dog. That way we can still have some sense of limited wars, rather than the Hansa launching D-Day style assaults on Georgia (as I have also seen in my game). Actually, I still don't know why the Hansa and Luneburg ended up at war with Georgia.

 

[Lanassa]

Or we could have just three different kinds of Alliances:

Defensive Alliance: Only obligated to defend eachother if called upon
Alliance: Obligated to defend eachother, optional to help eachother in aggressive wars if called upon
War Alliance: Obligated to defend and to help eachother in aggressive wars if called upon

Quite. War alliance seems like an odd way of referring to a symmachia, but "offensive-defensive alliance" is a bit of a mouthful.

 

[Arakhor]

You could always go with Permissive Alliance and Full Alliance as the classic game Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance did.

 

[unmerged(215997)]

Something's off in your account. You can't decide not to call allies if you are the initial defender.

You're right I got it confused. I checked the save (15th Oct) and it looks like this:
13th Oct - I send invitation to Savoy
14th Oct or 15th:
- Savoy accepts; we are allied
- also Austria dow's me (but since Savoy is not at war with Austria, I assume they managed to dow me just before Savoy's ambassador arrives with positive response).

And what happens next is saddening. In the next week of gameplay Austria usually allies itself with Savoy; can't call Savoy to arms, since I need to wait a month before sending another diplomat; about 2 weeks later Savoy joins Austria in war against me, getting -1 stab hit

 

[Pope Thrax]

I like the new feature but it does go a bit far at times. Limiting leader change to once or twice would be nice though. I don't see why some people dislike people allying with the leader and then getting called in. It seems completely reasonable to me and makes playing the USA in the 1776 scenario do able (ally and call in france). It should be a bit more difficult to gain new allys during a war than during peace.

Honestly, I find myself playing much less aggressively and keeping more forces saved for emergencies than before. I also find I'm much much more likely to actually have allies period and to honor their call to arms when they make them.

 

[6354201]

The cascading alliance thing really needs to change. EU is not set during the time period of the Entente or NATO, every war shouldn't result in a world war.

 

[Lextori]

This, would be a great fix.

Just a thought while having my coffee this morning:

What if attaining War Leader was a die roll based on the following factors:

• Prestige
• Leader's Diplomacy/Military
• Diminishing Returns for # of Leadership Changes

Another thing that may be easier is to change the war leader change so it looks more like this,

IF leader_prestige*1.5 < new_guy_prestige THEN make the new_guy leader.

This means that low prestige people will keep passing leadership up, but a sufficiently strong power won't, at about 67 prestige the leadership won't pass a war on to anyone.

 

[LancerX]

So, I just got home and started my first game with Tuscany (Grand Campaign) and before 1410 we had France, Austria, and Bohemia annexing Italian OPM's. Britain was DoW'd too, but I guess they hadn't gotten their troop transports into the Med before I quit...

Is there a tweak/mod/setting I can do myself in the meantime to make this a little saner?

 

[The BadgerUK]

I've also experianced the horror that can be current alliance system, and i didn't really have a problem with the Ht3 system. I wouldn't class it as game breaky but sometimes you just want to DoW a German OPM with worrying about half the know world turning up on your doorstep.

Or to put it in context: "I never thought I'd see an Alliance Cascade, let alone create one..."

Now where did i leave my crowbar?

 

[Dotto1979]

To add my experience, I (Brandenburg) was allied with Bohemia against France. Me and France were also allied with Hungary. So France calls Hungary to their side of war and since I´m allied with Hungary, got alliance casus beli against Bohemia.
What could I do, DoW on Bohemia. Now i´m allied with Bohemia against Hungary and with Hungary against Bohemia.
Schizophrenic World...

 

[vertinox]

They can, it's even something I mentioned in the manual, but in practice I haven't noticed it happening too often. However, the comments from some people sounded like everyone was calling everyone else, so I wondered if there might be a problem.

I haven't got around to playing it yet, but the idea of cascading alliances sounds appealing to me as would provide much more of a challenge as well as a bit of more need to be diplomatic rather than just declare war on everyone until your at your BB limit.

 

[Ephafn]

I guess I'm okay with some degree of cascading, but calling your allies to war, especially if done a while after the war started, should bring some penalties. For example, if you call an ally and you stop being alliance leader, you could get some prestige penalty ("Not good enough to wage his own wars.") or something. Together with making AIs more reluctant to call allies would help reduce the cascading effect.

 

[wilcoxchar]

The cascading alliance thing really needs to change. EU is not set during the time period of the Entente or NATO, every war shouldn't result in a world war.

Except that for about half the EU time period, that's pretty much how wars in Europe happened.

 

[shadow121292]

Perhaps upon the start of a war the two parties that are the subject can call their allies and thats it? So for example England declares war on France in order to gain a province in Normandy. Burgundy is an ally of England and the Castile is an ally of France. Those two countries can be called into the war but they can't call their allies into the war that they were called into. So it makes it very important to have a lot of allies as then you have a lot of friends you can all in but if your an enemy you dont have to worry about somehow having 50 countries against you.

 

[unmerged(96425)]

I have to say this cascading alliance system in DW is giving me the most challenging and fun game I can ever remember having in EU3. Usually I quit out of boredom after a couple of centuries because I have the most powerful/wealthy nation in the world and nobody can touch me.

In my first DW game, I'm the Ottomans trying to conquer Europe and I'm having to fight tooth and nail for every single province I gain. The AI is acting a lot more intelligently and really putting up a good fight.

I'm now fighting England/France/Castille on a regular basis, and my rate of progress is sure but slower than I'm used to from HTTT. This is good, I can see this game still being a challenge and entertaining throughout the whole Grand Campaign.

So well done Paradox, thumbs up here for DW, its really improved the complexity/challenge/fun factor for me.

 

[Eldar]

I totaly agree with that!

I have to say this cascading alliance system in DW is giving me the most challenging and fun game I can ever remember having in EU3. Usually I quit out of boredom after a couple of centuries because I have the most powerful/wealthy nation in the world and nobody can touch me.

In my first DW game, I'm the Ottomans trying to conquer Europe and I'm having to fight tooth and nail for every single province I gain. The AI is acting a lot more intelligently and really putting up a good fight.

I'm now fighting England/France/Castille on a regular basis, and my rate of progress is sure but slower than I'm used to from HTTT. This is good, I can see this game still being a challenge and entertaining throughout the whole Grand Campaign.

So well done Paradox, thumbs up here for DW, its really improved the complexity/challenge/fun factor for me.

 

[Kyoumen]

I'll look into the AI being far less likely to ally with someone at war.

While I understand this is probably necessary due to the complaints, please please please don't make it "less likely" to the point of "basically never happens". Perhaps have the AI be positively influenced to accept by factors like a) badboy of the war leader the alliance-offerer is fighting (a coordinated dogpile on overexpanders is more likely to succeed than tons of little dows), b) war exhaustion/capacity of the prospective opponent (so looking for an opportunistic land/prestige grab, getting on the good side of the likely winner), c) being a rival/having cores on the prospective opponents, etc.

Basically, please let it still be something to worry about, especially if there's really good reasons the AI might want to take a chunk out of you (or any aggressive AI nation). Or maybe just tie it to the AI aggressiveness settings?