Tick acceleration (wargoal and length of war)

[Ariphaos]

So Sweden and Hungary are going to be spending 3-4 years at war because they have no means of reaching each other, and Sweden is eating a landlocked OPM. This is infuriatingly common.

Rather than tick purely based off time, the wargoal and length of war tick rates should be based on when the last battle or siege was. If there was a battle or active (i.e. progressing) siege the previous month, the next month doesn't tick at all. Otherwise, it ticks based on the number of months since the last conflict.

War exhaustion should also add a fraction of its value to a country's length of war tick rate, irrespective of the above.

Ideally, the balance should be that particularly active conflicts last a bit longer but ones like the above should be over less than a year after no one is fighting any longer.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not a bad suggestion to a longstanding, serious problem in the game (far more serious than many "issues" that have been "fixed" ).

 

[magnusvejby]

I do agree, but I don't know how paradox will make a system that not is abusabel, but still works and not is wayyy to confusing for the player and AI.

+1

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I do agree, but I don't know how paradox will make a system that not is abusabel, but still works and not is wayyy to confusing for the player and AI.

+1

The current system is also abusable and confusing, and the extent to which it "works" is debatable. I would argue that a system whereby the AI routinely engages in self-harm (IE constantly choosing actions and making decisions that weaken its own position) is not working well.

Let's say Saxony declares on Brandenburg. A few years into this war, where Brandenburg is getting trounced, Poland allies them and joins. Saxony calls in Bohemia in response. This is a situation where Poland will refuse white peace, even with 5 war exhaustion, no manpower, and half its force limit in remaining standing army while 1/2 of its territory (mostly non-fort) is occupied. What benefit does Poland receive from these decisions? Yeah, good luck answering that. If you want to try, a tip: use reasoning that would allow you as the player to deliberately engage in that action yourself, whereby posting a complaint thread from Poland's position wouldn't get you derided and massively downvoted .

What about the situation of Castile + France against Mali I've posted many times:



Remember, this is supposedly "working" now to the extent that improving it is low priority, but the developers are perfectly happy to HOTFIX aggressive expansion. But I have yet to see someone make a rational claim that the AI's refusal of even white peace in this scenario is anything short of idiotic play, directly governed by modifiers that don't function well. That the AI can't be forced to terms in this scenario is also bad design (the game has a perfectly good means whereby a player could force terms here, which was yanked for the AI w/o replacement).

That is the functional equivalent of the development team doubling down on the length of war/SoA modifiers. That it leads to outcomes like this is strong evidence that it does not work well, that it is obviously abusable in its present state, and I see no way you can make a case that it isn't confusing. A new player, seeing this situation and having been hit with stability offers at smaller differentials in war score wouldn't be confused by this screenshot...how exactly?

Remember, the development team, in answering as they have to this point, has actively told us that it was more important to mess with what provinces can be taken via coring rules...introduce a bug in doing so...and leave that bug in to this day. It was an important change to make sure players can't take provinces they can't (but actually can) core, but making it so that you don't have stall-out wars, 1-sided wars with stubborn refusals? NOPE. That doesn't matter...now excuse the game while it still lies to you about the reason you can't take a province, how much diplo cost you'll pay for your peace deals, results of some events, and so on.

Nevermind that these modifiers are something that impacts literally every game drastically, because they influence AI vs AI wars too :/.