Technically, I'm not the one that needs to provide evidence, I'm refuting someone else's claim.
Lay off on the debate formalities please. We are having a meaningless online discussion about a little computer game, not arguing in a university society about the supreme court or something.
And, no, while the peace conference and the algorithms are not up to your liking this does not prove nor mean they're not working. They're just not working for what you, or the others want. I am not denying that it could be improved, but it's not, by any means, broken. And no, ruining your fun doesn't mean the system is broken, it just means it ruined your fun.
I would say that a computer game that ruins your fun is broken by definition. The whole point of HoIIV is to have fun, and like virtually every non-multiplayer person I play casually. If I do well I want to see a nice satisfying peace conference result. If I lose I don't really care about the peace conference result because my country is gone, but even if it wasn't I'd like to see a satisfying result.
1) You are wrong by any account of players that continue to enjoy the game. Most players are asking for a peace conference AI that will select gains and puppets in a aesthetically pleasing, logical-for-actual-people distribution of land that "won't cause bordergore". What the computer is doing now is not satisfying that desire.
2) Then you have ignored what the game presents in it's vanilla form. A results screen roughly at the start of 1948 or 1949. The span of a regular campaign of HoI.
The objective is, between 1936 to 1949, to grow your country and win for your ideology or your faction over the others. That you want to ignore this objective is fine, the game perfectly allows you to do that which is cool. BUT the game has clearl objectives for the players which is why the peace conferences give options that would, relatively speaking, help along in allowing you to fulfill them. The other options you are suggesting would be quite welcomed, like I said, but they don't exactly encompass what the game's objectives of the original vanilla game is.
3) If you made the mistake in the first place, that is actually still your fault, not the system. It would be nice for the UI and system to be updated a little, however. Yes, a simple request for comfirmation when pressing done or pass would do wonders, I agree.
4) I must point out that a lot of the games stats are actually still somewhat abstract and even good players are still trying to determine the how to best use and interpret them, despite the stats "telling you" what they "do". I agree that the UI and systems could be polished a bit more.
1. I do enjoy the game. But I enjoy it in spite of the peace conference system, which I personally find so anti-fun that I choose to install a mod that effectively removes it from the game. The current peace conference AI does not produce pleasing, logical-for-actual-people distribution of land, which is exactly why I use Player-Led Peace Conferences to create those kinds of outcomes. And not only do I want those things you listed above, I also want the outcomes of peace deals to make sense within the game world. I don't want to see democracies annexing large amounts of non-colonial territory, because democracies are supposed to want to liberate people or at least construct a secure, peaceful world for future generations. I don't want to see fascists portioning off their conquered lands to insignificant allies of theirs, because fascists are supposed to want to bully other countries into submission not play fair. I definitely don't want to see Germany being moved to a handful of French towns whilst the rest goes to Poland, because that makes absolutely no sense in any context!
Getting to take part in a peace conference is meant to be the reward for winning a war, and that reward needs to be, well, rewarding. The fact that they are really just frustrating above all else means that I consider them to be broken/not functional, and if I was forced to use vanilla peace conferences as they are now I probably wouldn't play the game. Fortunately Player-Led Peace Conferences is available as a workaround. I don't like using this mod and I feel that it does take away from part of the gameplay, but that's a lesser evil than working with the vanilla system as it stands.
2. Where does it say that's the objective of the game? Nowhere. The only Paradox game with a victory condition is Stellaris, which is because that game is more of a 4X than a GSG, and even that is something of an afterthought. The only "objective" is to survive, what you do with your survival is up to you. Do you conquer the world? Do you restore the world to how it once was? Do you build a new, better world? Do you do your bit from the sidelines helping someone else's cause? Do you simply struggle to maintain your neutrality in an age of chaos? Do you switch sides? Do you win your independence? Do you build a massive empire, then switch tags and bring it down again? HoIIV has no victory conditions and the only "lose" condition is being totally destroyed.
3. If I misclick something it is the game's fault if I can't undo it. It's not realistic to be unable to undo mistakes, and it doesn't add anything to either the multiplayer or single-player experience. It's simply bad interface design. In the rest of the game you can even undo battle orders provided you haven't let the time tick on since you sent them. If I accidentally take East Prussia as the USA instead of giving it to my ally, Poland, why on earth shouldn't I be able to cancel that?
4. Some of the unit stats are a bit confusing, but you don't really have to interact with them much and the names generally tell you what they do. It might not be exactly clear what "piercing damage" does, but you can tell from the name that it improves combat vs. armoured units and that's all you need to know for most intents and purposes. The problems with the peace system are much more visible and don't take an expert to notice. If I choose to release Communist China will they be ideologically communist or not? What if I release Nationalist China as the Soviet Union? If I choose to release Azerbaijan as Germany, what will that country's name be and how much will it cost to give them provinces? You could find out the answers to all of these things if you just had a bit more information about what you were doing and could cancel peace treaty decisions after you've made them, but until then it's trial and error or hoping that the Wiki knows.
To your extra addendum, I'll just smack you with what I just said above: You want the game to cater to you, while in reality, that's not what it meant to do. It's going to try to treat all the 'players' involved in the war fairly under the measures and algorithm it's using, even if the other "players" are AI. Maybe you're asking for the computer to lay down and give you more leeway to win in single player? That seems more accurate to what you desire according to what all of you are requesting.
This just seems like a personal attack rather than an argument. Sorry, I am not going to indulge you with a counter-attack, I'm sure that you're just another ordinary HoI4 player like myself with your own opinion on this. Neither of us suck at the game, I actually like it
because I find it easy. It's a good casual game to play, unlike some of the more intense strategic gameplay of things like EUIV. If anything I think my idea for a peace treaty system would make things more difficult by limiting which pieces of land you can take and forcing your allies to focus on contiguous areas of the map rather than creating scattered indefensible pockets that you could overrun easily if you were to back-stab them.
