Peace Comferences and ending wars in general feels super unfun and not rewarding.
Irl, the war was pretty much “decided” with Midway and Stalingrad. Had real ww2, been a game of hoi4, most lobbies would have fallen apart here. But in real life you have to finish the war, in real life you had Hitler and Tojo who wouldn’t quit.
In game, once winning or losing is inevitable, most people exit to lobby and make a new game.
In game we aren’t concerned with the outcomes of the war, and with how anti-climatic peace conferences feel, why would we stick around for it?
Peace conferences may work according to their design, but their design is inadequate. It doesn’t come close to modeling a real peace conference and all the different levers pulling on leaders decision making. It operates like a first past the post mad territory grab.
But, to make a useful peace conference relevant, paradox needs to implement victory conditions. Currently, achievements and having conquered the world by 1948 are the only ones. I don’t know how to implement victory conditions for ahistorical gameplay, but historic (and it’d probably require retuning the balance) would be something like:
To Win
Western Allies: Defeat Axis and Co-Prosperity Sphere, accrue more “victory points” than Comintern
Axis: survive past historical date of European capitulation; or outright win
Comintern: Defeat Axis And Co-Prosperity Sphere, acrue more “victory points” than Western Allies
Co-Prosperity Sphere: survive past historical date of Japanese capitulation; or outright win
China: organize China under one country (whichever Chinese state does this wins their game)
IMO, the game should closely follow historical potential, so what we play in game is plausible ahistorical outcomes. But that is another discussion.
With the above, peace conferences matter, in a historic game, how you divide up Europe between Capitalism and Communism likely helps determine the winner. I’d hope there are bespoke bonus conditions for countries. US wants to see the world more enfranchised and Democratic. So there will be a tug between them and UK who will likely want to keep her colonies.
The victory conditions would introduce tension between Allies and USSR. If giving lend lease gives “victory points” then the USSR will only want to take from the western allies what she absolutely has to to get by. By the same token, the western allies will only want to give what they need to to keep USSR in the fight, they don’t want to give her so much she is steamrolling the Nazis in 1942. Further, the allies will be more influenced to DDay further east, as that will stem the inevitable Slavic tide west.
The balance would hopefully land somewhere around (assuming equal skill) 50% Axis falls short of history and loses, 40% Axis beats history, still inevitably loses, 10% Axis WC.
