Very Annoying... DoW More Random Than Before

[dstarsboy]

When they removed the War Leader swapping, I thought for sure that FINALLY when you declare war on someone, there's not some random game changing occurrence that suddenly makes this action a huge mistake. If you do your homework, you can DoW with an expected outcome.

During my Mongol game, I DoW on Lithuania because they were at war with Austria and Poland and were almost fully occupied in said war. Easy win, right? Wrong!

They lost their war to Austria/Poland, were able to somehow ally both of them and then call them into my war against me. That's ridiculous and they crushed me so badly and quickly that I lost 1/3rd of my empire before they would accept any terms at all.

I honestly don't feel like I made a bad choice or was an idiot or was too careless in order to lose 1/3 of my empire. I feel like what I did was the correct thing to do but I still lost 1/3 of my empire, so I feel cheated somehow.

My gripes:
1) I cannot do what they did, I tried to ally Ottomans or Sweden and bring them in to help but I have a "-1000 at war" modifier.
2) I took my time waiting patiently for close to 20 years for a moment when either Muscovy or Lithuania are weakened, even waiting for Lith's manpower to deplete and some of their allies to be forced out.... what's the point?
3) Small annoyance: You never get any indication that someone new joins the war on the enemy's side. It's always a shock to see stacks of some new nation's troops appear suddenly in my land long after a war has started.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

Sounds like Poland Pu'd Lithuania through decision.

 

[brobson]

The at war alliance modifier is for aggressors only. Defenders do not get the at war modifier for creating new alliances.

 

[dstarsboy]

Sounds like Poland Pu'd Lithuania through decision.

No, I got pop ups saying that alliances were formed. I wouldn't have been upset if it was a PU because that happens so rarely. But countries making new alliances and calling them into war against me seems to happen quite a bit.

I didn't know that defensive war nations don't get a negative modifier, maybe that should change...

 

[yerm]

No, I got pop ups saying that alliances were formed. I wouldn't have been upset if it was a PU because that happens so rarely. But countries making new alliances and calling them into war against me seems to happen quite a bit.

I didn't know that defensive war nations don't get a negative modifier, maybe that should change...

They get a modifier - it's just not enough to rule it out completely. It's also identical for the player; you may be able to grab an ally despite a war, and more importantly, you can very easily ally someone else currently losing a war knowing you'll be called in!

Also, anything that prevents a horde from succeeding is probably working as intended.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sounds like Poland Pu'd Lithuania through decision.

No, his story rules that out completely so that conclusion is awkward .

The problem in OP's case is that enemies are turning around and helping their enemy against someone else who they're not actually hostile with in short order. There is some historical precedent for that happening, but it wasn't super common.

However, let's set history aside. Why are Poland and Austria allying someone they just fought and helping them survive? What do they gain from doing so? Do they get territory? Money? Fed vassals? War reparations? Anything? No, that all goes to Lithuania, who they were just fighting. In this context, the mere act of allying a former enemy that's being raked through the coals to prop him back up without receiving anything in return is poor play. You can make some flimsy power balance case, but that isn't going on at all here (the AI will do this behavior regardless of power balance, even if Lithuania is stronger than them combined and GH is their only hope to offset them, so long as they aren't rivaled to Lith).

That's the issue with this behavior; late war joins need to be something where the new ally stands to benefit. They should probably always ally then join to attack rivals if they'd ally at all, same with if there's land they have claims/cores/missions to get, otherwise they should probably not be sticking soldiers into already ongoing wars where they get nothing...in fact they probably shouldn't be allying ransacked nations to carry them around like babies in the first place.

Also note that I say these things because in MOST cases, the human is not any of the 3 parties involved, and is more likely to be the one sneaking into wars as the "defender", but again only if doing so stands to benefit them directly. A human would not defend a nation in such a way otherwise unless it was a critical moment to knock down a runaway/rival. With that being the case, the AI should act that way too, not harm itself for nothing by arbitrarily joining a nation they just got done fighting against.

 

[hajutze]

They we're most likely allies before the war (with high trust) and Lithuania just got dragged as a defender or something. Since after the war the trust (and the RM + other stuff) is still there, and Lithuania doesn't get a malus for being in a war (defender) they just re-allied.

 

[dstarsboy]

Not to revive this thread but I was in several defensive wars recently and I still had the "-1000 At War" modifier when I tried to make new alliances for help.

So I don't think that holds true, unless it's something specific for AI only. Anyways, just thought I'd mention this.

 

[yerm]

Not to revive this thread but I was in several defensive wars recently and I still had the "-1000 At War" modifier when I tried to make new alliances for help.

So I don't think that holds true, unless it's something specific for AI only. Anyways, just thought I'd mention this.

It appears to me that if the other person would gladly join the war, that modifier goes away, while if they don't want a call to arms they will not ally for anything.

 

[dstarsboy]

It appears to me that if the other person would gladly join the war, that modifier goes away, while if they don't want a call to arms they will not ally for anything.

Ah, that makes more sense, I do recall being able to ally with people sometimes (if they heart you) during war but I wasn't sure what the actual criteria was for this.