War What is it Good For?

[Mr. Wiggles]

Then how did Napoleon do it all the way to Moscow? History says otherwise.

BTW I already said not to paint the map your color. But instead I may want to break up Russia into 5 smaller countries, break up UK into Wales and Scotland, humilate all the countries, take a state from Netherlands and Belgium, the Ottomans who were my ally might want a few states from Russia and war reparations all around. V2 mechanics won't allow this.

And I also mentioned that you can't take certain provinces unless you take all of them.

Ironically, the invasion of Russia proves my point. It did not end well did it?

 

[Paghalay]

Maybe the way war is waged should change as technology goes on. Start off with the more traditional Paradox style (for lack of an alternative to reference) and go towards more of a HOI style as technology advances. After all, warfare changed drastically between the start and end of this period, and that should be reflected in more than just textures and equipment modifiers.

 

[Woifee]

I hope we do not model the war/diplomacy system after the most singular event of the game's time period.

You asked for one example, I gave you one.

It's one singular event, bu a major one and as such there should be game mechanics for it. Could be done like in Vic2 when great wars were unlocked later in the game. Not every war should be a great war tough.

 

[jju_57]

Ironically, the invasion of Russia proves my point. It did not end well did it?

No it 200% refutes your point as you calimed they couldn't take over such a large land mass. When in fact he did till his army was defeated.

 

[jju_57]

Can you give a historical example of a war that had as extensive consequences for the loser you are talking about? All of this sounds rather abstract. "I want to be able to..." I want to be constrained in the same way historical actors were constrained.

WW1, Golden Horde invasions, Napoleon till he lost the battles. Napoleon wanted to control and dominate almost all of Europe. In that he lost does not change the fact that if he won his goal would have been way more than the game allows.

BTW many wars ended up even worse for the loser in that their culture, and people were wiped out. History is filled with these.

 

[Hemothep]

I think the whole war score system needs to go. It's just to arbitrary. The limit to what you could take in a war should only rely on two factors:

1. What other nations are willing to tolerate without declaring on you.
2. What you are willing to take.

The latter may very well be everything, but having a large population within your country that would like to be part of another should have significant consequences. There needs to be a price to pay to simply police the newly conquered area and it also should be far less efficient when it comes to administration and collecting taxes.

Might makes Right in Geopolitics and this was very true even in victorian times, but the social-economic makeup of your country should put a very large dent into that might if you don't consider the will of the people you try to govern.

 

[EUnderhill]

Absolutely nothing/now say it again y'all

 

[Paghalay]

but having a large population within your country that would like to be part of another should have significant consequences. There needs to be a price to pay to simply police the newly conquered area and it also should be far less efficient when it comes to administration and collecting taxes.

Imperator already does this to a fair degree, so it has been tested, and hopefully will make it into Victoria 3.


I will keep making points at all the good in Imperator that other Paradox games can take inspiration from. Vive la Imperator, and Arheo's vision for it.

 

[Bradley Hutson]

I would make the conquest of big patches of PROPER land (of recognized/civilized countries) un-economical. Unless you already have a minority/majority population of your own culture already there. Or historical claims recognized by your own people or other countries. Or if said territories have a small population and you have many migrants to dump there.

Realistically, what would make it harder for Germany to control France than for, say, the United Kingdom to control India? India had a much larger population and land area, in addition to be located halfway around the world, so it seems like India should be harder to control.

 

[ikki]

Friends. When no one wants to be your friend, you collect them with your huge army. Gotta catch them all!
And well there are a good many nationalism events, even some notions of pan-nationalisms.

But ultimately the world should see federations which may end up allowing some very diverse national collections to function.

 

[ikki]

Realistically, what would make it harder for Germany to control France than for, say, the United Kingdom to control India? India had a much larger population and land area, in addition to be located halfway around the world, so it seems like India should be harder to control.

But a population unaware of their own collective identity. Whereas europeans have generally speaking pretty good national self-awareness at this time. Nappy marching back and forth preaching the subject probly helped. The development of this self-awareness did ultimately spell and end to the indian empire for britain. Could Indians have been some suitably mystical laden dogma of empire and india? Maybe, especially if there was industry built there in india instead of being used as a rawmaterials plantation to feed a antiquated british industry.

 

[InvisibleBison]

I think the whole war score system needs to go. It's just to arbitrary. The limit to what you could take in a war should only rely on two factors:

1. What other nations are willing to tolerate without declaring on you.
2. What you are willing to take.

The latter may very well be everything, but having a large population within your country that would like to be part of another should have significant consequences. There needs to be a price to pay to simply police the newly conquered area and it also should be far less efficient when it comes to administration and collecting taxes.

Might makes Right in Geopolitics and this was very true even in victorian times, but the social-economic makeup of your country should put a very large dent into that might if you don't consider the will of the people you try to govern.

Even if you get rid of warscore, you can't get rid of warscore. That is, even if you do away with hard limits to what sort of peace deals you can propose, there will still be limits to what the AI is willing to accept, based on how badly it's doing in the war.

 

[Lorehead]

The peace-treaty implementation of Vicky 2 was deeply flawed, I agree. The winner was required to totally conquer and occupy the entire country to get the maximum peace deal, which was ahistorical. There’s no logical reason why someone who accomplished that would not be able to conquer the country, but the Devs noticed that was happening too often in both HOI4 and Vicky, so they threw in a limit on how much you were allowed to ask for (and then had to make a whole bunch of exceptions so that Germany could reunify, the Treaty of Versailles would be possible, and the Union could annex the entire Confederacy.) Since penalizing aggressive expansion didn’t stop players, the devs added what amounted to timers before a player could declare war again.

I think the reason this never really worked was that there wasn’t enough gameplay behind staying at peace and building tall. When players want to rush to their next conquest, and the game tells them they have to twiddle their thumbs instead, that’s frustrating.

 

[jju_57]

Absolutely nothing/now say it again y'all

It's twenty five miles from home Girl, my feet are hurting mighty bad

 

[jju_57]

I think the reason this never really worked was that there wasn’t enough gameplay behind staying at peace and building tall. When players want to rush to their next conquest, and the game tells them they have to twiddle their thumbs instead, that’s frustrating.

You nailed it.

 

[EUnderhill]

It's twenty five miles from home Girl, my feet are hurting mighty bad

I think we have eye to eye contact.

 

[Puking Panda]

Realistically, what would make it harder for Germany to control France than for, say, the United Kingdom to control India? India had a much larger population and land area, in addition to be located halfway around the world, so it seems like India should be harder to control.

First off the fact that India was a technologically inferior and heavily divided country ethnically and religiously. The British also employed local rulers and customs to keep them from rebelling.

Second off the fact none of the other great powers were willing or able of supporting an independence movement against them. Historically pretty much all smaller/weaker countries fighting against a superpower had no real chance of winning without significant amount of outside support. Britain controlled the seas. The German Empire for example wanted to support Indian independence but could not do anything substantial as they could not send men and resources by sea.

This is also why the British held onto Ireland so long, there was no way for European powers to support them with British control over the sea. However the British basically left Hanover to it's fate as they knew they were incapable of fighting a land war against Prussia and/or Austria in Germany.

This ultimately shows exactly how peace and threat should be handled. All powers will want to contain potential other powers as much as possible. If Germany occupies France they should be able to annex it completely but this should lead to all the other powers uniting to contain Germany and liberate France as well French resistance(inflamed and supported by foreign powers) making the occupation expensive enough to break the German bureaucracy and economy.

 

[jju_57]

Continuous long term direct foreign power occupations are rare throughout history and frequently come with a very steep price. Most successful occupations used to put puppet leaders at power or foreign dynastic branches (like the mongols did) with fairly large portions of power and state bureaucracy in the hands of a subservient local elite.

Rare? See below.

The ability to keep an army in the field for extended periods was limited, particularly over distance. Taking and holding a border region is one thing, taking and holding large swathes of territory far from home should be prohibitively difficult to pacify and maintain, while you get essentially next to nothing from it for years until it begins to accept annexation. That should also depend heavily on factors such as ethnic similarity, previous ownership, common culture and religion, and so on.

Tell that to: Alexander the Great, Roman Empire, Egypt, Mongol Empire, Persian Empire, Han Dynasty, Ottoman Empire, Umayyad Caliphate, Spanish Empire, British Empire, Russian Empire, Holy Roman Empire, even the United States. Many lasted for centuries and all conquered huge parts of their known worlds.

 

[thedarkendstar]

Great european powers could not occupy big areas of other european nations, it was too expensive. Just think at all the troops you need to keep mobilized to occupy a piece of France, villages, cities, with a population in constant turmoil.
They usually came to agreement with the enemy and put some areas under military occupations until the war reparations were paid.

I would make the conquest of big patches of PROPER land (of recognized/civilized countries) un-economical. Unless you already have a minority/majority population of your own culture already there. Or historical claims recognized by your own people or other countries. Or if said territories have a small population and you have many migrants to dump there.

I may be wrong but didn German troops stay in france quite a while after the franco prussian war?

 

[The Goldfinch]

Great european powers could not occupy big areas of other european nations, it was too expensive. Just think at all the troops you need to keep mobilized to occupy a piece of France, villages, cities, with a population in constant turmoil.
They usually came to agreement with the enemy and put some areas under military occupations until the war reparations were paid.

I would make the conquest of big patches of PROPER land (of recognized/civilized countries) un-economical. Unless you already have a minority/majority population of your own culture already there. Or historical claims recognized by your own people or other countries. Or if said territories have a small population and you have many migrants to dump there.

100% this. Taking some random part of, say, France without any real basis or justification should be a disaster for your nation, both for domestic, and for foreign policy

Your people should object to taking a land they see no connection to. Other world powers should see you as a madman, a problem for international stability that has to be eliminated

Realistically, what would make it harder for Germany to control France than for, say, the United Kingdom to control India? India had a much larger population and land area, in addition to be located halfway around the world, so it seems like India should be harder to control.

Obviously that France already had highly educated, nationalist, self conscious society with strong feeling of identity and national pride. Not sure about XIX century India or China

Rare? See below.



Tell that to: Alexander the Great, Roman Empire, Egypt, Mongol Empire, Persian Empire, Han Dynasty, Ottoman Empire, Umayyad Caliphate, Spanish Empire, British Empire, Russian Empire, Holy Roman Empire, even the United States. Many lasted for centuries and all conquered huge parts of their known worlds.

You do realise that XIX century is slightly different than ancient/medieval era? Yes, large uncivilized areas could be colonized. I am waiting for example of large conquest between "civilized" Or "recognized" Countries

As for your examples: United States colonized, same with British Empire. Spanish Empire is also not within Vic3 timeframe.

No, XIX century world should be difficult to break apart. Look how Ottomans were disintegrating for 100 years, yet it took until WW1 to dismantle their empire. Great powers were protecting stability. I think only Late game you should be able to do major world changing wars. Or at least it should be very difficult, and you would need really overwhelming advantage