We are all excited with new stuff. But can auto war acceptance be fixed first? Or at least a promise of fixing it in the coming update?

[Iosue Yu]

I have started at least 2 threads a few months ago but they weren't well received. It is as if nobody has encountered the problem.

Description:

1. Someone invites you to go to an OFFENSIVE war. He may be
   1. A Federation member in a Federation of default laws (war voting having not been changed or the player doesn't even have Federation DLC)
   2. A Federation member where law has been changed (In theory only as I don't own the DLC)
   3. Just a friendly neighbouring country
2. A Vote for War panel either
   1. Doesn't pop up; or
   2. Pops up too quickly for the Player to notice
3. In any case, manually clicking "Yes" hasn't happened
4. The Player automatically accepts going into War with the War Proposal. The Player only notices it when the war has already started.

I have recently read some other lengthy complaints by another player in this forum. I think he has encountered this problem. But people around here don't seem to take note of it.

And whenever I mention this problem, it's as if it's not a big one. My humble suggestion is that this is a big problem. It's not common and it's hard to notice. It's more visible only when you've kept friends around, are generally small and have a rival or hostile country nearby. And I suppose staying small isn't a mainstream playstyle.

But it will just ruin your invested games which you've put love and patience on for 100 years. Going into a war you're not prepared o fight in the wrong time will be devastating.

My plead is simple: Make this problem visible to the Devs and have it fixed. I want to play this game but this very problem prevents me from doing it.

 

[Typee]

I only noticed it very recently. At first I assumed they went to war because of some scripted event or something. The fact that I can't seem to find the stated casus belli anywhere doesn't help.

 

[Iosue Yu]

I only noticed it very recently. At first I assumed they went to war because of some scripted event or something. The fact that I can't seem to find the stated casus belli anywhere doesn't help.

This problem is so hidden many don't even notice. It's only that it has been left unfixed long enough, that still less than half of all players might have encountered it at least once.

 

[atomanti]

I think I saw about a dozen such threads on this myself. Submitted a number of bug reports too. Very annoying indeed.

 

[Industrious81]

I have missed the notification in the past and have ended up in situations where I could not reach the enemy empire.

 

[Morfane]

To add something for those who believe the bug is simply the fault of the player not noticing the war invite popups: I normally play on very slow. I miss nothing, and this has happened to me multiple times, though I will note that it happens a bunch with my authoritarian syncretic slavers, and never with my rogue servitors.

 

[Iosue Yu]

To add something for those who believe the bug is simply the fault of the player not noticing the war invite popups: I normally play on very slow. I miss nothing, and this has happened to me multiple times, though I will note that it happens a bunch with my authoritarian syncretic slavers, and never with my rogue servitors.

I believe this is the case. There is simply no pop up as I'm also a careful player (although playing in Fast).

It has happened to be like tenice or twelvice. Not a single time I've ever suspected myself for not noticing (because you should have some ticking suspicion if it's that you've missed a pop up).

I have only included the possibility of player missing the pop up due to how some folks have been so strongly insistence of my fault that I've missed it. Since the discourse goes that even if you have missed it, not clicking Accept should give you a Reject. So including this possibility doesn't subtract from my reasonings. It's just that. I'm on the side of the popup not appearing at all.

 

[Arrnea]

There's no money in fixing bugs, why would Paradox care when they can just keep piling on new bug-ridden DLCs?

 

[atomanti]

Nope there is not always a notice.

 

[MrParadux]

I think the notice doesn't pop up or is getting immediately removed, if your vote won't change the result of the request. If tha majority of the federation has already agreed and you don't have the votes or diplomatic power to change it, you can't change the result. And because the ai reacts to requests for war instantly, you get no chance to react.

At least better feedback for the player is required to let them know what is going on and why.

 

[Cry_Havok]

I thought this was a "fix" to stop players from pocket-vetoing wars and thus avoid a loss of federation cohesion from a failed vote?

 

[Iosue Yu]

I think the notice doesn't pop up or is getting immediately removed, if your vote won't change the result of the request. If tha majority of the federation has already agreed and you don't have the votes or diplomatic power to change it, you can't change the result. And because the ai reacts to requests for war instantly, you get no chance to react.

At least better feedback for the player is required to let them know what is going on and why.

The thread started out specifically stating that this is not from the effects of changed Federation Laws. I have even put it out very clearly listing out in a numbered manner. How could this even be missed?

 

[atomanti]

I think the notice doesn't pop up or is getting immediately removed, if your vote won't change the result of the request. If tha majority of the federation has already agreed and you don't have the votes or diplomatic power to change it, you can't change the result. And because the ai reacts to requests for war instantly, you get no chance to react.

At least better feedback for the player is required to let them know what is going on and why.

No, this is explicitly not the case. I almost always tried to run 2-country trade federations with unanimous vote to declare war. I blink, and then I am in war - no popup, no notice, no nothing. Just the war thing appears in the corner. After this happened a few times, totally fucking up my game, I either don't make federations at all (totally defeating the purpose in the first place) or I create 1-system vassals / uplift to create a federation with a significantly weaker AI who won't start wars. This again fucks up some of my builds where I try to go for early trade federation to pump unity & CGs.

 

[Me_]

I had this happen to me, it is rather annoying. No pop-up at all. I registered a small notification up top that I was invited to join a war. Dismissing the notification, which the tooltip suggested would result in rejecting the request, resulted in being auto-dragged into a war a few months later.

 

[Scorpene]

Happened to me two times in a single game.
I thought it was WAI and carved my way to success. However, this indeed is annoying and might need a rework.

I can imagine it could have ruined my game and i would clearly have been mad.

 

[MarQan]

I think notifications altogether could really use some love, that aspect of the game is in a pretty bad state. What you're saying of course is definitely one of the more severe problems, I'd consider it a bug. Even if some of you think that players just don't notice the notification, then there's a problem with the notification. Players should not be allowed to miss war-related notifications in such a game.
By notification problems I mean, for example, the fact that you get a separate icon and audio notification for every single upgraded defense platform, meanwhile all the space battles are crammed into 1 icon, and the audio notif sometimes just doesn't play.
Combat reports are often completely wrong, or just not even created/shown at all.

I could go on, but I don't wanna hijack your discussion. I just think it's part of a bigger problem: notifications never got much, if any, attention. And now it got so bad that you suffer auditory and visual abuse for upgrading defense platforms, but certain war and combat related notifs just don't reach you.
I hope they'll improve this feature, and not just put a bandaid on it.

(I remember Distant Worlds had a really good notification system, where you had a lot of options)

 

[Iosue Yu]

I think notifications altogether could really use some love, that aspect of the game is in a pretty bad state. What you're saying of course is definitely one of the more severe problems, I'd consider it a bug. Even if some of you think that players just don't notice the notification, then there's a problem with the notification. Players should not be allowed to miss war-related notifications in such a game.
By notification problems I mean, for example, the fact that you get a separate icon and audio notification for every single upgraded defense platform, meanwhile all the space battles are crammed into 1 icon, and the audio notif sometimes just doesn't play.
Combat reports are often completely wrong, or just not even created/shown at all.

I could go on, but I don't wanna hijack your discussion. I just think it's part of a bigger problem: notifications never got much, if any, attention. And now it got so bad that you suffer auditory and visual abuse for upgrading defense platforms, but certain war and combat related notifs just don't reach you.
I hope they'll improve this feature, and not just put a bandaid on it.

(I remember Distant Worlds had a really good notification system, where you had a lot of options)

In a previous version, missing a notification results in rejecting. In this version, missing one, if there is one, results in accepting.

But I still think it isn't a case of missing a notification at all. There simply isn't a pop-up at all.

 

[Spidee]

In my recent game, I got like 6 requests for research agreement, a federation association offer, become a vassal offer, announcement of someone going to war, someone being vassalized. I missed these a few times and they are annoying as hell, because you are not the primary war participant , so you cannot peace out on status quo.

Also I noticed it only after a month or 3. Should we not have something like in EUIV, where there is one big scream "YOU ARE AT WAR"?

 

[atomanti]

Well notifications as a whole would require a revamp, but that is a much longer and more involved discussion. For this game-breaking bug of instant war, we need 2 things:
(1) Your default answer to war invitation should be NO instead of yes.
(2) You should get a very visible (in single player: game-pausing) popup window if you are invited into war, so you cannot miss it in case you want to join. War is important enough to get a proper popup.

These should be easy enough to implement and would fix the problem.

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

In a previous version, missing a notification results in rejecting. In this version, missing one, if there is one, results in accepting.

But I still think it isn't a case of missing a notification at all. There simply isn't a pop-up at all.

From my understanding, failure to vote in a war dec invitation (or any vote, for that matter) does not result in accepting it results in abstaining. Which in some cases allows the vote to pass. If you find a way to reliably recreate a missing notification for a war invitation, please post about it in the bug report forums.