WE in v 1.06b, ahistorical?

[unmerged(12740)]

i've never been sure about the war exhaustion concept as it applies to the time period covered in euii or, even, the gov'ts that existed back then, but 1.06b makes this a big problem for the player.

i think, however, that it is a concept that applies today that's being misapplied to the time frame covered.

for example:

b/tw 1400 & 1559

the ottoman empire was engaged in 114 years of warfare -- 72% of the time period
the hre also

b/tw 1559 & 1648

spain was engaged in 83 years of war -- 74%
oe was engaged in 79 years of war -- 70%

b/tw 1648 & 1789

russia, austria & the oe all engaged in 77 years of war -- 55%

the principal wars of the ottoman empire:

1399 - 1401 : byzantium
1400 - 1402 : the mongols
1413 - 1421 : wallachia, bosnia, hungary, venice, serbia (from 1419)
1422 : byzantium
1429 - 1440 : serbia, greece, venice, hungary
1442 - 1448 : the papacy, hungary, poland, lithuania
1443 - 1461 : albania
1452 - 1453 : byzantium
1455 - 1464 : serbia, hungary, bosnia, wallachia, athens
1461 : trebizon
1463 - 1470 : persia
1470 : karaman
1475 - 1476 : moldavia, crimea
1478 - 1479 : albania, ionian islands
1480 : naples (otranto)
1481 - 1483 : hungary
1485 - 1489 : moldovia, the tartars, poland
1485 - 1490 : egypt (cilicia)
1492 - 1495 : bohemia, hungary
1497 - 1499 : poland, moldavia, the tartars
1499 - 1503 : the papacy, hungary, venice
1509 : egypt, the knights of malta
1514 - 1516 : persia
1516 - 1517 : syria, egypt
1521 - 1523 : hungary, venice, rhodes
1525 : yemen
1528 - 1529 : persia
1537 - 1540 : algiers, venice, hre
1538 : moldovia
1538 : aden
1541 - 1547 : hre, transylvania
1548 - 1554 : persia
1551 - 1562 : hre
1569 : russia (astrakhan)
1570 - 1578 : the papacy, venice (till 1573), spain
1576 : the hejaz
1578 - 1590 : persia
1593 - 1606 : the papacy, hre, the tartars
1603 - 1612 : persia
1615 - 1618 : persia
1616 - 1617 : poland
1620 - 1621 : poland, hre, transylvania, the tartars
1623 - 1631 : persia
1625 - 1627 : poland, hungary, the tartars
1631 - 1634 : poland, hungary, the tartars
1635 : yemen
1644 - 1669 : venice
1658 - 1661 : poland, transylvania, the tartars
1663 - 1664 : austria
1672 - 1676 : poland, the tartars, the cossacks
1677 - 1681 : russia, the cossacks
1682 - 1699 : austria, german states, poland, venice, russia (from 1685)
1710 - 1713 : russia
1714 - 1718 : venice, austria (from 1716)
1722 - 1725 : persia
1725 - 1726 : afghanistan
1729 - 1730 : afghanistan
1729 - 1736 : persia
1734 - 1739 : russia, austria (from 1737)
1768 - 1774 : russia
1787 - 1792 : russia, austria

from the history of government from the earliest times by s.e. finer, vol. iii, oxford university press, 1997, pp. 1165 - 1167. the list was derived by finer from laurd, war in international society pp. 421-34.

notice how many wars are prosecuted against a number of enemies & how long some of them last L 1682 - 1699 (17 years), 1664 - 1669 (25 years), 1578 - 1590 (12 years). it would be completely impossible for any player to prosecute wars as countries did back in those times. i think there is a fundamental misapprehension taking place here. nowadays, war exh. makes sense to us b/c representative gov'ts have a difficult time w/ extended wars. back then, gov'ts were in many ways little more than pillaging/extortion machines. (what was the hundred years war about for most of those knights anyway?)

in fact, at least in the example of the ottomans, revolts often took place b/c the sultan wasn't prosecuting war often enough. the military industrial machine today is formiddable in the united states, but nothing compared to what it was like in the time period covered. and, after all, right by contest of arms was widely recognized as divine right back then, the right of contest of arms wasn't even outlawed in england until 1818.

using the example of the ottoman empire, s.e. finer argues that one of the main reason behind their decline is their inability to continue to expand their realms by arms:

"troops extract the taxes or the forage or the carts, and this contribution keeps them in being. more troops -- more extraction -- more troops. now the rationale of imperial predation is precisely to coerce-and-extract from foreigners, not one's own subjects. but once this predation is checked abroad it has to be carried out at home. in other words, in order to maintain the army it became necessary to raise the hitherto light taxes on the common people, and when they resisted, to browbeat and extract even more to cover the cost of such police operations. this is precisely what was to happen within decades of suleiman's death."

-- finer, the history of government from the earliest times p. 1204

i know that the game has to make compromises w/ history in order to be playable & i understand that a lot of folks on this forum think that the increased w.e. balances out the game quite a lot, but part of the game is its historical nature & i believe that w.e. is based on a misapprehension & that it should be possible to create balancing conditions w/o it.

what do you think?

 

[jpd]

Well, I don't know about the Ottomans, but the Spanish war you mention was against us Dutch.

One thing is for sure regarding that war (and I assume the same for the Ottoman wars), they didn't fight round the clock. Battles were only fought in the summertime, and there was a twelf year truce inside that war as well.

Neighter fact is modelled in EU2. (unless you count the first 5 years after a peace treaty a truce, as the game does).

As a substitute, War Exhaustion forces a player to sue for peace after a prolonged period of time of continues warfare, more or less replacing the yearly pauses in fighting with, rougly, 5 year cycles.

Jan Peter

 

[Mowers]

Good work

Your point rings true.
WE was a tool to reflect the problems of prolonged war.

The problem is that its a crude tool. It does however achieve the effect that it is looking for but there are issues with it.

Changing the WE model could create more problems than it gets rid of. The effect could be problamatic.

I agree that the WE number ought to be based on more than just number of years at war and Johan is decidedly working in that direction.

The problem is that can we influence the model we already have without throwing everything else?

 

[Stingray]

There was an idea about making WE dependant upon how many troops were raised, and how much wartaxes were taken out. This as a way to show that people that didn't get touched by the war didn't oppose it, if no more taxes then usual are taken out, and no men are forced into the army, then what's there to be angry about. This would stop WE rising from ridiculous wars with nations far, far away.


There should probably be another factor in this, how much a province have been looted, sure the emperor don't raise any more taxes, but the enemies are burning down our homes because he won't make peace.

 

[unmerged(12740)]

would it be hard in the current model to punish players w/ revolts if they are losing battles/wars? that seems to have been the cause of most of the ottoman revolts anyways. (those that weren't b/c they weren't fighting enough.)

 

[Lucius Sulla]

I think that the only thing remaining would be the fact that you get the same WE from battling french in your dorstep in the Rousillion and Gerona than making war with the Aztecs and the Incas...

WE for wars in the same continent than your capital should receive the normal RR. WE for wars in different continents should give you a lot less RR, or only affect fully your cities in that continent.

Or course, calculating WE based on militar loses&expenses should be a lot better... but I guess that a lot more complicated.

 

[jpd]

Originally posted by Lucius Sulla
WE for wars in the same continent than your capital should receive the normal RR. WE for wars in different continents should give you a lot less RR, or only affect fully your cities in that continent.

Well, that is open for debate. Rulers from that time period had the habit of extracting more cash from their overseas colonies whenever they had to fight a war on the European doorstep. This would, naturally, piss off the local colonists.

In fact, the birth of the USA was initiated by rejecting extra taxation by the English king. The same happened with the Dutch revolt against Spain. That too started off by objecting increased taxation.

I, for one, have no real problems with WE causing the same RR across the board.

Jan Peter

 

[Derek Pullem]

I understand why Lucius Sulla is complaining about obscure wars with the Aztecs triggering revolts in Spain. However if the Aztec wars were so badly mismanaged to last 5+years and required 10,000's of troops and war taxes then it is quite possible to imagine a revolt in Europe. Also, at the end of the period, colonies were taking advantage of host country war exhaustion (Portugese Brazil, Spanish South America, French Haiti?) to revolt. Which shows thta events in Europe could trigger revolts in other continents. I think the WE system might be tweaked but the feel of it is not so bad. Wars > 5 years did not tend to occur frequently, over 10 years even less frequently (25% and 10% of tpc's original OE war list)

The only issue I have is that revolter nations and defections tend to have slightly too high a chance of appearing. But I can live with that as a player. In fact the OE is not my biggest concern here. One gamekilling event is a defection of Andalucia to Portugal which happens too frequently for my liking. No Andalucia means no shipyard and no CoT = dead Spain. Could we ban defections between allied nations? This might solve many of the possible occurrences.

 

[Lucius Sulla]

Well that is true, wars in Europe (for a European country) should produce RR in Europe AND the colonies. But I frankly don't see it the other way round.

Mmmm.

Now that I think it better I think that they factor would be again the pagan factor.

For example, a european country should receive WE for fighting against a muslim country, or a christian country in other continent. I have no doubt that England fighting against the USA should receive WE in the same England. But... certainly England should not receive WE for fighting against the Lenape! Or for fighting even China, to be sincere, unless China has reached somehow Europe...

Definitively wars against pagans should not produce RR, or produce it incredibly slower, compared with other wars. I would include the eastern religions here, too. The british colonization of India comes to mind. Does this make sense?

 

[Derek Pullem]

You can almost generalise this to say that war exhuastion only occurs if the opponents are one of the religions you have a slider for. So England would not get war exhaustion against pagans, hindu, confucian, buddhists etc.

Logic for this is that if you think of them as barbarians then whats the problem continuing to fight them. Of course you would have to check the leader of the alliance as representative of all the alliance.

Alternatively allow a bonus on WE revolt risk equal to your religous slider setting against alliance leader or max negative bonus if no slider present. Would allow OE to fight long wars versus Christians if they choose the right religous sliders but still risking a revolt of their christian provinces

 

[Mowers]

If there should be a reform of WE then it ought to account for casulties, military expenditure, burning towns and total length at war. Then account for slider factors.

The problem is that its a very big change and could lead to unaccounted for problems.

Its a crude tool, sure, but its an effective one.

 

[Zander]

I think that the only thing remaining would be the fact that you get the same WE from battling french in your dorstep in the Rousillion and Gerona than making war with the Aztecs and the Incas...

I don't agree that there's a need to make WE dependent upon location. While a war at home naturally means more hardship for your people, it may actually make them more willing to fight.

Which is more likely to make your people angry? Raising tens of thousands of troops and taxes to conquer some land they'll never see? Or raising those troops and taxes to defend their homes?


If they can find a good way to base WE on your expenditures, taxes and/or losses, I think they can safely ignore location.

 

[Filou]

War Exaustion: an other example of the gameplay vs realism.

But if Johan is thinking of tweaking with the WE...
One thing that would work well (I think) is that you get 1WE point each time you raise war taxes, and you don't lose it untill peace is done instead of the +1RR for the duration of the tax effect. But then WE due to lenghts of wars should be reduced.

 

[Lucius Sulla]

Originally posted by Zander
I don't agree that there's a need to make WE dependent upon location. While a war at home naturally means more hardship for your people, it may actually make them more willing to fight.

Which is more likely to make your people angry? Raising tens of thousands of troops and taxes to conquer some land they'll never see? Or raising those troops and taxes to defend their homes?


If they can find a good way to base WE on your expenditures, taxes and/or losses, I think they can safely ignore location.

Well, I still don't see that the English people would get angry for their government keeping up a war against the Huron in the same way they would get angry for their government getting mantaining a war into continental Europe.

But... I agree that this is usually because the English government would not dedicate the same resources to such different wars. If they would send the same people against this two different powers (not usually the case), I can see your point.

But there, we still have AI England and Spain getting WE for eternal wars against pagans. Perhaps this step could be a first approach, until getting a more elaborated system...

 

[unmerged(6303)]

I get the impression that what war exhaustion models is that wars were expensive and drawn-out ones severely strained your economy. WE is a horribly crude way of modelling this, but it has the virtue that it applies equally to the player and the AI. Lack of money from war was a very common problem, and this way there is no way that the player can escape from it.

 

[unmerged(12740)]

Originally posted by Derek Pullem
I think the WE system might be tweaked but the feel of it is not so bad. Wars > 5 years did not tend to occur frequently, over 10 years even less frequently (25% and 10% of tpc's original OE war list)

actually, i think that looking at the list will show different:

there were many short wars, but the point is that there were long uninterrupted periods of war, i.e.

1413 - 1422 oe constantly at war, 9/10 yrs, depending on how you figure

1442 - 1470 oe constantly at war, 28 yrs

1480 - 1490 oe constantly at war, 10 yrs

1492 - 1503 oe constantly at war, 11 yrs

1537 - 1562 oe constantly at war, 21 yrs

1593 - 1618 oe constantly at war, 25 yrs

1623 - 1635 oe constantly at war, 12 yrs

1644 - 1699 oe constantly at war, 25 yrs

1710 - 1718 oe constantly at war, 8 yrs

1729 - 1739 oe constantly at war, 10 yrs

&, to reiterate, this was not so unusual, spain was at war 83 years out of 89 in the period between 1559 & 1648. i don't care how you try & break that up, you're going to get very long periods of uninterrupted war & the fact is that spain did not experience much homeland unrest at the time iirc.

 

[Thanak]

Originally posted by Filou
One thing that would work well (I think) is that you get 1WE point each time you raise war taxes, and you don't lose it untill peace is done instead of the +1RR for the duration of the tax effect. But then WE due to lenghts of wars should be reduced.

That, I like very much

 

[Lucius Sulla]

Originally posted by tpc
&, to reiterate, this was not so unusual, spain was at war 83 years out of 89 in the period between 1559 & 1648. i don't care how you try & break that up, you're going to get very long periods of uninterrupted war & the fact is that spain did not experience much homeland unrest at the time iirc.

Well, actually, at 1640 we did have some pretty serious inner problems (iberian, italian, portuguese revolts) that could be considered "homeland unrest" and provoked by war exhaustion. Still, in this system, you would have those far earlier than the moment they happened.

 

[unmerged(12740)]

Originally posted by Lucius Sulla
Well, actually, at 1640 we did have some pretty serious inner problems (iberian, italian, portuguese revolts) that could be considered "homeland unrest" and provoked by war exhaustion. Still, in this system, you would have those far earlier than the moment they happened.

i stand corrected. still, as you point out, 1640 is near the end of that 89 year-long period of nearly uninterrupted war.

Originally posted by Pishtaco
I get the impression that what war exhaustion models is that wars were expensive and drawn-out ones severely strained your economy. WE is a horribly crude way of modelling this, but it has the virtue that it applies equally to the player and the AI. Lack of money from war was a very common problem, and this way there is no way that the player can escape from it.

i respectfully disagree. fundamentally, until the 19th century & arguably until the 20th, war was significantly an entrepreneurial activity. in the hundred years war, the reasons all those knights came out to fight was because of the promise of riches. even as late as revolutionary france, this was the case. for example, on 2 april 1796, napoleon addressed the army of italy w/ the words, "soldiers! you are hungry & naked. the government owes us much but can give us nothing .... i will lead you into the most fertile plains on earth. rich provinces, wealthy towns, all will be yours for the taking. there you will find honor, and glory and riches." (all emphasis is mine.) he in fact had raised the army w/ almost no help from the central government, but w/ loans from genoese financiers. he was so successful that he saved the french gov't from bankruptcy. outside of the general raping & pillaging of milan, the dukes of parma & modena made "war contributions" of 10 million livres. the french sacked & occupied numerous cities. milan, turin, verona, pavia, bologna, mantua, genoa & rome were all forced to pay huge indeminities. austria ceded belgium, holland, the west bank of the rhine, and the ionian islands as well as recognized napolean's creation of the cisalpine republic (milan, bologna, modena.) thousands of precious ornaments and paintings were transfered to france. (there's an exhibit at the met right now which traces, in part, how the art transfers of the napoleonic years resulted in a profound influence on the french impressionists by the spanish masters.) all the senior officers were now wildly rich men. the central gov't's coffers were all of a sudden full.

this is despite the fact that the french had outlawed slavery. traditionally, slavery was one of the biggest parts of the war indeminities. which is why things like the labor theory of value made sense to folks like, of all people, adam smith.

i guess here's a good place to make another suggestion re: looting. the game doesn't make it nearly as beneficial as it was. you shouldn't take the month's taxes from a province when you loot it: you take a year's taxes & maybe much much more. for peoples that will enslave the population, like the ottomans, the population of the looted province should siginificantly decrease. &, even w/o slaving, the province should have a chance of being hit w/ a nasty epidemic. &, moreover, the tax value should drastically decrease for a few years, although i believe tax values should be much more dynamic than they are in the game.

war exhaustion comes in when the war doesn't work & you lose money. then you have to raise taxes & that causes unrest b/c of the fundamentally coercive way in which they were (& still are, though much less so, btw) raised. also, losses were symptoms that the leader had lost the favor of the gods. the advent of conscription also raised the price of raising an army & increased the chances of unrest due to the war b/c the masses were losing their kin, not just the interested parties. conscription also paralleled the rise of the standing army -- & standing armies were very expensive. in the ottoman empire had a standing army of about 36,000 under suleymain the magnificent/the lawgiver. of these 30,000 were janissaries & 6,000 sipah (or cavalry.) the bulk of the army was raised in the traditional feudal system where, depending on the size of your estate & the income you derived from it, you were responsible for arming & provisioning yourself & however many men required to any war that the sultan asked you to. these would produce cavalry from b/tw 64,000 to 194,000 men for which the central gov't did not pay. added to these would be various "mom & pop" military entrepreneurs from the countryside who also did not need to be paid for. (this does not mean that war wasn't expensive, it's just that it was employed so often b/c if you won it usually more than paid for itself.)

moreover, why would "phony" wars cause any war exhaustion?

Originally posted by jpd
One thing is for sure regarding that war (and I assume the same for the Ottoman wars), they didn't fight round the clock. Battles were only fought in the summertime, and there was a twelf year truce inside that war as well.

ok, fair enough. but when you have bb wars you don't wait 5 years intervals, i, and maybe this is b/c i'm not a sophisticated player of the game, usually get them in year and a half intervals.

another suggestion: the seasonal nature of wars prior to standing citizen armies could be modelled in a way similar to naval attrition when you've been out at sea for too long. at around fall, your troops would automatically return to their home "ports" & all except those designated as "standing" would simply disappear as they return to handle their estates.

 

[Lucius Sulla]

I agree in most of your points but one...

Originally posted by tpc
how the art transfers of the napoleonic years resulted in a profound influence on the french impressionists by the spanish masters

Ok, a bit off topic, but still quite curious the eufimism for theft