Wurttemburg will not accept the peace deal

[TheLand]

So Prussia (AI) and Russia (me) are at war after a failed Russian attempt to stop Prussia annexing Hanover and Hamburg.

Prussia has accomplished its war goals in Western Germany and occupies much of Poland and Lithuania. But is now starting to lose ground now Russia's reserves have showed up.

Prussia at this point is willing to accept a white peace - as frankly they've made their point, have little to gain, are slowly bankrupting themselves, and are losing all their convoys to the Russian navy.

However, for some reason Wurttemburg has a War Goal of forcing Russia to pay reparations. To Wurttemburg. Which is a bit of a WTF, but ok.

However Russia and Prussia cannot accept a White Peace between them as Wurttemburg will not accept it, and because they have a War Goal they get to negotiate, despite the randomness of the War Goal.

Now Wurttemburg have 1/7 of the battalions of Prussia but don't seem to have committed any of them, as they haven't suffered any losses at all. They do have a massive bank balance which results in plenty of enthusiasm for the war! But... should they really be able to wag the dog like this?

 

[TheLand]

oh god Wuttemburg pulled the same stunt again!

Maybe a year later - so pretty much immediately. Prussia starts another diplo play to annex some West German states.

I oppose it. This time so does Austria.

However the resolution of the war makes no sense. The West German targets capitulate (fine). Then it's Austria and Russia vs Prussia and various German minors including - you guessed it - Wurttemberg which has a War Reparations war goal on Austria.

When the countries Prussia was trying to conquer lose, Austria is stuck with only one war goal, which is to liberate Danzig. Not liberate any of the recently-conquered nations that Austria entered the war to protect *and whose territory is still occupied by Austrian troops*. But Danzig, so we get war exhaustion penalties for Prussia still holding Danzig.

I make a peace deal which involves Prussia agreeing to liberate Danzig. This has positive acceptance from everyone including Prussia and Wurttemburg but still doesn't seem to have any impact on anything - no message that it's rejected that I can see, just nothing happens.

With Wurttemburg's war exhaustion approaching -100, Austria capitulates and makes a separate peace agreeing to pay Wurttemburg reparations...

Then I "capitulate" as there are no war goals against me.

 

[minven]

I have a similar problem, I just cant end my war even with a white peace because my enemy thinks they are winning with 0 occupation, just a front of two sides defending. They broke the game even more with this newest update somehow

 

[TheLand]

AND AGAIN

A third immediate German war. Once again, Wurttemberg demands reparations from a major power! (Russia, this tiem)

I don't even know how it's possible for them to add wargoals; I don't seem to have the chance..

 

[TheLand]

This time Wurttemberg are holding out against Austrian demands to liberate Wurttemberg...

 

[Cyhort]

You should make a bug report. This sounds like a huge problem.

 

[Marmelado]

In my game as Switzerland Prussia failed to unite Germany because it could not defeat Wurtemburg. It was Prussia+Hohenzollern vs Russia+Wurtemburg. There was a big fight between Prussia and Russia with Prussia winning, and Russia withdrawing from the war. In the meantime Wurtemburg occupied Hohenzollern. It was supposed to be a quick victory for Prussia, but it wasn't. The war stalled for 15-20 years. Maybe it was because Prussia had no direct border with Wurtemburg.

 

[TheLand]

So here are some more developed thoughts. Not sure any of this is a bug really, it's all the implementation of the systems in the game, not the systems not working.

First up, I really like Diplomatic Plays! It strikes me as great that I can be in the position of Russia deciding whether or not to risk a war by interfering with Prussian ambitions in Germany - and that this and so many similar things work through an organic system not a bunch of decisions and events.

However, this situation highlights a number of problems with how the Diplomatic Plays and subsequent wars are working:

• It seems odd that a nation goes to war over a Diplomatic Play in a region, win, and then immediately start another Diplomatic Play in the same region with the same consequences. I don't know whether this is related to the options (a cooldown timer on Diplo Plays based on your Infamy level??) or to the consequences not being enough, or the AI poorly handling consequences.
• The way wargoals are assigned needs some work. Basically, the war goals should reflect the goals of the war? It makes perfect sense to me that if Russia should stick its oar into a Diplo Play by Prussia, that Prussia should end up with a war goal on Russia - and paying reparations makes perfect sense. However! The powers that are getting involved should also gain war goals. If one Great Power is getting involved in a war to stop another Great Power doing something, then the power that intervenes should have wargoals related to keeping the status quo. If Prussia annexes Hamburg and Hanover then Russia and Austria need a war goal to liberate Hamburg and Hanover! Or at least the option of choosing that vs Humiliate Prussia or something.
• For 2 out of these 3 wars, Prussia was Worried just before the start of the war - then started the war anyway. This does not match the description of "Worried" very well. Perhaps the fact that there were no significant war goals that would harm Prussia had an impact on this?
• It should be very difficult for a marginally-involved minor power to gain a war goal on a major power. If a minor power is initiating a war or being attacked, they obviously get war goals! If their territory is being fought over, they should get war goals! If a minor nation is basically just going along with their powerful neighbour who they are allied to, they should not get independent war goals.
• Similarly, the influence of different belligerents on peace negotiations should be weighted by their overall standing, their contribution to the war, and the extent to which their interests are affected. If Saxony is facing annexation and has taken massive casualties, then Saxony should have a lot of say about the terms of the peace - particularly if there's a debate about whether Saxony gets annexed or not! However, Wurttemberg shouldn't be able to veto a peace between Great Powers...
• The war-exhaustion scoring seems to me that it could use some attention as well.
  • War exhaustion from casualties should probably be weighted (more?) by population, demographics, and/or politics? Russia might have suffered 400,000 casualties, but it's 1848 and no-one cares about the lives of Russian serfs.
  • Is it really right that being in possession of the war goal territories affects exhaustion but not peace willingness? I'd have expected it to be the other way around

 

[schuyguy]

I've noticed the same exact problem. It's so weird when a tiny minor country can hold up the peace deal between major powers because they technically have some minor wargoal. Also, it'd be great if when you intervene to help an ally and that ally capitulates and gets annexed, you automatically gain a war goal to liberate them. Otherwise, what's the point? You might as well just capitulate at that point even if you're winning, since you can't gain anything.