Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[TheMadEgoCom]

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we spill the secrets of our upcoming game, with the codename Project Caesar.

Last week we talked about wars and wargoals, and today we are going to talk about how wars will end, as we discuss the peace system. If you have played other GSG games for Paradox, some of this may not be news to you though.


Peace Offers
To end a war you need to negotiate a peace with either the leader on the other side, or if you are the leader on your side, you can negotiate a separate peace with a single independent country on the other side.

One thing that is important to notice, is that if you declare war for a war goal to conquer a certain province, then you can not take any other land, UNLESS you take the wargoal.

To be able to take land, you also need to have control over the province capital.

A Peace Offer, will consist of a set of treaties that can have a total value of up to 100 Peace Cost. Of course the other side would have to agree, and they are very likely not to accept anything where the peace cost is higher than the current warscore.

View attachment 1196504
Peace in our time?

Peace Treaties
A peace treaty can be the transfer of a location, province or area. It can also be to force another country to stop sending privateers, or transferring gold to you, or dismantling fortification in a location, humiliating them or any other of the dozens upon dozens of possible peace treaties of Project Caesar.

The cost of each treaty depends on many factors, whether it’s part of the wargoal or not, the population, the type of the treaty and so on.

View attachment 1196506
Numbers are still being tweaked..


Aggressive Expansion
Aggressive Expansion is one of the drawbacks of strengthening your own country ahead of others. Taking territory is one of the easiest ways to increase it. While taking land impacts your own country a fair bit, it also impacts the opinions of other countries near the source of the aggressive expansion a fair bit. If you get your AE high enough, countries with a low enough opinion of you may join a coalition against you. A Coalition is an international organization oriented around severely reducing the power of a single country.

View attachment 1196508
We can probably live with this AE though?


War Enthusiasm
When it comes to how willing a nation is to fight, much comes down to their War Enthusiasm. If this is high then the AI is unlikely to accept a peace that is not favorable to them. This is determined by the state of the country, with war exhaustion, control of capital and military strength are big factors. For the leader of a side in the war the overall military balance is a huge factor as well.


View attachment 1196509
Bohemia really wants to continue this war…


War Participation
Most of the time you bring allies to help you out in a war, but they expect to be rewarded for the part they pull. The War Participation is how much a country has contributed to the progress of the war. This is primarily done through battles, blockades and sieges.

You may sometimes have to convince your allies to join an offensive war that you are starting, and thus you can promise them part of the spoils of the war. If the part that they gain from signing a peace is less than their participation they will get upset.



Stay tuned, as next week, we’ll talk about the conflicts in the

 

[viola]

The low control modifier in peace deals seems interesting, it seems that conquering a lot of low control land will be very easy, although it will come at the cost of gaining low control land that's easier to lose. Either that, or you'll be forced to make vassals.

 

[gustavjaune]

A lot of things have changed from EU4, I’m ok with keeping some parts of EU4 similar. Bilateral peace deals would have been cool, but this is fine and is a good system. I enjoy it.

 

[za3tarani]

Its one of those "this sounds like a damn good idea", which ends up with a lot of development time required, and ends up with a worse experience for the user, as the balance is almost impossible.

is it possible to enable bilateral peace between players for mp?

 

[TheMadEgoCom]

Just for clarification because I live EU4 but this is my biggest issue with that game, in eu4 100% you often can't conquer an entire nation even if you fully occupy it. This really annoys me partly because its not historical since the Ottomans took all of the Mamaluks practically in 1 war and there are many more examples but also just bluntly put if I can occupy every area in a nation then I should be allowed to annex the whole thing and have the consequences be administrative and backlash from aggressive expansion. Is there going to be a factor which let's you take as much territory as you want if you fully occupy all the territory? Thanks.

 

[tsr-aph]

"One thing that is important to notice, is that if you declare war for a war goal to conquer a certain province, then you can not take any other land, UNLESS you take the wargoal."

Does taking land include releasing nations? So can I release the nation which has cores in my war goal with the aim of vassalising them instead of conquering it directly and getting the AE?

 

[Fehervari]

it depends on the cost of the peace.

What is the shortest possible truce?

 

[Spiritoftwinings]

i hope there are other factors that can enable coalition against a large threatening neighbour.

ottoman will be threatening to balkan states even if it hasnt expanded recently. its a large muslim country with ambitions to expand.

It could be something like if you have a good spy network in a neighboring country that's bigger militarily than you, and you realize that said country has claims (or whatever the equivalent in PC is) on several countries, those potentially affected countries (including you) could form some kind of military alliance, either defensive or offensive, active only when treating with the threatening country.

 

[SunshineSchmidt#2]

So why is there no bilateral peaces?

For games with peace-negotiations, about 20%+ of all AI development tend to goes to understanding situation of war and negotiate peace. Its a super complicated thing to work on, to make sure that

1) the AI is able to play the game and keep somewhat of a progress.
2) not frustrate the player and make him quit.

Making it support "treaties" going multiple ways for a peace would not just double the complexity, but instead of N, its a NxN problem at least.

Could you at least make it possible for two players to agree to a bilateral peace deal in multiplayer?

 

[Praetorian44]

Quite a disappointing Tinto Talk. Everything is basically the same as EU4, and where it has been changed it's been changed for the worse (the requirement of having and taking the war goal to get other territory). I was not a fan of AE in EU4, as it was nothing more than a timer on when you can conquer more land. I much prefer the "threat" mechanic outlined by other commenters. And the 100 war score limit is incredibly arbitrary, unrealistic, and not fun. If I completely conquer a country, what is stopping me from taking all of their territory? PC already has other mechanics that represent the difficulty in managing all that new territory (control, integration, etc.), and the issues such conquests would cause diplomatically are represented by AE (though again, this should be changed to a threat system).

I would prefer to be able to take as much territory as my enemy would agree to (and they shouldn't have a say if they're completely occupied) and then having to deal with an extreme difficulty in managing the new territory. The best way to avoid massive conquests happening in peace deals regularly is to create a good warfare system, where sieges are difficult and costly, thus occupying an entire country is very challenging, and where wars in general are so expensive to maintain (both in gold and casualties) that most countries wouldn't be able to continue to fight as long as is necessary to conquer large countries.

On a positive note, I really like the list of peace options Johan showed in a reply, particularly how open to modding the system is. But honestly, I expected this to be in today's TT and was really surprised when it wasn't.

 

[Bohemian_warlord]

So we are stuck with "Siege me harder, daddy" AI, where you cant just take the provinces you are currently occupying and instead have to commit to an all out war before AI consents to being conquered?

 

[Inzano]

So why is there no bilateral peaces?

For games with peace-negotiations, about 20%+ of all AI development tend to goes to understanding situation of war and negotiate peace. Its a super complicated thing to work on, to make sure that

1) the AI is able to play the game and keep somewhat of a progress.
2) not frustrate the player and make him quit.

Making it support "treaties" going multiple ways for a peace would not just double the complexity, but instead of N, its a NxN problem at least.

Couldn't bilateral peace have happened when both opposing sides had too much war exhaustion and minor occupations after a while? For example, if both sides have already had -75% war exhaustion for a year, a bilateral peace agreement is ready to be concluded, and the occupations on both sides are less than 5%.

 

[Galilleo]

it would increase the evaluation complexity

You could just make it so that giving gold to the opponents would increase your warscore. Allowing you to take more land.

 

[Bawhoppen]

While disappointing, this is an adequate and usable system.

But my important question is: how easily can you enforce a peace with having the wargoal? I did not like that in EU4 a war over 1 border province would become a 10-year long total war.

 

[bokorthedust]

What is the shortest possible truce?

Since they haven't really altered the system, I'd wager it's the same 5 years base for a white peace, plus a 10 year proportionally sliding term for each percent of warscore taken, so the same 5-15 years range we got used to in EU4.

 

[ramius3443]

it would increase the evaluation complexity

Would it really add that much if the only “counter offer” option was money? Because that was a fairly common “bilateral” concession and since its just a single item of equal value to everyone in all instances (i.e. its value ain’t situational/subjective like provinces or treaties), surely it could just be subtracted from the war score value without any additional ai thought?

 

[NosgothKingdom]

1 question if you have time:
Can we have nested vassals in PC? I.e. if in the example of Teutons vassalizing Lithuania, would the Lithuanian vassals transfer to the Teutons or would Lithuania keep them?

 

[Flufferpope]

Its one of those "this sounds like a damn good idea", which ends up with a lot of development time required, and ends up with a worse experience for the user, as the balance is almost impossible.

1 - no, to allow for free selection its one-way only.
2 - higher rank becomes leader.
3 - 50 atm iirc

Could we not allow a Defender to pick a war goal when declared upon (within X days) and then at very least both the Attacker's and Defender's wargoals could be offered in the peace deal as a bargaining chip?

France declares war on England for Normandy. England declares a piece of land in Aquitaine their war goal. France wins the war, grabbing large parts of Normandy, but ceding a small part of Aquitaine to balance out the piece deal.

So you take the current EUIV system, but add the ability to give war-goaled land even to the losing side?

I'm no game designer, but couldn't a system *like* this add some value?

 

[Mindel]

A similar system yes.

Could you please change it so that favors aren't just something you can accumulate with a "curry" button, but instead something you only get by doing actual real things to help your ally, such as joining their wars, giving them provinces, soldiers, money, etc.?

Favors should not be some cheap resource that you can just farm like people grinding exp in MMORPGs.

 

[Octopuses69]

That's blatantly false. Treaties including bilateral concessions were the norm.

Whether if was financial concessions for land transfers, the application of utis possidetis, or some other type of concession, just go read any of the peace treaties signed in that era (war of Spanish succession, polish succession, etc)

Vic3 might not have the best system but it's better than nothing.

So you could just take Constantinople for example for 10 war score, offering a province of your own and some cash. Game would be so easy if 2 way peace deals were a thing. It's not about historical accuracy, it's about the gameplay.