Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[a_pk_HOI_user]

Will we get event about collapse in countries, like how the kingdom of Hungary did in around the 1650s, allowing total conquest of it by the Ottomans

 

[Brynjar]

So can it be exploited? I'd be stupid to say no, exploits always find a way. But as long as provinces can't be gotten for 0% warscore or less using my suggestion, and you can't pay compensation using the enemies own money, both of which are simple to fix btw, I'm not seeing how you'd exploit this.

Then you wouldn't even solve the problem your solution aimed to solve in the first place. You would just add more tedium to the peace deals.

 

[EU3NOOB]

I feel like this dev diary was a bit unnecessary, like it could've been summed up in 2-3 lines in another dev diary that actually had something substantially different from EUIV...

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

Then you wouldn't even solve the problem your solution aimed to solve in the first place. You would just add more tedium to the peace deals.

The problems I were trying to solve were as follows:

1. Not being able to take all the provinces you want because of the warscore cap - I solve this by reducing warscore cost, at the cost of money and potential gains.

2. Peace treaties being all take and no concede - I solve this by letting the player give money to the AI.

What tedium are you talking about? If it's the restrictions and caps those are very much already a thing now in EU4, and it seems they're already adding more to PC for the sake of immersion.

 

[TheDungen]

It has nothing to do with the travelling salesman problem. The difficult part would be to define how the AI should value basically everything compared to everything else in any peace deal.

If you really want to use the travelling salesman problem, it would be more like trying to find a way for the computer to millions variants of it without knowing the distances between the nodes, and with the distance between the nodes being various functious with several variables which changes at an unknown rate over time. The problem is deciding the unkown variables, not solving the problem once those have been decided.

the thing is it doesn't have to make perfect decisons only good enough decisions. Yes I know it's not specifically the travelling salesmans problem my point is you can solve it in similar probabablistic ways.

 

[Lindaegan]

I think the alliance issue is a lot less concerning because you as the human can also be "exploited" in the same way even if the AI won't do it nearly as often.

I mean, not really. I have never allied a minor OPM as a major nation (something that I am sure we have all done on the flip side), and so simply am never dragged into those kinds of wars. I've personally never felt pulled into a war to do all the leg-work for my ally (unless I want to, for RP or diplomatic reasons).

 

[aperson456]

Because it's exactly the same as EU4. Almost nothing's changed or improved.

Fair, but the new casus belli system is far worse yet nobody's talking about that

 

[gamdese]

I think removing the 100 point cap on peace negotiations would go a long way, it does not make sense we cannot annex a country, does not matter the size, if we ocupy the territory and the enemy has 0 troops

 

[Foke]

It was the best system we have made for a GSG.

This is undeniably true no matter how many dislikes it gets.

 

[Dukedase]

Yeah, its not really something thats feasible to do, as the AI logic for it would be very very complex, and all our previous negotiate systems like that have been exploitable even when blindfolded.

Surely you can make it so you can do them in MP at least. It really sucked in big MP games in EU4 not being able to give money for land or two sided deals. We always had to do wonky things after or mod the hell out of the game. Like, for example, I'm Britain and want a port in the Carribean. Spain is refusing. I declare war. Portugal helps Spain. After a long war, it is close but I'm winning. However, I can't fight for much longer. So I can offer some concessions in exchange for the land I want. Be it money, treaties, or land elsewhere.

Having forced one-sided peace deals is not only unfun, but it's ahistorical.

 

[Fierce Toast]

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 world that do not involve declarations of war, and negotiations of peace.

It'd be nice if there was a reduction in AE or Peace Cost conquering a continuous region. Like if you conquer everything on a single flat plane you'd get lower AE and Peace Cost then if you conquered half of that plain and then some stuff on the other side of a mountain range too. It could make for much nicer and more realistic borders, as players don't just annex provinces willy nilly, they'll attempt to conquer up to places that would make sense for a defensible border to be.

 

[Unbidregent]

I would personally prefer that aggressive expansion dies and work is done to replace it with a more interesting and realistic 'threat' system, and a good model for actual alliances, coalitions, and geopolitical interests first, rather than bilateral peace deals or anything like that. I think this this someone that definitely can and needs to be heavily improved upon compared to previous games, and that the returns of it well-done have the potential to be far more.

For example, small countries shouldn't really start getting coalitions until they've expanded enough to be a regional power and a threat to those around them enough to justify it. Big powers should be able to beat each other and take a good chunk of land based on what they've earned without getting a lot of threat. If Spain starts conquering most of Italy, then the remaining countries should be able to form a coalition, perhaps with the support of France, but Austria might ally with Spain against France or perhaps with the promise of Venetian lands. It should be nuanced and react to the geopolitical interests of the countries involved. Austria might want a strong Spanish or Italian ally while talking Venice, trading with each other in the region and allying against their mutual rival in France. Expanding in Italy shouldn't really make Austria or all the HRE minors hate Spain as uniformly as it does in EU4, whereas France should be absolutely livid because they really don't want a strong Italy controlled entirely by their rivals, which will bring them tons of trade and wealth and manpower which might help them win in the colonial rat race. Maybe France and the Italian countries could even support an independence war in Italy if things get really out of hand there.

Basically, coalitions and threat should be very dynamic and interact a lot more with diplomacy, rebellions, geopolitical interests, regional power, rivals and major powers, etc. If Spain becomes rivals with Austria or something, then the threat should suddenly become huge as Spain controls a whole bunch of Italy and has a border with them. It should absolutely skyrocket if Spain tries to expand into Austria itself, but Austria's rivals might become more amenable to Spain instead under the right circumstances.

And If you're really expanding out of control, like you've taken huge chunks of France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Balkans in a relatively short amount of time, then an absolutely massive coalition should obviously form as you're an existential threat to basically all of Europe. Napoleon basically. Maybe you could find an ally or two like Russia or Sweden though.


Just some ideas I'm throwing out there.

 

[Fulmen]

Blue is town, green is city.




View attachment 1196562

What constitutes a town under the game's definition, and shouldn't there be more towns in Finland, and Scandinavia and Eastern Europe in general?

The following settlements in Finland received city rights somewhat close to the game's start date in 1337:

Åbo: 1229
Borgå: 1347 or 1380s
Viborg: 1403
Rauma (Raumo?): 1442
Nådendal: 1443

Åbo is already a town, but one would think Borgå and especially Viborg would constitute towns in 1337 as well. Viborgs slotsslän had a special position as a kind of autonomous march within the Swedish realm and the city itself had been a trade hub already for centuries, going back to at least the 9th century AD.

There's also Korela, i.e. Kexholm/Käkisalmi, which Russian chronicles mention was the second-largest settlement (I believe the word "city", gorod, was used) in the lands controlled by Novgorod in the 15th century. I would surmise that would count as a town as well.

 

[Unbidregent]

Also, I have an idea: perhaps there could be a "full annexation" peace option which costs 100 warscore and can be used if you're close enough to being able to just fully annex them normally where 100% warscore would leave behind a tiny rump state in one or two provinces, which is I think one of the bigger complaints with the warscore system.

 

[Brynjar]

1. Not being able to take all the provinces you want because of the warscore cap - I solve this by reducing warscore cost, at the cost of money and potential gains

No, it would not. Not when you want an restriction on how low the warscore cost can go.

What tedium are you talking about?

Adding just the right amount of gold to be able to take the land you want, on top of adding those locations to the peace deal.

 

[Brynjar]

the thing is it doesn't have to make perfect decisons only good enough decisions

Good enough for who? For you? For me? Or for Johan/Paradox? By the looks of it, Johan doesn't seem to think it is worth the effort to try making it good enough.

 

[Basterbane]

Think AE/Threat should already build up from nation growing military might (troop numbers, policies)? Army getting bigger, military infrastructure being build. Nations at the border that have spy network should already feel threatened with war and seek strong allies. Something about regional balance of power too, like Ottomans eating Byzantium and expanding into Balkans, ending with failed Crusade of Varna.

Can we lower control in occupied land? Back in EU3 I had cases where province cost would go down the longer I had them occupied. Think I camped some nation that was 121% WS to vassalize (might have been less to annex due to CB). In Death & Taxes mod did this to Korea as Manchu tribe, to Brabant as Burgundy or to Teutons as Poland.

Feel like community is let down by this TT, not because it's bad but because all the past TT's were such bangers!

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

No, it would not. Not when you want an restriction on how low the warscore cost can go.


Adding just the right amount of gold to be able to take the land you want, on top of adding those locations to the peace deal.

Between other limits like AE, control and a desire to have nice, clean and defendable borders - I don't think I've ever needed, or will need full on uncapped warscore. But there's been several instances where I could have used like 120% to fulfill my intents for the war.

Again - the cost would be calculated from the provinces you take and give a flat -1% per province. There's no adding just the right amount of gold anymore than there is a taking the right amount of gold if you've won a war in EU4 now and need to cash out extra warscore.

 

[Metz]

Will there be an option to request a ceasefire until a treaty is signed so that the truce only starts officially once the war is completely over? This would be to prevent a country for declaring war on you again if you are in a prolonged war.

 

[TheDungen]

Good enough for who? For you? For me? Or for Johan/Paradox? By the looks of it, Johan doesn't seem to think it is worth the effort to try making it good enough.

Johan said similar things about mana in imperator. And about pops in Europa universalis games. If we keep asking he'äs going to cave and then it'll turn out it wasn't impossible after all.