Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[CrabHelmet]

Can't say I like this at all. No real improvement on EU4 and arguably a regression. In particular, not being able to claim any territory except for that which was the original foundation of the casus belli is dreadful and arbitrary. What is the justification for this? Who is policing it? "Dear Mr. Sultan - although you may have occupied the entirety of Greece, the Theodosian Walls alone stand strong. Unfortunately, you said you wanted Constantinople, so you're going to just have to leave everywhere else. That's just the rules. Thanks, yours sincerely, the Emperor."

 

[Witcher587]

View attachment 1196559
We got a little sneak peek here

Looks horrible. I hope they will make it like in HOI 4 when you see the terrain and nation's colours..

 

[Flower_Marlin]

Oh well.

 

[Bargey]

I have to agree with the Tinto team here, and I believe traditional peace deals are the correct development choice. Not only does exponentially increasing the amount of weights increase the complexity a tremendous amount, but some things are just unrealistic to develop with a bilateral system.

You can't teach an AI historical context. You can't teach an AI that the King of England would never give up Cornwall in exchange for Provence. You can only make the AI weigh options mathematically, at the end of the day. Sure, the devs could spend years trying to make a bilateral peace system that behaves believably, but that's just an unrealistic development expectation.

The other option is that they could shoehorn in a bilateral peace system just for the sake of having one, but then you end up with a peace system such as Victoria 3's, which I would genuinely argue is the single worst and least believable peace deal system in a paradox game, with the most wonky, ahistorical, and frustrating outcomes from conflicts.

All in all, I get why some people wanted a great leap forward with bilateral peace deals, but I think the idea in practice just doesn't work well as a video game mechanic outside of multiplayer with other humans making the deal. I think unilateral peace deals are the way to go.

 

[Kırım Hanı]

Are there any ways to deal with people attacking the enemies we're currently warring with? e.g. if Russia and PLC are warring and a wild Sweden shows up while Russia is winning, are there any ways for Russians to interact with Swedish aggression, via allying them against Poles, or agreeing to a ceasefire/peace with PLC and join their cause against Swedes?

 

[SafS.99]

Will there be any “Threat” system where aggressive countries get a long lasting AE modifier with Neighbors?

Or just the same old EU4 style AE that’s just a waiting game?

 

[KitChaos]

Do I misremember something or wasn't there going to be something slightly new to AE and Coalition system? (I probably mix it up with something else)

coalitions are now full international organizations

 

[LordSnow1809]

Pls, for my sanity add two way peace offers

 

[KitChaos]

how strict is the warscore cap? in eu4 it was always really annoying to only be able to take a few provinces because of high dev and the ilk.

 

[Booperboberino]

I made this point already in last TT, but Aggressive Expansion (AE) feels extremely outdated compared to other much more innovative approaches of PC. If Bohemia takes Berlin from Brandenburg, why would Brandenburg ever forget that the Bohemians did that to them? Did Maria Theresia ever forget that Frederick took Silesia from her (well no, she didn't, and she did everything in her power to make friends with her arch enemy, the French, in order to take Silesia back).

Again, to quote from this post long time ago, I feel that "threat" is a vastly better mechanic than AE.

A small country at the border to the Ottomans should not just join a coalition once the Ottomans gobbled up every other state around them, and then come to the conclusion "well, I had enough now," they should always be willing to join any coalition vs. the Ottomans. Once the Prussians take Silesia, which is the most prosperous province of the Austrians, the way how Prussia is perceived by others in terms of their military capacities should overall change; the potential threat that Prussians now pose to others does not just magically tick down over time, they are now considered as one of the most powerful countries in Europe. If someone becomes the economic hegemon, they too should be perceived as someone who could be a threat in many terms as they could just hire a bunch of mercenaries against others.

Honest feedback here, AE is a bad mechanic for many reasons:

1. It is "gamey" because it is just a number that ticks down, which implies other actors just "forget" about the incidents that triggered it.
2. It is applied only after the peace treaty has been signed, so only to some degree useful in terms of preventing snowballing.
3. The threshold of 50 seems arbitrary, which is against the general design philosophy of PC which removed arbitrary limits like force limit
4. AE is just a number, and many players don't care about it too much anyways as they will continue expanding somewhere else.

And many more reasons that we will hopefully discuss here.

This is actually so good wtf, get this man into Paradox Congress
If needed there can also be a modifier like "Recently conquered Silesia" that adds a bit to the threat, since there would still be SOME element of "wow, the Prussians just conquered a big chunk of land, this has brought to my attention that Prussia is pretty scary and I might be next"

 

[Johan]

So... is it even technically possible in this system to have the Ottoman conquest of Egypt and the Levant in a single war, or is that just gonna have to come through a magical post-war effect or bespoke war goal that lets them accomplish that?

If you want to do it that way, then you'd use a peace treaty..

However, currently at the start of the game, Egypt has low control, and entire Levant & Syria is less than 50 WS. The challenge here is not "how do I get lots of territory", but "how do I handle lots of territory"

 

[Gianvitus]

not being able to claim any territory except for that which was the original foundation of the casus belli is dreadful and arbitrary

You can conquer other territories besides your wargoal, just can't conquer them without the wargoal

 

[Johan]

How long will the truce last? Will it be a standard or depends on the type of war or the length of war that happened?

depends on the size of the peacedeal.

 

[Johan]

Does this apply to vassals and other subjects too? Does it depend on the subject type? If it depends, which vassals can be forced into an offensive war and which ones have to be convinced like allies?

subjects have no say if they are loyal enough.

 

[AHumpierRogue]

If you want to do it that way, then you'd use a peace treaty..

However, currently at the start of the game, Egypt has low control, and entire Levant & Syria is less than 50 WS. The challenge here is not "how do I get lots of territory", but "how do I handle lots of territory"

Whoah jeez. That's pretty significant.

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

I kind of feel like them being of the 'same religion' ought to be a negative factor for war cost and AE, not a positive one? Wasn't that one of the factors causing wars between christians to be really granular in border changes, and all? While territories of enemy religions were seen as fair game by your peers.

That's true actually, if anything it should be the opposite especially for catholics!

If I understand the screenshots rightly, then -10 Same Religion means that the Peace Cost is reduced by 10. Wars continue until the Warscore is higher than the Peace Cost of the proposed Treaty. In this case, without that modifier the Peace Cost of Gostynin goes up to 12.79%. So the Same Religion modifier reduces the amount of Warscore that the Teutons need. Without it, the Duchy of Płock will keep on fighting longer.

I think that is correct in terms of what this is number is actually modelling. The Poles of Płock will agree a peace treaty more quickly because they are handing Gostynin over to another Catholic power. If they were fighting against the Mongols, they would fight harder and longer to hold on to the province, because (in principle) they wouldn't want their brothers and sisters to be living under an Islamic or pagan power.

I suspect the misunderstanding arises because so many EU4 players are map painters who expect to fight every war to 100% and then grab as much as you can. You are thinking of this number as something like 'conquest cost' (@Thrudgelmir2333 wrote "war cost" which appears to be a Freudian slip). In that context, players might feel that provinces of other religions should be cheaper, because it is less offensive to take provinces from outsiders than from your fellow-religionists. But that's not what the Peace Cost number is supposed to be modelling, according to this DD. It's measuring whether we expect the other side will keep fighting, not whether they think the treaty is morally just. And whether to keep fighting was a much trickier decision when your life is on the line and you are risking your home being sacked or unspeakable things happening to your children. With the right algorithm, this number could make the AI behave more like early modern leaders who knew the horrors of war. Players often can fight on 100% (or 0%) because the worst that can happens is you need to reload a save or restart the Ironman campaign. If the AI is losing a war, they should be looking for a way out.

I'd argue peace cost could be lower, but AE higher.

If I have understood your intentions correctly, then I think my points above justify keeping the Same Religion modifier in Peace Cost.

Alternatively, just make AE higher and leave costs unnaffected.

Though, personally, I feel peace costs have always been much more of reliant limiters to both AIs and players,

I think you are right on that last point. I suspect (obviously I don't have telemetry evidence, but going on what I see on the forum) that human players usually fight wars to 100% Warscores, as though they were all HoI4-style total wars. The game does try to offset this with War Exhaustion for both sides, but in EU4 I don't remember it being a hugely limiting factor. Perhaps this is where Project Caesar's more fleshed-out characters might be helpful. Most governments should care a lot about War Exhaustion, especially if their capital (or Character's location?) is under threat. Frederick the Great or Napoleon might care a lot less.

Unless you conquer territoiries with a lot of pop following your religion, when the previous owner had a different one.
One could justify this annexation as liberation.

This is definitely something that should be added as a modifier.

 

[Johan]

Can I not take only locations from a neighbour in some small border conflict without taking the province capital?

yeah, not forced to take it all.

 

[CrabHelmet]

You can conquer other territories besides your wargoal, just can't conquer them without the wargoal

I know, my example covered that. I'm saying: the Ottomans could control and occupy every single Byzantine location except Constantintope, fail in the siege of Constantinople, then because their wargoal was Constantinople not be able to take a single other location and just have to... withdraw. Why? It's baffling and makes no sense. EU4 managed not to have something so silly.

 

[Old_Sealand]

The two way peace treaties could be something for multiplayer between players only, for example? that don't require any complex AI calculations. (Or at least have moddable?)

 

[Johan]

Are truce lengths dynamic in any way, shape, or form? Do they change duration based on what you take? CB used? War goal? Is the duration something specified in the peace offer?

Or is it just 5 years for everything?

it depends on the cost of the peace.