Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[Oglesby]

Correct me if i'm wrong but it's not every tick that the AI evaluates that, no? Only when it proposes a peace deal & evaluates a proposed one. So i can't imagine it taking up all the performance of the game

It would need to do the calculation to determine if it wants to propose a peace deal, so yes that would be every x time while at war. Even if they could limit it to check when things change, since things could be changing on the tick it very like happen every tick. This would also be occurring for every active war for every AI capable of sending a peace deal in it (i.e. minor parties that could peace out of the war too).

 

[meijiJPN]

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.

Really wish this is changed on release, I'm looking forward to something new and innovative not the same experience I've already had for 700 hours. In fact when I first bought EU4 I just took it as granted you could trade provinces in a peace deal and got super disappointed when I realized you couldn't do that. Everything is exploitable to some extent, I don't think it's worth it to discard such an important game mechanic because it's hard to implement, everything is hard to implement, isn't it?

 

[Caracus]

Bit underwhelming which is a first for this game. Apart from the multidirection I wanna put my emphasis on on something else. The focus on a single cb reason seems kinda lackluster to me.

I would hope that there are multiple discounted things if you had multiple cbs. Like if a guy insults me, raids my coast, sends cossacks, has some cores and some other reasons I would certainly go for the main goal but if I can also crush his navy and so on I would expect those things to be cheaper as they are adjacent to my primary goal.

 

[somearthling]

A suggestion for partial bilateral peace deals - make 0% war score white peace asymmetric, where the enemy keeps all the land they occupy(up to 100% ws) but the peace proposer gains none. As an example, France v Spain where Spain has occupied Bordeaux and France has Barcelona - France's white peace proposal is that Spain keep Bordeaux and they don't get Barcelona and Spain's white peace is the opposite. If France wants Barcelona, they have to get the war score of Barcelona+Bordeaux, with an eu4-style "white peace" costing the war score of Bordeaux only.

With the added control mechanics etc, it would make it a really stupid move to offer up tons of high control land for low control lands. Even on the AI front, this should work with some changes to make "all parties keep everything they control minus exclaves" plus money/war reps a sort of default peace deal that most wars end in.

 

[Palfouri]

Hate to paint myself as an idiot, but - who cares? In a single-player game (ignoring MP here) who really cares if a player wants to "cheese" the AI? We already do this in EUIV, so it is not as though this is some new issue that is being introduced. This has the same vibe as developers who refuse to open console commands in single-player RPGs for no specific reason. Who is being affected by some one person choosing to break the game for their own personal enjoyment? Would I personally do this? Sure, in certain games, if I were really trying to stretch my abilities to their limit; but if I were RPing I just, you know, wouldn't? I control the buttons I press, and if there is an opportunity to engage in cheese (like there is in every single Paradox game) I could just choose to, or not. Nothing is going to happen to the uninvolved third party, or even the developers, for that matter.

In my mind there's a difference between intentionally locking features away because you don't want them to be exploited (even though you have to deliberately go out of your way to do so and players who don't want to bother are unaffected) and adding a feature which is pretty much inevitably going to exploit the AI and which will affect your game even if you don't exploit it because the AI will now make even worse deals with each other than they already do. As multiple people brought up this is something that happens in Vic3 and "well, just make it work when you add it this time" isn't exactly proposing a workable solution even if it's theoretically possible.

In a world where Paradox can make it work flawlessly you're right; there's no reason to care if some people try to exploit it, but I guess if it worked flawlessly no one could exploit it to begin with.

 

[PatatjeFriet]

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.

Will it be possible to sign treaties without war? This happend throughout history multiple times.

 

[PatatjeFriet]

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.

Could you make it possible for peace deals amongst players in multiplayer?

 

[tobbe628]

Dont restrict my peacedeals.
Its boring and not fun.

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

So given that two of the biggest critiques have been the warscore cap and the lack of bilateral treaties, wouldn't it be super swell if say for every province you took there was the option to compensate the AI monetarily, and in turn you'd get like a flat -1% cost for that province?

That'd both let us take more land if we really need to and give us the extra strategic dimension of bargaining with the enemy.

...and if the AI is half as stubborn as it was in EU4 there's no way I see it making overly stupid decisions because of this. It might be stupid faster, but isn't that a double-edged sword as well as the more immersive option in a lot of instances? I feel like wars should end quickly if your opening moves are decisive enough. Plus there's the risk of blowing all your money on land.

 

[Lukagen]

Since there is such a problem with giving AI the ability to do two way deals, isn't it at least possible to give just the player the ability to do it with the AI (or other players in multiplayer)? That is definitely not going to affect game performance and it is going to give us what we want. Although it's gonna take a bit of work to not have any exploits it's not going to be as complex as giving the AI the ability to do it (maybe give an option to turn it on in the game settings?).

 

[Praetorian44]

Necessary? No, but some (frankly mild) mockery of a community's group-think isn't undesirable. This community has an issue with labeling mechanics as things like 'Gamey' or 'mana' without actually presenting a critique of how those mechanics make the game worse, they just fit into some imaginary undesirable category and therefore the community must be angry.

Things like locking whole features behind options or multiplayer are unfortunately probably unworkable (this is my opinion as a different sort of software developer, I can't speak to what Tinto/Johan's policy should be). I would love bilateral peaces in multiplayer, it makes for cool roleplay possibilities. But there is a real cost to having a unique feature like that locked to a specific game mode, it can make maintaining and updating the game more difficult quite quickly. Every change to peace AI or new peace option will need additional development/testing to make sure it doesn't break multiplayer. And lets face it, multiplayer is always going to have lower priority. It is not in the interest of MP players to make their preferred mode more prone to game breaking bugs.

It's clear now that you have no intention of engaging in a polite and constructive discussion here. Many members, including myself, have explained in detail our issues with the current mechanics (i.e. how they make the game worse) and have presented suggestions on how they should be changed/improved. You are deciding to ignore all this, and instead to post rude, mocking replies to everyone who you disagree with. Btw, I have no issue with the the lack of bilateral peace treaties. I would prefer to have them, but if Johan says they can't make the AI use them effectively, then I accept it won't be in this game. My primary issue is the return of the horrible AE system, and I would prefer something like the proposed "threat" system instead (the one that has had its own thread for months now).

 

[WorrapsnehtroN2707]

Favor system is good, but I think there are some problems if you copy it from EU4. It is odd that A country with huge debt can call allies with no debt to aggressive war one-sidedly.
Also, can I give my own land to allies for their contribution to war, like sardinia piedmont?

 

[Brynjar]

Will it be possible to sign treaties without war? This happend throughout history multiple times.

Technically you can do that in EU4 as well. It's called threaten war. What you want is likely a way to trade/buy/transfer provinces. That's not going to happen for player vs. AI. The problems with such a mechanic is the exact problem which causes it to not be part of peace deals.

So given that two of the biggest critiques have been the warscore cap and the lack of bilateral treaties, wouldn't it be super swell if say for every province you took there was the option to compensate the AI monetarily, and in turn you'd get like a flat -1% cost for that province?

That would create the exact problem the developers wants to avoid...

My primary issue is the return of the horrible AE system, and I would prefer something like the proposed "threat" system instead (the one that has had its own thread for months now).

AE management is like half the game in EU4. The developers would have to come up with a really brilliant system to make it worth spending the necessary resources to make a new system. I struggle to see it being worth the risk.

 

[Ispil]

AE management is like half the game in EU4. The developers would have to come up with a really brilliant system to make it worth spending the necessary resources to make a new system. I struggle to see it being worth the risk.

AE "management" is just waiting between wars. I'd hardly call it management.

 

[ibvfteh]

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.

I dislike that both AE and warscore mechanics are not changed.

Warscore severely limits historical conquests. For example in EU4 you couldn’t as Muscovy conquer entire Novgorod. As Manchu entire China. As ottomans entire Mamluks. Maybe HOI4 like mechanic will be better? With points to earn from fights and occupations.

AE is just a number you wait for to cool down. Coalitions are a threshold you just don’t cross as a hard cap. I think it’s better is AE influence the decision of AI to make defensive alliances against you. Even 10 AE should sway AI to sometimes form into defensive alliances. And even break their old to form new.

 

[mrflagio]

It seems like the whole "can't take any land if you haven't taken the wargoal" thing was to prevent multiplayer abuses...in which case make it a house rule for MP if you want, because it really seems like it creates more problems than it solves.

 

[mrflagio]

It seems like the whole "can't take any land if you haven't taken the wargoal" thing was to prevent multiplayer abuses...in which case make it a house rule for MP if you want, because it really seems like it creates more problems than it solves for everything else.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

I wouldn't rack my brain about it too much, Johan confirmed in a later reply that it's a bug.

Really? That's a shame. Control impacting peace costs would be the strongest preventer of border gore ever seen in a paradox game. It very much reflects victors siezing land on their own border rather than snaking away.

 

[Ispil]

Really? That's a shame. Control impacting peace costs would be the strongest preventer of border gore ever seen in a paradox game. It very much reflects victors siezing land on their own border rather than snaking away.

No, no; the bug is that it's simultaneously increasing and decreasing cost. Low control = cheaper to take.

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

That would create the exact problem the developers wants to avoid...

What problem are you referring to here?