Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[ProfessionalRat]

The most disappointing thing is seeing that southern coastal Iceland is STILL wasteland.

 

[toxicgrunt]

I find it hard to believe we are getting Project Caeser and they haven’t put the effort into fixing peace deals. How can you not add bilateral deals, getting rid of 100 warscore, while also limiting you even more: not being able to conquer land if you don’t take your initial land goal.

It’s so blatantly not fitting for the time period it’s wild that what I’m thinking will be a penultimate game release won’t have anything to do with better or more accurate to the period treaties.

 

[Nostalgium]

What problem are you referring to here?

The problem that England doesn't know that literally any province they have on the British Isles is worth more gold than a belligirent France could ever hope to pay them due to giving the latter an easy staging ground for an invasion. Among other things.

The AI can calculate the production value of a province. It can make every kind of calculation for culture, religion, AE impact, everything. It cannot, however, calculate for an abstract value like "strategic importance", because that is not static or inherent to the province, but entirely contextual based on who owns it and what the geopolitical situation is around it. A poorly developed mountain pass in the middle of a nation? Barely worth the space it occupies on the map. But if that same province is suddenly between two countries at war? Invaluable.

 

[Idle America]

Wild that this was so heavily downvoted when it is so objectively correct.
View attachment 1196819

"Best" doesn't mean "perfect". There was room for improvement.

 

[ValhallArchitect]

Disappointing.

This is just EU4 with a basic tweak to prevent taking unoccupied territory and exploiting a province wargoal to "generate warscore" and take another piece of a land instead. Nothing really new.

I expected a more important reshape of the very binary peace treaties of EU4, akin to Victoria 3, where other participants who supported you in the (aggressive or defensive) war can not be exploited anymore of using their men to die for no reward. A system where 20% warscore against the enemy warleader grants you 20% power in the peace treaty, and that the allied warleader can still peace out separately, but you will remain as long as you added a wargoal.

- adding a wargoal to join a war on either side (ie Savoy switching side during the Spanish war of succession to get this and then that territory)
- adding the possibility to use your added wargoal to negotiate and your warscore as diplomatic leverage (Thirty years war, Seven years war, spanish succession, Congress of Vienna 1815...)

One allied leader should not be able to exploit your warscore if you provided a large portion of the war effort. He should still be able to peace out.
One very good example is the war of first silesian war or war of Austrian succession, where Prussia started the war and was supported by Bavaria, France and Spain who each wanted something out of it, yet when Prussia separed peaced Austria, France remained fighting (although heavily disadvantaged from now on), to get the claims made.

It doesn’t make any sense for a « minor » country to keep dragging great powers in wars for decades as allied (like the « favors » system of EU4), especially now that you completely overhauled the economic system to make large scale wars much more destructive to a nations economy. Allied joined for a reason, they had their own CB that they wanted to ensure (or at least a weakening rival objective). Once a war is started, the allied objectives should be added and the « initiator » should still be able to peace out separately, but without imposing a to all over allies with objectives remaining. (Basically VIC3 system, which is working great).
In the same example, when Prussia placed out, France kept fighting although it had a much weakened negotiating leverage.

Also, I expect peace Deals to not be unilateral but to be a proper « treaty ». IRL, many major wars ended with a territorial exchange, even when the war effort was severally unbalanced. Ie even France in 1763 got some British islands in exchange for Canada / East Louisiana.

 

[Willwhit]

I think the peace deal pop up could use more spacing between each information. It would be beneficial to identify quickly the relevant data from the notification.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

I'd take the Stellaris peace system over this...

 

[JCommander]

This is not good. Most of the mechanics discussed in Tinto Talks have been good but this is not. The EU4 diplomacy system is one of the weakest aspects of the game and it sure looks like it's being ported over with almost no changes, which is especially unfortunate for a game set during one of the most interesting eras in the history of international politics.
Johan has said that a more complex diplomacy system would be difficult, I for one would encourage the devs to invest time in it anyway. I think the benefits would be well worth the time and effort required.
Wars are way more complicated than "two countries each bring some friends and slug it out" and I dearly hope Project Caesar will reflect that

 

[Donartica]

For some of the peace options possible, I hope that I can 1) demilitarize the border, 2) dismantle their navy (to a limit, also for armies maybe) 3) force the repayment of loans (maybe with higher rates), and 4) force them to accept better trade terms (not sure exactly what that would entail, but something of the sorts).

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

The problem that England doesn't know that literally any province they have on the British Isles is worth more gold than a belligirent France could ever hope to pay them due to giving the latter an easy staging ground for an invasion. Among other things.

The AI can calculate the production value of a province. It can make every kind of calculation for culture, religion, AE impact, everything. It cannot, however, calculate for an abstract value like "strategic importance", because that is not static or inherent to the province, but entirely contextual based on who owns it and what the geopolitical situation is around it. A poorly developed mountain pass in the middle of a nation? Barely worth the space it occupies on the map. But if that same province is suddenly between two countries at war? Invaluable.

I don't think you're wrong here, but you seem to be missing some of my points.

So for one I'm not suggesting any real kind of trade or scenario were the AI would directly be comparing those values. What I'm saying is for each province, you have the option to offer a certain amount (based on say production value) and for that you get a flat -1% warscore cost for that province (EDIT: to be clear, you can't pay more to get a bigger reduction, if it's -1% it's always -1%). So if say Kent costs 5% normally, what the English AI would see is a peace offer from me, France, requesting Kent at the cost of 4%. And they would indeed see this as more favourable than had it been 5%, but...

...if PC is anything like EU4, England would NEVER agree because "-1000 you do not control any forts connected to this province by land". And based on what we're seeing in this dev diary, peace treaties are gonna be more restrictive in this game, including needing to control province capitals.

And it's also the case, at least for me, that the further I have to push for the peace I want, the harsher I want it. And in the case of England where London sits right next to Kent, there's no way I'm walking away without ruining their chances for the rest of the game. And in that sense I think an option where I pay to get out of the war early could also be quite interesting, as worst case for me, England invests the money in their navy and then use that to drive me out of Kent. Is it likely to happen? Eh... probably not if you're good at the game, but that's still an improvement over EU4 IMO.

Now I feel like I'm getting way too caught up in stuff specific to England though. However, the whole gist of it, that it would only affect warscore cost and that it would still never let you bypass the checks and restrictions the game already has in place, all that should still stand irregardless of where the fighting occurs.

 

[toxicgrunt]

Wars are way more complicated than "two countries each bring some friends and slug it out" and I dearly hope Project Caesar will reflect that

I’m feeling the exact same way. I cannot believe we are going to get the 100 Years War with the same treaty system.

This would be two releases in a row that don’t have war-diplomacy capable of modeling the time period even semi-accurately. WW1 can’t happen in Vic 3 because wars are completely static, no one can join midwar or add war goals lol

 

[wowlock]

How will we communicate with your war allies? The system of picking provinces of interest was very useful in EU4 and I would like to see it return. There should also be ways of negotiating with the AI over who controls the occupied locations, this was always the most frustrating part of EU4 for me.

Indeed. Don't you love that the AI speeds towards a land you targetted but decide to siege it down first and never change the occupation to you so you cannot take it even though you didn't promise them anything?

 

[Ispil]

Alright, here's an idea: there's a limited pool of "incentives" you can add to a peace treaty to buy yourself a couple extra points of war score. You can throw in war reparations on your own end, guarantee free trade (i.e. ending any embargo you have set and stopping you from setting any for the duration of the truce), increase the duration of the truce by 5 years, or... well, I'd suggest "give up claims" but the game doesn't track claims, unfortunately. None of them add much in the way of war score, but they could be just barely enough to push whatever you're asking for into the realm of possibility.

They're bilateral, but also not the "free negotiation" that's so easily abused. Hell, can even throw in a cap: can only ever include, say, 10 war score of concessions in any peace treaty.

 

[contra_omnes]

Someone may have commented already, but I feel an AI ally should *always* want something in return for their participation, even if they were promised nothing when joining the war.

As it is now in EU4, you can make your allies fight and win your war while doing nothing yourself, then give them nothing in the peace deal... and they continue to be your best friend ever. No real country will act like this. This is also kind of exploitable because AI will always bleed for their own war even when they have stronger allies.

So an AI ally with some participation score should *always* want something, maybe gold in most cases, and if they're not given that they should break alliance or less willing to help in the future. I hope this isn't too difficult to code?

 

[jacobotoy]

Dont love it dont hate it, but we really expect a little more of this in the near future.

 

[TaintedRuins]

This being a stale, recycled system is not nearly as bad as Johann stating outright that he knows that it isn't good, and that he can't make anything better without recoding the whole game. That kind of boxed-in-by-coding defeatist mentality usually has to wait for at least the first paid DLC to be announced so publicly.

 

[Pellucid]

Man I hope coalitions aren't just a badboy punishment again.

 

[Minxfiver]

Wji

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.

While nothing much will change I am quite content with this as I expect that instead of focusing the energy of the developers on developing a deeper peace deal system they will instead focus that energy on other areas like politics, economy, culture etc.

 

[ERS92]

@Johan
Hello!
As I mentioned in some Tinto Post way later (I don't remember which one, maybe it was Tinto Maps) as colourblind I hardly can read how much debuff we get. For me red and whatever colour is in background makes it unreadable it for me.

Second thing is - I see we still can't have "something for something" peace talks? I.e. We have this province and you got repatriations.

 

[ValhallArchitect]

I’m feeling the exact same way. I cannot believe we are going to get the 100 Years War with the same treaty system.

This would be two releases in a row that don’t have war-diplomacy capable of modeling the time period even semi-accurately. WW1 can’t happen in Vic 3 because wars are completely static, no one can join midwar or add war goals lol

This ! Exactly.

The favor system was such a bad mechanic, where you could drag a country 10 times your power for basically no economic or territorial concession, getting all the benefits for yourself (at the expanse of a truth penalty which you could totally plan out in advance, basically exploiting the game / the allied country)

VIC3 multilateral treaty is much better gameplay-wise and much more historically representative , where every allied can capitulate to get out of the war, or keep the war on after the main belligerent has peaced out, as long as there remains at least one wargoal.

I would not expect a HOI4 mechanic of peace conference, as it was more representative of a later era, yet I still feel some elements of it could be integrated, such as the fact that countries with the major war participation should get a better outcome than minor ones.