Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[JMorais]

Its there to make the AI function and be able to understand when its beaten.

Shouldn't war exhaustion, military strength, occupation, etc not signal to the AI when it's beaten?

 

[aadf97799c]

ae still a thing

how does overextension work now

does core still a thing

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

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.

i think this example is disingenuous. there's been so much emphasis so far on various levels of province granularity that there's plenty of calculations that can be done to avoid something as absurd as constantinople being given up for peanuts.

for example, things that would heavily contribute to province cost
capital province
contribution to economy
contribution to manpower/army
primary culture vs accepted culture vs non-accepted culture
integration status (ie is it cored)
control
proximity to capital
proximity to trade market centre
religion
sum value of buildings (a measure of how invested the country is in the province)
natural harbour
food production
etc

and all of these could be modified by war exhaustion, current financial status, etc

consider that the previous province warscore (eu4's) is almost entirely tied to just dev, it's easy to see how eu5 is set up for more precise and objectively sound valuation

i'm not saying that bilateral treaties are trivial to code or anything, i think the added complexity and granularity could probably make it harder to calculate in a fair way that doesn't exploit ai, but we don't need to reduce it to "give me your best province for this impressive collection of garbage i can give you" in order to argue against it

 

[Grassyc]

Would it not be possible to limit the exploitability and complexity of a bilateral peace deal by connecting it to other systems like war enthusiasm and war score?

Perhaps the following set of rules and variables could prevent the player from exploiting the AI while limiting the scope of complexity for the AI:

1. Rather than having the AI consider every location as viable for a bilateral peace treaty, the AI is given a list of locations which is limited to either locations that are in provinces directly adjacent to the AIs provinces or locations that would have above a certain threshold of control should the AI own the location. That list is further limited at the start of the war to locations that are within a certain distance of the war goal- though this distance could be modified by technology in later ages. This may also factor in the AI's ability to access the location.
2. The AI is given a bilateral war score value in addition to their war score.
3. The bilateral war score is a function of war score and war enthusiasm. If war score is <50% and war enthusiasm is >50%, the AI will have a bilateral war score of 0%. When either war score >50% or war enthusiasm is <50% the bilateral war score begins to linearly increase maxing out at 25% when war score = 75%, war enthusiasm = 25%, or war score >50% and war enthusiasm <50%.
4. The player can then exchange up to 25% war score with the AI where the war score value of the province is determined as described in current and previous Tinto Talks with the provinces viable for exchange being limited to the list describe in point 1. The player may also exchange gold or treaties using bilateral war score however, the AI might value those less depending on balancing.

An example of this might look like the following:

The player has been fighting a war with the AI for a while and while their wars score is only 40% the AI's war enthusiasm is at 35% since the player has been winning fights consistently. This means the war score is 40% but the bilateral war score is hovering around 15%. The player really wants a location that would require them to have 55% war score but with only 40% war score the AI won't agree to the peace deal. So instead, the player may select a location(s) in a province(s) adjacent to the AI/higher than a certain control threshold for the AI that is worth 15% war score to the AI. The AI will accept more that 15% from the player but will not give more than 15% in return.
a. If the player chooses a location across the world the AI will not accept since they "have no control over the locations(s) offered".
b. If the player offers two low-value (<15% war score) locations nearby the AI, the AI will only accept peace deals up to an equal amount of additional war score (40%+offered provinces in this case).
c. If the player tries to give the AI a location that does not have a path to the AI's capital, then the AI would not accept since they "cannot access the location(s) offered".
d. If the player offers locations worth 15% war score or more that are eligible to the AI, then the player may then ask for an additional 15% war score from the AI.

If the AI is winning a war against a player or another AI it should not consider a bilateral peace deal unless the change in war score or the change in war enthusiasm hits a certain value over 2 years. This means the AI will not consider bilateral peace deals until at least two years. If the change in war score or war enthusiasm is, say, >75% over two years the loosing AI would be willing to accept a bilateral peace deal since it would clearly be losing a war. However, the winning AI should only offer one if their war enthusiasm is <25% or 50% this prevents an AI from giving up land in a war it is clearly winning and allows the AI to peace out of a war it is clearly losing. If the war score or enthusiasm changes by only 20% over 2 years, then neither AI will offer or accept bilateral peace deals since the change per 2 years is <75%. Then over the next two years, the war score or war enthusiasm would have to reach a total change of 95% or swing back to -55% (20%+-75%) for the AI to consider accepting or offering bilateral peace deals. The AI has the same restriction on locations it will accept as it would with the player.

In addition to the above comments, I personally feel that locations should be allowed to be taken in a peace deal while the war goal has not been selected but at an increased aggressive expansion cost. That way there is not a hard limit on what must/can be taken in a war but rather a soft limit that is dependent on the players' situation and their willingness to accept extra AE.

I understand that the specifics of a bilateral peace deal are complex and that this post is abstract, but I would be interested to know if introducing a bilateral war score and limiting the list of locations available for exchange would decrease complexity while simultaneously limiting the player's ability to exploit such a system.

 

[conqueror101]

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."

What do you mean? You can take any land that's not the CB. This just states you can't take other land if you haven't taken the war goal. While I disagree, I understand the principle. I believe instead of a hard cap, they should add a penalty to the estates satisfaction, as you justified a war for a reason and then didn't fulfill the reason.

 

[Sleelan]

At this point I feel like you're taunting us with every war-oriented TT showcasing the starting imaginary Bohemian-Lithuanian war that didn't exist in 1337. There really is no reason for the Bohemians to be in this conflict at this particular point in time, it's complete fan-fiction.

 

[conqueror101]

As a matter of fact, the more I think about it, removing the hard limit of having to take the wargoal is my most wanted change. Instead, implementing penalties if you don't fulfill the war goal. I.E., you justify a war because they sent privateers but didn't crack down on their piracy. You're people are upset that you didn't do the thing you said you were going to do. Perhaps make pops and the estates less satisfied? Maybe even a dip rep penalty as you lied about why you wanted to go to war.

 

[conqueror101]

Blue is town, green is city.




View attachment 1196562

What happened to Auvergne, is she safe? is she alright?

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

This is by far the worst DD so far. To be fair, the only bad one.

I cant believe the peace system is exactly the same as in EU4 despite of all of the suggestions you have got...

Not even dual peace treaties in which both sides can exchange things? seriously?

Still the same old AE system which doesnt work because it doesnt take into consideration how much powerful and scary a country is relative to its neighbours? So as long as you wait out the AE, everyone will be happy you took all of France as Spain.

Come on...This is just bad. You can do better. I expected more than a copy paste of EU4. Especially given you have had months of feedback and suggestions
Please rethink this system. I thought Project Caesar was more ambitious than this

 

[PyRonin]

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.

Makes sense. But would there maybe be some way to implement it but disable it for AI, just so that it could be used in player wars in multiplayer? It can sometimes be a bit annoying to have to do the negotiations on discord and try to figure out how to manually achieve them after the war.

 

[Martocticvs]

If a small country is fighting another small country, consisting of let's say one full province each, in order to take any land at all, one side must fully occupy the other? They are forced to do this, it sounds like? That's not very realistic. Could this requirement not scale somehow to suit participant sizes?

 

[Palfouri]

but we don't need to reduce it to "give me your best province for this impressive collection of garbage i can give you" in order to argue against it

Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough but considering the nature of war and peace in EU I really can't think of very many situations where a human player negotiating with the AI isn't just going to use bilateral peace treaties to make worthless "concessions" to the AI in order to offset warscore so they can take more land in situations where they can't get enough warscore to do it outright. I don't foresee a lot of "I give you gold, you give me trade power" type deals.

 

[Martocticvs]

I think this is the first dev diary for this game that's left me genuinely disappointed. This is just EU4, modified to work with the control system and wargoals. Given the depth on display in most other aspects of the game, I was expecting a bit more.

 

[HoIo]

Honestly, as cool as bileteral peace deals are, if the devs consider it exponentially harder to implement then I'd rather them direct their resources elsewhere for now. Of course, given how popular this feature is, it'd be nice if we get it in a future expansion, but currently with how complex this game's mechanics already are, I'd prefer they spread out their efforts to really tune things all across. As a compromise, they could leave it be an option for now only between players in multi.

The engine should be able to work with it.
A DLC is just adding stuff to the game. They would have to overhaul lots of stuff to implement that.

Adding provinces in EU4 is already impossible because it just breaks everything. Not exactly sure how well the new engine works for them - or if it's even a new one.
All we can really do is give out suggestions - hope for them to be implemented - and then wait for the release.

 

[newtlord]

It worries me that the devs don't seem to have responded to concerns about what happens if a third party occupies the wargoal, even simply to say "we're working on it". It's annoying enough in EUIV to be unable to take land you want because someone else has started a different war and occupied it; if, in the-game-we're-pretending-isn't-EU5, you risk being locked out of taking any land if someone else takes a single crucial province before you do, it will be far worse.

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough but considering the nature of war and peace in EU I really can't think of very many situations where a human player negotiating with the AI isn't just going to use bilateral peace treaties to make worthless "concessions" to the AI in order to offset warscore so they can take more land in situations where they can't get enough warscore to do it outright. I don't foresee a lot of "I give you gold, you give me trade power" type deals.

tbh i can't really either, i'm totally fine with unilateral peace deals. i think it could be cool to have a bilateral system that worked and was fair, i don't think it adds a significant amount to the game though. i was really just pointing out that "but you can get constantinople for peanuts" isn't really a valid argument, since it'd be incredibly easy to avoid. i do agree with people though that having bilateral deals be an option in multiplayer amongst players wouldn't be a bad idea though.

although i also think that humans will be able to exploit the ai every time, there will always be a flaw in a calculation, or a meta exploit, or whatever, so i don't think that's necessarily a valid counterargument either.

 

[Martocticvs]

It worries me that the devs don't seem to have responded to concerns about what happens if a third party occupies the wargoal, even simply to say "we're working on it". It's annoying enough in EUIV to be unable to take land you want because someone else has started a different war and occupied it; if, in the-game-we're-pretending-isn't-EU5, you risk being locked out of taking any land if someone else takes a single crucial province before you do, it will be far worse.

1000x this. It was so infuriating if someone else started a war against your opponent at the same time (and they often do!). No one wants to (or sometimes maybe even can) end their war until someone backs down and white peaces out.

 

[Atromb]

It doesn't feel like this war exhaustion system will do anything to direct the si to not death-war as it is the one we already have, please consider including a modifier where the ai is willing to peace early if it fears its economy could be ruined in case of prolonged fighting.

 

[PegasKyiv]

Blue is town, green is city.




View attachment 1196562

Why Moskow is city(became capital only 50 years before game start and exist only few hundreds years) and Kyiv(capital of the Rus kingdom, one of the biggest cities in the Eastern Europe located on the wonderfull trade location) only town? Is it part of "balance" when some countries is "lucky" and have extra bonuses to show it?

 

[Impperius]

If two-sided peace deals are too complex for the AI to handle, could we at least get two-sided peace deals between players in multiplayer?