Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[KreeperGamer]

Some are code generated, like gold, sacrificing nobles, taking locations, making subjects and releasing countries.

Many are 100% from script like these..

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Does "disband kontor" mean kontors in your country or can you as the UK tell the Hanseatic League to leave the Netherlands, for example?

 

[kc01]

So why is there no bilateral peaces?

For games with peace-negotiations, about 20%+ of all AI development tend to goes to understanding situation of war and negotiate peace. Its a super complicated thing to work on, to make sure that

1) the AI is able to play the game and keep somewhat of a progress.
2) not frustrate the player and make him quit.

Making it support "treaties" going multiple ways for a peace would not just double the complexity, but instead of N, its a NxN problem at least.

Doesn't matter. It's a completely essential component to the reality of "grand strategy". It will ALWAYS be incomplete without this feature. Personally, I would trade every improvement for just that one. I'm sure paradox, a billion dollar company, has the resources to locate some highly talented software engineers to solve the problem in a novel way. The peace deal experience can be enough to kill the entire experience (see: CK3, which is unimaginative, unrealistic, and frustrating). Without this feature I really don't understand how you can hope to give the kind of depth every other feature is trying to achieve...

 

[Idle America]

Sad to see there are no two way peace deals

You mean where both sides could exchange territory, or one side agrees to cede territory in exchange for payments or other compensation?

 

[Failtier]

mate already this game is complex enough it will likely appeal only to eu4 players but less of new players and you want them to narrow that even more by testing new experimental things that when tried in vic3 for example it failed it made the player numbers goes from 100k expected to play it to 10k just because they changed things .

to succeed is not to fix it when its not broken . the game already have plenty flavoring that we dont know how it would work such as stockpiling to wage wars and integrations and now you do want more experimental ideas

if this game is eu5 indeed then it should be more modern but not more different

I understand that reasoning to some extend for the two-way peace treaties as there might be technical limitations regarding AI behavior (which, however, does not explain why that option doesn't exist in MP). But AE does not really do well what it is supposed to do (prevent blobbing), which is why I am so disappointed that there is literally just a copy + paste from other Paradox GSG (EU4, I:R).

 

[I.N Tasty cake]

I remember when starting to play eu4 i got really disappointed that in a peace treaty theres only a "win or lose part". I mean, wouldnt it be cool if you could get land from your enemy but also giving it some land? Like a compromise, could be very realistic and interesting in my opinion

 

[aperson456]

Why are people so against this? I don't see what the problem is.

 

[Focus my son]

Is it possible to include rebels in a peace deal with a nation? For instance, if I'm at war with Russia and Karelian rebels emerge during the conflict, could I establish diplomatic relations with these rebels and potentially make them my ally during the war? Additionally, during the peace talks, could I support their independence claims in a way that's more efficient or less costly than using the 'release nation' feature in EU4, especially since they actively fought for their independence?

 

[Failtier]

Why not have the game option for mutual concessions (or two way peace treaties, or two-sided peace treaties, however you call them)

• Disabled (default option)
• Players only
• Disabled for AI (i.e., a player can do it with other players or the AI, but AI cannot do it with another AI or players)
• Enabled (for everyone)

It would mean that the devs don't have to commit to this feature, but modders can at least try to make it work. Mark the last option as "experimental" or whatever because the feature will surely be broken, but players can have their immersion in single player. I mean let's be real, a Spiffing Brit will always find a way to exploit the AI, but you decide whether it's fun for you in SP to actually do it or not.

Establish some basic rules, like AI doesn't want to give away majority primary culture, cores, high control, natural harbors, major forts, etc. and you prevent players from being absolutely cheesy.

 

[Kong Rødskæg]

If I am participating in a war as a minor party(meaning, not being the war leader), can I "betray" my allies and the warleader by negotiating a seperate peace with the opposing warleader that allows me to exit the war?.. Similarily, if I am the warleader, can I potentially "bribe" minor allies of the opposition to leave the war while continuing to fight the main target?

 

[Fawr]

It's good to know some of the core mechanics like these from EU4 will be in PC, with minor makeovers. A bit less exciting than other dev diaries though.

 

[Lindaegan]

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.

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.

That being said, more egregious to me than the lack of bilaterals is all the other same overdone schlock being ported over from EUIV. It may be the "best" system designed for a GSG, but that in no way means that it is good. Enough ideas about alternatives to things like AE have been provided, and I cannot really say how they are in any way inferior to whatever this is.

 

[Fawr]

AE and the opinion impact from it is seperate.

This might need some explanation.

Also if it is at all like the EU4 system better tooltips and warnings would be very helpful.

• Going through a long list of countries with concerning AE and comparing to a long list of countries with truces and a short list of countries with positive relations (and going back to the peace deal again and again to see how much those relations are going down) was slow and overly manual.
• Plus it would be nice to see how the relationship penalty was calculated in-game.
• It would also be nice to be able to see the potential AE before you declare war (rather than needing to open the peace system and be qualified to select the relevant options)

 

[Fehervari]

How about putting a cap on the bilateral terms of a peace deal, maybe at a maximum of 10% of the overall warscore? Would that still not work?

 

[RaccoonCity]

I don't understand why this dev diary has so many dislikes. The peace deal system seems pretty much the same as EU4, which I think is a decent system, probably the best one any PDX game has.

About not allowing the two sided peace deals, it would be cool for sure, but Johan already explained that it would make the AI act poorly. I strongly support that any mechanic the game has it has to be well used by the AI. When a PDX game introduces mechanics, mostly with patches/DLCs, and its just a mechanic for the player that the AI doesn't know how to handle, it sucks very much. So I support sacrifying the two sided peace deals if favor of a good AI. Vicky 3 AI sucks a lot in peace deals (well, in almost everything to be honest), for example.

I mean, we can still give things to the war leader enemy allies individually to pull them out of the war, and take things from the war leader enemy in the final peace deal (like in EU4), right? @Johan

 

[Cephei80]

I understand that reasoning to some extend for the two-way peace treaties as there might be technical limitations regarding AI behavior (which, however, does not explain why that option doesn't exist in MP). But AE does not really do well what it is supposed to do (prevent blobbing), which is why I am so disappointed that there is literally just a copy + paste from other Paradox GSG (EU4, I:R).

expansion will be limited here by manpower trained and equipments and integration
the game will not allow blobbing , its gonna be more like stellaris now
i mean you can always try that but it wont be as busted as before

 

[Kabutsk]

it would increase the evaluation complexity

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

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Aggressive Expansion? Coalitions? No. Just no. But thanks anyway.

 

[Kabutsk]

Can you set multiple war goals? It would be interesting to have a multiple-reason war, (for extra costs ofc)

 

[WhiskyGlen]

1) Permablock anyone who only posts "wow," "owo," or anything like that.

2) I really despise how "enthusiasm" worked in EUIV. Nothing like being on the obvious cusp of turning a war in your favor only for the biggest ally to drop out because their war enthusiasm briefly drops to -1% because you lost "making gains." I'm sure I'm not the only one who would pause frequently and as soon as I see my best ally turn red, make peace in the few days available before they drop out.

3) Promising spoils sometimes works ok, but I'd rather guarantee them what to spoil them with and the potential for that to be as little as one province or potentially many provinces. Not load them up because they participated more.

4) War score/participation never seemed to be calculated right. Winning battles and inflicting casualties barely seemed to matter at times.

5) Totally irrelevant to the post, but can anyone tell me how long Paradox tends to use codenames before officially announcing the game? And then when the game is officially announced, how long til release? The codename has been unveiled for over half a year now. Are we looking at closer to say a year release, or two to three years? Five? Never?

 

[JackNotLantern]

I really don't like going back to eu4 arbitrary province warscore value capped at 100%. This will be just the same problems all over again, like "oh i need 5 provinces, but they cost 101% warscore in total, so i need 2 wars instead of 1 with 15 years truce to get them all".

This also means you can't annex a country even if you completely control them and destroyed every single unit of their army - they are completely conquered and yet you can't claim their country.

This is one of the things that feels just completely like "this is a game" and not an "immersive" and "belivable world" as it was stated is the vision for Project Caesar in TT1. It's just a dacades old system all over again without meaningful changes, seemingly based on limited AI not being able to understand when to give up or keep fighting (even though the system affects player vs player wars). Just stagnation.

I think it could be fixed in several ways:

- the requirements for "controlling province capital" is limiting enough. You need to control what you want to conquer, so spend resources to siege everything and keep occupied.

- make the occupation hard to maintain. Not only expensive and unprofitable, but also limiting supply forcing the occupant to use their army to keep control - you must occupy provinces to demand them but you need resources to keep occupation. Self-limiting and forcing to end the war faster.

- add passive damage from rebels to the army keeping the occupation. It can't reinforce in occupied territory so it has a limit to their strength.

- local pop should want to end the occupation as it damages the province. E.g. if this is a foreign culture occupation of provinces with pop of the owner culture, the rebels should liberate the provinces - if i remember correctly in eu3 is was "patriot rebels" or something like that. If the pop is a different culture from both occupant and province owner it could spawn separatist/nationalist rebels that would want to use this opportunity to become independent/ go to third party nation. If the occupied province is a core of the occupant and pop is the right culture, it will not revolt as pop is willing to be ruled by them.

- make the annexation of large portion have penalies. I'm not talking about re-adding overextention with arbitrary limit and global effects. Newly conquered land and not integrate land with low control (particullary with wrong culture and religion) should be expensive keep, and spawn rebels that can make you lose provinces easly unless you activate are stopping them (definitely not as long 5 years of occupation like in eu4).

In summary: make occupation required to conquer land, make occupation costly and active making the war harder, make the rebel system vital to the limits of occupation and integrating new land. This way players will have to limit themselves from conquest, or they will lose what they just got, and will not be blocked by "oh no the number in game it too big".