Tinto Talks #31 - 2nd of October 2024

[Failtier]

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.

Again, I find this reply very rude as we have discussed the points why we take issue with those mechanics in detail by now. And you keep insisting that we haven't presented any substantial critique, although our discussions do not only cover this thread, but they also cover various other forum posts where we went into a lot of detail.

There is no reason to be this rude. We are dedicating our time and energy to improve the game, we are giving feedback to make the devs understand what we think would be good for the game. We have heavily upvoted every other TT until this point, but this one is straight a vast disappointment IMO for reasons we have, again, discussed in detail.

Besides, your argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Every feature has to be maintained and updated, sure. But if it's a feature that we, the players, want then it should be worth it for the Paradox team to consider it. We are now at a point of saying "Well if your AI surely cannot handle it, which is disappointing, then allow us the MP option for that." And your argument is basically "But that costs development resources, which isn't worth it." I think to some degree the players should have a word in this if they think they really want this feature. And clearly, the vast majority wants this feature.

Also, by saying that due to the AI, it would take more time to update the game and introduce bugs, you are misrepresenting our arguments. If we are saying "MP only," it means the AI isn't involved in such treaties, it would only be between players. I don't see at all how that results in all the drawbacks which you describe (and whether you are a programmer or not, you are misrepresenting our arguments, so I don't take that into account at all.).

*And I'm putting you on the ingore list now because every single post of yours is frankly very rude.

 

[matfer13]

Yeah, not even Kraków with its university founded by Casmir the Great...
Not mentioning Gdańsk ( aka Danzig)
which was the biggest city along Vistula river arround XIV- XV century.

Danzig wasn't doing well in 1337 since 30 years before it was destroyed by the Teutons and there isn't even an Hanseatic outpost

 

[P.Quirinius]

What I see as the most serious potential exploit in two way peace deals is the possibility that the war leader could trade their allies' land for enemies' land. I think this could be avoidable if the secondary war participants would refuse to let the war leader to dispose of their land unless the war leader also lost comparable amount of land or worth of war score. I think this feature could be also introduced into the game even without two way peace deals, because it would solve the issue of the player or AI war leader only using the secondary participants' land to peace out in a losing war.

 

[Xtermer]

I think I like the concept of "you have to take the wargoal if you want to take other land" but I feel like it's maybe a little too forced. Maybe it would be better to just have the cost of other land be increased if you don't take the wargoal? It would achieve a similar effect as to not allowing you to take any other land while still not feeling too game-y, and also serve as a compromise since some people seemed to dislike that.

Another thing, which I saw in a reddit comment which I agreed a lot with, is that maybe you could add bilateral peace treaties to be mp exclusive? Like they only work if it's a peace deal between two players. That would make mp much more fun and interesting imo, without making AI more complex.

 

[Indíbil]

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

I hope it won't take 300 years to take the Mamluks as the XVIth century Ottomans

 

[onodera]

Can you threaten war over more CBs than just territorial claims? Can you combine multiple CBs?

 

[Abnormalmind]

I was hoping for something more dynamic and less prone to abuse/gamey in wars. I mean it's just silly watching an OPM like Navarra call Castile and Aragon into a war with France, and quickly occupying a few provinces. Then, letting the big nations do all the heavy lifting.

The war leader shouldn't be vastly smaller than the allied war participants.

Dynamic war leaders?

 

[Daverix]

Imagine allowing Peace Treaties above 100 Warscore Cost, but ...
... with exponential growing AE beyond that point. (Since all your friends think u re going unreasonably way overboard).
So good luck going for a 150 Warscore Victory and then fighting a worldwide coalition

I just hate when my favourite peace deal costs 101 Warscore and i can't send it.

 

[Ekyman]

Except the AI already does this in EU4 though for the purposes of one way peace offers, accepting a certain number of button presses on the gold meter (the precise amount of money that entails depends on the economy of the sender in question) as equivalent to X amount of war score, the same as it does with provinces, and thus the AI already allows you to "buy" provinces (or rather, forgo gold to take more provinces). And since the gold button presses are scaled to the economy of the *sender*, it is wholly irrelevant for these purposes that player economies tend to be stronger than the AI. If anything, its an argument in favor.

First, I would argue that a significant reason factor in the player economy issue is not that players earn more money but that players at a certain point earn so much money that it essentially doesn't matter what you spend it on. This is what I mean by money not being of equal value - money can basically cease to have meaningful value to the player. Perhaps if every cost in the game scaled with a country's economy, but that has its own problems. But scaling the cost of this one item wouldn't help that much when all the buildings that increase wealth aren't scaled in cost and wealth begets wealth. Also, requiring the player to win a war regardless of what they want ameliorates much of the AI exploit issue of a simple "buy province" mechanic (I know you're talking about two-way treaties though).

Second, on the topic of two-way peace deals, your point would only resolve the price of a province. But it doesn't do anything to resolve the issue of making the AI understand not just which locations they want most, but whether it's worth it to spend money to get an extra location, and how much money it's worth it to spend for that goal (I don't mean the price of the province, I mean how much should they be willing to spend on extra provinces). Like, say we agree that the fair price of Liverpool is the amount of gold you'd have to spend to match its warscore - how do you make the AI know when it's a good idea to spend that money to add Liverpool to the peace deal and when it's a bad idea? If it's always a good idea then it's not interesting, it's just a snowball machine for rich countries; if it's a strategic choice then you need to make the AI able to calculate the value of each option.

Of course this all can in theory be balanced, it's just a lot of work and IMO a two-way treaty mechanic that only works with money doesn't really add much to the game. As a player it just means I can get an extra location or a couple each war as long as I saved up some money beforehand. A full two-way system would be cool, but only only just feels like paying to get more.

 

[Failtier]

Making the AI correctly understand an ordered ranking of which locations it wants to acquire, perhaps with a threshold to avoid it wanting really bad provinces, is easier (though not easy) than making the AI correctly understand the exact worth of those locations in terms of giving up other locations to get them, let alone the worth of those locations in money or some even more abstract tradeoff. Also you then also have to make the AI know when to stop - with one-way treaties each concession is essentially free, so you can just add concessions in order of AI value until you either run out of warscore or run out of net-positive concessions (or hit an AE cap). With two-way treaties you could theoretically trade almost everything you can ask for in exchange for almost everything you can give them. And players don't necessarily want to always see the AI make theoretically beneficial trades either. AI Scotland conquering Manchester because they dominated the war is fun; AI Scotland trading less productive Scottish locations to get Manchester because they slightly won the war and got the better trade is going to upset a lot of players, even if it might be mathematically beneficial for Scotland.

I'd love to see true negotiated peace treaties but it's a far more complicated beast than one-way treaties. I also suspect - multiplayer aside - that most of the use of them would in fact be in ways that are at least borderline exploitative of the AI. As cool as the idea of negotiating two-way peace treaties is, I think in practice most players most of the time want to get things and not give up things.

And yet "buy a province" mechanics are infamous in grand strategy and 4X games for regularly having bad or inconsistent balance. Partly because putting a consistently good monetary value on such a thing is actually quite hard, partly because humans typically outstrip the AI economically and therefore money is actually not always of equal value to everyone, partly because humans often put game-external value on owning locations which render the in-game price calculations worthless.

I think this is a very well put critique why implementing a two way peace treaty, or mutual concessions, is rather difficult. A few questions/comments to clarify:

1. As many pointed out, strategic or vital interests might help the AI in their decision-making. Majority primary culture could, e.g., always be considered as vital interests, accepted cultures as strategic. Cores and provinces with high control, with close proximity to the capital could also be regarded as highly valuable. Missions could also play a role. That is, the AI would almost never give away such provinces they consider as their home territory because their value is considered very high or too high.

2.) In EU4, there is some underlying calculation that determines the warscore costs of a province, be it development, buildings, modifiers, etc. (not sure). What I don't full understand is why can't this calculation be applied to translate this into a monetary value.

3.) And interrelated, if you look as historical peace treaties, it was usually the case that giving up claims or land would be compensated for money. In EU4, to paraphrase Frederick II's comment on Saxony, the opponent is rather represented as a bag of flour; you can always beat it and every time, you get something out of it. Waging war to get money AND land, that's not how peace treaties worked in history. So to accurately depict peace treaties, having a monetary value for locations, be it on development, resources, culture, pops, whatever, would be crucial.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

If you declare for an ambitious wargoal, then have a tougher war than expected and come away with nothing rather than something lesser than you’d hoped.

Sounds like most wars in human history.

 

[Frigabus]

Agressive Expansion and Defensive Coalitions:

High AE could lead to (Offensive) Coalitions, that's fine. Historically, there was another more common way to contain an aggressive neighbor: a defensive coalition. I mean, an alliance of countries ONLY against a specific agressor which could lead to war ONLY if the agressor attacks any of the participants (without the possibilty of separate peace). That could be effective tool against countries with medium AE.

One more: making claim against a country (as it's a prelude for war) also could give some AE.

 

[jkn2-12]

Blue is town, green is city.




View attachment 1196562

I think Krakow, Danzig, and Kyiv should all be considered cities if Vilnius, Riga, and Moscow are, as they were similar size and importance at the time. Also, I beg u to change the color from blue to something else, as coastal towns appear unreadeble.

 

[aqvamare]

Not happy about the town/city mapmode for Germany in 1350.

source "https://www.mittelalter-lexikon.de/wiki/Bevölkerungs-_und_Einwohnerzahlen"

Bevölkerungs- und Einwohnerzahlen. Für die Bevölkerungszahlen des Gebietes des späteren Deutschlands liegen geschätzte Angaben vor: 2 Millionen um das Jahr 650, 4 Millionen um 1000, 8 Millionen um 1200, 14 Millionen um 1340 und 10 Millionen um 1470 (der Rückgang war durch Hungersnöte und Epidemien bedingt). Erst Ende des 15. Jh. erreicht die Bevölkerung wieder den Stand der Zeit um 1340. Die Gesamtbevölkerung Europas (einschließlich Ungarns und der slaw. Länder) wird geschätzt auf 18 Mio. um 650, 38,5 - 42 Mio. um 1000, 61 Mio. um 1200, 73 Mio. um 1300, 73,5 Mio. um 1340, 53 - 55 Mio. um 1450 und 76 - 80 Mio. um 1500. Die Einwohnerzahl ma. Dörfer war sehr unterschiedlich. Es gab kleine Ansiedlungen mit fünf Höfen und etwa dreißig Bewohnern und große Dörfer mit 40 Höfen und etwa 250 Einwohnern. Die Durchschnittsgröße dürfte im HMA. bei 10 bis 12 Höfen und ca. 70 Einwohnern gelegen haben. Um 1150 lebten in den 200 deutschen Städten etwa 2 % der Bevölkerung – um 1400 waren es in den bis dahin etwa 3.000 Städten 12%. Nach Henning lassen sich im ausgehenden MA. die ca. 4.000 Städte Deutschlands ihrer Einwohnerzahl entsprechend folgendermaßen gliedern:

2.800 Städte mit weniger als 1.000 Einwohenrn
900 Städte mit 1.000 bis 2.000 Einwohnern
250 Städte mit 2.000 bis 10.000 Einwohnern
12 Städte mit 10.000 bis 20.000 Einwohnern
8 Städte mit mehr als 20.000 E. (Köln, Danzig, Lübeck, Nürnberg, Straßburg, Ulm, Bremen, Magdeburg).

At the end of medival times, around 1350, there were 8 "Mega citiies" in germany with over 20.000 citizien, "Köln, Danzig, Lübeck, Nürnberg, Straßburg, Ulm, Bremen, Magdeburg".

The city map mode do not represent this 8 mega cities of there time, and made some of them to "towns".

 

[MrRichmine]

it currently depends on the warscore used.

It will be cool to have special demand costing, for example, 20 warscore named 'Prolong peace deal'.
It will do nothing but as system now works add extra 1 year to peace.
Sounds easy enough, eh?

 

[PreacherAlfonzo]

Why does paradox insist on making the UI's of their modern releases so terribly bland and ugly? Ever since Imperator we have been cursed with Windows-like, rectangular, ambiguous blobs of UI and maps. The banners, the font, the flags, the finnicky imperator/vic3 tooltips, are all terribly bland and completely inferior to the more artistic UI of EU4, CK2, and even HOI4 and Stellaris.

 

[Enkidou51]

Imagine allowing Peace Treaties above 100 Warscore Cost, but ...
... with exponential growing AE beyond that point. (Since all your friends think u re going unreasonably way overboard).
So good luck going for a 150 Warscore Victory and then fighting a worldwide coalition

I just hate when my favourite peace deal costs 101 Warscore and i can't send it.

This is what happens on victoria 3.

 

[20adam20]

What about the ratification of peace treaties. Often, for peace treaties to come into life and be respected in the region, e.g. in Europe, they are approved by strong neighbors, Regio9nal powers or The Papacy.
At this point, we only have aggressive expansion that has any effect on nations that are not at war.
Maybe neighbors, the papacy,or members of the empire should receive an event with a choice of whether they accept the peace treaties or disagree with them. This could result in the amount of aggressive expansion that the winner receives from each country. And the player could decide whether to accept the peace, question it or consider it irrelevant and not feel the need to have AE for the winner of a neighboring war.
May be country level dependent. Duchies are only of interest to neighboring duchies and kingdoms in the region. Kingdoms are only of interest to duchies in the region and other kingdoms in the subcontinent and empires in the continent. Or just base it on current AE range.

If you don't want to expand the Aggressive Expansion in this way for manny TAGs, maybe at least a similar event mechanics only for The Pope, HRE Emperor, or Major Powers?

Results? Not just flat numbers of AE and better immersion and role play I hope. We can get also new CB types to restore old borders without taking land for yourself?

 

[_Schmitt]

Also, how come control influences twice the warscore cost of a location? Lack of control decreases it, control increases it, but they are the two sides of the same equation

I would assume one is the control that the original province holder had in the territory at the time of the peacedeal. Im not quite sure about the control modifier increasing cost. Is that the control of the side acquiring the land? Like how many provinces in that state they occupied?

 

[bokorthedust]

I would assume one is the control that the original province holder had in the territory at the time of the peacedeal. Im not quite sure about the control modifier increasing cost. Is that the control of the side acquiring the land? Like how many provinces in that state they occupied?

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