You should not be able to impose peace deals that cut a country into pieces

[Linbot#6018]

"Bordergore" is a concept with many definitions and even more causes, but I want to talk about a particular cause which is highly pervasive in EU4: peace deals where the losing country is cut into pieces. In real life, I basically cannot think of any relevant examples where this happened, aside from cases where the newly created exclave has close maritime proximity to the heartland, or the exclaves consist of vassals.

We recently got to see examples of what EU5 looks like when you let the game run for 100 years, and it can be clearly seen that EU5 very much inherits this problem. There are other reasons why these borders are unrealistic and undesirable (China should not be permanently divided between Ming and Yuan, one state should unite all of China within a few decades), but even ignoring those, it would be very silly in any context for two countries (other than feudal domains in Europe) to have borders that look like this. So this kind of situation should be made impossible not only because it is ugly but because it is unrealistic.

Therefore, I request that the game should restrict from happening any peace deal that would result in a country being cut into two pieces that do not have very close maritime access, unless one of those pieces already exists (e.g. colonies). It would be acceptable if the exclave is still connected to the capital through vassal territory. One way to define this is by saying that if your peace deal would result in locations in that country becoming zero control (as long as they are not already zero control), it is illegal, but I'm not sure if it would be practical to calculate that. This could be accomplished either by blocking you from sending such peace deals, or by making the AI automatically reject them (as it does in eu4 when you demand land without controlling a fort connected to that land)



I also think that, just in case, the AI should automatically release exclaves as vassals.

Another way to solve this that I have considered is the idea that if a location is occupied in a war, but not annexed by the occupier when the peace deal happens, it should flip to being controlled by rebels, and the former owner would have to send an army there to reconfirm control of it. This would also be of great use in weeding out impossible borders.

 

[Sithodox2286]

One way to define this is by saying that if your peace deal would result in locations in that country becoming zero control (as long as they are not already zero control), it is illegal, but I'm not sure if it would be practical to calculate that. This could be accomplished either by blocking you from sending such peace deals, or by making the AI automatically reject them (as it does in eu4 when you demand land without controlling a fort connected to that land)

100% agree, and Estimate Control is a good way to check that.

China should not be permanently divided between Ming and Yuan, one state should unite all of China within a few decades

About how Red Turban ends would be another thing.

I agree that the rebels weren’t be able to set a status quo like in the time of Southern and Northern Dynasties or 3 Kingdoms. That’s because how hostile they were to each other, and balance were much more fragile because local economy across late Yuan were basically ruined to sustain local power.

But, I think there should be a way to form such stalemate later in the game. Divide and Unite is always fun to play with.

 

[Nostalgium]

I'd personally prefer if such exclaves (excepting naval exclaves) had mechanics which strongly pushed for them to be released as subjects, to demonstrate a more or less total severance from the central government, rather than the game straight up forbidding it. Exceptions made for regions covered by IOs meant to represent de-facto or de-jure subjects of a state, like the HRE and Ilkhanate.

 

[Zerodv]

I'd personally prefer if such exclaves (excepting naval exclaves) had mechanics which strongly pushed for them to be released as subjects, to demonstrate a more or less total severance from the central government, rather than the game straight up forbidding it. Exceptions made for regions covered by IOs meant to represent de-facto or de-jure subjects of a state, like the HRE and Ilkhanate.

That's not a good solution, because it makes spaghetti borders optimal

 

[grommile]

So what you're saying is, if a country is one acceptable-conquest-unit thick at the point where I have a land border with it, I can only do so by also taking all the land to one side of it?

 

[Nostalgium]

That's not a good solution, because it makes spaghetti borders optimal

Please elaborate. I don't really see how this is the case, because that would make it very easy to cut off your control of large swathes of land by conquering one province right at the end of such a spaghetti border "strand".

 

[Wildrake]

I basically cannot think of any relevant examples where this happened, aside from cases where the newly created exclave has close maritime proximity to the heartland, or the exclaves consist of vassals.

Philadelphia is a good case study here. After being cut out, it basically became a city-state and was a Byzantine vassal only nominally.

I think it is hard to implement accurately in-game, because usually pre-modern countries were unconcerned with the legality of expansion and took everything they could; exclaves like this rarely formed because they were basically free to take land.

 

[Don_Quigleone]

I think the key here is actually balance related. The game should be balanced towards total wars and total victories being rare.

Unless the country is small, it should be extremely rare for a war ending with total occupation of the enemy. Instead, the most efficient way to wage war should be occupying border regions. It should be a notable event when a capital is besieged.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I think the easy answer would be that severing a country in two would be treated as forcing the release of the severed off part, and you'd need the warscore to enforce that.

Demanding these should cost the same, basically.

 

[Sirbab]

I think the easy answer would be that severing a country in two would be treated as forcing the release of the severed off part, and you'd need the warscore to enforce that.

View attachment 1299318View attachment 1299319

Demanding these should cost the same, basically.

The same? You're getting less for the same war score. Surely letting them keep some land as a vassal is worse than getting the land directly. It's s a neat idea though.

 

[Zerodv]

Please elaborate. I don't really see how this is the case, because that would make it very easy to cut off your control of large swathes of land by conquering one province right at the end of such a spaghetti border "strand".

I don't understand what you are talking about, your solution basically still incentivizes cutting countries into pieces to make the collapse into decentralized subjects which you can then annex more easily

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

I think countries should tend towards unification. If they have the same culture and cores, they should accept becoming a vassal of each other or at least form a Union or something. If they are very tiny in relative size events should trigger for those tiny tags asking to join your country. you should not be forced as Ming or Yuan to completely go absolutely blitzkreig on brother tiny tags all over the place conquering them when they would obviously should be happy to re unify again. Especially when it is the same culture and cores etc. Like they should know it makes no sense for them to be a hostile tiny tag and they gain nothing from it.

That should help clean up bordergore after countries implode in civil wars. It is also historical and realistic. Like if France implodes it should not stay split in 20 small tags hating each other while spain, england, aragon, and Burgundy pick them off one by one. They should quickly work together to name a new king to unify the country and protect them against external threats.

 

[resand]

I do not agree that it should be impossible, if for no other reasons that its fun to do.

But I can agree that it should be harder then just taking land normally.

Maybe have the AI take into account a new "estimated control" of land in it's evaluation of the peace deal. So it's not more expensive for you from a AE standpoint, but it makes it less likely that the AI will agree.

If that's to calculation intensive, maybe just a flat -x per cut of location to "agreeing to peace deal" from the AI.

So you could still do it at 100% score, but can't as easily do a small border skirmish and split a country in half by taking couple of locations.

 

[lukesilveira]

The same? You're getting less for the same war score. Surely letting them keep some land as a vassal is worse than getting the land directly. It's s a neat idea though.

I'd say that generally it's less about how much the winner gains and more about how much the loser gives up. The losing side cares far more about what they're forced to surrender than what you're getting out of the deal. Exceptions apply, sometimes denying territory was more strategic for the loser than keeping it, yadda yadda.

I agree though, it shouldn't cost the same but the formation of exclaves should lead to costlier peace deals

 

[Nostalgium]

I don't understand what you are talking about, your solution basically still incentivizes cutting countries into pieces to make the collapse into decentralized subjects which you can then annex more easily

If you're already winning hard enough to carve up a country regularly in peace deals to create such exclaves, I don't really see a problem with this. Furthermore, carving a country up into subjects might actually strengthen it in future wars. Say you fight a Catholic Hungary that has conquered Hussite Bohemia, and you sever it along the border. Hungary might have previously had 10% control in Bohemia, which was also wrong culture and religion, and not been extracting the full value from it. In the next war, you now have to fight Hungary and their Bohemian subject, the latter of which would be able to extract more value from the region than Hungary could due to having higher control and fewer cultural/religious issues. In practice, a net stronger opponent.

Where this is not the case, sure, it might make the opponent a little bit weaker than if the exclave didn't become a subject, but it was an opponent you were strong enough to carve up in the first place, so it's not "win harder", just differently flavoured "winning as hard as you already were". And if you create many spaghetti borders, you open yourself up to losing these regions to subjects yourself, as an enemy just have to cut you off from your spaghetti border by conqureing one location rather than take the whole thing.

 

[Kovax]

It should be "possible" to take a province that splits a country into enclaves, but more expensive than just taking the single province.

Making it impossible means that you cannot take any land from a country which borders you with only a province that connects its other provinces, unless you take a province that's not directly adjacent to your own country, which would be relatively pointless to take due to lack of control. Making it no more expensive than any other province means that you can easily fragment a rival into bite-sized fragments that it cannot adequately control, effectively dismantling them for the price of a single province.

There should be some additional war score cost to take a province that would create an enclave, perhaps based on some percentage of the cost of taking those provinces isolated from their capital, perhaps up to a maximum of double the cost of that keystone province.

 

[Mid Ocean Ridge Basalt]

A memorable example from this period was the Ottoman Empire taking land that cut the Byzantine Empire into three pieces: Constantinople, Thessaloniki and Morea. This happened because Constantinople and Thessaloniki were very defensible fortified cities that the Ottoman Empire could not take by force. In practice, after this, Thessaloniki and Morea were ruled by highly autonomous governers, because the Bynzatine Empire did not have a strong enough navy to guarantee safe travel between its domains. (This info is from The New Roman Empire by Kaldellis)

Other memorable examples are the treaty of Roskilde, which split Norway, and the Treaty of Versaille (after time period), which split Germany.

I will suggest a variant of @Kovax's suggestion: make AI less willing to accept a peace that splits its country.

 

[Wildrake]

I think countries should tend towards unification. If they have the same culture and cores, they should accept becoming a vassal of each other or at least form a Union or something. If they are very tiny in relative size events should trigger for those tiny tags asking to join your country. you should not be forced as Ming or Yuan to completely go absolutely blitzkreig on brother tiny tags all over the place conquering them when they would obviously should be happy to re unify again. Especially when it is the same culture and cores etc. Like they should know it makes no sense for them to be a hostile tiny tag and they gain nothing from it.

That should help clean up bordergore after countries implode in civil wars. It is also historical and realistic. Like if France implodes it should not stay split in 20 small tags hating each other while spain, england, aragon, and Burgundy pick them off one by one. They should quickly work together to name a new king to unify the country and protect them against external threats.

Different warlords were not happy to reunify at all. The integration of land with your culture was far easier to achieve, yeah, but convincing their leaders to do so voluntarily? Not before the era of nationalism.

 

[Farfour]

exclaves like this rarely formed because they were basically free to take land.

This right here is what the game needs to simulate to end bordergore. And, hopefully, for the AI to have some kind of “retreat” option.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

I do not agree that it should be impossible, if for no other reasons that its fun to do.

A lot of these requests seems to be "make this thing I don't like impossible" when the solution is staring you in the face; you can just not do the thing. The AI doesn't generally create exclaves if it can help it and making it a rule for the player just isn't fun in a game meant to be fun.