Albania! (And how to represent stubborn small states up against larger ones)

[Mrdie]

As pretty much everyone who play EU3 has noticed (in a 1440's-70's start anyway), Albania begins at war with the Ottoman Empire and is promptly annexed shortly after the game begins. In reality the Albanian forces under Skanderbeg resisted Ottoman attempts to conquer most of Albania for decades up until a few years after he himself died, and for centuries after the Ottoman authorities were forced to grant northern Albanian tribes de facto independence in their affairs outside of paying a yearly tribute. Yet in EU3 Albania is a one-province (and therefore inevitably puny military-wise) country that rolls over without issue.

I'm sure Albania wasn't the only case in the time-period wherein a small state was able to fend off for at least a few years a larger foe, yet EU3 didn't simulate this at all. I don't think one should have to divide Albania into 7 provinces or something to represent how hard it was for the Ottomans (who sent their own rulers to fight Skanderbeg's men) to conquer Albania.

 

[JakobWerle]

I believe one great way to showcase this would be the HOI system. In which sometimes a country refuses annexation and remains a rebel state. But is occupied under your control till you can quell the rebels. I think another country should also be allowed to fund said rebels and help them fight off the aggressor. And like in HOI 3; guerilla" type units should be recruit able to attempt and regain independence. It might take even a hard set in stone time of 5 years to take a country completely after annexation (low time amount I know but a start.) And then after this annexation period or integration period the core system of 50 years could kick in. Every time a country took over another they had to do 1 of 2 thins. Slaughter the entire populace or institute a slow but new provincial government to re stabilize the area and reign them in completely.

 

[Chamboozer]

The first thing they need to do is remove the defensive bonus besieging armies get. It's a backwards system which actually makes it harder to defend your own mountainous terrain if you're a small country. Switzerland, for instance, when defending itself has to fight most of its battles with the enemy recieving the defensive bonus.

 

[Ashantai]

Agreed. The owner (not just the occupier) should always get the defensive bonuses. This will also make rebels harder to defeat since you can't do the usual trick of putting small armies in the swiss provinces then reinforcing them once the rebels appear so you get the mountain bonus.

 

[Darknesskilla]

Agreed. The owner (not just the occupier) should always get the defensive bonuses. This will also make rebels harder to defeat since you can't do the usual trick of putting small armies in the swiss provinces then reinforcing them once the rebels appear so you get the mountain bonus.

This seems like a very elegant solution !

 

[Kanin_Usagi]

Personally, I think that if a state has less than a certain amount of provinces - say three or less - they should get a home turf bonus when defending. "They know the land better than the invaders, and are fighting for their freedom, so they can fight better here."

 

[JakobWerle]

I like these ideas! But the real problem with countries like Albania/Serbia/Hungary being defeated was; is that they didn't lose provinces' they lost a city or a fort and the surrounding area; they had static borders. But the PDX genre has fixed borders which I don't mind but these implementations could help solve some of those problems. Also sort of like in CK 2 a province should have a garrison on top of the fort defensive force to deal with minor rebellions etc. and depending on how much you spend on garrisoned soldiers the bigger defensive force you have although they will not be movable but could fend of an army of a few thousand forcing them to retreat.

 

[Vasious]

Have rebels work smarter not harder.
If a terriotry has revolt risk - when it triggers rather than a sudden uprising which could if it occurs in a period of relative stability be squashed easliy.
Instead when the revolt risk wins the dice roll the provinces gets x many "nationalist" (or appropriate) rebels that do awful thinks like reduce supply in the province- lower tax - etc.
Each successful roll of the revolt risk die adds to their number and effect.
They only risk up in revolt as an army when certain criteria are met - when the blood is in the water - low stability or a losing war score or a combination of such - then they risk up when the odds are better stacked in their favour.

Of course this MO wouldnt be suitable for all rebel types but an idea to add to the rest above.

 

[murlocmancer]

This has always been a problem with PDX games. Small nations can not put up the resistance they truly did IRL. A way to fix this would be nice but I can see the problem with fixing it.

 

[Closet Skeleton]

EU does long wars of insurrection really badly in general. Its a 'grand strategy game', 'guerrilla conflicts' aren't really its forte at all. So maybe that sort of war shouldn't be represented on the map at all. Instead the country can be vassalized or annexed but then until it becomes a core there will be a ton of negatives representing the ongoing guerrilla conflict. This sucks if you want to play those nations though, unless they revise the vassal system so vassals have more freedom.

A cassus bell system so that you can only strip a country of core provinces if you also have a core there and can only vassalize rather than annex a country you conquor unless you have a core on teh capital might be nice. The vassalized state can then eventually be annexed just like normal in EU3.

 

[nijis]

Some small, poor stubborn regions -- mountainous, or steppe, or desert -- like Albania, Scotland, Kabylia, the northern Caucasus, and most of Afghanistan that have little tradition of central government should be almost impossible to conquer, and rarely worth the effort anyway. They should be a thorn in the side of large empires with their constant raiding, and the empires' most cost-efficient option in dealing with them should be to send a punitive expedition top keep them quiet for a decade or two.

 

[tului]

Some small, poor stubborn regions -- mountainous, or steppe, or desert -- like Albania, Scotland, Kabylia, the northern Caucasus, and most of Afghanistan that have little tradition of central government should be almost impossible to conquer, and rarely worth the effort anyway. They should be a thorn in the side of large empires with their constant raiding, and the empires' most cost-efficient option in dealing with them should be to send a punitive expedition top keep them quiet for a decade or two.

Translating this into gameplay mechanics would be amazing. Something above and beyond the existing wrong culture and wrong religion penalties.

 

[PiriReis]

At the end of the day Albania was conquered and became a part of the Sublime Porte, this happened sooner or later with the most small states throughout Europe. So we should not make them invincible or something otherwise it is a good idea.

 

[Closet Skeleton]

At the end of the day Albania was conquered and became a part of the Sublime Porte

At the end of the day the majority of the tribal authorities in Albania accepted the supremacy of the Sublime Porte. 'Conquered' is a pretty inexact word. Albania wasn't absorbed the same way Greece was.

Albania was able to pop up against pretty easily when the Sublime Porte became unable to exert any authority over it since despite a lot of conversions to Islam no assimilation actually happened.

 

[Mrdie]

At the end of the day the majority of the tribal authorities in Albania accepted the supremacy of the Sublime Porte. 'Conquered' is a pretty inexact word. Albania wasn't absorbed the same way Greece was.

Albania was able to pop up against pretty easily when the Sublime Porte became unable to exert any authority over it since despite a lot of conversions to Islam no assimilation actually happened.

This.

The issue isn't making Skanderbeg and Co. "invincible," it's making them actually difficult to defeat in battle, as was historical, rather than the EU engine automatically assuming that one-province countries are being defended by men with wet towels and wooden legs.

Of course having a more detailed system of rule over provinces would be nice as well (Constantinople was obviously totally under Ottoman control, Albania—especially in the north—much less so) with having to make decisions like if one wants to centralize power in said province for higher tax revenue and greater long-term stability at risk of present revolts, etc.

 

[Raventhefuhrer]

I think an interesting solution would be to make the AI (and perhaps the player) much more likely to vassalize rather than annex countries. Perhaps with heavy incentives (why spend 50 years trying to get a core on Albania, fighting rebellions, getting 0 or even negative income from the province when you could just vassalize them and get a share of their income for no fuss at all?) to encourage this.

That way, small countries don't necessarily get gobbled up, they exist as helpful allies and perhaps after many years of vassalization they could be diplo-annexed without fuss if you have especially good relations with the vassal. Plus, the Albania's of the world can bide their time for an opportunity to revolt and re-establish their independence while at the same time not having to live in constant fear of an eminent game over.

 

[svenk91]

A small modified system of colonization would do perfect in my opinion.

If a country has a high aggressiveness and a high population it will take a lot more time/money to get a proper amount of taxes and forces from the province.
The aggressiveness factor could be calculated by how different the culture/religion is and if it's core or non core, difference between government form of new and old ruler (people from a republic didn't fancy a monarch overlord all of a sudden) and the difference in centralization. Swapping one warlord for another was often a small inconvenience but to force a tribe the ways of a very centralized bureaucratic empire and the other way around was more of a problem.

It also makes playing with vassals more interesting. In EU3 I would often make vassals around the world to manage my colonies for me and had only few colonies in my own name just to avoid rebel squatting. Newly conquered land is probably more likely to cooperate with a country that is more of the same culture etc. while that vassals of yours still gives you some proper cash and manpower thus giving you a choice to fully exploit a new country but you need to put more resources into it, or go the easy mode but get less in return in the long run and face the risk of an entire vassal nation turning its back on you.

China for example encourages a lot of Chinese people to go and live in Tibet so they can improve their grip on the region (not wanting to start a discussion about this but it's just an example of how "colonizing" gives more grip on a region and gets more money out of it if you invest).

It isn;t that different from how you can conquer land from the hordes in EU3 now except that the province first gets into your empire and then you start to integrate the country.

If you link this to a country becoming a core (when you get 100% tax/manpower) you could have a country a core in maybe 10-20 years if you invest a lot and if they are your neighboring same cultured people but It can take several hundred years for let's say the british to have benefit from the horde lands (in my EU3 experience the British would sometimes land near Crimea and expand into the golden horde at great speed). And it will take hundred of years for the mass of their produce to reach the trade routes maybe?

With a simple aggressiveness factor algorithm and small changes to the current colonization system (not go to 1000 people but to 100%, a number to which tax and manpower and produce efficiency is directly coupled) I see a good system that would stop the ottomans from quickly reaping benefits out of albania!

 

[murlocmancer]

I think that rebellious populations should have a drain on gold that is MORE then what you get from taxes. This makes sense as it shows that some things are just not worth taking over. But ofcourse you can conquer, wait for the population to be surpressed, or rise in the income of the province, and at some point it becomes useful. But when you first conquer it, then you should lose gold for holding it. This will be tied with the terrain of certain provinces. If it is a mounatainious land, it becomes hard to adminster and you will be constantly raided and be wasting gold.

 

[AlHasanAlbaghdadi]

Have rebels work smarter not harder.
If a terriotry has revolt risk - when it triggers rather than a sudden uprising which could if it occurs in a period of relative stability be squashed easliy.
Instead when the revolt risk wins the dice roll the provinces gets x many "nationalist" (or appropriate) rebels that do awful thinks like reduce supply in the province- lower tax - etc.
Each successful roll of the revolt risk die adds to their number and effect.
They only risk up in revolt as an army when certain criteria are met - when the blood is in the water - low stability or a losing war score or a combination of such - then they risk up when the odds are better stacked in their favour.

Of course this MO wouldnt be suitable for all rebel types but an idea to add to the rest above.

Really good proposals guys, but this proposal is the best IMO as it is (or should be) quite easy to implement without having to make radical changes.
Rather than forming armies (they would still do when they get really strong) the rebels continuously adding bad modifiers to the province they're in as long as they remain unchallenged is a great idea, not only would this be realistic, but it would also slow down big empires without destroying them by having their armies sieging a rebel fort while leaving rebel armies capture more... This would solve a big AI problem without having to edit the AI much... the rebel problem might actually be the biggest AI problem, its notorious for destroying AI empires and sending them back to a worse state than what they started with.
I suggest that rebel activity in a province would steadily decline when an army is stationed there.. probably make the progress depend on how large the army is and/or how organized it is.
Anyway its certainly a groundbreaking idea, so simple, yet so effective.

 

[Gogog]

Frankly I always vassalized Albania anyway. Too poor, weak trade goods and wrong religion/culture. I stopped doing that when magna mundi decided that vassals get magically released without a struggle. Which was annoying because I really didn't want to subjugate or even get tribute, I just didn't want them plotting with my neighbors.

David Vs. Goliath is always a problem in paradox games. The crux of the issue seems to be that there is nothing stopping large nations from directing the entirety of their forces at smaller enemies. China doesn't invade Burma with one or two armies which can be defeated in a campaign, it invades with a million men with no regards for losses. In reality if the Chinese invasion force was defeated there should be huge prestige and war exhaustion reasons to avoid sending more. Not to mention logistical or financial imperatives.

Frankly I cant see a way to fix the issue without a major rework or making the game far less fun.