Countries should be allowed to interfere in their neighbors' wars

[lukesilveira]

"Offer to join war"? Seems simple enough to script up, with AI willingness to allow being based on the extent that they fear that they might lose and the amount they don't wish to share the spoils. Toss in some extra conditionality based on whether you have a truce with any of the belligerents.

Only issue I can think is, if I recall from the EU4 scripting effect of joining a war, you can only ever join all of someone's wars rather than a single, specific war. Which seems reasonable?

You avoid the stability hit of a no-CB war declaration at the downside of joining someone else's war rather than starting your own, and joining all of their wars rather than just the one.

The problem is that while you're joining the war to prevent A from becoming too powerful by conquering B, you also don't want B to become too strong either, which might happen in the peace deals if you tip the scales too much in B's favor.

I'm not sure if there's a designated war leader in EU5, but if there is, a previously neutral country that enters the conflict should have some influence over the peace term, at least being able to block deals that would be disadvantageous to their interests.

 

[Creamu]

They need to pump up antagonism and make coalitions more common. Any country that becomes a local hegemon should have the remaining local power coalition against them (defensively at first, offensively if possible).

And then scale it up. Bohemia conquers Bavaria and Austria ? Basically all of Germany, and many some neighboring countries should now be in a coalition against them. A coalition that will basically never dissolve. It makes no sense for powers to expand continuously "but it’s been 30 years so it's fine now". No.

This is my understanding of what Antagonism was supposed to be. An AE that doesn’t just go back down to 0 after a couple of years but instead remains high and gradually gets lower the further or least interested you are from the area.

In my opinion, the size and strength of a realm in an area should simply generate a certain amount of passive antagonism. And the size of a nation should cause states to react to a certain amount of antagonism differently.

For example, a small little OPM called Kingdom A would reaction much more strongly to a bit of expansion of the neighboring and much larger kingdom B. While the nearby even larger kingdom C wont feel quite as threated by that smaller kingdom B's meager expansion. But perhaps Kingdom A feeling threatened, can petition for Kingdom C to help defend their autonomy in the event of war.

A large Naples owning much of the southern half of Italy should project a decent amount of antagonism that'll have all the more divided northern Italians states on high alert and ready to do anything to prevent their domination of the entire peninsula if Naples were to try anything. Either through alliances with each other or looking towards other powerful foreign kingdoms nearby like France who are also a bit wary of Naples becoming an even bigger player in the region.

Having antagonism rise then disapisapate will never simulate this.

 

[Nekoluve]

No thanks. Having enemies regularly join/switch sides midway through wars will just end up being extremely frustrating. This is the kind of thing that seems nice from a realism perspective, but will imo lead to bad gameplay.

It also seems like it would be a nightmare to code the AI, which will result in frustrating nonsense as war participants become much more random. How threatened does the regional balance have to be before other countries can intervene? How often should the AI check to see if they want to intervene in any nearby wars? The intervention alliance should end once the forces are balanced, and countries could even switch sides - how often should the AI check for that, and under what criteria? What if they leave the war and then the aggressor regains the advantage? Can they rejoin?

Defensive leagues, coalitions - sure. But telling all AI nations to consider regular mid-war interventions might sound nice on paper, but I think it would mainly result in a ton of furious players and stressed-out devs.

I think if you want to simulate history, you should pay more attention to diplomacy. If you just want to continue to conquer, why not play eu4? There are even eu4 players who challenge to conquer the world in 20 years. To be honest, I am tired of the constant expansion in eu4...

 

[mwc12]

I think if you want to simulate history, you should pay more attention to diplomacy. If you just want to continue to conquer, why not play eu4? There are even eu4 players who challenge to conquer the world in 20 years. To be honest, I am tired of the constant expansion in eu4...

yes it would be nice to have, but consider the practical consequences.

Think of everything that has to go into programming an AI for when to declare war. Evaluating all potential targets, relative strengths, budget, diplomatic webs, etc etc. Ok now we give it a new set of complex variables, which is that not only must it compare its alliance strength to the opponent’s, but the potential strengths of *every* permutation of possible surrounding countries intervening or not. At a minimum.

And multiply by all the local wars going on that it could intervene in, now it has to consider that too. Haven’t we just exponentially increased the amount of work a single AI nation has to do?

 

[Monty is staring at me]

I think, maybe, a kingdom or empire rank country should be able to declare an interest in a certain area, or more than one area, depending on how powerful they are. Maybe this can even cost diplomatic capacity.

Having an established interest in an area allows you to :
-intervene in wars in that area on the side of a lesser power (so county or duchy if you're a kingdom, and up to a kingdom if you are an empire) in which case you take over as the war leader. The country who you are intervening on the side on needs to agree to you joining, essentially surrendering control to you. You should have increased antagonism and war score cost if you want to take anything for yourself. This is so that you can essentially protect the status quo in an area
- enforce peace: similar to EU4, but both war leaders should agree, and the AI should actually consider your military strength unlike in EU4
- object to peace: when a peace deal is signed that involves demands on an area you declared an interest in, you are given a chance to object to any part of the peace deal involving that area. The winning party can either agree to withdraw those demands, or refuse, in which case you get a special "intervene in strategic area" CB with a very short duration and lose any truces with that country so that you can immediately declare war.

For the player, any AI objections would be visible in the peace screen.

I think this system accomplishes many of OP's objectives while still being rather predictable and transparent, since you can check what areas have a declared interest beforehand.

 

[Cephei80]

thats a high form of diplomacy that existed only in antiquity or in late 1700s early 1800s .
reality is , you cant interfere for geostrategic reason if someone take a fort next to you because for the longest time that wasnt other countrie's business because it was feufal land disputes so a 3rd party have no business to interfere unless he have a feudal tie with the concerned victim state like a royal union or something.
most interferences were not modern like but like a family member or feudal lord interfere to help.

in other hand what you want is an advanced form of geopolitics that only existed in modern time and antiquity & bronze age like how Rome did interfere to stop seleucides from annexing egypt , something the seleucides did refuse so they invaded and took land from them.
can you find any example like that in the time frame of the game between big states outside the 30 years war ?

this type of diplomacy didnt truly become a thing till after french revolution

 

[lukesilveira]

can you find any example like that in the time frame of the game between big states outside the 30 years war ?

No offense meant but have you ever read about the Italian peninsula?

 

[Cephei80]

I think, maybe, a kingdom or empire rank country should be able to declare an interest in a certain area, or more than one area, depending on how powerful they are. Maybe this can even cost diplomatic capacity.

Having an established interest in an area allows you to :
-intervene in wars in that area on the side of a lesser power (so county or duchy if you're a kingdom, and up to a kingdom if you are an empire) in which case you take over as the war leader. The country who you are intervening on the side on needs to agree to you joining, essentially surrendering control to you. You should have increased antagonism and war score cost if you want to take anything for yourself. This is so that you can essentially protect the status quo in an area
- enforce peace: similar to EU4, but both war leaders should agree, and the AI should actually consider your military strength unlike in EU4
- object to peace: when a peace deal is signed that involves demands on an area you declared an interest in, you are given a chance to object to any part of the peace deal involving that area. The winning party can either agree to withdraw those demands, or refuse, in which case you get a special "intervene in strategic area" CB with a very short duration and lose any truces with that country so that you can immediately declare war.

For the player, any AI objections would be visible in the peace screen.

I think this system accomplishes many of OP's objectives while still being rather predictable and transparent, since you can check what areas have a declared interest beforehand.

wrong period , these hegomic diplomacy fit with victoria or new world .
"empire declare intrest" this is not diplomacy of the era mate , not even Russia or ottomans did that .
you just dont declare intrest , thats imperialism. as i said, its post napoleonic

 

[Monty is staring at me]

thats a high form of diplomacy that existed only in antiquity or in late 1700s early 1800s .
reality is , you cant interfere for geostrategic reason if someone take a fort next to you because for the longest time that wasnt other countrie's business because it was feufal land disputes so a 3rd party have no business to interfere unless he have a feudal tie with the concerned victim state like a royal union or something.
most interferences were not modern like but like a family member or feudal lord interfere to help.

in other hand what you want is an advanced form of geopolitics that only existed in modern time and antiquity & bronze age like how Rome did interfere to stop seleucides from annexing egypt , something the seleucides did refuse so they invaded and took land from them.
can you find any example like that in the time frame of the game between big states outside the 30 years war ?

this type of diplomacy didnt truly become a thing till after french revolution

Yeah, of course, all the time? How is this high level diplomacy? It's "hey, you're doing something that we don't like and view as threatening, stop doing that or we'll go over there and give you a proper thrashing".

Literally the Italian Wars started this way because France was too successful and went too far.

The Ottomans intervened diplomatically in the Khmelnytsky Uprising because they didn't want a disruption to the balance of powers in Eastern Europe.

In the starting conflict between the Teutons and Poland in EU5, it's not like Poland was formally allied to Lithuania or the Czechs with the Teutons, both intervened in the conflict for very selfish reasons.

 

[Cephei80]

No offense meant but have you ever read about the Italian peninsula?

those were vassals and part of a big situation where complex alliances and royal marriages invited many powers in , there is also the pope and the emperor

royal marriages : aragon & spain
emperor : Austria
alliances : france
pope call to arm : spain again and others .

so all are basic diplomatic situations that can already work as intended with basic diplomacy . you will already get a call to arm if you invested in the italian panaché

but what you want is " am france , i want north italy and make it a place of my intrest " or " i am france , your acts against that poor city is bad so i will intervene"
this is again late diplomacy and didnt manifest till napolaon started to talk like that and technological gap became so big that hegemon states started to declare intrests loudly to intimidate others . it became a race to use the tecnological advantage to divide the world . its also the period Russia started demanding constantinople too .
like wtf are you all eating in this forum.

 

[Monty is staring at me]

wrong period , these hegomic diplomacy fit with victoria or new world .
"empire declare intrest" this is not diplomacy of the era mate , not even Russia or ottomans did that .
you just dont declare intrest , thats imperialism. as i said, its post napoleonic

This is well within the time span. Countries always had areas of interest outside of their borders.

For example, the playmaker, as Brandenburg, conquered the Teutonic Order. There is no way Poland, which has core territory there, would sit by idly watching that happen.

A historical example would be the tug of war between the Habsburgs, Ottomans, and PLC over Moldavia and Transylvania. Each of those powers intervened in those regions when someone made a move on them because they were vitally strategic for their defense against one another.

 

[Cephei80]

Yeah, of course, all the time? How is this high level diplomacy? It's "hey, you're doing something that we don't like and view as threatening, stop doing that or we'll go over there and give you a proper thrashing".

Literally the Italian Wars started this way because France was too successful and went too far.

The Ottomans intervened diplomatically in the Khmelnytsky Uprising because they didn't want a disruption to the balance of powers in Eastern Europe.

In the starting conflict between the Teutons and Poland in EU5, it's not like Poland was formally allied to Lithuania or the Czechs with the Teutons, both intervened in the conflict for very selfish reasons.

again , its not , France intervened because it had a claim on the domain its vassal the Anjou.
france wanted napoli by law of succession so it got soacked in that theatre and got allies and enemies . it even had its own anti pope .
if france do interfere it doesnt need an in game special order it will already intervene to help its already existing allies because its a SITUATION so they will be many sides.
its the same logic of the 100 years war . you get a feudal dispute and the map get split to sides , so those who interfere are in fact with an alliance that share a same goal . the goal of france and its allies were to support the french claim over southern italy. thats all

your whole argument fall short because italy have already a special situation in game so it doesnt need what you are asking for and as i said france intervened for feudal reasons .
but you want this to be applied on everyone else.

 

[Monty is staring at me]

those were vassals and part of a big situation where complex alliances and royal marriages invited many powers in , there is also the pope and the emperor

royal marriages : aragon & spain
emperor : Austria
alliances : france
pope call to arm : spain again and others .

so all are basic diplomatic situations that can already work as intended with basic diplomacy . you will already get a call to arm if you invested in the italian panaché

but what you want is " am france , i want north italy and make it a place of my intrest " or " i am france , your acts against that poor city is bad so i will intervene"
this is again late diplomacy and didnt manifest till napolaon started to talk like that and technological gap became so big that hegemon states started to declare intrests loudly to intimidate others . it became a race to use the tecnological advantage to divide the world . its also the period Russia started demanding constantinople too .
like wtf are you all eating in this forum.

What are you talking about?

Spain and the HRE intervened against France not because of alliances, but precisely because "hey France, your acts against this poor city (sack of Naples) is bad so I will intervene".

You were being sarcastic, but that's actually literally what happened in the Italian Wars.

By the way, do you think diplomacy was invented in the 1800s? Sorry to disappoint you, but ideas of balance of power and strategic interests existed far before that.

 

[Monty is staring at me]

again , its not , France intervened because it had a claim on the domain its vassal the Anjou.
france wanted napoli by law of succession so it got soacked in that theatre and got allies and enemies . it even had its own anti pope .
if france do interfere it doesnt need an in game special order it will already intervene to help its already existing allies because its a SITUATION so they will be many sides.
its the same logic of the 100 years war . you get a feudal dispute and the map get split to sides , so those who interfere are in fact with an alliance that share a same goal . the goal of france and its allies were to support the french claim over southern italy. thats all

your whole argument fall short because italy have already a special situation in game so it doesnt need what you are asking for and as i said france intervened for feudal reasons .
but you want this to be applied on everyone else.

Ahhh shifting the goalposts I see.

Buddy, we're just trying to create better diplo systems. Empires in this time frame constantly intervened in strategic regions diplomatically and sometimes militarily without explicit formal alliances.

The fact is, one of the biggest reasons people weren't trying to conquer one another constantly was because all their neighbors would not just sit on their hands and be okay with rapid territorial changes in their backyard without their say so.

Alliances weren't about loyalty. They didn't work like they currently work in EU4. If anything, trying to refocus diplomacy more on strategic interests, fears and ambitions of countries rather than their relations would provide for a far better and immersive game.

I shouldn't be able to ally England as Norway and then use them to help me conquer Scotland. It doesnt matter that England is allied to me or antagonistic to Scotland, they'd never support another power in gaining a foothold in Britain. This is obvious.

 

[Cephei80]

This is well within the time span. Countries always had areas of interest outside of their borders.

For example, the playmaker, as Brandenburg, conquered the Teutonic Order. There is no way Poland, which has core territory there, would sit by idly watching that happen.

A historical example would be the tug of war between the Habsburgs, Ottomans, and PLC over Moldavia and Transylvania. Each of those powers intervened in those regions when someone made a move on them because they were vitally strategic for their defense against one another.

if bradenburg invade teutonics it will be under feudal logic of de jure and not geostrategic reactions, in that time that was called pure agression. and usurpation.
already the teutonics took that land during a crusade so thats a massive de jure for them and make poland have but a weak claim against that. if poland want to stop that they have to use another feudal act that only the pope have power to apply such as ending war between catholics . but the success rate of papacy in this was very low.

as for the other region thats more like opportunism because each region wanted that land , a 3 kingdoms kind of dillema where the only way to move is to allie with one of the opposing side against the other . and in such scenario what you want doesnt match with this because if i remember you do want IMPOSING your will on a nation to force it to stop , and this didnt happen in your example , those nations did more back off because one side would declare war and ruin the conquest attempt by the other again exactly like the 3 kingdoms period

 

[Cephei80]

What are you talking about?

Spain and the HRE intervened against France not because of alliances, but precisely because "hey France, your acts against this poor city (sack of Naples) is bad so I will intervene".

You were being sarcastic, but that's actually literally what happened in the Italian Wars.

By the way, do you think diplomacy was invented in the 1800s? Sorry to disappoint you, but ideas of balance of power and strategic interests existed far before that.

once again , i think you got carried from your main demand .
you want to make nations force their will and intervene , but then you give me examples where the papacy or alliances or family ties made sides intervene .
i get the impression that you imagine those situations as in vic with spheres of influence but they werent . they were just slightly more complex stand offs between sides already in an alliance or with ties or commanded by the pope.
and italy in any way is irrelevant because that complexity gave it a special situation anyway.
even the ottomans will have a special situation too ingame .
if you want that , make the pope do it . in lepanto it was venise who asked the papacy to call for a coalition , those nations didnt act just because ottomans did step on their sphere like in vic

 

[Monty is staring at me]

if bradenburg invade teutonics it will be under feudal logic of de jure and not geostrategic reactions, in that time that was called pure agression. and usurpation.
already the teutonics took that land during a crusade so thats a massive de jure for them and make poland have but a weak claim against that. if poland want to stop that they have to use another feudal act that only the pope have power to apply such as ending war between catholics . but the success rate of papacy in this was very low.

as for the other region thats more like opportunism because each region wanted that land , a 3 kingdoms kind of dillema where the only way to move is to allie with one of the opposing side against the other . and in such scenario what you want doesnt match with this because if i remember you do want IMPOSING your will on a nation to force it to stop , and this didnt happen in your example , those nations did more back off because one side would declare war and ruin the conquest attempt by the other again exactly like the 3 kingdoms period

What are you even talking about?

So do you want to propose that we can only take de jure territory in peace deals in Europe in the middle ages?

The fact of the matter is that strategic interests existed in this time period. Having access to the sea, or controlling defensible terrain, not allowing enemies to gain territory in a region that would make you vulnerable, this would all be a thing at the time.

Brandenburg didn't take hold of Gdańsk historically because it had de jure claims on it. The Teutons, after they kicked the Brandenburgians out, didn't keep Gdańsk because they had de jure claims on it. And Poland didn't conquer the Teutonic Order because it had de jure claims.

It was because they had long standing foreign policies built around strategic interests.

 

[Monty is staring at me]

once again , i think you got carried from your main demand .
you want to make nations force their will and intervene , but then you give me examples where the papacy or alliances or family ties made sides intervene .
i get the impression that you imagine those situations as in vic with spheres of influence but they werent . they were just slightly more complex stand offs between sides already in an alliance or with ties or commanded by the pope.
and italy in any way is irrelevant because that complexity gave it a special situation anyway.
even the ottomans will have a special situation too ingame .
if you want that , make the pope do it . in lepanto it was venise who asked the papacy to call for a coalition , those nations didnt act just because ottomans did step on their sphere like in vic

I feel like this conversation is useless. You can't even engage.

If Spain intervened against France for dynastic reasons, why didn't Spain intervene immediately against France as soon as it attacked?

Why did Spain intervene only after French ambitions to control southern Italy were revealed?

Dynastical alliances were sometimes important, but they weren't the end all be all.

Why did the Varna Crusade happen? Because Poland and Hungary wanted to halt the expansion of the Ottomans into the Balkans.

Why did Poland not assist Hungary in the Battle of Mohacs, despite sharing the same dynasty?

Because Poland decided it was against Poland's interest to keep on intervening against the Ottomans.

I'm not suggesting spheres of influence. I'm suggesting that states in this time period were invested geopolitically in certain regions outside of their borders, and would intervene if necessary.

Even EU4 has a "declared interest" mechanic.

 

[Nekoluve]

yes it would be nice to have, but consider the practical consequences.

Think of everything that has to go into programming an AI for when to declare war. Evaluating all potential targets, relative strengths, budget, diplomatic webs, etc etc. Ok now we give it a new set of complex variables, which is that not only must it compare its alliance strength to the opponent’s, but the potential strengths of *every* permutation of possible surrounding countries intervening or not. At a minimum.

And multiply by all the local wars going on that it could intervene in, now it has to consider that too. Haven’t we just exponentially increased the amount of work a single AI nation has to do?

If Paradox can develop a diplomacy and warfare mechanic like this, it would be a great innovation. What I like about Paradox is that even though new mechanics are always criticized and full of loopholes, they still keep innovating.

 

[Bigsoulja9]

thats a high form of diplomacy that existed only in antiquity or in late 1700s early 1800s .
reality is , you cant interfere for geostrategic reason if someone take a fort next to you because for the longest time that wasnt other countrie's business because it was feufal land disputes so a 3rd party have no business to interfere unless he have a feudal tie with the concerned victim state like a royal union or something.
most interferences were not modern like but like a family member or feudal lord interfere to help.

in other hand what you want is an advanced form of geopolitics that only existed in modern time and antiquity & bronze age like how Rome did interfere to stop seleucides from annexing egypt , something the seleucides did refuse so they invaded and took land from them.
can you find any example like that in the time frame of the game between big states outside the 30 years war ?

this type of diplomacy didnt truly become a thing till after french revolution

How high could the idea of defensive leagues be if it existed in frickin antiquity? What are you on about man?

"Likewise, within the region called “Ambundu” (meaning largely Kimbundu speaking) there was another batch of small, clustered polities which resisted centralized integration. This area, eventually called the Dembos, included a large number, perhaps as many as fifteen, smaller units which often united into federations under the leadership of one or another of their number, as Mbwila and Nambu a Ngongo were to do, to defend themselves against outsiders, but also resisted any further integration. Other regions, such as the Luba-speaking people between the Kwilu and Lulua Rivers, showed a similar spirit against both the Luba and Lunda Empires."
- Thornton, A History of West Central Africa to 1850, pp.23-24.

So, apparently these random regions in Central Africa were able to conceptualize banding together for the common defense of otherwise divided landscapes, but the concept was too high and mighty for the rest of the world until Europe rediscovered it during the 1800s. Lmao, thanks Napoleon.