Europa Universalis IV: 1.33 Open Beta Updated (February 11th)

[Eolath]

I suspect that if this tactic becomes fashionable, then unconditional surrender will be adjusted again to account for it. @James Capstick is already in the process of closing off other loopholes.

Or maybe they shouldn't unconditionally surrender at 100%. Call for pizza due to unconditional surrenders is purely annoying and theoretically could always be circumvented if necessary (by leaving 1k unit on a fort that is close to being fully sieged), there is no realistic way to fix this ''loophole'' without having the AI surrendering at times when it probably shouldn't.

I hope @James Capstick reconsiders the current design philosophy behind this change instead.

 

[Mindel]

Or maybe they shouldn't unconditionally surrender at 100%. Call for pizza due to unconditional surrenders is purely annoying and theoretically could always be circumvented if necessary (by leaving 1k unit on a fort that is close to being fully sieged), there is no realistic way to fix this ''loophole'' without having the AI surrendering at times when it probably shouldn't.

I hope @James Capstick reconsiders the current design philosophy behind this change instead.

You can argue it with him if you like, but be aware that he sees the fact that this irritates people as confirmation that this change is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

 

[lambda x.x]

I suspect that if this tactic becomes fashionable, then unconditional surrender will be adjusted again to account for it. @James Capstick is already in the process of closing off other loopholes.

Then I think it should be adjusted now instead of later when the workaround is already obvious and stated by me. Perhaps this reveals more underlying issues in this game with respect to peacedeals/wars though...
Typically, people "hold" wars for a couple reasons:

1. They want their AE to tick down before peacing out and/or first declare on other nations who will join a coalition. Waiting for OE to tick down is a similar reason.
2. They can't take provinces they want but are in the middle of another war that when complete, will let them take provinces
3. They want to peace out many nations at once so as to take in all the OE in chunks to deal with rebels
4. They want to release vassals/feed provinces/etc. with the conquered provinces but are in other wars which blocks many actions.

I think 2 is due to a flawed feature of EU4 peacedeals; perhaps we should be able to take any province that we want, and it's on the player to have the awareness to know if they can handle the taken provinces later. A warning could be useful to prevent newer players from taking provinces that will punish them later.
Similarly, 4 seems to be another annoying aspect of EU4; AIs can release vassals mid war, why can't players? Why are many things blocked mid war?

1 and 3 are debatable, and since I certainly abuse/enjoy these "tricks," I have a conflict of interest/bias and shouldn't comment on these.

 

[lambda x.x]

You can argue it with him if you like, but be aware that he sees the fact that this irritates people as confirmation that this change is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

Seeing people being irritated as a sign of a good change seems extremely laughable. I don't understand how you came up with that train of thought, and I highly doubt that is how developers make decisions.

 

[Eolath]

You can argue it with him if you like, but be aware that he sees the fact that this irritates people as confirmation that this change is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

So his design philosophy is to irritate players? I sincerely doubt that tbh.

 

[Mindel]

Then I think it should be adjusted now instead of later when the workaround is already obvious and stated by me. Perhaps this reveals more underlying issues in this game with respect to peacedeals/wars though...
Typically, people "hold" wars for a couple reasons:

I think you are not looking at it from the perspective the devs are. The change is not intended to support (or care about) your reasons for "holding" a war. It is done to reflect your war opponent's goals, namely to disrupt you from achieving any of your goals. So the AI is being taught to unconditionally surrender as a means to cut its losses and maybe cause you some inconvenience.

 

[Mindel]

Seeing people being irritated as a sign of a good change seems extremely laughable. I don't understand how you came up with that train of thought, and I highly doubt that is how developers make decisions.

So his design philosophy is to irritate players? I sincerely doubt that tbh.

No one said irritating players is the end goal. It's just a side effect.

The point is that your AI war opponent has no reason to be helpful to you in trying to achieve your goals. The AI unconditionally surrendering in a way that inconveniences you reflects the fact that the AI cares about its own interests and not yours. Some players will get annoyed about this, naturally. But the AI shouldn't care about what its enemies think.

 

[grotaclas]

Have people noticed a change to crownland equilibrium? Seems way lower for a given Sum of Estates Influence compared to 1.32?

I did two tests and the crownland formula from the wiki still works. Do you have a save from just before a peace deal or annexation, where the new land share of an estate doesn't match the formula?

You can copy the following spreadsheet to make the calculations: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_lnTX2FNlT68Z9by0qhKOrZasDC1M56skh06HehTFpg/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Eolath]

No one said irritating players is the end goal. The idea is that your AI war opponent has no reason to be helpful to you in trying to achieve your goals. The AI unconditionally surrendering in a way that inconveniences you reflects the fact that the AI cares about its own interests and not yours. Some players will get annoyed about this, naturally. But the AI shouldn't care about what its war opponents think.

The problem is that it can still be circumvented anyway. Endless amount of loopholes can be fixed, but in the end it just requires more micromanagement to circumvent the fixed loopholes. If unconditional surrender requires a certain amount of warscore, parking a single unit on an enemy capital that already has a decent progression while the rest is besieged should do it. Does unconditional surrender require the enemy to be below a certain amount of troops? Keeping an enemy stack stuck in neutral land while repeatedly issuing changing movement commands will keep it alive because the AI is still schizophrenic (moreso than in 1.32 imho.)

In the end it's only more annoying for players while changing nothing in practice, because now I have to micromanage this already finished war, costing me more time IRL while the results are exactly the same. Hence, only irritating me while changing nothing.

I propose Paradox Tinto instead go with what PDS in Sweden had been doing for over half a dozen years now, provide an enjoyable yet still challenging gaming experience This whole unconditional surrender shtick doesn't really fit well into that IMHO

 

[lambda x.x]

I think you are not looking at it from the perspective the devs are. The change is not intended to support (or care about) your reasons for "holding" a war. It is done to reflect your war opponent's goals, namely to disrupt you from achieving any of your goals. So the AI is being taught to unconditionally surrender as a means to cut its losses and maybe cause you some inconvenience.

It's not my reasons but what I imagined to be "the playerbases'" reasons; you are free to contribute to the list if you legitimately think that this is only my personal list, but I think I've done a decent job of being inclusive to typical players.

I don't think it's entirely obvious that it is in the AI's best interest to unconditionally surrender at 100%; afterall, other nations that are at war with the player could unoccupy their provinces, potentially allowing them to turn the war around in their favor. Besides, if the goal is to make AIs better at determining when to cut losses, then it should be in their best interest to immediately unconditionally surrender when a much stronger player declares on them. If the goal is for all AIs to cause players inconvenience, then they should declare a no cb war on the player in on Dec 11, 1444. I hope you can see that your proposed justification/logic can lead to weird conclusions.

Anyway, I think neither you nor I can talk from the perspective of the development team, so I don't think it is so productive to assume the perspectives of the developers; are there quotes or evidences suggesting that is their reasoning? The only quote I got so far is a cheeky response which doesn't seem to justify at all the change nor explain their thought process.

 

[Mindel]

It's not my reasons but what I imagined to be "the playerbases'" reasons; you are free to contribute to the list if you legitimately think that this is only my personal list, but I think I've done a decent job of being inclusive to typical players.

To be clear, I did not mean you, @lambda x.x , when I said "you". By "you", I was referring to any human player fighting a war against the AI.

I don't think it's entirely obvious that it is in the AI's best interest to unconditionally surrender at 100%; afterall, other nations that are at war with the player could unoccupy their provinces, potentially allowing them to turn the war around in their favor. Besides, if the goal is to make AIs better at determining when to cut losses, then it should be in their best interest to immediately unconditionally surrender when a much stronger player declares on them. If the goal is for all AIs to cause players inconvenience, then they should declare a no cb war on the player in on Dec 11, 1444. I hope you can see that your proposed justification/logic can lead to weird conclusions.

Certainly I don't think anybody would claim this is a perfect implementation. After all, the mechanic of unconditional surrender itself is a very blunt tool, and you might wonder why a player who offered it one month should not be able to retract it the next month if the situation changes. I would assume the answer in this case is "Because AI is dumb, and needs blunt tools from time to time because it doesn't have the judgment of a human".

But don't misinterpret what I say. I was not saying the end goal is for the game to just make players miserable, as your example seems to suggest. I was just saying that if you go to war with X, then X (not the entire rest of the world) might be inclined to make your life harder.

Anyway, I think neither you nor I can talk from the perspective of the development team, so I don't think it is so productive to assume the perspectives of the developers; are there quotes or evidences suggesting that is their reasoning? The only quote I got so far is a cheeky response which doesn't seem to justify at all the change nor explain their thought process.

You asked for a justification, and you were clearly not satisfied with what @James Capstick had said so far, so I've tried to reconstruct his reasoning as best as I have understood it. But I'm sure he'll get around to commenting here later, and you can get it all from the horse's mouth then. Maybe he'll have a completely different answer for you

 

[finmise]

- Very small countries with scary neighbors will now keep a larger army when at peace.

We need this in Imperator: Rome too.

 

[Pablo_Warhammer]

Is PDX fine with this?

France has 91 and Moscovia has other 110. Spain 65. Those are the next countries in numbers. Not only numbers, but also insane fleet (HOW????) and more insane manpower (yes, they have quantity).

1547. Let's see how much they blob, because at this point, they are almost unstoppable.

P.S. Is not a matter for me (well, sometimes it is), I have beaten the Ottos many times (even in my Twitch ^^). But Im stubborn with PDX should address this insane numbers.

 

[BigHamster]

Is PDX fine with this?

View attachment 807580

France has 91 and Moscovia has other 110. Spain 65. Those are the next countries in numbers. Not only numbers, but also insane fleet (HOW????) and more insane manpower (yes, they have quantity).

1547. Let's see how much they blob, because at this point, they are almost unstoppable.

P.S. Is not a matter for me (well, sometimes it is), I have beaten the Ottos many times (even in my Twitch ^^). But Im stubborn with PDX should address this insane numbers.

So they finally tought Ai how to blob, which is great, previously game was dull after 1500, when you are already unstoppable in SP. How you still do have some chalenge ahead. You should understand that currently numbers beat troops quality which is also great, because game was extreemely dumb then 1 stack could obliterate millions. You can still work around your superior quality you just have to manuver better and not get caught in doomstack fight. And also AI has quite small extra bonuses from lucky nations, you can easily do better if you play theese nations.

 

[James Capstick]

To be clear, I did not mean you, @lambda x.x , when I said "you". By "you", I was referring to any human player fighting a war against the AI.


Certainly I don't think anybody would claim this is a perfect implementation. After all, the mechanic of unconditional surrender itself is a very blunt tool, and you might wonder why a player who offered it one month should not be able to retract it the next month if the situation changes. I would assume the answer in this case is "Because AI is dumb, and needs blunt tools from time to time because it doesn't have the judgment of a human".

But don't misinterpret what I say. I was not saying the end goal is for the game to just make players miserable, as your example seems to suggest. I was just saying that if you go to war with X, then X (not the entire rest of the world) might be inclined to make your life harder.


You asked for a justification, and you were clearly not satisfied with what @James Capstick had said so far, so I've tried to reconstruct his reasoning as best as I have understood it. But I'm sure he'll get around to commenting here later, and you can get it all from the horse's mouth then. Maybe he'll have a completely different answer for you

Pretty much exactly what you said, Mindel. If your enemy is fully occupied and has no troops left, then sitting there waiting for the player to make peace is not in their interests. In addition, all that's happening while they wait for the player to offer peace is that their territory is becoming more devastated, so they will certainly want the war to end ASAP so they can get back to rebuilding. There are definitely refinements we can make and we are looking into those for 1.34. There's an argument that if the player is taking this to the nth extreme and micromanaging their troops to try to fool enemy stacks to stay in neutral territory, they're kinda making the game unenjoyable for themselves. Maybe a better approach might be to think carefully about timing, about when to actually go to war?

 

[Trockenheit138]

Pretty much exactly what you said, Mindel. If your enemy is fully occupied and has no troops left, then sitting there waiting for the player to make peace is not in their interests. In addition, all that's happening while they wait for the player to offer peace is that their territory is becoming more devastated, so they will certainly want the war to end ASAP so they can get back to rebuilding. There are definitely refinements we can make and we are looking into those for 1.34. There's an argument that if the player is taking this to the nth extreme and micromanaging their troops to try to fool enemy stacks to stay in neutral territory, they're kinda making the game unenjoyable for themselves. Maybe a better approach might be to think carefully about timing, about when to actually go to war?

There are still a few bugs, first, when players build wonders for their vassal states with extra money before declaring bankruptcy, then cancel the build to get that money back. Secondly, the Iberian order states could use the order repeatedly by becoming other religious or cultural groups. Third, the Cossack corps in the Eastern European tech group can be built without manpower in the conscription screen.
In addition to bugs, each TAG in Southeast Asia can be set up with each other. For example, Ayutaya creates Siam by establishing Lancang. Does this violate the original intention of designing ayutaya mission tree?

 

[DasHeat]

Pretty much exactly what you said, Mindel. If your enemy is fully occupied and has no troops left, then sitting there waiting for the player to make peace is not in their interests. In addition, all that's happening while they wait for the player to offer peace is that their territory is becoming more devastated, so they will certainly want the war to end ASAP so they can get back to rebuilding. There are definitely refinements we can make and we are looking into those for 1.34. There's an argument that if the player is taking this to the nth extreme and micromanaging their troops to try to fool enemy stacks to stay in neutral territory, they're kinda making the game unenjoyable for themselves. Maybe a better approach might be to think carefully about timing, about when to actually go to war?

I completely understand the justification from the AIs perspective, but I just can't visualise the moment when you must have thought "This needs to change".

This game is over 8 years old; I don’t understand why old core mechanics are being changed when they aren’t broken, or even particularly exploitable, but by changing them will fundamentally alter the way you play a game. Especially when, like in this situation, there is already a mechanic to deal with it: “Call for peace”. When you say “think carefully about timing, about when to actually go to war?”. That’s exactly what we have been doing based on the existing game mechanics.

It’s like the CB change. What is the inspiration for introducing these changes? What are the problems that need to be solved? I'm not asking you to justify every change you make, but without understanding the thought process behind it these changes just feel arbitrary, and the overall direction of travel feels 'anti-fun'.

Ultimately, I would suggest leaving old mechanics that work alone, where they don’t directly intersect with new mechanics, and focus instead on integrating newer mechanics that still need work.

• The new Merc stacks being temporarily mergeable (not just attached) with regular troops, like in CK2, would be a massive QoL improvement.
• Working on a way to make Consolidated Dev/Pillage Capital more usable throughout the length of a game (dev spilling out into surrounding provinces? a moveable target, separate from capital, for consolidated dev?) because at the moment, it’s not usable for nations with already large capitals, or even nations with smaller capitals after using it a few times.

I can see this is stuff you have been thinking about, and I appreciate the attempt to make Centralize State more usable by splitting the cost with admin points. Personally, I think it should be purely admin, as I very rarely have “unused Reform points” (especially since the closing of the loopholes that make changing government type cheaper, another change that felt arbitrary and anti-fun), and often find I have unused admin points, due to not wanting to state land because of gov cap.

 

[lambda x.x]

Pretty much exactly what you said, Mindel. If your enemy is fully occupied and has no troops left, then sitting there waiting for the player to make peace is not in their interests.

Did you not catch my point that it's not necessarily in their best interests since other nations that is at war with the player can unsiege their provinces, allowing them to come back? e: apparently AIs will unconn even while having troops? That seems even more ridiculous.

In addition, all that's happening while they wait for the player to offer peace is that their territory is becoming more devastated, so they will certainly want the war to end ASAP so they can get back to rebuilding.

Fair, but can't this argument be extended to a situation where a player who is significantly stronger than the AI declaring on them? To avoid devastation and losing their army, they should just unconditionally surrender immediately, no?

There are definitely refinements we can make and we are looking into those for 1.34.

Is it possible you can list some of these refinements that your team is looking into? I'm curious...

There's an argument that if the player is taking this to the nth extreme and micromanaging their troops to try to fool enemy stacks to stay in neutral territory, they're kinda making the game unenjoyable for themselves.

Personally, I find the idea of suffering heavy war exhaustion in a war that I don't want to peace out for one more year due to inherent game limitations (like the points I mentioned before) more unenjoyable than swallowing the pill to micromanage a stack to prevent AIs from unconditionally surrendering, so I'd be doing the latter.

Maybe a better approach might be to think carefully about timing, about when to actually go to war?

I'm not sure if this is due to a language barrier, but I sense a bit of sarcasm; are you implying that people who are complaining are bad at the game and can't time wars properly? Given how RNG heavy EU4 wars are (battles, sieges, etc.), it's not possible to accurately predict when you will finish wars, and deviations of a year or so is normal in my experience. The standard call for peace (5 years) seems to be a reasonable limiter already for what you seem to be talking about.

 

[Jespoke]

Then I think it should be adjusted now instead of later when the workaround is already obvious and stated by me. Perhaps this reveals more underlying issues in this game with respect to peacedeals/wars though...
Typically, people "hold" wars for a couple reasons:

1. They want their AE to tick down before peacing out and/or first declare on other nations who will join a coalition. Waiting for OE to tick down is a similar reason.
2. They can't take provinces they want but are in the middle of another war that when complete, will let them take provinces
3. They want to peace out many nations at once so as to take in all the OE in chunks to deal with rebels
4. They want to release vassals/feed provinces/etc. with the conquered provinces but are in other wars which blocks many actions.

I think 2 is due to a flawed feature of EU4 peacedeals; perhaps we should be able to take any province that we want, and it's on the player to have the awareness to know if they can handle the taken provinces later. A warning could be useful to prevent newer players from taking provinces that will punish them later.
Similarly, 4 seems to be another annoying aspect of EU4; AIs can release vassals mid war, why can't players? Why are many things blocked mid war?

1 and 3 are debatable, and since I certainly abuse/enjoy these "tricks," I have a conflict of interest/bias and shouldn't comment on these.

I think one disconnect in this conversation is whether fighting a bunch of wars at the same time is something the game should be designed around: All these points are about fighting multiple wars at once and/or taking tons of unjustified demands, which it feels like @James Capstick is perfectly happy to put more restrictions on for the benefit of the AI.

 

[lambda x.x]

Another issue seems to be that unconned nations won't accept offers (only demands). That again, doesn't make much sense to me.