Help for the raging peacemonger strategy?

[unmerged(1776)]

After many false starts in the GC, and a couple of weeks of playing an hour or two at a time I've finally managed to make it to 1692 (2/3 done, yay!) I'm playing Brandenburg and here is a quick overview of what has happened.

My goal is the unification of Germany and I'm doing pretty well. I still need Hannover, the Palatinat, and the remnants of the Hanseatic League (Mecklenburg, Bremen and Holstein). I've tried to avoid embroiling myself in the old curse of the two-front war, and tried to keep my BB as low as possible.

After converting to Protestant I was allied with Hannover and HL and twice got hit with a DOW from an alliance including Spain and Poland. (There's your two-front war for ya) I managed to do quite well and defeat them both times, the last time really nailing Poland for Danzig, Posen and taking East Prussia from Spain (don't ask me how Spain got it in the first place I haven't a clue). That was in 1575, and in the process I gleefully obtained the Spanish maps of the world. As I began building colonies and trading posts, I really lucked out and two COT's sprung up in colonies that I built. By 1600 I was rolling in cash so I started to really build up the army, hoping that if I had a powerful military I wouldn't be bothered in Europe, freeing me up to colonize away. By 1605, I was up to 200,000 men and 500 cannon. Now it's 1692 and a few provinces later Germany (er, Brandenburg ) has 300,000 men and 800 cannon. Despite Austria, Spain, Poland, France and Denmark having CB's against me and close to -200 relations with each of them I have not had a war in over a hundred years that wasn't of my own choosing (my allies England and Sweden have at times declared war but I've dishonored them).

My question to the vets: Does having a huge military dissuade the AI nations from declaring war, even with bad relations and a Casus Belli, as it seems to in this case, or have I just been lucky?

LV

 

[Carlos Duarte]

I believe it does... my currente IGC with russia is an example of that... on my conquering of all CB shielded provinces I declared war on a LOT of people... when I did so with no allies or weak ones (Ryazan and Pskov) I got EVERYONE declaring war back on me... (hmmm I didn't know they liked the uzbeqs than much)... the Polish alliance, the Turkish one and also the Persians, Swedes, Danes, English, those newly independent Dutch... hell... even Crimea declared war on me...

then I brib... rose the relations with other countries and ended up managing to forge an alliance between myself, ryazan, persia and denmark... and now I can happilly finish my God given task of forming a Grand mother Russia by invading and conquering those pesky poles... and NO ONE declares war on me... well it could also be because I have the largest army around but from my experience with other countries alliances (and good relations to your allies) are VERY important...

Cheers,

Carlos

 

[unmerged(2437)]

I have very good relationships with powers like Spain (+150) but I don't have the option of requesting an alliance. How do I get an alliance... only countries that are offering me alliance are persia and some small 2 province countries.

 

[tonhur]

Alliances seem to have limit in number of members it can have and you must ask alliance leader for permission to join the alliance. If country is allready in alliance you naturally can't ask it to ally with you, you can only join their alliance.

Problem is that alliances seem to last for ever at least between computer players and I as sweden have wery rarely had any allies in all 150 years of game. After conquest of russia by the 1530's and most of denmark-norway about that time I have peacefully done colonisation of new world but there is absolutely no one who I can ally with (well hansa that is now annexed and pommeria that is vasal).
I have waited 100 years and NONE of the bigger alliances have disolved even once!

 

[unmerged(1609)]

Normally every alliance lasts for only 10 years, and is only prolonged if mambers of the alliance ar at war so that it ends 10 years after the war is over. However once the alliance expires AI countries are usualy quick to enter new alliances, often recreating expiring ones. That is why you may think those alliances lasts forever. You can always check in your log the alliance expiration dae (year and month) and than watch carefully for an opportunity to offer alliance to the countries whose alliance just expired

 

[unmerged(90)]

The AI checks alliances in weighting the pros and cons of war declaration, ie the alliance strength and the possibility of your allies honouring or not the alliance.

With the latest patch, it seems to me the AI has got better at declaring war when alliances have expired... Be careful of it...

 

[unmerged(2087)]

If you are worried about all those countries ganging up on you, and if you are well and truly 'rolling in cash' you might just keep bribing the stronger powers in order to improve your diplomatic rating vis a vis those powers.

Or, since the strongest powers are also likely to be the richest powers as well, your bribes will not have much weight with them. It might be more productive to bribe the weaker ones.

 

[unmerged(1909)]

My experience is based on only two CGs, both at normal agressiveness, but yes it seems that if you manage to create a huge standing military and/or a powerful alliance bloc, the computer will be scared to mess with you and will almost never DOW you. This is a very feasible strategy for when you are in the lead in VPs, because then you can just sit back and concentrate on economic expansion VPs. Keep your nearest rival from catching you, not through direct military action, but through foreign aid to enemy neighbors. A boring but incredibly effective strategy.

But if you declare war, the badboy effect seems to kick in, and AI alliances will begin to declare war on you - regardless of how tough you are. And it tends to happen not all at once, but in 'echelon' fashion; first, you'll get one group declaring war on you, another month or so later, another group or two will join in, etc. This actually tends to hurt more, in that it prolongs your war weariness, and can catch you off guard if you tranfered troops to the previous hot spot.

I'd like to see troop maintenence costs drastically increased. There should be a price to pay for maintaining such a huge deterrent force and using the 'peacemonger' strategy described above.