Mitigating cascading alliances

[Cheexsta]

Hello modders!

I've started to play/mod EUR a little more now, and the main thing that's really bugging (heh) me is the cascading alliances issue.

It's also become clear that Paradox simply won't patch the problem up any time soon, so it's pretty much down to modders to see what we can do about it.

My problem is that I can't really think of much. The best idea I can think of is to lower the starting relations for all countries (via decision hack, so that players don't even notice it) and try to introduce some AI scripting, but those things can only vaguely nudge the AI in the right direction. Maybe also make an event or two that can lower relations within larger alliance chains, too.

Has anyone else thought about other ideas to mitigate this problem?

 

[Wave]

I don't know if all diplomacy stuff is hardcoded as I haven't found them anywhere (RoA 2 does change one of them though) but limiting the amount of alliances to 2 or 3 could be wise. It doesn't totally remove the possibility of Greeks VS you war but it might help when everyone couldn't ally everyone.

This could be done with events as well I assume, when you have too many allies some of them randomly are dissolved.

Also an event that gives white peace (or let's you choose between peace and continuing war) with nations that were called to arms isn't impossible to do.

 

[Fu.Th.Sy.]

This could be done with events as well I assume, when you have too many allies some of them randomly are dissolved.

+1
There's a trigger for relationship. Is it possible that only allies with lowest relationship get banned?

 

[Wave]

Huum yes.. I don't remember all triggers and modifiers well enough to write it up right now (on phone and at work at the moment..) but I think it isn't very complicated.

The core problem is the call to arms button, one ally can trigger cascading alliance force and if every nation has two allies it is still possible to be at war with half of the world, even if it's lot less likely.

 

[unmerged(283694)]

I would definitely like to see this.

 

[Fu.Th.Sy.]

It would be less likely for ai to accept a call to arms or even alliance proposal, if we use a negative static modifier for diplomatic_missions. Unfortunately this also means there would be more DOWs, harder to trade and demand provinces,...

 

[Borne2Run]

Maybe code some distance calc into it. Ex: If Parthia declares war on the Seleucids, who are allied with Pergamon, Pontus, Egypt, then when the alliance chain gets all the way to Illyria or the Lusitani, then Illyrians/Lusitani will 'politely decline' by offering money (25 gold?) in lieu of troops and keep the alliance.

Same would happen if Nabatea is called to fight Cisalpine Guals or the Romans.

Alliance "Call to Arms" would have the following decisions for the state being called:
"Accept" --> Go to war
"Decline" --> break alliance, casus belli given, infamy hit, etc.
"Finance/Support" --> smaller infamy hit, gold deducted, maybe manpower transfer?

With "Finance/Support" being more likely depending on the minimum amount of time to walk/ride to the opposing nation(s) provinces.

This would prevent the Greek vs. You wars while still making it likely that Rome wars against all of Gaul/Germania since they won't have the 25 gold to finance ;-)

 

[Cheexsta]

All very good ideas guys. Basically, it boils down to lowering relations wherever possible.

Maybe code some distance calc into it. Ex: If Parthia declares war on the Seleucids, who are allied with Pergamon, Pontus, Egypt, then when the alliance chain gets all the way to Illyria or the Lusitani, then Illyrians/Lusitani will 'politely decline' by offering money (25 gold?) in lieu of troops and keep the alliance.

Unfortunately, all of this stuff is hardcoded so can't be touched. There's no direct way to affect AI diplomacy, so we have to resort to these indirect measures

What's even more frustrating is that there's no event effect that would restore peace between two countries. In EU3, there is one (peace_with, IIRC), but it does not exist in EUR. Even just having that would make this whole situation much easier!

 

[Wave]

I can't understand how none of us hasn't thought about (or said it) adding 3 new culture groups, Seleucid culture, South Greek culture and colonial greek culture.

Seleucids are clear, Achaea and Sparta would have south greek culture and greek states in asia minor (Bithynia, Pergamon, Pontus & Bosporians (and Magna Graecia and Massilia in Italy)) would have colonial greek culture. Epirus and Aetolia would keep the current greek culture.

This affects starting relations so they won't have to be tweaked and AI isn't as interested in allying different culture nations as its own culture.

 

[Fu.Th.Sy.]

+1 Brilliant idea!

What about other cultures (iberian, celtic,...) shouldn't they be split too?

 

[Cheexsta]

Huh. I'd planned on splitting most of the cultures already for EI, hadn't thought of the effects on the alliance cascading that would have.

Should make things a lot easier

 

[Wave]

Maybe celtics could be split as well, Brits, Northern and Southern Gauls and Germans but I have ran across gallic cascading alliances very few times and those happened in my BSFA mod where is 30 new tribes to join the chain. In Vanilla I have never got more than two or three tribes to fight me.

And one thing that is very efficient in causing havoc in Gallia is event that gives casus belli on neighbor and drops relations with -150, probably same event with a little tweaking could be used to dissolve alliances and give casus bellies in mediterranean as well

semi-OT: does
NOT = { alliance_with = THIS }
work as effect? I mean can that line be used to dissolve alliances or is there some other effect that does it?

And if it does, wouldn't
NOT = { war_with = THIS }
work as well then to end wars?

 

[UniversalWolf]

Lots of possible culture splits. For Greek, I'd suggest at minimum Doric and Ionic, plus maybe Aetolian, a colonial, and a panhellenic branch for semi-greek areas.

 

[Achab]

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but as I have just (Eureka!) invented an instant peace event I am starting my own
I invite you all to participate on the CA hotfix project with renewed hope.

 

[Wizzington]

Here's what I do in RoA2: All AI nations have relations with each other set to -100 by default, and a pool of 'potential allies' are then picked with relations 50-100. By reducing the number of allies the AI can have, I reduce the chance of a cascading alliance and can address common problem areas (like greek states all allying each other).

I've been thinking about restricting this even further and making it so the AI is only permitted to ally each other by event, giving me complete control over who allies who so I can completely eliminate the problem.

 

[Wave]

Is it your own secret or can you tell us how you can change the diplomacy stuff as you did with the disrupt trade thing? Because allying by event sounds epic, you could make an event trigger if you don't have more than 0 or 1 ally and the relations are high enough and it would solve the problem pretty nicely.

 

[Wizzington]

Hmm, actually, I just realized that create_alliance is not in Rome, so much for that idea. For what I currently have, you're free to look at it and make use of it when I release RoA2 this weekend. I essentially just parse all AI countries at game start and adjust their relations with each other, then continually adjust relations over time via the maintenance events.

 

[Wave]

You can use alliance_with as effect I think, as well as war_with but I personally haven't got either working properly.

I'll give that a try tomorrow, maybe alliance_with could be used to make up alliances and then they would work historically correctly.

I thought that I found a way to control AI diplomacy but after a closer look it doesn't seem to work. I thought that limiting Envoy job to characters older than 100 years or something could clear out diplomacy but I can't find the job requirements so they're apparently hardcoded..

 

[Cheexsta]

alliance_with does not work as an effect.

 

[nachinus]

IIRC, Dommdark said that he already worked out a fix for the bug and that it would be released in a betapatch. That was loooooooooong ago. Perhaps we should pester him until he releases it?