With the new diplomatic treaties it feels like diplomacy is actually a lot more viable now (although I have seen a lot of complaints about it being overtuned to be unfair in the new balance patch). However one area I feel like diplomacy is still lacking is in the diplomatic plays system. What I would suggest is reworking this system to pretty much combine it with the treaty system.
The way I would suggest diplomatic play are reworked is as follows:
First, you send an offer for a treaty to a country. If they accept, great! You gave them what both sides thought were a fair deal.
If they decline however, and you still want what your treaty was asking them for, you should get a follow up option to start a diplomatic play against that country to essentially make a 5 year treaty enforcing your articles, at a cost of infamy dependent on what articles you added on them.
This essentially simulates ultimatums and would be the casus belli system for wars in Victoria 3.
Then when the diplomatic play starts, other countries will be given a chance to view the demands from both sides where AI will add their own articles on you and allies will move in to support either side in joining the enforcement of the new peace deal treaty which will be created by the war. This will still include the ability to offer to join for a war goal, which is now just going to be called a peace treaty article (for example, transfer of treaty port would be a permanent lasting treaty article while trade privileges would only be active for the duration of the peace treaty).
This would effectively allow simulation of multilateral treaties (!!!)
The next point would be the countdown to war where the countries decide if they want to prevent the war altogether by finally agreeing to the demands of the articles that either side demanded, as a final way to resolve the question of fairness of the article under threat of war. (So if GB wants you to give them a treaty port, you might decide it's not worth going to war even if you think it's unfair).
After this, war would start and now the way it would be resolved would be through a fully functioning peace system. First there has to be offers for ceasefires, you can offer a ceasefire to either one country or multiple, which would effectively cause the front where that country is in to be frozen and cancel all invasions by that country or against that country. Ceasefire acceptance would depend on war exhaustion.
Now a ceasefire can lead to countries leaving the war early, or you can wait for the entire side to all agree to a ceasefire to end the war completely. This would simulate Russia leaving WW1 early.
When a ceasefire occurs, a peace treaty is signed with that country, for example you can ask for them to leave the war quite early in exchange for a white peace which they would be more likely to agree to. However, if the country sustained heavy losses and has a lot of war exhaustion like happened to Russia in real life, you can enforce a peace treaty on them where they lose things in the forms of a peace treaty. The peace treaty for example in the case of Brest-Litovsk would cause the liberation of the countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, as well as a transfer state articles of Kars from Ottomans as well as money transfer as war reparations and oil good transfer (25% of Baku oil was agreed to be transferred to Germany). These are all currently possible war goals to add, though they would be turned into peace treaty articles upon the signing of the peace agreement.
Now a ceasefire isn't a formal end to a war, so the acceptance of the peace treaty by a country wishing to leave the war should depend on both their war exhaustion and the perceived fairness of the treaty. Additionally, I should mention that in the drafting of the peace treaty all members of the war should be able to add articles on the exiting side, however the war leader should be able to remove articles from other members if they perceive them to be unfair or cause the other side to not be willing to sign the peace treaty, effectively meaning the war leader has control over how harsh the exiting side should be punished and if they want to continue the war against the other side.
However if a peace treaty is not agreed to by one member of the winning side, they should be able to reject the treaty at a cost of infamy and continue the war unilaterally against the exiting country to enforce their own peace treaty on that country (let's say for example the Ottomans refuse to sign Brest-Litovsk and decide to continue the war against Russia in order to liberate Azerbaijan and maybe conquer Armenia).
Now back to regular end to wars and not unilateral ceasefire and early exits. This shouldn't have to be only created when one side reaches -100 war support. Instead, a country should accept a peace treaty as stated before depending on the terms and their current state of war exhaustion, for example if you want just a few articles like foreign investment rights it shouldn't require same level of acceptance as conquering New York.
Additionally in the peace treaty system, all members of the side like said before should be able to add war goals on top of the pre-existing wargoals from when the diplomatic play was started at the cost of additional infamy. In fact, infamy should not be added at all to a country until a peace treaty enforced by war is signed, with heavy discount on infamy to wargoals added before the war actually started. Also a peace treaty acceptance should be given more leniency to war goals added before the war started with additional added wargoals leading to decreased acceptance.
The exiting side should be also offer to renegotiate the peace treaty to make terms more agreeable for them to sign it if they don't like the current peace treaty articles. However, if both sides war leaders cannot agree on the peace treaty even after renegotiations and neither side is at -100 war support, the peace treaty is considered to be a failure and the war will resume. Like stated before, if a member of either side refuses to sign a treaty, they can then continue the war on their own terms, along with any other remaining countries who refused the treaty besides the war leader, however most countries should be pressured to want to leave the war when the war leaders have come to an agreement.
The final note I want to talk about for the suggestion of a peace treaty is in cases of a stalemate. If both sides have reached 0 war support and neither is occupying enough wargoals to move war support beneath zero, a mutual ceasefire should be very likely to be accepted by both sides and then lead to a renegotiation to end the war where both sides are likely to want to agree to end the treaty but are also able to add articles on each other. War goals that are currently occupied should be given high priority in peace negotiations and more likely to be agreed to, but renegotiations should be allowed as there should be heavy pressure to end the war if there is a stalemate.
However, if even despite this pressure to accept (which should be increased by occupied war goals and casualties and radicalism), neither side can agree to end the stalemate with peace, war should be allowed to resume. In the case of this happening, both sides should gain negative modifiers, dramatically increasing radicalism in their countries. This would simulate revolutions and unrest caused by public dismay with their leadership's unwillingness to end what seems to be a "forever war" and after a cooldown a new ceasefire and peace treaty should be offered which would be more likely to be accepted.
That's pretty much the end to my suggestion on how I believe diplomatic plays should be reworked, the only other thing I'd like to add is that formal allies/defensive pacts should be given a discount in adding war goals/articles if they join the war compared to countries that are not formally aligned to either war leaders but decided to join the war anyways.
Oh and something I forgot to mention is that countries should be allowed to send or be sent offers in the middle of diplomatic plays to join either side in exchange for a war goal on a member of the other side. They would then be included in the peace conference. (This would simulate USA joining WW1).
Let me know if you guys have any other thoughts or suggestions or questions on what I have said.
Thank you to anyone who read this post and I hope the devs see it and hopefully implement some of my ideas in future updates!
The way I would suggest diplomatic play are reworked is as follows:
First, you send an offer for a treaty to a country. If they accept, great! You gave them what both sides thought were a fair deal.
If they decline however, and you still want what your treaty was asking them for, you should get a follow up option to start a diplomatic play against that country to essentially make a 5 year treaty enforcing your articles, at a cost of infamy dependent on what articles you added on them.
This essentially simulates ultimatums and would be the casus belli system for wars in Victoria 3.
Then when the diplomatic play starts, other countries will be given a chance to view the demands from both sides where AI will add their own articles on you and allies will move in to support either side in joining the enforcement of the new peace deal treaty which will be created by the war. This will still include the ability to offer to join for a war goal, which is now just going to be called a peace treaty article (for example, transfer of treaty port would be a permanent lasting treaty article while trade privileges would only be active for the duration of the peace treaty).
This would effectively allow simulation of multilateral treaties (!!!)
The next point would be the countdown to war where the countries decide if they want to prevent the war altogether by finally agreeing to the demands of the articles that either side demanded, as a final way to resolve the question of fairness of the article under threat of war. (So if GB wants you to give them a treaty port, you might decide it's not worth going to war even if you think it's unfair).
After this, war would start and now the way it would be resolved would be through a fully functioning peace system. First there has to be offers for ceasefires, you can offer a ceasefire to either one country or multiple, which would effectively cause the front where that country is in to be frozen and cancel all invasions by that country or against that country. Ceasefire acceptance would depend on war exhaustion.
Now a ceasefire can lead to countries leaving the war early, or you can wait for the entire side to all agree to a ceasefire to end the war completely. This would simulate Russia leaving WW1 early.
When a ceasefire occurs, a peace treaty is signed with that country, for example you can ask for them to leave the war quite early in exchange for a white peace which they would be more likely to agree to. However, if the country sustained heavy losses and has a lot of war exhaustion like happened to Russia in real life, you can enforce a peace treaty on them where they lose things in the forms of a peace treaty. The peace treaty for example in the case of Brest-Litovsk would cause the liberation of the countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, as well as a transfer state articles of Kars from Ottomans as well as money transfer as war reparations and oil good transfer (25% of Baku oil was agreed to be transferred to Germany). These are all currently possible war goals to add, though they would be turned into peace treaty articles upon the signing of the peace agreement.
Now a ceasefire isn't a formal end to a war, so the acceptance of the peace treaty by a country wishing to leave the war should depend on both their war exhaustion and the perceived fairness of the treaty. Additionally, I should mention that in the drafting of the peace treaty all members of the war should be able to add articles on the exiting side, however the war leader should be able to remove articles from other members if they perceive them to be unfair or cause the other side to not be willing to sign the peace treaty, effectively meaning the war leader has control over how harsh the exiting side should be punished and if they want to continue the war against the other side.
However if a peace treaty is not agreed to by one member of the winning side, they should be able to reject the treaty at a cost of infamy and continue the war unilaterally against the exiting country to enforce their own peace treaty on that country (let's say for example the Ottomans refuse to sign Brest-Litovsk and decide to continue the war against Russia in order to liberate Azerbaijan and maybe conquer Armenia).
Now back to regular end to wars and not unilateral ceasefire and early exits. This shouldn't have to be only created when one side reaches -100 war support. Instead, a country should accept a peace treaty as stated before depending on the terms and their current state of war exhaustion, for example if you want just a few articles like foreign investment rights it shouldn't require same level of acceptance as conquering New York.
Additionally in the peace treaty system, all members of the side like said before should be able to add war goals on top of the pre-existing wargoals from when the diplomatic play was started at the cost of additional infamy. In fact, infamy should not be added at all to a country until a peace treaty enforced by war is signed, with heavy discount on infamy to wargoals added before the war actually started. Also a peace treaty acceptance should be given more leniency to war goals added before the war started with additional added wargoals leading to decreased acceptance.
The exiting side should be also offer to renegotiate the peace treaty to make terms more agreeable for them to sign it if they don't like the current peace treaty articles. However, if both sides war leaders cannot agree on the peace treaty even after renegotiations and neither side is at -100 war support, the peace treaty is considered to be a failure and the war will resume. Like stated before, if a member of either side refuses to sign a treaty, they can then continue the war on their own terms, along with any other remaining countries who refused the treaty besides the war leader, however most countries should be pressured to want to leave the war when the war leaders have come to an agreement.
The final note I want to talk about for the suggestion of a peace treaty is in cases of a stalemate. If both sides have reached 0 war support and neither is occupying enough wargoals to move war support beneath zero, a mutual ceasefire should be very likely to be accepted by both sides and then lead to a renegotiation to end the war where both sides are likely to want to agree to end the treaty but are also able to add articles on each other. War goals that are currently occupied should be given high priority in peace negotiations and more likely to be agreed to, but renegotiations should be allowed as there should be heavy pressure to end the war if there is a stalemate.
However, if even despite this pressure to accept (which should be increased by occupied war goals and casualties and radicalism), neither side can agree to end the stalemate with peace, war should be allowed to resume. In the case of this happening, both sides should gain negative modifiers, dramatically increasing radicalism in their countries. This would simulate revolutions and unrest caused by public dismay with their leadership's unwillingness to end what seems to be a "forever war" and after a cooldown a new ceasefire and peace treaty should be offered which would be more likely to be accepted.
That's pretty much the end to my suggestion on how I believe diplomatic plays should be reworked, the only other thing I'd like to add is that formal allies/defensive pacts should be given a discount in adding war goals/articles if they join the war compared to countries that are not formally aligned to either war leaders but decided to join the war anyways.
Oh and something I forgot to mention is that countries should be allowed to send or be sent offers in the middle of diplomatic plays to join either side in exchange for a war goal on a member of the other side. They would then be included in the peace conference. (This would simulate USA joining WW1).
Let me know if you guys have any other thoughts or suggestions or questions on what I have said.
Thank you to anyone who read this post and I hope the devs see it and hopefully implement some of my ideas in future updates!
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