Vassal peace changes - 2/2/05 beta patch

[Owen]

With the change in the latest beta patch that a country cannot make peace with a vassal of another country if the suzerain is still at war, two issues have appeared.

1. In single player, some countries are finding it difficult to make peace for decades, sometimes because they are vassals but they are winning the war. See post 92 onwards here for a brief discussion.

2. In multiplayer, it is standard practice (and historically accurate) for player nations to declare war in support if their vassals are attacked, usually demanding that the aggressor signs a white peace with the vassal. With the current rules, the attacking player cannot sign that white peace unless the vassal's suzerain has already made peace. This means that players cannot effectively defend their vassals.

Both of these problems can be solved by changing the new rule from "- Vassals will no longer ever sign peace with anyone that is at war with their overlords" to the following: "- Vassals will no longer ever sign peace where they make concessions (annexation, provinces, cash, religious conversion or military access) with anyone that is at war with their overlords."

Hopefully that should be a relatively easy change to code.

 

[Rythin]

I second those complaints - it became somewhat unplayable. However if there is no bugs, the new rule is extremely good to overlords and changing it to the one you wrote would make it much less helpful. However, I have no idea how it should sound, so I guess your proposal is good.

Oh, and don't forget that we still face the alliances 'X vassal of Y, Y vassal of X' (X forcevassalizes Y, Y gets event vassalizing X) which is really, really damn hard to peace out

 

[Owen]

I second those complaints - it became somewhat unplayable. However if there is no bugs, the new rule is extremely good to overlords and changing it to the one you wrote would make it much less helpful. However, I have no idea how it should sound, so I guess your proposal is good.

Oh, and don't forget that we still face the alliances 'X vassal of Y, Y vassal of X' (X forcevassalizes Y, Y gets event vassalizing X) which is really, really damn hard to peace out

Yes. This proposal would help that, since it makes white peace possible for both.

 

[unmerged(36024)]

Both of these problems can be solved by changing the new rule from "- Vassals will no longer ever sign peace with anyone that is at war with their overlords" to the following: "- Vassals will no longer ever sign peace where they make concessions (annexation, provinces, cash, religious conversion or military access) with anyone that is at war with their overlords."

Hopefully that should be a relatively easy change to code.

I vote for "Vassals will no longer ever sign separate peace with anyone that is at war with their overlord in the same war-item" (it can be that country at war with vassal and at another war with overlord)

Oh, and don't forget that we still face the alliances 'X vassal of Y, Y vassal of X' (X forcevassalizes Y, Y gets event vassalizing X) which is really, really damn hard to peace out

And it's possible to diplo-vassalise your overlord :rofl: (it is a separate bug I think)

 

[Owen]

I vote for "Vassals will no longer ever sign separate peace with anyone that is at war with their overlord in the same war-item" (it can be that country at war with vassal and at another war with overlord)

That doesn't work for multiplayer, and the benefit is also removed if the suzerain signs a separate peace with an ally of the attacker.

 

[AndrewT]

Reported backstage in the beta forums, thanks.

 

[Owen]

Mowers has kindly sent me an example of the SP problem. Let me know if you want the file emailed on.

 

[AndrewT]

Sure why not. Zip and email to spikem@internode.on.net along with any instructions necessary to dupe the problem.

 

[unmerged(36024)]

Then maybe at least:
"Vassals will no longer ever sign separate peace with anyone that is at war with their overlord"
Or "make overlord war leader if vassal declares war" (This will end in more bugs and exploits I think)

And make double-vassalization impossible (both diplo- (need code change) and event- (adding check to events, or break old vassalization in event))

 

[Owen]

Then maybe at least:
"Vassals will no longer ever sign separate peace with anyone that is at war with their overlord"

No, that still leaves several problems unsolved, particularly when the vassal is winning the war.

Or "make overlord war leader if vassal declares war" (This will end in more bugs and exploits I think)

I'm not sure about this, but it certainly doesn't solve all the problems either.

And make double-vassalization impossible (both diplo- (need code change) and event- (adding check to events, or break old vassalization in event))

That's a good idea.

 

[unmerged(36024)]

Then maybe at least:
"Vassals will no longer ever sign separate peace with anyone that is at war with their overlord"

No, that still leaves several problems unsolved, particularly when the vassal is winning the war.

Please explain...

Setups:

Sovereign is war-party leader and warring against someone:
vassals can't back off from fight after getting some warscore till sovereign decide it is enough fighting - good for overlord
vassals can't be annexed/striped off - good for vassal (Remember the Orleannais)

Vassal is war-party leader and sovereign fighting on his side:
Vassal can make alliance peace, thus fixing current problem with AI.

Exploit coming to my mind: It's now easy to grow a hamster (Feed vassal provinces in attacking wars to devour/diploannex it later for economy of BB), impossible for him to back off for some money.

 

[unmerged(21544)]

Please explain...

You must consider that it is likely, Vassals not joining alliances with the overlord in them, that the vassal will not be included in the war pact. Hence, when it's aggressor is targeted, it will be in a formally seperate war.

 

[unmerged(17284)]

I'm glad someone posted this problem. I was about to but found this thread. I think I'm going to have to uninstall the newest patch. My current SP Grand Campaign game is not working so well. There are a few wars that are going on indefenatly.

 

[unmerged(17284)]

Damn now after reinstalling the nov patch my saved game doesn't work. Ah sigh

 

[unmerged(36024)]

You must consider that it is likely, Vassals not joining alliances with the overlord in them, that the vassal will not be included in the war pact. Hence, when it's aggressor is targeted, it will be in a formally seperate war.

Well, this patch is mostly Human-player-oriented, so - if you don't get vassal into alliance - woe to you.

Better ideas:
1. Make overlord approve declaration of war by vassal with ability to declare war with breaking vassalage to vassal if overlord against it. (Fix exploit, used even by AI, example: after 100yw Brittany declares war to Burgundy, breaking vassalage and giving England nice -3 to stab, and stopping vassal-wars)
2. Make mini-alliances from vassal and overlord - thus if vassal is attacked, overlord can fight for his cause, if overlord is attacked - he can ask vassals for help in wars.
Both changes need some not-so-easy tweaking to AI done, so hardly been implemented.

 

[unmerged(17284)]

Here's an example of what's going wrong in my game.

Sweden is Denmark's vassal. The two are in an alliance war against Norway. Sweden started the war and now has captured all Norweijan provences. The war will not end because Sweden can't sign a peace with Norway because Norway is at war with Denmark. And Denmark won't sign a peace because Norway has nothing to offer Denmark.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I had a similar problem in SP.

Algiers was a vassal of OE and they were in war with 1-province minor Georgia. Algiers controlled Georgia's only province and nothing happened. After 150 years I loaded up as Algiers and annexed Georgia.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

I guess I'm being forced to post this here, even though it's more of a suggestion than a bug report (since it's not really a bug but an unwelcome side effect of a deliberate rules change)....

... with the new vassal peace rule, I've noticed wars that seem to go on indefinitely because the alliance leaders are vassals themselves, and since their lieges won't make a seperate peace the war just keeps going on and on. In my most recent game, Byzantium lasted for 40 years *after* both of its provinces had been occupied, because Duchy of Athens got one of them and could not make peace because it was alliance leader but still a vassal of Tuscany. In an earlier game, the same thing happened, going on for 100 years before I intervened (I was playing France, and quite by accident, broke the Byzantine situation open by conquering Tuscany).

I would propose the two following possibilities to fix this:

1) Either make it impossible for vassals to declare war except on their own liege (to break vassalage) OR impose an override that reduces the warmongering value in the AI file to an extremely low value for any vassal state...

2) Make any vassal who does start a war hand off alliance leader status to its liege.

This would preserve the apparent intent of the rule - which in my opinion is to prevent vassals from being conquered in seperate peaces while their overlords are trying to protect them - while defusing the "unending war" problems that the new rule has created. And I would point out that (although I personally play SP only, due to an unpredictable schedule and no access to broadband internet) even in MP the issue of interminable wars between AI countries could affect gameplay in similar manners (preventing the AI-played OE from forming properly, just to name one very common example).

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Since the never-ending-war bug is an old one (and now has become even worse, considering this vassal problem) and Johan never fixed it I believe he needs some help how to do it.

I have two simple suggestions that quite well mimic what would happen in reality

1. If an AI nation controls one or more provinces of another nation and the war has gone on for at least X years then peace is forced between them and each nation keeps the provinces of the other that they control with the exception of the capital in nations owning more than 1 province. In case it is a 1-province nation it is annexed.

Instead of having X relate to how long the war has been going on (a year that exists in the savefile) one could work on a province-basis only. I.e.:

2. if a province has been controlled by another nation for at least X years then that province is transferred to the controller(unless it is the only province in a 1-province nation, then that nation is annexed instead.

This would be even more realistic than suggestion no 1.
However, I don't think that this year (the date when they took control of the province) exists in the save.

To simplify things I believe a peace should be forced upon the parties also in this case. However this means that the winning nation can win at most 1 province in the war.

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Perhaps a value of 20 years is sufficient for X?