What should determine province war-score cost?

[SAmaster]

Recently was playing through a campaign where I had a nation full occupied, but I was only able to grab three provinces because they were so high-dev, and I was thinking for the kind of nation I was playing, I should be able to just take it all as a grand conquerer.

Now I do understand that Project Caesar can't be like HOI4 where you can always full-annex a country (presuming no interference from allies in that game), but it had me thinking, in terms of simulation why shouldn't a nation take all of a countries territory? I understand why in terms of balance, but I think in terms of what it's simulating it's more obscure.

I'm thinking that with control extending out from your capital that perhaps that could be better used to portray more immersive peace-deals. Hopefully this reflects geography to an extent, where temperate locales with rivers and the like make them prioritized in peace-deals, as those regions are easier to control and govern. While disincentivizing say grabbing cheap desert provinces and snaking your way around. I'm wondering though what the impact should be on grabbing high-dev urban provinces. To a certain extent it makes sense that highly populated and highly productive regions would 'cost' more at a peace deal as a nation is more likely to try to fight to keep that land- being more willing to make other accessions elsewhere. But on the other hand, if you miltarily control the land, and the other side can't take it back, it should be functionally yours right?

Should fully occupying a nation sort of remove a limiter on peace-deals? I mean, I think the consequence for eating a really big/tall country in its entirety would be the difficulty in integrating it into the administration (coring it), and they seem to have added a lot more mechanics where overextension can lead to national collapse, so is it better to let every nation potentially turn into the next Mongol Empire, just with the idea that doing so will collapse them in a generation?

 

[DidamDFP]

Ideally there shouldn't be limitations on how many provinces/locations one can take during peace deals imo, yeah. If I have beaten Russia into submission, I should be able to fully annex them immediately. It just shouldn't be practical to do so, as it would completely ruin my country via game mechanics, such as AE, rebels, lack of control over the newly conquered territories etc.

That's probably a nightmare to balance though, so I completely understand that it will likely never be implemented in game.

As such, it is only logical imo that the warscore is mainly determined by the value of a location in terms of pops, buildings, it being an estuary, etc.

This is what it looks like according to the peace system Tinto Talks. Not sure what exactly plays into the "Gostynin is a big part of Plock" modifier, but I would assume that things as listed by me above are a part of that calculation. I'd be content with that then

 

[Fawr]

Historically in Europe most large countries surrendered before losing the entirety of their land. Think about Napoleon's many wars, or the war of the Austrian succession, or the war of the Spanish succession, the phases of the hundred years war, the 30 years war, etc. The winning side chose to negotiate an end to the war, rather than fight until the loser had no army and no land. The EU4 peace system gets that kind of peace deal quite well.

The issue is that if you are winning the war why would you negotiated an end rather than continuing on until you have a complete victory? What cards did the losers hold that made the winners want to negotiate before a full conquest was done? Whatever it was EU4 didn't simulate it very well. In EU4 when you have destroyed 100% of the enemies army and sieged down half their provinces why would you agree to a peace that gives you very little when after another year of sieges you can get a lot more??

Before changing the rules you would need to work out what made historical rulers act differently, and make sure that is in the game.

 

[rasakblood]

This is a game balance thing. You would not find it very fun if one lost war means you get fully annexed. And the snowballing effect from conquest would just be enhanced thousand fold without limitations. If you really want you can mod it out after the game is out

And if you REALLY want all land without a mod you can truce break.

 

[WrathfulCelt]

I don't think I'd mind the 100-war score limit if it was easier to get to 100 war score. As it is in EU4, I have to occupy the entire enemy country anyway to get 100%, so why can't I just take it all then?
Perhaps something to separate warscore and war enthusiasm more and give you more control of it, i.e. you occupy the few border regions you can actually take and get to 100% WS quickly, then win some battles / sit on the capital for a short while until their war enthusiasm drops enough to peace out.
So not "War Score" exactly, but "Occupation Score"

You would not find it very fun if one lost war means you get fully annexed.

This is already the case for small tags. It's only larger tags where the war score limit matters, and (coincidently, I'm sure), it's when you're fighting those that the game starts to get tedious. Fighting the same war over and over again isn't particularly fun, and I hope PC doesn't have the same thing happen here.

 

[Red Death]

Ideally there shouldn't be limitations on how many provinces/locations one can take during peace deals imo, yeah. If I have beaten Russia into submission, I should be able to fully annex them immediately. It just shouldn't be practical to do so, as it would completely ruin my country via game mechanics, such as AE, rebels, lack of control over the newly conquered territories etc.

In addition, things like fully beating Russia into submission should just be extremely difficult. As said:

Historically in Europe most large countries surrendered before losing the entirety of their land. Think about Napoleon's many wars, or the war of the Austrian succession, or the war of the Spanish succession, the phases of the hundred years war, the 30 years war, etc. The winning side chose to negotiate an end to the war, rather than fight until the loser had no army and no land. The EU4 peace system gets that kind of peace deal quite well.

The issue is that if you are winning the war why would you negotiated an end rather than continuing on until you have a complete victory? What cards did the losers hold that made the winners want to negotiate before a full conquest was done? Whatever it was EU4 didn't simulate it very well. In EU4 when you have destroyed 100% of the enemies army and sieged down half their provinces why would you agree to a peace that gives you very little when after another year of sieges you can get a lot more??

Before changing the rules you would need to work out what made historical rulers act differently, and make sure that is in the game.

I am certainly no expert in the field, but one thing that comes to mind is that apart from things like the window of time between the implementation of effective artillery and effective fortress designs to counter them, sieges were a massive ordeal. In most cases just taking a few fortresses should be costly enough that both sides want to call it quits.

AI should also recognise that they cannot let themselves be weakened too much for other threats.

 

[bretjemaine]

Historically in Europe most large countries surrendered before losing the entirety of their land. Think about Napoleon's many wars, or the war of the Austrian succession, or the war of the Spanish succession, the phases of the hundred years war, the 30 years war, etc. The winning side chose to negotiate an end to the war, rather than fight until the loser had no army and no land. The EU4 peace system gets that kind of peace deal quite well.

The issue is that if you are winning the war why would you negotiated an end rather than continuing on until you have a complete victory? What cards did the losers hold that made the winners want to negotiate before a full conquest was done? Whatever it was EU4 didn't simulate it very well. In EU4 when you have destroyed 100% of the enemies army and sieged down half their provinces why would you agree to a peace that gives you very little when after another year of sieges you can get a lot more??

Before changing the rules you would need to work out what made historical rulers act differently, and make sure that is in the game.

Exactly. It's because they wouldn't be able to hold large bits of land, or control the local population. So once they had enough leverage to say 'if we keep going we can scorch your lands' they stop and get what's practical in a peace deal. Spending the cost and manpower to occupy every province wasn't worth anything as it didn't give the attackers anything else they wanted.

Paradox and strategy games in general don't simulate this well for two reasons
1. It is too easy to control and integrate new provinces
2. Wars aren't expensive enough

I don't expect PC to go very far down the road of making these more realistic, as it's a radical change in strategy games and risks alienating those that just want a quick power fantasy. But in their diaries they imply that both of these things will be more realistic, so they'll go down this road a little.

 

[Rule Britannia]

Hopefully the monetary and manpower cost of prolonged wars together with your ability to integrate and exercise effective control is such that fully conquering a large country is incredibly wasteful and will effectively weaken your country. It should be much more effective to seize the provinces you are interested in and get a peace as soon as the other country realises that it cannot win. That way preserving your manpower/population and your coffers.

 

[SauronGorthaur]

This discussion reminds me of my first EU3 game (so first time playing any PDX title), where I continued fully occupying the Ottoman Empire for like 3 decades thinking that eventually they'd capitulate and let me get more land at once. Got so many rebellions because of that...

 

[Kovax]

All of this assumes that the occupied country is willing to make concessions. In previous Paradox titles, it often took an overwhelming defeat and the occupation of half their land before the AI would be willing to accept any loss, no matter how trivial. In many cases, the AI wouldn't even accept a white peace, despite no longer having an army to resist the invader. Having an AI that can accept that it's a lost cause and negotiate would be a major step in the right direction.

Making the victor support a standing army to garrison the newly conquered areas (unless they've reclaimed a core territory) and spend decades to integrate the population into their society before it becomes a net asset would make it pointless, expensive, and dangerous to demand more than you can safely digest. I'd be tempted to allow the player to demand large swaths of land, and then suffer the consequences.

 

[rasakblood]

This is already the case for small tags. It's only larger tags where the war score limit matters, and (coincidently, I'm sure), it's when you're fighting those that the game starts to get tedious. Fighting the same war over and over again isn't particularly fun, and I hope PC doesn't have the same thing happen here.

For small tags it is fine. And the kind of large tag wars you are talking about generally only happen when you have already taken half of your starting continent in eu4. I would say the main issue there is eu4 scaling and balance.

There are in game solutions to let you take more land faster. You have just "won" the game hundreds of years early and never get to them.

Luckily in PC manpower is not a magically refilling pool of mana. And so hopefully you wont control half of the continent after 50-100 years every run and Instead will have to continue to make thoughtful and long term decisions and smart low casualty wars instead of simply mindlessly chaining war after war on truce cooldown.

Also on the flip side if you inflict devastating casualty's on your enemy they wont just recover it all in 5 years. So every war vs a large rival will actually matter for more then just the land you take.

But ofc without playing this is all speculation based on the TTs

 

[HansFlammenwerfer]

If we do have a warscore system, and I think we will, I wonder if making it a soft-cap rather than a hard-cap would work.

For example, if you go above 100% warscore, you'll incur progressively more AE, equal to the the excess warscore you demand (so demanding 150% ws = +50% more AE). This way, if you have a 120% WS war, you're not compelled to fight it twice just because the hand of God is forcing you to not take 2 or 3 extra provinces.

Excessive conquest already has a major penalty associated with it in terms of OE and the land will naturally have poor proximity and take a long time to integrate, so I think my suggestion will alleviate a frustration many have with EU4's peace-system without breaking the game too hard.

 

[WrathfulCelt]

There are in game solutions to let you take more land faster. You have just "won" the game hundreds of years early and never get to them.

I actually go to absolutism in most games, and even stacking absolutism and province warscore cost, it takes multiple wars to take a late-game Ottomans. I remember one particular campaign I had to march on all the way to Baghdad something like five times before I was finished with them. Fighting the same war each time, with the Ottomans even weaker each time.

 

[Fawr]

In addition, things like fully beating Russia into submission should just be extremely difficult. As said:

I am certainly no expert in the field, but one thing that comes to mind is that apart from things like the window of time between the implementation of effective artillery and effective fortress designs to counter them, sieges were a massive ordeal. In most cases just taking a few fortresses should be costly enough that both sides want to call it quits.

AI should also recognise that they cannot let themselves be weakened too much for other threats.

I wonder if part of the challenge is that there is a lot of Russia. Even once you beat their largest 3 armies and siege down their top 10 forts then you need to visit all the towns and villages, which takes a lot of time and organisation. You can't spread out too far as there are still some Russians left (even if they aren't units of 1000), and any town you haven't reached is a potential source of recruits for the Russians.

From that point of view maybe cities are easier to fully occupy than rural areas. I mean spending a month (EU4 style) to fully occupy Pisa sounds doable, but spending a month to occupy a large decentralised, spread out province means visiting lots of little places (which might include castles as well as villages and towns).

 

[Aquila SPQR]

Hard limit and high cost were always one of the most frustrating things in this game and while I understand why it's there - it doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Unfortunately both options (ability to take more land in peace deals vs restrictions allowing you to take little) are bad and I just don't see any good solution here.

The only one that I can think of: allow states to capture a lot of land, but make it difficult to keep it and more likely to revolt and return to the previous owner if your control is low there. That will allow players to have less frustrating peace deals (no longer steamrolling the entire Italy just to be able to take only three towns because magic numbers say so) if they will be able to exert control there (or more frustrating when they'll face constant revolts) and the AI to balance things more because even if one side will win decisibvely but take too much land it'll revolt eventually.

But such soft limits are going to work properly only if correctly implemented. Hard limits are simple - you occupied entire France? That's cool, but there's a limit so you can take only two cities in peace deal so that even a crushing defeat won't delete France from the game.
If players will be able to take half of France and face revolts instead - devs will have to make sure there will be no easy workaround making things easier. No magic governor who will prevent revolts or no magic building increasing control too much and so on. Let them face huge and frequent revolts.

Since we already know there will be more realistic revolts (more likely - I believe Johan said somewhere that after a conquest of foreign land revolt is almost guaranteed and being able to receive support of neighbouring states) I hope we'll get something like this - peace deals where magic, abstract war cost will matter less than potential future repercussions. Don't create artificial and abstract limits - punish players who will bite off more than they can chew instead.

 

[lukesilveira]

Talked a bit in a post I created. I'll repeat myself a bit here

I'm suggesting we keep some form of overall war score, but the logic for each demand in peace talks not strictly tied to the original casus belli, rather, it should be grounded in what was actually accomplished on the ground.

For instance, if I control Province X (the original reason for the war), holding it should gradually lower its "weight", meaning the war score needed to demand that province, (maybe a formula that reduces the required score over time), instead of generating an arbitrary ticking war score that can be used for unrelated demands. Over time, with everything else remaining equal, this would decrease the war score needed to demand that specific province.

Under the current system, both as defender and attacker, the ticking war score lets me make demands that have absolutely nothing to do with the original territory. I can ask for gold, treaties, and even grab provinces that I never set foot in. EU4 tried to rein this in by requiring fort occupation in the area, but that feels artificial and could definitely be expanded upon.

Another example: If Castille attacks Aragon with a subjugation casus belli (which normally requires taking the capital), but fails to capture the capital while absolutely dominating battles and occupying half of western Aragon, the current EU4 system might let Aragon walk away with a white peace or even make their own demands just because they managed to hold onto their capital long enough. In my proposed system, Castille would fail in its casus belli but in the peace deal they could still demand those western provinces they've already occupied. The system wouldn't unrealistically tip the scales in Aragon's favor just because they kept their capital out of enemy hands.

Regardless, I'd still add at least the dynamic costs of occupied provinces, that would make peace deals more reasonable , encourage players to focus on their actual conquests and better reflect the events during war.

 

[Red Death]

If we do have a warscore system, and I think we will, I wonder if making it a soft-cap rather than a hard-cap would work.

For example, if you go above 100% warscore, you'll incur progressively more AE, equal to the the excess warscore you demand (so demanding 150% ws = +50% more AE). This way, if you have a 120% WS war, you're not compelled to fight it twice just because the hand of God is forcing you to not take 2 or 3 extra provinces.

Excessive conquest already has a major penalty associated with it in terms of OE and the land will naturally have poor proximity and take a long time to integrate, so I think my suggestion will alleviate a frustration many have with EU4's peace-system without breaking the game too hard.

I don't think OE exists anymore in PC. So unintegrated territories are still trouble, and more of them means more trouble, but it will scale linearly. Having more of them will not make them all more problematic, other than perhaps you literally having to spread your efforts more.

 

[Kovax]

Having more unintegrated provinces (particularly those of different culture and/or religion) means more places to garrison, otherwise the conquered populace WILL revolt. Having more garrisons should mean more expenses to keep them properly supplied, and slightly higher turnover and attrition in poorly controlled land, meaning a slow but real drain on your military manpower. That in turn translates to having less accepted pops to fight the next war or man your production buildings. Spread yourself too thin and you end up with less money and less accepted population for an extended period of time, in direct contrast to the usual blobbing mechanics where you instantly gain more income and manpower from the newly conquered land, allowing you to conquer more.

 

[AchedTeacher]

Simple answer: provinces need warscore cost for balance.

Imaginative, in-universe answer: the hard restriction placed on the player of how many provinces they can annex represents not the state's/politician's limit on how many provinces they can take when beating a nation into submission, but rather the most reasonable way they could possibly push this victory. This is the most the inner circle is willing to accept, for instance.