You should not be able to impose peace deals that cut a country into pieces

[CrabHelmet]

The same? You're getting less for the same war score. Surely letting them keep some land as a vassal is worse than getting the land directly. It's s a neat idea though.

Personally I don't think the released land should be held as a vassal, it should just be independent. I don't see how the country the exclave is from is supposed to provide any kind of direction or collect any kind of taxation from a vassal entirely encircled by a foreign power. So from the perspective of the country losing the land, my view would be that it is just as bad.

 

[Bisonmask]

We recently got to see examples of what EU5 looks like when you let the game run for 100 years, and it can be clearly seen that EU5 very much inherits this problem. There are other reasons why these borders are unrealistic and undesirable (China should not be permanently divided between Ming and Yuan, one state should unite all of China within a few decades), but even ignoring those, it would be very silly in any context for two countries (other than feudal domains in Europe) to have borders that look like this.

I agree with the general point but I have do disagree strongly with these two points

A split China, especially between North and South is a perfectly plausible outcome to Yuan collapse and an extremely common one in Chinese history. There's no reason a stalemate should be impossible, even one where the far southwest remains under a Yuan rump state (given this was one of their last Chinese possessions). Control and devolution of power should ultimately result in those exclaves going independent or becoming subjects to Yuan in name more than anything else but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to exist


The second example brings to mind borders in India and Iran especially during this period but also the Triple Alliance or Benin Empire and a number of other states. You're conflating a historical simplification (assuming land connecting known possessions is held by the state that owns them) with a genuine geopolitical reality. Exclaves, enclaves, borderlands, and unclear/mixed ownership of territory are normal outcomes of geopolitical activity and warfare, especially outside the metropoles of imperial states


Consolidation should be something that starts to happen with the advent of professional, conscripted armies and colonisation as it was historically. Until that point in the game subjects and tributaries should be encouraged over just blobbing, it makes countries much less stable and gives more diplomatic gameplay to all involved

 

[Sirbab]

Personally I don't think the released land should be held as a vassal, it should just be independent. I don't see how the country the exclave is from is supposed to provide any kind of direction or collect any kind of taxation from a vassal entirely encircled by a foreign power. So from the perspective of the country losing the land, my view would be that it is just as bad.

Exclaves were pretty common tbh, one of the more egregious examples in the period was the three bishophrics. This was one polity lol.

 

[lukesilveira]

A lot of these requests seems to be "make this thing I don't like impossible" when the solution is staring you in the face; you can just not do the thing. The AI doesn't generally create exclaves if it can help it and making it a rule for the player just isn't fun in a game meant to be fun.

You don't need an AI that specifically wants to create exclaves for them to form.

Consider a country that owns territories numbered 1-12:

1__2__3__4
5__6__7__8
9_10_11_12

One neighbor invades and takes territories 5, 6, 9, and 10.
Another invader later appears and captures 2, 3, and 4.

1__2__3__4
5__6__7__8
9_10_11_12

Now territory 1 has become an exclave, disconnected from the main territory (7, 8, 11, 12).

So exclaves can 'naturally' form through wars, rebellions, and other territorial losses without requiring special AI behavior to create them deliberately.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

You don't need an AI that specifically wants to create exclaves for them to form.

Consider a country that owns territories numbered 1-12:

1__2__3__4
5__6__7__8
9_10_11_12

One neighbor invades and takes territories 5, 6, 9, and 10.
Another invader later appears and captures 2, 3, and 4.

1__2__3__4
5__6__7__8
9_10_11_12

Now territory 1 has become an exclave, disconnected from the main territory (7, 8, 11, 12).

So exclaves can 'naturally' form through wars, rebellions, and other territorial losses without requiring special AI behavior to create them deliberately.

Which is a thing that has happened historically, why should that be a problem?

 

[lukesilveira]

Which is a thing that has happened historically, why should that be a problem?

Problem was you saying that the AI wouldn't do it

The AI doesn't generally create exclaves if it can help it and making it a rule for the player just isn't fun in a game meant to be fun.

 

[Gerulus Sum]

I don't think it should be banned, but maybe peace proposals should have a "will create exclave" trigger which, if true, increases war score cost and decreases the proposing AI country's score of that peace proposal. And just for fun, the trigger shouldn't apply if the exclave would be in the HRE.

 

[Ispil]

This is one of those things that, at the end of the day, is very contextual. Are the peace deals being negotiated, or are they being imposed? If you're imposing your conquests you don't really give a damn about whether or not you're carving out exclaves; you're taking everything you could get your hands on. If you're negotiating, you're not gonna wanna be left with a chunk of territory that cannot be accessed.

You know how I mentioned the idea of "codified borders" in the suggestion thread I made on raiding? Here's a broader idea: peace deals aren't peace deals. They're establishing the reality of your conquests. Carve out all the exclaves that you want.

However, until you actually sit down and negotiate a formal settlement (through a generic action and... god knows what sort of fancy UIs and all the rest of it I can drum up for this), you're still "in conflict" even after peace. Stuff about exclaves and all the rest of it only get handled during that negotiation process.

That way you get your "bilateral peace", but after the war ends, and as a protracted negotiation that can possibly take years. These are the peace treaties that do things like clean up borders and the like. Until you've actually had that negotiation, you can do things like cross-border raid and the like. Note that you can even be allies with someone, or have them as a subject, without formalized borders. Won't be able to raid, but the stuff I mentioned in the authority thread about lowered control in locations adjacent to foreign territory without codified borders still apply even with your allies.

No-CB wars? Ding your stability a whole lot more when declared on someone whose borders you've formalized. Much cheaper against someone you're already effectively in a state of conflict with.

Consider this a refinement on my previous idea.

 

[Nekoluve]

In fact, many times it is strategically reasonable to divide an enemy country into several pieces to deliberately create divisions, and there are many such cases in history. Just look at the map of Israel and you will know that they deliberately divided Palestine in order to weaken its power. The Polish Corridor after World War I also turned East Prussia into an enclave, and a referendum was held in the region. During the referendum, Poland deliberately cut off its ties with Germany in the Polish Corridor in order to separate the area from Germany. In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire continued to encroach on the land of central Hungary, gradually cutting off the connection between Transylvania and Austria, causing the local nobles to abandon the Habsburg dynasty. When the corridor was completely cut off, Transylvania had actually become a tributary state of the Ottomans. The Plantagenet dynasty of England controlled central France through marriage and inheritance, cutting it off in the middle and strengthening the independence of southern France. During the Thirty Years' War, France annexed Spanish territory such as Franco-Comté, and Lorraine, an ally of Spain, in order to cut off the Spanish Road.These are all reasonable.



What is unreasonable is that in EU4, Denmark defeated Moscow and cut off the really long border between it and Lithuania to prevent Lithuania from invading.This is extremely unreasonable, because in the real world, such territory is extremely difficult to control, and it will also face great border pressure from the two countries, and it is impossible to defend it.

 

[Linbot#6018]

A memorable example from this period was the Ottoman Empire taking land that cut the Byzantine Empire into three pieces: Constantinople, Thessaloniki and Morea. This happened because Constantinople and Thessaloniki were very defensible fortified cities that the Ottoman Empire could not take by force. In practice, after this, Thessaloniki and Morea were ruled by highly autonomous governers, because the Bynzatine Empire did not have a strong enough navy to guarantee safe travel between its domains. (This info is from The New Roman Empire by Kaldellis)

Other memorable examples are the treaty of Roskilde, which split Norway, and the Treaty of Versaille (after time period), which split Germany.

I will suggest a variant of @Kovax's suggestion: make AI less willing to accept a peace that splits its country.

Do I need to put "maritime access" in giant capital letters? Do not waste my time with ignorant responses.

A lot of these requests seems to be "make this thing I don't like impossible" when the solution is staring you in the face; you can just not do the thing. The AI doesn't generally create exclaves if it can help it and making it a rule for the player just isn't fun in a game meant to be fun.

Did you look at the original post, which provided an example of the AI doing (multiple times) exactly the thing you are pretending it doesn't do? The fact that the AI does this is most of the thing I am complaining about.

 

[Linbot#6018]

Exclaves were pretty common tbh, one of the more egregious examples in the period was the three bishophrics. This was one polity lol. View attachment 1299742

This is a product of feudal landholding patterns, never intended to be an international border.

 

[Linbot#6018]

This is one of those things that, at the end of the day, is very contextual. Are the peace deals being negotiated, or are they being imposed? If you're imposing your conquests you don't really give a damn about whether or not you're carving out exclaves; you're taking everything you could get your hands on. If you're negotiating, you're not gonna wanna be left with a chunk of territory that cannot be accessed.

You know how I mentioned the idea of "codified borders" in the suggestion thread I made on raiding? Here's a broader idea: peace deals aren't peace deals. They're establishing the reality of your conquests. Carve out all the exclaves that you want.

However, until you actually sit down and negotiate a formal settlement (through a generic action and... god knows what sort of fancy UIs and all the rest of it I can drum up for this), you're still "in conflict" even after peace. Stuff about exclaves and all the rest of it only get handled during that negotiation process.

That way you get your "bilateral peace", but after the war ends, and as a protracted negotiation that can possibly take years. These are the peace treaties that do things like clean up borders and the like. Until you've actually had that negotiation, you can do things like cross-border raid and the like. Note that you can even be allies with someone, or have them as a subject, without formalized borders. Won't be able to raid, but the stuff I mentioned in the authority thread about lowered control in locations adjacent to foreign territory without codified borders still apply even with your allies.

No-CB wars? Ding your stability a whole lot more when declared on someone whose borders you've formalized. Much cheaper against someone you're already effectively in a state of conflict with.

Consider this a refinement on my previous idea.

I think part of the issue here is that the way peace deals work in these games frequently leads to the post-war settlement being completely different from the military situation reached during the war. The peace deal situation is therefore mostly divorced from the actual reality of how practical it is to maintain control of things. This is one of the main reasons why I believe the game should make peace deal results conform more to the military situation. One idea I had for this was to force a country to send armies to take back land that was occupied during a war but not annexed during the peace deal (or else it becomes independent), although it would probably not be feasible to make a mod that works like this.

 

[Linbot#6018]

I agree with the general point but I have do disagree strongly with these two points

A split China, especially between North and South is a perfectly plausible outcome to Yuan collapse and an extremely common one in Chinese history. There's no reason a stalemate should be impossible, even one where the far southwest remains under a Yuan rump state (given this was one of their last Chinese possessions). Control and devolution of power should ultimately result in those exclaves going independent or becoming subjects to Yuan in name more than anything else but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to exist

This is ignoring the actual problem. In EU games, once divided China is never reunified, ever, unless by a player. Since China was never permanently divided during the 500 years the game depicts, the historical outcome naturally is a high priority. I'm not opposed to it being possible for China to be permanently divided sometimes, but it should not be the norm.

The second example brings to mind borders in India and Iran especially during this period but also the Triple Alliance or Benin Empire and a number of other states. You're conflating a historical simplification (assuming land connecting known possessions is held by the state that owns them) with a genuine geopolitical reality. Exclaves, enclaves, borderlands, and unclear/mixed ownership of territory are normal outcomes of geopolitical activity and warfare, especially outside the metropoles of imperial states


Consolidation should be something that starts to happen with the advent of professional, conscripted armies and colonisation as it was historically. Until that point in the game subjects and tributaries should be encouraged over just blobbing, it makes countries much less stable and gives more diplomatic gameplay to all involved

What borders specifically are you thinking of? "A country that is enclosed by another country" does not count.

 

[peteoj]

Exclaves were pretty common tbh, one of the more egregious examples in the period was the three bishophrics. This was one polity lol. View attachment 1299742

Important to not that exclaves were usually a western European thing, this rarely happened in Eastern Europe, central and east Asia, the middle east and Africa.

 

[Linbot#6018]

View attachment 1299315

Philadelphia is a good case study here. After being cut out, it basically became a city-state and was a Byzantine vassal only nominally.

I think it is hard to implement accurately in-game, because usually pre-modern countries were unconcerned with the legality of expansion and took everything they could; exclaves like this rarely formed because they were basically free to take land.

I think the way I would put it is that in real life, the existence of large exclaves necessarily implies the existence of some kind of thing existing in that exclave which is capable of managing its own affairs and providing for its own defence (in this case, the city of Philadelphia). I think enforcing that to happen or else the exclave should vanish is important, either by preventing indefensible exclaves by coming into being (the "make peace deals align more to the military situation at the end of the war" option), or by turning indefensible exclaves into defensible ones (the "turn exclaves into vassals" option)

 

[Freshplayer]

I agree with the general point but I have do disagree strongly with these two points

A split China, especially between North and South is a perfectly plausible outcome to Yuan collapse and an extremely common one in Chinese history. There's no reason a stalemate should be impossible, even one where the far southwest remains under a Yuan rump state (given this was one of their last Chinese possessions). Control and devolution of power should ultimately result in those exclaves going independent or becoming subjects to Yuan in name more than anything else but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to exist


The second example brings to mind borders in India and Iran especially during this period but also the Triple Alliance or Benin Empire and a number of other states. You're conflating a historical simplification (assuming land connecting known possessions is held by the state that owns them) with a genuine geopolitical reality. Exclaves, enclaves, borderlands, and unclear/mixed ownership of territory are normal outcomes of geopolitical activity and warfare, especially outside the metropoles of imperial states


Consolidation should be something that starts to happen with the advent of professional, conscripted armies and colonisation as it was historically. Until that point in the game subjects and tributaries should be encouraged over just blobbing, it makes countries much less stable and gives more diplomatic gameplay to all involved

I think it is necessary for isolated subjects to demand independence or autonomy under some circumstances, like in Victoria 3.

 

[Ispil]

I think part of the issue here is that the way peace deals work in these games frequently leads to the post-war settlement being completely different from the military situation reached during the war. The peace deal situation is therefore mostly divorced from the actual reality of how practical it is to maintain control of things. This is one of the main reasons why I believe the game should make peace deal results conform more to the military situation. One idea I had for this was to force a country to send armies to take back land that was occupied during a war but not annexed during the peace deal (or else it becomes independent), although it would probably not be feasible to make a mod that works like this.

I vaguely remember reading someone say, based on all those content creator videos, that you could only take in a peace deal the locations that you had occupied. I didn't actually watch any of those videos so do correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Myxach]

This is one of those things that, at the end of the day, is very contextual. Are the peace deals being negotiated, or are they being imposed? If you're imposing your conquests you don't really give a damn about whether or not you're carving out exclaves; you're taking everything you could get your hands on. If you're negotiating, you're not gonna wanna be left with a chunk of territory that cannot be accessed.

You know how I mentioned the idea of "codified borders" in the suggestion thread I made on raiding? Here's a broader idea: peace deals aren't peace deals. They're establishing the reality of your conquests. Carve out all the exclaves that you want.

However, until you actually sit down and negotiate a formal settlement (through a generic action and... god knows what sort of fancy UIs and all the rest of it I can drum up for this), you're still "in conflict" even after peace. Stuff about exclaves and all the rest of it only get handled during that negotiation process.

That way you get your "bilateral peace", but after the war ends, and as a protracted negotiation that can possibly take years. These are the peace treaties that do things like clean up borders and the like. Until you've actually had that negotiation, you can do things like cross-border raid and the like. Note that you can even be allies with someone, or have them as a subject, without formalized borders. Won't be able to raid, but the stuff I mentioned in the authority thread about lowered control in locations adjacent to foreign territory without codified borders still apply even with your allies.

No-CB wars? Ding your stability a whole lot more when declared on someone whose borders you've formalized. Much cheaper against someone you're already effectively in a state of conflict with.

Consider this a refinement on my previous idea.

Actually the idea of making "phases of war" is a good idea.

A truce divides the war into phases
Peace divides wars.
But what about the AI? Can it handle it properly?
And I should be able to change sides of the conflict between phases.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Exclaves were pretty common tbh, one of the more egregious examples in the period was the three bishophrics. This was one polity lol. View attachment 1299742

Yes and no. This is operating within the confines of the Holy Roman Empire, meaning there are shared rules that apply about travel through the land of Imperial Princes, shared rules about war and international relations between members, a shared jurisdiction in the form of the Imperial Circles. It's not a good comparison to what happens if France just carves a random enclave out of England when both powers are deeply hostile towards one another.

 

[Sirbab]

Yes and no. This is operating within the confines of the Holy Roman Empire, meaning there are shared rules that apply about travel through the land of Imperial Princes, shared rules about war and international relations between members, a shared jurisdiction in the form of the Imperial Circles. It's not a good comparison to what happens if France just carves a random enclave out of England when both powers are deeply hostile towards one another.

That's a fair point, thank you for the addendum.