When can you make peace without breaking an alliance?

I keep getting drawn back to ETW: I don't know why, it's so slow and the AI is not the brightest, but there is something about the scale and freedom, I find irresistable. One thing that is bugging me is how to cope with all the entangling alliances I start with as Great Britain and the consequent wars I get dragged into. I feel I can't make peace - even if the enemy would want to - because I joined the war to honour an alliance. Is it as simple as that or can you extract yourself from pointless fights without breaking the alliance (e.g. after a period of time).

I ask because I made peace with Spain after they attacked me and I had callied on my allies to help. The alliances stayed in tact, even though the allies were still fighting what was originally my fight. I wonder if you are only obliged to keep fighting if they called on you to help (not, as I did, you asked them)? Or is there some time limit after which you can bow out? It took Spain quite a while to agree to terms.

In this game I find it best to make very few allies. I don’t know that there is a good answer to the quandary other than eliminate your foe.

Of course, this is not how wars were fought at the time. About the only way to extract your self is to declare war on your ally’s ally.

Old thread, eh, but I'll still comment...

Can't say for sure, but I was certain you were capable of making peace with a country even if you were dragged into the war (by your own volition) to help an ally. I consistently make peace with Barbary States even though the rest of the world, and my allies, remain at war with them. I find that particular war to be rather silly, since they're only there to harass trade routes and never do anything more.

That's always kind of a problem with the TW games; pointless wars are waged and dragged on by the AI regardless if the fight is worth being in, like Russia being at war with Spain or France - there's really no point for them to be fighting that war at all since they are so far apart. Maratha and any of the European factions would be another one, unless they actually have some stake in India, like Portugal and the Dutch would.

When you start to make money one of your allies will always go to war with another or it much prefers to declare war on a protectorate if you have one, example, Prussia or Sweden going to war wit the 13 Colonies, if you are the UK.