Dumb Diplomacy: I think I may have discovered the solution.

I've spotted a couple of gliches with the 'Friend-o-Meter' which I've mentioned in passing, but its not too bad overall. As far a sabotage is converned I don't think it affects your reputation with anyone other than the faction occupying the target at the time. At least I've not noticed anyone else upset about me blowing up Rotterdam apart from the Dutch and the French who happened to have ships in the harbour at the time.

Incidently, I've just spotted that you get a -10 Territorial Expansion penalty every time you take a province in the same theatre as another faction. Thats something to watch-out for if you want to stay friends.
[Hmm! thats weird. Actually its not just with factions that own territory in the same theatre. I just took Texas and got a -10 on Russia and Prussia even though they are not in America, and yet I got no penalty on the Ottoman Empire, Muhgal Empire or Maratha Confederacy. So, how's that work then?]

Well the title is dumb diplomacy and I just had one of the dumbest things happen yet.

Everyone knows that the UP is a Republic and in the hands of the AI they stay that way. Well they just declared war on me as Sweden. And not just any war but a war of secession.

Who thinks these things up? I mean I could see Denmark if they were not already at war with me, or even Russia, who is not. Just about anyone could have done that other than the UP…

But they were just another target. Feeble and destitute with the French blockading their trade.

What is feeble and destitute is the Campaign AI and its diplomacy, declarations of war, economic abilities, and its military builds are not the greatest either…

Did you try reloading and ending the turn again, it might be another programming joke.

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Originally Posted by Didz

Did you try reloading and anding the turn again, it might be another programming joke.

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No! But I may try that.

I am not really ready to take the UP out.

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Originally Posted by Fisherking

No! But I may try that.

I am not really ready to take the UP out.

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I'd be interested to hear if it works for you too.

I'm at 1724 in my Spanish Campaign and France is still fighting a lonely war agains the whole world except Spain and its Allies, so it certainly seems to have just been a 'screw the player' random event rather than some logical action.

Perhaps, yours is something similar.

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Originally Posted by Fisherking

Well the title is dumb diplomacy and I just had one of the dumbest things happen yet.

Everyone knows that the UP is a Republic and in the hands of the AI they stay that way. Well they just declared war on me as Sweden. And not just any war but a war of secession.

Who thinks these things up? I mean I could see Denmark if they were not already at war with me, or even Russia, who is not. Just about anyone could have done that other than the UP…

But they were just another target. Feeble and destitute with the French blockading their trade.

What is feeble and destitute is the Campaign AI and its diplomacy, declarations of war, economic abilities, and its military builds are not the greatest either…

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Well that is stupid. Sometimes I wonder how they can get themselves so tied up in knots that they miss some of the most obvious things.

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Originally Posted by AussieGiant

Did you even read what I posted FK?

Who says you need something to gain as part of declaring war.

Can you explain the aggressive, totally belligerent expansion of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire? There has been examples of aggression for aggressions sake in many wars.

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Yes, but generally(not necessarily always), a nation/kingdom will initiate a war only when they truly feel they can win.

(Romans, Persians to Greeks, Germans in WWI and II, the list goes on) Now that doesn't necessarily mean that victory is assured per say, but it does mean that the aggressor nation feels fairly confident that when they invade x nation, they will have a high probability of coming out on top.

However there are plenty of ways to roleplay the declared war which make more sense than some sort of affair. The war could have been a desperation move. The French in this circumstance are blocked in by British Navies and have nowhere to go. To their west they see a nice chunk of land which they may be able to pull off an attack with such speed so as to win quickly and add new ports with new sources of income and a larger population to field armies from.

Does that sound sensible to you? It does to me, for the Athenians did essentially the exact same thing in the Peloponnesian War when they attacked Syracusae.

As to them not attacking on the re-roll, on that occasion, they may have assessed their power and war making capabilities, and decided that a war with you would have been a lost cause.

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Originally Posted by Didz

I'd be interested to hear if it works for you too.

I'm at 1724 in my Spanish Campaign and France is still fighting a lonely war agains the whole world except Spain and its Allies, so it certainly seems to have just been a 'screw the player' random event rather than some logical action.

Perhaps, yours is something similar.

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It does work since what you're doing by reloading is resetting the random event roll. If a random even (in this case it's an old King's death) has a chance of 25% happening in a turn; reloading the save-game results in another 1:3 roll.

Succession war seems a bit different though. It seems, it's scripted (conditional on a King dying and his relatives being alive in other courts) and scripted in a poor fashion. A republic should not be declaring succession wars. Period.

Yep! that was the conclusion I came to. So as long as you do a quick save before ending each turn you always have to option to avoid the event.

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Originally Posted by Fisherking

Well the title is dumb diplomacy and I just had one of the dumbest things happen yet.

Everyone knows that the UP is a Republic and in the hands of the AI they stay that way. Well they just declared war on me as Sweden. And not just any war but a war of secession.

Who thinks these things up? I mean I could see Denmark if they were not already at war with me, or even Russia, who is not. Just about anyone could have done that other than the UP…

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If you read the faction description Britain is led by a king of DANISH descent

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Originally Posted by Oaty

If you read the faction description Britain is led by a king of DANISH descent

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William III of Orange is a Dutch guy. There is nothing Danish in him. He was also the stadtholder of the UP.

Britain did have a viking claimant to the throne, but he was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and a few days later The Battle of Hastings linked Britain with the French, so I don't really see where a Danish Succession comes into the equation. As Alphonse says William of Orange, is from the House of Orange, the Dutch Royal Family that still rules the Netherlands today.

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Originally Posted by Slaists

A republic should not be declaring succession wars. Period.

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You say that (and I would generally agree), but what about when William became King of England?

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Originally Posted by NimitsTexan

You say that (and I would generally agree), but what about when William became King of England?

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Which one?

William III (William of Orange) became King of England on the 11 April 1689, putting an end to the Stuart dynasty by invading England and allowing his father-in-law James II to flee into exile in France.

William was also Stadtholder over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic and the Dutch Blue Guard fought for him at the Battle of the Boyne, so in that respect the Dutch republic did get involved in a war which was essentailly about the crown of England.

His father William II (Prince of Orange) was Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders and Overijssel and I see no obvious Danish links.

William II (William Rufus) became King of England in 1087 and ruled for thirteen years, but he was the third son of William the Bastard and therefore of Norman French descent, again I can see no link with Denmark.

William I (William the Bastard) was of course William the Conquer who killed the then encumbent on the English throne Harold Godwinson at The Battle of Hastings in 1066. Harold Godwinson was the son of Godwin of Wessex who was one of the most powerful Lords if England when it was ruled by King Canute.

Now, King Canute was Danish and his Danish ancestry can then be tracked through his successors as far as Harold Godwinson. But as far as I can see, when Harold was hacked to pieces on Senlac Hill any connection between the English throne and Denmark died with him, and from that point on England was back to being ruled by the French and then the Dutch until the German Hannoverian Dynasty took over in 1714.

I agree with the assessment of the AI diplomacy; had WWII been conducted in a similar fashion, the Czechs, the Swiss, the Netherlands, the Belgians, Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Sweden, Denmark, and Monaco would have begun randomly sending infantry companies into Germany when the Reich began building up.

I would, however, like to correct the erroneous assessment of the Belgrano affair. It was a cruiser, accompanied by two Exocet destroyers and it was tasked with intercepting the British troop transports. The decision to sink it was hardly unwarranted, and Thatcher did not initiate the call but was responding to a request made by the admiral in charge of the threatened task force. Here is a relatively unbiased source for more detail:

Well, I can't post a url, so those who wish to will have to google it.

Likewise, Bush and Blair were both acting prudently in their decision to unseat a sociopathic mass murderer who had already employed banned chemical weapons against civilians and was actively researching nuclear ones. It is naive to ascribe personal political motives and a desire to "retain power" to every use of force by a democracy, though hardly unusal nowadays.

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Originally Posted by Monsieur Alphonse

Wars were fought over land or over trade rights not because the people of England disliked Germans or French.

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Wrong. Public opinion effectively forced leaders into action, which would make them otherwise seen as weak or easily bullied into a position.

You have for instance the Franco-Prussian war, where Bismarck's Ems Telegram sent into the French Press effectively turned the entire French society rabidly anti-Prussian, demanding Napoleon III of France that he punish the Prussians. Napoleon's advisors said that failure to act with popular accord would certainly lead to his deposition.

Another example is the start of WW1, where the entire Public Opinion of Serbia was anti-Austria, which was controlling a part of Greater Serbia (e.g. Bosnia), which was supposedly rightful territory of Serbia. Meanwhile, the assassination attempt of Duke turned the entire Austrian society, already quite hostile to the expansionist interests of Serbia, to demand its punishment for their supposed play in the assassination of the Archduke.

Another example (This time, against public opinion) was the 1890 the folding of the Portuguese government to the demands made by the British in their ultimatum, which required Portugal to abandon a lot of colonial space in Africa, which was to belong to Britain. As a consequence of the folding, the Portuguese society became greatly dissatisfied with the monarchy, which was then spinned as a backboneless puppet power only to serve the interests of the British. Some 18 years later, the king was assassinated and only 2 years after that, the monarchy was deposed.

So yes, the Public Opinion plays a gigantic role in the course of action of most leaders.

@ Didz: The territorial expansion diplomatic penalty is bugged. Islamic and animist nations don't care if you capture anything (other than their own territories). All other nations will hate you regardless of being allies, enemies or neutral.

I also had a republic DoW on me for succession - USA DoW on my GB the very turn it emerged in Iriquois occupied Virginia. Unfortunately for them, I had a full stack in Carolina, ready to take Virginia back...

The ETW diplomacy is highly erratic, and plain dumb at times. It is designed to force the human player to conquer the world. I actually preferred the pre-1.2 diplomacy - even though it was still bugged - for playing a limited expansion
(25-35 region conquest) game.

Well I'm firmly convinced now that its not actually just 'Dumb' it quite literally is 'Random'. The game decides randomly to 'screw the player' and then randomly selects the faction to do it with. I've even read elsewhere that players have had their own protectorates declare war on them, and one report even stated that his faction had declared war on itself. So, as far as I can see no effort at all has been made to make this feature work.

When I reloaded they didn’t launch a war.

They later declared war when the next king died but not a war of succession.

Of course that made the pirates reemerge and when they try to build a palace on Curacao you get a persistent CTD…

I think it would make more sense, be more historically correct, and make for a more challenging campaign to actually script certain alliances, depending on which faction the player has chosen. When playing France, for example, Portugal, Britain, and Austria could begin the game in a permanent alliance. By 1710, or when France controls x number of territories, the Ottomans and Prussians could join the alliance, and at 1720, or when the French control (x +10) regions, the Russians would join the coalition.

If the player is playing as the Russians, then the Ottoman Empire would begin in a permanent alliance with Britain and at certain dates, number of regions controlled by the player, or another trigger, the French or even the Austrians join the alliance. This would make for a more realistic campaign, as various large countries gradually joined together to oppose a strong, expanding empire, rather than fritter away their efforts in petty squabbles that leave them weakened. Permanent alliances would also increase trade profit for the AI.

It wouldn't be necessary to have all the countries gang up on the player, but I would rather, as Frederick of Prussia, fight a large campaign against a powerful alliance than spend my time and the better part of my national treasury each turn repairing a whorehouse that a Westphalian cavalry company burnt, or a spinning jenny vandalized by a roaming Lithuanian infantry company, the way I am currently.

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Originally Posted by Joe Pike

I think it would make more sense, be more historically correct, and make for a more challenging campaign to actually script certain alliances, depending on which faction the player has chosen. When playing France, for example, Portugal, Britain, and Austria could begin the game in a permanent alliance. By 1710, or when France controls x number of territories, the Ottomans and Prussians could join the alliance, and at 1720, or when the French control (x +10) regions, the Russians would join the coalition.

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My personal preference would be for each faction to be given a clear set of goals which it must try to achieve, and against which it measures its success. Those goals would vary and be dependant upon the 'Head of State' at the time, therefore changes in government or ruler could see nations change their stance significantly, even their state religion.

The Alliances formed should be determined by the needs of the state, as assessed by a properly crafted diplomacy engine working on the principle that as a faction it must constantly seek victory through diplomacy rather than through war.

In effect, the game should adhere to the principle that 'A successful nation should first secure victory, and only then go to war'.

More importantly each faction needs to be provided with a 'How goes the war?' routine that monitors how they are doing and allows them to make sensible diplomatic proposals, alliances and trade deals that reflect whether they are winning or losing. The current endless war scenario is just a joke.

Finally, the benefits of Trade need to be mutual, not one sided, both parties should gain benefit and both should be equally keen to maintain that trade and keep the trade lanes open so long as they are happy to provide their trade partner with the same benefit they enjoy. As a consequence trade agreements would have both political and military implications, not just financial ones and their significance in the geo-political landscape would be more accurate. e.g. Selling guns to the Indian's has always been a bad idea, not a quick way of raising income for the treasury.

If CA bother to sort this out then we might begin to see the makings of a decent strategy game emerge rather than just a platform for a bit of eye candy.

I think everyone is missing a very important point here. It doesn't matter whether wars can occur in real life for irrational reasons. It doesn't matter whether or not the game would be boring if things were predictable.

What matters is that AI nations with tiny piddly little armies who are at feeble/destitute should NOT be declaring war ALONE on nations that are terrifying/spectacular because this is just suicide. I can't count the amount of times the AI has done this to my 50 province ultra-rich superpower and I have been forced to crush them without even trying.

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Originally Posted by GFX707

I think everyone is missing a very important point here. It doesn't matter whether wars can occur in real life for irrational reasons. It doesn't matter whether or not the game would be boring if things were predictable.

What matters is that AI nations with tiny piddly little armies who are at feeble/destitute should NOT be declaring war ALONE on nations that are terrifying/spectacular because this is just suicide. I can't count the amount of times the AI has done this to my 50 province ultra-rich superpower and I have been forced to crush them without even trying.

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Isn’t this what I have been complaining about since we go the patch?

The AI is aggressive but it has no means to do anything with. It just makes its self a one turn target. Even major powers end up this way. One region per turn and sometimes two. They have no means to resist.

No cash, high upkeep equals no armies or armies too weak to matter.

Yep! I think thats exactly what everyone is saying, so I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

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Originally Posted by Didz

Which one?

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William III . . . as in the Dutch were involved in a English War of Succession, of sorts.

Not sure why the game thing the King of England has Danish acestory .. .