Way to mitigate ridiculous DoW's?

[seireikhaan]

With the most recent patch, the AI has become far, far more aggressive, to the point of near insanity. It will declare war for seemingly no reason than someone else being near them. Further, wars between AI nations do not ever seem to end. This is beyond absurd. I'm just making ramblings here, but I honestly think these suggestions may have some merit.

First- In order to make the AI calculate better the cost and reward of declarations of war, I propose that there be a prestige penalty to any nation that declares a war of aggression- that is, so that the penalty would only apply to instigators of war, not to allies that join on either side of the conflict. Obviously, this would mean having to program a way for the AI to value prestige highly. And particularly for prestige campaigns, this makes quite a bit of sense. Europe definitely had its share of wars in the 18th century- however, wars were not declared on a whim- they had an expressed purpose as a tool of furthering national prestige, and I would really like to see CA emulate this better.

As for the AI actually stopping wars against other AI nations, it seems that the system is completely broken right now- until the AI actually ever offers peace deals, there isn't a whole lot that can be considered.

[TinCow]

It's a strange situation, to be sure. The current situation is pretty much the polar opposite of the last few TW games. In those games, the AI never made peace with the player, no matter what. In ETW, the AI seems perfectly happy to make a fair and reasonable peace, but only with the player and never with other AIs. This results in nations getting wiped out quickly, which results in 'blobbing' (as it is called in Europa Universalis) whereby a few nations become gigantic. While this in itself would make the game very difficult when those nations were at war with the player, their tendency to make peace with the player negates a great deal of their threat. More refinement is certainly needed.

[al Roumi]

I've noticed a trend whereby the game seems to "like" to keep me at war with at least 1 nation or, 1 nation in each given zone/frontier of expansion. I've never been able to attack, dissemble enemies and consolidate 1 by one without the AI DoWing as soon as each nation goes down (in either terminal sense or miltary capacity).

I've had cases in NA where, as Britain, being at war with the Huron but not capturing the great lakes' settlement and not destroying their threatening stack has prevented France form DoWing on me. Playing as Prussia, my humiliated protectorate of Poland/lithuania repeatedly DoW'd on me (but oddly accepting peace each turn after their raiding parties are beaten within my borders). As the Dutch in India, the immediate turn after the Maratha were killed off, the Mughals' DoW'd on me, and in the same vein, as Prussia -after defeating Westfalia the Dutch DoW's on me. In these cases, neither Dutch or Mughals had been allied to the Marathas (at war) or Westfalians.

Arguably all of these fit within the title "total war", and part of the fun of the game is being stretched and coping with less than overwhelming resources, but I don't see a huge ammount of logic in the Ai's DoWs either.

Don't get me started on poland (as a land locked protectorate) DoWing on portugal though.

It's a little frustrating, especially on anything above M where the AI is rabid for the player's guts. Perhaps I have a cautious play style, but I'd like to have some faith in the diplomacy of the AI and not just have to play like a genocidal horde (then again, what exactly was Prussia -joke).

[Discoman]

I've seen the AI make peace, but on very rare occasions. Usually the AI can be stubborn to make peace unless you give them alot of money, tech, or land. Now most AI nations have fragile economies, around the same amount of Tech and no land they want to get rid of, this is where we a problem with both sides being uncompromising. So, we end up in a quagmire of diplomacy. The style in CIV4 involves the AI being very benevolent and letting it's enemies live with only a little effort needed to sway their opinions.

I guess the AI's mindset should be more peace oriented when on the brink and do what they do when they get weak... make allies. The best example would be Italian Unification, we have these small little nations trying to get a united Italian nation and at the same time trying to gain a powerful outside ally to kick out Austria. In ETW the small Italian nations would declare war at separate times and attack the stronger nations rather than getting an alliance. I guess the AI's 1st priority should be survival and knowing when to pick a fight rather than "EXPAND! EXPAND! EXTERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!"

Maybe the AI should use the Prestige meter as a point of comparison. "If I ally nations X and Y, We'll be just as strong as Z!"

I really wish CA would put the "Diplo-meter" back in the game to see what deals are fair, and also the "Make peace" feature.

[Konig Prasatko]

I agree about the DOWs. Since the latest patch I have played Austria and Sweden and in both games I made peace with Poland/Lith and gave territory to seal the deal only to have them declare war on me 1 turn later. Also find it harder to get some countries to make peace even when ridiculous amounts of territory offerred as a sweetner!

[loony]

At least we are able to make peace.
I keep exploiting this in my Poland-Lithuania game, where I:
a) capture St Petersburg
b) destroy any building there
c) offer the region to russians for peace and 10 000 and they accept
d) I get a DOW from russian next turn

I just keep them lower on cash and my armies more experienced; i do suffer some raiding, however.