Diplomacy is entirely broken (The other side of the coin)

[Lucius Verenus]

We can, in fact, look at one nation and see how it handled Aussiegiants scenario.

'GB' at the start of the 18th was in a situation that resembles it quite well.

It was not all that stong, did not have vast resources, it's Army was pitifully small and made up of "Scum of the earth, enlisted for drink" (Wellington) and a navy that was manned by press-ganged sailors and unless actually at war had a large chunk of it 'laid up' rotting and half it's officers on half pay.

Across the channel was a wealthy UP - it had not too many years before actually sailed a fleet up the Thames and bombarded London.

Further south is the fading yet still powerful Spanish and then there was France , always France lol

True GB had some colonies in the Caribbean and N America - but the N American Colonies aren't much help with resources or manpower and are threatened by France's colonies to the North and Spanish Cuba etc - and so demanding at least as a much resources to protect as they bring in.

in the last 50 years they have fought two terrible Civil Wars and the Scottish highlands are simmering as always - ready to attack if the Stuart lands to 'reclaim' the throne.

so I would say the position of GB at the beginning of the 18th is a fair place to look to see what humans would do.

And what they did has already been said.

They made alliances with weaker nations , sometimes going to war and sometimes not but the name of the game was to prevent any power getting strong enough to start looking hungrily at GB's overseas posessions, trade routes - or thinking about having another go at crossing that 20 mile moat...

What they DIDN'T do was declare war on half the planet then stick a full stack army in London and wait for someone to attack them !!

[Jolt]

Let me paint a picture with all this AI diplomacy hammering going on:

"In all these examples, pretend if you will, or can, that the tables are turned. Just for a moment."

You the player, suddenly find yourself playing this small single province nation, or vastly reduced nation that has gotten the pants slapped out of it by a large, very well run, vastly superior Empire that is expanding across the globe at a rapid and terrifying rate. Clearly all it has in mind is total and complete world domination. You know it, your fellow kings, queens and Prime Ministers know it, and so does the ruler of this terrifying nation.

What do you do as this faction you suddenly find yourself playing?

a) Sue for peace, knowing that at any moment you can be crushed and that essentially you exist at the pleasure of some despot sitting on his throne, or in Parliament somewhere? Why do you know this? Because most of the time you share a boarder with this nation. You know the composition of its armed forces, economic power and demenour...it's not rocket science.

Your lot in life, to live a meek and completely irrelevant existence.

b) Sue for protectorate status, join this mighty empire, become it's lap dog, feed off its teat and enjoy the benefits of being part of the global domination, albeit limited as ou hand all your wealth across yearly to the rich greedy nation. Your lot in history is to forever be at the mercy of it's rulers.

c) Stick up two fingers, tell them to go to hell and go down fighting with all guns blazing. Forever refusing to capitulate roll over and die.

d) Stick up two fingers at this might Empire, build up the biggest army you can and sit, in defiance for the rest of time in your nations capital. Both you and this terrifying nation know full well that your goal is to ensure that IF this nation decides to attack, you will ensure that you take down as many of them as possible. Why do you do this? Because you don't have the capacity to raise enough troop to go on the offensive. You can't protect your homeland and attack.

Keep in mind I'm only talking about the AI diplomacy.

WHICH one would you choose?

I'm sick and tired of the eternal bashing going on. There seems to be a ground swell of thought pervading this board that things are really, really, really bad.

So I ask again, swap positions, just for a second, and see if ANY of the behaviour you are seeing would be something YOU would do as the player if you were playing that nation?

It doesn't explain all of it, but it certainly removes a lot of the complaints I'm seeing.

The first duty of every state is to ensure the survival of itself. That said, having sovereignty under another country is always better than having no sovereignty at all, and it becomes apparent that the "Going down with guns blazing" isn't really a scenario which applies to real life, provided that you have been throughly defeated and the victorious country is very open to peace. Even so of all the scenarios you describe, scenario b) is a good one, as the balance of powers might shift in one moment or another and then it would be a good time to rebel and join the enemies of your Protector, so it wouldn't be a perpetual protectorate. Just a way to buy off time until the scales of justice tip against the country which won against you. It is how every country acts. You shall not find a single example in history of a country which, having been completely crushed, decides that annexation is better than the preservation of itself as a separate entity provided the victorious countries are open to it. Not one example in history.

[Slaists]

They made alliances with weaker nations , sometimes going to war and sometimes not but the name of the game was to prevent any power getting strong enough to start looking hungrily at GB's overseas posessions, trade routes - or thinking about having another go at crossing that 20 mile moat...

What they DIDN'T do was declare war on half the planet then stick a full stack army in London and wait for someone to attack them !!

Yup, they did not. Actually, at the time the American revolution broke out British world-wide regular troops numbered only around 30K... (not counting sailors and navy). Imagine... ruling a good chunk of the world with only 30K men...

[Cheetah]

I think that the main problem with these DOWs are not that we cannot come up with some nice story but that:

1, Most of these are scripted DOWs; do whatever you want the AI will declare war on you.
Example: as GBR conquered the Pueblo nations, guess what, next turn Spain declares war on me.

2, Even bigger problem is that apparently these DOWs hurt the AI more then they hurt the human player. Any decent player human player is now prepared for them, actually they make the game easier since you don't have to bother with war declarations. On the other hand the strategic AI is completely unaware of the fact that contact means war, as a result it is completely unprepared on most occasions and it seems that it is even unaware of the ongoing war.
Example: in the above case Spain after declaring war on me sent one brig to blockade Mauritius! Spain is one of the largest empires, it conquered Portugal, it had all its American possessions, maxed out farms etc, yet all it sends is one bloody brig. If that is not enough I sent a half stack to conquer Mexico. Yes you guessed right it was defended by three units of armed citizenry! It had all slots maxed out, Spain could have trained anything from dragoons to horse artilery yet it chosed to ignore to defend it. If it is still not enough later it turned out that it had two less than half stacks (7 and 8 units better than mine, including line infantry and one howitzer) on the shore of the pacific watching the waves rolling to shore while I conquered Mexico! All in all, one of the largest empire declares war on the human player due to a script, sends one brig to attack, ignores to defend one of its richest provinces, builds nothing and even moves (leaves) existing troops out of harms way. Not very efficient to say the least ...

[ZIM!!]

During the Napoleanic wars practically all of continental Europe became protectorates of France because it was a powerful terrifying land grabbing nation. They all sent armies to assist Napoleon in crushing Russia

Then they all turned on France at the first sign of weakness and allied together to defeat him

So rather than puny rouge nations fighting you. The game should be able to form alliances against you more easily. It would be cool if a diplomatic message said nations X,Y and Z demand that you cease hostilities or maybe surrender province A, If you do not comply it will be war

Then if you go to war all those nations and their economies will be geared towards destroying you. They will make peace with all of their other enemies or put those conflicts on the back burner and also try to pull other nations into the war against or at least stop trading with you which should be easy because of your constant expansionist threat.

[ZIM!!]

Yup, they did not. Actually, at the time the American revolution broke out British world-wide regular troops numbered only around 30K... (not counting sailors and navy). Imagine... ruling a good chunk of the world with only 30K men...

Didnt they have a lot of locally levied troops and maybe East Inda Company troops to supplement theier forces significantly, I thought they did but wasnt sure

[Didz]

There is a significant difference between the nature of warfare in the Napoleonic period and that which occurred in the period covered by ETW. It would be wrong to try and model anything in ETW on the method of warfare 100 years later, just as it would be wrong to model a WW1 game on the type of warfare conducted in WW2.

[Yun Dog]

This has become the first TW of the series that I actually started rage quitting.
Its a sad day.
The sheer frustration at the many glitches, and foibles of the BAI, the ludiocraty of the CAI, the two hour turns(fighting the mutiples battles every turn), nonsense diplomacy, nonsense AI moves and strategies. Look at my sig, it used to be 80hrs, now that time represents 1 or 2 turns a week. Whats most disturbing is the rapidity of the decent of this game from my most loved to most hated.

I question if CA have a clear vision/goal of what this completed game is, and how it plays, because it appears to be more a reaction to a loud minority on the forums (who dont know what they want at the best of times, in fact many complain about something before having to be told it already exists). I didnt buy kingdums because M2 was such poo. I bought ETW because I read all this guff about the AI this and fixed that, which I see now was all BS, and further it appears the developer has no clear vision of how its own game should play - certainly the AI has no clue how to play the game - there is no game.

It will take a lot to convince me that this company has sufficiently altered its priorities for the next title (this one is shelved). First get an idea for a GAME, then paint on the pretty graphics - not the other way around - this game had promise when I thought the developers just needed time to get it playing as it should - now its clear they have little idea of what the game is let alone how it should play.

sorry for the rant

this game reminds me so much of Imperial Glory - unachieved potential

[Cheetah]

I didnt buy kingdums because M2 was such poo.

Buy kingdoms ASAP and use one of the many excellent mods!!! Stainless Steel, Long Road, Pro Rege at Deo, any of them! You will be rewarded.

[Didz]

I must agree. CA are sufferring from a lack of competition. Its made them lazy and complacent and the quality of the product is sufferring as a result.

I had hoped that once CA had shown what can be done with a tabletop style battlefield system other game design companies would have jumped on the band wagon and driven up the standards of the campaign system, but for some reason the other companies seem determined to ride the hex based boardgame system into oblivion instead of switching and so we now have two distinct camps in wargame design. One where the campaign system works but the battle are rubbish, and one where the battles work but the campaigns are rubbish.

Why can't someone just put the two together for sake.

[Fisherking]

I must agree. CA are sufferring from a lack of competition. Its made them lazy and complacent and the quality of the product is sufferring as a result.

I had hoped that once CA had shown what can be done with a tabletop style battlefield system other game design companies would have jumped on the band wagon and driven up the standards of the campaign system, but for some reason the other companies seem determined to ride the hex based boardgame system into oblivion instead of switching and so we now have two distinct camps in wargame design. One where the campaign system works but the battle are rubbish, and one where the battles work but the campaigns are rubbish.

Why can't someone just put the two together for sake.

I love the mix of a turn based campaign and resource management with the real-time battles.

Why no one else seems to put it all together is beyond me.

I don’t understand the lack of decent player-AI interaction, other than they are trying to please too different playing styles’ and it just can’t be both ways.

But, you know if the AI was begging for peace it might even excite the people who want to kill everyone and wipe the map. Never being able to get peace at any price, or at least a reasonable one is a real drag for me. I liked the earlier model where they would give you almost anything for not taking their capital or to get it back.

I could live with the fast and furious DoWs if they were ever willing to except peace.

[Didz]

Well to be totally accurate Napoleon 1813 attempted it, and would have been a brilliant success if some idiot at Empire Interactive hadn't opted for a real time campaign movement system that screwed up the entire game.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/n...tech_info.html

I still can't believe nobody went back and sorted this game out, it would have wiped the floor with the Totalwar series if it had worked.

[Slaists]

Let me paint a picture with all this AI diplomacy hammering going on:

"In all these examples, pretend if you will, or can, that the tables are turned.

....

It doesn't explain all of it, but it certainly removes a lot of the complaints I'm seeing.

Playing as UP I am observing the behavior of France whom I let to survive (for game-play reasons). After I had destroyed all their navies and continental armies I took Paris. I held it for a turn and burnt down all the province developments and city buildings and gave it back to France. Then I proceeded to take Strasburgh (and keep it) and sued for peace.

So, basically, France was left as a handicapped blob in the middle of Europe: no navies, no army, nothing... About ten years later, I checked their diplomacy status: to my surprise they were at war with about everyone in Europe including their former ally: Spain. At the same time, they had no trade partners whatsoever.

At the time I was at war with Spain. I conquered Spanish held Portugal and gave it to France in exchange for trade rights. What do you think they did next? DOW on me (still having no standing continental armies and a few sloop fleets facing my 2nd rates in the channel)...

Now, I'm not sure I'd ever do that if I was them...

Anyway the question what to do with that pesky faction is still open. I can take Paris and wipe them out (they lost Portugal to Spain already), taking France, but that would go against my initial plans to keep Dutch European presence to minimum. I guess, I'll still wipe the French out and give France to my protectorate: Wurtemberg...

[Slaists]

Didnt they have a lot of locally levied troops and maybe East Inda Company troops to supplement theier forces significantly, I thought they did but wasnt sure

Sure, there were local levies (and allies), but the fact still remains that their regular army at the breakout of the American revolution was only 30K. By comparison, Marathas could field around 400K troops more than a hundred years earlier.

As to East India Company, I don't remember (I could be wrong) any precedent of their sort of 'private' troops fighting anywhere outside of their direct zone of control (and the neighboring territories).