making peace in 1.03 (VH campaign setting)

[Slaists]

Many folks have claimed that making peace with the AI is impossible in 1.03. I do not find this to be an issue. Most of the times, the AI does accept a ceasefire (and even grant trade rights within the same deal) if you have beaten it in a few battles in the same turn when the ceasefire offer is made. Sometimes it's even ridiculously easy...

Example: Maratha would declare war on me in India and blockade a few of my ports + send a couple raiding forces into my territory. I would defeat their fleets + defeat the raiding forces + move a big army next to their borders and offer peace + trade rights. Most of the time, Maratha would accept immediately... Sure, they would re-declare war a couple turns later, just to have the same beating and resulting peace. Finally, around 1760 in my game, Marathas 'calmed down' and have been happily trading with me for more than 10 years...

This seems to work with other major factions too, most of the time, but not always. Sometimes I need to give some territory back. All in all, 'making peace' seems to work best with major powers; the minors seem to be more stubborn for some reason. The key to 'peace making' appears to be several successive victories over the AI within the same turn the peace offer is made. It seems, losing several (small) fleets is a very big hit to the diplomatic AI morale.

[Fisherking]

Well the exact tactics are not working for me in a Normal game.

I had to take out the French as they would not except a peace while Paris was under siege. I took three provinces from the Russians and beat several smaller stacks in the same turn along with a fleet and offered them peace...the answer was the No, No, NO! bit.

The only way I seem to be able to establish peace is by putting them all in the grave.

[Slaists]

Well the exact tactics are not working for me in a Normal game.

I had to take out the French as they would not except a peace while Paris was under siege. I took three provinces from the Russians and beat several smaller stacks in the same turn along with a fleet and offered them peace...the answer was the No, No, NO! bit.

The only way I seem to be able to establish peace is by putting them all in the grave.

Well, it seems what you are saying here is

1. You took several provinces from the Russians and beat several smaller stacks of their armies
2. You were trying to make peace with the French

What would the French care if you beat several Russian stacks on the same turn!? I thought it was implicit in my OP that you have to beat the very same faction that you are trying to make peace with.

[FactionHeir]

Slaists, I play VH and in 1.3 have not ever managed to get a peace deal without GIVING the AI something (large).

In fact, me Spain as per my other thread, had France declare war on my ally and I broke alliance with them (as my ally was defender) and joined against France. France at that point was the second largest power besides me. I took out everything from them except Saxony, beat down all their stacks and sieged their city which was nearly undefended with a large stack with another as backup. All their buildings in that region were damaged and they would continue refusing a peace deal.

Same with GB. It declared war on me directly. In the same turn I land 3 armies in their lands, take out London, Edinburgh and Ireland, leaving them with Warsaw only (which bordered my Euro holdings with large forces) where they had almost no forces and had red unrest. Their American holdings had been gobbled up by me already as I took out 13 colonies previously and bought their islands off em. Also soundly beat their navy. Still, they refuse peace.

I could go on and on with examples but I'll spare you them.

[Prussian to the Iron]

in my spanish campaign, on easy campaign/VH battle, just about every faction bordering me (with the exception of the italian states and france) declared war on me within 4 turns of eachother. the sad part is, half of these were my protectorates. none would accept peace, even with large sums of money and military access included.

i think that a protectorate should not DoW on you unless it has at least 5 times the amount of provinces it had when it became your protectorate.

[GFX707]

Example: Maratha would declare war on me in India and blockade a few of my ports + send a couple raiding forces into my territory. I would defeat their fleets + defeat the raiding forces + move a big army next to their borders and offer peace + trade rights. Most of the time, Maratha would accept immediately... Sure, they would re-declare war a couple turns later, just to have the same beating and resulting peace.

It's great that you managed to get peace from the AI, but the situation you encountered is still a rubbish way for the AI to behave/reason. They declared war on you the first time, you beat the carp out of them, they accepted peace, thus saving their skin, only to declare war on you again two turns later? The AI needs to compare its forces to yours before making declarations of war, otherwise it's just suicide. Since I can easily see how my country stacks up against another on the diplomacy screen, the AI should be able to do the same and instead of committing suicide it shouldn't mess with countries that have ten times the armies they do. It also should know when it's beaten and not just declare war on you again 2 turns later when you, the player, are forced to crush them rather than go through the same peace/war declaration cycle for the whole game until you lose your mind.

This seems to work with other major factions too, most of the time, but not always. Sometimes I need to give some territory back. All in all, 'making peace' seems to work best with major powers; the minors seem to be more stubborn for some reason. The key to 'peace making' appears to be several successive victories over the AI within the same turn the peace offer is made. It seems, losing several (small) fleets is a very big hit to the diplomatic AI morale.

I noticed what you mention (making peace the same turn you defeat them/take territory giving great results) with earlier versions of the game, but I have tried this method against Poland (the same turn I took Warsaw and Gdansk), against Austria (The same turn I took Vienna) and against Russia (The same turn I took Moscow) and I couldn't even get a simple peace or peace/trade rights. Damned if I'm going to start giving them territories back just for a peace that'll last 2 turns.

Maybe it's just a question of us TWers being able to work out what the magic formula is for helping the AI survive its suicidal wars against us.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

In my Spanish campaign (VH/VH) I have only been successful once in getting a peace deal. France declared war on me on turn 5. But they were to busy fighting the Dutch. After ten turns of no fighting they accepted a peace deal only to declare war within a couple of turns. Since that I have been attacked by all great powers who never accepted a peace offer. So I had to destroy the Dutch, GB, Sweden, Prussia, Austria, etc to get some peace. There is peace in Europe now because I own it.

What I find problematic about the current AI is that makes the game easier. Because you are forced to take the hostile factions out, the human player grows stronger capturing region after region. This is exactly as it was in M2TW. Instead of forming an alliance against the strongest power, the AI is continuing with its suicide DoW's. Even in Civ II and III, the AI factions would form an alliance against the greatest threat, which is usually the human player. I don't think that implementing this kind of diplomacy is that hard. And that kind of diplomacy is exactly as it was in the time frame of ETW.

[Slaists]

Slaists, I play VH and in 1.3 have not ever managed to get a peace deal without GIVING the AI something (large).

Well, as I mentioned, the AI accepting a peace deal does not work ALWAYS for me. However, I have seen it work quite a few times in my latest VH campaign as the Brits. I am in year 1770 now, BTW.

1. Spain accepted peace with me several times after having been beaten to pulp in several battles on the same turn. Also, there were a couple cases when Spain DID NOT accept a deal under similar circumstances.

2. France accepted peace with me several times under similar conditions.

3. Maratha accepted peace on several occasions as described in OP.

4. Russia has not accepted peace since they declared war on my ally - Austria. Then again: I have never fought a battle with them (yet).

5. Prussia is stubbornly not accepting peace despite me having defeated their fleets on several occasions. Then again: it was never more than one victory per turn.

So, it seems, accepting peace cannot be taken for granted, but it does happen. At least for me, that's alright.

One side note, I think, in OP I forgot to mention that besides defeating the AI in the battlefield and on the seas, I made a point of blockading their ports (most of them) in all the cases when the AI did sign the peace deal. Now that I think of it, that might have been a significant factor tilting the AI towards accepting peace.

It's great that you managed to get peace from the AI, but the situation you encountered is still a rubbish way for the AI to behave/reason. They declared war on you the first time, you beat the carp out of them, they accepted peace, thus saving their skin, only to declare war on you again two turns later? The AI needs to compare its forces to yours before making declarations of war, otherwise it's just suicide. Since I can easily see how my country stacks up against another on the diplomacy screen, the AI should be able to do the same and instead of committing suicide it shouldn't mess with countries that have ten times the armies they do. It also should know when it's beaten and not just declare war on you again 2 turns later when you, the player, are forced to crush them rather than go through the same peace/war declaration cycle for the whole game until you lose your mind.

Well, to be fair to the AI, in my game Maratha was the world's number one ranking power when we had these "skirmish" wars. I had one "professional" army in India (the rest being sepoy garrisons in bordering provinces) while Marathas had numerous elite infantry stacks everywhere. My fleets were smaller than theirs. My Britain was at war with 5 large factions, while Maratha was skirmishing only with Persians. Marathas out-teched me in every department (sometimes several levels). So, if Maratha AI was "looking" just at the numbers: they should have beaten me with their hands tied behind their backs. It just so happened that I prevailed on the battlefield (dumb battle AI was not the least significant contributing factor).

So, in this particular case, Maratha accepting peace after battle-defeat to reorganize and then declaring war again in 2 turns made total sense to me.

[PseRamesses]

I confirm that beating the AI several times and offering peace in the same turn is much more accepted by the AI than offering peace the turn after. I´ve also found that the more of their objective-regions you hold the harder it get.

[Hooahguy]

Well, it seems what you are saying here is

1. You took several provinces from the Russians and beat several smaller stacks of their armies
2. You were trying to make peace with the French

What would the French care if you beat several Russian stacks on the same turn!? I thought it was implicit in my OP that you have to beat the very same faction that you are trying to make peace with.

i think you misunderstood him.

what he said was "I took three provinces from the Russians and beat several smaller stacks in the same turn along with a fleet and offered them peace...the answer was the No, No, NO! bit."

now prepare for a small grammar lesson:

the phrase " and offered them peace" is a phrase that is implying that he asked the, the russians, to make peace, and they refused. not that he offered peace to france, which he may have done also, but i think here he was talking about russia.


now back on topic:
i cannot for the life of me get in an alliance with anyone. not even france or great britain, who im supposedly on great relations with. i also have trouble getting trade agreements.

[Slaists]

i think you misunderstood him.

what he said was "I took three provinces from the Russians and beat several smaller stacks in the same turn along with a fleet and offered them peace...the answer was the No, No, NO! bit."

now prepare for a small grammar lesson:

the phrase " and offered them peace" is a phrase that is implying that he asked the, the russians, to make peace, and they refused. not that he offered peace to france, which he may have done also, but i think here he was talking about russia.


now back on topic:
i cannot for the life of me get in an alliance with anyone. not even france or great britain, who im supposedly on great relations with. i also have trouble getting trade agreements.

I concur, I must have misunderstood Fisher

Anyway, playing on VH I do not find AI that non-responsive to offers. Most of the time, the AI is VERY RESPONSIVE to territory donations (or their territory being given back). Most of the time, but not always, LOL.

On a different note, it seems, the AI for North American Indians behaves very differently depending on what faction the player is playing.
Me playings as Brits (and French), North American Indians went berserk. Louisiana was gone within a few turns from the game start, Florida became Cherokee territory, most of North America too...
Me playing as the Dutch, neither Cherokees, nor Iroquois, nor Hurons have done ANYTHING still by 1730.