making peace in 1.03 (VH campaign setting)

[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.