1.5 Diplomacy: even more broken than in 1.3...

[Slaists]

Yeah, right... CA says, 1.5 is the final patch and things are working "as intended". Let me tell you that "as intended" part does not make any sense.

I tried playing France on NORMAL campaign difficulty just to see how things work "as intended" (supposedly without extra aggressive AI and AI's bonuses). Some 10 turns into the game, the GB declares war on France. This part was quite reasonable actually since they had a superior fleet and were able to land a full stack army into France in the same turn.

OK, some turns later, I have destroyed their invasion army; I have destroyed their fleet; I have taken London and there are virtually no British army left in the Isles. My main army is moving into Scottland and... I offer GB peace giving Lodon back to them. What I get in response is "time has passed for diplomatic niceties..." crap...

Come on. Their faction is about to be destroyed and I am offering them a way out ON NORMAL campaign difficulty...



p.s. I had an 8 star Prime Minister at the time and my king had at least 6 stars; so my diplomacy was not suffering due to lack of leadership talent.

[peacemaker]

The AI is, unfortunately, unwilling to give you peace until they feel good and ready to do so. I don't bother asking for it, it comes naturally after a little while.

One of the worst things you could possibly do if you want peace, however, is taking the capital. This essentially brings back the black knight AI in that faction.


As to the title, how is this worse than 1.3? I didn't hear you mention ALL of the German minors attacking you, and back in 1.3 you could be at war with everyone and not have a single army marching to take your lands-only single 1-unit armies running around raiding farms

[Durallan]

I guess slaists is just very upset with this game ;) I wouldn't say its more broken than 1.3, definetly MORE broken than 1.4, there are just so many things seriously wrong its quite odd, Never being able to get protectorates (although i haven't really tried) the AI demanding military alliances for trade agreements, they seem to be very demanding for trading agreements even wanting over 5000 gold just for the honor of being able to trade with them, random technology trades or not accepting a kind of fair deal, just other things I've noticed at least them dealing with the player.

There are a couple of odd things like hannover becoming the protectorate of wurttemburg (why?) but actually thinking about it, most of the AI's decisions so far have mostly made sense from what I've seen, the only problem is when they go to invade somewhere in america, they send a full stack army, Prussia went to take the Pirate settlement near Curacao with a full stack army, the VERY next turn after they took it, Poland took their capital, (end of prussia) not a smart decision. The AI needs to know when its a good time to extend its overseas posessions, how many troops to send (send a scout to find out) and then send the appropriate amount of troops to take the city, THEN REPAIR IT AFTER THEYVE TAKEN IT (most AI's seem to have alot of trouble doing this) and then send troops back that they don't need on that tiny little island unless theyre going to take more islands...

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah, right... CA says, 1.5 is the final patch and things are working "as intended". Let me tell you that "as intended" part does not make any sense.

I tried playing France on NORMAL campaign difficulty just to see how things work "as intended" (supposedly without extra aggressive AI and AI's bonuses). Some 10 turns into the game, the GB declares war on France. This part was quite reasonable actually since they had a superior fleet and were able to land a full stack army into France in the same turn.

OK, some turns later, I have destroyed their invasion army; I have destroyed their fleet; I have taken London and there are virtually no British army left in the Isles. My main army is moving into Scottland and... I offer GB peace giving Lodon back to them. What I get in response is "time has passed for diplomatic niceties..." crap...

Come on. Their faction is about to be destroyed and I am offering them a way out ON NORMAL campaign difficulty...



p.s. I had an 8 star Prime Minister at the time and my king had at least 6 stars; so my diplomacy was not suffering due to lack of leadership talent.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...

[A1_Unit]

Yeah that just about sums it up.

[nameless]

Yeah, right... CA says, 1.5 is the final patch and things are working "as intended". Let me tell you that "as intended" part does not make any sense.

I tried playing France on NORMAL campaign difficulty just to see how things work "as intended" (supposedly without extra aggressive AI and AI's bonuses). Some 10 turns into the game, the GB declares war on France. This part was quite reasonable actually since they had a superior fleet and were able to land a full stack army into France in the same turn.

OK, some turns later, I have destroyed their invasion army; I have destroyed their fleet; I have taken London and there are virtually no British army left in the Isles. My main army is moving into Scottland and... I offer GB peace giving Lodon back to them. What I get in response is "time has passed for diplomatic niceties..." crap...

Come on. Their faction is about to be destroyed and I am offering them a way out ON NORMAL campaign difficulty...



p.s. I had an 8 star Prime Minister at the time and my king had at least 6 stars; so my diplomacy was not suffering due to lack of leadership talent.

Hmmm. Out of curiousity what was your diplomatic rating to them? Were you taking areas by the storm? Hence raking your penalty?

Did you also "Threaten" them?

What was London's order rating? Was it bad? I remember someone mentioning that using that region the AI won't take it.

Have you tried just Threatening them for peace, maybe add in a little tech and 3000 bucks?

I mean if I can do that on VH as Prussia surely you can do that as France on Normal.

That or the English really hate you

As Prussia on Normal, I'm able to bully Austria and Poland into peace without giving them anything. All I do is annihlate their armies to a minimum, then open up the diplo tab, threaten them for peace, and they usually accept.

[NimitsTexan]

If you are going to take the capital (especially if that is that empire's primary or sole European province), you probably should prepared to go ahead and finish them off. Rationally, the AI has nothing to gain from a peace (it would still be at the mercy of every other power and cannot "win"), unless you are offering them the capital back.

Alot of human players, if faced with this circumstance, would simply conceded the game and start over. The AI, of course, does not have that option, so them trying to a last ditch effort to regain key territory is not unreasonable. Barring total conquest, a power has to perceive advantages to accepting peace over its current state of war, and this is generally as true in the game as in real life.

[Fisherking]

I got peace with Spain after taking Madrid but it took a very long time. They didn’t get Spain back in the deal either.

Everyone praised the diplomacy in 1.1 so they changed it!

The trouble is when you praise them on something it would seem they are more determined to change it than if you complain.

[Durallan]

The trouble is when you praise them on something it would seem they are more determined to change it than if you complain.

should have kept our mouths shut on 1.4 then...

[AussieGiant]

As I said in my H/H UP campaign which I conceeded in 1724.

I took Paris and was able to negotiate a peace with them while still holding that province.

Sometimes they need to be taken out, sometimes they don't.

It's not ALL one way now.

[econ21]

The appropriate AI response when you take its capital has been discussed before in earlier versions of the game. Personally, I don't care much - it's like asking what should a pedestrian do when you run over him in your car. One might expect taking an AIs capital to represent you flooring them - whatever they do from that point on, they are crippled and at your mercy. A pet peeve of mine about ETW is that by limiting the number of European provinces so much, it makes it too easy to cripple a major faction like France or GB.

For what it is worth, I think the AI refusing to treat for a while after losing its capital is fine. Why are you asking for peace? One reason might be because you have taken the capital by a coup de main and want peace to prevent a counter-attack. Another reason may be that you want a breather, to retrain and regroup before pushing on to conquer the rest of the country. Either way, the AI offering peace plays into your hands. I realise that the appropriate AI response may be situational, but in reality, expecting the AI to finely judge this issue is asking too much and a generic coded response is excusable. Historically, countries did not automatically fold after losing their capital (Napoleon and Moscow; Napoleon and Spain). I appreciate that in the game, a pacific player may just want an end to hostilities, but you could regard their continuance as rather like the difficulties of occupation experienced recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want peace, you just have to get out. And even then, the aggrieved party may well come looking for you.

Instead of saying the game is broken because of this issue, I think we should judge the AI on its trade deals, alliances, declarations of war etc. How do these compare in 1.5 to 1.3?

[Husar]

The AI is, unfortunately, unwilling to give you peace until they feel good and ready to do so. I don't bother asking for it, it comes naturally after a little while.

Just yesterday I started a campaign as Prussia and after Austria declared war on me there was absolutely nothing until I had wiped them out. When they had just one region left, Poland, Saxony and Venice declared war on me, followed by Courland. I'm not really far into this campaign yet but I didn't get half the world ganging up on me in 1.4 and I expected Austria to sue for peace at some point but they didn't, they were just annihilated by a war they themselves had started and they seemed perfectly fine with it. This was my first attempt at a campaign in 1.5 though but so far it looks a bit like everybody is having anger management problems again.

Interesting point econ, except that in reality when you control Paris you do not automatically control all of France (and are the only one to get any taxes from France). For Austria and Prussia it's a bit like their capitals give a huuuge income of 2000+ while all the other regions around just give 200 or so, losing the capital often means the faction is done for because you cannot maintain and build huge armies anymore and guerilly warfare doesn't work in TW games IMO, if I attack a 20 unit stack with a few Pandurs I'm going to lose them really quick, they can't just fire out of the forest and then disappear.

But before I'm going to agree or disagree I should spend a few more hours with 1.5 I guess.

[Fisherking]

The diplomacy is not fully explored in 1.5 yet and even one whole campaign is not going to give you the feel for what it "usually does".

I have had countries with death wishes and I had a nation begging me to become a protectorate if I would just end the war.

The agent spawning was more to my liking before, the units and upkeep were fine before, the economy over all was working fine after the mess in 1.2.

There are a lot of things I liked better in the game in earlier versions.

But as to the diplomacy I don’t have enough playing time to call it broken.

[A1_Unit]

I've learned that if you take all the regions in the home theatre of a faction they die. I did this to France - they still had American lands but taking all of their European lands killed them.

[kayapó]

What I have observed is that when the AI won't accept an obvious peace on good terms for them is because they have some kind of plan going on.

Example: You have the AI on it's knees in GB and you offer peace giving London back. The AI doesn't accept because it is building a stack in the Americas and plans to send them to face you. It doesn't matter if that plan is much worse then taking peace and getting London back, once the AI sets its mind on something it has difficulties deciding on taking alternative routes.

I have had the AI not accept peace that was obviously beneficial to them and after defeating 1 raiding army (of only 1 single militia) the AI then would accept peace. So the AI had planed to either build that stack up to an army or it had planned to raid something of mine somewhere and was trying to reach it and wouldn't accept peace untill it got there or was destroyed.

If the AI isn't accepting peace with you look around and search for what could be holding them back. It can be anything from raiding parties headed somewhere (ships too I believe) or a wannabe stack forming up somewhere.

[nameless]

I have had countries with death wishes and I had a nation begging me to become a protectorate if I would just end the war.

.

It seems more like giving them back their captial for peace doesn't sit well with the AI. There seems to be more success just threatening them and a little bit of cash (or some colony region way out there) instead of the capital itself

[Seyavash]

I have been playing a Normal/Normal campaign as Russia and I have had no problems getting both peace and/or protectorates. I will say that to get a protectorate that I usually have to reduce a nation to 1 province and sometimes even lay siege to this province for a couple of turns, however this is fine to me. I can accept that a nation would need to be facing annihilation before being willing to be a protectorate. I can also accept that if you take their main province they may not be willing settle anymore. Black knight syndrome in that situation is reasonable to me.

1.5 is clearly better than 1.3 to me when peace was impossible. my only beef with 1.5 in comparison to 1.4 is that I have frequent CTD's either in battle or coming out of it, but as far as diplomacy I don't see these problems.

[A1_Unit]

Don't forget the inflexible diplomactic deals from the AI.

[Slaists]

The AI is, unfortunately, unwilling to give you peace until they feel good and ready to do so. I don't bother asking for it, it comes naturally after a little while.

One of the worst things you could possibly do if you want peace, however, is taking the capital. This essentially brings back the black knight AI in that faction.


As to the title, how is this worse than 1.3? I didn't hear you mention ALL of the German minors attacking you, and back in 1.3 you could be at war with everyone and not have a single army marching to take your lands-only single 1-unit armies running around raiding farms

I am not sure about that capital. On the same turn (after offering GB peace in exchange for their capital), I took Jamaica and New England and, just for the heck of it, offered peace to GB again, this time, in exchange for London, Jamaica and New England + all the cash I had. This did the trick. GB accepted peace. But I still find it stupid. The AI should be able to see that I am perfectly posed to hurt them way more if they do not accept the great deal I am offering in the first place (peace in exchange for London). And I would like to stress again, this was on NORMAL campaign difficulty. I'd expect diplomacy to be more or less 'reasonable' on normal difficulty (as opposed to H and VH).

How is this different from 1.3? In 1.3, I was able to obtain peace with the AI even on VH campaign difficulty. All it took was beating the AI several times (especially if the defeats happened on the sea) and taking a province or two. This did not apply to the minors though. However, with the minors it was possible to defeat their armies to pulp and force them to become protectorates even when playing on VH in 1.3. That seems like a mission impossible in 1.5 on NORMAL difficulty.

I guess slaists is just very upset with this game ;) I wouldn't say its more broken than 1.3, definetly MORE broken than 1.4, there are just so many things seriously wrong its quite odd, Never being able to get protectorates (although i haven't really tried) the AI demanding military alliances for trade agreements, they seem to be very demanding for trading agreements even wanting over 5000 gold just for the honor of being able to trade with them, random technology trades or not accepting a kind of fair deal, just other things I've noticed at least them dealing with the player.

There are a couple of odd things like hannover becoming the protectorate of wurttemburg (why?) but actually thinking about it, most of the AI's decisions so far have mostly made sense from what I've seen, the only problem is when they go to invade somewhere in america, they send a full stack army, Prussia went to take the Pirate settlement near Curacao with a full stack army, the VERY next turn after they took it, Poland took their capital, (end of prussia) not a smart decision. The AI needs to know when its a good time to extend its overseas posessions, how many troops to send (send a scout to find out) and then send the appropriate amount of troops to take the city, THEN REPAIR IT AFTER THEYVE TAKEN IT (most AI's seem to have alot of trouble doing this) and then send troops bac

Not true, Durallan. There are many things I like about this game. However, I am quite upset about the blanket CA's statement about "this is the last patch and the game now works as intended". Even at a rough glance, while fixing a lot, 1.5 has broken several things that were working in 1.3, including the aforementioned diplomacy aspects. OK, forget diplomacy, look at the strat. map. 1.3 introduced cross-cpu optimization that completely eliminated (for me) strategy map glitches such as 'hickups' when scrolling and freezing of the map when clicking on an army/fleet. This was a known problem before 1.3 and was due to the way the game calculated the potential move area for the unit selected. The issue was fixed nicely in 1.3, but now it's back to where it was before 1.3. And what do we get from the CA? "No more patches!..." At least, they should fix what they have broken.

[nameless]

Not true, Durallan. There are many things I like about this game. However, I am quite upset about the blanket CA's statement about "this is the last patch and the game now works as intended". Even at a rough glance, while fixing a lot, 1.5 has broken several things that were working in 1.3, including the aforementioned diplomacy aspects. OK, forget diplomacy, look at the strat. map. 1.3 introduced cross-cpu optimization that completely eliminated (for me) strategy map glitches such as 'hickups' when scrolling and freezing of the map when clicking on an army/fleet. This was a known problem before 1.3 and was due to the way the game calculated the potential move area for the unit selected. The issue was fixed nicely in 1.3, but now it's back to where it was before 1.3. And what do we get from the CA? "No more patches!..." At least, they should fix what they have broken.

Actually they said it was the last major patch planned and they have dealt with most of the issues.

As a matter of fact, after 1.5 a new patch was released to fix artillery and other misc items but this was considered a hotfix.

[peacemaker]

They never said 'no more patches'. They said no more major patches. No more major overhauls.

I've had the opposite happen in terms of getting peace-Now if a nation attacks me, I'll go squish them to a pulp, have fun burning their buildings to the ground, and soon enough they come asking me for peace. I accept and then park an army near their one remaining province that I've reduced them to (I may have gotten carried away...) and just monitor their growth. In 1.3 I definetely would have had to wipe them off the map.

[lismore]

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...

Unless Singapore is attacked by Japanese whom you outnumber 3:1. Then you surrender.

[Discoman]

I had the Iroquois surrender, and offer protectorate status when I was sieging their last settlement. I tried the same for France and Spain after taking both of their capitals, but couldn't. I think Prussia surrendered, which was good until Poland killed them off the next turn.

[AussieGiant]

Anyone who says this is the last patch can't read English very well.

It's the last "major" patch. I believe there will be at least one more to clean up a bunch of small things and then we are probably done.

[Durallan]

well some people just feel it needs another major patch not everyone thinks its the last patch, they obviously have to patch the technology and diplomacy screens, but theres more than that to fix at least, like the crashes on 64 bit operating systems, that would be nice too!

[A1_Unit]

My main problem is that I'm not able to haggle with diplomatic deals like in RTW or M2TW. The AI says this is what you'll get (unacceptable deal for me) and you'll like it - or else (declare war next turn after I say no to the outrageous deal)!

[peacemaker]

My main problem is that I'm not able to haggle with diplomatic deals like in RTW or M2TW. The AI says this is what you'll get (unacceptable deal for me) and you'll like it - or else (declare war next turn after I say no to the outrageous deal)!

The trick to that is giving a counter-offer. See if the AI decides to agree to something else, or just give them something outrageous so that THEY have to refuse. I never get DOW's.

[A1_Unit]

Tried that - gets me a DOW a few turns later.

[Fisherking]

Another way to see it is that when they start those offers it means that they may go to war.

Either you figure out some way to make them happier with you or you are going to have a fight on your hands.

But most importantly, forewarned is forearmed.

But for those who haven’t grasped that yet, then you can think the diplomacy doesn’t work...

[A1_Unit]

I miss RTW and M2TW diplomacy.