Balance of Powers?

[psyclog]

I am asking this here because I haven't yet found the answer: To my understanding, wars of the era mainly broke out when one power was about to become too dominant.

France and Spain about to unite under one crown? Quickly, let's gang up on them before they get too strong!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_...ish_Succession

Prussia quickly gaining power as an emerging global player? We'll show them! (or not...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War

Napoleon as French emperor? Everyone, unite against the tyrant!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Coalition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_...cond_Coalition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Coalition


In my ETW campaign, my British Empire is just about to become that kind of "unpleasantly strong".
I wonder if other powers will unite against me now..? If not, this edition of the Total War series will become yet another "Conquer the World!!"-thingie, right?

Of course, a clever strategy of making good Allies has to have an important influence here. Britain has a ton of allies.

[Pink Beard]

Dream on.
The major nations will cheer at you conquering their enemies whilst minor nations kamikaze into you by declaring war for nuts reason.

[psyclog]

Well I do play DarthMod 1.0 ... hopefully, things will turn out differently there.

I can't say it often enough: Nowadays, I don't look at how good a game looks on release date. I look at how many parts of their engine can be modified by the community, as only they will be able to produce a definite game.

Dream on.
The major nations will cheer at you conquering their enemies whilst minor nations kamikaze into you by declaring war for nuts reason.

[mini]

the AI can't even fend for itself, let alone stand cooperate in a full scale campaign

[Gornard]

They probably do hate britain if it is expanding territorily. THey may decalre war too, but what they'll achieve is another story. They can never invade the british isles and european powers aren't always very active over seas. THe native americans may fair better though.

[Razor]

I am asking this here because I haven't yet found the answer: To my understanding, wars of the era mainly broke out when one power was about to become too dominant.

France and Spain about to unite under one crown? Quickly, let's gang up on them before they get too strong!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_...ish_Succession

Prussia quickly gaining power as an emerging global player? We'll show them! (or not...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War

Napoleon as French emperor? Everyone, unite against the tyrant!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Coalition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_...cond_Coalition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Coalition


In my ETW campaign, my British Empire is just about to become that kind of "unpleasantly strong".
I wonder if other powers will unite against me now..? If not, this edition of the Total War series will become yet another "Conquer the World!!"-thingie, right?

Of course, a clever strategy of making good Allies has to have an important influence here. Britain has a ton of allies.

I agree. And I've put this issue on this board as well long before ETW was released.
In ETW relations with all other factions should detoriate immense and war should be declared immediately when you conquer territory and expand within Europe.
It should already be possible in ETW but atm you just get a lousy -10 expansion penalty in diplomatic relations. It should be more like -100 expansion penalty.

It's all about the diplomatic relation score to fix it. But since that part is broken because the score doesn't get refreshed (if you turn into a republic, other republican factions still think you're a monarchy and you get a penalty for having a different government type. Monarchies still think you're a monarchy as well and you get points for having the same government type which you don't) it's something we have to live with.

[Jingles]

Heh, paradox wins again... They have a BadBoy score for each nation in their games, and if it gets too high (you gain badboy by expansion and wars) then the major powers will ally against you.

For example I'm playing a game as Prussia in Victoria. The first half of the century went OK, I allied with Russia and Italy at one point and succesfully defeated Austria. I went to war with France once and came off badly. Come 1870 I have the Franco Prussian war, and I win. As a result Germany is united, and I'm now in charge of Germany in its entirety. However, I take the Kaiser Willhelm II route and start to build an empire for myself. I invade Egypt and Argentina, for the valuable resources there, and to cut a long story short, Germany's unification, coupled with my overseas expansion meant that the French, Russians and British Allied against me. unfortunately the Italians weren't interested, Austria was too weak, and the Ottomans were greedily eyeing up my Egyptian possesions, so I had no allies at the time, and I only won the war by the skin of my teeth, thanks mostly to my superior army.

My point is, that Paradox does this sort of thing right, Total War just fails...

[psyclog]

you know, those things would be so easy to implement, I figure.. if they only wanted..

[masterproctor77]

Expansion and your relative power does make other nations dislike your more, but unfortunatly the AI isn't sophisticated enough to become political realists and balance the powers within Europe and around the world. Hopefully this will be fixed by either a patch or a mod, but either way I would like to see this passive AI become more aggressive.

[eatme]

Agree, the negative bonus to the relations with other factions, when expanding, is too insubstantial measure. AI could be more aggressive. Which means, the likelihood of going into war with some nations only bcoz you re grabbing lands should be higher than it is.

[Inhuman One]

I think alliances just need to work better.

When you conquer France and Italy with the Spanish and quite some land in the americas and have quite some trade ships bringing in a lot of money, you could become very powerfull.

In response the Dutch, Brits, Austrians and several german states could form an alliance and attack your lands from multible sides and also your trade routes and trade ships.

Austria could attack your Italian holdings, the german states could raid france and provoke armies there, and the Brits and Dutch could attack the american holdings and the trade routes.

[Captain.E.Blackadder]

With Darth mod and see's to sail in my french campain I saw a British army on coast of france proving the ai can ue ships to transport troops from a to b.