Giving peace a chance

[Anabasis]

(Steam confusion)

[Anabasis]

First impression of 0 event value and 0 treaty value (only 9 turns) is that the action is a lot more chaotic. There are peace treaties, but there is also a lot more war, and the treaty patterns don't seem to make as much 'sense'. I'll do ten years and report.

[Anabasis]

Here is what it looks like after 30 turns (262) with war event values at 0, and war treaty value at 0. The game certainly has a different feel, but the major factions seem to be doing ok. Interestingly, this game opened the same way as the one in which I had positive values for war events. The Seleucid declared war on Bithynia and Sardes invaded. The Bithynians again beat Sardes and took one settlement from them. In the first game, there was then a peace treaty. In this one, the war has remained officially declared but it has not been prosecuted by either side since the first couple of turns.

There are also interesting things happening that I haven't seen before. Just before I reached 262, Colchis invaded Trapezos (not unusual) and there was a battle in which both armies survived. Trapezos then declared itself a satrapy of Colchis. The next turn, Armenia declared war on Colchis and Trapezos broke off the satrapy status. One thing I have noticed is that since the war events create no negative disposition, the colours on the diplomacy map are much more muted. The large factions, like in vanilla, seem to accumulate large numbers of wars over time, but they are not necessarily all active at once. I believe that in the first twenty years of the other run (positive war event values), the wars were actually ending in peace treaties instead of just becoming inactive. I will run this one to 20 years so we can compare the outcomes properly.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[yukishiro1]

Ok, after more testing, this is really complicated. I was wrong about the values always being "bitter enemy." So standing does indeed have some bearing on peace outcomes, even for the player. You can test this by starting a new game as rome either as the cornelii (bonus to hellenic standing) or the juna (minus to all standing). Declare war on Ardiaei, then try to ask for peace. One of them will use the modifier for neutral, the other will use the modifier for unfriendly, because of the difference in cultural affinity. If you set the modifiers for neutral vs unfriendly to very different values, with the unfriendly value HIGHER than the friendly value, you can produce a situation where the Ardiaei will agree to peace with the Junia but not with the Cornelia!

Here's where it gets weird again, though. It appears that the value you put on being at war (in treaty values OR event values) has no effect on those decisions. It won't bump you from one modifier to the next. I.e. if your pre-war standing with someone is neutral and you then declare war, the game will continue to use the neutral modifier when evaluating a peace proposal. It doesn't matter what hit (or gain) you get from declaring war.


OTHER values - cultural affinity at least, but I assume probably others like alliance status as well - DO impact which modifier the game uses to evaluate peace. This is why if you set the modifiers for neutral and unfriendly to very different values, peace proposals from the Cornelia and Junia will get very different answers.

The bottom line, however, is that the BIGGEST thing that impacts whether peace approved or not is the war_modifier values (war, total war and last stand). The modifiers for standing appear to only make a difference around the margins. From what I can tell - but this I am not entirely confident in saying - the higher you set those values, the less of a disparity in strength there needs to be before the AI will accept peace.

[yukishiro1]

Here is a pack that modifiers only cai_personality_deal_evaluation_deal_components_values that will result in many more peace settlements (almost certainly too many - mod is to illustrate a point, not to be balanced. probably makes peace much too easy) than before. It would need to be loaded above yours to work with it.

edit: Old link was bad, I stupidly forgot to put yuki_ on the front so not only did it give more peace, it also deleted all the other entries in the table! oops.

[yukishiro1]

I think the reason why my previous testing showed what it did about the "bitter enemy" catagory was because I was testing using a war between Rome and Carthage. This is speculation again, but I think the modifiers for "bitter enemies" and "best friends" are probably overrides that apply to certain faction relationships. Rome and Carthage are probably marked as "bitter enemies," which means they always use the bitter enemy table to evaluate any diplomacy, no matter what their standing with each other is.

The way war effects don't effect peace decisions is curious to say the least, however. I guess I can sort of see how it might have ended up happening, because it's certainly true that the way it seems to be set up - where the more your wail on your enemy the LESS likely they are to give you peace - doesn't make sense. So CA may have disabled their effect on peace decisions for that reason. But it sure makes it hard to figure out how the system works for someone who doesn't have their primer!

[Anabasis]

Still in the 0 war events and 0 war treaty run, in 258. Trapezos and I just had a little war with Armenia. They took one settlement, we took one of theirs, and then retook ours. After that they essentially stopped actively fighting and hung around their territory. I made a peace offer and it was rated moderate and refused. This is consistent with the fact that I was still theoretically at war with some of the far eastern faction from my long ago confrontation with the Seleucid and that they are all starting to offer peace one by one. The decline value is an important factor, I think. I will look at the deal evaluation table. Thanks.

[Anabasis]

By the way, Armenia's attitude was -100 when they accepted peace with no payment.

[Anabasis]

End of 258. The Seleucid and their remaining satraps just made peace with Bithynia. It took about 36 turns of inactivity.

[Anabasis]

After 60 turns with event value 0 and war treaty 0, the big factions are still doing ok (though not quite as well as with positive event values) and the game definitely feels less natural and less dynamic. Many of the factions are quite inactive, which seems to account for the fact that the larger ones can hold their own. I will try another 60 turns of each.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

0 event value and 0 war treaty value at 252



For comparison, positive event values and 0 war treaty value at 255:

[yukishiro1]

Interesting. Seems like it's a lot more complicated than any of us thought.

[Anabasis]

Restarted with positive event values. In 267, Armenia captured a Cappadocian settlement that was a threat to me. I declared war, captured it, and went straight to the diplomacy screen. Armenia accepted peace with a probability of high. At the end of the turn, Armenia accepted peace from Cappadocia.

[Cope]

sounds like a nice mod. I hate the fact the AI will never declare peace also. It's totally unrealistic. Since this game is utterly devoid of a warscore/war weariness mechanic, I think this is a good idea.

[Anabasis]

265. The traditional Colchis/Trapezos war just ended when Trapezos took a beating in the field and sued for peace. No exchange of territory. Meanwhile, I had ended up in a war with a far away eastern faction because of an entangling alliance. After a couple of turns of nothing happening between us, they asked for peace.

[Anabasis]

264. Things are getting interesting. The first punic war just kicked off in an unexpected way. Early on there was a short confrontation between Rome and Epirus in which Rome inflicted losses, leading to a peace treaty. Now Epirus has declared war on Carthage, and Rome has joined in. However, Rome is also at war with Liguria, and the remnants of the Etruscan League on Corsica. But the latter are by now well disposed toward Rome. Let's see how this two front war plays out.

[yukishiro1]

Ok, I did a very careful test with Rome and Carthage. I experimented with the various war_rating values till I got to a situation where my Carthage was *right* on the edge of being able to make peace with Rome. Rome would refuse if I just asked for a treaty, but accept if I offered 3k for the treaty. but not if I offered 2.5k.

Then I went back and changed the values for occupying a city such that I suddenly ended up with 200 higher standing with Rome than I had before (+200 total). Rome still refused, and still accepted when I offered 3k. But not 2.5k.

Then I went back and changed it so I ended up with 200 less than I had in the first example (i.e, like negative 250). Exact same results. Didn't make a bit of difference.

So we can say for sure that at least in some circumstances war losses simply don't matter at all. I think this is most likely because somewhere in the db files Rome and Carthage are marked as "bitter enemies" and therefore always use the same modifier when evaluating agreements.

But your system may well be working for other factions which arn't marked as bitter enemies. I am going to go digging around in the diplomacy files and see if I can find anywhere where the designations are made.

[marseu]

Guys if you succed in doing this you brought a revolutionary concept in the TW series. Giving a peace a chance also for the AI its something that never happened in TW games before.

[yukishiro1]

Ok, I wasn't able to find anything in the startpos diplomacy files about bitter enemies or anything. But I redid the exact same test with Carthage and Egypt this time, and had the exact same results. Standing from war losses made no difference there either. It's hard to imagine those two could be marked as bitter enemies.

[Anabasis]

262. After two years of hard fighting, Carthage and Rome are both green to the other, but there is no peace at the moment. This is consistent with Yukishiro's test. The war started with Carthage taking Syracuse and Rome participating in the battle on the losing side. Rome then took back Syracuse, and Carthage took it back again. The Gaetuli have taken advantage of the situation to declare war on Carthage, so now both powers are in two front wars. So far, they are holding.

I can confirm though, that the feel of the campaign is very different when there are positive values for war events. So let's keep digging. Let's see what happens in the next 30 turns.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[yukishiro1]

One thing the war scores will do for sure is stabilize the situation in general by making wars less common. Because war declarations obviously depend on standing.

It's also still possible they effect the AI in some manner that can't really be replicated by the player.