Giving peace a chance

[Anabasis]

And yet I keep getting the same kinds of results. Late 261. The war between Bithynia and Sardes flared up again. This time I decided to intervene and declared war on Sardes. The Seleucid declined to join. I took two settlements from Sardes in two turns, leaving them with only Ephesus. I went to the diplomacy screen and they accepted peace with high probability.

Meanwhile, the war in between Rome and Carthage seems to have gone a bit quiet after the first big campaign in Sicily. Carthage controls the whole island.

[Anabasis]

...and the very next turn, Sardes offered me a defensive alliance, which I accepted.

[yukishiro1]

...and the very next turn, Sardes offered me a defensive alliance, which I accepted.

Your changes will definitely increase the chances of that too, because alliance chance is also based on standing.

What you had said about factions who are in good standing with eachother not attacking eachother is interesting. I will try to see if I can replicate that tomorrow.

[Aeimnestus]

I hope you manage to find a way to make the diplomacy more realistic. At the moment when I crush some puny kingdom's armies, sack his minor cities and have his provincial capital surrounded by two legions, then offer a peace treaty, the reaction they tend to give is something akin to "Hah, you think us meek suckling babes to accept such an insulting proposal etc..etc.."..... Hello puny kingdom! Huge army about to annihilate your last city...! Your armed forces.....have just been utterly crushed....! I'm offering you a chance to survive here....??

So yeah, hope you succeed!

[Anabasis]

Ok, ok, the clues are starting to piece together into a picture. 258. Rome and Carthage have been relatively ignoring each other since the bloody war in Sicily. Rome turned around and had a go with Liguria, took Genua then lost it again, but now that front is quiet as well (all green). Carthage turned around and dealt with the Gaetuli invasion and inflicted a defeat on them. The Gaetuli sued for peace. All green in that sector as well. It seems that some ai personalities offer peace when they are green, while others don't, but all of them stop attacking when the enemy turns green. This means they start to deal with their other threats and that's why the big factions can better sustain multi-front wars when there are positive values for war events. The Sicilian campaign was almost 4 years ago now, and Rome and Carthage are very pale green to each other now, about to go reddish brown. I am expecting the hostilities to start up again soon. So the decline value will be key. It must be balanced to provide at least a few turns (two years?) of relative quiet after a big campaign. That allows either for realistic rest and refit, or for dealing with other threats.

[Anabasis]

Just after Rome and Liguria had their little dustup, the Insubres came down and took Genua from the weakened Ligurii. The interesting thing is that Rome and the Insubres are now green to each other, both for military actions against Liguria, so there will be no immediate confrontation between the new neighbours.

[Anabasis]

257. This is the situation 45 turns into the positive war events, 0 war treaty run.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[crackerjack1348]

Hey guys, very interested in your work here. I've had some success in increasing the values for peace in the personalities_deal_components_values table, as well as upping the values for peace in deal_generators, but as yuki said, all you can really modify there is war, total_war, last_stand. So if you're kicking the snot out of a faction, but they still have a few settlements they won't accept peace. I'll look into some of the changes you guys have proposed and see if I can work anything out.

[Anabasis]

Nice to know that there are more people out there working on this.

Here is the latest interesting development. So Asia Minor is divided between Pontus (me) and Bithynia, with Pergamon and Sardes each a one region power. But Sardes, the former satrapy, doesn't play well with other. Even after the last beating they took, they declared war on Bithynia within a few years. So I intervene again, but this time Pergamon sides with them. I take Ephesus from Sardes (last settlement), propose peace to Pergamon, and they accept. Meanwhile in the west, Carthage and Rome are still at war but slightly green to each other, so not attacking each other. But Rome now sees the Etruscans (Corsica) as red, so I am expecting them to strike in that direction next.

[Anabasis]

Second round of the first punic war kicked off in 256 with the intervention of the minor powers. Epirus took Syracuse from Carthage and Libya took it back the following turn. As a result Carthage has now made peace with Epirus, but Rome and Carthage are back to being quite red to each other, and both are again moving troops toward Sicily. Meanwhile, N. Carthago has again upset Carthage by getting involved in Spain.

[Anabasis]

252.

Epirus and Libya made peace after their little show down in Sicily, and as predicted, Rome went for the Etruscans in Corsica, but didn't succeed in taking the island. After the fight, Rome and the Eturscans are green to each other, but Rome and Carthage are very mutually red. Carthage is assembling troops in Sicily, and the Romans have some transports coming down the coast of Italy.

I am pretty confident I know how this works now. When at war factions are green to each other, some personalities make peace, others don't. All of them stop attacking factions that are green to them, even if they are at war with them. They turn their attention to red factions, even if they are not at war with them. With the right values for war events and for decline over time, there is a very, very good CAI here. I especially like the fact that allies cool to each other as they get successful. This keeps a balance of power and ensure shifting alliances that are very context dependent. Runaway growth is not a feature of this system. It is almost like someone produced an excellent CAI, and then some producer said 'but... but... we need all war all the time, to the death, fix it!'.

Next step is to fine tune the decline rate. I will update the steam version tonight. If anyone wants to play around with it, I'd be grateful for the comments. Note that this is based on vanilla, so I auto resolve everything. Can't stand vanilla tactics.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[crackerjack1348]

I think what yuki said about the stances and peace acceptance is correct. I'll play around with it some more tomorrow, but I haven't tried setting the treaty value lower yet, just flipping the military actions.

really encouraged by your tests anabasis!

[Falco]

Good luck guys, hope you succeed on making diplomacy more realistic, sounds like you are on the way!

[Yerevan]

Eveybody 's talking about
buggism, realism, historicism, BA-ism, CA-ism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m.


[Chorus]
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Seriously, good luck guys, until now I love all those sub-mod ideas. I hope it will work.

[waldopbarnstormer]

Hi guys,

just found this topic and I wish you good luck. It has bugged me a lot in Rome 2 that you end up in so many wars that go on forever yet there is no action and you end up in a cold war situation but with no prospect of peace and this has such a big effect on other factions relations with you (see my post on the domino effect in TW forums).

Correct me if I wrong but what you are saying is that it doesn't matter if you are -150 or -15 in relationships with a faction, they will not try to make peace or accept peace from you, and that it depends on other factors that are hidden?

i was confused when you talk about setting things to 0 or minus or positive numbers?

[yukishiro1]

Correct me if I wrong but what you are saying is that it doesn't matter if you are -150 or -15 in relationships with a faction, they will not try to make peace or accept peace from you, and that it depends on other factors that are hidden?

i was confused when you talk about setting things to 0 or minus or positive numbers?

I am not 100% my results are "The Truth (tm)" but this is what I have learned from my testing:

1. Standing from cultural affinity DOES affect peace negotiations. By manipulating the variables that evaluate how much you have to be losing a war to consider peace, I can create a situation where peace with one Roman faction will be accepted but peace with another will not, when the sole difference is that one faction has a cultural affinity bonus and one had a negative.

2. Standing from war events - being at war, killing the enemies' troops, taking cities, etc - does NOT seem to effect peace choices, at least when the player is involved. I can similarly create a situation where the AI is just barely willing (or just barely not willing) to accept a peace proposal, then I can edit the values for being at war or taking cities and that sort of thing...and it doesn't matter what the values are, the AI isn't going to change its mind. I can set being at war to being a -200 hit or a +200 bonus, it doesn't affect the AI's choice to grant peace at all.

3. What does effect peace proposals in ALL cases across the board is the values in some of the db files for "war_balance", "total_war_balance" and "last_stand." I am not yet sure how the game selects which of these three diplomatic "stances" to use, but I assume it has something to do with how long the war has gone on and/or how many forces the AI has left. The base game sets these values so low that even if you comprehensively beat an enemy they will often reject peace with you. It is possible to raise these values to the point that peace becomes much easier, if desired. I am currently experimenting with adding greater peace values to my historical development minimod to help see if it stops the endless wars at least to some degree.

[Anabasis]

I thought I would push this run a little further. Still positive event values and 0 war treaty value.

250. The war between Carthage and Rome is still on, but largely inactive. However, Carthage lost Iol to some rebels and the Gaetuli promptly took it. Carthage experienced a food shortage. The Gaetuli then declared war on Carthage (and N. Carthago + Libya). Carthage send an armada to Iol but they were defeated (stacks depleted from food shortage). The next turn, there was a peace treaty between Carthage and the Gaetuli. What is left of the Carthaginian forces in back in Carthage and the food shortage seems to be over. The Gaetuli are still at war with the clients. So Carthage has survived not only a rebellion, but an attack from their unprotected rear.

[Anabasis]

Late breaking news. Gaetuli and N. Carthago now defensive allies.

[Anabasis]

248. The Gaetuli attacked and took Gadira. I am guessing they then overextended and tried to capture one of Nova Carthago's inland settlements (beyond reach of my observation fleet) since both sides took losses to the other, and they are now both green to each other. The result is a peace treaty. The Gaetuli are slowly emerging as a regional power.

[Anabasis]

247. Here is the situation 75 turns in with positive event values and 0 war treaty value.

Carthage and Rome are still at war and facing each other down across the straits of Messina, although there has been no action there lately. There is no trace left of their previous confrontation in the diplomacy screens and they are now quite red to each other. I am expecting a resumption of hostilities any moment. My favourite Anatolian trouble maker, Bithynia, recently declared war on Trapezos for no good reason. I had to choose which one to support, but I was sorely tempted to preventively take one of them out and solve the problem for good. However, I decided to hold off and the war was over without any actual engagements within two turns. Still, it does add colour to the campaign, as I had to reposition some forces to deal with potential fall-out and commit some intel resources to observing the situation.

I haven't been commenting the situation in the east since I have been focusing my attention on the Punic war, but as you can see, the Seleucid have been expanding in the past 5 years, as has Arachosia. I predict some hard times ahead for Rome though, as the Carthaginian don't like them, but neither do the Celts on their northern border. Let's see where the next five years take us.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: