More, less decisive wars

[AnimaMea]

People complain a lot about the historicity of units/recruitment etc but never about the nature of wars themselves; I've never had a war that ends without the abject destruction of my enemy, which is very a-historical and a little bland on CA's part. Having tried EU4, where a country might sue for peace after loosing a big battle or control of trade in one area, I wondered if it might be possible in future to make the ai a little more inclined to a) accept peace when they're losing a war and b) (maybe a bit of a long shot) declare war for reasons other than territorial gain?

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

People complain a lot about the historicity of units/recruitment etc but never about the nature of wars themselves; I've never had a war that ends without the abject destruction of my enemy, which is very a-historical and a little bland on CA's part. Having tried EU4, where a country might sue for peace after loosing a big battle or control of trade in one area, I wondered if it might be possible in future to make the ai a little more inclined to a) accept peace when they're losing a war and b) (maybe a bit of a long shot) declare war for reasons other than territorial gain?

Yes that would be an amazing addition to the game. The Romans were the only ancient power to fight wars until complete victory. Most powers at this time would use for peace after one or a handful of major defeats and would expect a peace treaty not the annihilation of their people. Hopefully this can be implemented, either when they AIs armies are severely crippled or they have lost a major city. With regards to fighting war other than for territorial gain, this might be a bit difficult. What did you have in mind? Trade could be made more important and wars could flare up over that possibly. Something that might be difficult to add but would add immensely to the politics and family system, internal strife. This could be wars of succession for Hellenistic or barbarian nations. Factions within nations could also play a major role if they supported a nation fighting the current ruling faction. Or if the ruling faction is unpopular they could be overthrown. This applies a bit more to city states than major nations but could actually force the player to be wary about the politics system because honestly, right now it is useless and I do not use it whatsoever.

[FlashHeart07]

As it is now the AI is more than willing to offer peace or accept it if you dominate them and I have in my newest campaign had neutral factions start to assassinate my generals and suddenly declaring war. In some cases it happend after I had destroyed some of their allies. But I might just have been lucky

[Iron_Duke]

My own experience differs from yours. I have found if one's diplomatic status is good, ie: trustworthy/dependable and especially if one is slightly stronger than the enemy they will frequently offer to pay you a lot of money to accept peace, even throwing in trade agreements if you counter propose it. Generally the stronger one is the more money they will pay for peace. I often rely on this aspect of the AI's behaviour to bolster my funds during controlled expansion with limited wars/fronts, and I have to say that contrary to your experience that in this regard the AI works rather well.

[zonks40]

My own experience differs from yours. I have found if one's diplomatic status is good, ie: trustworthy/dependable and especially if one is slightly stronger than the enemy they will frequently offer to pay you a lot of money to accept peace, even throwing in trade agreements if you counter propose it. Generally the stronger one is the more money they will pay for peace. I often rely on this aspect of the AI's behaviour to bolster my funds during controlled expansion with limited wars/fronts, and I have to say that contrary to your experience that in this regard the AI works rather well.

Something I have noticed with the strength between factions is it doesn't seem to count solely towards military strength, money seems to be a factor as much as military might.
So you could end up having a faction with a strong military backing down from a player who is rich and has only a hand full of men.

[Butan]

Try this out guys : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...htext=anabasis

Completely revamp the diplomacy... releasing/executing captured troops has extreme benefits/malus, likewise winning/losing big battles. It is still compatible even though its an old mod.
You will have a lot of peace offers, this combined with the actual version of DeI (crazy hard garrisons and cultural difficulties), makes for interesting and strategical diplomatic moves in wars which does not always end in the complete annihilation of the enemy and their mothers.

[AnimaMea]

And thanks Butan I'll take a look

[AnimaMea]

I've only every been at the highest level of dependability; most recent example was my last war with Egypt: they declared war on me in support of Sparta at the start of the game, and have since gone from being the strongest power in the game to just owning Petra, yet still they won't accept peace. In reply to your comment Sharpe I think a merge with a revamped political side would be great, my main thought was fighting wars to force a nation into a confederation. At the moment it seems only Money and a good relationship allow it

[Alu10]

I have the chance, to make peace without destroying the enemy totally, a lot of times. I dont know if it is just my imagination but when besieging i often have better chance to make peace. Sometimes the enemy is stupid, i must admit. Defeating their armies didnt help much, thats true. Suebi for example, they didnt want to make peace, even after defeating their whole army (3 stacks => 55 units) But it makes the difference when they have allies i guess, they had Lugii as partner, having war with the friends might be a great factor for them not to make peace.

[Iron_Duke]

The chance of peace is based on how much factions like/hate you I believe, just like any diplomacy. A military victory over an enemy faction will give a small boost to your faction's likeability from the loser, if I recall correctly, to make peace possible. But if you upset another faction a lot with sacking and raiding and executing etc and they already have a lot of cultural aversion and dislike of your treaties etc (ie they hate you too much) they are less likely to offer/accept peace.

So, the longer the war goes on and the more bad stuff you do generally the more factions will hate you and you'll have a lower chance of peace being on the table, which to my mind seems very plausible. However, being much richer(stronger) can really help.

[Roskilde grenadier]

I too must admit that my experience is different from OP's. I get peace offers all the time, even from enemies equal to me - but it might just be the situation, if the AI in question already has a war on its hands. But generally, I get peace offers quite often, so in my opinion, this is not so much a problem for the player - what I would say is a problem, however, is - again, as in previous titles - the AI's inability to establish peace upon wars. As far as I see in R2, the AI nations always fight for complete victory, never creating satrapies/clients or otherwise making peace in other ways than through total annihilation of the enemy - I believe this is mostly the reason why we have this problem with 'superblocs', ie. some AI nations (think Suebi) destroying everything in their path, instead of creating vassals every now and then. The possibility to create vassals is nice, but I think it becomes sort of moot when it is solely utilized by the player.

On topic, I fully agree with the OP's notion that we need more, but less decisive wars - but again, I would say it is a problem for the AI, not so much for the player. But again, this is quite an old problem, having been present in more or less every TW game to date. TW diplomacy has always been, and still it, it seems, more or less a joke. I've played a couple of Paradox games (Victoria II, EU III, EU IV), and for as long as I can recall, the TW community has begged for diplomacy and international interaction like that of the EU games in TW games.

EDIT: forgot to ask: does the Anabasis mod also apply to the AI? Have you seen AI nations creating vassals etc with this, or does it only really affect the player?

[Maetharin]

My two cents to this topic:
War was expensive, even more so if on foreign territory. If we changed the upkeep costs of units on foreign soil, wouldn´t that force an aggressive AI to stop their war, as soon as their funds ran out?

[Iron_Duke]

My two cents to this topic:
War was expensive, even more so if on foreign territory. If we changed the upkeep costs of units on foreign soil, wouldn´t that force an aggressive AI to stop their war, as soon as their funds ran out?

Surely, the AI would just always run out of money as this sort of decision making is very unlikely to be already scripted?

[luck_ponte]

Phalangitis actually made a mod that does exactly that, search for "Costly Wars" on the workshop ;D

[Butan]

Fantastic mod idea, subscribing.

[Doktor Soviet]

As others have said, I get peace offers quite often. The only problem is that peace is, well, never really a "peace". It allows my enemies a chance to regroup and get even stronger.

I feel like part of it stems from the AI wanting peace when they are at their weakest, which isn't always the case in real life. Carthage bowed to peace in the First Punic War, yet arguably they could have kept going (if they had, like the Romans, used the money of private citizens to fund a new fleet) but they didn't because they decided Sicily was not worth the cost. It wasn't that they were weak or at risk of being annihilated by Rome, on the contrary, they had defeated a Roman expedition to Africa, and the fleeing survivors all perished in a storm!