Peace system

[Jtlane16]

Just wanted to ask others for an opinion here. Does the peace system make sense to you? “I’ve made a couple of mods so I’ve looked at the code in detail. Basically, whether it’s you, or ai factions, when a faction wants to make peace, the faction deciding to make peace makes the final call. That just does not make sense to me. If another faction is stomping me into the ground, or visa versa, the kingdom getting stomped just says “wait, stop, here’s some money” and you have to abide by that. Why? Why would you stop just because someone else dictates it. Shouldn’t it be that BOTH sides have to agree? It works this way in warband (I know, this isn’t warband) but it makes sense. Then of course you have to deal with the election system but that’s another story.

 

[xGreedo]

There should be an non-aggression pact sign together with the peace treaty so you or the AI can not declare war 1 day later.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

The entire "diplomacy" system is one of the worst things about this game.

 

[Lesbosisles]

There should be an non-aggression pact sign together with the peace treaty so you or the AI can not declare war 1 day later.

Well, right now they don't declare war 1 day later. They do it about 7 days after peace treaty. They don't even look at their strength values. As soon as they reach the minimum required quantity, they immediately declare war, thus, putting the last nail to the coffin of their economy and any hope to survive...

I don't know what was the initial idea when they implemented that system, but it doesn't work.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

they immediately declare war, thus, putting the last nail to the coffin of their economy and any hope to survive...

And they will! Survive, I mean.

Because instead of overpowering an entire faction, recruiting all their lords and killing their king you will chase around 6 mercenary clans and the Rulers faction for years on end.

 

[Lesbosisles]

Because instead of overpowering an entire faction, recruiting all their lords and killing their king you will chase around 6 mercenary clans and the Rulers faction for years on end.

This is another stupid point of the current system.
The remaining nobles of the kingdom with no fiefs should either join other kingdom which is in no good relationship with their nemesis kingdom, or turn into rebel clans which will disappear in a few days if they won't be able to re-take at least one fief within the given period.

 

[Duh_TaleWorlds]

Just wanted to ask others for an opinion here. Does the peace system make sense to you? “I’ve made a couple of mods so I’ve looked at the code in detail. Basically, whether it’s you, or ai factions, when a faction wants to make peace, the faction deciding to make peace makes the final call. That just does not make sense to me. If another faction is stomping me into the ground, or visa versa, the kingdom getting stomped just says “wait, stop, here’s some money” and you have to abide by that. Why? Why would you stop just because someone else dictates it. Shouldn’t it be that BOTH sides have to agree? It works this way in warband (I know, this isn’t warband) but it makes sense. Then of course you have to deal with the election system but that’s another story.

Afaik both sides agree in that the peace offer is calculated based on what the other side would agree to. That's also why the AI peace offer to the player is better than if the player initiated a kingdom decision to achieve peace with them. The former is an offer that satisfies a kingdom decision on the player side whereas the latter satisfies the decision on the AI kingdom side. This approach was chosen in part to avoid cases where one side drains another of influence by making repeated offers that they would have to spend influence (voting) on to reject again and again.

TLDR: It doesn't dictate a peace, it just simplifies the agreement process - if the conditions did not satisfy the majority of enemy lords, they would simply redeclare as soon as they can (which they will also do once changing conditions exceed the benefits of the arrangement).

There should be an non-aggression pact sign together with the peace treaty so you or the AI can not declare war 1 day later.

They do it about 7 days after peace treaty.

x != kingdom && !x.IsAtWarWith(kingdom) && x.GetStanceWith(kingdom).PeaceDeclarationDate.ElapsedDaysUntilNow > 20);

 

[Lesbosisles]

@Duh_TaleWorlds does the team plan to do something about the AI's uncontrollable wish to declare wars to each other 5 days after the peace treaty? The late game is a disaster because of this.

Also about the Kingdoms with no fiefs - why are they still roaming the world with 2 soldiers?

 

[Duh_TaleWorlds]

@Duh_TaleWorlds does the team plan to do something about the AI's uncontrollable wish to declare wars to each other 5 days after the peace treaty? The late game is a disaster because of this.

See edit above. If you experience a specific case where you feel the decision was extremely faulty, please provide me with a savegame (before the decision - I know this is not an easy ask, but it is how we can debug it) and we can evaluate the score calculation.

 

[Lesbosisles]

See edit above. If you experience a specific case where you feel the decision was extremely faulty, please provide me with a savegame and we can evaluate the score calculation.

As I understand, the peace should be at least 20 days, right?

I'll try to test it, still have a savegame with the late period where Aserai declares war to everyone without a second thought. They are getting attacked from all fronts, they cannot defend their fiefs, yet, they still declare wars on everyone, because "If we strike now, we will destroy them". No, you won't, you will lose your fiefs and destroy your economy, because you cannot defend from Battanians, Vlandians and Southern Empire at once!

 

[Duh_TaleWorlds]

As I understand, the peace should be at least 20 days, right?

Yes. This is not tied to any score calculation just a hard number.

They are getting attacked from all fronts, they cannot defend their fiefs, yet, they still declare wars on everyone, because "If we strike now, we will destroy them".

The displayed war reason is based on the highest impact factor in their decision making - in the case you shared it is the benefit vs cost/risks calculation. However, war fatigue (experienced costs / losses), war duration, prisoners, risk for the clan making a decision, any active tribute and the distance to an enemy also tie into it (and have their own texts associated with them).

IIRC there can be some slight variations within a single category as well - f.e.

They are stronger, but have great value	The {ENEMY.INFORMALNAME} may be strong but their lands are rich and ripe for the taking.
We are stronger, we can take value	Right now we are stronger than the {ENEMY.INFORMALNAME}. We should strike while we can.

 

[Lesbosisles]

Yes. This is not tied to any score calculation just a hard number.


The displayed war reason is based on the highest impact factor in their decision making - in the case you shared it is the benefit vs cost/risks calculation. However, war fatigue (experienced costs / losses), war duration, prisoners, risk for the clan making a decision, any active tribute and the distance to an enemy also tie into it (and have their own texts associated with them).

IIRC there can be some slight variations within a single category as well - f.e.

They are stronger, but have great value	The {ENEMY.INFORMALNAME} may be strong but their lands are rich and ripe for the taking.
We are stronger, we can take value	Right now we are stronger than the {ENEMY.INFORMALNAME}. We should strike while we can.

The problem is also that, as I mentioned above, the strongest faction declares war almost to anyone, so making peace with one hardly saves you from burning villages and ruined economy. Yet, the lords continue to vote for the war, even when their fiefs are devastated with constant looting.

 

[Duh_TaleWorlds]

The problem is also that, as I mentioned above, the strongest faction declares war almost to anyone, so making peace with one hardly saves you from burning villages and ruined economy. Yet, the lords continue to vote for the war, even when their fiefs are devastated with constant looting.

Savegames that allow us to examine particularly questionable decisions (or to be more precise - the scores of the different factors that apply to them) would be great to address such balance issues. If you run into another one, maybe you can check if you saved or autosaved shortly before.

 

[Askorti]

Savegames that allow us to examine particularly questionable decisions (or to be more precise - the scores of the different factors that apply to them) would be great to address such balance issues. If you run into another one, maybe you can check if you saved or autosaved shortly before.

I think that as a general thing, it would be a good idea to look into how much wars that are already in progress factor into the AI being willing to declare another one. It seems like they just do not have enough impact on the decision-making.

 

[Helz]

IIRC there can be some slight variations within a single category as well - f.e.

They are stronger, but have great value	The {ENEMY.INFORMALNAME} may be strong but their lands are rich and ripe for the taking.
We are stronger, we can take value	Right now we are stronger than the {ENEMY.INFORMALNAME}. We should strike while we can.

If the other faction is stronger, how are their lands "ripe for the taking"? That logic would make sense to start a border raid, but not a war that they have no chance of winning.

 

[Duh_TaleWorlds]

It's a flavor text to indicate taking a risk for a sufficient potential reward. Wars are not predetermined so they have a chance of winning (which can just be taking a settlement and settling for peace).

 

[Jtlane16]

Afaik both sides agree in that the peace offer is calculated based on what the other side would agree to. That's also why the AI peace offer to the player is better than if the player initiated a kingdom decision to achieve peace with them. The former is an offer that satisfies a kingdom decision on the player side whereas the latter satisfies the decision on the AI kingdom side. This approach was chosen in part to avoid cases where one side drains another of influence by making repeated offers that they would have to spend influence (voting) on to reject again and again.

TLDR: It doesn't dictate a peace, it just simplifies the agreement process - if the conditions did not satisfy the majority of enemy lords, they would simply redeclare as soon as they can (which they will also do once changing conditions exceed the benefits of the arrangement).

x != kingdom && !x.IsAtWarWith(kingdom) && x.GetStanceWith(kingdom).PeaceDeclarationDate.ElapsedDaysUntilNow > 20);

First of all, thank you for responding, its appreciated.

I understand the thinking behind this as you explained it. However, this leaves every kingdom the ability (even the AI) to never really feel the heat of a war, especially the player. By late game I usually have 1-2 million with plenty of income to spare, this leaves me the ability to just say "oh, another kingdom just declared war on me after I JUST declared war on the first one, let me peace out all they want is 5k in tribute, no problem." I personally dislike the election system when it comes to making war/peace decisions as a ruler. Its fine for policies, but even fiefs its iffy at best, but thats not the issue at hand. The election system is creating other decisions around it such as, "well we cant let another kingdom say flat out no because the AI will just reoffer peace over and over and waste their influence." When I declared war on kingdom A, I am taking the risk that another kingdom could potentially take advantage of that and gun for me. However, and ive seen this with the AI as well, no matter how soon the war started you can immediately peace out. That absolves any kingdom (AI or player but especially the player) of true reasonability for their actions. Kingdoms should be able to tell me no. Sure, based on an algorithm, 1 day of war is worth 10k tribute, but if you think about, whats to stop me from NEVER having to actually fight a kingdom. If I have 5 million in gold and I just peace out everytime someone declares war on me, or im in two wars at once, they can NEVER fight me. They dont have the chance. I can forever just pay them, make them rich, and never fight a single battle with them.

 

[Flesson19]

It's a flavor text to indicate taking a risk for a sufficient potential reward. Wars are not predetermined so they have a chance of winning (which can just be taking a settlement and settling for peace).

Sine I played Floris so much I am not sure if vanilla or mod but I loved the mandatory peace time after a war is over, at least 1 month/21 days would be great

 

[Lesbosisles]

Savegames that allow us to examine particularly questionable decisions (or to be more precise - the scores of the different factors that apply to them) would be great to address such balance issues. If you run into another one, maybe you can check if you saved or autosaved shortly before.

No problem, gotta test it on weekend, shall I PM you with the link somehow?

 

[Duh_TaleWorlds]

I understand the thinking behind this as you explained it. However, this leaves every kingdom the ability (even the AI) to never really feel the heat of a war, especially the player. By late game I usually have 1-2 million with plenty of income to spare, this leaves me the ability to just say "oh, another kingdom just declared war on me after I JUST declared war on the first one, let me peace out all they want is 5k in tribute, no problem." I personally dislike the election system when it comes to making war/peace decisions as a ruler. Its fine for policies, but even fiefs its iffy at best, but thats not the issue at hand. The election system is creating other decisions around it such as, "well we cant let another kingdom say flat out no because the AI will just reoffer peace over and over and waste their influence." When I declared war on kingdom A, I am taking the risk that another kingdom could potentially take advantage of that and gun for me. However, and ive seen this with the AI as well, no matter how soon the war started you can immediately peace out. That absolves any kingdom (AI or player but especially the player) of true reasonability for their actions. Kingdoms should be able to tell me no. Sure, based on an algorithm, 1 day of war is worth 10k tribute, but if you think about, whats to stop me from NEVER having to actually fight a kingdom. If I have 5 million in gold and I just peace out everytime someone declares war on me, or im in two wars at once, they can NEVER fight me. They dont have the chance. I can forever just pay them, make them rich, and never fight a single battle with them.

I guess this comes down to personal preference. At least to me it seems likely that a portion of players would find it just as much if not more frustrating if the only way to end a (regular) war was to destroy the enemy. We do have such a thing as part of the main storyline, but that is isolated and optional.

No problem, gotta test it on weekend, shall I PM you with the link somehow?

Yep, that would be fine.