HELP: Computer double deals with diplomatic treaties

[I Strategos]

The situation: as France, my forces and Spain force Austria to surrender. In creating the terms of surrender, I order Austria to cede two provinces to me (say Switzerland and Lombardy.) I discover on the next turn, that both of these have been ceded to my good friend Spain, and I get no further compensation. Both treaties (mine and Spain's) show up as ratified on the treaties list. What's going on?

[Russian Guard]

Yes this happens alot, for whatever reason, and not just with France. I have had it happen to me with other Nations as well. If both you and an A.I. ally ask for the same terms in a treaty and only one or the other can have it (as with ceded provinces), the computer Ally always seems to go "first".

Accordingly, I usually wait a turn and let the ally pick "first", so I can see what it has selected and then choose something else, unless everything I plan to choose are things that both of us can have anyway (such as Reparations).

I know this doesn't change the fact that the A.I. (apparently) always gets what it wants first - but it does prevent getting nothing if you happen to both ask for the same thing.

[I Strategos]

Thanks, RG. You confirm for me that this is a design flaw. Matix, any plans to fix this problem?

[Russian Guard]

While on the subject of ceding provinces let me toss this out in the hope that Eric or someone sees this thread and responds to your question.

Whenever Russia surrenders to anyone, whether played or as an A.I. Russia, the victor - if they take provinces - almost always select INGRIA as one of their choices.

As the Brits might say..."not bloody likely" that the Ruskies would give up St. Pete that easily. It's close to asking France to give up Il de France.

Any chance you can select a cpl critical provinces from each Nation that cannot be selected for ceding until all others are gone - or, until at least say 3 other provinces have been selected? Maybe Ingria is the only case where this applies.

Obviously JMO that taking Ingria is a rather unrealistic and very damaging province for Russia to have to cough up on their first surrender.

[Russian Guard]

Thus: A SPANISH Ingria...

[ericbabe]

Oh I want to make provinces a lot harder to take as war prizes in the sequel...  Home provinces will have to be adjacent to territory you already control, and we'll have a list of provinces that simply never can be taken, I should think.

I don't really see allowing conflicting TOS as a "design flaw".  We could maybe scramble the order in which they're resolved or something like that.

[I Strategos]

Eric, the game's brilliant in so many ways, but I cannot conceive of any explanation that makes sense of a defeated nation agreeing to one set of surrender terms with one country, and then turning around and agreeing to completely contradictory terms with another, yet suffer no consequences for having done so. What about a solution that allowed the country whose terms were not met to offer a new deal to the defeated using all of the diplomatic points they had previously gained?
 

[ericbabe]

Defeated countries don't really agree to TOS when they are imposed in this way.  For the expansion we're working on, I want to make taking territory much more restrictive than COG currently allows and doing that should obviate most problems with two nations proposing to take the same province.