The Phony War - 135 years early

[jchastain]

As Prussia, Britain crossed my lands once too often and I finally had had enough and declared war. I conquered her Germanic provinces and then... nothing. I did not have the Navy to challenge her homeland and she did not have the ability or the desire to come after me on the continent. I was "winning" so I didn't want to just give her a cease fire and yet, she never offered to surrender. And so things were with year after year passing by as we stayed at war without ever firing a shot.

From both a historical standpoint as well as from a game design standpoint, is that how people would expect things to work? I must admit if felt a little strange to me to be locked in a perpetual state of war where we both just essentially ignored the other. Yet neither could challenge the other's homeland and so with no war weariness factor to force a change in the status quo, that is how we remained as years went by and nothing happened.

[2gaulle]

It`s not that far from history. Until Spanish affair they were very few land action between France and England between 92 and 08

[Ralegh]

Yep. If you get lucky and can get at a few of their armies, you might be able to cause enough loss to their national morale for insurrectionists (peace demonstrators) to force them to the table. Otherwise, you might choose a cease fire, so you can have a trading partner...

I'm hoping (not in the very first patch, but soonish thereafter) for an enhancement to the treaties system so you can say, effectively, "how about you give me a limited surrender, and I'll have these terms" or even "I'll agree to a cease fire in exchange for you giving me access rights" and so on.

I expect some debate over the question: Should you be able to "buy" their surrender by offering to give them a province or two? I think humans do it, so why not the AI?

[Naomi]

ORIGINAL: jchastain

As Prussia, Britain crossed my lands once too often and I finally had had enough and declared war. I conquered her Germanic provinces and then... nothing. I did not have the Navy to challenge her homeland and she did not have the ability or the desire to come after me on the continent. I was "winning" so I didn't want to just give her a cease fire and yet, she never offered to surrender. And so things were with year after year passing by as we stayed at war without ever firing a shot.

From both a historical standpoint as well as from a game design standpoint, is that how people would expect things to work? I must admit if felt a little strange to me to be locked in a perpetual state of war where we both just essentially ignored the other. Yet neither could challenge the other's homeland and so with no war weariness factor to force a change in the status quo, that is how we remained as years went by and nothing happened.

It's not that phoney. Britain was shredding your trade possibilities, hamstringing your land forces so you could never fight far away from Berlin for comfortably long, hurting you by diplomatic means and so forth. Also, both of you were making loans more pricey. Historically, in a tediously long war neither side was really about to gain from, a third nation always liked to come out as mediator to earn some diplomatic capital.

[munited18]

I had the same problem with Sweden when I played as Prussia. I was lucky that Sweden had a lot of Continetal Protectorates that I gobbled up, but they never surrendered because I could never get to their Homeland...grrrr.

[ahauschild]

It is pretty much a standard outcome if you do well, at one time or another you will go to war with England, and its a war that never stops, unless you do bad.

Invading the English is for countries like Prussia almost impossible, as the british navy is actuly pretty good at intercepting your attempts to land troops. And even if you do manage toops on the Brits Homeland, they ussuly have no supplies and will be decimated pretty quick. The only way is if you get lucky and a province gives up right away, therby extending your supply line into the island.

I ussuly capture all the brits protector and deny them a supply on Europe, this stops them pretty effective from mounting any assaults for long. Just have to figure out what to do with the hundred of thousand brit troops. Starving them has worked pretty good, but i like a better final sollution to get read of them.

[Naomi]

May the depots get broken by enemy ships in a sea zone? If so, any landing forces would possibly be lost to attrition before Brits came close to them.