EU LAN-party report

[Phaedrus]

Place: Technohuman offices, Stockholm (nice of them to let us use it!)
Time: Friday 11/5 - Sunday 13/5 2001, playing total of 32-34h.
Game time: 1492 - 1739
Settings: (EU1.08SE IGC1.9c - No special rules, 6 Majors) Difficulty - Very hard, AI Agressitivity - Normal, 1 Minute = 2 Months
Major powers: Russia, Austria, Turkey, France, England, Portugal (dropped out around 1600)

Player backgrounds: All of the participants were strategy gamers, with hardcore board game and/or computer game experience. Five out of six also had at least decent EU experience from playing single- and/or multiplayer games.


-= Report =-

Technical problems:
* We had 30+ crashes during the entire game

* We could not find a way of reproducing all crashes

* Sometimes we played 50 years w/o a crash, sometimes we had crashes 3 consequtive years

* One might suspect graphics/sound causing some crashes, since some machines were a lot more prone to crashing than others

* Network driver problems? (see above)

* One common crash, though, was when accepting a peace-offer - this seemed to (1/20?) trigger a game crash at the accepting host-computer

* Another common crash was when the server selects a save-game, then you might get an insta-crash. If you quit the game and try again - it works (poor garbage collect?)

Game mechanical problems (refer to the AAR below):
* Good generals auto-storm even level 5/6 fortresses with as little as 40,000 men and 200 cannons - taking virtually zero losses

* Default generals stay the same all through the game, making fortress power grow in relation to besieging power - this is perhaps not an accurate abstraction (e.g. Try siege a level 6 fortress with a 3-4-3-0 general with Tech 45, 120000 Inf and 400 cannons.. good luck. Now substitute with a 5-5-5-0 general and you can just storm with virtually no risk at losing).

* It is very hard (impossible?) forcing a peace, even if you have 6 stars and you OFFER money - your human opponent can simply deny without losing stability (see AAR below).

* War-attrition does not seem to depend on how well the war goes (how many percent of the sons and fathers of the nation have died for this bloody cause.. etc.. what have we gained?)

* War-attrition caps at +10, making it almost harmless for countries with stability +3 and only 2-3 religions in its provinces.

* Russia can grow insanely with AI Sweden, Denmark and Poland.

* Even on the hardest difficulty setting, invading Persia, India and the Mamelucks is no hard task at all for the Turk

* A conservative France can easily annex Savoie, Genua, Toscana, Parma, the Papacy and Venice - with an AI Spain.

* Small AI nations declare war on the human Major Powers even though they (and their puny alliance) stand no chance at anything else than defeat. This was on "normal" aggression-level.

Suggestions:
* Remove the 6-star cap (at least up it to 8 or 10)

* Make it possible to force a peace with a good offer if you have won a lot of ground.

* Make war-attrition depend on a couple of things:
-> 1. Men lost in relation to population
-> 2. Provinces won/lost - see (3)
-> 3. Province "value" to national esteem
- make CB-shield "2-dimensional"; CB + VALUE
i.e. Core regions is worth "100%" to the nation

* With these changes to war-attrition, remove the cap of +10!

* Make the small-nation AI less aggressive on "normal"

* Make the AI refrain an attack if they have 1/100th of the number of men. :-)

* Compose a MP guide. E.g. "If you are four players, these are good combinations..."

* Make the value of generals weigh less than Technology:
- I felt it was quite insane when one French general could kill off 0.75M Turks with 60K French - even though the Turk was equal to, or greater, in Tech. Perhaps this makes sense in the earlier Eras, but later on there should be a greater "war-lore".
- Alternative solution: Make the default general stats depend on current Era.. e.g. Turk 3-1-1-0 to 3-2-1-0 to 3-3-3-0 to 4-3-3-0 etc..

Brief AAR:

This is written from my perspective. I played the Turk, and I am sure not all of this is accurate. This is how I perceived the game.

So we all sat down at our computers, England/France/Portugal in one end of the room, Turkey/Austria/Russia in the other end of the room. As we started off Turkey and France started investing huge amounts of money in Infrastructure (aiming for the magic level 5 where you can reduce inflation), whereas the others took a more spread-out approach to research. France annexed Lothringen before 1500, Turkey played it cool and stayed out of wars for 10 years or so. England easily overtook Scotland, Russia became close friends with Crim and started annexing the other Khanates and the Horde. Portugal was played by an EU-newbie (the only one) and thus was falling further and further behind - until he finally decided in the late 1500s that it was time for the AI to take over - and for him to get some sleep instead.

Finally the Turk started with some wars, annexing the Mamelucks - in the meantime France built manifacturies all over its great nation, Russia went colonising the east (aiming for the gold, but practically taking out everything). England, of course, took the east coast of North America, quite easily I might add. Austria had a hard time with Hungary, spending lots of money on diplomacy and failing vassalisation over and over and over again. The poor Kaiser started to become pessimistic. As the Turk invaded Persia - aiming for a united moslem world, the Tsar realised it was time to move in. Russia declared war on Persia - snatching the north-eastern parts as the empire was annexed by the Turk. France went on with vassalisation of the smaller states of Europe. England succeeded in a diplomatic annexation of Hannover, and at the same time it had most of the eastern North America - and now he started looking for the CoTs in Asia. France managed to get a CoT in Santal, worth 1900-2200D the first few years. Turkey moved on India and annexed Hyderabad and the Mogul while having Mysore in an alliance. Austria militarily annexed Saxony and started a war together with the Turk (!) against Hungary.

As the Turk was making a long and costly war with Persia and Poland at the same time the clever Tsar declared war on the Ottoman to force him to a nice peace (war attrition, rebellions, out of recruits) - this he succeeded in.

Still, France had done very little - except gaining insane technology levels, tons of money from trade and taxes and the odd annexation of a vassal (Savoie, Lothringen). Now France went Bad-Boy and moved on Italy. Venice had previously fallen in the hands of Turkey (the isles) and Austria (the cities), but now France overtook Venice, Genoa, Toscana, Parma and even the Papacy. At the same time, the French had done some minor colonisation in the Americas and Asia.

During all of this, Spain had completely outraced Portugal in the fight for colonies - the spaniards held some 90% of south americas, and basically all of central america. Portugal still held him off in Africa - but that was certainly not enough.

England had control of most of the South-East Asian islands - and was making good money off it. Poor Portugal.

As we move into the late 1600s:
* France has taken 5-6 provinces of northern Spain, Flandres and some other Dutch provinces.

* Austria is starting to look good, with 75% of Hungary annexed (the Turk took the rest) and a large part of Poland. Bohemia, Saxony, Brandenburg, Holstein has all been incorporated into Austria as well.

* Russia has all of "The Strip" to the eastern coast (Asia), Sweden has been militarily annexed, Denmark has been diplomatically annexed. All the Khanantes are a part of Grand Russia, and the northern parts of Poland - and the Teutonic Order, and Courland - are also speaking Russian at this time. They now face Turkey in the south and China in the East. They enter a pact with China. They also colonised 1-2 provinces in Africa and managed to diplomatically annex the orthodox Ethiopia. They even have a trade post in India.

* England has diplomatically annexed Holland and Hannover. They have annexed Iroquis and are holding all of north America except the west coast and the border against central america - controlled by Spain. Very good indeed!

* Portugal has only Lisboa left in Europe. Tangier is British. They have very few colonies left. They are doomed to stay tiny for the rest of the game.

* Spain had played a decent game for being AI. They had declared war on France a couple of times and lost provinces every time. In Europe they were quite small. However they now control all of South America except 10-or-so provinces in "Brazil" that belongs to England). They control all of central america and most of the carribean.

* Turkey has annexed Egypt, Nubia, Oman, Hedjaz, Persia, Algeria, Aden, the Mogul, Hyderabad, Mysore, Georgia, Wallachia, Moldavia, Ragusa. They have colonised the strip between Persia and the Mogul. They have taken Sicily from Spain. They are tied with France on Military Tech, Infrastructure and Trade. They are far behind on Naval Tech.

* Poland is no more. Austria, Turkey and Russia gang-banged Poland (who had run an aggressive game with lots of wars on all three fronts). Turkey annexed Ukraine, Poltava and that part, Austria got the western ends and Russia took the norhtern parts - Lithuania etc.

We started to reach some stability. The minor nations had been vassalised or annexed, England caught up with France and Turkey on Military Tech.. Now the real battle for Europe started.

In the 1700s a huge war took place. It started with Turkey and Austria (allied!) versus France. France had a general (Vallirs?Vassir?) that completely rocked the world. Turkey spent half a million men in a siege on Venice - finally getting it. Then France took it back, plus Istria, Illyria, Croatia and Kosovo in four 5-second stormings, losing a total of perhaps 35,000 infantry. That same army also killed some 750,000 turkish infantry and cavalry. At this point Turkey had Military Tech 45 and France was on 44, soon-to-be 45. Turkey yelled for help and Russia and England both declared war on the super-powerful French. They took some provinces in Poland, Russia landed 120,000 men in Normandie - using its Danish fleet (remember, Russia annexed Denmark!), aiming for Paris. The French fought off everybody and realised he was being gang-banged. Hence he refused peace-offers, no matter what they were. Turkey began to experience war-attrition, with revolts spreading all over India and around Ukraine. France, so far, had no problems. England killed off French colonies, Russia was fighting all over the French west coast and Austria was holding Mainz and Baden. Turkey started to push back -hoping to trap the Super-General (5-5-5-0 or so) between too large armies, but failed. Finally France held only Istria and Tyrol, whereas England held Holland and the Hague, and Russia held Armor on and off.

France still denied a peace. Nothing happened. Magyar and Transylvania started to rebel on Austria.

Finally the Turkish nation fell apart and a new government was declared. Automatic peace with everybody. Moldavia, Wallachia, Ukraine, Hyderabad, Persia, Hedjaz, the Mogul and Ragusa all declared themselves liberated. The Turk was finally relieved of the revolts. This was what they had planned for France!

In the end, we stopped playing around 1740. We gave up. The European War had no end. Nothing lost, nothing gained. France knew if he took peace - he would be jumped again in 5 years. Nothing forced him to a peace - even though England (with 6 stars) offered him 500D - he could still refuse.

Summary:

We had a great game. I would do this over again anytime.

If you are about to do this, heed my advice:
* 3 FULL days is needed.

* 8 players are recommended.

* ALL players should have at least completed a full GC with their country of choice.

* Set AI aggression to lowest.

* Set difficulty to the absolute hardest - it's still not hard.

---

Some MP fixes are needed. The game mechanics needs fixing, the most important parts being the forcing of a peace and the power of generals in comparison to technology and fortresses. Also the "Very Hard" setting needs to be harder. Maybe add a "Nightmare" setting (hehe) or such. Smaller nations needs to be less aggressive.


Thank you for a great game,
Petter, Sweden

That was an interesting read because it differed wildly to our multi player game with seven players although we have only managed to get to 1556 so far.

There hasn't been the massive annexation of minors at all that happened in your game.

In the West an alliance between England and Spain largely held off French expansion attempts by creating alliances around it. France also faced a military alliance headed by Austria that centered around Lorraine. As all the minors in the West were locked into alliances with majors it was impossible to take on a minor without facing a major European war- four wars broke out in the west. France declaring war on Spain to take Franche-Comte, a war that was resolved after a Spainish defeat in southern France. Two other wars between Austria and France broke out after minors collided with majors sparking unwanted wars which produced realistic results, neither majors coming off well. Austria has been the only country to expand into Germany, grabbing a couple of states from bohemia and others.

As for the East, Poland-Lithunia has reached a BB of 10 having annexed and attacked a couple of states and it is starting to show. It is currently overun with Rebels and facing a number of wars with minors. Russia has had a slow game, and has yet to destroy Astrakhan or more importantly the Golden Horde. Meanwhile the Ottomans have taken a series of minor bits out of the minors around it who have attacked it, thus exanding Tukey significantly ( it is probably leading in a relative VP equation formula ).

Interestingly enough we have reached an important juncture with some keys diplomatic issues. Mainly the reformation, Hungary and Astrakhan.

The Reformation has thrown the alliance system in the west into disarray. England and Spain no longer have the same allies in common with their main allies in the North going Protestant along with England. France and Austria who dominate the southern European states are unlikely to lose out to Spain who has now lost Holland and only hold three provinces in the north which are extremely vulnerable. It is likely that a war will break out over this as France seeks to expand, alternatively a Dutch English Alliance could mop up. However, all this will take time as Spain has a very good footing in the New world and despite rampant inflation has considerable amounts of money.

Hungary has lost one province and Austria is unable to annex it. Leaving it sitting between Austria,Turkey and Poland in relative limbo. This situation is unlikely to remain and a resolution of this medival kingdom will have to come it will be interesting to see if it brings the Ottomans into the Balkans.

Finally, the Astrakhan question. P-L, Russia and Tukey all want to be able to expand across to the East but have to get through Astrakhan and only one state can get through. Astrakhan is deeply wedded to the Ottomans making a major multi-player war here inevitable once the Golden Horde falls to Russia.

Hopefully we will get to play on but time, time, time!

[Huszics]

[quote]Originally posted by Phaedrus
Portugal was played by an EU-newbie (the only one) and thus was falling further and further behind - until he finally decided in the late 1500s that it was time for the AI to take over - and for him to get some sleep instead.


Boy, you shure wheren't nice to him. Portugal I probably the hardest country to play for a newbie in a MP game. If you don't get off with the right start you have now way to get back in the game.
You should have given him Russia or possibly Turkey if you wanted him to stand any chance.


Anyway, for the war against France.
Remember if a revolt takes his capital the new government will make an imediate peace with all enemy countries. The enemys will then also keep all their current possesions in the peace deal...

Also if you have taken ALL his cities he will NOT be able to refuse a peace (unless there is a bug).

Further, a peacedeal with an offer "to good to refuse" should obvioulsy add a -1 stability each time. However I belive there is currently a bug that will not make that happen if you have the message set to not pop up and just ignore to look at it. The solution would of course to be to force everyone in the MP game to have these messages pop up so they suffer -1 stability if they refuse or don't answer the messages (anyone not willing to do this and using this cheat would not be in any MP game I hosted for long anyway ... =).

[BiB]

Makes for an interesting read.

[Phaedrus]

[quote]Originally posted by Huszics

Originally posted by Phaedrus
Portugal was played by an EU-newbie (the only one) and thus was falling further and further behind - until he finally decided in the late 1500s that it was time for the AI to take over - and for him to get some sleep instead.


Boy, you shure wheren't nice to him. Portugal I probably the hardest country to play for a newbie in a MP game. If you don't get off with the right start you have now way to get back in the game.
You should have given him Russia or possibly Turkey if you wanted him to stand any chance.

Agreed. We sort of understood this after 50 years. :-/

But regarding the France situation.. 4 nations had no way of taking him out - he had the super-general and level 6 forts.. we had no really good generals. We could siege a province for 18 months until it fell, losing thousands of men to attrition. He took it back in 2 days by just storming with 50,000 men. Blech!

[Ztein]

I was playing england in the game.

One of the annoying features that made the game crash a few times was the problem of not being able to use the built in chat function while at the same time a pop-up appears. It crashed the game every time.

Regarding forced peace I gave france at least eight peace offers she shouldn't have been able to refuse without a -1 stability. The best (or worst?) offer I gave her was three mainland provinces + 500 D while at 6 stars för peace resolution. France didn't suffer at all from turning that offer down. I believe that the rules state that when offered peace that is 4 levels better then expected you will suffer -1 stab if you don't accept.

In most ways it was however a wonderful experience to play MP. I learned tremendously.

Joel Stenberg
Technohuman

[Huszics]

Originally posted by Ztein
Regarding forced peace I gave france at least eight peace offers she shouldn't have been able to refuse without a -1 stability.

Yes, but as I said in the above post, I think there is a bug in the game that ignores this if you don't look at the offers made (ie don't even click on them to open it up). Is this what happend or did France actually manually decline the peace offer and still not get -1 stab ?

[Kingarnasking]

I played Russia.

1st off I´d like to thank all participants in the game for a great gaming experience. Special thanks must go to Petter for his stunning AAR....excellent reading.
SO....when Joel called me to played MP EU I didn´t have much of an option. I had to be in the game, even though I discovered that I had to pay 2000 SEK for the air ticket just to get there in time. Oh...is there something called the Internet nowadays...? Well, I didn´t argue. This was to be a LAN game. The trip went smoothly and I landed at Technohuman. 2 new faces, and I got to sit next to them.
I got to play Russia. Was really my 1st hand choice since I´ve played them for 2 SP games and felt most familiar with them. Also, nobody else seemed to want to play them. I should add that this was my 1st MP game and before this game I had only played v 1.00.

So...I made myself an espresso and started off the game by noticing I had an alliance with Krim, Pskov. Early on I jumped the khanates successfully, assisted by my allies. The activation of my alliances helped save Russian souls but it allowed Krim 2 new territories and Pskov one. After having defeated Astrakhan I noticed that Uzbekistan was a nation I hadn´t encountered before. I quickly dispatched them. Meanwhile my research was about equally distributed between Land, Trade and Infrastructure. I like trade......at some point I had 8 monopolies but the Turk and the french argued after the game that maximizing Infrastructure to level 5 is imperative. I´m not sure what is correct....in the game I didn´t have any major problems with money or inflation. Perhaps the vastness of the Russian empire makes a difference since there is always a new province to build a governor.

Throughout the game I had mostly friendly relations with Poland before the before amentioned gangbang. A few border wars with Sweden before I, with some difficulty, militarily annexed them some time in the 17th century. All in all, I felt just minor stress of being jumped by computer players. The Turk, on the other hand, was a constant nuisance throughout the game.

After having incorporated Uzbec, I noticed, while exploring "the strip" for gold and fur, that Persia was about to be consumed. I immediately declared war and managed to grab a few of the rich northern provinces. First, I even managed to grab a strip down to, and including, Isfahan. This would have forced the Turk to settle for a lesser peace since he would have been cut off from India with an annexation result. Unfortunately, the system crashed and the Turk rushed to Isfahan when the game started over.

My alliance with Krim still existed but it was brittle. At some point, after the alliance had timed out, I prepared to attack them only to notice that the Ottomans had incorporated them into their alliance. Finally though, I managed to annex them without disturbing any black beards. Pskov was diplomatically annexed. Later on I even vasalled and annexed Ethiopia after having placed a tradepost in Somalia. All orthodox must gather under one flag! Georgia was in Turk hands throughout the game, unfortunately.

In the east I made trade posts where there was fur and cities in the gold provinces. I had a monopoly in the Enkan trade centre throughout the game. Anyone who contested the monopoly was refused to trade so I could place my traders elsewhere. England, Turkey and France soon inhabited the "black list" of non welcome traders.

My world maps I gained from Portugal who readily switched maps. A bit unethical to take advantage of a rookie but I realized that all the other players had done the same thing so....
This was how I could place my great numbers of colonizers all over the world, even in Tasmania! I mostly placed them as traders, yet more enhancing my monopolies in Novgorod and Enkan.

After having conquered Sweden I had quite a lot of money which I quickly pumped into Denmark, trying to get them as vasalls. The problem was that both England and France had the same great idea; we were then part of the same alliance. Everybody tried to get the upper hand and manufactories popped up in all of Denmark. We then realized that we two majors have high esteem with a minor, no vasallisation is possible. I got a break when Sunday 13/5 began. England and France was a bit lax and forgot to improve the Danish relations, focusing more on their colonies maybe. I managed to made Denmark a vasall when England had a +155 rating towards Denmark. This gave me, among other things, a huge transport fleet when I annexed them.

After this, the game degenerated with the World-against-France war with no end. I tried to land groups of 100K men in France but in vain. I had one good attempt on Paris but there where still 6K frogs left in there when my morale broke.

Some conclusions

The nationalism rule is a great improvement from v 1.00. It stops aggressors from jumping the whole world at once.

I wonder why there is a 500 gold cap when offering peace. Also, 500 gold is a LOT during the 15th and 16th century but really nothing after that.

I noticed that the system was especially prone to crashing when two majors suggested peace at the same time. This happened at least twice, once with Poland was annexed.

The war attrition cap is too low, only 5 in core provinces. Monoreligious countries can wage war forever. Why not set the cap to 10 in all provinces?

Otherwise I agree with Petters and Joels statements even though I think a good leader should rock big time. On the other hand: I didn't lose 1 million men to one superman.

All in all: A great gaming experience. I´ll do it again anytime. Internet gaming perhaps? I have a cable connection.

Henrik Johansson "HJ"
Umeå, Sweden

email: kingarnasking@icqmail.com
icq#: 114966133

[Huszics]

Auch, 2000 for Umeå-Sthlm.
That was really too expensive.

Anyway, the reason there where new countries where that your where playing the IGC, not the normal GC that comes with the game =).

So who is up for an online game this weekend ?

[Phaedrus]

Originally posted by Huszics
So who is up for an online game this weekend ?

I'm game.. I guess I could host (ADSL). Scandinavian players only would be a good requirement (to lower lag). 1.09beta needs testing I guess!

[Huszics]

Originally posted by Phaedrus


I'm game.. I guess I could host (ADSL). Scandinavian players only would be a good requirement (to lower lag). 1.09beta needs testing I guess!

Actually 1.09 is out... but still need testing ,-)

Anyway, I'm on 10Mbit if ASDL should turn out to bee to slow ,).

Any more players interested ?
Reply here or to my ICQ.

[Laxen]

I'm on
Cable here

[bmolsson]

.... I am so jealous......

Maybe I have to consider moving back to Sweden despite those darn taxes......

[Sagan]

Originally posted by Ztein
I was playing england in the game.

One of the annoying features that made the game crash a few times was the problem of not being able to use the built in chat function while at the same time a pop-up appears. It crashed the game every time.

Joel Stenberg
Technohuman

I had a similar problem in our EU MP game. I'm playing in the same MP game as Misha, so pity me. He's SUCH a newb... (heh heh...wonder how long it will take for him to see this.. )

But seriously, I thought the same thing, that the game had crashed because I could not click on the pop-up when the chat window was up and it looked like things had frozen. However, that was not the case. All I had to do was click back in the box where you enter text messages and finish a message or whatnot and hit enter. Then the chat box goes away and you can click on the pop-up.

I'm not sure if this will help you, but your experience sounded very familiar, so I thought I'd share.

Cheers!

Sagan

[Rio]

Dang those are all great posts!

I might learn Swedish and move there even though I have never been before, just to play! (Phoenix, Arizona, USA here)

Although I have a cable modem with limited access node (avg 1250 to 1350 kbps, tops is over 2kk at night), and have willful insomnia when the game is good, I suspect the ping value might be too high to be a good match for you! Dagnabbit! If they ever fix te MP so it is more stable, I might ask you to include me despite my "challenged language status"!

Play on!



~~Scott

[Phaedrus]

Originally posted by Rio
Dang those are all great posts!

I might learn Swedish and move there even though I have never been before, just to play! (Phoenix, Arizona, USA here)

Although I have a cable modem with limited access node (avg 1250 to 1350 kbps, tops is over 2kk at night), and have willful insomnia when the game is good, I suspect the ping value might be too high to be a good match for you! Dagnabbit! If they ever fix te MP so it is more stable, I might ask you to include me despite my "challenged language status"!

Play on!

~~Scott

Hey Scott!
Most Swedes speak decent English so I doubt you're challenged language-wise :-). However the GMT-8 or whatnot you might have in Arizona is a bit of a handicap. I'd gladly host an all-weekend, 8 different nationalities game in a couple of weeks (1.09 didn't do it, we need 1.10).

If you're on a decent cable ISP in AZ my guess is that you'll have 160-200 ms roundtrip to Stockholm (try "ping www.sunet.se"), which is definately good enough for a 1 minute = 2 month game of EU.

Thanks for your supportive post! Peace and love (erm, no wait - world domination I mean)!

[minimax]

I have a few remarks about what you say regarding peace-offering that should not be refused:

- you accept peace ONLY when you think that your situation will worsen with war...So, let's suppose that France considered that your armies would dwindle through attrition..or that your stability would suffer more by an extended protracted war... was it utterly foolish from France? (yours to answer - you played this game)

- there are a few historical situations when a country refused "to see the light", for instance:
Prussia in the Seven-Year-War was saved by the death of the Tsarin...Friedrich II could have sue for peace after he had been beaten by the Russian...
Russia in 1812: beaten (although they argue - not unreasonably - the contrary) on the field, having been forced to surrender Moscow to the Grande Armée, yet they refused peace (how many stars in EU?) - remember that the aim of this war (from Napo's point of view) was not conquest but to keep Russia in the Blocus Continental ie denial of trade with England.
Spain in 1808-1814: most of the spanish territory was occupied by Napoleon, yet they never submitted...(maybe a special case of guerilla-national war outside EU-scope)
France during the Spanish Succession war: it took 12-13 years to Louis XIV and a LOT of defeats to finally accept peace and renounce his claims

On the other, seems strange that your opponent didn't accept a peace WITH money ..

[SimonM]

Nice AAR... I'd love to see a detailed MP AAR written by all countries

Originally posted by Huszics
Remember if a revolt takes his capital the new government will make an imediate peace with all enemy countries. The enemys will then also keep all their current possesions in the peace deal...

Yes -- that can be truly devestating... If you're really losing a war, and in danger of loosing the government, you have to settle... it's unlikely that you'll have to give up more than you've already lost. However in the situation mentioned, it sounds like France was managing to hold while his opposition were having the revolt troubles. Are some countries inherently more stable than others? Or is is the homogeneous nature of France coming to it's aid? I can see how the Turks should have more problems (religious and nationalistic differences)...

Also if you have taken ALL his cities he will NOT be able to refuse a peace (unless there is a bug).

Originally posted by Huszics
Further, a peacedeal with an offer "to good to refuse" should obvioulsy add a -1 stability each time. However I belive there is currently a bug that will not make that happen if you have the message set to not pop up and just ignore to look at it

I'm glad to see that someone else considers this a bug, too!

[Rio]

Phaedrus,
If you pick the weekend (not next week!) when a replacement has come out for 109 (yep, our group switched back to 1.08/2.1 too), I wlil check with my wife and sacrifice myself for world peace... er, well world something! As an academic and a hotel wacko, you never really get a normal sleeping schedule anyway!

Thanks for the great work!

E mail is jabberwk@aol.com and jabberwk@home.com

~~Scott

[Phaedrus]

Originally posted by SimonM
Yes -- that can be truly devestating... If you're really losing a war, and in danger of loosing the government, you have to settle... it's unlikely that you'll have to give up more than you've already lost. However in the situation mentioned, it sounds like France was managing to hold while his opposition were having the revolt troubles. Are some countries inherently more stable than others? Or is is the homogeneous nature of France coming to it's aid? I can see how the Turks should have more problems (religious and nationalistic differences)...

Also if you have taken ALL his cities he will NOT be able to refuse a peace (unless there is a bug).

Thing is, we were no way near capturing ALL of France. At best we held some 6 provinces or so. At that time we tried forcing a peace, but the French could just refuse w/o stability loss.
In a +3 Stability, mono/duo-religious nation you'll never get anywhere near revolt in the core provinces. (+5 Revolt risk for war attrition, that's it)!

As HJ (player of Russia) said it: France is an automatic piano - it plays itself. :-)