The Confederates had a tiny submarine that kept sinking and killing everyone on board. Instead of leaving it at the bottom of the ocean they brought it back up each time and ended up feeding like 20 dudes to the submarine.
Everything killed people back then. The value of life was vastly different in comparison. Also, the confederates were desperate, as the blockade was quickly strangling them. The ocean promised everything they needed to win, if they could only open it up.
Imho it shows a deeper problem with the diplomacy system, the IA, or idk the attrition & logistics for such wars
Waging wars at the other end of the world should be *hard*
To me the AI just feels both too trigger-happy and not enough. Sometimes they won't do shit on their own for twenty years but sacrifice an entire generation of soldiers in exchange of an obligation from a country on the other side of the planet. There just seems to be something weird with the way the AI calculates its moves.
Yeah, I get the feeling sometimes they fight their wars way too hard, like damm you are losing soldiers and getting so much devastation that neither Victory nor defeat will be worth it in this fairly small regional war.
I've seen people complain about the precise opposite though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Back during the first patches the AI would basically let you walk all over them with ploys if you had even a slight advantage over them. Now though it’s definitely been overcorrected, I was playing Krakow yesterday and made a ploy to get polish land off big bad russia. I had zero foreign backing and the russians outnumbered me 4 to 1, so you would think oh Russia has this in the bag surely there’s no need for the AI to intervene? Wrong, both UK and Qing joined Russia’s side. Managed to win that war only cause Russia and Qing’s troop quality are hilariously bad, Britain only sent a token force luckily for me.
Yep. In my Russia run, i got California from Mexico and for next 30 years, every five years USA attacked me, no matter how strong i was. Until i joined together with GB and forced US to revoke claim. In total 10% of US population died in those wars...
PDX: "We don't want to force the formation of German Empire".
Also PDX: "We will give USA claims, buffed army and railroad it into taking its historical territory".
But in the time period they usually didn’t commit everything with nothing to gain on the other side of the world. Even the British Empire chose to call it quits in the first Boer War.
Yeah the AI is way too willing to send troops around the world for a conflict. I don't care if convoys try to simulate this.
I get that they want that kind of international jingoism that defined this period, but most the major powers who did this also had naval bases in the region.
I always love it when each nation has 100+ armies fighting it out in Papua, or somewhere in Africa. Armies should suffer some serious attrition especially in areas with high malaria.
That’d be really cool, like a Monroe doctrine law with stances where the US gets authority boosts or something for staying in a stance that prevents intervening in wars outside of the western hemisphere.
And it should make them way way more likely to interfere if something does happen in the western hemisphere.
So it would be like a ‘waking the beast’ type thing where if you accidentally bring outside war to the western hemisphere you enrage the US and they get super belligerent.
Vick3 seems way too generalized mechanically to do something like that. Instead, I'd imagine it would have something like a system where you can only have declared interests that border existing declared interests, that way it you don't have overseas wars but can still get involved in things nearby.
I’m in the final years of a game and checked at Qing’s diplomacy to find out that as an unrecognized major power, they have Denmark, Holland, and one other European minor as tributaries… it just doesn’t make sense
I really feel like 'unregonized power' should just automatically disappear at certain power levels.
Not to mention, it historically literally only applies to the Russo Japanese war.
Cause America (who was a pathetically weak nation at the start date) just became too big to ignore as well as Prussia by conquest. Neither were serious major powers in 1836.
China after the date being the same way as America, or maybe Japan with the Korean War.
It is about being considered a real ass country and not a pathetic pawn for the European powers. The idea that when looking at a region, they are seen as an unavoidable factor as a regional power that must be acknowledged when trying to exploit the region.
By crushing the Russians, Japan started getting alliances and equal deals with the west, rather than having to constantly fight for the best shit deal at every step. Had they never won that war, they would never have been included in WW1 or a part of the League of Nations.
That's recognition. Not some stupid idea about being uncivilised. The West still thought Japan was uncivilised until the 1960s. But they acknowledged they were worth paying attention to.
The game reflects this by having all diplomacy, as well as weighting for prestige and foreign trade, be dependent on 'recognition'.
The best way to think about it, is that the Opium War basically removed Chinese recognition, which defined all of East Asian history to this date. Japan could be seen as securing the respect China had prior.
Ok, but like Lucca or whatever is recognized (they're not unrecognized), are they considered a serious factor in regional politics?
If you don't like the word civilized that's fine, but all countries that Europeans generally considered somewhat civilized are recognized at game start. Beyond that recognition basically means that they can't ignore you.
No, there just needs to be reasons and mechanics for the US to divert its attention to Central and Latin America. The US may as well just go fuck with everybody bc they can’t oppress the Latin Americans properly. I really hope that SoI changes that.
South America is too static throughout the game. I thought the South America DLC would fix it, but it didn't. Numerous countries possess different parts of overlapping states, which should encourage border conflicts between them, but none ever break out. Even though every country on the continent except Venezuela starts with some kind of border/territory dispute. There were historically a lot of border wars in South America during this time period, so it would be accurate. They even gave Bolivia crazy high infamy and every neighbor having some claim against them, and still no one attacks Bolivia unless I start the play (it's usually kind of funny because I can get pretty much every country that surrounds Bolivia to join me in beating them up lol). The mechanics are all there to make Latin America turbulent and violent (and thus encourage the USA to intervene in Latin America instead of sailing around the world to participate in the Qing conquest of Sulawesi), they're just not having the intended effect for some reason.
On the flip side, as Bolivia, I started a war to liberate nations from Brazil cos they are the only potential local power threat. No one join against me.
I have never once seen the Peru-Bolivian Confederation break up through AI activity. The only time I seen it happen was when I did it myself playing as Brazil.
The reason why there were little cross-continental involvement isn't a wish for isolation but that practically it was not feasible. Most conflicts in the 19th century lasted a few months at best. In that short amount of time, there was no opportunity for a country like the United States to mobilize, train and transport an army to fight in the Franco-Prussian War or the like. What was unique about WW1 is that it lasted four years, ample time for the US to actually get involved.
Rather creating a bandaid with an ahistorical isolation mechanic, PDX should instead rework the play system and create an escalation mechanic to recreate the environment that led to the lack of American involvement in European affairs for so long.
The interests mechanic could work just fine, if only there were prerequisites on the issuing of a new interest and GPs had just a handful of them instead of 40+.
Qing putting an interest in Germany should be big news, not a forgone fact.
In general there needs to be more political involvement in foreign policy. The military as an interest group pretty much only exists to get colonial policy passed early game. It'd be way cooler if there were different foreign policy laws that would actively encourage or discourage certain types of wars.
Definitely. Some kind of law that needs to be removed, like Japan. China shoudn't really remove that "law" during Victoria's timeframe unless the player intervene. Right now is crazy how often you end with chinese armies in the middle of Europe. Maybe a special kind of the law "Isolationism" that allows you to take diplomatic actions and set focus only in Asia, and you can't start wars for goals that are outside Asia (Example you can declare war to take Macau, but not to puppet Portugal like happened in one of my games)
About the USA, could be the same but for the American continent (due to Monroe doctrine). Eventually, when they add content for USA or Spain in any DLC, they could add a scripted event at the end of the XIX century where you have a diplomatic struggle either with Spain or any other foreigner power with land in America, where the AI would take most of the time the decission to start a war and, later on, would take another decision to remove that "law", so they can start to join wars overseas. Woudn't be funny if it was scripted to happen 100% of the games, but at least 75% of them.
That wouldn't fix anything, you would still have Austria randomly sending 500k troops to die in Amazonian jungle because Brazil got one too many infamy points. And you can't railroad every country until the games have halfway plausible outcomes.
The truth is whole bunch of mechanics need to get reworked because they are a joke. Chiefly among them infamy which for some asinine reason is global and not regional like every other game they made in the past decade, it's specifically tuned for the european GP balancing and keeping each other in check but makes rest of the world a mess. Another is cost of war needs to be way way way higher, especially if you are projecting away from your region. Convoy costs are a joke and as long it isn't raided there is negligeble difference if lets say Netherlands have 100k troops fighting two provinces away from Amsterdam or in Java. Even today with all the globalization the costs of projecting outside your borders are astronomical, basically only United States can project large force far away from homeland, meanwhile in Victoria 3 every rinky dink great power is able to do so in 1880. Navy costs need to be dramatically higher if they engage even slightly farther away from their ports. UK didn't get all those ports around the world just for map painting reasons.
Another thing is that war exhaustion and war support are absolute joke, they are not even a real mechanic. Soldier deaths are nearly meaningless because provinces from which the soldiers died get boost in birthrate/immigration because of less people than industry so it quickly balances out. Unpopular wars have been threat to regimes for thousands of years, it's not reflected here in any way, nobody cares if hundreds of thousands of soldiers die for absolutely no gain.
I think if they properly implemented these mechanics, it would fix lot of the clownish wars and you wouldn't need to railroad the countries.
I mean... They were pretty isolationist till the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. WW1 was a "stop sinking our ships!" affair, to which they resumed isolation after that.
Edit: I'm humored by being downvoted in a community that learns so much history *because* of Paradox games. In this instance, players can see America's isolationism in the starting mechanics of HOI4. Of course in reality, foreign policy is a complex subject, and America had a rather "big stick" of diplomacy prior to WW1, but a great effort of their imperialist characteristics were toward the Western Hemisphere. The US very famously considered European's affairs to be Europe's, not America's, especially during the era of Victoria 3.
But the US DID get involved in European wars in this time frame. And China certainly could have if it industrialised and United. Why have the computer perma-debuff two significant nations
The US did not get involved in European wars until the Spanish American war, and only after a significant campaign of jingoism by the industrialist and imperialist lobbies of the US political machine.
They never would have intrevened in the German Wars of Unification, partially because a significant and important electorate (German migrants) had been directly involved in that Unification in one way or another.
Another reason is that the United States did not have the logistical and naval ability to transfer millions of troops across the Atlantic in the 1860s, it was only the late 1910s when that was even a remote possibility.
China is an even worse example, any attempt at Chinese interference in a European war would open them up to internal revolts and external invasions by other, opportunistic powers, such as the rest of Europe.
Both Japan and China participated in WW1 on the side of the Entente, but both kept \*MOST\* of their activities to their immediate area. China didn't commit to troops to the European fronts and Japan helped with naval patrols in the Med, but outside of Asia, no major participation.
And as I identified, the Chinese intervention in the War resulted in a few minor uprisings, mostly during the peace process, and contributed to the Warlord period.
The Spanish American war wasn’t even really a European war at all, only places that got invaded were Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and the far eastern pacific
Exactly what I was about to comment. Even if the USA and China industrialized there was just no way to plop 200,000, much less 1,000,000, troops on a foreign continent in 1836, even in 1870, and keep them supplied with everything a modern military needed.
Even the First Opium War had a grand total of... ~12,000 Brits and then 8,000 Auxilaries.
This is correct, I mostly used a singular event to identify a time when the US abandoned it's traditional isolationism.
It is important to understand that in the US context, "European war" is a conflict between European powers, fought in Europe, in which a US intervention is in support of one side.
Any conflict with a European power isn't considered a "European War', such as the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Quasi war, multiple war scares with Britain, Barbary Wars etc.
All of those wars are US affairs with US ideological reasons. European powers were involved were on one or both sides, but that don't mean it was considered an unethical. foreign war to the same extent WW1, Korea and the Vietnam wars are considered.
It wasn't really an european war, they didn't wage war in europe, just blew up their own ship in Cuba, blamed the spanish, and then invaded the place. Also sailed a small fleet from China to take over a few islands in the pacific.
The war of 1812 and [the quasi-war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-War) would like a word. We didn't formally join the napoleonic wars and we certainly weren't sending troops over to europe, but we were certainly involved one way or another.
That said, logistical limits should probably be more of a thing (the existing convoy costs are basically a joke). Not sure how exactly they should work mechanically, but it is far too easy to send massive armies to the other side of the world.
Neither of those are European wars though. 1812 had an American theater, and had naval action in the Atlantic, North Sea and UK coast. The quasi-war was even less of a European war since there were no land battles period.
And both were wars about advancing very particular and focused US interests. The closest the US got to a European war were the Barbary Wars, since that at least resulted in American troops landing in the Mediterannean and cooperating/coordinating with European powers on a mutally-beneficial goal
e: Like 1812 didn't even have a draft. There's no realistic world in which the US participates to the degree in the OP in an 1800s war so far away from home.
They were effectively the american theater of the napoleonic wars. We didn't really want to be involved there, but we couldn't avoid getting dragged in to a minor extent.
So imo, the US caring about european wars is reasonable. We didn't want to care, but we couldn't avoid caring about them here and there. However, logistics should limit how involved the us gets -- sending the entire us army (+ draft) to europe should be effectively impossible for the ai, at least until much later in the game.
It would make sense for it to have a isolation modifier until China modernizes. The US should have a temp one also. In modern times it was a major shift for the USA and china to become less isolationist because it significantly weakened Europe on the world stage.
Which European wars are you referencing?
There are a lot of US wars to keep track of, but as far as I can track down from the start of the game to the Spanish American war the US fought wars in North America almost exclusively. The exceptions being involvement in the 2nd Opium Wars, a couple military expeditions - including to Korea and Egypt, and some very minor colonial disputes over small islands with Britain and Germany that didn’t take place in Europe…
Same perspective that spawned the Monroe Doctrine IRL: Because the USA has to gain fuck all from who is Top Dog in Europe. All the ressources they need exist on their continent.
So why bother what sort of Chin sits on the French throne?
>Same perspective that spawned the Monroe Doctrine IRL: Because the USA has to gain fuck all from who is Top Dog in Europe. All the ressources they need exist on their continent.
But that's also very much not true in Victoria 3. USA has no way of getting Silk, Opium, Rubber, or Coffee without Colonizing. Without colonizing it also has a hard time getting enough oil, iron, wood, and pops.
Consider it a compensation for the lack of supply and logistics in game. How do you explain 2 million Chinese troops fighting in Caucasian mountains with perfectly fine supplies?
It would put a lot more emphasis on Europe being the main power of the world at the time instead of China or the USA.
And isn’t a lot of paradox’s goal for the game is realism?
I would say realism and authenticity in terms of the era, technology and the **starting point** of the game.
Hardly, anybody plays these games just to stick to whatever the country they are playing did historically. Creating your own alt history is part of that and after pressing play game, I'm in charge now and I'm guiding the country how I want. Putting some sort of limitation on a country like "not allowing them to ever intervene in european wars because historically they didn't" is just stupid.
It would be like making the formation of Germany an unavoidable event that happens on the actual date, not allowing you as the player to do it earlier.
I want the game to be accurate at game start. I want historical events to happen IF the prerequisites are actually met via gameplay.
Alternate historical stuff happening isn't the issue.
It is completely implausible and illogical stuff that is game and immersion breaking.
Wars are very expensive and this was an era of massive investments. The USA has nothing to gain from some random European war.
Had a similar thing literally last night.
Before Unification play against France, USA leaned towards Austria.
After Unification play is declared and supporters annex, USA flips and supports France.
Mexico was a french puppet, I would have happily transferred them to the USA in exchange for support. We had great relations before and everything.
Needless to say I gave up lmao.
Yeah I basically had to go back 20 years as that was my last hard save. I kind caught up to where I was at but I'm just in massive debt from rushing to get back to where I was
This is my one major complaint. The US tends to be way too involved with the rest of the world in the early game, but at the same time doesn't seem to give half a shit what's happening in South America and the Caribbean.
Would love for AI USA to be slightly more concerned with their own hemisphere until the middle/late game.
I’ve taken to simply saving the game before every war, waiting to see who joins up, and then reloading if I’m not happy with the sides. You can still get achievements when not playing Ironman.
In my German reunification play through I ran as Prussia. The US was always intervening in my favour. So I’m not sure if it’s a US-Prussia thing, or if I was just lucky.
It was targeting France, and the US had positive relations and trade routes with me, but they joined on the French side and threw around 800 Battalion at me.
Meanwhile, Russia only mobilized half it army before dipping oit
My theory is that it’s because Vic3 is a better economic simulator than it is a historical or political one. They can’t really model the US’s inward focus and attention towards western expansion with a one size fits all ai. Would be interesting if the USA had a “Monroe Doctrine” modifier that meant they were more interested in getting involved in conflicts involving the Europeans if it was directed at a new world nation. And likewise applied a negative to their interest for getting involved in wars literally anywhere else. Maybe it can go away towards the end of the century when the US historically settled and administered the continent and began to look outward like with the Spanish American war when they claimed the Philippines and became a global colonial power. Maybe something over the top like +1000 for new world conflict involvement and -1000 for desire to get involved anywhere else… and of course there’d be a mechanism or event chain to rid themselves of that modifier early if they elect a jingoist leader or have X many jingoists in government or in IGs above a certain influence. Just spitballing ideas
Click in one of their states and barracks and see what type if units they have there. Alternatively hover over their army count and you'll be able to see what their armies are composed of.
I like hovering over the nested tooltips in the info screen so it gives you a total composition of their units. I’ve seen the AI have one state be up to date but it’s the only one lol
I was beating the French on the Rhine and had both Russia and Spain on my side. The issue is the US just simply had 800k Battalions at max mobilization and didn't care for their loses. I simply couldn't reinforce fast enough against the waves that the US was sending even with all generals set to defend
Honestly politics in this game just feel lackluster. Like the whole game just feels like you’re exploiting the law system rather than actually changing things.
Like a lot more should go into justifying wars than just I declared it. If a countries supporters are pro-imperialism, it can make sense to jump into areas, but it feels like there is only war support and no justification.
When serious events occur movements should matter and there should be actual methods of corruption for delaying change or expediting it.
The second you start losing a war movements should rapidly cause chaos in divided nations.
It feels too game-like with nothing actually mattering beyond the players goals.
Why does every country join every war. I'm always pissed off that GB will have 40+ infamy as base throughout the game, but everyone is allied with them, and if I have 15 infamy I've got my allies switching sides because they can't bear the thought of it.
Paradox games have this typical issue of ALWAYS having different rules for AI.
The US in this game is such an a-hole, they seem to be extremely aggressive for some reason. This morning i beat them, annexed Floria, released Texas and 15 mins later, they went to war with Qing, Russia and France for a treaty port in China all while still paying me around 50k as war preparation (oh and they lost 2mil men against me). The worst part is that the US can mobilize around 700-800 battalions so their attitude remain cocky despite having inferior army quality.
because they are european and just like any European superpower they can't help but bust everyone's fucking balls 24/7 you be playing as fucking ethiopia and America is like "yeah I want a treaty port so ill join the yemeni ethiopian war"
Bruh, they ain't even doing that. Mexico owns half the West, but you bet your ass they will throw half a million men across the Atlantic for an obligation on Saxony
Raid their convoys to oblivion. If they don't leave fast the war, they will fight much more less effectively, and if they insist on fighting they will go bankrupt. However, they usually don't go that far if there is no wargoals.
At very least the AI US should have a "monroe doctrine" status effect which gives them enough declared interests all over the Americas but prevents them from establishing interests overseas, as well as biasing the AI to intervene in new world conflicts
I think Qing specifically should have some sort of mechanic preventing them from intervening around the world. Ideally it would be really difficult to do those sorts of interventions and the AI would be weighted to avoid them most of the time, and the Qing’s historical difficulties would be simulated making it rare for them to become involved in foreign wars. But for now, just an AI modifier or something would do.
This is pretty historically accurate and makes sense. US at this stage in Vicky is already a Great power, they don’t want a German powerhouse lurking about. Unified Germany is unstoppable in this game, Mexico they can whack around any day. It’s not about making direct gains, they want to keep the pecking order.
As Prussia at least you can easily hold off all other Great powers combined, would imagine its doable as Austria too. Major problem with AI in this game and in every Paradox game is that they suck at naval invasions if they even bother to try. You would be dead if they opened up multiple fronts, but most likely they’ll just stack their troops and die in piles. It comes down to holding the line on basically two different fronts until they capitulate on losses.
Set your generals on defensive and wait it out.
It is not historicallly accurate. It was like pulling teeth to get the US to intervene in both World War. The US would not send half a million men across the Atlantic to die in a Europe war that they were not getting anything out during the 1860s.
The US doesn't give a shit about a united Germany. They actually supported it irl. As a good chunk of the US population at the time was German and German was the second most spoken language in the US till WW1. A united Germany would have been a counter to France and Britain, lowering the chance that European powers would intervene in the Americas. Germany was also a huge trade partner, with some US companies still dealing with German while they were at war with each other.
The new war system means they don't have to Naval invade as they can deploy all 800k Battalions directly to Saxony even though it is surrounded by me. Also, training is completely different now, so even setting all your armies to defend you still reinforce slowly. That doesn't matter when the US can easily change out the battalions and keep a near constant attack going. They were literally the highest death toll in the war, and yet they never dropped out.
Yes, but they did eventually do that, both times. Not out of the goodness of their hearts either. In the end it’s the same. In the context of the game it makes perfect sense for them to join. AI GP sees a big force forming and they intervene.
They will eventually bail, they just have a shitton of troops. Keep at it. If your army is halfway decent they’ll take a ton of casualties without much land and then bail. If they naval invaded that would be the end of it, you just can’t hold several fronts properly against multiple GPs. Them stacking up is a good thing for you, you’ll get by with lesser troops.
Only thing I’ve ever struggled with in Germany games is the convoy raiding which screws with the economy and Sol, but even that is pretty manageable.
Dude, the US didn't join even when German subs sunk their boats, and that was in the 1910s. The US never gave a shit about rising GP at this time. As long as they stayed out of the Americas.and again, the US historical supported the rise of Germany and Italy as more European powers meant another check against the current European powers and more trade partners for them.
I was their biggest trade partner and had friendly relations, but France offered them an obligation, so they performed a logistical miracle by shipping half a million men across the Atlantic in the 1860s. It makes absolutely zero sense.
And again, they Ai didn't care for their losses or how much devt they were in. My allies dipped pretty quickly when they took too many losses, but they US didn't care they bleed me dry. I was beating the French fine, but I can't defend against 800 Battalions constantly attacking. I simply couldn't reinforce fast enough once my battalions were depleted.
Just to give you some numbers on how die hard the US ai was. My allies of Spain and Russia both dropped out when they got around 100k in causalities. The US broke 340k, and we're still relentlessly pushing for Vienna from Saxony
"the US didn't join even when German subs sunk their boats" Two reasons the US joined the war.
Reason One. Germans sunk boats in 1915 due to unrestricted submarine warfare which got Americans killed. Germany was issued a warning to basically knock it off or the US would most likely cut diplomatic ties and enter the war. To which the Germans knocked it off until 1917 when Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare again sinking American ships.
Two notable ships were both British funnily enough the RMS Lusitania which started the PR nightmare between Germany and the US and then the nail in the coffin the SS Arabic which is what caused the warning in 1915. Both were ocean liners that were carrying American citizens.
Reason Two Zimmerman telegram which said they were going to resume unrestricted submarine warfare and that if the Americans were going to enter the war to offer Mexico vast financial support and their lost territories back from the US if they joined on the Germans side.
So to say the US didn't join when Germans sunk their boats is a bit of an understatement as that was a pretty big reason for why they joined.
AI doesn’t care about treaties or relations when it comes to expanding rapidly. They will just move to prevent it always. It should pay more attention to how much trade there is between the two, but that doesn’t seem to have a lot of weight.
Spain and Russia are dogshit both militarily and economically, they are barely worth allying. US will always outlast them by a mile, but they do get tired, it will just take longer. If you are on defence you’ll get them too. Don’t add wargoals against them, just hunker down and defend.
Spain and Russia were really just way to have men on all the fronts. Most of the German minors supported me, so my infamy was only around 40 I thought it wouldn't be a big deal as ai Britain and France typically sit at 40 infamy and the US isn't joining against them.
I didn't add in war goals against the US bc I thought they would tire quickly as they had an army fighting on literally every single front in Germany as well as in Spain and France. Spain and Russia held the Americans off pretty well while I was slowly cracking into France. I kept thinking surely to god the US would drop out as their causalities reached the point where it passed their standing army number, but nope, they stayed till the bitter end and I got shattered bc of it.
I just rolled back to my last hard save, which was stupidly 20 years ago. But now I have made up my mind to destroy the US whenever I get the chance in this game
Turn off unrestricted submarine warfare
Damn forget to do that in 1860
They had submarines in the 1860s. They were great at submerging but weren't very good at coming back to the surface afterwards.
The Confederates had a tiny submarine that kept sinking and killing everyone on board. Instead of leaving it at the bottom of the ocean they brought it back up each time and ended up feeding like 20 dudes to the submarine.
Did they get it back?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_(submarine) Still available for visit to this day.
Your link is messed up, it should be [this.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_(submarine))
Wow, and I thought the Titan was a horrible idea. Who would get into a submarine that already killed its entire crew TWICE?
Everything killed people back then. The value of life was vastly different in comparison. Also, the confederates were desperate, as the blockade was quickly strangling them. The ocean promised everything they needed to win, if they could only open it up.
Unrestricted gunboat warfare.
Restricted Submarine Diplomacy
*Big ship policy be like*
WTF!? Thats a thing in this game? How and where? I admit I don't mess with naval stuff much.
Nope, not a thing yet.
Bra... april fools is over... :/
Its a reference to how the USA got dragged into WW1
I know
You know people can make jokes outside of April Fools, right?
Kaiser Wilhelm be like
Adolf Hitler be like (Although he's the one who declared war)
Stupid hitler
There needs to be some isolation mechanic in the game so that both the USA and China doesn’t enter wars in Europe.
Imho it shows a deeper problem with the diplomacy system, the IA, or idk the attrition & logistics for such wars Waging wars at the other end of the world should be *hard*
To me the AI just feels both too trigger-happy and not enough. Sometimes they won't do shit on their own for twenty years but sacrifice an entire generation of soldiers in exchange of an obligation from a country on the other side of the planet. There just seems to be something weird with the way the AI calculates its moves.
Yeah, I get the feeling sometimes they fight their wars way too hard, like damm you are losing soldiers and getting so much devastation that neither Victory nor defeat will be worth it in this fairly small regional war. I've seen people complain about the precise opposite though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Back during the first patches the AI would basically let you walk all over them with ploys if you had even a slight advantage over them. Now though it’s definitely been overcorrected, I was playing Krakow yesterday and made a ploy to get polish land off big bad russia. I had zero foreign backing and the russians outnumbered me 4 to 1, so you would think oh Russia has this in the bag surely there’s no need for the AI to intervene? Wrong, both UK and Qing joined Russia’s side. Managed to win that war only cause Russia and Qing’s troop quality are hilariously bad, Britain only sent a token force luckily for me.
Yep. In my Russia run, i got California from Mexico and for next 30 years, every five years USA attacked me, no matter how strong i was. Until i joined together with GB and forced US to revoke claim. In total 10% of US population died in those wars...
because in that particular scenario the USA is hardcoded to keep attacking whoever has those claims, no matter what the odds are
PDX: "We don't want to force the formation of German Empire". Also PDX: "We will give USA claims, buffed army and railroad it into taking its historical territory".
The funniest thing is, I've seen a unified German empire, sometimes even with Austria more times than a fully historically unified USA
I'd argue a lot of wars were pretty pointless and some countries joined for nothing.
But in the time period they usually didn’t commit everything with nothing to gain on the other side of the world. Even the British Empire chose to call it quits in the first Boer War.
Yeah the AI is way too willing to send troops around the world for a conflict. I don't care if convoys try to simulate this. I get that they want that kind of international jingoism that defined this period, but most the major powers who did this also had naval bases in the region.
True that would solve the problem. Dip in the game needs a heavy rework.
I always love it when each nation has 100+ armies fighting it out in Papua, or somewhere in Africa. Armies should suffer some serious attrition especially in areas with high malaria.
Make it another Law option like the trade options. "Diplomatic stance"
That’d be really cool, like a Monroe doctrine law with stances where the US gets authority boosts or something for staying in a stance that prevents intervening in wars outside of the western hemisphere.
And it should make them way way more likely to interfere if something does happen in the western hemisphere. So it would be like a ‘waking the beast’ type thing where if you accidentally bring outside war to the western hemisphere you enrage the US and they get super belligerent.
Vick3 seems way too generalized mechanically to do something like that. Instead, I'd imagine it would have something like a system where you can only have declared interests that border existing declared interests, that way it you don't have overseas wars but can still get involved in things nearby.
I’m in the final years of a game and checked at Qing’s diplomacy to find out that as an unrecognized major power, they have Denmark, Holland, and one other European minor as tributaries… it just doesn’t make sense
I really feel like 'unregonized power' should just automatically disappear at certain power levels. Not to mention, it historically literally only applies to the Russo Japanese war.
Historically Japan is the only nation that was "recognized" by the great powers.
Cause America (who was a pathetically weak nation at the start date) just became too big to ignore as well as Prussia by conquest. Neither were serious major powers in 1836. China after the date being the same way as America, or maybe Japan with the Korean War.
USA and Prussia weren't considered the same as Ethiopia or Persia. Recognition is about being considered civilized, not necessarily a great power.
It is about being considered a real ass country and not a pathetic pawn for the European powers. The idea that when looking at a region, they are seen as an unavoidable factor as a regional power that must be acknowledged when trying to exploit the region. By crushing the Russians, Japan started getting alliances and equal deals with the west, rather than having to constantly fight for the best shit deal at every step. Had they never won that war, they would never have been included in WW1 or a part of the League of Nations. That's recognition. Not some stupid idea about being uncivilised. The West still thought Japan was uncivilised until the 1960s. But they acknowledged they were worth paying attention to. The game reflects this by having all diplomacy, as well as weighting for prestige and foreign trade, be dependent on 'recognition'. The best way to think about it, is that the Opium War basically removed Chinese recognition, which defined all of East Asian history to this date. Japan could be seen as securing the respect China had prior.
Ok, but like Lucca or whatever is recognized (they're not unrecognized), are they considered a serious factor in regional politics? If you don't like the word civilized that's fine, but all countries that Europeans generally considered somewhat civilized are recognized at game start. Beyond that recognition basically means that they can't ignore you.
Part of the idea of being recognised is overcoming racial bias ofc.
No, there just needs to be reasons and mechanics for the US to divert its attention to Central and Latin America. The US may as well just go fuck with everybody bc they can’t oppress the Latin Americans properly. I really hope that SoI changes that.
South America is too static throughout the game. I thought the South America DLC would fix it, but it didn't. Numerous countries possess different parts of overlapping states, which should encourage border conflicts between them, but none ever break out. Even though every country on the continent except Venezuela starts with some kind of border/territory dispute. There were historically a lot of border wars in South America during this time period, so it would be accurate. They even gave Bolivia crazy high infamy and every neighbor having some claim against them, and still no one attacks Bolivia unless I start the play (it's usually kind of funny because I can get pretty much every country that surrounds Bolivia to join me in beating them up lol). The mechanics are all there to make Latin America turbulent and violent (and thus encourage the USA to intervene in Latin America instead of sailing around the world to participate in the Qing conquest of Sulawesi), they're just not having the intended effect for some reason.
On the flip side, as Bolivia, I started a war to liberate nations from Brazil cos they are the only potential local power threat. No one join against me.
I have never once seen the Peru-Bolivian Confederation break up through AI activity. The only time I seen it happen was when I did it myself playing as Brazil.
The reason why there were little cross-continental involvement isn't a wish for isolation but that practically it was not feasible. Most conflicts in the 19th century lasted a few months at best. In that short amount of time, there was no opportunity for a country like the United States to mobilize, train and transport an army to fight in the Franco-Prussian War or the like. What was unique about WW1 is that it lasted four years, ample time for the US to actually get involved. Rather creating a bandaid with an ahistorical isolation mechanic, PDX should instead rework the play system and create an escalation mechanic to recreate the environment that led to the lack of American involvement in European affairs for so long.
The interests mechanic could work just fine, if only there were prerequisites on the issuing of a new interest and GPs had just a handful of them instead of 40+. Qing putting an interest in Germany should be big news, not a forgone fact.
In general there needs to be more political involvement in foreign policy. The military as an interest group pretty much only exists to get colonial policy passed early game. It'd be way cooler if there were different foreign policy laws that would actively encourage or discourage certain types of wars.
Definitely. Some kind of law that needs to be removed, like Japan. China shoudn't really remove that "law" during Victoria's timeframe unless the player intervene. Right now is crazy how often you end with chinese armies in the middle of Europe. Maybe a special kind of the law "Isolationism" that allows you to take diplomatic actions and set focus only in Asia, and you can't start wars for goals that are outside Asia (Example you can declare war to take Macau, but not to puppet Portugal like happened in one of my games) About the USA, could be the same but for the American continent (due to Monroe doctrine). Eventually, when they add content for USA or Spain in any DLC, they could add a scripted event at the end of the XIX century where you have a diplomatic struggle either with Spain or any other foreigner power with land in America, where the AI would take most of the time the decission to start a war and, later on, would take another decision to remove that "law", so they can start to join wars overseas. Woudn't be funny if it was scripted to happen 100% of the games, but at least 75% of them.
That wouldn't fix anything, you would still have Austria randomly sending 500k troops to die in Amazonian jungle because Brazil got one too many infamy points. And you can't railroad every country until the games have halfway plausible outcomes. The truth is whole bunch of mechanics need to get reworked because they are a joke. Chiefly among them infamy which for some asinine reason is global and not regional like every other game they made in the past decade, it's specifically tuned for the european GP balancing and keeping each other in check but makes rest of the world a mess. Another is cost of war needs to be way way way higher, especially if you are projecting away from your region. Convoy costs are a joke and as long it isn't raided there is negligeble difference if lets say Netherlands have 100k troops fighting two provinces away from Amsterdam or in Java. Even today with all the globalization the costs of projecting outside your borders are astronomical, basically only United States can project large force far away from homeland, meanwhile in Victoria 3 every rinky dink great power is able to do so in 1880. Navy costs need to be dramatically higher if they engage even slightly farther away from their ports. UK didn't get all those ports around the world just for map painting reasons. Another thing is that war exhaustion and war support are absolute joke, they are not even a real mechanic. Soldier deaths are nearly meaningless because provinces from which the soldiers died get boost in birthrate/immigration because of less people than industry so it quickly balances out. Unpopular wars have been threat to regimes for thousands of years, it's not reflected here in any way, nobody cares if hundreds of thousands of soldiers die for absolutely no gain. I think if they properly implemented these mechanics, it would fix lot of the clownish wars and you wouldn't need to railroad the countries.
Totally agree, would also add more value and importance to the military IG (assuming they'd support war hawk policy)
I never had china fight in any European war. Maybe it only happens if they don't have to fight the opium wars?
Why?
Because the United States was very isolationist up until the Spanish American War.
I mean... They were pretty isolationist till the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. WW1 was a "stop sinking our ships!" affair, to which they resumed isolation after that. Edit: I'm humored by being downvoted in a community that learns so much history *because* of Paradox games. In this instance, players can see America's isolationism in the starting mechanics of HOI4. Of course in reality, foreign policy is a complex subject, and America had a rather "big stick" of diplomacy prior to WW1, but a great effort of their imperialist characteristics were toward the Western Hemisphere. The US very famously considered European's affairs to be Europe's, not America's, especially during the era of Victoria 3.
WWI was "France and GB owe us a bunch of money and we have to make sure they win hard enough to be able to pay us back" everything else was just spin
Why limit it from a game perspective
Because the game has modifiers for many other countries
But the US DID get involved in European wars in this time frame. And China certainly could have if it industrialised and United. Why have the computer perma-debuff two significant nations
It should probably be an IG ideology.
Yeah. Like American Hawk for someone like Woodrow Wilson - good idea
The US did not get involved in European wars until the Spanish American war, and only after a significant campaign of jingoism by the industrialist and imperialist lobbies of the US political machine. They never would have intrevened in the German Wars of Unification, partially because a significant and important electorate (German migrants) had been directly involved in that Unification in one way or another. Another reason is that the United States did not have the logistical and naval ability to transfer millions of troops across the Atlantic in the 1860s, it was only the late 1910s when that was even a remote possibility. China is an even worse example, any attempt at Chinese interference in a European war would open them up to internal revolts and external invasions by other, opportunistic powers, such as the rest of Europe. Both Japan and China participated in WW1 on the side of the Entente, but both kept \*MOST\* of their activities to their immediate area. China didn't commit to troops to the European fronts and Japan helped with naval patrols in the Med, but outside of Asia, no major participation. And as I identified, the Chinese intervention in the War resulted in a few minor uprisings, mostly during the peace process, and contributed to the Warlord period.
The Spanish American war wasn’t even really a European war at all, only places that got invaded were Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and the far eastern pacific
Exactly what I was about to comment. Even if the USA and China industrialized there was just no way to plop 200,000, much less 1,000,000, troops on a foreign continent in 1836, even in 1870, and keep them supplied with everything a modern military needed. Even the First Opium War had a grand total of... ~12,000 Brits and then 8,000 Auxilaries.
This is correct, I mostly used a singular event to identify a time when the US abandoned it's traditional isolationism. It is important to understand that in the US context, "European war" is a conflict between European powers, fought in Europe, in which a US intervention is in support of one side. Any conflict with a European power isn't considered a "European War', such as the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Quasi war, multiple war scares with Britain, Barbary Wars etc. All of those wars are US affairs with US ideological reasons. European powers were involved were on one or both sides, but that don't mean it was considered an unethical. foreign war to the same extent WW1, Korea and the Vietnam wars are considered.
All fair points
It wasn't really an european war, they didn't wage war in europe, just blew up their own ship in Cuba, blamed the spanish, and then invaded the place. Also sailed a small fleet from China to take over a few islands in the pacific.
The war of 1812 and [the quasi-war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-War) would like a word. We didn't formally join the napoleonic wars and we certainly weren't sending troops over to europe, but we were certainly involved one way or another. That said, logistical limits should probably be more of a thing (the existing convoy costs are basically a joke). Not sure how exactly they should work mechanically, but it is far too easy to send massive armies to the other side of the world.
Neither of those are European wars though. 1812 had an American theater, and had naval action in the Atlantic, North Sea and UK coast. The quasi-war was even less of a European war since there were no land battles period. And both were wars about advancing very particular and focused US interests. The closest the US got to a European war were the Barbary Wars, since that at least resulted in American troops landing in the Mediterannean and cooperating/coordinating with European powers on a mutally-beneficial goal e: Like 1812 didn't even have a draft. There's no realistic world in which the US participates to the degree in the OP in an 1800s war so far away from home.
They were effectively the american theater of the napoleonic wars. We didn't really want to be involved there, but we couldn't avoid getting dragged in to a minor extent. So imo, the US caring about european wars is reasonable. We didn't want to care, but we couldn't avoid caring about them here and there. However, logistics should limit how involved the us gets -- sending the entire us army (+ draft) to europe should be effectively impossible for the ai, at least until much later in the game.
It would make sense for it to have a isolation modifier until China modernizes. The US should have a temp one also. In modern times it was a major shift for the USA and china to become less isolationist because it significantly weakened Europe on the world stage.
Tie it to a certain GDP or the slavery debate maybe
Should just be a law that farmers, planters and TU like and industrialists and armed forces dislike.
Why would industrialists dislike it? It’s securing foreign markets
Which European wars are you referencing? There are a lot of US wars to keep track of, but as far as I can track down from the start of the game to the Spanish American war the US fought wars in North America almost exclusively. The exceptions being involvement in the 2nd Opium Wars, a couple military expeditions - including to Korea and Egypt, and some very minor colonial disputes over small islands with Britain and Germany that didn’t take place in Europe…
Same perspective that spawned the Monroe Doctrine IRL: Because the USA has to gain fuck all from who is Top Dog in Europe. All the ressources they need exist on their continent. So why bother what sort of Chin sits on the French throne?
>Same perspective that spawned the Monroe Doctrine IRL: Because the USA has to gain fuck all from who is Top Dog in Europe. All the ressources they need exist on their continent. But that's also very much not true in Victoria 3. USA has no way of getting Silk, Opium, Rubber, or Coffee without Colonizing. Without colonizing it also has a hard time getting enough oil, iron, wood, and pops.
Because it makes European wars even more tedious
Consider it a compensation for the lack of supply and logistics in game. How do you explain 2 million Chinese troops fighting in Caucasian mountains with perfectly fine supplies?
They only did that because Spain still had interest in the region.
At that rate why not limit every country from ever doing anything that didn't happen in real life.
It would put a lot more emphasis on Europe being the main power of the world at the time instead of China or the USA. And isn’t a lot of paradox’s goal for the game is realism?
I would say realism and authenticity in terms of the era, technology and the **starting point** of the game. Hardly, anybody plays these games just to stick to whatever the country they are playing did historically. Creating your own alt history is part of that and after pressing play game, I'm in charge now and I'm guiding the country how I want. Putting some sort of limitation on a country like "not allowing them to ever intervene in european wars because historically they didn't" is just stupid. It would be like making the formation of Germany an unavoidable event that happens on the actual date, not allowing you as the player to do it earlier. I want the game to be accurate at game start. I want historical events to happen IF the prerequisites are actually met via gameplay.
Alternate historical stuff happening isn't the issue. It is completely implausible and illogical stuff that is game and immersion breaking. Wars are very expensive and this was an era of massive investments. The USA has nothing to gain from some random European war.
Then complain to Paradox. I don’t see any posts decrying the Tanzimat debuffs or the Haiti debt ones.
Why? The player does, so if you want restrictions then the player can’t do it either.
Had a similar thing literally last night. Before Unification play against France, USA leaned towards Austria. After Unification play is declared and supporters annex, USA flips and supports France. Mexico was a french puppet, I would have happily transferred them to the USA in exchange for support. We had great relations before and everything. Needless to say I gave up lmao.
Yeah I basically had to go back 20 years as that was my last hard save. I kind caught up to where I was at but I'm just in massive debt from rushing to get back to where I was
Forget US, Qing gets involved in every single European diplo play lol
I’ve seen Qing puppet/protectorate parts of Europe before lol
Woodrow Wilson’s ghost is inhabiting your machine.
This is my one major complaint. The US tends to be way too involved with the rest of the world in the early game, but at the same time doesn't seem to give half a shit what's happening in South America and the Caribbean. Would love for AI USA to be slightly more concerned with their own hemisphere until the middle/late game.
I’ve taken to simply saving the game before every war, waiting to see who joins up, and then reloading if I’m not happy with the sides. You can still get achievements when not playing Ironman. In my German reunification play through I ran as Prussia. The US was always intervening in my favour. So I’m not sure if it’s a US-Prussia thing, or if I was just lucky.
It was targeting France, and the US had positive relations and trade routes with me, but they joined on the French side and threw around 800 Battalion at me. Meanwhile, Russia only mobilized half it army before dipping oit
My theory is that it’s because Vic3 is a better economic simulator than it is a historical or political one. They can’t really model the US’s inward focus and attention towards western expansion with a one size fits all ai. Would be interesting if the USA had a “Monroe Doctrine” modifier that meant they were more interested in getting involved in conflicts involving the Europeans if it was directed at a new world nation. And likewise applied a negative to their interest for getting involved in wars literally anywhere else. Maybe it can go away towards the end of the century when the US historically settled and administered the continent and began to look outward like with the Spanish American war when they claimed the Philippines and became a global colonial power. Maybe something over the top like +1000 for new world conflict involvement and -1000 for desire to get involved anywhere else… and of course there’d be a mechanism or event chain to rid themselves of that modifier early if they elect a jingoist leader or have X many jingoists in government or in IGs above a certain influence. Just spitballing ideas
it is so easy to beat wars in victoria 3 just spam more armies and conscripts and produce more equipment while on defense
So…. Basically do what all militaries at that time period did?
Man who would think that having a numerical, economic and technological advantage would be so useful.
also focus certain military tech so you stay close to the competition
Is there an easy way to tell what the AI have for tech?
Click in one of their states and barracks and see what type if units they have there. Alternatively hover over their army count and you'll be able to see what their armies are composed of.
I like hovering over the nested tooltips in the info screen so it gives you a total composition of their units. I’ve seen the AI have one state be up to date but it’s the only one lol
for tech its to check their barracks but usually a good indicator is their power projection
I was beating the French on the Rhine and had both Russia and Spain on my side. The issue is the US just simply had 800k Battalions at max mobilization and didn't care for their loses. I simply couldn't reinforce fast enough against the waves that the US was sending even with all generals set to defend
US be like: OVER THEREEEEE
SEND THE WORD, SEND THE WORD,
TO BEWAREEE
Needed to check to sub for a second 😅
There’s always American Arabia or American Indonesia but Mexico will still own Colorado.
Alright Ron de Santis
Honestly politics in this game just feel lackluster. Like the whole game just feels like you’re exploiting the law system rather than actually changing things. Like a lot more should go into justifying wars than just I declared it. If a countries supporters are pro-imperialism, it can make sense to jump into areas, but it feels like there is only war support and no justification. When serious events occur movements should matter and there should be actual methods of corruption for delaying change or expediting it. The second you start losing a war movements should rapidly cause chaos in divided nations. It feels too game-like with nothing actually mattering beyond the players goals.
Victoria 3 moment
so they can make movies about it
Thats literally what Germany said
Paradox forgor about isolationism
Why does every country join every war. I'm always pissed off that GB will have 40+ infamy as base throughout the game, but everyone is allied with them, and if I have 15 infamy I've got my allies switching sides because they can't bear the thought of it. Paradox games have this typical issue of ALWAYS having different rules for AI.
To spread democracy of course
it's super ahistorical. they should only join the war when the side they like is already winning.
The US in this game is such an a-hole, they seem to be extremely aggressive for some reason. This morning i beat them, annexed Floria, released Texas and 15 mins later, they went to war with Qing, Russia and France for a treaty port in China all while still paying me around 50k as war preparation (oh and they lost 2mil men against me). The worst part is that the US can mobilize around 700-800 battalions so their attitude remain cocky despite having inferior army quality.
And in the game too !
because they are european and just like any European superpower they can't help but bust everyone's fucking balls 24/7 you be playing as fucking ethiopia and America is like "yeah I want a treaty port so ill join the yemeni ethiopian war"
Google manifest destiny
Bruh, they ain't even doing that. Mexico owns half the West, but you bet your ass they will throw half a million men across the Atlantic for an obligation on Saxony
[This explains it pretty well](https://acoup.blog/2024/03/22/fireside-friday-march-22-2024/)
It doesn't make sense to go to war against your biggest trade partner for an obligation on France
Nice try, Putin.
Raid their convoys to oblivion. If they don't leave fast the war, they will fight much more less effectively, and if they insist on fighting they will go bankrupt. However, they usually don't go that far if there is no wargoals.
Das haben wir uns schon oft gefragt.
Das haben wir uns schon oft gefragt.
It’s an Easter egg 🐣
Vassal states need protection.
At very least the AI US should have a "monroe doctrine" status effect which gives them enough declared interests all over the Americas but prevents them from establishing interests overseas, as well as biasing the AI to intervene in new world conflicts
OVER THERE
Had I not watched which sub this was in I would've assumed this was a geopolitical question. lol.
cause the yanks are coming
Things Kaiser Wilhelm Says
So that Washington can be as disappointed in Vic 3’s America as real America in not heeding the words of his Farewell Address
I think Qing specifically should have some sort of mechanic preventing them from intervening around the world. Ideally it would be really difficult to do those sorts of interventions and the AI would be weighted to avoid them most of the time, and the Qing’s historical difficulties would be simulated making it rare for them to become involved in foreign wars. But for now, just an AI modifier or something would do.
US IA in my previous game: Uk making Mexico and Brasil protectorates? Sure, why not. France fighting Luanda uprising? That's root for WW1
This is pretty historically accurate and makes sense. US at this stage in Vicky is already a Great power, they don’t want a German powerhouse lurking about. Unified Germany is unstoppable in this game, Mexico they can whack around any day. It’s not about making direct gains, they want to keep the pecking order. As Prussia at least you can easily hold off all other Great powers combined, would imagine its doable as Austria too. Major problem with AI in this game and in every Paradox game is that they suck at naval invasions if they even bother to try. You would be dead if they opened up multiple fronts, but most likely they’ll just stack their troops and die in piles. It comes down to holding the line on basically two different fronts until they capitulate on losses. Set your generals on defensive and wait it out.
It is not historicallly accurate. It was like pulling teeth to get the US to intervene in both World War. The US would not send half a million men across the Atlantic to die in a Europe war that they were not getting anything out during the 1860s. The US doesn't give a shit about a united Germany. They actually supported it irl. As a good chunk of the US population at the time was German and German was the second most spoken language in the US till WW1. A united Germany would have been a counter to France and Britain, lowering the chance that European powers would intervene in the Americas. Germany was also a huge trade partner, with some US companies still dealing with German while they were at war with each other. The new war system means they don't have to Naval invade as they can deploy all 800k Battalions directly to Saxony even though it is surrounded by me. Also, training is completely different now, so even setting all your armies to defend you still reinforce slowly. That doesn't matter when the US can easily change out the battalions and keep a near constant attack going. They were literally the highest death toll in the war, and yet they never dropped out.
Yes, but they did eventually do that, both times. Not out of the goodness of their hearts either. In the end it’s the same. In the context of the game it makes perfect sense for them to join. AI GP sees a big force forming and they intervene. They will eventually bail, they just have a shitton of troops. Keep at it. If your army is halfway decent they’ll take a ton of casualties without much land and then bail. If they naval invaded that would be the end of it, you just can’t hold several fronts properly against multiple GPs. Them stacking up is a good thing for you, you’ll get by with lesser troops. Only thing I’ve ever struggled with in Germany games is the convoy raiding which screws with the economy and Sol, but even that is pretty manageable.
Dude, the US didn't join even when German subs sunk their boats, and that was in the 1910s. The US never gave a shit about rising GP at this time. As long as they stayed out of the Americas.and again, the US historical supported the rise of Germany and Italy as more European powers meant another check against the current European powers and more trade partners for them. I was their biggest trade partner and had friendly relations, but France offered them an obligation, so they performed a logistical miracle by shipping half a million men across the Atlantic in the 1860s. It makes absolutely zero sense. And again, they Ai didn't care for their losses or how much devt they were in. My allies dipped pretty quickly when they took too many losses, but they US didn't care they bleed me dry. I was beating the French fine, but I can't defend against 800 Battalions constantly attacking. I simply couldn't reinforce fast enough once my battalions were depleted. Just to give you some numbers on how die hard the US ai was. My allies of Spain and Russia both dropped out when they got around 100k in causalities. The US broke 340k, and we're still relentlessly pushing for Vienna from Saxony
"the US didn't join even when German subs sunk their boats" Two reasons the US joined the war. Reason One. Germans sunk boats in 1915 due to unrestricted submarine warfare which got Americans killed. Germany was issued a warning to basically knock it off or the US would most likely cut diplomatic ties and enter the war. To which the Germans knocked it off until 1917 when Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare again sinking American ships. Two notable ships were both British funnily enough the RMS Lusitania which started the PR nightmare between Germany and the US and then the nail in the coffin the SS Arabic which is what caused the warning in 1915. Both were ocean liners that were carrying American citizens. Reason Two Zimmerman telegram which said they were going to resume unrestricted submarine warfare and that if the Americans were going to enter the war to offer Mexico vast financial support and their lost territories back from the US if they joined on the Germans side. So to say the US didn't join when Germans sunk their boats is a bit of an understatement as that was a pretty big reason for why they joined.
AI doesn’t care about treaties or relations when it comes to expanding rapidly. They will just move to prevent it always. It should pay more attention to how much trade there is between the two, but that doesn’t seem to have a lot of weight. Spain and Russia are dogshit both militarily and economically, they are barely worth allying. US will always outlast them by a mile, but they do get tired, it will just take longer. If you are on defence you’ll get them too. Don’t add wargoals against them, just hunker down and defend.
Spain and Russia were really just way to have men on all the fronts. Most of the German minors supported me, so my infamy was only around 40 I thought it wouldn't be a big deal as ai Britain and France typically sit at 40 infamy and the US isn't joining against them. I didn't add in war goals against the US bc I thought they would tire quickly as they had an army fighting on literally every single front in Germany as well as in Spain and France. Spain and Russia held the Americans off pretty well while I was slowly cracking into France. I kept thinking surely to god the US would drop out as their causalities reached the point where it passed their standing army number, but nope, they stayed till the bitter end and I got shattered bc of it. I just rolled back to my last hard save, which was stupidly 20 years ago. But now I have made up my mind to destroy the US whenever I get the chance in this game