CatboiWaifu

With the changes to Naval invasions, I've now been able to seize both Southern Spain and Croatia. Unfortunately, with my army invasion of Austria at 75%, Austria flipped to ungoverned and magically all my forces decided to return home from territories that now have literally 0 army force. Can we lose the whole governmental collapse thing? It's not fair and its not fun. It makes no sense that your soldiers, fighting towards the enemy capital, taking, occupying and garrisoning enemy towns and strongholds and supply hubs, losing brothers in arms, would just 'aight we out' when it suits the enemy for them to stop fighting. That's not how war works. Now Germany and the Soviets are going to snap up the ungoverned territories with no resistance and I'm not going to proc the low chance of the 'invade ungoverned' event. Force a total peace deal, ceding everything to the faction with the highest VP or whoever has forces physically in those territories. Total capitulation to whoever's worked the hardest and those who are actively pushing with large armies in ceded territories. While we're at it, can we scrap the RNG factor in peace deals, too. If I'm demanding a territory from any peace deal, the enemy has no diplomatic power to refuse or, realistically, the war would continue and I would forcefully occupy that territory and demand more. If I demand two territories from the peace deal budget, I want those territories, not a random chance spread of those territories. Governments collapsing and making you lose all your war progress with no payoff just feels cheap and not good game design.

I want to see countries surrender before they dissolve, and if they dissolve, it fires a peace deal with all their territories and ships. I want to see the peace deals reworked to be offers and demand based. "Spain offers to end the war, ceding [algorithm determines closest territories] the Balearic islands and Southern Spain. Agree/Refuse/Negotiate". Additionally, you should be able to offer "Cede [player's choices] Southern Spain for peace" and the AI judges based on relative fleet strength, GDP, turns until repairs complete, etc. The losing country shouldn't be able to pull a sneaky one and offer a territory, or agree to territory demands, and then not turn it over without continuing the war.

One thing I've noticed is that with aiming in general, it seems to work by having the actual point of aim a considerable distance short of the actual target, then deciding based off your hit calculations which shells to actually aim at the enemy ship's range and 'picking shells from the herd'. This is evident and exploitable when you have two enemy ships going past each other at a short distance from each other. By targeting the far ship through the near ship, you get a nearly 100% hit rate as the shells fall short of the targeted ship and the fall of shot straddles the near ship. I think it would be better to have the point of aim be such that the natural scatter straddles the targeted ship and let dispersion deal with it. Any that are aimed up from dispersion could hit the superstructure, any that fall short straddle the belt

yeah, my united med runs go nowhere because Spain utterly collapses before I can fire enough naval invasions to wear down South Spain to take it. The country literally dissolves before I can successfully naval invade the mainland, dealing 10:1 casualties. It's BS that I get peace forced on me with no reparations whatsoever while I have active naval invasions. At least give me the province I was invading when their government, army and economy dissolve. Also, RNG shouldn't be a thing in peace deals. If I'm winning, I should be able to demand the provinces I want or threaten to continue the war. Right now, Spain can offer peace as a flat Y/N with no indication of what they are willing to offer as reparations. Only after we agree to peace will they tell us what they are willing to give up, and then you're not even guaranteed to get what you have selected. Newsflash Spain, if Britain still has Gibraltar, I don't want your Caribbean holdings or even the Canary Islands. I want your Med coast and Balearics, which I can at least Naval invade relatively easily. I should be able to demand these in a peace deal, and continue the war until they're willing to accept or I can take them by force. I'd love to see the option to limit your convoy routes and even disable colony convoys at the cost of disabled GDP/NavBudget contribution. Right now, there's no upside to having colonies outside your home area, because you have to allocate convoy protection for sea routes you can't see. No lone colonies give enough income to offset the cost of maintaining trade protection which is mentally taxing to maintain in every sea zone required.

Trying a United Med Italy run, starts fine, my fleet of 100mm belt CLs (because no BBs and I'm not building CAs with 20% funnel efficiency) bumrushes the Balearics and I eat it up in a snappy invasion. Their entire fleet's in the Carribean fighting the yanks, start a Naval invasion of Southern Spain, green numbers in the invasion circle. After building more ships and exceeding the invasion tonnage requirements by three times, Spain starts to fall apart, my armies are dealing 10 to 1 casualties, Spain's asking for peace, life is good. With Spain begging for peace, I save a backup and accept. War continues. Another failed naval invasion later, Spain dissolves one turn from the invasion completing (and likely failing again) If nothing else, at least give provinces being actively invaded when a country dissolves to the aggressor invading it. Hell, a country dissolving shouldn't mean the end of the war, it should mean massive territorial advances for the aggressor and unconditional surrender for the country. A government toppling shouldn't force a peace with no reparations. And Peace deals should reflect the situation the losing nation is in. Totally blockaded, naval budget hundreds of thousands in the red, actively being navally invaded, GDP in the pits, the government shouldn't be able to ask for peace and then get off with only losing some colonial territory across the world that would compromise your transports safety in a future war. Pace deals should be offered in a finalised form, and you should be able to demand terms. And if you demand something they're not willing to give you, then you should have the option of dragging the war on. I don't want Carribean provinces for a United Med run, the UK will annihilate my transports and tank my economy when I want to take Gibraltar and the UK's Med Holdings. Spain shouldn't be able to secure a peace deal and decide the terms when they lost. Also, the US decided to break our alliance while we were both at war against Spain. Seems like a poor time to break an alliance, and I think breaking alliances should have some form of penalty across the board, like an 'untrustworthy' modifier for relations across the board. As for invasions, it'd be cool to see invasions given some more depth. A landing phase, where every ship and gun in the invasion force gives a bonus to the invasion. A beachhead phase, where your big ships continue bombardment and your small ships reinforce and supply the invasion, and an inland phase where all you can do is protect transports, maybe give a bonus for torpedo boats acting as river gunboats? While you have enough big ships supporting a beachhead, they shouldn't be able to be pushed back. A peace deal with a beachhead or inland invasion should greatly favor ceding that territory to satisfy the invader.