About international Stress and Tension ....

[Hardlec]

I am playing France. I have over 1000 prestige points, (Honorable) my government is respected.  
At the end of the last war The Austrians have NO SHIPS.  Italy has collapsed. Germany has 1 BB, 3 CA and 6 DDs.  I have a task force larger than the whole German navy sitting off each of her ports on the North Sea.

When the war ends, I bring ALL my ships home.  None at sea.  I have put all my battleships in "limited" status.  I have cut my "training"budget and "Tech" budget to 50%.  I am about as threatening as a teacup poodle.

Austria, a country with NO SHIPS IN HER NAVY starts issuing me ultimatums.  Maybe this is an emotional response, but I am not going to give Austria 125% of my naval budget.  I'd like to send back the message that countries with no ships can't be considered a (Naval) threat.

So, I'll ask again:

I would like a minimum of 6 months to pass before countries that have been soundly defeated start getting aggressive.  
I'd also like to have a mission of "Diplomatic Envoy" to try to prevent war, at least long enough to finish repairs on my ships.

[Cryadis]

I aggree that diplomacy so far is more a placeholder.

I tend to play AU, but it seems impossible to get to war with italy (wich frankly would be most fitting due positioning. France, Britain are.. kinda far away).

Also the AI does not seem to consider their potential navy strenght when going to war, which also is somewhat annoying because if you are at war vs some1 with no / little navy you cannot generate Victory points (unless i am missing something). And finally that makes difficulty settings akward, as its "easier" to win wars on hard then on normal

 

[Hardlec]

Winning wars seems very arbitrary.  

I have read the advice that I should refuse offers of peace to get bigger reparations.  I've not seen this work.  Diplomacy seems entirely random. 

Exactly how am I creating tension when all of my ships are in port and either "in being" or on "Limited?" 

Why are you going to issue me an Ultimatum when I have 150 ships and you have 15?

 

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

I had the same issues and questions about tensions already flaring immediately after a war. From my understanding (which comes from reading the in-game "help" section about tension and explanations the devs have put forward in some of their posts), even if all of your ships are in port and set to limited...it could very well be the other nation's ships that are causing the tension.

From the in-game "help" section about tension...it says something along the lines of "a large task force, depending on where they are, may cause little to no tension while a small task force, depending on where they are, can cause lots of tension." Now, from my experience playing the campaign, this is what that statement boils down to: if I park a 20-30 ship task force in the middle of the North Atlantic (not really an all that important/contested sea region)...I might gain/lose between 1-5 tension depending on which nation I'm playing and current relations with other nations. But, if I park a 5-10 ship task force off the coast of a nation...it will lose me between 5 and 10 tension per turn. "Working as intended" I guess.

But, this works both ways. In my current German campaign, I have 2 BC, 4CA and 6 DD in the Western Med (split between Gibraltar and Tunis) and they are all set to "limited." But the Italians, by contrast, (who already didn't like me because I went to war with France) have 12 BB, 4 BC, 14 CA, 12 CL and 10 DD sitting right in the middle of the Western Med. Their power projection is over 87000, and mine is roughly 5000. And because of that, I am constantly losing -10.0 tension/relations per turn with the Italians. It's noting I'm doing wrong...but because the Italians have such a large and powerful fleet in that sea region (compared to everyone else I guess), they are the ones creating the tension and degrading relations. 

Now, when it comes to something like AH has 3 ships and I have 76 but they are already wanting to throw hands immediately after I sank their entire navy...I honestly don't know. I usually pull my ships back to port and set them to limited to reduce tension gains (since my 15 ship task force sitting off their only port with ships in it isn't necessarily friendly), cut costs and avoid bankruptcy.

[Candle_86]

Yea this needs some work it seems BB's and BC's cause the most tension when the truth is Battleships stayed in port during peacetime outside of training cruises, they where to expensive to operate constantly and spent alot of time sailing between friendly ports not just intimidating others, and this is something not really reflected in game. With the ingame system something like the Great White fleet would have started a world war.