Victory points confusion

[Richie_b]

Not sure if I am being dumb or if there is a bug, but just had an event that pretty much broke my campaign.
Playing as US with 1890 start.  War started with Austro-Hungary in 1898 and with Russia a wee bit after.  Took fleet into the Med and took out a large part of the AH fleet & they sued for peace.  Took ships back repaired and back out.  Sailed right past about 20 different Russian fleets and couldn't provoke a fight at all.  All the time they are accumulating 250VPs a turn.  Parked a fleet by Gibraltor and four Russian fleets sail right past, one of which turn ended in my zone of control.  Still no fight.  Ended up having to accept peace and lost two provinces and a huge sum of money.

What am I doing wrong?  I literally couldn't fight them at all & they can rack up VPs at a silly rate.  Even at that rate, I would have had to be super aggressive (given the distances involved) to keep pace.  The AH war worked as before (no VP accumulation without fighting and fleets close to each other end up fighting), but the Russian one was literally unwinnable since they are generating VPs and I cannot get any at all, which leads to a catastrophic end. 
So the issues are:
-how do I tell in advance what the VP accumulation will be & how is this calculated?

-how do I force conflict or generate VPs in other ways?

If I am doing something stupid, please let me know.  Playing as per previous patch & some stuff must have changed that I have missed....

[Wowzery]

I don't understand that 250 VP per turn either.  In three campaigns as the US (doing restarts as I learn about things), been at war with Russia twice before 1900.  One time I earned the 250, the other he did.  I'm not sure where those points are even coming from.  Makes no sense.

Side note, so far, in all three campaigns, Russia is at war with almost everyone by 1896.  The only reason I'm not at war with Russia in the latest one is I'm still building up my fleet (started with 0 ships to see if I could construct a full fleet).  Just humorous to see everyone at war with Russia.

[Admiral Donuts]

It almost seems as arbitrary and confusing as politics.

Here I have a Japanese campaign I restarted. It's 1900 in an 1890 campaign. The world is at war. Basically, with Russia. Russia is winning somehow. It's easier to tell you the US and myself are not at war with Russia.

*I* - have good relations with them. And China. *shrug* Go figure.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Admiral Donuts