Federation/unification possibilities bug

[st.lucifer]

I recognize that this probably isn't a major update priority, but I've found some overlapping bugs/conflicts while trying to unify the world into a handful of giant nations.
The issues are that, if done in the wrong order, the sequence becomes permanently impossible, and may lead to circular federation formation. An example:
Currently in mid-endgame on earth, all unification techs researched, 1500+ CP available, control all of Asia, Oceania, Caliphate, working on African Union.
Using Greater Austronesia, I unify Australia/NZ/Malaysia/Singapore/Pacific States/Philippines into Indonesia with the intent of adding it to Pan-Asian Combine. I forget that PAC doesn't have a claim on Jakarta. This can be avoided by folding Greater Austronesia into Southeast Asian Alliance, but if you've merged Thailand into PAC already, that's off the table. Releasing Thailand from PAC doesn't bring back the option of SEAA, even if you release Cambodia or another friend to merge into Thailand, as the Thailand released from the PAC isn't the SEAA version anymore.
No problem. I can merge Indonesia (oddly, Greater Austronesia version still shows up as Indonesia) into the Caliphate...except, after being federated with the PAC, Caliphate (House of Islam version) shows up as....Turkestan? Ok, I'll try federating with that, while I unify Turkey into the Caliphate. This now has Indonesia federated with Indonesia? Let's undo that. Undone...but now the only federation option for Indonesia is the US, for some mysterious reason. The Caliphate still has a claim on Jakarta, but there's no way to do the federation anymore.
Obviously, there are a lot of interlocking parts to all of this, and that's why this gets tangled up and impossible - but maybe the problem is that there are far too many interlocking parts. It makes sense to have different federations available, and to have expanded versions of the larger agglomerations out there - but if a mistake in the sequencing trashes a year of gameplay, that's a real problem. Maybe the solution is fewer federations, rather than trying to sort out the spaghetti?

[gimmethegepgun]

It sounds like you're referring to the federation name, rather than the countries themselves. The federation name is completely meaningless for the purposes of Unifying countries. Any nation in the federation can Unify any other nation in the federation whose capital they claim. The only things the federation name means are which country must be controlled to add a country into it, and which country can't leave the federation with Set National Policy.

[st.lucifer]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

It sounds like you're referring to the federation name, rather than the countries themselves. The federation name is completely meaningless for the purposes of Unifying countries. Any nation in the federation can Unify any other nation in the federation whose capital they claim. The only things the federation name means are which country must be controlled to add a country into it, and which country can't leave the federation with Set National Policy.

The issue is with joining the federation in the first place. Unification can't happen without federation first, and if a country joining one federation is then blocked from joining another after leaving the first federation, that's a real problem (and that's what I'm describing here.) I could theoretically unify it militarily, but I've disbanded most armies and would have to build new ones for that purpose.

A more succinct version of my complaint is that if Indonesia joins a federation and then leaves it, it loses the ability to join a federation with a different country which actually has a claim on its capital.

[gimmethegepgun]

Are you sure that you meet the stated criteria for joining the federation? They must be allied to at least one member of the federation, must not be rivals with any member of the federation, and they must not have diplomatic cooldown on at least one of the appropriate allies, nor any of the ones with neutral relations.

[st.lucifer]

This is not my first rodeo, sir. I have hundreds of hours of playtime over the last few years and several versions. Please do not mistake me for a drooling idiot.

I have successfully unified all of Oceania into Indonesia, and the Philippines/Malaysia/Singapore, in addition to successfully forming Greater India, Pan-Asian Combine (minus Indonesia/Malaysia/Philippines/Singapore), and other federations successfully in the past.

I've gone back to an earlier save to see how the sequencing worked, and found that it broke in a different way when I had Turkey join the Caliphate in federation.

Turkey is offered the option to join into federation with the Caliphate or the EU (which I don't control.) When I choose the Caliphate, it tells me that Turkey has successfully federated with Turkestan.
I then, in the same turn, try to federate Indonesia with the Caliphate (which has a claim on Jakarta.) The Caliphate is no longer an option for federation (it was last turn.) Instead, I can join the Pan-Asian Combine (no claim on Jakarta), The United States (?!), or...Turkestan? I choose Turkestan. The message it then gives is that Indonesia has joined in federation with Indonesia.

I'm still playing with saves to see if Turkey is the breaking point, or Indonesia.

[st.lucifer]

edit:
The source of the problem may be that since Turkey/Indonesia have larger economies than the Caliphate, they may be taking over that federation until unification occurs, thus transforming the country from one federation into a different one incompatible with additional mergers - so, if the Caliphate becomes Turkestan until Turkey is absorbed, Indonesia can't federate with it because it's not the Caliphate anymore (temporarily.)
After federating Indonesia into the Caliphate, the Caliphate's previous federated junior partners show up as federated with Indonesia.

[gimmethegepgun]

Again, why do you care what the federation is called? If they're in the same federation that's all that matters for Unifying.

[st.lucifer]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Again, why do you care what the federation is called? If they're in the same federation that's all that matters for Unifying.

Am I making a mistake by assuming that you're sincerely trying to address the question?

I care what the federation is called because it makes it impossible for the country to join a federation with the other country. If Turkey federates with the Caliphate, Indonesia is no longer able to federate with the Caliphate. That's the problem. I don't care if the new federation is called gimmethegepgunhasnoreadingcomprehensionskills, if I can merge Indonesia into it. I can't. All requirements are met from the Caliphate end, according to the tooltip, and when setting the national policy in Indonesia, federation with that end of the world is no longer an option that can be selected.

The original problem was that after removing itself from the Pan-Asian Combine federation, Indonesia couldn't see the Caliphate as a potential federation partner in the set policy menu. I thought it was that releasing Indonesia as a partner reset the name/flag of the Greater Austronesian Federation (which was still showing up as Indonesia in game), but it looks like that wasn't the issue, and it went further back.

I'm working through permutations of this to find out where and how it breaks. Again, not my first game, not my first playthrough, not my first time trying to identify and fix bugs. Why are you so committed to the idea that I'm doing it wrong?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by st.lucifer:

Am I making a mistake by assuming that you're sincerely trying to address the question?

I am being sincere. I asked that again because you keep bringing up what the federation is called, and the federation leader changing, and all that, because I have never seen that matter except for the 2 things I said.

Why are you so committed to the idea that I'm doing it wrong?

Because it's generally a safe assumption when what someone is saying completely contradicts your own experience.

Here, I'll go in more detail into why I think you're doing something wrong, or seeing a problem where there isn't one:

Originally posted by st.lucifer:

Turkey is offered the option to join into federation with the Caliphate or the EU (which I don't control.) When I choose the Caliphate, it tells me that Turkey has successfully federated with Turkestan.
I then, in the same turn, try to federate Indonesia with the Caliphate (which has a claim on Jakarta.) The Caliphate is no longer an option for federation (it was last turn.) Instead, I can join the Pan-Asian Combine (no claim on Jakarta), The United States (?!), or...Turkestan? I choose Turkestan. The message it then gives is that Indonesia has joined in federation with Indonesia.

I see literally nothing wrong whatsoever with this chain of events as described (aside from changes in federation leadership that are funky, but I believe you when you say that it did, and that the reporting of federation changes needs to be fixed to say that it joined the federation and assumed leadership). Turkey joins Caliphate and the name of the federation turns into Turkestan, with Turkey as the leader, for whatever reason. Fine, Caliphate is in federation with Turkestan. Then, you have Indonesia join Turkestan, which turns into the Indonesian federation. Okay, fine, Indonesia is now the leader of a federation with Turkey and Caliphate in it. I see no problem here at all except dubious changes in federation leadership and bad reporting of events on the game's part.
Also, as a side note, Indonesia gets a claim on Hawaii with Greater Austronesia, which is why it can federate with the US.

[st.lucifer]

Thank you for the clarification.

After disengaging from the PAC, Indonesia couldn't federate into either iteration of the Caliphate blob (Caliphate or Turkestan), and couldn't rejoin the PAC. It could only federate with the US. (Thank you for the explanation there.)
An attempt to get it into the PAC through the SEAA was also a bust when releasing Thailand from the PAC didn't give it the option to form the SEAA even with potential vassal states, as it was purely Thailand again.

So, there's the issue you described - bad reporting of events/dubious changes in federation leadership - and the issue that I'm more concerned with, which is the loss of one set of federation capabilities after being in a federation or unification with a different blob. It's all fine if you do it in the correct order, but if you make a mistake in that sequence, it's irreparable.

[nephilimnexus]

What they really need to do is make it so that when you merge two federations together a pop-up would ask which one is merging into which - as in which federation is the dominant partner, so to speak.

[civ4napb]

Hi , im not such deep into the game , not as experienced as you guys seem to be and this is not really the topic but i have a noob question about federations . I went for Russia start and unified all eurasian confed regions , completed warsaw pact tech after i took control of all the regions relative to this pact . Got allied to all of them and now to the point i diplomaticly included them into eurasian pact before diplo unifications . For some reason i gnore it doesnt seem i ll be able to include Romania (bucarest) into the federation . Is this a bug ? Does the game consider some regions claims simply as casus belli for wars and they cant be diplomaticly absorbed ?

[civ4napb]

got the answer to my own question .
it was only a mater of time . To be candidate to join a federation you must be in positon to make an alliance with every members of the federation . You dont necesarally need the alliances to be made but the cooldown to allow them must be to its end .