Defensive Wars

[The Boominator]

So I've got a lot of hours in the game and a lot of experience in warfare (most of my games are as Brandenburg/Prussia). As I'm sure most of you know, every war is declared with a casus belli and this affects war score costs, aggressive expansion, and prestige.

My question is whether the casus belli of the attacker applies to the defender. Easy example I often run into:

I'm Brandenburg. I declare war on the Teutonic Order some time after Poland has absolutely wrecked them (and took most of their provinces). During the course of my conquest, Poland decides to finish off the Teutonic Order and declares war with a conquest CB (100% AE, prestige, warscore cost). Having already controlled the Teutonic capital, I decide to make the Teutonic Order my vassal. Now I'm fighting a defensive war with Poland and can call in all of my allies. So Poland gets wrecked and I return all of the Teutonic Order's cores to it in the peace deal.

My question is... what CB is used for my peace deal? Are there special conditions for the defender? Had I vassalized the Teutons and declared war on Poland with a "reconquest" CB, then the cost and AE of returning cores would be dramatically reduced, but it doesn't make sense to me that the defender would take the same AE hit that an attacker would.

Edit: Not sure if returning cores costs AE at all. Nevertheless, the cost of the return is affected by the CB.

[Kapika96]

CBs only affect the attacker.

If you're worried about AE then don't take cores in a defensive war, make sure you're the attacker in a reconquest war for the -75% AE.

You also wouldn't get the AE reduction from cores if you declared a conquest war, so why should you get extra bonuses as the defender that you may not even get as an attacker?

[The Boominator]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

CBs only affect the attacker.

If you're worried about AE then don't take cores in a defensive war, make sure you're the attacker in a reconquest war for the -75% AE.

You also wouldn't get the AE reduction from cores if you declared a conquest war, so why should you get extra bonuses as the defender that you may not even get as an attacker?

It's not so much a concern for me as it is a matter of both curiosity and my own opinions about game design. I feel that a defender is necessarily less aggressive than an attacker and as such should get less aggressive expansion from any gains it makes it wars.

So are defenders treated akin to co-belligerents whereby they have no CB modifier in taking items in a peace deal? Obviously as a belligerent they aren't subject to the increased costs, but are they not subject to a modifier? I feel like there should be a "defender CB" that reduces aggressive expansion.

[bri]

Note that the CB does affect the sort of demands that can be made by the defender as well as the attacker. For example the humiliate CB doesn't allow the defender to take land from the attacker either.

[The Boominator]

Originally posted by bri:

Note that the CB does affect the sort of demands that can be made by the defender as well as the attacker. For example the humiliate CB doesn't allow the defender to take land from the attacker either.

I could be mistaken, but I think defenders can demand territory in a humiliation war (or trade conflict). I don't think the defender is subject to the attacker's CB, for better or worse.

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by The Boominator:

Originally posted by Kapika96:

CBs only affect the attacker.

If you're worried about AE then don't take cores in a defensive war, make sure you're the attacker in a reconquest war for the -75% AE.

You also wouldn't get the AE reduction from cores if you declared a conquest war, so why should you get extra bonuses as the defender that you may not even get as an attacker?

It's not so much a concern for me as it is a matter of both curiosity and my own opinions about game design. I feel that a defender is necessarily less aggressive than an attacker and as such should get less aggressive expansion from any gains it makes it wars.

So are defenders treated akin to co-belligerents whereby they have no CB modifier in taking items in a peace deal? Obviously as a belligerent they aren't subject to the increased costs, but are they not subject to a modifier? I feel like there should be a "defender CB" that reduces aggressive expansion.

Looking at it a bit more it seems the defender does get a modifier for some CBs, eg. the Unify China CB affects both the attacker and defender.

I kind of agree that the defender should get an AE reduction for regular wars though. Of course it shouldn't always be the case. I mean if they're the defender in a coalition war then reduced AE definitely wouldn't make sense, they're being attacked because they were aggressive in the first place after all.

[bri]

Originally posted by The Boominator:

Originally posted by bri:

Note that the CB does affect the sort of demands that can be made by the defender as well as the attacker. For example the humiliate CB doesn't allow the defender to take land from the attacker either.

I could be mistaken, but I think defenders can demand territory in a humiliation war (or trade conflict). I don't think the defender is subject to the attacker's CB, for better or worse.

You're wrong. However the CB effects don't always apply to separate peace deals which you can take advantage of do do things you wouldn't be allowed in the "primary" peace deal (assuming, of course, that you are the war leader for your side). So to use the humiliate example, you can force vassal and such if you knock a 3rd party out of the war but you can't do anything of that sort to the enemy war leader.

[Magus]

Originally posted by bri:

However the CB effects don't always apply to separate peace deals which you can take advantage of do do things you wouldn't be allowed in the "primary" peace deal (assuming, of course, that you are the war leader for your side). So to use the humiliate example, you can force vassal and such if you knock a 3rd party out of the war but you can't do anything of that sort to the enemy war leader.

Actually you can't vassalize or take provinces with the humiliate rival CB. Your memory has betrayed you!

[Ashling]

The Wiki says you get a -1% AE reduction per development as the victor in a defensive war, after some in game testing, that's probably right? There's probably a reduction to AE, but I couldn't find the extent of it. I did find that there's an upper limit to the AE reduced/given per Dev though

[The Boominator]

Originally posted by Triangle:

The Wiki says you get a -1% AE reduction per development as the victor in a defensive war, after some in game testing, that's probably right? There's definitely a reduction to AE, but I couldn't find the extent of it. I did find that there's an upper limit to the AE reduced/given per Dev though

Yeah, this is my finding, too. It does SEEM like there is a reduction to AE, but it's not clear to me how significant this is or even if it exists at all. I've only fought a handful of defensive wars outside of coalitions and vassal manipulation.

[bri]

Originally posted by BB Magus:

Originally posted by bri:

However the CB effects don't always apply to separate peace deals which you can take advantage of do do things you wouldn't be allowed in the "primary" peace deal (assuming, of course, that you are the war leader for your side). So to use the humiliate example, you can force vassal and such if you knock a 3rd party out of the war but you can't do anything of that sort to the enemy war leader.

Actually you can't vassalize or take provinces with the humiliate rival CB. Your memory has betrayed you!

"Humiliate", not "humiliate rival". They are two different CBs, and I didn't say you could, I said if you make third party peace deals (which are always treated as being no-CB) then in some cases you can "break" the rules of the primary CB.

[The Boominator]

Originally posted by bri:

You're wrong. However the CB effects don't always apply to separate peace deals which you can take advantage of do do things you wouldn't be allowed in the "primary" peace deal (assuming, of course, that you are the war leader for your side). So to use the humiliate example, you can force vassal and such if you knock a 3rd party out of the war but you can't do anything of that sort to the enemy war leader.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is wrong. You definitely can't vassalize or take territory from any participants in a humiliation war you declare. As a non-belligerent (say, you're called into the war by an ally), you enter under the "No CB" war condition, which means you are not bound by the war leader's CB and thus could take territory or make vassals in a separate peace (which would annoy your ally). Maybe this is what you meant?

As for being able to take land in humiliation wars, it seems to me that the AI can take territory as a defender in these wars. As a test, I started a 1444 game and immediately declared a humilitation war I knew I couldn't win (and didn't try to win) against Luneberg, Stettin, and Bohemia. All of the nations in the war took territory.

[bri]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is wrong. You definitely can't vassalize or take territory from any participants in a humiliation war you declare.

Off-topic, the topic is what can the defender do / does the CB apply to the defender.

[The Boominator]

Originally posted by bri:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is wrong. You definitely can't vassalize or take territory from any participants in a humiliation war you declare.

Off-topic, the topic is what can the defender do / does the CB apply to the defender.

It was a tangent from the topic and it makes me question your reliability as a source. The purpose of this thread is to inform, so correcting information is important. I'm not trying to call you out or anything, I'm just trying to provide accurate information for anyone who comes across this post.

[grotaclas]

It is pretty inconsistent which part of a CB (if any) apply to the defender. Usually all normal peace terms* are allowed and I think that there is no discount for warscore and no additional prestige. I think there is an AE discount for the defender(there is a lot of wrong information in the wiki about the AE formula), but for most CBs there is not an extra AE discount from the CB. But there are many exceptions.
Even from the game files it is very difficult to determine what the defender is allowed to do. Compare for example the following CBs:
* Humiliate Rival allows the taking of provinces by the defender (but not the special show strength peace term)
* Humiliate(the CB for native council OPMs) doesn't seem to allow the taking of provinces by any participant
* Force migration seems to allow the taking of provinces by the defender and allows the attacker to take provinces from the allies of the defender.

*Edit: with normal peace terms I mean peace terms which are allowed in no-cb wars and in other wars in which they are not explicitly forbidden. So even if they are forbidden for the attacker in that CB, they are usually not forbidden for the defender(but there are exceptions). Likewise extra peace terms(e.g. Form union) are not available for the defender unless they are explicitly given to the defender in the definition of the wargoal in the game files

[The Boominator]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

It is pretty inconsistent which part of a CB (if any) apply to the defender. Usually all normal peace terms* are allowed and I think that there is no discount for warscore and no additional prestige. I think there is an AE discount for the defender(there is a lot of wrong information in the wiki about the AE formula), but for most CBs there is not an extra AE discount from the CB. But there are many exceptions.
Even from the game files it is very difficult to determine what the defender is allowed to do. Compare for example the following CBs:
* Humiliate Rival allows the taking of provinces by the defender (but not the special show strength peace term)
* Humiliate(the CB for native council OPMs) doesn't seem to allow the taking of provinces by any participant
* Force migration seems to allow the taking of provinces by the defender and allows the attacker to take provinces from the allies of the defender.

*Edit: with normal peace terms I mean peace terms which are allowed in no-cb wars and in other wars in which they are not explicitly forbidden. So even if they are forbidden for the attacker in that CB, they are usually not forbidden for the defender(but there are exceptions). Likewise extra peace terms(e.g. Form union) are not available for the defender unless they are explicitly given to the defender in the definition of the wargoal in the game files

Thank you! This was very informative. At least I know I'm not entirely crazy.