Add 'delay' option to declaring war

3 Apr 2023, 23:47

I don't know how well this would work in practice, but:

If your strategy involves declaring war and then immediately beginning the attack, having an option to delay the declaration the way you can delay the arrival of armies could be useful, so you could time it to coincide with the moment the majority of troops arrive on your enemy's border.

I know that surprise attacks achieve pretty much the same thing, but at the cost of your popularity. Also, they're hard to initiate against actual allies, since using the 'attack' command means you have to declare war before confirming said command. Surprise attacks only work if you simply move into neutral territory.

I also know that you could just log in at the suitable time and declare war then, but that's not really feasible if it's the middle of the night or something.

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29 Replies

4 Apr 2023, 14:29

Actually this is something genius that I wanted but never even knew I needed… Especially when I’m betraying an ally. Which you said you do often… I see through your ploy!

CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

4 Apr 2023, 14:31

I was under the impression that if you attack within 24hrs of declaring war, you still suffer the popularity penalty; perhaps that was an earlier version of the game.

4 Apr 2023, 16:16

Kolonnos wrote:
I was under the impression that if you attack within 24hrs of declaring war, you still suffer the popularity penalty; perhaps that was an earlier version of the game.

I believe it’s more like you lower relations to trade embargo for 24 hours, THEN declare war, and then you won’t have a:s much global popularity loss.

CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

4 Apr 2023, 20:29

Kolonnos wrote:
I was under the impression that if you attack within 24hrs of declaring war, you still suffer the popularity penalty; perhaps that was an earlier version of the game.

It has never been like that. War is war and all is fair. But like carking says, the penalty is lower when you embargo a significant time ahead. No one knows exactly how much though; some say 24h and some say a day change in between is enough.

4 Apr 2023, 21:30

This would be a good addition...

“A battle fought without determination is a battle lost.” - Josip Broz Tito

4 Apr 2023, 22:23

K.Rokossovski wrote:
the penalty is lower when you embargo a significant time ahead

Has this been properly tested or did someone just think it sounded good?

5 Apr 2023, 20:43

There have been several mentions of this, including from "sources close to the development team" as they say. But no, it hasn't been tested properly in laboratory circumstances.

5 Apr 2023, 22:28

Yeah, all we know is it’s probably there. Don’t know where it came from but just heard this trick once. My best guess is a full day and you get a certain reduction but again, no one knows.

CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

5 Apr 2023, 22:56

The thing is, declaring a trade embargo will erode your popularity with that country and countries that see it as popular. The more popular that country becomes the more the embargo will damage your global popularity. Since your popularity has already been damage by using the embargo going from embargo to war isn't going to look as severe as peace to war.

To figure it out it seem like you would need to start two private maps where in one you do the embargo on day x and declare on day y and in the other you just declare on day y. Track your popularity in both maps from day 0 to day y + 5ish.

6 Apr 2023, 02:43

DxC wrote:
To figure it out it seem like you would need to start two private maps where in one you do the embargo on day x and declare on day y and in the other you just declare on day y. Track your popularity in both maps from day 0 to day y + 5ish.

I know what I'm doing this week.

6 Apr 2023, 02:56

Lady Aragosta wrote:
I know what I'm doing this week.

It would also be good to keep track of the "most popular" and "most feared" countries from the newspaper. I'm not sure if these are fixed for AI given the exact same conditions or could vary randomly under the same conditions (for example, a single player doing nothing). If they do vary randomly that would throw some uncertainty into any measurements. It would also be good to keep unit production the same in the two experiments, since unit production can affect popularity.

6 Apr 2023, 10:17

There's a lot more rumors going around on this subject, for example:

- Keeping troops in borderering provinces DOT to AI decreases your popularity;

- Keeping troops in borderering provinces ROAD TO AI prov decreases your popularity;

- Doing trades increases popularity with the nation you're trading with (even though you have no idea who that is);

- The volume of these trades matters or not (1000x 1 resource may be better than 1x1000 res???); or the trade price might matter;

- smoothness of changes between other relation types (i.e. "skipping" from allied to embargo in multiple steps or just one);

- how the opinion of country A towards country B is impacted by your declaration on B;

and I'm probably forgetting some conspiracy theories here. Fact is, no one knows except for some very vague terms published by Bytro and the "gut feeling" of experienced players (and which depends very much on the actual gut you're talking to).

6 Apr 2023, 12:50

Wiki article that lists what influences popularity: https://wiki.callofwar.com/wiki/POPULARITY_AND_AI#Popularity

Surprise attacks do not trigger a bigger popularity decrease than regular war declarations. Also this "embargo 24h before" thing or "having troops on bordering provinces" is not in the game to my knowledge.

I think many of these rumors are false and stem from CoW1.0, where some of those mechanics (like surprise attack penalties) were in place, but they were removed with CoW1.5. Unfortunately they still get repeated like urban legends.

But feel free to test this yourself.

6 Apr 2023, 12:55

freezy wrote:
Surprise attacks do not trigger a bigger popularity decrease than regular war declarations.

Whoa that shatters my understanding of things, particularly this ^. I was convinced that the progression still mattered. Thanks for clarifying.

7 Apr 2023, 04:23

jubjub bird wrote:
freezy wrote:
Surprise attacks do not trigger a bigger popularity decrease than regular war declarations.
Whoa that shatters my understanding of things, particularly this ^. I was convinced that the progression still mattered. Thanks for clarifying.

Exactly, this changes my strategy when starting wars form here on out… even mods were telling me to declare war so I always assumed it was a given.

CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

7 Apr 2023, 05:56

jubjub bird wrote:
freezy wrote:
Surprise attacks do not trigger a bigger popularity decrease than regular war declarations.
Whoa that shatters my understanding of things, particularly this ^. I was convinced that the progression still mattered. Thanks for clarifying.

Whoa, even I didn't know that. Thanks @freezy

“A battle fought without determination is a battle lost.” - Josip Broz Tito

7 Apr 2023, 07:14

I even doubt if we're understanding this correctly. I have always noticed a big popularity hit when starting surprise wars.

7 Apr 2023, 09:56

So my entire COW life has been a lie lol

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7 Apr 2023, 10:05

All this aside, 'delay' options would still come in useful for declaring war on an ally. I'm sure I'm not the only chronic backstabber who needs a way to improve betrayal tactics.

10 Apr 2023, 05:08

Lady Aragosta wrote:
All this aside, 'delay' options would still come in useful for declaring war on an ally. I'm sure I'm not the only chronic backstabber who needs a way to improve betrayal tactics.