[GS] Military Emergency called by Aggressor

[Heinage]

During the most recent livestream of the Ottomans, a World Congress Special Session is called by Hungary - seen in this clip at 47:14:

My problem with this is 3-fold:

1. Hungary is the aggressor in the war against the Ottomans
2. Hungary declared a Surprise War on the Ottomans
3. The Ottomans only took 2 Hungarian cities in a counter-offensive

Taking all of this into account, I don't think it's fair that the Ottomans should be targeted for an emergency.

It's a shame because I really like diplomatic solutions to counter war-mongering, and the potential of the system is great if used appropriately, but here we have an example of a military emergency being employed in - in my opinion at least - a counter-intuitive manner.

Thoughts?

 

[rastak]

I didn't see anywhere on that screen that Hungary called it. Ed said "the world had taken notice", not "Hungary proposed".

In addition, I presume Carl overstepped his grievances he had banked which would make him a warmonger on not one executing a measured response.

 

[sonicmyst]

If Hungary called it, I would like to think of it as Matthias lying to the world that he was the victim. Lol.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The aggressor doesn't matter. It was called by the person who lost the war. Your perception of context is so human. It is lost on the AI.

 

[Heinage]

It would have been interesting to see the Hungarian Grievances vs. Ottoman Grievances.

We know that the Hungarians already got 150 Grievances for declaring a Surprise War, although that is potentially scaled a little down for third parties.

We didn't get to see all the Grievances the Ottomans had racked up against other civs, but the way it was set up, it didn't look like it would have been very high.

 

[Heinage]

The aggressor doesn't matter. It was called by the person who lost the war. Your perception of context is so human. It is lost on the AI.

But that is precisely the problem. Context is important and there's no reason the AI shouldn't take these things into account to make the system work as intended.

 

[rastak]

The aggressor doesn't matter. It was called by the person who lost the war. Your perception of context is so human. It is lost on the AI.

Well, I paused on that emergency screen and it did not say Hungary proposed it. Plus, the war was ongoing. My guess is Carl went past what grievances would allow which triggered an emergency as opposed to a specific civ proposing an emergency.

I could certainly be wrong but in looking at the screen that's my best guess.


edit: Ed did say shortly thereafter it was proposed so I'm not sure why the screen doesn't show WHO proposed.

 

[Cerilis]

Given that paca dumped so many votes on it, maybe he called it? He seemed angry enough for the mountain city already.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

In Rise & Fall, a military emergency is triggered whenever a player who is currently leading in one of the five (now six) victory types takes a city from another player by military force. I'm going to proceed on the assumption that hasn't changed.

In other words, the purpose of a military emergency is to encourage players to team-up against a snowballer who's running away with the game.

Seen from that perspective, it doesn't seem so unrealistic that a special session of the world congress would be called. "The balance of power" is a term that was coined in real life, after all. No one wants to see the big get bigger, regardless of whatever justification they have for doing so.

Yes, that means if you're leading in one of the victory types, and someone declares a surprise war on you, you'll have to sit back and defend instead of taking their cities if you want to avoid triggering a military emergency. That's just the price of being on top.

 

[leandrombraz]

Well, I paused on that emergency screen and it did not say Hungary proposed it. Plus, the war was ongoing. My guess is Carl went past what grievances would allow which triggered an emergency as opposed to a specific civ proposing an emergency.

I could certainly be wrong but in looking at the screen that's my best guess.


edit: Ed did say shortly thereafter it was proposed so I'm not sure why the screen doesn't show WHO proposed.

Carl had 150 grievances against Hungary from the declaration. Hungary got 57 against him for conquering Miskolc, then 75 for Óbuda, so 132, which leave him with 18 grievances against Hungary. He was still on his right to set things straight. Also Miskolc was the target of the emergency and it was captured first, so it triggered when he still had plenty of grievances against Hungary.

 

[Heinage]

In Rise & Fall, a military emergency is triggered whenever a player who is currently leading in one of the five (now six) victory types takes a city from another player by military force. I'm going to proceed on the assumption that hasn't changed.

In other words, the purpose of a military emergency is to encourage players to team-up against a snowballer who's running away with the game.

Seen from that perspective, it doesn't seem so unrealistic that a special session of the world congress would be called. "The balance of power" is a term that was coined in real life, after all. No one wants to see the big get bigger, regardless of whatever justification they have for doing so.

Yes, that means if you're leading in one of the victory types, and someone declares a surprise war on you, you'll have to sit back and defend instead of taking their cities if you want to avoid triggering a military emergency. That's just the price of being on top.

...Sure, except that the Ottomans - in this instance - were, by no means, "on top". In fact, at 3:10 in the livestream you can see that they were nowhere near leading in ANY of the victory types:

Spoiler :

• 5th in Science
• 7th in Culture
• 8th in DOMINATION (last place!)
• 3rd in Religious
• 6th in Diplomatic

I haven't checked later on in the stream, but I find it unlikely that he managed to get to the top in any of those areas.

Keeping balance of power is cool but it doesn't look like the Ottomans were threatening to run away with it here. They were just reacting, in a measured way, against Hungarian aggression.
Hungary was higher in points, and in almost all the victory conditions. They declared a surprise war. To top it off, the 2 others who joined in the emergency were all ranked higher than the Ottomans!

 

[BackseatTyrant]

I think what may have triggered the emergency call was the Ottomans refusing to make peace with Hungary

 

[Ivan Hunger]

I haven't checked later on in the stream, but I find it unlikely that he managed to get to the top in any of those areas.

I don't. That early in the game, victory placing can swing wildly from one extreme to the other in no time at all. Sometimes all it takes is upgrading a handful of units to jump from last place to first in domination victory.

Notice that all the circles in the religious victory section are completely greyed out, meaning no one in the game at that point had managed to establish their religion as a majority in any empire, not even their own. If, while Carl was busy warring, passive religious spread caused enough cities in his own empire to convert to Islam to count as a majority, that would have instantly put him in the lead for religious victory, satisfying the conditions for a military emergency upon his conquest of Miskolc.

 

[pgm123]

I can think of a very recent example of the aggressor of the war calling the emergency to get international help. I'd go into it, but it's probably controversial and too political. But it happens.

 

[Heinage]

I don't. That early in the game, victory placing can swing wildly from one extreme to the other in no time at all. Sometimes all it takes is upgrading a handful of units to jump from last place to first in domination victory.

Notice that all the circles in the religious victory section are completely greyed out, meaning no one in the game at that point had managed to establish their religion as a majority in any empire, not even their own. If, while Carl was busy warring, passive religious spread caused enough cities in his own empire to convert to Islam to count as a majority, that would have instantly put him in the lead for religious victory, satisfying the conditions for a military emergency upon his conquest of Miskolc.

Granted that could be the case, and could be what's triggering the emergency.
But don't you think that the system is broken if that's what happened? Do you think it should work that way? Is it in keeping with the spirit of stopping a runaway domination Civ?
I don't think the Ottoman's reaction to Hungarian aggression was so severe that the world should convene and declare a military emergency against them. The grievances accumulated by both sides attests to that.
What's the point of third party evaluation of grievances related to this war if the person who has racked up less grievances can be considered the "bad guy"?

The more I think about it, and look at the situation, the more I think that there are only 2 options:
- They haven’t finished building it yet. This showed an incomplete military emergency implementation which they’ll finish in a follow-up patch.
- They know it’s bugged for this build, and they are still working on the final touches of how it works

If I'm wrong about the above 2 possible situations, then I predict plenty of complaints about the emergency system frustrating people fighting defensive wars

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

does anyone else also find the fact that Pacu got mad because of the mountain city that Carl conquered and started the cycle of top3 ( score wise ) civs vs player funny?

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Granted that could be the case, and could be what's triggering the emergency.
But don't you think that the system is broken if that's what happened? Do you think it should work that way? Is it in keeping with the spirit of stopping a runaway domination Civ?
I don't think the Ottoman's reaction to Hungarian aggression was so severe that the world should convene and declare a military emergency against them. The grievances accumulated by both sides attests to that.
What's the point of third party evaluation of grievances related to this war if the person who has racked up less grievances can be considered the "bad guy"?

The more I think about it, and look at the situation, the more I think that there are only 2 options:
- They haven’t finished building it yet. This showed an incomplete military emergency implementation which they’ll finish in a follow-up patch.
- They know it’s bugged for this build, and they are still working on the final touches of how it works

If I'm wrong about the above 2 possible situations, then I predict plenty of complaints about the emergency system frustrating people fighting defensive wars

I could see an argument to be made that military emergencies should not trigger until later in the game when victory leadership shifts less frequently.

But Carl is at least partially to blame for not checking to see if he was leading in any of the victories before taking the city.

And even if he had checked, I suspect he would have gone through with the invasion regardless. Frankly, there's nothing about that emergency that doesn't work out to his advantage. He's in a very good position to defend Miskolc from being being retaken, so all those rival empires accomplished by joining the emergency was wasting their diplomatic favor and handing him some free bonuses.

Grievances and emergencies are two different systems that serve different purposes. The grievance system affects global disposition toward you, but the emergency system doesn't. Notice that Carl's relationship with the Maori wasn't effected by the emergency at all, for example.

 

[Victoria]

To me quibbles are sorted by invading and ravaging someone until the pay me for the grievance I had.
If they then take 2 of my cities that is a different situation altogether. If you take someone’s cities that is just not right.

I feel this idea of if you are attacked you have a right to take a couple of cities is a gamer concept.

 

[Naeshar]

I feel this idea of if you are attacked you have a right to take a couple of cities is a gamer concept.

I agree, the concept of righteous reparation is in our minds. It wasn't put in the game, in the AI. Now they incorporated part of this in the grievance system.
If you have units near/in their territory while not at war, they gather evidence and get angry. When you do so in war, nothing happens. You can shuffle around as much as you want, pillage and crush their units and break walls and there will be no complaints. However the moment you take a city, it is registered and remembered forever... However if the city rebels through loyalty and is taken by force, none of this happens.

The conquest emergency is called upon conquering a city. It seems it does not depend on anything else. In the stream, Carl certainly had enough grievances banked against Hungary and wasn't in the top score. Also, the emergency was called upon a smaller city, Miskolc conquered first, before Obuda. I believe the process is set up differently.

In my recent games I never had any emergency. Granted, I play king and am usually quite peaceful, but there was no emergency against AIs! The most common emergency I got is religious - when I convert a holy city, before a city state capture (with one enemy being the convertee). The AI pretty much never does any of that.
I wonder why are the emergencies called when I never get them, as I am usually leading the boards.(!)
Why is the AI hesitant to initiate an emergency. (!)
Why was the emergency in live stream supported by Inca and Canada but not Spain.(!)

The conclusion is: Emergencies are declared when a minor power is attempting to take on a greater power (score-wise).

Take that in.
Emergencies are not events to prevent snowballs, nor balance. They are tools to hamper the catch-up, or to challenge them. You want to get into the elite club? Show us in a war and perhaps you get rewarded!
Since it is based on score, the lesser civs do not vote or join against you. They are programmed to not attempt to take on greater strength enemies, as they fear retaliation from the powerful. However if the cards are reversed, they will not hesitate to declare surprise wars, join emergencies and send troops (as Canada did in the stream).
It makes sense historically. Islam conquering Christian cities? Crusade! Ottomans attacking Hungary? Let's ally (except for France) against them! Soviets in Europe? Cold war!
Sometimes it was different (compare Napoleon)

I am shortened of these experiences as I usually play efficiently and lead the scoreboards. This is why I can easily gobble small civs and be denounced and never declared war on forever. The strategy is to never challenge the big guys openly. Get bigger and you can do whatever you want. The AI will not stop you.

 

[Disgustipated]

can think of a very recent example of the aggressor of the war calling the emergency to get international help

I have no idea what you are referring to. Don't just tease us. Are you referring to the Iraq war? I won't get into that since it's obviously off topic. Regardless since no cities were taken from the U.S. it can't compare. Or maybe you are referring to Ukraine? No idea.

I feel this idea of if you are attacked you have a right to take a couple of cities is a gamer concept

This. I'm okay with there being consequences to taking such a large and important city. Keep in mind civs had to use a lot of diplomatic pull to get this done. Actually sounds like the U.S. again in the Iraq war trying to get allies like England.