I haven't found the solution yet as right now Julius is asking an astounding price to make peace (4-5 cities IIRC).
But I can make a quick overview on how war tributes work.
To start the explanation, we have to start with
AI_dealVal() function which I personally call the crossroad place of trades where objects' true value are evaluated. For instance, a tech value is not its cost or gold is worth in reality double or triple under the game skin.
For each side, this function is used to calculate the value of a trade and of course, when it goes to human-AI, the human deal always has to be >= AI deal in value to conclude a negociation.
In that function, there is a place I can call value for war cost/state. It leads to another function,
AI_endWarVal() where it calculates how expensive it should be to end a war.
Each party has its
AI_endWarVal() (I think it is calculated for the human too and simply been substracted from AI one) and after substraction, the value for a party is what the one asks for ending the war. If the human, you can end the war without tribute if you feel merciful. But if it is an AI, yep, you have to pay the price. And that
AI_endWarVal() goes in
AI_dealVal() where you have to give something to equate at least that war cost; could be cities, techs, lump sums, etc.
How the
AI_endWarVal() is calculated?
Here are the relevant points:
- The initial value for any war is 100.
- Number of cities are pondered and the resulting added value to that value of 100 is 3*NumCities.
- Population is a factor too and Julius got plenty compared to your empire. Total population is the added additional value to 100.
- War success is a huge part in the tribute. After calculating the war success total number, it is multiplied by a factor 20! If you killed for instance 20 units, then you got 80 war success and 160 of war value for war success.
- Power is indeed another factor. It is simply a ratio like (HisPower)/(YourPower+HisPower). That ratio is multiplied with the sum of the 4 previous values. Julius is 1.3 stronger than you, which means it inflates his war tribute compared to you.
- Then, it goes with specific set of other conditions that mutitply with factors the sum of values we just did. Something relarted to AI-AI wars, dagger wars, AI near dom, AI under financial trouble (Julius is not pressed by finance)).
In a nutshell, although you got more war successes (I think), he got more cities, more population, more power. That is probably the reason he won't give in. Still, this is the most insane tribute I ever seen. What happened,
Pigswill?