Playing as Belgium...

[StatboyVT]

Just got back from spending a few days in Belgium, and loved it, and now I'm interesting in doing a game as Belgium. Problem is, I've tried it a couple of times before, and Prussia always declares war (and sometimes on The Netherlands, too). Is that everyone's experience, or did I just have bad luck?

The way I see it, the Treaty of London in 1839 should just about guarantee that nobody invades Belgium, and it did until 1914, but it's not implemented into the game.

[loki100]

digging deep into long disused memory cells .. I don't think there is a way to hardwire peace/treaties but I recall you can hardwire a conflict.

the agewiki may help find a script you can set up but I'm not so sure that Belgium really was that protected. The Prussians avoided it in 1870 as they felt invading France directly was a better plan, the French seriously considered crossing the border (& some of their units did - though mostly in search of booze etc)

[StatboyVT]

digging deep into long disused memory cells .. I don't think there is a way to hardwire peace/treaties but I recall you can hardwire a conflict.

the agewiki may help find a script you can set up but I'm not so sure that Belgium really was that protected. The Prussians avoided it in 1870 as they felt invading France directly was a better plan, the French seriously considered crossing the border (& some of their units did - though mostly in search of booze etc)

I figured that was the case, thanks.

My understanding of the London Treaty is that Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia all guaranteed Belgium independence. That was ultimately what brought Britain into WWI. Prussia (which wasn't Germain yet) wouldn't have risked war with Britain in the 19th century, IMO. At any rate, there is no diplomatic guarantee option in PON, which in hindsight is a bit odd. Oh well, I can always use the console commands.

[loki100]

I;'d sugges a key issue is that in 1914 the UK was looking for an excuse to enter the war, in 1870 much less so. If anything the govt was pro-Prussian

but to the game, its not worth now rehearsing the issues but it was essentially sabotaged by Paradox and a whole load of stuff was never developed as intended.

you can set a war as forever so it only ends in total victory, I did this with the revised scripts for the Risorgimento to stop Piedmont and the Two Sicilies making a peace (if that was how the chain developed). But structured alliances are not feasible - apart from by a lot of speicfic scripts