A call to arms!

[Kensai]

Sometimes I do "offensive wars". I wish there was a diplomatic move equivalent of a "call to arms" for the nations that have defensive alliances. Meaning that I could call on my allies to ask them if they care to join in an offensive war (or a defensive at a later time). The AI could be set to almost always deny this, unless the AI nation feels threatened as well (bad relations plus border troops or similar things, if the PoN engine can recognize them) by our common rival.

[loki100]

Not sure, how many instances were there in the period up to 1914 of declared offensive alliances? I mean some were clearly meant that way such as Piedmont and France in 1858-9, but both Cavour and Napoleon were having kittens in case the Austrians failed to rise to the bait and attack (or that the British managed to come up with a diplomatic fix). The sequence around WW1 was of inter-linking defensive alliances. Again no doubt that Austria knew full well that Russia would honour its deal with Serbia and would thus attack Germany and so on - but the legalistic basis was defensive deals.

Its one of the many things that PoN does so much better than Victoria in keeping to purely defensive treaties - you do end up with various balances of power in consequence.

What would be better is to build an opportunistic strand to the diplomatic AI. In effect, my rival, who holds some of my objectives has just got themselves into a war, I'll take this chance. In my AAR, I saw this once (I guess it was random chance) when Russia went for Turkey in the middle of a war. But it would be nice, and it would make things a bit less clearcut for a human player in SP, or PBEM when the AI is still controlling major powers

[Stuyvesant]

Not sure, how many instances were there in the period up to 1914 of declared offensive alliances?

Isn't this, to all intents and purposes, what the British and French did in the Crimean War (oh, and Sardinia-Piedmont, I believe)? Sure, it was coming to the aid of the beleaguered Ottomans, but they undertook a joint invasion of the Crimea.

Then there's the Prussians and Austrians ganging up on Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, possibly the French and British in Egypt (when they established the Condominium), the multi-national response to the Boxer Rebellion, and the First and Second Balkans Wars against/with the Ottomans. Those are the ones I can think of that seem to me to have been offensive in nature, even if they might not have been touted as offensive alliance wars.

[Kensai]

loki100, good points and I agree to generally stick to historical accuracy and realism than gang-ho gamey approaches. However, it is not entirely impossible to have offensive wars in this era (Stuyvesant's examples) that's why if ever implemented it should be rather remote (if the AI is in control) and/or give VP penalties (if played by a human player).

[Random]

I would argue that the Crimea really represents a poor example of an "offensive" alliance. Britain and France had set themselves up as protectors of the Ottoman Empire who welcomed the attention and actually appeared to cut back on the outrages against their assorted Christian minorities for a bit. Both also wanted to put the boots to Russia so the trumped up crisis in the Holy Land allowed them to formalize their anti-Russian strategy and the Russian naval attack on the Turks at Sinope allowed the now allies to declare war on Russia at their leisure.

So ostensibly the war was in defence of the Turks and the capture of Sevastopol would prevent Russian naval incursions into the Med.

Clive Ponting in The Crimean War states that the entry of Sardinia was to buy French goodwill for the Risorgimento and on the whole, boost their status in Europe. Building some sort of cynical opportunism into the diplomatic AI would be great but is it possible or practical I wonder?

I have always liked George MacDonald Fraser's take on war with Russia in 1854.

"Well, here we are, the French and ourselves at war with Russia in order to defend Turkey. Very good. What shall we do, then? Better attack Russia, eh? H'm, yes... Big place, ain't it?"

GMF: Flashman at the Charge

Must say that I like what I'm reading in this discussion from the knowledgeable PON crowd and really hope that the game gets some TLC after AACW2 launches.

-C