Slitherine

Ran into this clever use of the diplomacy system in a current PBEM game:

Faction A (human player) is at war with Faction B (another human player). A has seized many regions from B thus far in the war after an opening offensive, but B is a fairly large power and can still fight back.

A then asks Faction C, a neutral power, to become a client state of C. C naturally agrees, and A becomes a client of C.

What happens next is, since B and C are at peace, the war between A and B immediately ends. And A gets to keep all the occupied regions formerly owned by B.

So, it's basically a diplo-exploit: By becoming a client state of an uninvolved faction, one can take full control of war-occupied regions without a formal peace treaty. And I assume after a cooldown period (10 years?), the client can just go independent again. So, very little downside.

Not sure what the best solution here is, but does seem like an issue ...

That's bad!

I'll note it and it will take top priority for the next patch (IDK when, don't ask, but there will be one). I would say the straightforwardesque solution is to have any nation becoming a CS relinquish all war-occupied regions. That's blunt, but it avoids exploiting the system.