Please make achievements acquirable with mods active

[Blust]

Then try playing EU4 or any other PDX game with another language than English and you'll think very, very differently.

And believe me, I know what I'm speaking about: I'm the French translator of EU4.

In the current, public version of EU4, for French I have 9,017 lines of script in my scripted triggers file, and 191,832 lines of scripts in my custom_script file.

Despite of that, the translation is largely unsatisfying without a complementary mod that allows translating tons of other things: characters names, province names, battle names, war names, dynasty names, etc. And this complementary mod disallows achievements.

So what's offered a French-speaking player is either achievements, or a more correct French translation.

And I won't speak here of players that want to play the game in Russian, Italian or Turkish. They could say you exactly the same thing as me, which will be my conclusion: even if you see this as unkind, I can't see how you could be more wrong about your assumptions of who EU4 players are when not in your own comfort zone.

Can you elaborate ? I've played 6000 hours of EU IV and never really had any issue with the french translation. There are a couple mistakes, sure, and the accents are weird when it comes to the font, but nothing that would justify adding 100 000 lines of script ?

 

[Teng_Ri]

both sides

BOTH

SIDES

achievements having requirements are opressive. give us a button to get any achievement we wish

?
you already have it. just use cheat engine

 

[Elfryc]

Can you elaborate ? I've played 6000 hours of EU IV and never really had any issue with the french translation. There are a couple mistakes, sure, and the accents are weird when it comes to the font, but nothing that would justify adding 100 000 lines of script ?

The answer to your question is very easy: you've not met any significant issue with the French translation because I've added 200,000 lines of script.

If you remember EUIV 1.0, we had such sentences as "Le Archiduchesse de Autriche est puissant" or "États-Unis a attaqué Angleterre".
That's not the case anymore since 2017, when the scripted localization variables have been implemented in the game. I've worked hundreds of hours on that since that date, to get such things as "L'archiduchesse d'Autriche est puissante", or "Les États-Unis ont attaqué l'Angleterre."

If you want to evaluate the situation, let's do a very short test: just erase the localization file localisation/custom_localisation_l_french.yml and launch the game in French. Then you'll see everything that relies on these 200,000 lines of script.

But that's still not enough, far from that.

Have you ever launched the game with France, 1792 bookmark, to be faced with the "War of the First Coalition", in English in the text?
And do you know that not having characters named like "John Calvin" instead of "Jean Clavin" needs perpetual discussions and reminders to the devs?
As for such nations as Timurids: do you think "Timurid" is the French name of the dynasty? And should we speak about the province names, that confuse English, the local language and French?

So yes, I've worked as a madman on everything I could. But I can't say I'm satisfied with the current situation, as there's still far too much issues.

 

[Johan]

I value them, I also value modding the UI (checksum breaking on newer PDX games - unsure but presuming the same is true for EU5)

Yes, this is not to obstruct achievement hunters primarily, but to do the bare minimum to make sure the multiplayer is at least semi-fair.

 

[Swedishguy05]

If its my decision alone, achievements should ALWAYS require ironman.

Yes, and thats why the answer was not "It will be ironman only"

This is good enough confirmation to me that the game won't require Ironman to get achivements. Johan doesn't mention mods, however I think it's also safe to assume we'll be able to get achivements with mods.

Personally I'm split on the topic as I see both sides of the argument very well. I do agree that it cheapens the value of the achivements, for example I can just install a cheat menu from the ck3 workshop to give me a million gold or whatever to make achivements trivial. It also presents the very real risk of bugged mods affecting achivement gathering. For example, there's an achivement in ck3 for having 10 Jizya vassals that I got simply because a mod I had installed bugged out and gave me the achivement despite me not being anywhere close to getting it. Additionally I've heard of people getting the achivement for restoring Rome instantly when playing as Julian the Apostate with the Rome mod for ck3. This not only cheapens the value of the achivement, but it also feels bad for the player since obviously I didn't deserve the achivement and now I feel bad whenever the game shows me as having the achivement since it feels like I cheated.

However I certainly see the other side of the argument. For example, I refuse to play Victoria 3 without the VTM mod as the changes it adds are pretty much required for me to enjoy the game. Additionally, in vanilla ck3 there are plenty of areas of the map with extremely lacking flavour that makes playing there simply boring. What's the point of doing a vanilla Africa run if it feels not that different from a vanilla Tibet run? Playing with Ironman also puts preassure on one to play more meta since it makes the explicit goal of the campaign to specifically get achivements. Not having to play with Ironman lets me just get the achivements as I play without worrying about them. For example, I played a Normandy game in ck3 where I started as Rollo with mods and eventually partook in the crusades, giving me the achivement for starting as a norse character and taking part in the crusades, but this was just a small unintended part of the whole campaign where I made my own fun with mods. However if I had to play ironman then the whole point would've been gaining the achivements, and any time not spent gathering achivements would've been wasted since the game is simply more fun with mods, so why spend my time playing a slow and chill game without them?

What I guess I'm trying to say is that you're the master of your own game. While one could make the argument that achivements specifically should be treated with more scrutiny since they're pretty much the only multiplayer part of this singleplayer game, let's be real the only multiplayer thing you gain from ahivements is bragging rights, and the enjoyment from that is much less than the enjoyement you gain from actually gathering the achivements during normal play. Forcing Ironman to gain achivements makes it so that you don't gain them during normal play.

 

[LeSadRussianMan]

Cosmetic mods yes, ones that change the game mechanics etc.? No. If you want to cheat and unlock all the achievements on day one do it the hard way. Achievements need to actually mean something, or at least be harder to cheat to unlock to actually mean something otherwise why have them at all.

If you say achievements have no value or you don't care about them then why cheat to get them? if they do have value and you do care about them why enable things to cheapen them?

 

[Johan]

What is a cosmetic mod? Sadly the new jomini system can't do that

except pure texture changes

 

[Lord Lambert]

If its my decision alone, achievements should ALWAYS require ironman.

This is good enough confirmation to me that the game won't require Ironman to get achivements.

Typo or misread?

 

[bokorthedust]

Typo or misread?

Can be interpreted as 'it's not only up to me, so they won't'.

 

[Swedishguy05]

Typo or misread?

"If it is my decision alone" implies it isn't his decision alone. Him following up with "thats why the answer was not 'it will be ironman only'" is in response to someone criticising making achivements ironman only. I interpret this as Johan saying "In my personal opinion achivements should be ironman only, but they sadly won't be"

 

[Lord Lambert]

Fair enough, though I certainly wouldn't go as far as to say it is confirmation of anything

 

[Swedishguy05]

Well I assume Johan can't outright confirm with a simple yes/no statement since things can alway change. If Johan outright said "yeah it won't require Ironman", then things change in the future, it will be used against him.

 

[Keksburg]

And I won't speak here of players that want to play the game in Russian, Italian or Turkish. They could say you exactly the same thing as me, which will be my conclusion: even if you see this as unkind, I can't see how you could be more wrong about your assumptions of who EU4 players are when not in your own comfort zone.

Former simplified-chinese mod translator here. Localisation x achievement is basically a disaster in EUIV.

1. At least Italian and Turkish are written in Latin alphabet, so I think that dynamic province names and characters' names are less affected in that situations. The problem lies in Russian, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese, which are NOT written in Latin alphabet. To make achievements acquirable, dynamic province names and characters' names are left untranslated so, try to imagine that your game prints something like "King 约翰 III has succeeded in 巴黎 in France" blabla. This is similar to the situation that I meet, in the sense of functional equality.

2. There has almost been no text left in hard-core files instead of localisation files since CK3 -- dynamic provinces' names and characters are written in localisation filefolder so basically speaking, such situation exists no more in simp-chinese since CK3. I noticed that in French localisation, there seems to be much codes helping with the grammar in scripted-localisation, so the situation might be different.

3. That leads to a new question of the importance of localisation x achievement: once PDX localisation department has offered something that is of a not-that-good quality, things would get difficult. For example, Vicky 3 is known for its low-quality in simp-chinese localisation with many strings left in hard-core files instead of in localisation filefolder. These strings can only be presented in english language in all localization -- if there's no [achievement acquirable with mod active], playing would be kinda harmful.

As a result of which, [achievements acquirable with mod active] does can cover up for the imperfection of localisation.

Okay, I'll addendum my comment. UI and language mods.

And things can not be just/simply solved in this way, considering that gfx and localisation filefolders have loog been excluded from checksum/vanilla/achievement.
(I noticed that in CK3 and Vicky 3, UI and language mods do affect the checksum. No idea why.)

So yes, I've worked as a madman on everything I could. But I can't say I'm satisfied with the current situation, as there's still far too much issues.

I admire your effort. Seriously speaking it has gone long over the necessary labour. So I admire your devotion too.

Anyway, it's good to meet a colleague here.

 

[Keksburg]

Could it be argued that one's approach to playing the game is more of a personal choice, navigating through trial and error alongside the randomness that can either complicate or aid the situation?

For me, if I defeat in a war, and knowing that S&L in filefolder could save it, I'll do it. It has nothing to do with whether I want/like it or not. Because there does be a way, so I have to go on that way.

Compared to "personal choice", I prefer to call it a kind of "personal situation".

 

[Runite Drill]

Yes, this is not to obstruct achievement hunters primarily, but to do the bare minimum to make sure the multiplayer is at least semi-fair.

Will this also include music mods?

I don't want to throw my music-modding future under a bus, BUT, in theory I could make a music mod that, for example, plays certain sounds/tracks when Country X has Y troops in Location Z, thus giving me audio cues to map out my Multiplayer opponent's movements.

 

[Keksburg]

What is a cosmetic mod?

Is it possible to indicate some filefolders to make them excluded from achievements/checksum/vanilla check?

 

[Johan]

Is it possible to indicate some filefolders to make them excluded from achievements/checksum/vanilla check?

should be

 

[Keksburg]

should be

"Cosmetic mod" might mean dynamic names/country_names/map_color/coa/flags blabla.

Other folders distinguish themselves with ↑ mentioned folders in this way:

ones that change the game mechanics etc.?

E.g. the concept of "Cosmetic mod" includes this:

music mods

 

[fabioke]

For me personally, achievements have no value for me if they’re not in Ironman. I know you can alt f4 but I would like a more stricter achievement setting then less strict in the future.

Maybe they could work with different colours and symbols?, With Ironman, without ironman, with mods and without mods.

 

[bokorthedust]

For me personally, achievements have no value for me if they’re not in Ironman. I know you can alt f4 but I would like a more stricter achievement setting then less strict in the future.

Maybe they could work with different colours and symbols?, With Ironman, without ironman, with mods and without mods.

Ironman is a setting that is partially required to earn achievements in EU4. You also need to have the lucky nations setting turned to historical (another setting). You can play with lucky nations off, on ironman, and not earn achievements.

Going further, this wouldn't make you stop play ironman and earn achievements and they'd have the same value for you. Unless your point is that you care about how others earn achievements, but then you open up the can of worms of how others think you should earn an achievement for it to have value. Say you, player A, savescum, or use an exploit, and player B is a purist who never savescums or uses exploits. And he tells you your achievements have no value, because you didn't do it his way. Would you put ashes on your head and sag your clothes in contrition, or would you laugh in his face and wouldn't care what he says?

Giving an option to others doesn't take away anything from you personally.