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Oct 18, 2000
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Playing as Austria, I notice that in the early years I can expect to see Bohemia, Saxony, and other minors in Germany, promotong Bureaucrats and (a little later) building Breweries LONG before I get around to it. In fact, Bohemia starts promotoing officials as soon as the game begins. Are some of them that far ahead of some of the major powers?

Also, almost all of the armies of the minor powers seem to be much more advanced than Austria's. (I have restarted the GC three times now, always upping the AI level, and each time, I have found my armies outmatched by early opponents -- Bohemia, Venice, for example.) Is this supposed to reflect the historical quality, more than the historical tech level?
 
Well in my 2nd try at the GC, I took all except Bohemia itself (and a hefty ransom, to boot!), and found that early on it is much better to keep relations with my neighbors on a good level than having that one extra province.

Which leads to another question: If I annex Bohemia, which is clearly more advanced than I am, do I automatically get those advances as well?
 
Von Curow wrote

Which leads to another question: If I annex Bohemia, which is clearly more advanced than I am, do I automatically get those advances as well?

The manual says, You will get a bonus on research, If the annexed nation is more advanced.

What worries me, though, is that those minors should be so much more advanced than Austria in all aspects at the start. That clearly is not historically correct. Maybe there´s an error in the datafile? As Austria is the localized playable power for the German speakin´countries, it´s campaign-stats should have been implemented last and the betatesters probably did not play that version. Maybe something went wrong there?

Hartmann

[This message has been edited by Hartmann (edited 29-10-2000).]
 
Heh, if you want to look, you can find a long thread about starting tech levels in the 'General Forum' area from a few weeks ago. The starting tech levels were mostly determined for play balance, not historical accuracy, which irritated a few people, but was defended by the beta-testers.
 
Well, that would explain a lot. One thing, which I would have to test to be sure, that I noticed was that when I DID annex Bohemia early on, I did NOT receive any sudden tech bonus, even though when I attacked them they had already promoted some officials, which I could not do yet. Maybe that is also a part of the game balance issue, that annexing German minors brings no tech bonus. Eventually, it seems, I do catch up to them, but it takes some time. The Venetian military, as well, seems much more lethal than my boys, even 20 years into the game.
 
Dark Knight: Could You please post a link to the thread You meant? (I only remember one such thread, which was about the stats of Sweden, though. There the conclusion was, that the surprisingly low stats of Sweden are in fact historically correct...)
I also hope, that someone from Paradox will reply within this thread, too.

Hartmann
 
'The starting tech levels were mostly determined for play balance'


replace mostly with partially and then I'd agree with the statement.


Sapura
 
There the conclusion was, that the surprisingly low stats of Sweden are in fact historically correct...

Yes, if you do not regard 'tech level' as a strict measure of intrinsic technology, but rather a mix of technology and general economic punch (e.g. the ability to hire hordes of mercs at short notice.)

In the case of Austria I have a hard time seeing how Bohemia could have a higher tech level from either perspective though. From what you are saying it sounds like Austria has a rather significantly lower tech level... Maybe there is still something I don't know though. ;)

/Doomie
 
Hello Hartmann,

To find info like this on the forum is quite easy. Use the search function for the forum and have it search for 'stats' in only the subject lines of the general forum.
I just did, turned up some five threads with relevant info. Good luck!

greetings, Oranje
 
Thanx, Oranje! :) Unfortunately non of those threads contained special info about the settings for Austria. So I still hope, someone from Paradox will go over that matter again and give us some explanations. (I still fear, something went wrong when adding Austria as the 'eighth playable nation' - the more so as I read in an earlier thread, that Sweden and Denmark will in fact recieve improved stats for their localized versions.)

Regards, Hartmann

[This message has been edited by Hartmann (edited 30-10-2000).]
 
Its the size of countries modifier to speed of technology development.
The smaller the country, the cheaper the tech advances.


Sweden and Denmark do not get boosted in any localised version.

/Johan
 
Does this mean that in the GC some major powers start at different tech levels? Austria starts at 0 in everything. I will check on that, though.
 
Hmm, I was at first content with Johan´s answer. But lookin´ at von Curow´s tables
http://members.tripod.de/yuanti/eustats.html

I would say that Austria drew the short end of the stick compared to other major AND minor powers.
a) Most major powers have far better stats, even if they have more provinces. (I´m writing this only, because there were already some remarks explaining the lower settings of Austria with regard to playbalance).
b) Compared to e.g. Denmark (minor power with as many provinces as Austria +2 colonies) Austria looks like a third-world country to me.

Hartmann

P.S. I have no intention to complain and whine. I only want to understand. So any explanation will be greatly appreciated! :)
 
You can't just compare a countrys power by comparing the cash, tech and amount of provinces. (Amount of provinces is an utterly useless stat, it is better to have total taxbase.)

Compare Denmark to Austria for example.
Denmark is 290$ ahead of Austria in land technology at january 1st 1492.

Austria has 8 provinces with a total income of 161$
Denmark has 8 provinces with a total income of 115$

However, until Hans in 1513, Denmark has a good military king in Hans (MIL 7) compared to the austrian at(MIL 5)

There are so many factors that you can not really claim A is better than B.

(Tech differences below level 3 are all within a year or two of development, so those differences are minor).

/Johan
 
I agree with Johan about comparing number of provinces as a basis for determining which powers are better off. I also did not intend the posting of the tables I made to be an argument for 'there is something wrong with this game.' I would think that tweaking such factors as starting force levels and starting tech levels would be very important for preserving some semblance of game balance. I just thought it would be helpful/interesting to those who are considering playing a GC as one of the 'non-standard' powers. Just one example of how this does not tell the whole story would be that China, for example, has a very limited world view, so if you began as China you would not be able to expand very far without running into Terra Incognita, and having to wait until your tech level allowed you to explore unkown territories. Would not make for a very fun game, especially since you would not be able to see what was going on in Europe.

After what Johan mentioned, as well, I think I will go back and add 'tax base' to my tables, since that has a strong bearing on starting position.

Btw, I updated the tables so that all of the major and minor powers in 1492 are included.

http://members.tripod.de/yuanti/eustats.html