Recently I've done a little experimenting with tweaking various values in certain text files for EU3 (1.3). Basically, I wanted to see if I could affect the AI behavior in a positive way at all with relatively small changes.
If anyone wants copies of these files, PM me; it could be considered an extra-micro-mod.
Here's a summary of the two major changes made:
~Most spy actions now have a moderate BB penalty attached.
^Purpose: The AI constantly spammed other nations with spies, especially privateers and troops desertion, etc.
*Observed effect: The spamming decreased. Most AI nations now remain steady at "tarnished" reputation, sending spies only when their rep improves to "slightly tarnished" or better. A few go into BB wars, but usually get out of them pretty quickly as they stop sending spies, etc.
~Emporer bonuses increased
^Purpose: Raise importance of Imperial status
*Observed Effect: Emporer is indeed more powerful now, AI uses prestige and military bonuses more.
~Curia controller bonuses increased
^Purpose: Make the Curia controller a real BA, as they get noticeable bonuses now rather than little ones. Cardinal controller bonuses slightly boosted, to give prestige bonus (diplomatic)
*Observed effects: Over time, one can see who the Controller is, as they will act similar to vanilla's "lucky" nations (which no longer are powerful, see below) in that they do more than would seem likely.
~Greatly increased negative effects on besieged provinces
^Purpose: Besieged provinces in vanilla don't come out any worse afterwards.
*Observed effect: Province population declines when the urban center is besieged. In fairly stable provinces (ones that have high growth rates normally), the decrease is slight. In less strong provinces, the decrease is more noticeable. I may even increase the changes, to make the population decline more severe, but perhaps not. EDIT- just kicked it from 15% to 18% negative hit.
~Merchant compete chances lowered
^Purpose: As a small nation, trading isn't worth it. Spending half your yearly income on one merchant who gets kicked out after two weeks is a waste. This should remedy the situation
*Observed effect: Merchants do tend to stay in place longer. However, they aren't permanent, either. In high-competition CoTs, they usually last about 3-9 months.
~Luck is almost ineffectual
^Purpose: By removing all but the stability aid, those annoying luckies like France shoutldn't blob so badly. They will benefit from new, greater stability bonuses, mentioned below.
~Positive stability now affects income doubly
^Purpose: Counteract blobism by making less aggressive (ie high stability) nations get higher income.
*Observed effect- I do see less blobs, but haven't played enough games or analyzed data enough to declare this a true solution. As a player, the extra cash sure comes in handy, of course. It also makes Deus Vult even more powerful.
~Mild winters now slightly more brutal
^Purpose: Make campaigning in winter more difficult in Central and Western Europe, where moderate and severe winters are uncommon.
*Observed effect: Very little on AI behavior- the AI still campaigns in winter. However, as a player, the increase is noticeable, as my large stacks take hundreds of casualties.
~Colonization now higher success chance but require constant investment to keep
^Purpose: Probably just reflects the fact that I usually play as smaller nations. Small nations can't afford wasted ducats; thus, they now have a better chance of success, but expanding the colony to a city will be harder.
*Observed effect: In my games I'm seeing less colonization of poor provinces and high-native provinces. Only the Caribbean consistently is settled by 1490.
~Religion modifiers magnified
^Purpose: to make religion and tolerance more significant. The goal is to make provinces with non-accepted religions hard to hang on to, but with proper balancing, one can maintain a multi-religion state.
*Observed effect: Besides a few more revolts, nothing significant. I may increase effects.
~Nationalism doubled
^Purpose: to make rapid expnsion have serious consequences for stability.
*Observed effects: More revolts in nationalism-effected provinces. The AI seems to cope fine, though.
~Centers of Trade quite valuable now
^Purpose: Probably not as good for NA, where you can creat CoTs, but in 1.3 the very limited CoTs did not affect their provinces too significantly. This makes owning these rare provinces more beneficial.
*Effect: Mecklemburg goes crazy; it was at war on Jan 1 and hired a 20k strong army, despite still being 2 provinces. This seems to be due to their CoT giving them lots of money. Less significant for larger nations, but I have yet to see a CoT-owning nation get totally pwned by a non-CoT-owning nation.
~Monarch ratings now have greater effect
^Purpose: Add flavor by magnifying good monarch bonuses.
*Effects: Can't really tell by AI behavior, but it makes the player's experience more flavorful, as you have to adjust for each monarch more. When starting a new game, nations with good monarchs that had momentum will hold it for a while (ie Gustavian Sweden is often powerful until Gustavus Adolphus dies, then it may decline)
~Increased the effect of many economic/manpower static modifiers. Many doubled or tripled.
^Purpose: make the static modifiers more significant to gameplay, as they had little effect before.
*Observed effect: Very interesting ones here. First, I noticed a short-term lack of super-armies, so common to 1.3 when the AI can't go bankrupt. The AI, for one reason or another, now values buildings and trading more initially. However, if the AI is at war on January 1st, they will spend their entire treasury on mercenaries, thus when I as Russia attacked Lithuania, they began in March with just 6 regiments; Poland (their allies) had 12, while I had 14 devoted to the theater. By December, I occupied 4 provinces and was sieging unopposed even more. But on Jan 1, 10 Lithuanian regiments appeared out of nowhere; Poland suddenly had an army of over 30 regiments. This is typical for AI nations with the tweaks: they don't build superarmies until they are at war on Jan 1. Thus, some nations go decades before they build superarmies.
As my analysis continues, I'll keep you updated on further effects. Here's a sample of the changes made (I left the original notes in there, my notes come afterwards, often in ALL CAPS:
Comments, or your own experience with tweaking, is welcome. I'll provide further data later, such as my tweaks to the spy missions.Code:(static_modifiers.txt) (overseas) regiment_recruit_speed = 0.5 #100% longer time to build troops #halved so hopefully we see more ai activity in colonies perhaps ship_recruit_speed = 0.5 #100% longer time to build troops #halved so hopefully we see more ai activity in colonies perhaps ------------------------------------ (mild winter) attrition = 3 #Attrition increased by 2 weights NOW 3 ------------------------------------ (out of supply- I have no idea how this occurs mechanics-wise but it sounds bad) max_attrition = 15 #Maximum Attrition is increased by 10 NOW 15 ----------------------------------- (province tax income) local_spy_defence = 0.03 #1% for each tax income. NOW 3% ----------------------------------- (colony level) population_growth = 0.010 #0.5% for each level NOW 1% BECAUSE 0.5 WAS NEGLIGIBLE ----------------------------------- (Aggressive natives) local_colonist_placement_chance = -0.01 #3% penalty population_growth = -0.03 #1% less growth for each agressive MODIFIED TO 1% 3% BECAUSE THE EASY THIING IS GETTING THEM THERE. HARD TO KEEP THERE ---------------------------------- (Different religion) local_revolt_risk = 3 #1% revolt risk! NOW 3 ----------------------------------- (same religion group) local_tax_modifier = -0.2 #30% penalty if different religion but same group NOW REDUCED TO 20% ----------------------------------- (Center of Trade) tax_income = 12 #income bonus for keeping a cot! NOW 12 merchants = 2 #1 merchant for each positive stability NOW 2 ----------------------------------- (Siege) population_growth = -0.18 #3% penalty if occupied by enemies NOW 18 SO POP ACTUALLY DECLINES IN SIEGES ------------------------------------ (Tolerance Effects) population_growth = 0.02 #INCREASED TO 2% TO COUNTERACT DIFFERENT RELIGION PENALTIES ------------------------------------ (Revolt Risk) local_tax_modifier = -0.08 #-5% for each rr NOW 8 local_spy_defence = -0.05 #reduce defence by 1% NOW 5 CAUSE RESISTANCE HELPS ENEMY SPIES ------------------------------------ (Nationalism) local_revolt_risk = 0.2 #0.1% for each year revolt risk! NOW 2, LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS ------------------------------------ (Base modifiers) army_tradition_decay = 0.02 #lose 3% yearly DECREASED SO WE SEE SOME BETTER GENERALS prestige_decay = 0.04 #lose 5% prestige each year DECREASED SO PRESTIGE IS MORE LONGTERM ------------------------------------ (War Taxes) max_war_exhaustion = 4 #increases the max. NOW 4 INSTEAD OF 2 ------------------------------------ (Stability) global_spy_defence = 0.08 #-15 to +15% modifier NOW -24 TO +24 ----------------------------------- (Positive Stab) global_tax_modifier = 0.2 #10% for each positive stab NOW 20 SO PEACEFUL NATIONS BECOME RICH ----------------------------------- (War Exhaustion) diplomats = 0.5 #1 diplomat yearly if at war. NOW 0.5 SO WARS MAY LAST LONGER max_war_exhaustion = 15 #base max at war. NOW 15 war_exhaustion = 0.039 #about 1/24 increase each month DECREASED BY 0.003 ------------------------------------ (Monarch ADM) merchant_cost = -0.07 #5% decrease for each step NOW 7 merchant_placement_chance = 0.05 #3% for each skill-level. NOW 5 merchant_compete_chance = 0.03 #1% for each skill-level. NOW 3 build_cost = -0.02 #1% cheaper construction for each skill level. NOW 2 colonist_placement_chance = 0.08 #5% for each ADM (5-45) NOW 8 missionary_placement_chance = 0.07 #4% for each ADM NOW 7 stability_investment = 3 #2$ for each ADM NOW 3 ------------------------------------ (Monarch DIP) badboy = -0.2 #reduce by about 1 every 2 years with average skill. NOW DOUBLED diplomats = 0.5 #0.3 for each skilllevel NOW 5 max_war_exhaustion = -0.22 #-0.11 for each skilllevel.. so a skill 9 reduces max by 1.NOW DOUBLED spy_efficiency = 0.07 #5% for each skill level NOW 7 ------------------------------------ land_morale = 0.2 #0.1 for each skill-level NOW DOUBLE naval_morale = 0.2 #0.1 for each skill-level NOW DOUBLE ------------------------------------ (Trade Efficiency) merchant_compete_chance = 0.2 #0.5 for each 1% of TE LETS HAVE LESS GETTING KICKED OUT ------------------------------------ (Emporer) prestige = 0.03 #1% extra prestige yearly NOW 3, SO EMP CAN DO MORE DIPLOMATICALLY (States in HRE) land_forcelimit = 2 #each state increases forcelimit by 5 stability_investment = 1 #and province 2$ each month to stability investments. global_manpower = 1.0 #each gives 0.5 MP to the emperor. NOW DOUBLE, EMP WILL BE STRONG ------------------------------------- (Lucky Nation) #EDITED OUT ALL OTHER EFFECTS stability_cost_modifier = -0.50 #LUCKY FRANCE, ET AL, GET ANNOYING. NOW THEY WON'T BE MUCH BETTER ------------------------------------- (Prestige) missionary_placement_chance = 0.3 #+10/-10 total bonus from prestige. TRIPLED- GREAT NATIONS HAVE MORE SWAY OVER THEIR POPULATION ------------------------------------- (Curia Controller) diplomats = 2 #1 extra diplomat as curia controller NOW 2- WE WANT THIS TO BE WORTHWHILE prestige = 0.02 #1% extra prestige yearly DOUBLED stability_cost_modifier = -0.3 #20% cheaper stability NOW 3 badboy = -0.50 #A nice reduction. NOW DOUBLED- PAPCONT CAN NOW DO MUCH MORE AS NOONE IS WILLING TO FIGHT THE POPES FAVORITE ------------------------------------ (Plague) population_growth = -0.3 #NOW DEVASTATING 30% PENALTY ------------------------------------
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Originally Posted by comagoosie
