Magan Mundi Sucks!!

[pac]

@LAF1994 -

The shogun starts pretty strong in 1453. I suggest two options:

- start on the bookmarked 1470s date when the shogun is weaker;

- don't be the nail that gets hammered down! Let the shogun lose power and authority crushing other daimyos who get ideas above their station while you lie low and consolidate your position. Maybe even try and get in the shogun's favour so that he may give you provinces! But wait until he is weak before resorting to open aggression.

[Helius]

Since this seems to be the thread for cheap shots, here's mine:

Given this thread's purpose, I shall not mention anything that does not suck about MM. That said, I suppose I will not mention everything that does suck about MM either. Heh.

*Replacing a NI (based on a slightly older MM version)
I found it weird that, whatever NI was removed, the effects were the same. Whether you took the "Bill of Rights" idea, Humanist Tolerance, or something as Shipwrights or Espionage away; the results would be similarily, which did not seem plausible to me, at all.

*PBC (again based on a slightly older MM version)
The effects of these events affected countries of different sizes to a similar extend. Surely, there were provincial modifiers, yet those of a national extend. Surely a smaller country would suffer worse on a national scale under a pirate incursion than a larger one.
I found the amount of pop-ups reporting that x gold was captured quite annoying.

*Religion
I surely should not have selected to receive "most" messages when the reformation started. Now I was swamped in an unending amount of "nationalistic religion things!" here and "converts!" there etc., to the degree that each and every pop-up lost any importance to me. Admittedly I played only 40 years into the reformation period, yet the sluggishness and spam of events turned an interesting match into an annoyance and to me quitting it.

*Performance
The game slows down considerably under the load of unending, oft completely insignificant events. The seemingly irresistable urge to add more provinces, nations, etc. to the game surely is related to that as well.

*MM-followership
Those people running around the forums, spreading their ideas of EUIII being complete only with MM? Yeah, they are on the minus-side of the equation.

*Generally
I think that the attempt to emulate real-game-integrated design choices with events is a brave one; yet it fails hardly whenever anything happens that the event-maker did not deem necessary to cover. Back to the PBC; if I dedicated the world's largest navy solely on defending vulnerable targets/ important sea-zones, I might actually influence those. However, given the event-based nature, the PBC system exists in an abstract manner beneath the real game, resulting in a disturbing lack of relevance of the real-game to the world of events. I suppose that goes for a larger number of event-based designs.

I've always thought that 'surely' is the filler word that lends itself most to use by people with a heightened sense of self-importance who nonetheless have a nagging feeling somewhere in their swelled heads of the thinness of their case.

[ubik]

I've always thought that 'surely' is the filler word that lends itself most to use by people with a heightened sense of self-importance who nonetheless have a nagging feeling somewhere in their swelled heads of the thinness of their case.

I sense the Professor reviewing the exams of the students is taking over the mantle from the Emperor!

[Helius]

Touché :-)

[ubik]

Depending on what you change from and too should have a huge impact on how your country is hit. Swapping out Bill of Rights for Naval Provisioning should act differently then switching from National Conscripts to Patron of the Arts or Cabinet to Bureaucracy.

As stated earlier, its too much work for too little impact in gameplay. At the very least I'd need to have 5 times the work spent on the current implementation. THat would take the place of two or three major new systems for MMP2 that will be felt permanently in the game, as opposed to a subsystem that is only experienced at most once or twice per game and is just a complement of the wholne National Ideas system.

And the impact is always the same regardless of the state your country is in. If you are a 2 province minor then helping the peasants through this time shouldn't cost the same as it would for a 100+ province uber-empire.

Agreed! You can expect this for MMP2.

Finally, I don't like how they event assumes that I'm chucking everything suddenly and building something new.

But you are. You are taking out one idea and replacing it with another with the related modifiers immediately felt. And there is no way around it.

However and contrary to your opinion, there are several elements that impact the severity of the change. That is why there are smooth transitions and there are harsh ones. Just read some AARs on that.

In general the reneging the past event sequence seem shoddy and hastily put together.

This is just a matter of taste, but I am proud to have written it like it is.

As for the "hastily put together", maybe 40 or so hours of coding, testing, balancing, debugging, retesting, rebalancing and recoding define "haste" for you. Not for me. It is exactly like I envisioned it and I feel it complements very well the National Ideas System it is part of.

Certainly the system can be improved but when it was coded I did not had the choice of linking the costs to country income. That will be changed like it should.

The only reason it exists isn't for gameplay or realism but rather to ensure that every nation that you play is a little different and to punish the player for trying to change that.

Ah! This I can challenge at my whim!

I love to read people's ideas about my ideas on gameplay when they don't have a clue about what they are writing about.

Well, this subsystem exists for realism, for gameplay, never to ensure every nation is unique and not to punish a player trying to turn every nation more standardized (this last one is just the contrary of what you wrote, however silly it sounds).

For realism because great changes in a country society (this is what the change of a NI represents in MM) tend to happen suddenly, generating a vicious environment with violence and chaos for all involved. I go as far as devolving the country into a Civil War... like inr eality happens.

For Gameplay, because inviting the players to consider carefully and plan carefully some set of important modifiers that will likely be with the country until the endgame is an important change of pace from the most common modifiers that either cancel out after a few years, are easily revoked or easily gamed over. It adds diversity to gameplay and to the glint giving life to it called player decision.

It is as punishing to the player as voluntarily choosing Decentralization will lower the tax income of the country, choosing Centralization would turn stability costs higher, deciding to change the religion of a country would cause a lot of chaos, go on a conquering spree inside the HRE will give the most serious consequences or striking a deal with the berber pirates might cause you to be excommunicated. All these actions, if seen from the wrong perspective can be referred to as punishments.
They are not. They are elements of gameplay that limit the options the player has and force him to face consequences for possible future gains.

As for this subsytem raison d'aitre being to force each nation to be a littledifferent, I find that notion plain silly. Unless you play the game picking the same 9 ideas available ever the same independently of the nation you are playing. I trust you play better than that. Specially in Magna Mundi, where due to a vast array of changes each nation does feel unique and you need to come up with different approaches to every case.

[Mork]

I have to say that it also helps the human player, because the AI isn't able to plan as well ahead. Of course, compared to the vanilla version, it is a punishment, but only for that initial change (if you plan well ahead, bureaucracy and vice roys are huge, perhaps a bit overpowered compared).

[orwell]

Unless you play the game picking the same 9 ideas available ever the same independently of the nation you are playing. I trust you play better than that. Specially in Magna Mundi, where due to a vast array of changes each nation does feel unique and you need to come up with different approaches to every case.

I do tend to push for the same 5 every time, and it tends to even govern what country I pick: scientific revolution and it's sub components. But then that's as much roleplay as good idea in the game, same reason I push secular as hard as I can.

[ubik]

I do tend to push for the same 5 every time, and it tends to even govern what country I pick: scientific revolution and it's sub components. But then that's as much roleplay as good idea in the game, same reason I push secular as hard as I can.

5? Well, that leaves 7 of them up for grabs.

[dharper]

STUPID BAKUFU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I start a game in 1453 as Yamana, and eventually manage to conquer Settsu. In the inevitable event where the Shogun demands that I give back Settsu, I tell him to **** off. Within days, I am overrun by 10k Bakufu Rebel stacks IN EVERY PROVINCE I OWN!!!!

Can the Sengoku PLEASE get some work in MMP2? Currently 'The Age Of The Country At War' is really 'The Age Where Every Daimyo Who Tries To Conquer Anything Gets Whacked By Unstoppable Stacks'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's pretty historical, though. In 1453 the "Era of Warring States" had not yet begun - most historians point to 1467 or 1477 as the true beginning of the Sengoku Jidai.

When the Akamatsu rebelled against the shogun in the 1440s, they did indeed get overrun by Bakufu armies and were completely destroyed. By 1453 the Ashikaga were still strong enough to enforce the peace against anyone else who dared disturb it. It was the succession crises that followed that weakened them enough for the Sengoku to begin.

[Twilight]

So here I am, just minding my business, slowly expaning the HRE and pumping up the Demense. Electors seem eternally content with me watching out for them - mostly because I'm the only remaining Catholic power - and neither France or Austria seems to be willing to call my bluffs. And then one day, I get the old trumpets of war, and I see that Riga has declared war on me; the Hansa were going to war, likely to try and recover Lubeck. Seemed like a bad idea, but who am I to argue? One more Demense province here we come. And then, just as quickly as my hopes rose, they were shattered by the popups appearing everywhere. Apparently Riga had been making a few friends on the block:



Thank god Savoy wound up as the alliance leader. It's amazing how much 16 ducats could buy back then

[Helius]

Man, were you lucky. :-)

I hope you got a good scare out of it, though.

[Twilight]

Man, were you lucky. :-)

I hope you got a good scare out of it, though.

It was awful, and I repeatedly had to make myself not reload an autosave. After everything though, it was fun. Just wish I could have had my Military Reforms when that happened

[Epinephrine]

Man, were you lucky. :-)

I hope you got a good scare out of it, though.

What triggers that?

Also, in MMP2, could we get an event popup explaining why half of Europe just declared on you?

Not complaining, but it would be nice to have something (even if its only "HA HA SUCKERS!") telling us of our imminent doom, or, in my case, triggering the autopause for any new war.

[orwell]

What're the blue provinces?

[Twilight]

What're the blue provinces?

Allies of mine.

[DavidsonShdw]

What triggers that?

Also, in MMP2, could we get an event popup explaining why half of Europe just declared on you?

Not complaining, but it would be nice to have something (even if its only "HA HA SUCKERS!") telling us of our imminent doom, or, in my case, triggering the autopause for any new war.

The Hansa will collect various allies before declaring war to liberate Lubeck, generally from nations that have a reason to mess with you (in my case as Denmark, the Ottomans and the Mamlukes both joined in as I had conquered Judea).

[LAF1994]

That's pretty historical, though. In 1453 the "Era of Warring States" had not yet begun - most historians point to 1467 or 1477 as the true beginning of the Sengoku Jidai.

When the Akamatsu rebelled against the shogun in the 1440s, they did indeed get overrun by Bakufu armies and were completely destroyed. By 1453 the Ashikaga were still strong enough to enforce the peace against anyone else who dared disturb it. It was the succession crises that followed that weakened them enough for the Sengoku to begin.

This is very true. Still, my main objection stands even in the 1477 start date (Is that supposed to be used?). There are two other problems with the Sengoku system;
1) It's too static. This is because of a) the bakufu and b) all the daimyo beginning with 130 relations. Some new events should be added that give rampant coring and relationship decreases.
2) The provinces are too poor. It is very hard to maintain a decent army. Base tax values should be greatly increased (Japan had a greater population in this era than the whole of Medieval Western Europe, according to S:TW
Also a 'Sengoku' modifier should be added that:
a) Reduces unit maintenance costs
b) Raises tax efficiancy but significantly lowers TE, research rates and compete chance
c) Raises unit morale and disipline
d) Increases spy efficiency but lowers spy defence

[FelisSilvestris]

Since this seems to be the thread for cheap shots, here's mine:
I've always thought that 'surely' is the filler word that lends itself most to use by people with a heightened sense of self-importance who nonetheless have a nagging feeling somewhere in their swelled heads of the thinness of their case.

Yay for getting personal!

[ashbery76]

I have had a couple of full games now and each time France never forms fully,Spain takes ages to conquer the moors,various other historical fun that you got from the vanilla games.I am not sure taking away the missions from the A.I helps the gameplay at all.

[ubik]

I have had a couple of full games now and each time France never forms fully,Spain takes ages to conquer the moors,various other historical fun that you got from the vanilla games.I am not sure taking away the missions from the A.I helps the gameplay at all.

A couple of full games means nothing statisically wise.

But yes, France does show some difficulty in swallowing Britanny.



As for missions, we achieve far better results if you look at the whole world without them than with them. It mans we achive more plausible results using a dynamic form of play instead the simple scripted missions that lead the AI by the nose on certain directions.