Impressions, Observations, Suggestions.

[Mooncabbage]

Ok so I've just managed to install the mod, first thing I'll say is it seems to be very stable. I like the look of the world map, although I haven't yet worked out how to change the font, tweak border colours/existance etc.

1. Firstly, the GUI. I assume the intent was to reduce the amount of screen space the GUI takes up? Personally I prefer the vanilla GUI. The mini map mode switcher thing in the lower right hand corner is alright, but the province view is frustrating and feels unpolished, as does the top bar. Too much important information crammed in too tightly. Also the Menu screen (on first load) doesn't display very well. It looks chunky and a bit amateurish. A minor quible but given the standard of the mod I feel it probably would have been better to leave the original screen in until it could be replaced with something of a similar quality. Similiarly, could "TN Mod Paused" be replaced with "Game Paused" or something? It doesn't fit in the little box and it looks awkward.
   
2. The amount of information that comes up in popups is quite phenominal aswell. I assume this is to compensate for (unless I am mistaken) the removal of the log. Perhaps this will just mean slowing down the game to compensate for all the information, not necessarily a bad thing, so I'll get back to you on that.
   
3. This is probably a bug, but I can see white lines in the Terra Incognita, presumably rivers, continent borders and the edges of sea zones. Also, while I like the idea of the brown Terra Incognita texture, which I assume represents unfilled in sections of the "map", ie. blank paper. However it doesn't quite look... right where it borders with the rest of the map. It looks like the map is painted on a wall and the Terra Incognita has been sandblasted off. Perhaps a dark brown edge would be a good idea? I notice the Terra Incognita has a faintly visible thick border, the same colour as the texture, around the edge. If this was made into a dark brown, representing an ink line or burnt paper or something, I think it would look much better.
   
4. I am aware this was a "Pagan" (New World) mod, but I've often felt that with the possible exception of the aztec/mayan civilisations, the new world would play out more realistically WITHOUT minor nations providing european nations with easy territory. It's a relatively simple matter to conquer these weak nations, and use their lands to boost your colonial empire. I think it would be more realistic to have the pagans represented in the provinces, as natives rather than as nations. I mean I know it's a choice between gameplay and gameplay options, but personally I'd probably never play a native nation anyway. Perhaps allowing them to exist as Emergent Nations in colonised, pagan religion provinces might be an idea? Or as simply the native cultures. Another alternative might be to provide a "Native" start, with the native nations, and remove them from the rest of the starts, similar to israel, or vice versa.
   
5. Possibly a bug, I noticed a lot of provinces are tagged as "No Culture". Whats with that?
   
6. Could the "Settings Choice" event have a description of the choices? I have no idea what I am doing here. Good documentation is key to the useabilty of the mod and what documentation there is for this mod is either far too indepth, out of date, or difficult to find.

Apart from these minor quibles, so far so good.

Oh, lastly, I remember reading in the manual that it would be best not to recruit a leader unless absolutely necessary, as they were primarily provided by events. Would it then, be a good idea to turn Leaders to "Events" under options? What should the options settings be?

[Darken]

hello,

thanks for taking the time here to post these reviews and/or suggestions.

One of the difficult things about distributing a mod is that It takes way too much time to distribute different styles of the mod. that is why I distribute it in the form that I use, and then offer instructions on how to customize the mod.

1. yes, some of the reasons were because I wanted the interface to take up less space.
The province view (cityview) is removed in my version and in the public versions the cityview is geared towards being removed. This is why the interactions within the cityview are gone. There is a way to restore it to vanilla, look at the customizing thread or customizing file in the TN mod information folder.
Yes, I understand how the topbar might be annoying but I think it is much more organized. I think there is instructions for restoring this also, in the customizing thread/file.
I am guessing that the main menu is going to display the same way all the time, as that seems like what it does for me. So, could you be more specific and describe what you dont like about the main menu? one thing to consider is that it was designedfor 1024x768 and any other resoultion might require a seperate patch file (which I would make) to make it look like i intended it.
The pause text and button are indeed unpolished/unfinished. I have not gotten around to centering it and making the pause background slighty bigger. I chose to customize this so that when people post screenshots it is obvious what mod they are using . I will try to fix this soon.

2. I have not removed the log, i think you might need to click the + button next to the minimap in order to expand the log window? HT expansion adds even more popups. We are not able to mod how the game engine pop-ups work.

3. I think you may have forgot to add the river.fx and borders_2_0.fx files to your vanilla (please back up the vanilla files first). Please take a look at the installation file in the information folder of the TN mod. It explains how to set it up right. If you chosoe to want to have vanilla map type graphics, you will need to download that patch at moddb.com and follow those instructions. Unfortunately I have almost 0 editing skills regarding the .fx files. It uses a completely different graphical scriptin langauge. if Pishtaco, Strannik, or anyone else with .fx skills would like to polish up the TN graphics for us, I would greatly apreciate that. I simply dont have time or desire to learn this

4. yes, it was a pagan mod, but now (and for a long time) it is a 'world mod'. I disagree a bit here because I have added forts to every tribal province which simulates the time it takes to annex the province. Have you conquered tribal nations yet in TN mod? I dont play vanilla so i dont have a way to compare this myself. if you have, and you still feel that it is too easy to conquer tribal nations, then we can discuss this further. however, it is historical for spain to conquer most of south america, and much of central america, for example, so I tend to think it should be easy for tribal nations to be conquered (but it neeeds to be as realistic as possible and as plausible as possible, which means it could probably be improved).
At one time, somebody was going to make a patch that removed most TN tribal nations (extox?) but this has not been made yet. I chose to add tribal nations because I think the diplomatic/warfare interactions are way too important and cannot be simulated very well IMO with the generic province natives. I agree that it would be best, if somebody helped with editing the history files (becuase it would take a lot of time, therefore Im not doing it) in order to make a bookmark for 1399 that does not have most of the tribal nations (because thats how this would be done, in the history\province\ files).

5. hmmmm, definately a bug, just not sure why. Maybe I messed up the culture file while adding dynasty information? I will need more specific reports on this before I will be able to fix it.

6. yes, documentation is lacking for the mod in places, I hope to find somebody that wants to help with documentation. Most of my time goes to balancing the mod, integrating patches/expansions, adding custom features, bug fixes, play testing, etc. I simply dont have the time or desire to bring the documentation to the level that it should be. I will however put this on the 'to do' list.

that is a good idea about the leaders and possibly setting them to events. I have not tested this, so hopefull somebody will. I might eventualy but i am nto sure. I think it would work fine to have the leaders as event only in the options.
I have recently been thinking that the leader events need to fire mroe now, because HT expansion has ruined my old on_action events that gave generals on rare occasion for winnig battles and sieges. I will probably do this now.

[Mooncabbage]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Darken

OK lets see.

1. I think if you totally removed city view from the interface, it would make the changes to the interface worthwhile. I have always felt that it was an interesting concept, but in reality it is ugly and useless. I would suggest publishing the mod WITHOUT the city view, and if people want it they can restore the vanilla interface. Possibly you could provide it as an option in the installer, and I think some mods provide an EXE to switch between standard and modded interfaces/maps etc.
   
   My resolution is 1680x1050. Normally EU3 fills in the blank areas around the main pic so you don't notice resolution changes, perhaps you could do the same?
   
2. I noticed that after I posted :P
   
3. I didnt realise I needed to, but now you mention it it sounds like something I have read before. I love the TN map itself, I believe your screenshots show the map with only nation borders, with no see province borders, etc. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I would have liked to try those out. I think it might be worthing finding someone to polish up the .fx files, because the TN map is just amazing.... it reminds me of old world maps.
   
4. I haven't tried colonising myself, I tend to avoid colonial empires, prefering to conquer the european mainland. My theory was more that although the aztecs were a civilisation, the native americans and others were much more losely organised and did not, to my knowledge, provide much organised resistance. Hence my suggestion to leave the aztec and mayan empires etc intact, but remove the native american "nations". I think this is more realistic because it drastically slows the progress of colonisation. Even if the natives have forts etc, which admittedly makes things a bit tougher, you can still easily landgrab vast territories, and worse, the forts mean you can hold onto them. In vanilla the lack of forts made life difficult because rebels and nations continually flipped your territories, causing negative effects and causing you to run around like a headless chicken.
   
5. It's mostly in france it seems, although there are other places. Shouldn't be too hard for you to troubleshoot, just boot up a 1399 game, flick to culture map and have a look.
   
6. The game isn't THAT hard to work out really... a basic Read Me and some explanation of settings type "events", in the event text itself is probably all you need.
   
7. Leaders definately need to be set to fire more often. I have 2 12k stacks, with 0-1 general between them. I would think at the very least I should have a general for each. Might I suggest taking a note from EU:Rome's book? In that game, army stacks above 1k, after a period, fire an event where the senate request you set so and so as the leader. In a similar style perhaps you could set an event where a leader rises from the nobility to take command of the army? Wouldnt have to be an especially good one mind, probably make it based on Land Prestige (Is that right? My brain isn't working atm it seems), and have the better leaders arise from significant victories. Although I do question that since epic victories usually come down to either blind luck or overwhelming numbers. Something to think about perhaps?

I should say at this point, I have played a fair way further into TN now, up to military tech level 5 or so, don't remember the exact year, from a 1399 start. I am really enjoying the enhanced difficulty and pace. Wars are much less commonplace and you can take much less territory. Armies are also much more precious. I am definately struggling now, rather than having an immense blob inside 100 years. There are lots of difficult decisions and I find myself multi tasking many small goals... Trying to bring inflation under control, improve my economy, make advantageous alliances and royal marriages, control the HRE... So much to do I am generally playing on a MUCH slower game speed than in vanilla. I have decided that this is to my taste. So keep it up, cause I love it. I was losing interest in EU3 and now I am as addicted as the first time I picked it up (well the third time, once I worked out what to do :P).

[Darken]

youre welcome

1. well, the mod comes ready to disable the cityview, the final step is actualy deleteding the vanilla cityview stuff (after backing it up). if somebody wants to help me make an .exe like that then that would be cool, i dont know how to or want to right now. It might be something like a batch file that is converted to an .exe, which i have kind of done before, but its been a long time. change my resolution? im not sure what you mean.

3. thanks for the compliments.

4. those are some good points. So, it would be cool if somebody wants to help with the history\province\ files to set up a bookmark for less natives. I would be playing with the current setup though .

7. I already improved them somewhat. Im not sure if there is a way to detect how big a army stack is. there is no way to detect war victories via event, at least, not in a easy manner. the workaround is simply way too much coding. these are good ideas though.

yeah, playing in europe is now almost overwhelming, I thought the same thing but I was starting to get used to it with the new HT stuff. I pause ALOT lol. thanks again for the compliments. yes, thanks to us modders, we make PI a happier company . ah well, at least I enjoy what I do and I can teach people about history .

[Mooncabbage]

1. So it's not possible to disable cityview as part of the install process?

What I meant with the resolution thing is... Your resolution is 1024x768. Mine is 1680x1050. So while the main menu background appears fine on your screen, on mine it is surrounded by a large amount of black. The Vanilla Main Menu background doesn't do this, hence my suggestion to revert to that with some minor changes.

4. I would do it but I don't know how to mod EU3 at all :P Currently all my efforts go into other games, EU3 and TN are my private pleasure

7. Is it possible to detect if a war presents a major challenge? Perhaps a general could rise from the nobility, dependant on Nobility vs Plutocracy slider, and the "size" of the war. You could create several events with different MTTH, the rarer ones providing better generals. You could also create a corresponding event for nations with high Plutocracy. You could then balance the likelyhood of such an event occuring so that a nation with 0 Nobility vs. Plutocracy has a 50/50 chance of either, +4 NvP results in 90% Plutocracy 10% Nobility leader event chances etc.... Another event you might consider adding is to have the general emerge with a retinue or mercenary army. So in the case of Nobility it might be say, a unit of cavalry (which are quite expensive now). A plutocratic leader might emerge with a larger combined arms army, but as a mercenary company. These events should fire in response to a national crisis that galvanises the populace.

8. A new bullet point! I'd like to make some suggestions to the HRE. If it's possible, I'd suggest you change the voting system so you can trigger the vote at any time, but your approval rating is the percentage chance of success. Hence triggering the vote at 30% is 70% likely that it will fail. I also think triggering the vote should cause you to lose your approval... but possibly not all of it? Maybe like 50%. Or maybe 1% for every province in the HRE that you don't control. Something like that. This way, the merged HRE isn't gimped in any way, but it becomes MUCH harder to form. I think that this is roughly how PI should have done it in the first place.

9. Annexation. I personally find it annoying, and for certain periods of history, unrealistic, that you can only ever Annex pagans and OPMs. It is my personal opinion that, so long as you have sufficient warscore to conquer all their provinces, you SHOULD be able to annex that country. This will probably only affect minors anyway. I also find it odd that territories have an absolute warscore value, especially now that money doesn't. I know you probably can't change that, I'm just thinking outloud. It seems odd to me that should britain conquer all france, they'll probably only get 3 provinces out of the deal. It just doesn't feel... Right to me. I mean, it takes a lot more effort for a get 100% warscore against france than against a minor, but the rewards are the same. Probably some work needs doing there.

10. War AI. I'm not sure if this is a vanilla problem, but maybe you can solve it anyway. France have been at way with britain for about 100 years now. France has the british continental provinces and neither side seems to want to sue for peace. France is in a PU with Leinster though, so maybe that's it (france is the minor partner). And on that note:

11. HRE minors seem very agressive, and very successful. Royal Marriages also seem slightly overpowered, but I think that's probably because there is no counter balancing effect. Perhaps events for noble rebellions should exist for nations with high nobility vs plutocracy? Sort of like a Nationalist rebelion.

[Darken]

1. So it's not possible to disable cityview as part of the install process?

well, it is, but it requires the deleting of the vanilla files (after backing them up).

What I meant with the resolution thing is... Your resolution is 1024x768. Mine is 1680x1050. So while the main menu background appears fine on your screen, on mine it is surrounded by a large amount of black. The Vanilla Main Menu background doesn't do this, hence my suggestion to revert to that with some minor changes.

oh, well, I changed some names in the interface files, it might make the background behave better, so, people can test it in version 11.88.

7. Is it possible to detect if a war presents a major challenge? Perhaps a general could rise from the nobility, dependant on Nobility vs Plutocracy slider, and the "size" of the war. You could create several events with different MTTH, the rarer ones providing better generals. You could also create a corresponding event for nations with high Plutocracy. You could then balance the likelyhood of such an event occuring so that a nation with 0 Nobility vs. Plutocracy has a 50/50 chance of either, +4 NvP results in 90% Plutocracy 10% Nobility leader event chances etc.... Another event you might consider adding is to have the general emerge with a retinue or mercenary army. So in the case of Nobility it might be say, a unit of cavalry (which are quite expensive now). A plutocratic leader might emerge with a larger combined arms army, but as a mercenary company. These events should fire in response to a national crisis that galvanises the populace.

yes it is possible to detect if a war will be a challenge. well, my question is, isnt every war important enough to have generals present, why just challenging wars. hmm, I dont like to give units like that because it might put the nation over thier unit limit. I do already have events that aid the military of a nation in need, so maybe i could improve them.

8. A new bullet point! I'd like to make some suggestions to the HRE. If it's possible, I'd suggest you change the voting system so you can trigger the vote at any time, but your approval rating is the percentage chance of success. Hence triggering the vote at 30% is 70% likely that it will fail. I also think triggering the vote should cause you to lose your approval... but possibly not all of it? Maybe like 50%. Or maybe 1% for every province in the HRE that you don't control. Something like that. This way, the merged HRE isn't gimped in any way, but it becomes MUCH harder to form. I think that this is roughly how PI should have done it in the first place.

i Think it would be possible to change the voting system (the HRE decisions) since AFAIK it is just decisions and events. which votes do you mean? as far as the electors choosing which nation they want as the HRE, this is done by the game engine (but it might be influencable via events). IF you mean the vote for the empire to become the HRE nation, then yes, I agree it should be hard to form and probably rare since it never happened in history AFAIK. I am curious what Helius will be doing in his SRI mod concerning this HRE nation issue.

9. Annexation. I personally find it annoying, and for certain periods of history, unrealistic, that you can only ever Annex pagans and OPMs. It is my personal opinion that, so long as you have sufficient warscore to conquer all their provinces, you SHOULD be able to annex that country. This will probably only affect minors anyway. I also find it odd that territories have an absolute warscore value, especially now that money doesn't. I know you probably can't change that, I'm just thinking outloud. It seems odd to me that should britain conquer all france, they'll probably only get 3 provinces out of the deal. It just doesn't feel... Right to me. I mean, it takes a lot more effort for a get 100% warscore against france than against a minor, but the rewards are the same. Probably some work needs doing there.

well, unfortunately, This is not moddable in a direct way. It is either annex = yes (pagans) or annex = no (non-pagans). however, it might be possible to adjust the CBs or make a new one so that at certain points in the game it might be cheaper to take provinces or vassalize nations. I think we can already change those values on a global, always present manner (base cost for peace deals), but the only way to make it dynamic would be with CBs or events. Events would be too much of a pain in the butt, so i would probably only be willing to tinker with CBs at this time. one thing to consider, is the events I made long ago that allow a nation to annex a province it controls in a war. These events fire faster if its a core, same religion, same culture group, etc. for example, France will usualy get those events on the english provinces in france's domain, but it takes a few years per province usually. These events could be further modified if we have good reason to do so.
I do agree that in some cases, more provinces should be able to be demanded. another (IMO, very effective and clever system) thing I developed was a Sphere of Influence system way before HT came out. This SOI system in TN mod is based on the idea that formable nations have secret SOIs that allow events to favor giving those provinces to the natiosn that can form the appropriate nations. for example, France will have a even better chance of getting the wartime province annexation events if they are in the historical French area. This system has allowed me to make AI nation creation much more historical and plausible without forcing the AI to do anything or giving handouts. This SOI system is also in the missions. France would be much more likely to get conquer province type missions in thier SOI compared with other places. This SOI also is included in the Rebel Defection events (I made them, and they completely replace the lame vanilla engine method of defections). Provinces that france own, for example, that are not in thier historic SOI, would defect sooner than those provinces that are in frances SOI. if I must say so myself, this is one of my more clever systems that I developed and it is all hidden in order to not annoy the player, this is why this system probably almost never gets mentioned or thought about in TN mod.

10. War AI. I'm not sure if this is a vanilla problem, but maybe you can solve it anyway. France have been at way with britain for about 100 years now. France has the british continental provinces and neither side seems to want to sue for peace. France is in a PU with Leinster though, so maybe that's it (france is the minor partner). And on that note:

well, This is probably seomthing that Helius would be a expert on. this might have something to do with the Ad Infinum mod being included in TN mod but im not sure. It is probably at least partially a vanilla bug also. I completely got rid of this issue IMO, in IN, but HT seems to have brought this issue back again. yes, I think this is mostly due to france being a minor. I have however noticed some wars do last longer in HT now though so I think its a combination of things. I am guessing that france and england for some reason are having a naval 'cold war' where niether of them is getting an advantage.

11. HRE minors seem very agressive, and very successful. Royal Marriages also seem slightly overpowered, but I think that's probably because there is no counter balancing effect. Perhaps events for noble rebellions should exist for nations with high nobility vs plutocracy? Sort of like a Nationalist rebelion.

im not sure yet if that is good or bad, or historical or not about the HRE minors. well, there is downsides to marraiges when nations claim thrones, but other than that i cannot think of a downside (well maybe succession wars or unions). well, i dont like having events that creat rebels because it is ..... unrealistic. what i do instead is, I make events that increase revolt risk (which is more realistic because it is the first step to a revolt) and then let the game engine determine if and when a rebellion takes place. I am not opposed to adding penalties to having royal marriages, but I would want it to be plausible, historic, or realistic.

so, we probably need to discuss some of these things further. thanks again for the continued discussion.

[Mooncabbage]

7. Well I suppose you could always disband extra units if it goes over your limits. It was just a thought anyway, to give some character to emergent generals. I was just trying to come up with a plausible way to have sufficient generals for your army with some good and some bad. What you really need is some kind of officer pool or something, ala HOI3. Perhaps something similar could be done by maintaining a certain number of random quality generals per say, 10,000 points of manpower? With the quality modified by the Quality vs. Quantity slider probably. And perhaps by military ideas and schools, advisers etc. Then when a general dies he is replaced, and you should have more than enough generals for your army. If you have a smaller army per max manpower, you will be able to provide a better general. You'd probably have to stop generals and admirals from costing the player anything though, otherwise it would be extremely disadvantageous. You could also possibly tie it to unit limits instead of manpower, particularly in the case of the navy.

8. In terms of "votes" I mean everything that comes up in the HRE panel as a decision. I think it needs to be revised to reflect the fact that it is infact, a vote, and not a decision. The new HRE system imo is absolutely brilliant, and works rather well, from a vanilla PoV. However more a more hardcore mod like this, it needs to be made more difficult. I am actually struggling in my current game as Austria, to get all the electors to vote for me, and with there being less wars I can intervene in, I can't get my approval up as easily. I'd like to revise my suggestion to say that, if possible, your starting approval should reflect the number of electors who voted for you, or something like that. That way you don't start at 0 and can actually lose approval. I think the HRE should be difficult, but not impossible to form.

9. Ok, so you can't adjust annexation... I guess that's fine. You can always vasselate with excess warscore. I guess my question now is, can you adjust the way conquest warscores work? So that a nation with more provinces will be willing to give up more provinces, while a smaller nation will be keen to hold onto what it has. I think that's an important balancing step. Otherwise a war with a large blob mostly ends with a peace deal involving a lot of releasing nations and vassals, which isn't ENTIRELY historical (It did happen I'm sure but particularly in earlier periods of history I believe direct conquest would have been more likely).
Note that the infamy cost of taking over provinces doesn't have to change, as I doubt the world cares if a province was taken from a large nation or a small one.

11. The problem with royal marriages seems to be the ease with which it is now possible to inherit a throne. Where before you might only see it a handful of times in a game, it now happens numerous times over a 50 year period. This I think, isn't necessarily ahistorical, but there is no counterbalance, which there would have been in reality. I am admittedly only 50 years into the game (I was mistaken before about the length of the english-french war), but I can see this leading to an unusual number of large blobs. This should be allowed to happen I think, but it should be something that won't necessarily last by itself. Afterall throughout history nations and empires were made and broken. Perhaps government tech and centralisation vs. decentralisation could control the number of provinces you can control before revolt risk starts to increase? This way towards the napoleonic period of history, the historical large empires will survive and function, but earlier on, when things were more feudal, rebellions will control the size of your country. This idea isn't bullet proof I know, colonies create problems (although i guess it does provide a nifty explanation of the american revolution), as do historical larger nations like france (which realistically for the period was probably mostly made up of vassals like provence, with dukes under a king), but it's something worth considering. Perhaps cores could provide a bonus to the max nation size? Like, you need half as much "government" to maintain control over them, meaning you can control more non-core territories.

12. Possible bug, I have a core on a foreign controlled province but I have lost the CB to take it back, because I was temporary allied with the controlling nation. I never got it back when the alliance broke either. Now another nation controls the province and still no trigger to give me the CB.

I always like to contribute to mods, in as constructive a fashion as I can manage. They give so much to the communities and extend the life of games by a mile. The developers have to cater to the core audience so I can't fault them for what they provide (look at the historical vs. determinist divide in the community, PI must have torn their hair out over that one), but I always think it's amazing what dedicated modders can turn out. I should know, since I am one Or was, I'm on holiday from it atm.

[Darken]

7. Well I suppose you could always disband extra units if it goes over your limits. It was just a thought anyway, to give some character to emergent generals. I was just trying to come up with a plausible way to have sufficient generals for your army with some good and some bad. What you really need is some kind of officer pool or something, ala HOI3. Perhaps something similar could be done by maintaining a certain number of random quality generals per say, 10,000 points of manpower? With the quality modified by the Quality vs. Quantity slider probably. And perhaps by military ideas and schools, advisers etc. Then when a general dies he is replaced, and you should have more than enough generals for your army. If you have a smaller army per max manpower, you will be able to provide a better general. You'd probably have to stop generals and admirals from costing the player anything though, otherwise it would be extremely disadvantageous. You could also possibly tie it to unit limits instead of manpower, particularly in the case of the navy.

I understand, I agree that we need mroe generals.
basing the generals per 10,000 manpower might be a good idea, this would probably be a good basis for knowing how many generals a nation should have. I will have to see if there is a manpower trigger (there is a province one, not sure about state manpower). there is already slider and idea modifiers to change how often the general event fire. there would be no easy way to make a general pool. it would take lots of events or complex events.
yes, the army tradition costs would have to be lowered or removed. so, I will try to implement this idea of yours, about allowing the natiosn to get more than one general via these events and have them hinged on manpower or something.

8. In terms of "votes" I mean everything that comes up in the HRE panel as a decision. I think it needs to be revised to reflect the fact that it is infact, a vote, and not a decision. The new HRE system imo is absolutely brilliant, and works rather well, from a vanilla PoV. However more a more hardcore mod like this, it needs to be made more difficult. I am actually struggling in my current game as Austria, to get all the electors to vote for me, and with there being less wars I can intervene in, I can't get my approval up as easily. I'd like to revise my suggestion to say that, if possible, your starting approval should reflect the number of electors who voted for you, or something like that. That way you don't start at 0 and can actually lose approval. I think the HRE should be difficult, but not impossible to form.

i agree. im not sure if i will wait to see what SRI content I could use or if I should do this overhaul myself. It would be a decent sized project to undertake.

9. Ok, so you can't adjust annexation... I guess that's fine. You can always vasselate with excess warscore. I guess my question now is, can you adjust the way conquest warscores work? So that a nation with more provinces will be willing to give up more provinces, while a smaller nation will be keen to hold onto what it has. I think that's an important balancing step. Otherwise a war with a large blob mostly ends with a peace deal involving a lot of releasing nations and vassals, which isn't ENTIRELY historical (It did happen I'm sure but particularly in earlier periods of history I believe direct conquest would have been more likely).
Note that the infamy cost of taking over provinces doesn't have to change, as I doubt the world cares if a province was taken from a large nation or a small one.

well unfortunately there would be no way to do this idea unless i could make more CBs that for smaller nations that reduce the peace cost. this would take alot of CBs though so its probably not a good idea. so, this is probably only changable by PI .

11. The problem with royal marriages seems to be the ease with which it is now possible to inherit a throne. Where before you might only see it a handful of times in a game, it now happens numerous times over a 50 year period. This I think, isn't necessarily ahistorical, but there is no counterbalance, which there would have been in reality. I am admittedly only 50 years into the game (I was mistaken before about the length of the english-french war), but I can see this leading to an unusual number of large blobs. This should be allowed to happen I think, but it should be something that won't necessarily last by itself. Afterall throughout history nations and empires were made and broken. Perhaps government tech and centralisation vs. decentralisation could control the number of provinces you can control before revolt risk starts to increase? This way towards the napoleonic period of history, the historical large empires will survive and function, but earlier on, when things were more feudal, rebellions will control the size of your country. This idea isn't bullet proof I know, colonies create problems (although i guess it does provide a nifty explanation of the american revolution), as do historical larger nations like france (which realistically for the period was probably mostly made up of vassals like provence, with dukes under a king), but it's something worth considering. Perhaps cores could provide a bonus to the max nation size? Like, you need half as much "government" to maintain control over them, meaning you can control more non-core territories.

i agree, inheriting (marraiges and unions) is probably a bit too easy. unfortunately, this is a hard coded thing that only PI can change. Events can (and do) change the relations of nations that are in a union, in order to proleng or shorten how long they exists. I dont really agree with adding revolt risk simply because of how many provinces a nation has. That is not very realistic or hositroical IMO. centralization already adds golbal revolt risk, which is added to every province, so i feel that is already represented. perhaps I could add more revolt risk effects to government types, im not sure though. The big question is, is blobbing a problem in TN mod and is it ahistorical? my answer would be that no, its not a problem and there was some blobs (or big empires with obvious or secret vassals) in history. in conclusion, you idea is implementable, I just think it might be best for other mods that are more strict and more difficult to play. If there are smaller aspects that can be improved within TN mod that make the mod mroe historical, plausible, or realistic, then I am open to those suggestions but this idea of yours would be a big project to make and balance and it would slow down the game a tiny bit more due to the added triggered modifiers or event modifiers.

12. Possible bug, I have a core on a foreign controlled province but I have lost the CB to take it back, because I was temporary allied with the controlling nation. I never got it back when the alliance broke either. Now another nation controls the province and still no trigger to give me the CB.

this is probably WAD actualy, I saw no point in allowing CBs for a nation that is a ally, so i modified it. do you know which CB it was? do yo uthink it is realistic for that CB to be available on a ally (remember that the AI might be stupid here, and i dont want to make a seperate AI only CB)?

I always like to contribute to mods, in as constructive a fashion as I can manage. They give so much to the communities and extend the life of games by a mile. The developers have to cater to the core audience so I can't fault them for what they provide (look at the historical vs. determinist divide in the community, PI must have torn their hair out over that one), but I always think it's amazing what dedicated modders can turn out. I should know, since I am one Or was, I'm on holiday from it atm.

I apreciate your ideas also. Even if I am stubborn about 9 of your ideas, and yet I use one good idea (like perhaps allowing more than one general and tie it to manpower) of yours, I think it is worth the discussion, dont you?

yes, this is something I wish certain game companies would express to the modders (that we actualy cause players to buy the expansions because we keep thier interests in the game). I agree that PI had a hard choice over the historic vs deterministic issue and i like EU3 for its dynamic style. What mod do you work on?

[Mooncabbage]

7. I wasn't suggesting an officer pool I was just thinking of it as a sort of.... Leaping board for my other ideas ^^. I think providing you with generals based on some military statistic like manpower or unit limit is probably the best bet. Generally speaking if you base it off unit limit rather than maximum manpower, you should allow for more units. This is also potentially problematic because of the bonus HRE periodically gets. Maybe it should be based on BASE Manpower, that way nations with higher quality will have smaller armies, nations with high quantity will have large armies, but based on the same base manpower, they will have the same number of generals! It all depends what you can find to use as the trigger though.

8. Well I believe you said somewhere in the informations that every event and decision in the game is modified :P Why should the HRE votes be any different I am thinking ^^ Still it's not exactly EASY as it is, just unrealistic in my mind.

9. Yes plus CBs for smaller nations wouldn't allow larger nations to take a larger number of possessions from a larger nation. Really what should define how much territory you get is the size of the nation you're taking it from. I could suggest it to PI i suppose but at this stage I doubt they're interested. If i'd known IN wasn't going to be the last expansion I would have brought it up earlier :P

11. I don't think that blobs are entirely ahistorical, I simply think that the number of smaller nations vs. blobs decreased as time marched onwards, representing the greater administrative abilities of the powers. I think personally, there is a good reason large empires fell apart. And the centralisation vs. decentralisation slider has no real impact on the number of provinces you can own or do own, as it is not linked in any way.
I think you are likely right about government types though. Feudal monarchies would be quite limited in territory, as they held most of their power through not their estates, but the dukes and nobles who bent knee to them. Contrasting this would be for example, a Constitutional Monarchy, where the nobles are themselves a part of government, and so the province count goes up (as former vassals are absorbed). At extreme ends you would have certain kinds of republic (with a great deal of regional administration etc), and tribal states, which have virtually no administration at all, and are thus quite decentralised and clannish.
I think part of the problem here is how exactly you define a nation. True national unity in the sense that we think of france and germany and britain is relatively modern. I think you have to take into account what people owed their loyalties to. In a republic, probably the nation itself. In a feudal system, to your immediate lord. In a tribe, you were loyal to your clan/extended family. And so I think of the Government research as people learning and discovering new ways to think about their loyalties.

12. It's always the re-conquest CB when you own a core in foreign territory. I like not having CBs on allies, but this is probably already reflected in the stability hit from declaring war on an ally. So I could go either way on this, so long as it's fixed

I worked on a mod for ETW called "Empire: Tactical Warfare" or TacWar for short. It was a multiplayer oriented realism mod, which drastically changed the gameplay and tactics AWAY from simply killing the opposing army by attrition and towards battles where morale was key, and you had to think in terms of causing your opponent to rout by flanking them, causing chain routs etc. It was really quite popular with a certain crowd but the patches for the game kept breaking it and I got sick of fixing it. So I'm on hiatus until Les Grognards or Napoleon: Total War are released.

Also I think as far as developers and mod support goes, PI is probably the best out there. I certainly have never seen any better.

[Darken]

7. I wasn't suggesting an officer pool I was just thinking of it as a sort of.... Leaping board for my other ideas ^^. I think providing you with generals based on some military statistic like manpower or unit limit is probably the best bet. Generally speaking if you base it off unit limit rather than maximum manpower, you should allow for more units. This is also potentially problematic because of the bonus HRE periodically gets. Maybe it should be based on BASE Manpower, that way nations with higher quality will have smaller armies, nations with high quantity will have large armies, but based on the same base manpower, they will have the same number of generals! It all depends what you can find to use as the trigger though.

i think there is percentage of maximum army size trigger, but it would not tell me the exact number of the maximum army size for a nation. so, I will have to use the manpower trigger, if it exists, which i think it does. i will probably play around with it today.

8. Well I believe you said somewhere in the informations that every event and decision in the game is modified :P Why should the HRE votes be any different I am thinking ^^ Still it's not exactly EASY as it is, just unrealistic in my mind.

yes, I have modified every event (and probably decision) I think, even if it is just spacing of code or something like that. id say 95%+ have real changes other than spacing and such. The HRE ones are not going to be any different, but it would have to wait until my next game so that I could test them personaly with austria or some other nation. right now I am playing Inca in order to balance Pagan nations for HT TN. so, the code editing would be easy, but the balancing and testing is what would take time. I would probably need help testing it also. I might try to tackle this within a few weeks from now.

9. Yes plus CBs for smaller nations wouldn't allow larger nations to take a larger number of possessions from a larger nation. Really what should define how much territory you get is the size of the nation you're taking it from. I could suggest it to PI i suppose but at this stage I doubt they're interested. If i'd known IN wasn't going to be the last expansion I would have brought it up earlier :P

iagree, but I dont think this is possible to mod, at least not in a direct, easy, manner. this would be a good suggestion to PI.

11. I don't think that blobs are entirely ahistorical, I simply think that the number of smaller nations vs. blobs decreased as time marched onwards, representing the greater administrative abilities of the powers. I think personally, there is a good reason large empires fell apart. And the centralisation vs. decentralisation slider has no real impact on the number of provinces you can own or do own, as it is not linked in any way.
I think you are likely right about government types though. Feudal monarchies would be quite limited in territory, as they held most of their power through not their estates, but the dukes and nobles who bent knee to them. Contrasting this would be for example, a Constitutional Monarchy, where the nobles are themselves a part of government, and so the province count goes up (as former vassals are absorbed). At extreme ends you would have certain kinds of republic (with a great deal of regional administration etc), and tribal states, which have virtually no administration at all, and are thus quite decentralised and clannish.
I think part of the problem here is how exactly you define a nation. True national unity in the sense that we think of france and germany and britain is relatively modern. I think you have to take into account what people owed their loyalties to. In a republic, probably the nation itself. In a feudal system, to your immediate lord. In a tribe, you were loyal to your clan/extended family. And so I think of the Government research as people learning and discovering new ways to think about their loyalties.

I suppose that, using the static_modifiers.txt file, I could add golbal_revolt_risk to every province or most provinces. this would simulate you idea about how having more provinces causes more problems. right now, stability cost is added for every province, which kind of simulates this but maybe not as effectively. If i were to agree to add this effect, it would have to be something minimal so that it only adds about 2 to 3% revolt risk (to every province, hence the global aspect) to every province if the nation had 75 provinces? it would need to be balance carefully. what do you think? is it realistic/historic/plausible to add revolt risk for every province owned?
well, it seems that we agree that government types should have some control on how big a nation is, or rather, how hard it is to run a big nation. so, is revolt risk the best think to simulate this? its the only thing I can think of.
that is a interesting way of looking at the definition of a nation. I agree that loyalty is a big part of that definition.

12. It's always the re-conquest CB when you own a core in foreign territory. I like not having CBs on allies, but this is probably already reflected in the stability hit from declaring war on an ally. So I could go either way on this, so long as it's fixed

this is the triggers for the Core CB:

prerequisites = {
		core_claim = THIS
		NOT = {
			war_with = THIS
			truce_with = THIS
			relation = { who = THIS value = 150 }
			alliance_with = THIS
			vassal_of = THIS
		}
	}

so, looking at those triggers, which one would you guess is causing the problem?

I worked on a mod for ETW called "Empire: Tactical Warfare" or TacWar for short. It was a multiplayer oriented realism mod, which drastically changed the gameplay and tactics AWAY from simply killing the opposing army by attrition and towards battles where morale was key, and you had to think in terms of causing your opponent to rout by flanking them, causing chain routs etc. It was really quite popular with a certain crowd but the patches for the game kept breaking it and I got sick of fixing it. So I'm on hiatus until Les Grognards or Napoleon: Total War are released.

that sounds cool well, I understand, I have had to spent countless hours getting TN to work at various patch or expansion releases....

Also I think as far as developers and mod support goes, PI is probably the best out there. I certainly have never seen any better.

My modding history is limited but Warcraft 3 and starcraft were also very moddable as I remember. Other than those, I would probably agree that PI is one of the companies that allows the most modding. It is very wise to allow modding as much as possible, it increases sales of expansions.

[Darken]

I dont see any PI examples of the manpower trigger, so until it is tested I am just going to use manpower percentage and army size percentage for generals and conquistadors. the leader events will now fire even if you have 1 leader of that type (it would not do so previously) and I added more modifiers to hoepfully control the aditional leaders a bit.

I am going to add global revolt risk and stability cost to all government types, which will represent the efficiency (blobbability) of those government types. what do you think?

I am not sure yet about adding global revolt risk per every province. that might be a bad idea.

[Mooncabbage]

1. Starting over I seem to randonly lose large amounts of relations globally, with no explanation. Is this spies? I don't think I'm making any bad decisions or anything.

2. Kings live seemingly FOREVER, heirs die very young, and regencies often last FOREVER. I've had regencies last until the Heir was 25, when he finally died. Is this fixable?

7. Ok I noticed today, playing as Austria, my BASE national manpower is only 15,000 or so. This is modified by ideas to 20,000 (+33% For National Conscripts I believe it is) and then slightly further by my Land vs. Naval slider, which is maxed out. Then with my Emperor bonus, my actual manpower is just below 50,000. Without HRE bonus, I have a 24 unit limit, with, its 43. Currently my armies are 12/12/6. I hope these numbers help you work out how to assign generals based on the numbers Oh and I would suggest that there needs to be another way for Land Experience to diminish now that you can't spend it on generals (Perhaps increase the cost of peace).

9. No problem, it probably won't be save game compatible and I don't want to lose my current game :P

11. I am sure revolt risk is the best way to go about increasing the cost of large empires. How to go about implimenting it, I'm not sure. I suppose it doesn't matter if cores cause more global revolt risk at the end of the day. I would suggest not increasing global revolt risk TOO much. The main question is, how do you limit the effects of global revolt risk? I would suggest that your basic Monarch shouldn't have control over more than 10 or so provinces without high stability etc. This creates problems with nations like the Mameluks and Ottomans etc however. Ugh, my brain is melting. I think it's something that is worth doing, but needs a LOT of thought put into it.

12. I got my CB back, so maybe it just took a while to trigger the event or whatever?

Damn thing wouldnt let me post GRRR

[Darken]

1. Starting over I seem to randonly lose large amounts of relations globally, with no explanation. Is this spies? I don't think I'm making any bad decisions or anything.

2. Kings live seemingly FOREVER, heirs die very young, and regencies often last FOREVER. I've had regencies last until the Heir was 25, when he finally died. Is this fixable?

7. Ok I noticed today, playing as Austria, my BASE national manpower is only 15,000 or so. This is modified by ideas to 20,000 (+33% For National Conscripts I believe it is) and then slightly further by my Land vs. Naval slider, which is maxed out. Then with my Emperor bonus, my actual manpower is just below 50,000. Without HRE bonus, I have a 24 unit limit, with, its 43. Currently my armies are 12/12/6. I hope these numbers help you work out how to assign generals based on the numbers Oh and I would suggest that there needs to be another way for Land Experience to diminish now that you can't spend it on generals (Perhaps increase the cost of peace).

9. No problem, it probably won't be save game compatible and I don't want to lose my current game :P

11. I am sure revolt risk is the best way to go about increasing the cost of large empires. How to go about implimenting it, I'm not sure. I suppose it doesn't matter if cores cause more global revolt risk at the end of the day. I would suggest not increasing global revolt risk TOO much. The main question is, how do you limit the effects of global revolt risk? I would suggest that your basic Monarch shouldn't have control over more than 10 or so provinces without high stability etc. This creates problems with nations like the Mameluks and Ottomans etc however. Ugh, my brain is melting. I think it's something that is worth doing, but needs a LOT of thought put into it.

12. I got my CB back, so maybe it just took a while to trigger the event or whatever?

Damn thing wouldnt let me post GRRR

1. if you have high percentage of reputation/badboy/infamy then it might be this. I dont think it is spies. it could also be due to any throne claiming you may have done.

2. the 4 #_CDEF_MONARCH_DEATH_ entry in defines.txt might allow the changing of monarch lifespan but i dont know for sure.
I might be able to make an event that sets up the heir as the king at age 15 but i dont know if the event code allows us to place the heir as the current monarch.

7. well, right now, until I know mroe about the manpower trigger, I will just use manpower percentage (if its low, we know the nation is at war and using up men so more chances for a general) and army size percentage (if it is low, we know the nation is either at peace, or defeated, either way, less chances for a general). 11.88 will allow more that one leader per leader type via the leader events.
what do you mean by land experience? do you mean army tradition or discipline?

11. yeah, i just dont know either. ive added some global revot risk and stability costs to governments that didnt have those effects.... I guess we can see what that does in 11.88 and go from there (probably not much since the effects are very small).

12. yeah, I am thinking it was due to truce or relations or something.

[Mooncabbage]

1. I have 0.0 infamy, and I haven't claimed a single throne all game. I have too many RM to risk it.

2. The Heir should only replace a regency council or Intereginum. HttT has a few strange issues. For example, it's virtually impossible to tell how old your kings are, so I assume leader death is random rather than calculated on age. Secondly, why do heirs live to 25? It seems they are killed off in the same way as kings, but without a throne to sit on, their "reign" is considered to start at 0, or whenever they became your heir. Also, you only ever seem to have one heir. This is very weird, presumably kings would often have 3 or 4 sons. The whole thing is still vaguely broken :P

7. Yes, army tradition is what I meant. I can never remember :P Anyway their isn't really much pushing down army and navy tradition anymore.

11. I'd wait and have a think about the best way to impliment it before trying anything, as it's quite a big change. I think adding a very small amount of global revolt risk is fine, but you also have to do it taking into account the starting nations. If france is meant to endure with the size of nation it has, then you must find a way to ensure that it can and usually does. For example the mamlukes and ottomans have vast territories, and while I'm sure both had internal troubles, how do you ensure they don't shatter without a little bit of pushing? Perhaps decentralisation should have some bearing (reflecting more local governance and local barons with loyalties to the king), as well as stability in some way. Government type too has a role. It's a shame you can't have cores reduce revolt rish (have a core reduce half the total global revolt risk per province so that large controlled empires can be maintained relatively easily). I'd say, keep it in mind, see what you can find to do it, and do a bit of in game research. Use logic too. A merchant republic would be nowhere near as good at holding onto territory, as merchants owe few loyalties to the state.

12. Well there you go anyway, I'll let you know if anything else happens.

[Darken]

1. I have 0.0 infamy, and I haven't claimed a single throne all game. I have too many RM to risk it.

2. The Heir should only replace a regency council or Intereginum. HttT has a few strange issues. For example, it's virtually impossible to tell how old your kings are, so I assume leader death is random rather than calculated on age. Secondly, why do heirs live to 25? It seems they are killed off in the same way as kings, but without a throne to sit on, their "reign" is considered to start at 0, or whenever they became your heir. Also, you only ever seem to have one heir. This is very weird, presumably kings would often have 3 or 4 sons. The whole thing is still vaguely broken :P

7. Yes, army tradition is what I meant. I can never remember :P Anyway their isn't really much pushing down army and navy tradition anymore.

11. I'd wait and have a think about the best way to impliment it before trying anything, as it's quite a big change. I think adding a very small amount of global revolt risk is fine, but you also have to do it taking into account the starting nations. If france is meant to endure with the size of nation it has, then you must find a way to ensure that it can and usually does. For example the mamlukes and ottomans have vast territories, and while I'm sure both had internal troubles, how do you ensure they don't shatter without a little bit of pushing? Perhaps decentralisation should have some bearing (reflecting more local governance and local barons with loyalties to the king), as well as stability in some way. Government type too has a role. It's a shame you can't have cores reduce revolt rish (have a core reduce half the total global revolt risk per province so that large controlled empires can be maintained relatively easily). I'd say, keep it in mind, see what you can find to do it, and do a bit of in game research. Use logic too. A merchant republic would be nowhere near as good at holding onto territory, as merchants owe few loyalties to the state.

12. Well there you go anyway, I'll let you know if anything else happens.

1. I am not sure what this is yet then.

2. I think the ruler innaguration is at least stored, for use in history descriptions. So, it is probably a combination of the innaguration date and then mostly randomness.
I think heirs are only killed via the events, but it might also be the game engine also. yes, I agree that either the heir killing events should have a chance of setting up a heir instantly, or perhaps the heir making events should fire sooner. Is that what you are hinting at?

7. well, there is tradition decay, which could be increased again (it is lower than vanilla) or the leader events could cost more tradition. now with the ability to have more than one leader of each type via leader events, this issue might already be fixed or might be fixed soon.

11. right now, centralization increases revolt risk, are you suggesting that decenralization should decrease revolt risk and stability cost? you might be right, and that might help to counter the new (but minimal) RR ans stability costs added to governments (most, but some reduce them).
Cores could reduce revolt risk if we wanted to. I could add revolt risk to provinces (local) and then decrease it with core provinces, so that there is no difference unless it is a non-core province. This makes sense and should probably be done anyway. I actualy thought I already had this done.
EDIT: I added 1 RR for each city (non-colony) and -1 RR for each core. we can see what happens with this minimal amount and go from there. also, I added 1 RR for provinces that are being sieged.

[Mooncabbage]

2. If heirs only die by event, and now that I think about it this is probably true, then I suggest the following:

Heir events should fire LESS often, and take into account the heir's age if possible (More likely to fire with a very young heir, less likely with an older one until they reach atleast 40), and there should be a 75% chance of triggering another heir event. If the new heir event can affect the heir age, it'd be good to see non 0 aged heirs. Heirs don't ALWAYS turn up at age 0, usually a little older, but ONLY if you've just had a previous heir take charge it seems. Anyway a new heir should probably be of a random age, younger than the last, although not required, as the new heir might be a cousin. I think if you solve the problem of a lack of heirs you also solve the problem of overpowered Royal Marriages, as you can only PU/Inherit a nation with a disputed succession and/or no heir. I chose 75% because it means you will PROBABLY get an heir, but with progressive firings of the event you are more likely to get a "no heir" event. (I mean not really but it only takes one... I think you get what I'm talking about here).

3. Suggestion regarding colonisation treaties, I thought it better to post it here. I figure it's a treaty, so there shouldn't be a relation hit for taking the province from the nation you have the treaty with (I assume this is right). Instead perhaps it should fire an event, where the nation recieving the colony can choose to buy it, or leave it for another time (Incase they can't afford it). You might also add the option to take it without paying for it, and THEN trigger the relations hit. I'm not really sure how the whole thing works or about the real historical treaty, but I thought I'd suggest it anyway.

7. I would advise increasing tradition decay, ONLY because it is the only thing really reducing tradition now. I'd rather the leader events DIDNT cost tradition. Perhaps when you write the leader events, the chance of an exceptional quality leader could be something like, Tradition * 0.5 or 0.25 or something. So higher tradition increases your chances of having a very good general.

11. OK here's what I suggest. Decentralisation represents more power going to local leaders. In the case of say, england, this would represent the earls and other nobles having more power over their domain. In the case of a republic, it probably represents regional administration having more power. For example in a merchant republic, it might represent more power being with the individual city states. High centralisation is obviously the opposite. Kings trying to exercise absolute control over their domain. Republics running everything through a central administration, like a parliament or a senate. In the case of a Kingdom, it makes sense for this to cause more revolt risk, as disgruntled nobles wish to throw off their king. In a merchant republic, the city states will want more freedom. In the case of a Republic, which would probably have better control over larger areas anyway, it represents a too distant city ruling the locals or what have you.

I do question at this point your rational between centralisation and stability? Presumably more centralisation should lead to MORE stability, not less.

Anyway, I suggest to control blob sizes, you could set a global revolt risk, or if you like, a local revolt risk modded by some provincial factor (Population size perhaps? More pop generally means a more important province). I would suggest that having a core shouldn't TOTALLY whipe out the revolt risk. 50-75% of the revolt risk, but not all of it. Enough so that a very large empire, even with all cores, will struggle if it doesn't have sufficient government. RR should also be high enough that you can't simply steamroll a large number of territories without constant revolts. You should have to wait to aquire a core and maybe a similar culture in that province. Some experimentation will be required, but you can probably cut down on that with a little bit of forethought, looking at the actual state of the game. I'd also suggest that certain government types, like Revolutionary Republics, Empires, and Revolutionary Empires be capable of holding a fairly large number of territories. I think you have to have atleast 50 provinces to form an Empire.

Non colony, brilliant I'd hate to see colonialism failing because of the changes. Ofcourse, colonial revolts will probably be helped along by this change anyhow, due to max provinces etc. I wonder if you can increase RR based on distance from the capital? Can you increase RR in fractions or only whole numbers?

Also, have you got a To Do list? I found this very useful as a modder, to remind me of my planned changes.

[Darken]

2. If heirs only die by event, and now that I think about it this is probably true, then I suggest the following:

Heir events should fire LESS often, and take into account the heir's age if possible (More likely to fire with a very young heir, less likely with an older one until they reach atleast 40), and there should be a 75% chance of triggering another heir event. If the new heir event can affect the heir age, it'd be good to see non 0 aged heirs. Heirs don't ALWAYS turn up at age 0, usually a little older, but ONLY if you've just had a previous heir take charge it seems. Anyway a new heir should probably be of a random age, younger than the last, although not required, as the new heir might be a cousin. I think if you solve the problem of a lack of heirs you also solve the problem of overpowered Royal Marriages, as you can only PU/Inherit a nation with a disputed succession and/or no heir. I chose 75% because it means you will PROBABLY get an heir, but with progressive firings of the event you are more likely to get a "no heir" event. (I mean not really but it only takes one... I think you get what I'm talking about here).

3. Suggestion regarding colonisation treaties, I thought it better to post it here. I figure it's a treaty, so there shouldn't be a relation hit for taking the province from the nation you have the treaty with (I assume this is right). Instead perhaps it should fire an event, where the nation recieving the colony can choose to buy it, or leave it for another time (Incase they can't afford it). You might also add the option to take it without paying for it, and THEN trigger the relations hit. I'm not really sure how the whole thing works or about the real historical treaty, but I thought I'd suggest it anyway.

7. I would advise increasing tradition decay, ONLY because it is the only thing really reducing tradition now. I'd rather the leader events DIDNT cost tradition. Perhaps when you write the leader events, the chance of an exceptional quality leader could be something like, Tradition * 0.5 or 0.25 or something. So higher tradition increases your chances of having a very good general.

11. OK here's what I suggest. Decentralisation represents more power going to local leaders. In the case of say, england, this would represent the earls and other nobles having more power over their domain. In the case of a republic, it probably represents regional administration having more power. For example in a merchant republic, it might represent more power being with the individual city states. High centralisation is obviously the opposite. Kings trying to exercise absolute control over their domain. Republics running everything through a central administration, like a parliament or a senate. In the case of a Kingdom, it makes sense for this to cause more revolt risk, as disgruntled nobles wish to throw off their king. In a merchant republic, the city states will want more freedom. In the case of a Republic, which would probably have better control over larger areas anyway, it represents a too distant city ruling the locals or what have you.

I do question at this point your rational between centralisation and stability? Presumably more centralisation should lead to MORE stability, not less.

Anyway, I suggest to control blob sizes, you could set a global revolt risk, or if you like, a local revolt risk modded by some provincial factor (Population size perhaps? More pop generally means a more important province). I would suggest that having a core shouldn't TOTALLY whipe out the revolt risk. 50-75% of the revolt risk, but not all of it. Enough so that a very large empire, even with all cores, will struggle if it doesn't have sufficient government. RR should also be high enough that you can't simply steamroll a large number of territories without constant revolts. You should have to wait to aquire a core and maybe a similar culture in that province. Some experimentation will be required, but you can probably cut down on that with a little bit of forethought, looking at the actual state of the game. I'd also suggest that certain government types, like Revolutionary Republics, Empires, and Revolutionary Empires be capable of holding a fairly large number of territories. I think you have to have atleast 50 provinces to form an Empire.

Non colony, brilliant I'd hate to see colonialism failing because of the changes. Ofcourse, colonial revolts will probably be helped along by this change anyhow, due to max provinces etc. I wonder if you can increase RR based on distance from the capital? Can you increase RR in fractions or only whole numbers?

Also, have you got a To Do list? I found this very useful as a modder, to remind me of my planned changes.

2. I will overhaul the heir events probably sometime this week while keeping in mind your suggestions .

3. I think we should research the historical Treaty of T. (Portugal <-> Spain ?) before we do too many changes here.

7. well, I disagree, I hated the vanilla way of tradition decline and I think leaders should cost tradition. The leader events do already give better leaders based on how high the tradition is

11. well, right now there is no stability cost effects in the centralized_decentralized slider and I really dont know if we should add stability cost so I was looking for your opinion. It seems like you agree with me that centralized should increase RR (which it does do in 11.87) but it is unclear to me if you think decentralization should reduce RR.

I thought about adding RR (local) to population size but itdidnt yet because I didnt check the math yet. according to the static_modifiers.txt file, the city population effects are per 1000 population. at .001 (assuming that it allows the third decimal place) RR per 1000, a 999,000 province would add 1 revolt risk. so, we would need to figure out how much RR a 999,000 province should add.
well, if we add RR for population, then I think cores should remove all of the RR that I added for the city provinces (all non-colony provinces). does that make sense? because if we make it so that cores do not remove all of the newly addedd city RR, and also add population RR, i think it will be too much. what do you think?
A expansionistic nation is going to have a steady amount of non-core provinces, so even if thier home provinces have no RR (but they probably will at -3 stability), they will have a pain in the butt with the non-core provinces.
the vanilla empire system is garbage, it is removed. I care not what a nation wants to call itself simply because it has 50 provinces lol. Thats not how a simulation (I consider the mod to ber more of a simulation that anything else) should work because its not realistic IMO. I prefer dynamics liek what we are dicussing, like adding RR to non-core provinces, which is not only realistic, its peobably historical.
The only way to get cores in TN is via nation creation events, a few missions, and maybe a few events, but it is uncommon and carefull controlled.
As I mentioned, the empire form of government is ignored in TN mod. the only way to have that government type is if the nation starts with it and they will never get that government type again once they go to another government. thats because I want nations to have a REAL government type, nto simply a government that declares that the nation is a 'empire'. The same thing applies with revolutionary governments. they are unrealistic and worthless. this is because there is a whole revolution event chain to simulate this very thing, and revolutions are a change between government types, nto an actual form of government.
I think this is one of the biggest ignored aspects of TN mod. Its a realistic simulation (with as much history as possible but it is not forced), as much as I can make it so.

RR can be increased in fractions, but cannot be changed by distance alone.

I do have a To Do list I agree. I have used one for a long time now, it helps alot.

[Mooncabbage]

3. Well I don't even know what T stands for, my knowledge of colonial history extends to the bits about australia they made me learn in school, however I would suggest that perhaps the treaty should only be possible between similar culture groups? Or that having a similar culture in the province to be taken should decrease the MttH.

7. I don't see why leaders should decrease Military Tradition. If you think about it, leaders represent the sum of your military tradition, they don't detract from it unless they die. The Prussian's werent worse off for Clausewitz writing, nor did the revolution falter because Napoleon rose to lead it's armies. I think the decline of military tradition is the result of extended periods of peace in which former battlefield heroes are rewarded with cushy guard duties, and the rest of the army moulders in garrisons.

I know military tradition increases the quality of your leaders, however I would suggest that what you need is more of an arc, sort of like a bell curve, where you have a certain low chance of getting a truely exceptional leader, or a total failure who you are stuck with until death (since leaders would be a fixed number, right?), with MOST of the generals falling sort of in the middle. I haven't examined the leadership events too closesly because they have only happened a handful of times to me, but this is what I think.

11. I think it makes sense for decentralisation to decrease revolt risk. More autonomy tends to mean a happier populace, or atleast people happier to keep their populace in it's place to maintain their own personal power. I see what you mean with cores and revolt risk.... unless you can give cores an effect that reduces revolt risk tied to population. The question is, does the game take into account fractionals with revolt risk (I think it does up to 1 decimal place anyway)? Historically speaking, expansionist nations often had problems maintaining control over provinces. I really think that cores shouldn't completely cover their revolt risk cost, simply because if they DO, you won't get the "maximum nation size" effect we're kind of going for here, to represent the administrative limits of the form of government.

If you need a historical example, the roman empire was split into two autonomous empires because it was simply too big to be governed by rome. Large expansionist empires like those of alexander, and attila, rapidly broke up upon their deaths.

You can't get cores over time? I question this. It's not very accurate, historically speaking. If you possessed a province for long enough, it's populace would intermingle and it would become a part of your nation. If this feature is lacking it works against the dynamic nature of the mod. The ingame 50 years is probably too short. I personally don't have any problem with the game slowing down to a slightly more historical pace, in terms of leaders and expansion. 100 years to get a core I think is acceptable.

Finally, in regards to empires... They really are a legitimate form of government, although the state of being an empire is not a simple as slapping a crown on your head. The state of "Empire" is sort of like a very decentralised monarchy. Many MOSTLY autonomous regions pay their loyalties to a central administrative unit, which controls the armies etc. Think the HRE, except unified under one leader, with a shared army, and shared diplomatic core etc. Think Great Britain, with Scotland having it's own legal system, and independant governors in India, Australia, and the Americas. I think it's really an essential form of government that shouldn't be overlooked.

I would suggest the following though. Changing to the Empire form of government should trigger an even similar to the late HRE decisions, where there is a way, with high relation vassals on your side and low relation vassals trying to break away. Empire governments should also have a reasonably decentralisation biased slider limit.

If you change AWAY from an Imperial form of government, it should trigger an event the opposite of this, where a large number of states attempt to break away. This I believe, would be a very realistic way to simulate Empires, which without doubt were more than a name for a kingdom.

[Darken]

3. Well I don't even know what T stands for, my knowledge of colonial history extends to the bits about australia they made me learn in school, however I would suggest that perhaps the treaty should only be possible between similar culture groups? Or that having a similar culture in the province to be taken should decrease the MttH.

7. I don't see why leaders should decrease Military Tradition. If you think about it, leaders represent the sum of your military tradition, they don't detract from it unless they die. The Prussian's werent worse off for Clausewitz writing, nor did the revolution falter because Napoleon rose to lead it's armies. I think the decline of military tradition is the result of extended periods of peace in which former battlefield heroes are rewarded with cushy guard duties, and the rest of the army moulders in garrisons.

I know military tradition increases the quality of your leaders, however I would suggest that what you need is more of an arc, sort of like a bell curve, where you have a certain low chance of getting a truely exceptional leader, or a total failure who you are stuck with until death (since leaders would be a fixed number, right?), with MOST of the generals falling sort of in the middle. I haven't examined the leadership events too closesly because they have only happened a handful of times to me, but this is what I think.

11. I think it makes sense for decentralisation to decrease revolt risk. More autonomy tends to mean a happier populace, or atleast people happier to keep their populace in it's place to maintain their own personal power. I see what you mean with cores and revolt risk.... unless you can give cores an effect that reduces revolt risk tied to population. The question is, does the game take into account fractionals with revolt risk (I think it does up to 1 decimal place anyway)? Historically speaking, expansionist nations often had problems maintaining control over provinces. I really think that cores shouldn't completely cover their revolt risk cost, simply because if they DO, you won't get the "maximum nation size" effect we're kind of going for here, to represent the administrative limits of the form of government.

If you need a historical example, the roman empire was split into two autonomous empires because it was simply too big to be governed by rome. Large expansionist empires like those of alexander, and attila, rapidly broke up upon their deaths.

You can't get cores over time? I question this. It's not very accurate, historically speaking. If you possessed a province for long enough, it's populace would intermingle and it would become a part of your nation. If this feature is lacking it works against the dynamic nature of the mod. The ingame 50 years is probably too short. I personally don't have any problem with the game slowing down to a slightly more historical pace, in terms of leaders and expansion. 100 years to get a core I think is acceptable.

Finally, in regards to empires... They really are a legitimate form of government, although the state of being an empire is not a simple as slapping a crown on your head. The state of "Empire" is sort of like a very decentralised monarchy. Many MOSTLY autonomous regions pay their loyalties to a central administrative unit, which controls the armies etc. Think the HRE, except unified under one leader, with a shared army, and shared diplomatic core etc. Think Great Britain, with Scotland having it's own legal system, and independant governors in India, Australia, and the Americas. I think it's really an essential form of government that shouldn't be overlooked.

I would suggest the following though. Changing to the Empire form of government should trigger an even similar to the late HRE decisions, where there is a way, with high relation vassals on your side and low relation vassals trying to break away. Empire governments should also have a reasonably decentralisation biased slider limit.

If you change AWAY from an Imperial form of government, it should trigger an event the opposite of this, where a large number of states attempt to break away. This I believe, would be a very realistic way to simulate Empires, which without doubt were more than a name for a kingdom.

3. Tordesilhas Treaty i think. it was a treay between spain and portugal and maybe others where they agreed to have certain domains where they alone had the right to colonize. something to that effect. so i dont think culture would apply here.

7. well, I see it more like army tradition as being the available skill pool for the leaders, where, when a leader is made, the skill pool is reduced. Perhaps a compromise might be that I could make events for peace time that have a chance of firing depending on certain factors and then the event reduces army tradition?
yes, good point, there should always be a good chance of a good leader, I will fix that today I think.
no, there is not going to be a fixed number but rather, there will be modifiers that make them more rare if the nation already has a certain amount of those leaders or if other conditions are present.

11. yes, I am pretty sure that the game takes into account fractions of RR, up to .00x. well, im still trying to get my brain to wake up here, so i dont understand you point about cores, I will probably read that part again later when I wake up.
right, i agree that a government should have a impact on the ability to run a big empire (or not ). so I think we are on the right track with RR and stability cost but it will take a while to balance it right.

well, you get a core after 50 years of owning a province i think. hmmm, well, 50 years is a long time. I think it is definatley enough time for a province to be considered part of the core nation.

well, I guess i wasnt very good at explaining. my point is that a republic can be an empire, and a monarchy can be a empire. It might even be pssoible/plausible for a theocracy to be a empire. I just think that governments should be either a monarchy, republic, or theocracy. I dont like vague governments that could be any type. YEs, I agree that empires have autonomous regions or vassal states, etc, that work together with the ruling government. I just think that the game already simulates this just fine, and there is no reason to make special, vague, governments just to declare a nation is a empire. the fact that they are a blob and have many vassals would say the same thing....I see no reason to give the nation a special title or bonus just because they reached that phase. now, if there is something that is not yet simulated that needs to be simulated, then we definatley should think about that.
so, maybe I do not fully understand your points, or maybe we just disagree.

[Mooncabbage]

7. Well the Military Tradition affects troop quality more than Leaders. All it ever did was allow you to spend some of your troop quality to aquire a leader. So really, military tradition has less to do with leaders, and more to do with the overall combat experience of your army. That's why I don't think leaders should detract from it at all. It's just not realistic. The promotion of a great leader doesn't have a negative penalty on the ranks, nor does it decrease their esprit de corps, which is essentially what you are doing by making leaders cost tradition. I think it would be FAR better to assign leaders by event, of greater quality with greater military tradition, and have Military Tradition, representing the experience and elan of your troops, deteriorating in peace time.

11. My point is that if you counter the RR on a core province, there is no maximum limit to the number of territories a nation can control, ONLY A LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF NON CORE PROVINCES. This isn't really what I think we want, I think we want to represent the administrative limits of governments.

I've never heard of a republican empire, although I suppose rome had one. I've never seem the empire government types as a "bonus". I think empire government types largely work because they consist of many vassal states with different forms of government, be they merchant republics, monarchies or theocracies. The problem with simply allowing the annexation of states in game is because then they would then cease to be autonomous. And vassalisation isn't quite right because you don't get full control of a vassal's army, income, or economy. I still think empires have a place in the game, as an actual government type. They in my mind, represent an over-arching government. For example, Queen Victoria was Queen of England, but she was also an Empress of all the british controlled territories. She had a number of titles of autonomous governments. She still is Queen of Australia, but we're almost entirely autonomous.

Another way of looking at it is the unified HRE. All the individual states still exist, but they are unified under one emperor, who recieves all the income and control of all the armies.

Perhaps the key would be to include other KINDS of imperial government than just the default "Empire" type? Like a "Theocratic Empire", incase rome ever takes over italy, and a "Republican Empire" incase genoa or venice ever take over the world :P

My point is, being emperor is not the same as being King, it's more like one nation unified only by a shared royal family holding all the titles, or democratic assembly, etc.