EU3toVic2 / Vic2toHoi3 Converter Project

[Vasilius]

1) Your save games, at 1820.

This is the last autosave, so it's 1821, but that should be fine? Anyway it's here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MWWGDN56

I don't know how long Megaupload will host it.

It's one of the better games I've played: the alternative history is not to fantastic and there are some big stable empires instead of a thousand tiny nations. I played with Italy whom I formed with Milan and I concentrated in the Middle East. Very little colonization was done by the AI in this game and Cherokee, Huron and other Indian states still existed at the end of the game.

The converter works, but the output.v2 is unplayable. I get to the load screen and may select a country, but when I start playing the game crashes. This was also the problem with the previous version of the converter. Also, the previous version converted Burgundy into Wallonia and this version converts it into Danzig. A bit silly, since converter also places it into number 1 country in the world. Oh yeah, and Novgorod (Prussia prevented Russia from forming) is becoming ESTONIA of all countries in this version.

But the very worst problem is that the game crashes and can't be played.

It is great anyhow that this converter is being developed!

[PaddyEvans]

Chipping in with a thanks for your work on this project guys

[dtremenak]

This is the last autosave, so it's 1821, but that should be fine?

Yup, that's great.

The converter works, but the output.v2 is unplayable. I get to the load screen and may select a country, but when I start playing the game crashes. This was also the problem with the previous version of the converter.

But it will not be the problem in the next version. Thanks for the file; I've pinned down that problem and fixed it.

Also, the previous version converted Burgundy into Wallonia and this version converts it into Danzig. A bit silly, since converter also places it into number 1 country in the world.

There is no Burgundy tag in V2, and indeed there are no French minors at all. Burgundy and the other French minors get "whatever's left over," regardless of their size. Last version had more leftover tags, because more nations failed to map (so Epirus got some other tag, probably a German minor, and Burgundy got the second leftover tag, Wallonia); this version, whatever tag Epirus had gotten went to a properly-mapped nation (probably a German minor). That made Wallonia the first leftover tag, so it went to Epirus, leaving Burgundy with Danzig. Next version will coincidentally put Burgundy in your game back at Wallonia, since I've added better mappings for Epirus (which, in your game, will now become the Ionian Islands).

Oh yeah, and Novgorod (Prussia prevented Russia from forming) is becoming ESTONIA of all countries in this version.

This is WAD; the V2 nation closest to the city and oblast of Novgorod is indeed Estonia. It's not a bad mapping, considering that Russia is unavailable since it's reserved for a cultural union (Russia can form in V2, if it did not in EU3), and there are no Russian minors in V2. In your game it's a little bizarre because the city and oblast of Novgorod is now deep inside Prussia, so mapping what's left (i.e. Siberia) into Estonia is rather strange-looking. If you edit merge_nations.txt you can force Russia to form out of the Russian minors during conversion (look for the section on Russia and change "merge=no" to "merge=yes"), which might form a nice counterbalance to Prussia.

[tamius23]

I thought I'd just inform you of this.



Madagascar used to be Lan Xang.

[Vasilius]

But it will not be the problem in the next version. Thanks for the file; I've pinned down that problem and fixed it.

Great. It's nice to see that even such small things can contribute to the mod and that the save will be playable in the next version.

There is no Burgundy tag in V2, and indeed there are no French minors at all. Burgundy and the other French minors get "whatever's left over," regardless of their size. Last version had more leftover tags, because more nations failed to map (so Epirus got some other tag, probably a German minor, and Burgundy got the second leftover tag, Wallonia); this version, whatever tag Epirus had gotten went to a properly-mapped nation (probably a German minor). That made Wallonia the first leftover tag, so it went to Epirus, leaving Burgundy with Danzig. Next version will coincidentally put Burgundy in your game back at Wallonia, since I've added better mappings for Epirus (which, in your game, will now become the Ionian Islands).

Interesting. I've only glanced briefly all the possible countries in V2, so I didn't know Burgundy wasn't included, but I had presumed it was because it's so powerful in EU3. Anyway, Epirus becoming Ionian Islands is much better than becoming a German minor.

This is WAD; the V2 nation closest to the city and oblast of Novgorod is indeed Estonia. It's not a bad mapping, considering that Russia is unavailable since it's reserved for a cultural union (Russia can form in V2, if it did not in EU3), and there are no Russian minors in V2. In your game it's a little bizarre because the city and oblast of Novgorod is now deep inside Prussia, so mapping what's left (i.e. Siberia) into Estonia is rather strange-looking. If you edit merge_nations.txt you can force Russia to form out of the Russian minors during conversion (look for the section on Russia and change "merge=no" to "merge=yes"), which might form a nice counterbalance to Prussia.

I actually thought that it's too bad that the converter doesn't lump the remaining Russian nations into Russia, but it's cool to see that's possible! Have to try it.

[dtremenak]

Madagascar used to be Lan Xang.

I think that your game would map Lan Xang properly in the current version, if that was the only SE asian state that got a leftover tag (btw, Swahili also maps correctly now, although I still chuckle seeing the "Mughal Ionian Islands" region in central Africa).

When you first posted this I didn't quite get it. Reading your AAR today it dawned on me that FRA gets a free annexation decision on MAD, and we probably shouldn't go mapping random nations to it (though the decision only fires on an uncivilized MAD, so it's not going to be a major balance-changer). Looks like there's a similar event for Hawaii. We can add them to blocked_nations if it's a problem. Thanks for the heads-up.

[InnocentIII]

Not sure how useful I'll be, but I'd like to help. Once I'm done with my AAR as Argentina I'll have even more time, but I can contribute now. No recent programming experience, I taught myself basic on a Vic20 and C then C++ on old DOS, nothing really in ten years. But, other things I can help in, province mapping, what have you.

[Hank44Soccer]

How does it choose who will we be alligned to what faction in HOI3, because there is a great AAR by enigmamcmxc called "The Great War". I suggested he use this converter to bring it into HOI3 but another reader was skeptical because, "If you do convert it, who would be in which faction? Russia obviously isn't communist, and Germany isn't Facist/Nazi/Axis-alligned enough." Can you please shed some light on the subject?

[DasGuntLord01]

How does it choose who will we be alligned to what faction in HOI3, because there is a great AAR by enigmamcmxc called "The Great War". I suggested he use this converter to bring it into HOI3 but another reader was skeptical because, "If you do convert it, who would be in which faction? Russia obviously isn't communist, and Germany isn't Facist/Nazi/Axis-alligned enough." Can you please shed some light on the subject?

We have not yet started any design discussion for V2 to HoI3 conversion, but this exact question is something I've been thinking about a great deal. It's going to be something that's extremely difficult to convert for.

One thing that may make it easier is that (as far as I know) you don't actually NEED to have any factions at all in HoI3, but a great deal of the politics assumes factions exist. So the important questions to answer are:

1) What historical, political, or economic factors defined the factions in real life?
2) Is it imperative that we emulate this, and if so
3) What V2 historical, political, or economic factors can we use to build the alliances?


THE FACTIONS

The Commintern: "Communist International", an alliance of communist states. In HoI3 1936 The Commintern consists only of Soviet Russia. Obviously the defining factor for being a member of the commintern is having a Communist government (and being freindly with the faction leader). Thus, The Commintern is the easiest faction to define.

The Axis: The "Have-nots". Historically these were the nations that felt like they got a raw deal in the Versailles treaty of 1918. These nations were destroyed both physically and economically during the war (and during peace), had portions of their territory removed and given to new governments (or old enemies). The German government was forced, as part of the Versailles Treaty, to pay war reparations to the Allied Powers that essentially demanded the destruction of what was left of the German economy. Similarly, in the East, the Western Powers had imposed trade barriers restricting commerce with Japan. The western powers had also imposed trade barriers restricting trade with Japan, and coupled with The Great Depression lead Japan through a political upheaval that would be immediately familiar to anyone in Germany or Italy.

The Axis faction is the hardest to nail down, but essentially consists of those (presumably non-democratic) nations with bones to pick with the rest of the world.

The Allies: Historically this meant "the guys that won the first world war", and in 1936 this consisted of Great Britain (and it's dominions) and France, and their nominal allies. This did not technically include the United States (who always wished to appear independent and isolationist). The Allies were bent on maintaining the status quo introduced by Treaty of Versailles.


The most important thing to remember here is that the Allied and Axis factions were are direct result of the outcome of the First World War. On the one hand we have the Axis Powers, the powers that lost and are looking for revenge or recompense. The allies were the winners of the first war, and therefore were dedicated to maintaining the status quo that they enforced originally. Therefore, we need to see if we can get some information from our V2 save that is roughly indicative of such goings on.


INFORMATION WE CAN (EASILY) GET

1) Who are the Great Powers (in order of greatness) and what are their politics?
2) Who owns what provincs, and who has claims on them?
3) Who has been fighting with whom?
4) Who has peace treaties with whom?


Method 1: Screw all that history crap, let's just play! in which we don't bother assigning faction leaders, and just let to game play with the remaining mechanics.

Method 2: Quick and Dirty History
Given what we know from the historical factions we can begin to define rules that we may use to assign them. For example, the sattelite states of any faction leader that we assign will be automatically part of the faction. I also know from other mods (such as the Random Scenario Generator) that we can get away with having only two factions, and that the ideology of the faction is defined by the faction leader, therefore we can have rules like:

1) Commintern: Of the Great Powers, the greatest communist power. (Null if no great powers are communist).
2) Axis: Of the remaining great powers, the great power with the most claims (the most un-owned cores).
3) Allies: Of the remaining great powers, either a) The greatest nation that currently has a peace treaty with the axis leader, or b) The great power with the worst relations with the axis leader IF the two nations are NOT AT WAR.

The reason for the NOT AT WAR clause of the rule is because factions that are at war MUST fight to the death. This means that if two great powers are at war over a piece of territory then on conversion the war will become a total war to the bitter end with no chance to develop properly.

Note that there will always be at least an axis and allied faction. Note also that (with the exception of the commintern) I do not include the faction ideology as part of the rules. This is for two reasons: 1) I hope that ideology will drive the conflict in V2 (and therefore the faction leaders in HoI3) or, if ideology is not such a large factor in V2, ideology will take a back seat to historical relations (recent wars, antogonism, etc). Diplomatic relations are also strongly influenced by ideology. Of course what this will often lead to is (I think) the imperialist player being in charge of the allies and his main rival being in charge of the axis.

I was going to write up an example, but I realised that I didn't have any completed games of V2 to test it on.

[Hibernian]

I'd say converting the three HOI factions shouldn't be that difficult. For the Comintern, obviously just pick the most powerful Communist state in the game (even if it’s not a Great Power). The Axis should be lead by the most Powerful Fascist GP, or if no GPs are Fascist then the most powerful Presidential Dictatorship or Absolute Monarchy, I don't think we need to go into any detail like who has the most unowned cores, it should be based on Ideology. The Allies obviously should be lead by the most powerful Democratic Nations, which would usually be Britain, France or the USA (though of course there's no guarantee of that).

An alternative or additional system would be to allow the player to choose which countries would be leading or part of which alliance. So for instance, the Converter would generate a list of the three alliances, but the player could choose to change these if they are not satisfied with the outcome (have some little interface that allows you to select countries to be dropped into the alliances).

[Vasilius]

Here's another save, this game was started in late 1600s and played with Poland. The problem with this one is that the game crashes when I click the name of the save on the load screen, so even countries aren't shown.

Just thought that .eu3 file could be more useful. I'll upload it now.

Here it is: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6R14T2GF

[Comrade Chaos]

Is a new version due?

[BootOnFace]

Is a new version due?

Overdue, I say! Rabble rabble!

[dtremenak]

OK, OK, fine...I was going to wait another week or so, but here you go. 2.4C:

267		C++			Record the correct country tag in the capital mapping section of the log.  Failing to find EU3 nations for diplomatic agreements is not an error.
268		C++			Add many water province mappings, and allow navies to spawn in them.
269		C++			Map DW province 1853 (Kozani).  Give Epirus a country mapping.
270		C++			Set some starting CON (from serfdom/free-subj, culture, religion) and MIL (from stability, culture, religion) for pops.  Eventually need other factors (decisions, tolerance, buildings, modifiers) incorporated.
271		C++			Allow Mantua to map to Lombardia.

Vasilius, when I re-convert your Poland save in 2.4C, I don't get any crashes. Give it a shot, and let me know if you still have a crash.

[Vasilius]

Vasilius, when I re-convert your Poland save in 2.4C, I don't get any crashes. Give it a shot, and let me know if you still have a crash.

It loads and plays, and the Italy conversion works too! Thanks, you (and anyone else behind the converter) are the best!

[Gwyn ap Nud]

Can one not create a counter? Use DasGuntLord1's Method 2, only, for the the Axis powers, instead of solely basing it on Revanchism, base it MOSTLY on Revanchism, with a sizeable bonus if the country is Fascist, Pres. Dictator, or Absolute Monarchy?

For example, the US got PWND by Mexico+GB late in the war, and became a Pres. Dictatorship. Say, they have Revanchism of 15, and then give them a bonus of, say, +10 for being a Pres. Dictatorship. However, Russia's lost Poland, which gives them a revanchism of 10, but they're Fascist, so have a bonus of +20 or something, so they become leader of the Axis.

Obviously, values assigned arbitrarily, but that's roughly how the system would work. Revanchism, or cores not owned, or whatever, + a bonus for fitting government type, Fascist giving biggest bonus, then Pres. Dict., then Abs. Mon.

One problem I see here, is the possibility of having the ComIntern faction leader also assigned as Allies leader: this would have to be fixed.

And how do we feel about having the leading Communist nation as ComIntern leader, and second-most powerful Communist nation as Allies leader? I know I have games where same-faction countries hate each others guts: I had a game where Communist Germany and Communist Austria ripped each other the threads, before both getting pwnd by Liberal Russia and Fascist Germany.

There's also a possibility that a communist state has enough revanchism to be head of Axis, and then possibly a Fascist state as head of Allies. Does not having only 2 of the 3 ideologies represented mess up the triangle of stuff?

Alternate idea: is there a way to set up a matrix to combine data to define a countries place on the Fascist/Commie/Allies triangle? And then use whoever's position is closest to head of that triangle to be the head of the faction?

[Chargone]

actually, there's no reason what so ever why a specific ideology has to be a meaningful factor with regards to faction. or at least, who the faction forms around.

take the largest/most powerful/whatever faction, mark them as faction 1 (if you can customise the faction lables to be something based on the leader name, all the better), then find the most powerful nation that, for reasons of ideology, revanchism, generally crap relations, or whatever, would have absolutely no chance ally with them. then find the nation most likely to form the third pole ( basically repeating the previous process after excluding the first two nations as possiblities and finding the one that would not ally with either of them.)

that gives you your faction leaders, then asign nations to factions (well, at least a few) based on *thinks*, actually, come to think of it, let the HoI AI figure out who should join what faction leader. as long as you translate relations and ideology accross properly it should line up. (if they're small enough and close enough they might join due to not wanting to get squished otherwise, or if they're ideologically aligned with either the leader, and so on.) if you don't trust the HoI AI to do the job for you, then assign the first 1d5 most likely allies to each leader.

this would be more detailed and specific if i knew anything about the details, of course.

but yeah, no reason for the factions to automatically care about communism, fascism, whatever as part of their creation process.
(also, if memory serves, HoI3 does let you have More than three factions as well, does it not? but i think that may require some modding.)

i mean, there's no reason for factions to align the way they did if there's no ww1, or if ww1 turns out very differently, or if facsism shows up somewhere completely different in relation to more powerful/aggressive nations, or if communism gets going in a whole buch of small places but never gets hold of anywhere big or significant... or all sorts of things.

[Inquizitor]

In regards to converting Vicky to HOI. Would it be possible to just let who gets assigned to which faction be player defined? Possibly with a recommended feature for those who would rather it be automated in some way? No computer program is going to understand how a games world is developing better than the player.

[tamius23]

I've a little question about the V2 -> HOI converter. Which expansions does it take?

I intend to go out and buy HOI3 to continue my AAR and I wanted to know whether I should buy any of the expansions for it.

[dtremenak]

Vic2toHOI3 doesn't exist yet, so don't be in any rush to spend money if the intent is to only run converted games.

I run Semper Fi, so when I start working on it (I do have a few games I'd like to convert myself) that'll probably be the target I aim for. If someone with one of the other expansions wants to do the work of identifying the necessary differences, or if another programmer wants to target a different expansion, we can have multiple targets (just like we have multiple sources for EU3toVic2).