I just think you've done too much for France. Losing cores, ruler 3/3/3, no agreement with vassals and 1 diplomat at the beginning...
I haven't any better idea to slow down their initial expansion.
And i can't test with AI (isn't good enough even if i put high settings) but i'm sure if France is at war at the beginning against players : Burgundy/England or Aragon, France as no chance without any help of other players/nations.
As you may have noticed: France doesn't have starting cores in the Netherlands anymore (which meant that Flemish culture could be instantly accepted on conquest), they don't have cores in Picardie and Artois anymore. And yet, counting their vassals and provinces on which they have cores, they feature the largest starting tax base in Europe, 144 — without considering their other culture group provinces (Provence, Artois, Calais, Nevers, Charolais, Franche Comte', Avignon, Roussillon, la Belgique, etc.). England, the second largest "cored" starting tax base, sits at about 108 — whereas Castille's 95.Originally Posted by ashalia
Castille had cores in Granada, they now start with a "Holy War" casus belli, and that's it — no more cores and full buildings on Granada's annexation. Burgundy had several missions granting immediate cores on all of Belgium and some: they now have to "integrate". The same goes for the Ottoman Empire: the start is slower for many, and certainly for all majors. I am not going to convince you, am I?
I prefer the starting situation of Burgundy (better missions, good center of trade) than the situation of France (annex vassals will be a pain too xD), more easier i think. But nervermind, France need to play well in diplomacy at the beginning and manage his stab... lol
I am going to answer a few points raised by Ashalia in a private message, for future reference:
France starts with low naval force limits — yes. In vanilla they count on six, in the mod it's five. The minute difference lays with how naval force limits are modified: the land slider decreases these, resulting in higher costs for over limits navies. France starts with only two coastal cores in the Normandie and Caux. The third one, Languedoc, isn't capital-connected: so its worth, in force limit terms, is divided by four. If the French player was to conquer Berry, connecting Languedoc, he would increase naval force limits to eight. The French land slider setup hasn't changed, it still sits at +2 land.
I don't see a problem with the starting French naval situation, but it can be argued that the English advantage is perhaps overwhelming, compared to other naval nations: they will put down to sea twenty nine carracks in vanilla, twenty eight in the mod. The game assigns starting navies according to initial force limits, the English reach up to fourty two. England's tax base almost exclusively lays in port provinces, their force limits are therefore incredibly high. I believe that the English coastal tax base may be overstated in both vanilla and the mod. The British isles and Spanish Iberia count the same number of provinces.
Due to the high number of English provinces, Albion will almost certainly a) dominate the Curia (number of catholic provinces) and b) any initial naval confrontation, even in the Mediterranean. There was a similar problem with the Japanese fleet at the start of the grand campaign in very early "Divine Wind" versions: their fleet would be gargantuan due to how their tax base is distributed and the engine's starting calculation. That issue was solved, in vanilla, by assigning an arbitrary Daimyo's naval force limits reduction (a hefty -50%).
Espionage — General Changes
The vanilla version of the game includes several spy missions, yet they are seldom used. Reasons are:
The result is that spy missions against human players will generally feature 1% success chances, after the first century or so. The AI won't frequently undertake spy missions, its defences — due to slider moves — are certainly weaker than players. There is a surprising exception to this consideration: when a player relies contemporarily relies on maximum serfdom and free trade, he will be exposing himself to great danger.
- it's trivial to raise global spy defence, via the "freesubjects" slider, by +25%
- cheap stability costs allow one to linger at +3, benefiting from +15% spy defence
- most missions are undertaken in the capital, where one spy agency thwarts any attempt, raising defence by +25%
- war exhaustion is easily offset by revolt risk modifiers
In "Omnium Contra Omnes" espionage was amended with a few goals in mind:
1) A large number of missions should be local, that is target peripheral provinces rather than the capital. The objective is to increase the pertinence of spy agencies throughout one's state: what good are these buildings, scattered in provinces, when the target remains one, the capital.
2) Global spy defence should be generally lower than vanilla values, to spur players to rely on a) spy agencies and b) "Vetting", an often neglected national idea.
3) Local and global spy defence should go hand in hand with spy efficiency. While the latter increases success chances, the former lowers them — a healthy distance between the two is necessary (in favour of defence), but one that is variable throughout the entire game span, not widening. After the introduction of "spy agencies", in 1500, there needs to be a successive device increasing spy efficiency.
4) Spy costs relinquish espionage to the middle and late game, as the early fees are unbearable to most nations. On the other hand, once incomes catch up these same expenditures become risible. The mod lowers the number of spies per year in general (although low end missions now cost fewer spies), but it also decreases base ducats costs for most actions. The intent is that of lowering entry barriers for small countries meddling with espionage.
5) To avoid repeating the same missions and incite a strategy rewarding espionage, covert operations should affect the whole spectrum of the game. That is, they should tackle military, economic and political matters. The stock missions were found to be lacking in the "military" department, so new missions were included.
The idea of binding spy costs to technological progress was scrapped. The original idea was to a) lower base spies costs while b) implementing a cost increase tied to technological progress. While this solution allowed initial cheap missions, and scaled more or less well with time, it's contrary to the game's design. Colonist, missionary, building and stability costs do not scale with technological progress for instance. It's also true that the mod pushes players to inflate generally more than in vanilla, meaning spy costs in the 16th century will likely be higher than in the 15th.
There's a decision named "Black Chambers", which decreases spy costs in return for a magistrate loss — but it's going to be tied to "Vetting". Can anybody think of a decision decreasing spy costs, at the detriment of magistrates, exclusive to small countries — and available early on.
Playing as Castile in 15th century and making narrowminded slider move I fired event #821 and had my province religion changed to Orthodox which is as strange as suddenly having Catholic province in Russia.
Maybe the effect could be changed to "Heresy" modifier for one or several/all true religion provinces?
Event #821 is a vanilla one. It makes sense to change it, given the effects. A heresy modifier, as you suggest, along with a heretic stack could work out. Can you think of alternatives, even different in scope: an advisor put to flames (as Bruno Giordano), a wave of obscurantism (+research costs), etc.
Yes, I was thinking about these two optionst too. Killing every advisor employed who is providing tech investment or increasing tech costs for several years.
Have you thought about the way to make advisor trade possible? Maybe something like this:
1. The buying country enacts a decision which sets some kind of flag that he wants an advisor
2. The seller country enacts a decision which fires an event to generate an advisor (with type choice) and sets another flag
3. The buyer receives an event that actually generates an advisor for him and subtracts CT from the seller.
This should be easier with "event chains" which are supported in CK2, but I'm not sure about EU3.
EDIT: I see that you already have experience with variables (for example your Indian Trade Company decision), so this should be doable.
Last edited by madmagnum; 22-02-2012 at 16:37.
Here is one of the possible Advisor Trade solutions (just a dummy without actually advisor generation code).
decisions:
events:Code:country_decisions = { #Decision for buyer request_advisor = { potential = { NOT = { has_country_modifier = requested_advisor } NOT = { has_country_modifier = generated_advisor } } allow = { NOT = { any_country = { has_country_modifier = requested_advisor } } NOT = { any_country = { has_country_modifier = generating_advisor } } NOT = { any_country = { has_country_modifier = generated_advisor } } } effect = { add_country_modifier = { name = "requested_advisor" duration = -1 } } ai_will_do = { factor = 0 } } #Decision for seller generate_advisor = { potential = { NOT = { has_country_modifier = requested_advisor } NOT = { has_country_modifier = generating_advisor } NOT = { has_country_modifier = generated_advisor } } allow = { any_country = { has_country_modifier = requested_advisor } NOT = { any_country = { has_country_modifier = generating_advisor } } } effect = { add_country_modifier = { name = "generating_advisor" duration = -1 } } ai_will_do = { factor = 0 } } }
Code:#Event for seller country_event = { id = 777777 title = "EVTNAME777777" desc = "EVTDESC777777" trigger = { has_country_modifier = generating_advisor } mean_time_to_happen = { days = 5 } option = { #Go ahead! name = "EVTOPTA777777" set_variable = { which = "Advisor Type" value = 2 } add_country_modifier = { name = "generated_advisor" duration = -1 } remove_country_modifier = generating_advisor } } #Event for buyer country_event = { id = 888888 title = "EVTNAME888888" desc = "EVTDESC888888" trigger = { has_country_modifier = requested_advisor any_country = { has_country_modifier = generated_advisor } } mean_time_to_happen = { days = 5 } option = { #Go ahead! name = "EVTOPTA888888" #Code for advisor generation and seller CT change remove_country_modifier = requested_advisor set_variable = { which = "Advisor Type" value = 0 } any_country = { limit = { has_country_modifier = generated_advisor } remove_country_modifier = generated_advisor } } }
Silk, two questions;
- Is it normal for the province Caux not to have any core for the Normandy nation?
- Has 'Enact Settlement Policy' been removed/changed somehow?
sharpcat@hotmail.co.uk
Steam ID: 'catchin_wreck'
MOROCCO in 'Cabal is for Winners'
ENGLAND in 'Est Modus in Rebus'
AUSTRIA in 'Ultima Ratio'
He made an article about settlement, basically it requires land of opportunity.
My EU3 Hansa Multiplayer AAR, probably the first in its kind, come and learn how an MP game is played!
Hm, must have missed that page...damnation!
sharpcat@hotmail.co.uk
Steam ID: 'catchin_wreck'
MOROCCO in 'Cabal is for Winners'
ENGLAND in 'Est Modus in Rebus'
AUSTRIA in 'Ultima Ratio'
And for the core of Normandy on Caux i have deleted it, if i remember with the "unite culture" decision. I'm not sure but, in many games where i played France i made this decision on all the neighboor provinces of Paris.
At the begining Normandy should have the cores.
This design could work in theory. There are practical problems though:
These issues can be ironed out in the decisions (with timers, events, etc.), but there also are easier alternatives: a spy mission is one of them. You craft a "Sell Advisor" spy mission in your ally's capital, costing cultural tradition for you, and generating a specified advisor for your ally. There wouldn't be a need for several decisions, events and modifiers, but one spy.
One of them lays with the "requested_advisor" modifier. Suppose you're Milan, the seller — France is the purchaser and I am England. I could intercept or stall the "sale" by requesting an advisor and acquiring "requested_advisor". Milan wouldn't know who has the modifier, although France would likely tell them it isn't them. If Milan proceeds with the sale it will be the English benefiting from the advisor, rather than France. Otherwise the "requested_advisor" modifier will linger on and prevent further sales.
Frankly, both the "generate advisor" decision and the spy mission would feel like a "hack" though — they are prone to misuse, they charge the interface, they generally diminish cultural tradition's worth. We should ponder whether "selling advisors" is truly an interesting dynamic to explore. I would like to focus on advisors costs — these are mostly irrelevant as the game progresses (inflation's role on such a small base isn't tangible). We have a useless vanilla "trading in" modifier (tea), which determines advisors costs and other aspects affecting the same modifier. My initial idea was to either increase advisor costs progressively, or at the start — while substantially discounting the cost for smaller nations. The more an advisor costs for the country hiring him, the more ducats the "country of birth" will earn: this is a vanilla dynamic which we can work on, one which advantages small nations.
I will mention there are (very rare) advisor "auctions" in the making. An "Italian explorer" (think Colombo, Vespucci, Verrazzano, etc.) offers his service to major European countries (according to sliders, prestige, whatnot) — France offers 100 ducats for his service, England offers 150, Spain offers 200 and thus acquires him: the Spanish gain an early explorer and a temporary "colonial range" increase. The idea is to have one nation able to anticipate all other "Quest for the New World" candidates, by splashing out cash and meeting basic requirements (port, navy, etc.). This system could be replicated with other historical milestones and important figures.
The third post in this thread contains every description. You will have a hard time finding one that is concise and clear — but it's all there. The "Settlement Policy" decision (requirement and effects changed) is now exclusive to "Land of Opportunity", as written here.
Well, those issues can be (easily) dealt with if only the feature has demand.
Yes, this could be a viable option, but I feel it cannot be as tweak-able as decisions/events. Basically one has to create a separate spy mission for every advisor type which will indeed make a mess from interface perspective.
I think that possibility of advisor trade would instead increase cultural tradition worth because a small nation could have made thousands of gold on it (of course if depends on how hard is to increase cultural tradition and the seller should have right to decide himself how much does he want to be paid). Also the buyer should take a reduction to his cultural tradition too. Apart from income it could give serious political advantage to small nations focused on cultural tradition as there will be something they can offer to big nations in return for protection. I agree that advisor costs should be scaled to employer size/yearly income and this will increase small nations income. Generally, I think that conquest should be made even harder or often give less benefits than keeping wrong religion/culture nations alive under your control (apart from vassalization/sphere benefits there could be special trade practices with asian nations).
I think this is a great idea.
Last edited by madmagnum; 23-02-2012 at 16:20.
@ ashaila
Ah, I guess you mean the 'Promote Cultural Unity' province decision?
sharpcat@hotmail.co.uk
Steam ID: 'catchin_wreck'
MOROCCO in 'Cabal is for Winners'
ENGLAND in 'Est Modus in Rebus'
AUSTRIA in 'Ultima Ratio'
Yes i used it in our mp game.
I see! Annoying for me.
Another question for Silk: What are the new requirements for Expand the Bureaucracy? I know it involves the Bureaucracy idea. Couldn't find any mention of it though in the thread...
sharpcat@hotmail.co.uk
Steam ID: 'catchin_wreck'
MOROCCO in 'Cabal is for Winners'
ENGLAND in 'Est Modus in Rebus'
AUSTRIA in 'Ultima Ratio'
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