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Darkrenown

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China_imperialism_cartoon.jpg

It's Friday, and that means it's time for another AHD dev diary! Today's DD is about China. As most of you know, getting China into your Sphere of Influence could be a massive boon to your economy since all those Chinese pops buy your produced goods first. Perhaps not quite a “Win” button, but it was a big advantage.

Our solution to this was to split China into several parts. Some of the parts are still pretty populous and so are still good SoI targets, but they are not quite as huge as the old China was, and of course multiple GPs can now Sphere separate parts.

So what have we done? Well, we've added something called a “Substate”, a Substate is basically an unbreakable puppet. While a Substate can be conquered, while it exists it cannot be broken away from their masters. It's possible to form CBs on Substates, but to use them you must declare war on China and fight the combined armies of China and their Substates. In other regards, they act as puppets do. Those of you you have played a Daimyo in Divine Wind should find the concept somewhat familiar, although in this case the Emperor is the largest and most powerful state rather than a figurehead.

China can re-unite itself though, an event will be fired when they Civilise, annexing all Substates on good terms with China. Substates that refuse will also Civilise, but will suffer a large relations hit with China, and since they have cores on all the Substates dissenters may be in for interesting times. If a Substate manages to Civilise first China and the other Substates will also become Civilised, but the country will not unite.

For anyone not interested in China, perhaps this might tickle your fancy? Troops now once again speed up Colonisation! Cunning coding has been done to convince the AI that sending out troops to colonial areas may indeed benefit them, so it should no longer be a free ride for the player. However, no one likes having competition in their colonial ventures, so when two or more nations are trying to Colonise the same state they will also find it easier to generate CBs on each other, and adding troops into the mix only increases this bonus.

A house divided DD 6.png
 
Great improvements on China, however will there also be a Taiping rebellion now?
 
Wouldn't making the East India Company a substate of GB be a good idea as well? Then GB could get an "Government of India act" decision to reintegrate them under certain circumstances.
 
Interesting concept.

Are substates playable?

Do any other nations than China use the substate system at the start of the game?

I assume Tibet remains as it is currently in Victoria 2 and is not a substate?

I realise it is a minor complaint, but could you change the colour of the substate around Yunan so that it blends in more with the rest of China? The other colours are already a good fit.

Is the path towards civilising for China easier now to reflect the weakened power of any one Chinese state? Or do the scores of substates count towards their master's scores?


I hope that isn't the only change to colonisation (arguably it isn't a change at all, since it was marketed in the original Victoria 2) and there is more to come in future developer diaries?
 
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Splitting China? It's a good thing this forum is blocked there, otherwise the crazed nationalists would be all over this thread complaining about it.

Which substate is the imperial substate? Given that China was then ruled by the Manchu Qing dynasty, is it in Manchuria? Or Beijing?
 
Wouldn't making the East India Company a substate of GB be a good idea as well? Then GB could get an "Government of India act" decision to reintegrate them under certain circumstances.

Indeed, it might make sense for all colonies to be modelled this way.
 
Wouldn't making the East India Company a substate of GB be a good idea as well? Then GB could get an "Government of India act" decision to reintegrate them under certain circumstances.

Good changes! And I agree that there should be a BEIC substate as well.
 
I hope that isn't the only change to colonisation (arguably it isn't a change at all, since it was marketed in the original Victoria 2) and there is more to come in future developer diaries?

there were two reason it was removed from original V2. The AI didnt understand how to ship troops properly so the player always won and having the troops fighting over the province didnt work very well. This system fits much better now when we have developed the CB generation mechanic so you can have conflicts and colony races between powers lead to war.

also yes, substates are playable, but less interesting than puppets because they cant break free if they want (which is a new features of AHD)
 
Now that the substate system exists, are you going to make the AI more likely to force the release of normal vassals through war? Or are you going to make normal vassals more interactable diplomatically?
 
Indeed, it might make sense for all colonies to be modelled this way.

The EEC was more autonomous than the other colonies, though, because it had its own armed forces and administrational rights. Canada did have militia groups, but they served as a part of the British forces.
 
Are substates playable?

Do any other nations than China use the substate system at the start of the game?

I assume Tibet remains as it is currently in Victoria 2 and is not a substate?

I realise it is a minor complaint, but could you change the colour of the substate around Yunan so that it blends in more with the rest of China? The other colours are already a good fit.

Is the path towards civilising for China easier now to reflect the weakened power of any one Chinese state? Or do the scores of substates count towards their master's scores?


I hope that isn't the only change to colonisation (arguably it isn't a change at all, since it was marketed in the original Victoria 2) and there is more to come in future developer diaries?

They are playable, although it is perhaps not the most interesting game. So far only China has Substates. Tibet is not a Substate, but it is a puppet. Yunan's colour may change, but it's hard to make it visibly different while still yellowish, if you have a nice RGB value I can certainly try it. This is the only major colonial change.

Which substate is the imperial substate? Given that China was then ruled by the Manchu Qing dynasty, is it in Manchuria? Or Beijing?

Beijing.
 
"Chinese Empire" might be a better name for this new arrangement than just "China", both in terms of how it looks on the map and given that China was considered to be just a part of the Chinese Empire at the time.

Other than that though, this looks a lot better than what I was thinking it would be when it was first announced. Keep up the good work!

Great improvements on China, however will there also be a Taiping rebellion now?

Wouldn't making the East India Company a substate of GB be a good idea as well? Then GB could get an "Government of India act" decision to reintegrate them under certain circumstances.
Both of these would be crazy-awesome.

Indeed, it might make sense for all colonies to be modelled this way.
Places like Japan, Indochina, and most of Africa could really benefit from this, as it would allow creeping colonial influence and the ability to partition countries, whilst recognising that the creation of a centralised state was the deciding factor in whether a country was "civilised" (in Vicky terms).

EDIT: Two questions - will there be a higher (read: actual) chance of seeing the Boxers in this new China, and is there any chance of a Chinese Revolution/Civil War and/or the Northern Expedition?
 
For anyone not interested in China, perhaps this might tickle your fancy? Troops now once again speed up Colonisation! Cunning coding has been done to convince the AI that sending out troops to colonial areas may indeed benefit them, so it should no longer be a free ride for the player. However, no one likes having competition in their colonial ventures, so when two or more nations are trying to Colonise the same state they will also find it easier to generate CBs on each other, and adding troops into the mix only increases this bonus.

This paragraph is the most exiting of the dev diary! It will spice up colonizing. :)
The China part is fine though. As I said earlier: The solution is terribly ugly, but functional and an improvement.
 
there were two reason it was removed from original V2. The AI didnt understand how to ship troops properly so the player always won and having the troops fighting over the province didnt work very well. This system fits much better now when we have developed the CB generation mechanic so you can have conflicts and colony races between powers lead to war.
I realise that, and I don't have a problem with that decision which is now in the past, but that didn't answer my question. :)

I mainly dislike the fact that colonisation is just a who gets there first game, putting back the colonial troop feature helps, but some random events which hamper or help your effort (ala EU3), bonuses to colonising speed depending on tech, or at least a way of modding these in would help.
 
Which state does Taiwan belong to?
 
I have a suggestion. It's about borders. When I look at the map in the screen shot I think it would be nice if National borders were more prominant, say a thick black line. But if the border is between substates then it could be as it is in the screen shot so at a glance a player could tell which is a nation and which is a substate. I imagine it would certainly make things easyer for a player if China has fragmented and a substate has become independant.