CORE 0.60 Dev Diary

[Tegetthoff]

An upgrade of the basic economy type is seen as outside the time scale of the game. As an extreme example, Afghanistan cannot make it from subsistence to fully industrialised in 1936 to 1953.
Please note that a semi-industrial country can do almost everything a fully industrial country can do, just a bit later. There is a delay in the electronics techs that puts them a few years behind. But theoretically, Finland can build a nuclear bomb.

[Serenissima]

I do think that more places ought to be semi-industrial rather than pre-industrial, though.

[Hister]

I do think that more places ought to be semi-industrial rather than pre-industrial, though.

Well that would be highly historically unrealistic but maybe you are right from the game point of view.

[Cakes]

All secret weapons are totally closed off to finland, so are all tanks, Jets and radar technologies.
This is despite taking a lot of the North of Germany and building a lot of IC (with American help).

Finland is pre-industrial. Is that as it should be?
If you can build industries, there should be scope for moving from 'pre' to 'semi'..

#C

[HistoryMan]

Prior to AoD, there was no trigger for IC levels, anyway, so it was not possible to even consider scripting events that would allow improvement of your technological base when you might hit a certain IC level.

Even having got past that game engine issue, it isn't simply a question of "becoming" Semi-Industrial (say) in a few months simply because you happen to now control a lot of IC - by default, that IC is basically not going to be your own (either conquered or built with aid, as mentioned above). The only nations in the game period that realistically transitioned from one tech level to another would be the USSR (after ransacking East Germany for Industry & science), China (by acquiring the areas formerly under Japanese control which were more developed), and possibly India (moving up from Agricultural). Even then, all these countries were by and large on their way to the next level anyway. Just because somewhere like Finland conquers a lot of territory doesn't mean it really gets to be able to design better equipment. If you want to run "world domination" scenarios with minor states, then CORE really isn't the mod for you, I'd say - it is meant to represent the limitations of the time period (whether they be geographical, political, economic or military) rather than be a complete "sand box" where anyone can develop anything.

Tim

[Cakes]

Surely a pre-industrial country is, by its very nature, on its way to be coming semi-industrialised. The question is what causes a nation to transition from state to state - surely this is down to building (or capturing) IC, gaining information on new technologies and of course the passing years!!! I was never suggesting that it could be done in 'a few months'.
I don't think it should matter whether the country is a major power or a minor nation; no country should be artificially kept in a particular state of industrialisation or else they should not be playable in AoD.

AoD IS a sandbox game; if it were anything else then Germany and Japan would never win.
Who suggested that anyone wants a game type where anyone can develop anything from day one? I do think that every country 'should' be able to develop anything - given enough time and investment. Of course, 36-64 is not enough time for any 'major' shift in industrialisation for an Agricultural economy (for example).

There must surely be some scope for a slight upgrade in capacity - maybe to pre-industrial - given enough time and investment? The question is HOW to do this.

#C

[Serenissima]

The places I was thinking of to bump up from 'pre' to 'semi' are places like Spain, Portugal, and Finland. I think that in the 1936-53 time period they could quite easily have government investments to build more industries and be able to actually build their own aircraft and tanks. IC is already present as a limiting factor for the capacity to produce things.

Of course, it's not a difficult mod to make to do this yourself, as I did (for my Republican Spain game), so it's not really a major concern.

[Tegetthoff]

I personally would welcome sub-mods to CORE, whether they be graphical or event driven.

[Dichromate]

The places I was thinking of to bump up from 'pre' to 'semi' are places like Spain, Portugal, and Finland. I think that in the 1936-53 time period they could quite easily have government investments to build more industries and be able to actually build their own aircraft and tanks. IC is already present as a limiting factor for the capacity to produce things.

Of course, it's not a difficult mod to make to do this yourself, as I did (for my Republican Spain game), so it's not really a major concern.

Agreed, I really don't think it's unrealistic for a country to be able to advance one stage during the period of the game, subject to limits like an IC requirement. The tech could be unlocked like a secret weapons tech, and since apparently IC can be used a trigger there isn't any need for numerous complex events.

There were some old bugs with Sweden and Turkey not being able to build IC because they were neither isolated nor in a depression - I *think* they were fixed at some point, but tbh it's ages since I've played core so I'm not sure.

[Emmanuel_M]

Yep, allowing one single level jump during game for every country would make sense. You could bring subsistence to agriculture, agriculture to pre_in, pre_in to semi or even semi to industrialized.

[HistoryMan]

The early step changes (Subsistence to Ag, Ag to Pre-Ind) require even longer time periods than the later changes (potentially 100s of years). The minimum time for a change is really a generation, and given the time frame we have (36 to 53, as we don't support the extended timeframe past then) this is realistically out of reach for anywhere that wasn't effectively fairly well along the pathway anyway. We have some pretty good benchmarks as to what qualifies a nation to achieve a certain technological level, and it is not based on simple "we've got lots of IC" (after all, if China were a single nation in game, it would have more IC than any nation except the 7 major powers, but it is still Agricultural on an overall tech level). You need the educational development of people coming through, growing up with a familiarity of the new technology to really establish that level of technology as fully functional usage for more than a few one-off projects.

Portugal just doesn't deserve anything better than pre-Industrial, however you slice it. Spain is a big economy, but it's performance in the heavy industry field is very lacking, which is why it is only pre-Industrial. Finland suffers from being small, amongst other things, although it is better than Portugal, certainly. NB "Pre-Industrial" is perhaps a slightly misleading term - I think the original name was "Early Industrial", which probably gives you a better flavour of things, but "Pre-Industrial" was the name that got used in the released version.

The other thing to consider is that there are actually advantages to being lower tech - you get cheaper costs for many units, cheaper resource costs to run your IC (though you don't directly see this - it is built in to the resources given to each province, since we can't change the 2 Energy / 1 Metal / 0.5 Rare per IC cost via techs). Whilst AoD may be more designed as a sandbox game - CORE is not. You are not meant to be playing Bhutan and building battleships with it in CORE, even if you might be able to do so in vanilla.

This doesn't mean that there won't ever be a way to move up a tech level in CORE. It does mean it will be very hard and (frankly) not likely to be worth the effort in the timescale of the game, although I do understand how some people see it as a goal in itself, as well as potentially playing with a later end date.

Tim

[Serenissima]

I don't see it as a 'sandbox' issue so much as a question of some fairly important nations not actually being able to contribute to their wars except by spamming infantry divisions - Spain, Communist China and Finland are the two that always stick in my mind. It seems to be doing a disservice to them that they can never construct tanks, especially if their situations in the game are radically different from reality - as they generally will be, being more successful with a human player than in real life.

Thankfully, as noted, it's so easy to alter a nation's industry level in the scenario file that it's not really a major problem with CORE - as those who want to alter it can do so.

[Cakes]

I've got some event/trigger combos that I can add to 'selected' nations - Finland being the one I have added for now. See below for those that are interested (Added to bottom of core_finland.txt).

###############################################################################
# Pre-Industrial Move to Semi-Industrial
# Event 1100075
# CORE2 Ver 0.5
# by #Cakes/Hostillian, adjusted by Apr012012
###############################################################################

# You need to add the corresponing EN1100075/ED1100075 events to the event_text.csv file.

event = {
	id = 1100075
	random = no
	country = FIN

	trigger = {
		AND = {	energy = 2000
			metal = 1000
			manpower = 50
			rare_materials = 500
			technology = 5840
		}
		NOT = { technology = 5220 } 
	}

	name = "Economy reinvigorated."	# "EN1100075"
	desc = "Your economic base has new room for improvement!"	# "ED1100075"

	style = 0
	picture = "techteam"

	date = { hour = 14 day = 1 month = january year = 1940 }
	offset = 2
	deathdate = { hour = 14 day = 29 month = december year = 1954 }

	action_a = {
		name = "OK"
		command = { type = activate which = 5220 }	# Semi Industrial Economy
		command = { type = sleepevent which = 1100074 }	# Sleep possible move to Pre industrial
		command = { type = sleepevent which = 1100076 }	# Sleep possible move to fully industrial
	}
}

I have used time and materials as the basis for allowing an upgrade - they were hastily added.
The sleep events were for events that allow me to add the 4 sets of code to a country - with the restriction that only one economy upgrade is possible! of course, when we get a new version of CORE, I might need to change the event number!

With regards to educational development of the people coming through - surely thats for the innovators, industrialists and designers to decide - not the population as a whole - back then, University was only for a relatively privileged few.

Educational ability, it seems to me, is modelled by the Tech Teams.
You don't get the upgrade to the next economy type for free, you have to use the benefits of your countries education system to research it. Then of course you need to research the techs that your new upgraded economy brings. Not easy and not quick (especially for those with poorer tech teams) but if it's modelled in game why not allow it?

At the end of the day, its a game and is down to personal preference! I'm happy with Finland (and a few other countries) receiving this addition. Others may not be.

#C

[Dichromate]

I don't see it as a 'sandbox' issue so much as a question of some fairly important nations not actually being able to contribute to their wars except by spamming infantry divisions - Spain, Communist China and Finland are the two that always stick in my mind. It seems to be doing a disservice to them that they can never construct tanks, especially if their situations in the game are radically different from reality - as they generally will be, being more successful with a human player than in real life.

Thankfully, as noted, it's so easy to alter a nation's industry level in the scenario file that it's not really a major problem with CORE - as those who want to alter it can do so.

In the case of Spain, whether Spain is allied with a major bloc should probably be a deciding factor - IRL Spain ended up being relatively isolated, particularly late in the war and up until the cold war was well and truly on.
But in the game, particularly if controlled by a player, Spain could end up allied to Germany, the Soviet Union, or the Allies. In that case it would probably modernize faster than it did IRL (and in my opinion, Spain didn't become semi-industrialized IRL until the mid-late 50s, arguably even later. It was still recovering from the civil war up until that point.)

[Tegetthoff]

Thankfully, as noted, it's so easy to alter a nation's industry level in the scenario file that it's not really a major problem with CORE - as those who want to alter it can do so.

If you want to modify the industry level, don´t forget the corresponding National Idea (Cakes would have to change this in his event, too).

[Tegetthoff]

April 3, 2012 dev diary

I´ll make this dev diary again more in the form of a report what we are doing at the moment.

Version 0.60.7 was published yesterday in the Terranova Beta forum. I called it a major step forward there, and really think that this is the case.

First of all Dec is now almost done with the tech AI rewrite. This means that the ai will know how to use all the new techs and build all the nice attachments I have listed here. But this is the chance to rewrite all the old sections that in some cases have been dormant for years.

We also use this chance to delete references to dozens of techs that no longe exist. As an example, when techs 8330 and 8340 have somehow merged into tech 83308340 the AI will not really know what to research. Among other things, this increases the stability of the mod.

We went over the GER/SOV encounter in detail and added a couple of dozen events. Where historically justifiable, the Soviets now mobilise reserve divisions with different degrees of preparedness and usefullness. We also went over the actual locations of the Soviet coal fields and moved them to the proper places and wrote events that relocate and expand coal production. The result is a significant improvement in the hands-off GER/SOV performance, with Germany usually penetrating deep into Russia and being beaten back after two or three years.

A large set of events makes the Allies return the recaptured West African provinces to France, with the added bonus that English and American troops now invade Europe rather than guard Timbuktu or wander about the Sahara.

We now have purely flavour "Speeches of World War II" events that add a nice historic touch.

Add to this dozens of bug fixes, spelling modifications, minister, leader and tech team corrections.

Hagar has produced the first set of unit illustrations (Battleships and Carriers) to account for the new model structure. And Dec is working on country specific unit icons.

And I look forward to playing the game again for a change rather than modding it.

[Hister]

Terrific work lads - blessing your dev souls, all of them!

[Cakes]

Sounds Great!
Thanks to all the dev's for their efforts!

[maurfal]

Any news? 3 weeks without any improvement?

[Tegetthoff]

Three weeks with a lot of improvement, but no news over here ...

I´ll write something up, but this may need a couple of days.