VRRP 2.0 beta 3 - get it here!

[KonradRichtmark]

And another 2.0 beta is out. The major change from the last version is that Phi's work on migration dynamics and the Demographic Transition have made it into the game. Say a big thank you to Phi if you see him, he's not with us anymore, but the contributions he made while he was are invaluable.

This version is made for vanilla AHD 2.31. This is likely the final beta before 2.0 gets a final release.

Installation is done by simply extracting into the main directory (for now). Note that since it's in beta, a number of event notifications are shown that won't be in the final release, mostly things that have to do with adjusting the global money supply. They are kept visible simply so I get a better idea of what's going on while I playtest. If you want to get rid of them, simply remove every instance of the line "major = yes" from the file money.txt in the /events folder.

GET ~IT~ HERE

[KonradRichtmark]

Can someone give me a basic confirmation that it runs? I've managed to break my system somehow, I don't even get vanilla AHD to run anymore

[orwell]

Works fine for me.

[KonradRichtmark]

So... what's it like? Any obvious bugs/glitches/errors in need of quickfix?

It seems like my computer has decided to stop letting me run Victoria 2, and it seems like it'll take a while for me to sort out what's wrong. Making me all the more appreciative of comments from players.

[Beagá]

Working for me as well, but it´s quite a change from vanilla... Intelectuals, goods etc, and budget management different as well. Noticed the immigration modifiers on the provinces as well. What changes those? Cash reserves? RGO occupation? To sum it up, is there a guide to all the changes made from vanilla?

[KonradRichtmark]

Well, there's an overview in the main sticky thread, though it's not really up to date. I used to post version changelogs, but that's hardly practical anymore now that I've started from a clean slate for AHD.

I'm planning on writing a VRRP Manual as soon as I've released 2.0.

[GAGA Extrem]

Sorry that I can't contribute atm, but I am quite busy. Will be available around june again!

[Arthasus]

Is it WAD that countries like Wurttemberg reach great power status in early game just because of prestige ?

[KonradRichtmark]

Doesn't sound WAD to me, though that happens in vanilla AHD too, doesn't it? In fact, I doubled the starting prestige of all countries which are GPs at start to make such things rarer.

[Arthasus]

Well, all GPs start with 80-250 prestige and some inventions (like romantic literature) give even 50 prestige so it's very easy to become great power just by spamming those inventions.

[Beagá]

Maybe, but the time you waste on those inventions can be very valuable. It´s the same balance decision that was made with vanilla - if the prestige bonus is reduced too much it becomes useless to research it as a GP, and if it´s too large it benefits too uch small countries. So it´s impossible to create an "ideal" value.

Ok Konrad, I´ve played Austria since 1848, some thoughts so far:

1- Population growth a bit small, but I´ve noticed that the tech tree is organized so that population growth increases exponentialy with time. Is that correct?
2- Taxes must be kept below 20% or POPs will lose cash. WAD? Remember that it´s 1848 so I haven´t researched many economic techs yet.
3- AI focusing too much on navy and not as much in railroads and other investments. Doesn´t make sense specially with Prussia.
4- Assimilation seems to be ok. I always go for Federalist party, so I guess the militancy is working correctly as well.
5- France already ate Tunis and ALgeria and Spain ate Morocco. US quite agressvie towards Mexico (which is good in vanilla it was too friendly with them and didn´t get their cores as agressively as it should).
6- Spain and Russia have a bit too much industry, while Belgium not enough (66/88/4 industrial score, respectively)

I can send you a save game if you want to analyze the situation.

[KonradRichtmark]

1. Yeah, this is supposed to model the Demographic Transition (wiki is your friend). Pre-industrial societies have fairly slow growth. Early industrialization increases growth rate due to better food production and advances in medicine. Later on, urbanization and cultural shifts bring down the birthrate again. Therefore, early industrial techs increase population growth rate, while later ones bring it down again.

2. Do you mean that they actually end up with negative income?

3. I've noticed that too, but doesn't it do so in vanilla as well?

6. How profitable is Russian industry? Clerks and output inventions are major sources of factory profitability, and Russia isn't (or shouldn't be) good at getting either.

[Beagá]

Yep, negative income if taxes above 20%, most of the time.

Not that it´s a problem (at least for me) - sure, I don´t have much cash, but considering we´re talking about Austria, it sounds reasonable and realistic to get 20-30 monies per day with ideal taxes.

BTW, I think POPs could be more reactive, multicultural countries are still a bit too stable.

[Beagá]

So, 1868. Rank 4; UK, France and Russia ahead.

1- A new GP arrived and it´s - Mexico! Why? Industry mostly - a secundary effect of imigration + assimilation, I presume. I bet the migrating POPs also have better litteracy than mexicans, thus giving a boost to Research as well. I´d suggest tweaking immigration a bit to either decrease attraction and immigration overall, or do like Vicky 1 and give a bonus to the US.
2- Consciousness and militancy are pretty nasty, as is the increase to CON due to infamy. If the objective was preventing too many wars, it suceeded - being above 10 infamy is bad heh. Besides, the immigration was so big it certainly is another good reason to refrain from being too agressive.
3- Clerks are difficult to get and lose - is that WAD? Also as soon as factory is created it fills up pretty fast. Not complaining, it just feels different.

Overall I´m satisfied with the mod, some tweaks to immigration to prevent Mexico etc from becoming too powerful might be good. Also, maybe consider putting some events here and there - I see that you stickied mostly with the vanilla events, am I correct? Are there events to free Canada India etc?

[KonradRichtmark]

Yes, it's WAD that you get clerks slowly, and the rate at which you get them depends heavily on your literacy, and a bit on how good your craftsmen have it. And they have a major impact on factory profitability. As a matter of design choice, I've made getting craftsmen hardly be an obstacle to industrializing - almost any stupid schmuck can do a repetitive task on an assembly line and make cheap Made in China crap. But if you want efficiency and profitability, you need professionals (clerks, whom I maintain to represent all kinds of better-educated workforce, such as engineers).

Overall, I'm trying to make things happen (and not happen) in the game for the reasons they did in real history. Vanilla (and most mods, for that matter) let rate of craftsman promotion be the limiter of industrial growth. Which I don't think it should be, since craftsmen are after all just stupid brute labour. I've made factories a lot more expensive to build, making investment cost and capital accumulation the main determinant of industrial growth rate - and clerks and tech the main determinant of industrial profitability.

[Beagá]

Ok. Overall you did a good job. BTW I got a Great War versus France, apparently all worked as it should. Proud owner of FRanche-Comté aswell as Alsace, Prussia is in in my SOI and SGF is formed. Germany soon, I hope.

Another issue, getting reforms passed is MUCH harder than in vanilla, and I simply can´t see ways of making reforms other than revolution or a very lucky string of events... is that WAD? It´s 1888 and I predict that soon I´ll have a large scale communist revolt. Only reform I passed was landed vote, and that´s it. I´ve used NFs a bit to influnce loyalty to liberals, to no avail. Is it necessary to have 5% or more party loyalty by NF everywhere to get a shot at winning elections?

[KonradRichtmark]

Honestly, I wouldn't be able to answer that. At the moment I'm using the same POP ideology & issue selection scripts as vanilla.

[KonradRichtmark]

One more thing. Did you notice any bug or error in need of quickfix (as in, something that's an obvious typo etc, not a whole feature not working as intended)? I'll be travelling the whole next week, so I'd rather release 2.0 before that. From what it sounds like atm beta3 would do as is.

[Beagá]

Do you want me to send my 1898 save game? As German Empire

Nothing crazy happened and no typos. However, you might want to tone down POP growth reduction from tech. Population has stagnated due to the effect of inventions that reduce POP growth (which might be a good thing, because the game is starting to lag a bit). Maybe decrease the growth that inventions give by half, and reduce the malus of inventions that reduce POP growth to 25% of what they are now.

As for reforms, I´ve agressively promoted liberals with 5 NF and did managed to squeeze another reform, but other than NF I dunno if it´s possible to influence political parties enough to be able to pass reforms in numbers.

[KonradRichtmark]

By all means, upload the savegames. I won't be able to look at them until I get my own game to work though. I'll look over the pop growth modifiers. Stagnation of growth, well, that sounds kind of what happened in real history But yeah, a late-game state should probably still have slightly higher pop growth than a pre-industrial society.