I would like to start a discussion of what we should look for in fantasy events for the AGCEEP. I'd like to have, if not a formal standard, some sort of community consensus on what potential events should look like.
I'll start with what I think are two general standards we should have, then I'll talk about ways to classify fantasy events.
My first general principle is we should only write fantasy events for things that the engine cannot accomplish without events. Examples of things that can be done without events are: converting provinces to the same religion, building infrastructure, recruiting armies and navies, and making domestic policy changes. Although some of these sorts of commands may be included in fantasy events, there's not much point in a fantasy event where these are the main things happening. Fantasy events will generally only happen to players, and they can do all these things on their own.
My second general principle is creating inplausible fantasy events should not interfere with our ability to model history. By this I mean, we should not modify the initial setup, or use up scarce resources, in order to allow for the creation of fantasy pathways. By initial setup, I refer to culture layout and the province map. By scarce resources, I refer mainly to tags.
Of course, the principle above only frames a debate, because one man's "quite implausible" is another man's "reasonable alternate history". The most obvious place where this may get debated is the use of tags on nations like Italy, Germany, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Personally, I place Italy squarely in the "reasonable alternate history" camp, Jerusalem in the "quite implausible" camp, and Germany somewhere in between.
Anyway, beyond the above two standards, I'd classify fantasy events on two axes:
1) Likelihood/plausibility in history - does the event model something that most would agree would have been a geopolitical likelihood given certain conditions, or does it model something that's a little more of a stretch, even given the initial conditions? Event chains that create a "story" involving ahistorical people would obviously fall on the extreme far end of this spectrum.
2) Likelihood/plausibility within the game - How easily can a player achieve the conditions that trigger the event? Left alone, would the AI achieve these conditions more that 5% of the time?
Now, let's look at those four quadrants:
Events which are both "historically likely given conditions" and "difficult to achieve/unlikely for the AI to achieve by accident" are not really fantasy events in my opinion - they are merely alt-history events. The KOI events and the various alternate ends to the HYW are probably good examples of this.
The same really goes for the "historically likely" "easily achieved" events, but these are more dangerous because they can get in the way of modeling history. So if they indeed pose such a problem, they should be put in the fantasy-only file, and possibly be enabled only for human players.
As for the "implausible" events, I would avoid the "story"-type event chains, with multiple events based on ahistorical factors. While this sort of event chain can be quite fun, I don't think the general AGCEEP release is the place for it. After all, why should we choose one "story" to include over another? What is the standard? People can release "fantasy packs" for the AGCEEP with events like this, and we could link to them and even provide installation instructions. There's really nothing wrong with that, we can and should support it; I just don't like the idea of making one implausible alt-history the "official AGCEEP ahistorical path."
That leaves the "implausible" events that are not really story based. Things like the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or most potential Byzantine rennasiance events. These are the classic sort of "fantasy" events. I think we should avoid those events whose conditions are "easy to achieve" (which I would define as, achieved by the AI in hands-off tests more than 5% of the time). Beyond that, if these events follow the two principles I outlined at the outset, I don't mind including them as fantasy options.
Thoughts?
I'll start with what I think are two general standards we should have, then I'll talk about ways to classify fantasy events.
My first general principle is we should only write fantasy events for things that the engine cannot accomplish without events. Examples of things that can be done without events are: converting provinces to the same religion, building infrastructure, recruiting armies and navies, and making domestic policy changes. Although some of these sorts of commands may be included in fantasy events, there's not much point in a fantasy event where these are the main things happening. Fantasy events will generally only happen to players, and they can do all these things on their own.
My second general principle is creating inplausible fantasy events should not interfere with our ability to model history. By this I mean, we should not modify the initial setup, or use up scarce resources, in order to allow for the creation of fantasy pathways. By initial setup, I refer to culture layout and the province map. By scarce resources, I refer mainly to tags.
Of course, the principle above only frames a debate, because one man's "quite implausible" is another man's "reasonable alternate history". The most obvious place where this may get debated is the use of tags on nations like Italy, Germany, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Personally, I place Italy squarely in the "reasonable alternate history" camp, Jerusalem in the "quite implausible" camp, and Germany somewhere in between.
Anyway, beyond the above two standards, I'd classify fantasy events on two axes:
1) Likelihood/plausibility in history - does the event model something that most would agree would have been a geopolitical likelihood given certain conditions, or does it model something that's a little more of a stretch, even given the initial conditions? Event chains that create a "story" involving ahistorical people would obviously fall on the extreme far end of this spectrum.
2) Likelihood/plausibility within the game - How easily can a player achieve the conditions that trigger the event? Left alone, would the AI achieve these conditions more that 5% of the time?
Now, let's look at those four quadrants:
Events which are both "historically likely given conditions" and "difficult to achieve/unlikely for the AI to achieve by accident" are not really fantasy events in my opinion - they are merely alt-history events. The KOI events and the various alternate ends to the HYW are probably good examples of this.
The same really goes for the "historically likely" "easily achieved" events, but these are more dangerous because they can get in the way of modeling history. So if they indeed pose such a problem, they should be put in the fantasy-only file, and possibly be enabled only for human players.
As for the "implausible" events, I would avoid the "story"-type event chains, with multiple events based on ahistorical factors. While this sort of event chain can be quite fun, I don't think the general AGCEEP release is the place for it. After all, why should we choose one "story" to include over another? What is the standard? People can release "fantasy packs" for the AGCEEP with events like this, and we could link to them and even provide installation instructions. There's really nothing wrong with that, we can and should support it; I just don't like the idea of making one implausible alt-history the "official AGCEEP ahistorical path."
That leaves the "implausible" events that are not really story based. Things like the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or most potential Byzantine rennasiance events. These are the classic sort of "fantasy" events. I think we should avoid those events whose conditions are "easy to achieve" (which I would define as, achieved by the AI in hands-off tests more than 5% of the time). Beyond that, if these events follow the two principles I outlined at the outset, I don't mind including them as fantasy options.
Thoughts?
