Ahistorical dynamic historical events

[pheonicia]

Part of the fun of playing paradox games is the alternate history aspect of changing the timeline, aka what if the holy roman empire managed to centralize or a unified Scandinavia in eu4, that players might have for their campaign as a goal. But very rarely does the game really recognize our accomplishments in any interesting ways. Therefore I propose ahistorical dynamic historical events, that will help add content and flavor to some of the common player goals and I invite others to present their ideas in this vein.

Rules:
1. Must abide by physics, aka no dragons or moon colonies, these can be weird and unlikely, but must be physically possible.
2. Must be over 100 years after game start, the early game won't need help for content, the mid to late game almost certainly will.

 

[Corsini11]

How would you envision an event looking like? How would you think this would be able to be implemented?

 

[pheonicia]

I will present one that I've had kicking around for quite a while. Players in eu4 will oftentimes make the protestant reformation much more successful than it was historically, say as Prussia, and conquer and convert a huge portion of Europe. I propose this be recognized with the dynamic possibility of the Pope fleeing to the new world.

Under the circumstances that
A. Over 2/3 of Europe is not Catholic or Orthodox
B. At least 1/3 of Italy is not Catholic or Orthodox
C. At least half of new world (European) nations are Catholic

Colonial nations or their overlords could compete to provide the papacy a new home in the new world and establishing a clear old/new world split in Christianity.

 

[pheonicia]

How would you envision an event looking like? How would you think this would be able to be implemented?

I'm not concerned particularly with mechanics, since we don't have any info on the vast majority, so I wouldn't worry to much about implementation. This is more about collecting ideas for how people often go off of the rails of history and interesting responses that the game could provide.

 

[alexkowal123]

watching the americas get decimated every time will get very depressing. Maybe have a very low chance that ahistorically they had immuno resistance to western diseases? This would aid the replayability and keep it fun. I think having very low chances of ahistorical things happening, like china spawning industrial revolution (maybe look at the conditions China would have needed to start it, assuming province goods remain constant), would stop every game seeming like an eventuality. The black plague should probably have almost the same effect each time, but later into the game have chances of ahistoricality

Much later edit: I think this should be an optional game rule, this appears to be the bulk of the criticism, along with a stubborn love for history

I talked a bit about this in this thread, it was quite controversial

 

[EvsseH]

I will present one that I've had kicking around for quite a while. Players in eu4 will oftentimes make the protestant reformation much more successful than it was historically, say as Prussia, and conquer and convert a huge portion of Europe. I propose this be recognized with the dynamic possibility of the Pope fleeing to the new world.

Under the circumstances that
A. Over 2/3 of Europe is not Catholic or Orthodox
B. At least 1/3 of Italy is not Catholic or Orthodox
C. At least half of new world nations are Catholic

Colonial nations or their overlords could compete to provide the papacy a new home in the new world and establishing a clear old/new world split in Christianity.

that's actually a banger idea, hoi4 is proof that ahistorical fun events can be implemented in paradox games

 

[Eruth]

I talked a bit about this in this thread, it was quite controversial

Mostly because
A: you proposed it as something that could just happen in any play through , rather than being locked behind a game rule
B: it would require something to have changed before the game timeline started. Folks generally want the game to start historically and only change in responce to actions they or the AI take during gameplay.

 

[alexkowal123]

Mostly because
A: you proposed it as something that could just happen in any play through , rather than being locked behind a game rule
B: it would require something to have changed before the game timeline started. Folks generally want the game to start historically and only change in responce to actions they or the AI take during gameplay.

Agreed, I was just spitballing. It'd have to be done carefully

 

[alexkowal123]

I will present one that I've had kicking around for quite a while. Players in eu4 will oftentimes make the protestant reformation much more successful than it was historically, say as Prussia, and conquer and convert a huge portion of Europe. I propose this be recognized with the dynamic possibility of the Pope fleeing to the new world.

Under the circumstances that
A. Over 2/3 of Europe is not Catholic or Orthodox
B. At least 1/3 of Italy is not Catholic or Orthodox
C. At least half of new world (European) nations are Catholic

Colonial nations or their overlords could compete to provide the papacy a new home in the new world and establishing a clear old/new world split in Christianity.

Is this sorta like the pope popping out in the HRE or wherever in EU4, I had him in Iceland one time, but fleshed out?

 

[alexkowal123]

Part of the fun of playing paradox games is the alternate history aspect of changing the timeline, aka what if the holy roman empire managed to centralize or a unified Scandinavia in eu4, that players might have for their campaign as a goal. But very rarely does the game really recognize our accomplishments in any interesting ways. Therefore I propose ahistorical dynamic historical events, that will help add content and flavor to some of the common player goals and I invite others to present their ideas in this vein.

Rules:
1. Must abide by physics, aka no dragons or moon colonies, these can be weird and unlikely, but must be physically possible.
2. Must be over 100 years after game start, the early game won't need help for content, the mid to late game almost certainly will.

I sort of think it should be limited to pondering different outcomes for big historical events, like where the industrial revolution began, immuno resistance of americans, the spawning of a new religion, more successful Norse colonisation, ahistorical cultural movements like the Rennaissance, innovation of economic theory, natural disasters etc

 

[pheonicia]

Is this sorta like the pope popping out in the HRE or wherever in EU4, I had him in Iceland one time, but fleshed out?

Maybe, but like I said, I wouldn't worry too much about the mechanics since we don't know what they are yet. The point is to create some ideas that follow the structure:
When the game reaches a generalized divergence from history, the following interesting content is available.

 

[Nerexa]

I think "recognizing" it EU4 is doing a good job already, though primairly with mission trees. Like Byz tree mending the Schism of churches then converting a sizable part of catholic nations to orthodox (had a full orthodox new world due to this in my run despite not being colonial myself).

I like the idea of shifting such things from nation based mission trees to universal mission trees. There was a hint that new mission trees might be more partially and mixed together from several factors. So such outcomes could be a nice thing for the end point of the (generic) religious mission tree for orthodox nations.

This just as an example of how it works.
HRE unification could have sth with similar powerful consequences as tge end node of generic HRE prince mission tree and such.

And of course stuff should be available to AI, too.

Setting it as mission tree is in my opinion better controllable and more visible, than some obscure state triggered event. There is too much reading through events in the wiki prior to a run already. Also easy to turn on and off or provide different routes for more strict historical or not gameplay.

 

[pheonicia]

I think "recognizing" it EU4 is doing a good job already, though primairly with mission trees. Like Byz tree mending the Schism of churches then converting a sizable part of catholic nations to orthodox (had a full orthodox new world due to this in my run despite not being colonial myself).

I like the idea of shifting such things from nation based mission trees to universal mission trees. There was a hint that new mission trees might be more partially and mixed together from several factors. So such outcomes could be a nice thing for the end point of the (generic) religious mission tree for orthodox nations.

This just as an example of how it works.
HRE unification could have sth with similar powerful consequences as tge end node of generic HRE prince mission tree and such.

And of course stuff should be available to AI, too.

Setting it as mission tree is in my opinion better controllable and more visible, than some obscure state triggered event. There is too much reading through events in the wiki prior to a run already. Also easy to turn on and off or provide different routes for more strict historical or not gameplay.

There's two problems with that though.

One, people don't like mission trees and missions, but they do like events. I'd rather use systems people aren't up in arms over.

Two, it's not the same. Only one nation can interact with a mission, but any number can interact with a regional event or mechanic. Also, missions are universally good things and have positive effects when completed, but ahistorical dynamic historical events could easily have negative effects and penalties which don't work as mission "rewards".

 

[Nerexa]

There's two problems with that though.

One, people don't like mission trees and missions, but they do like events. I'd rather use systems people aren't up in arms over.

Two, it's not the same. Only one nation can interact with a mission, but any number can interact with a regional event or mechanic. Also, missions are universally good things and have positive effects when completed, but ahistorical dynamic historical events could easily have negative effects and penalties which don't work as mission "rewards".

People don't like mission trees?! I'd like to see figures on that, because I have a completely different impression^^

Second part I partially agree, but for the examples given, only 1 nation can interact with it anyway and they feel very much like the end of a mission tree. (Throwing catholics out of europe, forming scandinavia).

Also, I don't see why missions with less global impact and requirements can't be done by multiple nations? Generic trees exist. If every imperial prince placing a bid for the imperial crown triggers some temporary HRE wide modifier of some type from a mission, I see no problem with that.
Incorporating negative events is harder. But those could easily come from another nation getting their mission done.
Remember that the original posts was to specifically acknowledge certain accomplishments or significantly ahistorically shifted game states, which often would be some other nation's alt-history accomplishment.

 

[alexkowal123]

People don't like mission trees?! I'd like to see figures on that, because I have a completely different impression^^

Second part I partially agree, but for the examples given, only 1 nation can interact with it anyway and they feel very much like the end of a mission tree. (Throwing catholics out of europe, forming scandinavia).

Also, I don't see why missions with less global impact and requirements can't be done by multiple nations? Generic trees exist. If every imperial prince placing a bid for the imperial crown triggers some temporary HRE wide modifier of some type from a mission, I see no problem with that.
Incorporating negative events is harder. But those could easily come from another nation getting their mission done.
Remember that the original posts was to specifically acknowledge certain accomplishments or significantly ahistorically shifted game states, which often would be some other nation's alt-history accomplishment.

that would be great if another country fulfilling a mission impacted you directly

 

[Johan]

We have lots of dynamic generic events for ahistorical situations.

Just that the DHE is purely historical.

 

[pheonicia]

It would be nice to also have unique events for interesting ahistorical situations, so games aren't limited solely to generic events after the first hundred years or so of gameplay. I'm sure people will have ideas, but I'll admit it's not easy to come up with them.

 

[alexkowal123]

We have lots of dynamic generic events for ahistorical situations.

Just that the DHE is purely historical.

what's DHE? Doesn't sound like there's going to be a gamerule for making your game more historical/ahistorical

 

[pheonicia]

what's DHE? Doesn't sound like there's going to be a gamerule for making your game more historical/ahistorical

Dynamic historical events. From my understanding things like the iberian wedding event or the Burgundian inheritance event chain. Aka stuff that provides unique content when you're close enough to the original timeline for it to make sense. That's why I wanted people input on ideas that would be similar but for ahistorical timelines, to provide more interesting stuff in the average game, especially in the mid to late game.

 

[pheonicia]

I've work shopped another idea enough to present it.

We know that various pagan religions will be present and even a majority in some areas of Europe at game start, notably Lithuania, and we can safely assume that many players will take these religions and bring them to dominate Europe. As such, I propose a series of events to trigger under the following conditions

1. There are no more than four independent Orthodox nations in the world
2. All of these nations are rump states/minor nations
3. At least 50% of the Orthodox population of Europe is within the borders of a Catholic or pagan nation
4. The protestant reformation already triggered

First, the Pope would get a choice as to how to respond to what is effectively the end of the great schism, either rejecting the Orthodox as heretics unless they maintain his primacy and essentially convert, or making concessions to them to unify Christendom against the pagan threat.

Second, non Christian or Pagan nations with sizable Orthodox minorities (such as the Ottomans who would presumably still have powerful Orthodox patriarchs) would get a chance to respond to this by backing their own Orthodox figures or taking the chance to crack down and demand conversion.

Third any Catholic nation would get the chance to either follow the Pope one way or the other, or maintain a different policy.

And finally, any non-catholic christian nations would get the chance to either declare solidarity of the Pope called for a united front against the Pagans, or to invite the Orthodox to their nations if the Pope chose to demand conversion.