The non-official Hotfix 2 for VIP:R 0.4

[Fürstbischof]

The non-official Hotfix 2 for VIP:R 0.4

This mod evolved from changes which I've made for my personal Ricky mod and some preliminary works for my naval mod.


Well, which changes have I made?

* Event and text files revised
* User interface revised to be more informative
* Multi-language support added
* Graphical appearance improved
* Functionality of world map improved
* Prices re-adjusted
* Names of random leaders expanded


Event and text files revised

Originally I'd relied on the Validator and only later started to thoroughly "analyse" the event files to identify potential issues. Bug reports here in the forum were also very helpful. Given the massive scale of VIP:R and its small team (and maybe a rushed release of 0.4?) I've found quite a lot of bugs, typos and inconsistencies. I still might have missed a lot of them but these should not be game-breaking. Similarly the texts of the events saw a lot of polishing. While doing so, I've also unified the dates used, they'd be now similar to the one shown on top of the main screen. Yes, Notepad++ is a very useful tool.


User interface revised to be more informative

I've also fully re-organised and and revised the config files. This was done with the intention of having a more informative user interface. Especially the history log inside of the Ledger and the message log at the bottom of the screen has been improved by using "colour codes" (sadly only 3 options) for a better appearance of the messages. This and some accentuations did really work wonders to make nations now clearly visible at first glance. The appearance of the diplomacy screen has also been revised so that all treaties are shown in a more easily readable way. The ingame tooltips for many military units have also been improved. These have been fleshed out by adding the description of their respective inventions. The shortcuts have finally been tweaked and show up in ingame tooltips so that you can more easily use them.


Multi-language support added

Originally I'd re-added the missing languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian) and - if these were missing entirely - used English as a place holder. Mostly taken from the original Victoria but also borrowed in part from user made language mods. This even allowed me to add Portuguese as a supported game language. But this (sadly!) doesn't mean the entire game, i.e. its events, has been fully translated. At the moment are the user interface and all game files in addition to a substantial number of events fully translated (my guess would be that almost 90% of them have been translated). (check post #3)


Graphical appearance improved

The trousers of soldiers are no longer as bland as they were. The gfx for major and minor parties, which have been identical, have been re-worked by adding a '+' and '-' for the ease of reference. The icons for naval bases have been tweaked and the base levels have been re-named for clarity. As part of Bebro' mods the Mississipi steamer has been fully replaced by a nice unit gfx.


Major re-work of ports and naval provinces

In addition to fixing several issues with regard to ports and their coastal waters naval bases, port provinces and naval provinces have been re-worked. Naval bases have been reworked to their historically correct 1836 locations. Positions of ports have been adjusted to locations of naval bases or major ports while also the positions of armies in small port provinces have been tweaked. Many islands and numerous naval provinces have been re-named. Finally we have Cape Finisterre, Cape Trafalgar or the Tsushima Strait. The positions for naval units in coastal provinces have been slightly revised, too. Lake Nipigon has finally been added to the game. To solve the Samoa issue Tonga has been removed from the game, so that Samoa is now state located on the Samoan Islands.


Prices re-adjusted

One of the things which led me start this mod were the non-adjusted of prices in events (for acquisitioning provinces) and particularly of warships. These were simply to advantageous for the player. For adjusting the prices of warships I've relied on the Gold Standard. During the time of the Gold Standard £ 1 was roughly equal to $ 4,80 - for ease of reference I've used 1:5. Since the abstracted game economy does not use real historic values, £ 1 ingame is now roughly equal to £ 100 IRL. Since some of the construction costs of naval units already used this ratio I've expanded that to the other ships and eventually for the land purchases and treaties. (The used ratio of "£ 1 ingame is roughly equal to £ 100 IRL" is still not very satisfying. Seeing the ingame prices of claims and provinces, it might even be more useful to set the ratio to "£ 1 ingame is roughly equal to £ 10 IRL"...)


Names of random leaders expanded

Sadly the names of random leaders had been left unchanged although several tags have been re-used by VIP:R 0.4. Therefore I've revised and expanded the names of random leaders. I took the liberty to borrow missing names from HOI to fill some gaps and also expanded several nations if possible. Also one mod and several suggestions from the forums have been integrated. The required changes to the country.csv file have also been made.


For more information check the posts below or the read.me included in the downloaded .rar archive:

post #2 : Download links & installation
post #3 : Multi-language support
post #4 : Credits

 

[Fürstbischof]

Download links

VIP:R 0.4 can be downloaded HERE (the first Hotfix is already included in my Hotfix).

my Hotfix for VIP:R 0.4: FileFactory


Installation sequence

#1 - a local copy of Victoria Revolutions, fully patched (v 2.01)

#2 - VIP:R 0.4
(Installing the first VIP:R Hotfix is no longer necessary since it's now fully included in my non-official Hotfix)

#3 - BeBro's naval units (optional)
The naval units and the unit gfx (see below #4) are gfx mods which don't interfere with VIP:R 0.4 (or my hotfix), so both mods can be safely added to the game before adding my Hotfix.

#4 - BeBro's unit icons (optional)
Only one of these gfx mods can be used, i.e. the one which was installed last is the one that is actually used. The choice is yours: there is one generic icon set, while the other two are variants with different land unit icons which are only truly be useful if you're going to play as France or the Ottoman Empire.

#5 - Leaderpack (optional, not tested)
The Leaderpack is also a gfx mod, but it includes way more leaders than VIP:R 0.4 and also changes their start and death dates. Therefore it has to be added after VIP:R 0.4. [This mod was originally designed for vanilla Ricky. To be honest I don't know if VIP:R 0.4 still works flawlessly after installing the Leaderpack since I've not tested it.]

#6 - my non-official Hotfix for VIP:R 0.4
For easier removal of my hotfix and its replacement with an updated version.



Modifying Victoria Revolutions with VIP:R 0.4 and the newly available Hotfix

Re: installing mods/creating your own mods

In general, the safest way is to make a copy of the game, which you'd like to enhance by installing mods or by creating your own mod, and to keep the original installation of that game as your backup. (don't forget to make a new shortcut link to the .exe file of the modded game) In case something goes wrong, you can always simply delete this copy and start with a new copy. To make this even easier, you can use a mod enabler like JSGME. (see below "Using JSGME")


Unpacking the downloaded .rar file

Inside the .rar archive you'll find a fully usable JSGME install. To make this work, simply unpack the downloaded .rar archive into the main directory of the copy of Victoria Revolutions game already modified by VIP:R 0.4. (of course you can also install VIP:R 0.4 by using JSGME) Once you've done that, you'll find the JSGME.exe in the main directory and also four new directories:

_Audax.Clausewitz.Validator v0.8.0

Very helpful for testing your owns changes, once you have started modding Ricky, will be the Audax Validator (made by Jamie550).

_POP-Splitter-v5.5

Almost indispensable for playing is the POP Splitter (made by Gotikiller and updated by Dietmar1982) which will save you a lot of time. Run it regularly after saving and then reload the improved savegame. The POP Splitter is ready to use and fully adapted to VIP:R, i.e. you'll only have to change the path (GAMEDIR in config.cfg), in which you've installed Victoria Revolutions, so that it can AutoSplit your latest savegame. Take a close look at the config.cfg file: you'll find inside all tags used by VIP:R and can add/remove these from getting split.

_timelimitchanger-2.01

The no time limit patch (made by Lukandi) is also very nice if you want to play before or beyond the years 1836-1936.

MODS

Inside 'MODS' you'll find my non-offical Hotfix, which includes unknown's map fixes and Gukan's uniforms fix. Spanish and French translations have been borrowed to replace English place holders. A Portuguese translation has also been added. These are now an integral part of my Hotfix.

Among the added mods you'll find BeBro's Ricky naval units and also three revised variants of his unit icons for Ricky, of which one was inspired by Master Lou. There is also the Leaderpack included if you want to have even more leaders for your favoured nation. These are JSGME-ready and can easily be activated. (see below "Using JSGME")

BeBro's unit icons and naval units brought a lot of flavour to vanilla Ricky, but since they're no longer available for download, I thought it'd be worthwhile adding them to this archive. (changes made by me: I've removed the 'I' from the PDN and added it to the DN (oversight by P'dox), and I've also tweaked the look of the broadside of his man-o-war (and his frigate) to mimic the checkerboard style of a ship-of-the-line; additionally I've fixed several firing animations which accidentally were not used by vanilla.) The 4 Ottoman land unit icons, which have been made by Master Lou, were merged with the naval unit icons of BeBro's unit icons.

Leaderpack v. 2.1c (sorry, no newer version on my hdd) made by Prinz Wilhelm and Semper Victor, which I've not tested yet if it works flawlessly after installing it upon VIP:R 0.4.


Using JSGME (JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler)

To add these mods to your game double-click the JSGME.exe in the main directory. Then a small split window will appear: on the left are all the mods listed which you already have seen inside of the 'MODS' sub-directory. Then simply mark 'VIPR 0.4 Hotfix 2f' and hit the highlighted arrow in the center between the windows to enable it. By clicking the arrow the files of the hotfix are copied over their unfixed namesakes which are stored away as a backup. This might take some time, don't be worried. Once 'VIPR 0.4 Hotfix 2f' appears in the right window these files can be restored by marking 'VIPR 0.4 Hotfix 2f' again and then clicking the reversed arrow to disable the mod. These one-click add/remove buttons are the core feature of JSGME which makes adding and removing of mods so wonderfully easy.

By copying the three JSGME files (located in the main Ricky directory) to the main directory of any other moddable game, you can use them there, too. The 'MODS' sub-directory is automatically created once you start the JSGME.exe for the first time in that directory. Just keep in mind, that your mods must have full paths for all files inside them, i.e. mimic the directory structure of the modified game, to be installable by JSGME.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Is Victoria Revolutions fully playable in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese?

Yes, but...

I'm still not able to make the game run in any language other than English right from the start. But I've re-discovered a nice 'cheat' which actually does allow you to change ingame the language of the game.

#1 - Simply load a savegame or start a new scenario

#2 - Open the console by pressing the F12 key

#3 - Then type "language x" and press Enter

"x" is the number of the language which you'd like to be used :

language 0 => changes game language to English
language 1 => changes game language to French
language 2 => changes game language to German
language 3 => changes game language to Spanish
language 4 => changes game language to Italian
language 5 => changes game language to Portuguese
language 6-9 (unused)

#4 - After a short moment you can see the chosen language

English
Français
Deutsch
Español
Italiano
Portugês

#5 - Then close the console by pressing F12 & Enter again

If you check the interface texts and shown tooltips you'll see that the language has been changed. By opening the Ledger and looking at its pages you'll see that still not all English entries have been replaced.
#6 - Therefore open the menu and quit your running game

#7 - Go back to the main menu and load a savegame or start a new scenario

While loading all config files will be reloaded so that the interface texts of the game are now fully displayed in the language of your choice.


Remark :

To make this fully work, I've copied the English text entries as place holders for missing translations. You might still encounter some leftovers of these occasionally although many remnants of English text have already been replaced by their respective translations. Please report these incidents here in this forum. Although the UI and game files and also 19,011 lines of event texts have been fully translated, there are still a number of event texts hidden in the event files, which are only in English.

Yes, there is still work to be done. Feel free to replace some of the English text entries.


Adding more languages ?

Yes, this can be done, but you must first copy a complete set of English entries to the empty column right next to the Portuguese language column. This has to be done for all files of the config sub-directory! And be warned: if you leave one field empty, you might risk getting a CTD once you restart from the main menu.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Credits



VIP:R 0.4

Well, regarding VIP:R it's not easy to say "Thank you for your work", since that would be not enough:
"Thank you VERY much for your magnificent mod!"

VIP:R 0.4 and the first Hotfix can be downloaded here.


Integrated mods

While searching the mods section of the Vicky forum I've discovered the Map Bug Fix Mod made by unknown. From his mod the ADJACENT.TBL is now part of the un-official hotfix for VIP:R 0.4. His changes and tweaks have been included, too. He did a pretty good job. While making my own changes to ports and port locations for my naval mod, I've been able to find only some of them... Thanks for being able to include them so that all the remaining players can benefit from these fixes.


Many thanks also to Gukan who fixed the nasty gfx glitch which led to those bland uniforms. Now the uniforms are as colourful as they should be!


Originally Victoria supported English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. When Paradox released its expansion Revolutions they disabled the support for other languages besides English. Making changes to settings.cfg did no longer work. The workaround was to use a spreadsheet program for moving around the columns of the config files. That was tedious, but it worked. I've re-discovered a cheat which does allow us to circumvent this. (check post #3 or the included read.me file)

Once I'd integrated the Portuguese language mod in 2019, I've also expanded the Spanish and French translations of vanilla Victoria in 2020 by adding parts of three language mods to improve my reworked config files. These were the French translation mod made by Emp_Palpatine, the Spanish language mod made by Malatesta, and the Portuguese language mod made by Sen. Vergueiro.

Yes, finally you can play the game also in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. To fill existing gaps in the config files, I've used the English texts as place holders for missing translations. So don't be surprised, there might still be some leftovers of English text which I haven't yet hunted down. Nonetheless all game texts, technology descriptions and event texts have been fully translated. ATM I'm revising the 435 event files of VIP:R to extract event texts hidden in them and to add these to the event_text.csv file so that they can be translated, too. Unless this task is completed you'll still encounter events with English text. Yes, there is still work to be done... Feel free to replace some of the English text entries. ;-)

A full translation of VIP:R wasn't actually planned by me, but in 2019, when I gave Google Translate another try while doing some research for my naval mod, I was impressed by the quality of the results. These were surprisingly good. In the meantime I've switched to DeepL which does provide even better results. But TBH both translators occasionally have their issues so that you can't fully rely on their results without thorough proof-reading. Any volunteers?


Included suggestions

Several posts suggesting additional random leader names have allowed me to revise and expand the RandomLeader.csv file. Alqamar, Apollon, Chanda "Phillip V" Choun (now "Jayavarman"), NicholiDiamond, Secret Master, Tunch Khan and unreliable - thank you for your helpful suggestions.


I've also picked up some ideas from Spanky's Text Mod to improve the appearance of the message log. Sadly his changes were never included in VIP. Thank you, Spanky!


Included mods

Playing Victoria without BeBro's unit gfx or naval units always felt as if something was missing. Well, once you've used his mods you'll know why you don't want to go back! Thanks for a wonderful addition to the game, BeBro!


Special thanks to Master Lou, who added a really nice set of turkish land unit icons to BeBro's unit gfx which made playing the Ottoman Empire even more fun.


Many thanks to the makers of the Leaderpack. The leader icons were mostly made by Prinz Wilhelm and Semper Victor. Kaiser Franz and Sen. Vergueiro re-worked the leaderfiles.


Additional files

Many thanks to Gotikiller and Dietmar1982 for their POP Splitter. They relieved us from the painful and boring job to split all of our POPs one by one by ourselves and helped the ai immensely by automating this process.


For those of us who mod regularly, the Audax Validator, which has been made by Jamie550, is an indispensable tool. It has saved me a lot of time while reworking the files of VIP:R. Thank you! For ease of reference I've included his program so that you can easily use it for your own modding projects.


For those of you, who want to play before and beyond the regular time frame of the game, there is a very helpful tool for you available: the no time limit patch made by Lukandi. Thanks!

 

[Fürstbischof]

Changelog



(deleted)

 

[Fürstbischof]

The hotfix can be downloaded now. (see post 2)



In addition to my hotfix for VIP:R 0.4 I've also added some parts of my naval mod for testing which can be activated via JSGME:
- a new load screen which I'd made last year has been added - just for fun, since I heavily dislike how it looks
- the relocated ports have been added
- the revised list of naval bases is also added
- 'improved' descriptions of naval units are included
- the clipper and steamer transport icons in the convoy screen have been exchanged with Bebro's unit gfx
- the building costs of naval units (here: Hulls) have been revised
- the prices of naval units have been revised according to the ratio of "£ 1 ingame is roughly equal to £ 100 IRL"
- the cost of building the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal have been changed according to the ratio of "£ 1 ingame is roughly equal to £ 100 IRL"


Have fun!

 

[LodovicoAriosto]

I appreciate your work! Gonna give it a try soon.

 

[LodovicoAriosto]

I wonder whether JSGME is capable of reverting overwrites/conflicts between mods.

Vanilla install: On top of Vicky 2.01 I installed the hotfix 6 by OHGamer.

Then I installed VIP 0.4 into the mods folder and then installed VIP 0.4 hotfix 1 over the VIP 0.4 folder.

In JSGME I activated things in this order:
1. VIP 0.4 (incl. hotfix 1 - extracted over VIP 0.4 mod folder)
2. VIP 0.4 hotfix 2
3. Better interface mod
4. gfx by BeBro
5. gfx by BeBro FRA
6. gfx by Master Lou TUR
7. Leaderpack
8. Ricky naval units
9. your naval mod_reduced

Most of those steps overwrote some stuff.
Do you think this is going to work without bugs?

So what happens if I remove let us say your naval mod? Does JSGME returns files from other mods which got overwritten? I am worried there is only one backup for vanilla files.

 

[Fürstbischof]

I wonder whether JSGME is capable of reverting overwrites/conflicts between mods.

Vanilla install: On top of Vicky 2.01 I installed the hotfix 6 by OHGamer.

I'd stop here and use the fixed vanilla Ricky as backup, i.e. make a copy of the entire game directory and rename that, which you can use for modding purposes afterwards.

Luckily, the old Europa Engine games can be easily copied to another directory for modding purposes (just don't forget to change your desktop link). On my hdd I've one regular Ricky installed as backup and have two more copies which are used for modding. For AOD there are even 4 copies.

Then I installed VIP 0.4 into the mods folder and then installed VIP 0.4 hotfix 1 over the VIP 0.4 folder.

In JSGME I activated things in this order:
1. VIP 0.4 (incl. hotfix 1 - extracted over VIP 0.4 mod folder)
2. VIP 0.4 hotfix 2

3. Better interface mod

If this mod is Tyrel's Interface mod I'd suggest installing it prior to VIP:R 0.4 since it was originally made for VIP:R 0.1 (but you'd delete 'outdated' files prior to installing!). If this is another mod which includes only gfx it might do no harm, otherwise keep an eye on warnings by JSGME (or simply check all files of this mod).

4. gfx by BeBro
5. gfx by BeBro FRA
6. gfx by Master Lou TUR

Oh, here went something wrong: there is only one set of unit icons in use by the game!

Only the 4 land unit icons of the 3 mods are different, the naval unit icons are ofc all the same. Bebro's regular (=MIN) icons was a blend of prussian and english soldiers while his french set was exclusively french. While playing France it might be more interesting than his regular unit icons. The same can said about Master Lou's turkish land unit icons which are mostly beneficial while playing the Ottoman Empire.

If you look more closely at bebro's original mod, if you still have that archive, you'll see that you'd have to rename the FRA set to use them instead of his regular unit icons. I've made three mods out of them so that you don't have to fix these files by yourself.

7. Leaderpack
8. Ricky naval units

Both mods should only include gfx or related files. Since the Leaderpack modifies the dates of the generals you'd have to install it after VIP:R.

9. your naval mod_reduced

Most of those steps overwrote some stuff.
Do you think this is going to work without bugs?

It works well and saves loads of time. Compared to the usual way of installing mods, you can actually remove an unwanted mod. Earlier you'd have to re-install the entire game in the worst case. Since JSGME tracks all changes and keeps backups there should be no bugs while removing mods. Over the years I've had only one incidence but that was not disastrous. The Pros outweigh the Cons - by a very large margin.

So what happens if I remove let us say your naval mod? Does JSGME returns files from other mods which got overwritten? I am worried there is only one backup for vanilla files.

If you remove my naval mod JSGME will restore the game files to the Status Quo Ante (=prior to installing the naval mod).

JSGME makes indeed only one backup copy of every vanilla file when its overwritten by a mod for the first time. If this file is then changed by another mod, then again a copy of that file is stored (not of the vanilla file ofc, but of the file modded by the first mod) JSGME works step by step, so that you can't circumvent the original installation sequence of your mods. If you want to know what is exactly going on, look at the files inside of the directories '!BACKUP' and '!INSTLOGS', once you've activated a mod.

 

[LodovicoAriosto]

Thanks for exhaustive answers.

Looking at the gfx files I realized the icons are bundled together in a single file so it was not like I was replacing part of "generic" BeBro's icons with FRA and TUR nation-specific ones, leaving the rest in place. So I started to play as the UK with the Ottoman icons, heh. I fixed that by switching to the British-Prussian set.

I used JSGME before, quite extensively, mainly for HoI2, but did not really combined non-gfx mods on top of each other. For now, the game runs ok with no visible problems.

 

[Ahearne]

Will there ever be a VIP:R 0.5 with WW1 events?

 

[Fürstbischof]

Finally a new forum and also some answers from me...

Tbh, I needed a break once I had finished the hotfix.

Since no crowd appeared here to tar and feather me I could reassure me that I didn't make any major mistakes while putting the files of the hotfix together. Nonetheless I've discovered last week that I did add an almost unchanged tech file. Since I've also made some minor changes to the UI and the ledger I might later upload an updated hotfix. But for now I'm simply waiting if some bugs are reported or some suggestions for changes are made.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Thanks for exhaustive answers.

Looking at the gfx files I realized the icons are bundled together in a single file so it was not like I was replacing part of "generic" BeBro's icons with FRA and TUR nation-specific ones, leaving the rest in place. So I started to play as the UK with the Ottoman icons, heh. I fixed that by switching to the British-Prussian set.

You're welcome.

Originally, the generic "MIN" mod was actually called MIN but I thought that might confuse some gamers. For the next update I will might rename it to "ALL".

I used JSGME before, quite extensively, mainly for HoI2, but did not really combined non-gfx mods on top of each other. For now, the game runs ok with no visible problems.

Well, you can do lot by using JSGME for modding, but you have to know what you are doing. But even if you make some mistakes you can easily undo your changes. That was also the main argument for adding JSGME as part of this hotfix so that gamers learn to use it. Removing unwanted mods by using JSGME will make their life easier instead of letting them de-install and re-install the game in the old fashioned way of getting rid of one mod.

Combining several non-gfx mods on top of each other can be done if these are (mostly) non-conflicting mods. If both mods change the same file it depends upon the type and number of changes whether such a conflict can be solved. By comparing both files with the vanilla file you can identify which changes both modders made. If these are not contrary you can merge the changes from one file to the other file.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Will there ever be a VIP:R 0.5 with WW1 events?

Honestly I don't know, but it has been quite some time since one of the former team members did post here in this sub-forum. I'd guess that they might have gathered quite a lot of material for the less popular nations which could easily be published but sadly they didn't bother to make a VIP:R 0.41 when their project for Victoria 2 failed. Quite contrary to the CORE 2 team which continued improving their mod for AOD.

Well, never say never, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[LodovicoAriosto]

I finished a game a week ago. Quit in the 1920s. The only thing that bothered me was a lag in the ledger, loading pg. 6, caused by the population of 2 billion splitted by POP Splitter to 40k max size.

Is there a way of modding RGO capacity, cost and build time? I would like to to double all of those to mitigate micro with manual expansion.

 

[Fürstbischof]

I finished a game a week ago. Quit in the 1920s. The only thing that bothered me was a lag in the ledger, loading pg. 6, caused by the population of 2 billion splitted by POP Splitter to 40k max size.

How large were the fleets of the GP's? Btw, have you used my (reduced) naval mod for your game?

Two weeks ago I've tested these fixes in addition to significantly increased build costs which led to somewhat smaller fleets, but the Royal Navy was still to large...

Is there a way of modding RGO capacity, cost and build time? I would like to to double all of those to mitigate micro with manual expansion.

Capacity seems to be hard-coded, but you can change the build time and cost of any RGO or factory. The files (factory-construction.txt and factory-time.txt) can be found inside of the db/economy sub-directory.

 

[LodovicoAriosto]

yes I used your navy mod. I played as the UK so I cannot say much about AI capabilities in that respect. Even on hard, it was an easy mode, obviously. I played Vicky numerous times before but never as the UK.

I crushed fleets of other GPs only once each - in "make satellite" wars. So they did suffer some losses throughout the game but I did not regularly sink them. The first GP I puppeted was France so their navy buildup went largely uninterrupted since the early 1850s.

Spoiler

I think it is not representative though because I am worried puppeted countries are for some reason less active in both army and particularly navy buildup. But that is just an assumption based on experience years old.

 

[Supreme Emporer]

Thanks very much for the updates! I'm so glad to see people are still working on the game.

 

[Fürstbischof]

...Even on hard, it was an easy mode, obviously. I played Vicky numerous times before but never as the UK.

Well, that helps.

But tbh, while fixing the ai files I've seen that many nations are tailored to the same behaviour in case of war, i.e. you won't see that much variance in naval warfare or colonial wars. The ai might only be hampered by their own insufficient naval assets.

I crushed fleets of other GPs only once each - in "make satellite" wars. So they did suffer some losses throughout the game but I did not regularly sink them. The first GP I puppeted was France so their navy buildup went largely uninterrupted since the early 1850s.

I think it is not representative though because I am worried puppeted countries are for some reason less active in both army and particularly navy buildup. But that is just an assumption based on experience years old.

In a testrun I'd made shortly after your post I'd to make the irritating observation that several of the great powers (ENG, FRA, USA, ITA) started building frigates in 1921...! None of them was actually allowed to build them but they still did. Well, I don't have enough experience playing Ricky/VIPR beyond 1920, so that might be a known bug, but at first glance it was a shock for me.

For testing I'd simply increased the price of warships by a factor of 10 in that game, taking the required resources into account. Additionally, all capital ships (PDN and later) did cost 1-2 leadership points. (well, the last requirement did stop the typical spamming of Generals dead in its tracks) Another funny observation was that the UK was the only (!) nation to actually build PDNs: they build 9 PDN. The increased cost - in addition to the reduced overall numbers in the ai files - did lead to a significantly reduced overall number of warships in my testrun. Higher prices do work, but the introduction of a leadership cost might have mixed some things up. For my next testrun I'll set the leadership cost significantly lower to evaluate its influence upon ai shipbuilding decision making.

But as you can see in the screenshot I haven't limited the numbers for the Royal Navy yet to secure them their pole position in naval matters...

Spoiler

 

[Fürstbischof]

Thanks very much for the updates! I'm so glad to see people are still working on the game.

You're welcome!

Well, actually I was a bit disappointed that noone was working on VIPR anymore and decided to do it by myself...

You know the old saying 'if you want something get done (right), do it yourself'...?