A House Divided Q&A session

[podcat]

Here we go. I'll start off with the questions already asked in the prep-thread. We'll be around answering stuff. Answers are a mix of dev team and betas so far:

How good are the AIs ability to form coalition to put down Human player if he is getting too strong?

The game isn't "stacked" against the player, but alliances are stronger than they used to be, so now Germans need to be extra careful to not let France, Austria and Russia become too friendly with each other.

Are there any changes to the AI's habit of making white peace in most of the wars ( especially when there are GPs involved, like France vs GB for an example )

Most CBs need to be manufactured before the war, so the infamy cost is paid upfront and AI is more particular about what it goes after. If they find someone worthy creating a CB against, it means they have a good shot at taking a chunk of his lands, and war typically is just a formality to seal that deal. But if it takes too long, the hunter might become prey to other CB makers himself. If Spain gets slow and lazy while conquering in Morocco, France will start manufacturing "Free People" against them and undo their conquest on the next month. Yes, France is mean like that.

Does the AI take attrition / support limits into account when choosing which provinces it moves its troops to?

Yes, you will see AI armies stationed in "attrition-compatible" chunks on your border. For example France will have half a dozen stacks of 27k at Prussian border in early game. Also, when you mobilize your army and set it to merge at the rally point, it will be divided into similar chunks automatically. And you have a map mode for attrition allowing you to "safely" move the selected stack from province to province.

Has assimilation been changed to be more realistic and is it now possible for non-primary cultures to be assimilated to (like Anglo-Canadian and Afro-American)?

delra: This is something I hated with a passion in the original game. As far as AHD goes I played (*cough* betatested *cough*) the UK whole Sunday and didn't manage to get even one state in India to more than 2% of British population, except Ceylon, which was small in its population and very popular with my emigrants, for some reason, still even that island only ever got to 15% in the long haul. So no more crowds of Brits in India and the Dutch can't make Java into Amsterdam now. This hits Austria especially hard, even late game there can be areas where they don't even have 1% South German, and with the new exciting movements system, imagine what kind of hell this can raise for them.

Mass population conversions are a thing of the past, unless those are immigrants to the Americas and assimilate to local culture. Or it's a colony of very low population and immigrants can "turn" it. Internal migration is your only hope here, and even Gold can't be a guarantee for success here (Gold RGOs were considerably reduced in size).

Is warscore changed some so you dont have to occupy the whole country to get one state or colony?

Depends how much of their land you're asking for. Typically a naval blockade and a run for enemy capital breaks their spirit, when a great power invades someone of lower status. But if your peace is worth 90% of warscore, don't be surprised you have to beat them and their allies to that number.

Will Laissez Faire be boosted?

Other, more "hands on" economic policies were considerably weakened, starting a factory in a state capitalist country costs way more than starting one in interventionist and even that is at least a few times more expensive than free market and laissez-faire attitude. So capitalists, if they are rich enough, now offer a really good discount on the amounts of machine parts and other resources you need to import from your competition. For example, when you start as Sweden you can turn your country liberal fairly fast using new "party loyalty" national focus, cut the taxes for the rich and then let the invisible hand of the market build an industry for you, or tax your people heavily to be able to build your own factories while keeping conservatives in power- whatever you find more suiting. The second non-market way will cost your country much more effort.

Is steel going to be profitable and more important like it historically was?

Does Holstein start with a German empire core?

We have a completely new economy and all goods matter now much more than they ever did. Steel is a very important part of the equation and you want to have a piece of that business if you are a producer of coal and iron, or at least control its production with your sphere of influence.

Holstein still is needed to form the NGF and Germany, it starts with German cores and with North German population.

Is Dreadnought spam still an easy way to get the highest overall score?

It's way harder than it used to be due to lower money supply in the game. You will have to make a much bigger effort to spam them.

What about an auto-hunt rebels button? I haven't given up hope yet.

It's in.

Is it possible to release it a day early as I have Monday off but am in work Tuesday

Release has been pushed back to Feb 2nd. see here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?580559-AHD-Release-Delayed-1-week

Will we see more and larger nations go into debts they cannot pay back completely with the economic changes?
And does thereby the gunboat diplomacy option have an actual impact on the game now? Where there other changes to the gunboat diplomacy? (perhaps speed up CB creation or something)

delra: Since there's much less money supply in the game, and most cash remains inside the POP economy, during a long and bloody war, but also during a larger rebel uprising even the mightiest countries may fall. And then there will come a second round of humilation from their debtors coming for the money. Today I saw Prussia crumble under the debt after the Bismarck's nightmare happened to them (war with France and Russia at the same time).

RedRalphWiggum: Yes, we will. The budget screen is now something you have to watch carefully and you will likely find yourself sweating like an Irish Minister for Finance trying to decide who to squeeze to fund the country. Debt wars are much more common now but are implemented in such a way they don't tend to cause massive global chaos.

When you occupy enemy land do their pops still all promote to craftsmen, I really hate when that happens

They still are forced out of their jobs by war and occupation, but after the war is done, they just go back to their RGOs.

The performance has been improved?

Its faster, at least late game because of multicore and other optimizations. Early years you might not notice a huge difference compared to vanilla early game though because there is also a lot more new code run that eats CPU.

Are there any new ways to support artisans?

Artisans now function like they were primitive factories (no tech) so they can put up a fight against early industry, and sometimes even win it. Early on they keep switching their production of choice until they find a profitable one, and thus are able to fulfil a good chunk of world population's demand, if not all of it. But with time, as factories get bigger and more efficient in their throughput/output, Artisans will be slowly pushed out of the market and unemployment will promote/demote them to other (then) more useful kinds of POPs

Has the combat system been changed or upgraded at all or can tanks still be defeated by musket wielding infantry?

If you have a clue what you are doing that won't be an issue. However, as the Italians found out in Ethiopia, not everyone has a clue what they are doing.

oh oh, one question I forgot:

where can I release feedback for bugs etc?

And can we expect any emergency bug fixes further down the line? Maybe a bugfixing patch?

(yes, I know I am a bit pessimistic here, but I love you even with your bugs paradox )

In the bug forum! I doubt we will need any emergency fixes unless there is some hardware incompatibility that slipped past the testing net, but in the past when its been needed we have released hotfixes pretty quickly and a bigger patch after player feedback 1-2 weeks after release.

Can you see rebel movements in foreign nations?
And is there any way, through decisions or direct action to influence, strengthen or fund movements? Or any plans to institute such a feature in future patches?

Are there any new ways to support artisans?

You cannot interact with foreign rebel movements. The economic changes that have been implemented make artisans far more viable at the start, but industrialisation harms them.

Has the combat system been changed or upgraded at all or can tanks still be defeated by musket wielding infantry?

If you have a clue what you are doing that won't be an issue. However, as the Italians found out in Ethiopia, not everyone has a clue what they are doing.

Is there any changes on the SoI management?

- investment malus againt non investing GP's
- negative influence to reduce other countries influence to reduce micromanagement
- relations affect influence

Why do you continually ignore African history and pretend powerful states like Ashanti Empire do not exist?

Mainly due to the scale of the game and the level of abstraction present. The Anglo-Ashanti wars involved 2000-4000 fighters on each side, which is barely one brigade ingame. They were often fighting purely local actions, not an actual war against Britain, which is not possible in the game. Since we don't model supply lines, there would be little to stop the UK, or another large European, rolling over the area with a medium sized army and just annexing the area in 1836. Finally, disease was a huge factor in the area, and I doubt most people would enjoy "losing" wars against an African minor because their entire army dies of attrition shortly after entering the province. Instead we just use the colonisation model, which requires a mix of medical and military technological advances and can be sped up by the presence of troops.

How large are the bonuses of the military reforms compared to the lower and middle military techs?

That's what cool about this system, it depends. If there is a real threat that reacitonary rebels may try and take the country, you may need military reforms even when economic ones might be more beneficial in the long run. Each game can play differently.

Would for example a highly reformed but not civilized Egypt be able to defeat a low tech Ottoman force in an even battle?

Quite possible, yes.

Or would a reformed unciv which has local numerical superiority (for example Sokoto) be able to put up a fight against a high tech secondary power (like the Netherlands) who send one or two stacks from their homeland?

They would need to be lucky but it can happen, yeah.

If you spent all your efforts on civilizing would it be possible to have Japan civilized by say the early 1850's?

RedRalphWiggum: I'm not sure, but I certainly couldn't pull it off. I'm an inept player though.

What do you need to enact reforms?

Research points for uncivs. Civilised countries need either high militancy or support of large popular movements for the upper house to support changing of reforms. and of course, the UH compsition matters too. Picking a different reform that doesn't have support by a large movement will anger that movement.

are the reforms for civilizing year locked like some techs or do you need a certain % of pops? Like needing a certain % of soldiers to raise your military reforms.

No year lock, no POP%. Just RPs, though the amount is affected by other factors like your tech school, Upper House composition etc. Civilising is like an expansion in and of itelf, IMO.

With the new popular movements mechaic, what are the odds of seeing a peaceful independence of countries like Canada and Australia?

Unliekly, there pops are too small to be a worry. Tho i have seen a few states of canada break away.


I'v locked the other thread now. so ask any further questions here!

 

[podcat]

If you had to pick one new feature of AHD to be your favorite, which one would it be and why?

The new Westernization and war justification systems are both awesome. not sure which one I like best.

Ist it possible to release countries without giving them all of their cores? (For instance releasing Poland as Germany without giving them Danzig.)

not at the moment. I can see why it would be nice however.

 

[podcat]

Here are a few questions from facebook:

Will the AI capitalists build factories that produce goods that are deficitary on the world market, and not build factories which goods are abundant in the market?

Like in the real world they will never be perfect. capitalists take gambles and sometimes it doesnt work out. The game would be boring otherwise imo. However they do pretty well now, and laissez faire has some real benefits over other economic forms. There has also been improvements for how factories do payouts resulting in them running better at the start and making capis richer.

Will there be any changes to the leaders/officers? Like being able to invest in better leaders, rather than just creating them with random stats

No, but leaders now have Prestige, that will increase after successful battles to simulate experience and that their men believe in them. It gives morale and organization bonuses to troops under their command.

Modding has always been a big feature for nearly every paradox game, While with Victoria 2. You had to override your game to "install" a mod. Will AHD be friendlier to mods?

yes! we have a new system for modding to make things easier. I'v been planning to present it and how it works after release. it will require a little bit of change to how to set up mods however.

 

[podcat]

I asked the betas this question: We had a couple of new people who haven't beta tested for paradox before. Was it what you expected?

No : I expected more ctd's, even worse ai, worse balance
Yes : I enjoyed it, sometimes developer listen to betas

From my previous experiences, I expected devs to be sitting in an ivory tower and throwing new versions at us from their high windows to look for CTDs in them. ;-) But it turned out to be a full cooperation, almost symbiotic regarding certain parts of the beta, and I can only thank for and appreciate the amount of trust devs showed towards our ideas and suggestions and the time they clocked putting them into the game to make it a better final product for you guys to play and enjoy.

 

[podcat]

I just tried it. My Spain game from.. 1.1? Loads right up.

it loads, but many things might act oddly. I wouldn't recommend it and we wont accept bug reports on a save started before the expansion.

 

[Darkrenown]

From Facebook: some mods make Norway and Finland satellite states for Sweeden and Russia, have you ever thought of doing this?

Simply put, it seems too weak a relationship. In both cases the "Satellite" had the Overlord's Head of State installed, and in Finland's case it was subject to Rusification, while in Sweden the political system with Norway was fairly interlinked. Neither seem like a Satellite, which IMO involves a country whose foreign policy is controlled by the master, and may have pressures exerted upon it, but otherwise controls its own internal policy. Also, gamebalance-wise, a satellite can be influenced, sphered, or released quite easily via war, which I don't think makes sense for Norway or Finland.

 

[Darkrenown]

If I form the SGF before Prussia forms the NGF, will the NGF still get a core on Wuttemberg even though they never owned it when they formed the NGF? In my last SGF game, that happend to me and it was War every 5 years after that.

Don't see how that is possible, the decision gives whoever does it cores on all German cores that they own, it doesn't give cores on specific provinces.

 

[podcat]

Is the Mac version being ported by VP again, or will it be released in-house like with CK2? And do we have an expected timeframe for the Mac version?

I'm not sure actually. I think VP. There should be an update in the future about the Mac version

 

[podcat]

two more from facebook:

Will there be a missionary or integration focus where you can convert pops or otherwise make them accepted or primary culture?

no such plans at the moment

What are the mechanics of determining tech recieved when a nation becomes civilized?

you get a percentage of the GP's techs who has you in their sphere. Which techs depends on how far you have reformed. with all military reforms you get much of the GPs techs that are military, with all economic you get a lot of their other techs. If you arent in a sphere you get techs in a similar way but from the base techs all GPs share.

 

[podcat]

Not directly related but I've always been curious to know if developers actually pick ideas from good mods for an expansion (features not bug fixes). So do you? If yes, could you give an example of one?

Usually mods have one specific direction they want to go that is different from what we envisioned. I'm not sure I can remember any right now, but we have included ideas and suggestions from how the PDM economy works.

My question: would it be possible for you to include with AHD, one of its patches, or as a seperate download, a pack which contains the templates you used to make the event, decision and tech graphics with (if you did it with a program available to the public like Photoshop). To further clarify, I'm talking about the layers with borders, scratches, blotches, grain, etc. you've applied to the historical photos and sketches which you used for aforementioned event/decision/tech graphics. Right now when modders want to change/add these images they're stuck with either a plain black & white photo or at the very best a poor approximation of what your images look like. If you could release such a pack, modders could make any picture look like the one of the steam locomotive in the picture below.

not sure what is available but I can check up on it after release.

May I ask the of the Westernization level of Persia? I ask because they had European influence since Napoleon. Imported weapons and European training and the like.

they start partially westernized. I think 20%.

 

[podcat]

Anyway, my only concern with AHD when I read the DDs was the change to how Mobilization was done. That is, you guys said that mobilization of reserves would be based on the size of your standing army, which to my mind would make many historical mass mobilizations impossible; like when the US mobilized millions of men to fight in the First World War after having a very small standing army, or the way the Swiss military worked (almost no standing army, all reserves). My concern was that this could also be easily exploited in cases where a country was just in a war and had it's standing army annihilated and then another country declares war on them straight afterwards, they would not be able to mobilize at all.

there is a base limit, so you can always mobilize something without regulars. but yes you will be more at risk after losing a war. This is intended so you have to play a bit more carefully. it might be worth backing out of a war earlier if you have many enemies, or hungry neighbors.

Is there any new events or decisions or nations.

there are new events and decisions, but no new nations

Is the sub state system used anywhere outside of China? I'd imagine it would be a better way to represent areas like Norway and Finland.

Only in china. its effectively a system to help break up china for sphering and is almost the same thing as puppets, but with extra limitations. A lot of modders seem to have grand plans for it so I jsut want to be up front about it. Its just a simple solution to the china problem. not something super flexible that you can use for everything.

 

[podcat]

This went pretty well. I hope people enjoyed the session. Devs are heading home for the day now. I might have a look tomorrow again to see if there has been any more questions

 

[podcat]

Is there any input flexibility (substitution) on the production side? Like, for example, can you choose to make canned food either out of meat or fish depending on which is cheaper and more available, rather than having to have both?

substitution has been looked at and is both very complex and hard to implement effectively for the current world market, so I made the call not to waste time on it.

 

[Darkrenown]

How are the province files set up to have the change in owner and controller?

Just add new information in a date tag, e.g:

1861.1.1 = { railroad = 3 }
1861.1.1 = {
	state_building = {
		level = 1
		building = paper_mill
		upgrade = yes
	}
}

(there's no actual need for the railway being separate there, it was just added via a script)

 

[Darkrenown]

Do we have to already have Victoria II for AHD to work? If yes, will we have to uninstall the mods?

You do need V2, yes. As for mods, if they are just in the mod folder there's no need to uninstall them, although they might not work with AHD until they are updated. If you've been replacing files in the main folder it's safest to make a clean reinstall before installing AHD.

 

[Darkrenown]

Is it possible to change value of the base factor of disclosure probability of the manufactured wargoal in txt-files?

yes, CB_DETECTION_CHANCE_BASE in defines.lua (still a txt file really)

 

[podcat]

Looking at some Youtube demos, it seems that you can see all the ongoing war justifications. Aren't these supposed to be kept secret?

you can only see the ones who have been detected (or from allies/your own)

 

[Darkrenown]

Nope.

 

[podcat]

Was that at my question? If so then may I ask why? Since Steam forces DLC (all) to be installed before running, so won't this kind of.........well..........mess with Steam users?

to expand a bit on Darks answer, AHD will replace the files in OldVic if its there so you just wont see it.

 

[ForzaA]

Nice, I'll increase it))

Considering the number of times I get discovered within days or weeks - be careful what you wish for.