A revision of country focuses and ideas needed.

[-=Cheburashka=-]

Much time passed after game release. Many DLC happened. And now there many countries with focuses that conflicts each other, turning game into absurd.
For example:
If you try to play as SFR Yugoslawia, and do throug focus communist revolution in Albania, finally get albanians into your alliance. Italian still can do focus to annex it! And Zog submits, Albania became italian territory even if he is not ruler of the country!
Same for Bulgaria. If they get revolution and communist wins, Bulgaria still have idea of National Disaster but cant get rid of it because have vanilla focus tree.
If Romanians are in Allies or Comintern they still shall give Transilvania to Hungary even if they are guaranteed!

So. Maybe its time to stop for a bit with new content and fix such problems?

 

[GSS_]

Indeed. They could however end the focus of the two major remaining countries: Italy and the Soviet Union (which is less content than the last DLC) and balance many mechanics, improving other aspects of the game.

 

[squid_hills]

Same for Bulgaria. If they get revolution and communist wins, Bulgaria still have idea of National Disaster but cant get rid of it because have vanilla focus tree.
If Romanians are in Allies or Comintern they still shall give Transilvania to Hungary even if they are guaranteed!

I just wanted to point out that these two have nothing to do with the out-of-date focus trees. Whenever a civil war spawns, one of the two factions keeps the unique focus tree, and one gets assigned the generic focus tree (this is why a pre-LaR Spain can be such a beast; both sides get access to the unique tree which lets Spain bulk up in factories very quickly). The game gives more weight to vanilla Bulgaria, so it gets the unique tree and communist Bulgaria gets the generic one. This is why they can't remove the national spirit. I've seen Japan end up in the same situation when they have a civil war (democracy or communism) that the fascists win. Hirohito gets the vanilla tree, and then can't declare war on the USSR, the Philippines, the DEI, or China, because the generic tree doesn't have war goals on it.

The Hungary/Romania thing is due to the annoying "seed" thing they introduced in 1.9x. Basically, when you first begin the game, the outcome of all national-focus random % decisions are decided at that moment. No weight is given to the various circumstances that may exist when those NFs complete. It used to be that the Netherlands would refuse to release Kaiser Wilhelm if Germany's army was smaller than theirs. Now, you can delete your entire army as Germany, and it won't affect the Netherlands' response at all. Whether or not you get Billy the Third is determined before you even start the civil war.

Since Hungary's demands for territory come from its NF tree, the results are handled the same way. The "seed" determines at the start of the game that Romania will knuckle under and submit to Hungary, even if Hungary is independent, Germany has been annexed by France and Romania is in the Comintern with 100+ Soviet divisions hanging out in their territory.

Fixing the focus trees won't solve those problems.

 

[-=Cheburashka=-]

I just wanted to point out that these two have nothing to do with the out-of-date focus trees. Whenever a civil war spawns, one of the two factions keeps the unique focus tree, and one gets assigned the generic focus tree (this is why a pre-LaR Spain can be such a beast; both sides get access to the unique tree which lets Spain bulk up in factories very quickly). The game gives more weight to vanilla Bulgaria, so it gets the unique tree and communist Bulgaria gets the generic one. This is why they can't remove the national spirit. I've seen Japan end up in the same situation when they have a civil war (democracy or communism) that the fascists win. Hirohito gets the vanilla tree, and then can't declare war on the USSR, the Philippines, the DEI, or China, because the generic tree doesn't have war goals on it.

The Hungary/Romania thing is due to the annoying "seed" thing they introduced in 1.9x. Basically, when you first begin the game, the outcome of all national-focus random % decisions are decided at that moment. No weight is given to the various circumstances that may exist when those NFs complete. It used to be that the Netherlands would refuse to release Kaiser Wilhelm if Germany's army was smaller than theirs. Now, you can delete your entire army as Germany, and it won't affect the Netherlands' response at all. Whether or not you get Billy the Third is determined before you even start the civil war.

Since Hungary's demands for territory come from its NF tree, the results are handled the same way. The "seed" determines at the start of the game that Romania will knuckle under and submit to Hungary, even if Hungary is independent, Germany has been annexed by France and Romania is in the Comintern with 100+ Soviet divisions hanging out in their territory.

Fixing the focus trees won't solve those problems.

Well, its sad to read that. This "seed" thing kills any illusion of dynamical world. But, as i remember, events with multiple options in game have "ai_will_do factor" which can be modified by different conditions, such "is_in_faction_with".

ai_will_do = {
factor = 60

modifier = {
factor = 0.5
is_in_faction_with = GER
}
}

So its not so hard to adjust some for existing events and decisions to avoid some absurd bugee-bugee.

Same for national ideas. Because some of them disappearing without proper conditions. So it can be done with proper attention from developers.

 

[homerCCCP]

This! I fully support the OP. It's one of the biggest flaws of the game. AI played focus trees absolutely need to interact more with the game situation.
If as Germany e.g. you boost Fascism in South Africa, then the probability should be higher that it takes the fascist path of its focus tree.
The player actions should have an impact on what the AI decides to do. Currently we only can choose between strictly following the focus tree and complete randomness (better say madness).
We need a third choice were the AI still goes with the historical decision on normal conditions but might go otherwise if things change.

But with more and more focus trees are being added to the game the task of creating dependencies is getting more and more complex.