AE Changes for 1.5

[Johan]

1.4 altered expansion dynamics in a major way by greatly reducing Aggressive Expansion and restricting 'Vassal Feeding', aka selling provinces to your vassals so that they will core them for you. Not all these changes worked out as desired and thus some tweaks are being made in the 1.5 patch, which will be in public beta for a few weeks.

Selling of provinces is being changed in the following way:

- AI: Will now accept buying provinces as long as the total OE after purchase would not be above 95%
- AI: Subjects will now only accept buying non-core provinces if their OE is 0
- AI: Will no longer accept buying a non-accepted culture province or wrong religion group province unless it is a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game
- AI: Subjects will now only buy provinces if they are a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game
- When selling a core province to your subject they will now get a core on that province
- AI: Will consider core provinces of their overlord as their own core provinces for the purposes of evaluating if they want to buy it

This means that you will always be able to use sell province to restore 'lost' provinces to your vassals. The 'strategic interest' calculation is gone as it was simply too opaque for the player to try and figure out what provinces the AI wanted.

Aggressive Expansion is being tweaked by reducing the effect of range, meaning that your neighbours will react more to large land-grabs, though distant powers still won't really care. The effects of prestige on Better Relations Over Time is also being reduced, as this was a major factor in allowing players to very quickly lose accumulated AE.

 

[Antioch18]

Are these changes in the 1.4.0.2 beta available now, or are they coming later? If later, when can we expect them?

I think the changes, as listed, sound good. However I really would like to see "strategic interest" put back. I think it would be fun to help your Vassal grow as their leader desires. Right now vassals are very "flat" in terms of personality and activity: not only are they not allowed to do anything on their own, they don't even make requests to their liege. Putting strategic interest back would be one way to get vassals' wants and desires into the game while still requiring the liege to take action to make happen.

Thanks for listening, looking forward to trying the beta!

edit: typo.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

1.4 altered expansion dynamics in a major way by greatly reducing Aggressive Expansion and restricting 'Vassal Feeding', aka selling provinces to your vassals so that they will core them for you. Not all these changes worked out as desired and thus some tweaks are being made in the 1.5 patch, which will be in public beta for a few weeks.

Selling of provinces is being changed in the following way:

- AI: Will now accept buying provinces as long as the total OE after purchase would not be above 95%
- AI: Subjects will now only accept buying non-core provinces if their OE is 0
- AI: Will no longer accept buying a non-accepted culture province or wrong religion group province unless it is a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game
- AI: Subjects will now only buy provinces if they are a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game

This means that you will always be able to use sell province to restore 'lost' provinces to your vassals. The 'strategic interest' calculation is gone as it was simply too opaque for the player to try and figure out what provinces the AI wanted.

Aggressive Expansion is being tweaked by reducing the effect of range, meaning that your neighbours will react more to large land-grabs, though distant powers still won't really care. The effects of prestige on Better Relations Over Time is also being reduced, as this was a major factor in allowing players to very quickly lose accumulated AE.

Just one small suggestion. Could you please consider allowing us to sell provinces that we already have a core on to vassals more or less freely? The purpose being to feed a vassal, which you intend to keep, territory that you prefer not to keep personally. Unless you intend to revert back to a situation where the size of your country affect AE significantly there is really no major exploit involved.

 

[Antioch18]

Just one small suggestion. Could you please consider allowing us to sell provinces that we already have a core on to vassals more or less freely? The purpose being to feed a vassal, which you intend to keep, territory that you prefer not to keep personally. Unless you intend to revert back to a situation where the size of your country affect AE significantly there is really no major exploit involved.

Since the coring cost has already been paid I think this is a very reasonable request which will satisfy those who like to tweak their vassals' borders.

Great idea!

 

[unmerged(780209)]

I still don't like the restrictions on vassal feeding and these changes still aren't going to reverse that bad decision!

Vassal feeding was mostly a gamestyle choice and a perfectly valid alternative to direct conquest, which quite frankly is extremely boring after a while. Paradox treated it like it was an exploit, which it mostly wasn't. (Few players really wanted to use it to do a WC).

I hate that they nerfed it.

As Jomini has pointed out numerous times, the monarch points system was fundamentally flawed because there are too many uses for admin points that conflict with each other. Vassal feeding was an attempt to get around this game design flaw. And instead of doing what they should have done, which is get the AI to do it too, they tried to eliminate it. Which was the wrong approach.

 

[aitaituo]

The effects of prestige on Better Relations Over Time is also being reduced

Is there any chance the base decay of non-AE opinion penalties will be increased to offset this? Because it's already painfully long waiting on some of these even when you have 100 prestige and the +30% advisor...

 

[V1ribus]

- AI: Will no longer accept buying a non-accepted culture province or wrong religion group province unless it is a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game

I would be OK with this one if it took into account whether or not that culture would become accepted after the province has been cored.. I should be able to sell Galicia any of the provinces that border it, regardless of their culture, because their base tax is composed in such a way that having that province cored (lets say Leon, for example) would mean that culture became accepted.

This would therefore allow for intelligent players to release Galicia as a sovereign state and give Porto and Leon to them, since this would mean both Portuguese and Castilian would become accepted. However if the player sold Leon, Cadiz, Burgos and Castilla la Veija to Galicia, they would then be unable to sell them a province of the Portuguese culture. In addition, this would prevent total vassal cheesing, while still allowing a reasonable amount. Given this circumstance, Galicia would not be able to be fed beyond the borders of the Castilian culture.

 

[TheBloke]

- AI: Will no longer accept buying a non-accepted culture province or wrong religion group province unless it is a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game
- AI: Subjects will now only buy provinces if they are a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game

This means that you will always be able to use sell province to restore 'lost' provinces to your vassals. The 'strategic interest' calculation is gone as it was simply too opaque for the player to try and figure out what provinces the AI wanted.

This is very disappointing. If it was too opaque, it would have been quite easy to add a Wants to Conquer indicator to a mapmode. But if that's too much work, at least allow the calculation to remain so those of us who understand it can use it. If the choice is between "opaque" and "not in the game at all", then surely opaque is better? Because for people who find it too opaque to use, it's the same thing anyway - either way they won't use it.

If players can't figure out why they want to buy a non core/claim, then they can just assume that the subject won't want to buy anything besides core/claim, and they will have the exact same experience as you are proposing. But if players do/can work out why they want to buy it, they should be able to. Why dumb the game down to the lowest common denominator?

Basically, you are disabling some advanced/interesting decisions, just because some players won't be able to understand those decisions. But you're not adding anything in its place, you're just removing it for everyone. That's very disappointing.

Why not just change the -1000 Strategic Interest to say "-1000 Not interested in this province." Then keep the check on Wants to Conquer. Players who don't want to understand when the subject Wants to Conquer can just assume that every non-core/claim will by Not Interested. Those of us who find it very interesting and fun to plan strategy around the personality and other factors of Wants to Conquer will still be able to do so.

Or at least please provide a moddable flag to enable the Wants to Conquer check.

I'll repeat to be clear: I don't understand why you need to remove this check from everyone, just because some players don't understand it. Those who don't understand it won't use it, and have exactly the same experience whether it is in the game or not. But players who do understand it and find it very interesting will have no ability to use it if you remove it.

Please re-consider this change! You've already nerfed vassal feeding hugely, please don't remove this final element that for some players was actually interesting and fun and challenging to plan/strategise around.

 

[wickermoon]

- AI: Will now accept buying provinces as long as the total OE after purchase would not be above 95%
- AI: Subjects will now only accept buying non-core provinces if their OE is 0
- AI: Will no longer accept buying a non-accepted culture province or wrong religion group province unless it is a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game
- AI: Subjects will now only buy provinces if they are a core, claim, or they have owned it at any point during the game

In my current Russia game I've got Byzantium as a vassal and even though it does not have any cores or claims on the Anatolian peninsula or Greece, it readily agreed on taking gifted land that is in those areas (so basically land that once belonged to the Byzantine Empire before the game start). So if I understood you correctly, this will still be possible (even though Byzantium never owned those provinces since 1444) in addition to returning provinces to a vassal they have lost the coreof, but once possessed?

P.S.: I actually like the changes altogether
- except for maybe the second point. I liked feeding 2 provinces to Byzantium, even though they hadn't had any cores on those.

 

[Johan]

Are these changes in the 1.4.0.2 beta available now, or are they coming later? If later, when can we expect them?

Later..

 

[Johan]

Added two missing lines from the readme relating to it.

- When selling a core province to your subject they will now get a core on that province
- AI: Will consider core provinces of their overlord as their own core provinces for the purposes of evaluating if they want to buy it

 

[kosarev]

Could your subjects fabricate more claims depending on their personality? That way we could expand our vassals on a less opaque way tan it is now. Cause i rarely if ever see a subject with a claim.

 

[wickermoon]

This is very disappointing. If it was too opaque, it would have been quite easy to add a Wants to Conquer indicator to a mapmode. But if that's too much work, at least allow the calculation to remain so those of us who understand it can use it. If the choice is between "opaque" and "not in the game at all", then surely opaque is better? Because for people who find it too opaque to use, it's the same thing anyway - either way they won't use it.

If players can't figure out why they want to buy a non core/claim, then they can just assume that the subject won't want to buy anything besides core/claim, and they will have the exact same experience as you are proposing. But if players do/can work out why they want to buy it, they should be able to. Why dumb the game down to the lowest common denominator?

Basically, you are disabling some advanced/interesting decisions, just because some players won't be able to understand those decisions. But you're not adding anything in its place, you're just removing it for everyone. That's very disappointing.

Why not just change the -1000 Strategic Interest to say "-1000 Not interested in this province." Then keep the check on Wants to Conquer. Players who don't want to understand when the subject Wants to Conquer can just assume that every non-core/claim will by Not Interested. Those of us who find it very interesting and fun to plan strategy around the personality and other factors of Wants to Conquer will still be able to do so.

Or at least please provide a moddable flag to enable the Wants to Conquer check.

I'll repeat to be clear: I don't understand why you need to remove this check from everyone, just because some players don't understand it. Those who don't understand it won't use it, and have exactly the same experience whether it is in the game or not. But players who do understand it and find it very interesting will have no ability to use it if you remove it.

Please re-consider this change! You've already nerfed vassal feeding hugely, please don't remove this final element that for some players was actually interesting and fun and challenging to plan/strategise around.

Please explain to me why neither Poland nor Lithuania would want to buy Podlasie from me, because to me that doesn't make sense.

 

[Great One]

Feeding vassals isn't the problem IMHO.

The problem is that vassals never try to break free of the player and larger vassals are just as easy to annex as small vassals.

Instead of restricting the ability to feed a vassal (let's face it, most rulers would love to have more land...especially if it is given to them), perhaps a couple of ideas might be:

1. As vassals become larger, the cost to annex (currently 0, but perhaps should cost either Administration or Diplomatic points) should increase. Integrating an OPM should be cheaper than integrating a colonial powerhouse who owns half of Africa and the Spice Islands.

2. Vassals have a chance to revolt from their overlord which scales with size (could be number of provinces or size of army...perhaps a combination).

Don't put in cheesy mechanics to limit the ability to feed a vassal. Put in a cost and a risk with feeding that vassal and let the player decide whether or not to feed them.

 

[TheBloke]

Could your subjects fabricate more claims depending on their personality? That way we could expand our vassals on a less opaque way tan it is now. Cause i rarely if ever see a subject with a claim.

Yes this is a very good idea that would go some way towards moderating the impact of the planned changes.

 

[unmerged(337549)]

Cool. Does accepted culture have any tolerance on cultures in the same culture group?

For example, if I like to sell Trebizond (Greek, Byz. culture group, Orthodox) and Armenia (Armenian, Byz. culture group, Orthodox) to independent Georgia (Georgian, Byz. culture group, and Orthodox) will Georgia accept or refuse those provinces? This is possible in 1.4, just wondering if it's still viable.

 

[Iduakil]

Would you consider implementing a feature into the game with which players can control in any way fabricating claims of their subjects? For example Subjects will claim lands of shared enemies with their overlord?

 

[Wizzington]

Cool. Does accepted culture have any tolerance on cultures in the same culture group?

For example, if I like to sell Trebizond (Greek, Byz. culture group, Orthodox) and Armenia (Armenian, Byz. culture group, Orthodox) to independent Georgia (Georgian, Byz. culture group, and Orthodox) will Georgia accept or refuse those provinces? This is possible in 1.4, just wondering if it's still viable.

Non-accepted culture means different culture group. AI will still buy in the same group.

 

[wickermoon]

Cool. Does accepted culture have any tolerance on cultures in the same culture group?

For example, if I like to sell Trebizond (Greek, Byz. culture group, Orthodox) and Armenia (Armenian, Byz. culture group, Orthodox) to independent Georgia (Georgian, Byz. culture group, and Orthodox) will Georgia accept or refuse those provinces? This is possible in 1.4, just wondering if it's still viable.

It's even possible to sell it to a vassalized Georgia, atm.

 

[Pornek]

Aggressive Expansion is being tweaked by reducing the effect of range, meaning that your neighbours will react more to large land-grabs, though distant powers still won't really care. The effects of prestige on Better Relations Over Time is also being reduced, as this was a major factor in allowing players to very quickly lose accumulated AE.

Hopefully this will give the player a stop from time to time.