AGC & EEP: India

[Twoflower]

This idea sound like a good one. Idontlikeform says he got that old 'discovered' command working, perhaps that can be helpful here. What should these East India Companies trigger on? DP settings (naval, mercantilism/free trade, trade level), a minimum size perhaps. Are there any precedents?

The current precedents (East India Company events for Netherlands, Scotland, Austria and Denmark, Africa trade company for Brandenburg) do not have any conditions, however should probably have conditions as well. I'd say:

• the respective country should not be completely mercantilist, aristocratic or enserfed, since it would then lack the dynamism from independent private merchants that an East India company requires to take off; however considering that even a very mercantilist and pretty aristocratic France operated a quite successful EIC, these conditions should be lenient - perhaps just that these DPs should be below 9?
• the country should also be somewhat geared towards naval, like land lower than 7; here it might just make sense to exempt France and Austria from the condition
• what kept the EIC's alive was efficient trade, therefore requiring a certain trade level (4?) definitely makes sense, a certain level of naval technology as well perhaps
• we would not want a one-provincer to found an EIC, but need to keep in mind that two pretty small nations - Portugal and Netherlands - ran at least for a while impressively successful Indian enterprises, hence the required countrysize should not be too much, 3-5 provinces maybe

Countries that I think should get the possibility to found an EIC are the historical founders of EICs, i.e.

- Portugal (which would not get an EIC, but get the cores on the Indian coast by an appropriate event in the early 16th century)
- England
- Netherlands
- France
- Denmark
- Scotland
- Austria (which would some time after founding its EIC have to decide whether to give in to the colonial powers' demands to shut it down or to keep it up)

and possibly:
- Wales
- Eire
- Lancaster
- York
- Brittany
- Navarra
- Norway
- Burgundy
- Friesland
- Holland
- Brabant
- Luxembourg
- Gelderland
- Flandern
- Provence
- Aragon
- Genoa
- Venice
- Kingdom of Italy
- any suggestions?

For the countries who historically did not have an EIC, founding it would obviously be just a B (or even C) choice. I'm not sure whether it is indeed a good idea to give the event to the Italian states, however I think that huge parts of the MP community, where giving equal chances to Venice and Genoa in the colonial race is quite a popular idea I think, would appreciate this.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

i want to say that the issue of creating fairness for different nations (point 4 of Twoflower) could be at least partially solved by the conditions imposed on the events (point 3).

even for the deterministic ceding events the triggers should be tailored according to the historical conditions. A good trigger to add into the event chain would be the control (such set up of trading posts) of any one province in coastal Africa before events about colonising India could fire. As long as the event is overall balanced, it would not be very unfair that other nations dont have it.

i agree with making ceding province events (other than for province purchases) in India AI only. for humans if it's not a province purchase a different event based on the same conditions should be made without the province ceding.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

i want to say that the issue of creating fairness for different nations (point 4 of Twoflower) could be at least partially solved by the conditions imposed on the events (point 3).

even for the deterministic ceding events the triggers should be tailored according to the historical conditions. A good trigger to add into the event chain would be the control (such set up of trading posts) of any one province in coastal Africa before events about colonising India could fire. As long as the event is overall balanced, it would not be very unfair that other nations dont have it.

i agree with making ceding province events (other than for province purchases) in India AI only. for humans if it's not a province purchase a different event based on the same conditions should be made without the province ceding.

Personally I could care less about ficticious east india company's and ficticious events too. This is after all the biggest criticism of the AGCEEP at present. We pay to much attention to incorporating fictional outcomes into the game. I for one would rapidly lose interest in helping make suggestions for the AGCEEP if fictional events dominate and history is something very loosely applied to the game.

Province cessessions are absolutely a good idea so long as it best simulates the true history of a given region. If the province was in fact purchased with money and not with blood than there is no justification for forcing that country in the game to have to conquer it. That would be ahistorical. And as I've found from playtesting, ceding more often than not is very good for gameplay and makes a much more complex and intersting but balanced game that bears much more resemblance to the real history of a given region and time.

I of course am wholeheartedly opposed to ficticious cesessions. And certainly historically realistic triggers should be met for not just cessessions but every event. This is a delicate matter though and does actually require a decent understanding of the history behind a given proposed event. There is no sense in imposing very strict triggers on a historical event proposal when the author knows very little about the dynamics involved. It would be better to err on the side of simplicity if this is the case.

 

[Twoflower]

Personally I could care less about ficticious east india company's and ficticious events too. This is after all the biggest criticism of the AGCEEP at present. We pay to much attention to incorporating fictional outcomes into the game. I for one would rapidly lose interest in helping make suggestions for the AGCEEP if fictional events dominate and history is something very loosely applied to the game.

The purpose of this is not to apply history loosely to the game, but to ensure fairness and equal chances. Remember that of course events would be set up in a way that the historical outcome is made the most likely one and that ahistorical things are of course not the A choices. At least as I perceive it, the biggest criticism about the AGCEEP is that it is quite deterministic and that too much is handled by events - that's what you usually get to hear from the MP community, and what many of them want is that a mod, differently from vanilla, offers better chances for medium nations that are often played in MP, like Denmark and Venice, to be developed into major powers. Our first goal should certainly be to make the game more historical, however we should never ever enforce history, we should leave room for playing - and therefore not let any event do things that can be done as well ingame - and we should make the game react realistically to ahistorical game situations - and I think it is quite realistic that if any West European country would have gathered the necessary ressources and the necessary internal dynamism, creating an East Indian company would have been an obvious option. Giving away provinces in India to the historical colonial powers regardless of the game situation and not giving anybody else the chance to interfere if they have the potential to do it is unrealistic, deterministic and plain boring IMHO.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

it would be good flavour for MP. though i dont think having or not having the event will necessarily cause unfairness if the event conditions and choices are realistic, internally balanced not just free lollies. if you want to give better flavor to MP maybe should include in the list of candidates for the event French minors who are played not to form France, Sweden, all of the coastal german and italian nations.

 

[Twoflower]

it would be good flavour for MP. though i dont think having or not having the event will necessarily cause unfairness if the event conditions and choices are realistic, internally balanced not just free lollies. if you want to give better flavor to MP maybe should include in the list of candidates for the event French minors who are played not to form France, Sweden, all of the coastal german and italian nations.

Absolutely. The priority is to get something done for the four countries that had an actual impact - France, England, Portugal and Netherlands -, then for the other historical EIC owners - Denmark, Scotland and Austria -, and only then possibly fictional/alternate history stuff.
Can I assume that everybody, or most people, agree with my proposal of giving shields on all of coastal India in EIC events (or in some other earlier event for Portugal) to the four historical colonial powers?

 

[doktarr]

Absolutely. The priority is to get something done for the four countries that had an actual impact - France, England, Portugal and Netherlands -, then for the other historical EIC owners - Denmark, Scotland and Austria -, and only then possibly fictional/alternate history stuff.

It's hard to Imagine either Scotland or Austria being able to project their own colonies, despite their involvement. Scotland because of England, and Austria because they lacked the naval power. Denmark is a possibility, although they ddidn't really have the resources the others did. I'm very skeptical about any other nations. They would tend to be either too weak to have a major impact (Brittany, Navarre, Friesland) or hemmed in by Geographic restrictions (Sweeden, Venice, Genoa).

Can I assume that everybody, or most people, agree with my proposal of giving shields on all of coastal India in EIC events (or in some other earlier event for Portugal) to the four historical colonial powers?

No real problem here.

 

[Twoflower]

Province capitals

Hmm, just three things I realised doing further research:
1. Malwa should be an independent country; it was not part of the Rajput confederacy
2. the important Hindu state of Telingana that had been gradually destroyed by the Bahmanids continued to exist and resist the Bahmanids until 1472. Since this is required for accuracy (50 years cannot be ignored), since this will keep things busy in the area, since they might be an interesting state to play (they should have cores on all their former possessions and it will be quite a challenge trying to reconquer it) and since they were an important ally of Vijayanagar, Telingana should be included in the provinces of Yanam and Palakimedi. Telingana starts out allied to Vijayanagar while the Bahmanids are allied to Orissa (since I assume Bahmanids and Orissa took down Telingana together; at least Orissa ended up with the northern part of Telingana's possessions)
3. Goa and the area surrounding it was owned by Vijayanagar and conquered by the Bahmanids in the 1470s. Thus Vijayanagar should start out owning the province of Goa

I could use some help and suggestions for province capitals. For some provinces I just couldn't find anything, for some I'm quite unsure. So here is what I got.

• Bangalore is Vijayananagar, Kerala is Calicut, Cochin is Cochin, Trivandrum is Quilon, Delhi is Delhi, Santal is Gaur, Koch is Jaunpur, Gujarat is Ahmedabad, Sindh is Thatta, Nepal is Kathmandu, Orissa is Cuttack, Yanam is Warangal and Malwa is Mandu. These cities were the capitals of their respective countries in 1419 and most of them remained quite important throughout the period.
• for the states that emerged later, I guess it is best to use their capital cities as well, although they only rose to importance when these states became independenit; therefore Khandesh is Ahmadnagar, Mysore is Mysore, Maharashtra is Bijapur and Madurai is Madura
• for the important European possessions, it is probably best to use the prominent European colonial cities even though all of these were only obscure villages or even didn't exist at all in 1419, simply because these cities are all so well-known and it would look bad to not let the Europeans get these cities once they acquire the province; therefore Madras is Madras, Bombay is Bombay, Ganges is Calcutta, Pondicherry is Pondicherry and Goa is Goa
• I'm rather unsure about what city to use for Hyderabad, which ought to be the capital province both of the Bahmanids and later of Golconda/Hyderabad. The capital of the Bahmanids was Bidar and Hyderabad didn't even exist yet in 1419, on the other hand Hyderabad is quite a well-known city, and Golconda would be a possibility as well. Perhaps best to use Bidar in 1419 to avoid an anachronism, yet it also doesn't feel right to have Bidar as capital of Golconda/Hyderabad
• I have no idea at all what cities to use in Rajputana and Gondwana (i.e. the provinces of Rajputana, Bikaner, Gondwana, Bastar and Sambalpur); please help me here, somebody
• Mangalore is Mangalore, Tirhut is Kanauj, Rajpur is Prayag, Bundelkhand is Agra, Chandigahr is Haridwar, Panjab is Lahore, Thar is Multan
• the others I don't know or am not sure about yet. Suggestions would be appreciated. The provinces missing capitals are Howrah, Bihar, Sambalpur, Bastar, Gondwana, Palakimedi, Rajputana, Bikaner, Indus and Kutch.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

The purpose of this is not to apply history loosely to the game, but to ensure fairness and equal chances.

At what point in history was anything fair and equal? This is an impossibility.

Remember that of course events would be set up in a way that the historical outcome is made the most likely one and that ahistorical things are of course not the A choices.

Yes but you must realize that every time an event is added to the game that has an ahistorical b choice this inevitably makes the game more ahistorical. Sure it happens only 5% of the time, but the more 5% of the times you have the more the game becomes ahistorical. They add up after awhile and the end result is that in 1820 the game is doomed to have only a remote resemblance to the real world arrangement in 1820. Because of this whether we are aware of it or not continually adding ahistorical b options mess up the historical outcome of the game, especially in the 2nd half of it.

On the other hand we certainly don't want the game to just be a movie of world history that we watch but cannot alter in any way. Of course there should be alternate possiblities, but we must handle them responsibly not wrecklessly dreaming of what things could have been like and then imposing it on the game. Every ahistorical b option needs to have been a very very realistic possiblity and have only minor ahistorical effects on gameplay as a whole or we as AGCEEP contributors are just preaching one thing and doing another. We say we want the game to be more accurate, and we may even be sincere about this, but we are really making it less accurate. These ahistoical b options may seem so harmless in the 15th century but they may very well have very very radical effects after the results of them are compunded by say the last half of the 17th century.

It is excruciatingly important that when we make historical events the the B options either diverge only slighlty from the historical A option or simply do not have the capacity to significantly alter the game. Without making events by this philosophy we are just causing chaos in the last half of the game.

And making ahistorical events period is destructive to making the game roughly follow the historical path. Any and all ahistorical events need to be optional addons to the game start with default settings on no. If this philosophy of game modding is not applied to the construction of the AGCEEP, then mark my words 2 possible outcomes will happen. Either a large chunk of the AGCEEP contributors will get fed up with this kinda crap and leave and make their own mod trying to make it stay for the most part historically accurate or another mod will take the AGCEEP's place as being a mod that trys to be more historically accurate and many contributors here will leave and join it. If and when either of these 2 scenarios happen the AGCEEP will be left to a small fringe group of EU2 players and very few people will pay much attention to the AGCEEP anymore.

At least as I perceive it, the biggest criticism about the AGCEEP is that it is quite deterministic and that too much is handled by events - that's what you usually get to hear from the MP community, and what many of them want is that a mod, differently from vanilla, offers better chances for medium nations that are often played in MP, like Denmark and Venice, to be developed into major powers.

Well if these picky MP players want this then let them make their own mod. I'm sick of us constantly having to bear in mind what these MP players want. Are we their slaves? Are we making the AGCEEP for us or for them?

I haven't once read this criticism your talking about since I starting helping out here. I have however read the criticism I'm talking about a good number of times.

Our first goal should certainly be to make the game more historical, however we should never ever enforce history, we should leave room for playing - and therefore not let any event do things that can be done as well ingame - and we should make the game react realistically to ahistorical game situations - and I think it is quite realistic that if any West European country would have gathered the necessary ressources and the necessary internal dynamism, creating an East Indian company would have been an obvious option.

If that is our first goal then we need to be faithful to it and stop cheating on it behind it's back. There is plenty of playing room already. The problem is there is too much playing room not too little. Even when Johan is making beta patches what does he have to keep in mind? I'll tell you what. He has to figure out ways to make players doing odd things to their advantage in the game that are ahistorical, have a much harder time getting away with it. He follows the premise of the AGCEEP even better than many of us. He makes us look like posers.

Giving away provinces in India to the historical colonial powers regardless of the game situation and not giving anybody else the chance to interfere if they have the potential to do it is unrealistic, deterministic and plain boring IMHO.

No it isn't. If they have the capacity to interefere than they will do so by military means just like they did in real life. The game as is, is very poor at replicating wars of global proportions. Yet these kinds of wars did indeed take place and they ought to be one of the most interesting and engaging parts of the game. But they are all but completely absent from the game. And ceding a few provinces in Asia and Africa here and there, that are historically justified, will do alot to fix this problem.

Furthermore we need to make playing an Asian country not just a matter of playing a country in the game that has only the slightest contact with europeans. They need to have to hold fast in the face of european encroachment not just ignore the europeans the whole game. Giving events for historical cessessions will do alot to fix this problem too.

Can I assume that everybody, or most people, agree with my proposal of giving shields on all of coastal India in EIC events (or in some other earlier event for Portugal) to the four historical colonial powers?

I definitely do not. And if people are willing to listen to me I'll do what I can to make sure everyone else doesn't either. First of all giving cores to EICs would be disastrous. First of the AIs will almost never ever capitalize on it and a human player will pick yes to making an EIC and then proceed to take every single one of these and then once they have that foothold they will take all of India. But the AIs won't they'll ignore it completely.

Secondly the AIs will DOW other europeans that own these provinces in India and they are already DOWing each other enough.

Thirdly this will also give humans CBs against other europeans that own 1 or 2 of these coastal provinces and humans will inevitably abuse this too by refusing the AI offers of these provinces they have cores on in every peace offer and then DOWing the same country over and over after 5 years in between wars until it is dead or down to just its capital.

And fourthly for you MP worshippers just think of the chaos these kinds of abuses could cause in an MP game.

This is why select cessessions work. They are historically justified, both the AIs and humans can benefit from them, they realisticaly simulate history much better, and most importantly they will allow for far less ahistorical game play abuse.

Sometimes some people in this forum really shock me. They seem to pay almost no attention to the cosequences of their change proposals. Many of the gameplay problems that we AGCEEP contributors are trying to fix are actually caused by old AGCEEP events. I say this not to insult anyone but to provoke people to consider these things more carefully so that the AGCEEP doesn't wind up being a dismal failure.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

*]only four European possessions in India - Calcutta and Madras for England, Goa for Portugal and Pondicherry for France - are ceded to these countries by event, since these were immensely important for their countries and acquired absolutely peacefully so that it would be ahistorical to force the countries to conquer them - and also these were the three biggest powers in India that somehow deserve a certain boost
[*]the historical colonial powers in India (Portugal, England, France, Netherlands, Denmark) and some additional countries who either made attempts as well - like Austria and Scotland - or for whom it might have made sense under certain circumstances - like perhaps the French, British, Iberian and Dutch minors - get the opportunity to found an East India Company in an event. Besides the effects that these events currently have, they will grant cores on all coastal provinces in India. Thus, quite a lot of European states will have the possibility, provided they got the ressources, to conquer the provinces, and historical conflict between the European powers for their Indian possessions is encouraged
[/list]

Also chose China if it goes fairly naval as well as india would be one of its prime targets, though an East Indies company isn't the likely outcome.

Also the Ottoman Empire might do something over there as one of the non-historical attempters.

Finally it may be harder to do, but i think provinces should be used whenever possible instead of countries.

 

[Twoflower]

I definitely do not. And if people are willing to listen to me I'll do what I can to make sure everyone else doesn't either. First of all giving cores to EICs would be disastrous. First of the AIs will almost never ever capitalize on it and a human player will pick yes to making an EIC and then proceed to take every single one of these and then once they have that foothold they will take all of India. But the AIs won't they'll ignore it completely.

That's just an unconfirmed assumption. You haven't even tried to test what the AI will do if it is given a starting base (as all four colonizers will get at least one valuable province ceded to them by event), has these cores and gets a decent AI file. This is just a stupid, arrogant way of trying to shoot a proposal down.

Secondly the AIs will DOW other europeans that own these provinces in India and they are already DOWing each other enough.

So what? There were lots of conflicts over the Indian possessions of the European powers. Places like Madras, Cochin and Pondicherry were constant sources of contention between France, England, the Netherlands and Portugal. Therefore dows would be rather historical.

Thirdly this will also give humans CBs against other europeans that own 1 or 2 of these coastal provinces and humans will inevitably abuse this too by refusing the AI offers of these provinces they have cores on in every peace offer and then DOWing the same country over and over after 5 years in between wars until it is dead or down to just its capital.

And? A human can always abuse lots of things against the AI.

And fourthly for you MP worshippers just think of the chaos these kinds of abuses could cause in an MP game.

What chaos? Players of the European countries being able and motivated to fight over the Indian coast just as they did historically? I fail to see why this is a bad thing.

This is why select cessessions work. They are historically justified, both the AIs and humans can benefit from them, they realisticaly simulate history much better, and most importantly they will allow for far less ahistorical game play abuse.

They make gameplay more static, they give advantages to countries that can in the specific game situation be completely undeserved and especially in MP games provoke a lot of gameyness. Ask any experienced MP player about what he would prefer and why.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

idontlikeforms:
The game should not be about Historical Determinism, but Historical Probablity. There are times when in history something was just a matter of luck that caused something to happen, a fluke. Trying to foce that to happen so that it'll always happen isn't as good either.

And as to mp thing, a lot of people here do try to play AGCEEP for MP. Not me though, my connection is too slow.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

That's just an unconfirmed assumption. You haven't even tried to test what the AI will do if it is given a starting base (as all four colonizers will get at least one valuable province ceded to them by event), has these cores and gets a decent AI file. This is just a stupid, arrogant way of trying to shoot a proposal down.

No it isn't. I've created events for Portugal where they recieve 2 East African provinces, a stack of troops, and core claims on other east African provinces.
And do you know what the AI will do? I'll tell you what. Absolutely nothing. I do know from experience. Do you?

And what part of what I said was stupid or arrogant and how?

So what? There were lots of conflicts over the Indian possessions of the European powers. Places like Madras, Cochin and Pondicherry were constant sources of contention between France, England, the Netherlands and Portugal. Therefore dows would be rather historical.

They can be but they most likely won't be. Most of the fighting will take place in europe, and wars often hurt the AI. We really only want the AI to engage in 2 kinds of wars. Wars where one AI is significantly stronger than another so it can DOW and kill off the other AI easily. And wars between superpowers. All other kinds of wars we want to keep to a minmium. Because they will inevitably benefit a human player involved or uninvolved in them the most.

And? A human can always abuse lots of things against the AI.

That's no excuse to help him do it even more.

What chaos? Players of the European countries being able and motivated to fight over the Indian coast just as they did historically? I fail to see why this is a bad thing.

Because the penalties for their aggression will be less. They get less BB per annexed province that they have a core on than ones they don't and they will avoid the stab hits for DOWing more easily too. It's not like MP players need help being able to do acts of aggression like this. Even Johan in a recent beta patch made all human players get CBs vs any other human player over the BB limit. Obviously making human on human aggression more costly is the route to take, not encouraging it.

They make gameplay more static, they give advantages to countries that can in the specific game situation be completely undeserved and especially in MP games provoke a lot of gameyness. Ask any experienced MP player about what he would prefer and why.

Well then triggers can be fine tuned to make sure they don't get it if they don't deserve it. Making the game have alot of historical obstacles to over come is what makes it a good game. Making it a free for all where humans can take advantage of the AIs to an even greater degree may seem a little better at first but in the end it become more boring and reduces the lifespan of people's interests in the game.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

They can be but they most likely won't be. Most of the fighting will take place in europe, and wars often hurt the AI. We really only want the AI to engage in 2 kinds of wars. Wars where one AI is significantly stronger than another so it can DOW and kill off the other AI easily. And wars between superpowers. All other kinds of wars we want to keep to a minmium. Because they will inevitably benefit a human player involved or uninvolved in them the most.

Not if they're justifiable. The AI isn't the end-all-be-all for deciding if something histoical should be kept or dropped....

That's no excuse to help him do it even more.

Not in and of itself, but its also not a reason to not do an event.

Because the penalties for their aggression will be less. They get less BB per annexed province that they have a core on than ones they don't and they will avoid the stab hits for DOWing more easily too. It's not like MP players need help being able to do acts of aggression like this. Even Johan in a recent beta patch made all human players get CBs vs any other human player over the BB limit. Obviously making human on human aggression more costly is the route to take, not encouraging it.

Then the same should go for portugal.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Not if they're justifiable. The AI isn't the end-all-be-all for deciding if something histoical should be kept or dropped....

True but it does need to be a big determining factor rather than an irrelevant one.

Not in and of itself, but its also not a reason to not do an event.

Oh yes it is. Many AGCEEP events help humans alot and do little to nothing for the AI. They to put it bluntly discriminate agaisnt the AIs. When mr-hormiga and Daywalker were complaining about the AGCEEP they weren't talking out fo their butts. They hit the bullseye on many problems with the AGCEEP, paying no attention to how things effect the AI was a big one. How ironic it is after I've been the no. 1 defender of the AGCEEP agaisnt their criticisms that I should now be the sole patron in their defence too.

Then the same should go for portugal.

I don't understand what you are implying here. Can you expound on this?

 

[Twoflower]

No it isn't. I've created events for Portugal where they recieve 2 East African provinces, a stack of troops, and core claims on other east African provinces.
And do you know what the AI will do? I'll tell you what. Absolutely nothing. I do know from experience. Do you?

Yes, I do happen to mod EU2 for a substantially longer time than you do. Therefore there is no need to treat me like an idiot. This is what I perceive as arrogant. You know what impact certain changes have on AI Portugal at a certain time. Considering this striking evidence and "experience" is gullible.
It is certainly correct that a human will benefit more from the cores than the AI; however a human always benefits more from everything, simply because he's smarter than the AI. That does not yet mean that something gives an unfair advantage to the human.
Besides the important MP considerations, the purpose of this change is not to make the AI conquer all of India - no country came even close to that before 1756, and just cores on the coast are quite probably not sufficient to push England towards establishing domination of the subcontinent thereafter -, but to allow Europeans to choose their targets of expansion freely instead of completely enforcing history and to encourage historical conflict between the Europeans for Indian possessions. Whether this can be accomplished for all four countries remains to be seen, however I don't understand how you with a modding 'experience' of a few weeks have the audacity and self-assuredness to claim that this will certainly not work at all.

They can be but they most likely won't be. Most of the fighting will take place in europe, and wars often hurt the AI. We really only want the AI to engage in 2 kinds of wars. Wars where one AI is significantly stronger than another so it can DOW and kill off the other AI easily. And wars between superpowers. All other kinds of wars we want to keep to a minmium. Because they will inevitably benefit a human player involved or uninvolved in them the most.

Hmm, aren't you contradicting yourself? On the one hand you want to enforce history, on the other you do not want the AI to fight historical wars and make historical conquests? That's rather absurd.

Because the penalties for their aggression will be less. They get less BB per annexed province that they have a core on than ones they don't and they will avoid the stab hits for DOWing more easily too. It's not like MP players need help being able to do acts of aggression like this. Even Johan in a recent beta patch made all human players get CBs vs any other human player over the BB limit. Obviously making human on human aggression more costly is the route to take, not encouraging it.

Well, not really. Humans fighting Humans in MP is a lot more desirable than humans tearing apart the AI....and the penalties for fighting colonial wars do not need to be big; constant fighting for colonial domination between humans is an interesting, fun thing worth being encouraged.

EDIT: And the fact that you, having joined last month, claim that the AGCEEP has never considered the impact events have on the AI just makes me laugh. I could give you links to dozens of old AGCEEP, EEP and AGC threads with extensive discussion on the AI.
Of course, it is also true that the AGCEEP, or at least most of its members, do not share certain views of Daywalker.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

True but it does need to be a big determining factor rather than an irrelevant one.

Not the biggest though. The biggest should be its imporantance in history.

Oh yes it is. Many AGCEEP events help humans alot and do little to nothing for the AI. They to put it bluntly discriminate agaisnt the AIs. When mr-hormiga and Daywalker were complaining about the AGCEEP they weren't talking out fo their butts. They hit the bullseye on many problems with the AGCEEP, paying no attention to how things effect the AI was a big one. How ironic it is after I've been the no. 1 defender of the AGCEEP agaisnt their criticisms that I should now be the sole patron in their defence too.

Maybe so, but that's a different discussion....one that should be done on re-balancing.

I don't understand what you are implying here. Can you expound on this?

You said that the other nations shouldn't get bonuses for being agressive in india, even for histoical province taking. Well portgual was just as agressive and in mp will be even moreso than it was historically and the help your giving him will only spur him onward and upward faster and farther. Not saying that is bad, but then if you want to give ceding and CB shield events for india to portugal to help propel it, you have very little room to say the other major powers in the area historically aren't justifed as humans or ai.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Yes, I do happen to mod EU2 for a substantially longer time than you do. Therefore there is no need to treat me like an idiot. This is what I perceive as arrogant. You know what impact certain changes have on AI Portugal at a certain time. Considering this striking evidence and "experience" is gullible.

I was by no means trying to treat you like an idiot. Neither do I think you are an idiot. The fact that you have been modding longer than I have does not make you right and me wrong. That would be falacious thinking.

What the AI Portugal does is very relevant. The same AI is used for Portugal as for all other AIs. The AI still has to follow roughly the same MO. So how the Portuguese AI functions is quite relevant, especially since the circumstance is almost identical. Have you seen the AI perform in the type of circumstance you are talking about? How is it good to discard my first hand information in favor of naked conjecture. What I'm saying should be relevant in considering whether or not your proposals will be beneficial or harmful to the gameflow, especially in regards to AIs.

It is certainly correct that a human will benefit more from the cores than the AI; however a human always benefits more from everything, simply because he's smarter than the AI. That does not yet mean that something gives an unfair advantage to the human.

Yes a human will almost always benefit more, but the point is to make events that keep this to a minimum. Making events that benefit humans alot and AIs little or even worse harm them is not a good idea. These kinds of events should not be made. How will it help the AGCEEP to make them? Each point I made does not some how majically become false because I'm the one who said them or because you have been modding longer than me. It is in your best interest to consider and weigh carefully each point I made for why these events your proposing would be bad. They were pointed out for your and everybody else who works on the AGCEEP's benefit not for mine. I don't say these kinds of things to make myself look good and make others look bad.

Besides the important MP considerations, the purpose of this change is not to make the AI conquer all of India - no country came even close to that before 1756, and just cores on the coast are quite probably not sufficient to push England towards establishing domination of the subcontinent thereafter -, but to allow Europeans to choose their targets of expansion freely instead of completely enforcing history and to encourage historical conflict between the Europeans for Indian possessions. Whether this can be accomplished for all four countries remains to be seen, however I don't understand how you with a modding 'experience' of a few weeks have the audacity and self-assuredness to claim that this will certainly not work at all.

I don't question your intentions in these event proposals. What I am questioning is the effects that they will have on the game.

Because I sit down at my computer every day for at least 12 hours and study posts here on this forum and watch what the AI is doing while playing Ternate with the colombus cheat and take note of as much as I can. Have you by any chance read my first few posts in the Portuguese AI thread. If so you will get a real good feel for just how much I understand about what the AI is doing. And you would know better than to imply with a mere few weeks of modding I couldn't possibly understand how things will effect the AI. I haven't read a single post nor set of posts on this forum that would indicate to me that other AGCEEP contributors are at present nor in the recent past paying any where near as much attention as I am to the AI and how it performs and handles events. In these few weeks I have scripted probably over 70 events and made 100s of changes to the game in other ways and then sat down and watched what the AI does with all this and what can I do with it.

Hmm, aren't you contradicting yourself? On the one hand you want to enforce history, on the other you do not want the AI to fight historical wars and make historical conquests? That's rather absurd.

I do want the AI to fight historical wars. But the wars you are going to make would only be historical by random chance. And I am also trying to bear in mind how will the AI handle all this. What good does it do to make an event set that the AI doesn't do squat with and a human can do all kinds of things with to their advantage?

Well, not really. Humans fighting Humans in MP is a lot more desirable than humans tearing apart the AI....and the penalties for fighting colonial wars do not need to be big; constant fighting for colonial domination between humans is an interesting, fun thing worth being encouraged.

Yes but Johan is trying to make the consequences for excessive human aggression in MP games harder and what your proposing will make it easier on them. So which is the correct path to take?

EDIT: And the fact that you, having joined last month, claim that the AGCEEP has never considered the impact events have on the AI just makes me laugh. I could give you links to dozens of old AGCEEP, EEP and AGC threads with extensive discussion on the AI.
Of course, it is also true that the AGCEEP, or at least most of its members, do not share certain views of Daywalker.

This may very well be true. But are they paying attention to the effects on AIs now? You got to refute my argumant man not just just mock me and try to make me look like I don't know what I'm talking about by belittling me. If your so right and I'm so wrong refute my argument. Stick to the argumant. Why is it necessary for you to attack my capacity to understand the game? I challenge you to refute my argument. If you can't than perhaps its correct eh?

When did I say the AGCEEP crew has never payed attention to the AI. Once again please stick to the argument and not just try to discredit me.

 

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Not the biggest though. The biggest should be its imporantance in history.

Of course. I agree with this.

Maybe so, but that's a different discussion....one that should be done on re-balancing.

Look we are all human. How can we make additions to the game that will 100% not harm the gameflow? We can't. But my point is that if I know that a given proposal can hurt the game very badly and say nothing and just let the big mess it makes get cleaned up at a later date than I am really doing a disservice to the AGCEEP community by saying nothing.

You said that the other nations shouldn't get bonuses for being agressive in india, even for histoical province taking. Well portgual was just as agressive and in mp will be even moreso than it was historically and the help your giving him will only spur him onward and upward faster and farther. Not saying that is bad, but then if you want to give ceding and CB shield events for india to portugal to help propel it, you have very little room to say the other major powers in the area historically aren't justifed as humans or ai.

I propose that Portugal get a core on Goa not the whole Indian coast. There is a big difference here. And giving a core or a cessession of 1 or 2 indian provinces to anothereuropean power via a perfectly justified historical event is certainly not something I'm opposed to.

My proposals are harder on a human in the sense that they will get much less free cavalry and no extra conquistadors and 1 less explorer. The only big benefit that I'm really giving to a human is the -10 BB in the last event of the sequence and this is quite necessary as the AIs will DOW Portugal left and right once the conquests end and a human Portuguese player will find it almost impossible to stop this onslaught. And yes I'm speaking from experience. So in the end, overall my setup is probably about as helpful to a human as the current one but also will reward ahistorical developement much less.

 

[Twoflower]

I was not trying to discredit you, sorry, just a little sleepy and desperately trying to make a point. However it is rather obvious that the two of us just have different opinions on this point.
What you want is to achieve complete encouragement of historicity and especially aid the AI in repeating its historical accomplishments, which are both absolutely legitimate, important concerns that I share.
Yet what I also want is a little more diversity, more equality of chances between the European countries and a solution more acceptable to the MP people. This would definitely be to some extent at the expense of your two mentioned concerns, since indeed cores are used a lot better by humans and there will be more 'chaos' - which does not have to be a bad thing and could be put as 'less certainty of the outcome' as well.
Unless actual testing has shown that, it is wrong to say that one of these two approaches is wrong and doesn't work; they will surely play out quite differently and lead to different results, and it might very well be that my approach has a result that I like and you don't, and vice versa, since we appear to have different expectations from the game.

So what can be done? You are right in that a human might exploit the cores in a really undesirable way that would in MP hurt balance; I'm especially thinking of Portugal which gets to India 100 years earlier than all others and can during that century quite easily conquer the whole coast. France, which would get its EIC only in 1664, would hardly ever have a chance since it can be expected that by that point Portugal, England, the Netherlands and possibly Denmark have already divided up the coast if they all get cores. This is indeed a problem I do not know how to solve.