Isaac Brock said:We do need to make this work better, and I agree that for now the best would be to simply remove the events for now. I'd suggest that they simply be commented out for now as place holders - something needs to be done about Milan in the early 16th century.
And the situation is not as simple as you claim. Sure in 1499 Louis XII invaded Milan based on his being the only legitimate decendent of Bernabo Visconti, Duke of Milan. This event is already handled in the mod. So 1500 is the wrong date. However, the Spanish and Austrians did participate in the Holy League of 1510 that drove the French out of Milan and put Massimiliano Sforza on the throne. And in 1525 it was Charles V who deposed Francesco Sforza and took possesion of Milan through his rights as Emperor (and obviously because his army was in possesion). Francesco became Duke of Milan in 1529 only because he had no heirs and the duchy would therefore revert to Austria/Spain when he died.
It is planty complicated, but the fact is that the Sforzas died out. When that happened there were only two possible dynastic results - the Orleanist claim of France might be upheld, or the fief could revert to the Emperor. Legally France clearly had the stronger case (as it did originally in 1447) but that's beside the point. I suppose hypothetically Sforza could have adopted another heir...
The vanilla way of handling this is not so bad really. Something needs to happen to Milan at this time, and it ought to end up Austrian or Spanish.
question?
is the HEI tag being used? IF so Milano should go to whoever is HEI and not necessarily Spain or Austria. Sure this is going to be a real bear in the butt if neither is HEI at the time.... but that is the problem inherent to all historic games, the player alters the choices made and thus the entire flow of history. Scripting any event that was specific to the emperor assuming that it is going to be anyone in particular is going to bite you in the butt if that party is not emperor. And that can happen in the game.
As much as possible HEI events should be scripted nation neutral to in part force the Spanish and Austrian players to take a historic path. If they are not it is now possible for the player to take ashistoric paths and still get historic benefits. As an example, in this case if at the time the HEI is not Austrian they would still get MLO and not the nation that is HEI. And if BAY was the HEI at the time I really could not see that happening while there was still breath in there body. Nor could I see it happening if FRA were emperor (not likely but could happen).
At present there is no impetus for the HAB or SPA player to even attempt to follow the same path to power that was historic since they are going to get the bennies anyway. Therefore they are now free to pursue a path that maximizes on that free empire they are going to be given.
After all this is the Alternate game is it not? And don't take that the wrong way. I am just trying to stress that I have seen a lot of concentration on getting a variation on the vanilla that stresses dynamic alternate outcomes and alterations of history..concentrating on making itself a super vanilla.
Which makes sense to a degree don't get me wrong! One first has to have firm ground on which to walk. And making as accurate a vanilla as possible does that. So, since I am new here I probably missed the post that had that as part of the overall plan.
Still ties in to part of my overall point, and that is that after the super vanilla is built and battle tested it is assumed that alternate paths are going to be built in so that the players actions actually have some major impacts on relative history. And as such, the events are going to have to be rescripted to be nation neutral for the HEI anyway.... so why not save some work down the road and start doing it now so you don't have a snake nest to untangle?
And in keeping with that basic premise...
The Burgundian marriage should be rendered somewhat neutral as well. Now given the AI, the heaviest weight is given to the historic choice. As such, the likeliest outcome is going to usually lead you to how things really played out(not guarenteed as some of the hands off game posts I have read indicate), speaking in a broad generalization. So rendering it nation neutral which I will get into a bit later, should still have the historic outcome. Now how to go about doing that? I am not sure but I was wondering if the event could query two or three random choices for who Mary should marry based on some parameters?
The parameters would be the same kind of political calculus that was done by the family historically; powerful neighbours that they have either friendly relations with or need to cement relations with to protect the estates. Now I am not certain on that since that period of history and the family involved are not areas of expertise for me. But in general the parameters work in almost any feudal family, if there are other circumstances that were involved that deviate from those that can be queried add/include them as well. But using for the sake of argument the above parameters, in a game that has England dow France HARD and achieves final victory, they would be a more logical choice then IIRC Charles of France and as such should be chosen. Not that it would be horribly practical, since I can think of noway that the game could dynamically alter the monarch and leader files to reflect this alternate but more "historic" in an ahistoric world choice.
Alternate choices lead to alternate outcomes. And as long as the AI has a small chance of taking an ahistoric path in an event, you are going to have some weird outcomes! And it only gets worse when you have real people making the choices!
One of the things that this game can do is be used as an educational tool for how dynamic history truly IS. The thread that we all know as our common global history is so very fragile. A different choice here, an alteration in timing there, and the world that you know is gone, relegated to the pages of some science fiction writer in this new world.
Not that the game can truly be that variably dynamic, well not really sure on that one. Maybe with some really clever and tight scripting it can give the illusion of it.
Sorry getting a bit tangental... should wrap this up before I go any further off the deep end
STOP! COOKIE TIME