AHD Questions, Comments, Concerns, etc.

[unmerged(175440)]

I've played through a bit of AHD and have some questions, some comments, and concerns.



Questions:

1. Is foreign investment really worth it? IIRC you get an influence bonus but does it serve as more than a money sink in the current incarnation of the game? Why wouldn't I just build a factory at home if I had the money. I dare say that the POPs in my country may think I'm outsourcing my production overseas haha.

2. When the population or a specific POP has an issue (say, jingoism), does that mean that they are FOR jingoism or AGAINST jingoism? It seems kind of ambiguous. So if their issue is atheism, are they the next Richard Dawkins or are they god-fearing bible thumps who hate Richard Dawkins?

3. What's the deal with the whole new rebel inferface. It's so confusing and I just don't understand it at all.

4. Why can I see what other countries are crafting a casus belli, shouldn't that be a secret?

Comments/Concerns:

1. IMHO, having foreign investment only for great powers is lame. Why not give it to secondary powers too?

2. AFAIK, there's still no mechanic(s) to have a proper great war that changes Europe as dramatically as the real one did. Maybe for the next expansion.

3. It still seems a bit easy to make money.

4. Diplomacy is still somewhat worthless. You allies hardly ever help you out and allying is so difficult sometimes, saying "impossible" even with great relations. The AI should be less rigid here.

What do you all think?


—V

 

[Foxbyte]

Is foreign investment really worth it? IIRC you get an influence bonus but does it serve as more than a money sink in the current incarnation of the game? Why wouldn't I just build a factory at home if I had the money. I dare say that the POPs in my country may think I'm outsourcing my production overseas haha.

IMHO, having foreign investment only for great powers is lame. Why not give it to secondary powers too?

Foreign investment is amazing if you use it correctly, especially if your economic policy is interventionist. You can build the specific kinds of factories you need, right now, in single-state nations [so they don't get boosted to GP of course] and use these to boost your own economy. Produce fabric and electric gears in your vassals, while your main factories are luxury goods and automobiles, for example.

The more you invest in a nation, the more of its market you control. Uncivs are 100% in control, but civs are 75% and secondary powers will only give you 50% of their market. If you spend enough money, you can bring this up to almost 100%, and that is the most important part of investing in a nation.

It would be pointless to invest in nations as a secondary power because you wouldn't have a sphere of influence at that point.

Edit: While I'm here I might as well answer a few other questions.

2. Pop issues are -for-. If a pop is 80% jingoist, they -love- war.

3. Rebel interface seems understandable at a glance, but I believe the tooltip should be expanded a little bit. At the top we have their symbol and their name, which shows what they want. First icon is how many of your people are supporting this rebel movement. Second icon is how many brigades they currently have ready to rise up against you. Next icon is [I believe] how many they currently have risen against you. Fourth icon is a generic 'at a glance' stat of how powerful they are. The final one is the revolt chance.

4. You can only see foreign nations CB generation once they get caught.

Europe wasn't changed -that- much by the first great war. In effect, Germany lost some land and was hit with a cut-down-to-size wargoal.

My allies join me all the time, but I am a paragon of virtue and keep my infamy low. What's your infamy at?

 

[unmerged(175440)]

But why not just build factories in your own nation then? And as a GP, can't you just get them in your market by sphering them? Does investment do anything else besides give you more control of the market? Do you get any of the $$$ from the factories? What % of the goods do you get?

Thanks for answering the other questions. WWI changed tons! Changed society and the whole structure of Europe! Also, wars in Vicky don't have that epic scale. Once their over, you'd hardly know that millions were killed and GPs were dismantled.

—V

 

[Foxbyte]

But why not just build factories in your own nation then? And as a GP, can't you just get them in your market by sphering them? Does investment do anything else besides give you more control of the market? Do you get any of the $$$ from the factories? What % of the goods do you get?

Some economic policies, such as interventionist, don't allow you to build specific factory types in your own nation; thus, you can invest in spherelings to get the goods you want. For example, I don't have airplanes but I want to build some and my capitalists are being obsessed with paper like they are wont to do; so I build an airplane factory in Texas, and voila. I can build airplanes now.

You can also have your spherelings build lower tier goods, and save your own factory slots for valuable stuff. Such as having lumber yards and furniture factories in your spherelings, while you build luxury furniture and rake in the dough.

You don't get money from the factories, but your sphereling is obligated to sell to you before entering the goods on the world market. The base value for how much you get is as follows.

Uncivilized Nations: 100%
Civilized Nations: 75%
Secondary Powers: 50%

If you invest a lot in a nation, you boost that percentage. I've gotten a secondary power up to about 98% market control, which is very useful.

Thanks for answering the other questions. WWI changed tons! Changed society and the whole structure of Europe! Also, wars in Vicky don't have that epic scale. Once their over, you'd hardly know that millions were killed and GPs were dismantled.

GPs being dismantled are present in Vicky 2 already, I've already seen several nations knocked out of GP status as a result of a great war. Societal and cultural changes aren't abstracted by the engine to the point we'd see them, though [which can be a good thing, it would add another layer of CPU-hogging on top of what there already is]. Combat tactics definitely are; you'll see the focus go from offensives in the early game, to huge defensive line-combat in the mid-game, and then back to offence again in the late-game as attack values and tanks are introduced.

I do kind of wish the game would keep track of casualties so I can tell just how weakened an opponent is, but Paradox generally tip-toes around that sort of thing. I do know in my last war as the USCA against Austria-Hungary, France, and Spain that I had single battles with over half a million casualties each, and they left my opponents terribly weakened.

 

[unmerged(175440)]

Thanks for the response.

Unfortunately, I've rarely seen any GPs get knocked out of the top 8 besides the usual suspects (Spain and Ottomans). Usually the GP rankings will remain relatively static for the duration of the game.

—V

 

[Raz999]

The OOS bug when host finish researching tech has to be fixed. Pronto.

 

[unmerged(175440)]

The OOS bug when host finish researching tech has to be fixed. Pronto.

What bug is this?

—V

 

[Darkrenown]

OOS - multiplayer bug. Pretty sure it's not related to tech research though. However, I do know we fixed at least one OOS issue recently.

 

[Darkrenown]

But why not just build factories in your own nation then? And as a GP, can't you just get them in your market by sphering them? Does investment do anything else besides give you more control of the market? Do you get any of the $$$ from the factories? What % of the goods do you get?

Besides market access, investment slows the influence of other GPs and boosts your industrial score a little. The reason only GPs can do it is they are the only ones who can influence.

 

[Raz999]

OOS - multiplayer bug. Pretty sure it's not related to tech research though. However, I do know we fixed at least one OOS issue recently.

It is absolutely connected to tech research. Whenever the host finish a tech the game goes out of sync(save, reload, play until next host tech). This makes us play games where the host wont tech after 1870-1880 something. And no OOS occur.

I think it is just one tech that fucks it up and it is somewhere in the middle of the tech trees. I got the OOS tech bug I guess somewhere in the middle of culture in the middle age. Perhaps positivism or the one later. (1865)

In an other game when the host only did go for military tech the OOS bug didnt appear. (yet (1886)) But still have resarched culture in philosophy and social thought but not in the political thought tree. Perhaps State and government or Nationalism & Imp.

 

[unmerged(175440)]

Besides market access, investment slows the influence of other GPs and boosts your industrial score a little. The reason only GPs can do it is they are the only ones who can influence.

But it would make things so much more entertaining if you could invest as a secondary power. Also, investing in other GPs should be allowed too (but for different bonuses, obviously) since France extensively invested in Russia prior to WWI.

—V

 

[Foxbyte]

But it would make things so much more entertaining if you could invest as a secondary power. Also, investing in other GPs should be allowed too (but for different bonuses, obviously) since France extensively invested in Russia prior to WWI.

—V

Investing as a secondary power would be pointless. You would only make it easier for the target nation to get ahead of you in score and you wouldn't get any of the benefits as a GP would suck up the goods they build.