comments on beta 3 of 1.07

[Derek Pullem]

OK - HUGE changes.

I'm very concerned over the impact on Golden Horde / Timurids / China.

Now peoples - this is a REAL beta patch. It could just blow up in all our faces nd we may have to back track. So lets test it and worry about the next changes a while later

 

[Johan]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen
What planet are you coming from?

A planet without the Thrace-Anatolia link, I think. The result of removing the Thrace-Smyrna link would solely be that the distance from Thrace to Smyrna rose from one province to two. No impact on manpower whatsoever, since the Thrace-Anatolia link is quite sufficient in that regard.

Considering the fact that OE does not start with Thrace its a pretty important connection.

And no, it will not be changed.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Energizer
Does the removed landconnection between Jylland and Sjelland affect Danish manpower figures?

Only very rarely - since that would require provinces in Asia or Africa that Denmark would otherwise have had road access to, i.e. an unbroken string of owned provinces straight across Europe.

 

[unmerged(12740)]

i'm curious for results for beta apr 3 in 17th century china, the golden horde, the timurids & the ottomans shld they choose to "rein in the beys" i think it is. has anyone played these that far? is it even possible? i suppose dr. ebbesen wld be the one to know. how does the ai do?

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Johan
Considering the fact that OE does not start with Thrace its a pretty important connection.

Well, the Thrace-Smyrna connection has very little impact on the Ottoman starting position, since the Ottomans control both Anatolia and Smyrna - so they have a connection to Thrace from the east anyhow.

The main impact would be that there would be two choke points, Thrace and Anatolia, rather than just Thrace, which would upgrade the strategic value of Anatolia.

Now, if they were talking about cutting the southern route, Smyrna-Ionia, that would indeed have very important impact on gameplay.

Anyhow, I was not advocating changing them at all - just commenting fallacious manpower arguments

 

[unmerged(7313)]

About land connections:
1. Jylland-Sjaelland. I'm not that sure that removing it was a good idea. Without it, Denmark got a small tactical adventage, but lost some income. I believe that lack of connection can increase Denmark survivalability (probably it would be harder to force annex it), but it doesn't make that country really stronger.

2. Thrace-Smyrna. Yes, remove it. And also give OE exotic techgroup. They are surely too stong.

3. Smyrna-Ionia. If you feel like removing land connections you can start with this. It is neither very realistic, nor very usefull to anyone.

 

[Rio]

Strongly disagree. OE is not too strong that they need even weaker tech!

 

[Tamas]

In an other thread someone is claiming the AI is doing almost no exploration with this new patch. Is this true, or he was just unlucky?

 

[Varyar]

Originally posted by Rio
Strongly disagree. OE is not too strong that they need even weaker tech!

I believe he was joking...

 

[Owen]

To those who believe that changing the Swedish ai will solve the Denmark problem, I will say this.

I often see Denmark swallowed up. However, this always seems to be as part of a massive war after they have force annexed most of the Hanseatic League. If you change the Swedish ai, then it will improve things slightly, since Sweden will be less likely to make the first declaration of war. However, after Sweden have left the Kalmar alliance (and Norway have announced that the Swedes are fools), as soon as one or two other big alliances have attacked Denmark, Sweden will eye the state culture and religion provinces of a very weak neghbour and pounce. Changing the ai can make this less likely but it will still be difficult to prevent.

Of course, if PAI's or Daywalker's ai files make a real and repeatable difference, then I stand corrected.

EDIT: As I'm not Swedish, I naturally fall into the position of believing that the Swedes are too strong in EU2.

And as for the RR / income relation, I think it's an excellent idea... but it needs a lot of refining. The problem is that you can't just reduce the high RR events (though this will also need doing for any +RR events over about +8). The RR stacking bug means that any random RR will cause really big additional problems if your RR is high anyway. I think that we need a non-linear relationship between RR and income. Something like modifier = 1 - 1/(1+RR).

 

[unmerged(15910)]

Geographically there is an argument for land connections in the Baltic sea but not in the Mediterranean sea, I think.
The Baltic sea can freeze in wintertime and there have been attacks over the frozen sea on Denmark. So, geographically (probably not gameplay-wise) there should be even a land connection between sjaelland and skane.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Owen

And as for the RR / income relation, I think it's an excellent idea... but it needs a lot of refining. The problem is that you can't just reduce the high RR events (though this will also need doing for any +RR events over about +8). The RR stacking bug means that any random RR will cause really big additional problems if your RR is high anyway. I think that we need a non-linear relationship between RR and income. Something like modifier = 1 - 1/(1+RR).

However, there are only very, very few random events that modify RR. Off the cuff, I only remember "Saint performs miracles", "Wave of obscuratism", and "Meteor sighted", so the likelyhood is slight. Additionally, those nations that have historical high RR events for a significant duration are already supposed to be really in trouble, so I do not see it as much of an issue that it is sometimes a bit worse than other times during their time of crisis.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Ok Peter - now that the Timurids can barely raise enough troops to fend off Gujarat we are going to cut their meagre income by around 30-40% for 30 odd years. I know the Timurids are suppose to collapse but this is making it too easy for the neighbours to expand. Persia hardly ever gets a look in now until quite late.

If a player is playing Oman or Mamelukes he gets a free ride to occupy Persia before it forms. Well at least the Southern bit - the North goes to Uzbeks every time.

I can see that a weaker Golden Horde is good and a weaker China is probably irrelevant (they will have zero income for a while I think ) since there is only so much bad stuff you can throw at a country. I mean whats the difference between govt falling every two years or every three years

But Timurids weakness concerns me as it will distort the development of the "historical" nations in the area.

EDIT: I just had a thought - the fewer rebels might actually help the Timurids - particularly with the number of unfortified provinces. Need to test this ALOT

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Derek Pullem
Ok Peter - now that the Timurids can barely raise enough troops to fend off Gujarat we are going to cut their meagre income by around 30-40% for 30 odd years. I know the Timurids are suppose to collapse but this is making it too easy for the neighbours to expand. Persia hardly ever gets a look in now until quite late.

If a player is playing Oman or Mamelukes he gets a free ride to occupy Persia before it forms. Well at least the Southern bit - the North goes to Uzbeks every time.

He already has that It has all days in EU2 been trivial to take control of Persia from the Timurids as a player after 1450. (And before that as well if one were willing to take the BB points, due to the lack of fortifications)

Anyway, Persia arising from the Timurid Empire (as has been standard), is also unhistorical, since the Timurids had been displaced by then in the west by Ak Koyunlu and the Uzbekhs. Thus, I do not really see it as a problem if the Timurids are displaced

Finally, the reduced number of rebels (by a magnitude of 12 or so), will probably mean fewer defections. The real question is whether the Timurid AI will build enough tax collectors early in the game to maintain a decent income. Testing rather than theorizing is needed on this one, I think.

 

[Guinnessmonkey]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen
He already has that It has all days in EU2 been trivial to take control of Persia from the Timurids as a player after 1450. (And before that as well if one were willing to take the BB points, due to the lack of fortifications)

Anyway, Persia arising from the Timurid Empire (as has been standard), is also unhistorical, since the Timurids had been displaced by then in the west by Ak Koyunlu and the Uzbekhs. Thus, I do not really see it as a problem if the Timurids are displaced

Finally, the reduced number of rebels (by a magnitude of 12 or so), will probably mean fewer defections. The real question is whether the Timurid AI will build enough tax collectors early in the game to maintain a decent income. Testing rather than theorizing is needed on this one, I think.

I agree 100%. This is why my AGC Persian events were coded so that they trigger for any the concievable nations that could snatch Timurid territory (and why both AK and Qara Koyunlu actually can become Persia if they jump through the right hoops). In my opinion one of the weaknesses of the standard GC has always been that it relies on the Timurids waiting around and then collapsing into Persia and a remnant to become the Mughals.

What should happen (at least every once in a while) is that it's territory is stolen by Qara Koyunlu, then Ak Koyunlu, which in turn becomes Persia by event. That was the historical result, after all.

So far I've seen a strong Persia and Mughal Empire form from the Timurids both with and without my AGC Persian events. 1.07 beta rocks.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Only have two 1.07 betas 1 April to go on - and I interfered in both cases. But Timurids into Mughals does seem to work better.

Persia is a problem - it does form but often in pieces, not a contiguous nation. Seems to be relatively strong though (after 1st war) as it usually joins up by 1550 or so but still nothing like the power it should be.

I hope Johan chills out for a couple of weeks to let this patch bed down a bit and be fully tested.......please

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Guinnessmonkey
I agree 100%. This is why my AGC Persian events were coded so that they trigger for any the concievable nations that could snatch Timurid territory (and why both AK and Qara Koyunlu actually can become Persia if they jump through the right hoops). In my opinion one of the weaknesses of the standard GC has always been that it relies on the Timurids waiting around and then collapsing into Persia and a remnant to become the Mughals.

Yep, I like those events. Taking Ak Koyunlu and becoming Persia in my ongoing Persia AGC AAR was great. On the one hand you lost your European status due to the capital move (so no mercenaries or BB free pagan annexations), and lost your initial cultures, on the other you got a new set of cores, a good set of cultures, and a really neat flag.

 

[kurtbrian]

Originally posted by Derek Pullem
Only have two 1.07 betas 1 April to go on - and I interfered in both cases. But Timurids into Mughals does seem to work better.

Persia is a problem - it does form but often in pieces, not a contiguous nation. Seems to be relatively strong though (after 1st war) as it usually joins up by 1550 or so but still nothing like the power it should be.

I hope Johan chills out for a couple of weeks to let this patch bed down a bit and be fully tested.......please

Yes, it would probably be better to test this out some more before new things are added

 

[unmerged(15394)]

I think the latest patch is a tremendous step forward for game play and strategy.

I would not want to step back with the patches, but to rather keep testing and tweak any countries that suffered historically from these latest changes.

The hands off that I have been running has been developing quite well. I was suprised that there were still many, many defections. It almost seemed like there were more. (not sure if this is possible)

 

[Derek Pullem]

The fear is that the RR will cripple the income of nations thus preventing rebel bashing stacks from being built and hence allowing more defections. The counter argument is that there should be fewer revolts in the first place with the switch to an annual revolt risk rather than monthly.

Where are the defections occuring (if you are running 3 April)