Constructive criticism and alternatives to the max 1 province annexation rule

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by celedhring
The paying for garrissons is a very good solution, excellent I think. Many armies didn't retain its conquests because they could not afford leaving garrisons in their newly conquested cities and preferred to take the enemy's capitol to force a favourable peace (which could include some small chunk of land). I vote a big YES for this solution: simple, historical and efficient.

Yep. As an example, didn't the Black Prince pretty much romp around French lands sacking provinces as he went, but not really occupying any territory?

Sort of a "land pirate", using the money he seized to support his army and sending the rest back to England.

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by satan
Yep. As an example, didn't the Black Prince pretty much romp around French lands sacking provinces as he went, but not really occupying any territory?

Sort of a "land pirate", using the money he seized to support his army and sending the rest back to England.

Chevauchees tended to suffer heavy attrition, and were not as profitable as one might think-there more important goal was destruction, to try and convince the French people that their king couldn't protect them. Some of them never made it home-Sir Thomas Kyriel's being the most famous of the destroyed ones.

 

[Pwyll]

Garrisons

Where most garrisons of forts and such filled with " second line " troops...and to lay siege to a rebel held fort would be a huge cost...
I think most armies would have left a token garrison but through time would have filled their ranks from the local populace. They would have been maintained by that population in some respects as well.

 

[State Machine]

Originally posted by sean9898
State Machine, you make an excellent point, especially that if the AI is finished, and the game balanced with the annexation rule in place, even making it optional means a whole lot of testing.

Looking at the poll, aside from the 5% who want the rule to stay in place, and 14% who are prepared to wait and see, it looks like an overwhelming majority in favor of change.

Of course, no one agrees what the change might be

Is any action going to be taken on this issue?

Who knows? The feedback we get from Paradox is usually in patch release notes, "X is now done", where X was the subject of a big discusion amongst the betazoids. On the other hand, we have a very indiscrete quote from Johan, right now. We're just looking for the right issue to blackmail him with it.

And, I just wanted to advise folks to look for simplicity. For example, changing or eliminating the limit is relatively easy. IIRC correctly, the discussions about this in the beta forum are eliminate/change the limit, and/or add some improved BB affects with annexation. The BB thought did get the same observation in the beta forum as in this thread, that humans and ai don't seem to be very sensitive to BB.

 

[anowack]

Another possible solution to these problems for EU3, this one fairly radical.

In EU (and presumably EU2), the progress of the war is determined by the ammount of territory captured by each side, for the most part. (Battles apparently have a slight effect, but I've yet to see a peace resolution that was changed by that.) But, I got to thinking... what is it that really sohuld decide the war? Occupation of territory, or whether you can destroy the enemy army?

Why should that one province minor accept annexation when it's army is fully intact seiging the province next door? Why should the enemy care that you've occupied all the border provinces when he's crushed your armies in almost every engagement?

I haven't fully thought it out, but maybe for EU3 the peace resolution system should be changed to give more importance to battles than capture of provinces?

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by State Machine

Who knows? The feedback we get from Paradox is usually in patch release notes, "X is now done", where X was the subject of a big discusion amongst the betazoids. On the other hand, we have a very indiscrete quote from Johan, right now. We're just looking for the right issue to blackmail him with it.

And, I just wanted to advise folks to look for simplicity. For example, changing or eliminating the limit is relatively easy. IIRC correctly, the discussions about this in the beta forum are eliminate/change the limit, and/or add some improved BB affects with annexation. The BB thought did get the same observation in the beta forum as in this thread, that humans and ai don't seem to be very sensitive to BB.

Would it be that complex to add a maintenance/garrison cost for occupied provinces? I think it would be a fairly elegant solution. (though obviously not as simple as removing the limit altogether or changing the limit)

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by satan


Would it be that complex to add a maintenance/garrison cost for occupied provinces? I think it would be a fairly elegant solution. (though obviously not as simple as removing the limit altogether or changing the limit)

I guess the complexity would be in making the AI aware of it. It could be happily winning a war and have no idea why it was running out of money.

 

[State Machine]

Originally posted by anowack
Another possible solution to these problems for EU3, this one fairly radical.

In EU (and presumably EU2), the progress of the war is determined by the ammount of territory captured by each side, for the most part. (Battles apparently have a slight effect, but I've yet to see a peace resolution that was changed by that.) But, I got to thinking... what is it that really sohuld decide the war? Occupation of territory, or whether you can destroy the enemy army?

Why should that one province minor accept annexation when it's army is fully intact seiging the province next door? Why should the enemy care that you've occupied all the border provinces when he's crushed your armies in almost every engagement?

I haven't fully thought it out, but maybe for EU3 the peace resolution system should be changed to give more importance to battles than capture of provinces?

According to Johan, and our beta observations, how the ai negotiates is based on a country's current conditions. This includes, the ability to prosecute war, the strength of the alliance, the strength of the oppossing alliance, control of provinces, etc. This, however, is in the context of the warscore. So, to make up an example, England has a 50% score against France. If France as a country is still very strong it may not be willing to accept a peace offer at all. However, if France's allies have been defeated, France has no army anymore, etc., it is much more willing to accept a peace offer (or make a reasonable offer).

Basically, what you suggest is in EU II. Is it perfect? ...

 

[State Machine]

Originally posted by satan
Would it be that complex to add a maintenance/garrison cost for occupied provinces? I think it would be a fairly elegant solution. (though obviously not as simple as removing the limit altogether or changing the limit)

It may or may not be easy to implement. But software development is a process that has "phases" where the approach to what is or is not done is very predictable. Sorry, I am looking for words that are not jargon, as I've been immersed in software development from being a programmer through being a manager (and in general overall guru ) for 23 years.

When EU II was announced, Paradox had already established the features that would be in it, and how those features would work. However, it was possible that some really good ideas might get adopted. Similarly, if things were not working right (even though they were programmed to the design specification), then certainly ideas would be acceptable. This marked the phase of development that occurred until shortly before going gold. Throughout the whole process, but definitely shortly before going gold, the reasoning of the developers (Paradox) changed to only make changes that can be delivered to have an acceptable gold version. Now that it is gold, there might be more acceptance of ideas since the new deadline is the major release for early next year. This paragraph is solely my interpretation of what policies Paradox probably followed, based on the way all software development projects work. No one from Paradox has said this any of this.

In this context, a few very good ideas have been incorporated into EU II from this forum. Similarly, some good ideas have been put into EU II from the beta testers. In fact, several beta testers have done incredible work in developing some great events that have been put into the game. But, even though Paradox may be more open to ideas right now, "new" features are very unlikely to be adopted. So to the problem being discussed, solutions that are very close to how the game already works are much more likely to be adopted than solutions that are "new", regardless of the apparent effort required to code the solution.

Blah, blah, blah. I know that I am droning on. Something new also requires more effort in evaluating it compared to its affect on the whole game, and much more testing to make sure it really is compatible to the whole game. It comes down to risk. Change is evaluated by how much risk is involved in making the change. Right now, only low risk alternatives will be considered.

End, of endless software development mantra rant.

 

[unmerged(4269)]

they never took into account that soldiers grow old and retire. I have prolly had soldiers that where 220 years old. One time as France i had over 6 million soldiers at once! I'm sure that was way to large of an army considering the population of Europe in or around 1790 wasnt much larger. In most countries the size of the military is only about 1% of the population, granted in war time it's more. They should have a max number of troops, if you go over it should start to hurt the economy, since they are not working normal jobs, it should start making citizens angry since their loved ones are away, and it should cost alittle more to take in the account that your soldiers do eventually retire an not serve you for 200 years.

 

[Secret Master]

Orlandu,

There is something like that already in EU2. There is a maximum supportable amount of troops you can have with your nation. I you exceed that limit, army maintanence costs skyrocket, thus hurting your budget (and ultimately the country as a whole). I like the fact that it is not an absolute limit, so that if you needed to, you could have breif period when you build huge armies in preparation for offensive wars.

On a side note, you mentioned soldiers growing old and retiring. The standing army system in EU and EU2 is an abstraction. army maintenance already takes into account keeping the staffing levels of the military up during times of peace combined with attrition effects. After all, that is a level of micromanagement even I dont want to have to deal with. Watching armies wither away into nothing just from sitting there. Im the king for pete's sake, I want someone to do the boring job of keeping the armies at their proper staffing levels.

 

[draco]

Do any of you Betazoids know if it is possible to just use a text editor to change the rule "A rather simple solution that might have been overlooked" or do we need Paradox to change it? BTW, what effects do user mods have on multi-player?

 

[State Machine]

Originally posted by draco
Do any of you Betazoids know if it is possible to just use a text editor to change the rule "A rather simple solution that might have been overlooked" or do we need Paradox to change it? BTW, what effects do user mods have on multi-player?

No, this rule is in the game engine. No files can be edited to change it.

MP? Very good question. For example, Johan has told us to not play non-betazoids at MP. In other words, the exact same version needs to be played for MP. With user mods, I imagine that is true as well.

 

[Java of Flanders]

Originally posted by sean9898
State Machine, you make an excellent point, especially that if the AI is finished, and the game balanced with the annexation rule in place, even making it optional means a whole lot of testing.

Looking at the poll, aside from the 5% who want the rule to stay in place, and 14% who are prepared to wait and see, it looks like an overwhelming majority in favor of change.

Of course, no one agrees what the change might be

Is any action going to be taken on this issue?

I voted against the rule, however after playing a minor country in EU, IGC (Prussia), I must agree something has to be done about all the annexations. In my current game (1602), Kleve, Köln, Württemberg, Lothringen, Baden, Hanse, Hessen and Thüringen are all annexed. This I find most disturbing and a bit too much.

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by Java of Flanders
I voted against the rule, however after playing a minor country in EU, IGC (Prussia), I must agree something has to be done about all the annexations. In my current game (1602), Kleve, Köln, Württemberg, Lothringen, Baden, Hanse, Hessen and Thüringen are all annexed. This I find most disturbing and a bit too much.

All bar two of them are one province minors in the IGC. The rule retrofitted to EU wouldn't make much of a difference, and for the even more disunited Germany of EU2...............well, the non one-province minor is almost certainly extremely rare.

Germany's the one area where ecplosive annexation expansion really shouldn't occur-and the one province rule won't affect it at all!

 

[BiB]

No annexation of 1 province minors is the new rule! All the rest goes though!

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by BiB
No annexation of 1 province minors is the new rule! All the rest goes though!

BiB, are you drunk this afternoon?

Pardon.....................

 

[BiB]

That way it is impossibel to pick on the small ones

 

[unmerged(5098)]

Why can't it just be an option for the user to decided how many provinces you need to reduce a country too before you annex it?

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Why can't it just be an option for the user to decided how many provinces you need to reduce a country too before you annex it?

A sliding scale rather than on/off, leaving it to our discretion. Or perhaps even linking it to difficulty levels-save the one province rule for the hardest level.

Nice idea Shi Huangdi.