Developer Diary 26 – Miscellaneous Military Stuff

[Andrelvis]

He has a point tho.

Historical leader names, no problem there.

Historical leader traits, hell why not.

Historical leaders coming at the EXACT knowen time and playing by the leaders.txt file, no thank you.

It can be modded. It will be modded. Why so much fuss?

Can any of you demanding for historical leaders at least UNDERSTAND why they are not doing them? Or are you all that pig headed and isolationist.

Not sure what this has to do with playing style. Vic1 was very restrictive and predictable, most games would run in the same course, unless something freaky happened. Moreover, it encouraged you into gamey behaviour (if you want to attack Russia, wait for the Crimean War event). Paradox has been taking steps to make games more varied: rather than making a Crimean War event that fires no matter what, attempt to recreate the forces the led to the war, so that something similar to it may happen. And "may" is crucial here. Removing historical leaders perfectly fits into this logic. Rather than donating outstanding leaders to certain countries, no matter what, they make it depend on how much those countries invest in their military. Too bad that this approach doesn't appeal to people who want everything to happen just the way it happened historically, but I think I'm going to have more fun playing Vic2 than Vic1.

I have no problem at all with you preferring a non-historical game. I would have little problem with historical leaders not being included in the vanilla game either, if it were more moddable (as in, enable historical leaders if you want to, rather than having to resort to events). It's the stereotyping of how other people want to play and their corresponding wishes for the game that I dislike. It isn't to "replay a history book", but rather to have a game that feels more historical; to say that we want to replay history as it was is way, way exaggerating our position.

And yes Nano Tech, I understand why they aren't doing them. I just disagree with that position; in one of the threads in this forum it was suggested that historical leaders appear at the historical time, but with slightly random traits (not completely random, so a von Moltke could just be a somewhat competent general, or the brilliant one he was in reality, for example), and that would be the ideal way to have this to me. But being able to mod in historical leaders is more than enough for me too, though having to have to use events for that is far from ideal.

Having no historical leaders at all was already a possibility in Victoria 1, all the player had to do was delete all countries' leader files and all leaders would be random. I wonder if it would be too hard to make a similar system for V2, if there are historical leaders in the leader file, have them be the ones hired when the player hires a new general or admiral, but if there aren't any, hire a random one with random traits. It would, through moddability, satisfy both sides far more than the current setup. They wouldn't even need to include any leader files with the game, just the possibility of people making them.

 

[Colon]

I see, well that explains alot

Uhm he may not have played the game but what he says is completely true.

 

[Prinz Wilhelm]

If I'm right in how the new syntax works (and I could be wrong), then for V2 what Prinz Wilhelm and Semper Victor could be able to do is transform their excellent leader pack mod for V1 into a new Leadership event mod with hundreds (thousands??) of events including a short bio of each leader as part of the event.

If there'd be one for each leader there'd be about 1400 events.

 

[Andrelvis]

Uhm he may not have played the game but what he says is completely true.

It isn't, because historical leaders didn't just pop up, you needed to invest 20 leadership to get one of them, so there was military investment required, while his point was that there would be none.

 

[unmerged(207113)]

If there'd be one for each leader there'd be about 1400 events.

This strikes me as being a somewhat impractical workaround.

I imagine it would be best to just admit defeat on this particular front. If Paradox had wanted historical leaders, they would no doubt have included them as a feature.

Indeed, they have gone so far as to remove them.

Austen.

 

[Baneslave]

It isn't, because historical leaders didn't just pop up, you needed to invest 20 leadership to get one of them, so there was military investment required, while his point was that there would be none.

Yes, and he agreed earlier:

And i know they didn't just pop up, the game would check a list at the time of recruiting and take a historical leader off that list if it was the "right time" and give him to you.

 

[Baneslave]

Indeed, they have gone so far as to remove them.

Not really. They just didn't put them in again.

 

[Colon]

It isn't, because historical leaders didn't just pop up, you needed to invest 20 leadership to get one of them, so there was military investment required, while his point was that there would be none.

I don't see him say anywhere no investment was required. He did say that the player could know which leaders he would get.
And suppose you played Prussia: you had to mess up real badly to never get the 20 leadership points in the timeframe Moltke could rise. With Prussia you had an arbitrary advantage over random country X that acquired just as many leadership points but had less or no scripted leaders.

 

[Orinsul]

Leaders SHOULD be abritary advantages. thats what they are.
to say historic leaders shouldnt be in the game because its unfair, is daft, unfairiness is what makes for challenge and unpredictability.

It amounts to the same as removing Aces from a pack of cards because the give an advantage the person who picks it up. They bring a little flavour to the game, and do they do any harm? NO a Random general might have just as much an advantage as the historical, probably more so.

You spend 20 leadership points with a random general and you might get anything, a useless petticoat or the second coming of the boy napoleon, so the claim that its unfair for the point of amount of points spent doesnt hold up, because even with random the ability is random too, or atleast it ought to be as it is in the world.

Its its all reduced to mathematics the game will be as boring as salt.

Surely a small chance that if its between date yearnumber and otheryear number that when you make a general you might get a historic one, would only be a good thing. So you could be pleased with yourself when you got him, and when facing prussia, you could kick him with your randomly generated welshman.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Surely a small chance that if its between date yearnumber and otheryear number that when you make a general you might get a historic one, would only be a good thing. So you could be pleased with yourself when you got him, and when facing prussia, you could kick him with your randomly generated welshman.

Except its not a small chance that you would get the historical leader. If one was available, you would ALWAYS get the historical leader. There was no randomness involved. So Prussia would always get Moltke and have that advantage during the time he can be recruited. Random unfairness is good and realistic, unfairness that is inherent 100% of the time is not.

 

[Andrelvis]

Not really. They just didn't put them in again.

True - they removed a feature and replaced it with nothing.

 

[Andrelvis]

Except its not a small chance that you would get the historical leader. If one was available, you would ALWAYS get the historical leader. There was no randomness involved. So Prussia would always get Moltke and have that advantage during the time he can be recruited. Random unfairness is good and realistic, unfairness that is inherent 100% of the time is not.

It could be made to be a small chance this time around, though.

 

[Colon]

It amounts to the same as removing Aces from a pack of cards because the give an advantage the person who picks it up. They bring a little flavour to the game, and do they do any harm? NO a Random general might have just as much an advantage as the historical, probably more so.

I don't know about you, but I rather play a games of cards not knowing in advance which player gets an ace, which is exactly what historical leaders amount to. Totally random leaders amounts to handing out aces randomly.

 

[Orinsul]

I was PROPOSING that it OUGHT to be a small chance, thats why i said SURELY

Its not a question of either, Victoria the first is perfect II should be exactly the same, or everything should be different. Comprimse, the middle position is always better.




this was a reply to 309 by wilcoxchar
lots of other people wrote inbetween and i aint read them yet so maybe this wont make sense unless you know what its a reply too

 

[Baneslave]

It amounts to the same as removing Aces from a pack of cards because the give an advantage the person who picks it up. They bring a little flavour to the game, and do they do any harm? NO a Random general might have just as much an advantage as the historical, probably more so.

Yes, but at least everybody has same change of getting the excellent general, similarly how everyone has change of getting the aces from the pack.

Better comparison with historical leaders and card game would be disrupting cards by the place players sit on. The player in the corner gets all the aces etc.

 

[Alexander Seil]

I don't see this as an issue of fairness, but as an issue of sanity. The point is, Prussia got Moltke even if it was a two-province Communist dictatorship with a 100% Polish population, but if Austria was de facto the German Empire, and let go of its non-German parts...well, tough luck for them anyway, no leaders for you because in the real timeline they happened to have gotten screwed over. So leaders were one of those arbitrary aspects that could not be modeled through normal game mechanisms, which made them, well, just arbitrary bonuses with no in-game explanation - and that's bad design for a game that strives to base gameplay on models, rather than scripts.

 

[Herbert West]

Its its all reduced to mathematics the game will be as boring as salt.

Surely a small chance that if its between date yearnumber and otheryear number that when you make a general you might get a historic one, would only be a good thing. So you could be pleased with yourself when you got him, and when facing prussia, you could kick him with your randomly generated welshman.

Exactly how is adding historical leader reducing the reductio ad mathemathicum?

If you add predictable generals who will appear at a predicatble time, it will only increase the reduction to non-random mathematics, as said general with said traits will be in each and every game, thus it is very easy to prepare for him.


Also, some players, like me, enjoy reducing everything to numbers once in a while. In fact, you do it too. In every situation where you replace an inferior unit with a superior one, you do it because its behaviour, represented by, you know, numbers and equations is better than the numbers and equations of the unit you replaced. That you are doing this "subconsciously" and out of "experience" is secondary.

 

[Colon]

I don't see this as an issue of fairness, but as an issue of sanity. The point is, Prussia got Moltke even if it was a two-province Communist dictatorship with a 100% Polish population, but if Austria was de facto the German Empire, and let go of its non-German parts...well, tough luck for them anyway, no leaders for you because in the real timeline they happened to have gotten screwed over. So leaders were one of those arbitrary aspects that could not be modeled through normal game mechanisms, which made them, well, just arbitrary bonuses with no in-game explanation - and that's bad design for a game that strives to base gameplay on models, rather than scripts.

Well, sanity and fairness are related here. It's about letting it depend on what happens in-game rather than what happened historically.

 

[Andrelvis]

I don't see this as an issue of fairness, but as an issue of sanity. The point is, Prussia got Moltke even if it was a two-province Communist dictatorship with a 100% Polish population, but if Austria was de facto the German Empire, and let go of its non-German parts...well, tough luck for them anyway, no leaders for you because in the real timeline they happened to have gotten screwed over. So leaders were one of those arbitrary aspects that could not be modeled through normal game mechanisms, which made them, well, just arbitrary bonuses with no in-game explanation - and that's bad design for a game that strives to base gameplay on models, rather than scripts.

That wouldn't be a problem if historical leaders are linked to provinces rather than countries, like historical advisors are in EU3.

 

[Alexander Seil]

That wouldn't be a problem if historical leaders are linked to provinces rather than countries, like historical advisors are in EU3.

How about this - the game gives countries with huge officer corps and the right techs a lot of leadership. Prussia has the right techs and a huge officer corps. Prussia, therefore, has enough leadership to spend on creating generals to eventually get, on average, better generals than France. Which is pretty much all that's necessary. Oh, and include a historical namelist for generals (something that's already done, I assume).