Displaying BC and AD instead of AUC?

[TheLastMonkeylander]

So the current system shows the date in AUC/ab urbe condita. The Clausewitz engine may require the date to stored as a positive number. However, AUC is a bit confusing since we expect it to be in BC. Additionally, if the date was in BC/AD, we could compare our progress to the real history at the time.

Why not just treat the current date system as the "absolute date" used for internal game logic, but when creating the "date string" (e.g. "1 Jan, 450") to display on the screen, subtract it by 753 years to create the display date and append " BC"?

There could just as easily be an option to switch between BC/AD and AUC, as well.

What's the reason to not have BC and AD?

 

[TheLastMonkeylander]

I mean it's not that hard to figure out what 500 A.U.C. is in B.C. just do 754-500=254B.C. If you don't have a good grasp on A.U.C just do the math. The reason they don't have B.C. and A.D. is first for immersion and second to avoid negative numbers which would be kinda awkward.

Right, but they can change the negative number to a positive number when they convert it to a string. Based on whether it's negative or positive, they can append BC or AD. They can also remove the hyphen.

At the moment, they are clearly not just displaying the internal value used for the date directly on the screen; they already have some kind of function that adds the day and month and concatenates them probably into one string, so it should be trivial to just modify the logic in that function and output something different.

It could be toggleable option, like NATO symbols vs pictorial symbols in HOI4.

I'm not sure how the date is stored internally in the Clausewitz engine (possibly an unsigned integer representing either days or ticks, that is converted into days, months, and years, I would guess), but in the Unity engine for example, it would take like 5 minutes to make such a change.

If you really can't stand it I'm sure there will be a mod for that within a week of release.

It's not really a huge thing, it's just such a seemingly simple change that I'm wondering why it isn't doable.

It also probably wouldn't be moddable, as the time system is hardcoded in Paradox games.

 

[Holy.Death]

Why even bother with the date as such? I don't expect Imperator to be as heavily railroaded as HoI4, so the date will be more or less meaningless gameplay-wise (just like it is in CK2 or EU4).

 

[Franconian]

Right, but they can change the negative number to a positive number when they convert it to a string. Based on whether it's negative or positive, they can append BC or AD. They can also remove the hyphen.

At the moment, they are clearly not just displaying the internal value used for the date directly on the screen; they already have some kind of function that adds the day and month and concatenates them probably into one string, so it should be trivial to just modify the logic in that function and output something different.

It could be toggleable option, like NATO symbols vs pictorial symbols in HOI4.

I'm not sure how the date is stored internally in the Clausewitz engine (possibly an unsigned integer representing either days or ticks, that is converted into days, months, and years, I would guess), but in the Unity engine for example, it would take like 5 minutes to make such a change.


It's not really a huge thing, it's just such a seemingly simple change that I'm wondering why it isn't doable.

It also probably wouldn't be moddable, as the time system is hardcoded in Paradox games.

It is not that they cannot do it, but they want AUC.

Its far better than "bce", as negative numbers isawkward.

I could swear there was some dev post that explained they preferred AUC over BC, but I cannot find it

 

[Orinsul]

if the game used a different number for years than the game files
then, collaborative mods would be chaotic as bet you ten to a dozen half the team would be typing the in game BC numbers into the files

 

[Rabid]

I would be mildly surprised if they haven't built in the capacity for CE dating into the engine somehow. It seems like an obvious option; I absolutely hate the AUC dating for a number of reasons, notably because the supposed immersion is completely nonexistent if you're not playing as Rome. SE would be a better choice, or just sticking to CE.

 

[Limak]

Hope to have BC and AD as a mod or option for the game. I get the thing about immersion but I prefer to have an option on this.

 

[Badesumofu]

Does CE break you 'immersion' in CK2 an EU4 when you play a character/nation that didn't use it in the relevant time period?

I reckon most players will 'get used' to AUC within a few playthroughs, and for everyone else I have little doubt there will be a BC/AD mod out on release day. Maybe there will even be a setting in the game. Though personally I might find it 'immersion' breaking if the date flips from BC to AD because someone who doesn't exit in my playthrough's timeline anyway was born.

 

[Johan]

I hate when dates tick DOWN as you play. Its just silly.

thats why the game will use AUC

 

[Rabid]

Does CE break you 'immersion' in CK2 an EU4 when you play a character/nation that didn't use it in the relevant time period?

I reckon most players will 'get used' to AUC within a few playthroughs, and for everyone else I have little doubt there will be a BC/AD mod out on release day. Maybe there will even be a setting in the game. Though personally I might find it 'immersion' breaking if the date flips from BC to AD because someone who doesn't exit in my playthrough's timeline anyway was born.

No because it is the default for the modern day to use CE to represent dates and you should only differ from that where appropriate (if I am playing Imperator as Macedonia this is not appropriate)

I hate when dates tick DOWN as you play. Its just silly.

thats why the game will use AUC

This isn't a bad reason, will there be a mouseover tooltip or similar to show the date in CE?

 

[AKronblad]

Though personally I might find it 'immersion' breaking if the date flips from BC to AD because someone who doesn't exit in my playthrough's timeline anyway was born.

How about playing the game in English, a language that hadn't yet developed in your playthrough's timeline?

Just kidding, and I and several others have been through that discussion several times. I respect other people's sense of immersion and mine is that it breaks immersion to play with AUC for any country other than Rome.

I agree with you that the best solution is for developers to build in a switch (AUC <-> BCE/CE) for presentation purposes, rather than expecting modders to create mods for it, because that would require it to be fully moddable.

Of course, both options available would be optimal and ideal.!

 

[AKronblad]

I hate when dates tick DOWN as you play. Its just silly.

thats why the game will use AUC

It works well (with counting down using BCE) for AGEOD"s Alea Iacta Est game, although it's a personal preference, I guess, like everything else.

So there is no technical reason for avoiding negative numbers?

Could we at least get an (optional?) tooltip showing the year in BCE/CE terms, since so many people wish that?

 

[Andrzej2]

I hate when dates tick DOWN as you play. Its just silly.

thats why the game will use AUC

It's rather weak argument. In historical works almost only BC/AD system is used. We are accustomed to it and I guess thar for the most of us it's AUC system that that is confusing and kind of silly.

I think that the game should have both systems and that a player should be able to quickly switch between them by clicking on a date or on some button near it. If it's not possible at least we should be able to change it in the settings.

In Eu Rome I almost never paid attention to a date becouse AUC one was too strange for me to tell me anything. I know dates of ancient history but in BC/AD system. It's presence in the game would allow me to easily compare situation in the game to historical one.

 

[AKronblad]

I hate when dates tick DOWN as you play. Its just silly.

thats why the game will use AUC

Also some moddability integrated into the game? I made a conversion for my EU4 TWELVE VULTURES mod that works, but using variables is s cumbersome way of doing it and impossible to get into the UI.

Through two simple DEFINES parameters in IMPERATOR, it could all be achieved:

ZERO_ALT_YEAR_IN_BASE_YEAR (which year (in AUC in vanilla) corresponds to year "zero" in the alternative year.)
ALT_YEAR_NOT_HAS_ZERO (1 if year "zero" doesn't exist, 0 if it does).

So with for example:

ZERO_ALT_YEAR_IN_BASE_YEAR = 754
ALT_YEAR_NOT_HAS_ZERO = 1

with a linear (ALT_YEAR_NOT_HAS_ZERO) relation between the two, subject to year zero adjustment (ALT_YEAR_NOT_HAS_ZERO).

AUC year could be transformed into CE terms, so that when alternative year is actually "zero" it becomes 1 instead and gets added from there.

calculation
alt_year =
base_year
- ZERO_ALT_YEAR_IN_BASE_YEAR
+ if ( base_year >= ZERO_ALT_YEAR_IN_BASE_YEAR and ALT_YEAR_NOT_HAS_ZERO = 0 then 1, else 0 )

Examples:
if base_year is 1, alt_year is -753.
if base_year is 752, alt_year is -2.
if base_year is 754, alt_year is +1.
if base_year is 767, alt_year is +14.

If alt_year in addition could be used in localisations , modding nirvana would be near.!

As mentioned, I made calculations through variables in EU4, so easily done by any professional programmer. But nicer if integrated into the game. And then modders can use whichever positive base_date that they like (AUC, Human Era, Year after First Olympics, etc.) transforming it to any alt_year that they like (AUC, CE, etc.) for any mods they like!

 

[DukeDayve]

I already solved this problem by using BD instead of BC/AD/AUC (BD is how I date the world, which is Before Damian and After Damian (Damian is me)).

So this whole game would be BD. I believe it would begin in 2271 BD (I worked it out in another thread, I forgot what the numbers were though) and end... however many years after 2271 BD this game ends.

I'm sure the devs will implement this to end any confusion on the issue once and for all. I'm available for contact if the devs want my date of birth to implement this system properly. I won't post it here because people might use it to steal my identity and plunder my bank account of my £3.71 life savings.

 

[Darth.]

I hate when dates tick DOWN as you play. Its just silly.

thats why the game will use AUC

Thanks. Will it be moddable though? Because using AUC while playing Rome or Carthage or a European Mediterranean power is one thing, but I'd like to be able to switch to using BC while playing in India or the Middle East or something.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Just simply subtracting 754 from the AUC date to get BCE/CE leads to year 0 rearing its ugly head.
For those of you who aren't aware, 1 BCE is followed directly by 1 CE. Year 0 does not exist.

From an immersion point of view, whilst AUC is not perfect, it is at least a date system used during the era, unlike CE, not introduced until the 500s, or BCE, not introduced until the 700s.

And then there's the whole problem with the birth of Jesus being 6 BCE, since Herod died in 4 BEC. That assumes that the birth is hardcoded of course. If it's dynamic, the supposed zero date for the whole system becomes unconnected from the event it's meant to be measured from.
If the birth is prevented, or the religion never spreads beyond a couple of provinces, then you're using a date that would never become important for that world.

The ministry starts around 25 to 30 CE, which is very close to the expected end date. A delayed birth or ministry could see it not happening at all in game.

 

[Sol_Invictus]

I hope this changes end we'll end up with BC dates in the end. It's simply a matter of convention and orientation; everyone who's historically interested has a rough clue what 100 BC means, and in what way it's different from 250 BC. Hardly anyone could tell for 500 or 650 AUC.

 

[Rabid]

It's rather weak argument. In historical works almost only BC/AD system is used. We are accustomed to it and I guess thar for the most of us it's AUC system that that is confusing and kind of silly.

I think that the game should have both systems and that a player should be able to quickly switch between them by clicking on a date or on some button near it. If it's not possible at least we should be able to change it in the settings.

In Eu Rome I almost never paid attention to a date becouse AUC one was too strange for me to tell me anything. I know dates of ancient history but in BC/AD system. It's presence in the game would allow me to easily compare situation in the game to historical one.

I don't disagree with your argument but just FYI it's not at all uncommon for more scholarly historical books to use local dating systems, though usually dates are given in both the local system and CE for convenience.

 

[Tisifoni12]

AUC is kind of Rome-centric, how about if you are Carthage or the Seleucid Empire?