Do mods make the game more unaccurate?

[unmerged(514)]

pardon my french but FUCK YEAH!!! i get so sick of ppl claiming that the game is innaccurate. if it was accurate it would be an epic movie or the computer would just make all the moves for you.

First we were stupid, now this. I suppose lack of strong arguments lead people this low...

ebipuam, bypassing any verbal gift you may have in store for me, can you please play one of the big mods that claim to be more accurate or plausible or historical and check if after 1 year of playing you have a strategic situation taken out of any history book? You'll be enlightened about the "epic movie", then.

The vanilla game is not "inaccurate". It is random, which is worse. Mods try to put some plausibility, historical sense, accuracy into an otherwise fantasy story played on the world map with real names.

 

[unmerged(77825)]

Though EU3 is a slightly better game than EU2 was IMHO, you cannot argue the fact that EU2 was a much more historically accurate game in terms of how the nations evolved. I don't fully understand why they did not build on that. As it is now you will always have these huge blobs after 50 years of gameplay and very odd nations colonizing the world. Not to mention China and Lithuania (or Kazan) being neighbours. In the long run it gets very repetetive. I only play MP games nowadays.

 

[unmerged(37198)]

get magna mundi if you play single player.......i however cant, since 1) i cant stand playing singel player for more then 30 years of game play 2) magna mundi corrupt cheksum and if you are unlucky chronic out of sync in mp(forcing you to reinstall your game).....if you want a more ballanced/harder game play i suggest you to play multiplayer or if thats not possible go with MM if you get bored by vanilla game

i am myself considering to make a mini mod with the following things in it:
-remove size pagan provinces
-make protistantism spread faster
-make all NI's usefull

i know thes things are alredy in some mods, but some NI's are still to good in magna set for example(trade NI's) and some NI's needs no fixing IMO

 

[vertinox]

I hope your being sarcastic about vanellia not being accurate - in fact its prolly the most historically accurate game (outside of some fringe war games, and EU2) out right now.

Rampant colonization by Venice or Papal States of South American?
Ming annexing Lithuania by 1550?

 

[Freodin]

Some people seem to be unable to understand the difference between historicity and historcial plausibility.

The proponents of "historical mods" mostly do not want the first, but the second. They don´t want fixed "historical" events that make no sense in a given different history, but events and gameplays that make sense even in the alternative world.

It does not make sense to have religious wars arise in countries that face no religions unrest... but it also does not make sense to have the Muslims overrun Europe, while the Christian kings quibble over Iceland.

 

[DorostheConquer]

It does not make sense to have religious wars arise in countries that face no religions unrest... but it also does not make sense to have the Muslims overrun Europe, while the Christian kings quibble over Iceland.

Says who? Why shouldn't Muslim nations overrun Europe? If they get lucky and win enough battles, sure, why not. For example, the Ottoman Empire did try to invade Europe, and they got pretty darn far- sure, they lost in the end, but that's where the game takes over. Why shouldn't Iceland be a battlefield? And what's wrong with religious wars?

 

[PrawnStar]

I'm in general agreement with Freodin on this and if I understand Ubik's posts then MM at least has been developed with a similar approach in mind.

DorostheConquer, I don't think you've got Freodin's point.

About religious wars for example, it is plain silly to inflict religious unrest on a late 16th century France that remains solidly Catholic just because in RL there was huge religious termoil in France at that time (Historicity). The unrest should only be possible if there is a mix of religions (Historically plausible).

 

[unmerged(76687)]

I agree with Freodin and PrawnStar.
Nobody here wants exact replica of history but some sense and logic.
I was, in my post, complaining about exact historical inaccuracy AT THE START DATE, and not during the game, since the gameplay shoud and it does generate outcomes that differ from history.
But the idea that Ethiopia and Mali didn't have cavalry is simply inaccurate, and has nothing to do with gameplay but with the setting at the start of the game, before you even start to play.
We had long discussions about having forts in North and South America (which existed prior to 1453.) and steppe nations being able to field significantly larger armies than they can in the game (also before and during EUIII period... and this is the main reason for Lithuania expansion to the east and Ming expansion to the west) and ability to recruit limitless number of mercenary regiments (I've actualy changed my save file to see if you can do that... imagine my surprise ), which means that you can recruit lets say 200k men (why stop at 200k, you can go for 500k if you have the cash) from the province with 2k people in it :wacko:
These and many (sadly too many) other things combined make EUIII not only historicaly inaccurate but also in its vanila form very uninteresting game.
There is no difference if you play Bali or England, Mali or Inca, every time you will do same things which lead to world domination. The only thing that you don't know from the start is how long will it take...
I hope I've made myself clear on this issue.

 

[Doge Robert]

Hmm... A lot of difference of opinions here..

My 5 cents go something like this..

If you are happy with the way EU3 Vanilla is run, then by all means, play it as it is...

However, if you are unsatisfied with something, whether it has to do with something so overwhelmingly unbelievable as the catholic europe NOT banding together to fight off the turks or because you would like to have a heightened focus on one or more areas of the game, where you feel the current (events, modifiers, tech-groups, whatever else, etc..) isn't as (exiting, realistic, plausible, easy, hard, plain old fun, etc..) as you'd like said area or areas to be, then go see if somebody made a mod, which might give you that piece of just a little something extra, or that tweak, which makes things seem more right in your opinion...

I personally use MM Gold.. Not necessarily because it is a "plausibility"-mod, although many do like it because of that.. Instead, I like the extra event-chains, the extra effort you have to put into it, to beat the new (and harder) rules and the greater complexity the MM-team has added to the game..
To me, it is a new (and great) experience and a way to keep the game interesting and addicting enough that I will continue to spend 12 hours a day sitting in front of my computer, doing war with poland or the Ottoman Empire..

Alright, alright.. I know it was not 5 cents worth of a ramble... So give me back my last 3 thank you..

 

[unmerged(53605)]

I think one of the things which can be relied upon to repeat with complete predictability is this argument.

 

[DorostheConquer]

DorostheConquer, I don't think you've got Freodin's point.

About religious wars for example, it is plain silly to inflict religious unrest on a late 16th century France that remains solidly Catholic just because in RL there was huge religious termoil in France at that time (Historicity). The unrest should only be possible if there is a mix of religions (Historically plausible).

Well if that happens (I've never seen it yet in my campaign... every religious war I've experienced has been because there WAS religious turmoil in the nation at that time) then it's not a problem with historical accuracy. Rather, it's a problem with too much history- the game tries too hard to be historical, when it should just run with whatever occurs during the course of the campaign (which I think is what you may be trying to say with "historicity vs historical plausibility"). This goes back to what I said originally- history be damned, just make a game that plays well.

But that doesn't explain why it's not "historically plausible" for Muslims to overrun Europe (why not?) or for Christian kings to fight over Iceland (if they want to, go for it). Muslims overrunning Europe might be unlikely and improbable, but it's certainly plausible.

 

[unmerged(514)]

Says who? Why shouldn't Muslim nations overrun Europe? If they get lucky and win enough battles, sure, why not. For example, the Ottoman Empire did try to invade Europe, and they got pretty darn far- sure, they lost in the end, but that's where the game takes over. Why shouldn't Iceland be a battlefield? And what's wrong with religious wars?

Absolutely nothing. The key word is plausibility... Make it plausible and you have a winner, make it random and its better playing in the lottery.

 

[unmerged(514)]

[...]

But that doesn't explain why it's not "historically plausible" for Muslims to overrun Europe (why not?) or for Christian kings to fight over Iceland (if they want to, go for it). Muslims overrunning Europe might be unlikely and improbable, but it's certainly plausible.

But who says it cannot be plausible? Only you... are you aware you are discussing with yourself?


An example:

The problem is, if Algeria "decides" to conquer Europe it does not start by Ireland. You see, there is no plausibility in that. Now, if as a result of an Alliance Algeria sends troops to Granada to help fight castille and manages to turn he tide of the war, why not? Or why can't the muslims assault Sardinia and then trying to climb over the italian peninsula... The problem is the vanilla is as capable of generating ne scenario as the next, and *most* of the random scenarios are simply ridiculous.



As for the comment by the other poster never, since February, I stated as my intent with Magna Mundi to place the player into a static world defined by historical variables. Never was my intention of being "deterministic", the usual lie thrown around.

Look at this thread from January. Look at post #238.

LOOK HERE

Those were, are and will be the issues. Do not hide the game's shortcomings under a cloud of fog called determinism. That is why 7 years after release and a sequel you have dozens and dozens of posters at the same time on EU2 foruns. Something went missing.

 

[Mr. Domino]

Ahhhh, it's that time again!

Seriously, the one new point I have to add here is this: EU2 could be at times just as historically inaccurate, maybe even implausibly so, but still it felt better because it occurred in a context/atmosphere.

I have played EU2 games where Bloody Mary kept England Catholic, where the Ottomans reined in the beyes and never declined, where Charles the Bold never died and Burgundy eventually became a new France, where Russia ended up with a royal marriage with China, where Protestansm flourished in Hapsburg controlled Bohemia.

Even the archetypical ahistorical outcome, a strong outward looking Ming happened. But these all happened via events. Some of it is admittedly simplistic (I don't build the forbidden palace so I get a better tech group as China?) But when it happened I could at least justify the ahistorical outcome in some fashion. IMHO becoming a strong outward looking power as China in Eu2 is more colorful and easier to swallow than the same in EU3.

* China has only one culture and only one religion, making it immune from many of the cultural and religious revolts in the game.
* Ethiopia and Songhai, both famous for their cavalry, cannot build them. For that matter, Ethiopia, which once sent a fleet to conquer Yemen, appears to have forgotten how to build ships.
* The famed Sengoku era of Japan is entirely absent from the game. Instead, the Ashikaga Shogunate appears to merrily conquer Asia (until Ming focuses on it) without any internal dissent whatsoever.
* The Timurid Empire has no problems at all. It's powerful, unified and rich
* Tibet is ruled by an archbishop.

And now to be completly contrary...I don't personally agree with this as it seems like a half measure between vanilla and MM method.

If we are gonna have vanilla, lets have vanilla. All countries are more or less interchangable within there culture group with a few exceptions (ottomans have orthodox tech tree while mamelukes don't...thats about it). I don't like it but it has a consistency. Once you start giving this or that country much more detail where does it stop?

Say you let the Sengoku era of Japan come in. Do the English get a War of the Roses or English Civil War events? If the Timurids have problems, should other nations that also splintered or factionalized have problems (Poland?)?

The Ethiopians were arguably a special case in Africa. But you could just as easily argue that Ottomans were a special case in the Arab world, do they get (more?) bonuses, like a lessened penalty to Orthodox provinces? It's certainly "ahistorical" to have them get just as many problems from Greek provinces as any other wrong culture or wrong religion nation, or to allow them (or orthodox nations??) to make janissaries in arab provinces. Eventually you get everyone clamoring for more detail, and then you get...Eu2

 

[PrawnStar]

Originally Posted by ubik
As for the comment by the other poster never, since February, I stated as my intent with Magna Mundi to place the player into a static world defined by historical variables. Never was my intention of being "deterministic", the usual lie thrown around.

I think you've misunderstood me, I wasn't suggesting that MM was deterministic, rather, that it was more historically plausible than Vanilla, no offense was meant.

 

[unmerged(514)]

I think you've misunderstood me, I wasn't suggesting that MM was deterministic, rather, that it was more historically plausible than Vanilla, no offense was meant.

sorry... on a bad mood today!

 

[dharper]

Its true I havent played the mods yet but if they are like eu2 ones as I think they are nothing really changes you just get events that make no sense.

They are not.

The new coding system introduced for EU3 makes it much easier to provide context to events. You don't have to worry about playing Burgundy and ceasing to exist, or playing England and expecting a free ride.

I suggest you give one a try before you criticize too much.

 

[dharper]

Some people seem to be unable to understand the difference between historicity and historcial plausibility.

The proponents of "historical mods" mostly do not want the first, but the second. They don´t want fixed "historical" events that make no sense in a given different history, but events and gameplays that make sense even in the alternative world.

It does not make sense to have religious wars arise in countries that face no religions unrest... but it also does not make sense to have the Muslims overrun Europe, while the Christian kings quibble over Iceland.

Ah, better said than my post. Hear, hear! Plausibility is the holy grail of modding.

 

[Kanaric]

I like mods in between, too much of a rigid historical game = boring. I dont like a game to severely limit my options in what I want to do. Though I do like the AI not forming insane non-contiguous blobs.

I like a mix of both. A mod with too many limits on what I, the player, wants to do is simply not fun. Most of these historical mods are really only suitable for playing as a medium to major europeon power and someone that is historically powerful. If you want to play as some non-europeon power or a minor you may as well forget about many things... like colonization.

I like mods that offer things, like in imago dei. If you are a muslim country and your colonies revolt and form a new nation it will make it based on YOUR culture, religion, and if your muslim it will become like a "Emirate" with graphics to match. Where historical mods have no support for such a thing because they think you want to RP some historical nation 99% of the time.

AGCEEP was only the really historical mod i've ever played that was really good in supporting things like that and usually a more dynamic game isn't even worked on until LATE in a mod's development.

 

[DorostheConquer]

But who says it cannot be plausible?

Freodin.

It does not make sense to have religious wars arise in countries that face no religions unrest... but it also does not make sense to have the Muslims overrun Europe, while the Christian kings quibble over Iceland.

The problem is, if Algeria "decides" to conquer Europe it does not start by Ireland. You see, there is no plausibility in that. Now, if as a result of an Alliance Algeria sends troops to Granada to help fight castille and manages to turn he tide of the war, why not? Or why can't the muslims assault Sardinia and then trying to climb over the italian peninsula... The problem is the vanilla is as capable of generating ne scenario as the next, and *most* of the random scenarios are simply ridiculous.

Again, so what? It may be improbable for Algeria to attack Ireland, but it's not implausible. Algeria had access to ships, maps, and troops- if they have the will and the means, what's to stop them? Be pretty clever, too- rotten old Christians would never expect a move like that; take them completely be surprise, it would! I mean, I conquered China as Britain by 1640; that's highly improbable, since what the heck would the British be doing in China that early? Well, they'd be conquering, apparently.

I fail to see how a Muslim invasion of Ireland is any more ridiculous than, say, a Christian invasion of North America, or a Mongol invasion of Poland. Even if it were (it's not), game's arent meant to stick to boring old historical truths, they're meant to provide you with an interesting new set of challenges and forge brave new worlds that hath Ireland-invading creatures in't! And frankly, I'd be delighted if the Algerians decided to invade Ireland, since that would at least break the monotony of having to put down annual Puritan revolts in Ulster. Let's see how you like Muslims running your bloody province, eh?