A Formula for the English Civil War
About a year ago, I first discussed completely overhauling the way in which the English Civil War specifically and the Stuart era in general was handled. You can reference one of my original posts on this subject
here, and there is a lot of pertinent discussion in the pages surrounding that post. Finally, after many distractions, I have finally gotten around to beginning work on the project. So far, my attention has been focussed on the actual Civil War - how that will operate will determine how the events both preceding & following it will work.
As I mentioned in the post linked above, I wanted to create a situation where the player actually had to fight the Civil War (with the possibility of defeat) as opposed to simply choosing the winning side. After much testing, I think I have come up with a formula that allows this to occur, without messing up the AI. In general, here is how it works:
When the Civil War starts, the English player has an event that forces him to choose sides, with the A option being to support Parliament. If the player chooses to support Parliament, then the Royalists are granted independence, & England is forced to declare war on them. If the player chooses to support Charles I, then the Puritans (who will likely be renamed Parliament) are granted independence, & England is forced to declare war on them. Thus the player is faced with actually fighting organized enemy forces, not just scattered rebels. The Royalist & Puritan entries in the revolt.txt will be adjusted so that they can never rebel & never be granted independence - thus, they will only appear in the game via the first Civil War event (& in that case only one of them will ever appear). The Royalists and Puritans also have events at the start that given them sizable armies so they can fight right from the start.
Also, the Royalist & Puritans will have a special "English_Civil_War.ai" file that ensures that they never use colonists (their money should be spend on armies), & has ferocity turned on. This is essential, so as to avoid having the ai sign a premature peace treaty. The idea is to keep the war going for five years, and my tests have shown that this has occurred every time.
After the five years are up, there is an event-driven peace. The way this works is that there are a series of events for each of the 11 English provinces, including duplicates for Royalists, Puritans, & the English themselves. The way they work is that, on the same date, if the owner of the province has lost control of it to the opposing side, the province is ceded to the opposing side. For example, if, after five years of warfare, the English (having chosen to side with Parliament) have gained control of Cornwall and the Midlands, the Royalists are forced to cede those provinces to the English. Since the Royalists & Puritans have a set number of provinces that they start with via the first Civil War event (the Royalists 5, the Puritans 6), after five years the ownership of provinces will reflect the fortunes of the war. Immediately thereafter, the Royalists or Puritans (whichever side the English did not side with) has an event that determines the outcome of the Civil War based on the countrysize of the Royalists or Puritans. For example, the Royalists start out with 5 provinces. If, at the end of the war, they lost Cornwall and Northumberland, but gained Bristol, the province ownership events described above would leave them with a countrysize of 4. This would trigger the "Parliamentary Minor Victory" event, reflecting that the Royalists lost but not decisively. There are seven outcomes to the war, a decisive victory (if either side loses control of four provinces, the war ends immediately), a major victory (if the net result is that either side lost control of three provinces), a minor victory (if the net result is that either side lost control of one or two provinces), or a stalemate (if the net result is that no provinces exchanged hands). Only one of these events will occur at the end of the war, since they are dependent on the "countrysize" trigger. Each of these events trigger a corresponding event for England (i.e. in the above example, the "Parliamentary Minor Victory" event for the Royalists directly triggers the "Parliamentary Minor Victory" event for England). This event for England then annexes the opposing side (Royalist or Puritan), & then this event becomes the basis for the post-war situation. Also, if, say, England chose to support Parliament but the result was a Royalists Minor, Major, or Decisive Victory, then upon the end of the war the Royalists would effectively "take over" England, with Charles I reassuming power. Thus, there are real consequences to losing the war.
I hope all of this makes sense. The outline above involves a total of 55 events, although in any given game an average of only 7-10 would occur (if no provinces exchange hands, there would be only 5). By using ferocity & countrysize, it is possible to cover every possible outcome for the war, whether it is fought by a human player or by the AI. I think this formula opens up a lot of opportunities, and forcing the English player to actually fight the Civil War will be both realistic & immersive, & would, I think, be a unique experience for an EU2 player.
So far, I have run 5 formal AI-vs.-AI tests using this basic formula with the 1617 scenario (the dates were pushed up so that 1642 became 1617, etc., although land tech was adjusted to what it should be in the 1640s). Scotland was made to be neutral for these tests (events will deal with the question of Scotland's role). The results of these tests were quite encouraging. In four of the five tests (every time the English choose to side with Parliament), the result was a Parliamentary Minor Victory, which I consider to be the historical outcome (the other test resulted in a stalemate). On average, just over three provinces exchanged hands (usually the Royalists would lose two & capture one), which I consider to be a fairly good performance for the AI. Nothing completely unexpected happened, and the events worked the way they were designed to work. Once, the Dutch intervened to support the English, and although it didn't amount to much, I think I have a way to handle the question of foreign intervention.
What I am wondering at this point is what people think of this idea in general. I have yet to go into details about leaders for each side, specific events (such as the New Model Army), issues regarding Scotland, Eire, & Wales, etc., but would like some feedback on the underlying mechanics of this formula before proceeding. What do you think? Is it worth continuing work on? It is complicated, & I imagine a "readme" might need to be included in the EEP to explain to the player what is going on so they don't panic, but I think once players realize what is going, they will find it interesting. Any comments and/or criticisms would be very much appreciated.
It is both lengthy &, at times, repetitive. However, we did discuss extensively the question of CB shields, so there are some good comments on various CB possibilities amongst the posts. I am intrigued by your other idea (i.e. having Normandie & Caux controlled, not owned, by England), as you are right in that it should cause the HYW to continue for a while. When v1.4 comes out, I'll run a few tests to see how it works. I'm definitely in favour of anything that helps the initial stages of the HYW go a bit more historically.
