It was founded in 1507 ("History of Science", Carlos Solís and Manuel Sellés).
Trust the spanish "members".
We usually Know a lot of our History.
Trust the spanish "members".
We usually Know a lot of our History.
Exploration - A radically new approach
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Yes I know which makes the claim that it was required for early Spanish exploration extremely specious. By 1507 much of new world is already explored. Give it another 5-20 years to account for the time it took to begin training and to replace via natural attrition the exporers who were not trained, and the claim that such an institution is a prerequisite for exploration is simply false outright.
Certainly such an institution should increase one's ability to explore, but making it exclusively dependant I think would be bad for gameplay - making exploration rather FPP and ahistorical (as Spain made major explorations prior to the inception of such an institute).
I was particularly looking for something in the 1490's. By the time you get to 1507, let alone waiting for the bulk of the fleet to have attended such a place, you have already explored Hispaniola and numerous other key territories. I have no doubt you know your history better than I, particularly as most English histories tend to short anyone not in Italy, Germany, France, or Great Britain; I just didn't recall any Spanish instutions which predated Colombus or any of the other explorers of the first wave.
Because the former is incredibly frustrating for anyone but a seasoned player who *knows* the date when his/her explorer will die?George LeS said:
Here's some more new ideas I just thought of...
1) when you get an explorer have a mission pop up happen. Give the user a multiple choice menu to assign a mission. i.e. "Discover a trade route to china using an eastern route" or "Explore the coast of Africa"
2) Allow explorers to resupply in the new world. Look at Christopher columbus. They got resupplied from the natives for their trip back to Spain. Maybe this means that a temp port can be built. If friendly natives exist then supplies can be had. Maybe the simple solution is to allow Trading Posts to have ports? Or create a new "Build a Port" option that can be used in port friendly terrain.
1) when you get an explorer have a mission pop up happen. Give the user a multiple choice menu to assign a mission. i.e. "Discover a trade route to china using an eastern route" or "Explore the coast of Africa"
2) Allow explorers to resupply in the new world. Look at Christopher columbus. They got resupplied from the natives for their trip back to Spain. Maybe this means that a temp port can be built. If friendly natives exist then supplies can be had. Maybe the simple solution is to allow Trading Posts to have ports? Or create a new "Build a Port" option that can be used in port friendly terrain.
Jomini said:
It depends on what is meant by "an event type system". If you mean a developement of AGCEEP's "Henry's Captains" events, I'm fine with that. But some of the posts seem to advocate doing away with explorers entirely. (And I surely have made it clear I don't want to allow Dias to discover the New World.) I would support, strongly, is limiting them to the general areas they explored, so long as it's somewhat dynamic. (E.g., if G Corte Real gets back from Labrador, there's no reason to force M C R to go to the same place, but he still should go to N America.)
If what you want is some way to make, say, Fernado Po to actually explore the Camaroons area, I'm with you. As I said, 2 things I'd advocate are (1) making the AI use more than one explorer at a time, & (2) much more down time for all explorers.
The latter is what would affect humans, & would be more realistic. It really took more time to refit, reman, & revictual than is represented, especially early. As it is, you bounce right back out. Part of the current problem is how much more each explorer discovers, than he did, historically. E.g., with Portugal, Diogo Cao has usually found Mauritius or Mahe, before Dias is even an issue. If this were reduced, you'd have more reason to send Dias to the Cape.
Quote:
Originally Posted by George LeS
Yakman & Duuk, I don't see the reasoning here. IMO, the boardgame method makes sense, & should be easier to handle with on a computer. So, how does the "not really discovered unless you return" make a case for an event-based system?
Tambourmajor said:
1. It's supposed to be frustrating, that's part of the fun.
2. The solution is to somewhat randomize start & death dates. I've been doing that in my games for about 6 months. IMO, this should be an option for all leaders & monarchs, in vanilla. (& if you want frustration, try having an exporer die before he's out of the Lusitanian Sea.)
3. To make myself massively unpopular, why bother with "his/her" here? This hobby rivals romance novels as a single-sex desert. (My wife refers to my game room as "The He-man Woman Haters' Club".)
George LeS said:
I don't want to do away with an explorer unit, but I do believe that once mission objectives have been set, there is no way to undo them, or influence the outcome. The computer would enact the explorers actions, with a random element and the results revealed upon his return.
I believe a player's fine control over explorer units is just too unrealistic, especially when a coupled with a 21st Century knowledge of the globe and past history.
There are several ideas that can be drawn from HOI, Vicki or CK. e.g a court system which provides a pool of random and/or historical explorers. An explorer trait system which influences the units actions. The traits could even be randomised when the explorer unit is created, as per Vicky.
Here's an idea: when a game is initiated in EUIII an option could be used to have a explorers historical or entirely random. This might even extend to a countries historical/random exploration policy and colonisation effort and their locations.
In any event, I don't think the explorers should come for 'free' as they do in EUII. It should cost a lot of money to kit out an explorer mission.
Actually i think if done right that could be immensly enjoyable. It would create the possibilty to create events tied to these explorers/conquistadors/merchants with much historical flavour, relieve the player of tedious micromanagment and at the same time keep them involved in the decision making. These events should be tied to the historical personalities and not the countries. First they propose to their native rulers, but if their demands are not met ("i want my share of the aztec gold"/"i need a larger fleet/army for a new expedition", "make me viceroy of the newly discovered lands") they wander off and offer their services to someone else who is willing to fund them. These can be naval explorers, military adventurers or merchants who want to establish a trade company in far away countries. Chances of success would depend on the abilities of the leader in charge of the expedition, overall level of funding (to be decided by the player of course), and of course pure luck. The rate at these people show up could be influenced by factors as diverse as the previous shown willingness to fund dodgy proposals of foreigners, establishment of naval academies for a more systematic approach or maybe your general policies regarding trade.Duuk said:
Maybe there could be even entire chain of events, depending on the success of the previous misssions and the willingness of the player to fund further adventures. I think that would be awesome, and the best thing is, these kind events would be easily moddable by the players.
George LeS said:
Y'know, the real problem with the explorer system for a human playing Portugal is not that you can go off an explore mexico and not Africa, but that the game rewards Mexican exploiters so much more than African/Spice Isles exploiters. In real history the course of action chosen by Portugal made it the richest nation in Europe for a considerable time. Would Portugal in real history have done better if they'd played Spain? Probably not... In real history both colonial strategies had their advantages and dissadvantages. In EU2 because empire-building was essentially a game of plonking down colonies or conquering people (and non-Europeans have so many military advantages in the game that didn't exist in real history) the Portuguese have a much harder time of it than they did in real history...
In real history, the reason the Portuguese agreed to the treaty of Tordesillas was because they thought they were getting the better half. How about we ask for a game where players of Portugal find the historical course of action of building an eastern trade empire to be an attractive course of action, rather than arguing about strait-jacketing people into a fixed course?
fasquardon
What is the difference between limiting where an explorer can go and just have it happening via event? If Po is limited to Cameroon you what is the point requiring the user to actually manage control over the voyage? So that in the middle of a war they have to devote time to micromanaging a small fleet? So that the human can optimize Po's performance, thus weaking the AI or requiring yet more coding and balancing to keep the AI somewhat competitive? So that experienced players can abuse the system to declare war on Portugal and blockade her explorers in port when they spawn and kill them when they leave?
What makes the added complexity of keeping the explorer unit worthwhile? If at the end of the day I'm limited in my choices and at the end of the day I get the same relative performance - why keep the hassle of having to micromanage an explorer?
Frankly I don't want to limit Corte Real to North America, if Portugal would rather pay him to extend its knowledge of the African coastline, or pay an appropriate penalty to move further into Asia, then I'm fine with it. The key is to limit the rate of exploration to something reasonably, force players to make the intermediate steps rather than pushing one explorer around the world in 1419 or simply cherry picking the best territory and then ignoring the rest of the area.
Having the AI use more explorers at a time will only go so far, and do nothing in MP. Forcing more downtime has one word to describe it: annoying. So not only do you have yet another fleet to monitor and move, you now need to keep track of when it can and cannot leave port that is going to be so easy on Spain in MP when she's fighting Venice and France
What is the fun? To be forced to do something repetitive which can either be optimizable - which creates unfair player advantage/coding and balancing issues or cannot be optimized - which means you merely can screw it up and have no strategic initiative to assume.
Not going to matter. Columbus has years of exploration time availible to him. If we allow resupply in the new world, experienced players will simply time his important voyages to be over a year before he dies. If anything this would harm the AI who actually would lose explorers and major voyages. The point here is to limit the external advantages the player has with modern geography knowledge and knowledge of the engine; this would do the exact opposite unless you put more coding into having the AI do a probability check of when the explorer will die and then perform some type of risk/reward calculation of when to turn back.
Look at where your system is heading. You've taken the EUII system, which you admit has gratuitious flaws, and started adding on post hoc fixes. Now explorers will only be able to go to specific areas, now explorers will have to stay in port longer to resupply, now explorers will have to return to port before their exploration is useable, now they will have quasi-random death dates to prevent players from massively optomizing their exploration time. All of which means more coding and more work for the AI to conduct exploration in remotely competitive manner with the player. On the other hand an event system would have fairly simple evaluation, be far more moddable, and be far less complicated - and acheive the same results.
That is a problem, not the only problem. Humans in EUII are not planning for the short term like the 15th century kings and explorers were. They are looking ahead several centuries to when their fleets will be handily surpassed by the English and Dutch and when a far flung empire through the East Indies , New Amsterdam, and India will be ripped away in conflict. So going extremely ahistorical will still have advantages as the player knows the likely course of development and weigh those costs that real leaders never thought about.
Even beyond the cost analysis you still have the problem that it was quite possible for a human player to explore vastly more desirable territory than the AI and in MP to hold most everything extremely early on. Likewise humans, knowing their geography will cherry pick; a human player might find it quite lucrative to explore down to the Pampas; but will rarely go all the way around as they know the value of the provinces in the area. Likewise vast swathes of Africa are not explored as they were historicly because unlike history players know they are not worth it and with the current system you can go straight for the prize.
Because such a thing is impossible. As players we have external knowledge that tells us exploring vast swathes of Africa is worthless - push on to Mahe, India, and Flores. Likewise we know that: Spanish gold mines can become a liability, holding an empire of TP is impossible long term, what the other nations plan to do. This means that no matter which choice is best, the human will can optimize their performance and gain an unfair advantage over the AI.
Sonny said:Which one are you? Spanky or Alfalfa?
She says I'm Alfalfa & she's Darla. Works for me.
mbb said:
There's nothing in that post I strongly disagree with. In all I've posted on naval matters, I've consistantly harped on the need to take control of fleets at sea out of the players' hands.
Now the big one:
Jomini said:What is the difference between limiting where an explorer can go and just have it happening via event? If Po is limited to Cameroon you what is the point requiring the user to actually manage control over the voyage? So that in the middle of a war they have to devote time to micromanaging a small fleet? So that the human can optimize Po's performance, thus weaking the AI or requiring yet more coding and balancing to keep the AI somewhat competitive? So that experienced players can abuse the system to declare war on Portugal and blockade her explorers in port when they spawn and kill them when they leave?[
What makes the added complexity of keeping the explorer unit worthwhile? If at the end of the day I'm limited in my choices and at the end of the day I get the same relative performance - why keep the hassle of having to micromanage an explorer?/QUOTE]
1. Explorers were often military units, as well as just explorers. Removing them would negate that. Drake simply disappears?
2. I said "limiting", so your objection is fair. But I don't really want to limit them to exact locations; it should be somewhat dynamic (hence my citations of the Corte Real boys.) I don't see areas such as African coast, or N Atlantic need be all that limiting. Limiting choices is something we deal with all the time. Depending on the design, it can mean a straitjacket, or an opportunity for real strategic thinking. After all, all the historical factors in the game are constraints, how many do you want to get rid of?
3. I've pretty consistently agreed about not wanting micromanagement, so that's a straw man. I've said many times, once a fleet is at sea, you should be able to give/change orders only under very limited circs, e.g., contact with the enemy. This would not be micromanaging.
4. If players can game a blockade strategy to handicap Portugal, they can also read the events, & figure out how to game them, as well, to see that countries don't ever meet the triggers. Anyway, do people really do this in SP? I can't see why. In MP, it might be a strategy, but then, the objections about the AI don't much matter there. Anyway, commanders' movement factors should help them evade blockades, in general.
Jomini said:Frankly I don't want to limit Corte Real to North America, if Portugal would rather pay him to extend its knowledge of the African coastline, or pay an appropriate penalty to move further into Asia, then I'm fine with it. The key is to limit the rate of exploration to something reasonably, force players to make the intermediate steps rather than pushing one explorer around the world in 1419 or simply cherry picking the best territory and then ignoring the rest of the area.
Having the AI use more explorers at a time will only go so far, and do nothing in MP. Forcing more downtime has one word to describe it: annoying. So not only do you have yet another fleet to monitor and move, you now need to keep track of when it can and cannot leave port that is going to be so easy on Spain in MP when she's fighting Venice and France
1. Easily handled--have a window pop up saying "x fleet is ready for sea". Should be in the game, anyway.
Jomini said:
1. I can speak only for myself, but I enjoy the unpredictable, & I hate knowing exactly when I have to start & finish a war, because I know my uberleader's death date. Generally, not knowing means it's all a gamble, as it was to the "players" at the time. The more we can replicate this, the better, IMO.
2. Your point about the advantage we players have is true enough; the problem is that it extends to every part of the game. Sure, we all exploit, even when trying not to, our knowledge of what the future holds. And the same is true of our knowledge of what the game system rewards & penalizes. I do not see how an event-based exploration system does anything to help that. In fact, to the extent that anything does, the suggestions I & others have made, randomizing it a bit, move much further in that direction.
Oh, I'm sure some people do find it fun.George LeS said:
Personally, however, I find things that go wrong because of factors outside of my control very unfun.
That still doesn't make it more fun, since all your hard work is lost, regardless whether the explorer dies on a historical or a randomized date. It just wrests control even more out of the player's hands, an experience which I personally find very unfun.
Who cares either way?
Besides, I wouldn't want to discriminate ol' Jeno.
Exactly. Sure there are ways to explot anything almost, but you can severely cut it down with an event-based exploration.George LeS said:
The only real problem is making it so there are times when a player will want to say no, because, let's face it, the more you know about the world, the better. Right now, that's the only major thing I can figure out how a human would (easily) over-exploit an AI if we want to make the AI act even remotely historical.
Once that is solved most of the problems would be minor.
So, let´s say, an historical (or random) explorer appears at the court. You can send them exploring different areas at different prices, being the % of success and the prize dependant on what he historically did.
Let´s say Cabral discovering the Philippines would be very expensive and with a very low success rate (15%?). Going to Brasil cheap and with a 100% ratio.
Is it the proposal?
Let´s say Cabral discovering the Philippines would be very expensive and with a very low success rate (15%?). Going to Brasil cheap and with a 100% ratio.
Is it the proposal?
Yes just what I'm sure all MP players want, another popup window to come up when they are monitoring a battle to see if they need to retreat their leader out or not. The basic problem is still the same, you have to devote more interaction time to a task which is wholly deterministic.
Given time, any player will eventually no the general dates of their uberleader's demise. Even placing small random modifiers will not greatly effect the situation.
Event's would remove the player's ability to optimize their exploration. Events could require intermediate steps to prevent the Zheng He explores South Africa, the Carribean, Mexico, and North American coast syndrome. Randomness can be incorporated as desired into events.
Why your 'solution' is inferior is that you want the same functional outcome - that human exploration is limited. However you prefer to do so by means of requiring the player to perform repetitive tasks with zero strategic input after the initial decision. If we are going to limit the strategic impact of exploration to the initial chartering of the voyage, why would we want the player to have to tediously follow a set of actions already dictated? Why do we want to add micromanagement when it is not needed?
EU is a strategy game, things the player is required to do should be limited to those which are strategic decisions. Currently explorers are strategic for their entire lifetimes, hence it is good to give the player control. You and I both want to remove that, making exploration strategic only when you charter the voyage. My thought is once I've made the strategic decision I'm perfectly fine letting the engine handle the details; further if abstraction makes the engine run better and allows for time to be spent coding and balancing other features; I care not. You on the other hand seem to think it is a good idea to have to make a strategic decision early on; but then be forced to monitor the process and click 20 odd times for no strategic purpose.
My way demands less code and less micromanagement. Absent any benifit from yours it is clearly superior. Again if at the end of the day we arrive at a situation where the player gets the same end result; why have all your added complexity?
Amadis: Current proposals are not that well defined. Something like that would fit under the concepts discussed here, but so would other instantiations.
The big ideas are to slow down player exploration, to make exploration more evolutionary than revolutionary, and to eliminate complexity to help the AI and reduce micromanagement.
The first could be reflected by the limited number of provinces Cabral could explore as well as the inability of the player to push him around the globe. The second would would be represented by your chances of him succeeding (I might not even allow him to push for the Phillipines if a route almost there has not already been explored). Adn the third would occur by virtue of one not needing to track the progress of his fleet to and from its destination.
The big ideas are to slow down player exploration, to make exploration more evolutionary than revolutionary, and to eliminate complexity to help the AI and reduce micromanagement.
The first could be reflected by the limited number of provinces Cabral could explore as well as the inability of the player to push him around the globe. The second would would be represented by your chances of him succeeding (I might not even allow him to push for the Phillipines if a route almost there has not already been explored). Adn the third would occur by virtue of one not needing to track the progress of his fleet to and from its destination.
Limiting the number isn't needed if yuo just define a general area and length of time. The longer the time, the possibility of gaining more territory and the less likely he is too return, but there should be some risk for exploring any unkown area. I'd say 95% success rate tops and only if its like 1 province in a safe climate area and the most passive natives and hospital areas (where/if you must make landfall).Jomini said:
Thus early on this rate could drop dramatically thus making unviable for anyone to send them on long voyages esepcially when the cost inceases with it.
Quote:
1. Easily handled--have a window pop up saying "x fleet is ready for sea". Should be in the game, anyway.
I would think popups would be welcome where they are useful. Further, part of the game is, explicitly, trying to handle too much. This suggestion is in context of, not just explorers, but all units.
But if you don't like that, you could also build in a lag time (which I'd also support for all units). You give the order now, but it doesn't start to move until some time later. Or you could just leave it as something you'd have to keep track of; in itself, THAT would be something advantaging the AI.
I've been doing this long enough to know that this is not true. My method so far has involved +/- 5 years for all but very short-lived leaders (all leaders, & monarchs too -- less if they're dormant). I can testify that it does make a very great difference, & I've commonly built a plan around the presence of certain key leaders, only to find several of them gone. It's still buggy, but it unquestionably works.
Not so. Any events will either be very broad, allowing exploits, or will be specifically targeted. That is, either you are given a chance to set up an exploration mission, with a degree of freedom of where & for what, or you're given a take-it-or-leave-it opportunity to explore, say, the Gulf of the Camaroons. (I believe the latter is favored by most exponents, but it's hard to tell, with so little to go on).
Either way, events face the same objections as the alternatives. The free & easy version allows every bit as much as much exploitation of hindsight as any possible alternative. The constrained method, too, gives the player the advantage of knowing whether it's worth the $, plus prevents him from taking desireable strategic alternatives.
That is, & I've harped on this a lot, many of the leaders we get as explorers, are also military commanders. EP even replicated this by removing Da Gama as an explorer, then giving him back as an admiral. This was a nice try, but the problem was that it didn't necessarily line up with the dates you were at war. Drake circumnavigated when he wasn't engaged in a more narrowly directed campaign against Spain.
I have found, again, randomizing makes this work. Sometimes an early POR explorer, say Gil Eanes, shows up as a 2-3-3, just as you're involved in a war in the Med. You now have the strategic decision to make, to I want him to explore the coast, or would I be better served if he takes command of my fleet? IMO, that's a win-win situation, design-wise. It adds another strategic decision for the player, with built in costs, & it tempts him to forego a round of exploration. I think this is exactly the sort of thing the game benefits from.
I am somewhat handicapped in replying by the extreme lack of specifics in the "events" proposals, but insofar as I can:
1. I don't think we want "the same functional outcome"; rather, that we agree on some of the problems. This makes a difference; I don't think I want to limit players so much, e.g., I want explorers who made mulitple voyages, to be able to do so, & I don't see this accommodated in the event method. I do think human exploration should be slowed down.
2. Where do you get the idea that my proposals "requiring the player to perform repetitive tasks with zero strategic input after the initial decision"? There aren't any, or are at least very few, tasks the player will take when explorers are sent out. I've pretty much limited it to 2 cases: contact with enemy forces, & the death of the explorer. And the latter could/should be handled by the engine anyway, exactly as it does now -- but more intellegently -- when fleets' attrition is too high. That leaves enemy contact, & goes back to my point that they are naval commanders, & should be treated as such. Also, note that, what I've proposed for explorers is what I've proposed for ALL fleets at sea; I'm just dovetailing them into my ideas of how a naval system should work.
But the main point here, is that there would be very little the player would have to do The situation would be analagous to that we currently have, when a troop convoy is sent off to a distant location. There is no need for "20 clicks".
And, since most of the code is already there, as my way is development of the existing system, I don't see why it will be as big a coding problem as the event system, which will involve a major reworking of the way exploration will be handled, with lots of energy going to balancing advantages for historical colonizers with dynamic accommodations for countries which didn't, but in a given game could, have joined there ranks. Not to mention several patches & event re-writes to make the balance work.
I will grant that there is one open question here, & that is the way to limit exploration areas. But the event system is one big sequence of question marks, a vague proposal in a very undefined state.
And my way does give several benefits:
1. It does accomodate the dual nature of explorers as naval leaders.
2. It does accomodate the need for flexibility, as the player will be able to see "damn, the Omani's beat me there, next voyage will have to go further east".
3. What burdens it places, are disproportionately on the human player, & to that extent, it helps the AI.
4. And one thing I haven't cited yet, though others have, it keeps the existing flavor of EU2. Apparently there is a split here between those who like exploring, & those who don't. But for me, there are often long stretches in the game where that's the only fun you get. If this game has a flaw, it is the years one goes by, doing nothing but watching sliders mount.
This is more like it.
1. Easily handled--have a window pop up saying "x fleet is ready for sea". Should be in the game, anyway.
Jomini said:
I would think popups would be welcome where they are useful. Further, part of the game is, explicitly, trying to handle too much. This suggestion is in context of, not just explorers, but all units.
But if you don't like that, you could also build in a lag time (which I'd also support for all units). You give the order now, but it doesn't start to move until some time later. Or you could just leave it as something you'd have to keep track of; in itself, THAT would be something advantaging the AI.
Jomini said:
I've been doing this long enough to know that this is not true. My method so far has involved +/- 5 years for all but very short-lived leaders (all leaders, & monarchs too -- less if they're dormant). I can testify that it does make a very great difference, & I've commonly built a plan around the presence of certain key leaders, only to find several of them gone. It's still buggy, but it unquestionably works.
Jomini said:
Not so. Any events will either be very broad, allowing exploits, or will be specifically targeted. That is, either you are given a chance to set up an exploration mission, with a degree of freedom of where & for what, or you're given a take-it-or-leave-it opportunity to explore, say, the Gulf of the Camaroons. (I believe the latter is favored by most exponents, but it's hard to tell, with so little to go on).
Either way, events face the same objections as the alternatives. The free & easy version allows every bit as much as much exploitation of hindsight as any possible alternative. The constrained method, too, gives the player the advantage of knowing whether it's worth the $, plus prevents him from taking desireable strategic alternatives.
That is, & I've harped on this a lot, many of the leaders we get as explorers, are also military commanders. EP even replicated this by removing Da Gama as an explorer, then giving him back as an admiral. This was a nice try, but the problem was that it didn't necessarily line up with the dates you were at war. Drake circumnavigated when he wasn't engaged in a more narrowly directed campaign against Spain.
I have found, again, randomizing makes this work. Sometimes an early POR explorer, say Gil Eanes, shows up as a 2-3-3, just as you're involved in a war in the Med. You now have the strategic decision to make, to I want him to explore the coast, or would I be better served if he takes command of my fleet? IMO, that's a win-win situation, design-wise. It adds another strategic decision for the player, with built in costs, & it tempts him to forego a round of exploration. I think this is exactly the sort of thing the game benefits from.
Jomini said:
I am somewhat handicapped in replying by the extreme lack of specifics in the "events" proposals, but insofar as I can:
1. I don't think we want "the same functional outcome"; rather, that we agree on some of the problems. This makes a difference; I don't think I want to limit players so much, e.g., I want explorers who made mulitple voyages, to be able to do so, & I don't see this accommodated in the event method. I do think human exploration should be slowed down.
2. Where do you get the idea that my proposals "requiring the player to perform repetitive tasks with zero strategic input after the initial decision"? There aren't any, or are at least very few, tasks the player will take when explorers are sent out. I've pretty much limited it to 2 cases: contact with enemy forces, & the death of the explorer. And the latter could/should be handled by the engine anyway, exactly as it does now -- but more intellegently -- when fleets' attrition is too high. That leaves enemy contact, & goes back to my point that they are naval commanders, & should be treated as such. Also, note that, what I've proposed for explorers is what I've proposed for ALL fleets at sea; I'm just dovetailing them into my ideas of how a naval system should work.
But the main point here, is that there would be very little the player would have to do The situation would be analagous to that we currently have, when a troop convoy is sent off to a distant location. There is no need for "20 clicks".
And, since most of the code is already there, as my way is development of the existing system, I don't see why it will be as big a coding problem as the event system, which will involve a major reworking of the way exploration will be handled, with lots of energy going to balancing advantages for historical colonizers with dynamic accommodations for countries which didn't, but in a given game could, have joined there ranks. Not to mention several patches & event re-writes to make the balance work.
I will grant that there is one open question here, & that is the way to limit exploration areas. But the event system is one big sequence of question marks, a vague proposal in a very undefined state.
And my way does give several benefits:
1. It does accomodate the dual nature of explorers as naval leaders.
2. It does accomodate the need for flexibility, as the player will be able to see "damn, the Omani's beat me there, next voyage will have to go further east".
3. What burdens it places, are disproportionately on the human player, & to that extent, it helps the AI.
4. And one thing I haven't cited yet, though others have, it keeps the existing flavor of EU2. Apparently there is a split here between those who like exploring, & those who don't. But for me, there are often long stretches in the game where that's the only fun you get. If this game has a flaw, it is the years one goes by, doing nothing but watching sliders mount.
Jinnai said:
This is more like it.
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