I want uncivilised countries more playable. In the original vicky they are too restricted and becoming civilised country is virtually impossible for most of them. I hope Vicky 2 to have events and tech trees specific to the uncivilised nations, to better illustlate the developments, reforms and the struggle for survival. I also believe there should be multiple paths for civlilisation. For example, a nation can become civilised by beating a great power(for large nations), having certain prestige, industry and militaly value(as in vicky 1), or being politically modernised, economically open to the western counries, and have a good relation with an adjacant great power(in this case the unciv becomes the satellite of the great power in exchange of civilisation, a realistic way for weak uncivs to become civilised). Ideally, every uncivilised country should be civilisable if they are played by a human, so that one can play as bhutan without getting bored! Sorry for my bad English by the way.
I came up with the below, it also has the advantage of possibly taking advantage of several features of Hearts of Iron 3 AND can apply to "backwards" nations other then China.
I am all for a system that can adequately reflect China's political and economic situation in the early 19th century but I would also like to see an engine capable of letting you as the player guide China to Great Power status through intelligent decision making and good policies! China became a backwater in real life becomes the Imperial Government and its bureaucracy couldn't manage the country, were saw as foreginers by most of their own people, had no vision and didn't forsee how the industrial revolution would irreversibly change the way the world dynamic works.
Now I perfectly understand that "modernization" for China shouldn't be easy, oh no, it should be challenging both in singleplayer and in multiplayer so the work is worth all the effort but heres my problem with it as now in Ricky in multiplayer.
You could make all the good decisions in the world but it all comes to nougt if the people you play with are dicks and use "tricks" and take advantage of the engine rather then legitimately stopping you.
Example, to "Civilize" in Victoria you had to have a certain arbitrary number of points in prestige, military power and economy. 100, 25, and 75 respectively, this was bullcrud.
All a country had to do was demand a humiliating peace in a war and it would become utterly impossible to civilize, ever and if they really want to be jerks there was infact an event chain that the UK player could easily screw you over and prevent you from gaining any technologies (I had the fortune that the person was AI'ed that session thus UK dowed me in 2nd Opium War getting my techs).
Military power was also bull as getting 25 military power is impossible for ANYONE other then China and forcing people to rely on expititionary forces help from other nations SHOULD NOT be forced on people and most games have rules against it anyways and irregulars tended to dessert faster then i could build them.
So prestige and military requirements for civilizing are bull, as essentially only China can get them without events and ANY uncivilized country with a decent amount of people and good resources should be able to civilized with good decision making and stability.
Basically we should take out the luck and the or any reliance on the other players or AI on the process to civilize but instead be fully based on your own efforts.
The only real determination in my opinion of what constitutes your "Great Power ness" is Industrial output something China had in spads with the decentralized manufacturing they did and led the world in in GDP until UK got the steam engine so lets make it industrial factory steam and steel industrial output!
Coupled with a scoring system for military power as well, but rather then make it so Uncivs only build crap lets have the ability to actually "buy" arms from the market and actually train and build "modern" divisions and brigades and have them score 1-1 and not 25-1 was irregulars and 10-1 as "regular-native" divisions as long as you have the tech.
So I geuss this leads to my next point, that in general we need a better system to separate uncivs from civs, rather then make it an actual ingame divider "civ/unciv" lets actually make it so an "Uncivilized" nation in the previous sense is simply a nation with much less tech, and much worse economies then the Europeans and much more unstable and also corrupt.
What makes a "Civilized" nation different from a Uncivilized?
1. Corruption. "Uncivilized" henceforth referred to as simply "UnCiv" had almost has a rule much more corruption and graft on both GDP per capita and in bulk amounts even if the country made alot of income in say trade by exporting raw materials to Europe the central government probably only gets a pittance of it after all the hands it goes through, combine this with "unrest" a bit in the sense that if you have a high corruption value, to lower it will always spike dissent/unrest, so each time you manage to lower corruption by say causing heads to roll, firing governors, sacking generals, executing criminals etc. Could be a slider, could be a recurring "decision" or whatever point is lowering corruption value (which should have a daily "gain" as well) should raise unrest when its really high but once you have it low should cause virtually no unrest, so the more you do it the easier itll eventually get, but at the very beginning should be a pain in the ass and the large the country the larger the pain.
Like Crime Fighting in Ricky but actually has a purpose and not just somehting you can ignore.
2. Unrest, your revolt risk but more regional, should be calculated province/state to province/state for example if your oppressing one state it shouldn't really cause a ruckus to the one nextdoor unless you have freedom of press or something. For "UnCivs" this should be "low" in the central regions but high in places of mixed ethnics and at the periphery but should climb high really fats if your actively crushing corruption, switching to ConMon/Republic should help lower both of the above.
3. Technology, all "Uncivs" in the traditional sense are backwards China may have invented alot, but they never developed any of it to practical purposes for the masses or industry and were by before 1800 outclasses by England so simply speaking only start these nations with the technologies suitable for their development.
Basically China could probably field a Infantry Regiment in 36 but produced no small arms and didn't purchase any from England when it was offered. So instead lets have it so if I do decide to produce Small arms rather then produce a regiment of infantry without firepower click a box saying "modern" and produce a normal infantry division, lets use the Hoi3 system of brigades and having the first brigade China or anyone other unciv can build is "Swordsman & Spearman" Brigade but with the Musketeer tech and if you have small arms handy you can now instead upgrade/build new brigades of normal infantry and set training.
Have research same as before, funding education! But remember even in ricky full research for China was expensive, it was cheaper when "unciv" so lets take that out and have somekind of modifier for number of Schools and Universities open, like "Practical" research in Hoi3, obviously there should be a modifier, China did not have that many Universities and even less that were comparable in scope and funding as Cambridge or Harvard.
So China and other Uncivs will need then tobuild universities! The less you have the more expensive and the longer it will take to gain techs on your own, obviously there should be some osmossos, tech knowledge spreads so there should be a bonus based on how many other countries already know it!
Next we go back to Corruption! Remember that full funding education as China is EXPENSIVE! China probably should start with nearly full corruption! Ergo Quod Erat Demonstrandum said Meier the literary jerkass that I am, with high corruption and not many Universities funding education fully should either not be possible without going into debt or possible but with very little funds availiable for much else!
So Corruption, Tech, Unrest is three good ways to fully represent a "backwards" nation relatviely speaking without crippling said nation and forcing arbitrary events or decisions on the player that he could game to or be at the mercy of other players inregards to.
There are obviously more but they could proably just as well come back to the above 3, a Modern nation needs an army which required factories to produce small arms, ammunition, artillery, explosives, uniforms etc, it needs tech to know how to do the above it needs low corruption so you have competant officers and low chance of mutiny because they are actually getting paid! And Unrest more or less will determine if your army is able to be deployed in a war or if most of it is pinned down on rebel control.
So Number 4: Industry itself)
This is probably the last major category between what constites a "Civ" and a "Unciv", a "Civ" will have alot of factories, Ricky confuses this matter by starting economic powerhouses like France and Prussia (even for 1836) with next to nill factories compared to England, we should have a more complex industrial and transport system to make their relative advanceness compared to say China more apparent. So that a nation like China whose entire manufacturing is local and trade is mostly river based and never with the outside world is obviously backwards in comparison to say even Belgium whom has a bustling trade with its neighbors has a strong middle class driving its manufacturing albeit more crafting based then mass production.
So we resemble this by A) having it so that China and other uncivs start off not being able to actually trade and access the world market until by tech or decision (that should increase both corruption and unrest and increase susptibility to spying) and B) by simply having virtually no infastructure, industry or anything, simple RGO's making cotton with a percentage becomming the low end finsihed good by off screen "conversion" should suffice (as obviously China made some fabrics and from there some clothes but not enough to actually practically export it but enough although imperfectly and expensively for its own usages).
So here here and discuss! Add Unrest, Corruption, Industry, and Tech as "SOFT" measures of what constitutes a nation and get rid of backwards oppressive thinking with "Hard" limits of what constites "Civ" and "UnCiv"!!
In short have it so that there is NOTHING called "Your are Uncivilized" or otherwise that artifically restricts you! Have it instead that at the beginning your choices are limited by lack of tech and politics and that fixing both should be difficult, but not impossible to give you an actual fighting chance in a competitive multiplayer game and make single player more fun and challenging by having your gradually DEVELOPING your country and not just going through an arbitrary checklist until something goes "Ding!" And poof your civilized removing arbitrary limits on what you can do.
