I am also concerned. I hope Johan will weigh in. He is a busy man though.Slyspy said:
Freeminting Exploit
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This so-called "freeminting" was considered the only logical way to play EU2 because the effects of inflation were so debilitating and almost impossible to get rid of until leter in the game. All that has changed now is that when you do this you get a little flag that says you're running a deficit month-to-month if you do this, which makes it seem like you're doing something wrong. Both methods are useful for different things, but because it is so much better for rich nations to live off of their annual income it seems like an exploit because there is no reason (in most people's minds) why they would do anything else. Inflationary minting is useful only for poor nations who need the cash to pay for their militaries. As an EU2 player, this whole setup seems to make sense to me, but perhaps a change would be good. I have no idea what is the best way to fix this, though.
Slyspy said:
I performed a little experiment which I believe you will find interesting.
I started a game as England on Jan. 30, 1454, did nothing , saved it and exited. Next, I restarted the game but played as Ming, so the AI could play England. I saved it on the first of every month. I then went back and loaded each month and selected England instead of Ming. I figured this way I could trace the AI spending.
1/30/1454 177 Treasury
2/01/1454 169 Treasury - sent out a merchant
3/01/1454 51 Treasury - built 2 carracks
4/01/1454 12 Treasury - built some cavalry
5/01/1454 9 Treasury - no activity - monthly maintenance is 3
- TREASURY SLIDER at 1.3 - the AI IS MINTING!
6/01/1454 8 Treasury - slider at 2.2
7/01/1454 7 Treasury - slider at 2.3
8/01/1454 1 Treasury - I think he hired an advisor - slider at 2.2
9/01/1454 2 Treasury - slider at 2.2
I skipped some months here as a pattern was clearly emerging....
12/31/1454 2 Treasury - slider at 0 - the AI is smart enough to know that the Yearly Income will cover maintenance and so he no longer needs to mint.
1/01/1455 103 Treasury - here I actually did something and spent all but 2 ducats from the Treasury.
2/01/1455 0.2 Treasury - slider set at 2.2 - the AI knows it is approaching zero balance and starts minting.
(skip a few more months)
11/03/1455 3 Treasury - slider at 3.2 - Inflation = .1
I guess since they were minting a relatively low amount, it took some time to get to .1 inflation. I'm going to try on a smaller income country.
(Lithuania has 0.5 at this time. Transylvania has 0.4)
I do think this information should basically kill the arguments that the AI is freeminting and that the AI needs freeminting.
If freeminting is in the game intentionally, is it there only to assist the human player?
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Guston said:
The amounts are so small in the beginning that it takes several months to even register as 00.1% inflation.
Yes but after a hundred years only a handful of countries even have inflation of 5%. Most seem to keep it at 0. That simply cant be if its minting.
Guston said:
If it takes 2 years to get .1, it takes a 100 years to get to 5. In my current game, after about 100 years, some countries have 12%....
They can keep it at zero by always paying expenses out of yearly income.
Is it possible to mod this? If it were one could try and see what effects it had on the ai.
vercetti said:
I disagree. From the first paragraph of the manual, I know that the designer is not attempting to create a WWII tank battle game. From the obvious and general to the less-obvious and more specific, the transformation of the implementation into human language does reveal the design. Not necessisarily all the subtleties, but you can get a pretty good general picture. Which do you think is more prone to error - the implementation of the design into computer code or the translation of the implementation of the design into human language.
Why then has this part of the game engine never been acknowledged by Paradox?
The reward for having no cash is increased vulnerability? This is like catch-22. How can increased vulnerability be considered a reward? (Captain to bloodied gladiator "You just killed a lion in the arena. Good work. Next time, we'll let you fight two")
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Well, I guess that's that.
As it happens NA97 I have just been carrying out similar tests to the ones you carried out. You know you don't have to start up a game as one country in order to load up as that country later (like in EU2). You can always load up as any other country you want. So it is easy to find out what all the AI countries are doing from any save games.
From my tests the formula which the AI follows is clear. It will never freemint, because it will always pay military maintenance by minting (assuming it can mint enough). Take a look at your saves and you will probably find the same. This means the AI has been programmed to balance its budget and avoid freeminting, as though the opportunity to freemint did not exist. This is not surprising, seeing as we now know that it is nothing more than a plain and simple bug.
So along with all its other drawbacks, the major effect of freeminting in the game is to unbalance the game massively in favour of the human player and disadvantage the AI. Thank goodness this horrendous bug is now going to be fixed.
As it happens NA97 I have just been carrying out similar tests to the ones you carried out. You know you don't have to start up a game as one country in order to load up as that country later (like in EU2). You can always load up as any other country you want. So it is easy to find out what all the AI countries are doing from any save games.
From my tests the formula which the AI follows is clear. It will never freemint, because it will always pay military maintenance by minting (assuming it can mint enough). Take a look at your saves and you will probably find the same. This means the AI has been programmed to balance its budget and avoid freeminting, as though the opportunity to freemint did not exist. This is not surprising, seeing as we now know that it is nothing more than a plain and simple bug.
So along with all its other drawbacks, the major effect of freeminting in the game is to unbalance the game massively in favour of the human player and disadvantage the AI. Thank goodness this horrendous bug is now going to be fixed.
1) you are missing the point, that a transformation is prone to error because it is done by different people than the implementation.
2) different devs, different opinions. some seem to think "good enough", some seem to think "should be changed". i would still dare say they knew exactly this feature was there i mean c'mon, if i as a player can find a feature within the first week of playing, how is the testing team not gonna find it within 6 years of developing?
3) the choice is "maximum growth & risk" or "suboptimal growth & safety"
2) different devs, different opinions. some seem to think "good enough", some seem to think "should be changed". i would still dare say they knew exactly this feature was there
i mean c'mon, if i as a player can find a feature within the first week of playing, how is the testing team not gonna find it within 6 years of developing?3) the choice is "maximum growth & risk" or "suboptimal growth & safety"
NA97 said:
morse said:...the major effect of freeminting in the game is to unbalance the game massively in favour of the human player and disadvantage the AI. Thank goodness this horrendous bug is now going to be fixed.
How come? Player who does freeminting cripples his tech research. So it's not like clean advantage over AI - AI will have land tech at 10 while player struggles to get it to 3... Feels fair.
vercetti said:1) you are missing the point, that a transformation is prone to error because it is done by different people than the implementation.
2) different devs, different opinions. some seem to think "good enough", some seem to think "should be changed". i would still dare say they knew exactly this feature was there
3) the choice is "maximum growth & risk" or "suboptimal growth & safety"
I believe you are missing the point. I've already agreed that the manual can and does have errors and omissions. But, you can still get a good idea of the way the game was designed from reading it.
I don't doubt that it was known. I don't doubt that the development team and testers are aware of many bugs that are unknown to me. These "known bugs" are somewhere on their "need to fix" list. My point being, if it were really a feature and not a bug, they had plenty of opportunity to acknowledge it.
In your opinion, anything other than "maximum" growth is "suboptimal". Some people may feel that steady, sustainable growth is optimal.
lucistnik said:
The AI must also "cripple" its tech research by to pay monthly expenses. Only the AI is minting, not freeminting. Net result is the same research rate, only the AI is incurring inflation and the player is not.
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From the looks of it the AI doesn't get any advantage of additional research compared to the freeminting human player, because it has been programmed to cover its military maintenance with (normal) minting. In this situation freeminting is a win-win situation. The freeminting player would have the same level of tech research as the AI but wouldn't suffer any inflation.
Even if the freeminted cash is subtracted from research, the net result is also favourable for freeminting. The point is that the benefits of extra cash today greatly outweigh the lost research benefits. Research investments have very low returns while extra cash can be put to immediate and effective use. This is also the empirical experience, in the sense that freeminting players have a very much easier game.
No doubt the law of diminishing returns comes in here. There is a massive amount of income going into research compared to the cash you have in hand. So boosting the latter at the expense of the former is what we would all typically want to do if we could.
[Beat me to it NA97!
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