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Ober

Sir Anjin
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Sep 15, 2009
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Since PV development is slowly progressing, we are brainstorming all aspects of FtG almost every day. I mean, I force them poor Basi and Therion to talk about FtG with me. Come to think of it, I feel moderately guilty for that.

Just a bit.

Anyway, we were talking about lots of game aspects - what could be changed to give it more historical feel and also remove some major exploits and flaws? It went down to good old randomevents. We did some talking and result could be only one.

Random events are immensely broken. And it's not even about vanilla ones only. All of them!

So, let me address all the issues we noticed:

*Absolutely Zero Triggers = Absolutely Zero Logic.

Let me show you an example from my latest game as Uzbeks->Bukhara. So, I am running my Khanate (Emirate later on) as a state of eternal freedom - being full free trade and free subjects power, with minimal aristocracy, innovative one, you could say that Bukhara was a liberal heaven. Second richest state in the universe, certainly not ideal - but you can guess locals there were never richer tham during Golden Bukhara Age.

Yeah, so what?

Unhappiness Among Peasantry.

Heretics.

Unprovoked Revolt.

Really?

If you would be to check AGCEEP randoms file, you would notice that almost none of them has any useful trigger! So yeah, it doesn't matter what kind of state your state is, you are going to get punished anyway. And you gotta work with these nuisances, you will succeed of course but hey, is it worth it? Does it makes any sense?

Now, some might say "Dude, yo' rantin' coz' yo' had back luck dude". Oh hell naw, because it works in both directions. You get silly and illogical nerfs and buffs, maybe even more buffs!

Same game, during times much worse than Bukhara Freedom, when I was just still a poor Uzbek khan and barely took Kyzył-Kum, afraid of Shah Rukh Khan and his Timurid madmen, barely dreaming about Bukhara and Samarqand. It was not even a state, just a horde of poor Uzbeks!

Anyway, as you can guess, there ain't no rules, so apparently Uzbeks can get events like Deflation (!) or Creation of Bank (!!!). Yeah, and what would they do with these, exchange sheeps?

Uzbek Sheep Bank might sound funny, other case is that thanks to those buffs I was able to easily spam five refineries once Samarqand and Timurids had fallen. God Bless random deflation during minting ages!

Random Deflations actually helped me in turning dirt poor Turkestan into industrial powerhouse. Of course my country was doing good, so you could expect it to fight inflation effectively, but I could play mega dirt poor Tonga and get those as well! All these events have no proper triggers. Usually it makes them completely and utterly pointless. Horde bank? Peasants revolting in free state? Heretics in secular state? Hell yes, why not!

Unprovoked revolt is tip of the iceberg, a legendary event. One that should instantly be removed and never allowed to come back.

Solution you ask? Simply add goddamned triggers! At the end of post I'll add my "project" of Army Reformation random, you'll see what me talking about.

*Making DP planning useless.

So, that's quite old game, one I am really proud about. Georgia on MyMap, gathering money for four refineries since a century, then I made them and prayed that Ottomans won't come and burn them down. Well, I was lucky enough and steamrolled everyone later.

But that's not the point.

If you ever played Georgia, you know that it splits into Kartli(?) and Imereti in 147x. And what you need to prevent event from firing is either 8 centralization or aristocracy. I can't tell right now. Simply moving DP onwards won't work - you won't make it on time. You would need one or two more slider changes.

But hey, we have random events, don't we?

So, they made that epic struggle to avoid that event...too easy. Randoms have waaay to big impact on DP. With a few Treacherous Noble you can literally swing from aristocracy to plutocracy at glorious pace. It's too easy to manipulate your DP with just random events.

For example trade DP management turns out to be useless. With Unhappiness among merchants event, you can either squeeze quite a lot of money at first, when you don't trade, and then swing it back to max free trade with unhappiness's aid. Of course you'll have to move it on your own a few times, but randoms are helping immensely in this case.

Helping = breaking immersion. That's something Therion noticed: it is way to easy to change nation's image. They are losing their unique feel.

Solution? Simply drastically reduce changes of DP in randoms.

Domestic Policy is something you take care about. Random events are effects of your policies.

*Changes and ideas to make random events work

Here, take a look at my example of Army Reformation and then go down the path, everything will be clear:

Code:
event = {
	id = 90000013 #Paradox 1017
	trigger = {
		NOT = { owned = { province = 1614 data = -1 } } #not for the Pope (MUS)
		NOT = { countrysize = 4 }
		NOT = { land = 60 }
		OR = {
			AND = {
				domestic = { type = LAND value = 7 } # Land army focus
				domestic = { type = INNOVATIVE value = 4 } # Innovativeness
				random = 40
			}
			AND = {
				domestic = { type = LAND value = 7 } # Land army focus
				domestic = { type = INNOVATIVE value = 5 } # Innovativeness
				random = 50
			}			
			AND = {
				domestic = { type = LAND value = 7 } # Land army focus
				domestic = { type = INNOVATIVE value = 6 } # Innovativeness
				random = 60
			}		
			AND = {
				domestic = { type = LAND value = 7 } # Land army focus
				domestic = { type = INNOVATIVE value = 7 } # Innovativeness
				random = 70
			}				
				AND = {
				domestic = { type = LAND value = 7 } # Land army focus
				domestic = { type = INNOVATIVE value = 8 } # Innovativeness
				random = 80
			}			
			AND = {
				domestic = { type = LAND value = 7 } # Land army focus
				domestic = { type = INNOVATIVE value = 9 } # Innovativeness
				random = 90
			}	
			AND = {
				domestic = { type = LAND value = 8 } # Land army focus
				domestic = { type = INNOVATIVE value = 9 } # Innovativeness
				random = 100
			}	
			}
			}

			
	random = yes
	name = "EVENTNAME_RANDOM013" #Reformation of the Army
	desc = "EVENTHIST_RANDOM013"
	#-#Army reformation be it from new tactics weapons or command or any other reason often translated into better combat efficiency.

	action_a = {
		name = "Adopt reforms"
		command = { type = treasury value = -25 } # 1$/10 research $
		command = { type = land value = 250 }
		command = { type = vp value = 25 }
		command = { type = MIL which = 36 value = 1 }
	}
	action_b = {
		name = "We cannot afford it"
		command = { type = land value = -50 } 
		command = { type = vp value = -5 }
		command = { type = MIL which = 36 value = -1 }
	}	
}


1.) First of all, triggers have to be revamped. It should not mean that fully free subject state should be immune to any rebellions - random chance should be affected by your DP. Can you see trigger section in event above? That's what I spotted in Third Angel's thread about commands. Can anyone elaborate on that one, I mean does anyone tried it as for now? I believe it should work now, thou we'd need most of events changed to see the difference.

If I understood it right, random reformations should fire depending on your LAND and INNOVATIVE settings. If reqs and frequency of random events like that will be changed that much, maybe we can increase bonuses, to keep random events useful.

2.) No more only good or only bad stuff. Wanna reform army? Pay for it. Wanna support deflation efforts? Be ready to take a stabhit and lose some money since deflation makes them worthless. Trade-offs are needed, so you can support a good events and get some buffs, but also prevent nerfs, if you are able to do so. Corruption is a good example of that when it comes to existing events, thou it needs more triggers.

3.) Random groups, somehow tied to #2. In general, as for now, there should be:
*Generic random events - things you cannot and you should not be able to affect. So bad stuff like plagues or bad harvests (since your DP can't change weather in your area), but also random goodies like bountiful catch from WATKABAOI or additional yield from mines. Even a blind, old miner in dirt poor mine somewhere in Polynesia can find a new yield of gold by accident, right? ;) Random things you or your government cannot affect.

*DP random events - well, rest of randoms should go there, as they would be heavily dependent on DP now. So, peasant revolts could be viable event for almost every DP setting. The problem is, for free subjects state there will be 10% chance, whilist oppressive and reactionary empires will have 100% chance for that. Then it adds another factor to DPs - randoms you will get. Of course, every DP should have both good and bad ones, to balance it out. It might be great way to make otherwise useless sliders like Mercantilism or Decentralization work. As for merc, events giving some money as form of "tarrifs" could work, but by going this way you'd effectively close your way to international trade (since mercantilism gives not much merchants). And decentralization could be nice for a large empires, since locals would have more autonomy.

No-brainer DPs could be challenged this way. Going full centralization could effect in more revolts and dissent against central authority. Going full free trade could somehow affect your internal economy, since nothing is that certain in free trade. It's risky.

*Specific random events - here is where things get complicated and that's probably a later stage of random events revolution. But it makes no sense for Switzerland to get events about mad aristocracy right? Objective is: to invent groups for random events, based on either territorial or political connection, to eliminate weird stuff like mentioned nobility in republics or banks in hordes.

I have no idea how to ideally split world into groups, it would require discussion and also ideas for new randomevents. But we could have a specific groups of events, for example for HRE states, or Republics, or specific countries (Japan, China, Ottomans), depending on what we need. But diving into it might consume sooo much time it's not needed for now. Making existing randoms logical is where it's at.

So, that's where it's at. If you have any ideas for changing AGCEEP randoms, or any specific ones, or if you have any experience with that trigger (which is key to whole game, really), give some feedback. I presume that converting existing randoms should not be hard, it's mostly adding triggers and more options.

This and expanding randoms via generic and DP random events would be a priority. My knowledge is limited since I am not reading any books, so you could give some examples for randoms which could occur in typical (insert DP name) state. I can think of a few (tarrifs), but that's not enough. Much more ideas would be needed.

Okay, go post stuff now! Quick!
 
I'd really like to reply to this, but I find myself completely lacking in energy, and I can only say a few things.

1) I was sure I read somewhere the Unhappiness event had a trigger depending on the Free subjects slider, but you're right. That absolutely needs to be changed.

2)As for the DP changes, the problem I see is that the AI only gets them through events. Of course this can be changed adding a ai = not trigger and duplicating the event or doubling the actions with that same trigger in them.
M other concern is that they are the only way of achieving fast chances. Sometimes it will be bad, but (especially in the later years) often the contrary is true.

I'll say something more later on.
 
...
Same game, during times much worse than Bukhara Freedom, when I was just still a poor Uzbek khan and barely took Kyzył-Kum, afraid of Shah Rukh Khan and his Timurid madmen, barely dreaming about Bukhara and Samarqand. It was not even a state, just a horde of poor Uzbeks!

Anyway, as you can guess, there ain't no rules, so apparently Uzbeks can get events like Deflation (!) or Creation of Bank (!!!). Yeah, and what would they do with these, exchange sheeps?

The "Creation of Bank" random events do have triggers. For the Uzbeks to get them the year has to be 1650 or later, they have to be somewhat centralized and have researched infrastructure 7 - if they did that why shouldn´t they be able to found a bank? Only pagans are completely excluded from that event.

Random Deflations actually helped me in turning dirt poor Turkestan into industrial powerhouse. Of course my country was doing good, so you could expect it to fight inflation effectively, but I could play mega dirt poor Tonga and get those as well! All these events have no proper triggers. Usually it makes them completely and utterly pointless. Horde bank? Peasants revolting in free state? Heretics in secular state? Hell yes, why not!

Heretics should revolt *especially* in a secular state. After all religious fanatics do want a state with *their* state religion and not a state in which all religions share equal rights.
However with the possible exception of the USA there is no secular state in the game at all during the timeline. Some might have more religious tolerance than others but no other state could be considered secular.

Unprovoked revolt is tip of the iceberg, a legendary event. One that should instantly be removed and never allowed to come back.

Why? During the time there were a *lot* of revolts. Some of the larger ones have their own historical events in AGCEEP but for those smaller revolts or rebellions a random event is the way to show that those were not completely peaceful times. Having full free people should not be confused with everyone being happy and being allowed to do everything they please - most free states before 1820 had less rights for it´s people than nowadays democracies.

...
But that's not the point.
If you ever played Georgia, you know that it splits into Kartli(?) and Imereti in 147x. And what you need to prevent event from firing is either 8 centralization or aristocracy. I can't tell right now. Simply moving DP onwards won't work - you won't make it on time. You would need one or two more slider changes.

Well that´s as it should be. Historically Georgia did split up and AGCEEP wants to have that split happen in most games as it encourages historical outcomes.

But hey, we have random events, don't we?
So, they made that epic struggle to avoid that event...too easy. Randoms have waaay to big impact on DP. With a few Treacherous Noble you can literally swing from aristocracy to plutocracy at glorious pace. It's too easy to manipulate your DP with just random events.

You can´t manipulate anything with random events because - they´re random. And you have only 1 every year.
Oh you can *hope* to get the right random event that you could need - but you can´t manipulate playing the game, you could only trigger the wanted random event manually to force a desired result.
 
The "Creation of Bank" random events do have triggers.

Then why did it fired for me as Uzbeks in 143x last time? Ah, I see. Because continent = asia makes it viable for all Asian countries. And it should be for China only, or few specific countries right?

Someone failed with trigger right? And thread is also about fixing triggers right?

Some might have more religious tolerance than others but no other state could be considered secular.

Okay, but it doesn't mean that every single person who didn't follow state religion was zealot who wanted to overthrow state, right? There were a multi-religious states, usually temporarily successful but still, right? Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Mughals during one of their rulers? Napoleonic France maybe? Some more I don't know because I don't know history that much?

Why? During the time there were a *lot* of revolts.

But all of them had an actual...reason. Yeah, reason. Something that provoked a revolt. And there are a lot of events for provoked revolts already. So we can add even more for provoked revolt.

Would you go outside and smash a policeman because you just feel like so?

Having full free people should not be confused with everyone being happy and being allowed to do everything they please - most free states before 1820 had less rights for it´s people than nowadays democracies.

Indeed, but would folks in Western Europe or any other place where serfdom wasn't massive and tax heavily restricted revolt, or even be discontent at least as much as ones in Russia or Poland were?

Historically Georgia did split up and AGCEEP wants to have that split happen in most games as it encourages historical outcomes.

Exactly. Problem is, random events helped me avoid it without any kind of challenge. No split. Avoided it. Easily.

Oh you can *hope* to get the right random event that you could need - but you can´t manipulate playing the game, you could only trigger the wanted random event manually to force a desired result.

Of course I can, because impact of random events is too big. I'm never afraid of minting for 1 or 2 percents of inflation to repay loans early game, being sure that deflation will come eventually, be it 5, 10 or 50 years, but it will come in most cases. And guess what, it does.

***

Look Conjurer, I saw a lot of your posts in other threads, and I'll go straight for that - if you are opposed to any major changes to the game, then don't even bother replying to threads with some ideas to overhaul gameplay, would ya? It's annoying at this point. You don't like changes, we know, we saw it enough times already. Good, you've made your point. I was 150% sure you'd outright deny this thread too. No surprise.

It's not funny nor it does not make you look cool. And no one's going to be bothered with that. We want to change the game. We want to make it interesting again. And I'm not going to bother with replying to you again.

Just to let you know.

***

Guess we gotta gather a list of all AGCEEP randoms and decide upon changes. Sort all of them into groups, add some new ones, and make it work properly. Should not be terribly hard, it's just tedious.
 
Then why did it fired for me as Uzbeks in 143x last time? Ah, I see. Because continent = asia makes it viable for all Asian countries. And it should be for China only, or few specific countries right?

There are bank events only for asian countries and bank events for non-asian countries.

Okay, but it doesn't mean that every single person who didn't follow state religion was zealot who wanted to overthrow state, right? There were a multi-religious states, usually temporarily successful but still, right? Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Mughals during one of their rulers? Napoleonic France maybe? Some more I don't know because I don't know history that much?

None of those states actually had religious freedom for all groups. Napoleonic France harshly suppressed catholics for a while and had it´s share of internal unrest too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_France#Intrigues_and_unrest
Poland-Lithuania lost the Ukraine in part because of religious unrest from orthodox people against the mainly catholic rule.

The game is limited in that only 1 religion is displayed in every province. In real life however most states have a mixed population, e.g. 45% protestant and 55 catholic or such. So if you have all provinces with your state religion does not mean that there are no people in your realm that would cause a revolt

But all of them had an actual...reason. Yeah, reason. Something that provoked a revolt. And there are a lot of events for provoked revolts already. So we can add even more for provoked revolt.

Would you go outside and smash a policeman because you just feel like so?

Luckily we´re not living in the time from 1419 to 1819 so I don´t have to. However back then taking the right into your own hands was sometimes the only thing that worked. And "unprovoked" does not mean that the revolt has no reason whatsoever - only that it has no reason that you can see or influence in the game. It could be a revolt against raising taxes on beer or similar small issues.

Indeed, but would folks in Western Europe or any other place where serfdom wasn't massive and tax heavily restricted revolt, or even be discontent at least as much as ones in Russia or Poland were?

Sure. It´s a question of where and when. The "Bundschuh" revolts in german lands were similar lead by oppressed peasants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundschuh

Exactly. Problem is, random events helped me avoid it without any kind of challenge. No split. Avoided it. Easily.

No. lucky. If you start the game again and get different random events you might not be able to avoid the split of Georgia. There´s no planning that or reliably taking advantage of it because the events are random.

Of course I can, because impact of random events is too big. I'm never afraid of minting for 1 or 2 percents of inflation to repay loans early game, being sure that deflation will come eventually, be it 5, 10 or 50 years, but it will come in most cases. And guess what, it does.

The chance to get a specific random event is low - but in 400 years of gaming and 400 random events it´s quite good and there´s nothing wrong to have inflation reduced by -2% once or twice in a game.

Look Conjurer, I saw a lot of your posts in other threads, and I'll go straight for that - if you are opposed to any major changes to the game, then don't even bother replying to threads with some ideas to overhaul gameplay, would ya? It's annoying at this point. You don't like changes, we know, we saw it enough times already. Good, you've made your point. I was 150% sure you'd outright deny this thread too. No surprise.

I don´t have anything against changes to AGCEEP. I *do* have something against changes for no good reason, that unbalance the game or that lead to ahistoric results, or changes that are rushed in without first being thoroughly discussed and fine-tuned.

It's not funny nor it does not make you look cool.

Well I´m neither a comedian nor do I want to look cool.

And no one's going to be bothered with that. We want to change the game. We want to make it interesting again. And I'm not going to bother with replying to you again.

Just to let you know.

If you can´t have even a single person give it´s opinion or constructive critique on your idea then your idea of discussing seems to divert from mine ^^
 
Random events are immensely broken. And it's not even about vanilla ones only. All of them!

So, let me address all the issues we noticed:

*Absolutely Zero Triggers = Absolutely Zero Logic.
I wholeheartedly agree with you there. Some years ago when I began working on my own version of Watkabaoi, I was also annoyed by the random events and decided to do better. However, back then I did little more than add a few triggers to prohibit the really stupid things that can happen. Because of your post I decided to have another go at this, and I immediately ran into an (apparently well-known) issue that I reported and that more or less prevents me from doing interesting stuff with random events. I suggested a solution for this issue, namely a "validcommand" trigger that checks whether a command can be executed, and I created a prototype for a christian religious turmoil event under the assumption that this trigger will be implemented:
Code:
event = {
	id = 94002
	trigger = {
		flag = 3
		NOT = { flag = 5 }
		continent = Europe
		countrysize = 3
		validcommand = { type = religiousrevolt which = random_not_capital where = Europe }
		OR = {
			religion = catholic
			religion = avignon_catholic
			religion = counterreform
			religion = lutheran
			religion = anglican
			religion = puritan
			religion = calvinist
			religion = zwinglian
			religion = huguenot
			religion = presbyterian
			religion = hussite
		}
		NOT = {
			AND = {
				stability = 3
				NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
				atwar = no
				OR = {
					domestic = { type = innovative value = 6 }
					NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 5 } }
					AND = {
						domestic = { type = innovative value = 5 }
						NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 6 } }
					}
				}
			}
			AND = {
				OR = {
					AND = {
						stability = 3
						OR = {
							atwar = no
							NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
						}
					}
					AND = {
						stability = 2
						atwar = no
						NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
					}
				}
				OR = {
					domestic = { type = innovative value = 7 }
					NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 4 } }
					AND = {
						domestic = { type = innovative value = 6 }
						NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 5 } }
					}
				}
			}
			AND = {
				OR = {
					stability = 3
					AND = {
						stability = 2
						OR = {
							atwar = no
							NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
						}
					}
					AND = {
						stability = 1
						atwar = no
						NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
					}
				}
				OR = {
					domestic = { type = innovative value = 8 }
					NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 3 } }
					AND = {
						domestic = { type = innovative value = 7 }
						NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 4 } }
					}
				}
			}
			AND = {
				OR = {
					stability = 2
					AND = {
						stability = 1
						OR = {
							atwar = no
							NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
						}
					}
					AND = {
						stability = 0
						atwar = no
						NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
					}
				}
				OR = {
					domestic = { type = innovative value = 9 }
					NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 2 } }
					AND = {
						domestic = { type = innovative value = 8 }
						NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 3 } }
					}
				}
			}
			AND = {
				OR = {
					stability = 1
					AND = {
						stability = 0
						OR = {
							atwar = no
							NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
						}
					}
					AND = {
						stability = -1
						atwar = no
						NOT = { flag = heretics_autonomy }
					}
				}
				OR = {
					domestic = { type = innovative value = 10 }
					NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 1 } }
					AND = {
						domestic = { type = innovative value = 9 }
						NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 2 } }
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
	random = yes
	name = "EVENTNAME3"
	desc = "EVENTHIST3"
	style = 0

	action = {
		name = "Put down the rebellion"
		trigger = {
			OR = {
				ai = no
				domestic = { type = centralization value = 5 }
				AND = {
					flag = heretics_autonomy
					atwar = no
				}
			}
		}
		command = {
			trigger = { NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 2 } } }
			type = stability value = -2
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				domestic = { type = centralization value = 2 }
				NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 5 } }
			}
			type = stability value = -1
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 5 } }
			}
			type = domestic which = centralization value = 1
		}
		command = { type = religiousrevolt which = random_not_capital where = Europe }
		command = { type = populationpercent which = last_random value = -5 }
		command = { type = setflag which = heretics_suppression }
		command = { type = clrflag which = heretics_autonomy }
		command = { type = clrflag which = heretics_persecution }
	}
	action = {
		name = "Grant limited autonomy"
		command = {
			trigger = {
				domestic = { type = centralization value = 6 }
				NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 9 } }
			}
			type = stability value = -1
		}
		command = {
			trigger = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 9 } }
			type = stability value = -2
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				domestic = { type = centralization value = 2 }
				NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 6 } }
			}
			type = domestic which = centralization value = -1
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				domestic = { type = centralization value = 6 }
				NOT = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 9 } }
			}
			type = domestic which = centralization value = -2
		}
		command = {
			trigger = { domestic = { type = centralization value = 9 } }
			type = domestic which = centralization value = -3
		}
		command = { type = losebuilding which = last_random value = bailiff }
		command = { type = revoltrisk which = 1 value = 60 }
		command = { type = clrflag which = heretics_suppression }
		command = { type = setflag which = heretics_autonomy }
		command = { type = clrflag which = heretics_persecution }
	}
	action = {
		name = "Crush the heretics"
		trigger = {
			OR = {
				ai = no
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 6 } }
			}
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				domestic = { type = innovative value = 6 }
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 9 } }
			}
			type = stability value = -1
		}
		command = {
			trigger = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 9 } }
			type = stability value = -2
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 }
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 6 } }
			}
			type = domestic which = innovative value = -1
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				domestic = { type = innovative value = 6 }
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 9 } }
			}
			type = domestic which = innovative value = -2
		}
		command = {
			trigger = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 9 } }
			type = domestic which = innovative value = -3
		}
		command = { type = religiousrevolt which = last_random }
		command = { trigger = { random = 75 } type = religiousrevolt which = last_random }
		command = { trigger = { random = 50 } type = religiousrevolt which = last_random }
		command = { trigger = { random = 20 } type = religiousrevolt which = last_random }
		command = { trigger = { random = 5 } type = religiousrevolt which = last_random }
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 } }
			}
			type = losebuilding which = last_random value = courthouse
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 } }
			}
			type = losebuilding which = last_random value = cityrights
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 } }
			}
			type = losemanufactory which = last_random
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 } }
			}
			type = provincetax which = last_random value = -1
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 } }
			}
			type = populationpercent which = last_random value = -25
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 } }
			}
			type = conversion which = last_random
		}
		command = {
			trigger = {
				NOT = { domestic = { type = innovative value = 2 } }
			}
			type = missionaries which = -1
		}
		command = { type = clrflag which = heretics_suppression }
		command = { type = clrflag which = heretics_autonomy }
		command = { type = setflag which = heretics_persecution }
	}
}
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this style of random events. Do you see any issues with it or anything that could be significantly improved?
 
I wholeheartedly agree with you there. Some years ago when I began working on my own version of Watkabaoi, I was also annoyed by the random events and decided to do better. However, back then I did little more than add a few triggers to prohibit the really stupid things that can happen. Because of your post I decided to have another go at this, and I immediately ran into an (apparently well-known) issue that I reported and that more or less prevents me from doing interesting stuff with random events. I suggested a solution for this issue, namely a "validcommand" trigger that checks whether a command can be executed, and I created a prototype for a christian religious turmoil event under the assumption that this trigger will be implemented:
Code:
event = {
	id = 94002
	trigger = {
		flag = 3
		NOT = { flag = 5 }
		continent = Europe
		countrysize = 3
		validcommand = { type = religiousrevolt which = random_not_capital where = Europe }
		OR = {
			religion = catholic
			religion = avignon_catholic
			religion = counterreform
			religion = lutheran
			religion = anglican
			religion = puritan
			religion = calvinist
			religion = zwinglian
			religion = huguenot
			religion = presbyterian
			religion = hussite
		}

[/quote]

Isn´t it possible to simply use "christian" as trigger instead of listing all existing christian subgroups? Or do you exclude the orthodox intentionally? 
And why would the religious revolts for european states be limited to christian states? Couldn´t shiites or christians start a religious revolt e.g. in the Osmanic Empire whose capital is in Europe too?

[quote]
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this style of random events. Do you see any issues with it or anything that could be significantly improved?[/QUOTE]

As far as I know the "religiousrevolt" command only works if the state that has the event actually owns provinces that have a provincereligion different from the state religion. What happens to the "same random province" commands if there is no religiousrevolt due to a lack of provinces with a different faith? Or is then the whole random event ignored and another chosen?
 
Isn´t it possible to simply use "christian" as trigger instead of listing all existing christian subgroups? Or do you exclude the orthodox intentionally?
And why would the religious revolts for european states be limited to christian states? Couldn´t shiites or christians start a religious revolt e.g. in the Osmanic Empire whose capital is in Europe too?
I'm excluding orthodox religions intentionally, yes. The reason why this event is limited to catholic and reformed religions is not that other religions won't have that kind of events, but that those events will be structured differently. For example, they won't depend on global flags like reformation or the edict of tolerance, and they will have different options how to deal with rebels. Also, they will have different event texts.

As far as I know the "religiousrevolt" command only works if the state that has the event actually owns provinces that have a provincereligion different from the state religion. What happens to the "same random province" commands if there is no religiousrevolt due to a lack of provinces with a different faith? Or is then the whole random event ignored and another chosen?
That's why we need the "validcommand" trigger. Without this trigger, creating complex random events is nearly impossible, not just for religious events.
 
I'm excluding orthodox religions intentionally, yes.

I have no idea if that is possible, but wouldn´t a trigger be possible like:
1) christian
2) NOT = { religion = orthodox }
instead of listing every single christian subgroup except orthodox?
 
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I started working on that crap finally, and have first part - generic randoms - technically ready.

To quote what's written in my file: "Generic randomevents are ones you cannot affect in any way possible - like plagues, fires, bountiful catches, etc. Player has no real influence over them, and only thing he can do is comply with what happened. Well, sometimes life is a bitch and you got to deal with it..."

I have mostly reworked existing randoms and added only one called Exceptional Harvest Year, that is when your farmer people are gathered lots and lots of crops. You can't just be punished over and over again. Which then brings question about bad harvest events. I guess I'll add them later, simply this part isn't most interesting and I wanna try something else first.

Anyway, list so far:

# Plague (94000-94004)
# Devastating Fire (94005)
# Exceptional Fishing Season (94006-94010)
# Exceptional Harvest Season (94011-94015)
# New Vein Found (94016)
# Mine is Drying Out (94017)
# Decline of Gold Mining Industry (94018)

What else could be added there? Remember, it's about random events that cannot be affected by player (although harvest and fishing seasons require you to not be at war), so yeah, more like they can't be affected by DP. Maybe I'm just not creative enough in this case.

But I have lots of ideas for advisor events. Advisor events? No more bland Excellent Ministers or some crap guys...I was talking with Basi about that, and all existing advisor events will be removed and rewritten to new Random Advisor events. I don't want to make too much of them, just a few that could have impact on game.

Yeah, this system is loosely based on EU3. Anyway, examples:

*Quartermaster: manpower bonuses
*Drill Instructor: offensive military reforms
*Italian Engineer: defensive military reforms

And rest is distinctive enough you need no explanations. Each will have up to 3 options you can pay for to get something,

*Inquisitor (which means random conversion of heretics and conversions by sword will get removed for now)
*Spymaster
*Treasurer
*Diplomat
*Trader (no idea for name)
*Administrator/Bureaucrat
*Colonial Enterpreuner (no idea for name)
*Artist (various versions depending on name)
*Scientist (various physicians, mathematicians, etc.)

Anyone else? I guess that's enough. Download for Random Generic file is below - only for looking now! Not usable in game yet, it requires all random events to be changed. I'm making it for A4K for now, hence the name. But it should be usable in any mod really ;)

View attachment A4K_Random_Generic.rar
 
About formatting of the events:
Considering that usually actions in events have the most likely action listed first (historical choice in options 100%, normal around 95%) wouldn´t it make sense to sort actions of events in the order of their chance to happen? e.g. in your exceptional harvest events you have the 10% AI chance actions listed first and the 40% chance actions later?

Event 94004: I like that a plague can reduce manpower in the manpowerpool in addition to the populationloss in the province in the vanilla event. However reducing provincial manpower in the event for countries above 80 provinces is a change to the other plague events I don´t understand. Reducing Provincial manpower is far more punishing because population or manpower in the manpowerpool grows back - provincial manpower does not. Reducing the population in a province usually already reduces the available manpower there.

Stability at +3 already gives a +20% tax bonus.
Having the vanilla "Gift to the state" grant +50 gold is fine for a small state, but having an "Exceptional Harvest" event as a minor country (<4 provinces) in which one action is to gain 100 trade + 50 gold = 250 gold when considering that you can always buy technology at a 2:1 rate seems a bit inflationary.
There isn´t even a check that the province for which the event triggers and raises taxes or manpower in the other action is actually controlled by the state and not in the hands of rebels or still looted from the last war.

Harvest season always put great strains on manpower. Historically levies had to be released for work on the fields. Having an extraordinary bountiful harvest shouldn´t have an action in which the harvest allows to have more manpower and soldiers available immediately. A player can always recruit soldiers with money from events - and then suffer possibly consequences in war exhaustion from recruiting.

Why does giving the exceptional harvest to the nobles increase aristorcracy but NOT giving it to them not lower it? Or asked the other way: If the actions to not give it to the nobles do not lower aristrocracy then why does the action to give it to them increase it?

Perhaps I´m a little mischievous but I would like to have "exceptional harvest" with the limit to only get the full reward in gold if you *spend* manpower to be able to harvest the additional crops ^^

You could rename action b in the Devastating fire event. Currently both a and b are rebuild the city - perhaps b could be Debase the coin to pay for the building? as an explanation why inflation would rise.

Why does the exceptional harvest event requires you to be at peace and have +3 stability but the exceptional fishing season does not? Being at war could well be something like one of the english-dutch seawars which would disturb fishing fleets just like marauding armies would disturb harvest on land.
Would a Land 10 state with no fleet have the same chance to get an exceptional fishing season?

Typo in event 94009 "nnum" instead of num.

As mines don´t grow back isn´t reducing a mine by -20 in the decline of the gold industry pretty harsh?
AGCEEP already has a lot of events to raise and lower specific mines for historical reasons but randomly lowering one by -20 is a severe punishment.
 
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Considering that usually actions in events have the most likely action listed first (historical choice in options 100%, normal around 95%) wouldn´t it make sense to sort actions of events in the order of their chance to happen? e.g. in your exceptional harvest events you have the 10% AI chance actions listed first and the 40% chance actions later?

Makes no difference really.

Event 94004: I like that a plague can reduce manpower in the manpowerpool in addition to the populationloss in the province in the vanilla event. However reducing provincial manpower in the event for countries above 80 provinces is a change to the other plague events I don´t understand. Reducing Provincial manpower is far more punishing because population or manpower in the manpowerpool grows back - provincial manpower does not. Reducing the population in a province usually already reduces the available manpower there.

I wasn't bothering with balance that much really yet, hence why I said it's not usable in game yet. Also, that's only part, just a chunk of events - since there'll be also events about adding manpower obviously, so in the end it should kinda even out.

Just checked. It only removes 1 in 2 random provinces and 20 from pool. Just how many manpower can 80 province juggernaut have? Easily 200 or 300 even.

Stability at +3 already gives a +20% tax bonus.

That's not decided yet, as I'm obviously making these events as parts of something bigger. I'm looking to more or less tweak all defines, also make staying at +3 much harder.

Having the vanilla "Gift to the state" grant +50 gold is fine for a small state, but having an "Exceptional Harvest" event as a minor country (<4 provinces) in which one action is to gain 100 trade + 50 gold = 250 gold when considering that you can always buy technology at a 2:1 rate seems a bit inflationary.

Again, little bonuses like that always even themselves out, although harvest event requires some changes indeed. And keep in mind, I want stab +3 to be much harder to get.

There isn´t even a check that the province for which the event triggers and raises taxes or manpower in the other action is actually controlled by the state and not in the hands of rebels or still looted from the last war.

There is. Well, not for provinces, but being at peace should be main requirement.
Code:
(...)
		trigger = { 
			NOT = { countrysize = 4 } 
			atwar = no
			stability = 3
			}
(...)

How do you want to check whether province's looted? Is there a trigger for that? And we can't make everything perfect, there'll always be inconsistencies.

Harvest season always put great strains on manpower. Historically levies had to be released for work on the fields. Having an extraordinary bountiful harvest shouldn´t have an action in which the harvest allows to have more manpower and soldiers available immediately. A player can always recruit soldiers with money from events - and then suffer possibly consequences in war exhaustion from recruiting.

Yeah, I just wanted to pretty much add some sort of bonus to not make it too dull. And for a third time - it won't be 100% perfect and there'll be abstractions. But maybe soldiers are a bit too much. What else could it be then?

Why does giving the exceptional harvest to the nobles increase aristorcracy but NOT giving it to them not lower it? Or asked the other way: If the actions to not give it to the nobles do not lower aristrocracy then why does the action to give it to them increase it?

Because not giving it to them doesn't affect their power in any way, while giving it expands it. Also I want to keep DP changes at minimum. I'm sick of swinging from full X to full Y with three or four randoms.

Perhaps I´m a little mischievous but I would like to have "exceptional harvest" with the limit to only get the full reward in gold if you *spend* manpower to be able to harvest the additional crops ^^

This is actually good idea. I pretty much came up with harvest event on a fly so it's probably a tad unbalanced.

You could rename action b in the Devastating fire event. Currently both a and b are rebuild the city - perhaps b could be Debase the coin to pay for the building? as an explanation why inflation would rise.

Well, because both A and B are doing the same, only difference is whether you pay in money or inflation. And since I had no idea for B, I made it the same. Debase the coin sounds okay.

Why does the exceptional harvest event requires you to be at peace and have +3 stability but the exceptional fishing season does not? Being at war could well be something like one of the english-dutch seawars which would disturb fishing fleets just like marauding armies would disturb harvest on land.

Probably forgotten it, guess both should require +3 and peace.

Would a Land 10 state with no fleet have the same chance to get an exceptional fishing season?

Well, does being a land power stop fishermen from being effective or fishes from filling the ocean? ;) This is generic random event, as it's header says, things player can't really influence.

Fishes are also living in rivers and lakes, and some lakes are huge let me tell you. That's why there's base money gain + 10 gold for every port you have, depending on your size.

Let's not overdo the details. FtG and AGCEEP randoms mostly lack any triggers, now here I don't want to make a set of juggernaut triggers just to make one small event work.

Typo in event 94009 "nnum" instead of num.

Good call.

As mines don´t grow back isn´t reducing a mine by -20 in the decline of the gold industry pretty harsh?

You know what, that's actually AGCEEP event I guess. Or maybe Interregnum? I'm basing on A4K randomevents, Basi mixed everything he could there I guess.

No it's not - sometimes mines are simply drying out and no more gold usually meant catastrophe for locals. Also notice how trigger says year = 1775, it's late-game problem.

AGCEEP already has a lot of events to raise and lower specific mines for historical reasons but randomly lowering one by -20 is a severe punishment

But I'll most likely not use these events, so what? There's gain event that allows you to make decision, small drain event and mining crisis in the late game. That's more than enough.
 
Haha, hey, sup.

Yeah, I got lazy this year. I even started playing EU4! But it's buggy as hell, saves just keep breaking on me, guess I will leave it for now. In meantime I was polishing the randoms I've done and started on advisors. I haven't made a full list yet, but here are three example events:

Code:
event = { 
	id = 94100
	trigger = { }
	random = yes
	name = "Diplomatic Advisor Available"
	desc = "We have an opportunity to hire a noted diplomat at our court and assign him to a certain tasks, sir."
	style = 5

		action = {
			name = "The Ambassador"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }
			command = { type = DIP which = 2 value = 60 }
			command = { type = diplomats value = 3 }
			command = { type = relation which = -1 value = 25 }
			command = { type = relation which = -1 value = 25 }
			command = { type = relation which = -1 value = 25 }
		}
		action = {
			name = "The Diplomat"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }
			command = { type = badboy value = -3 }
			command = { type = relation which = -1 value = 25 }
			command = { type = relation which = -1 value = 25 }
			command = { type = relation which = -1 value = 25 }
		}
		action = {
			name = "No, thanks."
			command = { type = vp value = -1 }
			}
	}

event = { 
	id = 94101
	trigger = { 
		 NOT = { num_of_ports = 0 }
		 atwar = no
		 continent = Europe
		 year = 1492
		 }
	random = yes
	name = "Colonial Advisor Available"
	desc = "We have an opportunity to hire a colonial enterpreuner at our court and assign him to a certain tasks, sir."
	style = 5

		action = {
			trigger = { year = 1550 }
			name = "The Lord Proprietor"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }
			command = { type = ADM which = 1 value = 60 }
			command = { type = population which = -4 value = 200 }
			command = { type = population which = -4 value = 100 }
			command = { trigger = { random = 50 } type = population which = -4 value = 100 }
			command = { trigger = { random = 25 } type = population which = -4 value = 100 }
			command = { trigger = { random = 10 } type = population which = -4 value = 100 }
		}
		action = {
			trigger = { year = 1500 }
			name = "The Colonial Governor"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }
			command = { type = ADM which = 1 value = 60 }
			command = { type = provincetax which = -4 value = 1 }
			command = { type = provincetax which = -4 value = 1 }
			command = { trigger = { random = 50 } type = provincetax which = -4 value = 1 }
			command = { trigger = { random = 25 } type = provincetax which = -4 value = 1 }
			command = { trigger = { random = 10 } type = provincetax which = -4 value = 1 }
		}
		action = {
			name = "The Pioneer"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }		
			command = { type = conquistador which = -1 }
			command = { type = colonists value = 5 }
		} 
		action = {
			name = "The Navigator"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }		
			command = { type = explorer which = -1 }
			command = { type = colonists value = 2 }
		} 		
		action = {
			name = "No, thanks."
			command = { type = vp value = -1 }
			}
	}
	
event = { 
	id = 94102
	trigger = { 
		 }
	random = yes
	name = "State Advisor Available"
	desc = "We have an opportunity to hire an exceptional statesmen at our court and assign him to a certain tasks, sir."
	style = 5

		action = {
			name = "The Artist"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }
			command = { type = stability value = 2 }
			command = { type = ADM which = 1 value = 60 }
			command = { type = domestic which = INNOVATIVE value = 1 }
			command = { type = VP value = 25 }
		}	
		action = {
			name = "The Natural Scientist"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }
			command = { type = ADM which = 2 value = 60 }
			command = { type = INFRA value = 200 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 4 } type = INFRA value = 250 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 9 } type = INFRA value = 250 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 30 } type = INFRA value = 250 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 80 } type = INFRA value = 250 }
			}
		action = {
			name = "The Treasurer"
			command = { type = treasury value = -100 }
			command = { type = ADM which = 2 value = 60 }
			command = { type = TRADE value = 200 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 4 } type = TRADE value = 250 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 9 } type = TRADE value = 250 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 30 } type = TRADE value = 250 }
			command = { trigger = { countrysize = 80 } type = TRADE value = 250 }
			}			
		action = {
			name = "No, thanks."
			command = { type = vp value = -1 }
			}
	}

Names in actions are inspired by EU4 advisors. There are still more events to add (army, navy, buildings), anything else? Province data in colonial event might be changed, I used -4 because it is -4 in some colonial events, but it might need changing. Honestly I don't know.



That would cover the advisor events anyway. We have Generic (random occurences) and Advisor outta way then. What next?

*Society - all the revolts, gifts to states, aristocracy vs burgeois, unhappy traders, etc. Interaction between the ruler (you) and the state.
*Diplomatic - random relation boosts, marriages, CBs, etc.
*Religious - dealing with heretics, Pope, jizya taxes, etc.

These three seem to be most important for me right now. Anything else? There seems to be a lot. After generic ones are done we could get to regional randoms (like HRE randoms for example).
 
In the 1.3 beta it´s possible to check the number of diplomats. Having an event that grants +3 diplomats when you already have the maximum of e.g. 6 for vanilla would be useless.

diplomats = x
Is true if the country has x diplomats or more.

So for a game in which the maximum number of diplomats is 6 and your event would add +3 I would suggest to use a trigger like
NOT = { diplomats = 3 }
so that the action actually has it´s full bonus.

About the num_of_ports trigger: Does = 0 mean that the country has 0 ports or that is has 0 or more like in the "diplomats" trigger? Because if it´s the latter then a num_of_ports = 1 instead of NOT nop= 0 would make sense.

With stability costs in the thousands for large empires +2 stability for 100 gold is a bargain in the last event. It should be more expensive for larger states.

Does the trigger for the "Natural scientist" mean that a large (80+ provinces) empire gains +1200 for infrastructure? Compared to the option to buy 1/2 infra for 1 gold in the screen to distribute monthly income that´s a lot. Especially when considering that most players will have maxed out most technologies before 1820.
 
1.) Well, the choice here is between DIP and badboy reduction. Overall it's harder to reduce badboy quickly, hence additional diplomats for first option. You could make an argument that every event adding "agents" (traders, diplomats etc.) would need to check whether you have six guys, and really, let's not get that crazy. :D

2.) Good question. The event should not trigger if you have no ports, although that trigger could be moved to Navigator action as that's where it only matters really.

3.) Or stab bonus could be changed. Or prices tweaked indeed depending on countrysize.

4.) Most players will, but AI - not really. Besides, technology costs for large empires are usually massive, so that'd be a little bonus at best.

Values themselves might require further tweaking and balancing. For now it's meant to be rough, but working new version of randoms.

The problem with randoms in FtG is that we don't have too much to work with. If we could affect trade/infra/tax efficiency, something like modifiers in EU3/EU4, then there would be lot more variety to it.

And as for bargains, there are good random events and bad random events, It tends to be even in the end. ;)
 
About the num_of_ports trigger: Does = 0 mean that the country has 0 ports or that is has 0 or more like in the "diplomats" trigger? Because if it´s the latter then a num_of_ports = 1 instead of NOT nop= 0 would make sense.
Yeah, NOT = { num_of_ports = 0 } isn't going to do a lot of good. All numerical triggers act as ≥.

I really like these event ideas, by the way.
 
So, does -4 still work for any random colonial province or is it used for "any other" exclusively now? In the latter case a new random colonial number would be nice.
 
So, does -4 still work for any random colonial province or is it used for "any other" exclusively now? In the latter case a new random colonial number would be nice.

As far as I understand it -4 is only for random province not used before in the same event
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...ggers-list&p=10731877&viewfull=1#post10731877

However would not using the region or area replace the colonial designation?
"-1004 for a province in Europe
-1013 for a province in West Africa
-1151 for a province in Quebec"