Johan does L.A and Rome impressions

[HolisticGod]

Hjarg,

I don't care about events.

What I don't want is a bunch of generic blobs that fundamentally play the same way, which is the biggest flaw in EU III. Even what distinctions were made were usually historically inaccurate (Persia, anybody?).

When I play France, I want it to be France. When I play Portugal, I want it to be Portugal. Making it possible for any country to accomplish anything, adopt any national ideas, adopt any cultures, etc., has the ultimate effect of erasing their distinctions.

More importantly, though, is the way ideas and governments are implemented and changed, the way armies are raised and replenished (and their size) and the way leaders are appointed, gain experience and so forth. Fortunately, it looks as if Rome's model of these things is completely different from EU III's. Unfortunately, it looks as if the units are pretty unrealistic and omens are magical powers.

We won't know until the demo or the game itself is released. My earnest hope is that they've refined the game engine as well as they've refined the graphics and interface, and that what historical absurdities do exist are easily modded for those of us who like our history dry.

 

[hjarg]

Libertum Veto would mean much of the control is wrestled from the hand of player to some evil AI nobles, so i doubt it will be simulated. Unless we get EUoland sometime in the future.

As for 1526- the triggers should be Hungary to be at war with the Ottomans, king leading an army, king losing the battle, king dieing and royal marriage with Austria? Well, an event that would occasionally fire would be nice. :rofl:

Of course this isn't ahistorical. Making it an event is wrong. In EU3 terms, we have inheritance and succession war events, but that's just random. And let's be honest, feels that way too. To make the system perfect, EU3 would have needed a character/dynasty system a la CK. Where you don't make just royal marriage, but where you can marry Ferdinand and Isabella, sole heirs of the realm and thus create Spain. Well, we have something like that in Rome, though it seems we don't have much control over it. Perhaps in EU4...

edit: and i agree with HolisticGod. Different countries should feel different.

 

[unmerged(11531)]

That speech to Marcus is quite brilliant. It's entertaining, yet would nicely communicate to an outsider what playing a Paradox game is like (especially games on the CK end of things). Who wrote it -- Johan?

The putz who "interviewed" Johan in the article below it is insufferable. I can handle one condescending reference to Paradox's inability to pander to button-mashing gamers, but not four. Dipweed.

 

[unmerged(11531)]

Hjarg,

I don't care about events.

What I don't want is a bunch of generic blobs that fundamentally play the same way, which is the biggest flaw in EU III. Even what distinctions were made were usually historically inaccurate (Persia, anybody?).

When I play France, I want it to be France. When I play Portugal, I want it to be Portugal. Making it possible for any country to accomplish anything, adopt any national ideas, adopt any cultures, etc., has the ultimate effect of erasing their distinctions.

Really? Do you really want, say, Poland to not have access to National Idea X -- never, under any circumstances -- simply because Poland never embraced that idea in actual history? You want to hard-code some sort of essential limitation in the Polish race?

That's not a game: it's pedagogy. The only way to model the differences you're talking about, I think, is exactly the way it's done in EU3: The nation starts out with the conditions, economic profile, technology, national ideas that characterized the country at that time. And if you want "Portugal to be Portugal," then, by all means, do everything you can to maintain that historically Portugese profile. Follow their historical habits -- who's stopping you? But to say that the game should be designed to reflect some sort of racial essentialism -- so that even if I chose to bring Poland to the same social and economic conditions that happen to be operating in, say, France, the program would not allow me the same gameplay options because someone decreed that they aren't "Polish" -- is sort of nutty.

 

[comagoosie]

That was a nice article, not to mention very funny.

Though I am not sure what the point is about that website. It is kinda confusing and strange

 

[HolisticGod]

Wretched,

No.

The problem is that it's far too easy in EU III and that the starting conditions are not historically accurate. And there are some things, Wretched, that require centuries to change.

The bankruptcies are mentioned over and over as an example of the EU II engine not working. And I agree, it doesn't work, but nor does the EU III engine, which makes it impossible for the state bankruptcies to ever occur, for the Ottoman Empire to ever decline, and makes it perfectly possible for the Netherlands to build a Dutch-German superpower and for Poland to colonize the Caribbean.

There were endemic, or at least deeply rooted, forces in these countries that prompted them to take the courses they did. The Ottoman Empire declined not because Osman III was deposed or because Roxalana had Mustafa killed but because it was fundamentally incapable of liberalization. To overcome that incapacity ought to require tremendous and prolonged effort.

In EU II, the OE doesn't decline either, but at least it has to jump through more hoops. And the events, monarchs and leaders do give it flavor. EU III doesn't have that luxury. Its flavor has to come from modeling the deeper social, political and economic forces in a country and it simply doesn't do that.

If you want to turn Poland into France, and you consider the vast disparities in wealth and power between those two countries by the 18th century, the question is: Why wasn't Poland France? Did Poland opt to be disunited, poor, technologically backward and surrounded by stronger neighbors? Or was it limited by its resources, its customs, its social architecture, its politics, its geography? It isn't an ethnic calculation but a pragmatic one-Poland was not France because it was not France.

In order to create a centralized, wealthy, technologically advanced state in Poland (or, to bring this back to Rome, in Britannia or Iberia), which I grant ought to be possible, you should have to do a lot more than move a couple sliders and click a couple buttons.

This is all the more important in Rome. Ancient civilizations had nary a Congress and an Ad Council. Social change was a long, slipshod, laborious process. Sometimes, Rome should be stillborn. Sometimes Carthage should fall to pieces. Sometimes Egypt should conquer Italy. Those variations are fine. But those powers ought to do it in their own way, according to their own historical strengths, or have a bumpy road changing them.

And the Gaelic Tribes should have a much steeper hill to climb than the Mediterranean states, just as Poland should have a steeper hill to climb than the Western European states. This is what we're talking about-not rigidity but realism.

 

[Surgünoglu]

HG, you might want to go further with that, then.

Is it a matter of things not modeled, or modeled with insignificant depth, in the case of EU3, that you hope to avoid with EURome?

 

[Burning]

did you get your luggage back, johan?

 

[HolisticGod]

Surgunoglu,

Both.

For example, the starting conditions of the various countries are insufficiently or ahistorically modeled, while the relationships between religion, culture group (or tech group, or some new modifier, preferably, specific to individual countries), government, domestic policies and national ideas are not modeled at all. It would have been pretty straightforward, too, to create those relationships and that alone would have gone a long way toward distinguishing countries from one another and creating complex paths toward modernization (or whatever). The biggest disappointment with EU III is that a lot of the foundations were there, but nothing was built with them.

As for things like the state bankruptcies, this would, ideally, be modeled by the game engine, but I confess I don't know how. Short of that, the event engine is certainly sophisticated enough by now to do it, as we've seen with the complex chains and trait system in Crusader Kings. I'm actually optimistic that Rome has taken this path with civil wars and that it may also be used to simulate economic collapse and social decline.

A few other general things I'm hoping we'll see in Rome:

-Real trade routes. It's not enough to establish trade between province A and province B if province C is between them and held by the enemy. The length and course of the routes should make a big difference as well, and third parties should have the capacity to benefit from routes through their territory. Or, alternatively, it should be possible to pass trade goods from one country to another.

-Finite goods. Province specific quantities would be fantastic, but I'd settle for a base value, so that you have to trade for more than one province worth of horses to build 50,000 cavalry.

-Realistic tactical modifiers for Mongol-loving generals who actually build 50,000 cavalry. Realistic tactical modifiers for imbalanced armies. Realistic tactical modifiers for elephants and a limit on where elephants can be used. I'm not optimistic about this, judging from the AARs. If Paradox didn't create a separate quantity for elephant units, what hope do we have that they applied special attrition penalties to them?

-A character and dynastic system at least well-developed enough to make court politics interesting. We can't arrange our own marriages, however, even for the ruler, and this gives me pause.

-Realistic manpower and income levels, with historically accurate resources, manpower and provincial wealth. Is gold worth more than wood? We'll see.

-National ideas bound to DPs and governments and vice versa, with character-driven and general event triggers.

 

[Nordhus]

That was a nice article, not to mention very funny.

Though I am not sure what the point is about that website. It is kinda confusing and strange

The main point of Quarter To Three is the forum.

Speaking of which, Tom sadly reports that Marcus is no longer with us.

 

[unmerged(11531)]

The Ottoman Empire declined not because Osman III was deposed or because Roxalana had Mustafa killed but because it was fundamentally incapable of liberalization. To overcome that incapacity ought to require tremendous and prolonged effort.

In EU II, the OE doesn't decline either, but at least it has to jump through more hoops.

I agree with you here -- (although I do wonder why it's always the non-European countries that people single out when they talk about the game allowing countries to get too powerful relative to their real history. I never see people complaining about the fact that the game allows, say, Bohemia to take over the world, despite the fact that it's even less probable than the Ottomans... but that's another thread...)

Yes, I'd like it too if the game made the unique starting conditions of each country more "entrenched," more difficult to modify over time. It would then make more strategic sense to concentrate on working with (or "within") a given country's peculiar circumstances and historical inclinations.

The only practical problem with that is that, aside from the military adventures, a major part of the actual gameplay in EU consists of facilitating and enacting precisely the incremental changes that transform a country from its current social, economic and ideological condition. Improving conditions is a major part of what you do in a EU game. To change that, the gameplay would have to change to the kind of thing you find in CK, where it's more about governance than evolution. (which wouldn't be bad, actually -- I love CK...)

 

[Phystarstk]

Surgunoglu,

Both.

For example, the starting conditions of the various countries are insufficiently or ahistorically modeled, while the relationships between religion, culture group (or tech group, or some new modifier, preferably, specific to individual countries), government, domestic policies and national ideas are not modeled at all. It would have been pretty straightforward, too, to create those relationships and that alone would have gone a long way toward distinguishing countries from one another and creating complex paths toward modernization (or whatever). The biggest disappointment with EU III is that a lot of the foundations were there, but nothing was built with them.

As for things like the state bankruptcies, this would, ideally, be modeled by the game engine, but I confess I don't know how. Short of that, the event engine is certainly sophisticated enough by now to do it, as we've seen with the complex chains and trait system in Crusader Kings. I'm actually optimistic that Rome has taken this path with civil wars and that it may also be used to simulate economic collapse and social decline.

A few other general things I'm hoping we'll see in Rome:

-Real trade routes. It's not enough to establish trade between province A and province B if province C is between them and held by the enemy. The length and course of the routes should make a big difference as well, and third parties should have the capacity to benefit from routes through their territory. Or, alternatively, it should be possible to pass trade goods from one country to another.

-Finite goods. Province specific quantities would be fantastic, but I'd settle for a base value, so that you have to trade for more than one province worth of horses to build 50,000 cavalry.

-Realistic tactical modifiers for Mongol-loving generals who actually build 50,000 cavalry. Realistic tactical modifiers for imbalanced armies. Realistic tactical modifiers for elephants and a limit on where elephants can be used. I'm not optimistic about this, judging from the AARs. If Paradox didn't create a separate quantity for elephant units, what hope do we have that they applied special attrition penalties to them?

-A character and dynastic system at least well-developed enough to make court politics interesting. We can't arrange our own marriages, however, even for the ruler, and this gives me pause.

-Realistic manpower and income levels, with historically accurate resources, manpower and provincial wealth. Is gold worth more than wood? We'll see.

-National ideas bound to DPs and governments and vice versa, with character-driven and general event triggers.

I pretty much agree with everything you've said.

I'm surprised you haven't talked about Victoria at all. Although Victoria still has some problems (Austria can become a major industrial power way too easily, so can Russia), I feel like it has -more- of the basics you're talking about. For instance, if, as in VIP, Austria's primary cultures are reduced to just German, it becomes DAMNED difficult to industrialize without significant political change. You're also dealing with embedded minority culture resentment and disenfranchisement, and you've got Italy, Prussia, Russia, and the South Slaves all looking at you with hungry eyes.

EU can do -something- comparable. It just needs to be dated to the period. Maybe the sliders from EU2 should be made even more powerful. I still don't think I like the idea of "national ideas" unless -significant- costs arise. National, ethnic, and religious tech groups should probably exist. I don't like the way Cores work in EU2, but its probably better than the semi-random approach in EU3. However, I do think that VERY OLD territories should, over time, become cores themselves.

 

[Surgünoglu]

Thanks, HG. I have to agree with you.

I especially like the point about certain national ideas being bound to or by government types. Perhaps Rome will be better in that its government types will limit you to a certain number of each type of NI.

 

[HolisticGod]

Wretched,

I adore the Ottoman Empire. It's been one of my favorite historical subjects since I read Kinross in college and it's my favorite country in EU II multiplayer. When I use it as an example (as I used Spain and Poland) it's because it is one of the few countries in EU II with a scripted decline and because its structural problems, like those of Spain and Poland, ran very deep.

But that sounds like a harsh indictment. Unlike Spain and Poland, the OE was so entrenched because it worked. It was the zenith of the Middle Ages, both Muslim and Christian, and while it's difficult to alter a system that is dysfunctional, it's far harder to alter a system that is functional. The Ottoman system and Ottoman values did not decline so much as external circumstances condemned them to obsolescence. This is what happened to China as well.

I've long advocated against tech groups for this reason. I'd love to see China, every once in a while, be the equal of Europe, particularly in multiplayer. But the engine has to simulate the obstacles to countries like China, Spain, Poland and the OE in a realistic way. Or, in Rome, the obstacles to the Western Europeans.

Improving a country can still be the goal. It just ought to be harder. And there's a roleplaying element in these games as well. Defending the faith as Spain, to the country's ultimate detriment, is in many ways more fun than creating a Spanish magna carta. But yes, a focus on governance would be fantastic.

Crusader Kings was Paradox's best game from a design standpoint. It's a shame the problems in its development prevented it from reaching its full potential.

Phys,

I beta tested Victoria. I think you'll find the people who went through that never speak of it. It's like Vietnam.

That said, Victoria came much closer to really getting into the muck of government and economics than any subsequent game. If Paradox had only found a more elegant way to do it...

Also, to try again to keep this on the subject of Rome, how would you apply domestic policy sliders or national ideas, ideally, in this period? I think they have their place, but, like you, I think they ought to come at great cost. And they have to be interrelated, I think.

 

[Phystarstk]

HG,

Have you played the latest iterations of Victoria? It's really quite amazing how much better it is. It's still got its issues, but I think it really has the most robust political, economic, military, diplomatic, colonial, and developmental (building roads, industrializing) engines in the entire series. I could sit in EU 2 and find myself only throwing traders at CoT's, colonizing, and waiting for a war. In Victoria, I always find myself watching the political trends, preparing a better army, trying to get myself one-step-ahead politically.

As for how all of this applies to Rome, it's really hard to say. I still think the slider aspect is a good way to go about this. Victoria's system is pretty much impossible to implement anywhere except maybe some sort of 20th century game. I'm also happy they returned to the idea of stability.

However, while I agree that national ideas should be tied to forms of government, I'd like to see different kinds of policy changes affect loyalty. This may be hard or even impossible to implement. However, imagine if a shift away from nobility and towards the masses caused a major spike downward in loyalty amongst all your noble characters. Trying to reform would cause more than a little instability. It could easily create an out-and-out civil war while the "people" in general stay pretty appeased.

EU 3 is creating a system of "rebels with causes," I guess. I don't know exactly how that will work, but I hope the same fundamentals are entering into Rome.

However, this is all dependent on sliders being in the game. If they aren't, and there are just national ideas, I'd hope that national ideas would cost significant amounts of money. However, I could see aspects of the game affecting this cost. Maybe it would be tied to nations, but not necessarily. For example, if a state has a number of sea-side provinces, then having a naval national idea should be cheaper. If it only has one, then it should be expensive. This should reflect the amount of energy it would take to redirect a nation towards a different course.

Maybe if a nation has a substantial military, militaristic national ideas would be cheaper to maintain. However, one with a minor force would be more expensive. I know this flies in the face of logic. In past games, reforming a bigger army cost more because you're reforming a bigger army. However, the cost at play here isn't meant to just be about the actual costs of implementation. They're also meant to be about the costs of re-directing a national course.

If you don't have a lot of horse provinces, then calvary related national ideas should be more expensive. If you don't have a lot of roads or boats, then trade-related ones should be more expensive. Something like that.

In addition, perhaps changing national ideas could have the same effect I mentioned earlier about policy slides. If you get rid of a national idea that would help one kind of group, then members of that group should have lower loyalty. And vice versa.

I don't know. I haven't played the game yet, so it's hard to talk with so many ifs. I don't even know what is possible. However, these inertia-based forces would do a lot for the game.

 

[Secret Master]

Crusader Kings was Paradox's best game from a design standpoint. It's a shame the problems in its development prevented it from reach its full potential.

An interesting statement. I'm wondering, have you played DV. If so, did you think it improved CK?

I beta tested Victoria. I think you'll find the people who went through that never speak of it. It's like Vietnam.

That said, Victoria came much closer to really getting into the muck of government and economics than any subsequent game. If Paradox had only found a more elegant way to do it...

I confess a fondness for some of Victoria's attention to detail. I'm wondering, since you beta tested Vicky, did you ever play Revolutions? If so, what did you think?

 

[HolisticGod]

Phys,

Excellent ideas.

I'd particularly like to see national idea and government changes have an impact on character loyalty depending upon stats or, barring that, events.

Jason,

Yes and it did, although the relations bug and other problems in the pledging system make it difficult to say it's finally finished. The crusade system is still broken and it needs a more complex dynastic system. And all that aside, waiting for five years (or has it been six?) and a paid expansion pack to finish the game is not ideal, particularly for those of us principally interested in multiplayer.

As for Revolutions, I haven't played much of Victoria since just after its release. I do have it, though, and I've been told by a number of people that it's a different game. I ought to give it a shot.

 

[Dspencer]

Weighing in:

The lack of individual AI files for countries ruined eu3 for me, but worked exceptionally well for CK. It might work for rome, but i still pray that they will give us the ability to mod a truly historical game for that time period(unlike eu3).

 

[Secret Master]

Jason,

Yes and it did, although the relations bug and other problems in the pledging system make it difficult to say it's finally finished. The crusade system is still broken and it needs a more complex dynastic system. And all that aside, waiting for five years (or has it been six?) and a paid expansion pack to finish the game is not ideal, particularly for those of us principally interested in multiplayer.

Agreed. My beloved bought me CK so we could play it together when I graduated with my B.A. (it's been that long already?). And we have for many hours, but they have been hours that have been frustrating at times.

As for Revolutions, I haven't played much of Victoria since just after its release. I do have it, though, and I've been told by a number of people that it's a different game. I ought to give it a shot.

You should. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. The economic system, while still having the strangeness that comes with the World Market buying and selling goods, is much better now that economic policies and economic conditions dictate who can build what. Going laissez faire and letting the capitalists do their job and build factories is a viable option.

Now that my beta AAR has been posted, and I'm outed as a beta tester for Rome, I'll be interested to see what everyone thinks when it comes out.

 

[unmerged(71032)]

Bloody heathen!!!

Agree, badmouthing HoI2, prepostrous! Burn the heretic! :rofl:


Also, it's funny Victoria is never mentioned there. If EU3/Rome are "only for Germans" ( ), who is Victoria catering to? German accountants? :rofl:

On the more serious note, there was a reason for HoI2 being best seller, namely new quality control system, focusing on improving existing product and extensive use of modding scene in alpha/beta stage not just for testing, but for creating content. Of course WWII period is also more catering to the popular audience then, let's say Victorian era, but after HoI1 that was at the start, hmmm, how to say it, "quite inadequate", you would expect sequel not being all that popular (such sentiments were presented by many people).