Minor Countries Almost Impossible to Play

[Quarto]

IMO, the main problem with the 'uncivilised nation' concept is that it tries to put into a single category a vast range of nations - it would have been better if there had been a continuum from uncivilised to civilised, where the further you get on the continuum, the more civilised abilities you'd get; it's worth noting that most Victorian-era Europeans considered Russia still somewhat uncivilised. I mean, just look at the arguments here in this thread:

"Uncivilised nations should be able to do x and y, because historically Japan did."
"No! Uncivilised nations shouldn't be able to do x and y, because historically Zululand didn't!"
"But... Siam, and Japan, and China..."
"No! Zululand! Bhutan!"

...In short, it is clear that not all uncivilised nations are equally uncivilised (and, for that matter, not all civilised nations are equally civilised). But, of course, to take this into account would require Paradox to make very significant changes in the game, and so it will never happen.

 

[unmerged(30105)]

Maybe change some of the nations or the range of civlized and uncivilzed.

Add a Backward Nation option or somthing of the like so you can have some nations, like China and Zululand backwards. Then you can have other nations like Japan, Korea, Siam, Egypt(Common they are uncivilized and the OE is civilized.) having the greater ability to improve themselves while keeping the balance issue. Seems like a good compromise, although it would be difficult to patch it would make the game a hell of a lot more realistic, historical and fun.

I do not see why Siam, Korea, and Egypt are uncivlized. They put so many restrictions, in order to make it easy for European nations to squash them, on uncivilized nations its both not historically accurate nor does it seem fair.

At least give RGOs back. Put a limit on them to be only to a certain level, I am sure that RGOs dont give uncivilized nations any advantage.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

First, no one asked for uncivilized nations to be "easy." They asked for them to be a littler "easier" as in "reasonable to play." Yes, it makes it easier to argue against the concept to pretend like people are advocating making Bhutan "easy" so that it can "beat Britain." However, it also does not address the issue.

Second, despite the very pretty pictures, claim stealing against an AI that doesn't know how to defend them as Sokoto does not make uncivilized nations playable. I mean building a decent country without crassly exploiting the dumb AI.

Third, and most important, I just don't see how taking a few of these restrictions off the uncivilized nations is going to ruin the game for the superpowers. This is not a zero sum game. Just because a smart player can play an uncivilized country into a decent-sized power shouldn't change your game as a major or mid-major.

No matter what you do, it is going to be very hard for an uncivilized nation to achieve anything like this on its own. Basically, only a player is probably going to be able to achieve it. So, it isn't like the Siamese navy is going to be blockading the North Sea in every game here.

Moreover, South America is all civilized. This means the South American nations do not have these restrictions. Have Peru and Ecaudor ruined your games? I sure haven't seen Colombia rampaging through Austria, have you? This is what we'd be talking about if every uncivilized nations became civilized in the game, which is not going to happen if run by the AI.

Now, I see the argument of some that if you can play a minor nation why play a major? This is why I disagree. You should be able to play a mid-major and achieve no 1, or very big goals that you can't achieve with a minor. As it is now, you can get to No 1 as Haiti--I did it. I did it with Oranje too. It isn't much chalenge if you know what you're doing (exploit the immigration model, steal claims, etc.). It would be fun to "win" a game by becoming a little regional power somewhere with an uncivilized nation.

 

[unmerged(30105)]

Perhaps a Mod can be made for this, maybe the next VIP update. I dont know it seems to me that being uncivlized has too many restirctions.

Does Venezuela become the new Britian? Does Mexico get first, when ran by the computer, in any games?

They are all civilized yet they do not ruin the game. Maybe the concept of being uncivilied should be saved for such nations as China, Nepal, Tibet, and the African nations. If even them.

 

[swilhelm73]

Does Venezuela become the new Britian? Does Mexico get first, when ran by the computer, in any games?

China, if they started as civilized can easily win the game. Heck, just allowing them to expand their RGOs while uncivilized gives them a good chance of winning the game.

Prior to v1.03, AI China was regularly winning games and becoming an unstoppable behemoth. It made me put the game away. I don't want that back.

 

[unmerged(30105)]

China, if they started as civilized can easily win the game. Heck, just allowing them to expand their RGOs while uncivilized gives them a good chance of winning the game.

Prior to v1.03, AI China was regularly winning games and becoming an unstoppable behemoth. It made me put the game away. I don't want that back.

Usually the problem with having a modernized China early on.

Doesnt this problem run up when you play the USA, if you unite you can easily win the game. If your are the UK you can easily win the game.

Besides I never mentioned China. Maybe they can put a restriction so RGO can only be upgraded to 3. That way China would not become that more powerful, not enough to take over the world.

Or one could leave select nations, like China etc uncivlized and leave nations like Egypt, Korea, Japan, Siam and others civilized, expand the civilized list.

 

[Kurek]

Bah, I've run into my own annoyance over uncivilized nations... You can only declare (colonial) war on neighbouring nations, as Japan I wanted to launch a minor invasion of Korea, thought it would be fun but the declare colonial war button was greyed out becuase Korea apparantly is not Japans neighbour. So not much to do as Japan then it seems, isn't there events which make Japan civilized somewhere down the road?

 

[swilhelm73]

the world.

Or one could leave select nations, like China etc uncivlized and leave nations like Egypt, Korea, Japan, Siam and others civilized, expand the civilized list.

And why would you want to do that? All those countries should be easily beatable by the European majors. Make them civilized and they are not. Look at a map of the world in 1920.

I was arguing strongly that uncivilized nations needed to be toned down before v1.03 and I am very happy they were.

And again, if you want uncivilized country X to be ahistorically strong edit them to be. There is no reason for Paradox to do so. Paradox has made it remarkably easy to do so for just this reason. Or play them with how difficult a situation they really faced for the challenge.

And by the same argument you make, why don't we make all those 1 province german and italian nations have a couple of states and large populations - after all they can be "boring" in much the same way otherwise.

 

[Dinsdale]

Swillhelm, long time no see Nice posts BTW.

For those using S America as an example of civilized minors achieving nothing, try it as a player. It's possible to become very powerful from South America. The AI is only a problem as China, it rarely turns non-powers great, but this is a game to be played by the player.

Could someone who wants more variety in the game by making the minors easier explain how making nations more generic adds to the variety?

 

[unmerged(28310)]

I repeat what said earlier, when you play as a minor there are not enough choices to make the game interesting. A good game allows many different approaches to different problems, which is certainly not the case for about 80% of the countries in this game. Also, I do not believe this problem can ever be corrected in Victoria, because the engine itself does not inheritently support more complexity. Even if it did, that extra complexity would have to be hidden to majors because it's currently they borderline excessive micromanagement already. (Although a good game design can avoid making complexity = micromanagment.)

Here is where I am getting confused. It seems like alot of people have different concepts of minors,majors,easy nations,and hard. You state that 80% of nations are basically minors. I have read people on this forum call the Italian states minors and Sweden a minor. Sweden,all the Italians,South America countries,etc have alot to do. Colonize Africa,attack China and Korea to get more resources,etc. If you just keep what you have and don't try to expand your influence of course there is nothing to do.
Basically all the nations I have stated above are fairly easy,plus many uncivilized(China,Korea,etc) Just because you as a player have trouble with a country doesn't mean it should be made easier for you. I have read seemingly countless threads of people seemingly being shocked when someone comes in 7-8th as Two Sic.

 

[Quarto]

Bah, I've run into my own annoyance over uncivilized nations... You can only declare (colonial) war on neighbouring nations, as Japan I wanted to launch a minor invasion of Korea, thought it would be fun but the declare colonial war button was greyed out becuase Korea apparantly is not Japans neighbour. So not much to do as Japan then it seems, isn't there events which make Japan civilized somewhere down the road?

Well, that's got to be historically correct. After all, we all know that Japan, after hundreds of years of warfare against their Korean neighbours, mysteriously lost their ability to attack Korea in the early 19th century .

 

[swilhelm73]

Swillhelm, long time no see Nice posts BTW.

Thanks on both counts. I got back into VIC a couple weeks ago for some reason. Probably because I saw v1.03 was out.

I do wonder if some of these people played v1.02...

 

[unmerged(30105)]

I think people are confused here. It is the only way I can explain this.

I am not complaining about uncivilied small nations being extremly difficult to play, I am complaining about the inability to do some simple tasks that Historically they would be able to do, and that they should be able to do.

Examples are like only Colonial wars and non-production of RGO. I am not complainig about the HOST of other penalities these nations suffer. As a uncivilized nation I can industralize, yet I cannot expand my famrs. I find this kind of strange. Just because some players were having difficulty conquereing uncivilized nations. (Run for the hills they can build RGO I can never beat them now!) Talk about making it extremly easy to take over uncivilzed nations. Paradox has stunted the abilities of uncivilized nations to make it easier for others.

Korea could declare a normal war Historically. It would not effect game balance. All uncivilized nations could build RGOs historically, industralization however would have been near impossible. Yet in this game I can industralized yet not expand my RGOs.

Other than China please explain why you think this is historical and how changing it would really shift the balance.

Historically France had a difficult time trying to take all of South East Asia, in more than a few games they take it over in a few years. China can be conquereable in this game, historically it would be near impossible. These arguments that uncivilied nations should not be able to DOW or build RGO dont hold water. Next people will ask that uncivilized nations not be able to build an army or industralized or build railroads just so they can walk all over them and make the game easier.

 

[Raph]

The RGO thing was put in the game not because it was 'too hard' to beat minors, but because China very often ended up as a GP or even #1 which is just simply ahistoric.

However, you could of course argue that this is a rather clumsy way to fix the ahistorically strong china.

 

[Dinsdale]

Erick,

What exactly will you achieve by expanding RGOs? Is this going to make the game mouth-wateringly interesting for minors? Is pressing the "expand" buttong going to introduce sufficient conflict and tension as to make it an entirely new experience to try Assam?

 

[swilhelm73]

I am not complaining about uncivilied small nations being extremly difficult to play, I am complaining about the inability to do some simple tasks that Historically they would be able to do, and that they should be able to do.

This is exactly what makes them difficult in comparison to say a backwards tech civilized nation. And VIC makes all sorts of simple tasks a country could historically do impossible for game play - like get a good because I am the highest bidder irrespective of prestige, force and/or entice POPs to a province, etc. So such an argument is honestly meaningless.

Heck, for most countries in the VIC time period the government didn't build factories or even upgrade RGOs. That was done by local individuals.

Examples are like only Colonial wars and non-production of RGO. I am not complainig about the HOST of other penalities these nations suffer.

Uncivilized nations have two real penalities - slow tech growth and no RGO expansion. They are both there for a reason and they are both necessary. You are going to continue to hear this, but, if you want to make an uncivilized country ahistorically strong for what ever reason, edit your own save file.

As a uncivilized nation I can industralize, yet I cannot expand my famrs. I find this kind of strange.

Actually I find it strange that the likes of Sokoto can conceivably build factories with one tech trade and a few WM purchases. If anything, uncivilized countries shouldn't be able to build factories either - but in game terms that is too much of an impediment.

Just because some players were having difficulty conquereing uncivilized nations. (Run for the hills they can build RGO I can never beat them now!) Talk about making it extremly easy to take over uncivilzed nations. Paradox has stunted the abilities of uncivilized nations to make it easier for others.

Uncivilized nations are supposed to be stunted. Again, look at a map of 1920. And let me ask you flat out - did you ever play v1.02?. You seem to not realize how much of an effect expanding RGOs has on China, Japan, and a few other uncivilized nations.

Korea could declare a normal war Historically.

You've got a much stronger argument in that the restrictions on uncivilized nations DOWing abroad should be removed. AFAIK, none of them did while uncivilized, but that is because they couldn't manage to put together the logistics.

Other than China please explain why you think this is historical and how changing it would really shift the balance.

It is a game balance mechanism has been pointed out to you at length. If you really want to rationalize it, consider that the economic infrastructure and theory in an uncivilized nation istn't good enough to dramatically increase exporting of goods to the WM. Or that decentraliztion impedes the ability of the central government to effect the economy as desired.

 

[Antonin1957]

So I guess the message some of you are sending to wimps like me who do not feel very comfortable with modding is to just shut up and stop expressing our opinions about the game and why we find it to be less than fun.

Oh well. Who cares.

 

[IEX Totalview]

So I guess the message some of you are sending to wimps like me who do not feel very comfortable with modding is to just shut up and stop expressing our opinions about the game and why we find it to be less than fun.

Oh well. Who cares.

Where does he say that? Do you have a right to the opinion minors are too hard, but he can't counter-argue they are too easy?

 

[swilhelm73]

So I guess the message some of you are sending to wimps like me who do not feel very comfortable with modding is to just shut up and stop expressing our opinions about the game and why we find it to be less than fun.

Oh well. Who cares.

Unless I am mistaken, the intention of the original poster was to get Paradox to change something in the next patch. I, and many of the people posting in this thread, don't want this change. As such, there is a discussion as to the merits of said change, and IMO, the stronger arguments have been made to not make such changes.

Feel free to discuss how you edit the game for yourself. There is a whole forum on mod'ing the game after all. As a matter of fact, make a mod that gives every uncivilized country start off with a level 20 RGO in every province and have fun with it.

But expect the possibility of facing disagreement if you ask for Paradox to change something.

 

[Dinsdale]

So I guess the message some of you are sending to wimps like me who do not feel very comfortable with modding is to just shut up and stop expressing our opinions about the game and why we find it to be less than fun.

Oh well. Who cares.

I can understand your reluctance to change the files, but changing unciv to civ is a one line entry in the scenario file.

There's loads of help in the modding forum if you feel the urge to delve in deeper.

OR

Play one of the dozens of civilized nations.