Monarch System

[EUnderhill]

So, you are saying that a player should have no foreknowledge of *any* event during the game? Quite clearly, even the historical monarch had some sort of insight into his particular situation. There have been several, very good examples given earlier of how the possibility of a civil war could be gauged before it occured, so arguing that a complete lack of foresight is "historical" is completely absurd.

Now, perhaps if Paradox make a more detailed system of the monarchy and succession, I would be less worried. Whether my monarch is Louis XVI or King Generic III the boring, I at least want to know if I have an heir, whether he is an adult, possible opposition to his claim to the throne and the strength of other opposition etc. or the game becomes a random farce, like the random events in EU2 that basically involved "-3 stability, for absolutely no reason".

Unless there is a system for viewing your monarch that is as sophisticated as the one I described, I would rather have Wiki on Alt-Tab to check historical dates than have my country suddenly fall apart, with no prior warning, which is anything but historical.

This game is set before CNN - the monarch got his news from courtiers who more often than not told him what he wanted to hear. That a revolt can spring out of the blue only means that what you see on the screen is what you think the case to be - the underlying reality may be different. Ask Louis XVI how the harvest was.

 

[unmerged(50629)]

But 'randomly generated monarchs' is not the same thing as a 'completely random game' as you equated earlier. Your argument is not only a strawman, it has been used and refuted earlier in this very thread. It is as much a fallacy as the argument that those who want historical monarchs want everything to be absolutely historical. There is no black-and-white either it's absolutely scripted history or else it's absolutely random sandbox.

A major reason behind random monarchs (as well as no longer having events with only nation and date triggers) is that the player should not have foreknowledge of the future. To me and, evidently, the Paradox team, this lack of absolute foreknowledge gives the game a more historical feel.

-Pat

I am not saying that random generated monarchs make the game completely random, I am saying that some players might find historical monarchs to be desirable over random monarchs. For me random monarchs would provide a less historical feel. It would be a boon for all players if an option were provided which allowed players to have random monarch while offering a choice to have historical ones. Excluding players is never a good marketing strategy.

While I realise that it is too late to add this to the release game, a patch with this option would be desirable for me, and likely the other posters who have a similar interest. Since the historical monarchs are already in the data base, this option would not be as difficulty to provide as if there were only fixed start points with only certain monarchs.

Simply stated, If there was a check box in the options menu for allowing historical monarchs, would that be a bad thing from a development stand point?

 

[jonti-h]

Simply stated, If there was a check box in the options menu for allowing historical monarchs, would that be a bad thing from a development stand point?

If you mean physically implementing it, then yes. Johan was asked about this before and he said it was not possible with this game engine and at this stage of the development process. Basically it would have required a heck of a lot of work.

Personally, I can't see the problem. You don't play as Edward IV for example (that's more CK isn't it? ) you play as some supreme being who has overall control of everything in the game. To me the name of the monarch has not ever mattered in EU2, apart from the stats of course .

 

[unmerged(50629)]

If you mean physically implementing it, then yes. Johan was asked about this before and he said it was not possible with this game engine and at this stage of the development process. Basically it would have required a heck of a lot of work.

Personally, I can't see the problem. You don't play as Edward IV for example (that's more CK isn't it? ) you play as some supreme being who has overall control of everything in the game. To me the name of the monarch has not ever mattered in EU2, apart from the stats of course .

Well that is disappointing for me then, I always found the historical monarchs to be a bit of color I enjoyed. Guess I'll need a demo test to see whether I'll buy this one or not.

 

[Mad King James]

I don't like the idea of random monarchs at all, but as long as it is compensated in other ways I'll grumble but ignore it.

CK was simply not a fun game, to me, and the sheer ahistoricity of it was an important reason (it never felt like I was playing inside history, just a bunch of random provinces and nobles. It felt like a medieval-esque setting, not the middle-ages themselves (that said CK's problems were endemic (and I must give props to the people for making it playable as far as it goes with the ATROCIOUS beginnings that game has, the lack of atmosphere was a minor problem)

The thing is, it's hard to write a good ahistorical AAR without a historical framework to begin with. I'd have preferred mainly historical lines and then have the possibility of a random dynasty entering if you overthrow your current one.

(Btw. I'd love to have "Dynasty files" that stores the names of the monarchs in EU3, so that if you say, somehow manage to sustain the Kalmar Union you'll get a bunch of random Kristians and Fredriks instead of a bunch of random Gustavs and Karls)

To me it is largely a matter of atmosphere: Without the historical people "doing their stuff" the game becomes much more like Civilization or the Total War games or your typical Hollywood movie: Historical trappings but not actually taking place in history.

That said, I'll wait and see. Apart from CK (which wasn't really your fault) Paradox hasn't disappointed me yet. And even when they did the patching police corrected that.

Hey now THAT is a good idea! It's true dynasties tended to stick to certain names, sometimes to a ridiculous extent (the Oldenburg dynasty only seemed to have 2).

 

[DPS]

This game is set before CNN - the monarch got his news from courtiers who more often than not told him what he wanted to hear. That a revolt can spring out of the blue only means that what you see on the screen is what you think the case to be - the underlying reality may be different. Ask Louis XVI how the harvest was.

I think that most of them at least knew if they had a living son to succeed them.

However, I tend to fall in the camp that thinks random monarchs is a good idea. The question is how well it's implemented. And we'll have to wait a while yet to find out.

 

[McNaughton]

Give the system a chance before you say the sky is falling. In a way, the old monarch system was kind of like just playing through the game, knowing exactly who you get, and what they will be like. It was kind of like just going through the motions. At least here, there is some form of unknown, meaning that maybe you will have great leaders, maybe you won't.

 

[Wetew]

I actually love the idea with random monarchs which is strange because i didn't like when Burgundy survived the inheritance by Austria in Eu II.
Now you have to plan ahead and have some plans if your next monarch are bad... But I hope that you would be able to see who are the successor...

 

[JASGripen]

Compare this with the Land Doctrines for HoI2.

There are certain paths which are set for the different countries. France will not develop Blitzkrieg doctrine and run over Germany's War of attritional warfare army. The game mechanism has forced a certain degree of historical development into the game. Why? Suspension of belief I guess, but the dev:s have to recall their thought for themselves - I am not one of them.

Why is their discussion about historical monarchs in EU3? Suspension of belief I would say.

I do see that a WWII game with a Germany without good mobile forces really sucks, that's why it is as it is with HoI2. The dev:s did judge that the consumer's couldn't take that a diversion from the historical development. Do monarchs play an equally important role in EU3 as the Land Doctrines does for HoI2? YMMV.

The question is what degree of a-historical features can PI get away with without loosing players (a cynical commentator would say that it doesn't matter as long as there is an influx of new players - I am not one of them)?

 

[otacu]

I don't know if this was proposed before...

To use an idea from Hoi2: why not use the Ministers-Head of State mechanism? For example if the internal policies of a country are roughly the same of the historical policies during that period you get the historycal dinasty and King. Otherwise you get a different dinasty and different kings. The kings could be decided according to the policies and there could be a file similar to ministers.csv in HoI2. Maybe even Kings "traits" to make them a bit more unique instead of just giving them 3 random values.

Just an idea.

 

[unmerged(43658)]

why all this discussion about monarchs anyway,
all they did in eu2 (and i belive it's the same with eu3) is they gave a small bonus to your 'tech' development. :wacko:

 

[JASGripen]

As mentioned two posts up: suspension of belief?

 

[ZhugeKongming]

Not that I would use them very much, but I think they should have made historical monarchs an option.

Are there any specific reasons they can't, by the way? I mean, why not just export the chance value for monarch death to an editable text file? Then people can change it to '0' and have historical death dates, etc.

 

[DPS]

why all this discussion about monarchs anyway,
all they did in eu2 (and i belive it's the same with eu3) is they gave a small bonus to your 'tech' development. :wacko:

In addition to the above:

The monarch's diplomatic rating was used in determining how many diplomats you received in a year

The monarch's admin rating was used in determining the cost, success chance,and lenght of time required for attempting religious conversions.

The monarch's admin rating was used in determining the success chance of colonization attempts.

I think that's it, but I may be forgetting something.

 

[Registered]

In addition to the above:

The monarch's diplomatic rating was used in determining how many diplomats you received in a year

The monarch's admin rating was used in determining the cost, success chance,and lenght of time required for attempting religious conversions.

The monarch's admin rating was used in determining the success chance of colonization attempts.

I think that's it, but I may be forgetting something.

His military rating has an effect on morale i think. His diplomatic rating also influences the chance of success for diplomatic actions and, very important on VH, it determines how much BB you can have before the BB wars start.

 

[unmerged(11600)]

Not that I would use them very much, but I think they should have made historical monarchs an option.

Are there any specific reasons they can't, by the way? I mean, why not just export the chance value for monarch death to an editable text file? Then people can change it to '0' and have historical death dates, etc.

Yes, there is a reason, as told to us by Johan: it would require shutting down too much of the game engine to be worthwhile.

As has been recalled a few times in this thread.

-Pat

 

[ZhugeKongming]

Yes, there is a reason, as told to us by Johan: it would require shutting down too much of the game engine to be worthwhile.

As has been recalled a few times in this thread.

-Pat

So I gathered. I was hoping for more specific information.

Oh well, I guess we'll have to wait until the game is released before we can probe its guts.