Essentially, every single day, starting with 1540 and ending in 1580, there will be a chance for the event to occur. Depending on the modifiers in place
So this routine is called once a day for every country in the game for 40 years. Calling it 50 nations world wide that would give 720,000 calls per game? Of course this is not the only revolt to have to be so called, indeed given that it is only five provinces it may be one of the lesser called ones; as opposed to one that ranges over most of China, the HRE, the starting Timirud empire, or Mother Russia. Somehow I think rewriting all the events of EU2 into such a format where every nation gets these checks would be just a touch harsh on the CPU.
Not to mention that balancing this type of event becomes extraordinairily hard when you have other dynamic events which affect the conditions. I.e. before you can establish how likely the Dutch r
evolts are to occur you need to first determine how likely one is to be at the specified centra levels. Of course if we were reproducing the EUII event set in this manner we'd first have to iterate that backwards or set up some differential equations (which appear not to have algebraic solutions) and work it out explicitly.
Actually, EU3 has to deal with less (i think) Most likely there won't be thousands of characters and events for them, which are the burden in CK now.
The thousands of characters merely make the matrix huge, most characters don't interact in any way. A 400 member set where everyone interacts has far greater complexity than a 10,000 member set where only 20 interactions occur per member.
You have taken a look at the events of CK, right? So, even though there are more religions, more government types, more domestic policies, more foreign policy options, church/state interaction, etc., there will be far less characters, traits, and thus events. Sure, the map of CK has only ~1000 provinces, while EU3 has supposedly ~1700. But instead of say 10000 characters in CK you have perhaps a couple hundred nation TAG's in EU3.
A hundred odd kingdom tags; ~1700 province tags; call it 100,000 religious tolerance settings; and 10,000,000 domestic policies for a start. The only way I see out of a rather wicked looking geometric progression is to limit the amount of interaction bewteen the components.
Even if you don't use too much CPU load, particularly if you end up cutting into the AI, that still is murder and a half to balance. Mathematical treatment of such a system looks to be beyond algebraic means which essentially leaves repetitive testing. Given the size of the web and the potential interplay you'd be looking at thousands of games per to get a decent picture of how things are panning out. Tell me how many games does it take to balance out a new CK event? How does one know what balances their mods will change and how does one go about evening the field out without playtesting quite heavily?
Frankly I'd rather toss the dynamic events, and devote all of the CPU time, coder time, and balance testing to a superior AI. The biggest complaint I've been hearing here is that "Oh noes, the event triggers don't check for this really trivial thing and forces me to take unrealistic actions". Why one needs to develop a dynamic event system rather than perform a handful of if then checks with event calls is beyond me. Mexico shouldn't be forced to default on loans? Make on of the triggers check Mexican income and credit. Turkey isn't oppressing the Slavs? Make a trigger check the religious set up of the Ottomans one of the triggers. For the handful of games where a random minor behave ahistorically? What of it - it is infrequent enough we can just call it a long MTTH.
I'd far rather keep the events linear simply to keep them easier to run, balance, and debug. Yes the game should be responsive, but put that into the AI.
Yes, that's the challenge of game creators.
Most successful games have been harder to create than predecessors.
And with expierence they have they can do it.
I remain doubtful. You are dealing with a geometric progression here and I see no way around staggering amounts of interaction.
The sole reason why CK has a growing (NOT exponentional) need of resource as game progresses is the unnatural growth. Without that there would be a very little rise in resources over game, or none at all.
I'm referring to the growth going from something relatively simple like CK where the number of interacting factors in play is rather low to something like EU where the number is far higher. EU would likely take less resources as the game progresses, mostly due to minors biting the dust, however the increased complexity would be exponentially greater relative to the complexity of CK.
So you call well-known, long-ago-developed, uber-perfected strategies for each nation 'replayability'?
No I call that if I figure out how to win my game doesn't devovle into a repitition of my last one as quickly. In CK once you got to a certain part your past history no longer mattered. Your dynasty was little more than a character string. While I doubt things will ever be that bad in EU, I don't want it to be that a game as Scotland is no different than a game as England once I conqueor the British Ilses. Likewise I prefer it if take a north German minor and take over Scandinavia that such a game is dramaticly different than if I start with Sweden and take over Scandinavia and northern Germany.
Unless you code some things not to be dynamic, link them only to country tags for instance, then it won't matter if you are Denmark having eaten Sweden or Sweden having eaten Denmark. That is what I'm getting at that; that the course of the game is pathway dependant.
In CK each time I play, I must face something new.
Things must really have changed then. When I was playing you'd scrounge around for a ducal title either through marriage, defection, or conquest. Then you'd invariably go beat up a few infidels/pagans to bank up prestige/piety in order to take land through force or treachery from your fellow Christians, lather rinse repeat. Fighting the Duke of Apulia was no different than fighting the Duke of Brittany. The only difference between fighting Genoa and fighting Venice was the wealth of the cities. What exactly is new each time you come? The combat certainly was the same. As were the means by which you could acquire prestige and piety.
The (un)continousity of your point here is confusing.
In EU2 you actually get a sense that you are fighting France. In CK you could be fighting the Capetians or the de Normandies ... and the only difference would be the string containing their name after 100 years of gameplay. Nations and dynasties in CK were meaningless because no matter what the course of history had been, events tended to make every dynasty and nation fall into the same eigenstates.
What I don't want is for EU3 to end the same way. If Albion falls to the Scots then the nation I'm fighting should be Scotland and distinct from England. Fighting Spain should be different than fighting Aragon, even if both hold the same territory.
