Paradox, please real Westernization

[TheMeInTeam]

West Africans can conquer a core off Europe to westernize very fast in player hands. However, most of them start off tribal (Songhai and Kongo via event are your exceptions) and they're 2/2/2 rather than 3/3/3 at the start with generally terrible rulers. Zazzau is the only nation with an above-average rules that isn't also old. As a player you can expect to westernize by 1510, maybe earlier.

Asians can westernize by 1550 either though exploration or by conquering Muscovy to border Sweden. This delay is partially offset by avoiding the awful tribal governments, poor development, and lower starting tech in Africa.

 

[TheAtreides84]

I think we simply need separate tech trees with different bonuses. Come on, Stardock pulled that off in Gal Civ II, and they are smaller than Paradox.

 

[Beagá]

Different tech tree is bad idea and makes no sense. Everyone went for cannons, everyone went for men of war, everyone developed better finances etc etc. What you propose, making armies armed with... bows to be viable in 1800?

Make all countries need to make reforms with european countries a bit ahead here and there. Fix wars so that logistics is more important, so that China finds difficulties invading England and vice versa. Make building universities and funding them relevant.

Done

 

[SantoshKashyap]

 

[Chief of Staff]

About making westernization more harder, is there a mod to do this or how should this be done via mod? I don't even know if it's possible to make it more difficult though I imagine it is.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

About making westernization more harder, is there a mod to do this or how should this be done via mod? I don't even know if it's possible to make it more difficult though I imagine it is.

I'm not completely certain, but I believe there's a number in defines to set how many techs behind your nation has to be before you can westernize. Just set it to 99 and there you go, your westernization problems will be over.

 

[Chief of Staff]

I'm not completely certain, but I believe there's a number in defines to set how many techs behind your nation has to be before you can westernize. Just set it to 99 and there you go, your westernization problems will be over.

Isn't that given value a bit extreme? I'm not totally against westernization, just looking for it to be made harder. But I will look into this, thanks.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Isn't that given value a bit extreme? I'm not totally against westernization, just looking for it to be made harder. But I will look into this, thanks.

Apologies. It seems to be what many people in this thread want.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Apologies. It seems to be what many people in this thread want.

No worries, no apologies needed. I dunno what is reasonable value to make it a bit harder. I'll have to check the default value but I suppose maybe 21 techs behind or something? I have no clue about this, as I've never modded westernization before.

EDIT: I instead changed it to 12. Seem more reasonable for making it harder. Only five more tech.

 

[grommile]

EDIT: I instead changed it to 12. Seem more reasonable for making it harder. Only five more tech.

Increasing the required tech gap doesn't make it harder (unless you're trying to do it with balanced tech, in which case it's harder because your armies can't stand up to Western ones). It makes it less worthwhile, but probably doesn't actually make it clear to the AI that it's less worthwhile.

If you don't like the way Westernization works, disable the standard mechanics and use decisions and events instead.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Increasing the required tech gap doesn't make it harder (unless you're trying to do it with balanced tech, in which case it's harder because your armies can't stand up to Western ones). It makes it less worthwhile, but probably doesn't actually make it clear to the AI that it's less worthwhile.

If you don't like the way Westernization works, disable the standard mechanics and use decisions and events instead.

Hmm, that seem like a major work for me to do. I'm not even sure how to do this or where to start. Are there existing mods out there that does like I wanted?

 

[TheAtreides84]

Different tech tree is bad idea and makes no sense. Everyone went for cannons, everyone went for men of war, everyone developed better finances etc etc. What you propose, making armies armed with... bows to be viable in 1800?

Are you saying that chinese style confucian bureaucrats should evolve in western-style absolutist officials or die out? Or that there is just one way to go for better finances (there were different ways even in western Europe, between free trade, mercantilism and physiocracy)? That's incredibly deterministic. Everyone went for cannon, yes, but developing artillery doctrines in the plains of central Europe is totally different that developing the same for warfare in the Andes. Volley fire for asian conscript armies is a whole different beast from prussian ispired drill, light cavalry tactics adopted by the native americans weren't the same ones used by ulhans, and so on.

 

[BritNavFan]

I'm not completely certain, but I believe there's a number in defines to set how many techs behind your nation has to be before you can westernize. Just set it to 99 and there you go, your westernization problems will be over.

There is. Change 1 number in defines and westernisation-by-button is completely gone. (Westernization by event or decision is still possible.)

Apologies. It seems to be what many people in this thread want.

It's not a question of what we want. The options Paradox has given modders are (1) Mass AI Westernization is mandatory (because game balance, as we all know modded games are soooo very balanced), or (2) Mass Westernization (and player Westernization) is banned completely (which is apparently also OK game-balance wise), but UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should modders be allowed to easily mod the game to make Westernization, say, 10% more or less likely, because apparently the devs believe THAT would break the game balance in this oh-so-finely-balanced game.

If you want, you can mod out westernization-by-button and write your own events or decisions to allow Westernization, but that requires some understanding of Paradox's somewhat-less-than-intuitive scripting language.

 

[grommile]

It's not a question of what we want. The options Paradox has given modders are (1) Mass AI Westernization is mandatory (because game balance, as we all know modded games are soooo very balanced), or (2) Mass Westernization (and player Westernization) is banned completely (which is apparently also OK game-balance wise), but UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should modders be allowed to easily mod the game to make Westernization, say, 10% more or less likely, because apparently the devs believe THAT would break the game balance in this oh-so-finely-balanced game.

The options they have given modders are:

• You can change the threshold for eligibility (default: 7 techs), including setting it to an impossibly large value and using your own framework for Westernization if you think the design of the existing one sucks.
• You can change the maximum (default: 10) and minimum (default: 5) amount of monarch power spent per category per month under the default framework.
  
• You can change the base cost (default: 2000 points) and maximum cost (default: 5000 points) of Westernization under the default framework
  
• You can change the impact of Reactionary rebels' "on siege won" effect on Westernization progress.
• You can write events and decisions that remove (or add) Westernization progress, or that snap-Westernize a country (with whatever other side effects you desire).

I'm sure there are reasonable additional modding tools to want in respect of Westernization that the game doesn't have, but I have no idea what they are - particularly, I'm failing to imagine what something that makes it "say, 10% more or less likely" would be.

 

[BritNavFan]

I'm sure there are reasonable additional modding tools to want in respect of Westernization that the game doesn't have, but I have no idea what they are

Westernization used to be run by regular decisions and events, which were moddable like any other decisions and events. If you wanted to make small changes in them, that only required small changes to the code. Now that it's hard-coded, if you want to make even a small change, you have to write the decisions and events yourself, from scratch.

An option they have NOT given modders, unless you write your own decisions and events from scratch, is any influence over whether the AI decides to westernize or not.

So, for example, let's say that I wanted to mod the game so that only player countries or "lucky" AI countries westernize. Under the old system, that's a change of a few lines of code. Under the present system, I have to implicitly disable the "westernize" button (say, by requiring that a country be 10,000 techs behind to westernize), and then code my own decisions from scratch.

An example of something that made it "10% more or less likely" would be, controlling whether AI countries start the Westernization process by event, and then decreasing or increasing the mean time to happen of the event by 10%. (You can tell how long it's been since I seriously modded this game!)

So I'd like Westernization to be returned to a regular decision.

Sarcasm aside, I'm not sure what the advantage of hard-coding Westernization is. Usually hard-coding things is about game performance, not game balance, but does the decision to westernize really use that much CPU time?

 

[Tweakee]

The whole idea of westernization should just be scrapped.

Just give lower tech-level nations reductions to tech costs for bordering high-tech nations, or having an alliance (or protectorate relationship), or trading alongside them (power in the same nodes), or defeating them in a war, or having a diplomat (spy) in their land. By acquiring multiple of these bonuses, you can reduce your tech costs to Western levels and catch up over time.

So just by nature of interacting with "the west", nations will gradually catch up in tech, provided they can stay alive. No magical switch to flip, no need to become "western", just don't stay isolated and don't get killed. This would make tech parity an ongoing strategic concern for low-tech players, instead of a one-time hurdle. To me, that's a deeper, more interesting way to handle it.

 

[DukeofSerbia]

Western Arms Trade already exists. I used that in my Moscow/Russian game. I had alliance with Finland for some 150 years until they started to desire 200+ of my provinces then I trashed them and just switched to OPM Riga which I released in peace deal before.

• is not in the western technology group.

• A neighbour country:
  • is in the western technology group.
  • is not a subject nation.
  • is allied with this country.
  • has opinion of this country is at least 150.

I just don't like how it's triggered.

I think this could be improved with adding decisions for various reforms and then completely remove westernization.

 

[SantoshKashyap]

In the early modern era, regardless of intentions, the capability (tools available in the hands of the West Europeans) of Western Eurasia was not adequate to destroy or even defeat the big South Asian Powers. The great divergence in matters military and state building started in eighteenth century due to two simultaneous and sequential processes: the decline of the South Asian polities in particular and mainland Asian empires in general and the subsequent quantum jump of the West European military prowess.

Why and when did the East start declining vis-e-vis the West? One study of the Ottoman Empire claims that the religious slant in the field of education prevented the emergence of material science in the Islamic World.Theocracy and Scholasticism prevented the unfolding of a Scientific Revolution in the Islamic domains. 14-15th century Europe experienced the emergence of many universities which were seats of secular learning and this later only accelerated with the spread of Printing Press. And at that time the Islamic world was eschewing science at the cost of religious knowledge.

The size of West European armies registered exponential growth during 17th & 18th centuries. Even in pre-British India, due to demographic resources of India and high agricultural productivity, the indigenous power brokers mobilised huge armies which can only be compared with premodern Chinese armies. Again pre-British battles and sieges in India were not "flower wars" and involved huge casualty.

As far as Indian military is considered, the continued use of elephants as a command vehicle and a sort of premodern MBT in battlefield seem to suggest an unchanging nature of the "Hindu Strategic Culture". However the Indian armies continued to depend on elephants not due to cultural naiveties, but because of their availability in large numbers and the problem in raising good quality horses. In-fact till 1700, in India military emphasised cavalry and specially elephants at the cost of infantry and gunpowder weapons. In terms of speed and striking power, the cavalry (specially horse archers) had an edge over western style slow moving drilled and disciplined infantry supported by field artillery. The effectiveness of gunpowder weapons need not be overemphasised.

Drilled and disciplined infantry equipped with slow-firing handguns and lumbering field pieces were able to operate in West European landscape which was not attacked by large number of horse archers. Again, against the mounted steppe nomad who were the principal enemies of the agrarian bureaucratic empires of pre-1700 India & China, gunpowder was not that effective due to terrain and the nature of warfare conducted by the eurasian nomads.

John France persuasively argues in one of his books that the real Military Revolution which gave the West a decisive military edge over the "rest" occurred only in the late 19th century. About one hundred years before this Military Revolution, the large agrarian bureaucratic empires of India in particular and Asia in general had succumbed due to internal dissensions and intra-Asian struggles. Only then the great divergence in military affairs unfolded between the East and the West.

 

[victimizer]

.Theocracy and Scholasticism prevented the unfolding of a Scientific Revolution in the Islamic domains

Garbage. Europe had plenty of theocracy and religious mumbo-jumbo.

The problem with the Middle East was far more complicated. But in short, unlike Europe, Asia was dominated by sprawling empires which failed to provide effective public goods, without which, businesses remained ephemeral and small, hampering capital accumulation at a time when new technologies were highly capital intensive.

This line of thinking that those silly Asians were just so enamoured with their religious stuff that they failed to research scientific things is child-like reading of history. People generally want to improve their lots in life: there has to be a reason why they couldn't do it.

 

[Magean]

Garbage. Europe had plenty of theocracy and religious mumbo-jumbo.

The problem with the Middle East was far more complicated. But in short, unlike Europe, Asia was dominated by sprawling empires which failed to provide effective public goods, without which, businesses remained ephemeral and small, hampering capital accumulation at a time when new technologies were highly capital intensive.

This line of thinking that those silly Asians were just so enamoured with their religious stuff that they failed to research scientific things is child-like reading of history. People generally want to improve their lots in life: there has to be a reason why they couldn't do it.

So the Ottoman Empire banning the use of the printing press until the XVIIIth century, where it was legalized while being strictly controlled, was due to it being too big to provide public goods ?