Petition for "True Random Lucky NAtions"

[WeissRaben]

no it would be too much fantasy... the game needs to conserve some sort of historicity. Also giving lucky nation to a small country basically means to waste it.

...please, don't soil history with your definition of "historicity". Brandenburg having the best army in the world in 1600 start date is on the same level as the Sunset Invasion. Britain having ONLY good rulers is on that level. ALL the Great Powers having Divine Right to rule Europe is on that level. Say that you want a more static game, I'll accept that. Tell that it's more historical, or plausible, and I'll laugh in your face. Hard.

 

[unmerged(755241)]

I wanted this since day 1

 

[Sorenzo]

I would love to see Mongolia be a lucky nation and just destroy all of Asia. <cackles maniacally> I suppose I could just play CK2.

I think lucky nations is sort of a copout to make the simulation more historical without actually making the AI competent. Britain gets lucky nation because the AI can't use fleets properly. The rest get it basically to help AI nations blob out like players do because players are competent.

I don't like criticising AI in games, because it's very difficult to program. I assume. But I think the AI is the game's weak point, and deserves as much time dedicated as a full expansion would.

 

[Wizzington]

The problem with this is that it'd generally result in a bunch of lucky minors and would be indistinguishable from just having lucky nations off. Lucky isn't that large a bonus that it will turn AI Tirhut into the second coming of the Maurya Empire.

 

[Alblaka]

The problem with this is that it'd generally result in a bunch of lucky minors and would be indistinguishable from just having lucky nations off. Lucky isn't that large a bonus that it will turn AI Tirhut into the second coming of the Maurya Empire.

Wow, thanks for joining this discussion!

I see the issue, but aren't mini-minors annexed sooner or later anyways? Which means the lucky nations would jump over to a new nation. The more the game progresses, the more lucky nations would be those that actually last (and therefore have a chance).
And if that still isn't enough, you could create a manual list of nations that excludes both supowerpowers and too small states. This wouldn't be true random anymore, but still better then the 'random by the list' we have currently.

I mean, there were already a few mentions of nations that would be really amusing to wath with lucky nations. A lucky Brandenburg would probably be much better at forming Prussia. A lucky Novgorod might turn around and found Russia. A lucky Ayuttwhateverit'sspelled could have fun in SE Asia. Or heck, why not Lucky Ming growing into a megablob. Or lucky nations on a major Shogun, who can then reunite Japan as his own.
So many possibilities!

 

[Wizzington]

Random is not random by the list. It weighs by size and tech speed, but any nation has a chance to end up lucky. I could change the weighting to give medium powers and slower tech groups a better chance, though.

 

[Jorlem]

Random is not random by the list. It weighs by size and tech speed, but any nation has a chance to end up lucky. I could change the weighting to give medium powers and slower tech groups a better chance, though.

I wonder what a lucky Native American tribe could pull off, before the Europeans show up.

 

[balmung60]

I wonder what a lucky Native American tribe could pull off, before the Europeans show up.

Likely not that much. It might eat one or two more tribes than usual or colonize one or two more provinces than usual, but then they'll likely get annexed by a European power.

 

[Alblaka]

Random is not random by the list. It weighs by size and tech speed, but any nation has a chance to end up lucky. I could change the weighting to give medium powers and slower tech groups a better chance, though.

Oh, that's interesting. The last I've read about this was that there's a list of nations both historical and random mode orient along. But if you say latter is actually biased randomness, then it must be biased HARD, given there is rarely any difference between those two.
If you could tweak the random function to prefer medium powers over blobs, that would be great and give the game a bit more randomness.

 

[Xara]

Random is not random by the list. It weighs by size and tech speed, but any nation has a chance to end up lucky. I could change the weighting to give medium powers and slower tech groups a better chance, though.

Note that people aren't asking for the default to be altered, but for the option to ALSO play a non-weighted version

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Random is not random by the list. It weighs by size and tech speed, but any nation has a chance to end up lucky. I could change the weighting to give medium powers and slower tech groups a better chance, though.

That would be awesome, especially for nations like Manchu, Aq Qoyunlu, Songhai which historically did better than usual in the game. It would also probably work on nations like Shawnee (most typical tribe to get strong if any one does), and would be a big boost to the Indian nations that actually have a chance (Gujarat, Vijay, Orissa, Malwa, and Bengal).

As long as a nation doesn't get wiped out instantly, luckies tend to stay up on military tech better than others so this would be a big boost in a lot of regions. In an AI-AI war, a tech lead *and* a generals lead tends to be decisive unless they're outnumbered pretty hard.

 

[Wizzington]

Note that people aren't asking for the default to be altered, but for the option to ALSO play a non-weighted version

My point is that I think people have unrealistic expectations on what the actual impact of total lack of weighting would be (basically the same as playing with lucky off) and will probably just end up disappointed if we do add it.

 

[Gemberkoekje]

Alternatively, can you make luck dynamic, instead of static?

Ergo: The smaller the nation, the bigger the bonus. This way, you can have an African one-core lucky nation grow significantly at first, with diminishing returns as the nation gets bigger.

 

[Tacticus101]

Personally, I agree with Wiz. I play with lucky nations off most of the time and I find the map turns out very random. The general result is that the big, usually lucky, powers often bite of more than they can chew and get whittled down or destroyed whilst small powers get a bit lucky and managed to grow to a good size, replacing the bigger powers as the local force. Exactly the same as truly random lucky nations would achieve.

Alternatively, can you make luck dynamic, instead of static?

Ergo: The smaller the nation, the bigger the bonus. This way, you can have an African one-core lucky nation grow significantly at first, with diminishing returns as the nation gets bigger.

Wouldn't that result in games feeling even more scripted than now (and people complain)? A few random nations basically scripted to grow large (becoming unstoppable if you happened to border them), then losing most of their bonus'.

 

[Gemberkoekje]

Wouldn't that result in games feeling even more scripted than now (and people complain)? A few random nations basically scripted to grow large (becoming unstoppable if you happened to border them), then losing most of their bonus'.

It was just a suggestion In fact, I'd definetly make it an optional variable, maybe even a slider: Leftmost means size has no impact on luck at all, rightmost means size has so much impact that you run the risk of getting something silly... While I value historical.. er - value - I think each player should have the option to choose their preferred play (or world generation) style.

 

[MaXimillion]

Wasn't that removed several patches ago?

The 1.2 patchnotes state: "Lucky nations no longer changes when a nation is annexed ", but that's not actually the case in 1.7.3. It's not been mentioned in patch notes since so I don't know if it was a left out or if the change got accidentally reverted.

 

[Zak Preston]

Actually I guess devs have another reason not to change "lucky" nations: they have created a very complicated and rather thick balance of powers in the world.
Examples:
Ottomans are held by Austria and Hungary in Europe, Russia and PLC in Eastern Europe and Timmies in Asia. Destroy Ottos and Hungary will be much stronger to resist Austria.
Muscovy is actually held by Poland and Lithuania to expand westwards and Scandinavians to expand north-west. Destroy Denmark\Sweden and soon russian troops will march over Baltic region
Same for France: crush Castile + Portugal, England or Austria and you will get an overblob.

For that reason if you give a "lucky" nation to some "mediocre" powers like Hansa, Hungary, Savoy\Naples, Japan (one of the states), Oirat or Vija... Vijalara... Vij (emm, whatever) the world would become completely crazy, ruining most scripted events.

BTW question for Wiz personally: Why do I never see (around of 300 hours played) any formed Commonwealths since 1444 start both in "normal" and Ironman games? Both usually exist till 1750 without giving too much territory to Russia.

 

[WeissRaben]

For that reason if you give a "lucky" nation to some "mediocre" powers like Hansa, Hungary, Savoy\Naples, Japan (one of the states)o Oirat or Vija... Vijalara... Vij (emm, whatever) the world would become completely crazy, ruining most scripted events.

Good riddance.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Actually I guess devs have another reason not to change "lucky" nations: they have created a very complicated and rather thick balance of powers in the world.
Examples:
Ottomans are held by Austria and Hungary in Europe, Russia and PLC in Eastern Europe and Timmies in Asia. Destroy Ottos and Hungary will be much stronger to resist Austria.
Muscovy is actually held by Poland and Lithuania to expand westwards and Scandinavians to expand north-west. Destroy Denmark\Sweden and soon russian troops will march over Baltic region
Same for France: crush Castile + Portugal, England or Austria and you will get an overblob.

For that reason if you give a "lucky" nation to some "mediocre" powers like Hansa, Hungary, Savoy\Naples, Japan (one of the states)o Oirat or Vija... Vijalara... Vij (emm, whatever) the world would become completely crazy, ruining most scripted events.

BTW question for Wiz personally: Why do I never see (around of 300 hours played) any formed Commonwealths since 1444 start both in "normal" and Ironman games? Both usually exist till 1750 without giving too much territory to Russia.

The assertion of balance in the game due to the relatives strength of nations is a complete joke . Russia gets blocked by Aristocratic ideas 2 and Poland's alliance to Austria, and lucky has nothing to do with those things.

Lucky would probably have MORE impact in India than Iberia, though Austria with its non-military NIs tends to choke a bit without it, as does England due to its events.

 

[ahyangyi]

It doesn't happen THAT often anymore, but if it did, well, clearly it wasn't actually a lucky nation at all, and it'll jump!

Actually, the Burgundy events already have MTTH x 1.1 when it's a lucky nation.