Project Balance

[AnaxXiphos]

On the subject of councilor opinion, I'm not too keen on the idea of positive opinions making them perform better. I can barely remember a game where my councilors weren't all in love with me, whereas the AI sometimes seems to struggle with it. So I worry in practice it's just going to be a minor negative for most AIs and a minor positive for players. And if the AI is actually better at managing councilors than I give them credit for, then it's just going to be a minor buff to all councilors everywhere.

On a less important note, I also don't like the opinion levels being so complicated, as it makes it harder to "eyeball" councilor performance, especially when you factor in having to figure out how your personal diplomacy will affect them.

 

[zijistark]

Merged into branch.
Next time, do write a changelog entry so that I don't have to make a commit purely for that

Sure thing. *high five*

 

[Meneth]

On the subject of councilor opinion, I'm not too keen on the idea of positive opinions making them perform better. I can barely remember a game where my councilors weren't all in love with me, whereas the AI sometimes seems to struggle with it. So I worry in practice it's just going to be a minor negative for most AIs and a minor positive for players. And if the AI is actually better at managing councilors than I give them credit for, then it's just going to be a minor buff to all councilors everywhere.

On a less important note, I also don't like the opinion levels being so complicated, as it makes it harder to "eyeball" councilor performance, especially when you factor in having to figure out how your personal diplomacy will affect them.

What I just implemented reduces the MTTH by 4% for each opinion step. At 100 opinion the MTTH will be 15% shorter. So it shouldn't make much of a difference.
Note that it doesn't give any benefits until it passes +35 opinion. 20 and below and it is slower. 20 to 34 and it is same as now. 35+ and it is a little bit faster.
Might shift the tiers one step for the AI perhaps, to compensate for it being a bit dumber when it comes to council selection. Or just drop a few or all of the positive tiers. As you say that won't really do much beyond buff councilors slight.y.

 

[zijistark]

On the subject of councilor opinion, I'm not too keen on the idea of positive opinions making them perform better. I can barely remember a game where my councilors weren't all in love with me, whereas the AI sometimes seems to struggle with it. So I worry in practice it's just going to be a minor negative for most AIs and a minor positive for players. And if the AI is actually better at managing councilors than I give them credit for, then it's just going to be a minor buff to all councilors everywhere.

On a less important note, I also don't like the opinion levels being so complicated, as it makes it harder to "eyeball" councilor performance, especially when you factor in having to figure out how your personal diplomacy will affect them.

Since the effects of the employer opinion factors are minor overall, you shouldn't be too worried about trying to eyeball councillor performance (though the total base yearly chance change from an opinion change will be automatically reflected in all job action event tooltips, FWIW). It's probably even an over-analysis to keep in mind the basics of the curve at all, since they just mirror realistic expectations and are of minor overall effect: no bonus at all until 35+, no significant bonus unless you're 95+ (truly cozy). Down to -20, the malus is quite mild (though greater than the possible bonus), downward from that it starts ramping-up more and more and has an extra special peak at a perfect -100. And, all across the spectrum, the curve has a granularity maximum of 20 opinion points and never makes sudden changes (except for maybe bottoming-out at -100), so it's designed to discourage micro-analysis.

When my council isn't totally nepotistic, my councillors don't usually love me until I rule a large realm (basically because they've gotten land off me-- good councillors do make good vassals, after all). This is encouraged. Enjoy your 15% discount on the MTTH of positive events once you reach that stage. [Consider that adding a single councillor skill point would probably net you a 25% discount-- comparatively 67% more, depending upon how high the skill already is.] Since I had the same concern about the AI, I decided to peak around some developed AI realms (decades after game startup). The AI seems perfectly competent at avoiding most malus like a human would. However, making sure the AI is never thwarted by non-vanilla mechanics and generally improving the AI vs. vanilla is one of my top priorities, so I would be open to giving AI lieges more leeway in the curve, only punishing the worst of opinion, if this proves to be an actual issue. Consider your concern seriously noted and then some.

At normal opinion levels (and maximum, for that matter), councillor skill points (and other factors) still dominate MTTH much more significantly. However, one just needs be realistic in their councillor selection now. Don't burn bridges with high skill candidates, do your best to develop very high relations with your highest-skilled councillors (a good/preventative thing for plot power too, which is why the AI already optimizes for this partially). Just one more [realistic] variable to consider as you make appointments.

Particularly since PB has made it actually a big deal to be a councillor with its big buffs to prestige upon grant, salary, etc., I think this addition is just another in the same vein. It was also one of the simple mechanics in CK2+ of which I was a fan (and I know I'm not the only one), although, frankly, the PB curve as it stands now is much more balanced than Wiz's exponential-- both bonus and malus-- centered at 0 opinion, IMHO.

EDIT: Also, when editing all of the job action events, I did not include the employer opinion effects unless they were relevant to the nature of the event (so I had to re-read all the event gory details while I was at it). I also particularly kept in mind the ramifications of employer opinion effects upon a player councillor with an AI liege [especially when they dislike the liege, or do according to the numbers].

 

[Meneth]

<snip>

I think the simplest way to solve the AI vs. PC concern is to simply have the first positive tier (35+) be exclusive to the AI. That'll also cap the player's bonus at 11.5% instead of 15%.

 

[Meneth]

I think the simplest way to solve the AI vs. PC concern is to simply have the first positive tier (35+) be exclusive to the AI. That'll also cap the player's bonus at 11.5% instead of 15%.

Done: https://github.com/Meneth/PB-git/commit/8e8cbed7e36407b86f0d34d8d87d967bc05389c2
Also improved the formatting as it was overly compacted for my tastes.

 

[zijistark]

Done: https://github.com/Meneth/PB-git/commit/8e8cbed7e36407b86f0d34d8d87d967bc05389c2
Also improved the formatting as it was overly compacted for my tastes.

Jesus christ, way to inflate your diffcount! Noted on your style guidelines. [Generally when you're trying to get a patch into somebody else's project, you want to minimize LoC, but now that I know how you want it, I'll give you that in the future.]

Did you intend to make the the 1st tier of bonus exclusive to AI councillors? Don't you intend to enable it for AI lieges? I'll run through and fix this for you right now if you want / need to do something else. In fact, I'm syncing now...

EDIT: Done. It's a good modification, BTW.

 

[Mr_jon3s]

Playing with PB and SWMH and am wondering if the improve stat ambitions work? Had it on my guy for about 10 years and not a single event fired before he died in battle.

 

[Meneth]

Playing with PB and SWMH and am wondering if the improve stat ambitions work? Had it on my guy for about 10 years and not a single event fired before he died in battle.

They're identical to vanilla.

 

[Raineh Daze]

I am mildly confused: I can start an Invasion... but it immediately ends inconclusively, netting me -500 piety for absolutely no achievement

 

[Jolt]

Which DLCs did you have enabled for the game? [Not the content-only DLCs: important ones would be Sunset Invasion, The Old Gods, Sons of Abraham, etc.]

It was all of them except Sunset Invasion.

From what bookmark / date did the game start, and who did you play (and your associated religion and culture, while you're at it)? Only one more piece of information to make the data point complete: anything else weird happen? Stuff like Jews forming the Kingdom of Israel, Zoroastrians taking over, how did the Mongol invasions go (did they end up converting religions? to which? did either horde get wiped out by the other? which of the khanates were already active when you first started the game?), and other stuff depending upon just how long of a playthrough this was.

I started in the Balanced Iberia bookmark, playing as Portugal (King Sancho I, always Catholic and Portuguese), no Kingdom of Israel (Though there was always successful Crusades/Jihads going back and forth for Jerusalem), no Zoroastrians, Mongol invasions went rather poorly, Ilkhanate only conquered like the Eastern half of Persia, the Golden Horde didn't go that much beyond the Volga river, both converted to Islam (One to Shia, the other to Sunni). Later I looked and noticed that the Golden Horde had been absorbed by the Ilkhanate. Nothing really out of the ordinary, maybe except that France was pretty chopped up by several Plantagenet monarchs, the King of England, the King of Aquitaine and the King of Ireland, but it still held most of its core territories. Byzantine Empire had a pretty standard fight against the Sultanate of Rum, lost some territory and then recovered, HRE stayed stable the whole time. Overall it was a pretty realistic game and unweird game.

 

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

Greetings

I'm trying to sort out the cultural issues that exist for some West African groups when using [PB, PB + SWMH, SWMH]. I understand that some of these are old problems, but I've not come across a definitive fix while skimming the thread. Just picking the game up again after a long break...

Specifically, when using PB with SWMH, you'll get noculture assignments for some characters in West African territory. These would seem to be pre-defined characters referencing Mande, Sosso and Jolof (in PB west_african.txt). Or perhaps some are dynamically generated... I don't remember how that all works. I can add these tags either to the SWMH 00_cultures.txt or to the west_african.txt override in PB + SWMH and superficially solve the problem. However, that likely leaves some unintended splits between what should be the same culture (e.g. Manden vs Mande, Wolof vs Jolof etc).

Could someone advise me on how to proceed? It looks like I have to sort through all references and eliminate the "duplicates", otherwise you get cultural modifiers between characters who should be of the same group. Or is that a product of *_culture_modifier being different between SWMH and PB? PB uses default_culture_modifier and SWMH uses west_african_culture_modifier in the West African group.

Thanks much for all the continuing work here.

 

[Meneth]

Greetings

I'm trying to sort out the cultural issues that exist for some West African groups when using [PB, PB + SWMH, SWMH]. I understand that some of these are old problems, but I've not come across a definitive fix while skimming the thread. Just picking the game up again after a long break...

Specifically, when using PB with SWMH, you'll get noculture assignments for some characters in West African territory. These would seem to be pre-defined characters referencing Mande, Sosso and Jolof (in PB west_african.txt). Or perhaps some are dynamically generated... I don't remember how that all works. I can add these tags either to the SWMH 00_cultures.txt or to the west_african.txt override in PB + SWMH and superficially solve the problem. However, that likely leaves some unintended splits between what should be the same culture (e.g. Manden vs Mande, Wolof vs Jolof etc).

Could someone advise me on how to proceed? It looks like I have to sort through all references and eliminate the "duplicates", otherwise you get cultural modifiers between characters who should be of the same group. Or is that a product of *_culture_modifier being different between SWMH and PB? PB uses default_culture_modifier and SWMH uses west_african_culture_modifier in the West African group.

Thanks much for all the continuing work here.

You could try adding a blank west_african.txt file to PB+SWMH's character folder.
Get back to me on whether that solves the issue

 

[Raineh Daze]

So... why is it that I find I can only seize a county from a ruler if I'm Christian (ruler is Catholic, I'm Jewish), when I already own a city and trade port in the appropriate county? That seems like an odd restriction.

 

[zijistark]

So... why is it that I find I can only seize a county from a ruler if I'm Christian (ruler is Catholic, I'm Jewish), when I already own a city and trade port in the appropriate county? That seems like an odd restriction.

Hmm, yeah, that's probably an oversight. Probably in Vanilla? Or does PB add the religion_group restriction?

I imagine the religion_group restriction in the CB is to keep Venice from seizing coastal counties all over the Middle East (and vice versa for a Muslim republic), which would be, well, weird and would not stand. It doesn't stand up to the motivation/justification behind the coastal county CB to cross religion_groups as they existed before SoA.

However, real Jews are new, and they permeate both the Muslim world and the Christian world, by design. They are intrinsically part of the game, whether you're Catholic or Jewish [I haven't played SoA with SoI yet, so I don't know if they added any Jewish flavor to the Muslim world beyond the basic historical fact that Jews were even more accepted as what Catholics would call burghers in most Islamic realms than they were in Catholic realms.] In my opinion, Jewish merchant republics should be able to use the coastal county CB on any county title holder of an Abrahamic religion. Otherwise, this important element of playing a merchant republic (and, seriously, what's more perfect than combining merchant republics and Jews?) is completely inaccessible for Jews, who don't share a religion_group with anybody else that holds land. Likewise, Catholic and Muslim merchant republics should be able to use the coastal county CB on Jewish rulers. Definitely a special case.

 

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

@ Meneth

You could try adding a blank west_african.txt file to PB+SWMH's character folder.
Get back to me on whether that solves the issue

Yes, that does it

At least, it fixes the noculture characters. I'm still a little confused by the presence of both Mandé and Mande... both of which look like localizations for the Manden. Or are these representative of East and West Manden peoples?. With the former, some hold titles and claims. Not so with the latter, who are always courtiers or councilors. Mandé do seem more dense to the east and vice versa.

I did see the change-log entry regarding Manden -> Mande for PB, but I'm not familiar enough with the intention of each mod (PB vs SWMH) nor the historical subtleties of the region to judge whether that's WAD. Otherwise, your solution seems to have sorted out the West African regional cultures. Thanks

 

[Wellington]

Happy Christmas everyone. I feel like a total novice here since I can not find the ProjectBalance.mod file , only the folder, mentioned in the instructions (under). I have unzipped the whole 7z-zip file into the CK2 mod folder and wonder if I have the mod running or if I have to do more to make it work....?

Important: Delete any Project Balance folders you have in your mod-folder (Crusader Kings II\mod)
Download the 7z-file attached to this post
Extract the Project Balance folder and the ProjectBalance.mod file to your mod-folder (Crusader Kings II\mod). If you're playing on OS X or Linux, open the .mod file in a text editor and remove the user_dir line
Extract any modules you want, and their .mod file
Enable PB and any modules you'd like in the launcher

I have attached the folder showing the unzipped files. Any help is most appreciated

 

[Meneth]

So... why is it that I find I can only seize a county from a ruler if I'm Christian (ruler is Catholic, I'm Jewish), when I already own a city and trade port in the appropriate county? That seems like an odd restriction.

The religion restriction is to prevent the Muslim republics from massively expanding. I could make it include Jews too I suppose.
I've committed that change to the beta branch now.

Yes, that does it

At least, it fixes the noculture characters. I'm still a little confused by the presence of both Mandé and Mande... both of which look like localizations for the Manden. Or are these representative of East and West Manden peoples?. With the former, some hold titles and claims. Not so with the latter, who are always courtiers or councilors. Mandé do seem more dense to the east and vice versa.

I did see the change-log entry regarding Manden -> Mande for PB, but I'm not familiar enough with the intention of each mod (PB vs SWMH) nor the historical subtleties of the region to judge whether that's WAD. Otherwise, your solution seems to have sorted out the West African regional cultures. Thanks

Thanks, I'll look into the details once I get back home to Trondheim.

Happy Christmas everyone. I feel like a total novice here since I can not find the ProjectBalance.mod file , only the folder, mentioned in the instructions (under). I have unzipped the whole 7z-zip file into the CK2 mod folder and wonder if I have the mod running or if I have to do more to make it work....?

Important: Delete any Project Balance folders you have in your mod-folder (Crusader Kings II\mod)
Download the 7z-file attached to this post
Extract the Project Balance folder and the ProjectBalance.mod file to your mod-folder (Crusader Kings II\mod). If you're playing on OS X or Linux, open the .mod file in a text editor and remove the user_dir line
Extract any modules you want, and their .mod file
Enable PB and any modules you'd like in the launcher

I have attached the folder showing the unzipped files. Any help is most appreciated

That's the ProjectBalance file that Explorer is detecting as a "filmklipp". You should turn on file-extensions (Google it) so that you'll always see the extensions in the future.

 

[Raineh Daze]

The religion restriction is to prevent the Muslim republics from massively expanding. I could make it include Jews too I suppose.
I've committed that change to the beta branch now.

Hmm. Wouldn't it be better to check for 'not muslim', then?

 

[Meneth]

Hmm. Wouldn't it be better to check for 'not muslim', then?

Well, I'm not sure I'd want Pagan republics to get it either if they were somehow to come into existence. Before the introduction of Jews, Christians were essentially the only ones where it made much sense for them to have it.