Should the Far East start with higher military tech?

[doktarr]

Doesn't that make it absolutely impossible to balance the event or event sequence? It also puts across the idea that the people in real life who made the opposite choice were simply idiots. To me that's a very dangerous idea. I know that is not what you are saying, but when you get an unbalanced event like that you have to think that either the event had very little to do with the real life decision, or that the people who made that decision were fools.
The decision to scrap the treasure fleet didn't come out of the blue, and it wasn't irrational. The event (or event sequence) needs to have effects that reflect (in some way) the real life choices.

These effects need to come into play if China decides to get the better tech group and stick with the treasure fleet. To do otherwise is to suggest that the Chinese administration was fundamentally incompetent in it's decision making, and I don't think there is any call for that.

Well, I don't think we're changing China's tech group no matter what. But if the decision to keep the fleets active boosts naval tech from the 8-9 range up to 11-13 (as I think it should) then that bonus will be much bigger than the losses to land and infra. So yes, there will need to be more effort put toward balancing things.

We need to really think about WHY China chose what it did and WHAT the consequences of the other choice are. The obvious negative effects of choosing naval would be:

- failure to get any positive effects of choosing the historical path, such as stability, extra fortifications, and a taxvalue boost on the provinces that touch the grand canal.

- instability and revolts, and perhaps long-term province-based revoltrisk in the capital.

- large expenses for maintainance, and/or inflation to represent the strained budget and the corruption of the Eunuch officials.

 

[Norrefeldt]

- failure to get any positive effects of choosing the historical path, such as stability, extra fortifications, and a taxvalue boost on the provinces that touch the grand canal.

- instability and revolts, and perhaps long-term province-based revoltrisk in the capital.

- large expenses for maintainance, and/or inflation to represent the strained budget and the corruption of the Eunuch officials.

Since we'll likely have the problem with a strong and too advanced China later on I suggest adding bad thing to the ahistorical choice, instead of further strengthen China. I try to base it on IB's citation.

-loose forts in the north, lose manpower and tax in inland provinces, since the river transport system is neglected.

-instability of course, along with some special random events for China as conservative Confusianists fight the Emperors' plans. Those events should lower stab and give occasional revolts.

-let China start on a ahistorical low infrastructure, and if the historical path is taken the amount needed to get to the level they should have, were the river transport system working and the Emperor not struggling with the conservatives. That would probably amount to some tens of thousand in infrastructure.

 

[Zander]

But adhering completely to the second option is somewhere between unrealistic, unplayable, and impossible. Imagine starting China at land 11, naval 14, trade 4, and infra 2. Those are conservative picks. Now give China either -85% tech speed (by religion), or a series of events that destroy their tech investment at regular intervals. And eliminate your chances of getting colonists and missionaries, except at the most extreme DP settings. Perhaps add events that destroy shipyards regularly. And finally, script a long series of events that drain your manpower and baloon your inflation, to reflect your gradual loss of central control and increase in corruption, in anticipation of the Manchu advance.

I actually still think that would be playable, personally, because China at start is so incredibly powerful. I've enjoyed playing "fall of Rome" type games where holding on to what you have is considered a good job.
But I have no objection if it's felt to be more "fun" to start China out weaker so that it can spend the first two centuries advancing instead of working to keep what it has.

I do however, (like most of the people here) want to make sure that the options China has are well-balanced: if they have a choice to choose an ahistorical path of expansion, the positive and negative aspects of those choices should be such that a top-level player might reasonably make either choice.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Its all good to give china bad stuff (heh that phrase just doesn't sound right) for chosing to go ahisotircal, but there should be some postive stuff from events as well. If we don't its not going to be very fun just pushing back revolt after revolt with other than higher naval and trade as the only real benifits.

FE as the manpower is lowered in the inner provinces, the already dense coastal provinces should become even more packed and taxvalues and manpower increased there.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

But adhering completely to the second option is somewhere between unrealistic, unplayable, and impossible. Imagine starting China at land 11, naval 14, trade 4, and infra 2. Those are conservative picks. Now give China either -85% tech speed (by religion), or a series of events that destroy their tech investment at regular intervals. And eliminate your chances of getting colonists and missionaries, except at the most extreme DP settings. Perhaps add events that destroy shipyards regularly. And finally, script a long series of events that drain your manpower and baloon your inflation, to reflect your gradual loss of central control and increase in corruption, in anticipation of the Manchu advance.

again, what penalties are necessary to steer China in its historical path and yet not be unplayable for humans is unacertainable without testing, but we are trying to agree on a starting point to do the tests. i that sense i agree with what norresfeldt said here:

When I said I liked option 2 I didn't mention any values. If the values you mention lead to the result you describe, and no one knows yet, then we'll have to lower them and try again. All historical events doesn't need several options. It might happen that with higher starting values we need to have some events with no way out.

it seems that people's priority is to steer China to its historical path rather the harshness of alternative paths. i agree with this. i dont think it had been disputed that giving tech level's 8-9 would require substantially the same penalties as giving tech lv's 11-12. Nor is it possible to dispute it without real testing. This means that there is no reason not to start testing the higher level first. As Norrefeldt has pointed out, if China starts out with land 11 naval 11, it would have the about the same tech level as england in 1520 and higher than England and Portugal in 1492. This is historical. If testing indicates that that level is not possible without unacceptably harsh penalties or unplayable effects, then we will have to lower them and try again. If testing indicates that the necessary penalties is not unacceptably harsh after adopting tech lv 11, then why adopt a level that is less historical?

the only argument advanced that could immediately make us adopt lv 8-9 range naval tech rather than lv 11-13 is the argument to permanently stop China having shipyards. however, IMO, this is exactly where we are putting up artificial disincentives to limit alternatives. Like doktarr said, we should of course accomodate elements in model (3) into our primary model (2). Also, the options in the events should of course balance in a way that (even if you can build shipyards) it is stupid to choose the historical choice if you want to pursue naval strategies. at the same time the ahistorical choice should not be too harsh that it is stupid to choose it. I do not think that the ability to build shipyards would have a significant effect on these two types of balancing since we will need to strongly balance the events in that way regardless. again we will test this later and see whether the historical tech level is viable.

I actually still think that would be playable, personally, because China at start is so incredibly powerful. I've enjoyed playing "fall of Rome" type games where holding on to what you have is considered a good job.
But I have no objection if it's felt to be more "fun" to start China out weaker so that it can spend the first two centuries advancing instead of working to keep what it has.

that is an interesting point. it is probably inevitable IMO that events and other things would make China choose from two negatives. This is because the game engine in its natural position promotes the ahistorical path. This means if China chooses the historical path, more penalties are required to steer it away from where the game engine naturally leads it to, while the ahistorical path needs to be even more unattractive than the historical path. In that sense it would be good to have people who thinks that holding on what you have is fun because China would inevitably have generally bad events that tries to steer it in the opposite direction as the game engine. Of course, there would be a point at which the choices are unacceptably harsh. at that point we should reduce China's power until it becomes acceptable. It may be that the historical position does not require falling under the point of acceptable harshness, we dont know yet. That point will be detected by testing.

There could be lots of penalties for choosing the ahistorical choice, some has already been mentioned. cost in maintenance of the fleet, cost in trading unprofitably with other countries such as inflation, poorer administration through a reduced ADMIN rating, cost to other spending such as agriculture and grand canal (this would translate to small stability hit and gradual displacement of manpower and taxvalue from inland and border areas to the coast), hits in infra and land investment, some destruction of government buildings such as tax offices, etc. This eventually would lead to weaker fronts along the border, poorer and more rebellious interior, and a coastal China much more attractive to Japanese Pirate attack. some of this is already put into the draft series (which needs to be expanded) in the Far East thread, some effects (like no money to build forts) i prefer to leave it for the natural course of the game. I do not prefer to add a final "showdown" between conservatives and others because i do not think the political culture at the time warrants it. However, we must not (regardless of which starting tech level and ability to build shipyards) make the ahistorical choice so bad compared with the historical choice that nobody would choose it, especially those who wants to pursue expansionist strategies should find some merits in choosing it, otherwise there is no point in having options at all. This in effect means that effects specific to naval/expansionist strategies (such as DP changes, investment bonuses) should still be the main focus of the events.

btw, just to let people know that i havent forgot to that i need t make final changes to the draft event set in the Far East thread. i think we've agreed to adopt those events without reference to technology changes.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

I think IMO in the long run, a more outward looking china should be bumped up to a new tech level once the playing field has become more leveled and had a great many hardships. Kind of like the awakening of a sleeping giant. However, this shouldn't be done until atleast close to 1600 at the earliest.

Besides other than DP sliders and increased population/taxvalues to the coast (which would be offset by decreases eleswhere) there's not much to look forward to right now in the way of events.

Another thing to consider, would such a shift perhaps change the state religion? Would Budhism or Sunni become a possible alternative (those 2 other than pagan which has some brokenness to it in general for such a nation) being the only 2 religions modeled that would have been established enough?

 

[Yakman]

Another thing to consider, would such a shift perhaps change the state religion? Would Budhism or Sunni become a possible alternative (those 2 other than pagan which has some brokenness to it in general for such a nation) being the only 2 religions modeled that would have been established enough?

I don't think their state religion should change just because of the "Great Leap Outward" you are proposing. In fact, such a movement would only enforce the Confucian doctrine of the Emperor as the center of the world and China as the Middle Kingdom subduing barbarians.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

i agree that Confucianism is not necessarily inconsistent with higher level of interaction with foreign countries. This was the case during Tang dyansty and Song dynasty. Also i would not suggest representing far-fetched possibllities that may occur for alternatives of alternatives of alternatives. IMO, the long run penalty for expansion would be drain of resources, neglect of administration, widespread displacement of wealth and population, poverty, discontent and increased frequency of revolts, thus perhaps resulting in the earlier downfall of the Ming dynasty. The Qin dynasty and Sui dynasty suffered exactly the same fate by excessive expansionism. Pressure within the Empire would increase and it should be difficult to match the detriments suffered with the benefits you are able to secure by expanding.

i would agree to an eventual change in tech group, however, in the sense that the tech group China is in should expand or contract depending on China's choice of interaction with foreign countries. although China would be the leader in its tech group anyway, i think more countries in the tech group would at least make China advance slightly faster? if so, this would translate into a dilemma between China advancing slightly faster but at the cost of much bigger boost to other countries, which fits in well with the historical theme.

the most difficult factor to represent in relation to why china didn't continue to increase interaction with foreign countries IMO is the fact that China did not find the need to do so. The game simply assumes that interaction and expansion is good, which is fine to do for the situation in Europe, where there was great pressure due to competition between different nation states, but when you apply this to China who has already unified itself ever since 221BC, expansion is usually just a costly exercise. (it's quite funny to see parallels of this to the situation in Iraq today, had they learnt Chinese history, perhaps they would've been much more careful before deciding to invade Iraq). In fact, the time when China made big advances in technological applications was during Song dynasty, when it was under great pressure to compete against rival Liao, Jin, Western Xia and later Yuan dynasties. The tech group modifier is the only thing that you could arguably say somewhat represent this factor, but that is definitely inadequate. Perhaps, if China ended up divided during the fall of Ming rather than overran by the Manchus, similar to the situation during the Song dynasty, it would have advanced much faster.

 

[Yakman]

Pardon my ignorance, but is there an event, or series of events to boost Japanese land technology in the 16th century?

By the time the Tokugawas had ascended, Japanese tactics and weapons were more advanced than western ones as a direct result of the Portugese introduction of firearms.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

There are random events that i forgot to add that do increase japanese potential (they will be added next time i send the randomevetns file).

 

[Yakman]

There are random events that i forgot to add that do increase japanese potential (they will be added next time i send the randomevetns file).

Okay. I was just wondering...