Single Player Considerations

[TheLoneTaco]

and then there are those of us who have NO ONE to play online with...like myself. its wonderful that some players have lots of friends who are into this game, but i think a large market for EU2 will never try MP and thus any changes that cripple the AI effectively cripple the game for those players. on the flip side, i personally detest AI cheats, but what is a guy to do?

-Matt

 

[unmerged(14597)]

Geez, it's only a beta. Make it work the way you want to, _then_ fix the ai. I happen to think this is a major masterpiece of strategic gaming in the works here, but it ain't finished.

-stillzig

 

[Dinsdale]

Another vote for some single player considerations please.

That is unless there are dozens of people like me who play in 45 minute batches whenever it is convenient for me, in that case let's play

 

[Juice]

Geez, it's only a beta. Make it work the way you want to, _then_ fix the ai. I happen to think this is a major masterpiece of strategic gaming in the works here, but it ain't finished.

I know it is a Beta, but if we don't talk about the issues in the game it will go as is and then where will we be.

A little saying that my Dad always told me is...

"If you don't vote you really don't have the right to bitch."

You can take this a couple ways, since it is a public Beta all those that are using it should be allowed to post their concerns and since I paid for the game and it is a public beta I think I am using this as my vote

By the way I have 2 copies so do I get 2 votes

and then there are those of us who have NO ONE to play online with...like myself. its wonderful that some players have lots of friends who are into this game, but i think a large market for EU2 will never try MP and thus any changes that cripple the AI effectively cripple the game for those players. on the flip side, i personally detest AI cheats, but what is a guy to do?

I have no friends that play this game except for the ones that I have met online. None of my friends in real life are computer junkies like me

Juice

 

[L G]

When i started mp'ing i didnt know anyone that played, no one i know has the game either. I just jumped online, went into v-net, Ran into some guys that helped me learn how to play and here i am today, playing every night i can

 

[unmerged(5161)]

I started playing MP cause I got tired of the AI being so stupid. This makes it even more stupid, so I complain. It is a public beta because Johan WANTS feedback; in theory. If you dont post your opinion on here, and people who think that having no money for decades adds "flavour" to the game, then you cant really complain about it if Johan puts this in a final version.

Of course we could all just go back to an earlier version if we dont like something, but that only works for SP. If I want to play MP, I have to use the latest version. So when I see something I think massively causes problems, I post it. I think I have made about 30 posts about this topic; things that cripple the AI.

If I knew people in real life who played Europa, I wouldnt be here posting this, I would be playing Europa on a LAN somewhere. But I am here at 1:20 AM because I am bored and looking for a good MP game.

I have no clue how to end this post, so I will just stop typing after the end of this sentence.

 

[unmerged(9404)]

Originally posted by MichaelK
1. I am not sure about new alliance system. It has some good points, but actually not changes SP game too much.

I'm not sold on the allliance system, but thinking more if it adn playing more it can have soem benfits.

2. Inflation. It is making life difficult for big countries, especially with a low techology groups (Turkey, China). May be it will be a good idea to make inflation decrease 0.5% for AI only.

ai's inflation is tied to human inflation unless the ai screws up big. (ie goes bankrupt, orhas big gold inflation =>is taken care of for the most part) So inflation should not be a problem.

3. Tax-collector change concerning annual income. This is a real issue. AI is not able to do anything as a major nation. I checked couple of games in 1500-1550. France, which was a richest and biggest country was not able to raise an army to crush rebellions. Spain was not able to colonise because of the money problems and constantly had the government collapse. At the other hand, this change make me as a hyman player to play more carefully, which is good. IMHO this option should be eigher removed or used for the hyman player only (f.e. annual income for the hyman player 100% on normal level , 50% on hard and 0% on very hard).

Tax collectors should not have such a big impact. I liked the prpositions of Mark Dey especially

3. every provence gets X % census tax w/o a TC, but 100% with a TC, where X depends on difficulty level

with X ranging from 100% at very easy to 50% on very hard

 

[unmerged(5161)]

How is AI inflation tied to Human inflation? AI inflation is a major problem under the new patch (I havent tried the one for today where more priority is given to promoting TCs). But I think this is not a solution because countries with barely any money at the beginning of a scenario are disproportionately screwed. The AI actually takes large amounts of cash out of its monthly income and gets inflation if it has no money.

 

[Owen]

Ah. I wondered what the impact of the tax collector changes on SP were going to be. As I see it, there are two problems. Firstly, the drastic decrease in initial province income hampers the ai to a huge extent, and also changes the initial relative values of provinces greatly. A good example of this is to look at how poor the high-tax sheep provinces in the northern HRE are compared to their neighbours until you promote tax collectors. Secondly, the ai now loses tax income in any province it conquers. When combined with the first problem, it creates a vicious spiral that the ai appears to be unable to get out of.

I cannot see that having separate setups for SP and MP can be a good idea, particularly given the number of board regulars that Mowers is persuading to try out MP. Why would you want to have to learn a new game. Remember that the large-scale MP games are only just starting out, and are undoubtedly a minority. Everything else will rely on the ai playing as just as much as in SP.

How would I solve the issues? Well, I would probably want to try out a 50% tax income for taxes, perhaps combined with a dependency on CB shields. I would give the removal of tax collectors and chief judges a chance akin to that which manufactories have of being removed when captured.

 

[unmerged(5161)]

Why take a step backwards? Why not just make tax collectors give you more money (instead of one measly ducat)

 

[unmerged(8881)]

Originally posted by MichaelK
1. I am not sure about new alliance system. It has some good points, but actually not changes SP game too much.

The MP alliance system was apparently introduced to prevent this exploit:

Originally posted by Johan
There's a simple reason for this. AI allies was completely worthless in games, as humans used to exploit it and declaring war upon the minor AI allies, and then making peace with them if the war went bad without negotiating with opponent players.

In my mind a more elegant solution would be this:

Originally posted by nlilith
One possible solution to the MP exploit Johann mentioned:

The alliance leader for the aggressive alliance is the country that actually declares war, after all they're taking the BB hit. The alliance leader for the defensive alliance, i.e. the alliance on which war has been declared, is the normal alliance leader.

It also means an inactive alliance leader can't profit from a war started by a minor alliance partner, e.g. settling for a total peace when they haven't engaged in a single battle. Furthermore, it keeps the SP and MP alliances systems consistent, allowing for an easier migration to MP from SP.

 

[Aetius]

What about summerizing this and pm:ing Johan?

 

[Tamas]

Has the latest beta patch (31st March) improved the AI's ability to get it's taxes coming in?

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Tamas
Has the latest beta patch (31st March) improved the AI's ability to get it's taxes coming in?

Not really. It does, however, give a higher priority to promoting tax collectors.

In practice this means that nations use their starting cash (and cash they gain from events) to promote tax collectors. If their starting cash is high, they usually end up in a beneficial cycle that allows them to promote more tax collectors over time. If it is low, they are dependent on getting a good random event to help them out.

So I have to say "no" as an answer to your question, but notice that it does mean more tax collectors overall.

 

[Derek Pullem]

It's better but not 100% fixed. Timurids are still awfully weak. Western Europe is mostly ok though. NB haven't tested 1492 yet though

 

[Owen]

In my mind a more elegant solution would be this:

One possible solution to the MP exploit Johann mentioned:

The alliance leader for the aggressive alliance is the country that actually declares war, after all they're taking the BB hit. The alliance leader for the defensive alliance, i.e. the alliance on which war has been declared, is the normal alliance leader.

It also means an inactive alliance leader can't profit from a war started by a minor alliance partner, e.g. settling for a total peace when they haven't engaged in a single battle. Furthermore, it keeps the SP and MP alliances systems consistent, allowing for an easier migration to MP from SP.

A very good idea Nilith. The SP game is set up so that small ai nations are unlikely to attack large alliances that might swallow them up even if their own alliance is winning the war, so keeping the nation who declares war as the alliance leader sounds reasonable.

 

[SJG]

I think consistency between MP and SP games is paramount. I would rather see one system for both.

 

[unmerged(15394)]

I like the new TC setup. (assuming the AI will be tweaked enough to deal with it.)

My bigger problem is that there is no real visual (map) as to which provinces have TC. That will become discouraging to those learning the game.

It is fairly tedious to either click on every province and check and forget 10min later. Or go through the leger and see which have TC's and try to find the province. Remember that everyone new to the game does not have every province in the game commited to memory.

What would be great is if the sprite for the tax collector could be added to the economy map.

 

[unmerged(5161)]

Pan_Stretch,

Are you saying that there are actually people out there who dont know the names of every single province, cant draw the entire world by province from memory, hold the economic statistics of 100 provinces in their head at one time, and have a hard time figuring out why they have no money? Who are these strange beings you speak of?

 

[SJG]

Originally posted by Pan_Stretch
I like the new TC setup. (assuming the AI will be tweaked enough to deal with it.)

My bigger problem is that there is no real visual (map) as to which provinces have TC. That will become discouraging to those learning the game.

It is fairly tedious to either click on every province and check and forget 10min later. Or go through the leger and see which have TC's and try to find the province. Remember that everyone new to the game does not have every province in the game commited to memory.

What would be great is if the sprite for the tax collector could be added to the economy map.

There is a page in the ledger which indicates which provinces have which buildings, isn't there? I'm fairly sure there is, province upgrades or something.

And you can use the "?" command to find any province.

It's not that hard.