Suggestion for mods with lots of countries

[Cheexsta]

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice this, but in mods that have lots of different countries there seems to be an increased slowdown effect as the game has to process more events and more characters at any given time. Moreover, savegame files become epic huge after only a few years of gameplay.

One solution I've considered while pondering some of the expansion ideas is to create a simple triggered modifier, something like this:

minor_country = {
	trigger = {
		ai = yes
		capital_scope = { NOT = { civilisation_value = 40 } }
	}
	max_friends = -4
	max_rivals = -4
	fertility = -2
	icon = 1
}

What this means is that there will be fewer characters being born and less character interaction for countries that are deemed to be 'minor countries' (which, for the point of this example is an arbitrary civilisation value, but these triggers can be expanded to include other countries as well).

On top of this, every event in the game except for those detailing character deaths (and maybe crossroads events) can have a simple trigger added to them:

		NOT = { has_country_modifier = minor_country }

(This works for country events only; character and province events will need a country = { } switch added first.)

This means that very few events will actually fire for these minor countries, resulting in less stress for your computer and smaller savegame files.

Now, I haven't properly tested all of this, at least not in the long term. However, if it does actually work then it becomes very plausible to pretty much fill any map with countries and suffer very little slowdown.

Thoughts?

 

[Woody Man]

A great idea, I'm always a fan of more scope, but unfortunately I can't offer more feedback than this..

 

[Hardradi]

Good thought Cheexsta. I dont see why it wouldnt work.

I am just starting to see a slowdown on my mod but nothing like what you get on Crusader Kings. But I havent played deep enough (time wise) to see how bad it gets.

Could you also limit the modifier so that neighbouring countries of the player were no longer minor_countries ?

 

[Cheexsta]

You could, I think adding the following line to the triggers might do it:

		NOT = { any_neighbor_country = { ai = no } }

But I've always had problems with any_neighbor_country, so you could possibly do a workaround with a combination of any_province and then any_neighbor_province if it doesn't work.

As for slowdown in Epigoni, I haven't had problems with it in the past (but this is in previous versions with nowhere near as many countries). Rise of Ancients had some huge slowdown issues for me, though, and my Magna Terra savegames have always become insane. So, it could work for some mods at least - if any modder wants to try it with their mod, by all means give it a go and let us know if it makes any difference.