Testing 1.41: Hungary & Ottomans 1419-1500

[joriandrake]

Copy-paste from Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Corvinus_of_Hungary
Until his death in 1490, Matthias Corvinus gained control of Moravia, Silesia, Lusatia (these in 1468/1469/1479-1490), and half of present-day Austria (1477/1483-1491); he even ruled from Vienna after 1485.

Now this is very interesting, after his death, this Empire of yours fell apart, so it wasn't really a strong Hungary but a strong leader that held it together...
Same things happened in Turko-Persian conflicts, when the Persians had a good monarch, they would gain an advantage and conquer Mesopotamia, when the Ottomans had a good monarch, the reverse would happened, so it wasn't really a natural flow, but more of an achivement of an individual...

I did not say anything about a 'natural flow', but this here was not at all simulated in the game yet, and don't forget the power of events and the player choices.
(BTW: nations are created/destroyed by individuals, as all the history is only what it is becouse of actions of individuals)

If AI plays it will (nearly)always be historical, but not if a human plays.

AGCEEP leaders are based strictly on historical achievements. To understand how lifespan and stats is decided, this thread on Italian leaders is the best example there is.

Thank you, I will look upon it.

 

[Norrefeldt]

@norrefelft

tested the base = 7.0 , with 6 games

result , 5 games had OE attack SER in the first year.

- bosnia remained an OE ally for longer

- HUN was pressed due to 3 wars, .v. Venice, Hussites and following Serbia against the OE.
all final results ended with croatia becoming OE as well as kosovo.

NOTE- did not amend any BYZ stuff in regards to the OE

From what I have read about the base in question ( the whole section that is ) is a multiplier , so 7.0 is multiplied by another number to give this warmonger rating :wacko:

I have done two more games until 1500 with all my changes above, one at normal, one at coward. OE didn't do well in any of them so far, started well but went down in flames more or less, even if HUN was weakened and performed more historical. Full report and screenies later on.

 

[Twoflower]

So how will I try to fix this. Mainly by looking into what we have done with Hungary. It seems they have a too easy ride, and AFAIK no one have summed up all changes to it. These are the DP:

						Arist	Cent	Inno	Merc	Off	Land	Qual	Serf
						9	1	5	6	6	8	[COLOR=YellowGreen]6	[/COLOR]9

#The National Diet of 1445	1445		-1							
#Hunyadi appointed Gubernator	1446		-1	2						-1
#Election of Mathias Corvinus	1458		-1	1						
#Formation of the Black Brigade	1462							1	2	
#Army reforms of Corvinus	1464			1				2		
#Adm and social reforms Corvinus1466		-2	[COLOR=YellowGreen]2	2[/COLOR]					-2
#Academia Istropolitana		1467				1					
#Death of Corvinus w HAB	1490		3	-2	-1					2
						
						7	5	7	6	6	11	8	8

Not much really strange here, even if I think their centralisation raise a bit too much (remember that scale is ment to be up to 1819!), and the quality at start is too high. Hungary shouldn't have close to the quality of the
Jannissaries, even after they learnt a lot from the Hussite wars. Even if the Renaissance brought a lot of changes, very few, is any European states should hav innovativeness 7 by 1500. I suggest lowering the ones in green by one, but quality at start with 2.

Good to review Hungary's DPs, never got around to that, which obviously is necessary since some DP changes are really excessive. That said, I disagree with lowering the starting quality. Have you read the discussion of the starting DPs in this thread?
Hungary, relying on mercenaries from Germany, Bohemia and Italy, and the banderium, the personal guard of the nobility, in the 14th and early 15th century fielded small, but quite well-equipped (i.e. expensive!) armies. High quality represents this rather well.
In the starting DPs, Hungary's military strength is already weakened rather substantially by serfdom 9. Reducing offensive to 4 might be worth discussion, though.
Where it gets problematic is not in the starting setup, but due to the lack of events and by too excessive positive changes.
There should be an event for the introduction of the militia portalis, a force of usually mounted archers recruited from the peasant class, which would reduce quality by 1 or 2, Black Brigade should only add 1 quality, making it 6 again (and thus arriving at the same value as with your suggestion of lowering the starting value) and there badly need to be several events for the decline in all areas between 1490 and 1526.
Also, increasing land above 8 isn't really justified.

 

[Norrefeldt]

Never read that thread, I'll start doing it. At least I noticed that province taxes are not changed from vanilla, but Croatia and rich Transylvania are added. With less good events (one for example give +1500 land tech) I suppose Hungary should start in latin tech group, and move down at the death of Corvinus.
I'll adopt my DP settings to your suggestion.

 

[joriandrake]

hmm...

...I better not say what I think about this, 1st I do some more research


only one thing: mounted archers were very useful in that era too, they did not lower quality, it was just not similar to other nations strategy then.
Lowering offensive I can agree, that can be part of the fortifications effort, if we make that an event(*see other thread), serfdom is OK, it was like that even if its a negative in game. Black brigade was the best quality army in whole europe, so it should stay with +2 quality, but no +1 land needed.
Army reforms should only give 1 land, and its OK.

That with adding events and more, I assure you it will become better now that I myself am working too on this

There will be LOT of events for Hungary with 'Corvinus', this is the best time for Hungary to utterly fail in anything, or become a strong power in Europe.

 

[Norrefeldt]

After having finished the sixth game, I can conclude that aggressiveness NORMAL probably is too high, Germany and Italy have too few states surviving. OE haven't performed much better, but Hungary have been kept down to more historical size. The six states in Southern Arabia (Yemen to Ormuz) are all unallied and if their vassalages are broken, which seem to happen often, they enter alliances all over the muslim world and give long distance wars to everyone, inlcuding OE.

Game 4:

HUN was ahistorically inherited by Austria by event 179111 in 1490, but up till then it had good shape.

Game 5 (played on Coward):

OE was attacked by a very strong allince, big AKK and MAM among others.

Game 6:

HUN was ahistorically inherited by Austria by event 179111 in 1490, but up till then it had good shape.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

After having finished the sixth game, I can conclude that aggressiveness NORMAL probably is too high, Germany and Italy have too few states surviving. OE haven't performed much better, but Hungary have been kept down to more historical size.

I am very concerned about your results. Given that OE ascends through warfare, and that has an intrinsic random factor, I would be happy if OE can perform close to historic in about half of the games.
Since you have been watching your games, can you tell us your impression of what is going wrong?
Are there more or less wars than previously? I would expect that with less wars the OE might have troubles defeating some enemies that have not been weakened by previous wars. But at the same time it would be at a lower risk of being backstabbed.
My experience is that playing with values in the conquer part of the AI file doesn't give clear results in the game. With small changes, I didn't notice any difference in tests, as the randomization in games is very high. With big changes, nations tend to behave aberrantly, which is never good, regardless of the orientation.

 

[Toio]

@ norrefeldt

There are many events in the HUN file which asks for other ai files, would these be causing problems.
example 188096

while on testing, an early OE war with serbia leads to wallachia being annexed by HUN before SER gives up kosovo to the OE. is this what we want?

 

[joriandrake]

@ norrefeldt

There are many events in the HUN file which asks for other ai files, would these be causing problems.
example 188096

while on testing, an early OE war with serbia leads to wallachia being annexed by HUN before SER gives up kosovo to the OE. is this what we want?

all vassals of OE should n't be allied with them, so they don't join war.
For Hungary, I will write an event when OE is winning, to make peace and some provs (Serbian and such) go to OE. For possible annexed Moldova/Walachia it would be ok to give 'secede' order to hungary, so they give those too to OE if they have them.

Would this be ok?

 

[Toio]

I am very concerned about your results. Given that OE ascends through warfare, and that has an intrinsic random factor, I would be happy if OE can perform close to historic in about half of the games.
Since you have been watching your games, can you tell us your impression of what is going wrong?
Are there more or less wars than previously? I would expect that with less wars the OE might have troubles defeating some enemies that have not been weakened by previous wars. But at the same time it would be at a lower risk of being backstabbed.
My experience is that playing with values in the conquer part of the AI file doesn't give clear results in the game. With small changes, I didn't notice any difference in tests, as the randomization in games is very high. With big changes, nations tend to behave aberrantly, which is never good, regardless of the orientation.

my aim is to see slightly more wars BUT shorter in time and conceding lands.
I do not want to see less wars of which if there are wars they last triple the time of the old system.
The answer is in the war score, if it was high enough the losing side will sue for peace quicker. which would benefit the AI.

the vanilla number of 7 works fine for me. check the HUN files for all the commands which ask for other ai files to trigger, that might be the problem

 

[Norrefeldt]

all vassals of OE should n't be allied with them, so they don't join war.
For Hungary, I will write an event when OE is winning, to make peace and some provs (Serbian and such) go to OE. For possible annexed Moldova/Walachia it would be ok to give 'secede' order to hungary, so they give those too to OE if they have them.

Would this be ok?

No, peace is made by the engine itself, we cannot tell in anyway if a country is winning or losing, and by adding events like this there will be two peace deals, one scripted, and one by event. That has very low likelihood of ending up right.

 

[Norrefeldt]

the vanilla number of 7 works fine for me. check the HUN files for all the commands which ask for other ai files to trigger, that might be the problem

You say it works fine, but from what you have written here your tests lasts a few decades at the most. Randomness increase dramatically with short periods, and we want a historically big stable OE by 1500. It's good if it looks nice 1430, but it tells next to nothing of the result 70 years later.
Those AI files for Hungary are either peaceful (as is the current file we use) or directed against TUR, which would make matters worse.

 

[Norrefeldt]

I am very concerned about your results. Given that OE ascends through warfare, and that has an intrinsic random factor, I would be happy if OE can perform close to historic in about half of the games.
Since you have been watching your games, can you tell us your impression of what is going wrong?

The weakening of Hungary made here looks very promising, and I think that should be submitted soon. The rest is more tricky, and I would like a few games on COWARD before I try to change more. This is where I would start:

• Tie down the six states of southern Arabia in alliances. It's not a big problem the first decades, since they are vassals. Later on they enter all kind of alliances and makes the entire muslim world a single scene of warfare. Same thing for those states freed my theTimurid collaps. That's bad for OE, who needs focus.
• Give OE more cores to start with? Right now OE get cores roughly 1420, 1450 and 1480 on provinces it's likely to get anytime. In most my games their BB is about 20 in 1500, making them the most likely target for mulitiple wars in the end of the 1400s. Might be that it will work better at COWARD. After all from 1420 to 1450 it doesn't have to do much.
• OE have not got a land tech lead by 1500. It has tech 4-5, same as most countries. It's not essential to have a lead this early, but by Suleyman they should have it.

Are there more or less wars than previously? I would expect that with less wars the OE might have troubles defeating some enemies that have not been weakened by previous wars. But at the same time it would be at a lower risk of being backstabbed.

At normal there were generally enough games to fill the ledgers full page, or sometimes a a few more. Sometimes as few as 5. Actually this level seems to work well for OE, but less well for the Italy and Germany. OE do get some random wars declared on it at this level, even from smaller nations.

My experience is that playing with values in the conquer part of the AI file doesn't give clear results in the game. With small changes, I didn't notice any difference in tests, as the randomization in games is very high. With big changes, nations tend to behave aberrantly, which is never good, regardless of the orientation.

I agree, it's next to impossible to tell the difference from smaller changes here without playing dosens of games.

 

[Garbon]

Tie down the six states of southern Arabia in alliances. It's not a big problem the first decades, since they are vassals. Later on they enter all kind of alliances and makes the entire muslim world a single scene of warfare. Same thing for those states freed my theTimurid collaps. That's bad for OE, who needs focus.

I think in the Arabian minors thread, we had somewhat of a direction that we could push them in. I believe that even one is supposed to be encouraged to ally with Adal.

 

[Norrefeldt]

In all cases above I said COWARD I ment WEAKLING, the second lowest level of aggresiveness, not the lowest!

 

[unmerged(40707)]

In all cases above I said COWARD I ment WEAKLING, the second lowest level of aggresiveness, not the lowest!

Important precision.

 

[joriandrake]

I hope you will not 'duel' here.

 

[Toio]

[/url]
tested on weakling

with OE base 7

resullts/ viewed

OE attack SER in the 1st week, result Kosovo to OE , wallachia to HUN


OE advance rapidly early on , no problems

on HUN revolts are dealt with quickly and HUN eventually take BOS in another SER- OE war , in which SER is annexed by OE.

around 1480 , HUN make head way against HAB,
OE are to "frightened" to tackle HUN as well as POL to tackle HUN

BOH - HUN war results in losses for BOH

conclusion , to save WAL i increase starting army to 20000 and they held out 80% of the time

 

[Norrefeldt]

Thanks for adding another test Toio! I did two more yesterday, and OE did fairly well in both. His favourite start attack in my games have been against unallied Trabzon, that later pick up Georgia and Abkhazia in it's alliance. OE often get high BB from this.

I wont be able to do more tests until the end of June, so I sum up what conclusions I have now. I didn't change against Twoflowers recommendations above.

1. Recommended Aggressivness should be WEAKLING.
2. HUN188114 should only raise innovativeness and centralisation by 1.
3. HUN188109 (Black Brigade) should only raise quality with 1.
4. TUR shouldn't have BYZ in the hitlist 1419.
5. TUR should have SER in the hitlist 1451, but should not have GEN.
6. TUR AI should have base = 7.0 in 1419 and 1451 files.
7. The Civil war 1440 (HUN188090) should have a -3 stab in A (was 0), and -4 in b (was -2).
8. Start setup (HUN): remove 5000 cav.
9. (I added changes to three AI files for POR in the Iberia thread too.)

 

[Toio]

Thanks for adding another test Toio! I did two more yesterday, and OE did fairly well in both. His favourite start attack in my games have been against unallied Trabzon, that later pick up Georgia and Abkhazia in it's alliance. OE often get high BB from this.

I wont be able to do more tests until the end of June, so I sum up what conclusions I have now. I didn't change against Twoflowers recommendations above.

1. Recommended Aggressivness should be WEAKLING.
2. HUN188114 should only raise innovativeness and centralisation by 1.
3. HUN188109 (Black Brigade) should only raise quality with 1.
4. TUR shouldn't have BYZ in the hitlist 1419.
5. TUR should have SER in the hitlist 1451, but should not have GEN.
6. TUR AI should have base = 7.0 in 1419 and 1451 files.
7. The Civil war 1440 (HUN188090) should have a -3 stab in A (was 0), and -4 in b (was -2).
8. Start setup (HUN): remove 5000 cav.
9. (I added changes to three AI files for POR in the Iberia thread too.)

I thought trabzon was allied with georgia from the start.??

My conclusions are that HUN is too strong, I think its either the quality or the provincial tax which are high.

IB and I commented that trans gold was way to high for the historical poor output of gold from there.

Have you tried looking into the OLD ai files (not the BPAI) and see what the OE and HUN ai files look like??
it will be interesting