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Converter Version 0.6D Now Released
Download Link
Overall Link

What's New
Since it seems to be inhibiting progress on the tech stuff, here's a build that fixes the crash when loading late-start 1.09 games.
Also, it incorporates a large number of province mapping fixes, courtesy of Gimenez.

Changelog
Code:
Revision	Log Message
---------	----------------
333		More province mappings adjustments.
334		Add some error handling for setting de jure lieges, and prevent crashes.
335		More province mappings adjustments, Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa.
 
Well, it's inhibiting me. Whether what I'm trying to do will actually be progress remains to be seen. :p Thanks for the rapid version turnaround. Got a little ex drama to handle, but I should have results this wknd.

Edit: I HAZ LOGZ! :D
 
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This MAAAY be off topic, but as soon as they announced EvW......

Well, let's just say I'm very excited to see what happens to my GRAND SCOTTISH EMPIRE between 1066-1991 >:)

Anything a guy with no knowledge of coding or programming could do to help you guys?

Are you any good with modding? We could use someone owning the converter mod. It should be in pretty good shape (except for maybe the religion and culture icons. I think those may be off), but there's sure to be possible additions to it.

Most especially new countries. Now, we're planning on having the converter eventually create them at need (instead of adding ~4000 ourselves), but it'd be nice to have a documented process of taking an arbitrary CK2 title and adding a matching EU3 country.

As well, there are the ongoing conversations on converting tech groups, armies, and navies.
 
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OK folks, my proposed system is now defined. It's now time for you to tell me how badly it sucks :)

In EU3DW, tech groups are as follows:
Western 100% base tech rate
Eastern 85%
Ottoman 80%
Muslim 75%
Indian 50%
Chinese 40%
Sub-Saharan 20%
Nomad 10%
New World 10%

In my system, there are no Indians on the CK2 map. For one, Pdox created unsailable oceans to prevent us from trading with them. If you're on the CK2 map, and you're not a nomad who hates all this buildings crap, you get bottom of the line Muslim tech just for showing up. This cuts the available range of scores in half (50-100%), and so it doubles our resolution.

1300 is the baseline level 0 year for EU3 tech. The maximum learning score (related to CK2 buildings research bonuses in each component province) for 1300 is 0.15. Existing gives a realm Muslim tech. A learning score of 50% of max, or 0.075, maps to the threshold for the Ottoman group. 60% of max, or 0.09, gives Eastern tech. 70% of max or 0.105 gives Western. In table form:

Western >= 0.105
Eastern >= 0.09
Ottoman >= 0.075
Nomad = Mongols
Muslim = everyone else, including the landless rebels. See note on this point below.

If I understand the way learning score is calculated right, this basically means that if you build a basic church school in all your provinces you'll be just a little shy of going western.

Based on this system, the 1300 scenario converts to 121 playables, 6 Westerns, 43 Easterns, 31 Ottomans, 2 nomads, and 39 Muslims. 1337 isn't appreciably different overall, though some realms have swapped categories. But the real question is what do you guys get with this system from your played and observed games starting in 1399? Do a reasonable fraction of playable realms fit into each tech group? I expect it to be a little biased to western because no schools ever get destroyed in CK2.

Note on landless rebels: I think making the default group Muslim vs Western makes some sense, as rebels that win will be OPMs that can westernize relatively quickly, revolutions are at least a little disruptive of research, and I don't want to reward losing to rebels with free westernization.
 
But the real question is what do you guys get with this system from your played and observed games starting in 1399? Do a reasonable fraction of playable realms fit into each tech group? I expect it to be a little biased to western because no schools ever get destroyed in CK2.

Good work! (Both to you and dtremenak for pushing out that last change quickly.)

It seems it is very biased to western which while not perfect is far better than most countries ending up with muslim tech speed. I've only looked at four converted saves:
- a 1420 saved where all but one (that gets eastern, plus three hordes that get nomad) get western tech (max techscore 0.3267, avg 0.1975)
- a 1400 save where we get 50 western, four eastern, two ottoman, and three muslim (max 0.2667, avg 0.1598)
- a 1445 save where all but one (that gets muslim) are western (max 0.275, avg 0.192)
- a 1453 save where 96 get western, two eastern, one ottoman and one muslim (max 0.322, avg 0.2039)

As said, I think it's better that virtually everyone gets western rather than muslim, but some tweaks ought to do good. Let's see some more results before that though

Note on landless rebels: I think making the default group Muslim vs Western makes some sense, as rebels that win will be OPMs that can westernize relatively quickly, revolutions are at least a little disruptive of research, and I don't want to reward losing to rebels with free westernization.

Not sure on this one to be honest. I'd rather have a more organic method as compared to this sweeping generalisation - rebels aren't backwards just because they're rebels.

Some variation of whatever formula we end up using for landed nations would be the best I think. Perhaps divide their research speed with the number of provinces they have cores on (as compared with number of controlled provinces for landed nations)? Assuming it's easy to code, of course.
 
Thanks for stepping up with the test cases. 0 for 4 is enough to convince me to tweak it, just a question of how.

That's a good thought with the landless / rebel tags, they should just get the same tech & group as whatever they have cores on.

I think I need to look more at EU3 & CK2 baseline tech rates, translate between tech levels so it's an apples to apples comparison, then set the tech group thresholds based on that learning score.
 
Here is 3 more logs. Dates should be in the file name.
 

Attachments

  • log1Jan1453.txt
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  • log1Jan1453B.txt
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  • logA28Feb1418.txt
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Studying CK2 base tech rate has been informative but not helpful. The tech rate that determines ahead/behind translates to a 10.35% chance per year of a tech increment (1/10th of a tech level). Which is quite a bit higher than the base 1.2% chance. So much higher that even with maxed out schools and universities, you can't match it without advisers on tech missions, demesne/neighbor bonuses or special bonus events. Unless you have state stats of 134 or better, you *will* fall behind. Tech level 5 is supposed to be Renaissance tech, so that's ok, I guess, except it makes the baseline tech curve kinda useless for our purposes. Especially since everybody gets the same ahead/behind curve once play starts. Everybody gets Western, yay! :/

Before play starts, however, not everyone is created equal. There are a couple CK2 cultural/religious groups with different starting techs, different "ending" techs, and as you change start date the game just linearly interpolates between them. This translates to a different average tech rate for different groups during non-played time, which may be what we're after. The groups and their average tech rate:
Firenze & neighbors: 10.336%/year for a 0.1 tech increment. Damn close to the 10.348% that is baseline tech growth
Catholic: 6.46%
Other(Pagans and non-Greek Orthodox): 6.46%
Iberian Catholic: 5.082% (better start due to muslim tech, same end, so lower rate)
Greek: 3.445%
Muslim: 2.412%
Note that the highest tech rate achievable without temporary factors is 1.2% * (1+30% from schools) * (1+80% from universities) = 2.808% Everybody gets Muslim, if they're lucky and work hard, yay! :/

Those CK2 tech group rates can also be expressed as a percentage of the baseline. If we applied those percentages to the max bonus achievable from buildings (134%, 1.3*1.8-1, learning score of 1.34 if I understand learning score correctly), we end up with hard standards for how many tech buildings you should build to get membership in a tech group. Unfortunately I do mean hard, as in extremely difficult to achieve. So I arbitrarily decided that 2 in 7 provinces should have fully upgraded schools and the rest none and that that average level of learning score (0.383) would be the gold standard instead of the maximum possible. So the new standards look like:
Muslim = CK2 Muslim, 23% of standard, < 0.0893 LS
Ottoman = average(greek, muslim), 28% of standard, < 0.1085 LS
Eastern = average(greek, other), 48% of standard, < 0.183 LS
Western = CK2 catholic, nominally 62.5% of standard, > 0.183 LS in practice

With this I get a roughly even Ottoman / Muslim split in 1300 and 1337 (so we got some modernizing/westernizing to do yet, ok), an even west/east split in 1418 with a few stragglers, and basically 2 to 1 west to east in 1453. It's hard to stay muslim or ottoman in this setup. Which, since nobody burns libraries or anything in CK2, I'm ok with. Once Old Gods lets us sack things this'll all need revisiting, assuming it even passes muster now, so test your saves vs these newer standards and let me know what you think.
 
just ran Version 0.6D, still getting the odd no_goverment, no tech issue. Tried with a old saved and created a new save just to make sure there wasn't a issue with the old one.
 
Studying CK2 base tech rate has been informative but not helpful. The tech rate that determines ahead/behind translates to a 10.35% chance per year of a tech increment (1/10th of a tech level). Which is quite a bit higher than the base 1.2% chance. So much higher that even with maxed out schools and universities, you can't match it without advisers on tech missions, demesne/neighbor bonuses or special bonus events. Unless you have state stats of 134 or better, you *will* fall behind. Tech level 5 is supposed to be Renaissance tech, so that's ok, I guess, except it makes the baseline tech curve kinda useless for our purposes. Especially since everybody gets the same ahead/behind curve once play starts. Everybody gets Western, yay! :/

Before play starts, however, not everyone is created equal. There are a couple CK2 cultural/religious groups with different starting techs, different "ending" techs, and as you change start date the game just linearly interpolates between them. This translates to a different average tech rate for different groups during non-played time, which may be what we're after. The groups and their average tech rate:
Firenze & neighbors: 10.336%/year for a 0.1 tech increment. Damn close to the 10.348% that is baseline tech growth
Catholic: 6.46%
Other(Pagans and non-Greek Orthodox): 6.46%
Iberian Catholic: 5.082% (better start due to muslim tech, same end, so lower rate)
Greek: 3.445%
Muslim: 2.412%
Note that the highest tech rate achievable without temporary factors is 1.2% * (1+30% from schools) * (1+80% from universities) = 2.808% Everybody gets Muslim, if they're lucky and work hard, yay! :/

Those CK2 tech group rates can also be expressed as a percentage of the baseline. If we applied those percentages to the max bonus achievable from buildings (134%, 1.3*1.8-1, learning score of 1.34 if I understand learning score correctly), we end up with hard standards for how many tech buildings you should build to get membership in a tech group. Unfortunately I do mean hard, as in extremely difficult to achieve. So I arbitrarily decided that 2 in 7 provinces should have fully upgraded schools and the rest none and that that average level of learning score (0.383) would be the gold standard instead of the maximum possible. So the new standards look like:
Muslim = CK2 Muslim, 23% of standard, < 0.0893 LS
Ottoman = average(greek, muslim), 28% of standard, < 0.1085 LS
Eastern = average(greek, other), 48% of standard, < 0.183 LS
Western = CK2 catholic, nominally 62.5% of standard, > 0.183 LS in practice

With this I get a roughly even Ottoman / Muslim split in 1300 and 1337 (so we got some modernizing/westernizing to do yet, ok), an even west/east split in 1418 with a few stragglers, and basically 2 to 1 west to east in 1453. It's hard to stay muslim or ottoman in this setup. Which, since nobody burns libraries or anything in CK2, I'm ok with. Once Old Gods lets us sack things this'll all need revisiting, assuming it even passes muster now, so test your saves vs these newer standards and let me know what you think.

Been thinking about tech groups. Although it may be deterministic to use culture to determine techgroup placement, isn't that exactly what it does in EU3? Poland gets lumped into the Eastern techgroup for being Poland, as with all the other Eastern European countries. Mapping techgroups to culture is probably one of the more realistic way to go about it.

The only thing learning score should be doing is determining what tech each country starts with.

Alternatively, I propose we apply a hard malus to the learning scores of cultures that are traditionally ranked below the Western tech, to stimulate the EU3 scenario. (Maybe -10% for Eastern, -15% for Ottoman, -30% for Muslims. All arbitrary numbers, of course and to be adjusted accordingly.) That way, nations with sufficient enough schools and universities has a chance to be westernised by the time EU3 rolls around.

Of course, my idea is probably bad, but there you go.
 
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Been thinking about tech groups. Although it may be deterministic to use culture to determine techgroup placement, isn't that exactly what it does in EU3? Poland gets lumped into the Eastern techgroup for being Poland, as with all the other Eastern European countries. Mapping techgroups to culture is probably one of the more realistic way to go about it.

The only thing learning score should be doing is determining what tech each country starts with.

Alternatively, I propose we apply a hard malus to the learning scores of cultures that are traditionally ranked below the Western tech, to stimulate the EU3 scenario. (Maybe -10% for Eastern, -15% for Ottoman, -30% for Muslims. All arbitrary numbers, of course and to be adjusted accordingly.) That way, nations with sufficient enough schools and universities has a chance to be westernised by the time EU3 rolls around.

Of course, my idea is probably bad, but there you go.

Studying CK2 base tech rate has been informative but not helpful. The tech rate that determines ahead/behind translates to a 10.35% chance per year of a tech increment (1/10th of a tech level). Which is quite a bit higher than the base 1.2% chance. So much higher that even with maxed out schools and universities, you can't match it without advisers on tech missions, demesne/neighbor bonuses or special bonus events. Unless you have state stats of 134 or better, you *will* fall behind. Tech level 5 is supposed to be Renaissance tech, so that's ok, I guess, except it makes the baseline tech curve kinda useless for our purposes. Especially since everybody gets the same ahead/behind curve once play starts. Everybody gets Western, yay! :/

Before play starts, however, not everyone is created equal. There are a couple CK2 cultural/religious groups with different starting techs, different "ending" techs, and as you change start date the game just linearly interpolates between them. This translates to a different average tech rate for different groups during non-played time, which may be what we're after. The groups and their average tech rate:
Firenze & neighbors: 10.336%/year for a 0.1 tech increment. Damn close to the 10.348% that is baseline tech growth
Catholic: 6.46%
Other(Pagans and non-Greek Orthodox): 6.46%
Iberian Catholic: 5.082% (better start due to muslim tech, same end, so lower rate)
Greek: 3.445%
Muslim: 2.412%
Note that the highest tech rate achievable without temporary factors is 1.2% * (1+30% from schools) * (1+80% from universities) = 2.808% Everybody gets Muslim, if they're lucky and work hard, yay! :/

Those CK2 tech group rates can also be expressed as a percentage of the baseline. If we applied those percentages to the max bonus achievable from buildings (134%, 1.3*1.8-1, learning score of 1.34 if I understand learning score correctly), we end up with hard standards for how many tech buildings you should build to get membership in a tech group. Unfortunately I do mean hard, as in extremely difficult to achieve. So I arbitrarily decided that 2 in 7 provinces should have fully upgraded schools and the rest none and that that average level of learning score (0.383) would be the gold standard instead of the maximum possible. So the new standards look like:
Muslim = CK2 Muslim, 23% of standard, < 0.0893 LS
Ottoman = average(greek, muslim), 28% of standard, < 0.1085 LS
Eastern = average(greek, other), 48% of standard, < 0.183 LS
Western = CK2 catholic, nominally 62.5% of standard, > 0.183 LS in practice

With this I get a roughly even Ottoman / Muslim split in 1300 and 1337 (so we got some modernizing/westernizing to do yet, ok), an even west/east split in 1418 with a few stragglers, and basically 2 to 1 west to east in 1453. It's hard to stay muslim or ottoman in this setup. Which, since nobody burns libraries or anything in CK2, I'm ok with. Once Old Gods lets us sack things this'll all need revisiting, assuming it even passes muster now, so test your saves vs these newer standards and let me know what you think.


I think those ways to convert the techgroups're good. There're people that want to convert with tech group rates, making a complitely new history. But there're some peolple that want to play on a XV century scenario, with some changes on the borders and things like this (culture conversion) but not in tech groups distribution. Well, I think we must to cotinue developing the "tech group rates" mode, but maybe it's easy to implement the "culture/geographical conversion" and put an option on the configuration.txt file.

What developers think?
 
Studying CK2 base tech rate has been informative but not helpful. The tech rate that determines ahead/behind translates to a 10.35% chance per year of a tech increment (1/10th of a tech level). Which is quite a bit higher than the base 1.2% chance. So much higher that even with maxed out schools and universities, you can't match it without advisers on tech missions, demesne/neighbor bonuses or special bonus events. Unless you have state stats of 134 or better, you *will* fall behind. Tech level 5 is supposed to be Renaissance tech, so that's ok, I guess, except it makes the baseline tech curve kinda useless for our purposes. Especially since everybody gets the same ahead/behind curve once play starts. Everybody gets Western, yay! :/

Before play starts, however, not everyone is created equal. There are a couple CK2 cultural/religious groups with different starting techs, different "ending" techs, and as you change start date the game just linearly interpolates between them. This translates to a different average tech rate for different groups during non-played time, which may be what we're after. The groups and their average tech rate:
Firenze & neighbors: 10.336%/year for a 0.1 tech increment. Damn close to the 10.348% that is baseline tech growth
Catholic: 6.46%
Other(Pagans and non-Greek Orthodox): 6.46%
Iberian Catholic: 5.082% (better start due to muslim tech, same end, so lower rate)
Greek: 3.445%
Muslim: 2.412%
Note that the highest tech rate achievable without temporary factors is 1.2% * (1+30% from schools) * (1+80% from universities) = 2.808% Everybody gets Muslim, if they're lucky and work hard, yay! :/

Those CK2 tech group rates can also be expressed as a percentage of the baseline. If we applied those percentages to the max bonus achievable from buildings (134%, 1.3*1.8-1, learning score of 1.34 if I understand learning score correctly), we end up with hard standards for how many tech buildings you should build to get membership in a tech group. Unfortunately I do mean hard, as in extremely difficult to achieve. So I arbitrarily decided that 2 in 7 provinces should have fully upgraded schools and the rest none and that that average level of learning score (0.383) would be the gold standard instead of the maximum possible. So the new standards look like:
Muslim = CK2 Muslim, 23% of standard, < 0.0893 LS
Ottoman = average(greek, muslim), 28% of standard, < 0.1085 LS
Eastern = average(greek, other), 48% of standard, < 0.183 LS
Western = CK2 catholic, nominally 62.5% of standard, > 0.183 LS in practice

With this I get a roughly even Ottoman / Muslim split in 1300 and 1337 (so we got some modernizing/westernizing to do yet, ok), an even west/east split in 1418 with a few stragglers, and basically 2 to 1 west to east in 1453. It's hard to stay muslim or ottoman in this setup. Which, since nobody burns libraries or anything in CK2, I'm ok with. Once Old Gods lets us sack things this'll all need revisiting, assuming it even passes muster now, so test your saves vs these newer standards and let me know what you think.

Hmmm. I'm not overly fond of a system that tends to produce outcomes that can differ to that extent over the relevant timespan. That's one of the reasons I like to normalize the LS with the highest LS around (also, that guarantees at least one western nation). What happens to your numbers if you do something of the sort?

Been thinking about tech groups. Although it may be deterministic to use culture to determine techgroup placement, isn't that exactly what it does in EU3? Poland gets lumped into the Eastern techgroup for being Poland, as with all the other Eastern European countries. Mapping techgroups to culture is probably one of the more realistic way to go about it.

The only thing learning score should be doing is determining what tech each country starts with.

Alternatively, I propose we apply a hard malus to the learning scores of cultures that are traditionally ranked below the Western tech, to stimulate the EU3 scenario. (Maybe -10% for Eastern, -15% for Ottoman, -30% for Muslims. All arbitrary numbers, of course and to be adjusted accordingly.) That way, nations with sufficient enough schools and universities has a chance to be westernised by the time EU3 rolls around.

Of course, my idea is probably bad, but there you go.
I think those ways to convert the techgroups're good. There're people that want to convert with tech group rates, making a complitely new history. But there're some peolple that want to play on a XV century scenario, with some changes on the borders and things like this (culture conversion) but not in tech groups distribution. Well, I think we must to cotinue developing the "tech group rates" mode, but maybe it's easy to implement the "culture/geographical conversion" and put an option on the configuration.txt file.

What developers think?

I'm more inclined to look to geography than culture for this. And yes, it'd be easy to program this kind of feature (I'd probably make it so that the position of the capital of a converted nation determines which geographical tech group applies). The trick is getting the data for it. It could probably be included with the province mappings (not sure, I'd have to check). But we'd need someone to take the time to specify all of that before we could program it. :)
 
Something else I could use some help figuring out: how does the game determine starting armies in a new game? I need to know this to do ROTW nations, but I can't seem to figure it out. I don't see anything in the game files, and starting army size, position, and composition vary in ways I can't put sense to.
 
Hmmm. I'm not overly fond of a system that tends to produce outcomes that can differ to that extent over the relevant timespan. That's one of the reasons I like to normalize the LS with the highest LS around (also, that guarantees at least one western nation). What happens to your numbers if you do something of the sort?




I'm more inclined to look to geography than culture for this. And yes, it'd be easy to program this kind of feature (I'd probably make it so that the position of the capital of a converted nation determines which geographical tech group applies). The trick is getting the data for it. It could probably be included with the province mappings (not sure, I'd have to check). But we'd need someone to take the time to specify all of that before we could program it. :)

Huh. Geographical locations? That... might actually work. Using capitals provinces might open it up to some weird results though, especially with CK2's tendency to have far-flung kingdoms in Tunis, Middle East, Cuman etc. Maybe you can tag Western Europe provinces, and then use those to determine whether or not a nation is considered Western or not. For empires, a simple check on the nominal techgroup its provinces falls under could be used to determine its techgroup for the entire nation. (I believe the line for Western nations are drawn at around the 1399 HRE borders, which covers Bohemia, Austria and Silesia. As noted, nations further east like Poland and Hungary are placed in the Eastern group instead)

Would be tedious work though, matching all those provinces.
 
I really am not a fan of systems that assume/imply there's something about the land and/or the genetics of the people in eastern europe that deterministically makes them 10% less innovative than western europe no matter what alternate history scenario plays out for 500 years beforehand. I haven't figured out a great system based only on ingame achievements, but I really think that's the path to go down. Or at least a path, selectable in the config file, but then we need to code and balance even more systems.

I thought long and hard about grading on the curve based on fraction of maximum learning score. The CK2 culture group learning rates make for a pretty good distribution, included/implied above:
Muslim = CK2 Muslim, <23% of max, 23% of realms
Ottoman = average(greek, muslim), <28% of max, 5% of realms
Eastern = average(greek, other), <48% of standard, 20% of realms
Western = CK2 catholic, >48% of max (nominally 62.5%), 52% of realms

So a mapspanning megablob will come be near the map average and almost certainly end up western, while smaller realms will get a decent representation in all the groups.

The reason I shy away from using the % of max standard in favor of a definitive one is the relationship to ROW. If the whole CK2 area develops far beyond its historical level I don't like forcing it back into the historical shoebox. If the Sultan of all Europe stops the Mongols cold and throws them back into the steppes in disarray, I don't think it's plausible to limit him to only 80% of the technology rate of the Catholic holdouts in Iceland due to damage from the Mongol sack that he prevented. If even the lowest learning realm has multiple universities far beyond historical levels, why should they be locked into a learning rate barely above Ming China after the great book burning and rejection of foreigners in 1421? If we were changing the history of the entire world during CK2 play the way EU3 play does, I'd be fine with grading on a curve. But we've got a fixed historical standard for ROW learning rate and we need to grade CK2 games based on their performance relative to that fixed standard IMO.

Of course Old Gods will change both the tech system and sacking, so this will all need serious revision in a few months anyway.
 
The main reason I favour a slightly more deterministic system is because I don't usually try to create mega-blob spamming empires, ergo I don't play to break history. I do understand the concerns. It strikes me as a problem that won't be easily solved without much thought.

Aside from that, the main problem compounding techgroup placement is that it also determines what units you get for your military. Eastern, Ottoman and Muslim troops are all inferior at the same tech level, which is really just frustrating.

Just to understand better, so far learning score is based on:
a) universities
b) religious schools
c) tech levels in individual provinces

Correct?
 
My understanding is that learning score is just the province modifier from schools and universtities, averaged over all the CK2 provinces that make up the EU3 province. Tech levels are mapped to tech level / initial tech investment. I may be wrong.

I'm with you on the double whammy, never liked that about EU3's system. My converter approach will make the cultural/tech confusion even more annoying, as you could easily get things like Mamelukes from Iceland and Gallowglasses from Baghdad.
 
My understanding is that learning score is just the province modifier from schools and universtities, averaged over all the CK2 provinces that make up the EU3 province. Tech levels are mapped to tech level / initial tech investment. I may be wrong.

I'm with you on the double whammy, never liked that about EU3's system. My converter approach will make the cultural/tech confusion even more annoying, as you could easily get things like Mamelukes from Iceland and Gallowglasses from Baghdad.

Mmmmmh. The problem is that, arguably, not all Western nations were in the Western techgroup, in 1399. EU3 botches and simplifies a bit a process that happened in the first stage of THAT game, and not before that. I would propose the (arguably correct) method of counting cities related to castles, but it would not produce a decent result following the EU3 rules. France would probably be Muslim, as would England; only the Italians and the Flanders would come out Western without a doubt.
 
I probably should say something on tech groups, but I'll delay that.

Because! I have code that imports CK2 armies (in a very basic way). If I have time enough to work on it, I should be able to do a super-basic conversion by this weekend (we're talking one regiment per subunit, which makes no real sense, but is a proof of concept). I'm very excited to be getting the first things in place, if you can't tell.
 
Have been a bit busy with correspondingly little time for input.

The three logs XRW posted some posts above (thanks!) show the same trend as the four logs I posted about previously: what I call 'the first Pode method' is heavily biased towards western. 127/136, 118/131 and 116/132 landed nations get western tech, and the remaining few are more or less equally distributed between eastern, ottoman and muslim. As said, I think a bias towards the best possible tech group is better than any other bias, but it is not ideal.

As for what I will call 'the second Pode method', I *think* I understand how you got to those thresholds but am far from sure so I will not comment on it qualitatively. Got some numbers from the seven logs I'm tracking though:
1) 52 western, 24 eastern, 1 ottoman, 0 muslim
2) 21 western, 29 eastern, 4 ottoman, 5 muslim
3) 11 western, 5 eastern, 0 ottoman, 1 muslim
4) 73 western, 23 eastern, 2 ottoman, 2 muslim
5) 85 western, 41 eastern, 5 ottoman, 5 muslim
6) 87 western, 31 eastern, 4 ottoman, 9 muslim
7) 61 western, 55 eastern, 5 ottoman, 11 muslim

Somewhat in line with the 2/1 western/eastern split you got Pode. Best method so far, I think.

I do however agree with Idhrendur that adjusting the thresholds based on highest learning score is at least intellectually more appealing than using hard (as in fixed) thresholds. On the other hand, I can't right now provide a suggestion for how to implement that in practice, so - again - I think the second Pode method is the best method so far.

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For those of you who want more deterministic systems based on religion/culture/geography the best way to get such an option is to propose a full fledged system for it (i.e. what religions/cultures/geographic regions get what tech group) and I'm sure one of the coders will implement it when priorities permit. Such a system is not what I prefer, but there seems to be at least some interest in it.

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Random thoughts that I haven't really thought through fully:
Pode's brief mention of advisor tech missions, demesne/neighbour bonuses etc got me thinking: we're ignoring a few factors to tech growth. While I am sure tracking these factors is impossible, wouldn't the realm with the highest tech levels at conversion date also have had the highest tech growth over the span of the game? Or am I missing something obvious? Maybe it's better to compare ending tech levels than comparing just the bonuses from buildings?

I also had a thought about how the number of provinces is important for tech speed in eu3 and how that fact risks being a double negative for large ck2 realms (first they get a slower tech group due to low average learning score from ck2, and then they get even slower tech due to many provinces), but I never got as far as to what to do about it. :-/

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EDIT: @Idhrendur: good work on the army conversion!