The Provincial System and Other Traps

[Aethelred]

So you don't think that one can make decisions so intricate that they develop into dilemmata even for the player/human brain - either because the consequences cannot be anticipated EASILY (without excessive use of the space bar and hours of calculations) and never certainly, or because the success/failure probabilities of option A is about equal to that of B, C, D?

 

[zodium]

So you don't think that one can make decisions so intricate that they develop into dilemmata even for the player/human brain - either because the consequences cannot be anticipated EASILY (without excessive use of the space bar and hours of calculations) and never certainly, or because the success/failure probabilities of option A is about equal to that of B, C, D?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Your question is not meaningful without specifying the measure of complexity.

 

[VolitionNewlove]

I would always love a decision to "repeal x" in cases like these.

 

[Talq]

I don't necessarily see the need for every event to be stuck in a tooltip somewhere. It just creates confusing tooltips (especially as a few are of the several events, some good some bad, variety), and the outcomes of decisions are frequently not obvious to the people making them at the time.

That said, decisions that have simply bad effects not in the tooltips aren't exactly great design especially as so many are irreversible.

 

[jpupu]

So the idea is not to make the AI capable of dealing with a complex environment, the idea is to make the environment so complex that even a player will have troubles to deal with it, which will make him more on par with the AI. Of course, some kind of player-advantage is always there, in every single player game as game-mechanisms must leave some room for the player to experience successes (beating the game).

If we accept that humans are better than AI when dealing with complex scenarios, making the environment more complex will make the task more difficult still for the AI. Logically this leads to the point where the AI's better off just making random choices. And to get rid of the player-advantage we'll have to reduce the player's decision-making to the same, which doesn't seem like a particularly fun game to play (this also follows from the notion that there are no better or worse decisions).

Although come to think of it, such a system would make the player free to completely RP, released from any compulsions to power game. I think I'd like to play that.

 

[Slargos]

Should the game warn you that you're about to declare war on France, and that it's a bad idea?

I just started an Ottomans game and I've enacted the provincial system, so thanks for the heads up!

Personally, I think this is just wonderful. You shouldn't always expect to have complete information about what a decision (nor Decision) would have in terms of later effects. I'd like to see more of these things, rather than less. Right now it's a simple matter of "Does the good outweigh the bad in this decision tool tip?". I don't care about the description, and I don't care about planning. If I see a decision that gives +1 missionary chance I enact it without thinking twice.

If I have to look at the description and consider what kind of hidden effects a Decision might have, then in my opinion my game play experience is enhanced, rather than lessened.

 

[Alluton]

Seconding Slargos. You can't actually know the real effects of your decisions. Right now you know something is going happen in the future. That isn't very realistic.

 

[sinkingmist]

Would you be happier if this was instead a flavour event over which you had no choice but to accept?

While I do, in general, prefer to make informed decisions, I make some exceptions for history-related stuff.
I basically take it in the same stride as the starting position/power of the countries, the different ideas, etc.
It's just part of the country you're playing, in much the same way that, playing as Castile, you can luck-out and get a free PU with Aragon.
Or on the other side of the coin, as Naples, you can enter a PU under France without really knowing that's what you were doing.

I would prefer that the events associated with the idea groups are better communicated.
But with things like the Provincial System decision? Eh, one of those history things.

 

[vanzlmalc]

snip..
If I have to look at the description and consider what kind of hidden effects a Decision might have, then in my opinion my game play experience is enhanced, rather than lessened.

Yeah, hidden content is hidden by design (as opposed to UI restrictions), it's purpose is enhancing our game play experience. Game designers know what we like better than we know it ourselves. My point here is that even when we feel that more ingame information enhances the game play that might not be the case. It is quite possible that implementing more detailed tooltips for events and decisions would make the game less entertaining.

But what about events like peasant wars:

"The peasantry has for some time demanded economic, religious and political amendments. Their dissatisfaction has grown to such an extent that violent revolts are becoming a common day practice. Even though there is no central leadership and they lack proper armament, the peasants have still managed to pose a challenge to the authority. Several important buildings, both religious and other, have been burnt and plundered as a protest."

There is no way to tell what causes it and how to end it. I believe that events like these lessen my experience, I feel like I'm being punished for something without knowing what did i do wrong? Once i know that being below 25% MP is the first condition for it to fire it becomes a pointless events that is easy to avoid.

 

[grommile]

Should the game warn you that you're about to declare war on France, and that it's a bad idea?

If you're not playing on Ironman (and thus asserting that you know what you're doing)? Yes, it probably should

 

[Slargos]

If you're not playing on Ironman (and thus asserting that you know what you're doing)? Yes, it probably should

"Are you really sure you want to do this? France has lots of troops, and a big capacity for both replenishment of manpower, and hiring mercs."

Why stop there?

What about a confirmation dialogue window when you try to culture convert which tells you that it's a really bad investment and that you should really rethink it?

Or hey, how about a helpful hint that you shouldn't stick your wet fingers in an electric socket, or swim with sharks while menstruating.

 

[Slargos]

Yeah, hidden content is hidden by design (as opposed to UI restrictions), it's purpose is enhancing our game play experience. Game designers know what we like better than we know it ourselves. My point here is that even when we feel that more ingame information enhances the game play that might not be the case. It is quite possible that implementing more detailed tooltips for events and decisions would make the game less entertaining.

But what about events like peasant wars:

"The peasantry has for some time demanded economic, religious and political amendments. Their dissatisfaction has grown to such an extent that violent revolts are becoming a common day practice. Even though there is no central leadership and they lack proper armament, the peasants have still managed to pose a challenge to the authority. Several important buildings, both religious and other, have been burnt and plundered as a protest."

There is no way to tell what causes it and how to end it. I believe that events like these lessen my experience, I feel like I'm being punished for something without knowing what did i do wrong? Once i know that being below 25% MP is the first condition for it to fire it becomes a pointless events that is easy to avoid.

Hey, maybe a tool tip for events which lists the causes for the firing of the event? That might actually be a good idea.

 

[kosarev]

I like the otto events. We shouldnt be told that there might be bad consequences. Did god descend to tell them "trust me on this one, its gonna get ugly"? Im on the other side on this one. Instead of spoonfeeding the player, PI should add more events like those.

 

[Aethelred]

Sorry for the late answer. I don't got a lot of time these days.

Long answer: Your question is not meaningful without specifying the measure of complexity.

Well, then let me play my "courts, factions, nobles"-mindgame and make up a situation to provide us with an example of the complexity I have in mind. Let's just assume you're in charge of the kingdom of Bohemia. The year is 1550, you've lost Silesia to Poland.

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

You're currently at peace. You've declared Austria and Poland as your rivals and you're allied with Saxony. Your confession is catholicism. That's about all we need to know for now.

INTERNAL AFFAIRS

Your kingdom comprises 7 provinces, in each of which there is a "nobleman". The provinces and noblemen are attributed to three parliaments: Moravia, Bohemia, Lusitania. Here is a hypothetical list of parliaments and noblemen, showing their opinion, their factions, their rank etc.:

Bohemia

parliament
protestant / opinion -20
power balance: high aristocracy 7 : 18 local nobles; (based on the rank of the nobles; each region has 6 points)
confessional structure: protestantism 20 : 5 catholicism (based on confession of high aristocracy and local nobles, multiplied by rank)
confessional law: ?
taxrate: ?

noblemen
region "Bohemia": Wenzel of Rosental / rank 3 / catholic / anti Austria / leader of patronage faction Rosental / ADM 3, MIL 1, DIPL 5 / opinion 50
region "Erz": Veit of Kaunitz / rank 2 / catholic / anti Austria / patronage faction Rosental / ADM 3, MIL 6, DIPL 5 / opinion 60
region "Böhmerwald": Otto von Sternberg / rank 2 / protestant / anti Austria / patronage faction Lobkowitz / ADM 1, MIL 5, DIPL 1 / opinion -20

Moravia

parliament
protestant / opinion -40
power balance: high aristocracy 5 : 7 local nobles
confessional structure: protestantism 12 : 0 catholicism
confessional law: ?
taxrate: ?

noblemen
region "Ratibor": Max of Collalto / rank 1 / protestant / anti Austria / patronage faction Lobkowitz / ADM 2, MIL 6, DIPL 2 / opinion -40
region "Moravia": Franz of Lobkowitz / rank 4 / protestant / anti Poland / leader of patronage faction Lobkowitz / ADM 1, MIL 4, DIPL 4 / opinion 5

Lusitania

parliament
protestant / opinion -30
power balance: high aristocracy 3 : 12 local nobles
confessional structure: protestantism 12 : 0 catholicism
confessional law: ?
taxrate: ?

noblemen
region "Upper Lusitania": Adam of Tschernin / rank 1 / protestant / anti Poland / patronage faction Lobkowitz / ADM 2, MIL 1, DIPL 2 / opinion -30
region "Lower Lusitania" Franz of Slavata / rank 2 / protestant / anti Poland / patronage faction Lobkowitz / ADM 2, MIL 2, DIPL 4 / opinion -10

Your aulic council
Let's assume that you've maxed out your council for diplomatic affairs. For this purpose, you've appointed but ONE man as your councillor (in order not to dillute his skill by other advisors), namely Wenzel of Rosental because of his DIPL-skill of 5. This singulary position gives a huge opinion boost to Wenzel Rosental, but makes other nobles (especially those of higher rank, i.e. Franz of Lobkowitz) see him as your favourite (--> opinion malus).

ANALYSIS

You have very strong parliaments (the power balance parliament-noblemen favours parliaments)
You have a major confessional problem: all your parliaments are dominated by protestants, which is also why the relations tend to be very bad.
The two diplomatical factions in your country have about the same power (anti austria 8 : 7 anti poland); however, there is (by hazard) a quite significant connection between the anti-Austria and the catholic faction; and the anti-Poland protestant faction

MIND GAME

So, now that we know about the situation of your country, let's add some developments or decisions and take a look at the complexity of the options. Let's assume that you, as the king of Bohemia want to recapture Silesia from Poland.

Option: Declare war right now!
What would happen if you act immediatly, without considering the situation in your realm any further?

Declaring war against Poland will make the opinion of the Anti-Austria faction drop, which comprises the following noblemen (rank / opinion):

Wenzel of Rosental / 3 / 50
Veit of Kaunitz / 2 / 60
Otto of Sternberg / 2 / -20
Max of Collalto / 1 / -40

As your relations with the higher ranking noblemen are quite good (mainly due to Rosental and Kaunitz belonging to your confession), you don't need to fear any considerable collective resistance. The protestants Sternberg and, especially, Collalto will get quite upset. But the latter has no real influence anyway (rank 1). What is more of a problem, however, is that these two guys, Collalto and Sternberg, are two of your most talented generals (MIL 5 and 6). Now that you've totally let them down, you can't count on their skill in the upcoming war. Overall low opinions in half of your realm due to the confessional divide severely reduce your pool of competent personell. This mechanism would give you a real reason to establish confessional unity.

The relation with Rosental will suffer extraordinarily. Why? Because he is member of your aulic council and he is part of the anti-Austria (i.e. pro-Poland) faction. By acting against his interest as a councillor, you will dissappoint him, which will result in a big opinion malus, which in turn reduces the skill that he "uses" in your favour. This should actually interest you. For example, you could use a diplomat in order to keep another faction from entering a war for a certain time – the better the skill of your diplomat, the more likely it is that he will be able to keep the faction out of the war. Of course you could just kick Rosental from the council and replace him with an anti-Poland nobleman, but this would be quite problematical since there are no catholics in the anti-Poland-faction, and appointing a protestant will surely cause a lot of trouble/alienate all catholics! Moreover, kicking a councillor is usually seen as an absolute eclat, not only for Rosental, but also for the anti-Austria faction. So let's not forget that Rosental is the second most important person in your realm, not necessarily a favourite, but the second highest noblemen in your realm, most important nobleman in the catholic faction, leader of a patronage-faction and your single councillor. In this position, you should think about how you handle him.

Apart from the effects on noblemen, you will also have to consider a second big question: where do you get the money from that you need for your war with Poland? Since your noblemen are not very powerfull (overall low ranks; --> power balance in favour of the parliaments), and since the noblemen in Bohemia have no interest in a war against Poland anyway, you will have to occupy yourself with the parliaments. Wouldn't be much of a problem, if it wasn't for the confessional issue. ALL your parliaments are dominated by protestants. In other words: except for a few catholic noblemen (the elite you have to count on but that you've just alienated with your war against Poland), your whole realm sticks to the protestant confession.

Naturally, this means that implementing taxes for an aggressive war will be costly. Protestants will use your weakness and demand concessions in return for money. How is this modelled in the game? Quite simple. Demanding taxes while the parliaments' opinion of you is low (due to their confession), and under unfavourable circumstances (aggressive war*) will lead to resistance if you don't offer something in return. For example, you could make confessional concessions and change the confessional law in the parliaments in favour of the protestants. Or you could reduce the ranks of noblemen (especially the catholics) to please the parliaments. If you don't do that, you might face a "rebellion" by the estates. Pretty much the worst thing that could happen to you, especially since there are hardly any noblemen left that you could still count on, now that you've just let down your loyal catholics who are all part of the pro-Poland-faction.

Making concessions to parliaments should have consequences as well. By giving in to the demands of the estates in order to finance your war, you will loose prestige, and your reputation with all the catholic noblemen and ideally also with the pope and other catholic monarchs will suffer. Moreover, since prestige is a factor in your "court/pomp/ceremony"-pool of royal graces, your court's attractiveness will suffer as the balance of power shifts from the crown to the estates. This means that you will have less means to manipulate noblemen, which in turn means that you won't be able to use them to influence the parliaments.

To sum it up: In the current situation, an aggressive war against Poland would be quite dangerous, but not impossible. For example, you could still hire commoners to be your generals (as you don't have any competent nobles willing to serve you), but this will upset all nobles in your realm. Baiting the protestants could even be part of your plan. You could try to get them to rebellion in order to beat them down once and for all. This can be an option as well, but in this case, you better have a strong ally to help you (for this you also need a good diplomat in your service), and you better make sure that Poland is not too much of a threat. If you succeed in beating down a major revolt of the (protestant) estates, you've probably done a big step into the direction of confessional unity, as you will be allowed to replace the rebellious noblemen with loyal catholics.

* Now that I think of it, this could be another task for your diplomats: influencing the perception of a war. A good diplomat could actually make your parliaments and nobles support your war. Using diplomatic agents for negotiatons with the parliaments and other noblemen would be a nice and immersive touch!

 

[Thrake]

The Ottomans could never foresee all that the provincial system implied historically. This is the same for the player, and it is good. I just know that when I decentralize in a way or another in events, problems might arise. Or if I tend to be tolerant to other faiths, it might upset the clergy somehow. Perhaps it won't, perhaps it will. Every choices have consequences, some immediate and obvious, others not. This is how it always happens in life. This is good. All that is required, is the player to know that Decisions and ideas imply more than what the tooltips says, which is perhaps not so obvious for new players to EU franchise.

 

[Slargos]

The Ottomans could never foresee all that the provincial system implied historically. This is the same for the player, and it is good. I just know that when I decentralize in a way or another in events, problems might arise. Or if I tend to be tolerant to other faiths, it might upset the clergy somehow. Perhaps it won't, perhaps it will. Every choices have consequences, some immediate and obvious, others not. This is how it always happens in life. This is good. All that is required, is the player to know that Decisions and ideas imply more than what the tooltips says, which is perhaps not so obvious for new players to EU franchise.

I've played it for 14 years, and I happily clicked that event going "Hey, nice, this has no drawbacks" without thinking twice.

While I'm glad it didn't happen during a MP game, I'm also glad that I am reminded from time to time to think about what I'm doing and not just fire every decision or event that has a green text in the tooltip.

 

[Talar]

I would always love a decision to "repeal x" in cases like these.

This would be nice for any decisions where it makes historical sense that they could be repealed. But should come with some cost of course like a stability hit.

 

[Galaahd]

I disagree with the point of the thread: I love the hidden consequences to decisions / events, even if they take hundreds of years. It offers replaybility, and imho it's just realistic and is good for roleplaying.

Personally, I always enact those decisions, because I like to face the trouble those nations faced. Start to roleplay more, and think: "What are the cons and pros of those decisions?" And not just the written ones (because it makes sense that a long term consequence might not be specified).

 

[unmerged(804580)]

Yeah, hidden content is hidden by design (as opposed to UI restrictions), it's purpose is enhancing our game play experience. Game designers know what we like better than we know it ourselves. My point here is that even when we feel that more ingame information enhances the game play that might not be the case. It is quite possible that implementing more detailed tooltips for events and decisions would make the game less entertaining.

But what about events like peasant wars:

"The peasantry has for some time demanded economic, religious and political amendments. Their dissatisfaction has grown to such an extent that violent revolts are becoming a common day practice. Even though there is no central leadership and they lack proper armament, the peasants have still managed to pose a challenge to the authority. Several important buildings, both religious and other, have been burnt and plundered as a protest."

There is no way to tell what causes it and how to end it. I believe that events like these lessen my experience, I feel like I'm being punished for something without knowing what did i do wrong? Once i know that being below 25% MP is the first condition for it to fire it becomes a pointless events that is easy to avoid.

I really like this. Bad events are OK, but it could have informed us where we screwed up. Maybe it's a bit too blunt if the game told you "You lost too much of your manpower", but just a single liner like "They reached their boiling points with the senseless death of their beloved in battlefields, and they decided it is their time to strike, when the oppressor is weak" would actually hint at what I did wrong... even without reading externally, "do I look weak? What does it mean too many people died? Ooohh it's the last winter vacation in Russia and they didn't like it? Let me get my army to crush them... huh? Why aren't they getting replenished? Oh, my manpower! I get it..."

Back to the provincial system and other hidden ones... I understand the arguments that it's more realistic not to know what lies ahead by making a major decision in a country, but it's just as realistic if there are opposing views about it. Maybe it will make the tooltip a bit too cluttered, but if we read two opposing advisors views on the possible benefits and penalties, then we'll probably not be left in the dark at least. Bey X says this in favor of the provincial system and Bey Y that against it. They could summarize what potentially good and bad may come out of it, without necessarily giving hard numbers or things like 'you get a revolt event chain' which would break the immersion.

 

[Yeekim]

Yea, it's a horrible decision. I don't want +1 revolt risk from ANY decision, ever, much less one like this that leads to continual corrupt beys, revolts, and province maluses. At least you can end it after long enough.

Given the absurd level of tolerance Ottos can easily achieve, +1 to revolt risk will never make a difference.
I enacted this decision and faced maybe dozen events of Provincial Beys making trouble. Limited maluses to dozen provinces vs +10% tax from 200+ province empire... I'd take this decision again any day.