Three (minor) issues with Man the Guns' Custom Rules

[Bratyn]

If, for example, AI Germany (miraculously) becomes monarchist but loses the civil war, Hitler's Germany will lose the unique German focus tree and keep a generic focus tree. The lack of warmongering and proper World Tension means a broken game no matter who you play as.

It has been stated that this has been resolved (though I can't remember where... ). It was initially added already in the WtT post-release patch, but a major code issue was discovered and we were forced to pull it from that patch so that this could be resolved. It will now once again be added for 1.6; Germany (and various other nations with focus trees that have scripted civil wars) now have the other side regain their historical focus tree locked in to the relevant pre-civil-war path if that side wins.

For some reason, setting the AI to be truly Random (rather than following Default weights or 100% going down a certain path) will deactivate achievements (as you can verify in the latest DD).

It's a considerable punch-in-the-face for fans of alternate history (in a Paradox game, who would have guessed) and in fact makes little sense, as a player wishing to restart multiple times just to randomly get the ideal setup for an achievement run may just as well use the effort to cheat Steam's achievement system in a myriad ways, all being far faster.

Said 'some reason' is that the various default weights and scripted AI strategy plans take into account what other nations have done. E.g. if Imperial Germany expels the communists, France is guaranteed to go Communist to serve as a counterweight, and if Germany goes democratic, France will go fascist and ally Italy for precisely the same reason (ensuring there is always a war happening).

The "Random" setting for the custom game rules overrides this completely. It randomly selects from the strategy plans we have created for the nation in question, and no matter what other nations do or what we scripted the strategy plans to take into account the country will continue to follow the strategy plan that was selected, in a similar manner as manually selecting specifically that path in the custom game rules would do. As you might imagine, this causes all sorts of potential issues that the 'default' weightings and triggers we implemented were designed to avoid. You could hypothetically end up in a situation where no WW2 occurs at all, or where two nations end up in the same faction despite this going expressly against the storylines for their respective paths. These unintended paradoxes would greatly mess with achievements, which is why they were disabled for anything other than historical mode or the original 'default' random mode (i.e. "Historical AI Focuses" option turned off). I'm sorry that you experience this as a 'punch in the face'.

We still don't know how random Random mode will be in first place, despite two dev diaries on Custom Rules. Will e.g. the Netherlands have a perfect 25% chance of becoming communist, fascist, democratic or Non-Aligned? Or will some weights still be in place?

I hope that the above explanation for how these rules work sheds some light on this question, too. No weights are in place when selecting random - it follows the scripted focus path. As for the chance for specific paths to be selected, it roughly follows an even distribution between the various possible paths, though some adjustments have been made for 'coolness' and 'entertainment value'. I.e. Machukuo is slightly more likely to go independent than remain loyal to Japan, but the difference is not very great between these. The chances are also easily adjustable by modding, if you prefer different values.

 

[Bratyn]

@Bratyn does this mean that Achievemnts are locked behind "Historic" AI only? or will there stil be a "A-historic" setting that allows for achievements much like we have in the current version?

I just want to be 100% sure

I meant the default random focuses - i.e. those where you don't specify 'random' in the custom game rules, but rather just de-select 'historical mode' in the menu I adjusted it for more clarity in my above explanation, now

 

[Bratyn]

I don't understand this point in particular, could you elaborate? Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I understand from Crusader Kings II's game rules system, the criteria for deactivating achievements is deciding whether the setting makes winning an achievement easier. For example, turning off Vassal Limits in CK2 makes a player's life much easier when blobbing, and as such does not allow achievements.

If I decide to play a fully Random game as e,g. Manchukuo trying to restore the empire, I lack any control over what Japan will do - if they go communist I will indeed have an easier run, but if they go fascist or non-aligned then I have the same level of difficulty. Either way, I do not have made my playthrough easier *for sure*, but merely random.

Correct, but this is dependent on the achievement in question. For instance, attempting any of the German Kaiser focuses while putting France on a 'random' path is guaranteed to make France ignore all the stipulations we made for Germany going ahistorical, thereby almost guaranteeing things won't pan out as intended to give the German player a proper challenge.

Furthermore, for those trees where this doesn't matter I'd argue that if you want randomness you can simply select 'default' and turn off the "Historical AI Focuses" option - both provide randomness, the difference being the "Random" option is more narrative and less flexible/interactive with what goes on in the world. The decision was made to simply make achievements unavailable for all "Random" options (even those where it wouldn't necessarily matter) so that the functionality is in place in case this type of interactivity is added in later patches, and because in these cases it largely overlaps with 'default ahistorical focuses' anyway, which is already available.

 

[Bratyn]

Will the winning side also get the country’s tag? Some of the events and focuses break when the wrong side wins because other countries events are scripted to look for the original countries tag, rather than D01 or D02

This is literally the code issue that prevented us from implementing this feature after WtT. Some adjustments were made so that 'tag = XXX' now falls back to any nation with a original tag that is the same as the tag listed, if that tag doesn't exist.