Tired Ideas and Old Regime Mentality

[State Machine]

I just don't see why it's impossible to reflect naval war, especially during the very period when it rose to it's greatest importance. The key is that it must be integrated with the economic system, in ways it hasn't been, to date. IMO, THE problem with naval systems in games which are not explicitly naval in focus, is that they seem always to be modelled on the land (or air) systems, to a very literal degree. I used to be deeply involved in this series' namesake among boardgames, Europa. I've drifted away precisely because the naval system is too annoying. I don't want this to happen here.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to open 2 new thread, one for those who want a highly abstract naval system, the other for those who want more detail & realism. Let each faction try to develop it's ideas.

George, I've started a thread for an abstract approach - Naval Operations - An Abstract Approach. You or some one else could start another thread, but I suspect all the action would be best served in the one thread. If only because there will be cross-contamination between the two threads. Though, I take your point about irreconcilable points.

 

[State Machine]

George, in addition, I've noted your reference to land and air systems adversely influencing naval systems. My HoI1 proposal was very abstract in all regards to warfare. But especially toward naval and air systems. Naval and air warfare do have similarities in that they really are mission based - blockade this, interdict this, intercept this, convoy/escort this, etc. compared to land warfare which is of some form of continious contact/manuever with an enemy on the ground and contains aspects of supplies that need to be provided at the point of presence and such...

Anyway, I only mention this for the future argument in our new, grand threads...

Cheers,

State

 

[State Machine]

DP & War Exhaustion...

DP, as I posted very early in this thread, is a very poor game mechanism. As someone else posted, the primary problem with DP is that it is dis-associated with any game or realistic constraint. Yes, it is cool, but the only beneficiary is the player who already has an enormous advantage over the ai. Though perhaps in MP games it works...

War exhaustion is an interesting subject... IMO, war exhaustion is a game mechanism, not a realism mechanism. In general, I think it is a kludged anti-WC kind of thing... [note, war exhaustion was very bugged in early version of EU2 and that effects my thinking...]

 

[unmerged(485)]

I disagree. I think war exhaustion is in the game to model the increased taxes and the general economic problems caused by war, and the discontent that arose from that. I expect that most of the time people did not care that soldiers were off fighting.

Except for the additional money you get from clicking the raise war taxes button there are no additional taxes for people to get upset about.

One of the original prob;ems with war exhaustion was that it increased even though there were no battles (more in line with your model). This was seen as being wrong and eventually fixed. This is more in line with my model - though not on a province by province basis as I would like to see it.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Haha...

I guess you find that amusing?

If you like eu2 so much don't go play eu3.

I am more indicating that your lack of arguments to support your view makes your post rather meaningless.

BTW, of course I will play EU3. I long for that day as, I guess, we all do.

 

[joriandrake]

Haha...

I guess you find that amusing?

If you like eu2 so much don't go play eu3.

This is not why this thread exists.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Make the ledgers interactive with the game, so you could click & go to, or just build from them.

Good suggestion. I made the same suggestion back in 2001 when playing EU1.

In those days I liked to increase the fortress level in all provinces I had as soon as the LT allowed it (yes, I was a poor player in those days ) and I thought it was tedious to click through all provinces and made a post about it.

I got a typical "vet" answer, from someone who believed he knew all about the game merely he had played it for some time, saying that "we do not need it". Just the kind of response that gives the newbie a warm sense of being wellcome.

Nowadays, being a vet myself, I have understood that my suggestion back then was brilliant, although not as much for fortresses as for officials and perhaps traders and colonists.

So yes, George, this is a very good suggestion. Imagine you do not need to go between page 14 and the COT e.g. That would be progress

 

[unmerged(6147)]

DP, as I posted very early in this thread, is a very poor game mechanism. As someone else posted, the primary problem with DP is that it is dis-associated with any game or realistic constraint. Yes, it is cool, but the only beneficiary is the player who already has an enormous advantage over the ai. Though perhaps in MP games it works...

DP, as I posted a few posts ago in this thread, is a very good game mechanism IMO. The basic advantage is that it gives the player a possibility to make his nation perform differently compared to what happened in reality and to what other players would do. He may be a truly influential grey eminence, as I believe the backtext of the package says.

There are an extreme amount of things that the player can take more advantage of than the AI. Basically as soon as you have a choice your superior brain will make you make a better choice than the AI's inferior brain will do in a similar position. Thus your statement

"but the only beneficiary is the player who already has an enormous advantage over the ai"

that implicates that we should remove it because the player gets an advantage compared to the AI, is an error. There has been no evidence put forward that supports the existence of such an automatic relation between "advantage" and bad game design, as your sentence implicates. In fact, it is the possibility to make smart things that makes it a good game. Who would buy it if you could not? You are simply making an attack on the core of the game. Sure makes it tougher by inreasing the AIs brain, but do not remove the potential for the player to do smart things unless you have very strong reason, because when you do there is a distinct decrease of gaming joy. I love them in SP.

That you write "perhaps it works in MP" is mindboggling. Why do you think we play MP? Do you think most of us would think it was a funnier and more exciting game if the DP sliders were removed? The correct handling of the sliders is a matter of skill. So of course they work, or at least 7 out of 8 - some believe it is better with a locked land slider but I think they are a minority.

And of course the DP sliders can be improved. Almost anything can. Constructive suggestions are as always wellcome.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Now for some points, all more or less naval, & all OT, given the way the thread has evolved:

.....

This was from post 50 in this thread.

This was brilliant constructive ideas George. I believe I heartlily approve of all of them, at least almost all. In fact many of them, like ships stopping outside a port they cannot enter, because e.g. rebs have taken control of it after you ordered it to enter it, without the player getting a message, has always been irritating.

The only one I am a little ambivalent about is this one:

4. The way the system handles returning to port due to attrition is flawed. (a) it waits way too long to go into effect, usually after some ships have already been lost, & (b) it then goes back to, I think, it's last port entered. In any case, it ignores even replenishing at nearby ports, & heads straight to it's predetermined base.

When you get the message you can order the ships to whatever port you want and which you have access to. The algorithm for the game to choose the port heading for is not the best but as you can alter it it is of no great concern IMO.

More important is the timing. I think it is great that you get the message about returning to port "too late", thus it becomes a challenge to know for how long you can go on exploring into the unknown before heading towards safer waters. I would hate the day that I could just send the explorer away and know there was no risk he would die of attrition. Most of the skill element in exploring would be removed.

----------
I do hope Johan notices this post of yours .

 

[George LeS]

This was from post 50 in this thread.

...

The only one I am a little ambivalent about is this one:

4. The way the system handles returning to port due to attrition is flawed. (a) it waits way too long to go into effect, usually after some ships have already been lost, & (b) it then goes back to, I think, it's last port entered. In any case, it ignores even replenishing at nearby ports, & heads straight to it's predetermined base.

When you get the message you can order the ships to whatever port you want and which you have access to. The algorithm for the game to choose the port heading for is not the best but as you can alter it it is of no great concern IMO.

More important is the timing. I think it is great that you get the message about returning to port "too late", thus it becomes a challenge to know for how long you can go on exploring into the unknown before heading towards safer waters. I would hate the day that I could just send the explorer away and know there was no risk he would die of attrition. Most of the skill element in exploring would be removed.

And earlier (regarding ledgers):

Good suggestion. I made the same suggestion back in 2001 when playing EU1.

In those days I liked to increase the fortress level in all provinces ... and I thought it was tedious to click through all provinces and made a post about it.

I got a typical "vet" answer, from someone who believed he knew all about the game merely he had played it for some time, saying that "we do not need it". Just the kind of response that gives the newbie a warm sense of being wellcome.

Nowadays, being a vet myself, I have understood that my suggestion back then was brilliant, although not as much for fortresses as for officials and perhaps traders and colonists.

So yes, George, this is a very good suggestion. Imagine you do not need to go between page 14 and the COT e.g. That would be progress

1. I take your point about the justice of attrition on fleets, when you've forgotten about them. But I'm not convinced. Given the scale of the game, I don't think it's plausible to expect worldwide forces always to be given that degree of attention. Besides, as they really represent units with actual commanders, it's a bit unrealistic. A related problem, IMO, is the way an army can be "stranded" by a peace agreement. But see my next point.

2. In the ledger, I'd also like to see more info in certain cases. (What I'd really like to see, would be fields definable by users, but ... ). E.g., I'd very much like to have:

COT fields showing (a) who owns the COT, (b) whether you can trade there, & (c) what your current income is, from that COT.

On the army & navy pages, I'd like to see what orders the units have been given (assuming this will be a feature of the game), & their status (e.g., morale). (Space coud be created by abbreviating the locations.)

On the structures page, population, units under construction, goods produced, & a 1-letter indication of what kind of manu is present, would be good.

On the non- & colonial screens, the presence of enemy/rebel forces would be good.

And many more.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

More nice constructive and specified suggestions. George, why have not Paradox already hired you as their consultant in these matters?

You would be an excellent beta tester. Please apply for it!

 

[unmerged(25822)]

few things that i found "not so good"+ some ideas :
Explorers , having to run several here and there at the same time specialy when you are at war, i like mostly patrician II style where you send them to a general location to find if anything is there.Like adding a little suprize in what an explorer can find .
Lack of explorers , i dont like the fact that they are hundled by events ,imho it should be "so you want to colonise sir? , it will cost you 1000d to organize an expedition in west africa coast , 2000d for western india" etc.Same for setting up colonies , you pay for them to be constructed although failure is always possible.
Im not a war player by any mean, i just want to have more fun dealing with my provinces, building things or change regime with sliders , there are very few things you can do in eu2 and they are time/tech related or lead to misery (like innovativness).In short making expantion an option but not the only.
As potugal i can sell chinaware in malacca for 0.24d a piece, why not selling them to veneto for 1d a piece? . Also i understand that merchands compete on who will sell grain in genoa but since im the only spice producer i will be out of competition for as long as others explore/colonize/produce/import/trade spices in genoa.In few words making trading real business
Venice owns a nice shipyard and i as naples im in need of 10 warships , why not having an option to order those warships from venice for 60d each? Same about distilling sugar with breweries , making cotton into cloth , enrich your art centers with chinaware etc and at the same time improve relations with importers/exporters and make it worst with competitors.In few words get more involved in industry proccess (ahistorical but fun)


Sorry for the length of the post

 

[George LeS]

More nice constructive and specified suggestions. George, why have not Paradox already hired you as their consultant in these matters?

You would be an excellent beta tester. Please apply for it!

Thanks for your kind words. The answers to your questions are:

1. As I put it in the "Position open" thread:

"I speak English very well, I learned it from a book.

As to Swedish, I understood "The Dove". I guess that counts, right.

And I once programmed a VCR.

So I suppose I'm over-qualified."

2. I can't beta-test because I am connected on dial-up, & have a Model T for a computer. & I will not get a new one until the release date for EUIII (Chill penury repressed my noble rage, & froze the genial current of my soul.)

 

[unmerged(20077)]

I quite like the abstract naval ops thing, but I doubt it will work like that. EU2 has sea zones, CK has sea zones, Victoria has sea zones, HoI has sea zones. I think we will get them in EU3 as well. While we're on the subject, though, assuming we do, this leads me in to one of the two things I dislike about EU2: straits being blocked by fleet, but never by armies. The Ottoman Empire's troops stand by and shrug their shoulders as enemy fleets happily sail through the Dardenelles and Bosphorus. Even more bizarrely, Denmark gets rich by forcing merchant ships to pay to sail through the Sund, but does absolutely nothing about hostile warships doing the same thing!

I hope this gets changed, it looks silly and it makes Genoa get diplo-annexed by Russia. Which leads me to the other thing I don't like: diplo-annexations with no land link between capitals. In my last game, I was Austria and watched Poland get dismantled with my help, then get diplo-annexed by Portugal because they had adjacent trading posts in South Africa. This meant Portugal owned Krakow and nowhere else... anyway, the model for this will probably be completely different.

 

[George LeS]

Anyway, I only mention this for the future argument in our new, grand threads...

Cheers,

State

This is easily achieved. I'll just enter "Event 94003" in the console, and --voila--everyone agrees with me.

 

[State Machine]

2. I can't beta-test because I am connected on dial-up, & have a Model T for a computer. & I will not get a new one until the release date for EUIII (Chill penury repressed my noble rage, & froze the genial current of my soul.)

In exceptional cases, dial-up types have performed and excelled in beta tests.

Anyway, a lot of good bits in recent posts. I'll respond to Daniel A, as he makes a very interesting point about player enjoyment. Specifically (rewording things to my own purpose ) that DP is a good feature... Yes, as long as the ai is excepted - that was my point in regard to MP. Humans vs humans, DP is great stuff. Enter the ai, and it is simply an exploit in SP (and to some degree in MP). But, a feature that is really popular can't be wrong? Yes, it can, as I contend, but I agree with the notion that popular is good, but that doesn't change the fact that I think the feature is flawed. I would prefer a feature that achieves popular game-play, and is better balanced to a feature that achieves popular game-play and is exploitable...

 

[unmerged(485)]

And earlier (regarding ledgers):


...........................................

2. In the ledger, I'd also like to see more info in certain cases. (What I'd really like to see, would be fields definable by users, but ... ). E.g., I'd very much like to have:

COT fields showing (a) who owns the COT, (b) whether you can trade there, & (c) what your current income is, from that COT.

On the army & navy pages, I'd like to see what orders the units have been given (assuming this will be a feature of the game), & their status (e.g., morale). (Space coud be created by abbreviating the locations.)

On the structures page, population, units under construction, goods produced, & a 1-letter indication of what kind of manu is present, would be good.

On the non- & colonial screens, the presence of enemy/rebel forces would be good.

And many more.

This would help greatly. Paradox could just set the minimum requirements that ownership of a spreadsheet program is a must. Then they just have to produce a data pack and you could load it into engiine (Excel) and off you go. No need to even worry about a map - just run it all from the spreadsheet!





Seriously, some more information is good just as long as it does not end up as sterile as MOO3.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I would prefer a feature that achieves popular game-play, and is better balanced to a feature that achieves popular game-play and is exploitable...

Sure, who would not agree

But as long as I lack a better alternative I say: do not remove the DP sliders!

 

[unmerged(32886)]

Sure, who would not agree

But as long as I lack a better alternative I say: do not remove the DP sliders!

Agreed. Maybe expand DP sliders? Instead of just 10 steps, maybe something like 20 steps with less impact?

 

[Quift]

Or they coul be replaced entierly with something thats actually related to different aspects of the game, like economic policy actually related to the economy etc...