Trying to understand an event

[tonberrian]

I'm poking through the Jade Dragon events, trying to find out how to get the Art of War. I'm pretty sure I've never gotten either the Envoy coming for trade or the Governer's councilor coming to visit, and I'm trying to decipher them so I can increase the odds of it happening.

#An envoy from China appears, hidden event generates the envoy then pings
character_event = {
id = JD.60000
hide_window = yes
is_triggered_only = yes

only_capable = yes
only_playable = yes
has_dlc = "Jade Dragon"
prisoner = no
war = no
min_age = 16

trigger = {
NOT = { offmap_china = { governor = { character = ROOT } } }
is_inaccessible_trigger = no
china_diplo_interaction_trigger = yes
offmap_china = {
NOR = {
has_status = china_civil_war
has_status = china_plague
}
}
}

weight_multiplier = {
days = 1
modifier = {
factor = 0.1
any_artifact = { has_artifact_flag = chinese }
}
modifier = {
offmap_china = { has_status = china_unrest }
factor = 0.6
}
modifier = {
offmap_china = { has_status = china_mongol_invasion }
factor = 0.3
}
modifier = {
offmap_china = { has_status = china_jurchen_invasion }
factor = 0.3
}
modifier = {
offmap_china = { has_status = china_famine }
factor = 0.3
}
modifier = {
offmap_china = { has_status = china_golden_age }
factor = 3
}
modifier = {
offmap_china = { has_policy = china_expansionist }
factor = 2
}
}

immediate = {
offmap_china = {
governor = {
random_list = {
50 = {
modifier = {
NOT = {
has_game_rule = {
name = gender
value = all
}
}
factor = 0.05
}
create_character = {
age = 32
culture = PREV
religion = PREV
dynasty = actually_culture
female = yes
random_traits = yes
historical = yes
}
}
50 = {
create_character = {
age = 32
culture = PREV
religion = PREV
dynasty = actually_culture
female = no
random_traits = yes
historical = yes
}
}
}
new_character = {
set_character_flag = chinese_envoy_artifacts
random = {
chance = 10
remove_education_effect = yes
add_trait = brilliant_strategist
change_martial = 5
set_character_flag = chinese_envoy_warrior
}
character_event = { id = JD.60001 }
}
}
}
}
}

This is the event that triggers the trade envoy. Most of this I understand, but I'd like some help going through it anyways. I definitely don't understand how Weight Multiplier works to determine how often the event fires. An idea of how often this fires would go a long way to helping me understand the event.

 

[WomboCombo]

Events have a Mean Time to Happen (MTTH), meaning after a time, the event should have a 50% chance of firing. Weight will modify this by MTTH/Weight (effectively a percentage), so:

If an event has a MTTH of 500 days, a modifier with a weight of 2 will cut the MTTH by half, making it more likely to fire.
Inversely, if the same event has a modifier with a weight of .5, it will double the MTTH, making it less likely to fire.

At least I think that's how it goes.

 

[tonberrian]

Wiki says that weight_multiplier is an alternative to MTTH, for especially low proc rates it's less resource intensive, but I can't find a way to convert them.

 

[TDarksword]

MTTH and weight are somewhat similar but actually relate to completely different things.

MTTH applies to some events (all those that aren't triggered_only = yes) and have modifiers that affect the MTTH (the factor being how much it affects it, a factor of 0.5 halves the MTTH and thus means it is twice as likely to occur). So for events triggered by MTTH high factors are bad, low factors good.

Weight_multiplier though applies to triggered_only = yes, most of which (including this one JD.60000) are triggered as an on action event. This specific event lies under on_yearly_pulse, which is checked basically once a year for each character. The top group of events, between the event = { and } trigger every time this pulse is called (most of them of course have global flags that stop them being triggered every year for every char).

The JD.60000 though lies in the random_event {} section. There is a massive list of events here, which are of the form x = y, where x is the base weight of the event and y is the eventid. The game goes through all of these events, evaluates any that can actually happen to the character (note there is the quite high chance at the bottom of 5000 = 0, which is the weight of no event happening). As part of this evaluation, it modifies the base weight of the event with any weight_modifiers that character meets. All events that can be triggered then go into a list (including that 5000 chance of nothing happening) and a number is rolled between 1 and the total weights of the events, and then it chooses the event based on that number.

example. You have 4 events each with weight 100, and a 400 chance of calling event 0 (or no event).

random_event = {
   100 = Ex.1
   100 = Ex.2
   100 = Ex.3
   100 = Ex.4
   400 = 0
}

This would mean you have a 1 in 8 base chance of calling each event (base weight of event/weight of all possible events) and a 50% chance of having no event (weight of no event/weight of all possible events)

Now lets say the character has the trait Fat. Fat is set as a condition that prevents event ex.3 from triggering (so under triggers has the condition NOT {trait=fat}), but it has a weight modifier on event ex.4 of 2 ie the following bit of code in event ex.4

weight_modifier = {
   days = 1
   modifier = {
           factor = 2
           trait = fat
       }
   }
}

this doubles the base weight of that event happening. So our weights now actually look like

random_event = {
   100 = Ex.1
   100 = Ex.2
   0 = Ex.3 #not possible as character is fat
   200 = Ex.4 # doubled weight as character is fat
   400 = 0
}

Now there is still a 1/8 chance of Ex.1 or Ex.2 being triggered, a 0 chance of Ex.3, a 1/4 chance of Ex.4 and still a 50% chance of no event.

Regarding the specific event you are looking at (JD.60000) its base weight in on_actions is 25. The best weight modifiers you can get is offmap_china = { has_status = china_golden_age } (factor 2) and offmap_china = { has_policy = china_expansionist } (factor 3), which gives a maximum factor of six (3x2) so a maximum weight for that event of 150 (6x25). This though is against a total weight for all those events (assuming just the base weights in on_actions) of 55,150, so it only has a 0.272% chance of triggering. Even if all the other events could be made to not be possible for that char, it would still only have a 2.9% chance of triggering (150/5150) as there is that 5000 weight chance of no event triggering.

In truth though it will likely be a different chance, as all those other events will be affected by weight modifiers of their own, if not completely removed, but the maximum chance of that event triggering will not be above 2.9% per year (as it is part of the on_yearly_pulse set). Note event from mods that add to the on_actions list may also affect this.

 

[tonberrian]

Alright thank you. That makes sense.

Seems like it'd just be easier to steal it instead...