Undocumented Westernization Changes

[Quantum_AI]

Pushing to make sub-saharan Africa and New World starts completely unplayable? Even without MP penalty, these nations can't do anything in their ludicrous tech groups that don't reflect for a second what a consolidated empire in the region might have achieved.

Yes, of course, them too. The reason I suggested this is because in MP I have been able to maintain somewhat of a parity in MIL tech with the Western tech guys as I can hire level 2 and even 3 advisers as a rich Asian country. The problem is I have no MPs left for buildings OR ideas. If you remove the MP malus and keep the tech penalty then it becomes a viable strategy to at least get a few ideas since they are much much cheaper in relative MP value compared to techs (although not a substitute).

As it stands, given the MP malus, ideas are too expensive for ROTW, as are buildings, manufactories, stab actions, inflation reduction, WE reduction, coring, culture change, peace deals diplo costs, diplo annex costs, teching cost and any and all activity that costs MP. Assuming you have a 3-3-3 monarch, this malus is 33% for ALL MP activity. This malus applies to almost all game actions. This malus is the REAL killer, the tech penalty is just a handicap.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, of course, them too. The reason I suggested this is because in MP I have been able to maintain somewhat of a parity in MIL tech with the Western tech guys as I can hire level 2 and even 3 advisers as a rich Asian country. The problem is I have no MPs left for buildings OR ideas. If you remove the MP malus and keep the tech penalty then it becomes a viable strategy to at least get a few ideas since they are much much cheaper in relative MP value compared to techs (although not a substitute).

As it stands, given the MP malus, ideas are too expensive for ROTW, as are buildings, manufactories, stab actions, inflation reduction, WE reduction, coring, culture change, peace deals diplo costs, diplo annex costs, teching cost and any and all activity that costs MP. Assuming you have a 3-3-3 monarch, this malus is 33% for ALL MP activity. This malus applies to almost all game actions. This malus is the REAL killer, the tech penalty is just a handicap.

Yes, the malus is baseless and a bigger component. With an average ruler, a -1 cost adds another 33% by itself, and cuts efficiency far more than that as points are not allocated on tech alone.

 

[oblio-]

The problem is worse with the Native Americans. Native Americans need to be 24 techs behind to westernize (7 *350% = 24.5), but the act of reforming your government boosts your tech levels to comparable (but still lower) levels than the bordering western nation. This makes Native westernization almost non-tenable.

Isn't your math a bit off? NA are at 250% tech cost, I believe, so it should be 7 * 250% = 17.5 (18) techs.

 

[Konair0s]

Isn't your math a bit off? NA are at 250% tech cost, I believe, so it should be 7 * 250% = 17.5 (18) techs.

It is 250% on top of 100% base.

I.e. Western Nations 100% (0 more), Eastern nations 120% (0.2 more), and so on.

 

[oblio-]

Oh, I mixed them up. MA/SA are +150%, NA is actually at a whopping +250%...

 

[Musthavename]

As someone who likes playing non-western nations, especially Asian nations, in MP games; this is just an awful change. I've been able to get Asian nations in EU3 and EU4 competing with the top and even effectively "winning" games by becoming the most powerful player, yet this almost makes those goals completely unattainable barring the Eastern, Ottoman and perhaps Muslim tech groups. It seems like a knee-jerk reaction to the AI westernising everywhere without consideration for what it means for players.

 

[Bluekkis]

IMO culture group and westernization should be replaced with diplomatic/administrative/militaristic cultural ideas. Only one idea would be active at same time on each category and available ideas would change depending on own culture and neighbouring nations.

 

[Hethran]

Is there a way to roll back these changes via modding?

I can't find any place in defines dealing with how far behind a specific tech group has to be to westernize.

 

[Mann42]

Is there a way to roll back these changes via modding?

I can't find any place in defines dealing with how far behind a specific tech group has to be to westernize.

The function that multiplies the westernization threshold by your tech modifier is hard-coded.

You can change WESTERNISATION_THRESHOLD = 7 in defines, but that only changes the base number being multiplied - it will still multiply that threshold by your technology group's technology.txt modifier+1. If you reduce it to 3, then Native Americans will be able to westernize at 10 behind, but Eastern countries can westernize at only 3 tech behind.

A potential workaround would be to change WESTERNISATION_THRESHOLD to 8, change all tech modifiers in technologies.txt to 0, and then create a separate batch of triggered_modifiers that check for technology_group and apply the old modifiers. That way, you'll still get the tech modifier from the triggered modifiers as long as you're in said tech group, but since the modifier found in technologies.txt is 0, it will multiply 8 * 100% = 8, giving you the exact same gameplay effect as pre-1.6. It's an ugly workaround, but it should work.

 

[Skyman]

I've got to agree with a lot of the frustration here. I picked up CoP during the sale, to try out my first Native American game as Iroquois. It was a lot of fun for a while. I don't mind a lot of the changes in the patch. The colony growth based on tech slowed me down, but that's fine as it's kept me from blobbing too easily and slowed down the Europeans. But when I managed to reach Portugal's Arctic colonies in the early 1500s and reform government, I was dumbfounded to find I had to be 24 techs behind to Westernize, and was currently only 3 techs behind. Losing the native ideas that reduce tech costs by 100% would make it even harder to keep up. Now I'm not sure whether to spend the time trying to mod my game or just give up.

I agree with the posters who suggested a more piecemeal Westernization system would be more interesting and easier to balance. There could be individual decisions that reduced the tech penalty in specific areas, so successful non-Western countries could close the gap, and determined players could eventually reach Western levels without being gamey. I also think the new policy system could play into it - have policies like "Invite European Administrative/Diplomatic/Military Advisors" that would activate the tech-boosting decisions/events over time while having side effects like unrest, provinces converting, etc. Alternately, European nations could choose to offer advisors in exchange for transferring trade power/cash.

The current reforming government system should also probably be worked in with a system like this - it's a little silly for a native council with all tech 1's to instantly become a feudal monarchy with techs in the 7+ range. Meeting the requirements to reform could instead add a series of events/allow policies to quickly gain a few techs and choose how to shape the government - playing a nation with strong traditions of representative government like Iroquois, for instance, I wanted the choice to become a republic. Even better would be if there were advanced forms of the tribal governments, just as there are now military units for the whole range of tech. Religious changes could also be worked in, offering the choice to convert to Christian (causing instability but making diplomacy/technological exchange with Europe easier), to stick with the old ways (being the most stable choice but with the drawbacks of the old religion and less tech improvement), or reform the religion like in CK2, a middle ground that causes some instability but could get rid of some of the drawbacks of remaining pagan.

 

[PeterCorless]

Open your saved game file.

Find your country tag.

e.g. CEY=

    CEY=
    {
        history=
        {
            government=despotic_monarchy
            mercantilism=0.100
            technology_group=indian
            religion=buddhism
            primary_culture=sinhala
            capital=572
            1372.1.1=

And replace "technology_group=indian" with "technology_group=western".

That should immediately westernize the country, as far as I know.

 

[Skyman]

Open your saved game file.

Find your country tag.

e.g. CEY=

    CEY=
    {
        history=
        {
            government=despotic_monarchy
            mercantilism=0.100
            technology_group=indian
            religion=buddhism
            primary_culture=sinhala
            capital=572
            1372.1.1=

And replace "technology_group=indian" with "technology_group=western".

That should immediately westernize the country, as far as I know.

Thanks. I might end up doing that, but I do want to have to take the penalties for westernizing and keep the Native American units, so I might temporarily alter my tech levels or something so I can start the westernizing process. I was also thinking of adding a reformed_north_american tech group with a smaller tech penalty and switching to that first.

Edit: I did manage to fix my game by adding a new reformed_north_american group with a 150% tech multiplier and switching to that. I am seeing the same issues with the income affect on maximum MP put into Westernizing: my income is a little over 40 and the button says I will be able to put 8 per month into westernizing (though I'm not yet far enough behind in tech to test it).

 

[Mann42]

So, has there been any word as to whether or not this was an intended change, or if it ended up in the build by mistake?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So, has there been any word as to whether or not this was an intended change, or if it ended up in the build by mistake?

Nothing yet, but it's hard to believe they'd make so many starts not viable on purpose.

 

[AurochsAway]

Nothing yet, but it's hard to believe they'd make so many starts not viable on purpose.

In a very simplified world, the linear idea of lower tech group -> further behind normally -> scale westernisation has some logic. The consequences might not have been considered, but I find it hard to imagine these sorts of large changes make it into the build by mistake.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In a very simplified world, the linear idea of lower tech group -> further behind normally -> scale westernisation has some logic. The consequences might not have been considered, but I find it hard to imagine these sorts of large changes make it into the build by mistake.

We're talking about the same company that leaves multiple significant confirmed bugs in across multiple major versions, regarding how mechanics affect nations that most rookie-to-average players don't even touch in a large majority of cases. Do you really think the limited (in #s) QA team extensively tested ROTW, and in the few cases where it was done, that it was given any serious thought?

Look at their explanation of the neighbor bonus in the patch notes. The description rests solely on discouraging top-tier starts from storing points rather than teching first. There is no mention of an intentional ROTW nerf there, despite that it was an ENORMOUS ROTW nerf that with the exception of CoP tribes, nerfed them more than the actual direct westernization change (across the catch-up period, sub-Saharan might pay close to 4000 MP that it didn't before).

What about the BT cost scaling? It's 40 in one place and 15 in the other. One of those is clearly a mistake. Which one?

Also, such linear scaling is senseless, unless you do it to simply ease the burden on higher tech groups (which would be kind of comical in context). Aside from the unbelievably gimped native tribe destruction of CoP, most nations will be plenty far behind in technology to begin westernization on contact. 14 techs for Sub-Saharan, for example, is less than an average of 4 techs behind in each category...but you START six techs behind with them. It would take a miracle to not be 14 techs behind by the time someone colonizes Trarza in the 45-60 years into the game range...a below average MP income during that span like 5/month would still net 2700 points, enough for 4 techs in each category IE another 16 tech lead in addition to starting 6. Unless your ruler dies early and gets replaced by a god king in sub-Sahara, this isn't a delay at all. However, the process itself will be slower due to BT rule change and on top of that, the neighbor bonus *does* screw them profoundly...as does their inability to get allies during westernization.

So what was the point then? To JUST nerf the bejeezus out of native tribes? On the contrary, it's hard to believe that was done intentionally.

 

[Mann42]

In a very simplified world, the linear idea of lower tech group -> further behind normally -> scale westernisation has some logic. The consequences might not have been considered, but I find it hard to imagine these sorts of large changes make it into the build by mistake.

I've seen larger changes make it into EU4 builds by mistake, at least, if I am to believe the patch notes of certain features when they're removed a couple patches later. And as for Paradox as a whole, they don't particularly inspire confidence when it comes to unintentionally introduced bugs.

There's a lot about this change that seems like it was a potential mechanic to slow down westernization that could have been tested but was replaced with the income threshold slowdown instead, but someone forgot to take out the test code. Since it's not documented, and there's been no acknowledgement one way or another, it's impossible to know for sure, so we're forced to conjecture.

And, in some fairness to them, it's extremely easy to miss if you don't play nations outside of Europe. Considering the stats that Johan posted, it's most likely in their best interests to focus on and test the major European powers first, since that's where most players will spend their time. Combine this with a lot of the other nerfs to the ROTW, and I'm doubtful there was much QA or beta testing done in non-European nations, so I do think it's valid to question whether or not this was intended.

And if it was intended, I'd very much appreciate at least the acknowledgement of such and a correction to the patch notes. Same with the income change (listed as 40 per but is actually 15). It's not particularly hard to acknowledge, nor is there much downside for them to do so, considering people are already annoyed or pleased by the change. In fact, acknowledgement would simply make them look like they were paying attention.

 

[CerealGuns]

Here's a bit of good news, they're changing the Westernization threshold back to 8 for all techgroups in the next patch: http://steamcommunity.com/app/236850/discussions/0/540743213023617013/

No mention of the 40 vs 15 issue though. It's also odd that they would announce the next patch on the Steam forums before the official forums. Maybe there's a post about it around somewhere and I just missed it?

 

[cwg9]

Here's a bit of good news, they're changing the Westernization threshold back to 8 for all techgroups in the next patch: http://steamcommunity.com/app/236850/discussions/0/540743213023617013/

No mention of the 40 vs 15 issue though. It's also odd that they would announce the next patch on the Steam forums before the official forums. Maybe there's a post about it around somewhere and I just missed it?

As to the latter point, I'm guessing their switch to distributing exclusively on steam has been good for business and they are posting first in the forum where the larger quantity of customers are?

 

[Umbaretz]

I would even agree to 50-80 years westernizing, but without +10 revoltrisk.

That's the problem - some changes may be logical, but they do not tie ap.

80 years of +10 revoltrisk is just silly - if you have tornado westernization (which never happened in the game's timeline btw - by 18th century Russia had developped legal and adminisrative systems for hundredth of years, and the question why it is worse than some german county is quite real, but that's not the point) it mades things more fun, it makes you to prepare for it, change pace and experience 3-6 very turbulent years.

But slow modernization with turmoils of fast one - that's just not properly thought through.