Its very easy to explain. Skanderbeg is a 6/5/6 and he managed to singlehandedly fight off the Ottoman Empire. Now compared to Hermann von Steinburg who invested in some churches and died of a stroke is compared to Skanderbeg more of a 2/1/1,
Why is the vast majority of rulers in 1444 as terrible as they are?
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The balance is that those nations don't do very well, and are more likely to be conquered in 100 years? That's... That's how balance works.I don't see how "game balance" as an explanation can possibly hold up to scrutiny. What balance/goal/outcome, precisely, among tags that all got conquered within 100 years in our timeline for example? Giving one of those a 1/1/1 and another a 3/1/2 is for bAlAnCe? How does that even work?
They're meant to be conquered soon after game start. This is a bit like the Tonga thread debate of are more players in favour of rewarding minor starts or wants historical authenticity
I don't see how "game balance" as an explanation can possibly hold up to scrutiny. What balance/goal/outcome, precisely, among tags that all got conquered within 100 years in our timeline for example? Giving one of those a 1/1/1 and another a 3/1/2 is for bAlAnCe? How does that even work
A perfect example of this Shitasu Sho of Ryukyu. Other than artificially handicapping masochist players attempting a Three Mountains campaign, there's no reason for him to be a 1/1/1. To my knowledge, there's little to no surviving documentation about him, so the "historically accurate" explanation for low stats is completely bunk nonsense.
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Doesn't explain why one of those nations has a 1/1/1 and the other a 3/1/2 (which is double the points from ruler), for example.
Put another way, you can't list any standard of "balance" that constrains anticipation of ruler stat distribution to what EU 4 does, so "balance" is not a plausible explanation for this implementation.
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The point of this thread is to answer the following question:
In other words, why don't the statistics of 1444 rulers match those of the random stat generator?
As I indicated, the stats of 1444 rulers are entirely independent of the random stat generator. They were created through a completely different process. This is why there is no connection between the statistics.
But it seems that you and others have been running around this thread with an implicit assumption : that for some reason the statistics should be the same. There is no evidence that this opinion was ever endorsed or adopted by the developers. So it would have no bearing on why the statistics don't match.
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I have a hard time imagining the developers coming up with a system for ruler stat generation, and then be like "You know what, lets just ignore that system and anything it points towards and it implies, and assign stats to starting rulers based on some unknown arcane mechanic instead!" But evidently something similar must have happened, and I'd like to understand the reason behind that. That is why this thread exists in the first place!
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I have a very easy time imagining this.
But first, a few things. There's another implicit assumption floating around this thread. If the statistics of A and of B don't match, and you're convinced that they should, then this does not mean there is anything wrong with A. It could be something with B.
Suppose we buy the idea that the statistics should match for the moment. Everybody has been going on assuming there is a problem with 1444 ruler stats. But I would say the inconsistency is more an issue with the random stat generator.
If you trust the formula to accurately model history, then the heir to France or China should have the same skill probability distribution as any tribal heir in American or Africa. Rulers who grow up in 1450 should have the same competence as those in 1800, ignoring three centuries of progress. Apparently the effects of technology or economy or national power also have no bearing whatsoever on the skills of your ruler. They will be as competent as they would be if they had grown up in a primitive hut in Siberia. Sons and daughters get equal access to education everywhere throughout the early modern era, resulting in statistically equal abilities.
I don't buy this. Do you?
A more accurate ruler stat generator would take into account the factors I mentioned. It would vary for each nation depending on its circumstances. It would also be complicated to implement, and prone to bugs. The developers probably considered it briefly before deciding that their time could be better spent elsewhere. A purely random generator is serviceable enough that they can live with the oversimplification it gives.
Judging from the number of bugs still lying around, I would say their decision was wise.
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It surprises me that many people here came to conclusion that a 3/3/3 ruler is your average guy. No, he is not.
Let's see:
0 - ruler is utterly terrible
6 - ruler is brilliant
This makes a 3/3/3 king a competent ruler, one who does not improve things much and does not screw anything either. But that doesn't mean that this is an average person. I mean, is an average person actually competent at governing the country? I think not.
Guys, just check the list of rulers of your own country. Most of them were quite bad and some were terrible. And how many undisputedly good rulers are there? And this is the explanation why starting date provides more bad rulers. As game progresses, it gets "fixed" simply because stats are distributed randomly, not because kings and dukes get better.
Let's see:
0 - ruler is utterly terrible
6 - ruler is brilliant
This makes a 3/3/3 king a competent ruler, one who does not improve things much and does not screw anything either. But that doesn't mean that this is an average person. I mean, is an average person actually competent at governing the country? I think not.
Guys, just check the list of rulers of your own country. Most of them were quite bad and some were terrible. And how many undisputedly good rulers are there? And this is the explanation why starting date provides more bad rulers. As game progresses, it gets "fixed" simply because stats are distributed randomly, not because kings and dukes get better.
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This isn't about ruler competence, it is about math. Math as used in the ruler generator averages at 3/3/3. So, following math used for generation of ruler stats with no modification, rulers on average should be 3/3/3. Rulers at start date are on average way below that.
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Because start date rulers are created manually, not by the ruler generator. No math here, just general knowledge that many people are idiots, rulers or not. And in case of rulers, we have some data on them and know they never achieved anything and they never tried.
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You're assuming this is a closed system when it's not, numerous good heirs will die before reaching the throne
Aaaaand we are looping back to Page 1:
And if they die and never reach the throne they never factor into average ruler stats. Is there any argument in your statement?
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Good heirs are more likely to die than bad heirs, as such there's a step between point generation and being a ruler.
This is conversely biased with the player being less likely to pick bad heirs via event, as well as to save scum if their godly heir dies
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There is a difference between what is statistically average and what results in a given competence level. 3/3/3 is statistically average, as a result of the 2d4 generator:
Ruler - Europa Universalis 4 Wiki
The maths of ruler generation is not an obscure, arcane thing where we have to infer a lot from collected anecdotes which introduces biases from player behaviour. We know that it's 2d4 (Or 2d4+1d2 for lucky nations). Good heirs dying, and players playing optimally, simply isn't relevant here.
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Yes. You're agreeing with me.
Yes it does; They wanted the 3/1/2 nation to do better than the 1/1/1, but not as well as a 3/3/3.
The amount of nonsense strawmen and mental gymnastics by people in this thread to defend an illogical system for ruler stat generation is mind boggling.. The point of the matter is the math simply doesn't line up with 1444 average ruler stat distribution. The people playing mind games to defend this are putting far more thought into this than Paradox clearly ever did (at least for more obscure, less documented rulers, which represent the vast majority of tags).
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I'll share some of my observations on the subject:
1) Ruler stats aren't "randomly generated" (except some tribals iirc) in the sense that they are are predefined in the history files. But we don't really know how the devs chose these stats for obscure rulers. From what I've seen, these were assigned a random stat between 0 and 4, doesn't really matter if through a random number generator or by a dev.
2) A lot of the stats are from EU3, but with 3 less points in each category. This is because the stat ranges in EU3 were 3-9 in each category.
3) I think the average skill is actually 2 and not 3, though not from a mechanical perspective, but a historical one. I can't quite remember where I found this info/came to this conclusion unfortunately, but it's from the days when I was modding EU3, so take this for what it's worth.
1) Ruler stats aren't "randomly generated" (except some tribals iirc) in the sense that they are are predefined in the history files. But we don't really know how the devs chose these stats for obscure rulers. From what I've seen, these were assigned a random stat between 0 and 4, doesn't really matter if through a random number generator or by a dev.
2) A lot of the stats are from EU3, but with 3 less points in each category. This is because the stat ranges in EU3 were 3-9 in each category.
3) I think the average skill is actually 2 and not 3, though not from a mechanical perspective, but a historical one. I can't quite remember where I found this info/came to this conclusion unfortunately, but it's from the days when I was modding EU3, so take this for what it's worth.
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