Why is this game losing clout?

[Peter Ebbesen]

Too deterministic in my opinion, but certainly provided a better feeling for Spain!

Too deterministic in my opinion too, and doesn't provide a better feeling for Spain - it is reenactment on one particular Spain that is unlikely to fit in the timeline of the game world, not a Spain acting based on the circumstances, as any Spanish king would have been doing.

...Then again, you knew I would say that.

 

[Hive]

I would agree that the triggers in vanilla EU2 events were probably a bit too deterministic. The solution isnt to dump the concept, but revise the triggers.

I wholeheardetly agree with this.

And with what Ubik said about AIs.

 

[Hive]

...Then again, you knew I would say that.

Personally, I was expecting another post about the pause button.

 

[unmerged(64768)]

Personally, I was expecting another post about the pause button.

I am waiting for the Peter Ebbesen pause mod, actually

 

[unmerged(514)]

I didnt say you couldnt include triggers. You could add triggers so that those events only happen on a normal trajectory. If Austria fulfills trigger X, then they pass Netherlands to Spain. If not, no transfer. If Spain fulfills trigger Y, bankruptcy. I would agree that the triggers in vanilla EU2 events were probably a bit too deterministic. The solution isnt to dump the concept, but revise the triggers.

I don't like to have directed events at nations on x date, triggers or no triggers. We only implemented the War of the Roses because by 1453 it was already starting.

I want an interesting sucession war chain, but simply based on factors that apply across the board.

So, in your case, Spain could only inherit the netherlands (part of Burgundy) if it was the HRE. But if it was not Spain, any other emperor would be able to do it... if Burgundy really disapears, that is!

 

[unmerged(514)]

Too deterministic in my opinion too, and doesn't provide a better feeling for Spain - it is reenactment on one particular Spain that is unlikely to fit in the timeline of the game world, not a Spain acting based on the circumstances, as any Spanish king would have been doing.

...Then again, you knew I would say that.

And I can agree with your full paragraph... if I understand it well, that is!

 

[unmerged(64768)]

I don't like to have directed events at nations on x date, triggers or no triggers. We only implemented the War of the Roses because by 1453 it was already starting.

I want an interesting sucession war chain, but simply based on factors that apply across the board.

So, in your case, Spain could only inherit the netherlands (part of Burgundy) if it was the HRE. But if it was not Spain, any other emperor would be able to do it... if Burgundy really disapears, that is!

To each his own. I dont pretend to be an expert on your mod, so I cannot really speak to it.

However, I will say that the Civification is the problem for a lot of people, myself included. If you want to sit on the fence between EU2 and EU3 with a hybrid concept of more open triggers; that is your call.

But the question of the thread is "Why is EU3 losing clout". My answer is that is doesnt fulfill the desire of the Paradox fanbase to see a historically driven game.

 

[unmerged(514)]

To each his own. I dont pretend to be an expert on your mod, so I cannot really speak to it.

Not about our mod but about how the AI should behave.

However, I will say that the Civification is the problem for a lot of people, myself included. If you want to sit on the fence between EU2 and EU3 with a hybrid concept of more open triggers; that is your call.

In Civilization any country decides without any historic constraints as neither the feeling nor the detail warrants it.

Not in EU3. There is a lot of historic detail into the game. It is only a pity it serves no purpose other than claiming one can get an accurate starting point before pressing the start button.

To waste the EU3 event engine on deterministic stuff like EU2 presents would be a step back. How many scenarios can you code for each nation that does not follow the historical path? How many nations are there? what is the detail you want to achieve with each of the scenarios? Questions that lead to immense working hours (and not very interesting ones, at least for a lazy mind like myself!).

What you need to code are prototypes for different situations and apply them to any nation that satisfy the relevant conditions. These event pools contain several random elements that turn the experience diferent each time you play through them. Of course you should limit certain prototypes. You are not going to apply the Mediterranean Pirates to Scandinavia, The Holy Roman Empire events in Africa and the Catholic religion events in Japan...

But the question of the thread is "Why is EU3 losing clout". My answer is that is doesnt fulfill the desire of the Paradox fanbase to see a historically driven game.

In my opinion it is not losing its clout.

Only the level of the predecessor was VERY high indeed and some design decisions managed to undermine the basic concept somewhat.

Anyway, you don't have any other game on the market that has this scope and provides this level of modding.

 

[unmerged(84859)]

No man. To each its own.

What you are basically asking is for the base variables upon which the AI makes its decisions to be randomized. So, spain may end up being extremelly agressive condemning Portugal in one game, while Algiers can favour immensely trade and the Ottoman Empire can be quite peaceful.

Given the right coding structure, it is very easy to do and could be an interesting option for the game.

Yep. Ideally you could have the option to play the way you want. You want a complete random game, somewhat historical or a historical plausible one, just click the option. Now I don't know anything about coding, but I do see that it could be tough to get that in a game.

Then again, the modding community does give a lot of variety to the game, which enhances EU3 a lot in my opinion. As I said in my previous post, I like it that I can play pretty random in Vanilla and have a more plausible game with MMG or TN. Or a different mod, should I try one. Might try the Deconstructed Europe one in the future, does sound interesting.

 

[unmerged(64768)]

Sorry Ubik, but laziness is not a counter-argument. As I said, to each his own. You dont want to play EU3 though, you want to play a CK/EU hybrid game. Europa Universalis I and II were historically driven games. EU3 is not. That is the disconnect.

If you dont want to play that, fine. But dont call it Europa Universalis. That is the tragedy. What is being sold as EU3 is, in fact, not a true successor.

 

[unmerged(514)]

Sorry Ubik, but laziness is not a counter-argument. As I said, to each his own. You dont want to play EU3 though, you want to play a CK/EU hybrid game. Europa Universalis I and II were historically driven games. EU3 is not. That is the disconnect.

If you dont want to play that, fine. But dont call it Europa Universalis. That is the tragedy. What is being sold as EU3 is, in fact, not a true successor.

So what defined the Europa Universalis game were its events?
Did you recall how many events EU1 had?


For me, what defines Europa Universalis is the gameplay, the core game rules.

It is all there, even if subject to a few very questionable design decisions that do not take the overall feeling of the game.

Then, the AI prevents one from getting the feeling about playing with different countries, instead one is fighting the green borg, the blue borg, the cyan borg, the red borg.
And then, there is the lack of events (partly aparent).


How can you compare CK (a great game!) to EU3 in concept when one is based in bloodlines and the other is based on countries?


Lazyness is not the argument. I'll tell you what the argument is about:

How can you explain EU3 modders have the power to code something very similar to AGC-EEP and never did it? The answer is simple: There is *no interest* in that when we have much more powerful tools at our disposal.

Given the possibilities the EU3 engine has, I prefer to use its capabilities instead of looking 7 years back to a much more limited engine.

 

[unmerged(64768)]

How can you explain EU3 modders have the power to code something very similar to AGC-EEP and never did it? The answer is simple: There is *no interest* in that when we have much more powerful tools at our disposal.

You are right, but not in the way you expect. There is *no interest* because the people who would have done it were so disatisfied with the game that they walked.

What are you going to do? Make a mod and then have to recruit everyone back who left because they were disgusted with the game in its vanilla format? Who wants to pour a ton of hours into a mod for a game they dont really like? Boy that sounds like fun. You have to be really bored to do that.

AGC-EEP were designed by lots of individuals who liked the game and wanted to contribute to an existing engine. Those mods started out just adding to the game, then they began replacing, until ultimately it became a complete overhaul. With EU3, there is nothing to augment. You have to design the whole thing from scratch. And that takes a lot of dedication and faith that it will work in the end.

That is why there is *no interest*

 

[unmerged(514)]

Yep. Ideally you could have the option to play the way you want. You want a complete random game, somewhat historical or a historical plausible one, just click the option. Now I don't know anything about coding, but I do see that it could be tough to get that in a game.

If you start with the relevant structures defined in the historical way, you can easily randomize its values with a option. From a pov of consequences and not causes, that is currently done with the lucky nations concept, where you are not randomizing the AI, but important factors that appear several steps later in the process and that have a significant impact in the game experience.

 

[Garbon]

Too deterministic in my opinion too, and doesn't provide a better feeling for Spain - it is reenactment on one particular Spain that is unlikely to fit in the timeline of the game world, not a Spain acting based on the circumstances, as any Spanish king would have been doing.

...Then again, you knew I would say that.

Of course, eu3 doesn't really provide an alternative to give a "better feeling" for Spain. You simply have an ai nation called spain that from day one doesn't really face any of the cultural/socio-political issues that "Spain" faced even in 1453.

 

[Johan]

Of course, eu3 doesn't really provide an alternative to give a "better feeling" for Spain. You simply have an ai nation called spain that from day one doesn't really face any of the cultural/socio-political issues that "Spain" faced even in 1453.

And neither did it in eu1 or eu2.

 

[unmerged(80153)]

The flavour AI for any country would be:

- Read agressivity of this country
- Read naval tendency
- Read land tendency
- Read trade tendency
- Read infrastructure tendency (since we are just writing )
- Read personal list of natural allies
- Read personal list of natural enemies
- Read interest in colonization
- Read preferred areas of expansion
- Read preference for religion
- Check several ingame parameters to decide actions outside warfare using the previous points as modifiers (relations, power ratio, existence of foreign cores, religion, current diplomatic stance, etc)

- Use the current War AI when warranted
- Use the current build AI to develop capabilities



If you gave us the parameters used for the AI to evaluate what to do next, it would be very, very good. The 23 parameters available for EU2 are purrrfect!

EU3 is my first paradox game, so I'm not filled with nostalgia for EU2 like other posters here. But I have been playing historical simulation/war games for over 15 years now. I love EU3. But I do think it would be better with what Ubik has stated above.

A competitive AI is great, but eventually it gets boring playing against the same AI for every country every time. That basically always does the same thing, except when it does random actions that don't make any sense (like attack a neighbor with great relations only to white peace soon).

I do think the game experience would be enhanced greatly by giving each nation its own feel. Take the current AI, which is pretty good as a baseline, but modify it slightly based on whatever parameters based on an individual nation's interests. And perhaps create an option at the beginning of the game to allow the player to pick historical/random/no AI preferences. I'm not sure if this would be more work than the return, but I do believe it would greatly enhance the game.

Oh and from a business standpoint, I would most definitely buy an expansion that really overhauls the AI in such a way as I (edit: and by "I," of course I mean mostly ubik) described above. The core engine is great, after all.

I also prefer events that fire more often, but modders can do a pretty good job with that, so I find it a minor issue in the core game design.

 

[Garbon]

AGC-EEP were designed by lots of individuals who liked the game and wanted to contribute to an existing engine. Those mods started out just adding to the game, then they began replacing, until ultimately it became a complete overhaul.

I don't think "overhaul" is the right word as that would suggest that we created our own engine.

 

[Garbon]

And neither did it in eu1 or eu2.

True story, however with eu3 you lambasted away the fake veneer provided in eu2 (rather crudely but beautifully exemplified in Europa Portugalis) and I honestly can't say that you replaced or improved that.

 

[unmerged(64768)]

And neither did it in eu1 or eu2.

I still havent seen an argument that proves that having an AI capable of making slightly more logical war/peace decisions is a better representation of "how the King of Spain would react" than having historical events.

I dont find the EU3 AI to be making the best decisions based on the forces in play at that moment. At least, not better decisions than how EU2's "declare war on these nations" AI worked.

Now if we could edit the AI to do HOI2 type stuff (not all of it, but some of HOI2 AI); like defend these provinces more than others, try to take this province, etc. To my knowledge we cannot currently edit that, but I havent tried to mod since I quit EU3 a month or so after launch.

 

[unmerged(514)]

You are right, but not in the way you expect. There is *no interest* because the people who would have done it were so disatisfied with the game that they walked.

Well, I have the pleasure of working with someone that coded for AGC-EEP back in the days. As far as I can tell he is *not* interested in turning back...

Also, are you implying no more people had the capability to build something close to the AGC-EEP premises? If so, you are wrong.

Again, let me stress, EU3 modders don't have any interest in coding ACG-EEP 2.0 because it would fall short of the EU3 engine capabilities.

Who wants to pour a ton of hours into a mod for a game they dont really like? Boy that sounds like fun. You have to be really bored to do that.

Call me bored but I did it. The potential was there. That is why the first name of Magna Mundi was "Lets Fix It!".

AGC-EEP were designed by lots of individuals who liked the game and wanted to contribute to an existing engine. Those mods started out just adding to the game, then they began replacing, until ultimately it became a complete overhaul. With EU3, there is nothing to augment. You have to design the whole thing from scratch. And that takes a lot of dedication and faith that it will work in the end.

That is why there is *no interest*

Why is not nothing to augment?

And it is working. Really. Of course, anything can get better and there are two or three aspects that were a failure (imho) and if addressed made the game much more palatable for the fans.

Deterministic events or history driven events are not among those aspects.