Will there be another hotfix on the core disappearing issue?

[rayyuri]

Making the core disappearing time longer is good! But the new bugs associated with that now makes the actual gameplay even worse -- it's so terrible to see a total disappearance of cores right after you bring a nation back. There is already a detailed discussion thread earlier, and I'm wondering if there will be a quick fix. In my opinion this affects normal gameplay quite a lot.

 

[Raliks]

Could you enlighten us on what these bugs actually are?

 

[unmerged(755241)]

Just get rid of disappearing cores...please

 

[Raliks]

Just get rid of disappearing cores...please

To me it's like, does anybody geo-politically consider Finland a part core part of Sweden anymore? Or the USA British?

 

[TheBloke]

Could you enlighten us on what these bugs actually are?

Thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?736606-1.3.2-IMPORTANT.-Cores-disappearing-bug-fixed-but-also-timer-changed-to-200-500

First time I gave you a link to the thread : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?736563-Europa-Universalis-IV-1.3.2-Hotfix-checksum-d2a0&p=16478711&viewfull=1#post16478711

 

[TheBloke]

Yeah we really need another hotfix.

Please just revert the code for core timers back to 1.2 branch. You have plenty of time to get the new doubling method working properly in 1.4. In the meantime we need properly updating core timers.

When you do work on this, please also review the tooltip that says core expiry will update when province changes hands. It doesn't for example change on selling province, and I'm pretty sure thats not a new issue. I hope you will address this by making core timers update whenever provinces change hands, and that yo will ensure that by putting the expiry code in a method that is always called whenever a province changes owner for any reason. Put it in the method that actually updates the owner tag, then it can't help but be called on any change (I'm hoping there is such a method and you don't have duplicated code updating it in multiple places )

If you don't want it changing on selling province then that's a shame, but then at least fix the tooltip so it doesn't say that they will update after 'the most recent owner change of the province'

(I think there might be other places which also never update the timer but I need to test more to confirm.)

 

[durvas]

To me it's like, does anybody geo-politically consider Finland a part core part of Sweden anymore? Or the USA British?

Or Scotland Scottish? Wait...

Even if you ignore the fact that there are currently no good game play reasons for cores to disappear, it's not even historically correct. Even today, lots of countries could still be balkanized if taken over and their government shattered by an outside force. The invading country could set up a puppet government that co-opts an older country's name to solidify its legitimacy or claim to be liberating a region. Changing of cultures (and the representation of their disappearance through cores) during the EU4 time period was MUCH slower than now and only really took place through genocide, disease, and mass immigration/deportation. It is only later that mass media, rapid transportation, and fast communication enabled the large, relatively homogenous countries we have today.

 

[Rubidium]

Thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?736606-1.3.2-IMPORTANT.-Cores-disappearing-bug-fixed-but-also-timer-changed-to-200-500

First time I gave you a link to the thread : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?736563-Europa-Universalis-IV-1.3.2-Hotfix-checksum-d2a0&p=16478711&viewfull=1#post16478711

Have you posted that in the bug report forum?

 

[TheBloke]

Have you posted that in the bug report forum?

Not yet, no. I will be posting something in bug reports before Monday morning Swedish time. I've been continuing to try and work out exactly what's broken and how. What we know almost for sure is that Full Annexation definitely causes timers not to reset. I still think it's possible that there are other cases in which timers don't update, but it's not yet certain if they are simply sub-cases of the full annexation case, or different.

I was hoping to figure it out completely before reporting it, but in all scenarios I will make a report by end tonight, with whatever info I have got by then.

 

[TheBloke]

Or Scotland Scottish? Wait...

Yup.

For those not following current British events, Scotland will have a referendum in 2014 to vote on whether they should become a fully independent state again, for the first time officially since the Act of Union in 1707 (307 years,) and the first time in practice since 1603 (401 years.) (Although to be fair, for a while it was actually that Scotland was ruling England, as James VI inherited both thrones.)

1.3.2's new doubled timers would handle this case if they worked, giving 500 years to Scotland's cores, starting 1603 or 1707 depending on when you consider them to have been 'annexed', as a non-existent nation which is the primary culture for Scottish.

However, the current bugs would mean that in fact the core timer would not be reset in 1603 or 1707 because it would be a Full Annexation, and would therefore remain starting from 1444. The cores would thus expire in 1944, and Scotland would have been extremely upset to discover that, on top of the hardship and tragedy caused by the Second World War, they were now also prevented from ever considering independence again

 

[TheBloke]

We still really do need another hotfix to sort out the continuing disappearing / buggy core timers issues.

I would like to ask that we get a 1.3.3 during December. If need be, just revert the whole core expiry mechanic back to what it was in 1.2.2. It worked fine then. The new doubling system might be better, but we've now had more than a month of core expiry issues and pending a hopeful proper fix in 1.4, we just want them working correctly as they used to.

Latest findings:

Just realised that the symptoms for the Full Annex bug are worse than we thought, leading to very similar problems as in 1.3/1.3.1 in some, not-uncommon circumstances.

Consider this thread: Why did my conquest of Inca result in Overextension?

This is basically an exact re-occurrence of the original "Cores disappearing bug". But now instead of it happening in 1594, it happens by 1644, and only when you Full Annex a nation which is not the primary nation for its culture group.

It's most apparent when you do this to a New World nation, where you tend to always Full Annex. With those nations you also don't expect to ever get OE, and therefore you normally don't expect to (and quite possibly are not even able to) vassal feed.

Details:

1. Core timers start from 1444
2. The core timers for a non-existent nation, of same culture group, but not primary culture for that nation, are 100 * 2 = 200 years.
3. Full Annex was done on Inca. Full Annex is known to be buggy in that it doesn't reset the timers from game start to time-of-annexation.
4. Therefore, if you Full Annex a same culture group nation (who is NOT primary culture for that nation), after 1644, you lose all cores immediately. You therefore get full OE.
5. Or if you annex them before 1644, but then have not cored them by 1644, they still disappear, and you still get OE.
6. In the example from above thread, the OP is now in 1645. He Full Annexed before Nov 11th 1644, but then played past that date, hence cores disappearing.
7. For some reason, Inca is not the primary nation for culture Inca. Hence it gets the 2 * 100 timer not the 2 * 250 timer.

 

[Xara]

Culture conversion is part of the culprit as well. For example, in one of my games Austria vassalized, annexed, and culture converted all croatian provinces. I captured one, it still showed "Croatian" core on it, but I could not release it as a vassal because it had been converted to Austrian culture.

Personally, I don't think converting culture should even be a thing.

I'd rather it be something like "The nobility in this province have not accepted our rule" -> spend diplo -> "The local lords of this province are fully supportive of our rule" while retaining the unique local culture

Or else : spend diplo points to make a culture accepted, regardless of its percentage in your nation, though I'm not sure how you'd break that down province by province

 

[zodium]

At least I managed to squeeze another 30 years out of my Novgorod game before Ming's cores decided that 1544 was the coolest time to expire (it's 1652). Now it's on ice again, since I managed to start wars against Xi and Shun, but the Ming cores in Manchu will expire next month and I have no available diplomats. >: (

Culture conversion is part of the culprit as well. For example, in one of my games Austria vassalized, annexed, and culture converted all croatian provinces. I captured one, it still showed "Croatian" core on it, but I could not release it as a vassal because it had been converted to Austrian culture.

Personally, I don't think converting culture should even be a thing.

I'd rather it be something like "The nobility in this province have not accepted our rule" -> spend diplo -> "The local lords of this province are fully supportive of our rule" while retaining the unique local culture

Or else : spend diplo points to make a culture accepted, regardless of its percentage in your nation, though I'm not sure how you'd break that down province by province

There's really not too much of a problem with culture conversion except for Lucky nations, who have a tad too much DIP and not quite enough to spend them on.

 

[Chieron]

There's really not too much of a problem with culture conversion except for Lucky nations, who have a tad too much DIP and not quite enough to spend them on.

If you don't do vassal feeding all the time, you'll have plenty of DIP to become culturally homogenous even as a major country. It's not that expensive to eradicate the Polish culture for example. DIP tends to pile up for quite a few nations. Not that complete conversion is overly realistic.. The idea to make a province act as if the culture were accepted (with cost comparable or lower than the current conversion) would be great. The actual culture could change via event, where applicable.

 

[zodium]

If you don't do vassal feeding all the time, you'll have plenty of DIP to become culturally homogenous even as a major country. It's not that expensive to eradicate the Polish culture for example. DIP tends to pile up for quite a few nations. Not that complete conversion is overly realistic.. The idea to make a province act as if the culture were accepted (with cost comparable or lower than the current conversion) would be great. The actual culture could change via event, where applicable.

I can't think of a single nation that wouldn't want to vassal feed. Sure, though, if you subjectively choose not to invest your DIP in the best thing you can invest DIP into, then you'll have plenty to spare.

 

[Chieron]

I can't think of a single nation that wouldn't want to vassal feed. Sure, though, if you subjectively choose not to invest your DIP in the best thing you can invest DIP into, then you'll have plenty to spare.

There are areas where vassal feeding isn't all that productive, just because the number of cores is low (especially cores that could be released to vassals.) For a large scale conquest, DIP is scarce, but that's not the only way to play. And really effective vassal feeding tends to feel too gamey quite fast. If you don't want to expand infinitely, vassal feeding gets less interesting, too.
AI nations that do not expand too much, especially in the beginning, will culture convert (examples do include Bohemia converting the Saxons(Lausitz) and Poland the Prussians(Danzig,Warmia)..) . A major country doesn't have to be continent-spanning to prevent becoming culturally homogenous.

 

[Dr. B]

It's most apparent when you do this to a New World nation....

Considering the CoP expansion is arriving in a months time, I'd not use my time for this core-thing if I was developer and rather concentrate on getting this right for january...

 

[unmerged(816141)]

There is a mod in the Steam workshop that disables disappearing cores...

 

[Soranya]

Changing Culture Conversion to "Local Culture is Accepted now in this Area (Province)" is a great Idea
One easy way to implement this is to add an Provincemodifier that will appear instead of the Culture conversion after the Conversiontimer is done.
This modifier would be removed if the Culture actually Convertes (via event) or the owner of the Province would change to a differen Dominant Culture (to prevent problems with tag changes and it is not unlikley that locals would accept a new Ruler of Culture X if they already accepted there old Ruler of Culture X (as people with the actual Culture X to this too without problems).

 

[TheBloke]

Considering the CoP expansion is arriving in a months time, I'd not use my time for this core-thing if I was developer and rather concentrate on getting this right for january...

I agree, but that's why I suggested they just revert the whole core expiry system back to the 1.2.2 branch.

I have no idea what their codebase looks like and it might be that they're not set up to be able to do that very easily. But from an outsiders perspective, it doesn't look too difficult.

1.3 contained only one core related change, at least one listed in changelog :
- Countries will no longer lose cores on non-culturegroup provinces when annexed

So reverting doesn't seem like it would require a significant amount of re-merging. Nor would it lose us much significant functionality. The net effect would definitely be better.

Anyway you're almost certainly right that nothing is going to happen. The time to do it was a week or more ago. It's probably now late enough that they'll want us to wait.

It is a shame though, this is a pretty significant issue that has dragged on for 5 weeks, and by time of 1.4 will have existed (in varying degrees of brokenness) for 10 weeks. That's quite a long time for an issue that is still spoiling some peoples' ironman games, and causing others not to play ironman at all at the moment.

There is a mod in the Steam workshop that disables disappearing cores...

Highly recommended it is too! Don't forget to rate and favourite it at Steam Workshop. The author's an arse, but the mod is great. As great as three lines of changed defines can be, anyway

Sadly, without mod support in Ironman, it cant help everyone.