Worries about too much player control

[Guedes]

Yes. The fix is player control via investment pools.

People who are talking about how it's more fun to nudge and influence via policy etc etc are phantasising about a system that doesn't exist and hasn't been proven to exist.

Such a system is only fun if the independently acting agents you are interacting with are behaving logically under their own volition, and respond logically to your actions. This is an immense AI challenge. I think people underestimate how great this AI challenge is when they dodge this problem with "well they need to make it better". Paradox games already look worst where the challenge is inherently contingent on AI competence, there is no need to expose another whole vector of the game to this issue just due to some idealistic notion of what should be simulated.

This isn't even going into the challenge of making the cause and effect of such independent decision making transparent to the player, especially given the complex nature that such decision making would require.

I'm sorry but this is not true. You see, vic 2 Ai was just bad because it only had so few parameters to choose an industry for a specific state.

That type of choice isnt hard to script a competent AI to make. Even the dev stated that the AI is not a problem in one of the responses for a diary.

Also, even with bad AI vic 2 already had the "perfect" solution to the problem, but it was also poorly implemented; the encourage "x industry" national focus.

The problem is that the weight in the AI choices of the "encourage x industry" NF was too small in vic2 to make a difference and, as thus, it was useless. But if it was a bigger weight people would be praising this solution until present days.

I was certain that Vic3 would bring to the table a polished form of this Vic2 "encourage industry" NF mechanics. Like, for example, a player choice of "encourage x, than y, than z types of industry in the state n" that would be attached to some sort of cost like tax reduction for a time.

This actually happens in real life you know.... governments subside tax to encourage certain types of private owned industries in specific places.

I'm not against the "investment pool" idea. What worries me is that it will be such a more direct mechanic, that the player has to babysit every and any industry build, than the indirect mechanic of "encourage x, than y, than z types of industry in the state n". If its going to be the former, than playing in big countries can become micromanagement hell later in the game.

 

[Vernichtere]

Such systems already exist. For example, pops and budget in vic2. You increase education budget, more people want (increase probability of changing occupation) to become clergy. Clergy gives you more research points and helps to educate people. Educated people are able to work as clerks. But the more people are becoming a clergymen the more massive sum you need to pay them. Is this system just a fantasy, not existing and non proven to exist? How much an 10% increase of probability to become a clergy is an illogical and not volitional responce? What could you say about imaginary vic2 edict which will subsidize next 5 artillery factories and increases weight of capis choosing arti factory two-three times? Is it logical and transparent enough? I do not know. But this system is fun for me.

The problem of showing cause and effect already exists with core system, they are already more complex than in vic2. The only way to show an effect that i see is usage of tooltips in tooltips and hoping that player could understand what all this imply: You look at button and see: education wages increased by 20%, then you look what exactly influence education wages: they increase some probability/speed/whatever. Why can't you do the same with policies of capis?

It is already able to manage it in vic2 just fine. The vic2 problem is not capis but an economy itself. Which is hopefully will work as intended in vic3.

Why do you think every agent need a clear goal that it will pursue? What is a goal of peasants pop that increased probability of promotion to soldiers and clergy due to increased pay? I don't care about laissez-faire economy at all. I care about rich pops having ability to invest their wealth into buildings like local factory producing chairs that will then profit them, and some ability to influence their decision to do it, no matter is it ancap utopia or mild state cap, be it rng based or some "goal".


I am not arguing or trying to influence what vic3 should be, it's up to developers to decide what solution to implement and i will respect every their decision and then make my own decision if i will buy their game. I am just trying to explain why people like me enjoy capis in vic2 and are not satisfied with solution of player controlled investment pool and to fuel a discussion of this topic.

The AI couldn't handle it. The AI just didn't play the game. At some point the RNG had simply built factories that yielded halfway taxes. That’s it.

For me, farmers are not actors. They don't have their own goals. There is no illusion that a character in imperator Rome is developing. Please, if Pardaox implements economic empires in the game, I can live with them. Otherwise I don't really see a reason to discriminate against AI and to make the laissez fiare economy something that most players want to get away from as quickly as possible.


You won't add anything there that won't make a mod. And if they do, they'll just leave the AI to its fate. It will then simply accept the economic structure that the player forces on it through his manipulations. That might happen anyway. But if you take control away from the country tags here, the probability is even higher.

 

[Woifee]

Buildings are an important factor in the game. The AI will not be able to handle such an RNG mechanic. That would be a system that doesn't simulate the competition on the micro level anyway, but just imposes massive disadvantages on the AI. I can outsource the wishes and preferences of the capitalists to the level of the influence groups and into the investment pool itself, with a slight RNG. The country tags keep control without making it too complicated. AI will not be able to consciously let industries die. And it will also be counterintuitive for the player. It doesn't start with more control, but with less.

The characters in Imperator Rome still seem more or less alive because they have certain goals. The capitalists here have no goals. You can't expand. They only defend their one factory. But they do that anyway without any power of disposal over the investment. The player does not control the dividends and wages in the laissez-faire economy.

It's also completely unproblematic. As soon as the game is out, there will be appropriate mods. But the AI won't be able to handle it.

The AI must be able to handle economy and industrial construction and stuff, because almost every country is played by the AI.

 

[Vernichtere]

The AI must be able to handle economy and industrial construction and stuff, because almost every country is played by the AI.

Yes, but it's not the same AI. You are asking for an extra AI to be programmed for the pops of the capitalists, although the pops have no mechanics for something like that. The capitalist cannot have an economic empire. If I hand over the countries of KI to an RNG, it will be all the more difficult for them to control the situation. It is far easier to tell the AI which buildings it should build in total,

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

The AI must be able to handle economy and industrial construction and stuff, because almost every country is played by the AI.

It does not, AI is stupid and needs buffs, lots of buffs.
"Respectfully disagreeing" even with obvious reality? Seriously?

 

[Vernichtere]

When the developers say that it is not primarily a question of AI, they mean exactly that. In such a system, the AI would simply accept the results of the market and not intervene. The player will then nicely snipe the major industries before declaring war. Steel production in Germany? The market just decided that we manufacture furniture there. At the end of the day, the market is the player who lets the dice roll until he has the right result for himself and his victims. I already know that I'll be dumping.

 

[ImperatorLJ]

I worded the initial post awfully.

My worries are more of a general nature, and not specifically about the latest dev diary (although that informs the worries). I'm afraid that Vic 3 will put so much control onto the player that the game becomes one of maximizing for tiny efficiencies rather than roleplaying a nation. It is a fine line between nation building and spreadsheet optimizing for GSGs, and letting the player control everything starts, to me, to push game design into power playing -- not the roleplay.

It's fine if you want to minmax Vic 3! There is nothing wrong with that, and it can be fun sometimes. I just don't want it to become the only playstyle.

 

[durbal]

Yes, but it's not the same AI.

Yes it is. Why would it not be?

 

[Vernichtere]

Yes it is. Why would it not be?

That is relatively banal. The AI of the country tags takes into account the overall situation in the country and tries to achieve certain goals. The Ki of Pops has no line and needs its own mechanics, which are simply not provided. It would be practical to implement an economic tycon game into the game.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

It is time to bust this libertarian/neoliberal line of thought creeping in these forums which is even trying to re-write history.

Now you've said it.

So basically all this "player should control the capitalists in laissez-faire economy" is socialist propaganda crap.

Then we should control the farmers money too without the need of collecting taxes. Because that's EXACTLY what you are asking for with capitalists.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Now you've said it.

So basically all this "player should control the capitalists in laissez-faire economy" is socialist propaganda crap.

Then we should control the farmers money too without the need of collecting taxes. Because that's EXACTLY what you are asking for with capitalists.

This is history, not socialist propaganda (?) Unless Smith and Hamilton were subversive marxists in disguise.
I already felt by the sarcastic tone of your first answer where you wanted to land.

Logical phallacies, again? If you want to freely use the capitalists' money to build infrastructure or government buildings you will have to tax them, just like the farmers. For now we only know something about the investment pool, which is used only to build buildings which in turn boost revenue.
I would not be surprised if after the invention of modern finance poorer pops could afford to chip in the investment pools using their savings, but that's up to the devs.

Laissez faire as it is in Victoria 2 never existed.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

This is history, not socialist propaganda (?) Unless Smith and Hamilton were subversive marxists in disguise.
I already felt by the sarcastic tone of your first answer where you wanted to land.

Logical phallacies, again? If you want to freely use the capitalists' money to build infrastructure or government buildings you will have to tax them, just like the farmers. For now we only know something about the investment pool, which is used only to build buildings which in turn boost revenue.
I would not be surprised if after the invention of modern finance poorer pops could afford to chip in the investment pools using their savings, but that's up to the devs.

Laissez faire as it is in Victoria 2 never existed.

This is ridiculous.

No matter whatever your ideology is, if you want the game to be good you should want all ideologies to be in the game.

This socialist crap "I don't want laissez-faire to be in the game because I'm a socialist and I don't like it" is dumb.

I've never seen laissez-faire players wanting to deleted socialism or communism from the game...

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

This is ridiculous.

No matter whatever your ideology is, if you want the game to be good you should want all ideologies to be in the game.

This socialist crap "I don't want laissez-faire to be in the game because I'm a socialist and I don't like it" is dumb.

I've never seen laissez-faire players wanting to deleted socialism or communism from the game...

Laissez faire is an economic policy, not an ideology. It never existed irl because states always were able to directly influence their own countries' economies. From the beginning of the game when the theory of the "Night-watchman state"* was all the rage until WW1, when the state presence in the economy was manifest and pivotal to the war effort.

I am not even a socialist.

*but in reality states applied strong economic policies, from taxing manufactured goods coming from the UK, subsidizing and financing strategic industries (steel) and, in the UK's case, destroying indian manufactureres turning the land into a source of commodities for british industries.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Laissez faire is an economic policy, not an ideology. It never existed irl because states always were able to directly influence their own countries' economies. From the beginning of the game when the theory of the "Night-watchman state" was all the rage until WW1, when the state presence in the economy was manifest and pivotal to the war effort.

I am not even a socialist.

Marxism is not an ideology, is an economic policy

You clearly don't even understand what you are talking about.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Marxism is not an ideology, is an economic policy

You clearly don't even understand what you are talking about.

Marxism is an ideology, laissez faire is not. American?

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Marxism is an ideology, laissez faire is not. American?

Why exactly?

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Why exactly?

Marxism is a set of ideas which range from economic critique to social revolution and utopia, laissez faire is an economic policy favored by some liberal thinkers (and probably rich oligarchs).

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Marxism is a set of ideas which range from economic critique to social revolution and utopia, laissez faire is an economic policy favored by some liberal thinkers (and probably rich oligarchs).

You see? You have NO IDEA what your talking about.

Laissez-faire is not only an economic policy, the same way Marxism is not only an economic policy, although some times people only use the economic part of both.

Laissez-faire also has social implications like movement freedom, sexual freedom, religious freedom, speech freedom, etc...

 

[Vernichtere]

Why exactly?

One can simply say that there was no separation between state and politics and that the rise of capitalism also included the state. Larger economic players used the state to achieve economic goals by other means. The British state intervened repeatedly in the nineteenth century, but only in the interests of a certain class. In this respect, the distribution of the investment pool by the federal states can be understood halfway through the day as the result of the forced cooperation between the state and the strongest players in national capital. The farmers do not allow themselves to be driven from their land alone and the trade unionists do not beat themselves up either. This can be seen as small measures and bribery at the local level.

 

[Anic]

I do worry about too much player control.

I don't think the discussion is being that relevant, so I'll mostly ignore it.

My problem is that with player controlled investments and no international market the player is insulated from forces that can push his country against his wish.

How the conflict between south land owners and north industrialists will go in the US? Well, depends if player just builds factories or farms.

Will that minority pop state get more political power and become a pain as caps move in to enjoy the lower wages? No they won't, the player will just not build there.

Will rising industrialists try to take on the landowners political power? Well, only if you're building them factories.

Will your landowners start exporting grain and raise your pops staple cost? No they wont, you control external commerce.

Will your infant industries be threatened by external competition, leading to a demand for higher tariffs? No they won't, there are over 50 products, slim chance someone will export exactly what you are producing specifically to your market.

Will debates start on open vs closed economy? No they won't, you control all the trade for the most part.

And BTW the measures taken to restrict the player makes it even worse. They haven't revealed it yet but the economic system system seems to be that you can have caps contributing and just building factories and lots of export/imports, or aristocrats contributing and just building farms and lots of export/imports, or both contributing and building both but few exports/imports. People complain about the press button to become state-capitalist vic2, but i can't see this system leading to different outcomes.


I personally liked vic2 because it let me interact with a simulation, trying to steer it in some direction or other, often against the wishes of the agents. It was something like herding sheep. It had lots of problems, which is one of the reasons I was exited for vic3, it could be a game in the same spirit that fixed those prolems. But it looks to me that vic3 will play that aspect down a lot, and will just be a builder like many others. I'm sure paradox will do a good job on it, and it will be a good builder, and people will like it. I think some people will even like it more exactly because the sim part is played down and it is more gamefied. But that's really not what I'm here for.

Addendum: I think the woman/dependents question was the canary in the mine now thinking about it. Will woman labor share be determined by the sim taking a lot of things in account? No, it's law, pass reforms, gain workers.