Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #68 - Patch 1.1 Changelog (part 4)

[Soranya]

And the outcome of all of this and potential options to have trade not only be more profitable than simply using post-trade prices but also fix the price inversion problem are detailed again by @Tempscire here:

Are devs ignoring community concerns about Trade/GDP?

I am really disappointed in the focus of the new dev diary... It seems they are focusing on minor balance issues rather than low-hanging major fixes to the game... Will the devs implement the suggested fixes for trade/GDP? I am concerned these...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Basically, you can have the best of both worlds: no price inversions and traders maximizing profit by using a mean value rather than simply post-trade prices. The problem is that the mean value you're using right now (arithmetic mean) is the wrong mean since the price function isn't linear.

All in all, I like the decision to use a mean value since it represents traders buying some goods at a low price and importing them to a market with a higher price piecemeal until eventually they reach the maximum to remain profitable rather than assuming the goods are all bought at the same price (more or less) as the final one -- we'd just need to use the correct mean though.

The assumption could also be, that the shown price is teh actual mean price (avearged out across all orders)
This can be true for production inputs and consumer goods as well.
As goods are not handled by unit (as in 1 ton of iron etc.) but by orders this is even more sensible I think.

 

[Soranya]

Both of those can be true at the same time rofl, but like, I dunno, something something fearful symmetry....(+50 years, I don't like Romantic poetry and I THINK the Tyger was about factories maybe lol)

although hat's off to that sentence, I had a beef with a prof 10 years ago who told me I wasn't allowed to use stream of thought in his class because I wasn't famous enough, so I made grading every one of my papers a living hell for that man

Still, clinically (imo) modern syntax and verbiage in history games aren't a great thing. Vic 2 wasn't blameless either.

Whats "stream of thought"? (for a non english native)

 

[SmokeyMcSubpoena]

"The Tyger" is (a) poetry, not prose (b) while certainly not laconic, still quite economical with its use of words (c) from the 18th century

yea no for sure, and it's a good poem, or at least I like the meter a lot lol! But yea, maybe not that one for the tone of the game

 

[SmokeyMcSubpoena]

Whats "stream of thought"? (for a non english native)

Oh crap, I always get stream of "thought" and "stream of consciousness" mixed up. Ironically I grew up bilingual in a place where they didn't speak English, let's go with that, not cause I've made this mistake the last 15 years of my life.

PM me if that doesn't help, don't wanna OT too hard, it's an early 20th century writing style to save you a google, dunno how popular teaching about it is outside the US.

 

[gkbba]

Ah, alright. Now I understand the confusion.

You should remember that the price is a function of 2 variables, Buy and Sell orders, i.e. P(B,S). Now it is clear that there is a function which is pl in one of these variables that fulfills the following properties:
(i) P(x,x/2)=1,75
(ii)P(x,x)=1
(iii)P(x,2x)=0,25
for any given x.

Spoiler: some maths

yeah, I am aware how to find (funnily I had it written out, but thought you got it anyway similiarily (I dont think it hurts to repeat it though)):
but you can just parametrise and create a family of single variable functions:a bit more cleanly we had to write for the tradeless price function with sell orders y and buy x, and fixing y =: a at a specific point.
(1) P(y <= 0.5x,b) = 1.75b
(2) P(y =>2x,b) = 0.25b
and the (3) continuity condition at equilibrium.

Setting b=1 does no harm, and we got your conditions. as you did implicitely we can also set p = P/b
0.25 = f*0.5
0.75 = 0.5
and get as a piecewise linear solution
p(y=a,x) = 3/4(x/a) + 1/4 for S < B
p(y=a,x) = 3/2(x/a) - 1/2 for S > B

you could do it the other way around (in fact expanding it probably is easiest to do it like that), but as you said, these functions wouldnt be affine to the one I wrote out. however I am not sure or couldnt follow what would technically be the argument against using those functions.

I think the wiki is wrong. I'll just copy/paste pseudocode here:

MaxPriceVariability = BasePrice * PRICE_RANGE
MaximumDifferenceFactor = BUY_SELL_DIFF_AT_MAX_FACTOR - 1
BuySellDifferenceRatio = Min( ( Max( Buy, Sell ) / Min( Buy, Sell ) ) - 1, MaximumDifferenceFactor )
PriceAdjustment = MaxPriceVariability * ( BuySellDifferenceRatio / MaximumDifferenceFactor )
FinalPrice = ( Buy > Sell ) ? BasePrice + PriceAdjustment : BasePrice - PriceAdjustment

It is true this makes it a piecewise linear function, and when the price in one market crosses the base price threshold that might make it the curve appear concave? It is likely also true that this means doing a straight average between pre- and post-trade prices could result in the wrong average based on volume traded no matter what, and doing some calculus might be necessary to find the true value. As a first pass we're going to attempt to use post-trade only prices for trade, since this is most likely to be correct anyhow.

we have MaximumDifferenceFactor as a hard 1
BuySellDifferenceRatio = min(Sell/Buy - 1,1) for Sell > Buy
BuySellDifferenceRatio = min(Buy/Sell - 1,1) for Buy > Sell

So we actually got 4 cases (Sell/Buy > 2 or < 2 for Sell > Buy and accordingly for Buy > Sell), although the >2 cases just ensure that the price stays flat when hitting max/min value.

and price calculates for B > S: P = b*(1+(0.75(buy-sell)/sell) which is linear in buy and the inverse function for sell, vice versa for S > B. So you stay "linear" as long as B-S doesnt switch sign while holding either B and S.

calculating and comparing this with the piecewise linear solution shows that this solution provides the same results for B>S but different ones for B<S. so @Tempscire is right. depending on which variable you hold one side of the equilibrium will be linear one wont be.

 

[doubleskulls]

Its really great to see such a rapid development of what is in general a set of very significant improvements to the game.

​

- Fixed general travel exploit that would allow to teleport generals by alternating orders towards the same destination

This however is a massive backwards step. There are a very large number of issues with fronts, e.g.

• generals dying and all their troops disappearing
• generals re-assigning after naval invasions leaving no-one on holding the beachhead

As they are not mentioned in the release notes, I'm guessing they are not fixed. This "exploit" is just about the only thing that makes warfare tolerable in V3. If this has been fixed in isolation I think I'll be putting V3 to one side until 1.2 comes out, which is really disappointing as I'm enjoying it so much.

 

[Svenska Super]

Its really great to see such a rapid development of what is in general a set of very significant improvements to the game.


This however is a massive backwards step. There are a very large number of issues with fronts, e.g.

• generals dying and all their troops disappearing
• generals re-assigning after naval invasions leaving no-one on holding the beachhead

As they are not mentioned in the release notes, I'm guessing they are not fixed. This "exploit" is just about the only thing that makes warfare tolerable in V3. If this has been fixed in isolation I think I'll be putting V3 to one side until 1.2 comes out, which is really disappointing as I'm enjoying it so much.

try to relax and wait for the big update

 

[foamingjetty]

try to relax and wait for the big update

The feedback being given about generals teleporting being a mandatory band-aid is only timely if it is heard before the patch. After the patch, if war is completely unplayable instead of just extremely irritating, then the feedback is too late. That's what a thread like this is for.

 

[HeavenArt]

I'm relatively apprehensive of the increasing the power of landed factions at the start of the game, while it should be fine for countries that already have some social progression it seems like a huge nerf to the already "underdog" countries.

Though I'll wait and see the actual result of it.

 

[Soranya]

I'm relatively apprehensive of the increasing the power of landed factions at the start of the game, while it should be fine for countries that already have some social progression it seems like a huge nerf to the already "underdog" countries.

Though I'll wait and see the actual result of it.

I am totally fine with some countries beeing harder (by starting in a disadvantagous position for one reason or another or several)

 

[Nikolai II]

When I played my first game Japan didn't get a claim on Yangho in the Korean peninsula (but on all other states there) when getting the expansionist claims - was this already fixed in an earlier patch, because I can't see it in the notes here?

 

[Hadar]

1. Will adding new buildings to queue lag the game so much when you have already 2000 buildings queued? With 3000 buildings queued game makes screen white for a moment when adding new buildings.
2. Will establishing new trade roots lag the game so much when you already have hundreds trade roots active and hundreds of thousands of convoys? (I beg, give me a button "import everything that is profitable" ).
3. Will late game still slow down dramatically?
4. Will there be added a column in macro builder with number of unemployed and number of job vacancies in a state?
5. Will there be option to enable pop-ups and auto-pause
6. Will I still lose military access through country that capitulated (especially annoying when the capitulated country is your puppet now and you still cannot reach somebody you are at war still).
7. Will I still lose my war goals when country I am at war with gets a rebellion and my war goals are the rebeled provinces? Will still my troops be magically teleported out of the front if the province they are in goes to the rebels?
8. Will I be still able to build unlimited number of skyscrapers if I will queue them before the first ends?
9. Will I have still warning that I can declare more interest even though I have declared whole world?
10. Will I still not be able to destroy buildings when revolution is stuck at xx % without actually any hopes to fire ever? It is annoying especially if I want to destroy construction sectors, government administrations, universities, railways, barracks or naval bases I don't need (or I need to somehow limit my spending). Also when I want to destroy farm/plantation to replace them with other building using arable land (I want to have single agriculture building per state, not sure if this is meta, but it is a way to maximise throughput).

and probably a lot more I don't remember now.

AND I BEG YOU - give me EU4 style ledger. Or at least option to limit map list to only my states.

 

[HeavenArt]

I am totally fine with some countries beeing harder (by starting in a disadvantagous position for one reason or another or several)

That's the thing they are already harder, if the power base of the landed classes is so big that you end up taking all the 100 years to pass a few reforms kinds ends the gameplay for them.

But it mostly depends on how the legitemacy is gonna be reworked, maybe it wont that as long for a law update tick? Dunno let's see

 

[iZzY~]

- Germany's default flag is now the Black-Red-Gold tricolor

Why? This is not the flag of the German Empire when it was founded. I don't get it.

- Fixed general travel exploit that would allow to teleport generals by alternating orders towards the same destination

If you did not fix Generals just disappearing from Frontlines when they merge/collapse you just made this game significantly worse.

 

[gkbba]

Why? This is not the flag of the German Empire when it was founded. I don't get it.

actually it is the default german flag when it was founded by the pan nationalists in frankfurt 1848. I assume if Prussia forms it, as they did historically and they are still an autocracy it will be the flag you think is normal.

 

[EU3NOOB]

I definitely understand that perspective but I'm not sold on the thesis that every real life historical outcome represented the most likely scenario. Over the course of history plenty of 30% and even 10% outcomes have actually happened and shaped what came after.

Perhaps, but the situation on the ground should at least evolve from game start and not stay exactly the same, from 1836 to 1936 as is often the case.

The consistent lack of change in the area is boring.

 

[PedroLuiz]

Why? This is not the flag of the German Empire when it was founded. I don't get it.

It preceeded the German Empire's flag in existence

 

[Troyen]

The feedback being given about generals teleporting being a mandatory band-aid is only timely if it is heard before the patch. After the patch, if war is completely unplayable instead of just extremely irritating, then the feedback is too late. That's what a thread like this is for.

They're not going to change Monday's patch, it's locked in days (if not weeks) in advance. If there's no undocumented fix about buggy general behavior around fronts, earliest we'd see it is 1.1.1. But yes, hopefully it's on their radar, though there are multiple ways to interpret the lack of comments about the issue (they don't know if it was fixed, the fix is not in, etc.).

 

[foamingjetty]

They're not going to change Monday's patch, it's locked in days (if not weeks) in advance. If there's no undocumented fix about buggy general behavior around fronts, earliest we'd see it is 1.1.1. But yes, hopefully it's on their radar, though there are multiple ways to interpret the lack of comments about the issue (they don't know if it was fixed, the fix is not in, etc.).

That's fair. And the lovely thing about modern game release cycle is that it's always a work in progress. I guess mostly I was just surprised that the devs didn't anticipate this perspective from players and come prepared to address it. The number of thoughtful responses on a bunch of issues makes this omission stark by contrast.

Ah the joy of having different perspectives.

 

[RELee]

I reckon I'll just have to get up at 3 AM CST and start me a download.

...

No, that's crazy. I'll sleep in like I always do.