jcain said:
Hi All,
Just a comment.
I think before you start breaking up cultures into smaller cultures, you should decide what the primary focus of your new Aberration 2 mod is. As I understand it (from reading old threads) the primary focus of Aberration was always design for multiplayer. So for example, Archduke was less concerned about AI performance, since he thought players would dominate the game (as they do).
On the culture issue (where I agree some changes are needed) I understand Archduke deliberately removed the small cultures (one or two province cultures). That's what happened to the Swiss culture.
Not that I'm staying you should stick purely with Archduke's vision, but I do think you should consider what you are designing for and prioritize based on that.
If you are going to break up Gaelic (ca 15 provinces?) into three cultures, they'll each have, what, five provinces? Isn't that pretty small for cultures of nations that are "great powers"?
John Cain
John,
Very good comments, and I agree with your sense of caution.
Aberration will remain a great Multiplayer experience. We hope as a team that we can also add the ai profiles, events and cultures to enhance both the MP and the SP experience.
Should an incidence arise where the two would be in conflict, I strongly support the MP experience winning out in such a situation, although it would need to be a leadership-team decision, not mine alone.
As for the division of cultures, I guess that I believe that this is good for MP, as it will bring greater balance to the current arrangement. One of the ideas was to eschew major powers altopgether and to create a large number of medium sized countries, each with their advantages and disadvantages. That balance is not quite there, especially with countries like Brittany, the Caliphate and perhaps Granada. One of the things that makes these countries Tier 1 is their access to more than one large culture group in wealthy areas, and we hope to stymie this somewhat. It won't stop them from conquering the provinces, but may ensure they are less enticeing in MP.
Brittany, for instance, is intended as a heavy, early coloniser. Despite this, it has - as you know - one of the best profiles for European land conquest, with Gaelic, English and French cultures all available to it, as well as the leadership and wealth to acheive these goals. In the hands of a player, it is too strong, requiring human intervention to scale it down (other players). Brittany would better fill its overall role if it had fewer cores, on ly French OR English (not both) and fewer provinces available that are French (by the creation of Occitan).
I am not necessarily a supporter of the division of Gaelic, once French has been divided, and as long as gaining French culture is a huge task, not a give-away. As you point out, there are already two other nations vying for the Gaelic land-rights, balance enough in MP.
Matty
and even Persians.
