Eu2Vic: Feedback and Comments

[montyP]

What about natives in a trading post? Are they converted, too? Maybe they should get a starting militancy depending on their EU2 aggressivness.

Natives are created in the way that every territory has a base population, and every territory gets a pop of at least 8000. Thus Roanoke gets a cree pop of 8000 if it hasn't been colonized. To avoid unpopulated areas.

Native agressiveness info is not available in the EU2 save game file and I do not access "province.csv". I created a separate file that holds religion/culture info (converted to Vic culture/religion).

 

[unmerged(10564)]

Regarding Native aggresiviness, I suggest...

Keep it simple... let's do not dwell on that for the time being... there are other things that need to be looked at first. We can then split our efforts and focus on those things...

IMHO

 

[Specterx]

Quote from the readme:

The values are converted (EU2 - Vic) army - army, navy - navy, trade - industry, infra - commerce.

Wouldn't it make more sense for trade to be converted to commerce tech, and infra to be converted to industry tech?

 

[Emre Yigit]

If Anglia has pop 600,000, London gets 4.800,000, Bedford 2.400,000 and Ipswich 2.400,000.

Yes, indeed it helps. And thank you again from the bottom of my heart for all the trouble you're taking to produce something so many people have wanted for so long. You have my unbounded admiration!

But every action has its critics, every fertile tree its vandals.... and, to my shame, I find myself in such a position now. But I hope you will bear with me.

To put it bluntly, the populations are a bit high don't you think? Let us leave aside the fact that Ipswich has about 18x its population today (since Vic "Ipswich" is not really Ipswich), but even London is seriously overpopulated by 1836 standards.... and I chose the 600K advisedly since that is the level that the 1795 EU2 scenario starts at. With a COT and good stability, a game started with the 1419 scenario should be able to get 999K in Anglia fairly easily.... Even "only" 4,800K in London implies 48 size 100K pops to begin with (and 24 such pops in Ipswich!) whereas the 1836 Scenario has a total population for London of a mere 520K (and 9 pops in total).

Even if one were to argue that merely by playing EU2 one changes history dramatically, if one starts with 40K in Anglia in 1419, and increases this by 0.46% pa (1/3 the theoretical maximum), one would end up with an Anglia population of 250K or so in 1820. In turn, this would translate to a population in London of 2 million (about 4 times the historical level) even though the gameplay for England up to that point had been absolutely disastrous.

Using a more "normal" (choice of word of course open to dispute!) population growth rate, 40K in 1419 compounded at 2/3 of the theoretical maximum (that is to say, at 0.92% pa) would hit the 999K ceiling early in the 1770s.... leading to a population in London of 8 million in 1836.

Might I suggest ever so humbly (in proper awe of the task you have undertaken) that a 600K Anglia should translate, maybe, into 600K in London and perhaps only 120K or so in Bedford or Ipswich? Otherwise the starting population for the British Isles could well be of the order of 200 million....

In addition, I have one other suggestion to make: I have no idea whatsoever as to how to programme things.... but might it not be possible and indeed preferable to add say 0.5*600K = 3 pops of 100K each (all farmers/labourers) to the Vic files. You know, set up a super-file called, I don't know, EU2_legacy.csv, to which all the populations are extracted....? While at the same time halving the values in the Vic.csv files?

Victoria would look in the modified UK_protestant.csv file, and add the pops from there. It would also look at EU2_legacy.csv. Pops from that file would also be added to London. Such a combination would not be as arbitrary as the 80/20 ratio you have set.

If writing a program to halve the size of the pops already in the Vic 1836 scenario is impracticable, I've checked.... there are a mere 900 or so Vic csv files. I'm sure there are enough people interested to make a go of amending the pop sizes down by half. Give everyone 10 files to begin with, and see what happens?

I do realise I am arguing against what you are proposing.... at the end of the day, I'll take whatever you give - and gladly! But I do feel that your proposed pop creation system can seriously skew things.

 

[Golden_Deliciou]

Wouldn't it make more sense for trade to be converted to commerce tech, and infra to be converted to industry tech?

Perhaps- it's more complicated than that. Trade in EU2 encompasses several aspects in Victoria, including industry. Infrastructure is about how the country is organised.

I think the current system is probably closer to reality than the inverse.

EDIT: Well now someone's gone and made me look silly. Bother.

 

[montyP]

Quote from the readme:

Wouldn't it make more sense for trade to be converted to commerce tech, and infra to be converted to industry tech?

You are absolutely right, thats a typo. o

 

[Golden_Deliciou]

Yes, indeed it helps. But golly, the populations are a bit high don't you think? Ipswich has about 20x its population today, while even London is seriously overpopulated by 1836 standards.... and I chose the 600K advisedly since that is the level that the 1795 EU2 scenario starts at. With a COT and good stability, a game started with the 1419 scenario should be able to get 999K in Anglia fairly easily.... Even "only" 4,800K in London implies 48 size 100K pops to begin with (and 24 such pops in Ipswich!) whereas the 1836 Scenario has a total population for London of a mere 520K (and 9 pops in total).

Only a fraction of population in Victoria is represented in POPs. If you hold your mouse over a province you own the total population should appear. So 4.8 million Londoners doesn't mean 48 maxed out POPs.

London's population in 1836 was pretty big- I think it was the largest city in the world by quite a margin. In the 1831 census there were 1.65 million citizens recorded- and that's not the current Greater London Urban area which is covered by the Victoria province. Figure 2 million would be a fairly good figure for that province's population in 1836.

 

[montyP]

Yes, indeed it helps. But golly, the populations are a bit high don't you think? Ipswich has about 20x its population today, while even London is seriously overpopulated by 1836 standards.... and I chose the 600K advisedly since that is the level that the 1795 EU2 scenario starts at. With a COT and good stability, a game started with the 1419 scenario should be able to get 999K in Anglia fairly easily.... Even "only" 4,800K in London implies 48 size 100K pops to begin with (and 24 such pops in Ipswich!) whereas the 1836 Scenario has a total population for London of a mere 520K (and 9 pops in total).

Even if one were to argue that merely by playing EU2 one changes history dramatically, if one starts with 40K in Anglia in 1419, and increases this by 0.46% pa (1/3 the theoretical maximum), one would end up with an Anglia population of 250K or so in 1820. In turn, this would translate to a population in London of 2 million (about 4 times the historical level) even though the gameplay for England up to that point had been absolutely disastrous.

Using a more "normal" (choice of word of course open to dispute!) population growth rate, 40K in 1419 compounded at 2/3 of the theoretical maximum (that is to say, at 0.92% pa) would hit the 999K ceiling early in the 1770s.... leading to a population in London of 8 million in 1836.

Might I suggest ever so humbly (in proper awe of the task you have undertaken) that a 600K Anglia should translate, maybe, into 600K in London and perhaps only 120K or so in Bedford or Ipswich? Otherwise the starting population for the British Isles could well be of the order of 200 million....

In addition, I have one other suggestion to make: I have no idea whatsoever as to how to programme things.... but might it not be possible (and here I really mean to say preferable) to add say 0.5*600K = 3 pops of 100K each (all farmers/labourers) to the Vic files. You know, set up a super-file called, I don't know, EU2_legacy.csv, to which all the populations are extracted....? While at the same time halving the values in the Vic .csv files?

Victoria would look in the modified UK_protestant.csv file, and add the pops from there. It would also look at EU2_legacy.csv. Pops from that file would also be added to London. Such a combination would not be as arbitrary as the 80/20 ratio you have set.

If writing a program to halve the size of the pops already in the Vic 1836 scenario is impracticable, I've checked.... there are a mere 900 or so Vic csv files. I'm sure there are enough people interested to make a go of amending the pop sizes down by half. Give everyone 10 files to begin with, and see what happens?

I do realise I am arguing against what you are proposing.... at the end of the day, I'll take whatever you give - and gladly! But I do feel that your proposed pop creation system can seriously skew things.

Yea, you are right about pop size. Maybe half as a starter, and evaluate? I have run some tests and the populations didn't get to big. I tested on 1795 scenario though...

The pop converter is programmed and done. All we need to do now is test it before release as there are a lot of things that can go wrong here...

It lets you chose if you want GC starting population, or get your EU2 population translated (and it will become ahistorical...).

 

[montyP]

EDIT: Well now someone's gone and made me look silly. Bother.

Sorry

 

[Emre Yigit]

Only a fraction of population in Victoria is represented in POPs. If you hold your mouse over a province you own the total population should appear. So 4.8 million Londoners doesn't mean 48 maxed out POPs.

London's population in 1836 was pretty big- I think it was the largest city in the world by quite a margin. In the 1831 census there were 1.65 million citizens recorded- and that's not the current Greater London Urban area which is covered by the Victoria province. Figure 2 million would be a fairly good figure for that province's population in 1836.

My figures for the 1831 census are "only" 1.5 million or so, but I take your point. I also realise that the 520K in pops translates into 2,715K in province population (which is already probably too high.) Perhaps London was not a good example. Let us take Paris or Constantinople, both of which have higher starting populations than London in 1419. At a normal growth rate, Paris maxes out at 999K in the 1720s and Constaninople in the 1670s.

So you end up with these cities being much larger than the historical London, which was, as you say, the largest city in the world by a significant margin. This does not make much sense to me. And Venice, Moscow, Naples, Rome, Peking, etc also become megalopolises.

However, even if your interpretation of the population conversion is correct then London's worker pops will still - at an EU2 population of 600K / Vic population of 4.8 million - be approximately 80% larger than in the starting scenario for 1836. At a maxed-out 999K, they would be about triple the Vic 1836 level. Therefore, I still believe the conversion factors are way off - even for the world's largest city. Leaving aside problems with the smaller cities.

And I still prefer my method for combining populations. But hey, I'm not doing the programming.

By the way, it's Bedford of course, and not Ipswich. Silly me. o

 

[Emre Yigit]

Yea, you are right about pop size. Maybe half as a starter, and evaluate? I have run some tests and the populations didn't get to big. I tested on 1795 scenario though...

To be frank, I suspect that most people will want to use your converter with the 1773 or 1795 scenarios anyway, since what's the point of starting in 1419, taking over half the world, and then mopping up the rest in Victoria without any real opposition? So I think the 999K scenarios can be dismissed as a low frequency ocurrence.

IMO, one of the beauties of your converter is that it allows one to start a fairly late scenario in EU2, play it so that it becomes a fair bit ahistorical by 1820, but still allows for a bit of a challenge in Vic. So a well-played France can supplant the UK as the dominant power, say, but still be a bit vulnerable to a coalition.

In fact, this converter is probably the best thing for late EU2 scenario usage ever.

(Remarkable, isn't it, how Paradox boards can almost become chat rooms?)

 

[montyP]

And I still prefer my method for combining populations. But hey, I'm not doing the programming.

I choose this way because I wanted to keep the converter as simple as possible, and not dependant on Vic or EU2 files.

With my approach there are ways to add many different minority populations to a territory... I'll decribe how in the readme later on.

BTW: We need more testers. Are you interested in testing it before release?

 

[Emre Yigit]

BTW: We need more testers. Are you interested in testing it before release?

Is the Pope Catholic? Does Paradox rule? Is Johann the shadow of God on earth?



You bet. Will you post the file here, or should I pm you my email address?

 

[montyP]

Is the Pope Catholic? Does Paradox rule? Is Johann the shadow of God on earth?


You bet. Will you post the file here, or should I pm you my email address?

Ok, check your mail!

 

[Theonlystd]

Id test it. I have my current game i can test with and im sure i got some more eu2 saves stored around somewhere. My email is theonlystd@hotmail.com if u decide to send it to me

 

[Specterx]

On the issue of cultures - wouldn't it make more sense to draw the values for provincial and national cultures directly from the eu2 save file (where possible - I believe the culture of a province is only specifically defined in the save if it's changed from the original value)?

Edit: Upon closer inspection of the previous posts, it seems that the converter *should* be populating regions in an 80/20 ratio of "EU2 endgame culture"/"default vicky province culture". However, I've tried converting two games so far (one a 1748 save of a GC with no edits other than the west african, north american and indonesian "nations" removed, the other an AoR game, thus heavily edited) and in both cases I get a generic error on loading ("scenario file contains an error") and all the provinces in vicky are populated at exactly their historical population and culture ratios.

Maybe a bug with the converter?

I don't believe the issue of national cultures has been addressed - e.g. if France has French and Dutch in EU2, will it have French and Dutch in vicky?

 

[montyP]

Edit: Upon closer inspection of the previous posts, it seems that the converter *should* be populating regions in an 80/20 ratio of "EU2 endgame culture"/"default vicky province culture". However, I've tried converting two games so far (one a 1748 save of a GC with no edits other than the west african, north american and indonesian "nations" removed, the other an AoR game, thus heavily edited) and in both cases I get a generic error on loading ("scenario file contains an error") and all the provinces in vicky are populated at exactly their historical population and culture ratios.

Maybe a bug with the converter?

The converter with POP conversion is NOT released yet, so you wont get your pops converted just yet. We are currently testing it. Release will be when testing is done (it will be released when ready :rofl: ).

As for the "bug". I don't know what that is... maybe you could put the file up so I can download it and have a look at it?

I don't believe the issue of national cultures has been addressed - e.g. if France has French and Dutch in EU2, will it have French and Dutch in vicky?

It hasn't really been adressed yet. But that's a tough one as a EU2 culture can have many Vic cultures, and many Vic cultures does not have a EU2 counterpart... But I'm open for suggestions!

Another thing we haven't converted is social reforms. That is convertable. Maybe keep some (minimum wage, maximum work hours) at 0 and convert the others to low values (trinkets...).

Then there is literacy... There has been a lot of good suggestions about how to handle that.

 

[unmerged(10564)]

Yes, I think that after POP conversions, social & political aspects should be worked on.

I have been doing some testing on my own, regarding POP conversion, and the tool is doing a nice work. Though still needs some tweakings, of course!

I suggest we convert an EU2 game where most of the world is occupied, so that way we can see how the effect of colonization has been performed. And also we can see how the map in Vicky looks like with that empty Terra Incognita inherited and ready for colonizing....

 

[Emre Yigit]

montyP please check your mail, and feel free to post my reply here if you think it will help at all.

 

[montyP]

OK, I couldn't hold back. I ran EU2 from 1795 to 1802 and then did my first conversion. I was stumped at first when the little box for the *.eug file opened again. I didn't realise at first that I needed to save the file someplace. I then loaded up Vic and played for a month.

I did not play the EU2 game with much in mind except to colonise a wee bit and build some troops, ships and manufactories.

Looks good, except that:

1. Populations are ***waaay*** too low. I take back everything I said!
a) For example, China has a population of: 7.6 million!
b) The UK is the most populous country at 13m!

2. Fleet converted at a niggardly ratio.
a) At the start of the game, only 7 countries had fleets at all - and most were composed of one ship.
b) While my fleets in port converted fine, fleets sailing did not convert at all.

3. "If you have a LOT of artillery" Indeed. I had *massive* artillery armies in EU2, and got a few lead pipes in return in Vic.

4. Relations translated well, except:
a) Wars ended. (I'm OK with this for the reasons you gave)
b) Alliances ended. (Maybe OK with this)
c) Vassals did not convert to satellites. (Not really OK with this)

5. There were only 4 uncivilised nations. China was civilised, which basically means a whole different game in Vic from the word go. Except of course, China is about as well populated as the Sahara, so maybe it doesn't matter.

6. Perhaps as a consequence of (5), a month into the game, the countries with the best reforms were China and the Papal states. My pops started to move - to China.

7. Some countries appeared seriously under-or-overpowered.
a) Madagaskar appears unsettled. So do Oranje and the other states nearby.
b) Spain is too big. We really need a series of optional events for the Americas.
c) Though the Louisiana purchase had triggered, the USA looks underpowered... though this might change if I played EU2 through to 1820.
d) The OE looks overpowered. We need events to simulate Egyptian and Greek independence. And possibly Serbian as well.
e) Sokota....??!!
f) The UK, though very populous (!), is seriously underpowered. Again, some optional events making the Indian states satellites?

7. Perhaps as a result of underpopulation and rather aggressive neutrality (this was Napoleon's Ambition Scenario after all, and I didn't want to get into any wars not of my own choosing) I had a *massive* manpower deficit. I am glad to see this did not apply to many other nations.

8. Quite a few countries - presumably those with debt - had serious deficits in industrial points. The USA was at -32000 and change. Maybe we should just wipe out debts?

Otherwise, it seemed to work well. I got my machine parts and other factories. The population mixes seemed reasonable.

GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

This sure helps a lot! Exellent stuff man!

Here are some quick answers to some of your findings…

1) Yea, we need to do a lot of tweaking here! I have done my tests on 1795 scenario to, and population is a little on the low side. We need to check it against a GC game though. The pops will get bigger there me thinks.

2) Those values can do with some tweaking to. Fleets sailing are lost… (WAD)

3) :rofl:

4) Vassals can be discussed. The thing is that it’s stronger in Vic than in EU2, it’s almost impossible to break…

8) The ai tends to take a lot of loans. Maybe we should tweak it down a wee bit. Else, as germax pointed out, it can be used as an exploit. You take a lot of loans at the end of your EU2 game…


About an “events” file for the converter. What we can do is add it in the package as an “add on”, if people want to use it they simply include it with the other events. This to keep the converter as “easy to use” as possible.

Keep up the good work!