Europe between flames of war and wedding bells

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Another thread for discussing important matters.

This thread is dedicated to plan sequences of events for Europe (mostly, but could be expanded) to make some international interaction.

This is especially to fill the late centuries of the game, with events like the War of Spanish Succession, 30YW, etc.

Feel free to share your ideas.

 

[unmerged(33565)]

I am going to recopy my idea about a reclaiming of the french crown events here:

I am talking more about say at some point Burgundy (I only really see them doing this although Savory might too) takes a certain portion of France (half or 2/3rds), that it decides to attempt to reclaim the title of King of the Franks that was lost in the 4th crusade. This of course would set off a reaction event in Savory, Brittany, and maybe even Genoa (would not like a united France on its border) and Grenada (same as Genoa). You could make it an event with

A. Yes, lets reclaim what is ours.
- gain cores on all French lands
- Up land, offensive and maybe some troops
- Hit to stab, innovation, relations, and maybe some RR
- Several Reaction events from several other nearby countries

B. Let us stay as we are.
- Ups Sab, innovation, relations, maybe some infrastructure investment
(spending money meant for troops else where)
-loses the chance to gain alot of cores

We might also want to write in an event sequence where you can pick an ally to call on to help you, for a price of course

A. Ask the League for help (in exchange for increased Trade rights)
- large decrease in trade investment
- league would get a good investment in trade (maybe a manu) and
decrease in money and troops (give them a yes or no option)

B. Barvia (Come up with something they can help them out with, land
investment maybe)

C Grenada (deal with the devil, offer section of southern France to them for help, maybe more then any other state) maybe even an event later from this one where you can renig on your deal later on.

D. Go it alone (No help, but no cost either)

Now here is some explination of the events sequence. First, Burgandy (maybe Savory) needs to control a good portion of France, I am talking about at least 2/3rds of the provences. Second, I want to make this MAJORLY difficult, I am talking mass decerations of war, hits to innovation, centrization, $, stabs and maybe even some RR. It can't be a walk in the park. Thrid, I don't like tag switchs, so I don't want France to come back.

I just think that this is something that would have happened if the condiction I have laided out happened.

I am going to run several hands off games to see if I can find a pattern in central europe so that maybe I can come up with some sort of events for there.

 

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I think that we need to perhaps put in more conflict between Hungary and Bavaria over Bohemia. As I recall this was the original intention, but unless the B choice is picked in the Treaty of Vienna event, there is no real point of conflict between these two nations. This leaves Hungary free to pick on Byzantium, who already needs help. We could try to create some kind of power struggle between them over control of those lands and perhaps for the support of the HRE in general. Both of them are, at least storyline wise, big competitors for the title of Holy Roman Emperor. This seems pretty straightforward to me, if one of them owns Prague then sometime in the 1600s the other gets an event asking if they want to attempt to reclaim the Bohemian lands, as they have a good claim on that nation's crown. From there its reaction events and CBs.

On a more minor note, could we perhaps code in some conversion events for Byzantium when it reclaims all the Turkish provs in Anatolia? It won't get the culture, and I agree with that, but the conversions are a serious pain in the butt. A few random conversions would be a great help.

The UoK should perhaps get some conflict events with Finland, it should have them already but they aren't really there. They could have "A new crusade?" or something like that, and get some troops and land investment and a CB. They are really sparse on good events later on. The Teutonic Knights should have a reaction event to help the UoK, since this will be after the Russian Crusade. As the TO almost never wins the crusade in Russia in my experience, they might be looking for revenge. This could trigger Ukraine joining, giving us a nice epochal conflict in the east. Perhaps even another chance for Russian culture for the TO?

Byzantium and the Kaliphate should have more conflict events. Byz needs to be boosted or the Kaliphate needs an eastern enemy before that happens though. We could perhaps mix the Byzantines wanting to recapture Syria and a period of Kaliph weakness. It would certainly be interesting to see if the Byzantines can defeat the Kaliphate later on, when their tech is much greater. The Kaliphate could have a counter Jihad or something, and try to take Constantinople. If they succeed maybe they could get a reform event, huge money cost, large RR for 10 years or so, and change techgroup. While this would be a huge bonus for them, you have to remember that it would be in like the 1700s, so they will be extremely far behind in tech most likely (they do start in muslim, right?).

I'll be back with some more ideas in an hour or so....

 

[unmerged(33565)]

I think that we need to perhaps put in more conflict between Hungary and Bavaria over Bohemia. As I recall this was the original intention, but unless the B choice is picked in the Treaty of Vienna event, there is no real point of conflict between these two nations. This leaves Hungary free to pick on Byzantium, who already needs help. We could try to create some kind of power struggle between them over control of those lands and perhaps for the support of the HRE in general. Both of them are, at least storyline wise, big competitors for the title of Holy Roman Emperor. This seems pretty straightforward to me, if one of them owns Prague then sometime in the 1600s the other gets an event asking if they want to attempt to reclaim the Bohemian lands, as they have a good claim on that nation's crown. From there its reaction events and CBs.

I agree with this, and I would like to see Bohemia just get completly knocked around every time, it really should not hold out I don't think. This would also make for some consistance in this area.

On a more minor note, could we perhaps code in some conversion events for Byzantium when it reclaims all the Turkish provs in Anatolia? It won't get the culture, and I agree with that, but the conversions are a serious pain in the butt. A few random conversions would be a great help.

There should be one in there, way down at the bottom. I get a headache just trying to read that file, it is really confusing, but one is in there.

BTW, they can get Turkish culture, but you have to go with a certain path when it comes to monarchs.

The UoK should perhaps get some conflict events with Finland, it should have them already but they aren't really there. They could have "A new crusade?" or something like that, and get some troops and land investment and a CB. They are really sparse on good events later on. The Teutonic Knights should have a reaction event to help the UoK, since this will be after the Russian Crusade. As the TO almost never wins the crusade in Russia in my experience, they might be looking for revenge. This could trigger Ukraine joining, giving us a nice epochal conflict in the east. Perhaps even another chance for Russian culture for the TO?

No complaints here. I would like to see the UoK and the TO get along a little bit better, now by 1450 they are usally at war.

Byzantium and the Kaliphate should have more conflict events. Byz needs to be boosted or the Kaliphate needs an eastern enemy before that happens though. We could perhaps mix the Byzantines wanting to recapture Syria and a period of Kaliph weakness. It would certainly be interesting to see if the Byzantines can defeat the Kaliphate later on, when their tech is much greater. The Kaliphate could have a counter Jihad or something, and try to take Constantinople. If they succeed maybe they could get a reform event, huge money cost, large RR for 10 years or so, and change techgroup. While this would be a huge bonus for them, you have to remember that it would be in like the 1700s, so they will be extremely far behind in tech most likely (they do start in muslim, right?).

I'll be back with some more ideas in an hour or so....

Kaliphate starts in ortidox I believe, but if they get a small section of persia and go with all A in two or three events then they can gain persian culture and drop a tech group in 1540. Also, as it stands right now, they can get Turkish culture in event and cores in Turkey if they take several provenaces.

 

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Hmmm....I forgot Byz can get Turkish since I haven't gone that path my last couple games with them lol. Sorry. Though I still think that a few conversions would be very helpful since there would still be a large proportion of orthodox in those provinces, which would become the majority with state backing. I don't remember ever getting any random conversion events, so I guess wherever it is the event is pretty late. I'll go look it up after I finish this post.

On the TO-UoK note, perhaps we could (though this is quite deterministic) make the general eastern theatre more like the sicily-hungary vs genoa-byz conflict (which also needs fleshing out, if it's such a huge point of conflict then it shouldn't necessarily be settled by just one war). We could soldify the relations between Finland and the Russian minors, perhaps even create a late game heir apparent to Russia if Ukraine, the TO, or Finland don't have Russian culture. The Russian minors and Finland could be one alliance block with support from Ukraine (or we could go with Finland-Hansa, though they have a conflict over Novgorod...), and the other could be TO-UoK.

On the Kaliphate-Byzantium thing.....in that case maybe it can move them back to Orthodox? I dunno. This would probably be a quite late game move, and it lets them keep the very powerful Persian culture....though maybe we should give them the option to trade it for Greek? Something to consider . Anyways, they will have a hard time in Persia if the expansion of Hinduism goes through, which is a good idea imho. Muslims already have enough major powers in to make them a major force, so the loss of north India and Persia will just make things a bit more balanced. In any case, this idea was really for Byz more than the Kaliphate. In most games the Kaliphate owns all of Turkey by 1700 anyways, so this would just enable Byzantium to reclaim that if it is lucky. On a side note, I think that the Kaliphate shouldn't have Turkish culture, it's strong enough already thank you. I think if they own most of Anatolia that they should be releasing a Turkish protectorate of some sort to rule the area and compete with Byzantium, not ruling it themselves. The only issue is that they will reabsorb the vassal pretty quickly . Oh well I'll give it some more thought.

A new idea-we do need a few more European conflicts, and not necessarily just regional ones. I've noticed that when we propose ideas, its always in one area. Just in France, just in the Middle East, or just in Germany. We need something more like the 30 years war and the war of Spanish Succession. A Granadan Jihad against Rome, which causes Burgundy and Bavaria to attack Granada, causing a Kaliphate response, causing Byz to join the Catholics, etc.

The only issue is that we either make it very deterministic with one choice, or half the time the event sequence won't go off correctly. Feel free to throw out ideas, I don't particularly like my proposed religious conflict, I'm sure you guys have better ideas than me on it .

 

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Kaliphate gets turkish real easy and as it is very powerful already, removing turkish from it might be nice.

Finnish events assume TO-Hansa alliance actually, not TO-UoK, so having other events for that purpose might be nice. They are anyway quite natural allies, don't you think?

Btw, I think that big war events are generally just moving SP around, in MP players tend to gather much better alliances and make much more interesting wars than deterministic event driven wars could ever be. Mostly because event driven wars take situation in account very poorly, while human players take it very well. Cores and cultures tend to provoke conflict much better between human players than events saying "You should war this guy now".

I think deterministic Sicily-Hungary vs Genoa-Byzantium is bad, because Byzantium is designed so that it is rewarded for pursuing different avenues depending on event choices and going against Sicily with Genoa is just one of them. Also I think leaving room for players to decide their own allies is nice.

Seems like the big point in my post is: "Don't forget the MP"

 

[Ericus1]

I think that we need to perhaps put in more conflict between Hungary and Bavaria over Bohemia. ....

Byzantium and the Kaliphate should have more conflict events....

Just to add a couple comments, I don't think Bohemia is a much an issue as Bavaria. So far in every game I've played, Bohemia always ends up annexed before the 1500's by somebody, but I've yet to see Bavaria survive either. Bavaria seems to be very underpowered, mainly becuase the AI seems to gang up on them every game from the getgo. Usually, Bav loses is middle provinces first, then everything around the capital, then its dutch provinces, then is annexed, usually before 1600. Hungary seems far to overpowered, and usually ends up with the lion share of the provinces. I don't really see a lack of conflict there.

Also, I think everyone agrees that the Kaliphate is overpowered, and scripted conflict events will just cause the total collapse of Byz. I have yet to see the Byz's actually expand to any degree at all, aside from the annexation of one or two of the Turkish minors. They usually end up getting crushed by Hungary too. In addition, the KoJ folds within 20 or 30 years to the Kaliphate in EVERY game, usually in the first war between them. What is the point of having this country in the game at all, if they don't survive but a decade or two? I'm assuming they were meant to be something other than the Abberated form of Byzantium.

Aside from a competitor for the Kalip in the east, I think lowering their initial manpower would help balance things out. In the games I've played in that arena, the Kalip seems to have inexhaustible manpower, and can constantly produce enormous armies no matter how many I kill. I experimented with using richelieu and disbanding their armies the moment they were created, and it was a couple years before they stopped producing tons more. The manpower of the provinces can be raised later by event or something, but even cutting it in half from the start I don't think would be enough.

As for Bavaria, they suffer somewhat from the same problem Venice does in other versions: they end up building all their armies on 'islands' of their territory, and since their provinces are broken up into groupings of three or four separated from eachother, they can't get those armies to the front's, which usually means an enemy wipes out one group of provincess, takes all the provinces there, then boom, Bavaria gives up a 3rd of her territory. Repeat a couple of wars, and she's gone. I think part of the reason Hungary does so well, is, unlike the countries that are supposed to balance her, I.E. Bav and Byz, her territiory is one massed blob, not spread out across half the map. I think this is the exact same reason I usually see Burgundy and Savoy succeed, while Brittany (and Ireland for that matter) usually ends up crushed by Scotland.

 

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Bavaria doesn't have issues with being underpowered...it has issues with bb. It inevitably annexes a bunch of nearby minors, then everyone nearby attacks it. Bavaria played by a human is very strong. It's entirely an issue of bb management. Maybe someone could script a slightly more passive AI for Bavaria? Though it still does gain a lot of its bb from defensive wars...

On the Middle East...yes, Byzantium is quite weak. I frequently see it lose to a coalition of Turkish minors or to Bulgaria and Wallachia. It needs a power boost, but it must be carefully considered and tested so that Byzantium doesn't become insanely strong.

The KoJ used to be playable. In the more recent patches, it isn't even in the selectable list and I can't win with it against AI! The issue lies in the fact that the Kaliphate has close to 100k troops for its Jihad war, and KoJ can have perhaps 30k, another 20k under AI control in Syria. I can win every battle, but the Kaliphate's monarch and their obscenely large army wear me down every time. But anyways, the KoJ might be playable in a RP heavy MP game, since all the Christian nations would try to save you. Other than that, you can win with them single player if you want to invest the time and effort to do so. But whoever set the Kaliphate up to be so overpowered also apparently arranged for KoJ to be extraordinarily difficult to play. I'd like to look into including an event with options that the AI usually won't choose and an option for humans that give KoJ some more MP and maybe base tax to give it a fighting chance against the Kaliphate, and perhaps some more leaders. Just an idea.

Scotland is another nation that may need balancing. I've seen them beaten by Brittany once or twice, but almost always they take out Brittany's English provinces, and next war they capture Dublin from Eire. Scotland needs a bit of a reduction or they need to have more issues with the Kalmar Union. Brittany just cannot compete.

 

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Bavaria doesn't have issues with being underpowered...it has issues with bb. It inevitably annexes a bunch of nearby minors, then everyone nearby attacks it. Bavaria played by a human is very strong. It's entirely an issue of bb management. Maybe someone could script a slightly more passive AI for Bavaria? Though it still does gain a lot of its bb from defensive wars....

I think it ends up with a lot of BB from the early war with Bohemia for some reason. Some of it is taking some of its core provencses in dutch territory. Maybe remove the cores in the northern netherlands so that it does not try and annax those two small coutries and rack up a ton of BB there before it gains some BB where it really should get them, in Germany

On the Middle East...yes, Byzantium is quite weak. I frequently see it lose to a coalition of Turkish minors or to Bulgaria and Wallachia. It needs a power boost, but it must be carefully considered and tested so that Byzantium doesn't become insanely strong.

I would like to suggest maybe divideing up the alliance of the turkish minors from all four to two alliance of two. Or maybe take slivas out of that alliance and only have the 3 two provance minors together. Another option is adding Georgia and Amarnia to the alliance of Byzantium and Crete to add some extra troops. Might be good to try just these minor adjustments.

The KoJ used to be playable. In the more recent patches, it isn't even in the selectable list and I can't win with it against AI! The issue lies in the fact that the Kaliphate has close to 100k troops for its Jihad war, and KoJ can have perhaps 30k, another 20k under AI control in Syria. I can win every battle, but the Kaliphate's monarch and their obscenely large army wear me down every time. But anyways, the KoJ might be playable in a RP heavy MP game, since all the Christian nations would try to save you. Other than that, you can win with them single player if you want to invest the time and effort to do so. But whoever set the Kaliphate up to be so overpowered also apparently arranged for KoJ to be extraordinarily difficult to play. I'd like to look into including an event with options that the AI usually won't choose and an option for humans that give KoJ some more MP and maybe base tax to give it a fighting chance against the Kaliphate, and perhaps some more leaders. Just an idea.

KOJ was knocked down a little I have to admit. I played the Kal the other day just to see how overpowered it was. By 1466 I had taken most of the arbia, persia and turkey, had a BB around 40 or so. I was going to expand into persia more but Delhi came to rescue of Timmarans just in time. They really don't need the 8 or 9 cores they get in persia.

Part of the problem is that their capital is in Asia so BB really don't effect them, you can run up BB as much as you want, and have no problems.

Scotland is another nation that may need balancing. I've seen them beaten by Brittany once or twice, but almost always they take out Brittany's English provinces, and next war they capture Dublin from Eire. Scotland needs a bit of a reduction or they need to have more issues with the Kalmar Union. Brittany just cannot compete.

I really have not played all that much since they rebalanced scotland, cause before they pritty much got chopped up all the time. Don't know what to do here, the game I played scotland lost to Brittany.

 

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There're some changes I suggest/agree with :
- a global reduction of the aggressivity of the AI countries (too many are at 75-80 no wonder it's a real messy, bloody battlefield)
- for Bavaria : make Brabant part of the starting alliance, removing the dutch cores, military access through Cologne (in case they lose the Emperor mantle), perhaps a BB reduction in the Bohemian sequence ?
- decrease the power of the Caliphate : manpower, but also techs and DP-sliders : they have LAND 10, no wonder they beat everyone around :wacko: ; reduce starting army (currently 45k), decrease starting stability (currently +3)
- do the same for Hungary, with harsher revolts and RR in later events
- improve KoJ : go to the thread to give ideas, I've already started working on the outremer-culture events ; better leaders might be useful
- remove anglosaxon culture from Scotland : let it have the possibility to receive it later (after conquering a few other provinces)
- increase tax values of Eire (and a bigger fortress in Ulster, to reduce the effect of the new strait)
- MA between most of the countries of the HRE, to prevent most DoWs ? tough this might be too deterministic... o

 

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Right, I think Eire does not need boost. At least not any kind of boost that affects the country as whole. Rather give it some AI event boost to help it cope with things that are too difficult for AI, like ships, trade and colonization. So instead of putting the tax value boosts and fort in Ulster into setup, add them with AI event.

 

[Ericus1]

As long as we are overhauling the mod, there's something else I'd like to suggest, which is a problem I also see in AGCEEP: single events having far too massive changes. For instance, the "Europe or New World" event for Brittany has -5 land/aristocracy or +5 land/aristocracy for each choice, respectively. In game terms, this would represent a CENTURY of DP slider movement. This is simply FAR too much of a massive change, and doesn't really give a player a lot of room to play his own way. Granted, this is supposed to be a major event, but 10 clicks worth is too much. Even historically no country accomplished 100 years of policy change in a single day. This doesn't even take into account the effect such massive DP change has on the AI.

I think as we go back through the mod, we should try to limit, or at least break up into several, smaller events, major changes like this. Personally, I would prefer that no individual event (or rapid succession event chain) cause more than 4 clicks in DP slider movement. It's better for the AI, it's less deterministic for the player, and it less destabilizing to play.

 

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Just a note - if we're expecting Eire to take a lead role in exploration, it needs more explorers. After 1520 or so I'm only seeing three or four in the file at all, and in a recent game (playing conservatively) I hit that point having only explored down to Cape Verde (though I had the entire Atlantic and the Eastern Caribbean north of that, and had colonized the coast solidly from Anticosti to Savannah).

 

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Imo Eire doesn't really need more explorers. While they perhaps may not be able to discover the whole world before 1600 like some of their competition, their headstart makes sure they should have a nice colonial empire running by the time their competitors begin to plan theirs.

 

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Well, they are the main colonial/explorer power in Western Europe, and their events seem almost designed for meddling in the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, a slightly conservative player like me can't even explore as far as St. Helena prior to those events. It just doesn't seem right somehow...

I'm not asking for ability to explore the whole world, but seeing the slow movement values and high attrition they take in the earliest explorations, what they have doesn't appear enough to meet their expectations.

 

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Don't forget Brittany, they are one of the top three oceangoing colonizers with Genoa and Eire. At least based on explorer capablities. Though I have to admit I've never tried with Eire to go futher south than Senegal exploring.

So when would you think that they need an additional explorer(s) then, for how long and how good?

 

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Just, generally, a few more than the four or so they seem to have after 1530.