Hungary

[Incompetent]

I couldn't spot a thread on this, so I'm starting a new one.

Opening remarks on Hungary and related issues:

1. In my games of Abe, I've never seen Hungary do badly. Indeed, it very often gets to the blobbish proportions of vanilla Austria. This is even worse in Abe, because our majors are by and large supposed to be a good deal smaller than the historical giants. Something needs to be done to cut Hungary down to size. We can start by cutting back its cores a bit, which currently cover the whole Western Balkans. Another idea is to bring back Romanian culture (after all, Romanians aren't really 'slavonic'), reducing Hungary's culture zone somewhat.

2. The Hussite crusade is a bit of a mess at the moment, and this is particularly relevant to Hungary as they tend to end up taking over Bohemia. In particular, the crusade confuses the separate issues of Hungary's claim to the throne on the one hand, and efforts to crush the heresy on the other. Here's a possible alternative plan:

- If Bohemia goes Protestant, Hungary, Bavaria and Poland get 'crusade' CBs on Bohemia, but not necessarily any cores apart from on Prague.

- If Bohemia does not elect Zigmunt, Hungary is presented with a choice between pressing its claims on the Bohemian crown (CB until Bohemia is made a vassal, but no further cores) or trying to secure regions which are more inclined to support Hungary (cores on Moravia and Austria; NOT Steiermark!). Only the former option can lead to an eventual incorporation of Bohemia into Hungary by event.

- Once Bohemia has reverted to Catholic, the crusade is over and there should be a rapprochement between Bohemia and its neighbours. +relations, and also Bavaria, Poland and Hungary should be encouraged to give back lands they took off Bohemia. Exceptions: if Poland acquires Silesia, it keeps it, and similarly Bavaria keeps Austria, because these are legitimately disputed areas. Hungary gets to keep any cores it has taken.

- If Hungary is at war with Bohemia when Prague falls, and Hungary has gone for the border provinces, Hungary gets those provinces. If it's gone for the crown, Bohemia becomes a Hungarian vassal.


We could also have other powers helping the heretics, possibly Swabia and/or the Hansa. In fact, I've written events for possible Hanseatic assistance, which are somewhere in another thread.


3. Hungary's religious decision isn't working properly. What happens is that AI Hungary chooses Reformed as default, but has conquered so much of the Catholic world (and even converted its home provinces back to Catholicism!) that it quickly goes back to Catholic. Not only is this wasteful, it makes a real mess of Hungary's later events, which are supposed to be linked to its choice of religion.

In fact, we ought to review Hungary's religious choices anyway, from the POV of our whole alternate Reformation. Why would Hungary go Reformed? Why would it stay Catholic? How would this affect subsequent history?

4. Minor comment - the event 'Istria slavonised' converts Istria to Orthodox, which is completely wrong. Firstly most of Hungary's Slavs will be Catholic; secondly, the event specifically mentions the local Slavic groups become dominant, ie Croats and Slovenes, and they're hardly going to be Orthodox!

 

[unmerged(8881)]

From memory they also have some particularly nasty generals early on, and the sliders might help their morale too.

 

[Sleepyhead]

Why is Hungary even ingame? It nearly always does god in other mods expanding and sometimes swollow austria. Abe Hungary looks exactly like vanilla and it is a bit boring playing vanilla powers.
I mean, Poland has been taken out shouldn't Hungary be taken out to?
It would be alot more interssting with croatia or even sicily there.

 

[yourworstnightm]

Hungary is not an vanilla power since it's meant for it to be inherited by Austria in vanilla. Hungary is needed in Abe to balance things in Central Europe.

 

[Sleepyhead]

Hungary is not an vanilla power since it's meant for it to be inherited by Austria in vanilla. Hungary is needed in Abe to balance things in Central Europe.

It's meant to but rarely gets.
Balance, what exactly is it suposed to balance? bavaria and byzantine? They usually goes the other direction and hungary just sits there growing bigger and bigger.
For me Hungary is as vanilla as Poland and I really don't like neither to be in.
It's just my opinion though.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Aberration is much about powers that weren't historically so during EU2 era. Like Hungary, Byzantium, Scotland, Ireland and Granada.

 

[MattyG]

I think Hungary is a cool part of the scenario and is NOT too strong. They do fine early on, but they are also surrounded by strong powers and have little or no mid-late term growth potential in the key areas of colonization and trade.

Whatever issues there may be with the Hussites, Hungary is not significantly overpowered. Not compared to Brittany, Burgundy or bavaria, and all of these will be reviewed and rewritten anyway.

There are certainly not enough events in the late game, as is the case for most countries in AB, of course, so that could use some working on .

 

[yourworstnightm]

It's meant to but rarely gets.
Balance, what exactly is it suposed to balance? bavaria and byzantine? They usually goes the other direction and hungary just sits there growing bigger and bigger.
For me Hungary is as vanilla as Poland and I really don't like neither to be in.
It's just my opinion though.

We're looking in to removing Poland, but Hungary is an ahistoric power for this time and is in because of that. I'm worried about Hungary invading Byzantium, I've seen it ahppen some times.

One of our main priorites should be the Hungarian- hussite conflict, which should grow if the Hussites survive, what about slovakia turning hussite, trying to revolt to Bohemia. (one more reason for Hungary to end the Hussite regime early). Also if Hungary win and vassalize bohemia, the bohemians will probably turn protestant in the reformation and thus break the vassalation, for catholic Hungary there should be circumstances like aggressicve policy towards Bohemia, and a possible war towards annexation.

Bavaria should only go for Austria in the Hussite wars, which would mean lesser event- driven conflicts between Bavaria and Hungary.

 

[Incompetent]

I think Hungary is a cool part of the scenario and is NOT too strong. They do fine early on, but they are also surrounded by strong powers and have little or no mid-late term growth potential in the key areas of colonization and trade.

On that basis, would you describe Austria or the OE as weak relative to the western powers in vanilla? In my experience, AI Hungary is usually richer than most AI colonisers because it takes over so much of Europe. While its neighbours are reasonably strong, Hungary is stronger, and the green blob usually pummels Byzantium, Genoa and Ukraine, and more than holds its own against Bavaria and the TO. It's only when it reaches Burgundy or the Hansa that I've seen it meet a worthy AI opponent, but by then Hungary has half of Germany anyway. Most AI powers get piled on when they have too much BB, but I don't see this happen with Hungary, because even if Hungary has 50BB, its neighbours are all scared of it. The only reason it falters later on is that it's told to convert to Reformed by event, which would be sensible for Hungary alone, except Hungary has conquered so much that Catholic is a far better option.

At the moment Hungary has as much trade potential as most countries - what do you mean by it having limited expansion opportunities in trade?

In the late game EVERYONE can colonise, pioneers or no pioneers, and Hungary can get somewhat earlier as it tends to beat maps out of Genoa. I've yet to play a game of Abe where Hungary hasn't built a few colonies by 1650.

 

[MattyG]

Late game is too late for colonization to be economically meaningful. Conquering colonies, OK, but not actual colonization.

You're an SP player. Hungary may well grow strong in a lot of SP, but MP is different. I've taken them on in MP are they are bloody tough. But then so is the Caliphate, Cordoba, Bavaria, Burgundy, TO ... Also everyone's experience of SP is a little different. They've certainly never gone down the tubes in my games, but they've never done the Austrian Blob thing either. Bavaria, on the other hand, does so frequently.

Yes, all of the ai in AB I is poor, no exceptions there. We are already making this better and it will eventually one day all be better. Bavaria, Bohemia, Byzantium and the Ukraine all need to care more about a a=large Hungary. But that isn't the problem with Hungary's size or events, but their neighbours focus.

Hungary as good at trade as other countries? Hardly. First, they don't get maps to the wealthy colonial areas or China. Not usless they have captured a pertinent capital or some fool has traded them maps. Second, they are land and aristocractic and mercantilist as ai and get far fewer merchants and a generally lower trade rating.

OK, Hungary definitely needs its event files re-written to have more negative events, as well as the weirdness with the religion. A really bad patch and bad monarch in about 1530 - 1580 would be appropriate. Much like the Hapsburgs.

 

[Incompetent]

...

To be fair, with the current setup they probably would start running out of steam by 1600 anyway - by which I mean their advance slows to a halt, rather than other countries being able to drive them back. Like the Ottomans, they aren't exceptionally blessed in the late game, but what they manage to get in the first 100 years gives them such a solid platform that it's hard to go wrong afterwards. I certainly don't mind Hungary getting more land on average than say the Hansa, as the latter have many other things going for them. But when Hungary has Hungary proper, the Balkans, Poland, Bohemia, northern Italy and a decent chunk of Germany by the mid-16th century, it's really thrown the balance - admittedly Ukraine gets quite big as well, but in an MP context it's seriously disadvantaged relative to Hungary by Orthodox tech.

I see your point on overseas trade, but again, we can slow down the benefit of this. For a start, in Abe it ought to take much longer for Europeans to zoom ahead of Asian tech levels, so Asian merchants will be less of a pushover. As for colonies, they ought to be both slower to emerge and less profitable than in vanilla, meaning that the colonials will gain much less advantage over the land powers than they would otherwise.

 

[MattyG]

The final point I'd like to make is that despite my sound arguments I am still basically wrong. I have never seen Hungary do badly, and that's a telling thing. Like Bavaria, another country that has to be toned down/reconfigured. Even Brittany I have seen reduced to its core properties plus a few colonies. But never Hungary.

So, while it will be a long while before anyone gets around to rebuilding the Balkans, I certainly agree that there is much we can do with Hungary to bring it in line with the Aberration principle of having lots of balanced medium-sized nations.

 

[unmerged(31994)]

Hungary is the only nation which expands gradually and kicks everybodys ass.As Cordoba I conquered France, half of Germany and some Anglo Saxon cities, the only tough nut I had to crack was Hungary, and it took several wars to break them ( and me in the process as I lost some land to rebels )

 

[yourworstnightm]

Hungary is strong in sp (usually one gigantic empire) while weak in mp, since the other powers have richer provinces. Hungary is that kind of nation that has very different chances of succes depending on if it's an mp or sp game.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

In the only Abe MP I played in, long time ago, Hungary became quite a monster, but then again, so did many other countries.

 

[Varcislaus]

why Hungary inherits Bohemia ? independat Croatia would be great.

 

[Varcislaus]

Byzantine Empire could strike at Hungary when they fight against Hussite

 

[MattyG]

Hungary can inherit a lot of Bohemia as part of the end result of the Hussite wars, but it really represents conquest, not inheritance.

Croatia begins the game independent and will also likely gain independence again during the Reformation.

You can even play as croatia and conquer the world.

As for Byzantium ... maybe.

The thing is that as a player of Byzantium, then if the opportunity is the right one, sure, go for it, if nothing else than to capture Transylvania.

But for the ai, it's much trickier. By that stage of the game they are likely still embroiled in wars with the Caliphate and/or the Turkish minors or even still with the Balkan minors. Byzantium often does well early on in the game because it is surrounded by smaller, weaker states, but taking on Hungary as early as 1430 is more often than not going to be a bad idea for ai Byzantium.

 

[Varcislaus]

Victory of the hussites and second hussite crusade.
why not ?

 

[MattyG]

Victory of the hussites and second hussite crusade.
why not ?

Sure, but pre-programming wars for ai nations is rarely a good idea. For better or wrose, we have to write the best ai files we can and then leave it to the ai to make the right war decisions. When the war settling is low and you play on coward, mostly they get it right, attacking when opponents are already at war and weakened.

Therefore, should there be a subsequent conflict that embroils Hungary (versus the Hussites or, really, anyone) AND if Byzantium is strong and not in a war, it will likely chose to do just what you suggest.

That said, I can write an event for the ai, but the triggers for such things are complicated, and there is a second danger in doing so ...

Because players read event files, and they read the ai event that Byzantium will basically definitely go to war with Hungary under certain conditions at a certain time, they prepare to strike when it happens. Accordingly, almost all of the events that force a country to war occur in the first 20 years of the game when exploiting these occurances is harder.