Hurricane event?

[unmerged(1047)]

Just an idea I had... make colonizing a bit riskier, especially in the tropics, by devising an event where a hurricane can devastate a colony.

I've got a description and commands scripted, just need to figure out exactly how to arrange the trigger conditions to work properly - something I'm badly out of practice at, if anyone wants to help or take it on.

(The event should only hit certain provinces, of which I have a partial list, and only at certain times of year.)

Anyhows, here's my info so far....

event = {
id = cane
trigger = {
}
random = yes
name = "Hurricane Strikes Colony"
desc = "During the colonization of the New World, European settlers have become aware of a new threat. Tropical storms, which the Carribean island natives knew as 'hurricane', occasionally strike islands and coastal areas in lower latitudes, blowing in from the warm tropical seas. These powerful oceanic storms bring drenching rains, lightning, and severe winds which can combine to completely devastate the wooden structures common in European colonial settlements. Massive damage and flooding also has the potential to cause massive casualties among the population of the stricken colonies. Reports are now arriving that one of our colonies has been devastated by a hurricane!"
style = 1

action_a ={ #Hurricane devastation#
name = "Our colony is severely damaged!"
command = { type = population which = zzz value = -600 }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = shipyard }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = barrack }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = bailiff }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = courthouse }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = cityrights }
command = { type = losemanufactory which = zzz }
command = { type = warships which = zzz value = -100 }
command = { type = galleys which = zzz value = -100 }
command = { type = transports which = zzz value = -100 }
command = { type = desertion which = zzz value = -500 }
command = { type = desertion which = zzz value = -500 }
command = { type = desertion which = zzz value = -500 }
command = { type = desertion which = zzz value = -500 }
command = { type = desertion which = zzz value = -500 }
}

(and of course the "zzz" would be replaced by a province ID or some random trigger so they all hit one province.)


Target provinces:

13, 21, 24, 26, 28-39, 41, 43, 45-50, 54, 62-64, 137-153, 822, 1568-1569
not sure about: 154, 156-158, 178-179 (south America coast)

May also want to see about areas outside North America/Carribean (South Atlantic, Hawaii, West and South Pacific, Indian Ocean?)

Question... how to set up triggers to only hit correct provinces, possibly correct time of year?

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Just a thought... in interests of fairness we should do earthquakes too (and the triggers for that should be easier since there isn't a specific time of year). Far as I know that would apply in Japan, Alaska, California, the western South American coast, and the Anatolia/Caucasus area...

Oh, and Northern Hemisphere hurricane season would be I think July-October?

 

[TheLoneTaco]

good idea, but a little harsh, no? if the player (or ai) has their main fleet stationed on the island for whatever reason BAM lost in an instant..kinda a crappy event to get stuck with, but i guess that was the idea.

one way that might work to get the event to be rare would be to make an event for every country for every province for every year with the date being july 1st and deathdate october 30th. this would be a million events (kaigon can attest that i like making thousands of small event files...), but worth it :^D

now here is the small random part...

ai event one decides if there will be a hurricane for the given country. options a,b, and c are empty set while option d triggers ai event two.

ai event two through whatever have option a as wake event three, and b, c, and d as specific provinces (preferably the three most likely to get a hurricane, but each year they could be different provinces to mix things up). b, c, and d would sleep all the remaining ai hurricane events for that year.

ai event three, if fired, would have it's b,c, and d as different provinces with the same wake/sleep stuff as ai event two. eventually, since there are so many provinces, a hurricane would fire (15% per event, with like 17 events...odds are one of them will fire).

this would make it so that the hurricanes would come very rarely...which i think is a good idea :^)

-Matt

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Hmm... maybe, but perhaps it doesn't need to be that complicated....

What about a July event that sets a hurricane season flag and a November event erasing it... then random events for each of the provinces (maybe doubled or tripled in the file for the most common provinces) that require that flag to be set as part of the trigger?

Of course... that means we'd need to be able to set a flag for all countries... hmm... I bet Archduke would let us play with the ones that activate the Tricolor and the Union Jack....

And yes, it's meant to be harsh but rare. Mainly just a way of making the Carribean/Gulf area less valuable without actually making them less valuable (this would get colonial powers to pump money into the islands for rebuilding, see...), and of course, realism.

And as for losing a "main fleet" in that area - historically speaking, that *is* what would have happened. It just never really did (except once) because they mostly kept the main fleets out of the area during the season. There was one year the Spanish lost the entire Treasure Fleet near Grand Bahama though.....

 

[TheLoneTaco]

you can set flags yourself...you don't need to use the paradox ones...

just have an event fire in july that say "command = { type = setflag which = caneseason }" and one in november "command = { type = clrflag which = caneseason }"

EDIT: whoops, misunderstood what you mean...now i'm sure you already knew this :^). using the union jack/tricolor would work since i don't think aberration will use them, but the other alternative would be to only give the event to the likely colonizers (i think you or something else listed them in another thread) or to everyone...it's just find/replace using wordpad so it should only take a half hour. but yes, the union jack/tricolor one would be better :^)

then for the random events, have one trigger be flag = caneseason. and yeah, having one for unlikely hits (north florida, mexico) and many for likely hits (lesser antilles) would work...only problem is that there may be more devastating hurricanes than there really were/are. many a second flag could be "deadlyseason" that only lasted for one week a year and "caneseason" or whatever could be for smaller hurricanes.

while hurricanes did and still do cause a lot damage, having the event fire every year could get old very fast...these islands were VERY profitable during the 18th century...having to rebuild every 20 years would be totally unrealistic if only in game terms. i hardly think that the real nations had to pay the equivalent of 50+100+100 ducats and wait three and a half years to rebuild a handful of administrative buildings.

except for the spanish fleet getting wrecked, was there really a huge setback for any colonial nation because of a hurricane? i think they were more of an inconvenience from the national level...many a 25-50 ducat charge to help rebuild the island. remember that spanish colonial government was structured a lot different than how it is represented in-game...if we wanted to be more accurate there should be tax collectors representing local bureaucrats, a collection of legal counsels in the viceroyalties, and a single governor for all of latin america (until the bourbon reforms) in seville or madrid...it sure it a lot cheaper to replace only that tax collector

-Matt

 

[Nikolai II]

I think I'm against it..

And did they fix the bug where destroying ships in port would allow for 'wraparound', usually creating navies with 2E7 ships in them?

If you want caribbean to be less useful for colonization purposes - reduce all tax values to 1 and change some resources to less useful ones.

 

[Nikolai II]

EDIT: whoops, misunderstood what you mean...now i'm sure you already knew this :^). using the union jack/tricolor would work since i don't think aberration will use them, but the other alternative would be to only give the event to the likely colonizers (i think you or something else listed them in another thread) or to everyone...it's just find/replace using wordpad so it should only take a half hour. but yes, the union jack/tricolor one would be better :^)

Or you could use a designated 'random event nation' that gets to fire events and then trigger individual hurricanes for provinces - allowing you to limit destructivity and still have some 'monsters'.


At least this post gave me a reason to bring up Alun's reformation mod, where reformation happens slowly over the course of a few decades with the possibility of more or less spread - by having a 'RNG-nation' hidden beneath the surface of a lake..

http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103112

 

[TheArchduke]

I don´t like it too much really, sorry.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

*shrug*

I just thought it was a way to introduce a bit of realism... and also to somewhat lessen the attractiveness of the Carribean area *without* actually making the islands less inherently valuable.

If it's the severity of the effects that's bothering you... that can be toned down...

I've noticed several strategy guides that call the Carribean islands the "best colonies there are", etcetera, which is probably true, but it leads to the player ahistorically diving into them too heavily. (In fact, other than Spain, I don't think there's more than 4-6 provinces in the entire area that were historically colonized by the same country. And Spain ignored the smaller islands.) I thought that an event like this might induce the player to colonize elsewhere.

(and I didn't know there *was* a bug with removing fleets, so obviously, that would need to come out anyway.)

As far as frequency, of course it would have to be played with to get it right, but I was thinking of something on the order of once to three times a century per province, depending on area... not every 10 or 20 years. At most four per century I would think, even in the real danger areas like south Florida, while Texas might only get one. And if it were done as random events, it wouldn't hit like clockwork.

Toned down version:

event = {
id = cane
trigger = {
}
random = yes
name = "Hurricane Strikes Colony"
desc = "During the colonization of the New World, European settlers have become aware of a new threat. Tropical storms, which the Carribean island natives knew as 'hurricane', occasionally strike islands and coastal areas in lower latitudes, blowing in from the warm tropical seas. These powerful oceanic storms bring drenching rains, lightning, and severe winds which can combine to completely devastate the wooden structures common in European colonial settlements. Massive damage and flooding also has the potential to cause massive casualties among the population of the stricken colonies. Reports are now arriving that one of our colonies has been devastated by a hurricane!"
style = 1

action_a ={ #Hurricane devastation#
name = "Our colony is severely damaged!"
command = { type = population which = zzz value = -600 }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = shipyard }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = barrack }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = bailiff }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = courthouse }
command = { type = losebuilding which = zzz value = cityrights }
command = { type = losemanufactory which = zzz }
}
}

 

[TheArchduke]

Sounds a bit better now.

But still I it is still a way to random very harsh brutal event.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Would you care to be more specific in your objections?

(If you're worried about it happening too often, well, we're talking about an area of something like 35-40 provinces.... from Roanoke to somewhere around Mosquito province, and all the islands... We could set things up so that only one gets hit a year, by "ending" the hurricane season as part of the event.... although that wouldn't be very realistic as they do travel and the same storm could hit multiple provinces, much less the fact of having more than one a year. After all, Florida has been hit twice in the last four weeks and may get a third this week. All three impacted at least one other EU2 province first.)

 

[TheArchduke]

The shipyard and the barrack bother me, especially the shipyard.

Also an option b for a possible cash cost rebuild.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Well, a shipyard would be next to the harbor, right?

Hurricanes often kick up 20+ foot (6 meter +) waves and winds of over 100 mph (160 kph) for several hours... and against a coastline the waves can become magnified.

A shipyard built with and for pre-Napoleonic technology would probably be mostly wooden structures which would not stand up to those sorts of things.

Actually, that was my rationale for *all* of the building losses. (Even with modern building materials and structures designed to withstand hurricanes, they still get millions of dollars worth of damage, and that's just counting commercial buildings such as hotels and department stores....)

Not to mention flooding rains... parts of Florida got over half a meter of rain from a hurricane that hit just last week.

The barracks... well, I suppose those might be inside the "fortress", which I was assuming would be stone and therefore left out. So it would make more sense to remove it than the other buildings....

On a side note... I have no issues with a cash-cost rebuild option B.... except that we'd need to figure out what a suitable amount would be, which includes working out what inflation we might be dealing with...

 

[Nikolai II]

Tax collectors, governors etc are not 'buildings' that a hurricane can tear down, they are civic improvements in local rulership and should not be lost just like that.

Shipyard, ok, (noone sane should build one there anyways), population loss and cash loss (minor repairs) ok.

Although population loss of 600 is pretty large IMHO.. it means if you still have a colony it will basically be gone, and if you have a colonial city it will take a dent.. but at least it is only 'reasonably' too high (i.e. it could be workable)

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Well, I've figured out how to trigger it... or at least the intellectually difficult part...

I can set up the hurricane season using a flag, which can be set by an invisible AI event thanks to the fact that, according to someone who really would know, "REB and PIR always exist". So all I need to do is make an AI event that targets them.

As for destroying the TC's, etcetera.... yes, you're right, it (probably) would not destroy the tax collector himself. But his office being torn to shreds might justify a replacement cost, wouldn't you think? Not to mention the homes and farms of those being taxed?

As for the population hit - we can minimize that by putting a minimum population in the trigger.

 

[TheLoneTaco]

as i posted before, the replacement cost in eu2 is grossly more than what the actual replacement cost would have been.

another alternative would be fire a hurricane (not a season) and have a bunch of provinces all hit in order. make 3-4 paths and have it so that on average the hurricanes travels along any given path once every 30 years.

-Matt

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Except then you'd have to have specific dates, since random events can't triger other random events... at least I don't think they can....

What I was thinking with the "season" was simply a way of keeping the hurricane events from triggering year-round. Simply using it as a requirement for the random events - you might actually not see any hurricane events fire for years, or you might be supremely unlucky and get hit by three or four in a single year. It's all up to randomness - I just didn't want a hurricane hitting in January, since in the real world they don't.

 

[Nikolai II]

But his office being torn to shreds might justify a replacement cost, wouldn't you think? Not to mention the homes and farms of those being taxed?

Which is why I figured a small cash cost in money, i.e. a flavor random event.. you could even make them into plain flavor events, meaning you can easily learn that in year 1636 spring a hurrican will hit three provinces there - but since you can't do anything about it you'll just have to suck it up..

I'm uncertain about REB and PIR getting random events though.. but I guess testing is the only way to be sure.. (I just winder where they would put their rebellions etc )

 

[unmerged(1047)]

They (the events I needed the rebels and pirates for) don't need to be random events. I was just going to use those to be able to set a flag at the beginning and end of hurricane season each year, without having nuisance (or even visible) player events. The actual hurricane events would be province-owner-based.

As for the effects... this should be something more than a "flavor event"... it should be something destructive enough to actually be painful... something to make people consider *not* racing for the islands simply because they're so valuable. Without actually making them less valuable.

Frequencywise, if the events are set up for specific provinces, we can make them more or less frequent (comparatively) by placing multiple copies for the more often hit provinces. Also (a thought) we can tailor the effects to the province - perhaps there's enough high ground on one island to prevent the deaths from flooding from being as bad, while another island might get hit harder.

 

[Nikolai II]

something to make people consider *not* racing for the islands simply because they're so valuable. Without actually making them less valuable.

Eh?

I think you lost me here - either they are less valuable, or they are not, and if they are not less valuable they will be raced for, else the race will be for somewhere else..