IGC + Discussion (June 2001 - )

[Savant]

This thread is a continuation of three parallel threads discussing potential expansion of the IGC mod to include other editable EU files.

Again, consistent with the IGC, the aim is to make changes that will increase historical accuracy and playability.

For archivists, the three precursor threads this is intended to follow-up are:

Additional candidate files for the IGC mod

Tweaking the economic and tech advance model

Tax_stab and army recruiting limits

ty

 

[BiB]

On my way.

 

[ErrantOne]

talking ecomony end-game numbers. What are the desired goals of an end-game ecomony (1742-1792). Playing a game as hungry and having grown to be one of the 'major' powers on the map (using 1.09 with IGC2.1---still) I could still easily get more trade income then tax revenue (when I actually take the time to send traders). Most of the Euro-CoTs are in the 400-600 range, unless a new RoTW CoT opened for that country. I honestly dont know if this is historically accurate or not.

In short, we are tweaking a system. How about doing the following:

*Let's state a certain configuration for testing (hands on/off) and what kind of data we should gather/post. (1.09 IGC2.2c?)

*Let's get a baseline IGC+ mod and assign a verion number to it. Someone should assemble, ZIP and post it.

*We have overall goals, but can we define any goals in a quantified way? (ex. no Exotic CoTS over 800, average euro CoTs of XXX, etc...)

*Once we have a base configuration and the current 'version' of IGC+ now what? What are we looking to track? How can other's help 'test' the IGC+?

I am sure there are other things that we should define before attempting to move forward but cant think of any right now (at work), but just wanted to get the ball rolling.


ErrantOne

 

[State Machine]

I like quantifying the objectives. It will give a hard target to meet, and force some consensus at the "beginning" of the project. The three threads represent the R&D of two months or so, now is time to create a production project.

Meanwhile, I think the overall objectives of the project are:

1) Enhance historicity and playability in regards to economics and colonization.

2) The mod should be compatible with any current and future scenarios. That is, changes to monarchs, countries, events, diplomatic relationships, etc. will not interfere with this mod and vice versa.

3) Ideally integrate with IGC as an option.

4) Ideally provide an option if there are conflicting objectives. That is, some changes may be good for playing majors, some good for playing minors.

 

[Savant]

State

I agree that those reflect the aims of what we have been trying to do and thank you for expressing them so clearly.

I think the order in which they appear also establishes appropriate priorities. That is, #1 has to take precedence over 2,3 & 4 or the changes we make are worthless to these goals. Similarly, #2 ensures more widespread use/acceptance and more specific changes requiring "under the hood" tuning would return us to the Real_EU - IGC compatibility dilemma which was distasteful. And meeting #2 allows for formal integration with the IGC and if not, at least an unencumbered installation over the top of IGC.

#4 intrigues me as it recognizes a potential divergence of aims within our budding community. As you know, I have a penchant for playing minors and I have sought to maintain their playability with the changes made to IGC+. I don't believe they should be easy play. They should be very difficult, especially as the game wears on. I think perhaps the best example in history is Venice. It began the era very strong in terms of trade, infrastructure, and naval technology but declined perceptibly in the 1600's as it fought a rear-guard action to mainatin any semblance of its past imperial glory. And as Errant and Husziks have noted, many of the minors in 1492 were all but assimilated by 1800. Not all of this was due to macro economics of course, but also to the decline of feudalism - which had artificially sustained provincial loyalties for some 100's of years.

But how we go about adjusting to meet the "potentially disparate aims of players choosing majors versus minors" is another matter. I agree with the potential need of doing so but would "table" this as an explicit aim until it seems apparent that the changes are not suitable to those who wish to play one set or another of the nations. For now, I would like to see us work on a single package and if we need to, return to this issue and devise an alternative IGC+ for minor versus major play. Just the same, it is good to have this observation and objective on record.

 

[ErrantOne]

/agree. I like the order of the goals as well.

As far as playing minors, it seems like we have a good amount of breathing room there. Playing the current IGC+ (1.09/igc2.1) minors are still hard, but pretty easy once you learn a variety of tactics to keep your nation alive. As these changes unfold, I will be playing minors for all hands-on games.



ErrantOne

 

[Savant]

Your ideas are a strong contrast to the

muddled thinking I practice at work.

I think more clearly in my home office with CNN/CNBC on the tube, my wife lamenting how long I play "the game", and my twins waging lego battles.

Anyway, here is a response to your configuration/aims list:

*Let's state a certain configuration for testing (hands on/off) and what kind of data we should gather/post. (1.09 IGC2.2c?)

I think the 2.+ IGC series have been moving too quickly so far to use as a viable platform so my preference would be to wait for 2.3 as it appears from Doomie's list of changes that it will be a watershed version of the IGC and likely last longer than the 1 week of IGC 2.0k or the 2 weeks of IGC 2.1. If Doomie reads this thread I hope he will tell us if this is likely the case. It would be good to have a month with a current version of IGC for testing.

On the other hand, the IGC doesn't change many of the files we have been tooling with. It might not matter all that much from this perspective, but several AI files have notably been changed in the IGC 2.+ series and this makes developing a companion mod more difficult.

*Let's get a baseline IGC+ mod and assign a verion number to it. Someone should assemble, ZIP and post it.

I thought you were going to do this while I was chasing gheckos among the ruins of Catulus' villa in Sirmione?

What I think are needed right now are changes to:
AI files - several but also should (by default) include the new ICG AI's for Portugal and whatever other nation Doomie has tooled around with.
colonists.csv - I think several folks here are ahead of me on this in knowing what works and what doesn't. Can someone take the colonists.csv file as their own? I think State has been working on this a lot with his own changes.
Land/Naval tech files - I could never get a handle on these and think Cunctator has a far more advanced understanding on this matter. Is there an existent "prototype" to include in an IGC + pack or does it need more research?
buildingcosts.csv - This is working pretty well despite reports of nations building warships. I don't see evidence as yet that the warship count exceeds amounts generated by "special events". If I am wrong here, please tell me but I just do not see fleet-level holdings beyond what might be accumuated with several special events. What's more, I see no Nubian armies besieging Walikia or any of that previous nonsense. I think additional comments about cost classes may be useful for more changes just the same.
goods.csv - I think this file is in pretty good shape in terms of relative value of the goods. Perhaps the values may need to be reduced in order to reduce the COT sizes, as Errant points out.

*We have overall goals, but can we define any goals in a quantified way? (ex. no Exotic CoTS over 800, average euro CoTs of XXX, etc...)

Good point. OK. Here are a few I like:

1. No exotic COTs over 800 is a good one and within reach
2. The Euro COTs seem OK to me @ 100-400 with 8 ducat cost for merchants
3. A declining Spain circa 1600: the Spanish colonies wer decimated by disease and populations declined by 80% from 1500-1800 (53 million to 12.6 million). Thus as Spanish dominion grew it also destryed the native population and reduced the economic advantage that initial colonization afforded them. So Spain is a "benchmark" country. I think this is hard to quantify directly othe rthan to rely on observations of Spain's ability to wage aggressive war circa 1700. It didn't lose so many colonies that it would be noticeable but it did become less capable of projecting power and waging war successfully and its economy was in shambles. Maybe a way to control this is to slow the growth in population among the Spanish colonies?
4. England should thrive 1700-end game as it successfully migrated population to colonies and their colonial holdings showed strong population growth and vigorous semi-industrial development. Another benchmark country at the opposite end. I don't know exactly how to quantify this other than by its colonial holdings.
5. I think the Land/Naval Tech progression is a good quantifiable benchmark - say just keep it in line with the dates given in those files
   [/list=1]
   
   I suppose there may be other quantifiable ones, but they escape me now.
   
   

   *Once we have a base configuration and the current 'version' of IGC+ now what? What are we looking to track? How can other's help 'test' the IGC+?

   
   For starters, and they will be no surprise to you, I think we need to track:
   
   1. COT sizes (Euro and exotic)
   2. Wealth of nations - what ducats they have in their treasury
   3. Land/naval tech levels for a handful of majors/minors
   4. size of armies/navies again, for some handful of majors/minors
   5. territorial expansion; notable oddities and consistencies with the historical record; especially majors
   6. "behavior" which is most difficult but deals with for example Spain circa 1700. Is Spain acting as if Charles V just took the throne or is it now stepping down to a second-tier power (not able to wage aggressive war in Europe as successfully)?
      [/list=1]
      
      

      I am sure there are other things that we should define before attempting to move forward but cant think of any right now (at work), but just wanted to get the ball rolling.

      
      Good initial roll Errant!
      
      I think our progress in enhancing compatibility with the IGC hinges on a stable IGC platform (one that lasts a month or more without a new version). Without that, we end up editing files and copying over IGC changes to db and AI files which is not the original intent here.

 

[Savant]

Pretty compelling arguments from Errant and Huszics

on tax-stab that merit being included here.

I would like to make a plea for a tax_stab that seems to have "run out of fassion" lately in the IGC+ debate.

3;20
2;0
1;-10
0;-30
-1;-60
-2;-90
-3;-100

The really important bit in this is the -100 @ -3. This makes waging war at -3 stab impossible and is a VERY welcomed return of a BG feature for me.

If you where at -3 stab in the BG you had to make an unconditional surrender to ALL enemy nations (translates into about a 7star peace in the CG).
The -100 means you will not be able to recruite any troops in your provinces which will have virtually the same effect as the BG by practically forcing a peace/surrender.

I also would urge people to ASAP decide on a final fixed version of the tax_stab (the above or anotherone) from which futher testing and balancing can be done.

If the end gole is to create a single IGC+ version there is NO point in people trying to balance/collect data from the game with different versions of the tax_stab. The tax_stab is so fundamental in how the gamemechanics works that proper balancing simply cannot be done without keeping it fixed!

I hereby ask everyone involved with the "IGC+" to seriously consider the above and please decide on a tax_stab as the above (or a similar).

 

[Carolus Rex]

You never get to play a IGC thru before you guys release a new one.. Keep it up lads. WE appreciate it.

 

[State Machine]

A few quick things

Great posts!

A) colonists.csv - needs rationalized. I'm using a combo of Cunctator's, IGC2.2's, and RealEU. As yet, nobody understands how it works. I think a baseline version can be made based on whatever assumptions are appropriate, then tested against various other tweaks. The metrics probably are (by country):

• Number of colonies/TP's
• Distribution of said over time
• Sizes
• Fortifications. This point not being related to colonial placement, but easy to evaluate when looking at the colonial bits.

B) tax_stab.csv - the one under proposal is interesting. It boosts high stability income. I suspect there is merit in that. The 20% increase to annual income at +3 is not a huge distortion like the monster CoT's. As long as tech advancement can pace to history (or slower), money can always be soaked up in that, manufactories, etc. In particular, money is needed for some colonial fortifications. Also manufactories are needed to affect supply/demand of some goods which will, presumably, help some countries get richer/poorer later in the game. [of course, manufactories produce income that accelerates tech advancement - aghh]


C) The economic system has a whole - I am thinking of spending some time trying to really figure out the system. Playing Venice, as I am now, has left me lots of time to contemplate first the CoT's, then the economy as a whole. I think understanding this better will allow more targeted tweaking, or at least a better way of handling some inevitable trade-offs that are going to occur.


D) Test methodology, etc - as mentioned before, particular care needs to be taken for creating and identifying baseline versions of files, and having tests (hands off) run consistently. Test results need saved for reference, and potential regression testing. I wrote my autosave tool specifically for capturing save files from hands off games - I recommend use of it.


E) Another thing is the use of the ledger information. I believe Cunctator uses it extensively. Some of that information may have the advantage of simplifying research on results. For example, rather than looking at army/navy sizes in save files, to look at army/navy unit purchasing and army/navy unit maintenance. This example may not be especially useful, but it comes to mind. Also, one can capture screen shots. One can track up to twelve (apparently) countries this way, though none of them can be annexed.

 

[State Machine]

A few more "quick" things

A) After reading Savant's post in greater detail, I would be happy to take over colonists.csv and the ai files. A problem with the ai files is that they do, potentially, impact other mods. It is possible that the ai files will be tweaked to provide expansion incentives that are currently achieved with CB shields. For these files (and all others), I propose that we put both version and commentary as comment statements. I believe all the files support this, and it is easy to test.

B) A declining Spain may be difficult to achieve without events. Similar to the ai files, this may intrude on other mods.

Both of these problems can be handled by inclusion in the IGC. The IGC has taken steps to address colonial issues (witness the portugal.ai change).

C) English expansion. Given its woeful performance, I have a modest proposal. Create a detuned Scotland, solely for the purpose of colonial expansion testing. Assuming the desired potential for England can be achieved, to then regression test against the standard Scotland. A side benefit might be an exceptable IGC option, "England lives".

D) European CoT sizes. There should be targets for these as well. Very broad targets. In my Venice game (1716), the CoT's in the Mediterrean have 1200D of trade. The northern Europe CoT's have 1100D of trade. Moscow has 435D. RotW are collectively 2200D with about five big ones and five small ones (Malacca largest at 458D). I would bet both the European region CoT collections are too large, and RotW too small. Actually, maybe the European ones arn't too large, but the small RotW ones are too small. Anyway, the point is, in game terms what percentages of trade in various areas should we target? Of course the usual disclaimers about using one game as a reference should be taken - I think this has been a particularly bloody game in Europe, with lots of BB wars, so stability has been low and what money that has been around has gone into armies.

E) Baselines. Even without having hard objectives, a bunch of hands off EU1.09 and IGC2.2c can be taken and saved for future comparison.

 

[unmerged(2650)]

Wow, thing seems to go pretty well for IGC+ , just now when i'll be away for a week .
To be true i can't say i'm unhappy, i'll be on holyday

Before leaving i uploaded some files at my page in a zip file.
It contains a land.csv with a slower land tech growth, infra.csv and trade.csv with a reduced efficiency and the france.ai without the "Senegal" entry (strongly recommend this one) i described in a more detailed way in the "tax_stab" thread. There's a brief explanation on that page too.

Few words on the very interesting suggestions in earlier posts:

Test methodology

1) We need to choose a specific IGC version as test platform and stik with it. Maybe 2.2c or 2.3 if it's near.

2) We also need to fix game option (no random events), various IGC setting and the treasury percentage for Nippon in hands off games. This is IMO a very important parameter because it influences the whole inflation in the game for every nation (through the inflation cheat). It makes a big difference if we have a 10% or 60% inflation at end game. My proposal is to use a 0.03% annual increase so that 9% is reached in 1792 (we need to inflate the starting Nippon treasury to avoid bankruptcy).

3) Use "numbers" to judge games. State and Savant lists for colonization seems accurate for me. To have an overall picture of the economy i used to track treasury in end game (all nations and majors), number and typology of the buildings built.

4) As State said ledger information are very useful to track specific aspect of the game - tech advance, army size, size of the nations comes to mind. Other information not saved in the ledger could be retrieved using the autosave tool. Indeed it's cumbersome to dig all this information out of save files (i used a text editor + excel), IMO this approach should be used only from time to time to achieve specific goals.

Happy gameing to everybody, i'll be building sand castles with my sons.
I'll be back on 9th of july.

 

[State Machine]

Inflation

This question has been lurking in my mind for some time, and it is probably too late with Cunctator off on holiday.

He sets inflation to 0.03%. The ai inflation cheat feeds off of Nippon's inflation. This is a low inflation level compared to a typical player. Does this distort results? Of course, a real player is likely to have a major deflationary period if they are large when they upgrade to Governors. I still have yet to reread all the threads, so I don't know if Cunctator has allready explained this.

 

[ErrantOne]

just a thought....

We might want to include a .sav file with our testing distribution. That way we can ensure all tests start with the exact same settings. All tests would be done using the .sav file, which is really just starting the game, setting everything that needs to be set and saving all on 1/1/1492. Also if needed the person setting up the save file can hand tweak it before distribution.


ErrantOne

 

[State Machine]

Good idea!

Also, a .eug file, which has the countries to be tracked in the ledger (i.e. the playable countries).

 

[State Machine]

Hah! Nobody saw my idiotic error in the prior post. Duh, a save game file already has the playable countries in it.

 

[State Machine]

Issues

OK, I've reread the three major threads. From them, the issues that need to be resolved seem to be:

1) Major versus Minor playability. Savant contends that some of the changes make minors unplayable. Errant disagrees.

2) Human played "colonial" countries. Each of the various tweaks seems to result in either fewer provinces being colonized, or in less fortification of colonies. Either way, a human player pursuing a colonial strategy is not challanged. This could be a major problem. I can imagine an option, "human playing colonial country", but I can not imagine how to make it challenging, while being consistent to the changes we are trying to make.

3) tax_stab. Specifically relating to religion changes. A human can handle severely reduced incomes. It needs to be proven that the ai can. In particular, the -100 at -3 stab used by Errant, and endorsed by Huszics, is at question.

4) Inflation. Cunctator has normalized results using 0.03% inflation on the "observer" country - Nippon. This is essential for consistent testing. But, this does not reflect the typical inflation rates that occur during the game. Is there a setting that will? Does it actually matter other than being consistent?

5) Supply and demand. Really, the economic system has a whole. The ai is presumed to evaluate provinces based on current (and future) value. How does it really work? Slaves are an end game commidity - does the ai ignore slave provinces until late in the game? CoT investment strategies - does the ai actually calculate a cost versus benefit? It is clear, that the ai does not (with the 1.09 fix), consider return on investment as the sole criteria when placing merchants. That is, a country will monopolize a CoT that it owns even though it will lose money as a result (i.e. trade tariffs + trade income when not monopolizing are greater than when monopolizing). This is a case where ai behavior can be easily observed. Are there other cases?

6) Working within the game system. As Errant pointed out at the beginning of the thread, there is a game system. Cunctator has a similar point in one of the original threads. There are some things that we may have to change that are not "historical". This is because of the game system. It is important that these kinds of things be clearly stated to gain exceptance for the mod. A problem with Real EU was that Laurent Favre was trying to achieve results that (in his approach) undermining historical reality in particular cases, while increasing it in general. He was right (in the knowledge of the time about the game), but I perceive his mods were not accepted, due to not explaining them well.

 

[Savant]

Here is a suggested way to go about this

Once we settle on the platform, and I am open to any you suggest and can agree on, we should divide the testing of the modified files amongst us.

What I mean is that we each use a base configuration in common with the exception of one file. For example, State can run tests on colonists.csv, varying his settings as he chooses and tweaking accordingly. The idea is to understand better how that file works. Similarly, Errant can run tests on tax-stab and modify accordingly, with the other files kept at a default IGC+ setting.

What does the IGC+ do right and wrong at this moment given the original settings? Which settings were problemmatic that led you to make your own changes to specific files and what files were they and what changes did you make?

This would give us candidate files for further testing (hopefully a short list).

This is my take on the original IGC+ settings:

GOOD

- better historical growth for Russia & Turkey
- Spain is weakened a bit late in the game (still too strong)
- England is stronger late in the game (still too weak)
- COTs toned down
- good trade wars!
- better economic model of wealth from goods.csv
- smaller armies as a result of tax_stab and buildingcosts.csv changes

BAD

- exotic COTs perhaps too small relative to Euro COTs late in game
- minors go bankrupt (tax_stab has a big effect on this)
- building of some prohibited units may still be going on?
- no money for building fortifications in colonies
- land tech is faster than it should be and naval tech is slower

 

[Savant]

State's points

1. I can live with whatever tax-stab settings we wish to use for testing purposes. We'll get a better idea as to how minors might do once we have some data using a common setting.

2. Yes, there is somewhat less colonization with the recent mods. This is attributable to lower goods.csv settings and lower tax_stab settings, I believe. The goods.csv reduces income and incentives to colonize and the tax_stab settings are all very conservative. This is also why I raised the buildingcosts.csv settings - so that tax-stab and goods.csv wouldn't have to do all the "heavy lifting" by themselves.

3. Yup. Religion changes and the reduction of Euro COTs will choke minors. This was also why goods.csv needed editing. That is, the Euro COTs had to provide an incentive for sending merchants and to be a way for minors to gain some ducats to avoid bankruptcy. These changes are all intertwined. The tax_stab changes do not operate in a vacuum. There are other ways of achieving the same aim than relying on one file to produce the effects.

4. Inflation for the hand-off country is most important to normalize. As to the others, well.. i don't think we could do much about it. There is sufficient "randomness" in the engine that it will vary regardless what we could do with the editable files. Also, the engine seems to use the "human player" as an inflation base, roughly.

5. The AI is pitiful when it comes to COTs that it controls. It seems to make better decisions when it doesn't control one. This is also another reason for making the Euro COTs worthwhile. If the Euro COTs are sink-holes, then minors (and majors) who have little colonial opportunity to discover RotW COTs will bleed themselves by sending merchants to COTs worth 47 ducats. Again, this is why the goods.csv file is so important.

6. Game system. Excellent. Here is part of the game system as I see it from the IGC+ files:

The AI is drawn to accumulate victory points. It may do this by acquiring territory, winning battles, making infra improvements, and through diplomatic relations. That is it. That is what drives it.

It uses resources.. spelled "d_u_c_a_t_s" to achieve these ends. It requires ducats to remain a viable competitor or it goes bankrupt, loses stability, and undermines its efforts at accumulating victory points - by having tech and armies large enough to win battles, by buying good relations with others (vassalizing), by building refineries, walls, promotions, - etc, by settling lands to produce tradeposts and colonies. It needs ducats for all this.

The major files affecting available ducats (i.e., the means to victory points from the AI POV) are:

tax-stab
goods.csv
buildingcosts.csv
AI files

Other neat "costs" that we cannot change are the cost of merchants for example (as well as fortifications, promotions, etc), so the goods.csv file has to be carefully tweaked so that it is worthwhile to actually send merchants. Remember, the AI usues "autosend" merchants and that is relatively inefficient. Also, buildingcosts.csv produces costs for unit acquisition and maintenance and is a nice complement to tax_stab changes.

Adjusting the tax-stab is appropriate, but it is a sledge-hammer. Some of the changes may be better served with more subtle changes to alternative files and directing the changes to specific nations or groups of nations (as the goods.csv and buildingcosts.csv files are capable of doing). Coupling changes to these files with those of the AI (such as what provinces to colonize) allows more careful tuning. So for example, you can direct a nation to colonize those rich "tobacco" provinces or those poor "grain" provinces. So even the AI files have significance here that we shouldn't overlook.

We need to think this way bc I think this is the level of complexity that the game designers thought in terms of. And despite all our work, we should always be grateful they they produced a game with these complex relationships. The simple ones are those that are hardcoded already such as the costs that we can't change. But those may also be less interesting (with some exceptions such as the "inflation-adjuster").

 

[State Machine]

Excellent points, Savant!

Methodology

What I mean is that we each use a base configuration in common with the exception of one file. For example, State can run tests on colonists.csv, varying his settings as he chooses and tweaking accordingly. The idea is to understand better how that file works. Similarly, Errant can run tests on tax-stab and modify accordingly, with the other files kept at a default IGC+ setting.

I agree. It is essential to only have one variable when testing. There will need to be some agreed upon process for changing the base configuration. Let's say that buildingcosts.csv has been changed and tested. Whomever is doing that describes the results to all, and if accepted that should then be the version to be used. This, however, will probably require everyone else to do a regression test to see what changes, if any, it causes to their own testing.

This will be a configuration management issue for the mod as a whole and for each individual. I maintain a seperate directory structure with the unique bits of each mod, and copy the files into my runtime EU folder. This seems to work well enough (short of using professional CM tools). To illustrate this, I would create a folder with the EU directory structure in it, and install the IGC+0.10 files in it (lets say that 0.1 is the first version we agree on). The new buildingcosts.csv is approved and version IGC+0.11 is created. That I install in IGC+0.11. In both cases, these folders contain the entire IGC+ files. Meanwhile, I have my colonists.csv in another folder all together. To test with IGC+0.12, I copy its contents to my EU folder, then copy my changes to the EU folder.

I mentioned earlier, that if the game system allows it, we need to put a comment line in each file indicating what version it is.

Game System

I'm going to put together a diagram showing the interrelations of the economic system. As we learn more, this can be annotated with comments like, "the ai seems to try to monopolize its own CoT when thus and so is true".

Interestingly, tax_stab might be the easiest of the mods. It affects two things, monthly tax income, and annual income. Once we have quantified other things, we might be able to derive what monthly and annual monies are required, and then set the +3 stability appropriately.