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My Opinion on Interregnum

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unmerged(98575)

unmerged(98575)

Major
Apr 24, 2008
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I will update this post regularly as I have just begun to play test it due to the upcoming MP game.

First and foremost I find the mod to be very entertaining and the story line is very interesting but there are some vital issues that need to be addressed if it is going to be marketed as a multiplayer friendly mod.

I will continue to toy around with the mod and updating this post. If you choose to listen or not isn't really my concern I just thought a fresh perspective from an entirely multi-player point of view might be helpful.

The Mediterranean

1) Slider settings. Looking around the mod it is quite obvious you guys played a bit of favoritism in your selection for sliders. It might just be for flavor and story line but it limits playability in multiplayer. Al-Andulsia and Byzantium have been heavily favored in there sliders. Compared to any nation that might rival them (Sicily, Genoa, Tlemcen) there is just no contest. Other nations in the area are Naval, Quantity, Defensive based it would take over a hundred years to reach optimal military slider settings where in Andulsia's case it will only take 20 years to get +1 shock. (Including the event that takes away offensive).

2) Starting Position. Byzantium. This nation is in dire need of being nurfed or every other nation's strength increased. With the sliders Byzantium has starting them with such a large navy, a cot, a large army (including 20k cavalry), and a manufactory is just to much. I can understand that this nation is meant to be a super power but all you did is remove the OE and replace it with Byzantium and increase it's power. Without having even looked the the event file I can tell you right now that it would be impossible to prevent a Byzantine victory should war be declared right away.

3) Increase the strength of Mali. Although Mali begins very rich and has a large cavalry army it is just to easy for Andulsia to get it's gold mines and eventually it's CoT. Gaining MA through Morrocco I was able to take Mali within 20 years. I could have defended Iberia from invasion while doing it. Should Adulsia take Mali so early in the game it swings the balance in the region rediculously in there favor and since they lack any natural competition in Africa because of the removal of the OE they will be unstoppable. With Mali's gold coming in the negative events you have in place are just not enough.

4) Byzantium's straights. One of the main weakness of any Ottoman Empire is his straight. Since the OE is normally very strong blocking that off is one of the best chances of victory. Your mods Byzantium is even stronger then a normal OE so the same logic should apply accept for the fact that you have added more straights then before making it near impossible to block off access the the capital. By adding advantages and taking away any weakness Byzantium is becoming quickly overpowered.

5) Byzantium's lack of conflict. Looking around no real playable nation has anything to gain by fighting Byzantium. Normally the OE is challenged by Venice and Austria over Hungry (Austria) and the Greek islands (Venice). If there are events that fix this forgive me I did not look but Genoa or Sicily should be able to either gain Greek culture or convert the culture of the Greek islands if they take them. They are powerful naval bases and a great deterant to Byzantium but as it is now they are wrong religion wrong culture for any Italian player that wants to take them.

6) Italy as a whole I find underdeveloped. Genoa/Sicily are main players in the balance of mediteranian power as they have interests in keeping both Byzantium and Andalusia smaller. I think both nations need to be looked into as to balance out the whole area.

7) KoJ is ofcourse utterly unplayable in multiplayer. Wrong culture/wrong religion provinces are all that it control minus the capital and they have no where to expand. The problem with that is the Calphiate (Or whatever large nation is behind them the one that owns Baghdad) has no reason to annex them or even expand any farther then Egypt. Africa's borders are already set and Andalusia/Cal have nothing to stop there expansion. Even fighting them no other nation has anything to gain and they will inevitably become to strong.

8) Lack of conflicting areas of interest. I think a few events thrown in to add reasons to fight eachother or conflicting cultures would be a great idea. There does not seem to be to much to fight over in this area of the world and in typical multi-player games the med is a key component to how the rest of the world turns out.
 
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:p I actually agree with a lot of these concerns, I didn't notice the Mali exploit. But, I rarely play Al. IMHO, I think Matty and the previous crew did not think of multi-player implications all the time, when doing things like sliders etc. The disproportionate number of events, is major issue atm regardless.
 
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Mali is a big issue, with such rich provinces, a cot and the fact it is right religion it would be my first target as Andalusia. By ignoring the Catholics in Iberia and focusing straight on Mali your income be massive without any trouble or competition. I have not looked through the event file so I am not sure if ignoring the Catholics has negative consequences in the future but short term it is the best start a nation could ask for.

Putting there capital as the first province you run into is not a good idea. It allows declaration of war without waiting to have mali compete out one of your merchants. Also it gives you the nations maps allowing you to pick and choose your provinces.

If the capital was moved you would have to use MA with Morrocco to explore down to Timbuktu. Then trade there and wait for Mali to expel your merchant so you can see there capital. Gift them up until you get MA, explore until you reach there capital and attack. All of this would take long that other nations have a chance to get set up before Andalusia explodes with gold.
 
i actually diplo anexed marroco, tlemecen (or wtv u type it) and mali. Took me 70years for all of it, but its possible and kept a good reputation with muslims=P in real game tho there isnt that much worry with AI nations so i can push the BB a bit more and conquer mali by force.

So yes some events making mass revolts in mali or something to force players have a good army there fighting it off for some decades should balance it out
 
Colonel_General said:
i actually diplo anexed marroco, tlemecen (or wtv u type it) and mali. Took me 70years for all of it, but its possible and kept a good reputation with muslims=P in real game tho there isnt that much worry with AI nations so i can push the BB a bit more and conquer mali by force.

So yes some events making mass revolts in mali or something to force players have a good army there fighting it off for some decades should balance it out
Click to expand...

I was going to make it constant unrest, until around the mid 17th century. So it's a major pain in the ass to hold, and you are granted the culture in the 17th century, which ends the 'evil events' XD!
 
oh seriously, thats too much=P

maybe a century max or something, but 2? by logic even the older people would have died by then, and with them the wish to rebell.
 
70 years is nothing, as I said it can be done in 15-20 years. And all the gold provinces minus the capital can be taken in under 5 if the play is fast.

Mali is a serious problem.

(Updated first post)
 
panther-anthro said:
No, not really. Historically, and culturally it makes perfect sense, it also makes them have high RR, so you have to keep rebel swatting down there, and their income values are horrendous until it's fixed.
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u just keep ruinning the pretty nations i find, i hate you:( but well it must be done right
 
I will start looking into the middle east tomorrow after I play my MP game. Hopefully you guys will look into more then just Mali. Some of the other issues I posted are just as vital.
 
If you do not mind what is the thinking behind the event "Unhappiness Among The Peasantry".

Option "Pay Off Peasant Leaders" Gives +1 inflation? Why would paying someone off (assuming you have the money) cause your economy to suffer inflation?

Also Deflation event only gives -1 inflation? With events like the one I just mentioned is that really working as intended. I can see serious inflation issues for players that do not have tight economic control, and alot don't.
 
R3lic said:
If you do not mind what is the thinking behind the event "Unhappiness Among The Peasantry".

Option "Pay Off Peasant Leaders" Gives +1 inflation? Why would paying someone off (assuming you have the money) cause your economy to suffer inflation?

Also Deflation event only gives -1 inflation? With events like the one I just mentioned is that really working as intended. I can see serious inflation issues for players that do not have tight economic control, and alot don't.
Click to expand...

Matty likes to raise inflation on you there's several non-random events that do that. I have a possible inflation rise, or reduce event for saxony, that happens later in the 15th century.
 
To be honest, I think one of the biggest problems with Interregnum is the unfortunate, coincidental combination of geography with alternate history. What I mean by that is, vanilla EU2 MP manages to have a series of relatively well-placed great powers: Spain, France, England, Austria, Germany, Ottoman Empire, Russia. France and England have largely been removed as inevitable European great powers. Brittany/Burgundy/Savoy and Scotland/Eire don't compensate for this, leaving a gigantic hole in Europe. In any event, the relative openness of the game naturally encourages players to gravitate back to those areas.

So you have Al-Andalus, which, with a capable player, is essentially Spain + Portugal... in 1419, only without a France to the north, making them ideally situated to dominate New World colonization, African colonization (Mali, as mentioned above), and the whole of the western Med. It has no competition whatsoever.

Byzantium, however, I would say does have some competition. The natural inclination is to expand eastward into Turkey, which unfortunately is occuppied by a collection of allied two-province minors in mountain terrain. Anyone who plays EU2 should know just how frustratingly time-consuming dislodging armies from mountains are, and added to the fact that minors like to spam-build huge armies. Then you have to do it all over again. Then, you have the absolute juggernaught that is a player-controlled Caliphate, who has the territorial aspirations and cultural/religious incentives to take back all that you just gained. Ultimately, however, R3lic has a valid point. Byzantine European expansion is virtually unoppossed, unless a player Hungary becomes an attractive scenario. However, it's important to note that its situation doesn't really mesh well with its backstory of "days of reuniting the Roman Empire are long gone."

In the process of pursuing alternate history start-up, Interregnum has, in one stroke, dangerously disrupted balance in Europe, in the process of creating its alt-history. The three major focal points for this disruption, at the moment, are Al-Andalus, Byzantium, and Bavaria. Certainly, Moorish Spain, Byzantine Balkans, and Wittelsbach-dominated Germany are all highly a-historical, but as R3lic put it, Byzantium is just an Ottoman clone, only with a different paint job.

Now, I understand Bavaria is to be nerfed, so that's not really an issue. Ultimately, I would suggest nerfing Al-Andalus by either giving it some northern competition (Iberian Christians unite early on, or creating some southern French bulwark), and breaking Byzantium up into competing royal families (Palaiologids vs. Komnenids vs. some Genoan puppet).
 
R3lic said:
If you do not mind what is the thinking behind the event "Unhappiness Among The Peasantry".

Option "Pay Off Peasant Leaders" Gives +1 inflation? Why would paying someone off (assuming you have the money) cause your economy to suffer inflation?

Also Deflation event only gives -1 inflation? With events like the one I just mentioned is that really working as intended. I can see serious inflation issues for players that do not have tight economic control, and alot don't.
Click to expand...

The tricky thing is in costing most events. There are too few tool presently.

(That may change one day if the Source Code Team is able to complete its work and have Paradox give its stamp of approval, but that's probably a long way off.)

Most events are traditionally costed in ducats, in cash. Players regularly complain about events springing up that ask or demand cash of them when actually they just spend a few ducats on something and the treasury is low. This forces them to take a loan and print money (especially in the early years) to pay back the loan. In the long run, a point of inflation can actaully be cheaper than the loan-and-tax demands brought on by needing to suddenly pay even as little as 25 ducats for some event.

So, we I rework events I try to mix up the way things are paid for. In this case, I went with a point of inflation.

Let's remember that inflation is not inflation. It has nothing to do with price increases brought on by various contemporary factors such as supply-and-demand. Historically there was generally very little actual inflation until the modern era. (Please don't engage me in a debate on economics here).

Inflation in EU2 is the catch-all method of putting a game price on taxing your citizens, otherwise you would do it all the time. It isn't very subtle, but it's what we have.

Given it is a abstraction, and given the few tools we have, you need to see it as just a way of challenging a player's resources.

But if it makes it any easier, you can say that when the crown gives a large amount of cash to rebel leaders, there is suddenly a big amount of coin in the hands of people who spend it on everyday commodities, causing the price of those things to increase.
 
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