Garbon said:
Do we do this? Do we add sentences to speak to the player about game mechanics in events?
No need to make the sentence use gamemechanics. However a sentence like "We grow weary of the constant conflict with our brother the Shah-in-Shah of Persia and it might be prudent to extend our arms to him in an offer of friendship. A full reconciliation will of course mean that we would be obliged to return all lands claimed by the Safavid Dynastie east of Azerbaijan that our generals might have accidentally conquered back to them - and if they agree they will return all that we lay claim to in Europe, Africa, Anatolia and Arabia to us. And naturally a more constant eastern border will enable us to concentrate our armies on the Habsburg heathens in Spain and Austria. What action do you advice to take?"
We could even add more blabla about the prophecy given to Osman founder of the Osman empire about that the Safavids acknoledge that we rule on 3 continents instead of "Europe, Africa, Anatolia and Arabia" to have some flavour text.
And no it does not mean that the OE and PER will be good friends until 1820 - but many treaties used such sentences of friendship which lasted shorter times than this and an exchange of cores will reduce tensions.
It isn't foolish of a large Persian empire to give up Egypt? Are you serious? It is never in the AIs favor to give away large swaths of territory, especially while it is ahead. An artificial swap of 15 persian owned provinces for 2 Ottoman provinces, is a foolish move and one that the player would never consider. Why do we include an event sequence that encourages the player to act ahistorically? Additionally, you keep speaking about the fact that you only see a few provinces change hands, but the reality of the situation is that there is always the possibility of an AI ceding a large portion of its provinces as the commands are there. How exactly do you think we should compensate for this eventuality?
You use extremes as your examples.
Say the Safavid Empire has managed to conquer ALL of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottomans only have Byzanz left - currently the Kasr-sequence will still fire, because both states are *neighbours*. The opposite being the Ottomans have reduced the Safavids to just their capitol.
In this extreme example I fully agree with you Garbon - no way that either empire will cede all that back without getting anything in return.
But that will not happen in the majority of games. Especially not if a player starts in the 1520 scenario. If using the 1419 Grand Campaign the game is more open and everything is possible - but even then such an extreme example is rare.
Currently only you, Yoda and I have posted here about Kasr-i-Sirin so we lack other opinions.
And currently I see neither me convincing you. Nor do I see you convincing me to a new Kasr-series that would involve at least 3 event sequences similar to the existing with a "OE won big, middle-ground, PER won big" sequence and the giving up of additional cores.
Let´s try to find a minimal concensus for the next version of AGCEEP:
We all agree that the event that is currently in the mod will stay unless more people argue against it?
We also agree that the existing event would/should be what Garbon sees only as the "historical, middle-ground" option. Both empires have formed roughly historically and neither side holds extensive lands of the other side - only then the historical treaty makes sense.
We also agree that the trigger of the first event in the series has already been improved (e.g. from checking exists = PER to neighbour = PER) and that it could be improved further.
My suggestion would be to include Yodas current proposal in the event with all the new secession commands - but make the trigger less likely to happen.
Let´s start with adding a countrysize trigger to the first ottoman event in the sequence TUR 3387. As I wrote earlier countrysize = 6 is the trigger for the ottomans to get the Trebizond inheritance. If we want to see if the Ottomans are not crippled at the time of Kasr-i-Sirin to prevent extreme exchanges we could use say countrysize = 8 as the minimum that the Ottomans are able to enter into the middle-ground Kasr-i-Sirin sequence and start the negotiations. If Ottomans are smaller or not neighbours of Safavids Kasr-sequence won´t happen.
With that sequence in the game we run say 10 hands-off-games each until Kasr-i-Sirin fires or can´t fire anymore. Then we compare how many provinces have *actually* been exchanged (as compared to the *potentially* huge number of provinces that *could* be exchanged) and THEN we discuss further what changes to the event sequence are necessary.
As a side note: As Kasr-i-Sirin becomes less likely to fire we need to remove the turkish cores on Daghestan/Azerbaijan with another event
We also should remove the persian core on 472 (Iveria) which PER gains if BAE makes an ahistorical B choice with Kasr-i-Sirin AND in case Kasr does not happen with another event.
My suggestion that there may be a case where we have a more dominant OE or more dominant Safavid Empire and we should have treaty terms that make sense in such instances, has nothing to do with AI attempts at WC. But then, you know that.