The structure of events in Abe II

[Incompetent]

In the Bavaria thread, there was a disagreement between bobtdwarf and MattyG over whether Abe II's events constrain the player or increase his options. As this is a fairly fundamental question, I think it's worth discussing the overall structure of event files and why we want this structure.

In general, event files can be a complex tangle of triggers, flags and slept events. But out of this, many have a certain pattern: a few 'pivotal' events open or close off large collections of other events, and these collections are often mutually exclusive. In this case they're 'paths', and the general character of the event file can be described in these terms.

Some people will say that paths are inherently restrictive, because you're forced to choose between two options which may both have plusses. This is deliberate: if you got the same goodies every game, where would be the replay value?

While paths are often framed in the storyline in terms of dynasties, we of course expect the player to choose based on which they think is best for their country. For this to be interesting, the paths need to meet two conditions:

1. They must be genuinely different in overall strategy. For instance, one path could be geared towards colonising, another geared towards conquering England. The more alike two paths are, the easier it is to compare them and say one is simply better than the other.

2. The paths should cover the range of plausible strategies players would want to adopt, so we're not 'limiting' the game too much. That doesn't mean we have to give Brittany the chance to convert to Buddhism, but it does mean eg they should be able to pursue a policy that isn't focused on colonies.


None of this is to say paths must be entirely separate or all-encompassing: there will be 'recurring themes' which occur on several or all paths, and paths can be in specific areas, eg domestic policy. But the basic idea is that players shouldn't be left 'out in the cold' with either no events or nonsensical ones, even if they pursue an unusual strategy.

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A related question is whether the player chooses between paths explicitly or implicitly. Explicit choices are easy: you just pop up a dialogue saying 'Do you want to focus on armies, or trade?' (or whatever), with appropriate storyline explanations for each. Implicit choices mean using complex event triggers to determine whether the player is already following a particular strategy, and to give them events which make sense given that strategy. (Eg a peaceful player will have little interest in 'Great Army Reform', while an expansionist will be particularly interested in 'The Heretic Problem'.)

The implicit approach has two big advantages IMO: firstly, it makes for a 'natural' choice between paths, based on the player's style, rather than getting the player to choose in advance how they want to play. Secondly, it allows us to pick the 'best' option for the AI, dependent on its circumstances. On the other hand, it's harder to implement, and the player may either be 'caught out' by the conditions or even exploit them to end up on the 'wrong' path; it may be a particular problem for those pursuing 'hybrid' strategies.

Example of how this might work: A Ukraine that expands a lot early on could retain its Cossack roots, and continue to be aggressive and somewhat anarchic; while a careful Ukraine may develop a more 'settled' society, with a greater focus on the economy.

In some cases we could have a combination of both: whenever a 'pivotal event' comes up, we have several versions, where the 'A' choice is the one we think the player is following. This would serve to steer AIs and advise players, without forcing them to stick to their strategy.

 

[unmerged(36449)]

I get that.

What seems to be lost though is my point: When one starts with a design philosophy and purpose of keeping blobs from forming or any other such you have by definition set up the players in boxes. By wanting a specific result the designer will conciously or subconciously guide things along those lines.
This is not a judgement call on the nature of the designers as people nor even on the relative enjoyability of the game, it is just an observation.

Does that make any sense?

 

[MattyG]

An excellent and interesting analysis.

Two comments to add to this.

The first is to take a step back even further and to come to grips with what the player's role is. The EU2 game positions the player as officially being the 'grey power' behind the throne, not the throne itself. By throne, of course, we mean the official governing authority of the realm, not necessarily a king or king+advisors. It could be a parliament, for example.

Accordingly, the player is not always supposed to have choices over what goes on. There are powerful and determined invidiuals in your realm that you cannot fully control. Sometimes an event offers a degree of control ( action_b "Try to Restrain the King" ) and sometimes it does not ( action_a "Drats, they assassinated him!" ) while at others the event offers the broadest possible range of options as if the player really did make all of the decisions for the country.

The second comment is that not all players read or read-and-understand the event files and cannot predict how we as designers might interpret their actions. If I play a peaceful, developing Ukriane but the file designer didn't consider those ramifications, no appropriate supportive events will pop up. I won't get "The Political Reforms of Humakt" because it wasn't written because it wasn't thought of or we just haven't gotten around to it with all the other work we have. We need to partly acknowledge our our time limitations and to some extent 'cut to the chase'.

Accordingly, while the idea of implicit eventing is an engaging theory, the pactice of it is more difficult, in part because of the role of the player, in part because of the time involved in conceptualising it all and in part because that is not the current culture of EU2 play, and it isn't what players expect.

That said, I encourage other designers to think more broadly about how to structure these things, and I have certainly used 'implicit' ideas in some of the sequences I have developed. I think.

 

[Incompetent]

I get that.

What seems to be lost though is my point: When one starts with a design philosophy and purpose of keeping blobs from forming or any other such you have by definition set up the players in boxes. By wanting a specific result the designer will conciously or subconciously guide things along those lines.
This is not a judgement call on the nature of the designers as people nor even on the relative enjoyability of the game, it is just an observation.

Does that make any sense?

You make a good point here: there is a conflict between ensuring 'strategic balance' between countries (not making them exactly equal, but rather making sure they hold each other in check) and freeing up the storyline.

The general rule is that we won't stop players going far beyond our 'expected' achievements, but we won't provide additional rewards for doing so. So for example if Britanny takes over England, they may get cores reflecting this. But if they then took over Scotland as well, they wouldn't get cores there nor will they get Scottish culture, because that's further than we want them to go. Of course, the player might decide Scotland is still worth having.

Events which penalise players for doing 'too well' are annoying and must be avoided. The only case where penalty events are justified is if there's a radical mismatch between the character of the country and the way it's being played, eg a centralised Hansa or a Calvinist Teutonic Order.

We accept that SPers will often go way beyond what's 'expected', and we won't 'fence them in' for the sake of stopping that. The AI is different though, and often we need to intervene to stop it hurting itself by over-expanding, never mind what it does to neighbouring countries. MP is where balance really matters, and here the wrath of other players provides the 'fence', but we can still make sure our sandpit isn't too slanted in favour of some countries over others.

The first...

Yep. Otherwise we could never have any bad events! There's also little point in giving choices when some options are clearly worse than others. But at the same time, every major event file should include some difficult decisions the player has to make, IMO.

The second...

Indeed, we shouldn't try to trick players with event-writing cleverness, and we can't allow for every eventuality. But if implicit choices are made intuitive enough, they can work.

For example, Scotland can choose to found a moderate Church of Scotland if it's sufficiently Innovative, while a narrow-minded Scotland doesn't get this option. In this case the narrow-minded player can convert to whatever they like, and they have more missionaries to help them do it, while for an innovative Scotland, a pragmatic compromise is the probably best course of action.

I wouldn't say this is an alien idea to EU2 - in vanilla, there are quite a few events which depend on DP policy, for instance. In any case it'll be no more strange to players than the idea of pivotal events, as this kind of choice is unusual in most mods, as you've said yourself.

 

[MattyG]

I get that.

What seems to be lost though is my point: When one starts with a design philosophy and purpose of keeping blobs from forming or any other such you have by definition set up the players in boxes. By wanting a specific result the designer will conciously or subconciously guide things along those lines.
This is not a judgement call on the nature of the designers as people nor even on the relative enjoyability of the game, it is just an observation.

Does that make any sense?

Totally. But in some of your earlier postings it did come across as a judgemental, and this is partly in the nature of email and bulletin boards. Neutral things seem mean, nice things seem neutral and you need to be a little over-the-top to actually come across as happy or supportive. It might have also been in the context of other things you were writing about where you genuinely appeared to not be happy with an element of the design, for example the plausibility of the Aberrated history.

Either way, thatnk you for your ongoing additions to the debates here.

 

[unmerged(16159)]

I love Bobthedwarf's contributions, and really enjoy learning more about the HRE through those submissions. I think you should write Bavaria, and proof my Swabia for clangers.

But I suspect we are all over-conceptualising a tad. Or maybe it's that this discussion runs over topics which - for me - are bleeding obvious.

Yes, we are conciously and subconciously guiding the players along a path. First and foremost we are writing stories, 20 or more interlinked stories, and each one has to make sense within itself and within the alternate universe of ABerration (II). Yes, we are Gods. We are Phillip Jose Farmer and Napoleon Bonaparte and amateur historians all at the same time. Yes we are aware of this.

And true, it is unnatural not to have blobs forming. We have all written these nations with the sense (I hope) that their fortunes will rise and fall, and importantly rise and fall at different times, just like in real life. Blobs will occur, but they should not be enduring blobs, nor inevitable. And preferably, for the first 80 years, things should be - artificially if need be - as even as possible to encourage fair and enjoyable MP play.

Because actually, it is a game. It is a sandbox, and it would be nice if we all started with the same size digger as everyone else in the sandbox.

Except that mine should be red because red diggers dig faster.

 

[unmerged(36449)]

I love Bobthedwarf's contributions, and really enjoy learning more about the HRE through those submissions. I think you should write Bavaria, and proof my Swabia for clangers.

But I suspect we are all over-conceptualising a tad. Or maybe it's that this discussion runs over topics which - for me - are bleeding obvious.

Yes, we are conciously and subconciously guiding the players along a path. First and foremost we are writing stories, 20 or more interlinked stories, and each one has to make sense within itself and within the alternate universe of ABerration (II). Yes, we are Gods. We are Phillip Jose Farmer and Napoleon Bonaparte and amateur historians all at the same time. Yes we are aware of this.

And true, it is unnatural not to have blobs forming. We have all written these nations with the sense (I hope) that their fortunes will rise and fall, and importantly rise and fall at different times, just like in real life. Blobs will occur, but they should not be enduring blobs, nor inevitable. And preferably, for the first 80 years, things should be - artificially if need be - as even as possible to encourage fair and enjoyable MP play.

Because actually, it is a game. It is a sandbox, and it would be nice if we all started with the same size digger as everyone else in the sandbox.

Except that mine should be red because red diggers dig faster.

cool.

Just wanted to expand on the 80 year part...

I think that is relatively do-able, as I off the top of my head can not think of any massive shifts based upon dynastic marriages that would aid in blob construction during that time.

And that IMHO is the major threat vector for blobage..the dynastic marriage.

How blobby would Austria be in vanilla if it were not for a couple of marriages? How blobby would Bavaria have been if a child had lived in the early 1700s?

The marriages and inheritances that come from them are the real killers for transferal of territory; they are outside the control of the player and come up at odd times.

If in Abe we still had something like the marriage of Mary of Burgandy... and we have the same marriage partner... Things would get blobtacular quickly.

But since those events don't come up in Abe (at least to the best of my knowledge), you are kind of safe. Although it should probably be thought about to some degree, well until it starts making peoples brains hurt then you need to back away from it before heads start to explode.

Hard to predict with any level of certainty who would marry whom in an alternate universe...The easy path would be to assume that all marriages from RL still happen and with the same dynasties. May not be the most accurate, but it is much easier. There are some deviations that could be made here and there but those should be case by case basis kind of deals as is the case in the SWA Milan event chain.

And a lot of those kind of events would only start happening with any great amount of certainty about the early mid-point of the game as families start to die out.

 

[Incompetent]

And that IMHO is the major threat vector for blobage..the dynastic marriage...

Yep. Inheritance is still far from unheard of in the current Abe II events. Scotland inherits Norway, Swabia inherits Milan and so on. But even with personal union, 'inheritance' is not inevitable, as the realms may continue to be administered separately. Vanilla does this with historical hindsight, so Austria inherits Hungary, because they stay together until 1919, but it doesn't inherit Spain, because the eastern and western Habsburg empires would soon split. In Aberration we can look at more practical concerns, such as how unwieldy (and blobtacular) the resulting administrative union would be. In any case, we have quite a bit of freedom here.

 

[MattyG]

Yep. Inheritance is still far from unheard of in the current Abe II events. Scotland inherits Norway, Swabia inherits Milan and so on. But even with personal union, 'inheritance' is not inevitable, as the realms may continue to be administered separately. Vanilla does this with historical hindsight, so Austria inherits Hungary, because they stay together until 1919, but it doesn't inherit Spain, because the eastern and western Habsburg empires would soon split. In Aberration we can look at more practical concerns, such as how unwieldy (and blobtacular) the resulting administrative union would be. In any case, we have quite a bit of freedom here.

And the Scottish inheritance of Norway is politcal instead of dynastic. A crumbling Norway that has been hard-defended by Scotland will eventually join it. But Scotland has to really earn that inheritance. And if the U of K never attacks Norway it doesn't happen, giving room for players in MP to effect outcomes.

There are still a bunch of minor inheritances, mostly one and two province places. In fact, I have included a lot of triggers like "NOT = { countrysize = 3 }" in those events, indicating that a stronger nation would more likely marry internally, not seeking a union with a major power that would see it swallowed up. Butm ah, also to prevent unecessary blobbing.