Paradox Grand Strategy: From the Carnival of Lust to the Enlightened Times

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VerdantSquire: Jul 1, 2014

BBJoey posted:

Thinking about it, what purpose does the pop system actually serve? Looking at it, I can't really think of anything it can uniquely do that other more abstract and less demanding systems couldn't manage. Like I guess it's intersting to see that exactly n ashkenazi clergymen live in some province, but on the whole it doesn't seem like the pop system doesn't add anything particularly groundbreaking for the amount of systems resources (space, cpu, ram) it takes up.

Afaik, it's main purpose is to tie a metric gently caress-ton of factors like unemployment, immigration, nationalism, production, political ideology, and much more into one system, so all of those factors more dynamically and naturally affect one another. Plus, it saves development time by not needing to make events or mechanics to simulate each of the above, because the one system already governs everything related to them. I also actually really like to see what kind of strange and interesting changes can occur in the world, but that's just my personal opinion.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 04:43

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# ? May 28, 2024 14:37

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Zeron posted:

Pop Demand Mod. It's the big enormous gameplay overhaul for V2. Basically does stuff like rebalance the economy(by making everyone have infinite money and adding a shitton of new trade goods and factories), rebalance pops, rebalance wars and the military(by throwing random stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks, I don't think they've managed anything good with this yet), rebalance politics by adding a ton of new reforms and decisions, adding in a ton of events and new nations, and so on and so on. Some people swear by it(no one here that I know of) but my experiences with it are that it breaks the game and that everything cool about it is ruined by bizarre design decisions. Also all the new trade goods and stuff slow the game to an absolute crawl.

The economy doesn't really work well in vanilla though,or maybe I'm just a bad player? How exactly does it break the game? What kind of bizarre design decisions?

I like the idea of starting earlier, are there any other mods that do so?
---

As for the ongoing population pyramid discussion, there are plenty of events that could be written for a player in France's position.

For example one could ally with the clergy in a "Let them be fruitful and multiply" event where you ban birth control and abortion and have the church preach in favor of larger families. This would give you a positive population growth modifier while causing the militancy of secularists to rise.

If you're a nation that industrialized early you could enact reforms to support maternity leave and child care for working mothers. You could straight up offer bounties in the form of subsidies (call them bounties or tax credits in the event text) for children. These would give you a positive population growth modifier and cost you money.

If you have a big gaping hole in the male side of the pyramid because of a great war you could decriminalize adultery, offer support for single mothers, even legalize polygamy. These would come with increasingly large backlashes in form of the spread of moralists and the rise in their consciousness & militancy.

If you're a fascist or communist dictatorship you could sponsor youth organizations and let the boys and girls mingle, Hitler Youth style. Though they'd be coming at it from different utopian directions, so you'd need different flavor texts in the events.

Charlz Guybon fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Oct 26, 2014

# ? Oct 26, 2014 06:44

fuck off Batman: Oct 14, 2013; Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!

Charlz Guybon posted:

The economy doesn't really work well in vanilla though,or maybe I'm just a bad player? How exactly does it break the game? What kind of bizarre design decisions?

Goons really hate PDM for some reason. I think that lead modder once said something dumb. Just try it and see for yourself. If you find it too much, then try NNM. It's just a bunch of new countries and decisions without changes in economy.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 08:56

Magissima: Apr 15, 2013; I'd like to introduce you to some of the most special of our rocks and minerals.; Soiled Meat

To say PDM's economy "breaks the game" is definitely goon exaggeration. Its main deficiency is that money is too plentiful, and most powerful or well-managed nations will never find themselves bankrupt. On the one hand, this means things are more forgiving for the AI, which is good because the AI doesn't really know how to manage money well. On the other hand, it becomes a lot easier for the player as well, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you hate messing with sliders anyway. Combat used to be pretty hosed up, but I think they changed it to be more similar to vanilla HoD at some point. In my opinion, the additional event chains (I believe some, but not all, are also in NNM), countries, and reforms makes it worth trying.

Disco Infiva posted:

I think that lead modder once said something dumb.

I think one of the leaders worked on EvW, does that count?

# ? Oct 26, 2014 09:25

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Puella Magissima posted:

To say PDM's economy "breaks the game" is definitely goon exaggeration. Its main deficiency is that money is too plentiful, and most powerful or well-managed nations will never find themselves bankrupt. On the one hand, this means things are more forgiving for the AI, which is good because the AI doesn't really know how to manage money well. On the other hand, it becomes a lot easier for the player as well, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you hate messing with sliders anyway. Combat used to be pretty hosed up, but I think they changed it to be more similar to vanilla HoD at some point. In my opinion, the additional event chains (I believe some, but not all, are also in NNM), countries, and reforms makes it worth trying.

I think one of the leaders worked on EvW, does that count?

Like real life? How many powerful, well managed nations went bankrupt? Germany after a devastating war and being forced to pay reparations.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 09:33

fuck off Batman: Oct 14, 2013; Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!

Puella Magissima posted:

I think one of the leaders worked on EvW, does that count?

That's like hating on the guy who made Steppe Wolfe, so no it shouldn't count :colbert:

# ? Oct 26, 2014 09:37

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Charlz Guybon posted:

For example one could ally with the clergy in a "Let them be fruitful and multiply" event where you ban birth control and abortion and have the church preach in favor of larger families. This would give you a positive population growth modifier while causing the militancy of secularists to rise.

At least in the case of France, birth control is unlikely to have been a major part in the drop in fertility, which started even before the French Revolution. Unless coitus interruptus counts as birth control.

Charlz Guybon posted:

If you're a nation that industrialized early you could enact reforms to support maternity leave and child care for working mothers. You could straight up offer bounties in the form of subsidies (call them bounties or tax credits in the event text) for children. These would give you a positive population growth modifier and cost you money.

Changing inheritance laws to favor the oldest son, while promoting the idea of second sons working factories or settling the colonies (As in Australia/Algeria/Tunisia, not India) would also make sense. I believe European emigration to the US was mostly powered by the rural population fleeing lovely conditions in Europe, so making sure they had a place in the growing cities would be a way to keep them there. If for instance France had urbanized at the speed which Germany did, and we assume the increased urbanization was fed by an actual increase in rural fertility, then that alone would have given France another 5 million people in 1910.

Actually, assuming the information about the rural pop being the one most likely to emigrate is right, is that modeled in Victoria II? If it isn't, it probably should be in Victoria III. Would give the player a nice tool to keep their population at home.

Charlz Guybon posted:

Like real life? How many powerful, well managed nations went bankrupt? Germany after a devastating war and being forced to pay reparations.

The difference being that the player has often rushed a lot of reforms which those nations historically only implemented very late, due to the leadership generally preferring to keep the state out of the pockets of wealthy men. Perhaps if Victoria III had a faction system, the capitalist class could become the dangerous collection of thugs it was historically, able to really gently caress around with your attempts to reform society.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 10:02

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

In Darkest Hour, what's the easiest way to make borders pretty? Is there a console command that changes province ownership?

# ? Oct 26, 2014 10:24

Morholt: Mar 18, 2006; Contrary to popular belief, tic-tac-toe isn't purely a game of chance.

Charlz Guybon posted:

Like real life? How many powerful, well managed nations went bankrupt? Germany after a devastating war and being forced to pay reparations.

The United States, last year?

# ? Oct 26, 2014 10:51

YF-23: Feb 17, 2011; My god, it's full of cat!

Charlz Guybon posted:

As for the ongoing population pyramid discussion, there are plenty of events that could be written for a player in France's position.

For example one could ally with the clergy in a "Let them be fruitful and multiply" event where you ban birth control and abortion and have the church preach in favor of larger families. This would give you a positive population growth modifier while causing the militancy of secularists to rise.

If you're a nation that industrialized early you could enact reforms to support maternity leave and child care for working mothers. You could straight up offer bounties in the form of subsidies (call them bounties or tax credits in the event text) for children. These would give you a positive population growth modifier and cost you money.

If you have a big gaping hole in the male side of the pyramid because of a great war you could decriminalize adultery, offer support for single mothers, even legalize polygamy. These would come with increasingly large backlashes in form of the spread of moralists and the rise in their consciousness & militancy.

If you're a fascist or communist dictatorship you could sponsor youth organizations and let the boys and girls mingle, Hitler Youth style. Though they'd be coming at it from different utopian directions, so you'd need different flavor texts in the events.

Most of these sound pretty out of place in a Victorian-era game, though, and those that don't sound like pretty big "duh"s that you would do regardless of whether you have population pyramid troubles or not.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 11:05

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

A Buttery Pastry posted:

At least in the case of France, birth control is unlikely to have been a major part in the drop in fertility, which started even before the French Revolution. Unless coitus interruptus counts as birth control.

Condoms have a much longer history then most realizes, and numerous effective herbal abortifacients were used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_condoms#Expanded_marketing_and_introduction_of_rubber

# ? Oct 26, 2014 11:46

MegaGatts: Dec 12, 2004; The Enteroctopus dofleini, also known as the giant Pacific octopus (GPO) or North Pacific giant octopus, is a large marine cephalopod belonging to the phylum Mollusca and is tripping balls.

Morholt posted:

The United States, last year?

The United States didn't go bankrupt. I assume you're talking about the government shut down. Our bills were paid. They would have been paid even if the shut down continued. Bankruptcy even isn't missing a payment. It's stating that You have no intention of repaying money you owe.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 11:47

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Charlz Guybon posted:

Condoms have a much longer history then most realizes, and numerous effective herbal abortifacients were used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_condoms#Expanded_marketing_and_introduction_of_rubber

Your own link points out how condoms were generally used only by the middle and upper classes at the time when fertility rates started dropping in France, which still leaves you without an explanation for the lower classes. Abortifacients might also have existed for a long time, but it seems to only be around the second half of the 19th century that abortion becomes a socially accepted option for anyone but unwed women. (In France that is. Everywhere else they seem to have begun making it illegal at that point.) Not that this necessarily means people weren't doing abortions, but it might not have been as prevalent as just timing your intercourse around the menstrual cycle for example.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 12:08

BBJoey: Oct 31, 2012

Enjoy posted:

This is what people who hate PDM really believe.

VerdantSquire posted:

Afaik, it's main purpose is to tie a metric gently caress-ton of factors like unemployment, immigration, nationalism, production, political ideology, and much more into one system, so all of those factors more dynamically and naturally affect one another. Plus, it saves development time by not needing to make events or mechanics to simulate each of the above, because the one system already governs everything related to them. I also actually really like to see what kind of strange and interesting changes can occur in the world, but that's just my personal opinion.

I enjoy seeing interesting pops end up in odd places, but I can't help but wonder every time I look at a province file or save that there's a hell of a lot of tracking being done for something which doesn't have immediately obvious benefits. I guess that's the cost of a system which ideally underlies everything.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 13:01

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

BBJoey posted:

I enjoy seeing interesting pops end up in odd places, but I can't help but wonder every time I look at a province file or save that there's a hell of a lot of tracking being done for something which doesn't have immediately obvious benefits. I guess that's the cost of a system which ideally underlies everything.

There is a compromise to be found between the current level of detail, and getting rid of pops altogether though. Pops existing on the state level would vastly reduce the number of pops, as most of them would merge with equivalent pops in neighboring provinces. Currently there's about 4 provinces per state, which would mean a reduction of the number of different pops to somewhere close to a fourth if these pops were consolidated. Obviously it might be desirable to split a few states up in this scenario, to deal with distinct ethnic borders or historical details and what not, but that would hardly be the rule, and even allowing for a lot more states you would still see a major reduction in the number of pops. (Plus as I've mentioned, this would allow provinces to serve nearly exclusively a military purpose, allowing for a much better basis on which to base the military parts of the game.)

Paradox might also decide to cut religion altogether (given the current system that doesn't seem like a big deal), which would further unite pops, as would simplifying pop types into more general pops. (Farmers + laborers -> Rural Laborers, Clerks + Bureaucrats -> Middle Class Paper Pushers), and finally tiny tiny pops could be left out completely and assimilation improved* in a way that would also allow it be strengthened (without turning every Indian into an Englishman), particularly in regards to any tiny tiny pops that might crop up.

*Maybe make an "Asian/African/European Immigrant" culture, which pops can quickly assimilate into no matter where they are, with assimilation into the local culture being slower. (Except for same culture group pops which would just assimilate directly into your culture.)

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Oct 26, 2014

# ? Oct 26, 2014 13:52

TheMcD: May 4, 2013; Monaca / Subject N 2024
---------
Despair will never let you down.
Malice will never disappoint you.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Paradox might also decide to cut religion altogether (given the current system that doesn't seem like a big deal)

Reminder:

issues.txt posted:

code:

	religious_policy = {
		pro_atheism = {
			#no effect
		}
		secularized = {
			#no effect
		}
		pluralism = {
			#no effect
		}
		moralism = {
			#no effect
		}
	}

# ? Oct 26, 2014 13:59

Tamerlame: Oct 20, 2012

TheMcD posted:

Reminder:

Seriously? I thought it effected conversion rate which in turn effected assimilation rate.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:06

TheMcD: May 4, 2013; Monaca / Subject N 2024
---------
Despair will never let you down.
Malice will never disappoint you.

Tamerlame posted:

Seriously? I thought it effected conversion rate which in turn effected assimilation rate.

All it does is make POPs that aren't state religion slightly more likely to emigrate when under Moralism, and fucks around a bit with the religious issues of POPs, which in the bigger picture means absolutely nothing. It basically is a wasted mechanic.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:13

shades of blue: Sep 27, 2012

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Can you explain why it would take so many system resources? It's not an additional system on top of the current promotion/demotion system, but a replacement. As far as I understand, Victoria II already checks to see if any pop promotes or demotes at all, and then rolls again to see what it promotes/demotes to. Plus I see this system being implemented alongside a general simplification of pops down to ones that are actually relevant on a national scale, alongside a consolidation of pops from the province level to the state level. It wouldn't have to be divided into 1 year segments either of course, changing it to 5 year segments would probably be a sensible idea.

Let's say you've got 500 system resources (this is a serious abstraction of how actual programs work, but it'll do for now) and right now you devote 50~ to skyping (diplomacy's resources), 100~ to a NASDAQ simulator (the trade system's resources), and 20~ each on each tab you have open on google chrome (this is the pop system). Now let's say you have 15 tabs open on chrome, so you're using 300 resources just on google chrome as is. That's how v2 currently operates, and it leaves about 50~ resources left over that can be used by the system to optimize the rest of what you're doing. Your idea would be taking those 15 tabs and adding like 100-150 extra tabs. You can see where the problem comes in.

Also state level pops are just as laggy as province level pops because you still need to say where in the state the pops are, and that's gonna mean a new pop for each province, which is where the lag comes from. It doesn't really change at all the lag that comes from pops as a system.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:15

TheMcD: May 4, 2013; Monaca / Subject N 2024
---------
Despair will never let you down.
Malice will never disappoint you.

Sampatrick posted:

Also state level pops are just as laggy as province level pops because you still need to say where in the state the pops are, and that's gonna mean a new pop for each province, which is where the lag comes from. It doesn't really change at all the lag that comes from pops as a system.

No, you don't. That's the entire point of the idea of state level POPs, to not say where in the state the POPs are. You abstract down the RGOs to work on a state level (make it similar to factories in the state) and then you can have the provinces only for infrastructure and warfare. The problem I see with this is how split states would work.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:20

shades of blue: Sep 27, 2012

TheMcD posted:

No, you don't. That's the entire point of the idea of state level POPs, to not say where in the state the POPs are. You abstract down the RGOs to work on a state level (make it similar to factories in the state) and then you can have the provinces only for infrastructure and warfare. The problem I see with this is how split states would work.

Yeah that's why you have to represent them on a province level not a state level, it's just not practical or even functional to represent pops on a state level. What might help is a better way to consolidate pop groups in a state (ie: Small but multiple pops with similar traits should be combined into one, immigrant communities should form in single provinces not spread throughout the state, urbanization should cause even larger consolidation of pops). Also a way to represent movement from rural to urban communities would in general be a good idea in V3; it works quite poorly at doing so in the previous games.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:25

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Sampatrick posted:

Let's say you've got 500 system resources (this is a serious abstraction of how actual programs work, but it'll do for now) and right now you devote 50~ to skyping (diplomacy's resources), 100~ to a NASDAQ simulator (the trade system's resources), and 20~ each on each tab you have open on google chrome (this is the pop system). Now let's say you have 15 tabs open on chrome, so you're using 300 resources just on google chrome as is. That's how v2 currently operates, and it leaves about 50~ resources left over that can be used by the system to optimize the rest of what you're doing. Your idea would be taking those 15 tabs and adding like 100-150 extra tabs. You can see where the problem comes in.

That's not really an explanation, you've just restated that the pop system would use roughly 10 times as many resources without explaining why.

Sampatrick posted:

Also state level pops are just as laggy as province level pops because you still need to say where in the state the pops are, and that's gonna mean a new pop for each province, which is where the lag comes from. It doesn't really change at all the lag that comes from pops as a system.

Why do you need to say where in the state the pops are?

TheMcD posted:

No, you don't. That's the entire point of the idea of state level POPs, to not say where in the state the POPs are. You abstract down the RGOs to work on a state level (make it similar to factories in the state) and then you can have the provinces only for infrastructure and warfare. The problem I see with this is how split states would work.

Currently, the game already knows how to treat split states as exactly that, and have (split) states become absorbed into others due to conquest. All you would need to do would be to have the split states set up with the pops in their territory at the start of the bookmark, and then have the pops get put in the same pool if they're united.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:28

shades of blue: Sep 27, 2012

A Buttery Pastry posted:

That's not really an explanation, you've just restated that the pop system would use roughly 10 times as many resources without explaining why.

Why do you need to say where in the state the pops are?

Because you have 10 times as many pops to deal with? The pop system seems like it's linearly complex; it might even be slightly exponential when you take into account the trade system.

To represent split states, so you know the quantity of pops in each part of the state.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:32

Obliterati: Nov 13, 2012; Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.
Thunderdome is forever.

Could you not just chuck split states? Independently of pop modelling it's just an annoyance, even if it's more historically accurate than otherwise.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:34

Chickpea Roar: Jan 11, 2006; Merdre!

TheMcD posted:

All it does is make POPs that aren't state religion slightly more likely to emigrate when under Moralism, and fucks around a bit with the religious issues of POPs, which in the bigger picture means absolutely nothing. It basically is a wasted mechanic.

There's also certain events that will only fire with specific religious policies.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:42

TheMcD: May 4, 2013; Monaca / Subject N 2024
---------
Despair will never let you down.
Malice will never disappoint you.

Hreinhold posted:

There's also certain events that will only fire with specific religious policies.

Yeah, you're right. Still, that just upgrades religion in V2 from "basically useless" to "quarter-assed mechanic". It's still in need of a massive overhaul or scrap and rewrite.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 14:46

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

I barely pay attention to demographics at all in V2, except for ethnicity, which matters for those focus points. I supposed POP roles also matter, but mostly that just ends up being "Oh I need more clergymen? Then I'll encourage more clergymen in this state" and that's the end of that.

Domestic politics should be a bigger thing, but more in the sense of parliamentary chicanery (cross-ideological coalitions, corrupt bargains, etc.) rather than in terms of having the Poor Yankee Artisan, Ages 18-30, vote in Ohio being absolutely essential to electoral victory. Seriously, the ability to form one's own coalition rather than just ideology + extreme form of ideology would be nice. Maybe also non-accepted-culture nationalist parties, forcing the issue of independence via democratic means (and often failing). That'd be nice.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 15:10

MinistryofLard: Mar 22, 2013; Goblin babies did nothing wrong.

I think the whole idea behind religion is that it adds another facet for the purposes of elections. So it doesn't exactly do nothing, because pops still have religioous policies as issues and thus that swings the vote, but its an additional way of getting your preferred party elected which doesn't have any affect on the rest of the game.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 15:19

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Sampatrick posted:

Because you have 10 times as many pops to deal with? The pop system seems like it's linearly complex; it might even be slightly exponential when you take into account the trade system.

I already explained that the individual pops wouldn't have an age attached to them, rather the game would keep track of the number of pop types in each bracket and use that to determine death/demotion/promotion, which would then be applied to specific pops. Pop promotion would in this case look at the average numbers, whether literacy or wealth or whatever, and use that to calculate how many of the pop type in that bracket should promote. The promotion itself would only be applied to the pops that actually live up to the pop promotion requirement.

To give an example, let's look the case of 100,000 craftsmen in the 30 year old group (The number existing solely in the graph/the calculations, not as a result of counting up all the 30 Year Old Craftsmen.) and see what happens at the end of the month when the system calculates births, promotions, demotions, and deaths. Given that our age brackets in this case represent a single year, a monthly "birthday" means 1/12 of the 30 year old group is going to be moving out of the 24 year old group every month. This comes out to around 8333. What happens to them is then up to the specific situation.

Let's say the mortality rate in that age bracket is 3% per "birthday", increased by 100% for being craftsmen, and reduced by 50% for having their life needs met, and 75% for having their everyday needs met. In this case, 76% have their life needs met, and 20% their everyday needs met, making the reduction multiplier 1-(0.5*0.76)-(0.75*0.2) = 0.47. This would be multiplied by the multiplier for being craftsmen, giving a final mortality multiplier of 0.94, resulting in a mortality rate of 2.82%. This is the number which would be applied to the 8333 from earlier, resulting in 235 pops not surviving their transition to the 31 year old bracket.

The same process would be used to determine which if any of these pops get promoted or demoted. Let's say 55 get promoted to capitalists, while the rest just transition to the 31 year old bracket. The final result of this pulse is 8043 craftsmen and 55 capitalists getting added to the 31 year old group, while 8333 craftsmen are removed from the 30 year old group. (Once again, just numbers defining how many are in each bracket, not anything being applied to the actual pops.)

To spread the calculations around, and make sure there's no weird hiccups due to pops moving into a bracket which is being calculated on, the game could look at different brackets each day of the months. Setting the maximum age at 90 would fit perfectly with the 30 day months of Victoria, allowing 3 age brackets to be calculated each day, spread out across the age groups in a way that makes the load somewhat similar each day.

Now, this system doesn't distinguish between ages when it comes to the factors that determine promotion, but the way I see it that shouldn't really matter. The most important thing here isn't the behavior of individual pops, but the aggregate, and going by averages here should work for that. Only thing that would need to be done would be to maybe add a separate pop for children, so the literacy of their grand parents doesn't influence how they promote.

Sampatrick posted:

To represent split states, so you know the quantity of pops in each part of the state.

And doing what I suggested, keeping the pops separate until united, is a massive technical hurdle that can't be realistically overcome? Even if it means reducing the impact of one of the most resource intensive systems to maybe a third?

MinistryofLard posted:

I think the whole idea behind religion is that it adds another facet for the purposes of elections. So it doesn't exactly do nothing, because pops still have religioous policies as issues and thus that swings the vote, but its an additional way of getting your preferred party elected which doesn't have any affect on the rest of the game.

But those are issues, not the religion attached to the pop, aren't they? Religion could still be a factor in terms of what policies pops support, but removed as an actual thing on the pop itself.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Oct 26, 2014

# ? Oct 26, 2014 15:59

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

HEY PARADOX GUYS :siren:

Is this still how MTTH is calculated in the current crop of Pdox games?

# ? Oct 26, 2014 16:09

oscarthewilde: May 16, 2012; I would often go there
To the tiny church there

VostokProgram posted:

In Darkest Hour, what's the easiest way to make borders pretty? Is there a console command that changes province ownership?

The easiest way I've found is just claiming provinces or regions and, using acceptall, just demanding the provinces. It's not as easy as using changeowner in V2 but it's easy enough.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 17:29

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

VostokProgram posted:

In Darkest Hour, what's the easiest way to make borders pretty? Is there a console command that changes province ownership?

right click on provinces and set them as ones you claim. then type in "acceptall" into the console and demand the territory from whatever country whose provinces you just claimed

fb

# ? Oct 26, 2014 17:34

podcat: Jun 21, 2012

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

I agree with this. I like modding CKII, but I hate having to go to different sites just to read tutorials on how to mod the game (mostly because you guys wont let people post the tutorials on your own forums)

We dont? Where does it say that?

# ? Oct 26, 2014 18:01

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Re: The POP problem.

What about having no per-state or per-province populations at all? Instead, the demographics of your nation are represented at the top of the screen as pure numbers, like strategic resources in HOI3. Your population is divided into three cohorts: the lower class, who are used to fill factories, RGOs, and soldiers; the middle-class, who are used to fill the ranks of the bureaucracy, increase output of factories, recruited as officers in the military and raise literacy; and the upper-class, who invest in the construction of new factories and whose opinions matter most in politics in the early through mid-game.

Actions, then, require the use or allocation of unused "POP Points", so that the counters at the top of the screen represent unallocated POP points. You get a set number of POP points per tick, which you can then allocate to various purposes.

The POP issue, then, is simply reduced to a matter of resources, and they're no different from fuel, energy, IC, metal, or money.

This could have immediate lasting effects on your nation depending on what you do with them. For example, let's imagine that there's some kind of "Mobilization slider", which allows you to mobilize a certain percentage of your laborer and middle-class pops straight from their application in RGOs, universities, schools, and factories, and into your military. If you set it at 50%, for example, clicking "Mobilize" will reduce the number of POP points allocated to every factory, school, RGO, and so on by 50%, and add it straight to your manpower pool. This will allow you to click-build a large number of soldier brigades -- much more than your normal manpower would allow.

Immediately you'd see ramifications on your economy. Provinces that once made 2 Corn per tick would make only 1 Corn instead. Furthermore, if those soldiers were killed in battle, you'd permanently lose those potential POP points until such time as your points had reaccumulated.

This also has important ramifications for the political reform/law system. For example, you could require that certain laws or reforms would cost a certain amount of POP points from various different POPs. "Unemployment assistance": 500 working-class POP points, 250 Middle-class POP points, and 100 Upper-class POP points. Altering the laws governing the voting franchise would affect the costs of various reforms, and enable/disable others.

DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Oct 26, 2014

# ? Oct 26, 2014 18:57

OddObserver: Apr 3, 2009

I don't think having per-state/province demographics is quite the right approach since this time period is kinda big for nationalism and formation of new Nation States. Hmm, except in practical terms cores for non-existing nations seem to play some of the same role.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 19:04

VerdantSquire: Jul 1, 2014

DrSunshine posted:

Re: The POP problem.

Eh, I have to side against this idea. Treating the people living in your nation as a resource under the player's complete and total control is a massive misrepresentation of how things worked in the period. This is on top of how the idea that the individuals living in your nation are just another lifeless, exploitable property like oil or metal seems like an overly cynical way to approach the matter.

If we want to go in the direction of making pops per nation instead of per state, I think they should still be something that the player is unable to control too directly. Instead of just being a resource modifiable in a couple seconds by pushing a slider, the player should have to spend time using things like national focuses or other indirect methods to get their population to gradually change in the direction they want it to. This doesn't mean that there won't be more direct ways to changing the player's population (Conscription/mobilization, Deportation, all that fun stuff), but those options should carry hefty consequences to use.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 20:00

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

VerdantSquire posted:

Eh, I have to side against this idea. Treating the people living in your nation as a resource under the player's complete and total control is a massive misrepresentation of how things worked in the period. This is on top of how the idea that the individuals living in your nation are just another lifeless, exploitable property like oil or metal seems like an overly cynical way to approach the matter.

If we want to go in the direction of making pops per nation instead of per state, I think they should still be something that the player is unable to control too directly. Instead of just being a resource modifiable in a couple seconds by pushing a slider, the player should have to spend time using things like national focuses or other indirect methods to get their population to gradually change in the direction they want it to. This doesn't mean that there won't be more direct ways to changing the player's population (Conscription/mobilization, Deportation, all that fun stuff), but those options should carry hefty consequences to use.

Representing the period and making a good game are basically two orthogonal concepts, particularly when you're trying to get to this level of detail.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 20:11

VerdantSquire: Jul 1, 2014

Panzeh posted:

Representing the period and making a good game are basically two orthogonal concepts, particularly when you're trying to get to this level of detail.

I ... what? Can you please back up a bit and explain to me how good game design and having an at least semi-accurate portrayal of the period are somehow mutually incompatible? I don't really see the invisible wall that somehow separates these two concepts. And can you also explain how my suggestion somehow gives a very high level of detail? Because it's really more just suggesting a baseline for how a system should work.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 20:30

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

VerdantSquire posted:

Eh, I have to side against this idea. Treating the people living in your nation as a resource under the player's complete and total control is a massive misrepresentation of how things worked in the period. This is on top of how the idea that the individuals living in your nation are just another lifeless, exploitable property like oil or metal seems like an overly cynical way to approach the matter.

If we want to go in the direction of making pops per nation instead of per state, I think they should still be something that the player is unable to control too directly. Instead of just being a resource modifiable in a couple seconds by pushing a slider, the player should have to spend time using things like national focuses or other indirect methods to get their population to gradually change in the direction they want it to. This doesn't mean that there won't be more direct ways to changing the player's population (Conscription/mobilization, Deportation, all that fun stuff), but those options should carry hefty consequences to use.

Well it's not too different from the idea of having something like "Monarch Points" in EUIV, someone suggested this a couple pages ago in this thread. If you think about it, the idea of "Monarch Points" is still a pretty abstract system, but it works pretty well in EUIV. Historical concepts are represented in EUIV using National Ideas and Values, which also work well as a game aspect. People love clicking on buttons and getting a "progress earned! Bonus GET!" feeling. Abstracting the population to just "RPG skill points" kills two birds with one stone: it frees up system resources, and it feeds into the "gamification".

# ? Oct 26, 2014 20:40

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# ? May 28, 2024 14:37

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

VerdantSquire posted:

I ... what? Can you please back up a bit and explain to me how good game design and having an at least semi-accurate portrayal of the period are somehow mutually incompatible? I don't really see the invisible wall that somehow separates these two concepts. And can you also explain how my suggestion somehow gives a very high level of detail? Because it's really more just suggesting a baseline for how a system should work.

"Orthogonal", not "opposed". The meaning is that how well the system simulates a thing implies nothing about how good a game it is.

I do not wholly agree, so I guess now I have to spend half an hour whipping up a :words:

cr�me br�l�e. Thanks, thread.

# ? Oct 26, 2014 20:41

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