Suggested fixes Fall 2022

[Murrman104]

I don't really think every Congressional leader needs leadership given that it can just be waived in game. Not really a big deal generally 

[vcczar]

55 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Ideally, we’d be able to tie lots of traits to years. So for example John Edwards isn’t born controversial, but if your start date begins after his real life affair does, then he starts with controversial.

Thats how Crusader Kings 2 did it.

But CK2 also had a huge, paid, full time staff working on it, and we don’t for all the obvious reasons.  

Doing  that for thousands and thousands of real life people, for every single trait…nobody has volunteered to take that on yet.

It's something I'd like to do and maybe at some point I can. I'm just loathe to begin anything big until early release is out and I certainly won't have time to do anything on that scale until summer. 

Yeah, it's one of those many months tedious projects. I think I have PTSD for having done so many of them over the last few years. I just can't get myself to do it, although I could see myself being reenergized once the game is out for early release. This way, as say, few people are born with traits. Some will be. For instance, I don't think Edwards is inherently controversial, but I think someone like Aaron Burr, Benedict Arnold, James Wilkinson or Trump is. They seemed to lack a mechanism for self-control and any ability to feel remorse. I think Edwards was just a politician that got caught doing things that he thought he could get away with. He's someone that could be rehabilitated. I don't think these other four could be. 

[OrangeP47]

@vcczar

This is more just a heads up, but the section in 3.0 regarding alt-states is still basically unusable.  I'm not saying do anything right now, but since in 1840 we got some legitimate alt-states now (instead of just splitting California) be prepared for me to just propose a complete replacement of that section probably in the next 2-3 weeks.  It actually won't be that big of a deal, because like 80% of what needs done can just be "see the census doc", but there are a few small points that will need hammered out.  None are very big deals at all, I just want to see how passing statehood in the playtest goes first before I form an opinion.

[vcczar]

31 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

@vcczar

This is more just a heads up, but the section in 3.0 regarding alt-states is still basically unusable.  I'm not saying do anything right now, but since in 1840 we got some legitimate alt-states now (instead of just splitting California) be prepared for me to just propose a complete replacement of that section probably in the next 2-3 weeks.  It actually won't be that big of a deal, because like 80% of what needs done can just be "see the census doc", but there are a few small points that will need hammered out.  None are very big deals at all, I just want to see how passing statehood in the playtest goes first before I form an opinion.

I'm kind of swamped right now. Do you have the ability to comment on 3.0? If so, if you suggest something there, I'll get to it and amend it based on that suggestion. I'm grading 100 papers right now. 

[OrangeP47]

1 minute ago, vcczar said:

I'm kind of swamped right now. Do you have the ability to comment on 3.0? If so, if you suggest something there, I'll get to it and amend it based on that suggestion. I'm grading 100 papers right now. 

I apparently do, but like I said I probably won't suggest anything for like 3ish weeks. This was just so it wasn't a surprise later when I inevitably say I want to re-do that entire section.

[OrangeP47]

This is a work in progress, I have not settled on finalized rule states, or, especially, percentages.

However, I have worked ahead and generated 4 alt-state pols for the 1872 draft and wanted to show what the end results are.  If you have questions, please ask and I'll explain.  In general, though, what I did was take the percentages for the era of future draft and normalized it to assuming those drafts would have 50 pols, then converted the percentages to be on a "per pol basis" instead of an "entire draft basis" so the process can scale no matter how many alt states you have.

Also forgive me if this is really hard to read, it's a real pain getting a good aggregate screenshot out of our sheet. (You can click to make it bigger)

(Sorry, the screenshots cut off and I'm not retaking them:  Garcia is a debater and a kingmaker.  Also both Whig pols are other racial (implied Native American) and Dos Santos is Protestant while the other three are Catholic, I think that's what you'd need to know from the tabs)

Edited February 9, 2023 by OrangeP47

[MrPotatoTed]

@vcczar I noticed the prerequisites on the Gov Actions tab is inconsistent on how it words the prerequisites.  For example, sometimes it will say "Governor needs Judicial expertise."  Judicial is a skill, the expertise is called Justice.  Other times, it will say "Governor needs Law and Order," but that's a card for the faction, not specific to the governor.

Fix:  Specify when we mean Judicial and when we mean Justice.  Also clarify that if we really are referring to cards, it should say "faction needs" not "governor needs."  (This doesn't just apply to judicial/justice/law and order, that was just an easy example.)

[vcczar]

13 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

@vcczar I noticed the prerequisites on the Gov Actions tab is inconsistent on how it words the prerequisites.  For example, sometimes it will say "Governor needs Judicial expertise."  Judicial is a skill, the expertise is called Justice.  Other times, it will say "Governor needs Law and Order," but that's a card for the faction, not specific to the governor.

Fix:  Specify when we mean Judicial and when we mean Justice.  Also clarify that if we really are referring to cards, it should say "faction needs" not "governor needs."  (This doesn't just apply to judicial/justice/law and order, that was just an easy example.)

Yeah, I think its because of old terminology or something. Although, I may have meant a governor coming from a specific faction. I'll have to check to see if I have other instances of other faction cards. 

[pman]

Small question (not a suggestion) - Unless it's a war the US starts, doesn't NATO mean member nations automatically support us. Technically we'd have to invoke Article 5 and say we were attacked. It's not clear that game accounts for that. In theory relations with UK, Germany and Spain could all be bad but if Article 5 gets invoked, they're required to join.

Edited February 20, 2023 by pman

[MrPotatoTed]

2 hours ago, pman said:

Small question (not a suggestion) - Unless it's a war the US starts, doesn't NATO mean member nations automatically support us. Technically we'd have to invoke Article 5 and say we were attacked. It's not clear that game accounts for that. In theory relations with UK, Germany and Spain could all be bad but if Article 5 gets invoked, they're required to join.

Not sure of the answer to this question, but I’ll add another war question on top of it for @vcczar consideration.

With each start date that takes place during a war, we need to assign a war score for how the war has been doing so far.  For example, in our 2012 playthrough it looks as though the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have just begun even though of course they both have been going on for ten-ish years by that point.  Doesn’t have to be you in particular, could assign this to someone of your choosing if you wanted.

 

 

[vcczar]

9 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Not sure of the answer to this question, but I’ll add another war question on top of it for @vcczar consideration.

With each start date that takes place during a war, we need to assign a war score for how the war has been doing so far.  For example, in our 2012 playthrough it looks as though the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have just begun even though of course they both have been going on for ten-ish years by that point.  Doesn’t have to be you in particular, could assign this to someone of your choosing if you wanted.

 

 

That's a good point. I'll post this in the thread. 

[pman]

I guess an easy solution is to say that once NATO has been created- member states automatically join a war effort once Article 5 gets invoked, which is automatic once the US is attacked - regardless of the relations meters for that country. Article 5 should be easy to invoke since it's a formality. Unless of course the US preemptively starts the war which negates Article 5. I suppose you could make Article 5 being an executive action after a war has started- but again I think it should be easy as long as it's not an offensive war.

[MrPotatoTed]

On 2/20/2023 at 9:43 AM, vcczar said:

That's a good point. I'll post this in the thread. 

Two more things we may need to address for each start date:

1)  Expiration eras for scripted events.  I know we've discussed this before and you didn't want to set expiration eras in general because who knows how alternate histories could play out, which is fair.  But for later start dates, we can rule things out.  For example, a 2016 start date doesn't need a "Hitler wins World War II!" event to potentially be active.  (I know it has pre-requisites that wouldn't be met, just giving an easy example -- it's tedious to go through the full list when creating a new playthrough, it would be helpful to give expiration eras at least for the purpose of creating new games.

2)  State industries at different start dates.  For example in our 2016 game, California's chief industry is listed as mining, which presumably isn't as true today as it was back in 1849.

Again, these aren't necessarily things you have to do yourself, if we can find trusted volunteers to take them on.

[ebrk85]

9 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

2)  State industries at different start dates.  For example in our 2016 game, California's chief industry is listed as mining, which presumably isn't as true today as it was back in 1849.

This actually does exist already in the Industries spreadsheet. I used it when I was setting up 1948.  I inherited the 2016 game so yea I am not sure how they set it up. Using CA as an example in 2016 start Mining is still a 10 for them but High Tech is also a 10.

[10centjimmy]

5 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

)  Expiration eras for scripted events.  I know we've discussed this before and you didn't want to set expiration eras in general because who knows how alternate histories could play out, which is fair.  But for later start dates, we can rule things out.  For example, a 2016 start date doesn't need a "Hitler wins World War II!" event to potentially be active.  (I know it has pre-requisites that wouldn't be met, just giving an easy example -- it's tedious to go through the full list when creating a new playthrough, it would be helpful to give expiration eras at least for the purpose of creating new games

For ideologies playtest, I was operating with the understanding that if it happened historically then it happened in the world in which the players operate. So the events like great depression and Hitler comes to power are possibilities since the German economic collapse would've just happened at the tail end of the previous Era

[pman]

5 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Two more things we may need to address for each start date:

1)  Expiration eras for scripted events.  I know we've discussed this before and you didn't want to set expiration eras in general because who knows how alternate histories could play out, which is fair.  But for later start dates, we can rule things out.  For example, a 2016 start date doesn't need a "Hitler wins World War II!" event to potentially be active.  (I know it has pre-requisites that wouldn't be met, just giving an easy example -- it's tedious to go through the full list when creating a new playthrough, it would be helpful to give expiration eras at least for the purpose of creating new games.

2)  State industries at different start dates.  For example in our 2016 game, California's chief industry is listed as mining, which presumably isn't as true today as it was back in 1849.

Again, these aren't necessarily things you have to do yourself, if we can find trusted volunteers to take them on.

I would add NATO to that list for any playtest with a start date after it's creation. In general I think the game doesn't really account for it or how it changes the nature of our relations with member states- unless I am missing something of course!

Edited February 22, 2023 by pman

[MrPotatoTed]

34 minutes ago, 10centjimmy said:

For ideologies playtest, I was operating with the understanding that if it happened historically then it happened in the world in which the players operate. So the events like great depression and Hitler comes to power are possibilities since the German economic collapse would've just happened at the tail end of the previous Era

Absolutely. I was referring to the fact that some events are evergreen — they remain in play long after the era that can potentially kick them off.  For example, you can get into a random war with any other major country if your relations get low enough, starting in the era of federalism.  That event can still kick off in any other era all the way into the deep future.

That said, it’s a significant amount of work to figure out which scripted events are like that, out of the thousands that are in the game, since it’s not clearly marked. One thing that helps make the list a tiny bit manageable is to remove all the things that already happened historically prior to your start date , since most of them can’t fire twice.

Edited February 22, 2023 by MrPotatoTed

[MrPotatoTed]

Or @vcczar maybe an easier answer would be to move these evergreen events (especially the “game over” and “war” ones) over to general events instead of scripted ones?  I actually think that might be the easiest, simplest and most effective fix.

[10centjimmy]

Maybe a new column that can be yes/no on "can occur in any era?"

[vcczar]

1 hour ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Or @vcczar maybe an easier answer would be to move these evergreen events (especially the “game over” and “war” ones) over to general events instead of scripted ones?  I actually think that might be the easiest, simplest and most effective fix.

I'll have to think about this on a day when I get more than two hours of sleep. 

[vcczar]

7 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Two more things we may need to address for each start date:

1)  Expiration eras for scripted events.  I know we've discussed this before and you didn't want to set expiration eras in general because who knows how alternate histories could play out, which is fair.  But for later start dates, we can rule things out.  For example, a 2016 start date doesn't need a "Hitler wins World War II!" event to potentially be active.  (I know it has pre-requisites that wouldn't be met, just giving an easy example -- it's tedious to go through the full list when creating a new playthrough, it would be helpful to give expiration eras at least for the purpose of creating new games.

2)  State industries at different start dates.  For example in our 2016 game, California's chief industry is listed as mining, which presumably isn't as true today as it was back in 1849.

Again, these aren't necessarily things you have to do yourself, if we can find trusted volunteers to take them on.

I'll have to figure this out on a different day. I'm trying to remember why I got rid of the scripted event end dates. There was some valid reason--probably not coming from me as I don't think I would have unless there were playtest issues--of why I removed the end dates. 

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

Just wanted to chime in and say I am in favor of having scripted events time out by certain eras and have end dates for starting in later games.

The main reason for having the scripted events time out is that if some events don't fire at all for multiple eras, which is very likely given probability, then you could have, for example, Civil War era events firing during WWI. It creates a weird anachronistic moment for a player.

[MrPotatoTed]

2 hours ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

Just wanted to chime in and say I am in favor of having scripted events time out by certain eras and have end dates for starting in later games.

The main reason for having the scripted events time out is that if some events don't fire at all for multiple eras, which is very likely given probability, then you could have, for example, Civil War era events firing during WWI. It creates a weird anachronistic moment for a player.

Yes-ish.  I think I understand @vcczar's rationale for not giving firm end dates/end eras.  By making it more prerequisite-based than era-based, it gives more flexibility for weird playthroughs where you've made it to the 1920's and you're in World War I and oh by the way this is a timeline where the US never got rid of slavery.  So you could have some of these civil war type events firing in that playthrough, if the pre-requisites are met.  

So it's not necessarily my intention that if you start in 1772, there's zero chance that civil war things are happening during World War I.  Because maybe you've earned that craziness in your timeline.

But it is my intention that a game that BEGINS in 1940 will already have all civil war era events removed, including ahistorical outcomes, because you've started your game in 1940 with the assumption that historically accurate things happened until your game began.

 

[vcczar]

Another thing I need to do is add general events that cause trade issues with select nations. I think it's too easy to keep the relations up. One of the things I was reading in the JQ Adams bio is how bad trade relations with the British were during his entire presidency. The British seemed to have reversed policy as soon as Monroe was no longer president--odd considering Adams was Monroe's Sec of State. 

[vcczar]

Just reposting this here as I'll go to this thread whenever I have a moment free: 

"That's a fair question.  @vcczar, flagging that "we're not at war" should probably be a prerequisite for the peacetime draft.

@ebrk85 I suppose we'd be saying that the draft remains in place even during peace. Haha.  But I can propose something else if you prefer."