Victoria 3

[Tamas]

Thanks Syt, I might check the AI mod out now.

Making white peace look better definitely helps in my experience, although whats probably even more important is drastically reducing the impact of gold reserves on AI decision.

Increasing min. number of pops migrating and assimilating is also something I have tried and as I mentioned I think it might have delayed the onset of really terrible lag to the early 1920s

[garbon]

I conquered a northern Italian state and learned I had acquired 28 Polish pops. Then I got a notice that there was a great Polish migration to Tasmania.

[Syt]

I conquered a northern Italian state and learned I had acquired 28 Polish pops. Then I got a notice that there was a great Polish migration to Tasmania.

I had a notification in vanilla telling me that North Germans were migrating to Elbe and surrounding states. That's akin to telling me Yankees are migrating to New York.

[Syt]

Thanks Syt, I might check the AI mod out now.

Making white peace look better definitely helps in my experience, although whats probably even more important is drastically reducing the impact of gold reserves on AI decision.

Increasing min. number of pops migrating and assimilating is also something I have tried and as I mentioned I think it might have delayed the onset of really terrible lag to the early 1920s

I'm not sure it's quite there yet. I've let three hands off games run into the 1900s yesterday. Some observations:
- France is always #1 in GDP by a huge margin (and that is with a mod that removes treaty port status for Pondycherry). I think they need journal entries to cover their demographic troubles at the start of the era.
- China seems OP. Their GDP was consistantly in #3 spot. In one game they even intervened in a war in Europe, with Chinese armies fighting the Prussians in Moravia (they were still unrecognized).
- AI is building oil rigs
- Some small economies just collapse. Some sooner, some later, and not always the same, except Argentina. I saw Argentina's GDP collapse to something like 30k in three games by the 1860s or 1870s and having no buildings. Their population also fell off a cliff a few times - going down to 100k or less. Not sure what's causing this - they weren't in wars, they were in a small customs union - no clue. Other nations (esp. those in customs unions with powerful countries) see a slower drain of population.
- By the 1880s the world map is still covered in turmoil (only the richest nations might only have half their territory covered after revolutions - I've seen GB turn Commie 2 out of 3 times, Spain once, Austria becoming a Republic - and Russia never ) as the AI seems incapable of handling it
- Germany didn't unify in any of the games

This mod to help AI make peace worked quite well for me, btw: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2886364566

However, it seems when you have insurrections in small countries, it might end up peacing them out and leaving two states of same name afterwards. E.g. I saw two mini-Oranje (who had the same flag and were allied to one another ), and some others in North Africa and India.

[Zanza]

I formed Germany now in the early 1850s. I had humiliated Austria before and had the German leadership warhoal. So the unification war was against Württemberg, who had UK and Austria intervening on their side. I had Russia. My military easily conquered Württemberg, I became Germany. That left me with a war with UK and Austria,but they accepted white peace.  Not particularly hard, can probably be done in the 1840s or so.

[Syt]

This mod to help AI make peace worked quite well for me, btw: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2886364566

It seems to have a few issues. I was fighting in South America, and the US was on my enemies' side. I had added reparations as war goal against the US. They never sent any troops, but I guess their war support still went down (possibly attrition at the home front), because at some point they suddenly capitulated, giving me free war reps. 

[Valmy]

I formed Germany now in the early 1850s. I had humiliated Austria before and had the German leadership warhoal. So the unification war was against Württemberg, who had UK and Austria intervening on their side. I had Russia. My military easily conquered Württemberg, I became Germany. That left me with a war with UK and Austria,but they accepted white peace.  Not particularly hard, can probably be done in the 1840s or so.

Yeah my son was doing stuff like triggering a war against both Russia and Austria and easily beating both and forming Germany. Prussia might be overpowered...or maybe the AI just sucks.

Have you formed Germany as Austria? If you can steamroll everybody with the Radetsky then it probably isn't a problem with just Prussia.

[Syt]

Been playing Spain in a modded game, with the goal to re-take South America. I also picked up Egypt, because I was looking for sources of opium, and noticed that Egypt was only friendly with Darfur, and that no power had declared interest in their region.

[insert it's free real estate img]

Overall, playing with gameplay mods has been a bit of a mixed bag.

- Anbeeld's AI mod helps the AI develop their economies better, on the whole. However, it doesn't fix underlying issues (e.g. circle trade), and it leads to some situation where smaller countries end up with crashed economies and losing 75% of their population in a few years. It's not super noticeable unless you pay attention to those countries, but it feels "wrong." I also feel it overpowers Qing at the moment.

- Diaspora cultures. An attempt to deal with late game lag. Immigrants are grouped into diasporas. So instead of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish pops in the US you would get "Scandinavian Diaspora". I think it's a good idea, but it also loses IMHO some flavor by lumping them all in together. And it can lead to some weird scenarios where e.g. Westphalia has "Benelux Diaspora" pops. (I was previously trying a mod that set a higher minimum size for migrant POPs, but I felt it cut down migration a lot; plus it seemed to assimilate POPs too quickly to local culture?

- No starting treaty ports. What it says on the tin. Removes treaty port status from places like Pondycherry and Nova Goa. Still lets powers take treaty ports in major powers (e.g. Austria in Prussia) and France is still going to dominate economically. (Besides its demographic capacity I think it's also because the British Empire, by comparison, is much more decentralized with its puppets/dominions - which I think is a good way of handling them, just that France's troubles at the start of the period should be better simulated.)

- Better Interest Group Attraction. Adds more modifiers to how POPs choose IGs to join. I can't say much about it yet, but it sure made my Spain game more challenging as I found it hard to e.g. lower church influence despite enacting "the right laws". In vanilla, you have certain routes you can take to reduce power of IGs. Change from Local Police to Dedicated Police to curb Landowners, switch administration laws, etc. The mod adds more modifiers, based on where they are employed, their education (e.g. uneducated rural POPs will have a stronger drive towards religious IG, but education reduces that more strongly; having many rivals and strong arms industry will up military IG clout, etc. - check their page; the details are in their changelog: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2881590888

- Know When to Fold'Em. A mod aiming to make pecae making of the AI more reasonable, and esp. let them White Peace more easily. Pro: no more stuck wars. Con: I feel it may make it a bit too easy for the player. I've been in wars with small counrtries where major powers joined the enemy, didn't send armies to fight but still capitulated and gave me my war goals against them. It's possible they had attrition losses at home, or they were in debt, but it felt wrong to be fighting in Bolivia against Bolivians and Brazilians, and suddenly the US capitulates for no clear reason and pays me war reparations. Also, white peace seems a bit too easy to get from remaining enemies once a few enemies have dropped out.

- American Flavor Fixes. One of two mods aiming to make the US expansion/timeline more likely to go historical (Mexican War, Oregon, Alaska etc.). It's using some railroading, but it seems to struggle once a link in the chain breaks. In my game, the US never managed to take out Mexico, and then kinda sat there. It joined wars in its interest zones and colonized a bit in Africa, but they didn't seem to take the initiative once they ran out of steam.

- Age Mod. Changes checks when characters die. Basically starts checking for natural deaths at age 45 instead of 60, and lowers age cap to 90 instead of 100.

- Stay in your lane. Haven't tried it yet, but it locks overseas colonization for e.g. US and Russia behind Civilizing mission, with the aim to keep them out of Africa (or, in the case of the US, out of Canada) until later in the game.

UI and gfx mods have been overall a better experience, and I would recommend the below that I tried.

- Practical Heat Maps. Changes the shader range, so that you get better visuals on heat map map modes.

- Diverse European Architecture. Mixes up the building styles for your cities (so you don't have only green copper roof buildings).

- Grand Country Colours. Changes the colours of countries on the map. Makes Ottomans red, and has more distinctive shades of blue for France and US. Minor change, but IMO looks a lot better.

- No Clouds. Removes the clouds from the zoomed in map.

- Unemployment and Peasant Data + IG Approval in Outliner. Adds unemployed and peasant numbers to the states list in the outliner, plus IG approval. Esp. the IG Approval is so good to see without having to mouse-over.

- Construction Queue with States. Shows for each building in your queue where it's being built.

- Dense Market Details. Condenses the data of the market details into a more compact list.

- Dense Trade Routes Tab. Same, but for trade routes.

- Remove Overlord Border on Flag. In vanilla, when an overlord's flag is added in the corner of a subject's flag, it has a golden border. This mod removes the border.

- Trade Goods Slider fix. When using the trade lense, instead of having to scroll vertically through the goods list at the bottom of the screen, you scroll horizontally. Feels more comfortable to me, and uses a bit less screen space.

- Improved Building Grid. Updates the building grid view in state panel to add auto-expand/subsidize toggles, weekly balance, employee capacity bar and infra/taxation capacities.

- Improved Building List (GUI). When building from the construction menu, it adds unemployment and free infrastructure to the list of states. It also adds number of queued buildings total and for the currently selected building type.

- No Fog of War. Removes the dark shading on provinces that you don't own when you zoom in. Just looks prettier IMO.

- Deal or no deal - Diplomatic UI expanded. When selecting a diplomatic option from the diplo menu, it will add whether or not a country will accept to the list of countries (though unfortunately not the score).

- Complete Pop list. In the states screen that lists your pops - shows all pops instead of just top 3.

- Prussian Blue. Switches the red Victoria menues to a pleasing blue.

- More Spreadsheets. Adds a menu item that attempts to be a ledger. But due to how some data is currently available in game a lot of it is not sortable. It's better than nothing, but also not that great (yet).

[Syt]

- Stay in your lane. Haven't tried it yet, but it locks overseas colonization for e.g. US and Russia behind Civilizing mission, with the aim to keep them out of Africa (or, in the case of the US, out of Canada) until later in the game.

Running a quick hands off game - Russia is staying out of Sakhalin/Hokkaido.

Instead, GB colonized them within 10 years.

[Syt]

Patch notes:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/patch-notes-for-1-0-6.1557300/

Balance
- Reduced the number of monthly radicals from political movements to enact and restore


Performance
- Reduced the number of pops in the mid- to late-game by merging very small pops back into the general population
- Reduced the number of pops in the mid- to late-game by forcing unemployed pops to switch profession when sufficiently poor
- Improved performance of updating trends for political movements
- Improved performance of enumerating Liberation war goals


AI
- Increased AI tendency to stick by its allies and subjects in conflicts
- Fixed AI acceptance for 'powerful protectors' factor to appear in virtually any alliance/customs union
- Fixed AI confidence and peace desire from gold reserves not being capped to 100% reserves
- Fixed AI incorrectly calculating how much an ongoing war or diplomatic play should add to their neutrality, making them abandon allies due to involvement in small conflicts
- Fixed AI involvement in a diplomatic play shown as an empty string in their neutrality calculation


Bugfixes
- Fixed settings (such as in-game language) not being saved correctly when path contains non-latin characters
- Properly fixed flotillas not recovering morale
- Fixes "Pass a Law that enables an Institution" tutorial challenge being impossible to complete or writing to the error log under certain circumstances
- Fixed issue where a placated Political Movement might still trigger a revolution
- Fixed issue with American Territory Achievement using an incorrect trigger
- Fixed issue with not being able to get Berlin Conference Achievement.
- Star Swarmed Banner no longer requires exactly 100 states exactly to get the achievement, but rather 100 or more
- Fixed issue with placeholder image being used for flamethrower event modifiers
- Fixed CTD in CPdxTerrain::CreateEffect
- Fixed CTD in CWarGoal::IsAdjacent
- Fixed CTD in CBuildingType destructor

[Syt]

Ok, so the AI will peace out most wars now ... eventually.

Case 1.

GB goes on a subjugation play against Johore. It becomes a war of GB, Belgium, GB's subjects vs. Johore, Dai Nam, Qing.

Johore quickly falls, so the war is now about abolishing slavery in Dai Nam. Only no one actually sent troops to fight. Qing and Belgium eventually dropped out, and GB and Dai Nam just sat there, letting their scores tick up will GB white peaced out a couple of years later.

Case 2.

I notice Spain and France invading Northern Russia. "Epic war!" I think. I check the war.

Two Sicilies vs. Spain and Tuscany. TS tries to conquer Tuscany and humiliate Spain. Spain wants a treaty port in Apulia. I.e., France and Russia don't have any war goals in this, but they eff up the Baltic Russian lands till the Russians drop out.

Meanwhile, there's no fighting (nada, zero, zilch) in Italy. When Russian quits, the rest of the countries ... just sit there. For years. So I decided to see if I can give it a push. I switch the France. Without unpausing, I order a naval invasion in Sicily, and another in Apulia. I switch back and unpause. a few months later TS is beaten with minimal extra losses, and the war ends.

In conclusio: I think the AI needs to get A LOT better at fighting remote wars. Sometimes they do it (e.g. in the second example, with Spain and France invading Russia and wrecking their shit), and in others they refuse (e.g. invading Two Sicilies, or in the first case, Dai Nam; or in my recent game, the US doing, well, anything when they joined wars in the Americas).

It's probably some really silly modifier that causes them to become passive like that or underestimate their chances at success.

I still feel they need to be a bit more willing to White Peace, nevertheless. It feels weird having the GB and Dai Nam be at war for 5+ years without firing a shot before they call it quits esp. since you can't use diplo plays against them until then.

[garbon]

Have they done anything about leader age as of yet?

[Syt]

Don't think so, but the Age Mod I mentioned above makes it less likely rulers rule till they're 100.

[Tamas]

Thanks for the summaries, Syt.

I just found the age settings last night myself. With 1.0.6 out I'll need to do my own mod properly and only include lines in the files I have changed, so I won't have to redo it every bloody time there's a patch.

[Solmyr]

Good mod list Syt. I'll add a few more.

zlUI Instant Tooltip: Removes the delay on tooltips, saving you time.

Sukritact's Thicker Fonts: What it says. Makes the game font slightly thicker and more pleasant to read.

Interests below Diplomatic Relations: Again, what it says. Changes the diplo panel so you don't have to scroll it as much.

Proper Classical Music, Historical Music: Add a bunch era-appropriate music pieces to play during your games.

Simple Downsize in Building List States Panel: Adds the "minus" button to the building list in state view, letting you downsize a building without actually opening it first.

Compact State Overview: Makes the state view much nicer, no more useless huge icons.

Notifications not over Outliner, Notifications Filter: Places the notifications better and lets you control to some extent what notifications are shown.

One Outliner to Rule Them All: Updated and expanded version of Unemployment and Peasant Data + IG Approval in Outliner.

Treaty port remover: A better mod for removing treaty ports since it does not edit history files, making compatibility better.

Vibrant Water, Mediterranean Architecture, Miniature World (plus the mods recommended with it): Some more mods to beautify the map.

Still need a fix for that annoying bug where revolutionary/uprising nations are immune to all diplomatic plays and basically stay on the map forever. I'm actually not sure I want to start another game before it's fixed.