Victoria 3

[Zanza]

Yes, that's the plan.

[Tamas]

In 1.0.6 most of the small ones folded to puppeting demands, but eventually I got resisted by the US and France who started coming in to protect South America, with France usually using the chance to nib at the continent themselves.

[grumbler]

I found it interesting that in my USA test game, the planters revolted over propertied women.  That as the bad news.  The good news was that it was 1841, and the South was not remotely prepared for war.  That the ACW lasted as long as a bit more than a year is attributable to the huge bonuses granted the Confederate troops, and the Union generals' insistence on attacking 20 rebel battalions with seven.  The Union lost every battle that I observed, but won the war handily.

I had to laugh at the peace terms the CSA offered:  the CSA would get Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia, and the the USA would annex the CSA.  I took that.

[Syt]

I was taking a stroll through the events files yesterday and was surprised to find a few that I have yet to see happen. E.g. there seems to be an event for having a metro line in your cities, or for a train robbery, or that should have a chance of triggering when you have active decrees (e.g. boost infrastructure should give events where businesses compete for public contracts, or violent suppression of turmoil should trigger events about excessive violence). Unsure if these are broken or if I've been just unlucky so far.

I really hope that geographic location of businesses will be taken into a account in some way. Shipping costs don't seem to matter at all (as long as the states have market access), so currently it's the best strategy to concentrate your manufacturing industries in population rich states to make sure they have enough workforce, when easy access to raw materials should be the driving factor, at least initially (until you have the infrastructure/transport techs to offset shipping costs). However, given the performance of the engine in late game, I don't think adding such a calculation to the mix would be conducive to a pleasant playing experience.

Shipping costs would also add more complexity to trade - it's measured in # of convoys required, which is at least an attempt to have it factored, but overland routes don't require any of those - maybe rolling stock for land based trading would be great? And you could add usage of "internal" resources to the mix. If a state produces more of resource A than is consumed locally, it uses up more transportation. Similarly, if the inputs of a manufacturing business use more resources than are produced in the state, it needs more transportation?

And I still thnk urbanization should give some penalties - the more urban centers a state has, the higher mortality should be; this would be offset by pharmaceutical techs, sewer systems, and investment in health institutions - perhaps "public health" could be an additional production method for cities?

[Tamas]

1.1.2 is out. Some very nice-sounding fixes but unfortunately no mention of performance improvements:

###################
# Features
###################
- Adds quick-select options for the three most Legitimate valid government combinations on the Reform Government panel

###################
# Balance
###################
- It is no longer possible to reliably max out Legitimacy by throwing every Interest Group in government together; Legitimacy penalty from conflicting Government ideologies is now calculated by determining, for each law group, the law (unlocked by tech) with the strongest compound feelings for or against it across all Interest Groups in government (even within the same party) ensuring every additional Interest Group potentially increases the total ideological incoherence
- Legitimacy penalty from size of government has been reintroduced, but in the form of a number of allowed Interest Groups or Parties in government with no penalty and a flat penalty for each entity in addition to that
- Legitimacy balance changes across Laws
- Angry Interest Groups can now be invited to the government, and will not leave the government voluntarily unless Insurrectionary
- Angry Interest Groups in government can now join Political Movements
- Insurrectionary Interest Groups in a government party will now leave the government and party, unless it is the last Interest Group in government
- Number of provinces won in smaller theaters with large numbers of defending mobilized Battalions is now reduced, ensuring they will take more battles to wipe out entirely

###################
# AI
###################
- Fixed bug that prevented the AI from sending their mobilized Generals to fronts under certain conditions
- Improved AI's ability to make smart investments in its port infrastructure in the mid- and late game
- Improved AI's ability to manage their total number of ports across a market region
- Increased AI priority for building ports in market areas that lack a port connection

###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Ensured that overseas Generals will not travel to their home HQ if their front is resolved or invalidated. Generals whose front has been resolved or become invalid should now always travel to the closest active front to continue their campaign, even if this front is overseas. If no valid fronts exist, the General should remain on Stand By in the overseas HQ unless manually recalled home.
- Fixed a case of Generals skipping travel time and "teleporting" home if their source front's position is unknown
- Fixed issue where high Legitimacy Level would increase Radicals instead of Loyalists due to an outdated cache
- Fixed out-of-sync related to shipping lanes
- Fixed crash when running certain console commands, such as starting events through the console
- Fixed issue with flickering map names in culture panel
- Fixed missing market interaction texture
- Fixed two broken concept tooltips in Japanese localization and one in Polish localization

[Syt]

Interesting changes, fingers crossed they didn't break anything new.

[grumbler]

Interesting changes, fingers crossed they didn't break anything new.

Too late.  Just loaded my saved USA game.  It's 1843, just after the successful completion of the ACW.  The Republican Party (Intelligentsia, Industrialists, and Evangelicals) is in power, having received 88% of the votes in 1840.  It now has 88% of the clout in the nation.  In 1.1.1 its legitimacy was 100.  In 1.1.2 legitimacy is 0.  Reforming the government is no help. There is no combination of parties or IGs that yields a legitimacy that is greater than zero.  Every possible government, even on that has only a single IG, gets hit with a -320 legitimacy penalty for "too many parties or interest groups."

Why can't they just fix the problem, instead of just shifting the way it is fucked up?

[Tamas]

Immediate impression of 1.1.2 (benchmark is Austria, as always): it has become impossible to follow my standard strategy of adding the Intelligentsia to the government with the Land owners straight away and start trying passing laws - legitimacy drops to 0% that way. Interesting.

[Syt]

Haven't tried the new patch yet, but an interesting side effect of the new legitimacy rules seems to be that if you have incompatible IGs joining into a party (e.g. by having their leaders override some of their ideologies), then even when they win elections by a landslide they will cerate a relatively low legitimacy government. I like this wrinkle, actually, kind of a "marriage of convenience" situation where opponents work together because of a few overlapping goals, but remaining an unstable combination that might not get much done (shades of the ÖVP-Greens government in Austria ...).

[Tamas]

Haven't tried the new patch yet, but an interesting side effect of the new legitimacy rules seems to be that if you have incompatible IGs joining into a party (e.g. by having their leaders override some of their ideologies), then even when they win elections by a landslide they will cerate a relatively low legitimacy government. I like this wrinkle, actually, kind of a "marriage of convenience" situation where opponents work together because of a few overlapping goals, but remaining an unstable combination that might not get much done (shades of the ÖVP-Greens government in Austria ...).

Yeah, maybe I am too lenient on the game but I don't agree with the harsh criticism of these legitimacy changes on the Paradox forum. To me such setups mean the (heavily) abstracted simulation of internal political situations where it is not possible to create a strong government with a clear mandate and direction - that's not exactly an impossible scenario in the real world.

[grumbler]

My criticism of the legitimacy changes is that government size gives a -320 legitimacy penalty, making all other legitimacy considerations moot.  And, in my game, there is no possible combinations of parties/IGs that does not give the size penalty and thus legitimacy 0.

I can't find where this modifier is added.  If it is in the codes, of course, then I just have to continue with my ad hoc mod where I modded out legitimacy levels so all governments are righteous.  But I'd appreciate advice on where in the common folder it is if it is in there.

[Tamas]

I had a look and if I can read the script right its no wonder the 1848 series of events almost never happen and if they do it's way late.

The main trigger for the event chain is if an IG has a Radical-trait leader and the IG is also in government.

That's terribly specific and rare. I am just running an observer game where I have replaced the "in government" requirement with the IG's clout being higher than 15 (its a condition I copied from the communism event chain). On paper that should be easier than the original requirements but still very hard and none of the European countries I keep looking at are managing.

Prussia got close with the Intelligentsia who rolled/had a Radical leader, but before their clout could reach above 15% the guy got replaced.

This just feels terribly random for such a pivotal event.

[grumbler]

I take back what I said earlier.  My legitimacy problems were due to a mod I have forgotten to disable.  Legitimacy now seems to work as intended, and the way it is intended to work seems... legit.

[Syt]

Seems there's a new AI issue. Saw it mentioned on the bug forums, and verified in an observer game. Apparently the AI (esp. Britain) seems to think it a good idea at some point to dismantle all its ports. Saw the British Isles in 1872 with 0 (in words: zero) ports, and France was down to 1.  (Though GB then started building like 20 ports again afterwards ... )

The good news is that with Anbeeld's mod this doesn't seem to happen at least.

[Syt]

I hope the AI will figure out at some point how to fight enemies with whom they don't share a land border ...

The war between Two Sicilies and Tuscany, part of the Italian Unification, is entirely fought in the Austria-Prussia-Russia triangle ...