loki100 wrote:Some of Christophe's ideas either change the game concepts (so I can understand their reluctance) or rely on other changes to the game engine (in particular trying to bring about a more dynamic diplomatic system), so again maybe better material for a mod than an official patch.
Hi Loki
actually, I did not totally dropped the diplomatic/strategic AI improving of PON, which is seriously wanting in this field (none of this is criticism, a monster game required too much involvment/work in the other fields to get the game out in the time limits, and even super heroes have to sleep sometimes) -
even if I had a severe case of blues (loss of hope combined to burn out) when I realized we still were on our own for s quite some time ...
actually I will test basic mechanisms of diplomacy with Calvinus future card driven 19th century boardgame I'll take part to build - I guess Calvinus, like myself, want simpple and "natural /logical" mechanisms - those I have in mind since ... 1990 or so, when I dreamt of this game with Philippe Thjibaut, "A place in the sun" was supposed to be a boardgame then
IF those ideas are retained, and are proven valid (or other SIMPLE mechanisms, if they are proven invalid) THEN I guess we'll be able to import and adapt them into PON - it's easier when you don't have scores of areas and economic factors to manage (and bugs to correct)
basically it should be :
- goal-driven (none of this sandbox, so goal personalized for nations, identified areas) - Austria can't colonize but cares about german and Italian states, then only for Balkans and internal stability, Russia has a trade off between reforms and strenth (military+economic) on one side, Ideology (autocracy) on the other side, then a question of balancing VP to gain for not reforming with game advantages .. Englmand, conversely, and so on ...
- therefore natural allies and enemies should derive easily from situation (
when you have Milan in competition with habsburg and venice and Calais in English hands, you quickly understand the Turk isn't your enemy, and meddling with Portuguese is a loss of time, when you want to unify your nation, conquer designed colonies with identified competitors, rule the seas, get or reclaim national provinces, get specific alliances
(a simplification of economic/strategic interest no need to make AI compute than Italy must side with britain cause coal and blockade and colonies, Italy will support Britain, would it be versus Russia, period !) or influence given minors (Austria and - therefore, with cards, specific crisis with specific reasons, easy to read, understand, and using game natural concepts - morale-stake-alliances-militay strength-diplomatic value) limited to historical plausible reasons (we won't make scores of cards) with spcecific crisis/revolts (irredentism/ colonial unrest)
lots of simple mechansisms, in my head, easy with few units, areas, factors ...
presently, PON :
- Isn't reactive enough - you can attack Bavaria, Austria won't move, ditto, a crisis between Guatemala and Britain leaves the USA indifferent ... and a badboy wouldn't be the solution
- Snowballs - there just isn't enough corrective mechanisms (the little badboy there is is just a way to make mega alliances more difficult, but with unwanted effects (Serbia dislikes Russia if Russia is too powerful, if Italy loves france, she'll never like Prussia and ally her ...even against Austria)
- Crisis module isn't what it should be, for many reasons - and acts not as a severe trade off enforcement, but like a VP randomizer. difficult to redo it from scratch, it's a disconnected game in the game, different inputs to begin with ...
- alliances and peace system out of the scope (separate peaces causing alliances to break, alliances war ùmechanisms not really satisfying, allies fight separate wars, even operationally)
- there is no AI "strategic thinking", no great power planning according to what other powers do, bad relations provoke forever repetitive crisis just like badboy did in Paradox games - powers pursue their goals in parallel (and 80% of VP come from industrialization anyway)
- all this can be adressed but huge/numerous factors and intricacies in the game make it difficult to correct simply - plus it is very time consuming
so I guess it will perhaps be simpler to build a theoretical model( VP, mechanisms, crisis, interests), experiment and tune it, and THEN to (try to) adapt it to the hugely complex PON - at least I hope !
If it can be done anyway, Calvinus, Philthib and pocus will know real time ...
not tomorrow still
thanks for your outstanding job, Loki
(and agree, Unfortunately, Egypt and persia were not treated like Morocco or Tunisia - still somehow formally independant for some time at least for Morroco - which deprives us from correct flow for Mahdi, Gordon, Kitchener, fashoda, but it would require lots of changes, structural)
cheers
Christophe
