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I cannot go on with my 1850 game as North German Confederation so here is the save game in 1866 just before all hell breaks lose between Prussia and Austria.

In this game I witnessed an AI Austria that has become a behemoth. Both Russia and Austria started aggressive wars against a weak Ottoman Empire and Austria ended up absorbing large chunks in the Balkans and subdued the Italian States (although they have now reactionary unified under Sardinia-Piedmont). Austria also claimed the colony of Libya out of the Ottomans and won a small skirmish against the Russians. All in all, a very nice AI experience, I must say.

Now, we are in summer 1866 and about to have the incident between Prussia and Austria. Do you have what it takes to beat the Austrians back and unify Germany?



Save game in the Dropbox link.

Think this adds to the earlier arguments from Christophe that Austria becomes too powerful in the early game. My suspicion is it is relatively rich in resources and very rich in manpower so can generate a huge army. I think the manpower was there but a lack of loyalty to the regime meant it either generated less than enthusiastic troops or was not really available for military recruitment.

Given the game engine, I wonder if the solution is for regular contentment hits in non-Germanic provinces, enough to weaken production and perhaps strip out some money? Then relax this for Hungary if the Dual Monarchy emerges - can't remember if this happens if Austria wins the 1866 show down?

That's a way...the other is to severely limit the force pool, which is way too generous now for both 'Central Powers'...

PhilThib wrote:That's a way...the other is to severely limit the force pool, which is way too generous now for both 'Central Powers'...

I like this solution. The huge armies that Austria and Prussia raise are just too large. They did not have that capacity historically.

As France, I fought three huge wars against the Austrian behemoth. They had a number of huge armies. In the first war, they had huge forces invading the ottomans, huge forces fighting me, and huge forces invading Sardinia Piedmont. I won most of the battles, which were massive, where I was outnumbered, but won because I stayed on the defense , and had fully commanded armies, which marched to the sound of the guns. They attacked not just on the Italian front, but had enough troops to attack in Alsace as well. Then they made peace with the Ottomans and started to bring huge forces to bear on me, so I accepted their offer of a useless indemnity.

After a second similar war, and a similar peace, they attacked Sardinia Piedmont again after almost conquering the Ottomans. This time, however, I had very experienced troops and greatly upgraded leaders from winning all those defensive battles, so I was able to defeat their large armies and take Vienna before their Ottoman conquest forces were able to reach the battle field. This caused their forces to dwindle away.

I must say these were some of the most challenging wars I have fought in the game, a good deal of fun.

But in all three wars, the Austrians had double or more the number of troops I had in most battles. And I had built my French army up tot he limit, at least in corps. And I had at least four fully commanded armies in Italy, and two such armies on the Alsace Lorraine front.

Kensai wrote:I cannot go on with my 1850 game as North German Confederation so here is the save game in 1866 just before all hell breaks lose between Prussia and Austria.

In this game I witnessed an AI Austria that has become a behemoth. Both Russia and Austria started aggressive wars against a weak Ottoman Empire and Austria ended up absorbing large chunks in the Balkans and subdued the Italian States (although they have now reactionary unified under Sardinia-Piedmont). Austria also claimed the colony of Libya out of the Ottomans and won a small skirmish against the Russians. All in all, a very nice AI experience, I must say.

Now, we are in summer 1866 and about to have the incident between Prussia and Austria. Do you have what it takes to beat the Austrians back and unify Germany?



Save game in the Dropbox link.

Now that you have got us interested, please let us know how this war proceeds!

If I can manage to make my game run I will continue it, obviously. If not, it's up to you!

It's not for the faint of heart, Austria is really powerful in this one and has been in and out of wars with almost every neighbor since the early 50s. Their army is huge and experienced.

PhilThib wrote:That's a way...the other is to severely limit the force pool, which is way too generous now for both 'Central Powers'...

If I understand this correctly, the at start build pools (corps and divisions) for Austria and Prussia are more or less built out. But as techs improve, not only does this allow upgrade of the at start army but adds new formations (for all powers).

So we could slow the rate of expansion of new formations for everyone - no bad thing perhaps in terms of game processing?

If we want to deal with say Austria we need an event that checks tech firing - say: RI_Percussion_Cap_Muskets

And then:

ChangeUnitPool = $uni_AUS_Gd_1840_Corps; -5

This will eliminate the first expansion but would need to be reposted for each type? Maybe leave them 1 of each so set the modifier at -4. Maybe worth recalibrating this event for all powers say to only expand by 2 units?

$uni_XXX_Gd_1840_Corps|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840_Corps|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840H_Corps|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840M_Corps|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840L_Corps|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840NG_Corps|5
$uni_XXX_Cav_1850_Corps|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840_Div|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840M_Div|5
$uni_XXX_Inf_1840N_Div|5
$uni_XXX_Cav_1850_Div|5
$uni_XXX_Cav_1850L_Div|5

Looking at the techs, it is this one that triggers a major growth in the pool (and occurs very early) so I think that is the core of the problem.

The other route, especially with Austria is to strip out manpower, loyalty and money by regular events.

You got it right 100%...something happened in the last Tech tweaks which was against my design and has generated this over inflation of units.

The tech files need to be excessively reduced with almost NO addition of new units, as the initial FP already cover the necessary amount. What happened now is that, by 1870, FP have almost doubled....

It's even worse for Austria and Germany, because the FP increase is made by nationality, so the engine adds that many units for each nationality, and you end up with 20+ extra corps for Austria or Germany...crazy

The work to be done is the following

* Slightly reduce the original FP of each nation
* Reduce strongly the early tech FP addition (make then add 0 usually, at worse 1 extra unit)
* Add more units on later techs only, so that FP reach pre-WW1 sizes only by late game

In addition, a special script shall be made for Austria and Germany, for each such techs, so that it removes from FP all additions to the non-core nations (e.g. all but Austrian-Germans for AH, all but Prussians for Germany). NB: after 1867 the Hungarians can be kept, which should give more incentive to accept the dual monarchy for Austria....

That's a cumbersome scripting task, but it should be done to better balance the game.

Another task which I would consider (I may do it when I get some time) is to add some feature that will severely harm large formations (Div and Corps) and non-colonial forces in Tropical climates....so we end seeing European native corps wandering at will through Africa with limited risks.... the main reason why the Scramble for Africa did not occur before the 1890's was the lack of protection vs Malaria, and even by 1914 it was far from efficient (see number of disease casualties in the WW1 Ost Africa campaign).

This step would probably much balance the game and avoid too fast colonial expansion

Last, but not least, all costs should be strongly increased. Everything is too cheap in the game. Both purchase and maintenance. The only dangerous aspect of that change is that IA won't cope easily with it, as it is already almost impossible for AI to proceed to build-ups in a sensible way...here again, lot of scripting might be required...

PhilThib wrote:You got it right 100%...something happened in the last Tech tweaks which was against my design and has generated this over inflation of units.

The tech files need to be excessively reduced with almost NO addition of new units, as the initial FP already cover the necessary amount. What happened now is that, by 1870, FP have almost doubled....

...

Adjusting the tech files is fairly easy. Most nations start with the breech loaders which I think is what triggers the early problem. If the gains were set to a single unit that should bring things under control. That seems to be the main issue as it adds so much to the force pools.

The next two rifle tech add no new units

Breech loading rifles adds 5 divisions and 5 brigades

Bolt action rifles add 5 divisions

Reseve formations gives +5 res corps/div/brigade

Gatling guns, Volley gun. Hothckiss and Vickers +5 fort divisions each

The rest of the gains are artillery and new units (no problem with these).

What about we reset all the +5 to +1. I can do this in the spreadsheets for formal incorporation and amend the tech files so people can apply them now.

Great idea, Loki! I hope PhilThib agrees.

Which leads me to a second question (apols).

In the spreadsheet RI_Template_Army I can find the crucial line such as:

ChangeUnitPool $uni_XXX_Gd_1840_Corps|5

But in the research tech event file I can only find:

UID = 279
Name = $RI_Name_Army_Percussion_Cap_Muskets
Alias = RI_Percussion_Cap_Muskets
ShortName = $RI_ShortName_Army_Percussion_Cap_Muskets
Text = $RI_Text_Army_Percussion_Cap_Muskets
ImageRI = MD_soldiers_equipping
IconImage = Rifle1
GenerationImage = Indic02
Triggers = RI_Percussion_Cap_Muskets
TemplateFile = RITemplateArmy
Kind = $Technology
Category = $resLand
MinDate = 1850/01/01
MaxDate = 1950/01/01
AutoGiveDate = 1950/01/01
FactionKindMustNotBe = $fatTribalNation
BasePerc = 0
Progressive = 1
MinPerc = 0
MaxPerc = 100
BaseProg = 1
MinProg = 25
ModByFriendlyFaction = 20|200
ModByCooperativeFaction = 10|100
ModByFriendlyMonopol = 100|400
ModByHostileFactionOnly = -50|-200
ModByHostileMonopol = -100|-200
ModByNeutralFaction = 10|100
ModByNeutralMonopol = 5|100
BoostBonus = 100
BoostCost = $aseMoney 50
ModByFacAttribute1 = $fatMilitary|150|0|-150

So its clearly not in that file that triggers the addition of additions to the build pools?

The additions are only handled via the Tech files IIRC.

Enclosed are the latest (land and naval), the concerned lines are shown with a yellow/red cell.

The base of FP quantities are given by nations in the 1850 GC, and those values are then "increased" by the techs (and almost instantly as rightly pointed out above).

Would these changes be able to be applied to games in progress (so long as they hadn't progressed too far) or would need to be started with a new game? I'm a few years into a new game as UK.

Those changes can be applied ingame but unfortunately it would be too late for you because most of the major changes would be triggered in the first year or so

PhilThib wrote:The additions are only handled via the Tech files IIRC.

Enclosed are the latest (land and naval), the concerned lines are shown with a yellow/red cell.

The base of FP quantities are given by nations in the 1850 GC, and those values are then "increased" by the techs (and almost instantly as rightly pointed out above).

Please forgive my usual computer ignorance, but are these files intended to be installed to PON to fix the problem?

If so, how would you install them?

Regards,

Vaalen

Hi

No, they are the spreadsheets that are the core data set for all the games events etc. You would need to use the mysterious csv splitter to convert to game files. I hate it even more than I hate the 'reginit' function for events (this being the only way you can code in 'or' commands).

But I am working up an event that will give a quick and dirty fix. It'll work in any game that is pre-1860 and take out most of the growth. If the excess have been built at least it will stop the game replacing them but applied on T1 will effectively offset the problem caused by the percussion cap muskets.

I'll make a new thread when its ready and cross-reference from this post.

Roger

loki100 wrote:Hi

No, they are the spreadsheets that are the core data set for all the games events etc. You would need to use the mysterious csv splitter to convert to game files. I hate it even more than I hate the 'reginit' function for events (this being the only way you can code in 'or' commands).

But I am working up an event that will give a quick and dirty fix. It'll work in any game that is pre-1860 and take out most of the growth. If the excess have been built at least it will stop the game replacing them but applied on T1 will effectively offset the problem caused by the percussion cap muskets.

I'll make a new thread when its ready and cross-reference from this post.

Roger

Hi Roger,

Thank you for clearing that up.

I really appreciate your working on the fix. I will gladly install it once it is ready, and start my Russian game.

As far as I can tell, this is the major problem remaining in the game, and you are fixing it.

Regards,

Vaalen

vaalen wrote:
Hi Roger,

Thank you for clearing that up.

I really appreciate your working on the fix. I will gladly install it once it is ready, and start my Russian game.

As far as I can tell, this is the major problem remaining in the game, and you are fixing it.

Regards,

Vaalen

Fix is here:

viewtopic.php?f=250&t=51423

tested and it works - even if all it does is to stop replacement of excess formations but applied to a clean start it'll resolve the problem for now.

Fix is here:

viewtopic.php?f=250&t=51423

tested and it works - even if all it does is to stop replacement of excess formations but applied to a clean start it'll resolve the problem for now.[/quote]

Thank you, Roger. I am excited to try this !

Regards,

Vaalen

Wile you're focused on force pools, can you look at unit removals as well? I know in the 1880 scenario Canadian units will vanish from the game after some tech upgrades. I think other non-British troops do as well but it's been over a year since I played/saw the issue and I don't recall specifics. But I know for sure I had built out the Canadian force pool and everything disappeared after a tech upgrade and the Canadian force pool never came back for the 5-10 years I played beyond that point.

To be clear, not only did the force pools vanish all on map units did as well with no text explanation given.

Jim

I've never played Britain so never seen that effect. I'm pretty sure that in 'Manufacturing Italy' I tangled with Canadian units in the UK (if I recall I was forcing the inhabitants of Bristol to learn Italian at the time).

If it happens in an ongoing game a quick fix would be use the Change Force pool command (as in the new event), point it to the Canadian corps and make the modifier positive - that would restore the force pool - but have no idea why the units would disappear on map. Could it be linked to Canada gaining Dominion status?

Pretty sure it was linked to a tech upgrade. I remember having units I built auto-upgrade immediately once they completed construction and then more units appeared in the force pool. So basically there were endless units I could build because of the instant upgrades causing the force pools to refresh. This behavior happened after/when the Canadian's vanished, prior to that nothing insta-upgraded.

So instead of new units being added to the force pools, old units remained and had to be upgraded to get the new tech. My guess is the Canadian's had something different happen that removed their old units and also their force pool stack. But no new units materialized to replace them and since the old units were removed nothing could be upgraded. Just a guess though.

Jim