Redoing events ... where are we and why so slow?

[loki100]

This has been raised a few times so thought it might help to give some information as to what is going on (and indeed what is not).

The context is this part of the forum has a lot of event modifications, mainly by Christophe, some by me. These are a mixture of making things work (the various unification chains and some of the longer chains such as the Balkans). With now a fair bit of play experience, most of us are aware of the holes in these. Some are simple, for eg Garibaldi got stuck in Sicily, ending the campaign against the Bourbons (never my favourite biscuit). Some are complex, ie with experience we now have a better feel for the various plausible differences and how to protect key events against them.

The other strand is more chrome. Some of this is actually essential, such as improving the Far East events, more work on key alliances and so on.

So if it all exists, and it mostly does, why is it taking so long?

1) its not just a case of amending the event files you see with the game, this is non-trivial (easy to make an error) but simple enough;
2) Instead those events need to be set up using the spreadsheets and linked to the text and images that comes up in game - on the event, in the log, as a tool tip etc
3) this is both harder and easier. In some instances the syntax is easier than in the event file, in others its a bit more of a struggle. But you have two stages to get wrong (& believe me, its easy to get wrong). The old error of a mistake in the event syntax (ie as in #1) and a new error of mistake in the spreadsheet syntax. You still need to do the first to test the event works as intended.
4) time ... this was conceived as a free time project by about 5 of us in an attempt to prepare a better event pack (which the designers don't have time to) for a future patch
5) I agree to co-ordinate the work. That to me meant ensure that two people weren't working on the same theme, and that events were being coded into the proper spreadsheet and to keep the masters so we had a clean copy and were always aware of which one was most up to date. This is important as I'm currently working on Christophe's Far East chains and some of those will end up in the China file, some in Russia and some in Japan.
6) I'm not 'co-ordinating' (this is the not too subtle whinge), I'm the only one doing anythihg. Christophe has contributed an incredible amount and still offers words of advice and encouragement. Unfortunately no one else is contributing.
7) I work as a freelancer. If anyone does this you'll know this means periods of no/little work (ie no income) around periods of too much work (as you try to earn enough to live on). The good is there are times when I can put a lot of time in (and its best to get absorbed rather than dip in and dip out), the bad is there are periods of little ability to contribute ... and I like to spend some time actually playing (Endless Legends, WiTW, WiTE and ACW2 are all good time absorbers).
8) You can't do too much without a break ... or I can't. And once you are tired you run the risk of making mistakes and mistakes are hard to track down, so its far better not to do so.

If anyone wants to help, you can download the event packs here. Drop me a PM, I'll happily pass on all I've learnt and we can agree how to split up the work. As above, the events mostly exist, so its a case of transcription to a new format.

[vaalen]

Loki, thank you for your efforts. They are very much appreciated.
If I had any computer skills of value i would offer to help, but I cannot even figure out how to take and post a screenshot.

I hope people with the needed skill will respond to this post.

Best, Vaalen

[bbmike]

Maybe some kind of quick tutorial on what you are looking for?

[Pocus]

Don't put pressure on yourself in any way and I'm sure people will be grateful nonetheless

[Bohémond]

Hi guys.

Thank you for your hard work.

I will try you events as soon as ready.

Do not hesitate to ask if you need any kind of help regarding events syntax or logic.

Regards

[vaalen]

Don't put pressure on yourself in any way and I'm sure people will be grateful nonetheless

I could not agree more. I am very grateful for everything you do, whenever you can do it.

[Pocus]

Loki, I have added events for China, Russia and Japan in the just released 1.04 RC4. There was a few typos that were spotted by Bohémond with the use of the Python debugging tool (which is free and open source). I have fixed the excels too and will update the database accordingly with the 3 modified excel.

Ideally & in a nutshell, if one sentence per country can be provided indicating what are the major changes in events, that could go into the readme. Anything more and people will get lost probably.

[loki100]

Ideally & in a nutshell, if one sentence per country can be provided indicating what are the major changes in events, that could go into the readme. Anything more and people will get lost probably.

Ok

Changes are:

Italy - for AI unification south of the Po will occur and Italy will try to regain Lombardy and the Veneto if Austria is in difficulties, for the player, Garibaldi chain now works;
China - late game carve up will happen, disputes between Russia and Japan in the north, after the Boxer Rising will see loss of territory to US, Britain, France and Japan
Japan - for player, strengthen ability to take Korea, increase tension with Russia, for AI will see Naval build up after 1900
Russia - tensions with Japan most likely to lead to war, conditions for 1917 revolution changed to prior defeat against Japan, being at war (any war) and loss of key western provinces

[vaalen]

Ok

Changes are:

Italy - for AI unification south of the Po will occur and Italy will try to regain Lombardy and the Veneto if Austria is in difficulties, for the player, Garibaldi chain now works;
China - late game carve up will happen, disputes between Russia and Japan in the north, after the Boxer Rising will see loss of territory to US, Britain, France and Japan
Japan - for player, strengthen ability to take Korea, increase tension with Russia, for AI will see Naval build up after 1900
Russia - tensions with Japan most likely to lead to war, conditions for 1917 revolution changed to prior defeat against Japan, being at war (any war) and loss of key western provinces

Magnificent! Thank you, Loki.

[James D Burns]

Playing the US and came across some events that need fixing. The three force pool events from early in game were all played and only one of the three was successful. That event has returned for another playing but will not work (I select it and nothing happens for many turns now), the other two failed to re-appear.

I believe the events should all re-appear whenever a new government gets elected. Failing previous tries shouldn’t matter, so the event logic needs to be looked at.

Jim

[loki100]

Playing the US and came across some events that need fixing. The three force pool events from early in game were all played and only one of the three was successful. That event has returned for another playing but will not work (I select it and nothing happens for many turns now), the other two failed to re-appear.

I believe the events should all re-appear whenever a new government gets elected. Failing previous tries shouldn’t matter, so the event logic needs to be looked at.

Jim

thanks for this ... would encourage everyone who sees things to post them including missing text strings etc

should add to the list of amendments:

Balkan Event Chain - AI Russia more likely to go to war in 1877, strenthened Greek and Serbian armies, First and Second Balkan Wars will end (either as historical or with an alternative) by script, all should make the 1914 chain much more likely to fire

[vaalen]

Loki, as France in 1964. I got the September treaty event as an option, which I could accept or reject. It appeared int he F3 screen with no notification.

The text did not explain what it would do, other than improve relationships with Italy, not yet formed, or make relations worse. I tried for ten straight turns to accept it, but the next turn had no notification, and the same event was grey in the F3 screen, as if I had never accepted it. Finally, I rejected it.
The next turn, the event had disappeared, there was no notification, but relations with Sardinia Piedmont had gone down sixteen points.

[Pocus]

Loki et al. Please confirm reading of this message:


Here are the 3 updated files on RUS CHI JAP. We are now in version 6a for these files, to mark the gap between old official DB and modded DB. There is now a tab named CHANGELOG into each file.

[ATTACH]32851[/ATTACH]

Remarks:
Please point me to the thread about ITA events, I did not include them.
Bohémond scanned these 3 files for syntax errors and I fixed them, so they should be the ones used.
If you can fill in the changelog with the list of changed events or at least point me to the correct thread.
The official DB will be updated soon once I get ITA and possibly others files.

[James D Burns]

Figured I’d upload a save of my game right before the end of the US civil War for debug purposes.

The war started in 1859 and I sat on my lines until 1863 when my morale was back up near 100. I then proceeded to only attack with one mobile army which contained all of my 2 star and under leaders in an attempt to promote as many generals as possible. I now have lots of 3 star generals, probably way too many, the game should cap this exploit else players could drain their general pools dry. I kept trying to promote them to see how many civil war generals would spawn and never reached the max as Grant is still not in play.

It’s now the last turn of the war and Robert E Lee is poised to attack Richmond with several other Union armies adjacent to assist. That’s right the Union gets all leaders for both north and south and as far as I could tell the south got no leaders except for the Indian allied leader Stand Waite.

I currently have some odd looking stacks in Mobile and Lexington. These are there to watch what happens to the units after surrender. The cavalry at Lexington far exceed normal force pool limits so I want to see how many of the 16 divisions will stay after peace. The stuff in Mobile is all the CSA stuff I captured and a lot of smaller units that spawned in CSA territory as rebellion units recently. I left them at mobile to see if they remain as permanent units in the army or if they despawn after peace.

Some issues of note that need addressing if possible:

Neither side gets any leaders to spawn with their big armies that appear when the Civil War starts. This cripples the south.

The southern forces have a tendency to stay inside a city instead of defending outside. Richmond in particular, none of the units that start there ever left the city, they are all still inside. What you see outside is stuff that has been driven back by my advance.

The southern AI is not very active. I left many regions I took abandoned and the CSA never came back to retake them. Fredericksburg is a good example, I took it very early and then withdrew back to DC and the south never reclaimed it. It also appears the CSA never builds anything, even though I sat on my lines doing nothing for two years I don’t think it built any units or structures.

The south never attacks Norfolk. Even though all I had there were the default garrison troops it never attacked.

Cannot build gold mines out west in the regions that had gold mine events create gold mine resources. The resources are on map but I’m not allowed to build a mine. Same for iron resources in those same regions, I cannot build those but I was allowed to build an ore mine.

US morale crashes to near 0 when war erupts, this cripples conscript incomes and can ruin a game. There needs to be an event to get morale back up above 50 ASAP so conscript incomes don’t destroy all the on map armies if players haven’t bought a ton of replacement chits in anticipation ahead of time. That or give the Union 100 of each type not just militia chits.

Jim

[Pocus]

Thanks for the report. The AI should be improved in next patch. If someone could check the events dealing with leaders and then morale for Union that would be really nice.

[James D Burns]

Thanks for the report. The AI should be improved in next patch. If someone could check the events dealing with leaders and then morale for Union that would be really nice.

Thanks Pocus, one more thing you may want to take a look at is the AI's structures building routines. The US is becoming a powerhouse after 300+ turns and has built tons of all different kinds of structures, but as far as I can tell the other AI powers do not appear to have built many if any structures at all. They do build lots of Colonialism stuff, but farms, mines and factories seem to not get built at all.

The rice farms in Siam were built by the US and then seized, so don’t confuse those with AI builds. I think I built a fruit farm there as well, but I’m not 100% sure since the game isn’t open. If one is there it was my doing not the AI.

Jim

[James D Burns]

There appears to be an issue with the Crimea events as of the latest beta patch. As Britain the Crimea event fired and the Ottomans diplomacy screen says it’s offering a defensive treaty to France and Britain but there is nothing for me to respond to on Britain’s diplomacy screens. So as the event currently stands, I cannot accept the treaty and must declare war myself and form an alliance later which is what I did. AI France also declared war on its own but it did not ally later.

Here’s a save of the turn the event fired, I’ve deleted save slots 2 and 3 to save on file size let me know if you need the complete save with all three backup files:

Hmm won't let me attach the file to my post, says file is too large. I'll try and attach it again later, size is only 2.92 MB so may be a forum server issue.

24+ hrs later still can't upload file due to size limit. Have the forums file size limits been permanently changed? 2.92 MB is as small as I can make it.

Jim