Revolutions, a bit much?

[ez1]

Ok, the 19th century was pretty unstable, but hey ho, not all countries are France, which sets the record for most unstable country ever after the French Revolution, with 12 successive governments, putting Mexico, with 8, to shame.

Speaking of which, why isn't France as incredibly unstable in-game?

The whole "Let's have a revolution because I don't like a law and the way you looked at me" mechanic is just ridiculous IMHO, tedious and repetitive and way over-sensitive. Dial it back from 11, PDX, it's gotten to be a parody of itself.

[Kimlin]

I’ve had to deal with 1 revolution in nearly 200 hours of playing. What exactly are you doing?

[kgkong]

Part of the France issue might stem to a problem with characters being basically immortal. A new head of state seldom takes over for France and so they're never really adjusting their laws and really screwing with their political groups in any way. It takes pushing France into an economic crisis of some kind to force a revolution on them. Cut 'em off from needed good, raid their convoys non-stop. France starts off very stable at this point in the game.

[ez1]

Playing Sikh, a God-forsaken country with no economy, no laws, and a bunch of alcoholic opium addict generals. I let a few fire just to kill off the landowners or the priesthood, but even after they've been marginalized you still can't advance the secular state law. Why, IDK.

[kgkong]

Originally posted by ez1:

Playing Sikh, a God-forsaken country with no economy, no laws, and a bunch of alcoholic opium addict generals. I let a few fire just to kill off the landowners or the priesthood, but even after they've been marginalized you still can't advance the secular state law. Why, IDK.

Explain? You can't activate the law to start enacting it? Or when you do, you're having no success in it ever passing?

[ez1]

I wanted to enact secular state; it had about a 15% chance to start but radicalized the priesthood. I figured, let them have their revolution, when they become marginalized (since they were the only ones opposing it) the law will sail though.

Silly me, I forgot the PDX RNG-Trollomatic (TM), which then gave me endless stalls and bureaucratic infighting because my play was obviously too successful. Any success has to be met with negative RNG turned to 11.

[kgkong]

Just because a group only has 5% or less clout size, doesn't mean that they only have 5% political power compared to the rest of the political parties. This mechanic hasn't changed with 1.1. How powerful the political strength they have is weighted by wealth based on the supporting pop groups who have political involvement and their SoL.

Not to mention, the devout groups get a big bonus to political power just from having State Religion or Religious Schools. Combine that, you're looking at a big uptick in power even with a tiny clout size for them. Not an RNG thing here, it's just much more likely you haven't taken into consideration political power bonuses. Events can also modify how much political power a group can have too. Gotta be extra mindful with your event popups so you don't do something counterproductive like give the devouts more power when you're trying to remove their laws.

[ez1]

So then what's the point of the revolution play if -- even when marginalized -- they apparently are not? It's a bit the "have your cake and eat it too," is it not?

And also, marginalized is not marginalized then, is it? "Marginalized" means they have no clout. Or it should.

[kgkong]

Originally posted by ez1:

So then what's the point of the revolution play if -- even when marginalized -- they apparently are not? It's a bit the "have your cake and eat it too," is it not?

And also, marginalized is not marginalized then, is it? "Marginalized" means they have no clout. Or it should.

They're marginalized because they're literally a massive minority. They lack the physical manpower in the actual political group itself.

So if you have State Religion and Level 2 Religious Schools, you are adding 50% political strength to the Devout.
At 5% clout, assuming they have an average SoL rating from pop group support at 10, it's roughly gonna turn every individual member into 1.5 people. Add in all the additional wealth support the devout gets from Clergy pop groups, and sometimes the other upper class pop groups, this can amplify their political power to being in some cases equal to 5 people. Meaning that an individual person in the Devout has the wealth and influence (or affluence) of 5 people from your typical politically involved pop group. Just an idea of how powerful they can get, and they can sometimes get more powerful than that.

Right now I also have two marginalized groups the same clout size 0.8% and they both have a different amount of political power. One has 1.12k political power and the other has 1.04k political power. But they don't have 1.12k and 1.04k total politically involved pop group members supporting them, they have a bit more than that actually, I haven't added it all up but it does exceed these amounts the tooltips show in the government window for the clout. But it's because they represent poorer pop groups and lower SoL pop groups, and most of them aren't politically involved, this number is no where near close representing how many people are actually in the political group. In order for either of these groups to have the political strength of one normal politically involved political group member, they have to muster together 3 to 5 people for me. So even if they did grow their clout to a combined 20%, I could still enact a law they both oppose and they won't instigate a critical revolution movement. At best, 50-60% radicalism towards the revolt itself.

My landowners group on the other hand has a clout size of 23.4%, but they have a political strength that vastly out numbers the combined efforts of the rest of my political groups, that even just ticking them to -9 unhappy, they trigger a revolution movement, and once they tick into angry range, it's flying up quickly to critical status. (Partially because this particular example is the rebalanced radicalism change to enacting Slavery Banned)

[ez1]

Clearly the devs have studied Sophistry. Everything in this game, at least how you explain away the paradoxes (now I know why they chose that name!) is anti-intuitive. "Marginalize" an interest group into the ground but it is of no avail becasue they are even stonger when brought to the brink.

Alice in Wonderland thinking going on here; a bit of straightforward mechanics one on a blue moon would not hurt the twisted masters of Paradox too much, would it?

[kgkong]

Originally posted by ez1:

Clearly the devs have studied Sophistry. Everything in this game, at least how you explain away the paradoxes (now I know why they chose that name!) is anti-intuitive. "Marginalize" an interest group into the ground but it is of no avail becasue they are even stonger when brought to the brink.

Alice in Wonderland thinking going on here; a bit of straightforward mechanics one on a blue moon would not hurt the twisted masters of Paradox too much, would it?

They're "even stronger" not because of a flaw in the game design. No, they're just incredibly political powerful to begin with in a lot of nations. They adjusted how radicalism works with different legislation you enact, so revolutions are more prone in the legislation changes that actually caused revolutions. My god is enacting Slavery Banned a PITA now for me. And removing State Religion? Even with a pretty low clout size, just the 30% political strength bonus the Devout get from being state religion is powerful, adds to a real challenge. Add in any sympathy between political groups and their leader characters to the law you're trying to remove, and it can amplify how much political strength you're actually up against.

[ez1]

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Originally posted by ez1:

Clearly the devs have studied Sophistry. Everything in this game, at least how you explain away the paradoxes (now I know why they chose that name!) is anti-intuitive. "Marginalize" an interest group into the ground but it is of no avail becasue they are even stonger when brought to the brink.

Alice in Wonderland thinking going on here; a bit of straightforward mechanics one on a blue moon would not hurt the twisted masters of Paradox too much, would it?

They're "even stronger" not because of a flaw in the game design. No, they're just incredibly political powerful to begin with in a lot of nations. They adjusted how radicalism works with different legislation you enact, so revolutions are more prone in the legislation changes that actually caused revolutions. My god is enacting Slavery Banned a PITA now for me. And removing State Religion? Even with a pretty low clout size, just the 30% political strength bonus the Devout get from being state religion is powerful, adds to a real challenge. Add in any sympathy between political groups and their leader characters to the law you're trying to remove, and it can amplify how much political strength you're actually up against.

My point exactly. Must everything be anti-intuitive? Can't anything be straightforward? You take the hit of the revolution to marginalize the group to pass the law, seems a fair trade-off. Why do the devs insist on perpetual stagnation and borderline trolling?

[kgkong]

Originally posted by ez1:

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

They're "even stronger" not because of a flaw in the game design. No, they're just incredibly political powerful to begin with in a lot of nations. They adjusted how radicalism works with different legislation you enact, so revolutions are more prone in the legislation changes that actually caused revolutions. My god is enacting Slavery Banned a PITA now for me. And removing State Religion? Even with a pretty low clout size, just the 30% political strength bonus the Devout get from being state religion is powerful, adds to a real challenge. Add in any sympathy between political groups and their leader characters to the law you're trying to remove, and it can amplify how much political strength you're actually up against.

My point exactly. Must everything be anti-intuitive? Can't anything be straightforward? You take the hit of the revolution to marginalize the group to pass the law, seems a fair trade-off. Why do the devs insist on perpetual stagnation and borderline trolling?

These advance and complex systems that are made up of simple systems, are only viewed as counter-intuitive (which is the word you're looking for, not anti-intuitive, btw) when the person has a limited understanding of all the topics involved. In this case, you have socio-economics, micro economics, macro economics, political science, and a combination of other sub sects of sociology and economics at play. Frankly, it's really not an easy topic to understand for most people and that's understandable. No biggie. It's just for most people it's gonna take them more time to grasp how the bigger picture works when you start throwing in a number of influencing variables to a system that is beyond their comprehension level.

[ez1]

I think the word you were looking for is advanced, btw. I've written nine books on history, don't talk down, please. Like all the rest, it just leads to stalemates and Not Much Fun. Isn't a game supposed to be a fun challenge, not a troll-fest?

[kgkong]

Originally posted by ez1:

I think the word you were looking for is advanced, btw. I've written nine books on history, don't talk down, please. Like all the rest, it just leads to stalemates and Not Much Fun. Isn't a game supposed to be a fun challenge, not a troll-fest?

Wasn't talking down to you at all. Just reminding that these topics do get very complicated and difficult to understand the moment you throw in a number of variables that exceeds most people's ability to comprehend so many things. You've made a few comments that seem to indicate that you don't quite grasp political science and economics as well, hence why I've responded to try and include extra information on how these features of real life are working mechanically in game.

[Kimlin]

Originally posted by ez1:

I think the word you were looking for is advanced, btw. I've written nine books on history, don't talk down, please. Like all the rest, it just leads to stalemates and Not Much Fun. Isn't a game supposed to be a fun challenge, not a troll-fest?

Interesting, which books?