Italian Unification

[loki100]

I've bundled together all the various discussions around 3 parts of this chain into a revised 'Italian Unification Events.sct', so all you need to do is to copy this into your events file and it will form the basis of the game. Strongly suggest do a back up of the original though as this replaces some vanilla events.

There are 3 parts to the changes.

The entire Garibaldi chain is replaced, the original saw the great man turn rebel in Sicily and make no more progress. This will lead to a showdown in Naples, at the moment I've set it so there is a 75% chance of Garibaldi winning and the Two Sicilies joining Italy. Event 'ITA_GaribaldiCalabria1860' is key here, change the 75% if you feel its too much.

I've put in a fix for the alternate unification chain (this only applies to the AI) as for some reason the AI only plays the unification card on Rome. This produces a high probability that Italy south of the Po will unify by 1865 with a low chance of open civil war between Piedmont and the Two Sicilies. These can be found called 'secondary unification' and apply to Tuscany, Parma and the Two Sicilies (the AI seems to grab Rome by itself), If you don't like the civil war outcome (only applies if Italy is AI) then remove 'Two Sicilies War', and the two events called 'back to where we started'. This is to compensate for the diplomatic AI not following instructions, so hopefully this is a temporary fix but will see an AI Italy (south of the Po) form on a regular basis.

The final set make the Italian AI more willing to grab the Austrian provinces if Austria is in deep trouble (loss of Wien, war with Germany or Russia). Again these are AI only, but offer some means for the Italian AI to gain its goals in the north (and again its a work around given the limits of the diplomatic AI).

I've tested them all and they work but haven't tested them in a game. So if anyone uses them, would be grateful for feedback, in particular whether when Italy is under the AI it is more likely to unify.

I've not touched the Piombieres part of this chain. There are a lot of good suggestions but I think this needs more work on force pools and the diplomatic routines (especially getting the AI to honour defensive alliances).

[ATTACH]27054[/ATTACH]

The file is .zip so will open with 7z (freeware) and most similar programmes.

[HerrDan]

I'll test it and give you feedback. I really love this game, but playing a game without ai unifying Italy is really disapointing, so many times I lost interest in the game because of that.
I thank you in advance for trying to improve our game experience.
As soon as I test the events I'll let you know.
Please answer me if it's going to affect an ongoing game or will I have to start a new game?

[Jim-NC]

Welcome to the forums HerrDan

[HerrDan]

Thank you very much Jim-NC!

[loki100]

Thank you very much Jim-NC!

Hi just to say, you need to clear your pm box. However, since this relates to the events above, here's the answer (as far as know):

Hi

hard to say, the game does see unexpected wars, so this maybe one of them. You need peace for Piombieres so you could end the current war by putting this event in the italy file:

SelectFaction = $CMN
StartEvent = stop Piedmont Austrian war|1|1|NULL|NULL|NULL|NULL

Actions

SelectFaction = $ITA
SettleWhitePeace = ALL

EndEvent

The war shouldn't be due to my scripts, as they have tests that either Austria has lost Wien or is at war with Germany or Russia but it might be (I find these complex events are more art than science to write). The events are written to make them fire up to 2 times so if the war restarts after you have run the above, then it must be my script and I can have a look at why.

Delete the peace event after it has fired, it won't work again but its best to keep the event folders uncluttered

R

[Christophe.Barot]

great job Loki

about unexpected wars, I just saw one in my test german game, I declared war (at last) on Britain (to correct Nigerian cities not going to german protectorate- some possible gains in gold coast, new guinea, possible south africa expected too) - weirdly, US declared on britain, the diplomatic AI part is indeed to fix

[HerrDan]

Thank you Loki. (I just didn't understand why to clear my pm box.)
The event solved the problem, although no event appeared in the log I saw that they weren't at war anymore.
Just another question, when will Austria end their defensive pact with Russia? I'm afraid that might be a problem when I have to go to war with them.
Thank you again Roger.

D.

[loki100]

Thank you Loki. (I just didn't understand why to clear my pm box.)
The event solved the problem, although no event appeared in the log I saw that they weren't at war anymore.
Just another question, when will Austria end their defensive pact with Russia? I'm afraid that might be a problem when I have to go to war with them.
Thank you again Roger.

D.

I'm not sure when that pact appears - around 1878? (I'm pretty sure it was never signed in my game, just the Austro-German alliance) Anyway no need to worry about - unfortunately we think that the AI never answers a defensive pact so you are safe - one of the many reasons why most of the scripts and events we are playing around with are to try and scaffold this aspect of the AI's actions.

Good the war didn't restart, then you had a random event rather than my script going well off the reservation

R

[HerrDan]

Well I'm still in 1862 (January), but I'll give you feedback about what happened so far. It was interesting to see Austria declaring war against France and Piemont on the event "Piemont on war footing", although the results really frustrated me, Austria easily crushed Piemonte and France and destroyed all my hopes of seeing a transfer of Lombardia to Piemonte happening for the first time in my pon experience (at least in that event, because I really hope Italy will unify soon).
I formed Norddeutscher Bund without firing a shot and gained a short cb against Austria in the process, but I didn't use it as I was a little afraid of the 199 morale austrians (after beating the french), and mainly because I think it's too early and I still want to test Barot's change on the event of Nikolsburg (I think the minimun date is set to 1866).
I have no idea if I'm supposed to know of "any Garibaldi" appearing in the italian peninsula, but until now I havent heard anything about it (and as I know that it's supposed to happen before 1862 I'm really apprehensive).
So here it is, please tell me your opinion Loki, do you think it's ok until now? Or something is wrong here?

D.

[loki100]

Well I'm still in 1862 (January), but I'll give you feedback about what happened so far. It was interesting to see Austria declaring war against France and Piemont on the event "Piemont on war footing", although the results really frustrated me, Austria easily crushed Piemonte and France and destroyed all my hopes of seeing a transfer of Lombardia to Piemonte happening for the first time in my pon experience (at least in that event, because I really hope Italy will unify soon).
I formed Norddeutscher Bund without firing a shot and gained a short cb against Austria in the process, but I didn't use it as I was a little afraid of the 199 morale austrians (after beating the french), and mainly because I think it's too early and I still want to test Barot's change on the event of Nikolsburg (I think the minimun date is set to 1866).
I have no idea if I'm supposed to know of "any Garibaldi" appearing in the italian peninsula, but until now I havent heard anything about it (and as I know that it's supposed to happen before 1862 I'm really apprehensive).
So here it is, please tell me your opinion Loki, do you think it's ok until now? Or something is wrong here?

D.

Hi, fascinating to hear of the range of outcomes, but I do think AI Austria is going to win most of its wars against another AI at the moment.

Garibaldi depends on a starting event King of Sicily dies, there are then which has 6 chances to fire at 50% per month (so it should work 98% of games but could fail). However all the events are coded as 'ITA' so will not appear unless you are Italy. As another player you should see if south Italy is ITA or still SIC held by looking at military control or hover the mouse over one of the provinces. The main events are coded to work in 1867 (I kept very close to the vanilla event structure), the key there is that the AI takes Lazio by itself (which it seems to do). So at the stage you are in the game, that sounds ok.

R

[HerrDan]

Thank you very much Roger for answering my post and p.m. As the autrians are very powerful (although I'm rank 1 in military since the late 50s, and for the first time in my games I achieved the "most powerful army in Europe" mission) I closed my relations with The Russian Empire to the point that they offered me a defensive treaty in the late 50s. So now more than ever I don't really fear the austrians, specially as I have good relations with France, Russia and Piemont. I'm just waiting the event of the alliance with Italy to defeat the austrians soundly, well, not THAT soundly as I know I'll have to keep good relations with them later on, and although I think it's great for Germany to have Russia as ally, as it makes Germany almost invincible (who fears the french after all?), I'd better have Austria as an ally as the borders we share with them are not that easy to defend in case of war, specially fighting the french at the same time (as I know a conflit with France is unavoidable). And after all I love Austria and can't resist their wonderful music and marches haha...(and of course everyone who plays as Germany wants to win the first world war fighting a war on two fronts, that's such an incredible demonstration of power! haha...).
I'll keep giving you feedback about my game as it goes on.

D.

[Kensai]

Hi, fascinating to hear of the range of outcomes, but I do think AI Austria is going to win most of its wars against another AI at the moment.

I think that too. What could we do about it? Perhaps in the next patch: limit the force pool of Austria until some event in 1870? This will mean that Austria, normally, would lose both the Italian and the German wars of unification. I believe that if the player does not intervene (say he plays USA or Japan) the game should allow 4 out of 5 times the unification of said nations. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is unbalanced. Ideally a game that is balanced gives most of the times a result that is close to the historical reality if left alone (on AI).

[HerrDan]

I agree with you completelly Kensai. As I told Roger, I think Austria is a bit too strong in the game (and France too weak) and not seeing Italy or Germany unifying is really frustrating when playing a historical game, it's hard to imagine Europe without them as the 20th century aproaches. The main reason I started playing again was seeing Loki's (Roger) rework of the italian unification chain on the forum, so I decided to give it a try.
The game is really wonderful, I fell in love at first sight, but that particular thing of not seeing Italy forming (I usually play as Germany, so it wasn't a problem unifying my country) made me stop playing it many times before.

D.

[loki100]

re Austria

The ideal is to work out why, in game compared to real life, it is so powerful and my view is it was due to limited loyalties. I know its set at the end of the PoN timeline but Hasek's Good Soldier Svejk gives a superb insight into the realities of the Austrian army. The officers were usually German and didn't always speak the languages of their troops (especially those of north or south slav origin). Equally, apart from the German regiments, willingness to get killed for the Emperor was limited.

So what I would suggest is to model the nationalities of the army. Limit the 'German' force pool so that Austria needs to field a multi-national army and then give them a malus against combat capacity. I'd make this even stronger for reserve formations. That way Austria can have a realistic army, but needs to be very careful in how it uses it?

But this needs care, most observers really expected Austria to win in 1866, not least that in 1815 there was little doubt that the Austrian army was far more competent than Prussia.

The other fix may be in terms of war weariness and how this has an impact. Or to look at improving France's reserve pool? Lots to test I fear.

[Kensai]

most observers really expected Austria to win in 1866, not least that in 1815 there was little doubt that the Austrian army was far more competent than Prussia.

I have seen some documentaries on this matter. I think more precisely it should read "most external observers" expected Austria to win. In reality the Prussian army had already done many mentality and organization reforms (thanks to His genius, truly) and was better equipped with new technology rifles (Dreyse needle guns). The Prussians scored an unexpected victory for the French and the other German States, but I guess inside the Prussian General Staff they were quite confident they could pull it through. I don't believe Bismarck would have given his permission for this conflict if it wasn't a relatively sure bet.

The Austrian army in game should already be made of other nations. Perhaps by limiting the Austrian-borne units and forcing the player or AI to have the penalties of more foreign subfaction units we can achieve the goal, as you propose it, loki100!

PS. Seeing the numbers on the field screens in Q-Kee's AAR, is is almost obvious that both the player and the AI had been able to field MORE men than it was historically possible. I think we see a general pattern here, there is need for updates in the force pools (and their subfaction analogies, where appropriate) beyond the Imperialism allowances of the ruler(s). I had proposed three dates to do this, together with the structure quotas: 1850, 1880, 1910. More thought on this is obviously needed.

[HerrDan]

I have seen some documentaries on this matter. I think more precisely it should read "most external observers" expected Austria to win. In reality the Prussian army had already done many mentality and organization reforms (thanks to His genius, truly) and was better equipped with new technology rifles (Dreyse needle guns). The Prussians scored an unexpected victory for the French and the other German States, but I guess inside the Prussian General Staff they were quite confident they could pull it through. I don't believe Bismarck would have given his permission for this conflict if it wasn't a relatively sure bet.

The Austrian army in game should already be made of other nations. Perhaps by limiting the Austrian-borne units and forcing the player or AI to have the penalties of more foreign subfaction units we can achieve the goal, as you propose it, loki100!

PS. Seeing the numbers on the field screens in Q-Kee's AAR, is is almost obvious that both the player and the AI had been able to field MORE men than it was historically possible. I think we see a general pattern here, there is need for updates in the force pools (and their subfaction analogies, where appropriate) beyond the Imperialism allowances of the ruler(s). I had proposed three dates to do this, together with the structure quotas: 1850, 1880, 1910. More thought on this is obviously needed.

Yes, to most "external observers" maybe, but the prussian army was better equipped and far better trained in general than the austrians. The prussian army went through many reforms in the early 60s, including universal conscription that gave them a huge advantage over the outdated austrian army, not to mention the prussian railwat system that was far more developed than that of Austria and gave the prussians the possibility to better suply its army and specially to concentrate its forces more rapidly. The austrians only had advantage in heavy cavalry, but that was no longer a decisive arm on the battlefield. I'm pretty sure that Bismarck knew very well what he was doing.

I think the solution proposed by Loki is great indeed and it would solve our "problem".

PS: I'm already in 1864 in my game, and I'll keep you updated as soon as "something new" happens.

[Q-Kee]

The problem was also Austrian leadership, both in the field and in planning. The AI is just a better manager of affairs than the historic ones, that must be why Austria is more successful in PON Out of curiosity, did anyone have serious troubles to beat AI Austria as S-P or Prussia? Because if not, the game is not all that unbalanced after all.

If you change parameters, keep in mind the AI does not get as big a malus as a human player, and it builds those stacks of doom with 23% malus anyways so not much would be changed by introducing more malus for subject nations' corps.

loki, does this pack include something I do not have already, and if yes, can I install it now (in 1867) resp. will it have any effect still? I'd love to see Italy united, even if they don't get Milano :P

[loki100]

in my AAR, in the first war with Austria (this was after unification south of the Po and beating up the Ottomans = experienced generals) I basically wrecked them by standing on the defense in good terrain, 1880s techs mean limited frontage so their numerical advantage was somewhat negated. More or less destroyed their regulars then had a morale etc advantage over their reserves. Second war was easier as they hadn't really recovered. The advantage by then is they were fielding reserves and militia, I had a balanced army with lots of guns, guards, cavalry as well as experienced line infantry. It was scary though.

Some of the events should still work - depends how far you are into 1867, but the south of the Po events will still fire (if not extend the end dates into 1868, should do the trick). The third set of changes will make Italy more interested in risking war for the northern provinces ... if Austria is having a bad time of things

edit - to above, just done some reading on the 1866 war. Hadn't realised how bad the Austrian logistics were or what a muppet Benedek was. Still with better command, even given the technological advantage of the Prussian rifles, its possible to see how the Austrians could have avoided defeat.

[HerrDan]

Q-Kee, austrian defeat also involves austrian leadership and specially prussian leadership, which was great (Motlke was surely ahead of his time, and certainly was one of the best strategists of all time), but I think the logistic factors were the key (as most of the times) in the outcome of austro-prussian war.

The problem with Austria being too powerful isn't that great of a problem to players (at least it wasn't to me), but here we're talking about a more "realistic Europe", and Loki's idea to force austria to field a multi-national army would do wonders to improve game realism as it was really the case in history. I think that in my game the austrians could take on anyone in Europe as easily as they did with France and Piemont, and it's not realistic at all. So, with that being said, the issue is to have a more "balanced and realistic" game I think and I want to help this project.

D.

[Kensai]

I agree with HerrDan. Q-Kee, as I told you, the best test is to see what AIvsAI does. If Austria wins most of the times, as it happens, the game is unbalanced. We should strive to get the historical outcome most often than not when the game is on autopilot. Loki's solution is relatively light and potentially very effective. It is my understanding that this is also very historical.

[HerrDan]

I would also like to understand better what the game understand as "economic rank", although I play as Prussia (at the moment North German Confederation) and I do try to improve my economy most of the time, (even in detriment to military, as I think the best backing to a strong army is a powerful industrial base) I think it's maybe a little too much to be in first place in the economy rank as early as 1864 (if it was in 1890-1900 I would understand very well as unified Germany was really an industrial powerhouse).

So can you guys give some clarification on the issue? What does the game take into account in this case?

[Kensai]

You said it yourself: to the detriment of your military. The AI does not know how to do things unbalanced so it is easy to surpass it in certain aspects. I think the solution to this and the oversized armies earlier on is the one I have proposed for a long time now. An updated Includes file that makes the 1850 starting force, structure, colonial pools much more restricted and two further events in 1880 and 1910 that update these pools up to the max extension.

[Q-Kee]

loki, I have that script of yours that should activate the secondary, alternative chain of events for Italian unification, it just has not fired yet or is slowly starting to - I don't know, Rome has been "unified" 3 turns ago but I read here that Rome usually does, while the rest does not. Would it be a good idea to change things now by installing the new pack?

To all, that is what I meant by bad leadership both in the field and in planning - logictics, of course, since an army marches on its belly, but also all the ground work involved starting with training both of officers and men, equipment (not resupply of, but basic outfitting and keeping up with recent technology), development of functioning command structures, communications, coordination (without being influenced by personal issues), and of course a general staff. Then comes the rest, like formulating war goals, planning for achieving those and for faililng in pursuing them, formulating clear orders from the highest authority (the Emperor) on downwards to the last lieutnant, and all the other stuff that got in the way of Austrian military like lacking respect for the enlisted in general and especially ethnical issues. Besides the ethnical problem which the Prussians did not have, the Austrians were inferior to their adversaries in all these aspects but this did not show in the plain numbers by which the power of a military is often gauged.

The episode at Königrätz illustrates it quite well I think, when the blue clad Prussians cleared the Austrians from a wooden stretch and the Austrian officers tasked with retaking it ordered their troops in their bright white uniforms forward into it with the order "in these woods there is the Maria-Theresien-Orden to be won" (medal for valor which could be earned both by officers and enlisted solely by feats of arms, not by noble ancestry and influence) - the troops responded enthusiastically and where picked off at leisure when advancing on and entering into those woods, standing out in their white coats like range targets.

About balancing the game, it's my first game (besides a trial run) and nobody but me makes any wars so I cannot really judge it. I just caution that adding more command malus by ethnic diversity might not achieve what you want, since the AI neglects command malus anyways and prefers to make up for it with numbers, so either the maximum for command malus has to be higher and also applied to the AI in full, or the change should be in troop quality (cohesion f.ex.).

From what I gather from loki's ROP AAR it's handled a bit like that there, Prussia has quality and Austria has quantity, no?

BTW, there is a Croatian corps that appeared in the list in my previous game, but could never be built - as soon as the prerequisites (it gave a numerical indicator) reached the level the tool tip asked for, it just said "cannot be built here". Would have been a nice corps, the only with arty, light inf and cav!

[loki100]

loki, I have that script of yours that should activate the secondary, alternative chain of events for Italian unification, it just has not fired yet or is slowly starting to - I don't know, Rome has been "unified" 3 turns ago but I read here that Rome usually does, while the rest does not. Would it be a good idea to change things now by installing the new pack?

...

From what I gather from loki's ROP AAR it's handled a bit like that there, Prussia has quality and Austria has quantity, no?

BTW, there is a Croatian corps that appeared in the list in my previous game, but could never be built - as soon as the prerequisites (it gave a numerical indicator) reached the level the tool tip asked for, it just said "cannot be built here". Would have been a nice corps, the only with arty, light inf and cav!

for the pack, yes what I was trying to pick up on was that the AI seems to grab Rome but not the rest. The events were coded to fire between 1/1867 and 7/1867 so if you are past that date they won't work. All I'd do is amend the end date to say 1868/06/01 and you should be fine. its the three events called 'secondary unification' that you need to amend.

RoP does indeed model this far better, as you say its quality vs quantity, but the drivers are the opening armies, the Prussian units simply have better stats (so great for a traditional single war AGE game but less so for the 70 years of PoN) and the way money-men-supplied drive your recruitment strategy. Crudely Austria doesn't have the cash to raise good units so relies on line battalions, Prussia has the money but lacks manpower, so you may as well recruit the very best you can. Its one of the clever ways that you end acting realistically while having some flexibility. Certainly playing Austria, I often raise as much of the elite units as I can and don't use militia, but this is limited by the severe cash shortage you face.

PoN uses a much simpler distinction of Gds-Line-Militia, so I'm less sure how to use those building blocks, except at the force pool level?

When I was sorting out the countries I forced Austria to release at the end of my PoN AAR, I found the building blocks for Czech, Croat etc formations, but I'm pretty sure the AI Austrian army never used them.

[Q-Kee]

PoN uses a much simpler distinction of Gds-Line-Militia, so I'm less sure how to use those building blocks, except at the force pool level?

When I was sorting out the countries I forced Austria to release at the end of my PoN AAR, I found the building blocks for Czech, Croat etc formations, but I'm pretty sure the AI Austrian army never used them.

I have not the slightest idea I think it would be quite simple to limit the number of guard corps that can be built - I have 6, but 1 or 2 would be more realistic maybe. Can the stats of the line infantry be modded in the models file? If yes cohesion value could be altered, or supply needs to reflect bad logistics. Tbh I would not use that mod myself, I really enjoy playing a powerful Austria, and justify it to myself that with better management than it had historically it could have achieved so much! And it did actually become more tolerant with time, so who is to say it would not some day have become the very model for a peaceful, productive multi-ethnic society? Countering all the nationalistic s*** that caused troubles society is still chewing on nowadays?

About the other nationalities units, there is for one thing the reserve corps, these are available with all nationalities, but the reserve activation is only temporary. Thinking of it, Austria used these in the AAR where the human player was Ottoman, and it did not hamper them very much - they lost because they sent their army off to starve instead of fighting its way back. The other is the normal active units, they come as guard, line and militia but is is a bit strange, since in my first trial run I could f.ex. build 1 Hungarian guard corps, now I cannot. And the Croatian corps does nto appear either (I would not have any Croatian general so not much use, however).

I have installed teh pack and it immediately fired in the late March turn - Two Sicilies are annexed, and S-P declared war on me since I am still at war with Prussia. That is ever so nice of them, I have always wanted to take Torino!

[loki100]

in the models directory you can amend the stats of the base unit (say an infantry corps), so for eg the stats of CMN_Inf1870_Gd4 are the generic settings for all 1870 Gds Regiments (From models) or for a nationality something like AUS_Inf_1870_Div (from units). Its also in units you find the nationality units.

Now it looks like you can't make an Austrian unit, by default, worse than any other game unit of the same type and the nationalities only vary in terms of their recruitment areas (& I guess if you then have the wrong commanders you get a small malus).

So unless I'm wrong (which happens quite often), then the base stats for a unit type can't be varied by nationality, but there are abilities for each nationality.

Re the DOW, it may need some work to stop suicide DOWs in that case, if you are going to stab someone in the back it helps if they can't defend themselves

[Q-Kee]

Re the DOW, it may need some work to stop suicide DOWs in that case, if you are going to stab someone in the back it helps if they can't defend themselves

LOL

I was just going to say that myself, maybe link the test to a certain condition, like control of Prussian/Austrian territory, or F10 military strenght, or rise in casualties on the Austrian side. Anyways, I am NOT going to pass up this chance to get me Torino, even if I am messing up history by being ever so unfair! :P

Really, to me AGEOD games are for rewriting history rather than repeating it. In ACW I always play the CSA, in BOA the Brits, and in NCP and PON of course Austria. I just like the (historical) loser better, especially because all three have something in common - they should by all rights have won, had they acted more sensible.