Europa universalis iv & civ

[PhilBowles]

For every variable you have dependent on another variable, possible iterations, or complexity, increases by an order of magnitude. You literally add a whole new dimension of possibilities, all of which need to be accounted for.
EU4 was designed in such a way as to minimize these base variables into constants, solid, consistent facts that won't multiply the possibilities when interacting with the variable above it.

Look at it from an engineering standpoint. On one hand you have a train. Very simple design because you've turned the ground into a constant, rails. You know that the only possible connection this train will have to the variable earth will be the constant rails, a uniform surface. So you can optimize your train's design based on that. There are a number of possible designs and possibilities for said train, but they all stem from the same constant. Now imagine a vehicle that would have to traverse all imaginable terrain features. All you're doing is turning that constant into a variable, and suddenly the complexity of the project and possible design iterations skyrockets astronomically.

As a very basic and imperfect explanation, Civ5's AI is designed around "improvising" based on its environmental variables. EU is optimized for a finite, mostly unchanging environment, probably with a lot of patchwork for specifically stated exceptions and checks.

I thought this could be inferred from my first two explanations, maybe someone else can explain it better, without getting into computer science jargon, I have no idea.

While this is a nice summary, I don't think it can be a full explanation - Total War has a similar campaign and AI structure to Europa Universalis' map, but turns in Shogun 2 (with animations enabled) take considerably longer than those in Civ V - and again become ever more sluggish as the game progresses.

That leads me to suspect that the late-game slowdown has very little to do with the AI, and more to do with the graphical requirements when so many more cities and units are in play than is the case in the early game.

 

[PhilBowles]

I believe there's an EU IV free-to-play demo. From Aristo's comment above and my (brief so far) experience with Crusader Kings II, I'm increasingly tempted to try it.

Ok, for those tempted by the demo it's sadly a little thin - the tutorials take you through elements that mostly work identically to CKII (although the interface is noticeably more user-friendly in EUIV). There is a tutorial campaign, another advance over CKII, and it may be truncated for the demo but it's very short and stops at exactly the point when you get to the new colonial mechanics.

I haven't tried the demo's single-player game option yet so I don't know how far you can play with it - however the demo itself gives enough of a feel for Paradox games to be enticing for those with limited experience of them (including me - I'm holding off on returning to CKII until I read the manual to find out how I can increase the size of my levies and replenish losses, since I'm apparently not given enough to allow the Norman Conquest to succeed).

It probably gives less of a sense of EU IV specifically to those who are already familiar with the games generally.

As for the time issue, obviously as a real-time game EU has no issue with turn times, but I found both EU III and CK II excruciatingly slow to load originally, and EU IV is much faster on the same machine.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I dont know how the AI in Civ works, but sometimes the problem is that each layer of complexity you add to the system raises the number of possibilities the AI has to take into account way more then the one before.

Cant come up with a good example, and in addition to that I dont know how to type mathematical symbols... Cant realy explain what I mean, sorry

Civ's AI constantly shuffles their units so they don't impede the player's movement across the map. So, naturally, once the AI is running a proper horde you can expect it to take them awhile to move all of those units...

 

[BSPollux]

As for the time issue, obviously as a real-time game EU has no issue with turn times[...]

My game allways hangs for a few seconds at the first of each month, when most actions take place

 

[Lobox]

Uhh, Could anyone tell me what CiV's AI done that need that much time to end turn in late game.

I was reading somewhere a guy who had tested and saw that workers did an insane amount of calculations. It was a mod that changed the game to only allow I think 1 worker per civilization but I never tried it my self.

Last game I played it was the Zulus that was terrible slow but I solved it by cheating so all civilizations was at war with them to kill of some units and take some of he´s city's.

 

[Bechhold]

The EU universe is what Civ should be instead it keeps rehashing the same features as IV but noob friendly. Shame really.

 

[MarshalN]

I was reading somewhere a guy who had tested and saw that workers did an insane amount of calculations. It was a mod that changed the game to only allow I think 1 worker per civilization but I never tried it my self.

It makes sense, because I think the game's AI works is it relies on some sort of brute strength calculation - which means it goes through every iteration of what to do. When the worker's working on something that should be pretty simple (continue or not - don't continue if there's a threat around). If it's free though, it has to figure out where to go next and what to build next. That's a pretty complex problem. At any given time the worker can build at least half a dozen different improvements on all kinds of terrains, and if the empire is big that's a even bigger question (build important improvement that's far away first, or build slightly less important improvement that takes one turn to get to?)

Human make those decisions very quickly and easily. AI can't do that, so they take forever by iterating results.

 

[PhilBowles]

The EU universe is what Civ should be instead it keeps rehashing the same features as IV but noob friendly. Shame really.

Why is it "what civ should be"? It's a wholly different design. It's much closer to the Total War campaign system, with the latter being "noob-friendly" by comparison. And TW games seem to be adopting elements from the EU series wholesale - Shogun 2's dilemmas work just like EU random events, and the EU IV event structure (decision made with one event affects which later ones can occur) is a feature long-promised to be part of Rome II.

 

[Kwami]

The EU universe is what Civ should be instead it keeps rehashing the same features as IV but noob friendly. Shame really.

Once you get past "strategy game" and "historical theme", Civ and EU really don't have much in common. That's a good thing. I don't want two EUs or two Civs.

 

[PhilBowles]

Back to the thread question, I'll actually deviate slightly and use an example from CKII, although the system is similar in both (I believe), and that's another vote for a cassus belli system.

Not, however, for the reasons suggested (diplo modifiers). At least in CKII this is a nonexistent concern with the cassus belli I've had so far - there's very little need ever to declare war without CB in the game (in the rare instances you can't get some kind of cassus belli automatically you can just fabricate one), and the rather unrealistic scenario that, so long as you have cassus belli, no one will ever hold anything you do in war against you. This is actually more binary than the current BNW system.

The key reason for a CB system is to allow objective-based wars, which incidentally should help the AI. "Take city X, then stop" for example, or "reduce Y's military power to Z". This is the major thing that makes wars in CKII interesting and transparent, and is really at the core of the game's politics since for the most part everyone will survive to fight another day. For example, in my current game I thought (in a Civ mindset) "oh no, I can't beat France's army and I've been hammered back in England". But France only wants Dijon so I can just settle that by surrendering it to them, and giving the north of England independence will not only end that war but will rid me of a perennially rebellious vassal family until I can secure a line of succession to their territory or have the strength to claim it (and deny them Scottish and Breton support). If I keep Normandy and substantial parts of England I'm doing better than William at the start of the game, and I have members of my dynasty attached to both claimants for the Scottish throne as well as the Holy Roman Emperor.

Also, the appropriate peace deals could be tied to the type of war, with only conquests demanding absurd conditions for peace (another perennial Civ flaw).

You'd need something equivalent to CK's warscore system, which shouldn't be that difficult (the Civ AI already works with something similar, just hidden), but both systems have somewhat serious implementation problems.

Neither is at all good at judging when an AI is losing - in Civ this is well-documented here; in CKII the warscore system is extremely binary and a faction will only accept peace on your turns if the score is very close to 100% in your favour, and since the score is determined by casualties and by progress in capturing territory this means that the AI can be losing right from the start but will take forever to accept defeat, exactly as in Civ V. Civ V has tools to handle this better in the way peace deals can be set with varied conditions (CK II offers a draw, an unconditional surrender, and that's it - no gifts of territory or gold etc. to improve the prospects of acquiescence).

Both systems have problems with assessing military strength, and these are exactly the reverse of one another: in Civ V, this is almost the only variable taken into account when determining who's winning, casualties and territory not at all. In CK II it isn't considered at all, only casualties and territory matter. I had a war declared on me by a faction without allies and only 48% of my military strength (but because of the way the warscore forces the war to continue until the enemy's been ground to a pulp, refused to surrender) - it was a very short war. Conversely I've been seen as winning when my entire army is gone and I have no way of counterattacking.

 

[NBAfan]

I like both, personally I like Paradox's stuff better. Civ is good when I want to play a historically flavored game to win like in a boardgame. EU4, CK2 and Victoria 2 are great when I want to play a historical scenario and just watch it unfold.

Any fan of Civ though must give EU4 or CK2 a shot.