How is your EU3 Game going?

[uat2d]

Magna Mundi cancelled

Hi all,

today Paradox Interactive decided to cancel Magna Mundi. It will not see the light of day under the current set up: Universo Virtual (UV) will not be part of this project any more.

The reasons for cancelling the contract with Universo Virtual include the following:

- Lack of progress; we have seen this project drag on and the code we have gotten has not shown significant improvement for many months. Some old and known problems persists and new ones appear with each delivery.

- Lack of trust; the leadership of UV has given a sunshine version of the project to Paradox and reacted with irritation and anger when we have pointed out obvious problems with the deliveries. It has come to a point where they claim the project is done, and the game is ready for release – despite the many critical issues found and reported on our end.

- Internal strife within the MM team; we have gotten information from members within the MM team desperate to save the project whom report to us that the project lacks active leadership. Key personnel in the project see what Paradox sees but instead gets silenced by the UV leadership.

All in all, these are not circumstances under which we can work with a team and it will now stop. At this point we have no more news than the above.

Sincerely and regretfully,
Mattias Lilja
Executive Producer for Magna Mundi

It had to come to this.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, that wasn't a surprise, especially when it became clear that UV leadership were not reading from the same sheet as Paradox.

 

[Antilogic]

I'm glad they aren't releasing a half-finished buggy mess. Maybe this is because I don't lurk in the MM forums, but I haven't seen too much news on the trust difficulties and internal conflicts on the MM team. When did this stuff start?

 

[Arakhor]

I don't know, but it became rather clear that Ubik had a large ego and that statements from UV were differing from those of Paradox. Apparently, they were over a year late and had been promising the stars all that time.

 

[Heathcliff]

Ubik might be blunt sometimes.
But he is a skilled programmer and has a clear belief how he wants his game.

If you feel tired of EU3, that you have mastered it.
I recommend you to try his mod.
It has given me as much joy as the base EU3 has given.

It adds a much larger challange to the game.
Even playing a major nation is challeging in Magna Mundi.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I don't know, but it became rather clear that Ubik had a large ego and that statements from UV were differing from those of Paradox. Apparently, they were over a year late and had been promising the stars all that time.

Became?

The guy in his heyday spammed the EU3 forums with links to his mod daily.

 

[Arakhor]

The cancellation thread is starting to lose a respectability battle with YouTube comments. One person suggested that Ubik was ******** and another said that someone should put Paradox out of business for their cancellation. One of the MM developers heavily implied that Paradox had shelved MM simply to "steal" their code and use it to make EU4. It's utterly ridiculous.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I hope my mod is completed long before EU4 is.

Honestly, the modding life of EU3 can last another 3-4 years I think before Paradox need to start thinking about EU4. Seeing as Magni Mundi was limited by various issues, I would wait a few more years for the software to do what they want to become available. I guess it doesn't hurt to begin early brainstorming though.

 

[Optical]

Sorry to dig this question back up, but if the option was removed, how did my AI Persians in 5.2 become Steppe Nomads then?

Which beta? Could have still happened if it was in one of the first few.

 

[cardgame]

Is there even a need for EU4?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Is there even a need for EU4?

Nope. Not with the modding community.

If anything, they should release one last expansion with a few new things (Like how in DW they added the Daimyo and Chinese system), maybe focus the attention to the Indian subcontinent, and add a bunch of new mod-friendly things modders could do.

The modding community is actually fantastic market research now that I think about it. They just need to take note what are popular things modders add and pay attention to what the community wants through the forums, and then release in the future (2015 or 2016?) Europa Universalis IV with greatly updated graphics, new game engine and UI, etc.

 

[uat2d]

I think Vicky 2's map is the only thing I want. More islands, a couple more provinces and no wasteland.

 

[Antilogic]

I think Vicky 2's map is the only thing I want. More islands, a couple more provinces and no wasteland.

I think either there needs to be tons more wasteland, or colonization needs to be much harder in Africa. Otherwise, it gets colonized too early!

 

[TheLastOne36]

I think Vicky 2's map is the only thing I want. More islands, a couple more provinces and no wasteland.

Funny, I just put recently succeeded in importing Vicky 2's map into EU3.

 

[uat2d]

I think either there needs to be tons more wasteland, or colonization needs to be much harder in Africa. Otherwise, it gets colonized too early!

Even as the game is now, it's too easy, you can settle Australia or the American West by the 1600s without much hassle, much earlier if you plan ahead and conquer some bits of Northern Africa.

Colonization needs to be improved, that's for sure

Funny, I just put recently succeeded in importing Vicky 2's map into EU3.

I'd love to be able to play it, even if it was only vanilla DW

 

[NBAfan]

Is there even a need for EU4?

Yes, internal politics, more fleshed out colony system, more complex alliance options, an AI that has a concept of the balance of power to name some things that could be in a new game. EU4 would probably be more like going from EU 1 to EU2 then the radical change of EU2 to EU3.

 

[Optical]

^ It's the rule of evens: the even-numbered games build on the new stuff that the odd-numbered ones introduce.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I'd love to be able to play it, even if it was only vanilla DW

The province borders aren't accurate at all (Just kind of drew them in quickly for conversion) and lots of coastal regions didn't convert well as well as lakes etc. It isn't ready to be played in at all. But I must admit, it is nice seeing Europe with the correct proportions, the Baltic coastline in particular is lovely.

 

[Evie]

"Correct proportions" being of course a relative term, since no map projection known to man actually give a correct proportion "More aesthetically pleasing proportions since it looks like the sort of map we're used to" is closer

(It's one reason I renounced on trying to fix the map proportions in my mod. I tried, but ultimately, the result would be excessively small European provinces, whacked up distances in the northern parts of the map, etc.)

Basically, any map is going to have projection issues. When it comes right down to it, that means that gameplay, not geographic accuracy, should be the chief design constraint in deciding how to project your map. If that means getting a wonky map projection that over-focus on Europe...make sense to me.

 

[TheLastOne36]

"Correct proportions" being of course a relative term, since no map projection known to man actually give a correct proportion "More aesthetically pleasing proportions since it looks like the sort of map we're used to" is closer

(It's one reason I renounced on trying to fix the map proportions in my mod. I tried, but ultimately, the result would be excessively small European provinces, whacked up distances in the northern parts of the map, etc.)

No, I meant correct proportions.

Obviously as you said, no map projection could actually give correct proportions(And I don't buy those Dymaxian projections ) but we can however get correct proportions relative to a common map projection like the Mercator projection. (Which for a Europe-Centric game, for once isn't a bad thing)

What Paradox had before, was a map with completely inaccurate coastlines, proportion of landmasses to other landmasses, all of Belarus-Ukraine was squished up to 1/3 of it's real size making any province modding in the area insanely difficult, etc. Just take a look at the coastline of the Bay of Biscay in game and compared to a map for an example.

Basically, any map is going to have projection issues. When it comes right down to it, that means that gameplay, not geographic accuracy, should be the chief design constraint in deciding how to project your map. If that means getting a wonky map projection that over-focus on Europe...make sense to me.

Yup. I endorse the Mercator Projection for the sake of gameplay, despite how much I hate it.

One of the ideas I had, which I still might do, was making my own map, not based on any particular projections, and make the map intentionally disproportionate so we have a huge Europe alongside with a large East Asia and India. Perhaps I'll achieve this by expanding the diameter of the Earth rather than making South America, Africa and Australia huge? I don't know if that could even theoretically work , more likely I would just switch the scale here and there and make up the space on the oceans. I haven't really given it much thought on how, I'm more focused on getting my mod to stop crashing .