To the NESing Community

[spryllino]

I once thought that's what EQ meant as well. He explained that he first chooses likely outcomes based on in-game events, and then lets the RNG choose from among those likely outcomes.

I'd imagine a good example would be, say, Britain's reaction to Nazi invasion of Poland. Outcomes: continue peace but highly condemn action, trade sanctions, seek to form coalition against Nazis, give aid to Poland, or declare war on Nazis, etc. Then different weight will be given to the different options, and the RNG is rolled.

At least thats what I understood from what he explained.

That's still insane. The British government did not roll a dice to decide whether it would act strongly or less strongly in response to the Nazi invasion of Poland. It made a reasoned judgement, that could have been swayed and altered by various subtle factors including other nations' diplomacy, a factor that EQ seems to neglect.

I haven't had much contact with you, so I'm not sure if you've moded any games yourself.

I have always found NPC behaviour perfectly simple, and I was dealing with NPCs that were not lacking in complexity at all; I have seen many mods better or worse than me do far better NPCs than EQ.

But you have to understand...with 30+ human orders each turn, and dozens of NPCs, it gets overwhelming to play each NPC as if it were human. That would be close to you sending orders for dozens of countries each turn. And he still has to write the update and carry out player orders, which in itself takes hours.

But it really shouldn't be too much to ask to have NPCs acting at least vaguely logically, and in a way that is dependent on other countries' diplomacy and attitudes? In outline? At least in terms of when they declare war or make alliances? This really shouldn't be hard or time consuming to determine correctly whether a nation makes an alliance or not. I don't mind so much about NPC's domestic actions, but actions that affect the players should be chosen extremely carefully.

I always found EQ's handling of NPCs more then satisfactory. Especially when I compare it to my own handling of NPCs in my old NESes.

If I compare it to my own handling of NPCs, or to the handling of NPCs of plenty of other people, EQ's NPCs are distinctly lacking.

 

[Jason The King]

That's still insane. The British government did not roll a dice to decide whether it would act strongly or less strongly in response to the Nazi invasion of Poland. It made a reasoned judgement, that could have been swayed and altered by various subtle factors including other nations' diplomacy, a factor that EQ seems to neglect.

spryllino, I never said that the British government rolled dice. But there certainly could have been other outcomes. Thats what the dice help him [EQ] decide. Instead of guiding NPCs exactly as EQ would want them to based on his own desires, he allows there to be other, though quite logical, outcomes. I doubt, for example, that one of the optional outcomes would be Britain allying with Nazi Germany.

But it really shouldn't be too much to ask to have NPCs acting at least vaguely logically, and in a way that is dependent on other countries' diplomacy and attitudes? In outline? At least in terms of when they declare war or make alliances? This really shouldn't be hard or time consuming to determine correctly whether a nation makes an alliance or not. I don't mind so much about NPC's domestic actions, but actions that affect the players should be chosen extremely carefully.

You seem to still be thinking EQ leaves everything up to chance or randomness.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Indeed, there are many factors which real governments have to take into account on a subtle diplomatic level. NES Players RARELY conduct their diplomacy at a real world level. As I have said, I only use the RNG on big decisions with various alternatives. You state my NPCs are lacking, and I would like specific examples. Show your evidence and I will endeavor to see what can be changed within constraints of my real life and updating schedule.

I'd also like to point out that in Capto Iugulum, currently I have been pursuing goals with NPC nations. We have only had two updates, but some of that should be fairly obvious.

 

[spryllino]

spryllino, I never said that the British government rolled dice. But there certainly could have been other outcomes. Thats what the dice help him [EQ] decide. Instead of guiding NPCs exactly as EQ would want them to based on his own desires, he allows there to be other, though quite logical, outcomes. I doubt, for example, that one of the optional outcomes would be Britain allying with Nazi Germany.

On the contrary, EQ's NPCs routinely behave in an illogical fashion, and are not open to negotiation of any real sort because they are completely fixed on whatever policy EQ has determined they will use, with the help of his dice. Even if we take it that all the outcomes that EQ allows the dice are logical - which is quite apart from the truth, as plenty of EQ's NPCs' actions are actually illogical and unreasonable - it should still be possible for EQ to fully justify all his NPCs' actions in diplomacy and negotiate them with the players, which he never does, because the NPCs' policy is entirely predetermined by EQ and his dice.

You seem to still be thinking EQ leaves everything up to chance or randomness.

No, he leaves some of it up to chance or randomness, which is crazy, because no diplomacy is based on chance or randomness.


EDIT: Alright, I might find you some examples.

But does anyone agree with me about EQ's NPCs, or am I alone in finding them inadequate?

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

RNG substitutes for the various factors that players routinely fail to create. Perhaps this is my fault for not encouraging players to behave in a real world manner, but from what I have seen, they don't really do that anyways. Once again, specific examples would be helpful.


EDIT: You know, I feel a bit hypocritical, asking for examples while not providing ones. So here it goes:

In the update I am currently working on the nation of Bavaria, allied with the Catholic League, faces a war on its southern borders. Austria and Switzerland have gone to war over the fate of Venice. As Austria is an ally, Bavaria has joined the war against the Swiss and their Sicilian allies. In the real world, the northern neighbor of Brandenburg would have made a position clear, or otherwise made some sort of diplomatic statement. Here that didn't happen "officially." Therefore Bavaria (most likely) is likely rather concerned about Brandenburg's intentions, particularly considering their recent fortification of the Burgundian border. So the question is at a basic level, do the people who provide the information about Brandenburg feel that they are a threat in the current time and place? As moderator, I possess information from the players of Austria and Brandenburg that suggest which way they should logically choose. I cannot however in good conscience use that information, so I instead create several alternatives:

1. Bavaria commits a quarter of their army to help Austria, but keeps the rest in the north (most probable outcome)

2. Bavaria commits the requested half of their total army to assist Austria and keeps the rest in the north.

3. Bavaria, believing (and probably erroneously) that Bradenburg will remain neutral, commits the majority of their army to assist Austria in the hopes of ending the war quickly and returning back to their northern borders.

The the most likely outcome for the RNG is to pick option 1, which it did. Therefore, Bavaria remains committed to its ally, while keeping its focus on maintaining its defenses against Brandenburg.

 

[Kentharu]

I don't know if you hated me or not in ABNW (all of its incarnations). I think you just loved Crezth more. But I remember uniting Germany being more frustrating that it should have been, and Baden being willed to Bayern or something like that, which made no sense what so ever.

Russia is a whole different ball game. I don't think you intentionally made me do poorly, its just you never gave me enough information. Considering the amount of time I spent with you on AIM asking questions (to the point where you were annoyed and angry with me), I was very surprised at the amount of things you had left out. From my point of view this was on purpose, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Hope you can show me why from your point of view. Either way its in the past now and I don't really care.

Regardless of what other people say I believe you are one of the most prolific mods in NESing history. Your NESes were able to continue for years which is, imo, the mark of a great mod. Even if they were crap.

All you have to do is make more like that only without the suck and vehement hatred for random NESers who apparently did stuff for you.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Well, if every response is reasonable, then I see no reason why a random number generator is a bad idea. It's only a problem if some of the responses are obviously out of character.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@kentharu: I have indeed loathed or otherwise disliked many a NESer over the years, but you were not one of them. And whether or not I secretly possess a crezth shrine and watch him through many tiny, cleverly-placed video cameras is irrelevant. Unifying Germany may or may not have been too difficult, though I do recall throwing obstacles in the way, as I was attempting to delay Germany's unification further towards the end of the 19th century. I was concerned that without obstacles it might take place too quickly. Nothing against you personally, just wanted to contain Germany. As for Russia. Considering the level of thought and development qoou put into it before you took over, and the very extensive background depth and so forth, it would have taken a lot of time to cover all the ground between us on that. Also, with the rest of the war going on that the time, there was a lot of people to talk with, advise, and so forth. Overall, it was just really bad timing and you went in with incorrect/incomplete information into Russia's greatest crisis in the NES.

@Lord Iggy: Exactly, and I do my best, with my current NES, to prevent any "bad" responses from slipping in.

 

[spryllino]

as I was attempting to delay Germany's unification further towards the end of the 19th century.

Is this not an example of railroadery?

On the subject of Bavaria: so why did you bother with options 2 and 3 if they were not in Bavaria's interest from Bavaria's own perspective? I mean, I disagree with you anyway; if I'd been Bavaria I'd have sent at least half the army and called it back if I got attacked, maybe building extra troops in the meantime. However, all the same, if you thought option 1 was the best one for Bavaria, you should have gone straight for option 1. It's not like the players all roll dice to determine how many troops they send somewhere: they work out how many it's a good idea to send and do that. For Bavaria to send half its troops when a quarter would have been a better idea is in itself absurd.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@spryllino: Yes, indeed it was an example of trying to create my own preconceived outcome under the circumstances. So? It's in the past now. In regards to Bavaria, my reasoning is that while option 1 may or may not be the best option, the player would not have the information that I have available. Therefore, if I want to avoid the trap of using my unfiltered knowledge of all players' plans and intentions, the only way to properly do it would be to allow for the possibility that the leaders of Bavaria may make a mistake. As I said, it's not the most likely outcome, but it was possible. The only fair way to remove my bias of information out of the equation is through the use of the RNG in that decision. Leaders of nations (and NESers) don't always make the right choices for their countries. I want to allow mistakes to take place by NPCs.

 

[spryllino]

Or you could just ignore the information that you shouldn't have, or you could work out what needs deploying where before you read the orders. You can make plenty of mistakes for your NPCs if you work out approximately what they're going to do before you read the orders.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

I can see your reasoning and it's not a bad suggestion. It sounds like exactly what I was doing before

Is this not an example of railroadery?

Regardless of what you may think, I challenge any moderator that's not a sociopath to keep their own prejudices out of their NPC decisions. You may not even do it consciously. I know I have looked back and seen underlying bias, even though at the time I thought I was being balanced. The only way to be truly fair to the players is to take at least a little control out of your own hands.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I agree with spryllino's last two posts here, he's pointed out a way where personal bias still makes it through the system of RNGs.

 

[SKILORD]

Sociopath schizophrenics make the best moderators. The voices can always tell you what the NPC's want and you have no remorse for their actions.

If they were only under house arrest and had a drinking problem...

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

In an ideal NES situation, we'd not have any NPCs at all and all nations would be player controlled. I live for that dream. In the mean time, while yes, spryllino makes good points, I'm still not convinced that the current system of Capto Iugulum can be proven as ineffective yet. Yes, I'm flawed, as we all are, but I don't think that the RNG alternative has really been able to shine/fail on its own merits yet. As a moderator it has shown to be a very time-efficient style of running the NES (good for me, in the middle of job-hunting), while still maintaining a realistic selection of options. If say, Capto Iugulum's NPCs are obviously not doing too well or are uninteresting/bland in ten updates or so, then I'd say your arguments have true validity. I do not beleive the debate can really be solved until that point.

Of course if someone knows of an NES being run in an identical manner to my own (and was a failure), which supports spryllino's viewpoint, I will concede defeat and look to change.

 

[Justo]

Is this not an example of railroadery?

This assumes that Prussia should be able to unify Germany without problems. Going from memory Prussia had participated in a major war before Kentharu took over. It lost this war and then spent some time sitting quietly. Then Prussia starts looking outwards again and towards German unification. At the time their weren't external powers threatening the German minors, Austria stood relatively powerful and had been a "victor" over Prussia in the earlier war and some of the German minors had been for the most part player controlled and running their own course which did not appear to be pro unification.

(this is going from memory and as such may be wrong but is basically how I remember things.)

But does anyone agree with me about EQ's NPCs, or am I alone in finding them inadequate?

I don't see much wrong with EQ's NPCs. The vast majority act far more sanely than many a PC nation to have ever graced NESing.

Or you could just ignore the information that you shouldn't have, or you could work out what needs deploying where before you read the orders. You can make plenty of mistakes for your NPCs if you work out approximately what they're going to do before you read the orders.

Or you could just think up a number of scenarios with the information the nation would likely have available to it. Assign values according to likelyhood of the scenario being chosen(based on the information that should be available to that nation) and then roll a die choosing one of the scenarios and go with it knowing full well that throughout history countries don't always go with the most logical scenario.

This allows the country to be potentially run poorly or quite well and even allow the country to change course rather than just going along with things as most NPCs tend to do.

Doing things before reading player orders does make sense to me though.

 

[North King]

There really isn't any excuse for not conducting NPC diplomacy in an utterly rational and measured fashion, rather than randomizing it.* Decide, broadly, what they do before reading player orders (in fact before even sending them; I start to plot out what my NPCs will do right after I put stats out), and if you really find you need to change something, simply ignore the part of the brain that contains OOC knowledge. This last is a good skill to have for many moderating situations, and if you're good with it, you should be able to make unbiased and reasonable NPC decisions.

* Which, in the previous examples given, seems horribly silly to me. In EQ's Bavaria example, there should be NO reason for Bavaia to pick option three unless they have a canonically idiotic ruler.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Well, what you say is pretty much what I used to do. As I said though, in the past I have still unconsiously or consciously used OOC knowledge with NPCs. For the Bavaria example, the options I provided are options NESers may choose. In fact, I'm fairly sure there's more than a few NESers who would have selected option 3, hell I've seen them do in the past. Occasionally leaders do gamble, whether foolish or not.

I don't believe that the RNG system has been given a fair test period. Spryllino at least in in my NES, and will be able to judge first hand whether it works or not. Frankly, I invite both North King and Lord Iggy (and anyone else) to pick a nation in my NES for the next 8-10 turns, and gauge and test for themselves the failures/successes of the system. If you do not wish to join, simply keeping up with the updates should be sufficient. I believe that 10 updates should be enough to see whether NPCs behave in a realistic and consistent manner over a set course of time. If they do not, I'd truly appreciate further perspective on it.

 

[Anonymoose]

This is fascinating. Best thread in a while, no doubt. EQ, I hope I'm not one of the people you secretly (or overtly?!!?!) hate, because I genuinely think you're a cool guy. That being said, I'm disinterested in most NESes lately, and am particularly jaded when it comes to EQ neses. I haven't 'gotten into' any of the last three or four or five since ABNW II. We may just need to duke it out... right here, right now.

EDIT: I forgot, I'm still steaming mad about Tunisia not becoming pirate kings. RAWR
Also I use a RNG for my orders sometimes, to make sure I'm not making the story too predictable. Just saying.

 

[Warman17]

I actually agree with RNG for NPC actions. How do you even define the most "logical" manner for an NPC to act? For example one could hardly call many leaders throughout history as having logically thought out the best course of action for their country: see Robert Mugabe.