MAGNA MUNDI PLATINUM - Preview

[ubik]

RELEASE DATE: 19/09/2008

MAGNA MUNDI PLATINUM GLOBAL PREVIEW

BRAND NEW STUFF
- Jewish Advisors
- The Knights event/decision pool
- Hiring Fair
- Provincial Taxes


THE BIG FOUR

Holy Roman Empire (Sacra Romanum Imperium)
The Holy Roman Empire was once again extensively reworked and is now a complex political identity that no European state can ignore. The difference between knowledge and mastery however, can be felt if one plays within the borders of the Empire itself. Expect the Holy Roman Empire to be a living political entity, defined by its own rules, where the player will feel just one more of the countries that form it. Fully taking advantage of the new IN features.

Pirates of the Barbary Coast
For nations bordering the Mediterranean, a complex system of piracy was introduced. Called ‘Pirates of the Barbary Coast’, it depicts the struggle that raged for millennia in the Mediterranean basin, a conflict that only ended with the defeat of the pirates by a most surprising weapon: The telegraph pole.
It is now completely adapted to IN taking advantage of its new powerful features.

Religion System (Dei Gratias)
A complex religious system that depicts the dynamics of religion in the timeframe considered will be also introduced. All the system has been updated to use IN features extensively. The entire event pool is a complex yet intuitive story, providing the perfect backdrop to the game flow, whether one plays with Spain or with Ming.

Sengoku

Reworked from the ground up to conform to the new capabilities provided by IN, the Sengoku Jidai, Japan’s era of warring states, is masterfully depicted in an event pool that emulates the processes that defined the struggle for power in thel and of the rising sun. Expect an extensive event pool full of twists and turns, complemented with a host of decisions, where the fate of one of the most powerful countries of the time lies in the hands of a dozen or more lords.


GAME MECHANICS SYSTEMS

Balance of Power System
Hundreds of hours were devoted to make nations act like nations and not like players around a table. special AI files were created, event pools were coded and data files were altered to bring again the intangible edge that turns Magna Mundi so special. As befits the Europa Universalis era, total wars are a rare happenstance in the mod. Reputation plays a much more central role and badboy wars cannot be fought for long, given the penalties a player will slowly, but steadily feel.
Continuous aggressive behaviour is also punished by linking it to revolt risk. Internal revolt risk and stability are serious factors one must manage to be successful. Cultural and religious rifts have a deeper impact in a country; conversely, humanist ideas are more important for multi-cultural or multi-religious states.
With the significant increase in time to gain a core, all the world is a bit more static. Changes to the world at large will not seem to be happening in fast-forward, as before.
Several other systems, described below, have a great impact on this one.

National Ideas System
National Ideas have now a comprehensive event system to support and accommodate the big changes introduced. Certain ideas will be unavailable for picking, and are made available by event – and many ideas are quite different from before.

Stability System
Stability means something more than a few side penalties/bonus now. Going to the negatives means a dangerous situation wether the country is a one province minor holding or a one hundred province empire. Stability costs are also increased. Its hard to keep for long on maximum s tability...conversely, it is also hard to keep for long at the lowest stability. We even included a system of quick bailout from some of such dangerous situations... for a price no gold can buy, of course!
We promise you'll be gauging your stability rating like no other for the entire game.

Colonization System
Colonization is handled in a different way from the standard EU3 experience. A few nations hold a huge advantage on this matter, as befits reality. Our view is that it was not by accident that the westernmost european nations were the bigger colonizers.
Colonization is no longer a matter of adjusting some sliders. Colonists may be hard to come by. Placement chance can be very low in the early years. Only the allotment of several national ideas and many resources to colonization can guarantee a strong presence in the New World. The profits, however, are immense.
There is also a complementary system, that enables any nation of a minimum technology level to be able to have a shot at colony building.
The spread of knowledge about newly discovered provinces was also curbed dramatically. The Teutonic Order will not be colonizing Cuba in 1502, unless a very clever player works very, very hard at it!
Magna Mundi Platinum offers more to colonies than ever before. Countries will be able to define colonial policies toward natives, ranging from benevolent integration, to the callous, racist policies of fear and enslavement. Colonies can also have specializations, helping them to have a single place within the player’s colonial empire. Emigration was also reworked. Expect to see migration from Europe to the colonies once cities are large enough. This in turn will lead to a events where religion and politics come into play. Colonies will also develop colonial cultures that reflect their origins in the Old World but also their experiences in the New. Later in the game, players will experience dynamic colonial independence movements like never before.

Trade System
In the economic sphere, the trade model was completely reviewed. No longer should a country aspire to lord over every Center of Trade in the world, generating game-breaking profits in the process.
As was the case in reality, there are soft limits that put more and more pressure in the trade environment of a country, forcing it to find a sweet spot between investment and returns in trade. The trade system helps keep small-time traders afloat now, meaning that most nations can profit somewhat from trade.
Regarding CoTs, they are now expensive to build and the decision to destroy one will carry some political consequences for the whole country while spelling disaster for the province affected.
Trade goods were also considerably extended. Provinces now can supply gems, livestock, beer, millet, hemp, brazil wood, glassware or opium, for instance. The elements that cause price fluctuation are stronger than ever. Wars, specific buildings or the number of countries all influence the price of a certain trade good. Expect luxury prices to fall during periods of war and strife while the price of basic goods goes up.

Inflation is now harder to control. In fact, one should expect to accrue some inflation during his game. With the influx of colonial goods and the ever-more complex nature of trade in the EU3 era, all advanced nations experienced some inflation. Accordingly, the inflation-reducing national ideas as well as the tax assessor have had their values reduced.

Government System

Governments are now more diverse than ever. There are now different governments for each religion, with three or four ranks for each, presenting the player with a world that comes alive with Shahs, Sultans and Shoguns! At the same time, government form is now directly related to your ability to rule a large and diverse empire. The new system to track each nation’s Administrative Efficiency could hamstring the mighty Ming yet let dynamic mid-sized powers make great gains.

Provincial System
Population growth was completely reviewed and is now generally much slower. In the regular game, a large number of provinces reached the limit of population as the growth rate was out of control. This in turn brought serious issues with the huge capacity of some economies later in the game. Not anymore. At the same time, certain penalties to population growth are now reduced to compensate for the new growth rate.
Certain geographic locations add to the defence capabilities of ap rovince without increasing the fortification level.
Finally, an all new province taxation system will be presented with decisions and consequences for them.

Military System
Military technology was extensively reviewed. Land technology was changed in depth to fix a standard game problem where a significant part of the units introduced in the game were never present, as well as to level a bit the playing ground between European powers and the rest of the world near the end of the EU3 era.
Naval technology was also totally rewritten, emphasizing the later importance of Ships of the Line, while stressing their shortcomings, modifying the fighting ability of transports and introducing a new dynamic for light ships and galleys.
Fortresses have now different values. Now, fortress give much more bonus than ever. At the same time, they can add more than a single level to the fortification capability of a province. This coupled with the above mentioned geographic features means that places like Malta and Tibet were simply not conquerable by 1000 men with 12 months to kill.
In the standard game, cavalry is of little use in siege warfare. However, they rule the early battlefield with such effectiveness the clever human player was tempted to wholly rely on it to win battles. Not anymore. First, we introduced the concept of an Army Specialization system to encourage different recruitment styles for the nations. Then we crafted a Cavalry Pay system. Simply put, if the proportion of cavalry in a nation’s army goes above 40% of the total number of soldiers, that country will start to pay more, considerably more, to maintain such a cavalry-heavy army. The larger the country, the more severe the financial burden… as small countries did historically have more flexibility on the matter.
Recruitment speed also underwent several changes. It is now dependent on factors such as cultural affinity, religious affiliation, colony type and laws and most of all, if the province has a land connection to the capital.

Policies System

Radical settings on a nation’s policy sliders can lead to several events, most of them negative in nature. Of course, you may strike lucky and experience a great breakthrough due to your nation’s single-mindedness. Ever wondered why the worst position to be in the policy sliders was the centre? Not anymore. Now having all your policies between -2 and 2 will enable a bonus to all the areas of your country to represent an balanced administrative approach. Each of the bonuses is small, but they do help, and in the end, they matter, giving yet another option for the player to follow.

Vassalization System
A new vassalization system will be introduced to turn the relations with vassals into an exercise in the arts of diplomacy. No more will you experience amorphous vassals that keep quiet, independently of their predicaments or the weaknesses of their overlord. You can even stage meetings with your vassals where both can influence the policies of your dominion... or stage War Councils with them, when the drums of war start to rumble.

Covert Action System
With more than 50 spy missions and an inclusive approach to other game elements the new Covert Action System allows you to have one more tool to decisively influence the outcomes of distant conflicts, be they commercial, diplomatic, military or colonial. This also includes some advanced diplomatic options, useful in a variety of circumstances.

Technology System
A revolutionary technology model was introduced. Supported by a batch of dedicated events, the player can now turn backwards and primitive countries like the Aztecs into a developed and enlightened powerhouse, given proper insight, sacrifices, luck and time all align to make it happen. No longer a matter of waiting on one lucky event, Westernization is a gradual progress that will prove one of the greatest challenges Magna Mundi has to offer.


OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
- +500 historical events
- ToT 3.0
- Magna Mundi Platinum Manual
- Exclusive map
- Extensive fixes to game files
- and much, much, much more...

[Darkarbiter]

Yes please! This sounds brilliant. Can't wait

[Valentin the II]

You should also post the mini-previews from the thread in the paradox forum.

[John I Tzimisces]

Sorry to hear about the delay, apparently, Ubik. Still looking forward to your mod's release! Now, will someone change Van from being Azerbaijani already?

[John I Tzimisces]

After the sorry events from last week, I can now publish a final report of the problems found and the present situation:


1 - Thanks to rmsdc script plus code tweaks performed by SharpAlignment, 7856 errors were fixed.

2 - After this, I personally fixed 3932 simple errors (involving uncatched tags).

3 - Still after this I fixed 51 complex errors (involving crossreferencing files).

4 - Finally, I finished coding a parser in C some minutes ago to make MMP events to conform with standard syntax (involving necessary spaces in identifiers) to be read by rmsdc script. 339 errors were thus fixed.


Please understand that points 2 and 3 involved a manual check of a csv file with 6798 lines, spiced up here and there with the odd crossreferencing of a related event file.




Right now MMP is ready to be played in 3.1

This does not mean it is balanced for 3.1.

The preliminary tests have been quite satisfying as we keep the "excellent" stuff from the patch (mostly AI changes and very core mechanics) while leaving out the "bad" stuff (sweetened or too heavy handed events that have no place in the game balance we strive to achieve).


I am going to release today Release Candidate 4 for devs and betas.


You'll be playing Magna Mundi Platinum on the late night of Friday, October 3rd... unless IN patch 3.2 is released in between, of course.




Bug hunting after MMP release notwithstanding, we are already eager to start working on MMP2 and you'll be amazed at what we have in store!

[Kanaric]

This + 3.1 = awesome

[ubik]

Hey John, thanks for keeping this updated!

It has been a rough week, yes.

[Lysander13]

Truly looking forward to MMP. I know it's gonna take EU/IN to a whole new level.

[ubik]

We have plenty of new stuff in MMP.

Want a list, without trying to be exhaustive?

There are dozens and dozens and dozens of new decisions. They don't show up all at once, but given the right conditions they will appear. This adds variety and an element of surprise to each game. There are global decisions, there are regional decisions, there are country specific decisions, there are religious decisions, there are colonial decisions...

There are also nested decisions, meaning decisions that only appear if others were selected.

Finally, there are decisions coupled with events, meaning event pools designed to be played only after decisions are made.
For instance, I coded some 60 new events just for the purpose of adding depth to a new basic decision (that also leads to others): Christian nations supporting the berber pirates.

If you slow down the game while a naval battle is raging, you'll check a great plausibility regarding the balance between different warships, just looking at that and with some imagination one can tell a narrative of the battle that is consistent with the real world.
This kind of behaviour is replicated across many different systems. A player with an eye for detail will really enjoy the game from a different perspective.

Fortress levels now end in 10 (instead of 21 levels in MMG2). However, defensiveness is hugely increased by some geographical circunstances while the fortresses themselves give interesting bonuses, for instance:

 
fort4 = {
prerequisites = { fort3 }
cost = 500
time = 48
fort_level = 1
local_missionary_placement_chance = 0.01
local_trade_income_modifier = +0.025
local_revolt_risk = -0.75
local_defensiveness = 0.15
stability_cost = -2
supply_limit = 0.175
}
fort5 = {
prerequisites = { fort4 }
cost = 1000
time = 72
fort_level = 2
local_missionary_placement_chance = 0.01
local_trade_income_modifier = +0.05
local_revolt_risk = -1
local_defensiveness = 0.20
stability_cost = -3
population_growth = 0.005
local_tax_modifier = +0.05
supply_limit = 0.275
}

Still on the subject of Fortresses, now the winter, blockades, etc play a more important role in the dynamics of sieges. Expect a suicide if trying to assault a fortress in harsh winter but at the same time, besides checking your increased casualties, see the garrison's casualties mount as the cold takes its toll.

You can also expect the major powers of the era to behave more historically, thanks to special AI coding, always leaving room for unexpected turns, of course.

Something that will not be noted by many is the way the AI picks NIs now. We are coding the AI to pick the best ideas given their own strategic situation, all dynamically considered, while keeping an Historical flavour to it and again, leaving room for the unexpected pick.

Do you think we have stopped already? Nah... we are still adding new features. Today's highlight has been the fact that trade has some serious problems as of patch 3.1. So, we are wiping out the problems, one AI decision at a time!

Of course we could go on mentioning
- The revamped map
- The SRI,
- The Jewish events
- Dei Gratias
- Hiring Fair
- Sengoku
- The Knights special event pool
- The Barbary Pirates
- The Provincial Tax System
- etc
all of them extensively changed, but those have been addressed in other threads.


What I am trying to convey is the fact there *is* a very significant ammount of new stuff, even if our first objective was to make MMG2 ran smoothly under the new paradigm.

Most of the times it is the intangible that defines the quality of something. If I were to pick the single most important change the gameplay has suffered, I'd say the following:
The dynamics of the game changed considerably and now the player has more power to directly influence the game.
While before he was at the mercy of luck to get specific events that enabled new event pools, now he can decide if and when he will experience them. This is in a sentence the greatest change from MMG2 to MMP.


And here, without any screenshot, you have my best take at what MMP is about!


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