Blue always wins

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Anthropoid
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Anthropoid »

number47 wrote:Can anybody here explain to me what do they mean when they say that USSR is agressive???? |O |O |O
I think Aragos is the only one who really said it explicitly. And he was talking about a 'mod' in which he had stripped all the treaties. So I don't think it necessarily applies to vanilla.
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Anthropoid »

Having played a bit in yet another test as USSR, I'm increasingly led to conclude that making sphere 'departure' give some cassus belli to the side you are leaving _might_ go a long way to solving the problem.

Most recent is with Hard Diplo, Hard Econ, Hard Milit, but otherwise much the same as the above noted 'test' (in which I got bored, declared nuclear war and watched as the U.S. strategic bomber fleet vaporized all my bases [_]O )

With Diplo on Hard, the shift to blue sphere seems to be exacerbated relative to Medium/Normal. Already in late 1949, more than a half a dozen nations have shifted from neutral to blue leaning (Saudi, Jordan, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Honduras, Colombia). The interesting thing with these sphere shifts is, they appear to have all happened on the same day; that would suggest to me that US AI did something that pushed its appeal over a threshold for those neutrals and boom, the next day they shifted blue. I have been gifting techs, units commodities and money pretty freely to my sphere members and to a limited extent some neutrals (Austria and Switzerland), though it is only still June 1950 so my economy cannot sustain too much yet.

In early 1950, Romania actually tripped from Red Align to Red Lean. I immediately gave them a hefty package comprising, a couple hundreds or tens of thousands of pretty much all 11 commodities, a chunk of nearly $1B and 20 or 25 older units, plus some society/medical techs. The next day they shifted back to Red Align, but just to be on the safe side I gifted them an additional 30days of the commodites they seemed to need most and which would befriend their populace.

None of this seems particularly 'realistic' to me, i.e., that the USSR is keeping its sphere together and spreading it with gifts. They were not known for being a great benefactor to the Warsaw Pact were they?

If however, the AI is loath to do things that will give a strong neighbor cassus belli, and if red sphere members gravitating away from USSR gave USSR cassus belli, THAT would seem to be very realistic!
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Fistalis »

Anthropoid wrote:SNIP!
If you were playing the USSR on hard diplo then alot of slide of AI nations toward NATO you see can be attributed to the way diplomatic difficulties work. You would see even more slide on very hard. This is due to nations having degrading relations toward the player on any diplo difficulty greater than normal.
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Aragos »

Anthropoid wrote:
number47 wrote:Can anybody here explain to me what do they mean when they say that USSR is agressive???? |O |O |O
I think Aragos is the only one who really said it explicitly. And he was talking about a 'mod' in which he had stripped all the treaties. So I don't think it necessarily applies to vanilla.

Yep. In the Regional.CVP file, there is a setting for aggression: http://www.supremewiki.com/node/50

•playeragenda {0:Opportunistic, 1:Vengeance, 2:Conquest, 3:Intimidation, 4:Profit, 5:Status Quo, 6:Submission, 7:Reunification, 8:Enlightenment}
•playeraistance {0:Normal, 1:Passive, 2:Defensive, 3:Aggressive, 4:Unpredictable}
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Aragos »

number47 wrote:
Aragos wrote:Well...if you don't change anything in the game (e.g., get rid of treaties like I did), the Soviet AI is set to be generally aggressive, which in turn will scare other AI countries away from Red and more toward white/blue over time.
And the underlined is manifested in game how? They never attacked anyone in neither of my games (normal or VH volitility), they generaly don't get involved in proxies. On normal, I attacked Bulgaria and Albania and they didn't respond in any way to help their allies. The provocations bar full, and they had 100% CB on me (Yugoslavia) and still nothing (I had no allies or MDP with anyone).
Honestly, I'm not exactly sure. Playing the USA in a modded "no treaties" game usually has the USSR invading Gibraltar (and war with UK), Turkey, Norway, and Greece. I've seen them DoW Denmark, Belgium and Netherlands as well (along with Japan and South Korea).

I think the AI is predisposed to not start wars with the vanilla game parameters--in other words, sort of a balance of terror thing between US and USSR, so they are more disposed to NOT start wars. Take away the at start alliances, set to VH vol and you get a somewhat different game. Same if you have the no-alliance game but an aggressive human USA (I've hit the UK and France before, then the USSR DoW'd them too).
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Re: Blue always wins

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Fistalis wrote:
Anthropoid wrote:SNIP!
If you were playing the USSR on hard diplo then alot of slide of AI nations toward NATO you see can be attributed to the way diplomatic difficulties work. You would see even more slide on very hard. This is due to nations having degrading relations toward the player on any diplo difficulty greater than normal.
+ the largest army & largest military production penalties, believe the Soviets win both those prizes
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Fistalis »

Aragos wrote:
Anthropoid wrote:
number47 wrote:Can anybody here explain to me what do they mean when they say that USSR is agressive???? |O |O |O
I think Aragos is the only one who really said it explicitly. And he was talking about a 'mod' in which he had stripped all the treaties. So I don't think it necessarily applies to vanilla.

Yep. In the Regional.CVP file, there is a setting for aggression: http://www.supremewiki.com/node/50

•playeragenda {0:Opportunistic, 1:Vengeance, 2:Conquest, 3:Intimidation, 4:Profit, 5:Status Quo, 6:Submission, 7:Reunification, 8:Enlightenment}
•playeraistance {0:Normal, 1:Passive, 2:Defensive, 3:Aggressive, 4:Unpredictable}
I've ran tests with thse throughout various versions of the modern wolrd. I would say im still undecided on how well these work. Or if they are even working properly.

IF the engine is issuing them... it may work, but even then its likely some old code that George did for SR2020 or sR2010 that may not work well in the new enviroment of CW.
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Re: Blue always wins

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Fistalis wrote:
Anthropoid wrote:SNIP!
If you were playing the USSR on hard diplo then alot of slide of AI nations toward NATO you see can be attributed to the way diplomatic difficulties work. You would see even more slide on very hard. This is due to nations having degrading relations toward the player on any diplo difficulty greater than normal.
Now you tell me! :lol:
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Fistalis »

Honestly now that I think about it.. i think this lines up pretty well with the natural sphere shifts that are built in to the .CVP. IIRC i noticed the nations that naturally shift toward blue(without action from either side) far outnumber those who go red. If they ever fix event 37 they should be able to get the AI to work toward building their sphere actively more often which if im correct is the actual issue. Blue is the natural progression.. since neither AI is really actively trying to promote their sphere then blue should dominate most of the time.
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Re: Blue always wins

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Fistalis wrote:Honestly now that I think about it.. i think this lines up pretty well with the natural sphere shifts that are built in to the .CVP. IIRC i noticed the nations that naturally shift toward blue(without action from either side) far outnumber those who go red. If they ever fix event 37 they should be able to get the AI to work toward building their sphere actively more often which if im correct is the actual issue. Blue is the natural progression.. since neither AI is really actively trying to promote their sphere then blue should dominate most of the time.

Since Blue Vs Red is basically what this game is supposed to be about wouldn't what you have said above constitue a VERY broken game? And should that not have been a VERY high priority for Update 1, 2 or 3? How is this acceptable?
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Re: Blue always wins

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The game is about having your sphere survive and the other sphere die. Unless you cannot make another sphere die, the game is not broken. The game works at recreating history and the red sphere DID eventually collapse so this can be seen as a side effect of efforts for historical accuracy. The worst that can be said is that it may make the job of a player playing as the Soviets too easy. From the comments on this and other forums, that does not seem to have diminished the enjoyment for most players. And that, really, is what the game is about. Giving players hours upon hours of crash free enjoyment.
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Re: Blue always wins

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wcv wrote:
Fistalis wrote:Honestly now that I think about it.. i think this lines up pretty well with the natural sphere shifts that are built in to the .CVP. IIRC i noticed the nations that naturally shift toward blue(without action from either side) far outnumber those who go red. If they ever fix event 37 they should be able to get the AI to work toward building their sphere actively more often which if im correct is the actual issue. Blue is the natural progression.. since neither AI is really actively trying to promote their sphere then blue should dominate most of the time.

Since Blue Vs Red is basically what this game is supposed to be about wouldn't what you have said above constitue a VERY broken game? And should that not have been a VERY high priority for Update 1, 2 or 3? How is this acceptable?
No since the player can still alter and change this by playing one of the sphere leaders. Its not that the AI doesn't do things that help build its sphere, its that its not actively trying to so. IE it makes diplomatic agreements etc but not with the intention of doing so to strengthen or maintain its sphere. So the results are likely to vary from game to game.

IMO sphere mode has always been lackluster which is why complete victory mode is the default in most of my mods.(with allied victories on in the case of the modern world) :wink:
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Snowpig »

Balthagor wrote:The game is about having your sphere survive and the other sphere die. Unless you cannot make another sphere die, the game is not broken. The game works at recreating history and the red sphere DID eventually collapse so this can be seen as a side effect of efforts for historical accuracy. The worst that can be said is that it may make the job of a player playing as the Soviets too easy. From the comments on this and other forums, that does not seem to have diminished the enjoyment for most players. And that, really, is what the game is about. Giving players hours upon hours of crash free enjoyment.
1. The red sphere "collapsed" around 1990, not 1955.
2. "collapsed" - because it took a more progressive leader in the SU to allow the other members to leave the sphere - long story short: no Gorbatchew = no "collapse"
3.
From the comments on this and other forums, that does not seem to have diminished the enjoyment for most players.
ok, here a different comment: It diminishes the enjoyment for me because after 10 years of game playing a non-US/SU everybody with his dog is "blue" - me inclusive (and I cannot even do anything about it), everybody hugs his sphere co-member (= is allied with) and nothing interesting happens in the world anymore (game settings: high volatility et al (see first post)).

o.t.o.H. since most of the players here favor "blue" in this "blue vs. red"-game, I can't really blame you since you give them what they want... :roll:
Last edited by Snowpig on Jan 24 2013, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Blue always wins

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Balthagor wrote:The worst that can be said is that it may make the job of a player playing as the Soviets too easy.
I don't understand. If countries naturally shift towards blue by default, how does that make it easier to play the Soviets? HUH
Balthagor wrote:From the comments on this and other forums, that does not seem to have diminished the enjoyment for most players. And that, really, is what the game is about. Giving players hours upon hours of crash free enjoyment.
[_]O I never play sphere leaders, since it provides no real challenge to me. And with the current system the only way you can choose which sphere you want to belong is playing the sphere leader since they are the only countries that don't shift by default to blue :lol: . As long as I don't have the control to which sphere I'll belong, it kind of diminishes the enjoyment of this game (not in a huge way but still does). But if I had to choose what to fix, my vote goes to unit balancing :P
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Re: Blue always wins

Post by Anthropoid »

With all due respect to BG for a fantastic game, and wonderful patch: I do think that the blue sphere shift that seems to exist at this stage should be pinned down as either (a) working as designed; or (b) not working as designed and in need of an official tweak.

At present, if the human plays US (or any other blue sphere member) on Normal diplomacy and with sphere victory turned on, they are going to have a very easy and ahistorical game (assuming that the observations so far hold true consistently).

If player plays as blue sphere with some other victory condition, Normal diplomacy 'winning' in the sense of spreading the blue sphere won't necessarily be directly easier but the game itself will be easier because you will progressively have more cooperative regions in the world and fewer that you have to compete with to win.

It may be that playing as US with Diplomacy difficulty turned to Hard or Very Hard would solve this problem, and for anyone who wants to play as US at this stage, that might be the easiest interim solution. However, I don't think this is going to help if someone wants to play as a white power at start, at least in the sense that, the world is still going to prematurely shift blue no matter what diplomatic difficulty you set it at. In my own Egypt play through, Red sphere was already down to about 8 or 9 _total_ members by 1955 (might have even been earlier) and blue sphere had grown proportionally. Since I had Complete victory set, I still had a lot of challenge to 'win,' but it just sort of spoiled it for me that the Cold War context in which I was attempting to play out Egypt were so ahistorical.

I think that playing as Soviets with Normal Diplo difficulty (and pretty much any Victory Condition) is perfectly fine with the current dynamics in 7.3.1. If you do NOT take an active role to promote your sphere, blue sphere is going to grow. If you are playing for Complete victory, maybe that is just what you want, but obviously for sphere victory, it will make the game a little more challenging.

At this point, I can see how you guys might still be a bit unsure about what exactly is 'wrong' or even if it is something that occurs consistently and thus can be addressed with adjustments. Maybe more test plays are needed to pin down exactly what is wrong, but assuming that it can be established with some certainty that it isn't WAD, then I do hope that a hotfix can be released to fix it. Because I would like to be able to play the game in any role on more-or-less any difficulty and experience a relatively historical Cold War dynamic and I don't think at present that is the case.
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