A Question of Volatility

[George Geczy]

(Also cross-posted to the Steam Forum)

So with the release of Version 9.0.75 Update in Beta today, we've addressed (mostly) an issue that many players have identified as something they found unsatisfactory - the change in the way the Volatility setting worked in the 9.0.73 version.

Those changes in '73 were also a result of a large volume of player requests which asked us to give a more volatile, unpredictable, and "active" world. So we added a number of factors linked to the volatility setting, one of which was a gradually increasing CB level across the world. For players that didn't want this to happen, the option was to set World Volatility to "None" and then the CB effect would be entirely left out; as Volatility increased, the effect would grow.

There were two problems that caused most of the response to this - first, recent updates also set the default Volatility level to "Medium", where in the past the default used to be "Low" or "None". So, if you didn't change the volatility when you started a game (or, in-game using the settings dialog), then you got the CB effect. Second, some players wanted to experience the other Volatility effects, but not the CB effect that came with them.

So with this '75 update we've rebalanced this. I played around with a number of different adjustments on this and came to the compromise that is in this build. Here's some of what's important to note about it:

- Casus Belli is still affected, but (on average) not as aggressively as before.
- Casus Belli will go both ways much more often; there is a "slight" lean towards increasing belli (this lean is more noticeable at the very highest volatility setting), but you should no longer see the "everyone gets belli everywhere" effect.
- A portion of the Volatility has been reflected in the "Provocation" value - you'll notice that this will show higher levels at the higher volatility, reflecting the AI's willingness to take a bigger relationship hit in the higher volatility levels.

In '73 there was also a tendency for the CB values to max out and "get stuck" at very high, that has been eliminated now as well.

So, overall I hope this gives the balance that players are looking for and still leaves the active/unpredictable options for players. The Volatility setting in the lobby is probably one of the most important for "tuning" the game to your personal tastes, which is why we put it right there above the start button

-- George / BattleGoat.

[Zuikaku]

Few questions:

- Are wars between same sphere members, although rare, now possible (AI vs. AI regions that share borders)?
- do regions now make some alliances on high volatility settings or is it as before (no alliances ever)?

[George Geczy]

- Are wars between same sphere members, although rare, now possible (AI vs. AI regions that share borders)?

Yes this is possible, although still rare. Also, it would depend upon how sphere-loyal they are - if one or both are "leaning" then this is possible, if they are both "solid" in the sphere then I would think not.

- do regions now make some alliances on high volatility settings or is it as before (no alliances ever)?

Yes, this will now happen occasionally, as there is now a greater chance than before that the volatility will improve relations instead of always worsening them.

The one thing that I don't really like about this now is that, over the period of a few years, you could end up with relation "swings" in high volatility games. For instance, in 1938 Canada loves Sweden, by 1941 they hate them, and then by 1946 they love them again. This situation should be rare, but is now possible, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. (That sort of swing won't happen with volatility below medium).

-- George.

[Kristijonas]

What I would like to see is a semi-random event system which would impact casus belli and relations (possibly leading to wars and sphere changes). For example border countries could have border incident events. Or maybe even some positive events so some countries could become allies because their presidents were once good buddies or because one countries volunteers helped the other country during earthquake relief or whatever. Secondly, what this game really needs is a relationship direction button for each country. Players should be able to influence relations. If a country wants to worsen relations (like the EU now worsens relations with Russia for example) they should have that ability. Increasing relations though should cost money because increasing relations is most of the time = trade concessions, gifts, hiring diplomats, arranging galleries etc. Sometimes I just want to provoce a country to attack me - it should still be possible with enough effort (there are many historical examples of one country ready for war abusing another country until they declare war, for example by militaristic rhetoric, demanding money, making incursions, etc. All those things would give them casus belli ofc)

[Balthagor]

What I would like to see is a semi-random event system which would impact casus belli and relations (possibly leading to wars and sphere changes). ..

I had begun a system for this in the last few months of SRU development, but never really had time to evaluate the impact of the events, or put in enough to really impact things. Issue was that it was very labour intensive to stage these, took a very long time so eats up a lot of dev resources. And it's map specific, so has to be done for each campaign/scenario individually (or in sets I suppose, since some maps used common event sets).

[Kristijonas]

What I would like to see is a semi-random event system which would impact casus belli and relations (possibly leading to wars and sphere changes). ..

I had begun a system for this in the last few months of SRU development, but never really had time to evaluate the impact of the events, or put in enough to really impact things. Issue was that it was very labour intensive to stage these, took a very long time so eats up a lot of dev resources. And it's map specific, so has to be done for each campaign/scenario individually (or in sets I suppose, since some maps used common event sets).

Why map specific? Could be totally random.

[Balthagor]

I was using sets of events, staggered at random day intervals. The regions involved would often be different in my system. The date range would be different because of starting map date.

11125 2880 21600 14 1815 989 910 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 -0.1 0 0.2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11126 4320 21600 14 1815 989 910 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.3 -0.1 0.3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11127 7200 21600 14 1815 989 910 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 -0.2 0 0.4 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11128 43200 21600 14 1816 989 910 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.2 0.3 -0.2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11129 57600 21600 14 1816 989 910 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.1 0.1 -0.2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11130 5760 21600 14 1815 910 989 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 -0.2 0 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11131 8640 21600 14 1815 910 989 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.3 -0.1 0.3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11132 14400 21600 14 1815 910 989 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 -0.1 0 0.4 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11133 72000 21600 14 1816 910 989 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11134 86400 21600 14 1816 910 989 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war
11135 115200 21600 5 3 989 910 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 30 0 28800 0 1 0 // India-Pakistan war ceasefire

These values exist in the Global Crisis events file. They use a random start date that depends on another random trigger, so may or may not happen. This makes India and Pakistan drift towards war over a period time (1 year? Can't remember now...).