Tinto Talks 114 - 1.3 Italian Situation Feedback

This time rather than our usual look forwards, we’re instead covering some of the feedback we’ve gathered on the reworked Italian Situations throughout the 1.3 open beta and what changes we made throughout that process. We covered the reworks themselves previously in Tinto Talk 111, so if you want to see what’s actually changed since 1.2 be sure to give that a read. Keep in mind feedback showcased here is not exhaustive. So just because you have not seen your own points brought, does not necessarily mean we haven't seen them. We'd highly encourage you to comment below if you have additional feedback or thoughts.

If you missed the major news on the Italian Wars rework, we created this Developer Interview Showcase to cover the inital round of feedback from a few months ago:

Before we dive into the Italian Situations feedback, here is a quick update about the current status of the 1.3 open beta:

So far we’re very happy with the open beta progress and reception, which we’ll go into greater detail on in a future 1.3 retrospective Tinto Talk. Here is our plan to round out the 1.3 Beta Period:

1.3.8 released yesterday (June 30th) as of writing, and it serves as the last full patch until 1.3 hits live. We do however plan on a minor hotfix later this week to address a small handful of balance concerns before 1.3 goes into live branches, which is currently slated for within the week of July 8th.

Italian Wars

Steam post image The 1.3 Italian Wars Panel, if you have been playing in the beta you are likely already familiar with it! Reminder, If you need to catch up on what the reworked Italian Wars actually does in 1.3 compared to 1.2, whether you haven’t opted into the beta, or otherwise just want a refresher; We covered that in a few places below:

• The “Italian Wars” section of Tinto Talk 111

• Our Italian Wars Developer livestream where we answered some of your questions

Now onto the feedback we got from the open beta! Hello! PDX Habibi here, Community Ambassador on EU5. First of all thank you for everyone taking part in giving us feedback on patch 1.3 whether it's in our daily feedback threads or individual posts on our forums and Reddit. We have been monitoring the feedback on the Italian Wars since it was the major reworked situation of patch 1.3. Let's break down the feedback we got so far about the new situation rework.

What landed Well The headline is a good one that we are proud of. Many of you are now calling the Italian Wars rework one of the best situations in the game. Here are some of the key positive takeaways:

• The tension system delivers. Many players describe a satisfying arc where pressure builds gradually and then erupts into a peninsula-wide war that pulls in multiple foreign rivals, followed by a period of rebuilding before the cycle starts again. Many of you have called it a “Thunderdome” which many players seem to really enjoy.

• The goal feels worth chasing. Pushing to a victory in the Italian wars has not only been seen as much clearer progression towards victory but also seen as worth it. The rewards are much better in patch 1.3 and many of you really liked that. Some of you even stated that losing also is not too bad as you still feel satisfied with multiple fun wars and temporary rewards received.

• The new flavor shines. We added new dynamic events, and new additions to the Italian Wars situation. All of which have been widely positively received by you guys. Additionally the reworked Italian Wars UI and the breakdown screens were called out as a real step up compared to 1.2.

• The situation reshapes the map in a good way. Many people have stated the situation is doing its job of consolidating the peninsula in an interesting way while letting new regional and major powers have their hand in Italy.

• The addition of Balkan League has been widely received well. Many enjoy the inclusion of the Balkan league as one of the factions within the Italian Wars situation. Many have stated that the Italian wars ties well with Byzantium mid game progression.

Steam post image Example of a new event included as Italian Flavor with the new rework What we are still tracking from your feedback The constructive feedback clustered around a handful of clear themes, and these are the ones we have been noticing and tracking the most:

• AIs are picking unwinnable fights. The most common note we see occurring across platforms is that AI league leaders keep declaring wars they have no realistic path to win, sometimes with no way to even reach Italy.

  • We added more robust behavior in 1.3.8 for the AI that should help address this

• League Loyalty is too fluid.

  • Members swapping sides shortly after being forced into a faction, force dissolved leagues reforming too quickly and too much difficulty keeping allies in player’s leagues all came up. It seems that community members want league membership to feel a bit stickier and less fluid.

• Pacing and ending of the situation.

  • The community seems split on the 50 year hard timer of the situation. Some feel 50 years is too tight of a window for a solo win, others want a route to win the situation earlier once Italy is entirely secured, and several of you asked for a stalemate path so a Situation with no dominant league does not drag indefinitely. We also noticed some AI run posts of AIs struggling to achieve victory in the situation. We are still tracking feedback on this matter so if you have thoughts, please let us know.

  • We are currently investigating the potential of extending the duration of the situation from 50 years to 65 or 75. This is for 2 reasons:

    • Through testing, it appears that 50 years may be too short for a country like Milan to unify most of Italy, unless the player expertly handles expansion and antagonism, especially without prior knowledge of the situation to come.

    • In reality, the Italian Wars lasted ~ 65 years

    • The new length we are investigating now for the situation from our estimates rests between 65 and 75 years. Still considerably quicker than its first iteration of 100 years while giving some much-needed breathing room. Based on our findings, this change may or may not come in the future, feel free to let us know what you think!

• Bugs and Polish.

  • We are actively tracking bugs and polish issues related to the Italian Wars situation. We are looking at bugs in the paradox bug reports and the in game bug reporter and collecting them for the team to investigate. Bug reports are always appreciated!

Italian Wars members panel in 1.3 Although we’re wrapping up 1.3, we’d like to remind you that we’re always taking new feedback, so keep the reports coming in the Daily Feedback Threads, and please continue filing bugs through the in-game reporter and the bug forum so nothing slips through. We are reading all of it. Now onto how we acted on some of this feedback:

Warm greetings from a scorching Spain! I'm PDX BigBoss, and I led the rework of the Italian Wars. This release sets a new bar for Situations. The reworked Italian Wars are deeper, more polished, and more intricate than before, built to keep both players and AI on their toes. Complexity like this comes with growing pains, though, and the 1.3.0 BETA surfaced its share: renegade peace treaties, effects misbehaving on the script or GUI side, and more. Thanks to a real collective effort, we've ironed them all out. As the Beta closes, what's left is a finely tuned Situation ready for release, and explosive, memorable wars raging across the whole Italian peninsula. I want to stress that this rework was kickstarted and carried the entire way by community feedback. This milestone simply wouldn't have happened without you. So let's get into the nitty-gritty. From the 1.3.0 BETA up to today, I've hunted down and squashed a long list of issues, and I'd like to walk you through some of the highlights together.

• Countries can no longer rejoin a war via "Intervene in a War" if they have a truce with the target country.

  • This issue was fixed by a simple check of “Do we have a truce with the country we want to join against?”

• Rewrote the AI logic for "Send Aid" and "Intervene in War": the former to no longer give too much noisy aid, and the latter to no longer dogpile and overstack in a war.

  • Big wars in Italy? Fun. Getting beaten with a stick by several major countries? Not so much. With better AI logic AI is now less prone to joining wars just to fight your consolidation of the peninsula. They still do it, mind you, but not as much. The “Send Aid” action is now less spammy. AI will still give you the occasional assistance, especially if their interests align with your ongoing war (e.g. if you are fighting their rivals or enemies)

• Fixed an issue that allowed the vassalization of Italian League Sponsors.

In the latest version, there is a safety net for this - Below is the script:

[c]else_if = {[/c]

[c]limit = {[/c]

[c]is_subject = no[/c]

[c]capital.region = region:italy_region[/c]

[c]NOT = { has_variable = was_sponsor_variable }[/c]

[c]}[/c]

[c]make_subject_of = {[/c]

[c]target = scope:target_country[/c]

[c]type = subject_type:vassal[/c]

[c]}[/c]

According to the above, vassalization occurs when the country in question:

• is not already a subject of anybody (it would be unfair to steal others' subjects)

• capital is in Italy

• Does not have the "was_sponsor_variable" variable

In this context "scope:target_country" is the leader of the winner IO. This script resides in events\\situations\\italian_wars.txt around line 529 | Link to original comment Overall, we’re very happy with how the reworked Italian wars have landed with the community. And we feel this situation sets a new standard for these types of situations going forward!

Guelphs and Ghibellines​

PDX Habibi back again to talk about feedback in Guelphs and Ghibellines!

Guelph and Ghibellines drew some of the most detailed write ups we have seen, and the level of historical knowledge and design thinking on display has been a real pleasure to read. Here is a breakdown of the feedback we received from positive to what we are tracking moving forward. What Landed Well

• The UI is an improvement.

  • Most players found the reworked interface is cleaner and more readable than the previous version, with the core information laid out well.

• The new leader action adds agency.

  • The new Support Imperial Rival action gives faction leaders a new lever to shape the contest, and it seems many have appreciated having a way to push on the situation rather than only watching it tick.

• The situation rework produces close and dynamic finishes.

  • We’ve seen a handful of fun stories with Guelphs and Ghibellines, including games that came down to figures like 98 versus 95 percent, with countries switching sides throughout.

• It is a solid side objective.

  • A number of you described it as a nice actionable goal layered into your Italian campaigns.

• New rewards are positively received.

  • Rewards for winning on either side as the leader has been a nice reward for players to work towards.

• The new Italian flavor adds to the situation and region.

  • Wider flavor additions in patch 1.3 such as dynamic events, advances, and city specific content picked up praise and helped the whole region feel more alive.

What we are still tracking from your feedback

The constructive feedback was detailed and clustered around a few strong themes. These are the ones we noticed the most across all platforms.

• The emperor’s weight on the scales is too high.

  • This was one of the most common constructive feedbacks we received. Bohemia specifically as emperor of the HRE has a huge impact on the ticking of the Ghibbelines and can make a Guelph victory feel too difficult or entirely out of reach. Some players have reported cases where most of Italy backed the Guelphs yet the Ghibbelines still won on the emperor’s contribution alone. A frequently suggested direction is to reduce or rethink how much an emperor with no Italian land contributes.

• Forced Faction Changes not sticking.

  • Many of you reported that the newly added 2 year cooldown on faction changes is still too little with long and difficult wars to force faction changes leading to that nation switching back in just two years. Making the force faction change feel useless. The shared request is to make the period of switching sides even longer especially after a force faction change.

• Faction loyalty and logic.

  • Some players found side switching hard to understand and AI logic not being clear in why it determines a faction switch. Theres also reports of faction leaders allying with one another which some feel should not be possible.

• Vassals and Faction loyalty.

  • Recurring ask is for more control over your own subjects’ alignment. Right now vassals can sit in the opposing faction with no tool or diplomatic action to bring them into your faction. Several players asked simply for vassals to follow their overlord as long as they are loyal.

• Depth for non leaders and the imperial side.

  • Outside of the leader actions, some of you have noted there is still not a great deal to do beyond using the associated casus belli, and some emperors felt their stake in the outcome was less defined than before. Many have suggested more diplomatic, economic and intrigue based ways to influence the contest rather than relying mainly on war. Some ideas shared were: sponsoring favorable rulers to dispose of others in Italian republics, directly being able to cause instability in rivals, and causing civil wars in rivals.

Its clear from the level of feedback that many players want to dig into this conflict and many of you are very passionate about it. The reworked UI and the new leader tools are a foundation the community feels broadly hit the mark as an improvement, and the bulk of the asks are about deepening the contest.

Hello everyone! I’m PDX Pintu, content designer at Tinto who worked on Guelphs and Ghibellines. A Major Goal for us was to address the interactivity of this Situation, and with that the balance between the passive increase through economic growth and tackling the lack of rewards for proactive involvement. To that effect we introduced a proactive score gain for using the Force Faction Change Casus Belli in order to grow your faction, while also attaching a reverse effect towards attacking your own faction members. This should overall bring the situation in a more balanced state between aggressively exerting influence over other countries, direct conquest of new territories, and passively increasing your economy in order to bring your own country in a position of leadership and your faction closer towards asserting your goals over your rivals. In turn, we were pretty happy with the overall perception of the Casus Belli as an opportunistic option that could even be intentionally misused for your own benefit, disregarding your factions wellbeing. The previously mentioned effects on Faction progress of using the attached peace treaty option should therefore level the playing field a bit between using the Casus Belli for the officially stated purpose, and using it for other means. Additionally, a major problem reported to us was the lack of lasting consequences at the end of the situation, with the decisiveness being not where we would like it to be. First off, we did not like that the main outcome of the Situation was a victory for either the Guelphs or Ghibellines, and the Stalemate Outcome of reaching 1437 without a winner, was almost never happening. This should now work out much smoother, and achieving a victory for either faction should no longer be a given in every playthrough just from passive score alone. With the introduction of additional time-blocks added to the Guelph Victory (stopping Italians from rejoining the HRE) and giving rewards for either Leader Country in case of victory, any outcome of the Situation should now have a more visible, lasting impact on a campaign. The rewards coming with the Situation, being tied to the ability to increase the Country Rank within the HRE-Rules (Ghibellines), or forming Italy with an added benefit of no longer requiring specific location ownership (Guelphs), should also set the ground nicely for the following Italian Wars Situation. Guelphs and Ghibellines is a situation that sets the political landscape for both Italy and the HRE, so it’s important that the systems at play here hit the mark.

We feel overall both Italian wars & Guelphs and Ghibellines are in a much better place now compared to 1.2, and that’s mostly thanks to feedback from you! These 2 situations together set a bar for different styles of situations. One being more structured and one being more systematic. With 1.3 making its way out of beta very soon, next will be a shorter Tinto Talk. After that we’ll be taking a retrospective on the beta process as a whole, what we found from it and where we move forward from there. See you then!

As usual, here is a list of handy EU5 links:

Be Ambitious!