The Scrambler
What it does: Scrambles the locations of all countries and makes them all about equal in number of provinces. Unlike the built in random setup it keeps their historical culutres, religions and tech groups. It also somewhat levels the playing field by equalizing some of the tech groups (Western, Eastern, Ottoman, Muslim, Chinese and Indian).
How it works:When you start a campaign an event pops up. It gives you two options, one to just relocate your nation and one to relocate all nations. In both cases you’re given the option to move your own nation again until you find a location you like. It then gives you several options for the number of provinces you want. The nation scrambler event moves all other countries at the same time it moves you and then each country gets an event giving it up to five more adjacent or nearby provinces. These events fire over 10 or so days so the game lags like crazy for those 10 days (it’s kind of mesmerizing to watch it happen in observe mode). There are also events that will fire through out the game giving nations free provinces until they reach five or have no nearby provinces to get. This helps fill in the map.
When:It should work on any start date on any map and with most mods. It currently causes instant crashes when used with Random New World and Dynamic Random Nations but all other Setup options work fine. I don’t recommend using it in an active multiplayer game as just the self relocation system crashed multiplayer, this would probably cause meltdowns. You can however load a save game that’s already scrambled in multiplayer.
Why: Unlike with the built in random setup this keeps more of the flavor of each nation intact while still scattering them around the world.
I created the system for my random map mod (Europa Incognitus) and I realized it would work on a non-random map just fine and some people might enjoy it. Ended up being a bit more work than I expected to adapt it for any map but the system is actually more stable on a non-random map (for some reason randomized provinces don’t like being turned empty). It’s kind of neat to see how weird the world gets after a few hundred years.
A direct download link can be found in this Paradox Plaza Thread[forum.paradoxplaza.com] but won’t be updated quite as often as the Workshop version.
Known issues:
*All previously owned provinces are occupied by natives (with yellow occupation lines and sieges) right after you run the event but will become regular empty provinces on the second day of the next month. I changed the default bookmark to start on November 30, 1444 to minimize this problem.
*The game is super laggy for the first few days as the world is set-up.
*Undiscover_province isn’t permanent so while at first all you can see is your new location once a new month starts you’ll be able to see all your tech group’s discoveries again, new occupants and all.
*Random New World causes an instant crash when you attempt to scramble.
*I can’t delete units via event so every country’s old units get stuck in their old location. The ai doesn’t always disband them and sometimes they sit there in exile for a long time.
*A lot of the events and missions act goofy when countries aren’t where they’re supposed to be.
*There are a lot more European countries so the end up dominating despite the leveled playing field.
*Sometimes countries just disappear instead of being relocated.
*Centers of Reformation are hard coded to only appear in Europe so the reformation tends to be a lot stronger there.
*Cardinals only appear on the same continent as the Papal States this is again hardcoded.
*I had to remove the HRE because the religion system is too integrated into its functionality now.
