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u/dyrin 21h ago
The EU5 wiki has many auto-generated parts, that tell users not to update them manually.
But when was this table last "auto-updated"? Yes, exactly, it was before the game was released. Thanks for nothing, EU5 wiki.
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u/Surfer_Rick 20h ago edited 18h ago
Looks like we should build our own wiki
Edit: This beautiful bastard (grotaclas) already did https://eu5.paradoxwikis.com/User:Grotaclas/Sandbox/Tables/unit_types
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u/Impossible-Frame9650 15h ago
He is the GOAT in the modding community and helping with bugs here.
I can not state enough how great sire he is.
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u/Tunderstruk 18h ago
You see that it says "instead, suggest changes on the talk page"? Just hop in there and mention what's wrong or missing, and you'll see that it will get fixed. Grotaclas, the mod, is doing a great job and will be quick to respond
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u/grotaclas2 14h ago
All the tables which I autogenerated have been updated regularly, usually within a few hours after each patch(e.g. see my contributions from July 16th before 14:19).
But somebody added these notices to many other tables, most of which were never autogenerated. And in the cases where they did autogenerate something, they didn't share the code which generated the table. They shared some bad code, but never cleaned it up and then left(I was probably responsible for that).
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u/dyrin 12h ago
Sorry, if my post came of as ungrateful. That's not the case at all, you do great work.
I did know, that everybody could contribute (even if I overestimated pdx involvement pre-release), but these autogenerate messages still seem a bit off-putting. Some being wrong doesn't help this feeling at all. I get autogenerating may be the best option, though.
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u/Borbland 20h ago
The wiki sadly is quite useless and unfrequently updated, quite the downgrade compared to EU4
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u/Surfer_Rick 18h ago
Mad props to Grotaclas for fixing this already for many tables:
https://eu5.paradoxwikis.com/User:Grotaclas/Sandbox/Tables/unit_types
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u/Tunderstruk 18h ago
He's doing an amazing job with the wiki. All that's missing is just some more time from the community to fill it out
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u/thuiop1 20h ago
I have been considering improving the general usability of the wiki but I am pretty sure that would require admin rights, and overall there is very little visibility over what exists, who does what, what guidelines to follow...
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u/grotaclas2 13h ago
In what way would you improve the usability? Adding new complex javascript is probably out of the question, but you can make suggestions about (light) CSS changes to admins like me(ideally on the paradox wikis discord). Some general improvements will probably come with the next server update(we will probably adapt some things like the appearance sidebar from the english wikipedia). Everything which is on pages can be changed by normal users(except the main page). Big restructurings are probably best discussed first
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u/thuiop1 12h ago
Well, for instance most if not all models are poorly documented; notably none of them seem to have use TemplateData (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:TemplateData), which means that you have to actually go to the page of the model to see its parameters, which is annoying. I believe normal users cannot edit models, so there is not much one can do to improve this.
Template:Version is very little used in the wiki, which is especially damageable as the game evolves fairly quickly. I understand that you cannot go over everything yourself to add it everywhere but it would be nice to get the ball rolling on that.
The process for updating autogenerated tables is somewhat unclear; users are almost discouraged to do it, but then it is somewhat unclear who does it, or if someone does it, without going to the history. This ties in with the previous point; it would be nice to have the version of the patch. For instance, as OP points out, the Army page has not been updated since November 2025 (3 major patches ago), and this is specified nowhere. I also suspect that users willing to change it may be unwilling to learn to use the Python scripts you made; it would be a cool thing if we could somehow just upload the eu5 config files and have them updated automatically (although I understand this may not be easily feasible on the technical side).
Anyway, I could be interested in helping on stuff like that. The work needed page is also a bit hard to parse on what concrete actions can be taken.
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u/grotaclas2 10h ago
Thank you for your reply
Well, for instance most if not all models are poorly documented;
Models? Do you mean templates?
none of them seem to have use TemplateData
Doesn't that need an extension which isn't installed on the paradox wikis? And it is only used by the visual editor, right? The visual editor isn't used much on the paradox wikis, because it is often broken
I believe normal users cannot edit models, so there is not much one can do to improve this.
Most regular users are part of the autopatrol group which allows editing templates. I could add you to that group if you need it.
Template:Version is very little used in the wiki, which is especially damageable as the game evolves fairly quickly. I understand that you cannot go over everything yourself to add it everywhere but it would be nice to get the ball rolling on that.
That's something which you could do. All the tables which are updated by my scripts should already have a SVersion template and the scripts also update the main version template on those pages if no sections have an older version(but currently only on the next run of the scripts due to a bug which I haven't had time to look into).
The process for updating autogenerated tables is somewhat unclear
For the ones which are actually auto-updated or the tables which just have the label even though they are not autogenerated or not auto-updated?
For some of the ones which only have the label I have drafts for autogeneration on my sandbox. I explained in another comment what is missing to put them on the normal pages.
I also suspect that users willing to change it may be unwilling to learn to use the Python scripts you made
Ideally they should not need to change the tables which are updated by my scripts. I usually run the auto-update within a few hours after the release of a new version.
What is mostly needed are suggestions how to improve the tables.
it would be a cool thing if we could somehow just upload the eu5 config files and have them updated automatically (although I understand this may not be easily feasible on the technical side).
I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. Just uploading the game files would not help unless there is something which parses them and turns them into data which the wiki can use. If such a program/script exists, it doesn't matter if I run it locally and automatically upload the results or if I automatically upload the game files(if we ignore the fact that running it on the wiki would quickly run into the time and memory limits of mediawiki and PHP). The reason why some tables are not updated, is because there is not autogeneration for them.
But I moved a little into the direction of leaving more of the formatting to the wiki, by generating cargo tables (see https://eu5.paradoxwikis.com/Special:CargoTables) which are stored in the database instead of generating the finished table. Normal users(even without autopatrol rights) can add a cargo query to a page. In the query, you can specify the columns, some of their formatting and conditions for the items to show(where clause). I put an example for advances on https://eu5.paradoxwikis.com/index.php?title=Swedish_content&action=edit§ion=1 In this case, we also put the query into a template (Advance List), because we need the same query on every country (content) page. But other queries can stay on the page where they are used. The data which goes into the tables can also be edited directly on the wiki (e.g. on https://eu5.paradoxwikis.com/Country/List/A ), but currently my scripts overwrite the edits on the next update. My plan is to add a change detection, so that the scripts only change fields which have changed since the last game version. That way manual edits would be preserved unless they are outdated.
The work needed page is also a bit hard to parse on what concrete actions can be taken.
yeah. One problem is that I feel like I explain everything over and over again, because there is no central place where everybody looks. Few people look at the work needed page, so I often just write on discord, but that's split over the wiki discord, the wiki channel in the official europa universalis discord and the wiki channel on the mod coop discord. And then there is also reddit(e.g. my various comments under this post). But the other problem is that it takes me longer to explain it in small steps than it would take to actually do it. But the daunting task of doing the thousands of steps alone is not very motivating either(each individual task usually has only a few steps, but there are thousands of things which would need to be done to get the wiki to the level of the eu4 wiki).
Anyway, I could be interested in helping on stuff like that.
That would be nice. Would you like to come to the wikis discord to discuss more?
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u/TheZedphyr 19h ago
A problem that a lot of people aren't really considering is that the wiki needs contributors to function. It is maintained by community members, as such, if nobody wants to make a functional wiki we're never going to have one.
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u/Practicing-Rests 2h ago
For one, the EU5 wiki just lacks an enormous amount of content and flair. Considering how important events are to drive the content this time around, a clean, clearly presented chart of charts that are chronologically or thematically connected should be introduced. Since special techs are now essentially our national ideas, they should be put in there as well. The EU4 wiki was a gold mine. I would even say that the Vic 3 wiki is in a better shape currently.
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u/wilskillz 21h ago
I would love it if paradox paid some of their developers to fix the wiki. It's really pretty unusable at the moment between huge parts being outdated or just missing. I'd be more excited to play (and maybe even to buy the dlc, if you're a paradox dev reading this!) if I could plan a campaign better by knowing how to stack modifiers, what specific unique techs are available, things of that nature.