Europa Universalis IV

Most everything in this thread.

A dependably challenging AI, basically. In particular, an AI that can handle governing multiple landmasses, as the period requires.

Here's an idea that might help make the player feel like their actions are giving their nation a distinct culture:

A "capital city screen", in which you can view a visual representation of your capital city, based on 1) it's geographical location 2) it's population 3) buildings and people determined by your actions eg. if you're an aggressive, warmongering nation then you'll see large forts and barracks populating your city, whereas if you're a particularly diplomatic nation with lots of international ties and treaties then you'll instead see embassies, grand palaces to wow visitors etc.

And let's say every capital city has a market - the size and grandeur of the market is determined by your wealth, and you can click on the market and see a big stalls showing some of the kinds of foods available to your citizens, this being determined by who you have visualised, where you have colonised etc. so for example if you are playing Tyrone and you have some caribbean colonies, you'll see irish food like fish and european veg and soda bread, farls etc, but also mangos, tropical fish, coconuts etc.

And then you could click on an art gallery and it would show you paintings, perhaps real historical ones perhaps not, from painters that have emigrated to your nation from other countries that admire yours, and the quality and number of paintings is determined by your nations cultural strength.

You could also perhaps gain bonuses by upgrading certain parts of your capital, eg. for 1000 ducats you can upgrade your palace and gain a bonus to diplomatic skill and prestige.

Mousing over different residential parts of your city you might be able to see what the main ethnic groups of your nation is eg. the jewish quarter, the irish quarter, the french quarter, the wallachian quarter. The religion they bring and the religious situation of your own nation will cause different places of worship to pop up. And depending on your sliders the distribution of wealth in your nation may be seen as either grand villas for the rich and slums for the poor, or relatively equal housing for all.

I don't know if you guys are really as interested as me in EU having this kind of thing, but I really want to be able to look at my kingdom after a 100 years and see how my actions have affected it culturally.


The idea of a capital city screen was ofc first used in AoE III:

ability to offer to buy provinces not just sell them. And Alliances with exceptions like in Vicky.

I have a million suggestions but one thing is in the front of my mind right now:

- Return to trading posts.

I'd like to... well, this is just me personally, but I would like to experience civilization from the dawn of civilized man (around the 3rd millenium BC) to the modern era. Rising nations and WWM does good by essentially filling in the blanks, but it's not perfect and I would like to experience real civil wars in China, not essentially pre-destined walk abouts of new city states popping up that never really actually unite China. I would like Sengoku to be made professionally and accurately and not have province names switched around and wrong. But I don't just want Sengoku, I want the Muromachi era, with the Onin war and a the splitting of north and south. I want to play as Genghis Khan, and attempt to avoid the fate of his empire when the unity of his nation falls to petty succession sqabbles. I would like the tribal system completely reworked, mods do an excellent job of this, but there is more to be done. I'd like to play as Egypt against the Assyrians, and the Hitites. I'd like to form England. I'd like to have the Incas be restored to their seat of power, not petty cannon fodder for the first European to settle next to them. I'd like battles to be completely reworked. I don't want bonuses being given to an enemy army on my land just because he arrived a day earlier in tibet. And I certainly don't want to be suffering the same disadvantages they would have if I had been there a day sooner. A day matters, but it shouldn't make the final outcome. It should matter if you are there a day early, or if you were there for a year. You should get more or less bonuses depending on that. I want the naval system to be upgraded, I mean really upgraded. It's rather pathetic right now. I don't want pagans to be so annexable that they can be forgotten in an instant. I don't want the maya who resisted spanish rule for decades to simply be swept aside in all but two seconds. The Empire of the Inca shouldn't be allowed to be annexed just by anyone, they only got annexed because of several key factors. Weak leadership, a terrible terrible bloody civil war, and incompetent military leadership. If anything had changed not only could the Inca's have survived a lot longer, but they may well have been able to resist and beat back the Spanish army. Colonization, Dynasties, Historical Monarchies, etc. all need to be reworked and have added depth to them. "Historical Monarchies cannot lead armies, nor can they sign royal marriages" idiocy... and I assume the random event firing off every now and again creating a fictional heir/or new marriage alliance is perfectly historical?

Eh, none of this will probably happen. And I may be the only one to think this way. So... forgive any transgressions I may have given against those who thought that Historical Monarchies shouldn't lead armies, shouldn't have royal marriages. Or that the complete timeline would just be a waste. And things like trading and the naval system don't need massive overhauls. For anyone thinking that way, I don't mean to transgress. I only mean to improve a game that has so surpassed all expectations and limitations that other games have. I just think it's a shame that it's suffering from such simple things. (and granted, not so simple.)

scholar said:

I'd like to... well, this is just me personally, but I would like to experience civilization from the dawn of civilized man (around the 3rd millenium BC) to the modern era.

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I was thinking about that, but even bridging the period between EU Rome and EU III would be a huge task. All the country changes and scheduled wars and events etc. necessary would be just vast.

Perhaps from 1000 AD -> WW2?

Yixian said:

I was thinking about that, but even bridging the period between EU Rome and EU III would be a huge task. All the country changes and scheduled wars and events etc. necessary would be just vast.

Perhaps from 1000 AD -> WW2?

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I won't deny the amount of time and effort needed would be immense, but the pay off would be tremendous. 1000 AD --> WW2 would be an excellent base, with an expansion going from WW2 --> 2012 (randomly concluded release date) and another adding 1000 AD to at least 200 AD. (Where really interesting things start to happen with Rome and China)

Well, it seems everyone is giving their opinion on this, so I'd better too. It is now socially required!

But seriously, I don't know how much there is to say. It is less than a year since the latest expansion for EU3 came out and given how busy Paradox is with so many other game projects, I think discussion regarding (the possible) EU4 still has some time before it will be really relevant.

Personally, I think what would help the gameplay the most is not the implementation of a gazillion new features (some merely aestethic), but expasion of and polishing of the features already there. The new dynasty stuff in HttT still has some rough edges IMO, but lots of potential. I'd rather see that system being more developed than seeing an entirely new EU. A lot of the things that people suggest here, however, WOULD indeed make EU an even awesomer (a real word?) game.

scholar said:

I won't deny the amount of time and effort needed would be immense, but the pay off would be tremendous. 1000 AD --> WW2 would be an excellent base,

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How much would you pay for a game like that?

Legiazus said:

Well, it seems everyone is giving their opinion on this, so I'd better too. It is now socially required!

But seriously, I don't know how much there is to say. It is less than a year since the latest expansion for EU3 came out and given how busy Paradox is with so many other game projects, I think discussion regarding (the possible) EU4 still has some time before it will be really relevant.

Personally, I think what would help the gameplay the most is not the implementation of a gazillion new features (some merely aestethic), but expasion of and polishing of the features already there. The new dynasty stuff in HttT still has some rough edges IMO, but lots of potential. I'd rather see that system being more developed than seeing an entirely new EU. A lot of the things that people suggest here, however, WOULD indeed make EU an even awesomer (a real word?) game.

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I would give my right bollock that the next game will be CK2. But I never saw Vic 2 coming

Also, another smaller suggestions, how about implementing Antipopes and the ability to change Canon Law and move the Holy See?

One thing I wish EU had more was the ability for individual cities/provinces to be significant for reasons other than being a capital or centre of trade.

Oh oh and the ability to be canals at great expense! eg. Seuz Canal, as well as other non-existant ones.

make it (even if you dont have a fort) that the enemy cant just walk in and claim you provinces. Like a small 500men peoples army appears when they walk into your province.

make rebels less powerful and retreat less often

get rid of some of the PTI, Austrailia, africa and north amercia have way to much.

most canals were built either at the end of the 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century, and thus are not part of EU's time-frame. (i'm not sure about the canal that separates morea from the rest of greece though)
still it would a good option to have in vicky II.

here's a good feature for EU IV (don't know if it's been said already): the ability to control taxation levels. right now taxation can only be controlled indirectly either through various decision's and policies or through war taxes. and perhaps the you could also try making of the stability/revolt risk systems a bit more fluid. right about now they appear to be kind of rigid and somewhat overly inter-dependent. take henry VIII's england. when he fell out with the pope and banned the feast day's and closed down the monasteries many of the commoners were furious => massive revolt that was barely put down. on the other had at the same time england was one of the most politically stable countries in europe. as an opposite take the romanian pricipalities during the phanariote regime (17th-18th centuries): it was a miracle if a ruler managed to maintain his office for more than 6 months, yet revolts were basically non-existent.

adijarca said:

most canals were built either at the end of the 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century, and thus are not part of EU's time-frame. (i'm not sure about the canal that separates morea from the rest of greece though)
still it would a good option to have in vicky II.

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In my head I'm imagining that with enough will and ducats poured into it, it'd be possible xD See the problem with EU is that boats can't travel through rivers.

adijarca said:

most canals were built either at the end of the 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century, and thus are not part of EU's time-frame. (i'm not sure about the canal that separates morea from the rest of greece though)

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The Corinth Canal was built between 1881 and 1893, so outside of EU3's timeframe.

I'd like to see the timeline shortened. The game should end around the time of the American and French revolutions.

This should pave the way for an entirely new title that would fit in nicely between Vicki and EU about the period between 1776 and 1836. This period would be badly represented by both EU and Vicki and so deserves its own game. I've heard the name Age of Revolutions talked about before for this hypthetical game.

Anyway my main problem with EU is timing. It comes in too early (should stick to 1453, 1399 is too early for me) and it leaves after its welcome has run out.

Tommy4ever said:

I'd like to see the timeline shortened. The game should end around the time of the American and French revolutions.

This should pave the way for an entirely new title that would fit in nicely between Vicki and EU about the period between 1776 and 1836. This period would be badly represented by both EU and Vicki and so deserves its own game. I've heard the name Age of Revolutions talked about before for this hypthetical game.

Anyway my main problem with EU is timing. It comes in too early (should stick to 1453, 1399 is too early for me) and it leaves after its welcome has run out.

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Signed. Thresholds for any future Paradox games should IMO be something like 1071, 1453, 1789, 1821, 1936 and 1953.

Earl Uhtred said:

Signed. Thresholds for any future Paradox games should IMO be something like 1071, 1453, 1789, 1821, 1936 and 1953.

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I'm against this... actually the more time there is to play the better. I hate in Victoria the short period you can actually play, making it totally impossible to do something 'grand' with smaller countries (I'm playing Transvaal and I barely managed to capture most of Africa [I'm a sucky player also])

Especially that they already have most of the history researched and so many mods they can learn from, it would be possible to extend the history much longer, maybe even making a GRAND game, spanning over all of their titles

Gummi said:

I'm playing Transvaal and I barely managed to capture most of Africa [I'm a sucky player also]

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Even that should be impossible

jdrou said:

How much would you pay for a game like that?

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There are mods that are completely free that offer it.

But I would pay somewhere between 20-40 dollars for it. 50 would be pushing it. I mean really pushing it, I'd need to feel comfortable they didn't screw it up before i purchased it for that much.

Signed. Thresholds for any future Paradox games should IMO be something like 1071, 1453, 1789, 1821, 1936 and 1953.

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I wouldn't buy a [EU] game that only allowed for six points of play. Part of the fun of EU3 is hitting the day button and watching events unfold differently, the ability to play as any faction at any time. Suggested start dates for EU3 being 1453, sure, that's fine. But don't force it on the player. That's just stupid. The gap between 1071 and 1453 is huge, and the stuff inside it is similarly huge. 1071 we don't even have a united Mongolia, The Byzantines are in decline but are still a huge fighting force. 1453 we have the Byzantine's gone for good and Austria, France, and England as growing powers. And the Mongolian Hordes have come and gone. There's nothing fun about that. It's just six scenarios of play instead of a whole world of possibilities. I think anyone opting for that is a bit crazy, no offense.