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I think a good system might be where every good has a price in each CoT, and provinces choose which good to produce based on how much "profit" they can make (IE units of production*price, with different goods having different fertilities based on province terrain and climate). Alternatively, allow players to change production in a province manually, in a limited way.

Different possible goods, province terrain, climate... Not to forget some meaningful system of how many units of a certain good can be produced (i.e. taking into account population and transportation), regional markets and money made by trading between COTs with different prices for a certain good... It would be very nice to have that, with influence of availability of goods having other than financial effect on faction...

TBH, that's more Vicky territory, and it is probably wise to keep it that way. Apparently, the Vicky II devs get a fit whenever regional markets are even mentioned. ;)

To be a bit heretical: wouldn't it be better to get rid of trade goods tied to provinces? ATM, there are some arbitrary boni for having access to certain trade goods, but that's pretty minor. Some events are influenced by trade goods, so what. The biggest differences is the production value and the trade value, which feed money into investment (or minting).

Instead, incorporate some of it into the base tax (i.e.:production) and cover trade by collecting tolls. Which of course, would demand a different trade system, but that we need anyway.
 
Different possible goods, province terrain, climate... Not to forget some meaningful system of how many units of a certain good can be produced (i.e. taking into account population and transportation), regional markets and money made by trading between COTs with different prices for a certain good... It would be very nice to have that, with influence of availability of goods having other than financial effect on faction...

TBH, that's more Vicky territory, and it is probably wise to keep it that way. Apparently, the Vicky II devs get a fit whenever regional markets are even mentioned. ;)

To be a bit heretical: wouldn't it be better to get rid of trade goods tied to provinces? ATM, there are some arbitrary boni for having access to certain trade goods, but that's pretty minor. Some events are influenced by trade goods, so what. The biggest differences is the production value and the trade value, which feed money into investment (or minting).

Instead, incorporate some of it into the base tax (i.e.:production) and cover trade by collecting tolls. Which of course, would demand a different trade system, but that we need anyway.

Vicky has a very complex market economy with factories that convert goods, and prices that change price daily.

In comparison, the EU3 economy (at least where goods are concerned) is much simpler. The variables do not change drastically from month to month(unless something like a major war occurs), so the frequency of price calculations can be reduced considerably. Likewise, while Vicky has pops determine demand, EU3 only has provinces, which again reduces the number of calculations considerably. As I see it, it would not be too difficult to compute prices for every individual CoT. The way trade works would change quite drastically, however, and would take some balancing.
 
Vicky has a very complex market economy with factories that convert goods, and prices that change price daily.

In comparison, the EU3 economy (at least where goods are concerned) is much simpler. The variables do not change drastically from month to month(unless something like a major war occurs), so the frequency of price calculations can be reduced considerably. Likewise, while Vicky has pops determine demand, EU3 only has provinces, which again reduces the number of calculations considerably. As I see it, it would not be too difficult to compute prices for every individual CoT. The way trade works would change quite drastically, however, and would take some balancing.

I'm well aware of the differences. My point is rather: if trade goods mainly have an effect on money generated, we could easily get rid of them and abstract trade and production (preferably with a change in the research system to get rid of the monthly income).
If trade goods play a role other than money making exercise we actually need a fairly complex system for it to make sense. Of course, supply and demand can be more abstracted than in Vicky II, basing it on provinces and years rather than pops and days. On the other hand, we would need a system which keeps track of how much of which ressources a faction has access to, and a bonus/penalty system for producing/having access to key ressources.
 
I'm well aware of the differences. My point is rather: if trade goods mainly have an effect on money generated, we could easily get rid of them and abstract trade and production (preferably with a change in the research system to get rid of the monthly income).
If trade goods play a role other than money making exercise we actually need a fairly complex system for it to make sense. Of course, supply and demand can be more abstracted than in Vicky II, basing it on provinces and years rather than pops and days. On the other hand, we would need a system which keeps track of how much of which ressources a faction has access to, and a bonus/penalty system for producing/having access to key ressources.

The tricky thing is replacing monthly income.

You could have it that satisfying economic needs:
a) produces bonuses (depending on the resource provided). So good access to Iron would lead to cheaper artillery.
b) access to a wide variety of trade goods as a whole leads to a more innovative society, with increases to "research". People can spend the money they spent on overpriced spices on developing more innovative technology.
c) Give players opportunities to make money by practicing "arbitrage", IE buy low in one place, sell high in another.
d) A percentage of province trade good income can, of course, go to players as taxes.

Players would need to maintain merchant navies to trade between CoTs, and so countries with a wide variety of colonies could feasibly practice mercantilism, and establish monopolies to jack up prices. A degree of price elasticity could even be incorporated by giving modifiers that reduce "demand" if the price increases.

The entire economy would need to be rebalanced, but it would be a better system.
 
How about trade routes, not only sea but also land too. For land routes you must create the fastest route possible, to get the most money possible. Time is money. Also you can create trade routes through other nations(naturally) but in order to do so you must sign a trade agreement with said nation. Also , for sea routes you have to build merchant ships(similar to convoys of HoI3) and you can have as many as you like that aren't activated(though they cost money to maintain) and even activated but once you have activated merchants numbered to a third of your naval fleet(not the force limit) any more will cause rampant corruption and piracy. Also the Stability of the nation in question is important. The lower it is the more likely that bandits will attack your caravans. Also of note, if a province along your trade route is conquered or liberated in a war then your trade will be cut off until a trade agreement is signed with that new nation. Also if rebels occupy a province along your trade route it will take a portion of the profits.

Also the less nations your route goes through the better. Trade agreements cost money to maintain. Provinces with trade routes going through them are much more valuable. Also land caravans are the same as merchant ships in that you can only have as many as a third of the other nation's army size. You can have more than one COT connected to one trade route, so you can have a Paris-Venice-Constantinople route for example. The number of trade routes is limited by trade tech. Also all inland CoTs must have a corresponding port city to connect to. Merchant priority is a combo of three factors: the CoT Priority that you set up, the Percentage of merchant chance, and the CoT's value.

Sea trade routes are naturally much less complicated but are no less important and vulnerable. Sea lanes are vulnerable to Piracy, War, and Attrition. You also have to allow for wind directions and currents.

The faster the trade route the more profitable it is.

You can do all of this with your internal CoTs except you don't need a trade agreement.

Here's an in-game example as England(it starts in 1588):

Let's say as England you decide that you want to trade in Venice. You could go by sea or by land. You decide that you want to go through France, because they're very large, they have a big army of 100 regiments to defend your caravans, and have +3 stability. So you create 5 merchant ships and sign a trade agreement with France, The Swiss, Austria, and Venice. Then you create the trade route. After this the game is pretty much the same as EU3 as you simply send your merchants to do your bidding. Eventually you have the trade route fully operational. You're taking in 100 ducats from Paris and Venice.

10 years later:

France has suffered from stability hits(down to -1) and numerous rebellions that have occupied your trade route. Bandits have also taken a toll. The French Army is down to 65 regiments. Now your taking in only 45 ducats from Paris and Venice. Then France finally gets into a war. They lose horribly. Burgundy is liberated. Now your trade route is cut! But you sign a trade agreement with them and trade continues. Then you declare a colonial war against Spain. Too late you realize France was Spain's ally. France sides with Spain. Your trade route is destroyed. You win the war though and gain Matthattan, a CoT(a wealthy one at that) and the Canary islands. You then begin creating a new trade route to Lisboa and Matthattan.

5 years later:

Your nation is prospering again through Lisboa and Matthattan.



A key to this is the ability to see how long it takes to get from one province to another.
 
My greatest hope would be for continued development of the cultural and economic aspects of the game.

As mentioned here, methods for cultural integration/acceptance. Cultural minorities. Rapid population change (both up and down) based upon historical guidance for why populations changed rapidly.

Also mentioned here, the possibility of multiple trade goods per province. Alternatively, trade goods travelling to their destinations which would allow for much more advanced systems of taxation and make certain bottleneck regions particularly valuable (Sound Tolls/Dues). That kind of thing would be cool. A more complex base tax system that shifts to go along with the large population change mechanic.

Stuff like that.
 
For land trade, I think it would be fair to only allow trade through CoTs that directly border one another. So Lisboa could trade with Seville directly, but not Ile de France.

Further to that, you couldn't trade directly with China over land either. Instead, Novgorod would trade with Astrakhan, which trades with Samarkhand, with trades with Karakorum, which trades with Beijing. Alternatively, Venice trades with Alexandria, which trades with Isfahan, which trades with Delhi, which trades with Calcutta, which trades with Canton. If, say, the Ottoman's conquer Alexandria, or open a CoT in Thrace which cuts off Isfahan from Alexandria, then they can throttle Venetian trade.

I'd say Number of trade routes available to a player should be limited by technology and the number of ships they've built.
 
Why do you want multicore?
 
Doesn't stop it being all I really ask for.

True. :)

Why do you want multicore?

Multicore will allow the game to be spread across 2 or more cores, this can be a ridiculous increase in speed.

Without multicore someone with a single core 3 ghz cpu will get better performance than someone with a quad core 2.5 for example. Because the game can only use ONE of the cores.
 
Note this is a wishlist and most will be rather unrealistic.

1. Remove all provinces.
A system of cities/towns/villages/forests/caves/mountains/rivers etc would be very very interesting and fun if it could be modeled well. I'm not sure if we are near the technology where this could be modeled well and still have functioning AI's for all the different nations/citystates/etc in the world at the same time but this sounds great to me. The map would need to zoom down and zoom up very far though to compensate.

2. More idle things to do
EU3 suffers from the "Well I'll just set speed to 5 while I wait for something to happen." problem. I don't care if you just add more events, or if you add some way to interact with vassals and neighbors and fiddle with things while you wait, but this is basically open space where you could add content without trying to break current ideas like my first idea.

3. Better spies
Currently, spies work instantly, traveling faster than the speed of light and have very predictable effects. In most cases though, a spy would simply live and work in a city or important position and just monitor important documents or conversations to relay this information back to whoever he is loyal to. Some spies would even double deal and work for both sides at once. Having some sort of better spy system would be great. Also, the populations of countries are quite large so to have a pool of 0-5 spies is silly, along with only having 1 spy in crusader kings. If you figured out a new system, it would be neat to have either a funding slider for your spies that influences how hard they work to get you information or cause a ruckus, or just have the cost of having active spies increase per spy active.

4. Better diplomacy
Similar to above I suppose.

5. Better internal mechanics
Depending on your government type, you should have to deal with councils, advisers, senates etc, all doing things that you may or may not like as a king or a leader. I want SOMETHING to show this.

6. Better rebels
Having 'revolt risk' spawn 13 rebels (based on population size or tax income) every 2 weeks is strange. Didn't I just kill a bunch of you? Something about murdering 13000 rebels should either make my entire populace really mad or really docile or do SOMETHING other than give me 00.03 military tradition. Also shouldn't any of my army that was recruited there possibly defect to their family who may be rebels?

7. Better population
As part of the above, killing a big chunk of rebels should have some noticeable effect on the local population. Having a bunch of my people die in a famine should do something to a city also other than give me .01 less gold per year. I like vicky 2 pop ideas but something a little less migratory.

8. Fluid religion
EU3 only includes major heresies and the big main religions, anything else is a 'heresy' modifier. EU3 and other games also consider a province to be ENTIRELY catholic or ENTIRELY sunni. I would like there to be some sort of multiple religions in one area mechanic or something. Allow for state laws on religion and policies. Different mechanics for religions that warrant it. Heresies that were important should be shown. I mean the Hussites should have been shown in EU3 for sure. Also something about popes and anti popes for the catholic religions, maybe something about the main Shia mullah's or something for Islam (i'm not entirely sure what I am talking about here), the mix of religion in the far east and other important things for other important religions.



Can't think of anything else right now.
 
I have this idea in my head... Could it be possible to fix the "magic fleets that know where yours is"?

This is what I thought of it.... Isn't there a type of code that has to do with fog of war? Like our view that we have is only within the places around our territories and units. We have a fleet in the middle of the ocean and we see all adjacent ocean areas.

So, the idea is if you can change what moves are influenced so the ai will do them.

Like a short example in my view is "Ai chance of this = 0 if target = unit in fog of war"

What I'm trying to state there is that the AI will not chose there move to target a unit when it's in fog of war "where if we were in their shoes, we can't see the unit they want to target as we don't have view of the area it's in"

This should get rid of the magic fleets. This could work on Ai armies too. So the enemy armies will continue to march into a province while your bigger one is unseen marching to the same one.

Could that be put in?
 
More immersion too. More of a sense of what a country is like beyond the income of its provinces.

Yes, but the question is how to achieve this.
There are a few things that could be done based on current (and proposed) systems:

The internal factions (nobles, clergy, merchants...) that were planned for MMtG seemed to have some potential. Alternatively, reform slider settings and make it a bit more awkward to "optimize" your policies. Let this internal thing/slider settings restrict the choice of National Ideas. I.e., a nation without a strong naval and trade policy should not be able to chose "Quest for the New World".

Costs for buildings: it would be nice to make buildings more interesting. If you need to pay maintenance for buildings, it would make it more of a choice where to build what. Forts and harbours should have massive initial investments and require a sum for upkeep (maybe a direct deduction from the taxes). Also, overall less direct financial effect of buildings, + X tax or =y trade income is a bit too much of a non-brainer.

The more I think about it, the more I like a game without trade goods. Rather have a better focus on the diplomatic side, i.e. establish trade missions, force trade agreements and ban/boycott others. And get some merchant marine system going that influences your naval force limit and naval tradition.

Oh, and diplomacy could do with quite a bit of love. E.g. limit royal marriages but make them more meaningful. Introduce ultimatums. Make military access temprorary and the AI less willing to grant it. I'd say, also put a system in place like the Great power/secondary power/small power system in place like in Vicky II with impact on the AI: small countries should be trying to hold on what they have, act in a local area, but act quite passively and wait for a lucky shot. Second rate powers should be more active, and work on a continental level, but with a trend to ally/RM with neighbouring countries. Great powers should have global ambitions.

Edit: On the one hand I hope PI will announce in August that they are indeed working on EU IV. On the other hand, this would mean that the game design is more or less completed, and all our nice suggestions/ideas would be too late.
 
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