Europa Universalis IV

but if magna mundi is released, would it not overshadow eu4? i can only think that the greater depth of MM would lead to eu4 seeming a little hollow.

Unless they cancel MM and take some of the ideas from it and add more layers to the eu series.

I think this is one of the reasons why there is so much 'chaos' around MM atm because it has been delayed so many times it is interfering with eu4's potential release.

apg said:

but if magna mundi is released, would it not overshadow eu4? i can only think that the greater depth of MM would lead to eu4 seeming a little hollow.

Unless they cancel MM and take some of the ideas from it and add more layers to the eu series.

I think this is one of the reasons why there is so much 'chaos' around MM atm because it has been delayed so many times it is interfering with eu4's potential release.

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As far as I know MM is very different from EU3, more hardcore and whatever. So it will be very different from EU4.
I'm a big fan of EU3, I'm hoping there will be an EU4 with the CK2 dlc system. I tried MMtheMod, didn't like it. I don't care for MMtheGame.

Reflecting last page's calls for more sandbox:
It is also my opinion that EU4 would need some feature reset to not become too complex.
Add some, take away another. Perhaps stripping of the idea of yearly selectable starting points (& huge research needed to provide said possibility) is a good start.
I mean how many really play with historical leaders? Being not able to hire explorers when it would suit you etc... not likely when you've tried the free form approach.
Lets face it, EU is very much a game of map painting / world conquest. Starting point does need to be somewhat historical (at least M&B devs thought so -> WFAS with real nation-states).

More focus on introducing new mechanisms and leaving minutiae to DLCs and modders.

Rather than just state what I think should be in EU IV, I'll focus on what my problems were with EU III, and hopefully the developers can draw their own conclusions from that.

I probably least enjoyed the rebellion system. It was unrealistic as hell, and not in a way that I thought made the game more fun. Random armies of thousands of men-sometimes larger than your entire national army if you're ruling an OPM or other small state-pop up at random times on random dates in random places.

I like the idea of rebellion being an omnipresent threat. I agree that people who have an unstable country with tons of conquered territory should suffer for it. But rather than suffer through the occasional random army popping up, requiring tons of micromanagement, there should be organized rebellions.

In other words, instead of one army of ten thousand popping up somewhere inexplicable every few years, there should be twelve armies of ten thousand popping up in an entire section of your empire...but with MUCH less frequency. Like, an organized rebellion occurring only every fifty years or so, if conditions are right.

That way it's more like a civil war and less like annoying maintenance. As it is now I can knock down rebels with impunity, but it's annoying that I always have to have reserve forces to do so. I think it'd be a lot more fun, especially in the late game where you're almost unstoppable, if half your territory would just start showing rebel flags one day. It'd be awesome if you're on track for world domination and then all of a sudden you're knocked down to control of your starting continent.

Second, I didn't like the culture system. God knows how many other posters have said that, so I'll be brief in what I think should be done.

Simply I think every nation should fall somewhere on the scale between pursuing a homogenous culture or a mixed one. The mixed one offering short-term benefits, while the homogenous one offers long-term benefits. IE: Mixed cultures have lower rates of rebelling, but for a longer period of time. Homogenous cultures offer high rebellion rates but for a much shorter period of time.

Then of course you can fill in a lot of other people's ideas. Like destroying churches of a different religion to go towards homogenous, or creating a constitution to go mixed. Or whatever.

What I wish for EU4 is:

1) at the start the game mechanics are closer to CK and then it evolvs (correct term ?) towards Vicky.

2) for monarchies: a littl' dynasty tree with "people" you can use for "Royal Marriages". This would limit RMs to those "people" that are available.

3) more than just cav, inf and art as land unit-types. CK1 had 6 or more types, IIRC.

Yours,
AdL

magitsu said:

Reflecting last page's calls for more sandbox:
It is also my opinion that EU4 would need some feature reset to not become too complex.
Add some, take away another. Perhaps stripping of the idea of yearly selectable starting points (& huge research needed to provide said possibility) is a good start.
I mean how many really play with historical leaders? Being not able to hire explorers when it would suit you etc... not likely when you've tried the free form approach.
Lets face it, EU is very much a game of map painting / world conquest. Starting point does need to be somewhat historical (at least M&B devs thought so -> WFAS with real nation-states).

More focus on introducing new mechanisms and leaving minutiae to DLCs and modders.

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Don't forget that PI already did the research and thay have historical data. It isn't so much work for them to include historical data like leaders, monarchs etc. but it could make some people angry if they would abadon the feature. Same goes to "any date starting point". If they made so big effort to determine the data for such a number of provinces, it would be stupid as hell to just throw it to the bin now.
But i agree that they are rarely used features. I sometimes use various starting point, but last time i played with historical leaders & monarchs was EU2

I'd like it if EU4 merged the badboy system into relations like CK2 does.

I have to say that EU3 is one of the greatest strategy games I have ever had the pleasure of pulling a chair up to. There are quite a few good ideas in this thread about what would make the game flow a bit better. I really like the idea of relations being more about how individuals feel about each other than how the people of each nation really felt. In other words, relations were more a function of how well the individual nobles got along than how the lower classes felt. There were quite a few traditional animosities passed from parent to child, but in so many cases alliances fluctuated quite wildly throughout most of the period especially among the smaller powers.

I would like to see the characters of the Ruler and royal family flushed out a bit. I would like to see these people start with a bit of ability and be able to learn and get better as time went on. I would also like to be able to conspire or conduct intrigue with a specific individual. There is nothing wrong with the system of having every individual have a feeling obout every other individual in the game. An example would be that Country A has a ruler that is actively opposed to my policies in say Italy. Him and his brother do not get along. I could then fund a revolt by the King's brother who would then allow me to do as I wished. Now, the chances of pulling this off would be up to the game designer and no doubt affected by things like my reputation, the opposing ruler's legitimacy stat etc. You could do this with a family tree system like you find in so many games. It would be completely unnecessary to flush out any more individuals other than the rulers' immediate family. I think it would add quite a bit of spice to the game if you had a very capable and popular younger brother running around. If we didn't get along, I would have to deal with him eventually, or if we did get along, he would be a huge asset.

Another thing I would like are more economic development strategies based on geography. In EUIII currently, each province just produces one resource. In EUIV, I would like to have some things determined by what is found in the province ic. natural resources, but I would also like the option of developing other resources in that province for whatever reason I feel is adequate. To go along with this, I would like to see each resource have a unique chain of buildings based on technology, and geography for developing that resource. This would mean that the player would have to decide how to focus their economy much as it is now in EU3, but with a bit more realism.

Lastly, a strong ai would be very very nice.

EU3 was fun, but after playing CK2 I realize that EU3 is missing one very important thing:

That you can recover from mistakes.

EU3 is fun when you are on your way up, but if you make mistakes it's so damned unforgiving! Large and successful AI nations stay large and successful, unless you inflict cathastrophical defeats on them. And countries often go into death spirals of debt and defeat, from which they never recover.

CK2 on the other hand, due to the enormous role of personal factors like monarch qualities, sympathies and (most importanly) claims that die with characters, has much more room for failure and recovery. You don't get death spirals of debt, and even when you are hammered by enemies (like, playing Ireland, having England come after you with a claim on your royal title) you can accept defeat, bide your time, make a comeback and have ENORMOUS fun while doing so. After all, even the AI god-emperor of England, Scotland and Ireland will not live forever, and when he dies, the whole situation changes. It's fun to live through that.

EU3 never had this, for me. I would only ever buy EU4 if they move some of that over from CK2. That you can play a nation, have Austria come after you, inflict a cathastrophical defeat on you, and take half your territory, vassalize you, and still have fun.

How many players do you ever see, in AARs or forum threads, who accept defeat in EU3? I see very few. No one likes what happens when Austria comes after you and takes territory of you - no one likes the death spiral that you end up in so easily. I think this is a real flaw in game design.

How could that work in EU4, Leviathan?

RedRalphWiggum said:

How could that work in EU4, Leviathan?

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- Do away with the whole loan system. It's a leftover from EU2 (EU1?) and was never any fun at all. Let there be some other way of managing your finances.
- Let there be some sort of recruitment system that is tied to the ruler's abilities / properties. More ups and downs, when he dies.
- Don't have the economic system be so boringly predictable. Make tax yields more random. Good harvests, bad harvests...
- Do away with "minting"!!! It makes no sense at all. Look at the ideas that the Magna Mundi people had.
- Do away with player-controlled, 100% predictable tech progress.
- Have more things that a player can introduce, that boost him for some time, but that he cannot count on to stay forever. Example: Manufactories. Make it so that they aren't so insanely expensive, but also don't stay forever. Like when you invest money to start a porcelain business in your provinces, make it so that it stays for at least, say, fifteen years, but can fail after some time. Economic management should not consist of saving, saving, saving, saving, then building, then twiddling thumbs, then again saving, saving, saving.

Also, have there be sliders that influence how often you get what I would call opportunities: "economic ventures" (= opportunities for land amelioration, for novel businesses, merchant expeditions etc), "military ventures" (= opportunities for fortress constructions, reforms, military tech innovation, raids into neighbouring provinces, etc), "ventures in state affairs" (= opportunities for splendid festivals, marriage alliances, diplomatic expeditions like Zheng He's overseas expedition, and so on) Opportunities are a mix of stuff that has likelihoods to appear (random events, essentially) but that you can "provoke" into appearing by giving continuous funding into the general "ventures" category. To make things less of a random experience, have there be progress sliders where you can see how likely certain opportunities are to pop up. Like the tech research progress in Master of Orion II, where you would be given an "expected" date but things could come to fruition earlier, or later. Some things are, after all, fairly easily planned (like starting a land amelioration initiative, or throwing a festival) but others depend on opportunities to present themselves... a foreign monarch coming to the realization that you are a prestigeous state, and offering his daughter's hand, for example. Or finding an enterprising navigator to start a journey of exploration into the Pacific.

Essentially, leave behind all the EU2 baggage. Put the axe to all of the old EU2 features that were carried over into EU3: minting, predictable tech progress, loans, navies that you command around like land units and that never suffer storms or unfavorable winds, and the endless save-save-save-save-spend-repeat grind that you go through for EVERYTHING in EU3 from manufactories to modernization and so on.

All of these save-save-save-save-spend-repeat schemes make EU3 a long term planning game, where if your plans are derailed, you are completely set back or may have to switch goals. It's really a grind in so many aspects currently. But running a country should not be an endless waiting game where you watch your gold or your stability slider or your tech slider inch forward pixel by pixel. It should involve unpredictability, opportunities, ways to bypass the waiting lane. Ways to have dazzling and unexpected breakthroughs, and also have terrible setbacks, but setbacks that you can RECOVER from.

CK2 does that very well. You may lose your best titles, all your money, all your prestige, but because each ruler is a new opportunity, none of that needs to dishearten you. Sure it may frustrate you, but it's not game over, after rain will come sunshine. Something that is TOTALLY lacking in the EU3 experience.

Takeo92 said:

Well.. how about a Game with timeline 400 BC up to 1950 AD? Maybe start with timeline 800-1400 AD and than bring 1 expension after the other. And when you reach a certain time, youre interface and so on just changes, like you would convert eu rome to ck2 to eu3 to vic2 to hoi3, just without the timeline gaps and without having to shut the game down. I think it would be fun as hell.. Dont know, the main Title with a proper timeline like 800-1400 could be released for i dont know 40 euro and every Timlineline expansion for the same price, because it should be basically a different (but similar) game, whish suits the timeline. It just has to be really combined with the other games/timelines.
I would like to start a game like 350 BC with the Greeks or Romans and play untill year 1950. Ofc some day you will probably own the world, but there could be mechanics, like hords (huns e.g), whish break big empires.. or the faith and christianity, whish troubled the roman empire too.

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There's already the Civilization games family, they do just that.

Takeo92 said:

Well.. how about a Game with timeline 400 BC up to 1950 AD? Maybe start with timeline 800-1400 AD and than bring 1 expension after the other. And when you reach a certain time, youre interface and so on just changes, like you would convert eu rome to ck2 to eu3 to vic2 to hoi3, just without the timeline gaps and without having to shut the game down. I think it would be fun as hell.. Dont know, the main Title with a proper timeline like 800-1400 could be released for i dont know 40 euro and every Timlineline expansion for the same price, because it should be basically a different (but similar) game, whish suits the timeline. It just has to be really combined with the other games/timelines.
I would like to start a game like 350 BC with the Greeks or Romans and play untill year 1950. Ofc some day you will probably own the world, but there could be mechanics, like hords (huns e.g), whish break big empires.. or the faith and christianity, whish troubled the roman empire too.

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There is a mod for Civ IV called "Rhye's and Fall of Civilization", which does this perfectly.

But, I find it hard to see how it can be done with a Paradox game. All the Paradox games depend on one thing -- that the structure of the world in the entire era they represent remains the same.

For example, look at armies... armies during CK era and HOI era were wildly different, and so are the strategies that those armies would use. I think the battle AI itself would be a nightmare if you try to combine both those eras in a single game.

Sir Tornado said:

There is a mod for Civ IV called "Rhye's and Fall of Civilization", which does this perfectly.

But, I find it hard to see how it can be done with a Paradox game. All the Paradox games depend on one thing -- that the structure of the world in the entire era they represent remains the same.

For example, look at armies... armies during CK era and HOI era were wildly different, and so are the strategies that those armies would use. I think the battle AI itself would be a nightmare if you try to combine both those eras in a single game.

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While I think such a game could be done, I'm not sure if it would be fun to play. You have to learn many very different game conepts/mechanics during the course of one game. And one game would probably last very long, and even now not many people play eu3/ck2/v2 from start to finish. You would also need mechanics to avoid blobbing in early game, but still make the game interesting and not frustrating (and many people already disklike the huge rebellions when your king dies in ck2, or random bb events in eu3).
I think many people would just start in the timeframe which is the most interesting for them, play some years, achive what they wanted and then quit and start a new game.
So I think it's better to have several well defined and balanced games reflecting one characteristic timeframe.

And we already have civ for the lightwight -4000 to 2000 gameplay.

Edit: to the topic: please make EU4!

IMHO, EU III is too predictable. There is very little variation in essential factors such as tax revenue, manpower, exploration, development of technologies etc.

As Leviathan07 mentioned above, an easy system to introduce uncertainty into taxation and manpower could be a random factor for harvest. A bad harvest leads to lower tax income and decreased growth of manpower. To make it more interesting, the same modifier should apply to "regions" made up of several adjacent provinces. A few years of good harvests in one region and bad ones in others could shift the balance of power.
Provincial buildings, technological discoveries and national ideas/policies could decrease negative effects and/or increase positive ones.

Technological discoveries should be more random, maybe a % chance for a certain discovery, if certain preconditions are fulfilled. I.e. advances in ship building require a province with a harbour. The % success could be affected by direct investment in an area (e.g. in army technology), relevant buildings (universities), national ideas...

Exploration is way too predictable at the moment. I'd like to see a system in which the player can outfit expeditions and send them out to explore a certain region. E.g. "Find a way around Africa towards India". A successful expedition returns with the knowledge of new sea-regions/provinces, an unsuccesful not at all. The chances for a succesful voyage can be increased by a very good leader, technology, national ideas... In later stages, random exploration could be added.

Travelling times of navies also should be less predictable, and random stormes/bad weather (as in EU II) should make trans-oceanic voyages a hazzard, until certain technologies are developed.


Province population should be either completely redefined and made more important or completely scrapped. At the moment, we have a number representing the city population in this province. There is some effect on the production value of the province, but overall, it is pretty meaningless, since base tax and manpower see, to be two completely independent factors. Either make the number represent estimated province population and correlate it to manpower and tax, or don't bother at all.

I'd also be in favour of a compete re-hash of trade and trade goods. Instead of using it as a money making exercise, it should have a far greater influence on the forcelimits of certain units (e.g. naval goods, horses, metals...), lessen the effect of bad harvests (corn, fish...) and keep the population happy (luxury items, such as tobacco, sugar, china, spices). The further the game progresses, the larger the desire of the population for luxury items and the greater the negative effects of not having access to them (either in having provinces producing this or having access to it via trade). I'm not advocating a detailed model as in Victoria, I'd rather have something more simple.

Oh, and when it comes to the military aspect, I'm in favour of a more detailed focus on the naval aspect of the game, including a manpower pool for sailors. A "horsepower" pool for cavalry might be nice, making the composition of an army more balanced for most countries.

Kerry said:

IMHO, EU III is too predictable. There is very little variation in essential factors such as tax revenue, manpower, exploration, development of technologies etc.

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Isn't a (grand) strategy game about prediction? I mean, to make a strategy you need to have constants and you need to know how to manipulate the variables in your favour. To much randomness and kills strategy.

siis said:

Isn't a (grand) strategy game about prediction? I mean, to make a strategy you need to have constants and you need to know how to manipulate the variables in your favour. To much randomness and kills strategy.

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Your last sentence is the key to the issue.
But IMO EU III is too predictable. Only in early game I bother about the few random factors like stats of advisors or army leaders. Later on, most of the things are just inconsequential, only the stats of a monarch are having an effecct on my strategy.

Introducing some variability in key factors (tax, reinforcement...) would force the player to plan more carefully, leave a margin for error and have a plan B, or else go for a big gamble. Let's say, the tax income would vary every +- 25% of the average value due to bad/good harvests. I rather have this than the completely random stab hits by comet sightings (certainly something that can happen once in a while as well).
Another thing would be the war with hordes. Why in all world are they in constant state of war with their neighbours? Give them a cb against their sedentary neighbours, and a random chance to declare war, maybe influenced by factors like war exhaustion, available armies.... Much less predictable, much more challenging, much more fun!

Might not go too well with every player, but for me it would certainly be more interesting

siis said:

Isn't a (grand) strategy game about prediction? I mean, to make a strategy you need to have constants and you need to know how to manipulate the variables in your favour. To much randomness and kills strategy.

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Yes, grand strategy should be about long-term thinking, but EU3 is virtually only long term.

EU3 is like a chess game: You predict moves years ahead, you watch little counters creep up slowly. Playing 10 years in EU3 is like baking a cake: You read the recipe (=come up with a strategy), weigh the ingredients (=look at the initial slider setup), mix everything (=adjust sliders, click available decisions on day 0), then put everything in the oven (=unpause) and wait for half an hour until the goal is reached.

It's too much about being proactive, and too little about being reactive. Reactive aspects happen when someone declares war on you, or when you are in the HRE, with the SRI mod, and stuff happens, like emperor elections. Proactive is everything else: Planning slider moves 100 years in advance, planning tech advances 30 years in advance, planning income and expenditures 10 years in advance, planning 10 years in advance what you will spend your land and naval tradition on, planning 50 years in advance what national decision you want to take.

Many of the reactive parts of the game, on the other hand, are straight out of the ancient EU2 game: The way you have explorer fleets zap across the ocean, or how you fight wars, moving stacks against each other. Un-fun, and I think they don't go well with the way the proactive part of the game is played. Exploring oceans shouldn't be an activity you need to babysit, as others have already said. Neither should sending merchants!!!

It's okay, in an obsessive-compulsive type of way, but not very inviting for someone who likes a little action every now and then. Also it conditions the player to a very weird way of thinking: When you suffer a setback, you think it's because you failed to click that crucial slider fifteen years ago. Or because you forgot your fleet in an high seas sector. Or because you forgot, that the huge loan was coming due in 364 days from now, not 464 days. You are always tempted to reload, because EU3 conditions you into obsessive-compulsive game play.

I would prefer to play the game in a more relaxed way: To have more random ups and downs. To know, that you can suffer reverses, but you won't be eliminated. To know, that the game is not a rat race of min-max optimization. To be able to shape the world, but without NEEDING to control every little detail.

Like a good game of tennis: The game throws you a curveball: You do your best to parry it. The game throws you a slow ball: You do your best to utterly smash it into the AI's far corner. The game throws you an impossible ball: You accept it, knowing that a reverse isn't forever, and better opportunities will come.