EU5 should have two start dates - 1356 and 1492.

[EUnderhill]

I feel like there's a lot of work to ensure that two different start dates work correctly.

I still haven't seen a single convincing argument as to why a post 1450's start date is more interesting other than thinly veiled attacks at Byzantium.

As I mentioned before, there's a lot more flavour to the game when the Hundred Years War is active, Burgundy could go several different ways, colonisation has yet to happen, Poland/Bohemia/ and Hungary are up for grabs....even the Timurids would be done in such a scenario.

Having all those matters settled is why I favor later starts, as well as keeping the world somewhat recognizable later in the game. EU IV is good enough as a sandbox to support indefinitely. I'd like a scenario where all the majors will show up for the party with the minimum of railroading needed for Austria and Holland; deeper still with AI improved enough to be a challenge for experienced human players playing one of the other majors. AFAIAC EU V need not exist until such improvements are made. We have a great sandbox already - what we could use is an arena; one in which winning actually means something.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Having all those matters settled is why I favor later starts, as well as keeping the world somewhat recognizable later in the game. EU IV is good enough as a sandbox to support indefinitely. I'd like a scenario where all the majors will show up for the party with the minimum of railroading needed for Austria and Holland; deeper still with AI improved enough to be a challenge for experienced human players playing one of the other majors. AFAIAC EU V need not exist until such improvements are made. We have a great sandbox already - what we could use is an arena; one in which winning actually means something.

I've always said I would prefer it if the game was a bit more historically railroaded, so I don't 100% disagree with you but the issue is the game then has less replay value.

At the moment you can turn England or Castile into a massive land power or a lucrative overseas trading Empire. You can turn Bohemia into a diplomatic emperor or an aggressive expansionist. You want to form Russia? Well Muscovy isn't the only option. Just three examples. Most nations can be played in a number of different ways. We don't even have Burgundy in this timeline

If we start in 1492 and the fact is I fear we'll end up with, "If you wanna do X you have to pick Y".

In all honesty I think 1444 is the perfect start date and EU5 shouldn't veer more than a couple of decades from it.

 

[Olaf Trygvasson]

I support 2 start dates- 1444 and 1613. The 1444 start date for obvious reasons, to focus on colonialism and the Reformation and 1613 right after the end of the Russia Time of Troubles, just after the Reformation has more or less settled down and right before the 30 years war, to give a fun 30 years war experience (especially if they made actually good mechanics for it)

 

[Blindbohemian]

I've always said I would prefer it if the game was a bit more historically railroaded, so I don't 100% disagree with you but the issue is the game then has less replay value.

At the moment you can turn England or Castile into a massive land power or a lucrative overseas trading Empire. You can turn Bohemia into a diplomatic emperor or an aggressive expansionist. You want to form Russia? Well Muscovy isn't the only option. Just three examples. Most nations can be played in a number of different ways. We don't even have Burgundy in this timeline

If we start in 1492 and the fact is I fear we'll end up with, "If you wanna do X you have to pick Y".

In all honesty I think 1444 is the perfect start date and EU5 shouldn't veer more than a couple of decades from it.

I think exactly the same thing, Travis, and (Byzantium aside) I think that’s the key disconnect among EUIV players. It seems to me that approximately half of EU players see “outcomes will be less historical, less predictable, more crazy” and go “hooray! Move the start date to 1066!” And half hear the same and go “oh, no, that’s not what we want, move the start date to 1517!”

I fall into the latter group, like you, but (like most people) I’m actually somewhere in between. I similarly think that somewhere in the mid-1400s is probably a good balance.

I’ve advocated in the past for 1453, but it’s got nothing to do with Byzantium. I think prior to c.1440 is getting a bit too early because you start getting weird stuff with the HRE (no Habsburgs just warps later history way too much, to my mind), and I think after about 1460 is too late because you get too locked in to one configuration.

The things I like about 1453 over 1444 are:
- The Hundred Years War is over. England winning the HYW in 1444 is as plausible as Byzantium recovering; all having it in the game serves to do is make the England start annoying, sometimes give us some stupid English Brittany scenario, and require special events that wonk up diplomacy in Western Europe.
- Shenanigans with the post-Varna crowns are sorted. Poland turning down the union isn’t interesting and different, it’s just silly. The Habsburg/Hungary events are weird and wonky. I would rather a stable start where game rules can just be game rules.
- Portugal has a feitoria at Arguin and has explored as far as the Ivory Coast, which (might, hopefully) push the AI to actually go east.

Post-1444 feels like there’s more stability in the things EUIV needs stability (or relies on event chains that work as one-time exceptions to game rules) and more dynamism in the stuff EUIV’s good at dynamism in. I’m open to other potential dates, but I really do think 1453 is better than ‘44. The only thing ‘44 has to recommend it—and all the wonkiness it demands—is Byzantium. But you can have that with Trebizond and so on anyway.

So, I recognise that my set of concerns: historically plausible outcomes and minimal if any one-time-exception-to-game-rules-events is unique and maybe not shared by many. Within my paradigm, though, I think that late 1453 (Ladislaus Postumus on the throne of Austria) is closer to the sweet spot than 1444.

 

[Danskjävel]

Holy moly, the amount of derogatory comments towards opinions, that aren't even voiced in this thread, is off the records. I'm not sure the devs will look at this thread, and go with the starting date suggestion from the few people miscrediting imaginary "byzanboos" rather than arguing. And after all, an argument based in what a wider audience would like, rather than solely your own preference, should hold some merit for a commercial release

Personally I think EU4 (haven't played the other games in the series) is about the transformation from the medieval to early modern period, and not solely a game about or focused in the early modern period. As such I think it's important to flesh out what comes before the transformation - while not loosing focus on what it's transforming into.
This should be feasible for people enjoying mostly either part of the game, rather than going into "extremes" with either 1492 or 1356. I'd personally enjoy the latter, but luckily I'm not everybody else.

1400-1450 seems appropriate with these things in mind, and I would be fine with any date thats not 1444 in that interval. 1444 is a really good date, but with 10+ years of 1444, it would likely get a little too repetitive. 1419 seems great too, but if the games have to have different starts: ~1428 or ~1415?

 

[henriqueb1]

I think exactly the same thing, Travis, and (Byzantium aside) I think that’s the key disconnect among EUIV players. It seems to me that approximately half of EU players see “outcomes will be less historical, less predictable, more crazy” and go “hooray! Move the start date to 1066!” And half hear the same and go “oh, no, that’s not what we want, move the start date to 1517!”

I think you've nailed PDX fandom there. That's exactly why I've said that 1444 is a great compromise. But you've sold me on 1453. I also fall on the latter and I would love to have less wonkiness in the start, and if the cost for having the Habsburgs, Poland, Portugal and HYW settled is not having Byzantium, that's a pretty good deal.

 

[Cry_Havok]

I think exactly the same thing, Travis, and (Byzantium aside) I think that’s the key disconnect among EUIV players. It seems to me that approximately half of EU players see “outcomes will be less historical, less predictable, more crazy” and go “hooray! Move the start date to 1066!” And half hear the same and go “oh, no, that’s not what we want, move the start date to 1517!”

I fall into the latter group, like you, but (like most people) I’m actually somewhere in between. I similarly think that somewhere in the mid-1400s is probably a good balance.

I’ve advocated in the past for 1453, but it’s got nothing to do with Byzantium. I think prior to c.1440 is getting a bit too early because you start getting weird stuff with the HRE (no Habsburgs just warps later history way too much, to my mind), and I think after about 1460 is too late because you get too locked in to one configuration.

The things I like about 1453 over 1444 are:
- The Hundred Years War is over. England winning the HYW in 1444 is as plausible as Byzantium recovering; all having it in the game serves to do is make the England start annoying, sometimes give us some stupid English Brittany scenario, and require special events that wonk up diplomacy in Western Europe.
- Shenanigans with the post-Varna crowns are sorted. Poland turning down the union isn’t interesting and different, it’s just silly. The Habsburg/Hungary events are weird and wonky. I would rather a stable start where game rules can just be game rules.
- Portugal has a feitoria at Arguin and has explored as far as the Ivory Coast, which (might, hopefully) push the AI to actually go east.

Post-1444 feels like there’s more stability in the things EUIV needs stability (or relies on event chains that work as one-time exceptions to game rules) and more dynamism in the stuff EUIV’s good at dynamism in. I’m open to other potential dates, but I really do think 1453 is better than ‘44. The only thing ‘44 has to recommend it—and all the wonkiness it demands—is Byzantium. But you can have that with Trebizond and so on anyway.

So, I recognise that my set of concerns: historically plausible outcomes and minimal if any one-time-exception-to-game-rules-events is unique and maybe not shared by many. Within my paradigm, though, I think that late 1453 (Ladislaus Postumus on the throne of Austria) is closer to the sweet spot than 1444.

I feel like there is room for an in-between. A lot of the problem is the unrestricted blobbing, it makes nothing make sense. What I want is room for history to be different but rhyme. (Which another fault of a later start date, Novgorod is dead, and the Tatar states except Crimea). There should be some nation in China, be it Yuan, Ming, Qing, or someone else. Russia should probably form, but it should be possible for the Tatars to get their act together and restore the Golden Horde. What if instead of Prussia the Gryf dynasty didn't die out in Pomerania and became dominant in North Germany?

Ultimately what really needs to be the case is a constraint on blobbing. Ok, Byz or Serbia or Albania or Bosnia survive, it should be a fun challenge to survive smashed between Austria and The Ottomans as they try to hold you in their sphere of influence. Maybe you can unite the Balkans and become a regional power, and then flip the script and be fighting over Anatolia with the Caucuses/Persia, and South Germany with the Poland Region, and North Germany. EU5 needs to be a game about uniting your home region and then exerting control over neighboring regions and maybe getting lucky enough to be able to afford to be a colonial power, not mindless map painting while the AI blobs with reckless abandon.

 

[Blindbohemian]

Personally I think EU4 (haven't played the other games in the series) is about the transformation from the medieval to early modern period, and not solely a game about or focused in the early modern period.

I agree with this, Dansk. It might interest you to know that scholars (for example recently Dan Jones) place the end of the medieval period around 1517 rather than 1453.

I think there are several issues here:

• What EUIV is about,
• What EUIV needs to represent to show what it’s about, and
• What EUIV can do well.

Like you, I think that EUIV is fundamentally a game about change. Unlike you I don’t think it’s about the transition to the early modern period; the early modern period ends in 1815 at the latest. Recall that the end date in EUIV is closer to the invention of cars (and after the invention and deployment of the first steam trains) than the beginning of EUIV is to the Protestant Reformation. The end of EUIV is closer to the invention of airplanes than the beginning is to the Counter-Reformation. EUIV is a game about the transition from the medieval world to the modern age.

To that end, I think you’re right that EUIV needs to start at the end of the Middle Ages and show what it is that falls apart. We need to start with feudal kingdoms, levy-based armies, major Mediterranean-Indian Ocean trade networks, a powerful but creaking Ming dynasty, the final gasp of Islamic expansion and the collision of Turkic and Arabic polities in the Islamic world. And we do.

But the thing is we can have that right up into the 1500s. Hard as it may be to believe, it was an intensely feudal world that “discovered” the Americas in 1492 (in fact Eduardo Galeano among others credits the discovery of the Americas for keeping Spain such an intensely feudal society up until the nineteenth century). It was a feudal world that agreed the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. We don’t have to go back to 1356 to get the medieval world.

And the thing is, even though it’s notionally a game about transition, EUIV kind of sucks at showing that. And it sucks even more at showing what you’re transitioning from. Feudalism in EUIV is a modifier. And personal unions, I guess. Armies in EUIV are professional standing armies. Layered sovereignty in EUIV is the Pope either excommunicating you or not. Crusades are a modifier. Levies don’t exist. Feudal tensions over rights don’t exist. Independence-minded double-dealing nobles don’t exist, except as a homogenous “nobility” estate.

EUIV (for good reason: Crusader Kings exists. This is an observation not a critique) is just bad at representing the medieval world. So I don’t think it should, any more than it has to in order to be a game about transition. It should play to its strengths.

The other thing EUIV mechanically kind of sucks at is capturing the decline of states. If you set a country up to be powerful at the start date, say because it’s 1408 and Byzantium happened to be having a good year, chances are good it’ll stay powerful right through to the end of the game. That doesn’t always happen, but it happens more often than not because EUIV mechanics don’t have a way to systematically replicate the reasons countries decline.

So any EUIV start date, assuming you care about having a vaguely recognisable world in 1821 (which many people don’t but I’ve already explained is the only paradigm I’m interested in), needs to minimise distortedly-powerful tags that are actually in chronic decline, and minimise significant events that EUIV doesn’t know how to model well or at all.

Which puts us back in the fifteenth century. I wholly agree, as I’ve said, that 1492 is too late. We need some time to be medieval, and to let the world figure itself out a bit in new ways before the New World opens up. I also think, though, that 1400 is way too early. You’ll never get a Habsburg Emperor, because EUIV doesn’t model HRE dynastic turnover very well (and without railroading why would the Habsburgs turn up anyway?). Ottomans will 50/50 get snuffed out in the crib; Byzantium will be a regional power. The Russian states will frequently not overcome the Golden Horde.

So we need something later than 1400 and earlier than 1492. As I’ve said, I think anything prior to the Habsburg HRE and the Union of Lublin are bad choices, because either a) we won’t get those outcomes and the world will be unrecognisable or b) those outcomes will be forced through events, which is bad design.

And that’s why, although I agree with you that EUIV is a game about the transition from the medieval to the modern world, I don’t believe any date outside of the mid-fifteenth century is a good start date. Furthermore as I’ve argued earlier I believe late 1453 is the best (although I’m open to having my mind changed).

 

[Danskjävel]

I agree with this, Dansk. It might interest you to know that scholars (for example recently Dan Jones) place the end of the medieval period around 1517 rather than 1453.

Thank you for your post, I think it's a great point of discussion. It'll perhaps interest you in return that in the nordic countries, the middle ages are generally established to be from ~1000 to 1520/1536/1537.

Like you, I think that EUIV is fundamentally a game about change. Unlike you I don’t think it’s about the transition to the early modern period; the early modern period ends in 1815 at the latest. Recall that the end date in EUIV is closer to the invention of cars than the beginning of EUIV is to the Protestant Reformation. EUIV is a game about the transition from the medieval world to the modern age.

To that end, I think you’re right that EUIV needs to start at the end of the Middle Ages and show what it is that falls apart. We need to start with feudal kingdoms, levy-based armies, major Mediterranean trade networks, a powerful Ming, the final gasp of Islamic expansion and the collision of Turkic and Arabic polities in the Islamic world. And we do.

Here I'd argue that this calls for ending EU4 way earlier. While some people do come close to the end date, most people are done by the 17th century, and for good reason. You've likely achieved your goals by then, and it's become rather onesided in many cases - of course even Very Hard OPM starts where everything is decided in the first 50 years too.

Obviously a better AI could mitigate some of this (and of course we should expect that from EU5) but we do face two other problems then: should EU(5) be a map painting game, or rather to what extent should it be? And how would that affect the business case of EU5? I think most people on the forums would like a way better AI that doesn't cheat, but would the wider audience like to be ROFLStomped? Look at the opinions on The Ottomans (and France depending on patch) from people with less experience. Naturally this can be worked around, perhaps by giving the player cheats on easier difficulties D), but then we are talking allocation of development ressources.

I'd rather put forward the argument to embrace the transition from feudal to early early modern, and cut the revolutions part. Perhaps end the game in 1789 (or earlier) as some else suggested. The revolutions are great parts of the game and all, but as it's rather slim minority of games that lasts that long, and you do run into the problem of trying to portray a lot of transitions. Obviously history doesn't consist of a few major transitions, but in game terms I think it's fine to talk of it in these terms.

But the thing is we can have that right up until the 1500s. Hard as it may be to believe, it was an intensely feudal world that “discovered” the Americas in 1492 (in fact Eduardo Galeano among others credits the discovery of the Americas for keeping Spain such an intensely feudal society up until the nineteenth century). It was a feudal world that agreed the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. We don’t have to go back to 1356 to get the medieval world.

And the thing is, even though it’s notionally a game about transition, EUIV kind of sucks at showing that. And it sucks even more at showing what you’re transitioning from. Feudalism in EUIV is a modifier. And personal unions, I guess. Armies in EUIV are professional standing armies. Layered sovereignty in EUIV is the Pope either excommunicating you or not. Crusades are a modifier. Levies don’t exist. Feudal tensions over rights don’t exist. Independence-minded double-dealing nobles don’t exist, except as a homogenous “nobility” estate.

EUIV (for good reason: Crusader Kings exists. This is an observation not a critique) is just bad at representing the medieval world. So I don’t think it should, any more than it has to in order to be a game about transition. It should play to its strengths.

I think this point's us in the opposite direction. We have feudal societies today! Let's start the game at a point where they're dominant. and where the cracks of that particular societal structure (well structures obviously) are starting to show. I don't think, as I've said, that we need 1356. That'd be 50 years wasted on a very feudal period that's better portrayed in Crusader Kings. That's why 1415-1430 is great: a sliver of time more, to flesh out what we're moving away from, while having a more fractured map that opens for more playable nations and thus more replayability.

Having to chose whether or not to invest into a standing army, instead of levies, that might be far from proportional to the cost in the beginning while also upsetting the nobility, sounds like a fun choice to me if done right! If we do away with the latter (and rather underplayed I must point out) latter parts of the game, things like this could be fleshed out way more.

The other thing EUIV mechanically kind of sucks at is capturing the decline of states. If you set a country up to be powerful at the start date, say because it’s 1408 and Byzantium happened to be having a good year, chances are good it’ll stay powerful right through to the end of the game. That doesn’t always happen, but it happens more often than not because EUIV mechanics don’t have a way to systematically replicate the reasons countries decline.

So any EUIV start date, assuming you care about having a vaguely recognisable world in 1821 (which many people don’t but I’ve already explained is the only paradigm I’m interested in), needs to minimise distortedly-powerful tags that are actually in chronic decline, and minimise significant events that EUIV doesn’t know how to model well or at all.

Which puts us back in the fifteenth century. I wholly agree, as I’ve said, that 1492 is too late. We need some time to be medieval, and to let the world figure itself out a bit in new ways before the New World opens up. I also think, though, that 1400 is way too early. You’ll never get a Habsburg Emperor, because EUIV doesn’t model HRE dynastic turnover very well (and without railroading why would the Habsburgs turn up anyway?). Ottomans will 50/50 get snuffed out in the crib; Byzantium will be a regional power. The Russian states will frequently not overcome the Golden Horde.

So we need something later than 1400 and earlier than 1492. As I’ve said, I think anything prior to the Habsburg HRE and the Union of Lublin are bad choices, because either a) we won’t get those outcomes and the world will be unrecognisable or b) those outcomes will be forced through events, which is bad design.

And that’s why, although I agree with you that EUIV is a game about the transition from the medieval to the modern world, I don’t believe any date outside of the mid-fifteenth century is a good start date. Furthermore as I’ve argued earlier I believe late 1453 is the best (although I’m open to having my mind changed).

I agree wholly with anything but the date, and to summarize my thoughts I think that cutting the latter 50 or so years from the game would open up the possibility of streamlining what it sets out to do: portraying the transition from medieval to early modern instead of also trying to include the cracks of early modernity and it's transition into modernity. Same reasoning on my parts as why 1356 is too early: 1821 is too late!

Having EU being rather poor at portraying decline I do think is a focal point from the devs. At least the latest DLC shows an attempt (within EU4's constraints) of dealing with it. I put my trust into thinking EU5 will be better at that. To what extent I couldn't guess of course.

But I think all in all, having the game start slightly earlier then 1444 opens the posibility to really flesh out the transition, given that some parts are cut short in the other end.

 

[vv142]

I think that previous posts outlined the dilemma for the developers well, between less railroading with later start date and more opportunities to make “long gone” tags great with earlier start dates, which is what significant chunk of player base wants (and buys).

However, I think that one thing was not mentioned a lot (and that is not right from historic perspective) is that almost all tags start with a clean slate and in a reasonably good shape. In reality most tags should start with a lot of issues, debt and/or AE, high local autonomy and like 10+ bad privileges per estate (including some giving autonomy to regions like Burgundian privilege when annexing Lowlands). That would be a lot more realistic and I feel it would bridge the gap between the two views on the start date somewhat (because some tags would be in real mess), but I might be wrong about it.

I personally feel that the current date is ok and I have faith that Johan and the team will get the date right in the end. However, given the scope of work needed to get realistic starts for different countries and that it wouldn’t be fun to deal with / sell well, I am not expecting it to happen.

 

[Kane_hun]

I think exactly the same thing, Travis, and (Byzantium aside) I think that’s the key disconnect among EUIV players. It seems to me that approximately half of EU players see “outcomes will be less historical, less predictable, more crazy” and go “hooray! Move the start date to 1066!” And half hear the same and go “oh, no, that’s not what we want, move the start date to 1517!”

I fall into the latter group, like you, but (like most people) I’m actually somewhere in between. I similarly think that somewhere in the mid-1400s is probably a good balance.

I’ve advocated in the past for 1453, but it’s got nothing to do with Byzantium. I think prior to c.1440 is getting a bit too early because you start getting weird stuff with the HRE (no Habsburgs just warps later history way too much, to my mind), and I think after about 1460 is too late because you get too locked in to one configuration.

The things I like about 1453 over 1444 are:
- The Hundred Years War is over. England winning the HYW in 1444 is as plausible as Byzantium recovering; all having it in the game serves to do is make the England start annoying, sometimes give us some stupid English Brittany scenario, and require special events that wonk up diplomacy in Western Europe.
- Shenanigans with the post-Varna crowns are sorted. Poland turning down the union isn’t interesting and different, it’s just silly. The Habsburg/Hungary events are weird and wonky. I would rather a stable start where game rules can just be game rules.
- Portugal has a feitoria at Arguin and has explored as far as the Ivory Coast, which (might, hopefully) push the AI to actually go east.

Post-1444 feels like there’s more stability in the things EUIV needs stability (or relies on event chains that work as one-time exceptions to game rules) and more dynamism in the stuff EUIV’s good at dynamism in. I’m open to other potential dates, but I really do think 1453 is better than ‘44. The only thing ‘44 has to recommend it—and all the wonkiness it demands—is Byzantium. But you can have that with Trebizond and so on anyway.

So, I recognise that my set of concerns: historically plausible outcomes and minimal if any one-time-exception-to-game-rules-events is unique and maybe not shared by many. Within my paradigm, though, I think that late 1453 (Ladislaus Postumus on the throne of Austria) is closer to the sweet spot than 1444.

I dont think that the throne of Ladislaus should be considered as a cemented and lasting union between Hungary and Austria. Events shortly after the date are too important to ignore, the death of Ladislaus from leukemia (or poisoning) and the ascension of Mathias, one of the most well remembered kings of Hungary. Having almost inevitable events sort this out would defeat the point you made with the start date (for the Austrian/Hungarian aspect). Austrian hold on the throne of Hungary can only be considered after 1526, when the king died with an agreement in place for Austria, and even then, hungarian-Transylvania got established against german dominance.

In conclusion, only a very late start date should definetely result in a long Austrian union, and still be a PU until after the defeat of the Ottomans and them being driven back from Hungarian crown lands, only integrated after the diet of 1687.

 

[Blindbohemian]

I dont think that the throne of Ladislaus should be considered as a cemented and lasting union between Hungary and Austria. Events shortly after the date are too important to ignore, the death of Ladislaus from leukemia (or poisoning) and the ascension of Mathias, one of the most well remembered kings of Hungary. Having almost inevitable events sort this out would defeat the point you made with the start date (for the Austrian/Hungarian aspect). Austrian hold on the throne of Hungary can only be considered after 1526, when the king died with an agreement in place for Austria, and even then, hungarian-Transylvania got established against german dominance.

In conclusion, only a very late start date should definetely result in a long Austrian union, and still be a PU until after the defeat of the Ottomans and them being driven back from Hungarian crown lands, only integrated after the diet of 1687.

Thanks Kane! Rather than a cemented and lasting union between Austria and Hungary, I was using Ladislaus Postumus as the point where Austria is a unified body under the Habsburgs. It’s been my understanding that in 1444 Austria is better represented by two different Habsburg-rules tags which ultimately fell under Postumus’ rule.

Perhaps the ascension of Matthias Corvinus would be a better date?

 

[Kane_hun]

Perhaps the ascension of Matthias Corvinus would be a better date?

Indeed, for Hungary that would be one of the most preferable dates and I would venture to say that Central Europe would be in a good place as well. Alas, I cannot say how that date would hold up around the world.

 

[sprites]

isn't 1356 a mod date? but maybe.
after , sometimes i like to start at other dates, but yeah 95% of the time i start at the default date.
also , i ... have trouble remembering the 1399 start date, it's been more than 10 years now. and i can't find a map for this, either

 

[Lord Lambert]

isn't 1356 a mod date?

yeah, both MEIOU & Taxes and a more vanilla-esque 1356 mod use that date. Both prove that 1356 is a very interesting date to start a game of EU4.

 

[Lazy Sorcerer]

I think exactly the same thing, Travis, and (Byzantium aside) I think that’s the key disconnect among EUIV players. It seems to me that approximately half of EU players see “outcomes will be less historical, less predictable, more crazy” and go “hooray! Move the start date to 1066!” And half hear the same and go “oh, no, that’s not what we want, move the start date to 1517!”

And that's why there should be two startdates - one to accommodate each group. That's the point of my original post.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I support 2 start dates- 1444 and 1613. The 1444 start date for obvious reasons, to focus on colonialism and the Reformation and 1613 right after the end of the Russia Time of Troubles, just after the Reformation has more or less settled down and right before the 30 years war, to give a fun 30 years war experience (especially if they made actually good mechanics for it)

I really like this idea. Maybe not the exact dates, but the idea behind it.

 

[Teng_Ri]

I support 2 start dates- 1444 and 1613. The 1444 start date for obvious reasons, to focus on colonialism and the Reformation and 1613 right after the end of the Russia Time of Troubles, just after the Reformation has more or less settled down and right before the 30 years war, to give a fun 30 years war experience (especially if they made actually good mechanics for it)

everything about this fantasy war game is about centralized powers 1600s does make sense as a start date

 

[Blindbohemian]

And that's why there should be two startdates - one to accommodate each group. That's the point of my original post.

I can see the logic here, but I think:

• it’s vanishingly unlikely we get two start dates, and
• even if we were presented with the option I think it would be clear that more effort would be put into one or the other, and
• even if it were assured that they’d get the same love and attention I think it would be clear that mechanics would HAVE to be designed with one or the other start date in mind, and
• even if they weren’t I think it’s clear that a start date pre-fifteenth-century should have substantially different mechanics than a start date post-mid-fifteenth-century, and
• even if mechanics were built to satisfyingly capture and represent the differences between the world of 1300 and the world of 1450, that development would just be diverting (important mechanics-design) resources from making the actual EU part of the game better.

So in summary… I can’t see any compelling argument as to why a wildly early start date would make EU better. It seems to me the best approach is to pick a date and stick with it. It seems to me also there is a clear and easy solution for the people who want to start earlier.

I say let EU be EU and anyone who wants to start in 1300 is free to mod or convert a CK2/3 megacampaign.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

I think there are several issues here:

• What EUIV is about,
• What EUIV needs to represent to show what it’s about, and
• What EUIV can do well.

Like you, I think that EUIV is fundamentally a game about change.

To respond to you and previous statements, whilst you're offering a more intellectual view of things, to the vast majority of players EU4 is just a map painter game. A very well made, elaborate and intricate map painter game with a plethora of different mechanics one has to manage, but a map painter game nonetheless.

The 1444 start date allows for the maximum scope of map painting because tags exist in an unshaped form that you can shape how you want. See my earlier comments about England/Castile/Bohemia/Poland for an example of nations in 1444 that don't have a fixed destiny in 1444.

I have suspected for a while that EU5 will be more:

Ultimately what really needs to be the case is a constraint on blobbing. Ok, Byz or Serbia or Albania or Bosnia survive, it should be a fun challenge to survive smashed between Austria and The Ottomans as they try to hold you in their sphere of influence. Maybe you can unite the Balkans and become a regional power, and then flip the script and be fighting over Anatolia with the Caucuses/Persia, and South Germany with the Poland Region, and North Germany. EU5 needs to be a game about uniting your home region and then exerting control over neighboring regions and maybe getting lucky enough to be able to afford to be a colonial power, not mindless map painting while the AI blobs with reckless abandon.

However, the issue is that Paradox have other games that deal with dynastic and economic play in greater detail than EU4. Therefore I think the selling point will always be EU as a map painting series. If you can't mass blob and have no other fun mechanics to play with then game will get boring. I yawn myself to sleep in any "play tall campaign". It's not why I play EU4.

The only thing that EU4 has is a pretty nice, fun to play with diplomatic system. There's a lot that you can diplomatically do in EU4 that you can't in other games (aside from assassinate the leader of another country ).

Regardless, I understand your sentiment from the perspective of someone into history. But on pure "gamer" terms, EU4 is a map painter game.