I agree with op.
The bad thing imo is that the game rewards you if you not do stuff. Thats a silly mechanic. If a game is made to be difficult it should be hard to do stuff, but still rewarding if you accomplish it.
The Anti-Blob mechanics dont make expansion harder, it just makes it not rewarding (Except Coalitions, which i like in general but the details have to be reworked).
Expansion is not really harder due to OE. You just have to sit around doing nothing afterwards while waiting for the provinces to core even if you have ressources (money and manpower) left for another war.
Building, Coring, Culture Changing, Stab increase. All that stuff costs you monarch points which limits you overall progress in the game. But why? This is an artificial limitation in my opinion and its not fun.
Yes a lot of people like the fact that they are limited a lot and for that reason they defend this stuff in the forums. I like the effect in the end too, but the problem is you cant get better in managing the limit and extend it with every playthrough. Its always the same (You can play better, get a better adivsor a few years earlier but thats all). The only things you can do is something like dont build buildings at all and again here is the points that the game rewards you for not doing stuff. But where is the fun in not doing?
Money and manpower should be the main ressources, not monarch points. Make money and manpower harder to get to limit the player because this are things a player can work on and get better with experience. You can fight wars with less manpower losses and you can get better in making money on different ways and this way its rewarding to build buildings and its rewarding to conquer.
Yes you will get to the point at which you start snowballing and many players will still quit the game at that point but they quit at the moment too, just for a worse reason. And the players that really want to archive a WC can do it.
Or give the player more ways to influence the monarch point gain, this could be another way.
I dont want a EU III Number 2 where you can easy roll over the world. I want it harder but not the way EU IV handle it.
You could make agressive wars way harder due to attrition for example, especially if your armies are in lands with other religion(groups) or culture(groups). Just one out of a lot of examples that make expansion harder and still keep it rewarding onces its done.
I do like the monarch points for idea´s and tech. You really have to make a decession every time and both ways are rewarding, maybe some balance issues but this is a minor problem and can be handled in a patch.
Another thing to the overall forum athmosphere. EU IV is a new game with a lot of new mechanics and if someone doesnt like one of those mechanics he should be able to say this in the forum without getting posts like "Go play TW if you dont like it."
The forum is a discussion platform and with new stuff their is obv a lot of potential for discussions but its always the same group of people that likes the game how it is now and that trys to keep everyone else quiet by flaming them. Thats just the reaction of a 16 year old child but i guess most of those people are 16 so its understandable in some way.
