EU4 - Development Diary - 24th of July 2018

[Luftskip]

Why do you think that these things are tall buffing? drilling can be used tall and wide, devastation is ignorable and generally ignored, and I'd say it hurt tall players, more than wide players if ever, coal ... i am not even sure why you mentioned it. And colonist development... if you have colonists it mean you took the exploration/expansions ideas and so you plan to expand. I don't think that somebody took these idea group just to develop their provinces when they could just use the necessary monarch points to do it.

As you know, all modifiers stack and get you there little by little. I don't know how the colonist will work but in principle it is something that encourages development and actually promotes NOT to expand as you won't be using him to colonise. Of course, it's more intended to give colonists something to do when done expanding, but that really doesn't matter.

Coal is mentioned because you need dev >20 to reveal it, most provinces with coal in them won't have that starting up.

Devastation is reduced by developing, and is much more manageable in a small country, or playing defensively, in addition to the depth it provides of course, in principle the intention is definetly there to limit wanton destruction and ignoring the quality of provinces, which is a staple of WC'ing. Bringing up that it's ignorable as an isolated mechanic is an empty argument.

Drilling sure is more double-edged, but much more doable and easy to maintain in a tall playstyle, and maintaining professionalism as well as drill is harder when blobbing, exhausting manpower, spamming mercs, and so on.

Now, I'm just refuting these things to state my original point: The outline from the developers is LOUD and CLEAR. They're definetly trying to make tall more attractive AS WELL AS making wide harder, often times they do it in the same sentence, like i mentioned with drilling. Now, whether they're actually succeeding at it is an entirely different thing. My opinion here is that it seems they might be seeing the forest for the trees with this development, effectively forgetting a little that the game at its core is a fun, violent ahistorical slugfest where stupid stuff like icelandic muslims invading africa happens. It might not be supposed to happen...But that's the whole point, y'know?

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

I think some people are over reacting about the corruption change. Its not a wide nerf, or anything like that.
Its a "lets conquer everything I can get my grubby little hands on" nerf and a wc nerf.
The game will still be about trying to conquer alot of land because thats way more optimal than developing.
We all have our vision of the game, and these changes might not appeal to you, the last patches of powercreep sure didnt appeal to me.
And please drop the victim complex, we arent trying to ruin your fun, we just want our dream game fulfilled just like you do.

Blobbers will always be salty if someone dares even mention nerfing blobbing :/

 

[varonel]

I think some people are over reacting about the corruption change. Its not a wide nerf, or anything like that.
Its a "lets conquer everything I can get my grubby little hands on" nerf and a wc nerf.
The game will still be about trying to conquer alot of land because thats way more optimal than developing.
We all have our vision of the game, and these changes might not appeal to you, the last patches of powercreep sure didnt appeal to me.
And please drop the victim complex, we arent trying to ruin your fun, we just want our dream game fulfilled just like you do.

My "dream" is that they continue to allow the freedom to chose your path, by improving the game to make both styles equal fun.
This change does not help make the game more fun for anyone and it also gives you no real strategic tool to overcome it by "better gameplay".

Also your attempt to silence others or at least make their very valid complains seem invalid is not the way to make your point.

 

[EquilinT]

Now that I look at it, the "devs are limiting our options" arguments seems silly. They're just adding penalties/obstacles (which is "balancing") in the option to make it less attractive, you don't have to pick that option. If you picked it then you should be prepared to accept the consequences (in this case juggling states around to convert, for example).

As it looks like to me, One Faith is too easy than it should be (basically WC or near-WC+force religion) and devs are trying to fix that. I don't understand all the riot that demand the change be reverted (which a lot of them sounds like kids getting their candy taken away). I do agree it's too harsh and can be implemented better (already said this earlier in the thread).

 

[Bayes]

My "dream" is that they continue to allow the freedom to chose your path, by improving the game to make both styles equal fun.
This change does not help make the game more fun for anyone and it also gives you no real strategic tool to overcome it by "better gameplay".

Also your attempt to silence others or at least make their very valid complains seem invalid is not the way to make your point.

What if some players think its more fun to meet alot of opposition while they try to conquer as much land as possible. Nerfing something doesnt mean everyone that plays that thing will have less fun, it just makes it different and appeals to other people. You dont need to have a tool to overcome it, you can just deal with it. Its a challenge, not something you can invest some monarch points into and call it a day.

I dont get this last thing at all. Im by no means saying that everyone who dont like the changes are just playing victims. Im saying that the people who are literally accusing us who agree with the changes are doing it just because we try to ruin their fun

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

The point we are trying to present is that blobbing easily reaches a point where it becomes tedious instead of challenging.
Simple as that!

 

[raistlin_wizard]

Now that I look at it, the "devs are limiting our options" arguments seems silly. They're just adding penalties/obstacles (which is "balancing") in the option to make it less attractive, you don't have to pick that option. If you picked it then you should be prepared to accept the consequences (in this case juggling states around to convert, for example).

As it looks like to me, One Faith is too easy than it should be (basically WC or near-WC+force religion) and devs are trying to fix that. I don't understand all the riot that demand the change be reverted (which a lot of them sounds like kids getting their candy taken away). I do agree it's too harsh and can be implemented better (already said this earlier in the thread).

EU4 Devs have been removing everything fun from the game for some time now. If they wanted to balance things they'd take a look at merc smam, for instance. It's just they pushing their mindset of how the game should be played and saying that we who play the game in any other way are wrong.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

EU4 Devs have been removing everything fun from the game for some time now. If they wanted to balance things they'd take a look at merc smam, for instance. It's just they pushing their mindset of how the game should be played and saying that we who play the game in any other way are wrong.

Historically Mercenary Armies were indeed quite strong if paid. Look at Matyas Korvin's Black Army.

 

[Natz]

I think some people are over reacting about the corruption change. Its not a wide nerf, or anything like that.
Its a "lets conquer everything I can get my grubby little hands on" nerf and a wc nerf.
The game will still be about trying to conquer alot of land because thats way more optimal than developing.
We all have our vision of the game, and these changes might not appeal to you, the last patches of powercreep sure didnt appeal to me.
And please drop the victim complex, we arent trying to ruin your fun, we just want our dream game fulfilled just like you do.

It´s not a wide nerf? Well we call wide different things, because limiting your expansion to stuff you can state is nowhere near how fast you expand in this game. And limiting myself to expand more slowly is boring, not because it's a lot easier, but because in this game there is nothing to do when you are not expanding.

Yes of course the game will still be about going wide, and yes, it will just be another annoying modifier on a list. But that's the whole problem. It is just another annoying modifier on a list.
An annoying modifier that also makes me expand in specific dirrections that are arbitrarely exempted because they happen to be the focus of the patch.

The point we are trying to present is that blobbing easily reaches a point where it becomes tedious instead of challenging.
Simple as that!

Yes, yet tall play starts being tedious to begin with. If you bothered to read the posts of people commenting, instead of blindly disagreeing because you want blobbing to be harder. You'd realize very few people care about blobbing being harder, we care about the maner in which it is being done. Because it adds nothing, absolutly nothing to make the experience of either blobbing or playing tall more fun, more complex or less railroady.

 

[Bayes]

It´s not a wide nerf? Well we call wide different things, because limiting your expansion to stuff you can state is nowhere near how fast you expand in this game. And limiting myself to expand more slowly is boring, not because it's a lot easier, but because in this game there is nothing to do when you are not expanding.

Yes of course the game will still be about going wide, and yes, it will just be another annoying modifier on a list. But that's the whole problem. It is just another annoying modifier on a list.
An annoying modifier that also makes me expand in specific dirrections that are arbitrarely exempted because they happen to be the focus of the patch.



Yes, yet tall play starts being tedious to begin with. If you bothered to read the posted of people commenting, instead of blindly disagreeing because you want blobbing to be harder. You'd realize very few people care about blobbing being harder, we care about the maner in which it is being done. Because it adds nothing, absolutly nothing to make the experience of either blobbing or playing tall more fun, more complex or less railroady.

The corrpution change is twice the states so I dont know what you are talking about. I dont think this even limits you conquests, it makes you put more thought into it. Everything might not be quite as worth it, and might atleast come with soem hassle.

Something needs to be done with trade companies, I agree with that. Setting that aside I think its a good change. Maybe corruption isnt the way to go, but something to make the game challenging past 1600 is better than nothing. Personally I dont really care, because I mod the game like that anyway. I still think its the right direction for the game, and hopefully this means we might get some more intricate mechanics to represent the problems with managing a huge empire in the future.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Yes, yet tall play starts being tedious to begin with. If you bothered to read the posts of people commenting, instead of blindly disagreeing because you want blobbing to be harder. You'd realize very few people care about blobbing being harder, we care about the maner in which it is being done. Because it adds nothing, absolutly nothing to make the experience of either blobbing or playing tall more fun, more complex or less railroady.

Not necessarily, for you are limited in how much you can actually develop. Plus it lets you have a more relaxing game or a more interesting one when you have to balance out with the Great powers. Imagine playing Netherlands, squished between France and Mega-Prussia, focusing on getting trade income so you can turn your small country into a powerhouse in order to defend yourself.
It adds a challenge, more of a risk to excessively blobbing, part of the fun is in the challenge, is it not?

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Not necessarily, for you are limited in how much you can actually develop. Plus it lets you have a more relaxing game or a more interesting one when you have to balance out with the Great powers. Imagine playing Netherlands, squished between France and Mega-Prussia, focusing on getting trade income so you can turn your small country into a powerhouse in order to defend yourself.
It adds a challenge, more of a risk to excessively blobbing, part of the fun is in the challenge, is it not?

When you are small and want to play tall you do not focus on trade income, at all. You focus on idea groups that all synergize to improve your income, reduce the dev development cost, let you fight better and increase your force limit. With enough time you will become unstoppable (it helps a lot that the AI is brain dead) even if you only own ~5 provinces. This is fun thing to do once or twice but incredibly boring after the 1st few runs.

 

[Natz]

Not necessarily, for you are limited in how much you can actually develop. Plus it lets you have a more relaxing game or a more interesting one when you have to balance out with the Great powers. Imagine playing Netherlands, squished between France and Mega-Prussia, focusing on getting trade income so you can turn your small country into a powerhouse in order to defend yourself.
It adds a challenge, more of a risk to excessively blobbing, part of the fun is in the challenge, is it not?

Don't need to imagine, played such games many many times. At perma speed 4-5 waiting for colonists to finish. I get your point, I disagree, it is inherintly boring due to the lack of mechanics for me.
Want to focus on trade as a minor nation? You sure as hell better be able to colonize, otherwise good luck sending your 2-5 merchants to do something remotly usefull.
Want to focus on developing your land? Speed 5 and keep refreshing the development sliders.
Worried about a big country next to you? Ally it's rivals.
The mechanics to make tall fun are just not there. Until they are, and I damn sure hope they'll be. I will continue to criticize nerfs to wide that don't add anything but tediousness.
And it's not a challenge, the only thing it adds is more incentive to rush TCs and another thing to throw money at.

Of course if you enjoy the "challenge" of playing a minor at speed 4-5 for a "more interesting" game, we're probably doomed to disagree on anuthing further.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Colonise and gain trade income, like the Dutch did!

 

[Natz]

Colonise and gain trade income, like the Dutch did!

I'm spanish, screw that, the only right the Dutch have is the right to be inherited by the all mighty Spanish Empire.

 

[Bayes]

Don't need to imagine, played such games many many times. At perma speed 4-5 waiting for colonists to finish. I get your point, I disagree, it is inherintly boring due to the lack of mechanics for me.
Want to focus on trade as a minor nation? You sure as hell better be able to colonize, otherwise good luck sending your 2-5 merchants to do something remotly usefull.
Want to focus on developing your land? Speed 5 and keep refreshing the development sliders.
Worried about a big country next to you? Ally it's rivals.
The mechanics to make tall fun are just not there. Until they are, and I damn sure hope they'll be. I will continue to criticize nerfs to wide that don't add anything but tediousness.
And it's not a challenge, the only thing it adds is more incentive to rush TCs and another thing to throw money at.

Of course if you enjoy the "challenge" of playing a minor at speed 4-5 for a "more interesting" game, we're probably doomed to disagree on anuthing further.

What would be nerfs to wide in particular that you would agree with? Do you think nerfs to wide are a problem if tall isnt interesting enough?

 

[Natz]

What would be nerfs to wide in particular that you would agree with? Do you think nerfs to wide are a problem if tall isnt interesting enough?

Of course I do. Unless those changes add an interesting alternative play.

Out of the top of my head:

Wide:
- A revamp to revolts and wrong culture: Make wrong culture an interactive modifier, so that there is a interesting way to assimilate the cultures you expand to. Then make rebellions more harsh if you fail to do it properly by making the entire culture revolt and spawn a new nation you are at war with. Give us decision such s treatment of the wrong culture population, rights of the wrong culture populations etc (think stellaris policies) that affect how we deal with different cultures. And give modifiers to the cultures that fit what those cultures exceled at. Wrong culture territory should provide more maluses when conquered, but should it be well managed and integrated, those maluses should turn into bonuses.
- A straight nerf to the modifiers of TCs is granted at this point. They are overly powerfull and railroad the game.
- A rework to the missionary system: I'm fine with unstated provinces being harder to convert, not impossible. On top of it, make interactions with the clergy, and high loyalty, circumvent that negative modifier.
- A nerf to mercenary availability, while buffing manpower availability, could be tied to the wrong cultures thing by having a decision to forcefully recruit from wrong cultures, making them less loyal.

Tall:

- A rework of trade: The fact that trade flows one way, and the way merchants work is too simplistic to involve any kind of strategy in tall play. Merchants could be sent to nations instead of nodes, adding a layer of strategy and replayability by evolving changing you merchants as other nations become more powerfull. Affected by relations and trust.
- A rework of buildings: I would personally make trees out of the buildings, such as how it is done in total war. Add buildings that give modifiers to units recruited there higher up in the tree for example. (Obviously would be unbalanced right now since units are recruited too easily. It's just an example).
- The new government system coming out is a good change for example, one I agree adds an interesting layer to the game.
- A rework of vassals and client states: Things such as prussias militarisation that give an incentive to keep vassals around, such as iqta government as well. Lowring the LD over time is a good first step (as they are doing according to this dev diary). Could be tied to the wrong culture thing by allowing more interactions with your vassals, giving them specific rights that provide bonuses and maluses.

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

and hopefully this means we might get some more intricate mechanics to represent the problems with managing a huge empire in the future.

Put Corruption slider on max. So intricate, such immersion, just wow

On a more serious note I think you mentioned a very important point here. I would not mind changes to make blobbing more challenging if those changes were interesting and gave me something to actually do. Corruption does not do this. Neither does arbitrarily restricting options (End Game Tags) nor adding more tediousness to missionaries without changing the outcome.

Make culture shifts harder to accomplish, give players choices by introducing religious policies, put more stuff connected with missionaries into the Religious idea group, put some TC related stuff in Trade idea group or whatever, make manufactories require a certain amount of development in a province before they can be build, give us more peace time mechanics, give bonuses to culturally and religiously homogeneous countries, introduce more incentives to actually use states (like better balancing of edicts), introduce infrastructure building like roads which increase army movement speed but cost money to maintain, ...

All those are suggestions which have been mentioned here and while I don't necessarily agree with all of them they would still be better than what Paradox has decided to do

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

What would be nerfs to wide in particular that you would agree with? Do you think nerfs to wide are a problem if tall isnt interesting enough?

Wide play does not need more nerfs. The AI needs to stop being brain-dead; when the AI stops being brain-dead WC will be much more difficult if not impossible. Ever seen a WC in a MP with competent players on all teams? Ofc the AI won´t improve to such standards because everything leads me to believe that it is just an afterthought for the ppl in charge. So they will continue to come up workarounds that hurt the game in one way or another to restrict the ability of players to do the only thing that is actually fun/rewarding in-game. Talk about shooting oneself in the foot.

 

[gothos]

Wide play does not need more nerfs. The AI needs to stop being brain-dead; when the AI stops being brain-dead WC will be much more difficult if not impossible. Ever seen a WC in a MP with competent players on all teams? Ofc the AI won´t improve to such standards because everything leads me to believe that it is just an afterthought for the ppl in charge. So they will continue to come up workarounds that hurt the game in one way or another and the ability of players to do the only thing that is actually fun/rewarding in-game. Talk about shooting oneself in the foot.

It makes a lot more sense if you look at balancing like it's made for the dev clashes and MP in general.