EU4 - Development Diary - 24th of July 2018

[rattatta]

Let all religions convert via trade dominance like the muslim religions can, and you better buff missionaries somehow because you just made them way worse than they should be.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

I actually had money set aside for this DLC, but it's looking like I'm not even going to download the next patch let alone spend my money on not being able to convert my provinces.

 

[bigaristotel]

I actually had money set aside for this DLC, but it's looking like I'm not even going to download the next patch let alone spend my money on not being able to convert my provinces.

#metoo
Dharma was shaping to be a really nice dlc. But now we have "balance" fix. SAD!

 

[Admiral Boysen]

Certainly.

View attachment 392211 View attachment 392213 View attachment 392212

I see.

That's 65 States on the subcontinent (63 if Rachine, Adamanes and Nicobars don't count), 43 (42) of them on the north half of the continent.

Mughals can have 36 max states by 1600 or so:
10 base
10 from gov rank
5 from choosing absolute rule for gov reform #6
5 from full admin ideas
6 from Tech (11 by ~1630, 16 by ~1670, 21 by ~1725, 26 by ~1770)

If a Mughal player keeps Rajasthan, Himalayan outcrops, Assam and Nagaur in marches, they can have 30 state slots filled by more profitable N Indian states and have 6 states and 36 territories for Deccan or Persia before corruption hits,and get most of those (re-)stated by the late 18th century.

 

[hashinshin]

when I was linked this post I immediately guessed its author

You and your community have acquired quite a reputation for your 'unique' game analysis!

Not as funny as the "we datamine the game and still don't know how discipline works" post though

My community has been playing MP games with 30-50 players for 3+ years. We have multiple people who know how to mod who can at a whim start running numbers. We even have several people who join regular MP matches (no mods, just hosted at random) and are frequently banned for either cheating, or just straight being too good.

I dunno why people hate actually getting good at the game and learning it?

As for making fun of datamining: There are mechanics that just straight don't work as you'd think. Recently "backrow artillery damage" came up to question. Does the +20% from age 4 make you do 50->60% damage, or 50->70% damage? Well, the 20% additional damage actually makes you do something like 50->63% damage. Why? I dunno. It does mean though that Bengal's new ideas will ironically be among the strongest in the game. And THAT'S the kind of analysis my MP community will do.

 

[Zwirbaum]

I see.

That's 65 States on the subcontinent (63 if Rachine, Adamanes and Nicobars don't count), 43 (42) of them on the north half of the continent.

Mughals can have 36 max states by 1600 or so:
10 base
10 from gov rank
5 from choosing absolute rule for gov reform #6
5 from full admin ideas
6 from Tech (11 by ~1630, 16 by ~1670, 21 by ~1725, 26 by ~1770)

If a Mughal player keeps Rajasthan, Himalayan outcrops, Assam and Nagaur in marches, they can have 30 state slots filled by more profitable N Indian states and have 6 states and 36 territories for Deccan or Persia before corruption hits,and get most of those (re-)stated by the late 18th century.

And assuming there are no other +state effects.

 

[Rabid]

I see.

That's 65 States on the subcontinent (63 if Rachine, Adamanes and Nicobars don't count), 43 (42) of them on the north half of the continent.

Mughals can have 36 max states by 1600 or so:
10 base
10 from gov rank
5 from choosing absolute rule for gov reform #6
5 from full admin ideas
6 from Tech (11 by ~1630, 16 by ~1670, 21 by ~1725, 26 by ~1770)

If a Mughal player keeps Rajasthan, Himalayan outcrops, Assam and Nagaur in marches, they can have 30 state slots filled by more profitable N Indian states and have 6 states and 36 territories for Deccan or Persia before corruption hits,and get most of those (re-)stated by the late 18th century.

This reminded me that Absolute Rule had an additional bonus of "-15% state autonomy", was it ever clarified exactly what this means? I can see it being one of:

1. State autonomy cap reduced to negatives - presumably it would actually increase output below 0%. This would be extremely powerful.

2. Autonomy cap due to corruption, estates etc. reduced by 15% but not to go below 0 (this would be interesting because estates would become a net gain for many provinces since you would be getting 10% autonomy cap on two dev types in exchange for estate bonuses)

3. Immediately on choosing the reform you get a one off 15% reduction in autonomy in all your state provinces. Boring but the +5 states bonus is also good.

 

[solidprice]

Even if I'm ignored, I'll put my 2 cents:

Corruption gain is ok, even good.
(makes sense, owning half the world pre-telephone/radio, let alone telegram morse code line. That would be a bit of a stretch to manage....)

Like all changes this update, other than no converting territory land.
Would like a historical For and against topic made to talk this out on the fourms.
Ill like the devs to not do it, but as that's unlikely from history.

So my wishlist changes/possible idea changes would be:

1.
*100% complete Religous ideas should ignore territory block.
Its ADM ideas, and it's a playstyle/easy solution for those who dont wanna deal with the nerf.

AND / OR

2.
*this should be handled in ages.
I'll encourage the game designe of build up 1st half, and hyper blob WC last half.
This is what the era system was made for, and I'll make the game world dynamic:

• first era: with the full nerf to both conversion and corruption.
(Its the build up phase, no problem to emphasizes that.)

• second era: -25% corruption penalty, all countries can convert freely on their home continent.
(30 years war, reformation, Sikh revival, ect)


• third era: -50% corruption penalty,
Religious cap unlocked. (Its settled, can spread)
This is when people start to blob massively,
It's time to start Empiring.

• forth era: -90% corruption penalty or No cap fully unlocked like pre 1.26.

Now is the time to hyper blob for everyone.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

My community has been playing MP games with 30-50 players for 3+ years. We have multiple people who know how to mod who can at a whim start running numbers. We even have several people who join regular MP matches (no mods, just hosted at random) and are frequently banned for either cheating, or just straight being too good.

I dunno why people hate actually getting good at the game and learning it?

As for making fun of datamining: There are mechanics that just straight don't work as you'd think. Recently "backrow artillery damage" came up to question. Does the +20% from age 4 make you do 50->60% damage, or 50->70% damage? Well, the 20% additional damage actually makes you do something like 50->63% damage. Why? I dunno. It does mean though that Bengal's new ideas will ironically be among the strongest in the game. And THAT'S the kind of analysis my MP community will do.

63% is pretty close to 62.5%,

An increase of...25%.

So, somewhere in the code there's a 5/4 where a 6/5 should be.

 

[EmagDrolBot]

This is the first patch for me where I am actually considering rolling back and staying on current patch instead. I was really looking forward to it too.

1 .Trade Companies: Everyone knows they were already broken. I refuse to believe the devs are not aware of this. Buffing them is stupid, but sure, ok, I could live with it. It would just make beelining India even more of a priority than it already is.

2. Missionaries: I can't even describe how monumentally stupid I think this change is. I see two ways for this to turn out.

a) You need full core states, not just states. In this case you just made One Faith massively more difficult for... what reason exactly? It was already pretty challenging for the casual player. The players that can comfortably do it already know how to challenge themselves further anyway. If it's for realism's sake, then one faiths should be disallowed entirely and the achievement removed. There was no concept of nation state owned missionaries historically. Religion and state were very separate, although they intertwined politically.

b) You only need states, not full cores. This just adds an indescribably amount of tedious busywork to an already tedious process that is converting. I mean, it's already "correct" to do this, because you want to activate the religious unity edict whenever converting if you want to be as efficient as possible, keeping 1-2 free state slots to rotate this. Who does this though, outside of cases where extreme efficiency is needed like a Jewish OF or something. Mandating this busywork for all conversions serves literally no purpose whatsoever.

3. End game tags: This would not affect me personally, because tag switching is not something I do much. I place silly RP value on my original tag (and dynasty sometimes) and rarely tag switch. However, I don't care what anyone else does. If anyone is in the position to switch between those tags, then they already directly or indirectly control the planet already. I don't see what purpose taking away something that (at a generous guess) 1% of the active playerbase actively uses. Even those who use it mostly do it for fun wacky strats and why would you want to remove that from them?

4. Corruption from territories. This is a change I'm unsure about. I don't like it, but I think I could live with it. I would massively prefer to have it be development based though, instead of province number.

 

[Sunspawn]

To be honest, I feel that Pdx should've stolen the M&T idea of tying conversion strength to LA and balanced it in such a way that approx 50%+ LA would block most conversion attempts.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

To be fair I don't think it's within developer ability (even other developers) to make an AI in a game like this that would be a serious long term barrier to a player at your level

Thanks for the compliment, I see your point but I only agree partially. There are little changes here and there that can be made to make the AI more competitive. As an example it is common to see the AI instead of declaring on the weakest of the possible targets (like a player would do) they declare war on someone that can be beaten but the cost can be at times so high that it qualifies as stupid in my book (because much weaker targets were available). Many times the attacker (like the Ottomans) have to white peace after ~7 years of war many loans and nothing to show for it. Even with an IQ of a headless chicken an AI Ottomans would become stronger faster. This was just a little example but there are many more, this AI would be so fraking different if I had any saying.

I agree that trade companies are way too strong atm. I hope they are recieving some changes in the upcoming patch notes. Im not saying it will now be hard, but that it def is a new factor that you need to consider and it will nerf your campaign if you choose to play wide, resulting in the game being hardER. I personally cannot handle the game past 1600 because of the lack of challenge, so if they are trying to make the game hardER Im cool with it. Corruption management will now be a big part of the game if you go wide, Im curious to see how it will play out.



I want to wait and see how the missionary change plays out what makes me negative to the change rn is that its easy to have some temporary states for conversion at that point the change will be pretty pointless.

The "nerfs mean we dont want you to play that way" kind of thinking is impossible for me to wrap my head around. They are giving you more challenges to overcome when you are growing your big scary blob, something to make the game abit harder past critical mass is something that has been requested by alot of people for a long time. People like myself, who try to blob as much as possible because thats the most optimal way to play. After a certain point, all the challenge is gone, you have pretty much won already, noone can rival you, thats boring to me.

Speak for yourself, I play paradox games to be challenged through opposition, this gives me more opposition so, more of a reason to play.

I am sorry but we have a different concept of challenge; increasing the monarch point cost of everything simply because I refuse to stare at the screen at speed five like they want me to do does NOT qualify as a challenge in my book. It just adds waiting time for points; waiting for points is NOT a challenge or fun and requires no skill whatsoever. Despite all being extremely dumb** If there was a way to throw enough money at the new corruption in order to get rid of it then it would qualify as a sort of a challenge. As it stands anyone refusing to play the game the way they want it to be played won´t be able to get rid of the corruption; unless ofc one actually plays the game in a way that they did not know it was possible (…) Then by 1.27 (etc.) they will add more restrictions because playing the game in a way they did not think was possible usually qualifies as bad wrong fun and needs to be patched ASAP; and the game will continue the path of becoming more tedious, simpler and dumber instead of more engaging, smarter and strategic. Ofc this is a shame.

**If this suggestion is accepted and more corruption (or similar) is introduced because it will be introduced since the AI isn’t getting better: I am already seeing it by patch ~1.39 ppl having to spend 900 ducats of the 1000 they gain just to keep corruption in check in order to be allowed to play the game. It is all very, very dumb.

I guess I am going to have to update my EU IV tutorial for 1.26

 

[hashinshin]

63% is pretty close to 62.5%,

An increase of...25%.

So, somewhere in the code there's a 5/4 where a 6/5 should be.

It's ABOUT 63% ... ish. The exact numbers aren't exactly determined. We basically went in to settle if it was an additive or multiplicative 20% and came out with that it was neither. We stopped at that point.

 

[Bayes]

Thanks for the compliment, I see your point but I only agree partially. The reason for that is that IMO the AI development has been very unfocused and I am sorry to say it even sloppy (maybe because it is never a priority). Anyway there are little changes here and there that can be made to make the AI more competitive. As an example it is common to see the AI instead of declaring on the weakest of the possible targets (like a player would do) they declare war on someone that can be beaten but the cost can at times be so high that it qualifies as stupid in my book (because much weaker targets were available). Many times the attacker (like the Ottomans) have to white peace after ~7 years of war many loans and nothing to show for it. Even with an IQ of a headless chicken an AI Ottomans would become stronger faster. This was just a little example but there are many more, this AI would be so fraking different if I had any saying.




I am sorry but we have a different concept of challenge; increasing the monarch point cost of everything simply because I refuse to stare at the screen at speed five like they want me to do does NOT qualify as a challenge in my book. It just adds waiting time for points; waiting for points is NOT a challenge or fun and requires no skill whatsoever. Despite all being extremely dumb** If there was a way to throw enough money at the new corruption in order to get rid of it then it would qualify as a sort of a challenge. Anyway as it stands anyone refusing to play the game the way they want it to be played won´t be able to get rid of the corruption; unless ofc one actually plays the game in a way that they did not know it was possible (…) Then by 1.27 (etc.) they will add more restrictions because playing the game in a way they did not think was possible usually qualifies as bad wrong fun and needs to be patched ASAP; and the game will continue the path of becoming more tedious, simpler and dumber instead of more engaging, smarter and strategic. Ofc this is a shame because I actually started playing PDX games because they were smart but apparently that is not a priority these days (hoi iv, stellaris anyone?).

**If this suggestion is accepted and more corruption is introduced because it will be introduced since the AI isn’t getting better: I am already seeing it by patch ~1.39 ppl having to spend 900 ducats of the 1000 they gain just to keep corruption in check in order to be allowed to play the game. It is all very, very dumb.

I guess I am going to have to update my EU IV tutorial for 1.26

Having less monarch points does make the game more challenging. You will have less resources to accomplish your goals, you have to prioritize what you really want and you will be less prepeared for the future because of it. Maybe then, wars that have other objectives than blobbing will make more sence, there are aspects of this game that doesnt involve blobbing, but they are ignored because blobbing is always more effective. Also, vassals anyone?

Im pretty sure they know its possible to deal with the corruption, there are already people in this thread that has posted solutions. I believe you will have less money to mess around with in the new patch, thats probably going to be result. How making wide play cost more money is making the game dumber is beyond me. It just adds another factor into the equation, corruption management is going to be a real thing, and you have to change your playstyle with it. Getting another challenge to overcome doesnt make the game "dumb" removing something that you have to deal with would however.

You are being completly hyperbolic, we have had patch after patch increasing the money available, absolutism, lvl 5 advisors etc, I could go on and on, its about time someone puts a break to this powercreep.

I guess so

 

[hashinshin]

The game has gotten so much powercreep it's actually unreal. Especially mechanics that you don't play for, don't interact with, never look at, and get stronger for like innovation.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

How making wide play cost more money is making the game dumber is beyond me.

It is dumb because the corruption thingy would eat 90% of my budget; like corruption costs 900 ducats while my entire army, advisors, etc. costs 100.; and I was being nice since whenever I play as a horde many times I have a deficit as big as my entire income. Again waiting for points is not a challenge; it "just" requires more patience to wait to be allowed to play the game.
Btw going for Espionage to fight corruption is incredibly stupid in a WC environment.
They are balancing the game to reduce the conquest as if the game had anything else interesting to do and at the same time introduce more whack-a-mole. No thanks.

Edit: Again, IMO 1.25 made the game sillier and that is why I nick named it "Alice" (...) I was eagerly waiting for 1.26 that was supposed to make EU IV better until I saw this DD.

 

[Bayes]

It is dumb because the corruption thingy would eat 90% of my budget; like corruption costs 900 ducats while my entire army, advisors, etc. costs 100.; and I was being nice since whenever I play as a horde many times I have a deficit as big as my entire income. Again waiting for points is not a challenge; it just requires more patience to wait to be allowed to play the game.
Btw going for Espionage to fight corruption is incredibly stupid in a WC environment.
They are balancing the game to reduce the conquest as if the game had anything else interesting to do and at the same time introduce more whack-a-mole. No thanks.

Then I guess the way that you are playing atm will not work in the new patch. I dont know what to tell you. Less points is going to mean, less tech, less development among other things. This is obviously going to make the game harder. The AI arent sitting on their feet while you are waiting, many of them are getting stronger and stronger, making them more difficult to deal with when the time comes.

The games has more to it then conquest, there are other forms of casus belli, and there are vassals that are free with the right cb.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are little changes here and there that can be made to make the AI more competitive.

Certainly, and when they're not breaking something on the back end with the spaghetti code I'd be happy to see them...but knowing their limitations and vassal functionality so far, to me the crux of this issue lies more in what the design expectation/variance outcome to skill looks like.

Making the game more of a slog without changing the reality of the tradeoffs is bad. Implementing a mechanic whereby there is negative utility in doing the one thing around which the game is designed (territorial expansion) runs counter to the incentive to keep playing. Hitting a previously optimal expansion pace is now harmful...but there's nowhere else for that player skill/management ability to go. I hold that skill equalization is degenerate to games (beyond games too TBH) in most cases.

 

[brifbates]

This is the first patch for me where I am actually considering rolling back and staying on current patch instead. I was really looking forward to it too.

1 .Trade Companies: Everyone knows they were already broken. I refuse to believe the devs are not aware of this. Buffing them is stupid, but sure, ok, I could live with it. It would just make beelining India even more of a priority than it already is.

2. Missionaries: I can't even describe how monumentally stupid I think this change is. I see two ways for this to turn out.

a) You need full core states, not just states. In this case you just made One Faith massively more difficult for... what reason exactly? It was already pretty challenging for the casual player. The players that can comfortably do it already know how to challenge themselves further anyway. If it's for realism's sake, then one faiths should be disallowed entirely and the achievement removed. There was no concept of nation state owned missionaries historically. Religion and state were very separate, although they intertwined politically.

b) You only need states, not full cores. This just adds an indescribably amount of tedious busywork to an already tedious process that is converting. I mean, it's already "correct" to do this, because you want to activate the religious unity edict whenever converting if you want to be as efficient as possible, keeping 1-2 free state slots to rotate this. Who does this though, outside of cases where extreme efficiency is needed like a Jewish OF or something. Mandating this busywork for all conversions serves literally no purpose whatsoever.

3. End game tags: This would not affect me personally, because tag switching is not something I do much. I place silly RP value on my original tag (and dynasty sometimes) and rarely tag switch. However, I don't care what anyone else does. If anyone is in the position to switch between those tags, then they already directly or indirectly control the planet already. I don't see what purpose taking away something that (at a generous guess) 1% of the active playerbase actively uses. Even those who use it mostly do it for fun wacky strats and why would you want to remove that from them?

4. Corruption from territories. This is a change I'm unsure about. I don't like it, but I think I could live with it. I would massively prefer to have it be development based though, instead of province number.

100% this plus they still need to do something about the other elephant in the room-merc spam...

 

[Piotrzeci]

I praise the file name of the screenshot. You understand your people. The one that is literally not about the Empire of U.