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Europa Universalis IV – Post Mortem Developer Diary – The End, of the Beginning

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After one month of playing in a rather cursory manner, I can say that this has been the greatest let down for a Paradox release in all the years I've played their games (starting with EU1, and no, I haven't registered all the old games before anyone starts). It's not a matter of the latest patch, it's a matter of philosophy. I absolutely hate the new tech system. The old one wasn't great either, but this twiddling of thumbs and waiting for the next monarch to come by is a terrible design decision. I agree with injecting a degree of randomness in the tech race, and doing it via the monarch is a fine abstraction. The problem is that the player has not control over optimising this amount of points since there are no sliders any more. Gone are such choices as to go with army advances in the expense of navy ones etc etc. The game also penalises infrastructural developments since they also cost invaluable points. For a large nation (try the OE with a late 16th century start for example), the player is drowned in useless cash but is forever short of monarch points.

The second problem is that the game wants to straitjacket the player into a specific behaviour pattern. I have never been a world conqueror, but I do like to roleplay. So if I roleplay the Ottomans, I need to be able to expand - not to Scotland or Portugal, but at least I want to have a crack at central Europe. With a 1444 start expanding historically causes so much trouble with dumb coalitions involving far away countries of different religions, and so much overexpansion trouble that it totally kills any immersion. Sure, one can manage it, but it's just not fun.

I could go on. The fundamentally broken diplomatic game, the tediousness of the trade game which anyway only brings in more cash that you can't use since everything worthwhile costs points you haven't got, etc etc. I commend Paradox for possibly bringing out their most bug free release ever, and I'm sure that the patching and support in general will continue as impeccably as ever. It's the design philosophy I dislike, and this I can't see changing (and "go and use mods" is not the answer, although of course I do). This franchise seems to have taken one final wrong turn for me; EU3 was already not as much my cup of tea as EU2, but at least it had innovations that really added to the game (advisors, ideas, starting at any year you wish etc). EU4 has messed with the fundamentals of the game in such a way that my style of play (historical roleplay and "what if?" speculation) is simply not possible any more, at least not in a way that I would describe as "fun". A disappointment, particularly if one considers how good CK2 has turned out to be (the stupid and pointless Aztec DLC aside). For me the Early Modern setting is my favourite, and EU1 & (in particular) 2 were amazingly good treatments of the era, while remaining fun all the while. So, I'm sad to see this franchise not cutting the mustard any more.
 
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Alpha Zeke said:
So just to get your point straight, you dislike the historical-based roleplay of EU4 but loved EU2?
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Umm he dislikes NOT being ble to historical role-play as say the ottomans.
 
uforoboso said:
I support the thesis of Paulk205. Good analysis. And yes, actually he's saying that historical roleplay is not possible.
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I don't necessarily agree, but I do think that the legion of defense attorneys on this forum should give it a rest. The game gets better via player feedback, so if our first impulse is to attack any whining post, we are essentially drowning out some of this potential feedback.

For my part, I wouldn't want to see any major changes to the current structure of the game. I like monarch points (not so much for buildings) as a way to balance investing in idea groups vs tech advancement. I also like the rate of expansion in 1.2, I am finding it very easy to take over most of western europe without too much difficulty so long as I regularly shift my diplomats around to improve relations. Coalitions actually make the late game more fun for me, but I need a bit more late game work on 1.2 before I can weigh in with more authority on the topic.

Despite the fact that I think that it is a nice option to give us coalitions to worry about after we have blobbed big, I can see why the pure sandbox WC crowd are up in arms. It takes alot of study to figure out the exact point to fabricate a claim on so that you can start a war that will peel Russia off from Austria's mega ally block. And then to have to do the same for GB, then Spain, etc. is alot of work, just to get back to the business of conquering the world. Perhaps the best way forward is to introduce a bit more guidance on AI settings. Maybe the WC crowd needs to have an extra easy AI setting where the other nations don't react with alarm as they grow.

All that said and done, I am loving the game. I have nearly 250 hours in, even with a career and family responsibilities. I think it says alot about how much sleep I have been losing to this game. Great work P-DOX!
 
Playing exact as in history is impossible, because AI will allways do things differently, based on other AI, and player actions, and RANDOM events. In any game ever, it is totaly impossible to get the game go same as in history. At best you may go simmiliar to it, but the thing is, there will allways be some differences, the bigger they get, the longer is the timeframe.

EU at all, is not historical simulator. It is a commercial game. The fact that we have monarch points is made so that there is no longer possibility of such exploits as those, that were possible in eu3(the infamous build BOAT-win the game exploit included). It might not be best possible system, but it works, and is simple enough, so that people can easily get things done. Definitely works better than magistrates, and only problem is that it is same currency for technology as for buildings. But it is not realy bad, because it makes snowballing harder. If you are ahead of tech, you might end up with low infrastructure, and be unable to keep up with army size due this. However expanding alone, is not anymore stopped by Infamy, but as it should be - by your neighbours ganking against you, if they start all consider you as a threat. And by overextension.
 
This is exactly the sort of responses I expected to see. Thank you for pointing out to me how I should play the game I paid for (pre-ordered in fact). For the record, I've played in a cursory manner because immersion under the present design is close to nil, and without immersion I do not get any enjoyment. I just use my game time allowance for other games, such as CK2 (among others).

EU2: This was deterministic through events, which was perhaps a crude way of setting up things, but it served my purposes of getting "what if?" scenarios, i.e. departures from the historical set-up that the human can do but the AI doesn't quite manage in the same way. EU3 had generic (dynamic events) which left to their own diverged much from history, but it didn't matter: I could start at any point in the time period and depart from there. So, good enough.

Historical simulator, yadda-yadda-yadda. I don't want an exact facsimile of history, since I only want a historical starting off point and then play my what-ifs in what I consider historical house rules. Under the current system I cannot. The game wants me to play as it wants, not as I want. Plus the tech system has got entirely out of my hands now, apart from such small modifiers as tech costs arising from advisors and certain ideas. But 90% of the tech game is basically "lie back and dream of a better monarch". No optimisation, no "hard choices", no robbing Peter to pay Paul as with the slider system (with all its limitations). Just wait and do gamey things.

I really have zero interest to get in a long discussion about this, since I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. The fanboys will auto-defend everything and anything (heck, I am as much as a fanboy as anyone in terms of the money I've spent on Paradox games in the last 12 years or so), the people who have any sort of axe to grind against the game will use my arguments to auto-attack it. I couldn't care less personally. I posted this here just in case someone from the company is interested in an opinion of the game by a genuine fan other than the usual thank yous.

BTW, why post "thanks"? Last time I checked this was a commercial transaction. We bought a game with legal tender. If anyone's supposed to be grateful, it should be the seller who wants our custom. Anyway, I will thank Paradox, or rather approve of them, for such industry-leading practices as their unrivalled post-release support and patching. But for making a game? What was their alternative exactly? Close down? They make games. We (hopefully for them) buy them. The End.
 
Congrats on a great first month of EUIV, PDS!! Best release yet!!
I'm very happy with my pre-purchase!
 
Alpha Zeke said:
So just to get your point straight, you dislike the historical-based roleplay of EU4 but loved EU2?
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It's always a little irritating to see a poster like paulk205 articulate his problems with the game and then have someone else come in and try mock it or trivialize it.

I'm not sure if you just didn't read it or if you're trying to troll him or what. I'm pretty sure if you were the one who took his time and made a logical and calm post like that, explaining your positions on certain aspects of this game, and then someone did what you just tried to do, you'd be pretty annoyed.

It was good to see nix_nivis shut you down though.
 
There is nothing wrong with gamers like Paulk205 expressing their opinions and giving feedback, but does it have to be in this thread? It is clear that EUIV has been a very successful release and many players thoroughly enjoying the game. That's a wonderful accomplishment, and Paradox deserves some praise, even if there will always be people with different tastes. Can't this thread just be one in which people show their appreciation of that, rather than it becoming a debate about various personal preferences? It just amazes me how little patience there is on the internet for positive feedback.
 
I think part of Paulk205's point is that the original post grossly downplays the widespread and heated controversy over 1.2(.1/2) as merely "a new and vibrant debate", and does not even mention how some of the changes that 1.2 introduced were so downright broken it necessiated a drastic hotfix (e.g. border friction being nerfed down from 4 per base tax to 1 per base tax). Or in other words, he might be trying to say that Paradox should admit that it can and did sometimes make big mistakes in the course of attempting to improve the game.

That said, why is this the title of this thread have "Post Mortem" in it? I came in thinking that a member of the dev team had died, and they were commemorating the loss.
 
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Saladin Osmanli said:
I think part of Paulk205's point is that the original post grossly downplays the widespread and heated controversy over 1.2(.1/2) as merely "a new and vibrant debate", and does not even mention how some of the changes that 1.2 introduced were so downright broken it necessiated a drastic hotfix (e.g. border friction being nerfed down from 4 per base tax to 1 per base tax). Or in other words, he might be trying to say that Paradox should admit that it can and did sometimes make big mistakes in the course of attempting to improve the game.

That said, why is this the title of this thread have "Post Mortem" in it? I came in thinking that a member of the dev team had died, and they were commemorating the loss.
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Well therein lies the problem. There is no contentious 1.2 patch. Only a small minority of the players are complaining. 90% of the games don't dislike it enough to get on the forums and of the forum going crowd, only a loud obnoxious minority of those dislike the 1.2 changes. And if you take the time to analyze the anti-1.2 crowd's complaining, close to 80% of their complaints have nothing to do with 1.2 but express dislike about game design elements that have been present since release.

So Paulk will just have to forgive P-dox for not addressing a non-issue in a developer diary.
 
paulk205 said:
BTW, why post "thanks"? Last time I checked this was a commercial transaction. We bought a game with legal tender. If anyone's supposed to be grateful, it should be the seller who wants our custom. Anyway, I will thank Paradox, or rather approve of them, for such industry-leading practices as their unrivalled post-release support and patching. But for making a game? What was their alternative exactly? Close down? They make games. We (hopefully for them) buy them. The End.
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I you liked the service provided it's only polite to say thank you, there is nothing wrong in doing that. I personally do that regularly irl
 
Ugly Guy said:
Well therein lies the problem. There is no contentious 1.2 patch. Only a small minority of the players are complaining. 90% of the games don't dislike it enough to get on the forums and of the forum going crowd, only a loud obnoxious minority of those dislike the 1.2 changes. And if you take the time to analyze the anti-1.2 crowd's complaining, close to 80% of their complaints have nothing to do with 1.2 but express dislike about game design elements that have been present since release.

So Paulk will just have to forgive P-dox for not addressing a non-issue in a developer diary.
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Well there also people who just don't give a shit about the forums and when they don't like the game just drop it and don't pick it up again.
 
None of us have conducting scientific opinion polls to figure out what a majority of players think. Enough independent names have popped up with similar concerns to indicate that there is a constituency that doesn't like the changes. Whether it's large or small, it's enough that I hope the developers pay attention - and there have been what strike me as pretty reasoned arguments for why changes would be appreciated.
 
Ugly Guy said:
...only a loud obnoxious minority of those dislike the 1.2 changes.
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I actually like the vast majority of the 1.2 changes, but dismissing those who disagree as "loud obnoxious minority" is insulting and not conducive to open discussion.

There's been lots of silly "whiner" vs. "fanboy" talk on both sides here. Am I expecting too much of players of a sophisticated, complex strategy games to not insult each other needlessly when they disagree about aspects of a game? Surely not.
 
Teije said:
I actually like the vast majority of the 1.2 changes, but dismissing those who disagree as "loud obnoxious minority" is insulting and not conducive to open discussion.

There's been lots of silly "whiner" vs. "fanboy" talk on both sides here. Am I expecting too much of players of a sophisticated, complex strategy games to not insult each other needlessly when they disagree about aspects of a game? Surely not.
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Remove loud, remove obnoxious, keep minority. The discussion would be quite civil, out of some...enthusiastic posters on both sides of the wall. I have to agree with the main point, though: few are complaining, few are full-out rejoicing, the rest are either going "meh" and still playing, or sorta liking it and still playing. The "USERS ARE FALLING" graphs that are shoved around from time to time are virtually identical to every single game released on Steam (a slowish fall as the trusted gamer base forms) and there is no Mariana Trench around 1.2 release day, either.
 
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