Institution not spawning but research penalty? 25 yrs late!!!

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Dec 5, 2009
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Apparently in the newest version whether an institution spawns or not doesn't matter anymore and the penalty still starts at the set years (1500, 1550, etc.).
I don't mind a late spawn but the penalty used to start when an institution spawned.

What can happen? Well colonialism, but industrialization is another example for late spawning, is known to spawn late. In my so far brilliant game as Byzantium, it's 1525 and colonialism still hasn't spawned. Penalty for all countries 50%!!!
Who thought this one up?

This completely unbalanced the entire game. Both Spain and Portugal are notorious for getting too involved in Morocco and as a result lack the monarch power to get quest for the world in a acceptable time frame. The consequence is they can be late with meeting the requirements for colonialism to spawn. And that means a lot of non player countries get so far behind, its impossible to keep up...especially if the next spawn is on time!!!

So no penalty when an institution hasn't spawned sounds as very good advice to me.
 
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Well it affects every country the same way in theory. In reality it punishes countries constantly ahead and that was the idea behind it.
The alt history effect is that it lowers tech disparity. The idea that there would be less of a disparity if certain key concepts weren't discovered or developed which doesn't seem wrong to me
 
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Well it affects every country the same way in theory. In reality it punishes countries constantly ahead and that was the idea behind it.
The alt history effect is that it lowers tech disparity. The idea that there would be less of a disparity if certain key concepts weren't discovered or developed which doesn't seem wrong i
 
I doubt it will help with disparity. I played till 1526 and still no spawning of colonialism. The next level will spawn in about 24 yrs and that will only increase disparity.

Don't get me wrong, I get the need to balance things a bit and I don't mind if the year isn't set. But some kind of fail safe is needed.
As posted Portugal and Spain are notorious for getting too involved in Morocco and start with bad Kings mp wise.
When I tagged them to check what going on in1520 they didn't have any colonies in the new world. Spain was out of colonial range and Portugal was still stuck colonising the Isles on the African coast (approx 400 settlers, yearly growth of 20). If would have taken them at least another ten years to reach the new world! And remember the next is around 1550!

So I gave both colonies in the new world. Guess what, it's a random event, so even if it's late it's not a certain thing it will spawn ASAP. No it's so random, it hasn't spawned for the next 6 years ( Jan 1521 - 1526).
Even reloading a saved game every year a couple of times, didn't do the trick.

In my opinion: make a fail safe, for example spawn within 5-10 yrs. Or change it back. But failing to make any changes will greatly unbalance the game and create more disparity.
 
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Tech disparity between Europeans and rotw wasn't that bad yet so give it time

It's not about tech disparity itself. It's about what tech change caused to AIs as a whole. Now, AIs have only points for tech and not for anything else. It basically takes normal difficulty and makes it very easy or whatever is below normal. If you used to certain AI level then you now are playing with infantile AI and every player sees this change but not PDX? What the heck? Not that AI was good to begin with before, but now is much much worse. And goal of this patch was to improve AI. They achieve sth completely opposite. Now you need to play on very hard to get the same level as normal before. Tech change is the culprit of this. It should not be released in such bad state. It completely derailed AIs. You only need to play 1-2 games and look at what AIs are doing or not doing to know this. Like how the heck PDX released this change? It looks like nobody in the office even asked the question how this change will affect AIs. And the answer is it affects them badly. Late institution spawn breaks the game. In my Sweden game there was no colonization unitl 1600. Some Ais sat with uncored land becase they notoriously took +50% tech. They couldn't fill ideas and was very weak compared to previous games.
 
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Colonialism has been spawning late in all of my 1.32 games, although I don't think it's been later than 1510. I do love the institution+research changes after playing with them.
 
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Colonialism has been spawning late in all of my 1.32 games, although I don't think it's been later than 1510. I do love the institution+research changes after playing with them.

I had 1530 Colonialism spawn. The issue is that now institution spawn is unconnected to tech costs. This change started to produce some very broken AI behaviors. And although you can have also normal institution spawns and not see much difference this change is very negative on the game. You can't have mechanics that are sometimes broken because they are still broken even if it's only from time to time.. It looks some people say this is good because it breaks only sometimes. ????? Tech change is very badly thought-out and untested. Nothing new from PDX. And they orginally planned to have +50% cost from start? WTF??? Even this +15, +30, + 50% system is malfunctioning with institution time spawn system. They both don't work at all together. It would be best to roll back this change but we know this is not possible for PR reasons. So now they need 1k dev testing hour and 6 months to tune it to normal level. It's all on its head if you ask me. Tech cost can't be applied if institution hasn't even spawn when AIs can't deal with it at all. It breaks the game completely in such situations. Why someone put mechanics in the game that breaks it? Did they do that on purpose?
 
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I had 1530 Colonialism spawn. The issue is that now institution spawn is unconnected to tech costs. This change started to produce some very broken AI behaviors. And although you can have also normal institution spawns and not see much difference this change is very negative on the game. You can't have mechanics that are sometimes broken because they are still broken even if it's only from time to time.. It looks some people say this is good because it breaks only sometimes. ????? Tech change is very badly thought-out and untested. Nothing new from PDX. And they orginally planned to have +50% cost from start? WTF??? Even this +15, +30, + 50% system is malfunctioning with institution time spawn system. They both don't work at all together. It would be best to roll back this change but we know this is not possible for PR reasons. So now they need 1k dev testing hour and 6 months to tune it to normal level. It's all on its head if you ask me. Tech cost can't be applied if institution hasn't even spawn when AIs can't deal with it at all. It breaks the game completely in such situations. Why someone put mechanics in the game that breaks it? Did they do that on purpose?

You make it sound like the whole system is broken, whereas the only issue the majority of players seems to be having is that colonialism spawns late in some games due to slower colonisation by Portugal/Castile.

Why is the solution to throw out the whole system? Just as we saw with PU-AE with regards to mission trees PDS will probably balance this in an ad-hoc manner, or maybe fix the bug where AI is not hiring advisors, thus giving the colonizers more MP, unlocking exploration earlier and unlocking the one problematic institution on parity with previous versions.
 
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The linchpin of the new system is that any given technology will never get more expensive at a later point in time—period. That is a very good change. It never made any sense logically or balance-wise that if you were a little behind schedule to get to the next technology it would start increasing in price because of the institution penalty. Making it so the penalty only applies after the relevant institution spawns would undo this key point—you'd want to race to get your next techs in 1501 in case Colonialism spawns the next year and adds 15% to the cost. As it is, that 15% cost is there whether you get to tech 9 in 1475 or 1505 or 1535 until you embrace Colonialism.

If your complaint is that the AI can't budget its monarch points optimally and falls behind on other things to keep up to date in tech, then that's your complaint, not this. There is much more net availability of MP in the game than there was eight years ago; a minor increase in the cost of one thing they can be spent on is more than acceptable.
 
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you'd want to race to get your next techs
Why is that a bad thing?
Is was common to buy Adm and maybe Dip tech 9 and 10 with 5-15% penalty and then, with 3 ideagroups unlocked, the pressure to tech up Adm and Dip is alot less and you can let the cost accumulate until you either get Colo or decide to dev for it.
For me the new system does the exact opposite. It feels like the game is telling me when and where i have to stop buying tech and wait or dev for the next institution.
Instead of the 5 and 18% which tech 9 and 10 had previously if you got unlucky and had Colo spawn right in 1500
you now have 15 and 30% every time. No exception. No variation.


The fact that the penalty applies even if the Ini does not spawn is a completely separate mind blow.

spawns the next year and adds 15% to the cost. As it is, that 15% cost is there whether you get to tech 9 in 1475 or 1505 or 1535 until you embrace the Renaissance.
You would obviously add a dynamic cost count that subtracts the years since the institution should have spawned.
Colo is scheduled for 1500. Tech 10 for 1518.
If Colo spawns in 1510 then tech 9 would cost 5% extra, tech 10 20%, tech 11 40%.
And yes. That means that, if Colo spawns very late, like 1550 late, it adds no extra cost for any tech.
The next penatly would be the 15% from PPress for its first tech.
 
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The fact that the penalty applies even if the Ini does not spawn is a completely separate mind blow.

You would obviously add a dynamic cost count that subtracts the years since the institution should have spawned.
Colo is scheduled for 1500. Tech 10 for 1518.
If Colo spawns in 1510 then tech 9 would cost 5% extra, tech 10 20%, tech 11 40%.
And yes. That means that, if Colo spawns very late, like 1550 late, it adds no extra cost for any tech.
The next penatly would be the 15% from PPress for its first tech.

Isn't the opposite situation more of a mind blow? Why would the printing press being discovered in Germany make it much harder for everyone else to advance in tech?

Also, it's possible to prevent colonialism (and global trade, unless that's been changed since I last checked) from spawning indefinitely. So, if we take the institutions at face value as being catalysts for technological advancement, it makes little sense that their delay or absence would make tech costs cheaper...
 
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Why would the printing press being discovered in Germany make it much harder for everyone else to advance in tech?
Because game mechanics?

it makes little sense that their delay or absence would make tech costs cheaper...

If the institution does not spawn im getting a penalty against which i can do nothing.
Thats terrible design.

Unless you count "go exploration each game with each nation" as a counter.


So, if we take the institutions at face value as being catalysts for technological advancement,
I couldnt give a damn how you want to head canon the existence of the institutions.
The current system feels like crap when playing. Which is what i care about. Not what it might have represented IRL.

Atleast push the whole thing 2 levels out so its possible to buy the idea techs without first having to for blow 1500 points on deving.
 
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You make it sound like the whole system is broken, whereas the only issue the majority of players seems to be having is that colonialism spawns late in some games due to slower colonisation by Portugal/Castile.

Why is the solution to throw out the whole system? Just as we saw with PU-AE with regards to mission trees PDS will probably balance this in an ad-hoc manner, or maybe fix the bug where AI is not hiring advisors, thus giving the colonizers more MP, unlocking exploration earlier and unlocking the one problematic institution on parity with previous versions.

Yes. The system breaks in current form. Tech change caused AIs to overspend points in techs, leading very often to delayed colonization. Delayed Expansion and Exploration led to delayed Colonialism spawn which led to even more penalties for tech, which led to even more overspending in mana for tech for AIs. That's why it's completely broken system.

Yes it can be adjusted. But it wasn't and someone released it in its broken state. It didn't create variaty and disparity in tech between countries alone. It created also disfunctionality in AIs where they simply put every mana point to tech with big penalties instead of other things. AIs are poor to begin with. Imagine how bad Ais are without ideas. They bunkrupt themselves, they don't have armies, they can't core land etc. And yes they can snap back with time but the point is that the change caused AIs to be worse like 50 years or so, meaning in 1550 they are as strong as they were in 1500 before the change on avarage. And it is so across whole game. This is massive nerf for AIs and they worked on improving them. Yet they delievered sth completely opposite. They bragged about improved colonization, yet AIs start colonization in 1600. Maybe they should try intentionally destroy AIs. Then they would succeed in improving them.

And yes I can play on very hard which now is equivalent of normal in 1.31. But the point is that patch after patch they released those game-breaking changes which is disturbing to say the least. Why tinker with tech if they didn't have enough poeple to test it. Nobody reallly thought how it affects AIs at all in PDX? It messed up Multiplayer and SinglePlayer both at the same time.
 
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I'm not sure the tech changes is what broke the AI, I suspect it's more to do with the budgeting changes and the that the AI doesn't seem to hire advisors any more. So until that gets fixed, people keep blaming the institution changes, but I think we can't properly assess that change until the advisors issue is fixed.

That being said, I've had 3 different games so far in 1.32. One was a European run, one with Mali and one with Butua into Rozwi Empire into Zimbabwe. In the Mali game I was the one to spawn colonialism, in 1501 (didn't happen in 1500 though the conditions were satisfied), and it was a tossup between me and Portugal, because each had a colony in Brazil (Portugal actually had two). In the European run I wasn't playing a colonizer, but it spawned on time either in Portugal or Castile (I don't remember which). Both in those games they went ham in Morocco, but still could satisfy the conditions to spawn the institution in 1500. In my Butua game it spawned in 1501 or 1502, I don't have vision on Morocco but I assume they still conquered it. Maybe I was lucky, but so far I haven't experienced late spawns at all.
 
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I have a feeling that some players are just upset that the established meta for institutions (dev for institutions as soon as it spawns, resume WC) is no longer viable.
That meta is still viable... Apart from this weird quirk where everyone in the world gets their tech progression spiked because Spain and Portugal are eating paint.
 
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You make it sound like the whole system is broken, whereas the only issue the majority of players seems to be having is that colonialism spawns late in some games due to slower colonisation by Portugal/Castile.

Why is the solution to throw out the whole system? Just as we saw with PU-AE with regards to mission trees PDS will probably balance this in an ad-hoc manner, or maybe fix the bug where AI is not hiring advisors, thus giving the colonizers more MP, unlocking exploration earlier and unlocking the one problematic institution on parity with previous versions.
It's not just colonialism. In my last game around 1700 some major countries like Austria, Ottomans and France were 2 to 3 military techs levels behind. And in that game colonialism was only a few years late...1502 or so.
In my opinion this new penalty system really unbalanced the game
 
In my opinion this new penalty system really unbalanced the game

I agree. Player can choose which tech are important and pay those increased prices only for those. AIs just pays through the roof for all techs no matter if it is +15% or +50% which causes mana drain. And player takes those techs with discount later. It ends up with player having techs, ideas, dev and all else and at the same time AI only having the same tech at the end but no ideas, no dev and the rest. Previous system wasn't ideal but at least it hid AI shortcomings. Have no idea why somebody in PDX thought messing with it was good idea.

I think reformation changes in this patch are an example what PDX should work on to make an impact and improve the game. Reworking whole mechanics from scratch with only couple of people will end up in disaster like with the tech change. And yes some games you can not see any diference. But point is before the change there wasn't any games ending up with broken AIs and now it's like 50%? This is not a step in right direction. And it completely overshadows good work that was put in this patch. Yes tech problems can and will be amended in 22 but let's not start some new mechanics rework for 1.33 that would broke something else. It's bad standards.
 
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Why is that a bad thing?
Is was common to buy Adm and maybe Dip tech 9 and 10 with 5-15% penalty and then, with 3 ideagroups unlocked, the pressure to tech up Adm and Dip is alot less and you can let the cost accumulate until you either get Colo or decide to dev for it.
For me the new system does the exact opposite. It feels like the game is telling me when and where i have to stop buying tech and wait or dev for the next institution.
Instead of the 5 and 18% which tech 9 and 10 had previously if you got unlucky and had Colo spawn right in 1500
you now have 15 and 30% every time. No exception. No variation.


The fact that the penalty applies even if the Ini does not spawn is a completely separate mind blow.


You would obviously add a dynamic cost count that subtracts the years since the institution should have spawned.
Colo is scheduled for 1500. Tech 10 for 1518.
If Colo spawns in 1510 then tech 9 would cost 5% extra, tech 10 20%, tech 11 40%.
And yes. That means that, if Colo spawns very late, like 1550 late, it adds no extra cost for any tech.
The next penatly would be the 15% from PPress for its first tech.
It's bad because the AI countries will not catch up