16 bugs/design inconsistencies that have existed for multiple patch cycles

[bbqftw]

Hello friends,

Since our esteemed community seems intent on clogging up the bug report forum with things like "Jharkand's capital is misspelled" and "this dude was a different religion IRL", and since none of these issues affect the typical dev MP so it doesn't matter, none of these are getting fixed anyways, I decided to start collating some of the more obnoxious/long-standing bugs. For fun? For some masochistic urge? I don't know.

In any case, enjoy. It serves as a nice lesson for what happens when game mechanical creep greatly exceeds motivation to do core bugfixing. I can think of two mechanics in particular -- tributaries and Cossacks promise land mechanic that you could write PAGES on detailing all the screwed up stuff that happens. On and on, to the next immersion pack (I still bought Rule Britannia, so clearly the model still works).

Most of these issues have been around for months, or even years. Some might even be said to significantly affect gameplay. Meanwhile, hotfixes release with urgent bugfixes like "merc maintenance modifiers reduced." A sane man would give up trying, but you're stuck with me.

This is not a comprehensive list and we can probably come up with 30+ more. Stay tuned for part 2 in case I feel like wasting another evening. By the way I have experienced every single one of these in my own playthroughts though many of these were reported by others to little effect.


Issue #1. Involvement in war against a tributary allows asymmetric access into the overlord's territory

Explanation:
Historically military access in EU4 has not always been symmetric. However, this was changed the introduction of conditional military access which grants military access to all parties in a single war. Thus the assumption is the design intent is that military access should be symmetric, with no country able to "hide" its armies in other countries. However there are multiple cases where military access becomes asymmetric.

As Bengal, I declare war against Kedah which is allied with Malacca (Ming tributary)

Since Malacca is a Ming tributary, he has access to Ming lands:

https://i.imgur.com/EtMoZAq.jpg

However, Bengal does not have access to Ming lands:

https://i.imgur.com/Lmr4Vrc.jpg

Suggested resolution: Propagate military access to tributary overlord to all parties involved in a war containing a tributary


Issue #2. If X country is engaged in multiple wars, conditional military accesses gained in one of X's wars do not propagate to parties involved in all active wars against X

Explanation: France is currently at war with an HRE prince and the emperor, thus he has military access to all the HRE:

https://i.imgur.com/igSE6sp.jpg

England subsequently declares war against France, however he does not have access to all the HRE:

https://i.imgur.com/3j93DJY.jpg

This potential scenario involving asymmetric military accesses applies to any situation where a country is involved in multiple wars! This is particularly obnoxious when the second war is vs. HRE since it basically gives enemies a large space to hide in.

You might think you could partially offset the annoyance for such a situation due to the "gives military access to enemies +200" modifier, but this does not apply to conditionally gained military access, see:

https://i.imgur.com/L3AmMHm.jpg

Suggested resolution: Propagate conditional military access given to one party to give conditional military access to all countries at war with said party.


Issue #3. Offensive war vs. coalition does not correctly cobelligerent members of the coalition

@TheMeInTeam favorite bug!

Explanation: When declaring an offensive war, it states that all the members of coalition will be considered cobelligerent, but cannot call in allies:

https://i.imgur.com/qEzhqo6.jpg

However you get mega-bamboozled when you actually declare the war as they do not have co-belligerent status:

https://i.imgur.com/BGUzpNA.jpg

This is in contrast to defensive wars, where the involved coalition has cobelligerent status.

Suggested resolution: Correctly designate coalition members co-belligerents during offensive declarations vs coalition.



Issue #4. Truce expiry deviates from truce stated ingame

Explanation: The notification for truce expiration will often appear up to 2 months before the displayed truce expiration date, specifically the displayed truce date here:

https://i.imgur.com/nAUtUiX.png

Suggested resolution: See below, but honestly you guys are more suited to figuring out what's wrong than I am.


Issue #5/6. Incurring trucebreak penalty for declaring against country after truce expiration notice, and countries can join coalition before truce actually expires (a.k.a. when no trucebreaking penalty is applied)

Explanation: Even after truce expiration popup appears, you can go to the declare war screen and still receive a -3/-5 stab penalty for trucebreaking, clearly indicating the truce isn't actually over.

Yet often if you pause-unpause day by day, this allows the target nation to join a coalition before you can declare on them without trucebreak.

Suggested resolution: Uh...I do not wish to stare upon the horror of the code that governs truces because there's LITERALLY four dates for this mechanic which should be the same, but they can seemingly all be different for a single truce! 1) Displayed truce date, 2) Truce expiration popup date, 3) Nations eligible to join coalition date 4) You are eligible to declare war without trucebreaking penalty

If you consider trucelocking an exploit, hit me up and I can give you some suggestions for nerfing it that don't involve doing a war atrocity to the truce code.


Issue #7. Successfully sieging a fort resulting in trapped army

Explanation: Let's take our favorite fort setup – Pirineo / Valencia / Rousillon. With Rousillon sieged down, moves to Pirineo or Valencia are legal:

https://i.imgur.com/bkaT6tx.jpg

Even though movements through Barcelona are normally inhibited by Pirineo, since Valencia is a fort, this is a legal move. Lets say we siege down Valencia. Then move to Barcelona. You then realize that Pirineo now blocks you:

https://i.imgur.com/8N2VkXa.jpg

And thus the entire French army was lost due to the successful siege of Valencia.

Suggested resolution: revert back to old forts + attrition system (with new QoL options like being able to demand unoccupied provinces). Can a man dream?


Issue #8. Successfully sieging a fort results in inability to return to sieged fort

Let's return to our example above, with Valencia sieged down. Let's imagine the Aragonese siege Valencia, surely we can bring troops from Rousillon to break the siege. Nope:

https://i.imgur.com/E3NqheI.jpg

Remember, BEFORE Valencia is sieged down, Rousillon -> Girona -> Barcelona -> Valencia is a legal move.

AFTER Valencia is sieged down, Rousillon -> Girona-> Barcelona -> Valencia is now an illegal move.

This is because the "can move from ZoC-projected province to any fort" rule only applies to hostile forts, leading to very degenerate outcomes.

For the most ridiculous part, realize that if we send a move order FROM VALENCIA, that moving BACK to Valencia is an illegal move, requiring a naval transport move!

https://i.imgur.com/voAq1xx.jpg

Suggested resolution: see #7


Issue #9. Legal moves are 'recalculated' province by province, allowing different legal / illegal move sets without any change to game state.

Explanation:

This probably requires a video:

It's technically explained here, but nevertheless the fact that even without game-state change you can have different sets of legal moves depending on whether you stopped in each province is just gigantically problematic (in my opinion): https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/presenting-schrodingers-zoc-video.1060190/

Suggested resolution: see #7


Issue #10. Influence changes as a result of modifier expiration are not updated on the date they expire

Explanation: Most temporary influence modifiers have a specific date of expiration. However, the influence value is NOT correctly updated after the date of expiration of the modifier. This requires a lot of cumbersome math, especially since pulse events for estates will often fire the month a modifier is due to expire. Resulting in some very nasty influence spikes sometimes.

Here is an example, the +15% influence value for minister expired April 20th 1475. After this date, the itemized influence values are correctly displayed, but the totaled value is not (20+22% does not equal 57%)

https://i.imgur.com/6z18bO5.jpg

Suggested resolution: Immediate update and correct summation of estate influence values upon expiration...?


Issue #11. Incorrect aggressive expansion display in wars in which your tributary overlord defends you

Explanation: In any defensive war where your tributary overlord defends you, any peace deal you make taking land will have the accumulated aggressive expansion incorrectly displayed as zero, when in fact you gain AE from the war:

https://i.imgur.com/WpRLaxn.jpg

Suggested resolution: …


Issue #12. Cannot freely feed vassals when you are a tributary

Explanation: If you have a vassal subject while you are a tributary, your vassal can reject land when you transfer occupation to them:

https://i.imgur.com/LCBIqNh.jpg

Suggested resolution: Correctly make the game realize that a vassal is your subject (presumably game perceives it as subject of Ming subject, and thus doesn't allow free-freeding?)

Aside: I like how fixed the exploit where you didn't get aggressive expansion for feeding vassals of tributary, but for this closely related issue, nothing. What, was the dev MP that day?



Issue #13. Becoming a tributary cancels all active diplo-annexations

Explanation: Even though becoming a tributary doesn't cancel your vassals, it DOES cancel your diplo-annexations. Why? Who even knows?

Suggested resolution: Becoming tributary no longer cancels progressing diplo-annexations.



Issue #14. Ming breaks tributary at certain high development mark

Explanation: At the introduction of MoH, practically the only condition where Ming broke tributary status was low (<30) trust (typically due to refusing to send tribute). This is no longer the only condition – even at high >80 trust Ming will now break your tributary status.

This is typically correlated with having high development. It occurs even at positive relations (previously, even –200 + outraged status was not enough for Ming to break the tributary).

Further discussions here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...breaking-tributary-for-no-reason-bug.1061005/

This seems too intentional to be a bug, but this was not mentioned in the patch notes.



Issue #15. Barred from making alliance due to truce from Ming alliance -> tributary conversion

Explanation: When you become a tributary after being allied to Ming, you get a truce with Ming. However during this truce you are barred from making OTHER alliances while you have a truce with Ming. That's a pretty nonsensical restriction even though this game is full of them:

https://i.imgur.com/DAOVUbT.jpg

Suggested resolution: I suspect the issue is the game is interpreting this truce as some sort of failed independence war attempt. If this is the root cause, well—this is what happens when tributaries are coded as kind of subjects/not subjects.



Issue #16. Cannot reverse transfer occupations to a subject colonial nation

Explanation: During war, you are not able to re-assign occupied land that is assigned to a colonial nation. This seems like a big inconsistency since you are able to re-assign land occupied by your vassals.

Suggested resolution: Let us reassign CN occupations

 

[Dingens]

Regarding #4 ff:

At least in 1.24 (have not updated to 1.25 yet due to bug fest) truces seem to be asymmetrical, funnily enough. The truce timer displayed in the other country's diplo screen is NOT the same displayed in yours (and I didn't check which one corresponds to what the peace deal says). When the truce displayed for the other country expires, you get the pop-up telling you that the truce expired, BUT if you go to your own country's diplo view, you will still have a truce with the other country running for a few months. Accordingly, the other country can join coalitions (as it has no truce with you), but you cannot declare without getting the stab hit and AE (because you still have a truce with them).

Yes, it's mind boggling. I also have no clue how that even happens, or if it's intentional.

EDIT: Also, great job compiling all these. Let's hope this gets seen and some of it fixed.

 

[CheesySnake]

Instead of "clogging up" the main forum, you could use the bug report forum for it's intended purpose and report the bugs there?

 

[Badesumofu]

Instead of "clogging up" the main forum, you could use the bug report forum for it's intended purpose and report the bugs there?

This goes a bit beyond a simple bug report.

 

[Brynjar]

A good list of some of the more annoying issues in the game, although I don't think all of them are technically bugs (like the fort issues). I can't be bothered to click on all those external links for screenshots though.

 

[Canute VII]

Re #1: Your solution is to propagate mil access between tributary and overlord to all war participants. An alternative solution, however, would be to not give mil access between tributay snd overlord in the first place. This way e.g. Ming would have to secure mil access in order to defend its remote tributaries, leading to much closer hist. Outcomes - either it has to spend dip MP on mil access or it may loose tributaries. As it will most likely prefer to spend dip, it will likely prioritize getting dip from its tributaries instead of mil or admin and it will likely deprioritize dip ideas. In other words: Less dip ideas like exploration, less military invincibility.

Also I kind of missed the bug where after canceling a guaratee we do not see the truce in the country screen of our ex-guaranteed country. To add to that, guarantees seem to be not taken into account in the power calculation when AI wants to dow a guaranteed country OR there is something strane happening when it considers calling in allies.

 

[Zephyrum]

Issue #14. Ming breaks tributary at certain high development mark

Explanation: At the introduction of MoH, practically the only condition where Ming broke tributary status was low (<30) trust (typically due to refusing to send tribute). This is no longer the only condition – even at high >80 trust Ming will now break your tributary status.

This is typically correlated with having high development. It occurs even at positive relations (previously, even –200 + outraged status was not enough for Ming to break the tributary).

Further discussions here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...breaking-tributary-for-no-reason-bug.1061005/

This seems too intentional to be a bug, but this was not mentioned in the patch notes.

Hilariously, Ming still wants you as a tributary during peace deals in this one.

I've been attacked and completely messed up by Ming multiple times in a Taungu run, they'd proceed to take me as a tributary, hog all of my money, release one minor and leave, only to break tribute at the end of the truce and attacking me at the end of the new truce.

Not only is the development cap on tributaries absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical, the way the AI acts around it is little more than a massive joke.

 

[Vetgirig]

Also I kind of missed the bug where after canceling a guaratee we do not see the truce in the country screen of our ex-guaranteed country. To add to that, guarantees seem to be not taken into account in the power calculation when AI wants to dow a guaranteed country OR there is something strane happening when it considers calling in allies.

Thats because there is no truce for the guarateed country. Only the one guaranateeing get a truce.

 

[Canute VII]

Alright, that might explain it. I should probably look otherplace to see my truces....

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A good list of some of the more annoying issues in the game, although I don't think all of them are technically bugs (like the fort issues). I can't be bothered to click on all those external links for screenshots though.

I can present multiple screenshots where a team of devs getting together and discussing it an entire week still can't possibly tell me where the units can go using the information presented by the game. At best, they could guess what I might have done, with a high chance they guess wrongly. If that reality is actually "intended" it's a problem in its own right.

Alright, that might explain it. I should probably look otherplace to see my truces....

Yes, though it barely matters. You can mouse over a list of all your active truces at the top, then get a pop-up two months before that truce date and even be able to declare a month early w/o trucebreak sometimes. Sometimes the pop-up is accurate, other times it isn't.

 

[hermithill]

Yes, though it barely matters. You can mouse over a list of all your active truces at the top, then get a pop-up two months before that truce date and even be able to declare a month early w/o trucebreak sometimes. Sometimes the pop-up is accurate, other times it isn't.

Indeed, the apparently randomness of the thing is really painful.

 

[qwertzuiop]

Great list. Two of the long-time bugs that have bothered me recently are

1. If you promise land to an ally and all the enemy warleader provinces that your ally marked as vital interest (i.e. red colour) are also marked as your own vital interest, you can refuse to give your ally anything in the peace deal and still won't lose any trust as long as you are the one who occupies the provinces. (if your ally manages to occupy the provinces in question before you do, he will of course keep them for himself due to vital interest)

However, if you restart the game before ending the war, then the provinces marked as vital interest by both your ally and yourself will suddenly be changed to strategic interest (yellow) for you. This means that your ally will now expect to recieve some land. Reloading is really bad sometimes.


2. If you join the HRE your government rank does not get changed to Duchy rank despite the tooltip claiming otherwise, but if you change your government form later on (e.g. from Feudal to Despotic Monarchy), that's when the change does happen and you will be demoted to a Duchy. It also happens if your government form merely gets "updated", for example if Pretender Rebels enforce their demands.

 

[deathbypie]

It's great how a large number of these are due to weird tributary interactions. I really wish tributary code didn't have so much nonsensical overlap with vassal code. Most of the rules governing the two are very different.

 

[bbqftw]

Its the problem with feature creep - without similar commitment to fix the issues that came up as a result, it just leads to a more and more broken system that falls apart upon interrogation. Same issues apply to the autonomy / estate systems which both have heavy bugs and heavily cripple AIs.

I wrote this up in a bit of frustration when I reflected that without exception I can open up EU4 and discover longstanding bugs or new ones within half an hour.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

#14 should probably be somewhat altered to give more transparency to the player, but I don't think the action should be removed entirely. If any one of Ming's tributaries becomes large enough to pose a threat, Ming should absolutely cut them down to size. This is not a bug, so much as a poorly implemented feature.

 

[bbqftw]

I don't mind it, its just that it randomly goes into a patch without explanation makes me wonder whether as to the degree of internal communication happening..

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

Another nice tributary inconsistency: you can't use tributary claims/cores to directly attack a third country, however you can indirectly attack it via threaten war

 

[FleetingRain]

Instead of "clogging up" the main forum, you could use the bug report forum for it's intended purpose and report the bugs there?

Did you even read the header

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ Some of these are years old and the one bbqftw tagged me on has been reported (and summarily ignored entirely in terms of dev or QA response) at least six times.

Same with the "you can't take this because you couldn't core it even though you could actually core it instantly". It wouldn't be that hard to make another one of these with another 16 issues listed.

At this point saying "use bug reports for this" isn't even a reasonable gesture since this is not an isolated issue to one bug. It is absolutely something relevant to the general state of the game.

 

[FrogCrusher]

About coalition, one thing bugs me really hard. You have to reload the game for country with positive opinion to leave the coalition. When I am agressive in HRE (typically vassalize electors to become emperor easily) I literally reload every January to have coalition vanished.