2 fundamental historic flaws in EU

[Guest]

I know EU is about alternative history so no reply arguing about that is needed

1) the rate of progression of small country in tech research is far too high. Open a save file and you will see one province nations leading the tech race. not only totally absurd but unbalancing the game: a coalition is worth of his minor allies whose troops are sometimes almost invincible.
I suspect too it's the reason of the piracy problem. PIR are a ' nation' in EU sense, and they reached in a few years level 20 and higher...

I tried to slow minor by putting them in exotic tech group: effects remain very limited.

2) monarchy: I know some have found the original boardgame to be too complex and too historical. the latter is IMO right in part. But the boardgame at least has consistency: monarchs are historical and many historical events can happen.
In the CG, mobnarchs are yet more historical ( except regency) but the historical events have disappeared and the probability seeing a small country becoming a large power during the game is higher. But monarchs are the same! Without considering changes in marriage resulting of these new status and then change in birth, personnality of rulers, how can we consider the ratings of Prussia and Kleves? If Kleves was a great power, would we give such ratings to Frederic II?

There's a lack of consistency. We should have much more randomness in monarchs death and ratings.


Except that, EU is a pretty good game

 

[unmerged(1561)]

Yes, I don't understand how the Pirates get level 19 ships by the mid 16th century. That puts them 200 years ahead. I suppose in a way this simulates how difficult it was to eradicate them, because the ships required no fuel and the search range of a fleet, limited by the line of sight of a man on a mast 100 feet in the air, was not that great. Pirates should have been designed somehow to avoid combat with major warships, because I know of no instance in which they were technologically advanced beyond their native country. Captain Nemo belonged to a different era, and was fictional to boot.

 

[unmerged(1457)]

Pirates avoided warships I'd say 99% of the time. Not much booty aboard them. Someone mentioned that it might be possible to edit out the Pirates from the game.

 

[Guest]

The formula raising the research cost with the country size needs to be extensively reworked or even suppressed. Currently, a one province muslim nation is progressing faster than a great European nation. REven if you put it in exotic group, the slowest, and gives 2 or 3 advance levels at start for major nations, around 1530 small nations are leading the research. 1.08 has limited a bit the phenomenon but it remains and with it, most of the problems( England failure seems to be the result of Scottish tech advance, piracy, some incredible battle results).

It's obviously unhistorical, and by the same way creating so much side effects it has to be fixed

 

[Hartmann]

But putting the minors in exotic is equally unfavorable: As a country retains it´s techgroup throughout the game, any minor gaining some provinces (therby becoming a major) will be hampered even more considerably in his research.
I think there shouldn´t be any negative research modifier in conjunction with largeness. Of course, where the minor actually *does* invest more into research than the major (who maybe spends all his money on armies), he should not be deprived of his reward....

Hartmann

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by Hartmann
But putting the minors in exotic is equally unfavorable: As a country retains it´s techgroup throughout the game, any minor gaining some provinces (therby becoming a major) will be hampered even more considerably in his research.
I think there shouldn´t be any negative research modifier in conjunction with largeness. Of course, where the minor actually *does* invest more into research than the major (who maybe spends all his money on armies), he should not be deprived of his reward....

Hartmann

I know, but I wanted to test And at least, test shows there is a real problem.


Under 6 provinces, a nation with exotic setting will go about at the same pace a major.With muslim or orthodox, you may raise this number even more. the perfect sign something is wrong either in the formula or in the intent.

I even did more : I created 3 minor nations, one for each group and gave them level 12 in battle techs. The neighbour bonus applies to all group members, whatever their situation. To give an example, Kleve in exotic and a starting level of 1 will have close the gap with France, starting at 3 between 1560 and 1580, even with a huge bonus for France.

To put it simply, this point is really about to convince me to give up EU. I'm an historical buffer and I can't simply enjoy that.

 

[Savant]

The minors are also peaceful and maintain high stability levels so this pays off for them in the long run as it should. The majors can buy back their stability but minors can't so they tend to stay put and not be aggressive.

Here is an example:

I am Venice and together with Hungary we have cut Austria down to 2 provinces. They have had these two provinces for 120 years now and no one has declared war on them. They do occasionally declare war on 'me' and I pummel them. OK, so what happens? Do they sit there all peaceful like and compete for trade and develop infrastructure? No. They are a 'major' and their AI says to expand so they knock their heads against me every now and then and they make no progress in technology and they are CONSTANTLY in civil war because they keep going bankrupt trying to support their army and their pitiful efforts to regain territories.

I think the key then is the AI strategy. Laurent, if you want, I suppose you could tweak the AI settings for some of the minors so they are more aggressive like the majors. This is sure to create the same situation that Austria faces in my game. They are way behond in technology and constantly fighting civil wars. The two provinces in Austria are always burning and the population has been stagnant for over 100 years. It is quite a sight - they are a 'throwback' in the center of Europe.

 

[ph4n_swe]

Maybe one could use some kind of regressive scale for investment/effect, so that for instance the first 5d (or whatever) spent on a tech per month count 100%, 5.01-7.5 count 75%, and so on? That would give big spenders an advantage, but not huge, and still allow the small nations to hang in there.

There is some logic in having to pay more for a bigger country though, but it should probably rather be based on army size than province count.

Also, the tech 'spying' effect could be increased, don't know how it works now, but neighbours and allies should probably share more than say Iroqouis with Russia...

Of course it takes some considerable juggling to fine tune it.

ph4n_swe

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by ph4n_swe


There is some logic in having to pay more for a bigger country though, but it should probably rather be based on army size than province count.


ph4n_swe

Excellent idea, but army size is fluctuating very quickly, and I guess some cheats could be used. Maybe it should be dependant of the number of soldiers raised from the start, the number of merchants used from the start, etc?

 

[Hartmann]

Originally posted by ph4n_swe

Also, the tech 'spying' effect could be increased, don't know how it works now, but neighbours and allies should probably share more than say Iroqouis with Russia...

Of course it takes some considerable juggling to fine tune it.

@ph4n_swe: The neighbour bonus was immensely higher in the earlier versions of EU (e.g. German 1.0). People complained about this, because there was no motivation to take the lead - it was much cheaper to lag behind and get the nice bonus. Now the bonus is very meager. Maybe it should be increased just a little in the next patch. Of course the main issue is to lessen size related disadvantage to a reasonable scale.

@savant: Poor Vienna! Btw. I lived there for a year in the Eighties....

@ laurent favre: Don´t give up on EU! I´m sure we can talk Johan into looking at this issue again. Besides I really came to appreciate Your reports on testing various settings.

Hartmann

 

[ph4n_swe]

Still think that a 'regressive' scale of investment efficiency might be a part of the solution though....

ph4n_swe

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

The tech issue, as I understand it, is designed to prevent the 'steamroller effect' that destroys the end-game of virtually every other strategy game. You know, the deal in Civ 2 where you got so far ahead of everyone else that you ended up fighting their chariots with your tanks. Great fun for about a hour.

Though it has some unintended side effects - notably the one-province tech wonders - it probably beats the traditional alternative.

The problem seems to be that the same restrictions that keep the human player and AI majors from getting too far ahead don't apply to the small countries. In effect, the rule helps them too much.

How about a simple, if somewhat unsophisticated, solution: Just fix it so that minor nations can never advance more than X number of tech levels ahead of the most advanced major nation. Pick a number for 'X' - 2 or 3 maybe?

Though inelegant, it would keep the minors from benefiting too heavily from another artificial rule that was designed to keep them in the game. I can live with it as an abstraction; it doesn't offend my sense of history to 'decree' that minor nations can't run off to a ridiculous tech lead.

 

[unmerged(1158)]

You forgot the tidal wave of colonies and trading posts in almost every province on Earth.

 

[unmerged(1641)]

Little hard to explain in English, but I give it a try.

Maybe the the 0-100% investment per tech can be used for the 4 tech's (penalty) in the slidebar (stability not included).
Ex.
If u invest more the 25% of the totaly income (BNP) in one tech u don't get 100% for it (penalty).
So if u want 100% 'effect' for the money u have to split the investment in all 4 (25% each).
With a 100% investment in one tech the effect of the investment is decreased to 50% of the tot. investment.

This will at least stop me to run away from The AI in tech level and many other human player's to I think.

The bonus for minor vs. major (and religon group's) have I not so much knowledge about, but I did a test to give some bonus for large countries (high population).
Test settings :
Higher tax incom
Higher production incom
Lower trade incom
Lower good's value

Not sure yet if this is any good , but ex. Spain and Austria is pretty fast in tech advance.

Can anyone write down some more info about bonus for minor's and religon group's, should be very thankful for that info.

 

[unmerged(1813)]

As I undertand it, the reasoning behind the current system is that larger countries have to spend more to Upgrade their army, navy, infrastructure, etc than small countries do. In other words, the modernization and the invention are lumped together. This produces the strange situation now in which the smaller you are the more efficient in scientific and technical progress you are. To give everyone a reason to invest in tech, they also made the 'spy' bonus very small.
Except that, historically it was rarely a case of spying. Military and civilian technical and/or scientific developments spread like wildfire regardless of attempts at keeping them a secret and almost regardless of where in Europe they originated. The only example from this period that I can think of where a concerted attempt was made to keep secret a specific military technological invention was the 'secret howitzers' of the Shuvalov System in Russia: the weapons were kept covered so their unique muzzle couldn't be seen and Russia guarded knowledge about them jealously. But in their first battles with the Prussians several of the howitzers werre captured, and the Russians sent a battery or two to their allies the Austrians, who also became quite familiar with them. So much for secrecy, even when you were trying! What kept some armies or fleets from taking advantage of new technologies was rarely that they didn't know about it as fast as their opponents did, but that they didn't have the money or administrative efficiency to implement the upgrades - and that applies as much or more to smaller states as to large ones.
This will probably have to wait until EUII, but the answer seems to me to split Invention from Implementation. Let tech be developed at the same rate regardless of size of country, but have it spread pretty fast. Then require every unit, merchant, CoT, manufactury, colonist, army, ship, etc affected by the given technology/method advance to be upgraded at some specific cost in ducats. Don't, for simplicity's sake, allow a country to partially upgrade. Therefore, a large country with a large army may know about the tech, but unless they also have a large treasury it may take them some time to implement it. A small country with a small army may also take some time to implement changes if they have a treasury/income that is also small.

 

[Guest]

The best solution, would be to vary effects of king sills to the size of the country: currently, a good king with one province is doing marvelous progresses...

Let's say a 7 value king would give 2 ducats by month for Kleves: 6 years and not only 2 years if 150 are needed. province country would get 3, etc .

Another solution would be to put limits by period: ie no country can get tech level beyond a level before a date. The period would be those described in the tech files.

A third would be to close more amount needed by small countries to major ones.

I would live with a sytem where small nations have 2 or 3 tech levels higher because the impact on the game would be limited.

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by Olaf the Unsure
The tech issue, as I understand it, is designed to prevent the 'steamroller effect' that destroys the end-game of virtually every other strategy game. You know, the deal in Civ 2 where you got so far ahead of everyone else that you ended up fighting their chariots with your tanks. Great fun for about a hour.

Though it has some unintended side effects - notably the one-province tech wonders - it probably beats the traditional alternative.

I really thing attempting to adress a problem by a bias is just resulting in more problems.

If we need to prevent the 'steamroller effect', we have to get solutions hindering conquest of small nations, as a system where annex option would be randomly possible:

1)the player conquers all the provinces, makes a peace offer but when he chooses annex, thsi one is refused for the entire war. So he has to make peace and go into war 5 years after. randomness would simulate negociations and all dipolmatic stuff not present in EU.

2) we can this one ourself: open the tax stab file and put negative percentage for low stability levels: so if a player wants to declare a war without CB, he will have an harder time to recover.

 

[Guest]

OK. Done a try with giving bad military value to first kleve king: progress is much slower. The solution is insufficient because editing monarchy files would deprive game of part of historical flavour... hardcoding that as I proponed by reducing king effcets in small nations is the solution to go, with too a small increase of the amount needed by little nations.

 

[unmerged(480)]

Monarchs

I think the best solution would be to change the monarch bonus from an absolute value to a relative one.Thus the ability would become a multiplier and thus bring the bonus in line with the cost scaling.

With the present system,the cost is based on size and with the bonus being a fixed amount it gives a disproporionate benefit for small countries.

Also the benefits for manufacturies should also change to a multiplier. 5D for a country investing 30+ from the budget is only a 17% increase,but for a 1 province minor it could be 100% or more.

These problems are made worse due to many minors having rich provinces,whereas a major would have a mix of rich and poor,thus having an overall lower income per province despite a larger tech cost.


Blackhawk

 

[unmerged(1798)]

I'm having real problems seeing run away tech leads of minors as a big problem in the game, in practice.

In the 2 V1.08's I've played. (as France and Russia), I have yet to come across a minor that was ahead of me in land tech (less sure of naval tech, but I certainly have seen nothing drastic there). I'm currently fighting minors with pikes (icon) while I have early muskets.

I wonder if you have this problem if it means you aren't investing enough in research?

The cures might be worse than the disease, recall the complaints of V1.07 with human players getting way to ahead. I gather from the discussion that the consensus of opinion is that V1.08 as helped a lot in that regard.

As to monarchs, in a small kingdom a good monarch would have much better effect than in a small one. The converse being true as well. There was buracratic inertia back in 1492.

I think a worse problem is how peace negotiations are handled, but that is another thread . . .