I've always felt Badboy/infamy is a poor mechanic for regulating excessive player expansion. This is probably too late for EU4, but I'll post it in advance for EU5 .
Problems of the badbody mechanic include:
Inability to perform historical actions
For example, the Ottomans conquering the Mameluks in 2 years. If you tried this, you would have every nation in Europe declare war on you.
On the flip side, a war like the Spanish Succession might never happen, because inheritance produces less badboy than conquering, despite the fact that they both create the same outcome (eg. a massively overpowered France)
Unrealistic, immersion breaking gameplay
For example "I don't want to split up my enemy France into smaller states, because it will cost more badboy to conquer" or "I'll wait 50 years before invading France because by that stage everyone will have forgotten I have conquered all of Spain".
Badboy fails to prevent the player from becoming too powerful
Because a good player will just expand consistently, keeping their badbody down till they are so dominant nobody can challenge them. This would not be allowed to happen in real life!
It creates unrealistic effects across religions
For example, as Morocco I am less worried about Castile conquering Algeria than I would be if Tunisia did it, because their badboy would be much lower.
A system I'd prefer to see
Rather than judging other nations by their individual actions, I think it would be more realistic and interesting if nations judged each other based on their perceived threat. Perceived threat would involve factors like proximity, relative nation size, religious differences. Nations which considered others a serious threat, would dedicate their foreign policy to forming alliances with others who share the feeling of being threatened. These alliances would then choose the opportune moment to strike against their threat
This would make the game feel far more natural and the balancing of expansion would be far more interesting, rather than just a game of playing the numbers. It would also make it harder for the player to take over the world, because in doing so they would find they must fight constant alliances of countries who realize 'we will be next'.
Problems of the badbody mechanic include:
Inability to perform historical actions
For example, the Ottomans conquering the Mameluks in 2 years. If you tried this, you would have every nation in Europe declare war on you.
On the flip side, a war like the Spanish Succession might never happen, because inheritance produces less badboy than conquering, despite the fact that they both create the same outcome (eg. a massively overpowered France)
Unrealistic, immersion breaking gameplay
For example "I don't want to split up my enemy France into smaller states, because it will cost more badboy to conquer" or "I'll wait 50 years before invading France because by that stage everyone will have forgotten I have conquered all of Spain".
Badboy fails to prevent the player from becoming too powerful
Because a good player will just expand consistently, keeping their badbody down till they are so dominant nobody can challenge them. This would not be allowed to happen in real life!
It creates unrealistic effects across religions
For example, as Morocco I am less worried about Castile conquering Algeria than I would be if Tunisia did it, because their badboy would be much lower.
A system I'd prefer to see
Rather than judging other nations by their individual actions, I think it would be more realistic and interesting if nations judged each other based on their perceived threat. Perceived threat would involve factors like proximity, relative nation size, religious differences. Nations which considered others a serious threat, would dedicate their foreign policy to forming alliances with others who share the feeling of being threatened. These alliances would then choose the opportune moment to strike against their threat
This would make the game feel far more natural and the balancing of expansion would be far more interesting, rather than just a game of playing the numbers. It would also make it harder for the player to take over the world, because in doing so they would find they must fight constant alliances of countries who realize 'we will be next'.