Hey, forums. My idea comes from my history class, actually--College level, basic US history.
We were talking about the Seven Years' War in a way that highlights how it impacted the American Revolutionary War. At one point during our discussion, the Professor noted that Great Britain was actually propping Prussia up by feeding it asinine amounts of money, allowing it to field more troops and fight off multiple sides at once. The professor discussed how money was usually a limiting factor in wars, and Britain's funding allowed Prussia to press on.
Naturally, my mind wandered to EU4. Warfare is doubtlessly the main focus of this game, and for the most part it's handled well. It's engaging and pretty strategic, especially in multiplayer games with friends. However, there's one major problem in my view... Money. Money does not relate to warfare enough; instead, it's all about national ideas and manpower. I don't feel like this should necessarily be the case, as this is not really historical and also leads to players merely dumping money into buildings, regiments, and council members, keeping a reserve for events. As the game drags on, a person who is playing properly, investing their money, and colonizing will not feel even the slightest strain to their wallet.
Naturally, EU4 is not a perfect simulation of history as this would be intensely unfun. I'm not suggesting that the base cost of waging war should be raised significantly. Instead, I'd like to offer up a suggestion that players should be able to translate money into direct military boosts.
So, let's say I'm the Dutch and I've gotten myself into a war with someone, say, Prussia. Assume we're roughly the same size. As it stands, unless Prussia -seriously- messes up, they will win the war due to their national ideas and heavy military focus.
Obviously, this should be the case--But the Dutch not really having a fighting chance at all is highly irritating. The Dutch player has built up a huge colonial Empire and has significant amounts of money, it just doesn't matter because Prussia is gonna steamroll him despite every effort to put it to use.
What if, though, the Dutch player had the option to use a (significant) amount of money to boost his army? Let's say you could boost discipline, morale, and even manpower (Increased conscription) through the investment of money in these areas over time, giving players meaningful choices to use their late-game funds instead of having a situation where everyone is sitting with 40k in the bank and nothing to spend it on after building oc nscription centers everywhere.
Making this a toggleable thing guarantees that the base cost of war is not significantly increased, so players who aren't as good at makin' those ducats are not impacted in single-player. This also makes trade-based nations much more viable. Let's say that Britain and an Italian state are allied. The Italian country isn't making a ton of money but Britain is. Britain could fund the Italian army while using its own forces overseas to harass enemy colonies or just do naval landings. It opens up possibilites for teamwork; the option for this could even be a simple "Subsidize X" in the war screen menu, with money being spent and the bonuses transferring automatically to your ally's army.
The final interesting thing I'd like to note is that this option would theoretically make it possible for war to have a real impact on a country's budget. If you REALLY want to win a war, you could totally pump a ton of money into it and even go into debt to go so. This will allow players to choose between immediate gains vs long-term consequences, and allow wars to be 'doubled down' on by players deciding to go into debt if that's what it takes to win. Will the enemy follow up, or decide it's not worth?
Any thoughts on this? Criticism? Has this been suggested before? I think having more goldsinks beyond buildings and advisors would be a good thing! It could maaybe be tied to MP, too.
We were talking about the Seven Years' War in a way that highlights how it impacted the American Revolutionary War. At one point during our discussion, the Professor noted that Great Britain was actually propping Prussia up by feeding it asinine amounts of money, allowing it to field more troops and fight off multiple sides at once. The professor discussed how money was usually a limiting factor in wars, and Britain's funding allowed Prussia to press on.
Naturally, my mind wandered to EU4. Warfare is doubtlessly the main focus of this game, and for the most part it's handled well. It's engaging and pretty strategic, especially in multiplayer games with friends. However, there's one major problem in my view... Money. Money does not relate to warfare enough; instead, it's all about national ideas and manpower. I don't feel like this should necessarily be the case, as this is not really historical and also leads to players merely dumping money into buildings, regiments, and council members, keeping a reserve for events. As the game drags on, a person who is playing properly, investing their money, and colonizing will not feel even the slightest strain to their wallet.
Naturally, EU4 is not a perfect simulation of history as this would be intensely unfun. I'm not suggesting that the base cost of waging war should be raised significantly. Instead, I'd like to offer up a suggestion that players should be able to translate money into direct military boosts.
So, let's say I'm the Dutch and I've gotten myself into a war with someone, say, Prussia. Assume we're roughly the same size. As it stands, unless Prussia -seriously- messes up, they will win the war due to their national ideas and heavy military focus.
Obviously, this should be the case--But the Dutch not really having a fighting chance at all is highly irritating. The Dutch player has built up a huge colonial Empire and has significant amounts of money, it just doesn't matter because Prussia is gonna steamroll him despite every effort to put it to use.
What if, though, the Dutch player had the option to use a (significant) amount of money to boost his army? Let's say you could boost discipline, morale, and even manpower (Increased conscription) through the investment of money in these areas over time, giving players meaningful choices to use their late-game funds instead of having a situation where everyone is sitting with 40k in the bank and nothing to spend it on after building oc nscription centers everywhere.
Making this a toggleable thing guarantees that the base cost of war is not significantly increased, so players who aren't as good at makin' those ducats are not impacted in single-player. This also makes trade-based nations much more viable. Let's say that Britain and an Italian state are allied. The Italian country isn't making a ton of money but Britain is. Britain could fund the Italian army while using its own forces overseas to harass enemy colonies or just do naval landings. It opens up possibilites for teamwork; the option for this could even be a simple "Subsidize X" in the war screen menu, with money being spent and the bonuses transferring automatically to your ally's army.
The final interesting thing I'd like to note is that this option would theoretically make it possible for war to have a real impact on a country's budget. If you REALLY want to win a war, you could totally pump a ton of money into it and even go into debt to go so. This will allow players to choose between immediate gains vs long-term consequences, and allow wars to be 'doubled down' on by players deciding to go into debt if that's what it takes to win. Will the enemy follow up, or decide it's not worth?
Any thoughts on this? Criticism? Has this been suggested before? I think having more goldsinks beyond buildings and advisors would be a good thing! It could maaybe be tied to MP, too.
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