A suggestion to Buff Bavaria and add some flavor as well

[Itchel]

Why?
Have you ever seen a game where Bavaria grew big ? because i've always seen them collapse and get eaten by Augsburg, Bohemia, Austria, The Palatinate, Wurzburg and even rarely Salzburg! but in all my 2500 hours i've only seen the ai get big as bavaria a couple of times dare i say 15% of the time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that Bavaria should become the new france or brandenburg I only wish for them to be buffed just enough to keep itself from being eaten and perhaps even eventually eat up all of the lands that it holds today. Because in history Bavaria was strong enough to keep its own military as a state of Germany

Now, Moving on the the actual suggestion
1# A slight buff to the leader or heir at 1444?
The Bavarian starting leader and heir both suck, the heir worse than the actual king and isn't even old enough to be made general himself at the beginning it makes it hard to get ideas and maintain tech at the same time for the first few years

2# A touch of flavor
Just a few flavor events would make playing as Bavaria more satisfying
Although I have nothing to say about should be added since I myself don't know much about Bavarian history but I'm sure you devs can come up with something spectacular

3# A slight buff to the national ideas
As it is right now they're really good, Especially for maintaining an economy and that's just what the Bavarian ideas are good at but I think they could use something to compensate for that -10 stability cost which I'm sure not many people appreciate in any idea tree, then there's 2 ideas dedicated to remaining a monarchy (+50% heir chance, +1 legitimacy) and finally +1 prestige. Those are usually ideas that are great to have 1 or 2 of to counter balance an OP idea group but bavaria has 4
I'm not saying any should be removed (perhaps the stability cost could), But I think one of these ideas could be merged in with another (specifically the +50% heir chance into +1 legitimacy) and in its old spot replaced with one from a list i am about to put below, I'm sure one of which is fitting for Bavaria but I cannot choose which one because again I do not know much about Bavarian history:
Fort Maintentance reduction
Fort Defence
Manpower
Garrison size
Army tradition
+1 Diplomatic relations
Goods produced
reduced maintenance
morale of armies
Idea cost reduction
unjustified demands
regiment cost reduction
advisor cost reduction

^ Now obviously im not suggesting all of these, just asking for you devs to consider at least putting one of them into the ideas

Perhaps buffing the production efficiency by 5? this one may be pushing it but, right now german ideas have +10 production and bavaria also has +10 production, This can be lived without since again it's not a big improvement, I just thought bavaria was one of the more productive states of germany but i could be mistaken

But as much as I wish for them to get a slight bonus to quality such as 2.5 extra discipline or +10 morale I think the most fitting is one regarding manpower/manpower recovery or a forcelimit increase

Thank you for reading this far and I hope I did well on grammar and it isn't absolutely atrocious ;P
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Additionally could one of you moderators edit my title to say: "A suggestion to buff Bavaria and give additonal flavor" , Thanks

 

[magnusvejby]

In the ideas i would suggest a small AE decrease, since this is often many HRE states biggest problem, and i do agree with the +1 Dip relation it could be quite good for bavaria.

Another thing, if Bavaria needs more flavor, i will suggest either a DHE or an event chain about the "War of the succession of Landshut" I suggested something like this back in febuary.Some of my suggestion was based on wrong information on wikipedia.

From Wikipedia.

"The War of the Succession of Landshut resulted from an agreement between the duchies of Bavaria-Munich and Bavaria-Landshut The agreement concerned the law of succession when one of the two Dukes should die without a male heir. Both of these duchies were owned by branches
of the House of Wittelsbach, and the agreement stated that if one branch should become extinct in the male line
then the other would inherit both duchies. "

That could be some sort of event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Succession_of_Landshut

The wrong part of wikpedia is "This agreement disregarded imperial law, which stipulated that the Holy Roman Emperor should inherit should a line fail."
But i was told in my thread, that wikipedia was wrong, so just ignore that

So i think it might could turn up as a nice DHE or event chain about Bavaria.

DHE= Dynamic Historical Event
In case you did not know

 

[Vistariel]

I would like to see Bavaria, like Saxony, the Palatinate, and other electors or historic electors (Bavaria became an elector later on) have more historic flavor events, missions, and decisions to make draw out the reality that they played a huge rule in the development of Europe through this epoch. While not as large as Austria, France, or Sweden, these nations still were extremely important in their contributions, and I would like to see that fleshed out.

I have made a request of this nature for Saxony specifically, and just today made one for Burgundy. I would recommend, however, that you at least peruse wikipedia on the topic of the history of the nation you have suggestions for to give some substance to your suggestions.

 

[Itchel]

I would like to see Bavaria, like Saxony, the Palatinate, and other electors or historic electors (Bavaria became an elector later on) have more historic flavor events, missions, and decisions to make draw out the reality that they played a huge rule in the development of Europe through this epoch. While not as large as Austria, France, or Sweden, these nations still were extremely important in their contributions, and I would like to see that fleshed out.

I have made a request of this nature for Saxony specifically, and just today made one for Burgundy. I would recommend, however, that you at least peruse wikipedia on the topic of the history of the nation you have suggestions for to give some substance to your suggestions.

Ye, I'd love to see those nations get fleshed out too ;P perhaps even something on hannover?

 

[HansBaer]

I'm all for buffing Bavaria, I live there. However, their problem isn't ideas, it is the same Denmark and Brandenburg face. Not big enough to scare the minors but big rough to be rivaled by the heavy hitters. (Bohemia, Austria, Sweden). Their abysmal rulers don't help either. There was nothing special about them, but 1-0-1 is really extreme.

There should be an entire HRE flavor DLC like purple Phoenix, would buy it in a heartbeat.
For example, Bavaria was partitioned into several smaller starts at the start date and got united 1504. Electors could change like they did in history, a nation should loose the imperial throne if their dynasty dies out and whatnot. I also want to see the plague wipe away massive amounts of development.

 

[Itchel]

I'm all for buffing Bavaria, I live there. However, their problem isn't ideas, it is the same Denmark and Brandenburg face. Not big enough to scare the minors but big rough to be rivaled by the heavy hitters. (Bohemia, Austria, Sweden). Their abysmal rulers don't help either. There was nothing special about them, but 1-0-1 is really extreme.

I still think they deserve slightly better ideas because of the reasons i stated in the suggestion

There should be an entire HRE flavor DLC like purple Phoenix, would buy it in a heartbeat.
For example, Bavaria was partitioned into several smaller starts at the start date and got united 1504. Electors could change like they did in history, a nation should loose the imperial throne if their dynasty dies out and whatnot. I also want to see the plague wipe away massive amounts of development.

I vouch for this

Bavaria was partitioned into several smaller starts at the start date and got united 1504.

are you sure about 1504? i want a source, i just want to know more about it ;P

 

[Vaximillian]

I'm all for buffing Bavaria… after splitting off Regensburg.

 

[Itchel]

I'm all for buffing Bavaria… after splitting off Regensburg.

Regensburg?? is that not already its own province?

 

[Vaximillian]

Regensburg?? is that not already its own province?

Splitting off as an independent, seventh starting Imperial free city.

 

[Itchel]

Splitting off as an independent, seventh starting Imperial free city.

Didn't know it was a free city, Poor bavaria they got all these free cities surrounding them D;
but for realism... I support it

 

[Amosblanco]

The main reason Bavaria, (the same case as notable 3-5 province HRE minors like Saxony, Palatinate, and even Brandenburg) has very weak performance in the game is not mainly due to its weak NI (Bavaria has a pretty good NIs already), nor geographical location (somewhat, since Bavaria was mostly surrounded by stronger neighbor powers like Bohemia and free cities protected by the emperor). Rather, it is the fact that OPMs are too strong:

Every independent nation has a fixed +6 base land force limit, and a fixed +1 tax income for being an independent power. Because of those, each of them in the game is capable of building around 5-8k army. Besides fixed "subsidies" to those OPMs, with the release of the Common Sense, those OPMs are granted the ability to develop their capital provinces. Since they, in general, have nowhere to expand and have no where to spend their monarch powers, they develop their only city in an insane level ( >20 total development being very common in 1500s).

Those huge buffs to OPMs are the biggest nerf to those small minor states with 3--5 provinces as Bavaria, because only several more provinces compared to OPMs makes small difference. Suppose each province can supply 1k troop. Bavaria has 5 province, and thus can supply 4k more troops than those OPMs. That make Bavaria (or Saxony, Brandenberg, Palatinate) only being approximately a half stronger compared to the later, and even much less if the OPM develop its province to a 30 development metropolis, despite the fact that Bavaria is much larger than them in term of the size.
In sum, Bavaria is weak is mostly because it was overshadowed by a swarm of super-buffed OPMs. Two small OPMs alone can easily defeat him theoratically in the current patch, which is insane!

So, friends, blame the game mechanics rather than NI or more provinces if you rant and want a stronger Bavaria!

 

[Itchel]

The main reason Bavaria, (the same case as notable 3-5 province HRE minors like Saxony, Palatinate, and even Brandenburg) has very weak performance in the game is not mainly due to its weak NI (Bavaria has a pretty good NIs already), nor geographical location (somewhat, since Bavaria was mostly surrounded by stronger neighbor powers like Bohemia and free cities protected by the emperor). Rather, it is the fact that OPMs are too strong:

Every independent nation has a fixed +6 base land force limit, and a fixed +1 tax income for being an independent power. Because of those, each of them in the game is capable of building around 5-8k army. Besides fixed "subsidies" to those OPMs, with the release of the Common Sense, those OPMs are granted the ability to develop their capital provinces. Since they, in general, have nowhere to expand and have no where to spend their monarch powers, they develop their only city in an insane level ( >20 total development being very common in 1500s).

Those huge buffs to OPMs are the biggest nerf to those small minor states with 3--5 provinces as Bavaria, because only several more provinces compared to OPMs makes small difference. Suppose each province can supply 1k troop. Bavaria has 5 province, and thus can supply 4k more troops than those OPMs. That make Bavaria (or Saxony, Brandenberg, Palatinate) only being approximately a half stronger compared to the later, and even much less if the OPM develop its province to a 30 development metropolis, despite the fact that Bavaria is much larger than them in term of the size.
In sum, Bavaria is weak is mostly because it was overshadowed by a swarm of super-buffed OPMs. Two small OPMs alone can easily defeat him theoratically in the current patch, which is insane!

So, friends, blame the game mechanics rather than NI or more provinces if you rant and want a stronger Bavaria!

Said it once gonna say it again, I know the NI's are not the reason they're underpowered, but they still deserve slightly stronger NI's because they were definitely more important than most of the other german nations and they really are about as good as any normal germany NI.

and what you said about their starting position, I think it's absolutely terrible because they're next to Bohemia, Austria and have free cities everywhere surrounding them this makes it hard to expand, then there's trade, the best way to make trade is to somehow beat austria but until then you have to suffer less than 1-3 ducats off of trade. How is this not bad? (otherwise you could attempt to become the hre emperor and inherit burgundy, But this isn't the easiest thing to do especially not in MP)

I mean at least brandenburg has a choice to attack the hansa then annex hamburg and lubeck afterwards making at least 10+ ducats off of trade.

 

[Amosblanco]

Said it once gonna say it again, I know the NI's are not the reason they're underpowered, but they still deserve slightly stronger NI's because they were definitely more important than most of the other german nations and they really are about as good as any normal germany NI.

and what you said about their starting position, I think it's absolutely terrible because they're next to Bohemia, Austria and have free cities everywhere surrounding them this makes it hard to expand, then there's trade, the best way to make trade is to somehow beat austria but until then you have to suffer less than 1-3 ducats off of trade. How is this not bad? (otherwise you could attempt to become the hre emperor and inherit burgundy, But this isn't the easiest thing to do especially not in MP)

I mean at least brandenburg has a choice to attack the hansa then annex hamburg and lubeck afterwards making at least 10+ ducats off of trade.

My view: Bavaria's NI is slightly better than German general NIs, on the same level as Bohemia/ Palatinate/ Saxony/Milan/Tuscany, but inferior to Austria and Brandenburg, which is totally fine to me. Bavaria was never a great power.
In term of geographical location, true, as I have mentioned already, its not good, but definitely not as dificult at the level of Novgorod/ Trebizond/ Byzantine. First of all, you can find strong ally, Poland/ Hungary at the start if you rival Bohemia, and with some diplomatic manuvre, France/ Burgundy. In term of targets, Ansbach is an obvious one (as I recall Bavaria even has a mission to conquer it). Bohemia is stronger than you, but with alliance with Poland/ Hungary, it can be easily smashed....
After all, it is not Bavaria has no room to expand, rather it is because Bavaria is not able to eat OPMs alone as I argued, even with awesome NI like Brandenburg. (Did you notice that Brandenburg also rarely blob in the current patch? even it has lucky nation status....)

PS: i totally agree with you that Bavaria, as well as notable nations like Saxony, Palatinate, should be buffed as they rarely stand our from other OPMs, but not the ways you suggested by buffing NI, buffing monarchs, buffing province development... They will make token difference as I said, not to mention changing the balance (should Saxony, Milan, Florence, Palatinate, Bohemia also get an similar treatment as Bavaria???). I prefer changing some aspects of game mechanic to nerf OPMs a little bit.

 

[Woifee]

Bavaria and Austria could both have an DHE in wich they struggle over getting a PU with Bohemia.

In casa Bacaria succeeds they have a guhe buff.