Addressing the Oversized Elephant in the room

[gabadur]

As many people have noticed.. Lithuania is waayy too rich and populated. Eastern europe (not poland) was pretty poor and was mostly farms. Debuffing ALL provinces EXCEPT kiev, vilnius and smolensk to 2/2/2 or less would be good. Although pretty extreme, Lithuania shouldnt have the equal army size of russia or sweden. You can look up in Wikipedia, the population of lithuania at 1490 was 4,250,000! While the small state of muscovy at 1500 had 6,000,000 people.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

While in theory this makes sense, I would be fairly sure the over buffing of Lithuania is due to the fact it stops them getting chewed up entirely by sweden, russia, poland and the ottomans, all of which are vaguely in the area and capable of severe punishment, I would also suspect without the higher stats they would be fairly susceptible to weaker tags like the Teutonic order which is something the game design doesn't really want.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

I guess it's a problem of some smaller countries don't being able to survive by using guerrilla tactics, something like Transylvania or Wallachia surviving against the Ottomans...
At most you have a region conquered and then rebels popping to liberate it, but by then, you have already lost the game.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

I guess it's a problem of some smaller countries don't being able to survive by using guerrilla tactics, something like Transylvania or Wallachia surviving against the Ottomans...
At most you have a region conquered and then rebels popping to liberate it, but by then, you have already lost the game.

It kind of seems to me that its a fairly fundamental flaw with the game the trouble being I think it would be incredibly hard to come up with a solution that could make something like this possible between the big, medium and small nations.

 

[brifbates]

Lithuania is fairly ridiculous at the moment... You know something is wrong when the Russians WANT the Pol-Lit PU to happen so they have breathing room to get big enough to compete.

 

[LoriKe]

While in theory this makes sense, I would be fairly sure the over buffing of Lithuania is due to the fact it stops them getting chewed up entirely by sweden, russia, poland and the ottomans, all of which are vaguely in the area and capable of severe punishment, I would also suspect without the higher stats they would be fairly susceptible to weaker tags like the Teutonic order which is something the game design doesn't really want.

But this way lithuania does this to the surrounding countries which in my opinion also is something weird.
Also just like the teutons who are basically cannon fodder to poles lithuania is just like that to russia in mid to late game(or it should but now is the reverse) which is perfetly fine.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

But this way lithuania does this to the surrounding countries which in my opinion also is something weird.
Also just like the teutons who are basically cannon fodder to poles lithuania is just like that to russia in mid to late game(or it should but now is the reverse) which is perfetly fine.

from the sounds of it with a reduction of sweden power and a raising of danish, paradox are at least looking at the region and we might see some pleasant changes come 1.14 although the other danger is if you make them too weak they will just serve as expansion grounds for Brandenburg and other strong HRE nations, but then again I rarely see prussia form.

 

[Chieron]

Although pretty extreme, Lithuania shouldnt have the equal army size of russia or sweden. You can look up in Wikipedia, the population of lithuania at 1490 was 4,250,000! While the small state of muscovy at 1500 had 6,000,000 people.

Well, it should be nowhere near Russia at least. Sweden on the other hand is and was not a densely populated area, either. Sweden does have mercenary ideas for a reason, as lacking in manpower as it is.
The core problem is true, however, Lithuania has a ridiculously high basetax considering the area was not densely settled/partly wilderness.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

I don't think that early Lithuania is too strong, because it really had a chance to become the dominant power in Rus. During the earliest period of the game Lithuania was strong enough to challenge Muscovy and formed a serious threat to Muscovites. Rapidly expanding Muscovy became stronger than Lithuania only when it conquered Novgorod, which in turn forced the Lithuanians to seek closer ties with Poland.

 

[gabadur]

H

While in theory this makes sense, I would be fairly sure the over buffing of Lithuania is due to the fact it stops them getting chewed up entirely by sweden, russia, poland and the ottomans, all of which are vaguely in the area and capable of severe punishment, I would also suspect without the higher stats they would be fairly susceptible to weaker tags like the Teutonic order which is something the game design doesn't really want.

Historically the lithuanians joined up with the poles SPECIFICALLY for this reason. To protect themselves against russians and ottomans. Evidently this wasn't enough...

 

[gabadur]

I don't think that early Lithuania is too strong, because it really had a chance to become the dominant power in Rus. During the earliest period of the game Lithuania was strong enough to challenge Muscovy and formed a serious threat to Muscovites. Rapidly expanding Muscovy became stronger than Lithuania only when it conquered Novgorod, which in turn forced the Lithuanians to seek closer ties with Poland.

but if you play as russia now owning all of novgorod plus some GH land you still can't challenge the whole commonwealth as russia did historically. Its a joke, even if you are arguing gameplay vs realism, realistically and gameplay wise lithuania should NOT have more developement than france!

 

[gabadur]

@Wiz

 

[Megabear]

This gets addressed all the time. I agree that Lithuania needs to be nerfed.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

but if you play as russia now owning all of novgorod plus some GH land you still can't challenge the whole commonwealth as russia did historically. Its a joke, even if you are arguing gameplay vs realism, realistically and gameplay wise lithuania should NOT have more developement than france!

You can. Your mileage may vary, but I haven't experienced much problems with conquering Lithuanian lands (with the current patch). Once you destroy their main stacks they are quite vulnerable and collapse really fast.

 

[Megabear]

You can. Your mileage may vary, but I haven't experienced much problems with conquering Lithuanian lands (with the current patch). Once you destroy their main stacks they are quite vulnerable and collapse really fast.

It's true, but the same is true for any nations. It's not that we can't defeat them, it's that they are unbalanced.

 

[Denkt]

If not anything have changed, Lithuania is one of those nations that is very vulnerable to revolts, if they get their army destroyed and their war exhuastion out of control they may implode.

Im pretty sure Sweden did not have anything close to 5 milion people in 1444. What made Sweden such a powerful military power may just been the simple fact that Sweden had a huge copper supply and with copper comes artillery and with artillery comes victories on the battlefield.

 

[zsImmortal]

As many people have noticed.. Lithuania is waayy too rich and populated. Eastern europe (not poland) was pretty poor and was mostly farms. Debuffing ALL provinces EXCEPT kiev, vilnius and smolensk to 2/2/2 or less would be good. Although pretty extreme, Lithuania shouldnt have the equal army size of russia or sweden. You can look up in Wikipedia, the population of lithuania at 1490 was 4,250,000! While the small state of muscovy at 1500 had 6,000,000 people.

Vilnius is fine, but Kiev? Kiev was a shell of its former self.

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s5285.pdf

In 1240 the city of Kiev was destroyed by the Mongols, whose leader, Batu Khan, is reported to have boasted: "I will tie Kiev to the tail of my horse. " In the ensuing centuries, Kiev and the surrounding territory continued to be the target of Tatar raids. From 1450 to 1586, for example, eighty-six raids were recorded, and from 1600 to 1647, there were seventy more. Crimean Tatars sacked Kiev in 1416 and again in 1482. Kiev was not ravaged again until the mid-seventeenth century, but even during this long period of comparative peace, it did not recover the size or importance it had enjoyed as the capital of Kievan Rus. According to one set of figures, Kiev had about three thousand residents early in the fifteenth century. Lviv (Lvov), Ukraine's largest town at this time, had about ten thousand.In 1474 one Venetian visitor described Kiev as "plain and poor." Statistician Ivan Pantiukhov estimates that its population averaged no more than ten thousand inhabitants from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries.

The fact that Ukraine hasn't been nuked to the ground like most of the Golden horde and Persian provinces is a travesty.

Lithuania has way too much development because of the Ukrainian provinces. Fix that and the region will play itself out much more naturally.

 

[kitemasaki]

As many people have noticed.. Lithuania is waayy too rich and populated. Eastern europe (not poland) was pretty poor and was mostly farms. Debuffing ALL provinces EXCEPT kiev, vilnius and smolensk to 2/2/2 or less would be good. Although pretty extreme, Lithuania shouldnt have the equal army size of russia or sweden. You can look up in Wikipedia, the population of lithuania at 1490 was 4,250,000! While the small state of muscovy at 1500 had 6,000,000 people.

Any discussions trying to tie pops to 'mechanics' are futile if they don't fix China first. Sorry bud.

 

[Tacticus101]

As many people have noticed.. Lithuania is waayy too rich and populated. Eastern europe (not poland) was pretty poor and was mostly farms. Debuffing ALL provinces EXCEPT kiev, vilnius and smolensk to 2/2/2 or less would be good. Although pretty extreme, Lithuania shouldnt have the equal army size of russia or sweden. You can look up in Wikipedia, the population of lithuania at 1490 was 4,250,000! While the small state of muscovy at 1500 had 6,000,000 people.

The "small" state of Muscovy in 1500 had already conquered Novgorod, the smaller city states and chunks of Lithuania, probably being bigger than Lithuania in land area. If you work out the development of the historical Muscovy by adding all those territories they actually have substantially more development than Lithuania, about 450 compared to about 300. If you go in game and click forwards to 1500, the total developments are 343 vs 538 (including vassals), and that doesnt even factor in the territory lost in the first war due to province size. Considering the populations were 4.2 million compared to 6 million, AFTER Lithuania lost territory, that seems entirely reasonable.

Comparing army sizes, accounts that I can find show the conflicts between them as relatively equal, Lithuania lost most of the early ones, though not substantially enough for Muscovy to do more than take a bit of land. Certainly Lithuania was much richer and able to field a bigger army than Sweden, whose population was under a million. factor in the Muscovite traditions and any ideas they might have by 1500 and they can field a much larger army than Lithuania by that point.

Also, if we were going to have development perfectly relative to population, then France's starting development should be somewhere in the relm of 1000, which would be slightly overpowered. Also, Portugal only had a population of 1 million and England 3 million, why are their developments so high?

 

[Afinati]

While in theory this makes sense, I would be fairly sure the over buffing of Lithuania is due to the fact it stops them getting chewed up entirely by sweden, russia, poland and the ottomans, all of which are vaguely in the area and capable of severe punishment, I would also suspect without the higher stats they would be fairly susceptible to weaker tags like the Teutonic order which is something the game design doesn't really want.

Paradox can't come up with a more elegant way to protect Lithuania?