Advisors too strong?

[forfor]

so, I just now noticed that you can promote advisors to level 5. normally, this probably wouldn't be a big deal since vanilla advisors reach insane costs. But after stacking 88% advisor discount, my level 5 advisors only costed 6 upkeep, and generated such a vast surplus of mp that I have no doubt they more than paid for their own upkeep just from having such an absurd surplus that I was forced to develop my provinces. Does anyone else think they might be way too strong? admittedly I also had a pretty good ruler, but being able to crank out up to 15 of any given mp per month is insane. (I also admit I went out of my way to stack idea and tech cost reduction, so my experience might be a little skewed)

 

[Terixis]

Generally, every modifier in EU4 is completely overpowered if you stack it as much as possible. e.g., stab cost reduction for infinite truce breaks, leader cost reduction for infinite manpower and 100% professionalism, advisor costs for your example, core cost reduction, unrest reduction for obvious reasons, and of course dev cost reduction.

Except national tax modifier, because loltax.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nope, stacking to that degree is usually implying that you are sacrificing something else, and while very inexpensive advisers are nice, they are not as impactful as other modifiers stacked to the brim like CCR, WS cost, unrest, or arguably even siege ability. They also don't scale well in SP, in that the bigger you get the more feasible it is to just pay for level 5 advisers regardless of discount.

 

[Nostalgium]

Basically, as the above have said, it's an opportunity cost. It's powerful, but investing in advisors means you aren't investing in something else.

 

[Orkonkel]

It's less of an opportunity cost if you just go to like -50% from a couple of monuments and then upgrade the 50% cost advisors you get via events.

So, yes, advisors and disinheriting is way overpowered compared to the original design of the game. You would get these 1-2-0 kings that lived for 40-50 years and it would affect your gameplay, albeit to a smaller degree if you were big enough to afford +3 advisors (this would typically ruin your economy in the early and mid game). These days, you can get up to +5 advisors (on their own, they're the equivalent of a 4-4-4 monarch with level 1 advisors, which is a solid state to be in anywhere), plus you never end up with garbage tier rulers if you are playing monarchies.

In my opinion, it's less about is this OP or not. The more important question is: what game design philosophy is a more enjoyable experience? Is it a 'better' problem to have more mana than you can use, or falling behind in tech/expanding because you have a mana deficit? It's more a matter of preference, I think, and with the way the new institutions are designed you might be falling behind even in Europe with decently statted monarchs.

I think the issue is that there are no 'meaningful' ways of investing mana. Mil overflow? Spam generals for professionalism. Admin overflow? Stab +3 and then develop (which does nothing). Dip overflow? Gold mine upgrades then develop (which again, in most expansionist games feels pretty useless). I'd like to weigh my options. What if I could expand my governing cap by spending a combination of dip and admin and time, instead of government reform? What if I could turn the red X into a green V for 'Offer Vassalization' by sending a diplomat and investing dip points?

I don't like all these 'instant click and a thing happens' effects. Let me send a diplomat to my colonies and it will drain 3 mana and 3 admin for 5 years (180 of each), and after it is completed the colony gains a permanent goods produced bonus and a liberty desire reduction. Like... let me grow in other ways than just conquering anything that's bordering me and waiting for AE to tick down.

 

[MatthewP]

I think the issue is that there are no 'meaningful' ways of investing mana. Mil overflow? Spam generals for professionalism. Admin overflow? Stab +3 and then develop (which does nothing). Dip overflow? Gold mine upgrades then develop (which again, in most expansionist games feels pretty useless). I'd like to weigh my options. What if I could expand my governing cap by spending a combination of dip and admin and time, instead of government reform? What if I could turn the red X into a green V for 'Offer Vassalization' by sending a diplomat and investing dip points?

I don't like all these 'instant click and a thing happens' effects. Let me send a diplomat to my colonies and it will drain 3 mana and 3 admin for 5 years (180 of each), and after it is completed the colony gains a permanent goods produced bonus and a liberty desire reduction. Like... let me grow in other ways than just conquering anything that's bordering me and waiting for AE to tick down.

Agreed. And I like the idea of creative ways to invest points. It would be cool if you could get some extra max improve relations with a country for dip points, unrest reduction in an area for admin points, pump up army tradition (slightly) with mil points, etc. There could be a ton of these. They could all be very inefficient, in fact if they're good enough to compete with stuff like coring, tech, ideas, or dev (assuming good costs and under GC) then I think it would be bad for the game. But it would feel good to have some more options than adding another point of mercantilism or professionalism.

 

[forfor]

there's even already an easy way to implement a lot of these: just have repeatable decisions