AE is broken > coalitions are broken > game is broken

[mcmanusaur]

There's a pretty hard failure at reading comprehension here. I understand, because WC-obsessed power-gamers are such an easy strawman to attack, but that's not who I am. I've never done a WC in any Europa Universalis game. I've never even attempted one. I'm only saying that "fun and interesting" and "impossible to conquer the world" as design goals are probably more at odds with each other than most people, including Paradox, give credit for. Making a game that DDRJake can't "beat" has produced a game that is much, much less enjoyable for a large number of players. I'd hate for any abstract design goal to keep Paradox from seeing and acknowledging that.

You'd hate for "any abstract design goal" to keep Paradox from realizing WC should be possible, and you argue this in the name of "fun and interesting" (instead of impossible WC) as a design goal? Yep, that's not abstract at all...

 

[DarkThug]

Further, I don't see how tedium works as a good punishment. Real punishment is losing land and influence - not some BS "you have to micro a hundred sieges or blockades". Why on earth would we settle for easy mode where it just slows your expansion instead of trying everything the devs can manage to make the player lose wars and lose land in epic campaigns that are fun?

I think this is actually what both side agree upon. Coalition is no good as it is.

One side argue that since it doesn't do it job well we should buff it even more. Mostly in the form of buffing combat AI. So player will face a real punishment of losing war. Once a coalition is deadly enough, it can stand to be less common and smaller. We know it is unlikely in the near future (AI beating veteran player). I don't know what else can be done though.

Another argue that since it doesn't do it job well we should remove what is left of its artificial mechanic that slow players down. I don't think this is a solution, not at all. Especially since Paradox already provide a tool to prevent this roadblock called diplomacy. If you think this tool is bland ,monotonous or ineffective, you are welcome to suggest the way to improve it. Suggest that we should be able to get by without it isn't one of them IMHO.

 

[Chamboozer]

But all of those are negative changes that make the game too arbitrary and punishing, just like many people feel the current coalition system is, to a lesser degree.

Either he's wrongly equating the possibility of expansion and the possibility of world conquest; as I have stated in previous posts, there are ways (using mechanics that scale to size) to prevent the latter without impeding the former, and you are wrong that mechanics to prevent the latter necessarily get in the way of the former (this may be the case in the context of EU IV,

...So you're not disagreeing? Because the basic idea behind this is that a heavy-handed focus on preventing WC is very challenging to balance with regular gameplay and it's causing problems with EUIV. He never said mutually exclusive, just that they don't rest easily with each other.

 

[Beagá]

You're putting words into his mouth.

He said that designing the game to be fun, and designing the game to make world conquests impossible don't go well together, which is entirely true.

That doesn't mean WC is the only way to have fun. It means that focusing too much design on preventing WC can lead to the regular gameplay not being fun because mechanics meant to prevent WC are also getting the way of normal, non-WC expansion.

That is a tricky thing. The real problem is that nations that expanded a lot like Russia have trouble doing so.

The challenge is making mechanics that allow huge expansions possible while not allowing for France to double its size in a century ONLY by conquest (and not by vassalize > annex, personal union etc etc)

When people DO use the system to its full potential expansion is not that hard.

Making AE smaller versus infidels would be a good start. In the end however no matter how much you tweak it, there will always be that group of players who think Sweden having half of Europe or more should be plausible, and others that think its BS.

 

[mcmanusaur]

...So you're not disagreeing? Because the basic idea behind this is that a heavy-handed focus on preventing WC is very challenging to balance with regular gameplay and it's causing problems with EUIV. He never said mutually exclusive, just that they don't rest easily with each other.

I'm arguing that there would be ways to prevent WC that wouldn't hold back the rest of the game from being "fun and interesting", the possibility of which his original statement doesn't allow for. They may not be the ways that Paradox has utilized in EU IV, but they exist, and making world conquest possible instead is by no means an easier route to a "fun and interesting" strategy game. I could probably agree that "preventing any expansion" and "fun and interesting" are likely mutually exclusive design goals, but "preventing any expansion" is by no means synonymous to "preventing world conquest".

 

[Chamboozer]

That is a tricky thing. The real problem is that nations that expanded a lot like Russia have trouble doing so.

The challenge is making mechanics that allow huge expansions possible while not allowing for France to double its size in a century ONLY by conquest (and not by vassalize > annex, personal union etc etc)

When people DO use the system to its full potential expansion is not that hard.

Making AE smaller versus infidels would be a good start. In the end however no matter how much you tweak it, there will always be that group of players who think Sweden having half of Europe or more should be plausible, and others that think its BS.

Yeah, a lot of historical examples are hard to represent without changing other elements of the system. For example the partitions of Poland - first of all you can't even annex that much land in one war, but if you could you would net massive amounts of AE. The latter issue at least would be solved by allowing treaties with other nations. Russia can take X provinces from Poland in exchange for agreement with Austria and Prussia which doesn't result in them getting AE with those countries. But they would get AE with others, like the Ottoman Empire which did historically become 'outraged' by Russia's advance into Poland.

I'm arguing that there would be ways to prevent WC that wouldn't hold back the rest of the game from being "fun and interesting", the possibility of which his original statement doesn't allow for. They may not be the ways that Paradox has utilized in EU IV, but they exist, and making world conquest possible instead is by no means an easier route to a "fun and interesting" strategy game. I could probably agree that "preventing any expansion" and "fun and interesting" are likely mutually exclusive design goals, but "preventing any expansion" is by no means synonymous to "preventing world conquest".

I still don't get why you think he's saying you can't do both. Nowhere did he say they're mutually exclusive:

You know, because those two goals don't seem to rest too easy next to each other.

They don't seem to rest too easy - in other words, it's challenging to get those two goals to work together well. That isn't the same thing as being mutually exclusive or impossible. That's what I meant by "putting words into his mouth".

 

[zodium]

I'm arguing that there would be ways to prevent WC that wouldn't hold back the rest of the game from being "fun and interesting", the possibility of which his original statement doesn't allow for. They may not be the ways that Paradox has utilized in EU IV, but they exist, and making world conquest possible instead is by no means an easier route to a "fun and interesting" strategy game. I could probably agree that "preventing any expansion" and "fun and interesting" are likely mutually exclusive design goals, but "preventing any expansion" is by no means synonymous to "preventing world conquest".

"Preventing world conquest" has been officially confirmed to not be a design goal. No word on "preventing any expansion," but "fun and interesting" is rumored to be in the mix.

 

[mcmanusaur]

"Preventing world conquest" has been officially confirmed to not be a design goal. No word on "preventing any expansion," but "fun and interesting" is rumored to be in the mix.

Well, tell that to the guy who implied that "preventing world conquest" was one of Paradox's design goals in the first place.

Unless you're making another point with that which I am missing.

 

[Viperswhip]

Well, I keep going back to EU3 because WC is more fun there despite the cascading alliances. It's still not that bad here if you don't mind huge rebel stacks but it is less fun for me for some reason.

 

[zodium]

Well, tell that to the guy who implied that "preventing world conquest" was one of Paradox's design goals in the first place.

Unless you're making another point with that which I am missing.

I'm saying to the both of you that your discussion is moot, because:

A) Preventing world conquest is affirmatively not a design goal.
B) Making the game fun and interesting is obviously a design goal.

Neoptolemos stated that A and B conflict, to which you suggested that he thought the game would only satisfy B given A. I'm not sure that really follows, but it's not material to my point. You then went on to claim that he had said they were "mutually exclusive," while he actually said "those two goals don't seem to rest too easy next to each other." However, since A is actually given, i.e. it is conclusively known that WC is meant to be possible in principle, and there is strong reason to believe a reliable strategy should exist with the a major country given that a Ryukyu WC should conclusively be possible in principle, I submit to you that your discussion has no point. Instead, discuss how to balance WC viability with whatever it is you don't want, given the known design goals.

 

[mcmanusaur]

I'm saying to the both of you that your discussion is moot, because:

A) Preventing world conquest is affirmatively not a design goal.
B) Making the game fun and interesting is obviously a design goal.

Neoptolemos stated that A and B conflict, to which you suggested that he thought the game would only satisfy B given A. I'm not sure that really follows, but it's not material to my point. You then went on to claim that he had said they were "mutually exclusive," while he actually said "those two goals don't seem to rest too easy next to each other." However, since A is actually given, i.e. it is conclusively known that WC is meant to be possible in principle, and there is strong reason to believe a reliable strategy should exist with the a major country given that a Ryukyu WC should conclusively be possible in principle, I submit to you that your discussion has no point. Instead, discuss how to balance WC viability with whatever it is you don't want, given the known design goals.

The point may be "moot" in the context of where you think this thread should go, but last I checked this thread was about expansion in general. World conquest is a very specific stage of that process that can be mechanically addressed separately from other expansion (which is the more important problem in the game's current state), which is my larger point here. I honestly think devoting a lot of time and effort to "are the parameters right for WC?" is an utter waste of time at this point since there are so many more ubiquitous aspects of the game that could be improved. My larger point is that framing the discussion of how to make the game fun and interesting in terms of world conquest is 100% the wrong way to go about it, and I stand by that point.

 

[zodium]

The point may be "moot" in the context of where you think this thread should go, but last I checked this thread was about expansion in general, and world conquest is a very specific condition of that process (which can be mechanically addressed separately from other expansion, which is my larger point here). I honestly think devoting a lot of time and effort to "are the parameters right for WC" is an utter waste of time at this point since there are so many more ubiquitous aspects of the game that could be improved. My larger point is that framing the discussion of how to make the game fun and interesting in terms of world conquest is 100% the wrong way to go about it, and I stand by that point.

It was just a suggestion. You can devote as much or as little time to discussing things that lie outside of the stated design goals as you like, of course, if you think that's a better use of your time than discussing whether the current game parameters meet the stated design goals.

 

[mcmanusaur]

It was just a suggestion. You can devote as much or as little time to discussing things that lie outside of the stated design goals as you like, of course, if you think that's a better use of your time than discussing whether the current game parameters meet the stated design goals.

I wouldn't really call making this point (that addressing how expansion works in general would serve the "fun and interesting" design goal better than focusing on whether world conquest is possible enough would), "discussing something that lies outside of the stated design goals". I personally feel this "world conquest possible in .01% of cases" design goal is quite low priority comparatively, and that any changes made to facilitate this "design goal" wouldn't contribute to any of the game's many other design goals (most of which are more important than WC). It seems that here you're trying to police which particular design goals this thread addresses, and then to cast anything else as irrelevant as a waste of time.

 

[zodium]

I wouldn't really call making this point (that addressing how expansion works in general would serve the "fun and interesting" design goal better than focusing on whether world conquest is possible enough would), "discussing something that lies outside of the stated design goals". I personally feel this "world conquest possible in .01% of cases" design goal is quite low priority comparatively, and that any changes made to facilitate this "design goal" wouldn't contribute to any of the game's many other design goals (most of which are more important than WC). It seems that here you're trying to police which particular design goals this thread addresses, and then to cast anything else as irrelevant as a waste of time.

Did you see my post on the last page, or did it get lost in the mix? You didn't reply to it, and I covered there that "World conquest possible in .01% of cases" is not what Johan said.

To be specific, what Johan said was that achievements in the Insane category (World Conqueror, Three Mountains, Jihad and Norwegian Wood) have a target completion rate of 0.01%, not that they should be possible 0.01% of the time.

First, from World Conquest having a target completion rate of 0.01%, we can deduce that world conquest is supposed to be possible in principle (this should be uncontroversial). From Three Mountains, we can if not deduce, then infer that a reliable strategy must exist--though I'll admit I'm just betting that any strategy that is viable for Ryukyu would likely be more or less reliable for a major power, I just don't see how this couldn't be the case.

If your strongest response to that is you think undefined other goals are "more important," whatever that means, than WC viability, then I think that really serves to illustrate just how moot this discussion is. Again, I maintain that the question is how to balance these known design goals, not whether they should be balanced or one simply abandoned.

 

[Riidi]

A "target completion rate of .01%" might well mean "we want zero people to complete these until our sales have tripled," though. That would certainly mean "no WC" was an affirmative design goal.

 

[mcmanusaur]

Did you see my post on the last page, or did it get lost in the mix? You didn't reply to it, and I covered there that "World conquest possible in .01% of cases" is not what Johan said.

I did see it, but I felt that point was rather "moot". It doesn't matter in the context of this discussion.

If your strongest response to that is you think undefined other goals are "more important," whatever that means, than WC viability, then I think that really serves to illustrate just how moot this discussion is. Again, I maintain that the question is how to balance these known design goals, not whether they should be balanced or one simply abandoned.

I hope it goes without saying that Paradox had countless other design goals in creating EU IV besides WC viability, and several among those that are relevant to the ease of expansion. And yes, I do feel that world conquest, as something that not all players even attempt, and that those who do only experience in the last century or so of play, is substantially less important than other design factors that impact player experience more generally: namely, the ease of early expansion (i.e. before the point at which you can begin to ignore coalitions, so in other words before WC even comes into consideration). If you want to make a thread exclusively about how Paradox can best serve the "design goal" of viable WC, go ahead, but it's a perfectly valid point of view that certain design issues deserve higher priority than that one.

 

[zodium]

A "target completion rate of .01%" might well mean "we want zero people to complete these until our sales have tripled," though. That would certainly mean "no WC" was an affirmative design goal.

It could not just as well mean that. 0.01% is a number above zero, and anyone who works with target numbers involving people will tell you that fractions round up, not down. If I want to reach a power of X% in a study, and I need "40.01" subjects to achieve that, then I don't get to round down to 40 because people can't actually be sliced up into fractions (well, it would be tough to defend ethically, anyway). In the extreme, if only one person played the game ever, they should be able to pull off a WC given enough time.

I hope it goes without saying that Paradox had countless other design goals in creating EU IV besides WC viability, and several among those that are relevant to the ease of expansion. And yes, I do feel that world conquest, as something that not all players even attempt, and that those who do only experience in the last century or so of play, is substantially less important than other design factors that impact player experience more generally: namely, the ease of early expansion (i.e. before the point at which you can begin to ignore coalitions, so in other words before WC even comes into consideration). If you want to make a thread exclusively about how Paradox can best serve the "design goal" of viable WC, go ahead, but it's a perfectly valid point of view that certain design issues deserve higher priority than that one.

I like to discuss specific mechanics, and it gets tiresome reading the cycling debates about 1.1 vs 1.2, or whether WC should be viable or not, because these debates tend to get in the way of that by focusing on high-level generalities. For instance, I enjoyed the analyses posted by Jomini and others earlier in the thread (around pages 6-8) that engaged the coalition issue at this level, and would like to see a return to that. There's certainly room for prioritizing goals, but within the context of an analysis of the game mechanics, not in a broad and unspecific sense. Here's what you said, which I took issue with as being moot originally:

You've pretty much admitted here that the game isn't fun and interesting unless you can get a world conquest, so I think the only realistic conclusion here is that serious historical strategy games like EU IV aren't for you.

A more negative description than "moot" would be that either your realistic conclusion is wrong, or you are wrong that EU4 is a serious historical strategy game, or you are wrong that serious historical strategy games imply WC non-viability. I prefer moot, since however much import you personally place on WC viability, it is confirmed to be meant as achievable both in general and with Ryukyu in particular, with all the implications that carries. It is a dead horse that deserves no more kicking.

 

[Jomini]

As much fun as it is poking holes in mcmanusaur's logic, the big point is, and should be:

Does the current system make the game more fun or less fun than reasonable alternatives we might try?

A large portion of the board thinks the current system makes the game less fun, having watched my wife's EUIV interest plummet, I suspect that less hardcore players also are finding the current mechanisms less fun. Certainly, the current mechanisms are extremely opaque and hard for new players to get into.

Let's run with the last one for a moment. You fire up a game with the Ottomans in 1452. You take the mission and go to war with the ERE and take all their land (not terribly ahistorical), you get 41.5 AE base with everyone. You then, proceed like history to go after Serbia, Wallachia, and Moldavia. Maybe pulling in another 120 AE. This will likely start getting you coalitions. You, not knowing the system, will then figure well the Ottomans beat the coalition at Varna and later at Kossovo ... the answer is to beat the enemy again. So you send in the army against the Polish/Hungarian/Bosnia/Venetian/Lithuanian/Mameluke coalition ... and then it down a never ending spiral the game never tells you how to mitigate. Long before you can besiege Vienna, you are caught in unending coalition wars.

But send diplomats you say - fine where does a new player learn that which attitudes will join a coalition? Where does a new player learn how to control AI attitudes. Where does a new player learn how to deter a coalition? For new players this punitive mechanism is basically a "don't go war" message.

Now how fun is it for veteran players? Well I have yet to see anyone post "here's a fun way to win the coalition wars", so I'm guessing no one likes the mechanism itself. But maybe people like avoiding the mechanism, okay fine, if that is a fun game for you ... you can still play that way.

So what are we left with? Fears that tweaking the coalition system (as opposed to the vassal system or combat system) somehow has a unique and unwarranted risk that WC might become possible for perhaps 1% of players.

But maybe WC is so dangerous we should design to make it nigh unto impossible. Okay. Are there no other options than the current system (which impedes historical play of nations like Russia, the Mughals, Spain, England, Rev France, Austria, the OE, and the Manchu)? I think not. Suppose nations joined a coalition. Every war against the coalition doubled their morale, discipline, tactics & manpower. These bonuses decayed by 5% a year. You could let the normal alliance rules sit in place (separate peaces, nations can leave anytime their relations change, etc.) and quite obviously banging your head against the coalition with straight up conquest results in your Prussian hordes of doom eventually being overcome by Ethiopian spearmen. Clearly, we could arbitrarily give anti-human coalitions bonuses to a point where the player cannot beat the coalition. So we have options.

Now where to balance the options, that is a challenging question. I certainly want the AI to have a good shot at overcoming a large player empire and whacking it for huge territory, but I don't want coalitions to basically end the game for people who can't fight efficiently and I don't want them so easy I can just expand until 1650 and then go roll up the coalitions to WC. But this is a workable problem - something that could prevent easy WC (limiting it to .01% of players even) ... but not nuking historical play by making the first formation of a sustained coalition the end of historical conquest patterns.

Yeah, I think the phobia of WC is big distraction from core issues - the game should be fun for all levels of skill and as many play styles as possible and if some cheese let's you WC, nobody forces you to use the cheese. But there is a lot of room between "WC is easy" and "coalitions are hated by half the hard core player base, and possibly more of the casuals" - the folks arguing to make WC impossible aren't stupid, but I cannot fathom why they refuse to contribute suggestions to what might achieve their goals as well as people like me. Surely they have some thoughts on what might be able to prevent WC - but not upset so many players. Even if they believe folks like me are just shills for easy map painting, good faith suggestions that assume my goals are as stated will do a much better job of preventing WC than "lolz go play Total War".

We've seen this behavior before. A bunch of us noted that trade was insanely more lucrative than buildings could ever be, and that buildings were pretty much useless with trade cash + conquest other people said buildings were great. Rather than have a good discussion about how to better balance buildings vs light ships (along with production & tax vs trade), we had a lot of folks just claim "everything is fine" and that trade wasn't that good of an investment. So we ended up with a less balanced nerf to the trade system than it could have been. Likewise when 1.2 came out we had a bunch of people who loved the new combat mechanics, others thought they were ahistorical in the extreme and unfun (e.g. losing your entire army 4 days into a war when you had defensive terrain, 4 more regiments, and a better leader ... but lost the die rolls 0 to 9 and 1 to 8), again the folks who liked it as it was refused to say why they liked the status quo and what should be considered when making changes. So we got a hotfix that gives us multi-year late game battles.

I really just don't understand why the status quo defenders won't get into the details of what goals they really want, what possible changes they think might satisfy both sides stated objectives (and no, easy WC is no one's stated objective), and what would make suggestions from the "other side" work better. That would be far more productive and historically is more likely to get you what you want.

//end rant

I suppose I should note that Vishaing has not always agreed with me about what are problems and I think he wants an EU IV where WC is outright impossible as a design goal ... but he does try to refine my suggestions (for which I am most grateful as they at minimum help me think about alternatives better).

 

[Neoptolemos]

Very well said, Jomini. I couldn't agree more.

 

[Melric]

"Preventing world conquest" has been officially confirmed to not be a design goal. No word on "preventing any expansion," but "fun and interesting" is rumored to be in the mix.

Yes, but it has been stated by Johan in another thread that only 0.01% (IIRC) of the playing population should be able to achieve a WC with any nation.