I agree with Blobhemian about the taking ideas issue. It's pretty sad to see AI nations that by all metrics should be rich, and moreover, more than capable to pay like 3 ducats for basic lvl 1 advisors sitting around with 1 or 2 ideas taken in the 1530s.
I fired up a Mali game today to experience firsthand the supposed horror people are talking about in regards to the disaster, and ideas wise the game was a letdown. I took my first idea group, exploration, in 1496, took the first idea for the mission tree and I was able to steal colonization from Portugal in 1501 (we both satisfied the conditions in 1500, but it spawned a year later, and to be fair it was a tossup between us, because he had colonies in Brazil). It's in the 1530s since that in my game, I've completed both Exploration and Expansion, I'm sitting on 20 innovativeness from the ideas, caught up on tech (force spawned both Feudalism and the Renaissance) because other colonizers only have the first two from both (meaning Portugal, Castile and England), the Ottomans and France each have in Economic and one other from another group. And from what I can see, none expanded so much that they shouldn't have the points to spare for ideas (England has some of Ireland, France reconquested his home region, Ottomans have eaten the beyliks and the Balkans, Castile ate Granada and some of Morocco and Tlemcen). And they did this too in patches before 1.32 and still managed to fill out two idea groups and make headway in the third by this time in the game, supposedly in worse financial conditions.
And if this stays the same until next spring, it's really gonna be a cold winter for the AI and the game, since not having their ideas weakens them significantly in the long run. I was able to kick Castile (who has Aragon, Naples and Navarra as PUs, all of them having some numerical and all out naval advantage) out of Africa just by sitting on the highlands terrain Ceuta in neutral Portugal and waiting for ticking warscore and length of war. They didn't even try to naval invade me.
I fired up a Mali game today to experience firsthand the supposed horror people are talking about in regards to the disaster, and ideas wise the game was a letdown. I took my first idea group, exploration, in 1496, took the first idea for the mission tree and I was able to steal colonization from Portugal in 1501 (we both satisfied the conditions in 1500, but it spawned a year later, and to be fair it was a tossup between us, because he had colonies in Brazil). It's in the 1530s since that in my game, I've completed both Exploration and Expansion, I'm sitting on 20 innovativeness from the ideas, caught up on tech (force spawned both Feudalism and the Renaissance) because other colonizers only have the first two from both (meaning Portugal, Castile and England), the Ottomans and France each have in Economic and one other from another group. And from what I can see, none expanded so much that they shouldn't have the points to spare for ideas (England has some of Ireland, France reconquested his home region, Ottomans have eaten the beyliks and the Balkans, Castile ate Granada and some of Morocco and Tlemcen). And they did this too in patches before 1.32 and still managed to fill out two idea groups and make headway in the third by this time in the game, supposedly in worse financial conditions.
And if this stays the same until next spring, it's really gonna be a cold winter for the AI and the game, since not having their ideas weakens them significantly in the long run. I was able to kick Castile (who has Aragon, Naples and Navarra as PUs, all of them having some numerical and all out naval advantage) out of Africa just by sitting on the highlands terrain Ceuta in neutral Portugal and waiting for ticking warscore and length of war. They didn't even try to naval invade me.
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