Am I missing something? Is morale recovery speed really that good?
- Thread starter Pellucid
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How is easy is to blame someone, this is complaining for the sake of complaining.
- Dec 14, 1999
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Its the design philosophy that made you happy enough with our games to stick around for 12 years it seems.
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I will state this, EU4 and grand strategy in general should be balanced in MP because EU4 isn't X-COM...
In X-COM you aren't supposed to play as the Alien, thus there is only one playable faction and that means one perspective of balance is enough [In the case of X-COM, the human] (This alien isn't menacing enough, my unupgraded soldier can kill it on open ground, buff it! This alien is impossible to kill, nerf it!)...
In EU4 you can play as any faction available thus is must be balance for both (all) side, for example you can't simply play as Majapahit then balance every single nation as how it compete against Majapahit (Oh, Makassar is too tough to fight against, nerf its base tax! Well, the Dutch doesn't come and control Majapahit fast enough, buff its Navy!)...
I've also been a fan of yours since the outset - it doesn't mean I automatically agree with the direction the design focus seems to be heading. Perhaps, and I say this with humility, you might want to pay attention to what your long term fans are saying as they're the ones who helped you become what you are today.
It is actually a strong bonus in some cases. For example if you fight one big stack after the other, you could actually win both battles if you had recovered enough morale between the battles. In many cases this could be crucial as loosing the 2nd battle would make you retreat half way around the globe. Similarly as others pointed out, this could also prevent stack wipes. Personally I think morale recovery should be even slower, and the defeated army could into hiding or something to compensate. Then morale recovery bonuses would truly shine as right now they are somewhat overshadowed by casualty based buffs.
You can do the same in large single player battles if you want, the only reason it is less of a SP effect is that by the late game the Human player will probably be too much stronger than the AI for it to matter.
It just seems "funneeh" designing a game around how 15% of the player base plays it. Surely it would, business wise, be much smarter to balance the game how the rest of the player base plays it?
A better way to look at it is that the game design is overly idealised. They design the game as if the AI is good enough to match the player in a fair fight, which is not the case but how it should be and what their aim should be.
Also, it isn't really balance in this case. The 5% moral recovery doesn't give the human or the AI or any one nation an advantage, the game is still balanced. The problem is that it is only better than the other options in certain situations, ones that are much more likely to appear in the balance of a MP game (but still apply in SP). If you buffed it to say, 15% moral recovery, it would be an equal pick to 5% discipline in most situations, but be incredibly overpowered in the niche it has now.
In addition, discipline being king is arguably even more multiplayer based than anything else since it assumes roughly even sized armies. When the human can be stronger than any AI within 100 years of the game start and overwhelm their armies easily, who needs 5% discipline? I actually saw an interesting thread on these forums where someone argued that Military ideas don't matter since a good player will never be fighting a war he might lose anyway, you can always win by diplomacy.
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I'd be more inclined to take recovery buffs if morale & reinforcement ticked daily; as-is the outcome is often determined by whether or not you get an end-of-month tick, not by how much the tick is.
Performance not withstanding, I think many aspects of the game would be improved by such a change.
Performance not withstanding, I think many aspects of the game would be improved by such a change.
Don't forget that EU IV is a single player game and that 70% (I think it was) of your players do not give a crap about multi player.
Very funny. EU III with its expansion packs is more fun than EU IV after CoP.
The main reason why EU IV is fun is because of all the great mods out there and not because you balance your game around MP.
Who decided that ? If the developers sees the game as BOTH a SP and MP game, then it is both, is it not ?
The player base.
A few months ago, Johan posted some statistics in which I believe 70% (maybe it was 80% but like I said I'm not 100% sure) of all players said that they only play EU in single player.
I'm sorry I seem to be a little confused is the argument that they shouldnt put in multiplayer focused policies or features because it some how impacts and disrupts the single player experience? because it doesn't I have never once felt disrupted by such things nor had a problem with them
I also love the argument of a +5% discipline policy is better than a +5% moral recovery, like you do realize how policies work right? they are unlocked after you get certain idea groups so you have to factor in which idea groups lead to them and all the other things of balancing the actual idea groups, because you can't actually balance policies in a vacuum when they never exist in a vacuum, this is of course aside from the fact that you clearly never found a use for moral recovery but that doesn't mean its useless or that discipline is strictly better they are different things and if you play mostly single player I can see you often being in situations where it doesn't matter how fast moral recovers as you crush the IA anyway which again is why one would argue that this is more multiplayer focused but I don't see how this existing would detract from single player?
is the argument that this policy should just be +5% discipline in single player because that's actually useful? because then we have the issue of were just repeating policies, we can't make every single military policy +5% discipline or +10% moral that would just be boring and really silly when you consider the number of policies. so again I'm really kinda confused and what your complaining about or suggesting that paradox change,
also if you wanna talk about useless policies there are far bigger offenders isn't/wasn't there a 10% reduced inflation per year policy which is just strictly wasting more points than buying it down
I also love the argument of a +5% discipline policy is better than a +5% moral recovery, like you do realize how policies work right? they are unlocked after you get certain idea groups so you have to factor in which idea groups lead to them and all the other things of balancing the actual idea groups, because you can't actually balance policies in a vacuum when they never exist in a vacuum, this is of course aside from the fact that you clearly never found a use for moral recovery but that doesn't mean its useless or that discipline is strictly better they are different things and if you play mostly single player I can see you often being in situations where it doesn't matter how fast moral recovers as you crush the IA anyway which again is why one would argue that this is more multiplayer focused but I don't see how this existing would detract from single player?
is the argument that this policy should just be +5% discipline in single player because that's actually useful? because then we have the issue of were just repeating policies, we can't make every single military policy +5% discipline or +10% moral that would just be boring and really silly when you consider the number of policies. so again I'm really kinda confused and what your complaining about or suggesting that paradox change,
also if you wanna talk about useless policies there are far bigger offenders isn't/wasn't there a 10% reduced inflation per year policy which is just strictly wasting more points than buying it down
I've had a hard time finding MP games where interest is consistent enough across the board such that it even makes it into the late game *and* had the usual blocs not afford one side a major advantage, but in a pitched battle I suppose you'd be correct. Even then, its utility against an additional stack or reinforcement speed is questionable (an extra stack in the rotation effectively allows full recovery as well).
It seems like a very niche use, but I don't have a problem with it. Rather, the impact of generals right now is probably too overwhelming, in part because of their random nature but also due to their simple tendency to overwhelm everything that isn't "tactics". Having something that is useful in some situations and not in others is good design, because you have to think about when to use it. Maybe morale recovery could use a slight buff, maybe. However, wrt to general pips it's become a game of "always max these because an advantage here will double or triple the casualty disparity in your favor while factors like morale, discipline, and combat ability can't even come close by comparison".
A true master learns eternally. Surely, you don't think that your mechanics can't be improved? This game has never been balanced, and given its nature it can't be (no way can Kathiawar be the same challenge level as France). However, the rate and quality of thought a mechanic requires in order to succeed can be improved upon, regardless of how long people play or whether people enjoy some aspects of the game currently. Right now, in most games tech and general pips >> other things and completely crushes them. The reason you say "late game" is that's the only time where you have large wars between nations that are likely to be relatively equal in those factors, such that otherwise trivial factors can possibly matter. In a late game war, you can have 30% bonus morale recovery speed such that you fully replenish in 2 months and it's not going to matter if you're at 2/2 generals and the other side has 6/6.
EU IV has a large number of kludge type mechanics or carry-overs that people tolerate because the overall experience is still enjoyable to them. That doesn't mean that those mechanics themselves are good, it means that people can enjoy the game in spite of them because other aspects of its experience carry them.
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I'll just add this to my list of Johan quote to reference in the next bigger dicussion.
Heck, I do this in SP.
I have to agree with Johan. Morale Recovery is only situationally useful, but when you do use it, it's incredible. Especially if you've shattered an army, but just barely, or you're fleeing and being chased, getting a bigger recovery to your morale (and consolidating your forces!) can make a doomed stack viable again. Even if they don't WIN, they'll take longer to be killed, costing the enemy more troops and giving you the chance to move reinforcements in (stack rotation!).
Yeah, but with the way the percentages work, +5pp (percentage points) discipline is between a 5% increase or LESS, if your discipline is already above 100%. The 5pp morale recovery is a 33% increase at base, which also decreases if you have other bonuses to morale recovery. In enemy territoy, recovering 33% extra morale per tick is a big deal.
Late game SP the AI doesn't have the generals (even luckies struggle in many cases) and it turns into a game of "shatter them and stackwipe" or "shatter for superiority war score then assault 5-10+ provinces and take them ASAP". A 50k infantry stack with high tradition and prestige can assault forts 4 and less, and 3 or less get melted by that (you can reinforce that in 1 month without anything but decent maneuver and assault the next). In MP, thinking human beings might actually prevent you doing this, not so in SP.