Balance since Origins

[raphi1985]

After my first campaign on patch 1.32 I found the following changes to be most impactful to gamebalance:

1) catholic faith is far stronger than before due to the improved curia powers

2) Assaulting forts is a much better option now, as you lose a lot less men (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

3) AE changes lead to significantly easier blobbing / on the other hand PU-CB got nerfed due to higher AE-impact (thereby nerfing european powers especially with multiple PU-cbs from missions) = direct conquest > PU

4) AI got weaker as they fillout their ideas slower and are easier to conquer as they delete forts a lot (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

5) Using Vassals got stronger, as there are more ways to reduce annexation cost (estate privilege / catholic curia powers) and they more reliably fabricate claims on provinces of interest.

6) "concentrate dev" got nerfed a lot

Do you agree? What did I miss?

 

[_Bachus_]

Yeah the level of difficulty dropped and not from this patch alone. There are plenty of mechanics that were introduced but AIs don't use them at all over the years. I feel like in 2016 Very Hard was like 10 times harder than now. Currently even very hard is easier than normal back in time. Of course if you're new to the game you can not see this difference. Game is quite hard for new players. But if you play for years you clearly see drop in the difficulty of the game. And we get better with time so game should be harder to keep the difficulty on par.

 

[FrogCrusher]

I agree that game is easier but most of all, I would say that difficulty has change in term of field domain.
I did two one tag WC before 1.25 and was unable to do it again afterward due to high level of tediousness the game has added. Early games are far easier than before, and the overall strategy really easier also. However, the level of micro is now hell compared to previously in order to cope with arbitrary limitation. So now, instead of playing against an AI, we are playing against the game itself : manoeuvring with mercs, spam town building for gov capacity, switch state+edict for conversion, adding TC only for COT to not overpass GC, suching good monument, deal with 60% adm eff instead of 70% just because, high increase of overall dev etc...
Previously, a good macro player could do WC with minimal macro and an excellent micro player without macro couldn't.
Now, every one with enough patience to do braindead and dumb thing in microing can do WC. And I can't anymore.

 

[MachopPower69]

After my first campaign on patch 1.32 I found the following changes to be most impactful to gamebalance:

1) catholic faith is far stronger than before due to the improved curia powers

2) Assaulting forts is a much better option now, as you lose a lot less men (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

3) AE changes lead to significantly easier blobbing / on the other hand PU-CB got nerfed due to higher AE-impact (thereby nerfing european powers especially with multiple PU-cbs from missions) = direct conquest > PU

4) AI got weaker as they fillout their ideas slower and are easier to conquer as they delete forts a lot (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

5) Using Vassals got stronger, as there are more ways to reduce annexation cost (estate privilege / catholic curia powers) and they more reliably fabricate claims on provinces of interest.

6) "concentrate dev" got nerfed a lot

Do you agree? What did I miss?

1. Catholicism hasn't changed much for me. Probably because I was Prussia and Emperor of the HRE but the only remnants of Catholicism was Iberia and Italy.

2. Offensive still is quite powerful. Assaulting forts and siege effect are different as siege bonus just affects the phrase duration.

3. PU AE bug was fixed in 1.32.1. And expansion by the AI is limited because they understand government capacity.

4. Yeah, the change to technology took a huge hit to the AI.

5. Vassals have always been powerful.

6. Yeah, its a shame a powerful feature is a laughable feature and just a waste of a peace deal. The AI even offers you to concentrate dev from them as a peace offer, which is like drawing on wet paper.

The better balances are colonisation and AI awareness. It's still annoying when the Ottomans eat up Ukraine because they owned Crimea and have to make a land connection to Bulgaria. If the AI has a decent transport navy, then they shouldn't need to "Mare Nostrum" all the time.

 

[raphi1985]

1. Catholicism hasn't changed much for me. Probably because I was Prussia and Emperor of the HRE but the only remnants of Catholicism was Iberia and Italy.

2. Offensive still is quite powerful. Assaulting forts and siege effect are different as siege bonus just affects the phrase duration.

3. PU AE bug was fixed in 1.32.1. And expansion by the AI is limited because they understand government capacity.

4. Yeah, the change to technology took a huge hit to the AI.

5. Vassals have always been powerful.

6. Yeah, its a shame a powerful feature is a laughable feature and just a waste of a peace deal. The AI even offers you to concentrate dev from them as a peace offer, which is like drawing on wet paper.

The better balances are colonisation and AI awareness. It's still annoying when the Ottomans eat up Ukraine because they owned Crimea and have to make a land connection to Bulgaria. If the AI has a decent transport navy, then they shouldn't need to "Mare Nostrum" all the time.

2. Yes, it effects two different things. But if you assault forts a lot, phase duration becomes less important, because you dont wait for so many phases anymore. Still agree, that offensive is powerfull anyways.

3. I am not talking about the bug. My understanding is, that the AE-CB modifier was 20% reduced for all cbs except PU-CB. That got doubled.

 

[romothecus]

I agree that game is easier but most of all, I would say that difficulty has change in term of field domain.
I did two one tag WC before 1.25 and was unable to do it again afterward due to high level of tediousness the game has added. Early games are far easier than before, and the overall strategy really easier also. However, the level of micro is now hell compared to previously in order to cope with arbitrary limitation. So now, instead of playing against an AI, we are playing against the game itself : manoeuvring with mercs, spam town building for gov capacity, switch state+edict for conversion, adding TC only for COT to not overpass GC, suching good monument, deal with 60% adm eff instead of 70% just because, high increase of overall dev etc...
Previously, a good macro player could do WC with minimal macro and an excellent micro player without macro couldn't.
Now, every one with enough patience to do braindead and dumb thing in microing can do WC. And I can't anymore.

this basically sums it up for me

I did my WC and 3M very early in game's lifespan, like 2014 / 2015. At one point I had almost all the achievements.

Now I have fewer than half the achievements because there's just so much more stuff. It makes large-scale conquests just much more tedious in terms of how long it takes to finish. Even though there is no longer any challenge.

 

[raphi1985]

this basically sums it up for me

I did my WC and 3M very early in game's lifespan, like 2014 / 2015. At one point I had almost all the achievements.

Now I have fewer than half the achievements because there's just so much more stuff. It makes large-scale conquests just much more tedious in terms of how long it takes to finish. Even though there is no longer any challenge.

I agree that game is easier but most of all, I would say that difficulty has change in term of field domain.
I did two one tag WC before 1.25 and was unable to do it again afterward due to high level of tediousness the game has added. Early games are far easier than before, and the overall strategy really easier also. However, the level of micro is now hell compared to previously in order to cope with arbitrary limitation. So now, instead of playing against an AI, we are playing against the game itself : manoeuvring with mercs, spam town building for gov capacity, switch state+edict for conversion, adding TC only for COT to not overpass GC, suching good monument, deal with 60% adm eff instead of 70% just because, high increase of overall dev etc...
Previously, a good macro player could do WC with minimal macro and an excellent micro player without macro couldn't.
Now, every one with enough patience to do braindead and dumb thing in microing can do WC. And I can't anymore.

I get your points and agree. However, I feel this is more a question of the general direction of the games development and not so much an issue of the latest changes.

 

[enKage]

I disagree with 3) I totally agree with 1)
Catholicism is OP now. 10 morale, 10 diploannexation --> mainly.

 

[JacobiteJames]

After my first campaign on patch 1.32 I found the following changes to be most impactful to gamebalance:

1) catholic faith is far stronger than before due to the improved curia powers

Need to see

2) Assaulting forts is a much better option now, as you lose a lot less men (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

Mountain forts worth assaulting?

3) AE changes lead to significantly easier blobbing / on the other hand PU-CB got nerfed due to higher AE-impact (thereby nerfing european powers especially with multiple PU-cbs from missions) = direct conquest > PU

Ae from pus was always too little, one reason austria so op by 1460

4) AI got weaker as they fillout their ideas slower and are easier to conquer as they delete forts a lot (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

Beta fixes this

5) Using Vassals got stronger, as there are more ways to reduce annexation cost (estate privilege / catholic curia powers) and they more reliably fabricate claims on provinces of interest.

Vassals always good for costing dip not adm

6) "concentrate dev" got nerfed a lot

Do you agree? What did I miss?

Yeh its terrible now, but no surprise

 

[k4sp3r00]

I am disgusted if catholicism really has become stronger. Protestants were widely known to be underpowered even before origins and often wound up vanishing before they even got off the ground.

 

[JacobiteJames]

I am disgusted if catholicism really has become stronger. Protestants were widely known to be underpowered even before origins and often wound up vanishing before they even got off the ground.

Catholicism was the weak religion prior to emperor which gave minor buffs. Reformed and orthodox higher tier, Protestant mid tier

 

[grotaclas]

3. I am not talking about the bug. My understanding is, that the AE-CB modifier was 20% reduced for all cbs except PU-CB. That got doubled.

The CB modifiers are unchanged. The AE for some peace terms was reduced by 20% (demand province, return core, concede colonial region, force join empire). The AE for vassalization is unchanged though and the AE for transfer vassal was only reduced from 0.33 to 0.3.

direct conquest > PU

Direct conquest still gives 3 times as much AE as forcing a PU(0.6 per dev versus 0.2 per dev) and the AE for forcing a PU is capped. dev*0.2 is capped at 50 and that gets modified by other AE modifiers(e.g. countries of the same religion as the victim get +50% which would result in 75 AE if they are nearby and you don't have other reductions). Due to that cap you can PU arbitrarily big countries without getting a coalition if you employ some coalition mitigation strategies and they are not HRE members. So PU is still superior to direct conquest.

 

[Damedius]

I think people have always under rated All the Free Stab gains and Free Mercantilism you get as a Catholic nation and just look at the flat bonuses.

If you are a large nation Catholicism has always been strong. After a certain point you essentially get permanent +3 stability and extra mercantilism.

 

[JacobiteJames]

I think people have always under rated All the Free Stab gains and Free Mercantilism you get as a Catholic nation and just look at the flat bonuses.

If you are a large nation Catholicism has always been strong. After a certain point you essentially get permanent +3 stability and extra mercantilism.

'free' 100 PI for stab, 50 for mercantilism which all get via monopoly privlieges. Small tags rarely get PI, whereas most religions sans coptic get same generation.

 

[EarlKonrad]

I think people have always under rated All the Free Stab gains and Free Mercantilism you get as a Catholic nation and just look at the flat bonuses.

If you are a large nation Catholicism has always been strong. After a certain point you essentially get permanent +3 stability and extra mercantilism.

Hard disagree. It isn't uncommon to see people praising both of those features. Thing is, unless you are going for a select few nations that can afford to be constantly converting provinces, you will only rarely spend PI on Curia Powers.

Orthodox, on the other hand, quite often offers you a choice between free stab or patriarchal authority. If you want to be at max stab without much effort Ortho is by far the best religion.

 

[Blackmoore]

1) catholic faith is far stronger than before due to the improved curia powers

* Catholic was always better than people made it out to be; however, it is very strong now. I certainly don't look to bail on Catholicism at the earliest opportunity. I did switch to Orthodox as my last Poland Campaign, but that was more because Tsardom government as Ruthenia is great, not because Orthodox was pareto-superior to Catholicism. I'm not sure that Reformed or Protestant is worth it at all, unless you are flipping to create Prussia or to do a specific achievement.

2) Assaulting forts is a much better option now, as you lose a lot less men (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

Assaulting Forts was always a good idea in certain circumstances. I still think that Offensive is good, but you might be right that Aristo or Quality is closer in value.

3) AE changes lead to significantly easier blobbing / on the other hand PU-CB got nerfed due to higher AE-impact (thereby nerfing european powers especially with multiple PU-cbs from missions) = direct conquest > PU

* Early game blobbing is much easier. The PU AE got fixed, so Austria and Provence are back.

4) AI got weaker as they fillout their ideas slower and are easier to conquer as they delete forts a lot (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

* AI is slightly better in warfare. AI is a bit more sensible with Governing Capacity and not having stupid forts.

5) Using Vassals got stronger, as there are more ways to reduce annexation cost (estate privilege / catholic curia powers) and they more reliably fabricate claims on provinces of interest.

* Vassals were always powerful. In my opinion, being able to see all the Cores of dead-tags was better than the annexation cost reductions in privileges -- at least to my vassal game.

6) "concentrate dev" got nerfed a lot

* This was a play-tall mechanic that -- like many play tall mechanics -- ended up being even better for blobbers. Having 200+ development capitals got a bit out of control. It was actually an impediment to certain things that you might want to do. Ever try to convert the religion on a newly captured 100+ development capital? 244 months -- assuming you could do it all, even after exploiting dev.

What this is nice for is if you move your capital, for whatever reason, you can get up deved up from your enemies pretty rapidly.

 

[iClipse]

Hard disagree. It isn't uncommon to see people praising both of those features. Thing is, unless you are going for a select few nations that can afford to be constantly converting provinces, you will only rarely spend PI on Curia Powers.

Orthodox, on the other hand, quite often offers you a choice between free stab or patriarchal authority. If you want to be at max stab without much effort Ortho is by far the best religion.

Catholic is more than other religions encouraged to take Religious ideas. With Humanist you won't get enough papal points, but with Religious and conquering a lot, you'll get many. It's even more true as a colonial power since converting these provinces gives papal points to yourself.

Orthodox has always been the 'strongest' religion, but I believe that's more from a multiplayer viewpoint.

Catholic has been a decent religion in the past, but didn't get any military bonusses. But, since you don't need these for single player, that wasn't that much of an issue. In the current form I'd dare say Catholic is the strongest religion in the game for single player purposes. Can't say much about multiplayer, but with the +10% Morale I'm guessing it's up there with the best. Which is...fine in my eyes. It was the most dominant religion of its time anyway.

Ironically, Orthodox is the other religion that benefits from converting more, since it gives more manpower.

 

[Blackmoore]

The gap between Orthodox and Catholic has closed a great deal. At this point, I think the best thing that can be said for Orthodox in Single Player is that you have complete control over it. If you need the Disc Icon -- you can grab it. If you need the AE impact icon -- you can grab it. With all the new monuments and privileges you will never run out of Patriarch Authority unless you are switching icons every couple years.

 

[MachopPower69]

With the AI PU fix, I'm glad I won't have to not ally Austria so they can form a union with Bohemia/Hungary and have to give away Tyrol and Styria because of them fighting half of Europe.

 

[Reman]

1) catholic faith is far stronger than before due to the improved curia powers

Stronger than it was previously, but it's still one of the weakest religions, and it actually probably got even weaker by comparison to other religions this patch. Its lack of core cost reduction is its biggest drawback, and Alhambra is available to any religion now. -10% diploannex is good for some vassal-heavy strats, but those have always been way weaker than stacking CCR. Vassal AI is still hot garbage and has actually regressed a bit from previous patches.

HRE Catholic is still amazing, but that requires totally reconfiguring how you play the early game.

2) Assaulting forts is a much better option now, as you lose a lot less men (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

This was a bugfix, not a balance change. It was still possible to assault forts with approximately the current rate of casualties, it just required tons of tedious micro since fort garrisons had HoI4-era machineguns that damaged all units in the attacking army, not just the ones in the combat width. It was a great QoL fix, but didn't actually affect balance in any real way.

3) AE changes lead to significantly easier blobbing / on the other hand PU-CB got nerfed due to higher AE-impact (thereby nerfing european powers especially with multiple PU-cbs from missions) = direct conquest > PU

This made it easier from 1.30 to 1.31, but counteracts the province and dev bloat the game has had over its lifespan. It also hasn't fully counteracted the admin efficiency nerf that happened a bit back.

4) AI got weaker as they fillout their ideas slower and are easier to conquer as they delete forts a lot (making offensive ideas with the siege ability bonus slightly weaker?)

Partially agreed. The slower ideas is probably in part due to the institutions changes.

The fact the AI deletes its forts makes it quicker to conquer, but is overall an improvement in the AI. It's always been a good idea to delete most forts, and now the AI has finally gotten the memo.

5) Using Vassals got stronger, as there are more ways to reduce annexation cost (estate privilege / catholic curia powers) and they more reliably fabricate claims on provinces of interest.

Eh, "stronger" but still fairly weak. It's mostly still just an excuse to use reconquest wars to mitigate AE. The -10% only applies to Catholics and the -5% is very small and costs 10 absolutism, so it's probably best to get rid of it post 1610. 5% typically translates to a few dozen points at most, which is a pretty minor "buff".

6) "concentrate dev" got nerfed a lot

Hard agree, it basically got deleted from the game.