Balance since Origins

[TheSpider]

One of the AI improvements in 1.32 was that the AI will be more likely to stick to sieges instead of abandoning them at like 28%. Has anyone noticed this? I can't say I really have tbh

 

[bokorthedust]

I haven't done an in-depth analysis, but yeah, my feeling is they tend to stay on sieges more. I play more with vassals than allies, but before they were happy to abandon almost successful sieges to join me in a nearby battle I would've won anyways, and they like to stay on the siege since 1.32.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

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?)

Fort assaults were previously bugged, now the troops damaged are the ones that actually participate in the assault, and not literally everyone for no reason.

6) "concentrate dev" got nerfed a lot

It more or less doesn't exist. At best, it's a way to get your cap up for natural institution spread.

-10% diploannex is good for some vassal-heavy strats, but those have always been way weaker than stacking CCR.

I've found them similar until you get CCR past certain breakpoints. Namely, if you are coring at 1 adm/dev floor or especially if you're coring fast enough to handle arbitrarily high amounts of OE.

Vassals are a pain until client states. Now that client states take the same idea groups you do, they can be used to convert for one faith runs, but they are also still useful tools for scutage coring en masse' because of the lower liberty desire + always spawn with your religion. Client states make for nice OE dumping, and you can make up to 10. The main benefit for these is just scutage feeding > 100% OE (sometimes much greater), killing the concentrated rebels, and then using TAG switching/mission stuff to be able to annex > 1000 dev subjects in a short period of time.

That can't replace coring, but I'm not convinced the marginal advantage of 10% CCR is enough to overpower dipannex + other Catholic benefits. Too bad the AI doesn't reliably go harsh council of Trent anymore though, the -warscore cost is pretty valuable too.

I don't think it's better than Islamic nations w/o harsh Trent (since Islam can get a warscore cost modifier from a monument), but extra CCR is only available to a handful of faiths and IMO the others have a hard time making a case that they're better than Catholic.

 

[Reman]

That can't replace coring, but I'm not convinced the marginal advantage of 10% CCR is enough to overpower dipannex + other Catholic benefits. Too bad the AI doesn't reliably go harsh council of Trent anymore though, the -warscore cost is pretty valuable too.

I don't think it's better than Islamic nations w/o harsh Trent (since Islam can get a warscore cost modifier from a monument), but extra CCR is only available to a handful of faiths and IMO the others have a hard time making a case that they're better than Catholic.

Practically every religion group has access to easyish CCR except for non-Coptic Christians, and it's more than just 10%:

• Any Eastern/Pagan can get at least 20% through EoC, which is strong and non-disruptive enough to basically always be worthwhile to pick up unless playing a horde.
• Mesoamericans can get 10-20% more on top of this.
• Hindus can get up to 25% with deity + new monument.
• Muslims have 5% through the tributton and another 15-35% from religion-locked formables of Grenada, Rum, and Mughals. Each of these is the easiest way to get CCR in their neighborhood; the closest alternative would be for Mediterranean nations to go for Italy instead, but that requires more AE, going into the HRE (assuming early game), and admin 10.

There's some fungibility here as to whether Muslim-locked formables actually count as Muslim-based CCR, as you could go through the annoying process of converting afterwards or use a non-locked tag instead. The EoC is also kept on switching religions and is only really viable as a midgame option for distant Pagans. Still, non-HRE Christians have the worst/most inconvenient CCR lineup of any major religion group.

Even if it was only 10%, I'd much rather have 10% CCR than -10% diploannex cost unless I was specifically stacking it to >80% levels. Diploannex buffs are just nowhere close to the force-multiplier that CCR is.

Now that client states take the same idea groups you do,

This is news to me actually. I'm assuming this was a stealth change at some point since I don't see any patch notes on this, but it's a good change nonetheless.

and then using TAG switching/mission stuff to be able to annex > 1000 dev subjects in a short period of time.

What strats are you referring to here? Is this just modifier stacking e.g. forming Sardinia-Piedmont to get their 10% diploannex cost, or is it something else? I thought most annex-by-button-click decisions had dev limits these days...

 

[thetrue7man]

I thought most annex-by-button-click decisions had dev limits these days...

Probably not what he means but I'll bring up that Switzerland is reformable and that flavor_swi.4 can inherit an arbitrarily large Three Leagues if you can prevent it from firing earlier.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What strats are you referring to here? Is this just modifier stacking e.g. forming Sardinia-Piedmont to get their 10% diploannex cost, or is it something else? I thought most annex-by-button-click decisions had dev limits these days...

Modifier stacking + finishing as a nation like Austria. You can annex very large nations very fast like that. Won't break any speed records, but non-hordes won't anyway.

I thought the new CCR monument wasn't religion-restricted?

CCR is the best standalone modifier, but IMO unrest, warscore cost, and dipannex are all undersold a bit. Especially warscore cost, if you sit on reform progress and do theocracy swap late you can have ~80% cost reduction as practically anybody, stacks multiplicatively with admin efficiency and imperialism. Being able to annex ~800 dev per peace deal the moment imperialism unlocks is a big deal for nations that start as theocracy. For nations that switch you probably would hold off until you can get tier 8 reform (like ADM 27+), but could still easily help the end-of-game cleanup if you're not done yet.

 

[leefnmajors]

Catholic majors are definitely tougher; in my Songhai campaign, it was actually a PITA to push into Iberia against Castille allied with France. They were both in a golden era, and Aragon called a Crusade to boot. Like, not only was I actually losing battles but I was losing battles with SUPERIOR numbers. They just had so much damn morale it was impossible to run them off the field. I had to tap Professionalism and start using mercs to keep up as Songhai, who actually has pretty good mil bonuses! It's far too early to say how much this will impact SP, but Catholicism for a decent size nation with bishops definitely feels viable for MP now. Maybe not Orthodox strong (because of all the manpower/recovery perks they can also get), but on the battle field you won't get pushed around and be forced into converting or bust.

I feel like it was such a large buff, Sunni/Shia/Ibadi needs the piety mechanic revisted so the buffs to each option make more sense and you can basically choose do I want military bonuses, or do I want admin bonuses?

 

[MarshalDray]

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

It may also be due to AI not properly hiring advisors, thus falling behind on monarch point generation.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

AI wastes a ton of points stupidly, too. Have you ever played without expanding much? Even with no or just level 1 advisers, you will cap out with average rulers and get stuck with development or whatever.

AI is unbelievably bad with point management, maybe as bad as it is with ducats (going thousands into debt w/o seeing a tough war).

 

[Skagzill]

I played only 2 games after Origins but in both game France seems to get bodied a lot. While my first Ethiopia campaign they still managed to maintain their borders but did not expand into britanny or anywhere else in a first place, but in my current Kilwa run they are getting Poland treatment between Austria and Great Britain. Is that cause for concern?