Bigger nations must have more problems!

[Roubik]

So how in every game, I see a giant Ottoman or Ming or whatever nation getting bigger and bigger without any trouble? That is because separatism is completely missing after the first years. Normally when a nation gets too big, with many different cultures and religions, you expect it to implode from within, not being able to manage and control all those populations. Instead in this game I see that after the coring and religion change (which take a couple of years) you are good to go.

I consider Russia an exception for its size given the sparsely populated regions of Siberia, my main issue is the EASY blob (and control) of the big guys, in rich and/or populated areas.

Is it just me or do you also wish for more attention to the internal balance of a vast empire?
Do you agree? Disagree?

 

[James Beil]

This is a problem in any strategy game, and the one that deals with it best is Crusader Kings. The factions that can develop almost always match your own forces, and managing them provides a real challenge and stunts your growth. Some sort of mechanic like that would be nice in the other games, both to help when your opponents are blobbing, and to keep you from being too powerful. I suspect it's very hard to balance that sort of thing, though.

 

[Roubik]

Is it really that hard? I can think of a couple. Maybe a DLC will solve this. Still it surprises me that a detailed game like EU4 allows blobing this easily.

 

[ThuderLizard2]

It's still too easy to build enormous countries with little/no internal strife. Better than EU3 though where Castile would also blob across Africa and the ROW

 

[frolix42]

AI expansionism is not generally too much of an issue. If you start the game as Byzantium and you're having trouble dealing with Ottoman expansion, that is working as designed. Ming is the obviously overpowered nation in the game, but it's not programmed to expand much at all but Ming's boring situation is another issue. Player expansion, and lack of challenge, in the late game is significant.

The problem IMO is that players don't like to be punished for success, which is reasonable in a sense. If a DLC introduced maluses for effectively being large, players would revolt and it would be an extraordinarily unpopular feature. Witness the ridiculous tantrums thrown by self-declared expert-players when exploits are closed. Or witness the rage when Aggressive Expansion is increased in any way. There is a knee-jerk reaction whenever the game is made harder, even if it's a needed or rational change. For example, CK2's Conclave DLC was an excellent addition to that game, but it got hate because people didn't understand why their Council wouldn't rubber stamp themselves out of existence. Or in EU4 the sorely needed introduction of the 'Corruption' mechanic, no more player empires with 30/4/32 Tech

It would be better if a malus against massive empires were in the game from the beginning, like the demesne and vassal limit of CK2.

 

[Ironside121]

I agree- and I personally would be fine with just throwing in more area based AE based off the size of your nation- and having localized Coalitions. Like the Ottomans invading Ethiopia for example, the nations around there would have more AE due to the Ottomans size for the land that was conquered- and then would try band together to stop them. There's no real way to resist a larger nation as a bunch of smaller ones. This would slow down huge blobs a lot.

Maybe even add extra separatism for nations of the Coalitions culture too- and if rebels rebel.. add them to their armies etc. More interaction like that would be really cool.

Worldwide coalitions just piss me off, they should form separately. Ethiopians wouldn't go "hey France who we have no information on at all have declared war on the Ottomans, we should too!" For all they know, the Ottomans have 200k men and the French have 20k. (Not realistic obviously but you know the point I'm making)

Coalitions should work as Alliances, be more localized, and give some form of bonus strength to the defending nations. Separatism and coalitions should have interactions.

Less AE for smaller nations- more AE for larger, aggressive nations- but make coalitions more close packed to prevent Russia getting mad about the Ottomans invading African countries, for example.

 

[Coffer]

If a DLC introduced maluses for effectively being large, players would revolt and it would be an extraordinarily unpopular feature.

Past a certain point you have to stop and punch them in the face. Lack of challenge and especially inertia are the bane of good video games, and if it punishes those who want to abuse the current mechanics forever the same way they always have, that's even better as you'd be killing two birds with one stone.

Witness the ridiculous tantrums thrown by self-declared expert-players when exploits are closed. Or witness the rage when Aggressive Expansion is increased in any way. There is a knee-jerk reaction whenever the game is made harder, even if it's a needed or rational change.

Which is exactly why companies like Paradox need to be aggressive with those parts of the playerbase, enforce their design choices upon the game and only change it based on rational, adequate feedback, which, as you've highlighted, they've largely failed to provide in recent times. Above all else, Paradox should not fear them in any way whatsoever. These people are the #1 problem with EU4 right now, even beyond the various broken, incomplete or simply outdated parts of the actual game.

 

[Dingens]

One tagging should not be possible, or at least insanely difficult. There need to be mechanisms coming into place once a country stretches out too much, and I think that mechanism should be based on culture (which is an almost neglected mechanism right now, I feel like). Once a certain ratio of a not accepted culture to your main culture is exceeded an independence movement begins (an additional local +unrest modifier for all provinces of said culture).

The solution could be local autonomous subjects, like the colonial nations in the new world. Essentially vassals that don't eat up a diplomatic relations slot. They help you out with trade and cash, will participate in local wars on their continent, but still make some decisions on their own and need to be treated properly so they remain loyal. World conquest should be as much about resolving internal struggles as about defeating other nations.

 

[Balkhamlane]

More intelligent behaviour of separatists when they do fire would help. It so disappointing when you are willing separatists to succeed in an opponents territory to see them wander of into a much stronger state and get crushed or blunder into a stronger stack. Rebels seem to have no logic in their programming.

 

[Roubik]

In a recent game versus an ottoman empire that spanned from Austria-Poland to Ethiopia, I was faced with 180 regiments of Mercs, 200k manpower and 250k armies, I had this idea, "WHY NOT USE REBELS". The answer was disappointing and simple.
1) First it takes too much time to build a spy network, but that is ok for a careful planner.
2) It takes even more time and money for the rebels to fire up, but that is ok again for a careful planner, although it is hard to keep track of it.
3) MOST IMPORTANT. The rebels are not allied to you in any way, even though you gave them the funds.
4) The AI just floods the rebels with endless amounts of mercs in the first month.

My simple solution, which I propose:
1) Allow certain random rebels like separatists to be allied to respective nations.
2) Make planned rebels to always be allied to the nation that made them.
3) Make it easier to track the rebel progression until it fires up.

4 (optional)) Do something about the merc flood. Maybe make them switch sides or limit the number of mercs by a LOT!

This way, a smaller rich nation has a chance to punch a bigger nation more effectively, by playing with its internal issues.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

I think @Ironside121 is on the best track here.

Making it interesting to keep a huge number of vassals happy would require huge reworks to basic game systems (right now, keeping vassals happy just means stacking dip rep and liberty desire modifiers and maintaining a massive army, which ain't interesting). Likewise, endless rebel spam as soon as you go over your culture limit just sounds incredibly frustrating. I find it really hard to see how you'd implement internal instability or factionalism in a way which produced interesting grand-strategic play rather than miromanagement hell.

League of Augsburg-style alliances to curb the excessive power of nations that look to become runaway hegemonic powers - if nothing else, forcing large empires into costly, time-consuming wars against roughly even alliances of enemies - would make expanding more interesting without just making it a micromanagement hell; and it'd play to the game's strengths. War is what the game's built around.

I kinda like the idea of 'factional rebels' to reflect groups like the Catalans who tried to become independent in basically every major war Spain was involved in through most of the time-period, who would pop up only when they thought they had a genuine chance to win, and be default friendly to attackers. I liked the occasional big national revolts they added to CK2, which could be game-changing if they popped up at an awkward time, and would fit in to EU4 without big changes to the mechanics. But I'd be very cautious about giving it my full-throated support without seeing how it was balanced first.

 

[Coffer]

and be default friendly to attackers

That reminds me that they really need to make it so that rebels in another country aren't considered to be a target by nations at war with them (almost as if they're seen as being a part of the enemy army). Keeping them up is a great way to further destabilize a country that's on the brink of defeat, and it'd at least tide us over until new ways to make nationwide stability or the lack of it more interesting get added in.

 

[Lilly Santtos]

Currently the events of separatism are ridiculous, Catalan and Italian rebels never win, the AI should support those rebels at least to give any chance to win

 

[Ixal]

While CK2 handels it best all PDX games suffer from this problem.
Both EU4 and Stellaris could benefit greatly from an instability mechanic tied to size.

Edit: And I agree that those who want easy one tags and are against any mechanic or even bugfix that makes the game harder are a b7g problem for the game and PDX should ignore them.
Under no circumstance should the ability to one tag be a consideration for future content.

 

[Jules Brunet]

Well, one simple thing could be to link the Stability with the number of province. The more the higher. This would give some value to the ''reduce stability cost'' national idea and make it hard to keep a high stability for big Empire (let's say it bump the price of 2% per province outside of the Capital state, a 40 province Empire would get something like +72% Stability cost, and an Empire of 100 Province would get a +192%. Keeping a positive stability would be harder and would make expansion slower, making all the disaster more probable.

 

[Rocketskates]

i dont know why but i did manage to break Ming with separatists, it was late game and my 2nd war with them. My previous experience with them teached me theres not much point releasing countries or cancel tributaries because the new countries will be afraid and become its tributary or the tributary simply is reestablished and that wont make him lose mandate. Then i saw even with 0 mandate, he still isnt losing the title so i tried one last thing. Carpet siege and let rebels spawn, most of them were seperatists, even nations ive never even seen like Chahar? and others, i didnt touch them (however i had to declare on their helpful tributaries who reoccupied the land for Ming). Capital was taken by rebels too so my call for peace never came. Once it was done i made a peacedeal of canceling tributes and voila, rebels broke the country into a beautiful pallette of colours.

Ive tried this with Ottomans too, unfortunately though all they got were revs. particularists, peasants and nobles. I dont know why, Ming could not have any separatism like Ottos, yet their rebels were separatists.

 

[bbqftw]

Past a certain point you have to stop and punch them in the face. Lack of challenge and especially inertia are the bane of good video games, and if it punishes those who want to abuse the current mechanics forever the same way they always have, that's even better as you'd be killing two birds with one stone.


Which is exactly why companies like Paradox need to be aggressive with those parts of the playerbase, enforce their design choices upon the game and only change it based on rational, adequate feedback, which, as you've highlighted, they've largely failed to provide in recent times. Above all else, Paradox should not fear them in any way whatsoever. These people are the #1 problem with EU4 right now, even beyond the various broken, incomplete or simply outdated parts of the actual game.

you are upset that people have deeper game understanding than you.

Suggestions like this are pretty easily counterable. I would probably trade an earlier humanist emphasis for easily imploding AI blobs.

 

[bbqftw]

AI expansionism is not generally too much of an issue. If you start the game as Byzantium and you're having trouble dealing with Ottoman expansion, that is working as designed. Ming is the obviously overpowered nation in the game, but it's not programmed to expand much at all but Ming's boring situation is another issue. Player expansion, and lack of challenge, in the late game is significant.

The problem IMO is that players don't like to be punished for success, which is reasonable in a sense. If a DLC introduced maluses for effectively being large, players would revolt and it would be an extraordinarily unpopular feature. Witness the ridiculous tantrums thrown by self-declared expert-players when exploits are closed. Or witness the rage when Aggressive Expansion is increased in any way. There is a knee-jerk reaction whenever the game is made harder, even if it's a needed or rational change. For example, CK2's Conclave DLC was an excellent addition to that game, but it got hate because people didn't understand why their Council wouldn't rubber stamp themselves out of existence. Or in EU4 the sorely needed introduction of the 'Corruption' mechanic, no more player empires with 30/4/32 Tech

It would be better if a malus against massive empires were in the game from the beginning, like the demesne and vassal limit of CK2.

I would personally observe that I have no problem with difficulty increasing features, yet OP does. He is literally complaining about an improved AI blobbing competitively with a player.

1.23 provided an excellent difficulty boost by improving the diplo and money AI. Cobelligerency change also increased difficulty, good change. Condotierri rents were also good challenge on VH and I don't know why pdx removed them.

Look you think that corruption even prevented dip tanking. Latest OPM VH WC I even teched 3->23 dip in one month. It costs 700 dip if you do it right. Behold the game understanding of the normal antiblob forum poster.

And this is the problem, you lot are systematically too ignorant to know what you do not know. Everyone is vulnerable to this, but I think I get enough input from decent players that don't go for WC most games to get enough perspective on the things I could stand to improve at. You could stand to do the same, but you just assume that there is no worthwhile challenge behind improving an 1800 WC to a 1750, a 1700, or even a pre-1600.

Instead of brainstorming best fantasies of nerfing blobs, we do things like theorycraft and implement things like revoking while staying OPM the entire game (clearly because we abhor challenge right). Come join the dark side - it is much less a bore

(You want to know why there are no m&t WCs? Because no one good has played that mod.)

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

This game was created and has since been balanced around the things like WC/O-F/TTM being possible. That is never going to change, the WC is a core feature of the game. If you don't like that, that is fine. There are some great mods out there, or maybe you can even mod the game yourself.

Some of these ideas aren't too bad in all honesty. I nearly always play a tallish game as I find blobbing to be tedious, so many of them would suit me just fine.

Some of these ideas belong in the modding forum where they stand some small chance of actually being worthwhile. You're simply spinning your wheels here, and from the look of it being intentionally antagonistic toward the core fan-base.

 

[kramsikrams]

Worldwide coalitions just piss me off, they should form separately. Ethiopians wouldn't go "hey France who we have no information on at all have declared war on the Ottomans, we should too!" For all they know, the Ottomans have 200k men and the French have 20k. (Not realistic obviously but you know the point I'm making)

Coalitions already have modifers for distance though. And culture and religion.