Bigger nations must have more problems!

[checro]

Hell, I do not ask for the moon here. I simply want a link between the size and the stability. Be it 1% stability cost per province. Just to ''feel'' that it makes sense.

Well, if you really want to make it more historical.. No great empire was destabilised just for beeing big, but only because it stopped expanding.. Overextension is totally ahistorical, and there was never a rebelion within 10 years of conquest...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So, the answer is simple: the ''other things'' did happened. There was Big Empire in that time frame, be it Ming, Qing, Russia or Ottoman. And they did face problem that smaller country didn't have to face. Even before that: the Roman Empire didn't failed because of their neighbour, but because of intern problem. It was always the case and even today we have a proof for that with the US. But EU4 failed to have any mechanics to show it. Things like Global Unrest, Stability cost, Inflation, Autonomy that could be link to the size of the empire aren't affected by it.

That doesn't answer the question I asked though, which is what separates one impossible divergence from reality from another when it comes to justifying a change to gameplay implementation.

We don't, for example, remove player control of nation for 377 in-game years just because that couldn't have happened in history. If we *do* destabilize large nations, perhaps there are valid reasons, but by itself "it didn't happen in history" is not useful.

These are both completely true. The game is designed around constant conquest and as such it rewards constant (but smart) conquest much more than it does playing tall. That's just a fact of the game. I'm not particularly keen on it, as I'd prefer more internal management that would trend players and AI both toward more realistic outcomes, but that's just not the way the game was designed, and it would require an overhaul that would need to be EU5 and not just a DLC in order to make it change meaningfully.

I've long thought it nice that pdox designs each of its grand strategy games with different emphasis. CK 2 and Vicky 2 both have a lot more internal management, and each offer different kinds. HOI 4 is much more a tactical war game, while there are fewer surrounding levers/considerations compared to EU 4.

EU 4 is basically the Pdox title most centered on blobbing, and its design and constraints reflect that. That can be good or bad based on preference.

There are several mechanics that have multiple purposes, often leading to a juxtaposed presentation on what the game intends. AE is a way to stop people from doing too much conquest. Thus it is a blob-inhibitor. On the other hand, it provides another level of challenge that requires more skill and finesse to manage. Thus it makes blob play more interesting. States and territories penalise having too many provinces by reducing the possible output of provinces in territories, thus it is a blob-inhibitor. On the other hand it gives players more opportunities and strategies into which of their 100+ provinces they want to develop and have stated (and thus maximise their profits), rather than be limited in tall play by having only twenty provinces be stated and thus there is no strategy. So it makes blob play more interesting. I might be reading too much into the mechanics and creating arguments that don't exist, but either way I think the game has a problem of presenting itself one way and performing in another.

Notably, however, these are all design constraints around and regarding expansion...very different from say poor succession in CK2. AE, OE, money, war score, and monarch points are all straight up constraints on expansion, and every one of them has multiple workarounds that are good to use in some situations and not useful in others. They force at least some thought into expansion, and the best of the best finish > 100 years faster than those of us who can "only" 1-tag WC, who still finish markedly faster/more soundly than players who don't optimize expansion very effectively.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

Well, if you really want to make it more historical.. No great empire was destabilised just for beeing big, but only because it stopped expanding.. Overextension is totally ahistorical, and there was never a rebelion within 10 years of conquest...

Nonsense. Here's an example from the top ofmy head: after the second partition of Poland the Russians had more troops suppressing rebels than committed to their actual wars. Nearly every nation had to fight disgruntled magnates and lords from time to time after taking new land. You don't hear about those rebellions mostly because they were so rarely successful, but if you do the research you'll find dozens. It could maybe be a little more random than it is - obviously having seperatists popping up, every time, like clockwork, is a bit silly.


Also, for the record, small states were often very unstable compared to medium-sized powers. Look at how many coups you had per century in the average Italian minor vs in France. It's true that some big empires, like the Mughals, collapsed in a way a small nation couldn't really collapse, but just labelling it 'instability' is unhelpful and not reflective of reality.

 

[StefanFan]

Why?

Do you watch football for example? Does Messi score all his penalties, score all his shots, and does he have 100% passing accuracy? It applies everywhere, not only in football, and since we play a game that tries to simulate historical situations and developments, failure should be an option no matter the skills.

EDIT: For example, rebellions can suddenly erupt in an overdeveloped blob with too many different cultures with different roots. As a slip can make Messi or Ronaldo hit the ball slightly higher or wider. As Serena Williams can loose a Grand Slam. As Einstein had to work his ass hard through a lot of failures and tests until he delivered. As I am failing most of the times when trying to play the game with my eyes closed and my hands tied, for some reason I always fail.

And again, there is no challenge in following a path when you know the possible outcomes. The challenge is to deal with unpredictable situations, and definitely can come from overcoming lost battles. As it is now, the bigger you get, the most predictable things are, and the so called skills are nothing but path following, even if some like to throw stones over their path to have their path rougher ( not game mechanics, but self imposed limits a guy said before ). It breaks immersion, it breaks logic, it breaks gameplay, it breaks everything.

Again again, this thread is not about what some people like to impose themselves, it's about mechanics and possible solutions. I don't really mind or care what people impose to themselves, we are all free to do whatever we want, I am not questioning what people like to do, you got me wrong.

 

[checro]

Nonsense. Here's an example from the top ofmy head: after the second partition of Poland the Russians had more troops suppressing rebels than committed to their actual wars. Nearly every nation had to fight disgruntled magnates and lords from time to time after taking new land. You don't hear about those rebellions mostly because they were so rarely successful, but if you do the research you'll find dozens. It could maybe be a little more random than it is - obviously having seperatists popping up, every time, like clockwork, is a bit silly.

Also, for the record, small states were often very unstable compared to medium-sized powers. Look at how many coups you had per century in the average Italian minor vs in France. It's true that some big empires, like the Mughals, collapsed in a way a small nation couldn't really collapse, but just labelling it 'instability' is unhelpful and not reflective of reality.

Yes. they left more "militia" there, and that could be a historical way of coring as a mechanic, but no, revolts in the half the size of your, not theirs army were not possible in the early years.. They happened later, at peace, if the handling of the local people was not right.. It would be more realistic that you had to invest in the province to make it happy, the more, the longer they are in the empire than as it is right now...

But the second part is mostly my point... Unstable because it's big... It is not more historical than this right now. Empires didn't collapse just because they were big..

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Do you watch football for example? Does Messi score all his penalties, score all his shots, and does he have 100% passing accuracy?

Surely you're not attributing the factors in these examples to RNG? Last I checked football, be it American variety or not, does not appear to depend very much on the outcome of quantum uncertainty. A more reasonable explanation is that even if a player is really, really good by human standards they still make mistakes.

It's those mistakes that reasonably get punished, not fabricated/arbitrary ones. If Messi somehow managed to literally play perfectly, you'd see results that match that. No human player does that.

And again, there is no challenge in following a path when you know the possible outcomes. The challenge is to deal with unpredictable situations, and definitely can come from overcoming lost battles. As it is now, the bigger you get, the most predictable things are, and the so called skills are nothing but path following, even if some like to throw stones over their path to have their path rougher ( not game mechanics, but self imposed limits a guy said before ). It breaks immersion, it breaks logic, it breaks gameplay, it breaks everything.

I refuted this in post #55 already, you haven't addressed that yet.

It would be more useful to the discussion to address what I said in response rather than repeating yourself. If things were so "predictable", you wouldn't see > 100 year outcome variance between skill levels.

I have no respect for the phrase "immersion breaking" whatsoever, and neither should anybody else. It's a fancy way of stating preferences. We already know there are different preferences. The ease of expanding as you expand in-game is certainly logically consistent with mechanics as presented, and you're still not establishing how this actually breaks gameplay when, for better or worse, it IS the gameplay.

I'm not really part of the self-imposed handicaps discussion either. Players can do that if they wish, but even if you don't the outcome variance in the game between bad, average, good, and great play is measurable and not small. Arguing in favor of something that reduces that variance in the name of gameplay is nonsensically self-inconsistent, akin to stating that Messi should lose sometimes because teams are, on occasion, awarded point(s) at the end of regulation at random. After all, the "skillful players could adapt" to that (according to the justification of such a mechanic in this thread). That's the logical parallel for the "randomly lose because reasons" mechanic proposed earlier.

And no, most real life sports don't include those and would be worse if they did.

 

[WeissRaben]

I wish so much that people would talk more civilly on these threads. Let's not have the mods come in.

That aside, @WeissRaben is making a good argument and one which turns up frequently, though I think a lack of historical knowledge tends to make it come through badly. Huge empires in the timescale did not, by and large, collapse castastrophically due to rebels (which isn't to say that rebels weren't a problem - and there were some very successful ones, such as the Dutch). The Catalans rebelled over and over again, and never achieved independence, and after the Ming-Quing transition the borders of China were much as they were before. But there are struggles which were of tremendous importance in history which are not represented: for example, almost all states in the game's timespan had difficulty collecting a stable revenue for periods of time, and this contributed in a big way to the downfall of enormous empires - the Ming and the Spanish Empire being the most obvious. If you couldn't raise revenue, you risked your army turning on you, and your enemies coming for your blood. In EUIV your economy just grows and grows steadily as you expand. I'm not sure how you'd implement interesting tax reform mechanics, but we have interesting army professionalisation mechanics, so I'm guessing there's a way to do it. That's the kind of feature I'd like to see.

Also, for the record, I agree with @bbqftw that a lot of complainers-about-blobbing seem to spend a lot of time denigrating a skillset that's completely legitimate and has it's own deep interest. I'm very much against a 'git gud' mentality where it conflicts with 'enjoy the game in whatever way you like', but that has to go both ways.

They didn't collapse to rebels - that's why I'm not advocating, nor I'm going to advocate, for rebels to be made stronger - because that seldom had any real effect out of spreading devastation, and the ones that had a chance, mostly rebellion from vassals, should really be represented as something more similar to CK2 or EU:R civil wars. What did happen is that administration had a very real cost, and that cost meant that at some point returns started getting vanishingly small, if not flat-out negative in an orgy of corruption, delegation, and flat-out lack of care. That means that some empires ended up punching under their weight - and Rome is a startingly good example of this. They actually had an almost-successful rebellion, during the Crisis of the Third Century, but in the end they fell due to lack of money and men to protect the borders. The HRE lost most of Italy by caring (correctly) more about Germany. France had a tiny demesne for most of its early life, which caused it a lot of grief. Russia's population was tiny, and most of its land was barely worth the dirt forming it. China had a strong administration, but an excessively rigid one that tended to snap under stress. The list goes on, and on, and on.

 

[bbqftw]

What you did not understand, do not understand, and doggedly fail to understand with every condescending post you pour in these boards, is that there's a difference between "waaaaah it's too difficult nerf it" and "why is this happening this makes no sense". Because if I want a sandbox game with a dusting of history, I play Civilization. I'm here for stuff that makes sense. Eternal internal stability doesn't.

in what version of the game has this game not been a history-flavored fantasy game?

I have played before CoP - this game is full of the most nonsensical things from the very start.

You are pining for a game that has never and will never exist.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

in what version of the game has this game not been a history-flavored fantasy game?

I have played before CoP - this game is full of the most nonsensical things from the very start.

You are pining for a game that has never and will never exist.

I could see a hard-simulator that's very granular existing, especially as tech improves. It probably still couldn't model reality effectively (time scale of game vs player), and it wouldn't be an EU game most likely, but it might play very differently and actually put thought into how the game sets such extra layers of restrictions.

 

[Ironside121]

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

That is true. But I was wanting them adjusted based on the size of the person invading, and then making coalitions separate based on the areas being attacked. There is no way in hell Austria would ally with Timurids in 1500 to fight the Ottomans, it just wouldn't happen. They'd be making separate alliance chains.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

They didn't collapse to rebels - that's why I'm not advocating, nor I'm going to advocate, for rebels to be made stronger

As I hoped to make clear with 'one which turns up frequently', I was trying to get at an argument which I seem to see a lot rather than respond only to you. I agree with the great part of what you've said.

I will point out (to the thread more than to you) that Rome had a good bit of pax romana before the crisis of the third century with even more primitive administrative resources, and over a huge territory. Even after the crisis, it was looking pretty OK under the Five Good Emperors - all talented adopted children rather than firstborns with as it were random stats. With an effectively immortal player in charge, why not a golden age of five hundred years?

 

[Bearjuden]

Okay, there are a lot of arguments going on here simultaneously but a lot of it (not all, but a lot) seems to boil down to one thing which is being touched on but no one is directly addressing: Is EU4 a 4x game or a Grand Strategy Game? You cannot decide the specifics of where the game should go if you don't even agree on the general principals of its destination.

Now I know this is going to garner a reflexive "what are you talking about, EU4 isn't a 4x" reaction, so let me start by listing out the four components of a 4x game:

• Explore: pretty straightforward, something like 70-90% of the world is terra incognita at game start, and if you have random new world turned on a good 40% of that is literally unknowable (as opposed to only the political situation being unknown).
• Expand: colonizing is one of EU4's big features.
• Exploit: you have resources, you use those to get other resources.
• Exterminate: come on, how many tags have you destroyed today?

So right now, it's a 4x game that happens to have some weird things like unequal starts (definitely a violation of 4x conventions, but by no means disqualifying for the 4x genre) and a fair number of crude anti-blobbing mechanics. This is because Paradox is trying to appease both factions right now. I'd personally rather it backed more into the "plausible history sandbox" rather than "world conquering 4x" (seriously, world conquests would not be possible by any stretch of the imagination in history; the world is too big with too many people and communications/transit technologies were simply too slow), but honestly the game would be better regardless if it stopped pretending it can satisfactorily be both. Either add in reasons to stay to a smaller empire (emphasis: incentives to stay small are not the same as disincentives to grow; positive incentives such as easier stability are much more rewarding to the player - so things like the suggested unrest or stability cost per province owned are really not good ideas), or really go ham with the whole "the goal is to conquer the world" idea. But both is not sustainable. Decide that issue, and you decide by implication if big nations need ways of destabilizing and collapsing.

Hopefully this helps clarify your discussion (or is at least seen as helpfully contributing at all).

 

[Coffer]

I go away for just one night and immediately my point is proven. What a surprise.

 

[cordialgerm]

If you want a more realistic take on large empires, check out the Meiou and Taxes mod

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Blobbers here forget one important thing. What makes Paradox games great is the overall historical flavour and immersion.
Compare EU4 to Victoria 2
Even with Vicky receiving much less love than its counterparts, the vanilla game is still a quite enjoyable experience and much more realistic and immersive.
For example, Vicky 2 encourages you to use puppets and not annex them for fear of dealing with rebels and much more punishing Infamy.
EU4 has a Get out of Jail Free card in Humanist Ideas and super quick coring/conversion, plus Admin Efficiency(why does this exist?)

 

[PrimeYuri]

Anti-blobbers need to remember one thing about paradox games; they are sandbox games where everyone can make their own play style.
I like to blob and try to do WC as many countries as possible. Done WC as Ottomans, Ming, Netherlands, Ryukyu, Vijayanagar, Austria, Russia. Right now I'm busy with a Spain WC game and then want to finish a Mamluks and Mughal blob game which I started before and think can end up as WC.
All these suggestions only sound like more micromanaging for micromanaging sake to me.

 

[gigau]

Guys, whatever the opinion, let's not be abrasive.

People have different playstyle, different experiences, different languages,...

Already closed a thread for this reason this year… don't make me do it again. Final warning.

 

[ahyangyi]

Okay, there are a lot of arguments going on here simultaneously but a lot of it (not all, but a lot) seems to boil down to one thing which is being touched on but no one is directly addressing: Is EU4 a 4x game or a Grand Strategy Game? You cannot decide the specifics of where the game should go if you don't even agree on the general principals of its destination.

I actually see EU as a hybrid between traditional RPG and Grand Strategy. Instead of picking a race, a class and choosing talents or feats, you pick a country and choose its government form and idea sets. And you can choose between power gaming and roleplaying and both routes are considered fine.

Very few RPG would think that "higher-level characters must have more problems" though. Instead, the generally accepted consensus is that "higher-level play should be somewhat different from low level one, so that the player can have fun from the beginning to the end".

 

[Ixal]

I actually see EU as a hybrid between traditional RPG and Grand Strategy. Instead of picking a race, a class and choosing talents or feats, you pick a country and choose its government form and idea sets. And you can choose between power gaming and roleplaying and both routes are considered fine.

Very few RPG would think that "higher-level characters must have more problems" though. Instead, the generally accepted consensus is that "higher-level play should be somewhat different from low level one, so that the player can have fun from the beginning to the end".

Yet higher level characters are fighting higher level monsters.
This increase in difficulty is missing in eu4. The larger you become, the more easy it gets because you are fighting the same enemies as before. So in an RPG sense with level 50 and beyond you still fight lvl 20 enemies and forever will.
That suits some players whos concept of challenge is limited to not winning fast enough. They will still play a lot to get their "server first" maxlevel achievements and put a lot if effort into the game to perfect their grinding strategy to set a new lvl1 to max record.
Yet when all you can do is killing mobs that are way too easy for you the game itself is rather dull. If the mobs would still be a challenge at higher level you could still do speedruns (just not as easy) yet the game would still be fun for others, too.

Thats what people are asking for. That blobs in eu4 still face a challenge. Preferably not by having the AI blob like crazy, too. That would destroy a lot of eu4 quasi historical flavor when all minors are gone by 1530.
So instead "high level" (blob) nations need a new challenge.

 

[Dingens]

Higher level characters however have to face high level bosses, and every decent RPG will try to ensure that both the guy who decided to play mage and the guy who wanted to be a warrior can tackle the same final boss roughly equally well. If the mage can bomb away entire levels and the warrior still needs to carefully slay monster after monster at high level, then game balance is off and people who play mainly warrior-type characters complain, while people who mainly play mage won't see any issue.

Im not saying this analogy works very well for EU4, just pointing out some flaws in that argumentation.