Good point. So then I guess there are a lot more skilled players in this thread than I had imagined. I wish more people would post AARs of their WCs for others to learn instead of complaining about how easy they are. Just because they're easy for you doesn't mean the same goes for everyone else. No need to make it harder for the rest of us.
Bigger nations must have more problems!
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Good point. So then I guess there are a lot more skilled players in this thread than I had imagined. I wish more people would post AARs of their WCs for others to learn instead of complaining about how easy they are. Just because they're easy for you doesn't mean the same goes for everyone else. No need to make it harder for the rest of us.
How is that relevant? Why would I care what is hard for you specifically, this isn't about you specifically. Why would I care if 99% of the player base couldn't conquer all of Europe as France?
I find the opposite is true, the people who want to blob to insane degrees are the ones complaining about anything hard. Either view on this is irrelevant, and seems to only be thinly veiled insults.
Notice how I said " the only allowable setbacks to the player are ones they allow to be inflicted upon them." Most people find ways to handicap themselves for fun, you're not unique and clever to have done this.
I'm actually part of the crowd of people who play multiplayer with friends. Unfortunately you cannot always convince your friend(s) to handicap themselves, which will inevitably degenerate into the natural state of the game, blobbing.
Your argument that "It's so much harder! You control the entire world in the 1700's instead of the 1800's!" is an incomprehensible argument to people who don't think WC should be a given regardless of the time frame.
Most people don't play ironman. Most people also get really bored and start a new game by the time they own a whole continent, let alone the whole world.
Because your statement is not true. People still refer to this as a GSG, despite it being right now a 4x in all but name. On some level, we all acknowledge that this is a distortion of what the game should be. If the purpose behind the game was to conquer the world, it would simply be called a historically themed 4x, not unlike a renaissance themed Civ game, and this entire thread would be pointless. But that's not the case.
In other words, you say that the game by design lets you world conquest. But that's not at all by design. That is rather one of the most glaring symptoms of flaws in the design. And as long as EU calls itself a GSG while also allowing such blatantly implausible outcomes, it will continue to be one.
Are you implying that those people are assuming owning an entire continent is the same in regards to difficulty as owning the whole world?
Then start a new game after that point?! And are you sure you are really done after that? Once absolutism age is up, one objective is to have at least three trade companies. I would like to see your Italy having this by 1600. I don't say it's not possible because it would be a lie, but I'm not sure that people saying the game is ended when you are big have trade domination for example. Attack monster Bengal after 1650 without any anticipation and we will see if it is really over ^^
Look at the stats on Steam, only few people have 1001 provinces achievement.
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I am not and do not need to assume anything about them. This discussion is about the idea that "Bigger nations must have more problems!" Owning a continent is staggeringly easy, and in my experience, owning the whole world is mostly the same thing on a larger timescale. DoW, wait, DoW, wait. Depending on how you start, the climb to the top can be sketchy or fun, but once you are on top, the game may as well be over, and that happens far before you even own a whole continent.
Which continents are you thinking of and with which starts? I can't imagine there being too many ways to easily own an entire continent. I would love some details of your experiences with blobbing.
Assuming you're not being facetious for the sake of discussion, the most recent game which comes to mind is starting as Jianzhou. The struggle with Ming can be quite a blast but the moment they go down, there's almost nothing stopping you as Qing from taking China and from there all that you want from Asia. The closest to a challenge I got was when Spain tried to take some Chinese soil, but could never bring close to enough troops to china to matter. Ended up walking to Spain through Russia, Austria, and France and occupying all of Spain after an easy 6000 mile march in the late 1600's. Felt so cheap and ridiculous. That was probably the last war which I didn't start, since not even the AI bother's to try to take you down after a certain point.
Uh, no, I think this is how the game should be, or pretty darn close. 4X and Grand Strategy are NOT mutually exclusive, and so I think you can very accurately call this a Grand Strat game. Your assumption seems to be that Grand Strat games must be "realistic", and this is not necessarily the case. I'm curious what characteristics would make you define a game as "Grand Strategy".
For me it would be:
-Internal management mechanics
-Achievable goals and rewards for certain actions
-Customization of your nation/characters allow the player to select what he feels is optimal/necessary.
-Palpable feedback from the game rewarding or punishing the player based on his or her choices.
Does that not describe EU4?^
I see. That sounds like an impressive run. You shouldn't underestimate how difficult it is for the average player to form Qing in the first place, let alone blob all the way to Europe given the mandate penalties. In fact I would say that without 1k+ hours of experience it would be impossible to own all of Asia as Qing especially post 1.24. Do you have a screenshot of the run?
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Rubbish. Firstly, you're completely misunderstanding the distinction between a 4x and a GSG. Secondly, that the ability to WC is by design is a fact. It's been stated by the devs, and heck they even put in an achievement for it. It's not debateable. That's not to say that WC is the purpose behind the game, but the game as it actually exists was designed with WC in mind.
My EU4 hours amount to about 600 which seems like quite a bit to me, and more than enough to have developed a decent understanding of the game, but I'm not claiming to be amazing at the game or anything. Every couple months or more when I come back to EU4 to see the state that it's in I usually use a Manchu run to test the waters for what's changed, since most of my regular friends I played with have grown bored with blobbing and stopped playing/annoyed with the DLC policy direction. The hardest part about Manchu games like that is how fickle and risky the start is. The average player may not be able to form Qing, I have no idea, most of my friends give me the impression that they could given a little practice. But I'd say forming Qing isn't the focus of this discussion for me, I have no issue with how that plays out. The issue for me is once you are Qing. Once you are any large dominate power. There is no scaling challenge or difficulty to face a nation which is at the top, at that point it becomes less about if you win a war, and more about when will you next declare the war you will undoubtedly win?
As for screenshots, the only Qing screenshots I see are from 2015, and only because they are focused on showing the AI actually managing to form a huge centralized HRE which was (and remains) the most unique and interesting thing I've seen the AI pull off in this game. Also the blobbiest, as they later ended up under a personal union with an equally blobby Commonwealth.
Even if it wasn't they would probably put it, because people will try to conquer the World
The difficulty with conquering Asia as Qing would be to avoid tanking Mandate. Are you saying you did conquer Asia as Qing or are you assuming that it would be easy once you had formed Qing? The two are very different. The first opinion comes from experience, the second is an assumption based on incomplete and often incorrect knowledge.
I wouldn't want it to be impossible - I'd want it to be extremely difficult. Look at examples of super blobs in and around the EU4 timeline: the Mongols blobbed across Asia and then broke up into separate and competing factions, the Habsburgs "released vassal" (i.e. their Austrian holidngs, which were governed by a viceroy), Napoleon lost the war to Russia and his empire crumbled. The large empires that did survive (British, French, Spanish, etc) were first of all still relatively evenly matched and second of all were still subject to major setbacks: a number of colonies won independence in the EU time period (USA, Mexico, Haiti, etc). Whereas in my recent playthrough, a two-continent rebellion of 5 colonial nations took me a year and 45K troops to put down (because you can white peace to retain status quo).
There have been a lot of ideas already mentioned in this thread, but some things off the top of my head:
Coalitions need to take into account the balance of power. For example, a blob that matches the 4 biggest powers in its region in terms of military power should make coalitions more likely. The specifics don't have to be exact, but my point is the principle.
For rebels:
- smarter AI movement is a simple change (i.e. not walking into a massive enemy army + running away from superior forces to hide behind a ZoC, etc)
- removing obligatory stackwipes
If the above two are not enough, you could add:
- additional covert support options (think Putin's invasion of Crimea) like sending your own troops if they're separatists from your country or arming them with your weapons (giving them your tech level)
- growth of Zealot rebels over time due to volunteer recruits from neighboring co-religionists
- rebels making use of land they conquer (taxation, trade, recruitment, and manpower)
I have a bunch of ideas for states and cultures, but I think you get the point. Concrete ideas aren't that important at this stage - the point is that the changes could be made if it was so desired.
I'm saying I have conquered Asia as Qing, I'm not sure where you're reading that it's an assumption. I stated I've played many Qing games. In a few, the most recent being right after Mandate of Heaven was released, I decided to blob out of control. In most, I just like trying to form the Historical Qing borders and then get bored.
And my question is how did you manage to keep up mandate? If it was by moving your capital then that has been patched already. It is now significantly more difficult to expand as EoC post 1.22 and even more so on the current patch. My view is that it's more difficult to conquer Asia as Qing than to WC as Ottomans.
Seriously, I don't get why so many people that are against blobbing game by nature still use the argument it is unchallenged. Do a WC with a horde by 1650 and tell me if it wasn't challenging. You have no challenge because you do NOT want to have challenge in the blobbing style, that's it. But in reality, there are many ways to have challenge by using the game as it is. And some achievements are real challenges!
Just say the truth: you do not like the blobbing game and want have micromanagement challenges by dealing with internal collapse instead of fast pace expansion challenges. But please, stop saying there is no challenge in the blob game.
I'm sure it is but in'ts not challenging in a way most of us are interested in since it is only mechanical challenge the immersion is broken long before that. You don't feel like a country doing well you feel like a player playing a game, you may enjoy that but to me the idea is utterly mindnumbingly boring.
And at this point fortunately a lot of people seems to agree with me.
Managing a realm sounds interesting repeating war 10000 times as fast as possible does not. Gaming the mechanics even less so.
I never moved my capital and honestly it's a rather pointed question which doesn't have any sort of spectacular answer. Everything I did was rather obvious (such as keeping tributaries on the frontiers), and I barely bothered with taking the Mandate at all.
EDIT: And as for WC as the Ottomans I have no idea. A few years ago when I first tried a WC I started with the Ottomans but I couldn't keep interest after controlling Africa and colonizing Siberia. I don't doubt you're right but I don't see the difference being very meaningful
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