Can China ever be fun?

[Eh up me duck]

Seems like China could either be a behemouth that could crush its neighbours merely by glancing at them, or so constrained by arbitrary constraints that it is completely unfun (factions, I'm looking at you here).

Could China possibly be fun in EU4? What do the community think? Should it be fun, or is it simply too unique to be modelled by EU3?

 

[lordreaven448]

China in EU 3 DW is fun....somewhat. It's fun during the faction system for a bit before it get's frustrating. While it's not fun to roll into Europe by 1500's, or worse, have Europe roll into you by the 1500's (Had that happen, Muscovy was at my doorstep by 1530). China should have Penalties, but at the same time Penalties are not fun.

 

[Jia Xu]

Should it be fun, or is it simply too unique to be modelled by EU3?

"Should" it be fun? Of course. Every country "should" be fun, ideally! That's easier said than done though. I feel like you've addressed the important problems here. China is unfun when you're a gigantic super power and no country on the Asian continent can ever hope to fight you and win. China is also unfun when you can't play the game because the current faction in power has a strict no-fun rule.

I think the big issue is that EU is ultimately a series where the game play isn't very focused on the domestic aspects of your country. Most of the game play revolves around interacting with other countries and trying to get your piece of the global pie before someone else eats it. China is the kind of country where almost all of the interesting stuff related to it is happening internally via aspects of the country that aren't modelled at all by Europa Universalis. We would probably have a lot more fun with China if they ever released a DLC for Victoria II that makes the game longer or something.

 

[Sir Tornado]

It is quite easy to "nerf" China without using a special mechanic to do so... just put something equivalent to the Demesne limit in CK2 based on the Government technology, which will penalise bigger countries with penalties (much higher stability cost, tax loss due to inefficiency, lower forcelimits than usually possible for that size), which get less and less as the technology advances. This will abstract the internal pressures faced by China in this time, which could have actually been faced by anyone had they been that big...

This penalty will apply to all countries, but no one is really big enough at the start of the game than China... and by the time western powers colonialise and become big, they will have the adequate Tech to sustain their empire. This will also provide automatic brakes against excessive blobbing.

It will make a China game "fun", in the sense that you will have to fight these (abstracted) internal forces as well as external ones... and if China starts losing territory, these penalties will automatically start to reduce as well, ensuring China does not get overrun due to them.

 

[Fryz]

Well I think the tributary system in MM is not bad, that's a system with which you can interact with your neighbours and the neighbours of your neighbours...that can be fun if it's well made.
For example, IRL the 1516 Portuguese embassy to China failed, one of the reasons was that the Portuguese attacked and conquered Malacca, a (at least nominal) tributary of the Celestial Empire. So maybe in game if you want to do something with China, you need to take care of the relations with its tributaries too...

And IMO faction system itself isn't lame, its problem is the mechanic seems to be not very well designed, the system simply forbids player to do certain things and the amount of events is relatively few for me, if there can be some event-chain-actived penalties and more flavor events, the idea of having another faction system may be not that bad...some EU3 mods made by Chinese players did make China less unfun so I guess we can say that's not impossible at all.

And in fact there're so many ways to limit the gigantic power of China while keep it from being unfun, the only questions are that how many efforts that will be spent and if that's really necessary, I mean, comparing with some other nations like Japan and the ones in Europe, China is not that popular...

Many ideas used by modders are good, like the collapsed China in "the Divergence"(a Vic2 mod), the collapse and re-union of China happens and may happen in any time and did happen during the time-frame of EU series, and even we focus on external interactions, there's so many interesting things to dig,aside from the Manchus, Mongols of the North was a really serious threat of the kingdom of middle, and the Japanese invasion of Korea, the Wokou Pirates, the "Hongmaos" (red haired people, the europeans) in Macao and Formosa...and here I just listed a part of military "interactions"... well, and let me get back to the topic again, from many materials I think we can say that Ming IS strong but its smaller neighbours aren't that fragile neither, for example, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Chinese_domination_of_Vietnam

 

[Col.HoganGer90]

It is quite easy to "nerf" China without using a special mechanic to do so... just put something equivalent to the Demesne limit in CK2 based on the Government technology, which will penalise bigger countries with penalties

Something like this had already been done for EUIII with MM (the mod) to counter blobbing in any part of the world and I found that quite a good solution. Maybe Paradox has learned at least a little bit from that impressive mod.

 

[SteveTR]

I personally think, that China CAN be fun. China IS fun in EU3 DW.
But the reason China, is fun in Divine Wind, is simple. It has some actual flavour. I mean, the faction system was developed solely for China. And I like that. I didn't really play as China in vanilla EU3, but I think it was, more than anything, a generic eastern asian country (like Japan etc.).
Now that I think about it, it would be good to include the faction system in EU4. Not in the DW way, but in a national decision way. You'd get to choose, what faction has the most power in your country. The "cooldown" could be 5-10 years.

 

[Caban]

in EU3 I'd have given some of the isolationist east Asian countries some heavier stability penalties for declaring war on foreign powers with a very good reason. And toss a heavy negative modifier on colonizing range.

There should be a way to shift away from isolationism, but it should require a few very painful decades to completely change a culture as large as China's.

I suppose the slider moves could have been changed to begin a slow drift to the next step when you select the slider move rather than an instantaneous change... and apply modifiers that extend the time it takes depending on national size in both an area and population sense. Make it easy for Luxembourg to change their culture/traditions, but very difficult for China(and also quite difficult for populous Japan). And while the slider is drifting there should be selected negative modifiers to represent resistance to change among those working in that particular sector.

Say you are shifting from narrowminded to innovative... then perhaps religious rebels and automatic religious conversion of provinces are more likely.

Decentralization to centralization could end up with more peasant rebellions and increased events that simulate the chaos of trying to actually govern peasants that may have not even realized they were technically living in your country.

Free subjects to serfdom could cause peasant rebellions and events that lower cultural tradition or research to simulate losing the potential talents of some very skilled intellectuals that will instead be serfs... and serfdom to free may cause more noble rebellions and pretenders to pop up along with population growth issues as people stop having so many kids and famines become more likely.


Aristocracy vs. Plutocracy would be pretty similar to free subjects/serfs. An aristocracy slide would definitely get you more direct money in the short term via direct taxes, but plutocracy would increase things that would make it beneficial in the long term(research bonuses/inflation lowering?).

Mercantilism vs. Free Trade would be a bit complex... Mercantilism to FT would result in less overall economic stability and international prestige(prestige/stab loss events) but more innovation(+research events) FT to Merc would negatively affect innovation(-research events) but your inflation would likely stay low(-inflation events).

Sea vs. Land would just throw out some events that would hurt or help their respective traditions... maybe run the risk of generals/admirals simply quitting(death event). Could have some slight effects on colonization via increased number of colonists or occasional free explorers that come with their own ship. Maybe influence a Christopher Columbus-esque event where someone asks you for $$$ to essentially explore(I know that's an oversimplification). Have a chance where you get fog of war removed over the path of his ship and a MASSIVE amount of prestige and economic benefits if you're the first to successfully pull off this event.

Quality vs. Quantity isn't my favorite slider... just toss in +/- tradition events. Maybe add some extra research points to land/sea research for quality. Quantity might check when you are at war and if you are then it gives you a large increase in manpower generation for a few months. The kind of stuff that can unexpectedly turn a war around without being a huge cheat is always cool.

As another note, I'd like to see large armies have more trouble in attacking small ones that have had time to set defenses. Enough where a country like Switzerland could realistically defend themselves against Burgundy or Austria in early game with some good luck and solid strategy. I can pull it off as a player in EU3, but the AI isn't really able to create plans that are complex enough to set a trap and/or let the landscape do most of the killing for you.

For players that can't take down a larger enemy, I'll just say that scorching the earth is your friend. Attrition increases 1% for each 1,000 troops over a provinces supply limit. So If your Swiss got a province down to a supply limit of 1 for the invading Burgundian Army with a stack of 20k, they'd be looking at losing at least 19% per month... That's 3,800 troops after month one, 6,878 after month two, 9,371 after month three and 11,390 after month four for a remainder of 8,610. And that 8,610 likely has low morale... so that's when you smash them and destroy the unit. After that you should be able to clean up and don't forget to occupy every province if possible to prevent new armies from popping up. Of course some of that initial army will be reinforced if Burgundy has manpower left, but the point still stands as reinforcement on enemy territory isn't that fast.

 

[Stadhouder]

Is China supposed to be fun? China in the EU era was sleeping giant, with a policy of isolationism. Since EU is a game that does focus on how your country interacts with other countries due war, trade and diplomacy, that is quite boring to play. But if EU would focus on internal policies and events it would be a completely different game. Although the faction system could be frustrating, I think it did quite a good job in modeling China within EU mechanics. It's called Europa Universalis, and that we can play any country on any continent is just an added bonus. That some are frustating or boring to play is too bad, but not something I would dare to really complain about.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

Like other's suggested - much more emphasis on internal affairs (which is biggest weakness of EU3 IMO) including struggle between reformist central power and various resistive factions, some sort of 'demesne limits' similar to CK2 or MM mod, and more ways to project power and influence than straight up conquests. It could not only apply to China, but also to other countries like late Ottoman Empire, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (both were huge, stagnant, and unable to grow indefinitely despite their size), or even player created blobs. I think that very few players continue playing blobs spanning 1/3rd of Europe - without realistic restrains and internal affairs it is simply boring.

 

[Stadhouder]

Like other's suggested - much more emphasis on internal affairs (which is biggest weakness of EU3 IMO) including struggle between reformist central power and various resistive factions, some sort of 'demesne limits' similar to CK2 or MM mod, and more ways to project power and influence than straight up conquests.

I do agree with you that EU3 becomes boring after you've reached a certain size, and that could be solved by giving more options regarding internal policy. However, I think that many players fail to realize that a game with the depth of CKII and the scope of EU3 (both in number of playable countries and timeline) is not economically feasible. Not only would it require probably too much resources to develop for a company like Paradox, but it would require so many system resources that it wouldn't run on the average pc. Maybe when we all have quantum computers at home in 20 years. Also, most player don't like to micro manage everything, so if you'd have to focus too much on internal policies many would become bored too. Paradox has to make sacrifices somewhere.

I do hope though that EUIV has improvements in diplomacy, anti-blobbing measures and the trading system that keep the game more interesting, since in EU3 it's bit to easy to reach untouchable status, and there's not too much to do once you've reached that, except going for a WC.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

I do agree with you that EU3 becomes boring after you've reached a certain size, and that could be solved by giving more options regarding internal policy. However, I think that many players fail to realize that a game with the depth of CKII and the scope of EU3 (both in number of playable countries and timeline) is not economically feasible. Not only would it require probably too much resources to develop for a company like Paradox, but it would require so many system resources that it wouldn't run on the average pc. Maybe when we all have quantum computers at home in 20 years. Also, most player don't like to micro manage everything, so if you'd have to focus too much on internal policies many would become bored too. Paradox has to make sacrifices somewhere.

I do hope though that EUIV has improvements in diplomacy, anti-blobbing measures and the trading system that keep the game more interesting, since in EU3 it's bit to easy to reach untouchable status, and there's not too much to do once you've reached that, except going for a WC.

Yeah - transplant of CK2 system would make no sense. AFAIK even playing as HRE emperor is somewhat tedious with all these vassals. I was thinking more about something like faction system from Magna Mundi, or Vicky2 rebel groups that are persistent and interact with the player. Few of them on the country level scale, and that's it. We know that blobbing and snowballing would be curbed, and constant warmongering would be discouraged - with less wars something must keep player occupied. New trade system is one of these things, more internal interactions should be IMO another.

 

[Eh up me duck]

Yeah - transplant of CK2 system would make no sense. AFAIK even playing as HRE emperor is somewhat tedious with all these vassals. I was thinking more about something like faction system from Magna Mundi, or Vicky2 rebel groups that are persistent and interact with the player. Few of them on the country level scale, and that's it. We know that blobbing and snowballing would be curbed, and constant warmongering would be discouraged - with less wars something must keep player occupied. New trade system is one of these things, more internal interactions should be IMO another.

God good no, please no vicky 2 rebels.

Demands can be met? Click a button.

Demands can't be met? You're getting revolts.

Yeah I wouldn't say that was "fun".

 

[unmerged(63836)]

God good no, please no vicky 2 rebels.

Demands can be met? Click a button.

Demands can't be met? You're getting revolts.

Yeah I wouldn't say that was "fun".

I meant vicky 2 rebels in a sense of in-game implementation.

Let's say that you're playing a feudal monarchy and you have aristocratic faction. You can, over course of the years, work to undermine their power and increase that of the king. Naturally that would affect their mood, causing instability for some time. If you have skilled monarch and you're doing it at a slow pace - you should eventually succeed without much repercussions. But if you're doing it fast, their mood can be so bad that civil war is triggered in which they can demand restoration of privileges or even a pretender on the throne. In other words, political and social transformations would be a dynamic part of the game, rather than just one-click government change. It would also mean, that when a rebellion is triggered player knows why. It's not happening out of blue, but because he was in conflict with them for some time.

 

[DanubianCossak]

Could China possibly be fun in EU4? What do the community think? Should it be fun, or is it simply too unique to be modelled by EU3?

Probably not because if it gets too popular in China, only 1% of its total players worldwide will end up buying it

On a serious note, making China "good" within EU3 core mechanics was impossible, because they simply couldnt add enough content (read: provinces and countries) in its immediate neighborhood to keep it busy, and prevent it from blobbing all over Eurasia. To make it fit into the rest of the world, you have to debilitate it completely, which means lots of negative modifiers, which means no fun for human.

Maybe with all the new stuff in EU4 it will be different. I sure hope so.

 

[Eh up me duck]

I meant vicky 2 rebels in a sense of in-game implementation.

Let's say that you're playing a feudal monarchy and you have aristocratic faction. You can, over course of the years, work to undermine their power and increase that of the king. Naturally that would affect their mood, causing instability for some time. If you have skilled monarch and you're doing it at a slow pace - you should eventually succeed without much repercussions. But if you're doing it fast, their mood can be so bad that civil war is triggered in which they can demand restoration of privileges or even a pretender on the throne. In other words, political and social transformations would be a dynamic part of the game, rather than just one-click government change. It would also mean, that when a rebellion is triggered player knows why. It's not happening out of blue, but because he was in conflict with them for some time.

Isn't that pretty much what the rebel dev diary outlined?

 

[Dafool]

One things I've been fiddling with in my modding work is to give China many more provinces, but make them more fragile internally and less interested in external expansion. I'm currently using things like nomad modifiers which add very small amounts of continual war exhaustion, more wasteland provinces in the west so that India and Central Asia are harder to blob into, more religious and cultural diversity in China so that you have to play a balancing act between tolerance and assimilation, and so on. The basic idea is to make being a behemoth like China more about keeping things under control at home while occasionally needing to throw your weight around to keep your neighbors in check.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

Isn't that pretty much what the rebel dev diary outlined?

Partially yes, but just like with Vicky2 rebels they seems to be just binary revolt-not revolt thing. I was thinking about something more dynamic or interactive. For example, nobles are not just there to eventually rebel, but you can also grant them some privileges in times of need, making them happy and gaining short term benefit.

 

[Wallain]

Internal factions would be nice, I can dream.

 

[dsteve3]

There's a new mechanic in E.U. IV that acts as a counter-weight to the critical mass of any empire. As they get larger, they need either higher techs to control stability penalties or they start losing out on their essentials - tech, stability, monarch points.

I can't remember everything off the top of my head, but obviously this would apply to China.

Really, the Chinese Empire represents the ideal balance between size and stability. As soon as either the player or the AI starts to incorporate non-Chinese cultures into that Empire, the tensions are going to throw the whole balance out of whack.

Taking over a single alt-ethnic region should require decades or even centuries to absorb before allowing for further expansion.

I would even suggest that the real challenge would be to keep China all in one Empire. Do that for four hundred years and you've really achieved something.

As well, with the new economic system, building a globally-dominant China with small colonies along trade routes could also be very challenging and fun.

I'm really looking forward to E.U. IV - there are many new mechanics which make topics like this one quite new and different compared to the old E.U.'s