CK II Style information screens for "characters" in your state?

[unmerged(609859)]

Evening all.

Now, I know that there's no call for the level of interaction between characters as there is in CK, but one thing I found a little off putting upon returning to EU III after some extensive CK II playing is that you can't really see any information on your generals and leaders outside of their names, ages (in the leaders' case) and skills.

I think it would be cool if you could get information screens similar to CK II for some of the important figures in your state (significantly: Your King/Political Leaders, your Generals, Conquistadors, Admirals and Explorers, and the great men in your employ.)

Though it's by no means a needed element in the game, it'd be nice, and it could allow for generals and leaders developing throughout their lives.

 

[herrhals]

I, too, would like my monarchs to have a little personality, rather than just 3 numbers (admin, diplo, mili). I would like a little inter-family play, where I could potentially setup a future inheritance with a little luck and skill. A very basic CK2 style gameplay would give a little extra to EU4.

I realize we don't play a person, but rather a supreme deity in control of everything within the country. Would give a little depth to the whole thing.

 

[DanubianCossak]

It all sounds like a wishlist of what would be an ideal Paradox game (one thats still years away from us, technology wise at least?).

In practice i dont think something like this is possible. Even if you cut the number of characters your average CK2 country has to, say, 10% and make that character base of your average EU4 country, i fear there would be so many of them, that the game would turn into a lag fest just trying to keep track of that list alone.

 

[Sir Tornado]

It all sounds like a wishlist of what would be an ideal Paradox game (one thats still years away from us, technology wise at least?).

In practice i dont think something like this is possible. Even if you cut the number of characters your average CK2 country has to, say, 10% and make that character base of your average EU4 country, i fear there would be so many of them, that the game would turn into a lag fest just trying to keep track of that list alone.

It worked fine for EU: Rome, it could work for EU IV as well. Agreed that the geographic scope of Rome is less, but about 5 years have passed since that game has released.

 

[DanubianCossak]

It worked fine for EU: Rome, it could work for EU IV as well. Agreed that the geographic scope of Rome is less, but about 5 years have passed since that game has released.

I guess it would all depend on the level of detail. It probably wouldnt be too much if we had the same character amount as in EU3 with just more information, like traits and stuff. But if we had detailed list of whole court, generals, advisers, your ruler's dynasty and then some aristocracy and their entire families (wives, children), then the number would probably reach thousands, worldwide. EU4's scope is much bigger than CK2 and Rome, combined (though CK2 has more tags i think?).

 

[anubisfike]

I guess it would all depend on the level of detail. It probably wouldnt be too much if we had the same character amount as in EU3 with just more information, like traits and stuff. But if we had detailed list of whole court, generals, advisers, your ruler's dynasty and then some aristocracy and their entire families (wives, children), then the number would probably reach thousands, worldwide. EU4's scope is much bigger than CK2 and Rome, combined (though CK2 has more tags i think?).

OP said it would just be for the most important people that you can actually see like advisors and generals etc. so 1000's of characters wouldn't happen unless there were a lot more countries in EU4 compared to EU3.

Also none of this will happen for EU4 because it's more profitable for Paradox to keep the features of different games separate. It's better (for them, not us) to make a bunch of products with a few features than putting a lot of work into one.

 

[Jomini]

I, for one, dislike immensely the trait system of CK, though it fits much better there. I want to play a country, not a gaggle of questionably loyal relatives and hangers-on. Generally speaking, traits either need to dominate the political scene (like in CK) or they become little more than distractions for most players (and nearly a random grab bag of weakness for the AI).

Traits which have a significant impact on gameplay increase all optimization calculations by a hyper-exponential amount as you increase trait count and character count. This makes it harder (perhaps impossible) for the AI to play well. It also greatly increases amount of micromanagement needed to play the game. I want to be able to set policy - like annex Bohemia - and play tactics (e.g. plan a quick war to force vassalize or a long diplo-vassalization). I don't want to handle a bunch of petty things about which to agent to send when, that's just micro hell and I'd rather be back with older EU games sending 15 diplomats than dealing with constant rejiggering.

Traits are a big AI handicap, and the AI doesn't need handicaps in EU at present. We need the AI to get better at pulling off things like amphib attacks, managing alliance systems, trading effectively, and using the spy mechanics to useful results. Making the AI able to handle traits without a huge penalty, and balancing the myriad of possible combinations of traits and circumstances (to say avoid infinite money exploits) is a lot of sunk Dev time. I'd far rather spend that on making the core AI better than trying to undo the damage to AI functionality from what is little more than a flavor element.

For a large number of people we likely won't be big EU IV fans if it becomes CK Lite. If I want to dick around keeping a coterie of relations and courtiers happy and optimizing their breeding and education, I'll just play CK. If I want to mostly ignore that sort of thing I hope I can just play EU IV.

If you want flavor traits, we already have a very good system for that. They are called events. Having some events with modifiable MTTH can create immersive flavor without having to create an entire mechanism and balance it. Ai's can much more easily shrug off one-time events than a complex dynamic situation.

 

[Mendeth]

I'm not sure the character traits for advisers, monarchs and so forth would add that much to the game, seeing as it arguably has a more strategic focus than CKII. However, I do like the idea of skills for generals; the current Victoria II system (can't remember if it was altered with HoD) with bonuses to specific aspects of fighting and army organisation, morale and speed would be fantastic.

 

[DanubianCossak]

OP said it would just be for the most important people that you can actually see like advisors and generals etc. so 1000's of characters wouldn't happen unless there were a lot more countries in EU4 compared to EU3.

I guess it would all depend on the level of detail.

Also none of this will happen for EU4 because it's more profitable for Paradox to keep the features of different games separate. It's better (for them, not us) to make a bunch of products with a few features than putting a lot of work into one.

I usually disagree with maybe 80% of stuff you say, but somehow, shockingly to me, that makes perfect sense.

 

[Jia Xu]

This gets asked every week, and every week the answer is always the same. The developers have made it clear that they're just not interested in evolving "characters" in EU. In CK2, they're a theme. In EU3, they're just tools.