Could P'dox try lategame DLC before giving up on timelines?

[keynes2.0]

Johan and Podcat have indicated that future Paradox titles wont have the distinctive "start at any date" feature because they aren't worth the research time. Feedback indicates that most people just start at the earliest date. So it makes more sense to just have a few dates and save on research time, like they did for Victoria instead of scripting for changes in timeline like in CKII and EUIV.

It's sound logic but I think there is a chance that there is an unfortunate feedback loop at play. The late game starts are less interesting because 4X elements are dominating gameplay and the less interesting the lategame is, the more attention the 4X elements get. For instance in EUIV a big part of long term planning is choosing national ideas to reflect a long term strategy and starting in the lategame means that a bunch of suboptimal picks are made already. This means national ideas in turn reflect the balance of coring costs much more then say the balance of Europe around the Seven Years War. Maybe Paradox could experiment by releasing a DLC that tries to reverse this trend? Instead of focusing on something that is balanced for a 400 year Grand Campaign, make a DLC that does justice to an interesting period of history.

I think Napoleonic France would be a good candidate. I think it's the most famous and interesting era in the EUIV timeline but the game mechanics dont make it feel any different at all from earlier gameplay. There are coalitions but they dont reflect the various coalitions against France. There is nothing to reflect the way that Napoleon could intimidate the crowns of Spain, Austria and Prussia into cooperation but how unreliable his "allies" were. We can't see things like the creation of a Polish client state, the continental system and the blockade, the conflicts between smaller forces in the Americans.

So maybe a DLC could try focusing on just the French revolution and the wars that revolved around it. I think it would allow for something that starting in 1444 wouldn't allow, a balance of power between France and the coalitions. France can win victories but wouldn't start snowballing, coalitions kept forming year after year after year. Instead of annexing territory, it's a question of both sides trying to cement a long term situation in Europe. Can France get all of the continent into the fold or will the old order be restored? And the DLC wouldn't need to waste research times on every far flung corner of the world. 1803 wasn't a particularly interesting year in Chinese or Indian history. So just make the gameplay interesting to play France or play against France.

I'm suggesting an EUIV DLC just because Nappy is such a perfect example of an interesting lategame struggle but CKII could also support lategame expansions like the creation of the crusader kingdoms instead of European kings blobbing into the middle east.

But if P'dox does change over to the few startdate model, I think lategame expansions like this will be too much work to happen. It wouldn't be possible to do an expansion for Napoleonic France in EU5 because then history would need to be written for the entire world even though most of that is pointless effort.

tl;dr: lategame expansions might make the timeline worth it?

 

[the cool guy]

It would improve the later start dates to get more focus and i would probably play them more if they were balanced better. But i think the majority of the community feels that the dev time is spent better at improving based around the start date and i'm not sure if i'm part of that group so yeah not sure if i want it.

 

[jdavis86]

It is a tricky area. As you're sort of implying, EU4 really should be two different games.

Personally I don't think the game feels like the renaissance or Age of Discovery, much less the Napoleonic era.

Victoria II actually does a lot of what you're describing, as I'm sure you're aware.

A late game expansion for EU4 is a good idea though. I think I read somewhere that a huge percent of campaigns don't make it past 1700.

I can appreciate how timelines end up being a bit of a time sink with little pay off for the player.

 

[the cool guy]

EU4 really should be two different games.

Having EU4 (or 5) being split into two games makes sense since most games aren't too interesting in the late game if you're good or just in general. It's something i wouldn't mind even though it would hurt my (already thin) wallet.

 

[keynes2.0]

I wouldn't want to see the game outright split into two games. The warfare system, national ideas, economic system, etc. wouldn't need to change. It would just be nice if the setup in 1803 (for example) was an interesting balance for France/Engalnd or whoever and the wargoals could depict this timeframe. There is no need to import hour long ticks or the Victoria economic system, just make it so there is an interesting balance.

 

[the cool guy]

I wouldn't want to see the game outright split into two games. The warfare system, national ideas, economic system, etc. wouldn't need to change. It would just be nice if the setup in 1803 (for example) was an interesting balance for France/Engalnd or whoever and the wargoals could depict this timeframe. There is no need to import hour long ticks or the Victoria economic system, just make it so there is an interesting balance.

Splitting them would make the 1648-1820 (estimated time) period more fun at the expense of people who want their games to be longer than 1444-1648 (this can be solved with converters but i don't trust paradox to make a good one) and people who lack money. I don't think there will be long term hype for lategame start date improvements without making seperate games. The community just dosen't care enough.

 

[jdavis86]

We start getting into an area too where it makes more sense to just make VIC3.

Maybe a separate stand alone expansion a la Darkest Hour, EU4 based set in the later parts of the game.

 

[General WVPM]

From my own experience, I really love going through the game's history year by year, just to see how stuff evolved.
I understand that it's too much work though, as most of the time I also pick the earliest date, but i've played plenty of games at later dates, if they are gonna cut costs there, I hope they atleast give you a start date every ~100 years.

On the other side, don't they already have all the info collected now?

Also about EU4, I think they could cut some years off it and give it to some sort of march of eagles, imagine from ~1750 - ~1840.
During that timeframe so many things changed, the dutch lost their world power, the french and british lost their colonies to the USA, portugal and spain collapsed, the HRE was crushed, NAPOLEON and much more. I think there are enough interesting events to build a game around, instead of some weird DLC for eu4, which wouldn't capture this period good enough.

 

[FLESH HUNTER]

I want the endgame to be...Interesting because it hits the points either by 1500s or the 1600s that I hit my goals/Nothing can stand against me...

 

[Axe99]

Interesting thoughts Keynes Mk II . That said, given they've got a lot of the data for late game starts already (and later-game data is also more readily available), I think DLC focussing on a late-game start should be feasible even if the timeline isn't fleshed out all the way through (as we expect to be the case in EU5). They didn't have the timeline fleshed out in Vicky 2, but we still got the American Civil War start thrown in through DLC, for example. Same story with the HoI3 time periods added in via DLC.

Personally, I'd like fewer starts that are better - I had a crack at the 1776 start in EU4, and there were a bunch of niggles when you fire it up, such that the start of the game felt a little like HoI3, where you're clicking away to set everything up (in this case, all of the world had been set to 'interesting nations', so I got a squillion notifications from the get-go, so the first 10 minutes was mostly un-selecting interesting nation via the notification icons). If, instead, they did a 'War of Independence' DLC, that provided a 1776 start, mechanics around independence, and maybe some logistics mechanics to model the difficulties Britain had supplying its armies in the US, and you could have something that provides a late game start but also has a bunch of mechanics that are useful for all players.

I definitely think that EU4's late game could do with some love - it's my favourite part of the game (so I pretty much always play my games through) as everything's rather fluid and dynamic at the end, but as you and others in this thread have mentioned, there's a huge amount of potential for it to be better.

As for the whole maximise idea groups for the long term, I think that's more a reflection of the limited approach taken to tech and ideas - although I do agree that EU4 feels more like a 4X if you play as a blobber than any other PDS game (because Stellaris hasn't launched yet ).

 

[the cool guy]

Also about EU4, I think they could cut some years off it and give it to some sort of march of eagles, imagine from ~1750 - ~1840.
During that timeframe so many things changed, the dutch lost their world power, the french and british lost their colonies to the USA, portugal and spain collapsed, the HRE was crushed, NAPOLEON and much more. I think there are enough interesting events to build a game around, instead of some weird DLC for eu4, which wouldn't capture this period good enough.

March of the Eagles probably isn't getting a sequel and isn't designed around anything but war like HoI and trying to do so would either make it not MotE or it would be terrible.

 

[SolSys]

Johan and Podcat have indicated that future Paradox titles wont have the distinctive "start at any date" feature because they aren't worth the research time.

You are paraphrasing it and misunderstand an important point.
1. "Start at any date" will most likely be removed since it isn't being used that much.
2. Start dates may become limited, but if you take into account #1 above it also means it will be easier to maintain in the long run [3~4 fully fleshed-out starts, maybe even more].
3. Research will still have to be done anyway to help improve the game, it just won't be wasted on time consuming and unused features as this.

 

[General WVPM]

But they have the research from previous games....

 

[panther29]

I, personally would love to play the later start dates in EU4, but the problem is their are not fleshed out and balanced enough. For example I have tried a couple of times to play the 80 years war start as the Dutch, but every time I would crushed by the Spanish who would send their whole army (10x troops). Now if I play a few years later, the Dutch are allied with the English, so it gives me a better playing chance, but at the same time Portugal is under a PU with Spain, so any serious colonization is a joke, with their gigantic navy.
Then I tried playing from 1444 and forming the Netherlands and that was one of the funnest games of EU4 I ever played.
Also many of later start dates are buggy, because nobody plays them. For example the Dutch-Portuguese War; the war goal is in Portuguese Brazil, but Portuguese Brazil is not part of the war. This is still something that has not been fixed since conquest of Paradise. The devs say they can't fix things like that, because colonial nations are generated at the start of the game (or something like that).
IMHO the later start dates could be a amazing, but they need balancing and fleshing out. There is very little immersion and the starts are waaay too historical. Most of your ideas are already picked and the countries are not balanced at all gameplay-wise.

 

[General WVPM]

I, personally would love to play the later start dates in EU4, but the problem is their are not fleshed out and balanced enough. For example I have tried a couple of times to play the 80 years war start as the Dutch, but every time I would crushed by the Spanish who would send their whole army (10x troops). Now if I play a few years later, the Dutch are allied with the English, so it gives me a better playing chance, but at the same time Portugal is under a PU with Spain, so any serious colonization is a joke, with their gigantic navy.
Then I tried playing from 1444 and forming the Netherlands and that was one of the funnest games of EU4 I ever played.
Also many of later start dates are buggy, because nobody plays them. For example the Dutch-Portuguese War; the war goal is in Portuguese Brazil, but Portuguese Brazil is not part of the war. This is still something that has not been fixed since conquest of Paradise. The devs say they can't fix things like that, because colonial nations are generated at the start of the game (or something like that).
IMHO the later start dates could be a amazing, but they need balancing and fleshing out. There is very little immersion and the starts are waaay too historical. Most of your ideas are already picked and the countries are not balanced at all gameplay-wise.

Paradox always tries to make the starts historical and historically the world has always been really imba.

 

[Mixxer5]

Late dates (as well as lategame) are boring, because they don't differ too much from early dates. Only difference is smaller pool of states to choose from- it's no wonder than, that most people prefer to start in 1444 (because Byzantium, because unification of Russia, because Teutonic order, because Hungary...) than in 1772. I'd love to try later dates, but they are just boring. What's the point of playing as Poland? It's not troublesome due to internal problems (I can raise 50k troops!), but because someone decided that Poland is in eastern tech group, so it's screwed without westernization. Same for playing as Ottos, France and so on. I can easily play cat and mouse with AI and achieve what I want (although I won't be able to go on, because game ends).

Same goes for CK2- it's not even about start (both early and late) dates, but about pointlessness of playing at some point. I've never been able to achieve world conquest in single generation (as someone did!), but I can easily restore RE to its former borders in about 100 years (especially in vanilla). What am I supposed to do next? Whole world could unite against me and I'd beat them.

Tl;dr- late game doesn't offer enough features, so it's boring. It's not boring because setup is.

 

[General WVPM]

Late dates (as well as lategame) are boring, because they don't differ too much from early dates. Only difference is smaller pool of states to choose from- it's no wonder than, that most people prefer to start in 1444 (because Byzantium, because unification of Russia, because Teutonic order, because Hungary...) than in 1772. I'd love to try later dates, but they are just boring. What's the point of playing as Poland? It's not troublesome due to internal problems (I can raise 50k troops!), but because someone decided that Poland is in eastern tech group, so it's screwed without westernization. Same for playing as Ottos, France and so on. I can easily play cat and mouse with AI and achieve what I want (although I won't be able to go on, because game ends).

Same goes for CK2- it's not even about start (both early and late) dates, but about pointlessness of playing at some point. I've never been able to achieve world conquest in single generation (as someone did!), but I can easily restore RE to its former borders in about 100 years (especially in vanilla). What am I supposed to do next? Whole world could unite against me and I'd beat them.

Tl;dr- late game doesn't offer enough features, so it's boring. It's not boring because setup is.

Wow sounds more like you find paradox games boring in general.
Also try multiplayer, there it can be better to start off with the larger late game nations.

 

[Mixxer5]

Wow sounds more like you find paradox games boring in general.
Also try multiplayer, there it can be better to start off with the larger late game nations.

After 100 years or so? Yeah, pretty boring. I don't feel satisified when all I do is painting map. Problem with Paradox games is that once I clean initial mess (characters with different cultures/religion in CK2, wrong culture group in EU4), there isn't much to do. Ryukyu is troublesome because it starts with single isolated province with low development. It handles just like any other country once they get more provinces. Any middle sized state can become sole superpower, because everything (tech, economy, influence, prestige) goes up with consecutive conquests. There is literally no way to "lose" after few decades of expansion. Maybe new DLC for EU4 will change it (hopefully), but right now it's not much of a challenge.

Even in multiplayer, above applies. I'm not saying that it's not a challange- it's not complicated enough to make it something more than competition about who paints map faster/more efficiently.

 

[General WVPM]

After 100 years or so? Yeah, pretty boring. I don't feel satisified when all I do is painting map. Problem with Paradox games is that once I clean initial mess (characters with different cultures/religion in CK2, wrong culture group in EU4), there isn't much to do. Ryukyu is troublesome because it starts with single isolated province with low development. It handles just like any other country once they get more provinces. Any middle sized state can become sole superpower, because everything (tech, economy, influence, prestige) goes up with consecutive conquests. There is literally no way to "lose" after few decades of expansion. Maybe new DLC for EU4 will change it (hopefully), but right now it's not much of a challenge.

Even in multiplayer, above applies. I'm not saying that it's not a challange- it's not complicated enough to make it something more than competition about who paints map faster/more efficiently.

Try switching country every 10-100 years and try to stop your previous nation.

 

[keynes2.0]

Ryukyu is troublesome because it starts with single isolated province with low development. It handles just like any other country once they get more provinces. Any middle sized state can become sole superpower, because everything (tech, economy, influence, prestige) goes up with consecutive conquests.

If only cores still worked like in EUII... But you can't even mod it.