Deep analysis and discussion - is Karma system imbalanced?

[neondt]

Two more partial solutions:
1) Swap the penalties for high and low karma around. As it stands, you get worse at war for fighting wars, and worse at diplomacy for being peaceful. This contradicts a lot of other game mechanics. Instead of forcing you to use a "balanced" approach, it causes you to always be losing out on something, such as army tradition, even if you keep karma around 0.
2) Reset karma to 0 on ruler death. Not 25% closer to 0. Zero.

Though to be honest it seems like the goal here is to make the system as irrelevant as possible, which touches on what I think the real problem is; the mechanic is fundamentally not fun. I would have liked to see something like Protestant Church Aspects for the Buddhist sects, with selectable bonuses (some of which would be locked to different cultures or sects) based on historical and religious facts rather than a highly abstract and uninspired "karma" system that punished the player no matter what they do.

And yes, Buddist countries did ivade other Buddists as well as no-Buddist, and Karma of the leaders and fighters went into a great minus.

Ah yes, I remember how Bayinnaung, after creating the greatest empire South-East Asia has ever known through a series of bloodly conquests, was relentlessly condemned as un-Buddhist by monks and peasants alike. Oh wait, that didn't happen.

Buddhist conquerors were not seen negatively. If they were successful, and if they used the spoils of war to promote the faith, they were as revered as they were in every other religion.

 

[YuriiH]

Reset karma to 0 on ruler death. Not 25% closer to 0. Zero.

That would be the best option, because how can a child (heir) bear the minus Karma load of his warmongering father? Parent and child are two different entities that are born with the Karma of their previous beings—and those previous beings are not connected to parents: they could even be a dog or a butterfly.
'Father's sins' that haunt a son is more suitable for Christian or Muslim religions.
Besides, Buddists have no such concept as 'Karma of the country' .

In order to outweight constant warmongering with reseting, having -75% to -100% Karma would double the AE

 

[PeterCorless]

I've been playing Ceylon, and I've been at about -70 to -100 karma most of the game. Even when I give myself decades away from war to convert lands and burn off revolt risk, karma significantly lags behind. And, as soon as you go back to war, you're in the toilet again.

I have not been "gaming" the system of releasing vassals just to swallow them later by diploannexation. I have spent probably a four-digit figure in total battling to try to get back to -25 to 25 karma the whole game -- which hasn't happened -- but it is just a way to really avoid the worst of karma zones, where you start to get events like your advisors quitting and bandits that appear to cause autonomy.

I'd agree generally you want to have peace return you towards zero, like getting rid of war exhaustion. As it stands, unless you start releasing vassals "just because" to game the system, it's definitely a game-long religion malus.

Seems like whoever invented the system didn't really playtest it.

 

[gromal]

Diploannexing for Passive expansion is not "gaming" the system, especially as a Passive religion that rewards you for remaining passive.

I finished the White Elephant achieve and had to declare wars to lose karma more often than i was ever hit with the negative.

When hit with the negative bad i just declared on a nation that had lots of land to return to owners and was back in business even after keeping a few wealthy ones for myself.

Just because you may have the negative effects doesnt mean your allies or vassels do too.

 

[Dakilla TM]

I really like your suggestions! Hopefully PDox will implement some! I stopped my Dai Viet game because there were very few chances for me to get Karma back to zero or positive.

 

[bbqftw]

Buddhism has serious penalties for not jumping through hoops - in a vacuum, this is okay game design.

However, the problem arises when two of the games best religions are generally close by and quite easy to switch into - Sunni (which is excellent, as good as the best Christian denominations imo) and Hindu (solid religion). Both of which have powerful on demand bonuses (Sunni played decently can keep at max piety all the time, and Hindu deity bonus is extremely flexible especially if you're lucky enough to run religious first --> revolutionary spawn), and Hindu has probably the best event slate of any religion in the game. Incidentally, the main issue with Hindu - somewhat lackluster missionary strength - is actually nicely complemented by taking the two Buddhist missionary strength decisions and switching.

Neither of these two religions have substantial penalties for misplay.

Again, this is fine - Inti and Nahuatl similarly have pretty awful penalties for misplaying, however they make it up with a pretty incredible set of reforms. Given that you have to do a lot of things to keep Karma at a non-crippling level, if you want to keep the penalties the same, the bonuses should be toned up drastically, something like +2 diplo rep and +10% discipline would not be too out of whack.

Diploannexing for Passive expansion is not "gaming" the system, especially as a Passive religion that rewards you for remaining passive.

Besides the New World religions, there really aren't any other cases where losing gigantic amount of diplo is required to not get a penalty, and in the New World cases, reforming makes the diplo loss moot anyways.

If the achievement didn't require it, I would suggest converting to Sunni / Hindu ASAP for Ayutthaya, and from a gameplay basis who can really dispute that?

 

[ThatGuyYouKnow1]

I've been playing Ceylon, and I've been at about -70 to -100 karma most of the game. Even when I give myself decades away from war to convert lands and burn off revolt risk, karma significantly lags behind. And, as soon as you go back to war, you're in the toilet again.

Same for me when I was playing as the Korchin Horde. The beginning of the game is ok, but when you start getting past 1550 or 1525, the karma rarely gets back over -25%. There needs to be another way to gain karma or when the king/queen dies you go back to 0

 

[TheAtreides84]

I am under the impression that the buddhist karma meter is just a placeholder while we wait for the asian-focused expansion in the making. And it's a pretty bad placeholder, I agree.

 

[Tacticus101]

I am under the impression that the buddhist karma meter is just a placeholder while we wait for the asian-focused expansion in the making. And it's a pretty bad placeholder, I agree.

The Karma system is fine, it is just unbalanced if you want to expand or start as a small nation because there are no easy ways to regain karma, but it is very easy to lose it.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Are we talking about Christianity? It seems no. Please, don't confuse Christianity and Buddism—these are far too different concepts of life and human position in the Universe—or you'll be acting as Christian missionaires who speak the other theologic language with most Eastern religions.

In short about war:
Christianity is all about serving the Lord; this 'serving the Lord' allowed the clerics to find a way many 'but' and 'however' to wage wars in His name against the commandment 'not to kill'. Moreover, for the above reason, Christianity allowed confession which almost immediately makes your soul transparent despite you have been slaying thousands of women and children.

Buddism is about selfimprovement in order to become even more self-improved in the following life. Self-improvement in its best is to be beyond the affairs of the surrounding world.
And it does not take a relaxed look on waging wars, because there is no theologic name to fight for. Fighting (read as Anger) as well as Pride and Ignorance (in Buddists' sense) are minus Karma in any way whether you think you are doing the right thing or a bad one.
And yes, Buddist countries did ivade other Buddists as well as no-Buddist, and Karma of the leaders and fighters went into a great minus.

Theoretically, yes, this is the popular view on the two religions. But in EUIV we have state religions, not individual creeds. And Buddhism as a state religion was as militant as they come (sohei, ikko-ikki and the like)

 

[Tweakee]

I played an Ayuthaya run, and after paying attention to the system briefly, I realized I was just going to be at -100% no matter what, so I ignored it entirely. You can't even go below 100% discipline, so the penalty just means to not go for +Discipline elsewhere and there's no penalty at all.

Basically, my game may as well have been as an Atheist nation.

 

[YuriiH]

And Buddhism as a state religion was as militant as they come

I don't think it is Buddism that was militant, but people that claimed to confess Buddism were indeed.
In this case, it is very similar to Christianity, it is not the religion that was militant (Crusades, witch hunt, jesuits), but rather people who adjusted the theologic rules to their needs. Besides, almost the same could be told about Islam.
However, I do not remember that Buddists have ever told ''we're killing part of this people to make them Buddists' (unlike Christians / Muslims). Here, I may be mistaken and such stupidity may have taken place…

 

[PeterCorless]

Regardless of the "reasoning" all I can say is that for the "late game" -- 1650+ -- it sucks to be Buddhist with that malus. I also find it ironic that most other religions have a bonus from their religion. You know. something *good*. Buddhism only gets a *conditional* goodness, which is the rare case, and generally gets a big malus either way.

Stop griefing religions, Paradox.

Edit 1: As soon as I got into my first major 1650+ war, I stopped playing when I saw a 20k stack just wiped in a standing battle, even before reinforcements could arrive from an adjacent province. Meh.

Edit 2: Yes, it probably would be better to have the battle malus for being at extra-long peace, and the diplo malus for being at war constantly. At least then you've have earned your "bad boy" status.

I also think that the capacity to "move" the slider should likely be decreased DRAMATICALLY. Just going to "normal" wars at a regular clip should not be pegging you at -100%. At peace, there should be a drift back towards "balance" in the center.

As far as what should drive things too positive... I have no idea. I didn't make this mechanic up. But maybe stab +'s might increase it?

 

[moscal]

Theoretically, yes, this is the popular view on the two religions. But in EUIV we have state religions, not individual creeds. And Buddhism as a state religion was as militant as they come (sohei, ikko-ikki and the like)

If so - why the Muslim religion is reduced after the death of the ruler?

 

[Von Consul]

I've not yet played a Buddhist nation but it does strike me as interesting the nature of this discussion.

The crux is how easy it is to lose karma and hard to gain it. People think it should be even. This is very western in thinking.

Buddhist teachings tend to have few 'ladders' up karma and many 'snakes' down. As discussed here (Extra Credits - snakes and ladders) (assuming I made the link right)

Not to say it can't use balance tweaking, seems like some well reasoned ideas here. Just a curious point of culture differences.

 

[PeterCorless]

There are also many ways to sin and go to hell in Christianity, and a hard life of good thoughts, words, and deeds to get to heaven. Come on. This is not just about the ideals of the religion. It's "does this make a nation gimped because of a design decision in which we went too far."

 

[Krajzen]

40 likes 0 dislikes, pdox pls