Determinism in EUIV

[wilcoxchar]

The one final big concern for me is NIs that actually give unique mechanics to specific nations. For example:
Inter Caetera: Allows claiming of colonies

How exactly do you balance this with other nations, when as of yet, I haven't seen any other NIs that do anything other then just give numerical bonuses to specific things.

Russian cultured countries also have one.
Siberian Frontier: +1 colonist, and auto-exploration of all territory adjacent to owned home territory.

And "allow claiming of colonies" is a very vague statement. We know next to nothing about what this means in terms of mechanics since there hasn't been a colonization DD yet. It could mean that Castile/Spain gets the 'claim colony' action that was in EU3, or it could mean something else entirely. It would be best to wait and see what it actually is before passing judgement on it.

 

[Featauril]

I doubt it will be entirely game changing. It will probably be similar to EU3 - colonies are either drains on your treasury that could go under at any moment, or they are entirely self-sufficient cities whose only difference with mainland provinces is the fact that their production counts as tariffs.

 

[Vishaing]

My guess is it will give them Free CBs to seize colonies, which given the changes to the badboy System will probably just mean they can declare war to seize colonies without incurring a Stability Hit, but countries will still react to them doing this the same, Maybe Catholic countries will be a bit more forgiving.

 

[Richard Dolder]

Is there really need for some special mechanic promoting rise of medium powers? After all, in EU4 monarchs are very important, and their stats are totally random. We can't really say anything for certain, but I think that it should be enough,

I highly doubt it, small/medium powers coming up to become great powers and fighting above their weight class is one of those things that is 100% all the time sort of thing in real history, just which country is doing that isn't consistent that someone is doing that is.
String of lucky monarchs is unlikely to fully represent that since great powers can get good monarchs as well. Especially when those new young powers tend to keep at it for a time beyond one or two monarchs lifespans.

and if you remove deterministic bonuses, game's environment would be dynamic enough.

So all countries will have the same starting positions as far as tax/manpower/cores/etc.? (No, that would be awful)
All of those are deterministic bonuses as well.

Most of the detirminism in EU3 is based on the inability of minor powers to meaningfully compete with major powers, and no ability for major powers to meaningfully stagnate.
In history great powers will fall, and lesser powers will rise, the only question being which powers at a given time. None of the mechanics of the series really push for those two things to happen and indeed do the opposite.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

So all countries will have the same starting positions as far as tax/manpower/cores/etc.? (No, that would be awful)
All of those are deterministic bonuses as well.

Hell, no. There's big distinction between accurate, and realistic starting setup and deterministic bonuses like NIs.

Most of the detirminism in EU3 is based on the inability of minor powers to meaningfully compete with major powers, and no ability for major powers to meaningfully stagnate.
In history great powers will fall, and lesser powers will rise, the only question being which powers at a given time. None of the mechanics of the series really push for those two things to happen and indeed do the opposite.

Yeah - but it seems that devs took care about snowball effect, so huge empires may indeed stagnate in EU4. Which is very promising.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I did suggest a tradition mechanic that slowly causes stagnation in nations that avoid reforms, innovation, or trading with innovative neighbors. It would also make a lot of sense that nations that overextend would suffer those ill effects faster and faster the more they do so, and they'd need to reform to remove them.