[Discussion] The EUIV Dichotomy

[LiberiusX]

So, there is a lot of complaining about the usual stuff on the forum.

1) peacetime is boring
2) domestic politics are non-existant
3) Rebels still suck
4) the late game is too easy.
5) Russia is OP (entirely or too early)
6) etc. etc.

One thing that has been bugging me for a little over a month now, is that the CKII fan crowd does have a really good point. The CKII system of internal power plays, domestic intrigue, alliances by marriage etc. continued well into EUIV's time frame; so far in as to be significant that it is missing.

So, I ask myself, What story is EUIV trying to tell? Currently, it's a mishmash of different concepts, executed with different levels of success. It's supposed to be chronicling any nation's passage through, arguably, the most momentous and tumultuous era of world history; a time of discovery and rediscovery, of violent and diplomatic revolutions, and something that is missing: A time of centralization, and the resulting struggles.

I visualize the EUIV timeframe as pre-1648 and post-1648.Our worldviews are distorted by our backgrounds. I have a background in International Relations and Economics. So, unsurprisingly, the Peace at Westphalia(1648) is enormously important to me and how I view history. Paradox kind of recognizes this, as this is when(1650) the Holy War CB, and a few other features, become ineffectual.

But other, more important, things were happening at this time than the decline of papal political power. In England, over 100 years before, Henry VIII harnessed the power of Nationalism to make himself the undisputed authority in England, leading to the formation of the Anglican Church. Many Protestant princes in Germany became protestant because it gave them the authority to centralize power in their own domains, much to the chagrin of the Emperor and Pope(and Catholic bishops). I don't even need to go into all the antics Louis XIV used to centralize power around himself.

The point is, The Peace at Westphalia not only ended the Eighty Years War and the Thirty Years War, it recognized national sovereignty of states. This wasn't necessarily something that just happened overnight, and granted it was still in it infancy, but it had been a long time coming and would transform how humans view their relationship with their country. As monarchs/governments centralized power, the power of the nobility in almost every major European country declined, and the features we see in CKII disappeared with their power(granted to be replaced by other systems in some countries).

This is the story that EUIV is not telling: The decline of the nobility and the rise of sovereign nation states. Yet, this is one of the most important events in modern history.

In my opinion, 1444 should play very much like CKII. Your nobility should still have a mind of their own. They should conspire against one another, and occasionally against you. As you advance through administrative technology,(with certain government types?) their power should decline. The intra-nobility strife should be replaced by the power struggle between the nobility, the masses(merchants, artisans, non-noble landowners etc.) and the crown. Finally, in the late game, the struggle should be between the crown and the masses(early nationalist movements, Colonial and European Independence movements)

The key problem I see with this is the AI. However, CKII's AI handled domestic problems fairly well I think, so I don't think it's impossible. This is not a panacea, but I feel like it would fill in some gaps. I think It could address many of the issues that are numbered above.

This is just brainstorming intended to start discussion. I know you all won't agree with my suggestions but I would really like to hear yours in helping to flesh out the late-game and peacetime. sorry for the wall of text.

 

[Xara]

Everything you do in this game boils down to:

1. Acquiring more territory
2. Making more money so you can acquire more territory

Or else you're just not really doing anything at all. There's no gameplay involved in simply maintaining your borders. There's no 'infrastructure' apart from "do you have gold + do you have monarch points". There's no interesting choices to make with techs. Idea sets are not that balanced and oftentimes a few will be entirely useless to your nation, leading to a tendency to pick the same sets in the same order with minor changes. There's nothing internal to deal with at all, apart from minor events (which many nations don't even have)

That said... yes, the conquest side of things is robust. I've had some truly awesome games where I made up my own goal and strove for it - or attempted the achievements in place.

But I often end up feeling like a Horde nation. If I'm not actively conquering something, I'm bored. And many mechanics are in place to prevent endless conquest. And even when I do conquest, the size, scope, and opponents faced in mid to late game conquest make even that rather meh. It's "easy", but such a slog-fest that it's easy to say 'why bother'. The early game, where you are struggling to survive, acquire a few key territories, and make yourself into a relatively secure conglomerate - that's the most interesting part to me.

Rebels are absolutely @#$#ing bull@#$#@ garbage. I cannot express how much I hate having to chase a single stack of religious rebels through 8 provinces. Why do they get to retreat? Why do they do so while taking so little losses? Massively annoying.

 

[Pellaken]

I actively try to fight the EU series turning into any more of a wargame than it already is.

However, I think the CK points are interesting. Perhaps it would make more sense to have CK III, for example, run to 1492 and EU V begin in 1492

 

[unmerged(798670)]

as this is when(1650) the Holy War CB, and a few other features, become ineffectual.

What sort of glorious 1.0-1.1.3 world are you living in?

 

[mcmanusaur]

I agree with the OP's suggestions and conclusion that internal centralization is the main feature lacking in EU. I've made a few suggestions (summarized in that thread, unfortunately I've lost the thread where I originally made the suggestions) along these lines, and ultimately I think EU4 could benefit from a simple factions/estates system, a custom province administrative grouping mechanic, and expanded political/diplomatic options (more emphasis on sphere of influence, etc.). However, I'm not exactly sure which dichotomy he's describing; if he's trying to generalize the community's points of view into two camps I think that's doing things a disservice. All this said, the conquest game is sort of bare/sparse too if you look at it the right way; certainly warfare itself is slightly more exciting, but otherwise it's just waiting for truces and claim fabrication.

 

[Roelath]

I made a point earlier by making my own thread quite a while over this very fact that EUIV is missing the centralization of that era. France is shown to have many vassals to depict the lack of centralized government at the start but, that is easily rectified within a few decades of the game with no real counter to AI/Player simply annexing them.

1. The entire "Government" system is a cheap way of depicting the centralized authority of the monarchs and/or lack there of... it would be far superior to have an evolving government system dependent upon the ever shaping nation's decisions/events.

2. "Westernized" governments? Nations that never had to deal with the problems of that era are simply granted this technology boon without any effort to achieve it. Why is it that Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and various other states considered backwards? There is a complete lack of overall sense as to why they're placed below in rankings at the start of the era. Westernization should simply be the innovative thinking and centralization of the government increasing overtime rather than some arbitrary gift to playing a European power.

3. No internal factions makes centralization a joke... if you're playing as France you're centralized to the max at the very start just as several other nations are given that same power. The game needs to show factions vying to keep you decentralized, pushing you towards a republic, and preventing you from being a secular/religious independent nation. No one besides you and a few others want you to hold absolute power over your subjects... they want a piece of your kingdom for themselves.

 

[LiberiusX]

The dichotomy I had in mind: The same mechanics are used to model 2 distinctly different parts of the early modern era. I think the current mechanics could be molded in such a way so as to better represent the conflicts of each part. CKII's mechanics are still relevant for the first 200 years of the game IMO. EUIV's mechanics are satisfactory for representing the last 150 years, but could definitely use better modeling of internal politics and power struggles.

It wasn't the best name for the topic, but it's what I had in mind when I hit post.

 

[mcmanusaur]

The dichotomy I had in mind: The same mechanics are used to model 2 distinctly different parts of the early modern era. I think the current mechanics could be molded in such a way so as to better represent the conflicts of each part. CKII's mechanics are still relevant for the first 200 years of the game IMO. EUIV's mechanics are satisfactory for representing the last 150 years, but could definitely use better modeling of internal politics and power struggles.

It wasn't the best name for the topic, but it's what I had in mind when I hit post.

Oh, I gotcha. Never mind, then.

 

[Comes Imperii]

Dynasticism was still the main reason of wars still throughout the entire 18th century. Nations were much different from now, the state did not correspond to national or cultural identity (if it did so like in France or England it was a secondary element) but to the king and to the dynasty he represented. The centralisation and sate bulding efforts made by European monarchs, efforts which were more successful roughly from 1648 onwards, were meant to increase the ruler's and his dynasty's power. Rulers were state and viceversa, the dynasty was the source of authority and power for the kings; its achievements were due both to God's favour and to the venerable work of the king's ancestors and of family member.
The importance of dynasticism as a reason for war did decrease as the time went on, but it always was (at least formally) the reason for fighting. It may be difficult to accept for those who want to separate CK2 from EUIV but the EU time period was all about dynasties fighting for prominence and prestige.

 

[Minigrinch]

Bring back sliders, they made nations more unique and customisable and allowed at least some representation of centralising and westernising (aside from the actual westernising mechanic). Never understood why Paradox thought they were a feature worth removing, it's not like they were unpopular or anything.

 

[SerFishy]

My opinion is, this can also solve the problem with finding nothing to do with military points except forced march, there should be an administration tab.

There, you should be able to see important people in administration and be able to do stuff with them (like in CKII ?), such as assigning them roles or seeing your relations etc. So, 3 administration types would have different tabs: Monarchs would see their inferiors and assign them roles according to their traits or seeing their relations and being able to execute them etc. Republicans would see the competition for control among nobles or Plutocrats and do stuff to affect it, with money and maybe admin power to get the factions they want (like in Ming?). Tribals would see tribes and would do stuff with them.

This would also solve the problem: "Peace is so boring."

 

[Pilot00]

Plus on the above gentlemans post (which I agree completely), they should make some short of mechanic of investment and gain in monarch points. Its a bit silly the only two ways those critical resources are generated to be from ridiculusly expensive advisors or random chance leaders.

 

[AdmRepublic]

Very well written LiberiusX. I agree with everything, but I think EU IV is very far removed from what you are asking for. But it's true, when viewed this way, all the events that tell the story of these transformations in the game, these events seem to be of very little importance. In fact everything with nobility is just expressed as minor modifiers and no interesting nobility mechanics at all.

 

[Prodicus]

You hit the nail right on the head, man. There needs to be an expansion that makes internal politics a part of the game by simulating the trends you mentioned. I'd argue that the best way to do this is via a faction system sort of like an expanded version of Ming's.

You'd have the nobility (which could itself have five major houses as suggested in the Courts of Europe thread, at least until 1650 or so), the merchants, the clergy, and the peasants. Maybe you could add bureaucrats and the military as well as time goes on.

As you play the game, every action you do would lead to the approval or disapproval of one of these factions. For instance, ending a war where you can get more from the enemy would annoy nobles and soldiers and please merchants and clergy. Approval would give you small rewards (extra trade power for merchants, extra manpower and tax for nobles, etc.) and disapproval would greatly increase revolt risk.

At the start of the game, in feudal countries, it would be a no-brainer to please the aristocrats, as they would have the most power to overthrow you and could give you the best rewards. The intrigue and politics would thus mainly come from conflicts among the aristocracy. When 1650 comes around (it should be a gradual trend, though, that is helped by things like Protestantism, Economic/Admin ideas, etc.; maybe there should even be a general "centralization slider" that lessens the power of the nobility and makes general societal politics more important) things will become more complicated, and a nation will have to use real strategy to determine how best to advance.

This would probably be relatively simple to implement and would make great expansion material.

 

[raw]

http://www.victoria2.com/

 

[Anthropoid]

I think I must like the game a lot more than others. In fact, I'd have to say I have been loving it. Nonetheless, well said OP. I agree that the feeling of transition to nation-states doesn't come through very clearly. I'm at a loss for what I think needs to be changed though. It actually seems 'okay' as is, but agree that a bit more to bring out the transition from feudal to national politics would be swell.

 

[Canuckassassin]

Most of this stuff sounds too ambitious for an expansion. Sounds like stuff that could be in EUV, but we won't see in EUIV. All great ideas, just need to tamper our expectations a little bit.

 

[1alexey]

I disagree that nobility "declined in power". Nobility transformed from semi-independent landowners running a smaller version of kingdom, supervising serf-labourers and learning warfare and mostly formally allie to liege, to a class of bueroucrats and courtiers, mostly living in the capital and managing the state, while hired menagers oversee their possesions elsewhere, and their land is mostly rented by free pesants.

Rich landowners families, in fact had even more say in the affears of the state, since they could staff goverment structures with their loyalists, and wealth became even more concentrated. Where once were big numbers of important families, by the end there were 2-3 aside form monarch`s that mattered.

 

[Buckley]

I appreciate the OP bringing up this topic. My 2 cents:

I don't really buy into much of the "generic" complaints. I really enjoy EU IV's basic mechanics, and believe that complaints about it being "boring" or "shallow" are usually a result of not exporing some of the games nuances... and I would go further in speculating that some of the reason for this is the game doesn't just automatically allow certain aspects to work in your favor. (For example, some of the spy and diplo missions are well done IMHO.)

Another example is all the complaining about Aggressive Expansion. In my point of view, AE simply makes a person strategize for longer term play... for example... as Castile utilizing conquest in Morocco to open up the possibility of establishing cores closer to Mali before launching an aggressive campaign to subjugate west-central Africa. Fun! Other things I enjoy as is:

1. The new trade dynamic is fantastic.
2. I don't buy that peacetime is boring: 1. I like the influence game of the Curia, 2. Building up trade is great, 3. There are some really interesting diplo plays that can be explored, 4. In general it's a great relief from the tensions of war. Etc. etc.

All that said, I've always thought that the dynastic element could be made deeper. They made some great moves in that direction back in Heir to the Throne.... but I'd like to see it go even deeper. Perhaps even some sort of system like CK or Rome... if the complexity could be integrated without too much distraction from the core mechanics.

Either more dynastic depth or even more depth to the class system via events or the "houses" idea presented in another thread around here. Peasant wars, politics of noble houses, tensions between nobles and clergy... I think a few simple features could be added for a rather large return in immersiveness and flavor.

 

[Beagá]

http://www.victoria2.com/

Lol

Good to know I´m not the only one who thinks EU 4 should have tried to be a bit more than EU 3.5

EU 3 was all about war too, BTW.