Do we Really need Europa Universalis 5?

[fyfaendeluxe]

I want an EU5
The mechanics bloat from seven years of selling DLC's needs to be cleaned up.

 

[diegosimeone]

I rather EU5 have pops like Johan said he wanted and for it to absorb Victoria features. The game could be from 1444 to 1936 with start dates in 1444 (grand campaign), 1556 (Charles V abdication), 1648 (end of TYW), 1775 (American Revolution), and 1836 (Victoria start date).

If they fuse EU and Vic series into one, we'll probably have one of the most complicated games ever with over 500 years of game time.

I'd love that

 

[Battlex]

I rather EU5 have pops like Johan said he wanted and for it to absorb Victoria features. The game could be from 1444 to 1936 with start dates in 1444 (grand campaign), 1556 (Charles V abdication), 1648 (end of TYW), 1775 (American Revolution), and 1836 (Victoria start date).

Can we just get a good 18th century mechanics first please before attempting victorians

 

[cetvrtak]

Can we just get a good 18th century mechanics first please before attempting victorians

Maybe make a separate game out of the 18th century? But that's a whole other thread.

 

[WJLIII3]

It's like you have a subscription to the game instead of ownership, which is an atrocity.

A subscription you don't have to pay...

 

[cetvrtak]

A subscription you don't have to pay...

Arguably, you don't have to pay a magazine subscription as well. But then you're left with reading the old news.

 

[sterrius]

Short answer: Yes. Look at Crusader kings II vs III.

While EU4 is still a game with a lot of room for improvements.
You have mechanics you just cannot touch without breaking the whole castle of cards.

More and More DLC´s are making the game frozen solid. Too much have piled up over the years in a way its impossible for devs to touch some parts of the game. Even if they have better ideas.

If you want to Europa Universalis Series to really catch up with time (And its starting to show) and become much better in the future you need to let go of the current game and allow them to start fresh again.

A new game every 8-10 years is not a bad thing. A lot happened during that time.

Its basically the same EU III vs EU IV. EU III was a very complete game.
But EU IV is much better.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

Ideas are the only thing wich make countrys feel different once you escaped your starting position. What is a Byzantium without national ideas if you blob enough? A Ottomans wich took longer to get there and the same applies to the majority of nations without national ideas. To take even the most extreme example Ireland. If it wasnt for national ideas then every single irish minor would be redundant since they all play the same and have the same plan of conquer Ireland--->conquer Scottland--->conquer England. Now you have 0 reason to ever play any irish nation after playing one already since they all are identical in everything but name.

In a situation where England wins the 100 years war and annexes all of France.
Do you think this new Franco-English monarchy would be so worried about going all-in in the navy and distancing itself from continental affairs? Or do you think they would assume a dominant position on continental politics and military affairs? I assume the latter.

Or an hypothetical situation where the pope divides the world into Portuguese and English spheres of influence, and Castile sits out of Colonialism. Why should they get colonial-focused ideas?

Why must Prussia have inherently the best military quality? What was stopping any other country from militarizing its state?

There are always driving forces behind a nation excelling at a particular thing. Britain had a good navy because they are an island.
France pioneered a large and professional armies because they were surrounded by enemies at all times.
Sweden had good military tactics and because their small population forced them to rely on strategy over numbers.
Spain began expanding overseas to keep up with Portugal, and Portugal began doing so because expanding in Europe became impossible after Castile and Aragon united.

Now, I'm not against national ideas per say, i agree with your point of view that they make countries play out differently, and with for example eu4's limitations they are necessary.

But if eu5 has new mechanics that can more accurately simulate the political/economic position each country found itself in, then via those mechanics it should be possible to make every country play differently in a less artificial (and stereotypical) way.

 

[RobbieAB]

In a situation where England wins the 100 years war and annexes all of France.
Do you think this new Franco-English monarchy would be so worried about going all-in in the navy and distancing itself from continental affairs? Or do you think they would assume a dominant position on continental politics and military affairs? I assume the latter.

No, in that scenario England wouldn't "assume a dominant position on continental politics and military affairs", because the 100 years war wasn't a war of conquest. It was a succession war waged by the person who happened to be king of England to try and claim the throne of France: " English victory" would have resulted in a PU of the thrones, and realistically France would have ended up the senior partner, not England.

Of course the game mechanics don't really cope with any of the late mediaeval crisis (Burgundian Inheritance, Iberian Wedding, the formation of the PLC) that occur in time frame, and several of the biggest ones are railroaded by event to try and force a vaguely historic outcome. The King of England winning the 100 Years War would sit firmly in the category of not well modelled.

This mechanical weakness would be a strong argument in favour of pushing the start date later, but... If you move it post 1453 you no longer have Byzantium left on the map, which would upset a vocal part of the player base.

 

[Sapa Inca]

EU5 is inevitable and have potential to have good improvements, but I hope that before the end of EU4 development we receive updates for the regions that received almost no attention, regions like South America outsisde Andes, Sub-saharan Africa, Oceania and Scandinavia.

 

[frolix42]

I mean, do we need it? It's just a game and EU4 does EU fine.

As much as it might pain people (like me) who have spent $X00 on DLC, the lifecycle of EU4 surely is more than half over. Looking at Steamcharts, EU4 is still going strong, but eventually someone is going to look at EU4's stagnant or diminishing DLC sales and think it is time to evolve the game.

a DLC that extends EU4 up to at least 1890.

Victoria should cover 1836-1936.

IMO EU4 could be stretched to 1836, but even that would be very challenging.

Dawn of Industrialization DLC: Patch name: Greece.
Region focus: Greece, Post-Colonial New World Nations (non-native Americas)
Features: Extended Timeline, Improved Economy with early Industrialization, Nationalism and Decolonization

 

[diegosimeone]

I'd like to have the option of an earlier start date to be honest. It would allow for different great powers to emerge more often and make some current ones more difficult to manage.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

No, in that scenario England wouldn't "assume a dominant position on continental politics and military affairs", because the 100 years war wasn't a war of conquest. It was a succession war waged by the person who happened to be king of England to try and claim the throne of France: " English victory" would have resulted in a PU of the thrones, and realistically France would have ended up the senior partner, not England.

True, but what would happen in that case would be you tag-switching to France with England as a junior partner, so my example doesn't apply and the whole situation would be fixed.
You might be on to something here, there should be a way that in a situation where your junior partner has an higher total development than you, you could tag-switch to your junior partner (which would become the new senior).
But in the current game situation, where England ends up as the senior partner over France, suddenly the British Ideas stop making that much sense.

 

[masterpaul666]

while I love eu4, the trade system has been trash since day 1. The monarch power system is also kinda meh. They worked wonders with a flawed system, but it's still mediocre.
I doubt they could really fix the trade system in this game short of completly wiping the current system.

 

[frolix42]

I'd like to have the option of an earlier start date to be honest. It would allow for different great powers to emerge more often and make some current ones more difficult to manage.

A reason why 1444 is the start date, from 1399 Muscovy and the Ottomans rarely formed and consequently Russia, Turkey and the Balkans remained a balkanized mish-mash.

You're entitled to your opinion but IMO CK does the Middle-Ages better.

 

[grommile]

I rather EU5 have pops like Johan said he wanted and for it to absorb Victoria features. The game could be from 1444 to 1936

If they did that, I would be sorely tempted to buy it, play it for an hour and a half, write a hatchet-job review, and refund it.

 

[LWE]

The problem with extending the timeline is that the game is already quite long and disabling mechanics not appropriate for the era only to enable them later would lead to many inelegancies, compromises and bugs. There's such a thing as mechanical focus. Might as well proclaim that the game should eventually merge Stellaris, with colonization of other planets and xenospecies. If you go too wide in scope, you inevitably spread yourself too thin in mechanics.

Personally, I'd like a 1618 (or even 1648) -1815 game, with internal focus on the third estate, revolutionary ideologies and proto-industrialization, without neglecting the war aspect leading to a "Napoleon" arising in the grand finale. Current EU attempts it, but spreads itself too thin.

 

[Pyoro]

For now what's needed is M&T3.0

After CK3, Stellaris and Imperator I'm a bit skeptical regarding EU5 for my personal taste. I'd be worried it'd go in a direction different than what I primarily enjoy about the game. Otherwise, yeah, I'd be all for a clean EU5.0 start with all DLC seamlessly integrated and some new deeper mechanics (and no mana ^^).

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

The problem with extending the timeline is that the game is already quite long and disabling mechanics not appropriate for the era only to enable them later would lead to many inelegancies, compromises and bugs. There's such a thing as mechanical focus. Might as well proclaim that the game should eventually merge Stellaris, with colonization of other planets and xenospecies. If you go too wide in scope, you inevitably spread yourself too thin in mechanics.

Personally, I'd like a 1618 (or even 1648) -1815 game, with internal focus on the third estate, revolutionary ideologies and proto-industrialization, without neglecting the war aspect leading to a "Napoleon" arising in the grand finale. Current EU attempts it, but spreads itself too thin.

I agree with this. I don't think expanding the timeline should ever be a goal of the game.
If people believe the game ends "too fast" (which i highly doubt it, since most games end before the age of Revolutions) then i guess they could always decrease the minimum time from every day to "Morning, Evening, Night" and go deeper instead of wider.
Increasing the overall timeframe will either extremely overbloat the game mechanically or fundamentally misrepresent every epoch while trying to represent all. It's already immersion breaking enough to have Bicorn-wearing Naval-reformers in the 1400's or Plate Armor clad Engineers in the 1800's, or Musketeers being the symbol for line infantry in the 1400's, let us not agravate the problem.

If anything i belive Eu4 could be reasonably divided into 2 games: One (Lets call it... "Europa Ascensionem") still using a more "Crusader Kings" type dynastic mechanics, with a focus on levies and mercenary armies, that would go from the late middle-ages (The start of the 100 years war in 1337 should be a good choice) to the end of the war of the Holy League in 1699. This would cover an often uncovered period in history, which is the CK's High-Medieval lategame (Ck games suffer an even greater problem of late-game boredom than Eu4).
And then "Europa Universalis" proper should focus no longer on Dynasties, Levies and Mercenaris, but proper Nation-States and standing armies, thus obviously starting by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and then it could streach a bit later all the way untill Victoria's start in 1836 (or maybe all the way to the unification of Germany in 1871)

 

[diegosimeone]

A reason why 1444 is the start date, from 1399 Muscovy and the Ottomans rarely formed and consequently Russia, Turkey and the Balkans remained a balkanized mish-mash.

You're entitled to your opinion but IMO CK does the Middle-Ages better.

I guess it depends on what you rate more between replayability and historicity. Not that you get zero replayability, but the actors let's say around each save are usually the same and the strategy is pretty much standardized and the emerging powers tend to be the same in almost every save.
It's great to be a historical game but it should also allow for more alternate situations. The current starting date pretty much consolidates the strongest nations.

I guess when having access to this kind of games it would be nice to have various outcomes when it comes to high profile situations as well. Why does every save need to have the same great powers all the time? We have the ability to decide if we want lucky/random nations, which enhances either aspect. I don't think adding an earlier starting date destroys anything, it just adds another layer. It should be optional, just like jt was in EU3.

I was initially against the 1444 date honestly but I've grown to like it. But I still would prefer if I had the choice to have a start date 100-150 years back, without having to look for extended timeline mods.