Do you have ideas how to make eu4 'taller and less blobby'?

[Aquae Sulis]

It's already been said above, but there is no significant simulation in EU4 beyond agent action.

This makes for vacuous game where you wait for the next player interaction.

My suggestions:
1) Make development dynamic and competitive and use MPs to increase push/pull factors.
2) Make diplomacy with big nations harder. Franco-Austrian, or Franco-Castillian alliances are game destroying. These alliances should be framed in mutual distrust of GPs - whereas smaller nations with existential threat should have a diplomatic advantage.
3) Tie advisors to Estates (randomly - NOT admin is clergy, diplo is burghers etc.) that give significant influence boosts to their faction. Limit actions available to the player based on estates influence e.g. if the clergy rule increasing production should be more costly.
4) Estate projects: Estates need to have a fleshed out internal focus. Each estate presents projects that can be implemented for a boost but cost 'war resources' and require targets to be met.

 

[mateusarc]

Manual combat mode should be removed. You no longer engage yourself with troop movements nor will you watch and listen to battles.

My fear is that if they take the only moving pieces out of the game or even automate them the game will turn into one of those complete "spreadsheet" games, where you do nothing but adjust numbers, percentages and sliders. Some people might still enjoy that, but I bet it would lose its appeal with most of the community. We must remember that Europa Universalis was originally a board game, where the moving pieces are the central mechanic and are definitely more engaging than doing math in a calculator. Take them out and you would be better off playing with Excel, which certainly runs faster.

Let's imagine if wars were played like the Trade system: every province you have has a different "War Power", based on military development and autonomy. Every month, a general "collects" warscore based on how much "War Power" each country has, and after a few years whoever has the most warscore wins. All you do is watch everything happen on speed 5, maybe moving the general once every few years. Sounds too abstract and not fun at all? That's how Trade feels for me. That's why I suggested that other parts of the game used the same "board game" mentality if they want it to be more engaging and fun. But like I said, I don't think it can happen for EU4 anymore. Maybe we have to accept that EU4 is after all a war game instead of a history one, with total war being the only possible strategy.

 

[Procyon Lotor]

I have an idea:

Once you hit maximum manpower, the overflow goes into a counter. Once that counter fills up (by, say, accumulating overflow of 10% your max manpower) an event would fire. That event would give you either free province development and/or stability. With regards to the free province development events, they could vary, from random development in random provinces, to other events that give you some control over the what and where.

This would make long-term peace a much more interesting option, and would also encourage you to use mercs and preserve your manpower. It also makes some thematic sense, as countries that can avoid the debilitating effects of war should have a leg up on development.

Or you could allow the player to spend manpower on development, in an amount that scales with the size of the empire (i.e. a flat 30% of your maximum manpower).

I suggest this because the province development mechanic is unsatisfying, tied as it is to MP and solely to MP. I also think that manpower is an underutilized factor in this game, in that it only barely ties to the economy. I think it should tie to the economy a lot more explicitly.

Anyways, that's my .02

 

[Elin]

I think that it's the number of potential allies that should be different: more potential allies if you are small.

In EU4 you never see a group of small countries attaking a big one because the big one will automaticly CTA all his allies in defense.

Maybe instead of getting able to ally a number of countries, you should have a limit count in the number of devellopements of all your allies. You could had modifiers of course in the diplo techs to increase the limit or pay diplo points to get above the number.

Maybe you could also have a much more complex system with "strong allies" which will answer on offensive or defensive CTA and also have some "light allies" which will only answer in defense or neighbouring countries. Those "light allies" could have a -50% cost modifier in the "number of devellopments" allowed.

Big empires (like the ottos) should be a lot limited in the number of his potential allies exept if one of their rivals could form a big alliance agaisnt them. If France and Ottos became allies in the 16th centuary, it was because the habsbourg were too powerfull for them but without this threat hey would never ally.

 

[Canute VII]

Just made a thread with a proposal fro "dynamic technology cost" that may be helpful or not regarding "making EUIV taller and less blobby", although, evidently it would not solve all of the issues raised in this thread. You might want to have a look:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-technology-cost.911279/

 

[cerendil]

I have an idea:

Once you hit maximum manpower, the overflow goes into a counter. Once that counter fills up (by, say, accumulating overflow of 10% your max manpower) an event would fire. That event would give you either free province development and/or stability. With regards to the free province development events, they could vary, from random development in random provinces, to other events that give you some control over the what and where.

This would make long-term peace a much more interesting option, and would also encourage you to use mercs and preserve your manpower. It also makes some thematic sense, as countries that can avoid the debilitating effects of war should have a leg up on development.

Or you could allow the player to spend manpower on development, in an amount that scales with the size of the empire (i.e. a flat 30% of your maximum manpower).

I suggest this because the province development mechanic is unsatisfying, tied as it is to MP and solely to MP. I also think that manpower is an underutilized factor in this game, in that it only barely ties to the economy. I think it should tie to the economy a lot more explicitly.

Anyways, that's my .02

I think that's a really good idea, because it addresses two issues with being peaceful right now:
- Manpower has no effect on economy (which it absolutely should!)
- Developing your land with MP is multiple times more expensive than conquering and coring land.

This could be implemented as an event that fires based on your government rank (like a duchy may get 1 more random development in 1 county, while an empire could get 1 more random development in 5 counties), and wouldn't fire in provinces with more than X development (so you don't get Frankfurt with 100 development or something, because that would be ridiculous).

It would also keep provinces developing for large empires; for example, if I play as a colonial GB, it makes no sense that my home islands are unchanged from 1444 despite me owning a quarter of the world's trade.

Additionally on the topic of "peace is boring", well, I like games like this or Civ because I can make my country grow and be more powerful over time, either through war or peace or both. Problem is, as some have stated in this thread, peace doesn't make your country stronger in this game.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Sort diplomatic relations out, so that each relationship costs an amount proportional to:

1) The type of relationship
2) The development of the recipient.

So allying France should cost a hell of lot more than getting Military Access into a OPM. (in current metrics, it'd be something like 5.0 to ally a big France vs 0.01 for Mil Access into a OPM)

This would resolve the ease with which allies can be exploited; no more allying a gaggle of big powers, and ganking your neighbors.
It'd also get rid of the stupid ally+RM+mil access+guarantee the same dude because..... why not?! Instead you might spend a small fraction of your dip relations on strategically guaranteeing neighboring OPMs.

It'd lead to a much more interesting, and complex web of relationships that would bring much needed depth to both diplomacy and warring.

It'd also sort out vassal feeding, without having to resort to the whole LD mechanic.
The bigger you grew your vassal, the more dip rel it'd occupy.
Going over your dip rel limit would be possible, but would have something bad happen; perhaps global -ive opinion modifiers, rng diplomatic events etc etc.

In fact, there's a whole host of stupidly convoluted* & overly complex mechanics that could be stripped out if dip relations were rationalized.

*You wouldn't need CNs & protectorates to be considered 'special snowflakes' that don't occupy a dip relationship - instead you could actually balance them using their dip relationship cost.

 

[keynes2.0]

So allying France should cost a hell of lot more than getting Military Access into a OPM.

Good idea.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

New poster, and I feel the need to comment after reading a lot of suggestions about ways to make the game "less blobby" over the past few days.

How about you don't make the game "less blobby," because some of us (and by that I mean me) like it that way. Most of the suggestions I see on this forum regarding changes to encourage "tall" playstyles are things like "don't let players benefit from taking lots of territory" or "make it even longer/harder to obtain cores" - stuff that's designed to punish me for playing the game the way I enjoy in order to try and get me to play it the way somebody else enjoys (or wants to enjoy) playing it. I also see some suggestions of "implement X feature from Victoria II or CKII" - I've played CKII and I like it, but there's a reason I play EUIV more and it has a lot to do with the fact that there is a greater focus on simply conquering as much land as you can get your grubby hands on. If you want features such as being restricted to only conquering the 1-4 province war goal with most CBs, not being able to fabricate claims except by random chance, or receiving only 25% of the possible soldiers from land outside your De Jure empire, you can play CKII where they are already implemented. Please don't introduce them into EUIV, as I play EUIV to avoid those features.

I'd much rather a "tall" playstyle were encouraged by adding features to the game that a player can choose to take advantage of if they don't want to blob rather than by imposing restrictions on those of us who want to play "wide." They seem to have moved a little bit in this direction with development, except that a "wide" country can then just conquer you after you develop your provinces and spend less to core them than you did to develop them. The change to the fort system also made staying at peace more viable, since you can't really get up to and stay at 90+ army tradition from capturing hundreds of forts in near-constant warfare (well, I can't at least), meaning it's more viable to remain at peace for long periods. I'm not really sure what else they could add in this direction, though.

I'm also surprised to hear that "the general consensus seems to be that once you've out-blobbed your rivals the fun peters out." Yes, I've enjoyed fighting wars where I actually have to take loans to beat the enemy, but part of the fun of fighting those wars for me is that I eventually grow my country to the point where I don't have to fight them any more. Once I've out-blobbed my rivals the fun becomes figuring out how I can fulfill whatever long-term goals I set for myself in the campaign and seeing what silly stuff the AI ends up doing. I even find wars against large but relatively weaker powers to be entertaining - the entertainment comes not from trying to figure out how to win, but how to win the war in the most effective manner. To be honest I wouldn't like it if the game were changed so that it was no longer possible to out-blob your rivals, because the AI is rather fickle and untrustworthy.

I think that ultimately, it might just be important for them to add in features that make remaining at peace or "playing tall" more entertaining rather than more powerful. By the same token, maybe people should accept that "playing tall" is simply a different playstyle that doesn't necessarily need to result in a country that's as powerful as one that expands aggressively. It's certainly possible to survive to 1821 without expanding a whole lot - back before development was introduced I did a successful Sweden game where I didn't expand outside of Scandanavia, and I had a competitively sized army for pretty much the entire game. I can only imagine it is easier now.

It sounds like you want a military-focused Victoria.

There are issues with blobbing that exist because even Napoleonic armies couldn't accomplish some of what happens in-game, e.g. Portugal and Spain conquering Africa, China and India conquering across the Himalayas, etc.

There's nothing wrong with playing the game how you want to play it, but that doesn't mean that plausibility should be thrown out the window. There should still be restrictions on what was clearly impossible for nations to do during the time period.

 

[Shimohi]

I just leave these things here:
coring wrong culture should cost more points
having wrong culture in your country should hurt your country
being at war should hurt your economy

 

[asdfsda]

It sounds like you want a military-focused Victoria.

There are issues with blobbing that exist because even Napoleonic armies couldn't accomplish some of what happens in-game, e.g. Portugal and Spain conquering Africa, China and India conquering across the Himalayas, etc.

There's nothing wrong with playing the game how you want to play it, but that doesn't mean that plausibility should be thrown out the window. There should still be restrictions on what was clearly impossible for nations to do during the time period.

I don't know whether or not I want a "military-focused Victoria" because I haven't played Victoria - what I do know is that I want to be able to expand in ways that the country I'm playing didn't do historically, and that I want a game that's relatively similar to EUIV as it currently is, but possibly with improved AI. Anyway, not being able to conquer Africa or Tibet isn't the same as not being able to blob at all or not being able to expand outside of boundaries a country achieved historically- I don't know why you're bringing those issues up.

The trouble with "it's ahistorical!" as an argument is that I (and I expect a fair number of other players) don't actually know whether or not it's realistic for Spain and Portugal to be able to conquer Africa or whatever else. I'm not going to debate you that it is or isn't possible because I honestly have no clue, but I'm not going to believe they couldn't just because you said so...or because Paradox makes it impossible to do in EUIV. The other trouble with it for me specifically is that while I appreciate some degree of "historical accuracy," when it comes down to it I don't really care whether the game is ahistorical or not. It's abundantly clear to me that it isn't 100% historically accurate and that they aren't aiming for 100% historical accuracy, and what matters to me is that I am entertained by playing it. If I want to know about what actually happened to the countries in the game (or whether or not they're real - see the Hansa, which isn't a real country but was in the game up to version 1.14 I think) I can just read about them.

And if you think Europeans shouldn't be allowed to conquer Africa then Africa (or maybe Europe, but then they'd have to change the name of the game) shouldn't be in the game. From a gameplay standpoint having countries that you aren't allowed to conquer if you don't pick the right country at the start of the game, but that are allowed to conquer you, is annoying.

This is a really fair point. I think EU IV is paradox's most popular game by a fairly large margin. People obviously like a lot about it. Of course I disagree, but we do still have the older games (not to mention Victoria). Don't want to ruin anyone else's fun either.

I think the key is to find a way to let blobbers blob, but also make not blobbing a perfectly viable strategy that has its own benefits.

I don't think blobbing needs to be impossible (nor do I think that paradox's current approach of making it an ever increasing hassle is correct). I just think blobbing or staying like a small Italian state should be a choice - both should have their (different) advantages and disadvantages.

The problem is that that right now, while blobbing can put more of a burden on the player, it is still almost always the best long term strategy.

Part of the point I was trying to make is that not blobbing IS a viable strategy, even if it results in your country being weaker than if you blob. Why should remaining a 3 province minor allow you to have a military that's as powerful as a continent-spanning empire?

Although I guess the "advantage" of being small could be something like facing fewer administrative problems, but then that means you're turning the game into something more like CKII, and part of the reason I play EUIV more frequently than CKII is because I don't want to have to pay attention to the opinion of a million vassals.

At any rate, I thought the appeal of not blobbing was precisely the fact that you don't end up becoming super-powerful. Certainly that seems to be the case for the OP. But if that's the case I don't understand the desire to make not blobbing stronger.

 

[keynes2.0]

The trouble with "it's ahistorical!" as an argument is that I (and I expect a fair number of other players) don't actually know whether or not it's realistic for Spain and Portugal to be able to conquer Africa or whatever else.

It's not just whether they could have. If they could have it would have been a MASSIVE money sink and left them impoverished and weak to any outside invade who cut a deal with the constant rebels. In game the territory is loyal and gives them revenue.

 

[Lee Saxon]

I think they're trapped by the historical starts.

As OP mentions Paradox has come up with various mechanics to make blobbing more difficult. The idea has been to make "wide" less attractive and encourage more "tall" play. But since there aren't really many "tall" options (Development isn't within a light year of as deep as I hoped when I shelled out for Common Sense), that hasn't happened. The result, instead, is that people have kept playing "wide" but have had a more grind-y, game-y, less fun time of it.

But as I said I think we're stuck with that because of historical starts. They are so unbalanced that even if there were more robust "tall" mechanics, it's unlikely they'd be truly viable. There is no amount of Development which Milan or Provence can spend which will allow them to stand up to France, for example. They have to expand.

"Historical" RTS games deal with this by not actually being historical. They toss out the historical starts and outcomes, and balance the playable factions fairly. All that's historical about them really is the art for the settings, characters, units, etc. Now, Europa Universalis is hardly an accurate replay of historical events, but tossing history out all together is obviously not right for this game.

Civilization 5 also tossed out the historical starts and outcomes for balance. But, they added an interesting thought: make the minor nations non-playable characters ("city-states") with simplified mechanics. That might be more viable within EU's raison detre, though I doubt many of us would like it.

So no, none of the solutions employed by wargames give us what we're looking for. What's the solution? It was mentioned on the very first page of this thread: stop being just a wargame. It's not just that we lack "tall" mechanics, it's that we lack peacetime mechanics. In other words, the only ways Milan is ever going to beat France are (1) by playing "wide" / blobbing to compete on manpower or (2) by some non-military metric which doesn't currently exist in the EU universe.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

I don't know whether or not I want a "military-focused Victoria" because I haven't played Victoria - what I do know is that I want to be able to expand in ways that the country I'm playing didn't do historically, and that I want a game that's relatively similar to EUIV as it currently is, but possibly with improved AI. Anyway, not being able to conquer Africa or Tibet isn't the same as not being able to blob at all or not being able to expand outside of boundaries a country achieved historically- I don't know why you're bringing those issues up.

You said that you didn't mind blobbing. I gave you a couple examples of blobbing that made zero sense.

The trouble with "it's ahistorical!" as an argument is that I (and I expect a fair number of other players) don't actually know whether or not it's realistic for Spain and Portugal to be able to conquer Africa or whatever else. I'm not going to debate you that it is or isn't possible because I honestly have no clue, but I'm not going to believe they couldn't just because you said so...or because Paradox makes it impossible to do in EUIV. The other trouble with it for me specifically is that while I appreciate some degree of "historical accuracy," when it comes down to it I don't really care whether the game is ahistorical or not. It's abundantly clear to me that it isn't 100% historically accurate and that they aren't aiming for 100% historical accuracy, and what matters to me is that I am entertained by playing it. If I want to know about what actually happened to the countries in the game (or whether or not they're real - see the Hansa, which isn't a real country but was in the game up to version 1.14 I think) I can just read about them.

That's fair.

But the game is advertised as a historical grand strategy game with "unparalleled freedom, depth, and historical accuracy" according to its Steam page.

You also don't need to look at history to understand that sending thousands of people into the Sahara would probably end up with them dying.

And if you think Europeans shouldn't be allowed to conquer Africa then Africa (or maybe Europe, but then they'd have to change the name of the game) shouldn't be in the game. From a gameplay standpoint having countries that you aren't allowed to conquer if you don't pick the right country at the start of the game, but that are allowed to conquer you, is annoying.

The game is called Europa Universalis because it's named after a board game where you played a European power.

Also, nobody is calling for outright bans on who you can conquer as much as "This place should be such a money/manpower sink that conquering it should not be something that people do."

Part of the point I was trying to make is that not blobbing IS a viable strategy, even if it results in your country being weaker than if you blob. Why should remaining a 3 province minor allow you to have a military that's as powerful as a continent-spanning empire?

Nobody says this, but continent-spanning empires should definitely suffer from diminishing returns.

At any rate, I thought the appeal of not blobbing was precisely the fact that you don't end up becoming super-powerful. Certainly that seems to be the case for the OP. But if that's the case I don't understand the desire to make not blobbing stronger.

It's not about making tall stronger as much as it's about making wide weaker.

 

[Pro]

The problem with punishing conquest, or making it less rewarding, is that there is pretty much nothing else to do in the game. Without adding anything else the only result is that people are going to be doing the same things more slowly and with less reward.

 

[Freudia]

But the game is advertised as a historical grand strategy game with "unparalleled freedom, depth, and historical accuracy" according to its Steam page.

You also don't need to look at history to understand that sending thousands of people into the Sahara would probably end up with them dying.

I hate this advertising. You can't have a game that simultaneously promotes unparalleled freedom and historical accuracy if you actually intend for both of them to be in your game. They go against each other. If I'm playing Milan and I have the freedom to conquer France, that goes against historical accuracy. If I'm playing Byzantium and I can't defend against the Ottomans and eventually reconquer my land (as that would be historically accurate in 1444), then that goes against unparalleled freedom.

They're mutually exclusive ideas.

You could argue that you could have historical accuracy only in its mechanics, but Paradox has been making every stride possible to make that not the case, ever since like 1.2 when they started nerfing your ability to diplomatically vassalize nations. There're a whole slew of mechanics that exist in place right now that make the game neither about unparalleled freedom nor historical accuracy, and we both know how 'deep' the game is...

 

[Przemyshaw]

A bit abandoned aspect of ruling a country in eu iv are internal laws.
Something like passing higher taxes which cause slower manpower regeneration and smaller production. Lowering them ect.
Focusing on serfdom or not.
Investing monthly income in country (somewhere the is always a part of your land that suffers floods, villages that starve, burned cities that require restoration) but not spending that money would cause bigger unrest and could lead to something like overthrow current government form (revolution in France is an example)
I would make that as a few sliders like technology in eu iii or a bunch skill trees.

 

[grommile]

coring wrong culture should cost more points

Humanist Ideas do not need a buff. (Oh, and increasing typical coring costs hurts the AI worse than it hurts the player, and one of the places people are most prone to complain about AI blobbing is the HRE where basically everyone is one or other flavour of German.)

having wrong culture in your country should hurt your country

Already effectively the case. A culturally homogeneous country is stronger than a country of the same total development with lots of non-accepted-culture provinces.

being at war should hurt your economy

Being at war does hurt your economy if you aren't just steamrolling much weaker opponents, because you need to run your army at full maintenance and pay reinforcement fees to cover your casualties.

 

[Fulmen]

I feel like there should be a bonus to Admin and Diplomatic monarch points during peace and a malus while at war. On the flipside, there should be a bonus to military points at war and penalty while at peace.

This would just give more incentive to people to stay at war, leading to imbalance and more house rules to avoid exploits.

Especially true in multiplayer where everyone has to spam military ideas in order to stay alive.

 

[JagLover]

I picked up Vic 2 in a steam sale and am rather disappointed as the whole thing seems very poor at modelling its supposed plus point of economic development and mostly seems to be about subsidising idiot capitalists who have built factories in the wrong place at a period in history when the state had little beyond an army, navy and central civil service.

However a dynamic population system, as in Vic 2, is IMO the missing going tall game in EU IV. You would have an incentive to avoid war to the extent it reached your lands as prolonged war could cause damage to population levels that last generations.

Combine that with a better trade system that has dynamic trade flows, changes in trade goods and builds in international relations and you have genuine peace time mechanics rather than tick box game play.

I would not recommend bringing in most of the Vic 2 economics and hopefully they rework it all for Vic 3. This timeframe isn't the 1970s, the state isn't deciding where to build factories or which factories to subsidise.