Estates feel like too much Micromanagement

[Mztr44]

So, i've been playing a game as the Teutonic Order for the past 4 or 5 hours and the one thing that I can't wrap my head around is how much micromanagement and babying i'm doing in regards to the new Estates content. Conquer a new province? Oh crap, Clergy is whining that they don't have enough land.

Got an event pop up that alters influence of an Estate? Better pause the game and open up the estate window so I make sure the Burghers don't go over 80% and gain control because the penalty for letting them do so is so extreme. If that penalty isn't bad enough, get ready to take two more to remove it. In order to enact the decision you are pretty much railroaded into removing land from them which causes them to give you low loyalty maluses. Then you have to take a -3 stab hit and lose development in your capital by enacting the decision.

One possible helpful solution (and maybe it's there already and i'm just not seeing it), would be to give the player feedback when looking at a province they want to own and how taking control of it would affect their own estates. For example, i'm looking at Stolp. Sure I can see that it's controlled by the Nobility and how it affects Pomerania's Estates...but what if I take it from them? How will it change MY nation's dynamics.

Otherwise, i'm still having fun playing, hope the feedback is helpful/useful and other people have their own insights into it.

p.s. BTW, Papal Influence for TO is redonkulous now with loyal clergy giving so much extra. Love having Holy War, Ursury and Church tax all running simultaneously within the first 50 years.

 

[zeredek]

The disloyalty maluses aren't that great, so you could just have everyone small and hating you

 

[User4035]

What is this Estates? Have they forgotten rule by divine right? Just remind them of who is king and take ALL their lands from them. Send in the troops if they don't like it.

 

[Gaamel]

The estates are too good to be ignored. Half price lvl 3 advisors and 3*150 MP every 20 years is just massive...

 

[Mztr44]

Exactly, Gaamel. Not to mention, i'm missing out on 22% trade efficiency by not having the Burgher's at least 30% loyal. Which brings up what is apparently a bug for Theocracies and choosing new Heir. Picking a Merchant's Son adds to Clergy loyalty when it seems like it should be adding to the Burghers...

Even if keeping the different estates small and pretending they dont exist, it just means constant upkeep (more micro) after every war of going through and removing their lands.

 

[ariantes]

How about 3x 100 MP every 20 years, plus lots of gold every 10 years, plus 5 big ships every 30 years? Eh, I really like the estates

 

[Peachrocks]

I'm playing as Morocco and I got a lot of events that gave the Emirs 10% influence. I love manpower recovery sure, but seriously their influence got too problematic and there was no way to kerb it without killing loyalty, even at the cost of monarch points or prestige or anything... so I simply removed them from all my provinces and ate the 5% penatly on manpower recovery. Haven't had problems with the other 3 yet but my first assessment is this isn't a great mechanic.

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

The problem as I see it is there are events that exist which just give you +influence with no loyalty to go with it and no second options. You're forced to eat that influence hit and ruin the perfect balancing you had to do to get it where you wanted it to be.

 

[Mztr44]

The problem as I see it is there are events that exist which just give you +influence with no loyalty to go with it and no second options. You're forced to eat that influence hit and ruin the perfect balancing you had to do to get it where you wanted it to be.

Yes, and while there are options to pump and dump loyalty, there are no options to pump and dump influence except, it seems, by revoking provinces.

 

[grandadmiralbob]

......we wanted more internal politics

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

Yes, and while there are options to pump and dump loyalty, there are no options to pump and dump influence except, it seems, by revoking provinces.

Which revoking provinces also tanks loyalty to the point where you'd have to give up a ludicrous amount of get it back up to 'normal'. Just played as England in a mp with friends today, and I was basically forced to revoke all clergy land because I couldn't afford to pay 100 ducats a pop to increase loyalty by 10 without increasing influence (which I needed to lower)

It did give a neat little image in my head though, where my army was marching across the countryside, stopping at each church and revoking their holdings along the way, by force.

 

[theKLR]

......we wanted more internal politics

Yep. I dont think its too much, i hoped it would be more tbh. But less random from events..

 

[GC13]

......we wanted more internal politics

And internal politics are good.

I'm iffy about the idea of representing influence by assigning provinces though, and it sounds like the Estate system is heavily dependent on events to shake things up. Maybe in EU5 they can be baked into the core of the game rather than tacked on, and the weakening of the estates can be a primary goal of the player as they strive to centralize their nation over the centuries.

 

[Peachrocks]

The problem isn't micromanagement, it's the complete lack of control or really being able to take advantage of the mechanic. The best way to use it is to ignore it and then eat a penalty if it becomes a problem.

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

And internal politics are good.I'm iffy about the idea of representing influence by assigning provinces though, and it sounds like the Estate system is heavily dependent on events to shake things up. Maybe in EU5 they can be baked into the core of the game rather than tacked on, and the weakening of the estates can be a primary goal of the player as they strive to centralize their nation over the centuries.

The problem isn't micromanagement, it's the complete lack of control or really being able to take advantage of the mechanic. The best way to use it is to ignore it and then eat a penalty if it becomes a problem.

These two posts have hit the nail right on the head. It feels a lot like how republican tradition was implemented. Seems straightforward enough and hey, maybe you'll actually be able to juggle this if you figure out a good balance, but OOPS sorry here's 5 events that completely screw up any semblance of balance you thought you could enact over the mechanic.

 

[Tijean]

Has a hordre, once they get a 60% base influence the system is totaly crap. You got a bad event you are screw and have to get rid of all your estate. It happen to me twice and the last time It was total over for me.

 

[in heaven]

These two posts have hit the nail right on the head. It feels a lot like how republican tradition was implemented. Seems straightforward enough and hey, maybe you'll actually be able to juggle this if you figure out a good balance, but OOPS sorry here's 5 events that completely screw up any semblance of balance you thought you could enact over the mechanic.

But events have enough of options for either rising or reducing influence. Its not like "here is event giving more influence to burghers and there is no other option".

It shouldn't be easy to figure out a good balance because then whats the point of mechanic if you can figure out good balance. In 1444, you just put estates into best possible balance and play as if they were not in the game with free bonuses right?

 

[Mztr44]

......we wanted more internal politics

Not me. I just play whatever they put out. Honestly, my intent isn't to complain, but to bring attention where there may be tweaks needed to balance/streamline or whatever. Or maybe we're just doing it all wrong and everything is working fine.

The problem isn't micromanagement, it's the complete lack of control or really being able to take advantage of the mechanic. The best way to use it is to ignore it and then eat a penalty if it becomes a problem.

I think some degree of "not being in control" is to be expected. I still consider it a micromanagement issue when I have to research all my estate positions whenever an event pops up and then fiddle around with figuring out what tweaks I need to make to get things in at least a semi-happy balance again. In other words, I should be able to determine a course of action regarding an event pop up within a reasonable amount of time without having to do in-depth research to make a reasonably good decision. As it is now, you have to consider whether a previous influence event is going to expire and bump your influence too high, which means having to overcorrect by revoking provinces.

And maybe the issue isn't any of that at all. The 80% influence line is pretty black and white, if you exceed it you have about 4 years to fix it or you're screwed. Once you're below that 80% mark everything is hunky dory again. Maybe if it was changed to something like 70-74= .5 per month disaster ticks, 75-79= 1 per month ticks, 80-84= 1.5 per month ticks and so on. Thus removing the feeling to need to react NOW whenever the 80% mark is hit.

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

But events have enough of options for either rising or reducing influence. Its not like "here is event giving more influence to burghers and there is no other option".

Except... that's exactly what's happening. Within the first 20 years of playing I got an event that added /20/ influence to Burghers with only one option. No choice. Just suck. And to top it off, you need 60+ influence for some estates options. So this event WILL put you over 80 if you try to use them.

Not to mention how conquering land doesn't remove existing estates from the land. My first problem cropped up when I conquered 3 provinces and found out that oops, looks like Castile had Clergy x3 on those. That puts you over 80 influence. No way to find that out beforehand. Just more 'lack of control' attached to the system. I don't even have a problem with the /idea/ of estates carrying over on conquest, just the fact that it can so easily screw you with no warning, no indication that there's something going on behind the scenes of a peacedeal you should be paying attention to.

 

[Trin Tragula]

The problem as I see it is there are events that exist which just give you +influence with no loyalty to go with it and no second options. You're forced to eat that influence hit and ruin the perfect balancing you had to do to get it where you wanted it to be.

Every estate has one of these events that add 10 or less likely 20 influence (determined before you click the button so the tooltip will tell you how much). They can't retrigger until the effect from the event wears off. There is also a companion event that reduces influence without you doing anything that follows the same rules.

If you conquer land you indeed keep the landed powerholders in that land unless they're from another religion. As a Christian you won't have to unland Ulema in conquered lands but you will have to honor the agreements other rulers made with the Church or face the consequences.
To take another example Burghers in Riga will be upset if you revoke the city privileges for Burghers in newly conquered Danzig, even if those privileges were not granted by you personally.

I will forward your concern that the game does not warn you about this on conquest though (in the meanwhile it is fully visible in their province windows and you likely do want to look at those anyway when selecting provinces to see which ones you want).