Estates, not POPs, should be the central mechanic of EU5

[Ivashanko]

Paradox games are better when they are based around a central mechanic. For the Crusader King's franchise, it’s characters. For Victoria, it's POPs. For Hearts of Iron, it’s war. They are the engine that makes those games run, and almost every other mechanic in those games should be judged by how well they are integrated into their central mechanic.

EU4 does not have a central mechanic. Its economic, development, and trade systems are neither dynamic nor developed enough. Its war system is too barebones, at least when compared with the Hearts of Iron series. It lacks POPs. Its religious system lacks critical details and can be neutered by picking the right national ideas. It has no characters. Its mission system is individualistic and arbitrary, has an extremely limited effect on other mechanics, and can be completely ignored if the player doesn't care about them. Ruler mana is a divisive and unresponsive feature that has been poorly integrated into many systems and is completely unrelated to others. Now that Imperator has moved away from mana I would be surprised if the system still exists in EU5.

Every DLC adds new mechanics that aren't integrated into the wider whole, which has made the game more bloated. These DLCs also tend to focus on specific regions, but without wider integration these DLCs often only affect nations starting in that region. Even if I come in and conquer, the DLC's mechanics often don't affect me in any particular way.

Due to these issues and others, I firmly believe that Estates should be the central mechanic of EU5. Every other mechanic, from trade, to war, to religion, to politics, to diplomacy can be influenced and integrated into a fully fleshed out estate system. It would provide interesting internal conflict and gameplay. It would require more skill to keep large and rapidly expanding empires together, as the more they expand the more difficulty the state would have managing and satisfying its diverse estates. They would allow smaller nations that have better handled their estates to compete with larger nations who have poorly handled their estates. These estates would survive and persist even if conquered by an outside force, so DLC that adds new estates to one region can still add gameplay for nations outside that region. They would allow the game world to feel like a living world, full of differing political entities and organisations. They would allow certain groups of people to be better portrayed.

In EU4, estates were added in a DLC. While they were later integrated into the base game, they have never been fully fleshed out or integrated into other systems or mechanics. EU5 estates would work better if they exist from the start, rather than as a later addition. Every nation should have estates. At no point should estates disappear or be 'solved'. They should remain a force throughout the game.

In a later post I will detail what I personally would hope to see in a fully fleshed out estate mechanic, and why I believe it would make a better central mechanic than POPs.

To be clear: I would also like to have a POPs system in EU5. But estates would be what the player directly interacts with, while POPs would instead be in the background.

Edit: Victoria 3's Interest Groups are very similar to what I propose here. I made this thread before V3 was announced, but I'm happy to see that Paradox had a similar concept in mind when they started development of V3 a few years ago.

 

[Ivashanko]

Estates are classes or orders regarded as forming part of the body politic. These estates do not necessarily need to be elite organisations: EU4 already has several estates which represent people-groups rather than the elite, such as Cossacks, Dhimmi, and Jains. Other people-groups that lacked centralised states, such as the Jewish diaspora, other religious minorities, natives in ‘uncolonised provinces’, the bureaucracy, and even the army could be made into estates as well. The number of possible estates is almost limitless.

Estates are more suitable than POPs for several reasons. The vast majority of POPs in the timeline covered by EU are either farmers or foragers, and the vast majority would stay farmers or foragers. Paradox has tried to give its players more and more control over the internal workings of their nation but giving the player any control over POPs would result in a game world that shifts away from agriculture far sooner than is plausible.

Giving the player control might also lead to far too much micro. Victoria’s POPs systems works as well as it does because the player has almost no ability to directly control individual POPs. I do not believe Paradox is willing to take so much control away from its players again. Implementing a POPs system might also lead to inevitable runaway growth, which only started to occur at the very end of the time period.

The biggest distinctions between POPs would not be between people working in different industries, but instead between different groups of people working in agriculture. Slaves, serfs, and freemen would make up some of the biggest divisions, but Paradox has already stated they are not willing to implement a fully fleshed out slavery system. Finally, without industry POPs would be difficult to integrate into several other mechanics of the game. There is no reason a POP system couldn’t exist alongside Estates, but they would be subordinate to the Estate mechanic rather than the central system the rest of the game runs on.

I also think estates are a better mechanic to centralise the game around than war. War is neither fleshed out enough nor dynamic enough to really center the game around. I'm not even sure I'd want a more in-depth system: the micro required to play HOI4 is enough to turn me off, and I don't think it is possible to create a more detailed system that works well throughout the time period covered by the game.

 

[Ivashanko]

Edit: I realised that always separating estates onto culture/religion/type would create way too many estates and unnaturally emphasises culture in an era when it was not always all that relevant. It would also act as a straightjacket on the developers and limit the estates that could be made.

My new ideas is that normal estates would only be separated by religion/type. Catholic/Noble, Jewish/Diaspora, Sunni/Burghers, etc. Certain other estates would be handled by culture/type, like natives or tribes or nomads. Special estates could be categorised only by type (though I am having difficulty thinking some up at the moment. 'Jannisary', maybe).

This would allow players to interact with a vastly reduced amount of estates who can still feud and scheme and fight with and against each other.

Original post below:

I am not a game designer, so take everything that follows with a grain of salt.

I would split Estates by their culture/religion/type. This would integrate the religious and culture mechanics into the Estate mechanic and would provide countless possible engaging interactions between the Estates and the player.

By culture/religion/type I mean an Orthodox/Greek/Noble estate would be different from a Sunni/Turkish/Burgher estate which would be different from, say, Buddhist/Mongol/Tribe or Shamanist/Iroquois/Natives. Estates would have different wants and goals (as well as different things they dislike) depending on what religion/culture/type they are, and many of your estates would have conflicting desires that force the player to make choices that might favour one estate over others. Estates should be able to interact with each other and with estates in foreign nations (and potentially with foreign nations themselves!). If Austria is treating its Polish noble estate well and giving it autonomy, they might be trading tax and direct control in exchange for peace, but they are also influencing Russia’s Polish estate pops, who might demand more autonomy and freedom from the Russian state. They might also fight for the Austrians if the two nations ever went to war. This would create an organic reason for Russia to want to conquer Austrian Poland: its existence directly undermines Russian rule. Cultural and religious tolerance or intolerance would cease to be an abstract 'press a button and you're done!' mechanic, and instead it would be about how well you handle the estates of that culture and religion.

This would also allow much more engaging interplay with native groups: how you choose to interact with the Totemist/Huron/Natives in one province will not only impact how Totemist/Huron/Natives in other provinces (including uncolonised provinces!) near you, but also how other nearby nn-Huron Tribal Estates see you. Tribal Estates that are enemies with the Huron Natives may attempt to ally with you if you oppose the Huron, while those who are friends with the Huron might seek to war against you. This would also allow Native estates to dynamically unify into a central nation in-game, which could be both fascinating and region-changing.

Estates would mostly be present in provinces. Some would also have a national component, such as an Army Estate, a Navy Estate, or a Bureaucratic Estate. Their interactions with the player, other estates (both foreign and domestic), and foreign nations would drive a lot of the game mechanics forward. Trade would largely be handled by trading estates (such as burghers), and the economy would be a tug-of-war between local estates that wish to maximise their profit and the state that wishes to both maintain the peace and maximise taxes. Basically every game mechanic, from the mission system to politics to modifiers to war to development to colonisation to national ideas could be integrated with a fully fleshed out Estate mechanic.

The estate mechanic could also be integrated into the unrest system. Not only could unhappy estates directly increase unrest in your province, but some of the goals or your states might led to increased oppression of the lower classes. If you give into the estates too much, the common people might launch a revolution, but if you do not give into the estates at all they might start a civil war.

Finally, Estates should be dynamic. For example, if the player acts to strip military power away from the nobles and to create a centralised military, the Army should become its own estate, with its own needs, wants, and desires. All EU4's factions would either become estates or be eliminated.

The following is just one example of how these dynamics could play out: say you are playing as a fanatically Protestant Prussia who has recently conquered Catholic Bavaria. Your Catholic/Bavarian/Army estate would be neither loyal nor dependable, and the player would have to choose between using potentially traitorous forces or limiting their armed forces to only Prussian Protestants. If the player tried an ecumenical approach, other Protestant estates (including the Protestant/Prussian/Army estate) might be furious and try to delay or veto the approach. And even if the player succeeds there are drawbacks: if all Army-type Estates work together and have the same goals and desires there might be no estate powerful enough to stop them if they decide to march against the state.

There are countless other possible examples. I believe that every other mechanic in EU could be connected to the estate mechanic, and that, if done well, might make the entire game a timeless classic that satisfies almost all of its potential player base.

 

[Ivashanko]

I was thinking about potential weakness of the above system, and there are a few.

First of all, having a central mechanic turns people who do not like that central mechanic off. Do not play CK if you dislike character and character interactions. Do not play Victoria if you dislike POPs. Do not play HOI if you dislike war. Right now, EU4 doesn't have a central mechanic: the closest thing that gets to it is ruler mana, but I would argue that is neither dynamic enough nor loved enough nor integrated into enough other systems to really be considered as 'central' to EU4 as characters are to CK or POPs are to Victoria. Case in point: several popular EU4 mods have basically done away with monarch points. It is inconceivable that a CK mod could ever banish characters, or a HOI mod that makes the game have nothing to do with war.

If EU5 were based on estates, then there would be no opting out for players who do not like them. Some players want near total control over the inner workings of their countries. Some want the game to be almost completely based on war and expansion. Some would prefer other systems (like POPs) be central. Some might just not like the way estates end up being implemented. Some may have other reasons to dislike to dislike it. But if it became the central mechanic there would be no way to avoid it. That being said, it is important to note that this is true of any central mechanic.

Second of all, the AI might not be able to handle it. I, personally, couldn't care less if the AI is given so many special ways to deal with estates that it is effectively playing a different game. I'd much rather have a challenge than a fair playing field. I know some people strongly disagree with that though, and I do not think my opinion is objectively superior.

Having a well developed estate system might also make things like holding on to rapid expansion of heavily populated areas and WC impossible. One's army and economy would be almost entirerly dependant on interaction with estates (to the point where the army and navy might become an estate), and satisfying a global collection of all possible estates might not actually be possible. There are a lot of fans who enjoy things like WC and rapid expansion, so this might be a negative for them. The mechanic would need to be fined tuned so that things like the British conquest of India are still possible.

It also means players and developers have a lot to keep in mind. Every time a new estate or estate interaction is introduced developers would have to make sure it doesn't have overly powerful synergy with another estate interaction. In my ideal game there is no permanent state-wide modifier, only temporary modifiers gained through estate-interaction, and that might be difficult to program and continuously update.

The devs would have to make a lot of new mechanics in order to have estates be engaging. They'd also have to remake a lot of EU4. Provincial religion or culture probably couldn't be something that is easily changed. Tolerance, as an overarching mechanic, would effectively be scrapped. National Ideas either wouldn't exist or would exist in a very different form. Anything and everything relying on mana would need to change. The old trade, economic, and military systems would need to be redesigned with estates in mind. It certainly looks like it'd require a lot of work. The nice thing is that no one would think that EU5 is some pared down version of EU4: the creation of a new central mechanic would make it stand out.

Finally, this doesn't necessarily limit power-creep or poor balancing. If favouring nobles of any religion or culture is always better than favouring burghers of any religion or culture the system doesn't work. There have to be serious trade offs, and keeping everyone happy for long periods of time has to be extremely difficult or practically impossible for the system to properly function.

 

[Hrodbert]

I really like this idea. Having dynamic estates gives more opportunities to have engaging narratives that make the most memorable playthroughs

 

[Ivashanko]

I really like this idea. Having dynamic estates gives more opportunities to have engaging narratives that make the most memorable playthroughs

That is the other thing I really like about having estates become a central mechanic. Characters are such a great idea for CK for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is that their (RNG) actions create narrative in a way that most other mechanics can't. Estates, if handled well, could also create narrative in a million different ways.

 

[cristofolmc]

I think it should have both and are in no way mutually exclusive. In fact they could agument each other greatly.

 

[insalted42]

This is, far and away, the best single recommendation for EU5 I have yet seen. The concept of utilizing Estates makes sense from a timeline perspective, increases immersion and offers many compelling possibilities for future development. Well done!

I'm fairly certain that production on EU5 has already begun in earnest, but if the devs are still early enough along that they could re-think the entire mechanics behind the game, they would do well to take this into consideration.

 

[Emre Yigit]

GOD NO

To both estates and, to a lesser extent, pops.

Just my opinion, of course, but unless the estates mechanic changes dramatically from the EU4 version and also evolves over time, I see no value in it. A dhimmi "estate" does not exist, for example, and forcing countries into a continental European straitjacket won't do.

Pops I could live with, though I consider them an accessory rather than feature.

 

[Vohen]

I like the idea overall, it was a very nice read, but by the point where each estate is a different combination of their type/culture/religion, isn't that basically pops on a different coat of paint?

 

[alexti]

I like the idea, but where is the difference between pops and estates? pops have different political power and different views and agendas, so they would do mostly the same you propose for estates. Essentially, estates you propose are the more influential pops. I suppose more detailed pops would mean better modelling of trade, economy and colonization, but the difference seems to be mostly in details.

 

[PedroLuiz]

I like the idea overall, it was a very nice read, but by the point where each estate is a different combination of their type/culture/religion, isn't that basically pops on a different coat of paint?

Estates are nation wide

 

[alexti]

Estates are nation wide

OP proposes province-level estates.

 

[Emre Yigit]

To those gentlemen who are disagreeing with my post above: what exactly do you disagree with? The fact that some estates that occur in EU4 have never existed, or the notion that a continental European mechanic should be required for everyone?

 

[Vohen]

Estates are nation wide

Yeah, but they seem to have a very similar function here.
And pops can be viewed from a national level as a whole as well.

 

[Ivashanko]

This is, far and away, the best single recommendation for EU5 I have yet seen. The concept of utilizing Estates makes sense from a timeline perspective, increases immersion and offers many compelling possibilities for future development. Well done!

I'm fairly certain that production on EU5 has already begun in earnest, but if the devs are still early enough along that they could re-think the entire mechanics behind the game, they would do well to take this into consideration.

Thank you! It isn't inconceivable that, if EU5 is already in development, the devs have already begun implementing more in-depth estate mechanics. It was a mechanic that was mostly well received and continued to evolve throughout EU's lifespan.

GOD NO

To both estates and, to a lesser extent, pops.

Just my opinion, of course, but unless the estates mechanic changes dramatically from the EU4 version and also evolves over time, I see no value in it. A dhimmi "estate" does not exist, for example, and forcing countries into a continental European straitjacket won't do.

Pops I could live with, though I consider them an accessory rather than feature.

Any estate system that is the central to the game would have to be very different from the current estate mechanic. Separating estate types by religion/culture would allow Paradox to differentiate different regions' estates even before they make DLC that adds new estate types. In my proposed suggestion a unified dhimmi estate could not exist: dhimmi status might instead be a privilege Islamic countries bestow on heathen estates.

Every centralised nation in the world has (and will always have) elites. Those elites change depending on time and place but every nation on the map has powerful interest groups that can be made into estates.

I like the idea, but where is the difference between pops and estates? pops have different political power and different views and agendas, so they would do mostly the same you propose for estates. Essentially, estates you propose are the more influential pops. I suppose more detailed pops would mean better modelling of trade, economy and colonization, but the difference seems to be mostly in details.

I haven't played Stellaris yet. Do POPs in Stellaris actually have important agendas? Aside from avoiding rebellion I don't know if I ever cared about POP's desires in Victoria 2 or even Imperator (I have yet to play 2.0, though). Do they have relationships with other POPs and other nations? Are they an active force the state has to bargin with, fued with, and partner with? I genuinely don't know: these questions are not sarcastic.

In my ideal estate mechanic estates are the middle men between the state and almost every other mechanic in the game. FIghting over privileges and obligations would be a massive part of the game.

I also listed some of the reasons why I believe estates are more appropriate than POPs in my opening posts.

I think it should have both and are in no way mutually exclusive. In fact they could agument each other greatly.

I strongly agree! My argument isn't that POPs should not be in the game. It is that they should not be the central unifying mechanic. Estates should be instead.

(Typed on my phone, sorry for mistakes)

 

[Emre Yigit]

Every centralised nation in the world has (and will always have) elites. Those elites change depending on time and place but every nation on the map has powerful interest groups that can be made into estates.

Perhaps I'm quibbling over a minor matter, but I have a powerful kneejerk reaction to "estates" for the Chinese, the Indians, the Muslims, the Americans... which is most of the world.

Interest groups or factions I can live with.

 

[Ivashanko]

Perhaps I'm quibbling over a minor matter, but I have a powerful kneejerk reaction to "estates" for the Chinese, the Indians, the Muslims, the Americans... which is most of the world.

Interest groups or factions I can live with.

I hear that. EU4's estates include a lot of things that aren't (as you noted) actually estates, like Cossasks and Jains. I kept the term and the definition already used, but it could be renamed if necessary.

My idea for estates would not just cover elites (the Jewish diaspora, for instance, would be covered by estates. So would the Druze in Lebanon and Zoroastrians in India), which is why calling them 'elites' doesn't really work.

 

[alexti]

I haven't played Stellaris yet. Do POPs in Stellaris actually have important agendas? Aside from avoiding rebellion I don't know if I ever cared about POP's desires in Victoria 2 or even Imperator (I have yet to play 2.0, though). Do they have relationships with other POPs and other nations? Are they an active force the state has to bargin with, fued with, and partner with? I genuinely don't know: these questions are not sarcastic.

In Stellaris they sort of do, but in most cases you can ignore that without much of effect. On paper it has many interesting interaction, but in practice none of that matters. Vic2 does it much better. Not sure why you didn't care about them, but in Vic2 they make a big difference to your game. You can't even conquer if your pops aren't interested.

In my ideal estate mechanic estates are the middle men between the state and almost every other mechanic in the game. FIghting over privileges and obligations would be a massive part of the game.

I also listed some of the reasons why I believe estates are more appropriate than POPs in my opening posts.

I haven't seen any convincing distinction in your posts. From the description it seems that proposed estates and Vic-like pops (in concept, not in specific grouping) are very similar. Obviously, there would be no industrialization and large portion of population would remain farmers, but the pops with significant political influence would still play large role. It's not that much different than in Vic2 where a small number of capitalists have disproportionally large impact. And then pops that had little power had large impact when looking at them combined. The motivation to go exploring East and to go colonizing was because there money to be made by selling spices, sugar, cocoa etc.. to the population. All that profitable trade was dependent on having consumers with disposable income.

 

[Tetragrade]

Amazing suggestion, one of my biggest complaints about EU4 is the number of disparate mechanics that represent internal factions and stability.

• Stability
• Legitimacy & Alternatives
• Unrest
• Vassals
• Factions
• Estates
• Events
• Overextension

All of these have significant conceptual overlap. For EU5 I'd like to see these all merged into a single unified system.

I think estates need a serious rework, and a return to something closer to the old province-based estates. Ideally I'd like a system where each estate is composed of many local powers, tied to specific provinces (which also replace vassals) with the ability to interact with these powers individually or as a group. Would sidestep the problem of 1000 estates for each culture/religion combo, and allow government types to really differentiate themselves.