EU4 - her "spiral" problems and the need to solve them

[TheSleep3r]

Hello.

Europa Universalis IV is, on her own, a great game; it relies on historical authenticity to create both equally engaging mechanics and content. While the Emperor DLC had a fair share of new mechanics and reworks of some older ones, it appears development of the game is focused pretty much on content right now, which is pretty obvious due to game's age. While this is not a problem by itself, as mission trees, for example, can handle nations' historical directions pretty well, I have noticed several issues with the game's mechanics that make its world much different from the real one's to a huge extent - and as in-game time progresses, the effects of those issues are worse and worse. It is most visible when playing the endgame, and converting the save to Victoria II using the community converter highlights them extraordinarily. One could argue that this is just a game, and its world should be different from the real one, to which I agree - but the nature of the issues I am about to talk some more is different, which will be proven by the following, I hope.

I would like to identify and list the "spiral" problems as well as solutions to them, in hope that the developers would be aware of them, try to solve them and that the game's development cycle is not too late. This thread's purpose is to share those problems and solutions, as well as wait for ones omitted by me and found by others.

Europa Universalis IV's spiral problems, from most important to least important

1. The game's colonization balance is terribly outdated. The bonuses over time are huge, and colonization speed is way too fast from the beginning of the midgame. Provinces' count in the New World was increased along with new ones in the old wasteland regions, but that did not result in more difficult choices over where to colonize - it simply meant the New World will now be colonized in its entirety. The income from the colonial nations was nerfed some time ago - but wasn't it done because of how rich colonizers could become, because of how fast they could have huge colonial empires? Then comes the problem of colonial nations' stability; I have observed in my gameplay that colonies of unstable states like Ming's would soon gain independence, while independence of colonies of Great Britain, Spain or Portugal stay loyal until the end of the game. Proposed solution: decrease colonization speed tremendously and increase the value of tariffs to balance it out (or maybe so they have any point of existing again). Make colonial independence movements threatening no matter how stable the empire is, but only under certain well-chosen circumstances.
2. The technological disparity between European nations and the others is non-existent by the lategame. Some arguments are, that institutions are too easy to be embraced, that in lategame the monarch points are plentiful, and that it should be like this - otherwise the game is not fun. From the authenticity perspective the thing is most definitely a problem, but how to solve it is another matter. Proposed solution: Difficult to know. From my experience it is the institutions that matter in this case - the fact that pretty much everyone gets Global Trade and Manufactories evens out technologies all over the world in the XVII century. I would argue that hard-locking those two institutions to only appear as well as grow from 0 (which would mean they could spread by land and sea tiles as usual!) by provincial development, or better yet - to province production development - would ensure they stay in Europe a little longer.
3. I think the Emperor DLC broke China, which was working in good order since the Manchu update. Some of the Mandate modifiers, well described and anticipated in that update, are now gone if I'm not mistaken. I have yet too see Qing appearing since the Emperor premiere. I give no solution to this one, as I can't be sure - but the problem is worth the attention. As described in a reply, this is a visual bug.

These ideas are open for any critique, and the list is open for further suggestions. If what I wrote is not nonsensical, or even better - worthwhile - I would be glad if one of the developers let know of their awareness of the issues!

 

[Sidolowka]

Some of the Mandate modifiers, well described and anticipated in that update, are now gone if I'm not mistaken

The Mandate modifiers are still there, it's just a visual bug where the negative modifiers don't show up for non-Emperor nations. This is why Ming will sometimes have

• Prosperity +0.10
• Stability +0.06
• Tributaries +0.12
• Total Monthly Mandate -0.58

because the negative modifiers from missing Beijing/Canton/Nanjing, devastation and loans don't show up on the counter.

 

[Sapa Inca]

The technological disparity between European nations and the others is non-existent by the lategame. Some arguments are, that institutions are too easy to be embraced, that in lategame the monarch points are plentiful, and that it should be like this - otherwise the game is not fun. From the authenticity perspective the thing is most definitely a problem, but how to solve it is another matter. Proposed solution: Difficult to know. From my experience it is the institutions that matter in this case - the fact that pretty much everyone gets Global Trade and Manufactories evens out technologies all over the world in the XVII century. I would argue that hard-locking those two institutions to only appear as well as grow from 0 (which would mean they could spread by land and sea tiles as usual!) by provincial development, or better yet - to province production development - would ensure they stay in Europe a little longer.

I think that more historical institution spread should be a game option at the start, CK2 is full of these options.
If the option is off, institutions work like they already work.
If the option is on, institutions only appear in their historical origin provinces and institutions after global trade spread much more slower to non-colonial countries outside Europe and instituion gain for develop a province could be reduced a bit.

 

[Me_]

The technological disparity between European nations and the others is non-existent by the lategame. Some arguments are, that institutions are too easy to be embraced, that in lategame the monarch points are plentiful, and that it should be like this - otherwise the game is not fun. From the authenticity perspective the thing is most definitely a problem, but how to solve it is another matter. Proposed solution: Difficult to know. From my experience it is the institutions that matter in this case - the fact that pretty much everyone gets Global Trade and Manufactories evens out technologies all over the world in the XVII century. I would argue that hard-locking those two institutions to only appear as well as grow from 0 (which would mean they could spread by land and sea tiles as usual!) by provincial development, or better yet - to province production development - would ensure they stay in Europe a little longer.

In keeping with the argument that the game should not be too deterministic and assume in advance that Europeans would have to end up with the upper hand, my proposed solution would be to:
1. slow down institution progress overall,
2. add faster progress (countering the above) for any given institution for the continent where the given institution is founded.
That way, Europe would not be guaranteed to be ahead, just some continent would be ahead in any given institution, but which continent could vary (there are cases of printing press spawnin in North America, for example, which I think could make for a fabulous alternate history playthrough - the colonies progressing faster than the home continent).

 

[klingonadmiral]

I would argue that hard-locking those two institutions to only appear as well as grow from 0 (which would mean they could spread by land and sea tiles as usual!) by provincial development, or better yet - to province production development - would ensure they stay in Europe a little longer.

Well, the issue is that historically Manufactories spawned in Dhaka.

 

[st360]

The game's colonization balance is terribly outdated.

The underlying problem that needs to be addressed is that a lot of "colonies" where 2-3 towns claiming areas the size of large nations, or even just a tiny military outpost. When you see half a continent "colonized" on 16th century maps, resource, military and geopolitically wise that is true. But its also comically false in EU 4 where France can colonize a Alaskan province and if its stated it is 40% as powerful as Paris.

There needs to be 3 or even 4 stages of "colony", ranging from little more than "colonizing this province will make us declare war on Spain" all the way to "Washington is the new capital of the USA".

 

[hayseed]

I think that more historical institution spread should be a game option at the start, CK2 is full of these options.
If the option is off, institutions work like they already work.
If the option is on, institutions only appear in their historical origin provinces and institutions after global trade spread much more slower to non-colonial countries outside Europe and instituion gain for develop a province could be reduced a bit.

I like the suggestion to allow players to toggle institution spread speed. After thousands of hours playing various European counties, my current game in in India as Vijayanagar. I’m less interested in historical play in this game, looking instead for a new set of problems to solve. In this game, the current institution spread lets me keep up with the Europeans, making 5he game more enjoyable. So, if we could toggle institution spread, I’d probably keep the current system when playing outside of Europe and toggle a more historical spread when playing a Europe game.

 

[hayseed]

The underlying problem that needs to be addressed is that a lot of "colonies" where 2-3 towns claiming areas the size of large nations, or even just a tiny military outpost. When you see half a continent "colonized" on 16th century maps, resource, military and geopolitically wise that is true. But its also comically false in EU 4 where France can colonize a Alaskan province and if its stated it is 40% as powerful as Paris.

There needs to be 3 or even 4 stages of "colony", ranging from little more than "a claim on a unowned province" all the way to "Washington is the new capital of the USA".

I like this idea. In Vicki II, there is a progression of this sort, which leads to confrontations like the English - French conflict in the Ohio Valley. A colonial province could progress from outpost to settlement to colony with more than one country able to place an outpost or a settlement but only one able to progress to colony.

 

[holyvigil]

1. The colonial income decrease was done for balance; not historical reasons.

The increased province count does not affect if the world is fully colonized or not.

My proposed solution to the world being colonized is that settler growth overall is nerfed. But players should still have the option to invest heavily into colonizing. A proposed solution to that is buffing settlement growth from policies.



2. The devs have stated they wanted everyone to be equal tech late game for multiplayer reasons and that historically things could have gone differently with 400 years of made up history.

They did implement the manfucatories institution but it is not helpful at all. It's a tiny speed bump and doesn't stop the equal global tech or even imped more than a single great power from getting equal tech.