Europa Universalis 5

[tapewormlondon]

I always found the initial idea behind monarch points perfect for EU4, just the execution didnt match the initial vision.

Monarch points were initially conceived as the idea that this era, many states were made or broken by the abilities of their monarchs. Therefore this should be reflected in game.

Have a king with low Military Skill? You cant raise or control your armies in war effectively. Poor Diplomacy? good luck with those vassals and keeping the blob next door at bay. Etc. It was thought of to change the way you are playing the game dependent upon your ruler.

The problem wasnt that these effects for poor or strong rulers are too much in EU4, but that they are too little. A poor stat ruler just slows stuff down a little, makes the game more of a slog, but you play the same regardless.

This has to be so because of its second problem. Lack of player control. If a poor king would see your empire crumble, then all each monarch would be is a series of crapshoots until your luck runs out.

I thinm if they could find a way to make monarch points meaningful, but give players more control and responsibility over their heirs, consorts and monarchs, the feature has real promise for a game like EU.

 

[VoidEmperor]

What does that video have to do with the positioning of the Americas?

I think I misquoted sry, was almost 3 am. I meant regarding Wiz having been game director of EU4

 

[GamerKG]

I heavily, heavily disagree with this, as someone who plays nations outside of Europe extensively and finds the history of the Far East just as interesting as that of Europe. One of the main draws for me in EU IV is that I can play all those nations outside of Europe. From forming Malaya as Brunei to creating the Proman Empire, uniting Japan as a Daimyo or colonizing as a Siberian tribe, the variety of Asia keeps me from burning out on a game when I would have long ago if only Europe was interesting to play as.

I think you misunderstand me. I am not saying those nations should not be playable if you want. What I am saying is that the setting of this game is about many changes that happened during the Early Modern period, which was driven by Europe. There are many fantastic stories and cool history in the rest of the world, even during this time period. But the thing that ties this setting together is the changes the West experienced. There are many excellent games that can be set in RotW subsets of this time period. Patrician but in the Indian Ocean, Around the World in 80 Days but as Zheng He, Total War in India, Crusader Kings but in Japan (they have that one already, called Sengoku).

This game series should take advantage of that setting, and doing so means making gameplay involving those themes interesting enough on its own. Europe should be interesting enough to play through the whole timeframe because that's what the game is about. If the base game mechanics, designed for Europe, happen to work elsewhere, that's great. But diluting development time by designing the systems generically enough to work everywhere makes Europe more boring, and in fact makes the whole game more bland. So you should not need to play outside of Europe to stay interested in the game, because Europe should be interesting enough for a full game.

To summarize, I hope they return EU as a series to being a game about the themes in the Early Modern Period, rather than a game where you play through that timeframe but the selling point is being whichever country you want.

Besides, the latter game already exists. It is called EU4. Even EU3 was somewhere in between these ideas. EU2 and EU1 are old and clunky, and directly based off of a fiddly board game, so they can be remade. EU5 should return to those themes, but with better gameplay.

 

[Tibi088]

My dream: proper modelling of the internal managment of realms, main points:
1. Creation of huge, professional standing armies - should be a long and very costly process
2. Creating the burocratic states from feudal realms
3. Centralisation: instead of it being a number, it should be real. When the Habsburg stuggle with all the realms they hold as they had to deal with all the separate nobilities and realms. Centralisation would be to destroy/unify titles/realms - doing which would incredibly aner the locals. Until you do integrate it separate laws etc for all you countries. Kinda like an improved title system of CK2.

 

[-DI- RivalET]

I don't agree with the statement that the game must be fully enjoyable all the way up to 1821. Nor that there should be special victory conditions for tall games. To me the gamevery much succeedsat giving end points to campaigns: the achievements

 

[evandy]

I would like to see some reworking of the Military access, which I find somewhat annyoing and open to more interesting interactions. Some thoughts I've had:

• Vassals' granted military access does not grant access to their overlord
• It should be possible to run troops through land that you don't have access with, but at a significant diplo cost
• Revoking MA should be possible even with troops in enemy land, but it should lead to diplo penalties (see above)
• MA cost should be dynamic (cheaper with allies, cheaper/free when at war with someone the provider hates, etc.)

 

[Tweakee]

Personally, if I were in control of EU5, I would start by asking the question, "What was this period of history about?"

My first answer: TRADE.

Columbus didn't sail west in search of adventure, or conquest. He did it in search of a faster trade route to India. European nations didn't take holdings in the Americas, Africa, India or SE Asia because they wanted to paint the map their color; they did it primarily to secure goods and transportation routes for those goods. The rise of Portugal, Spain, England, France, The Netherlands were due to their securing trade routes to deliver rare goods to and from Europe. The decline of Italy and the Ottomans were also closely tied to the decline in importance of land and Mediterranean trade routes.

How do you model that?

First, make every good matter. Give each nation a level of Demand for each good. If you have access to enough to meet the demand, you get the good's Bonus (like the EU4 bonus for controlling trade of a good). These bonuses can range from reducing unrest to greatly speeding up construction of military units. If you directly control a Good, you get it for free; if not, you can choose to buy it from friendly nations. If you have extra, you can choose to sell the surplus to friendly nations for a profit. To keep things simpler, the game would handle figuring out the best price you can get automatically.

Small nations have lower demand, so as you grow you need to control more goods, or be on friendly terms with the nations that do so you can buy them. As nations discover new goods and trade routes, demand grows and nations that haven't found ways to meet demand will be more prone to unrest, longer construction times and other effects of shortages, encouraging them to seek diplomatic or warfare-related ways to meet demand.

One big advantage of this system is that it would have a smooth learning curve. When you first start a game, you'd have a smaller number of demands and easier methods to fill them. As the game goes on and you explore and expand, the complexity in the number of demands and the difficulty in filling them increases, so the system naturally grows more challenging as you grow more comfortable with it.

The other big advantage is that it would truly support both map-painting and "tall" gameplay. By allowing the player to strategically choose whether to acquire goods via trade agreements or warfare, you allow all kinds of different ways of playing to flourish. You could blob like crazy, or use diplomatic Ideas to ally with nations around the world... or mix the two by say, ruling your colonies with an iron fist but using trade deals with the far east to save yourself from having to spread your troops out. You could even try unique strategies, like using all your efforts to corner the market on Spices to drive up prices and using the profits to buy every other good your people demand.

The last nice thing about this system is that it would give EU an identity beyond map-painting. CK is about "family". EU could be about "trade". Exploration, colonization, trade companies, diplomacy and even war all flow nicely out of that focus.

 

[RaccoonCity]

EU5 just needs a good POP system. That could play a huge role in a lot of game mechanics: province development, revolts, production, trade, culture, religion, manpower...

Also a technology system similar to Vic2 would be better, with lots of techs instead of just 3 of them.

 

[3ishop]

First, make every good matter. Give each nation a level of Demand for each good. If you have access to enough to meet the demand, you get the good's Bonus (like the EU4 bonus for controlling trade of a good). These bonuses can range from reducing unrest to greatly speeding up construction of military units. If you directly control a Good, you get it for free; if not, you can choose to buy it from friendly nations. If you have extra, you can choose to sell the surplus to friendly nations for a profit. To keep things simpler, the game would handle figuring out the best price you can get automatically.

They used to have a supply and demand system in EU4. They removed it though because of how complicated it became and how costly it was to run. Every new province and nation added more to it so I'm not sure it will make a comeback without a much more powerful engine.

 

[szmik]

The franchise will continue and I'm sure Europa Universalis 5 will be a great game.

I almost agreed, until reading this sentence.... man, have you seen the turds that Stellaris, HoI4 and I:R are (still)?

As for wishes.... economy and population independent of button clicking and direct player control would be great, and policy changes actually needing some time to be implemented.... and CK2 like technology system. In general: removing direct control - except for warfare, diplomacy and some development (constructions). But it's against Pdx vision I'm afraid.

 

[EarlKonrad]

They used to have a supply and demand system in EU4. They removed it though because of how complicated it became and how costly it was to run. Every new province and nation added more to it so I'm not sure it will make a comeback without a much more powerful engine.

Do you recall exactly when that was changed? I vaguely remember reading about that somewhere, maybe in a DD, but I'm really not sure. I'm interested in seeing if there's still a build version (pirating aside) with dynamic trade.

 

[Xdevo]

Do you recall exactly when that was changed? I vaguely remember reading about that somewhere, maybe in a DD, but I'm really not sure. I'm interested in seeing if there's still a build version (pirating aside) with dynamic trade.

Pre Art of War or Patch 1.8 I believe.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I always found the initial idea behind monarch points perfect for EU4, just the execution didnt match the initial vision.

Monarch points were initially conceived as the idea that this era, many states were made or broken by the abilities of their monarchs. Therefore this should be reflected in game.

Have a king with low Military Skill? You cant raise or control your armies in war effectively. Poor Diplomacy? good luck with those vassals and keeping the blob next door at bay. Etc. It was thought of to change the way you are playing the game dependent upon your ruler.

The problem wasnt that these effects for poor or strong rulers are too much in EU4, but that they are too little. A poor stat ruler just slows stuff down a little, makes the game more of a slog, but you play the same regardless.

This has to be so because of its second problem. Lack of player control. If a poor king would see your empire crumble, then all each monarch would be is a series of crapshoots until your luck runs out.

I thinm if they could find a way to make monarch points meaningful, but give players more control and responsibility over their heirs, consorts and monarchs, the feature has real promise for a game like EU.

Player agency is critical. So long as player choices/actions don't meaningfully alter their access to this particular resource, having so much of your game/progress hinge on RNG is a degenerate mechanic.

In EU 4 terms, there's a weird saddle where the player partially makes decisions like a monarch, but is something greater at the same time. In this context, the original statement of monarch point dependency breaks down. "You didn't put enough points into your luck skill" isn't appropriate in this context.

EU 4 since took many steps to correct this issue, to the point where a huge proportion of your progress isn't contingent on RNG to anywhere near the extent it was originally. I'm sure Pdox saw a lot fewer "game crashes" in their data as a result of this lol.

 

[Tweakee]

They used to have a supply and demand system in EU4. They removed it though because of how complicated it became and how costly it was to run. Every new province and nation added more to it so I'm not sure it will make a comeback without a much more powerful engine.

Sure, and CK2's characters and traits take up a huge amount of resources to calculate... but if a feature becomes the focus of your game, you make the trade-offs needed to make it work.

A system of goods would definitely be more complex than EU4's system where every good just becomes money. But if the game were built from the ground up around goods, it shouldn't be any more complex than a lot of systems PDX games already have. They could always keep some aspects abstract, like trade regions that encompass dozens of provinces.

Trade was a huge factor in this period of history. Ideally, a historical game should treat it as more than just another income source.

 

[EccentricJoe]

eu5 is in development tho, M&T 3.00 is on its way with several dev diaries and even 2.5 is in so many ways a huge improvement to vanilla(not without its flaws tho)

 

[beckermt]

I'd really like more support for non-monarchies.

 

[3ishop]

Sure, and CK2's characters and traits take up a huge amount of resources to calculate... but if a feature becomes the focus of your game, you make the trade-offs needed to make it work.

A system of goods would definitely be more complex than EU4's system where every good just becomes money. But if the game were built from the ground up around goods, it shouldn't be any more complex than a lot of systems PDX games already have. They could always keep some aspects abstract, like trade regions that encompass dozens of provinces.

Trade was a huge factor in this period of history. Ideally, a historical game should treat it as more than just another income source.

Well it means less nations & less provinces for a start. That was the biggest issue they had with it's performance, every new nation and province caused a lot more calculations at the time.Then a lot of other new mechanics that have been added could also be lost, such as the estates.

But at the time the main part for a nation was it being a source of wealth.

 

[SolSys]

Do you recall exactly when that was changed? I vaguely remember reading about that somewhere, maybe in a DD, but I'm really not sure. I'm interested in seeing if there's still a build version (pirating aside) with dynamic trade.

DD#08 here: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Developer_diaries#Art_of_War
You can still try it if you revert to patch 1.7.3 (requires getting code for old patch version from your PDX account due to agreeing to new EU privacy rules).

Sadly, the old system just used resources without having a discernible effect on gameplay.

 

[EarlKonrad]

DD#08 here: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Developer_diaries#Art_of_War
You can still try it if you revert to patch 1.7.3 (requires getting code for old patch version from your PDX account due to agreeing to new EU privacy rules).

Sadly, the old system just used resources without having a discernible effect on gameplay.

Very informative. Thank you.

 

[SanguiniusStyle]

Giving Portugal and Spain historical importance they deserve.