Europa Universalis IV - 30th of March 2021

[limonenzitrone]

Since favor gets more interaction, does that also mean we will get triggers and effects to check for/add/remove favors for modding?

 

[Ixal]

Will be fun (=extremely tedious and frustrating) to sneakily increase opinions and curry favors with other players in MP games to spring several demands on them like siphoning of their money or requesting their manpower when they are in a war.

 

[jayz806]

Count me in the camp arguing against a stab hit for refusing favors. Diplomatic penalties, or a loss of legitimacy, or prestige is more appropriate. You already use this to an extent if you refuse a call to arms.

I can see an argument for a hit to stability if a longstanding ally is invaded and you decline their call to arms. Your people/nobility would be outraged that you the ruler hung your ally out to dry. But offensive wars, money, troops, land...the fabric of the nation isn't torn if you refuse those requests for help. Only (perhaps) your reputation.

 

[mysticdueler]

A penalty to trust with the requesting nation and to diprep seems to make more sense than a stabhit indeed.

^^^
This! Please!

 

[Yassinou]

Are you guys planning to make Paris a center of trade ? It feels really strange to have the capital of one of the most prosperous countries in Europe not have one. Historically speaking Paris was always an important commercial city for the French. I just feel like it would make a nice addition considering the point of this update is to give the capacity to play tall, and historically Paris was a city that became really important throughout the renaissance. Maybe you guys can add a feature where you can move COTs or something when you concentrate development?

 

[Rasdanation]

A penalty to trust with the requesting nation and to diprep seems to make more sense than a stabhit indeed.

Agreed. I think the best way to go about this would be probably to give -50 relations with the ally, have the ally lose 10 trust, lose 25 prestige, and lose 0.5 or 1 diplo rep. That would make refusing to honor favors essentially a slightly less harsh consequence compared to favoring a call to arms.

 

[Maxxie42]

I think there's a bit of dishonesty in the debate on stability being the price for declining favour related requests. The AI usually accepts these requests, while the player can refuse - with that premise, the only way to balance the whole mechanic is to have the player pay a hefty price for refusing. Sure, stability makes no sense at all - but it hits where it hurts, admin points. If the price is going to be something else, it needs to be equally important. So far the suggestions have been, relations, trust, favours, dip rep, legitimacy and prestige - those are way too inconsequential ! If you had an event where you had to choose between one of these and a stab hit, how often would you pick the stab hit ?

On a more general note, I was very happy when I first read this DD, but now I'm worried that by giving your allies more power over you, these new actions are actually going to discourage players from keeping allies any longer than they need to, thus making the diplomatic game less engaging rather than the opposite.

 

[Chief of Staff]

The stability is generally associated with country's internal affairs and it have nothing to do with foreign affairs. So why is there stability penalty for declining a request from a foreign country? I seriously doubt that most people in the country, especially the peasants that constituted the majority within a country, would care about this enough to riot or something. It just seem counter-intuitive, very implausible. I would advise changing penalty that would make more sense, that have actually something to do with diplomacy and foreign affairs.

 

[brantodb01]

I ... really don't like this.
great, now I can push more buttons to make it easier.
This isn't depth, it's a cop out

 

[Vohen]

The heir thing is quite powerful, yes, but at least it gives us a more interesting way to play the PU game, instead of RNG galore and just relying on missions.
I'd rather have an actual dynastic mechanic (not CK level of course, much more simplistic than that), but it's an improvement I guess.

Also, the stab hit seems strange, why not something like -50 prestige instead?

 

[santali]

While

I think there's a bit of dishonesty in the debate on stability being the price for declining favour related requests. The AI usually accepts these requests, while the player can refuse - with that premise, the only way to balance the whole mechanic is to have the player pay a hefty price for refusing. Sure, stability makes no sense at all - but it hits where it hurts, admin points. If the price is going to be something else, it needs to be equally important. So far the suggestions have been, relations, trust, favours, dip rep, legitimacy and prestige - those are way too inconsequential ! If you had an event where you had to choose between one of these and a stab hit, how often would you pick the stab hit ?

Well, you say yourself that stability makes no sense, and since you say the point is to make the player pay a hefty price, we could make refusing favors drop your army professionalism, missionary strength and up your technology cost. You see how your argument doesn't actually make sense?

 

[Skyfus]

PDX: We've overhauled trust and favours, but there's a penalty if you break an ally's trust by refusing to honour favours
Players: Oh, so then you lose trust?
PDX: Lol no
Players: Wait, then what's the consequence?
PDX: tAkE a StAb HiT

From the proud creators of Useless Tall Button™...

 

[intelstyle]

A lot of people seem concerned about AI using favors against you, or abuse in MP..

but they have to be an ally to accumulate favors over time and need+50 opinion with you to curry favors with a diplomat. You know, you don’t need to be allied to OPMs as France for 100 years.. and you can always insult people or mark their land as strategic interest to piss them off.

If you have long-term allies, expect that they can sometimes call in favors on you (just as you do to them). If you don’t want that, then don’t have any long term allies.. if you want to get only positives out of your relationship to a country, you’re looking for a vassal not an ally.

Dont really understand the complaints.

 

[Lavilledieu]

Second how big of a dip rep penalty for how long would you implement? I know the -3 from integrating doesn't appear to stop me from alliances (or cause me to lose my current ones) and eventually (dip/inf ideas) it doesn't stop my integration.

Losing trust with other allies (and maybe even a little with all other countries) can actually matter a lot. Trust is an important factor to drag allies into wars. Low trust can even make alliances end. From dishonoring call to arms, I've noticed how the trust hits are usually worse than the dip rep hits.

 

[Luigi4160]

For me one of the biggest worry is how the AI is programmed to handle Curry Favors. AI's can use their diplomats to get favors from you. The question becomes how often are they going to do that, are AIs going to farm favors from players to take your money? Are smaller nations going to mass target bigger nations?

I wonder if some nations are going into further debt spiral because all of the little nations that want to befriend the stronger nation is also going to farm favors from them.

Honestly I just feel that the current favors are a little too powerful, maybe if it is weaken a little bit it won't be as terrifying. Half a year worth of money or manpower is honestly a lot.

 

[Lavilledieu]

Will be fun (=extremely tedious and frustrating) to sneakily increase opinions and curry favors with other players in MP games to spring several demands on them like siphoning of their money or requesting their manpower when they are in a war.

The dev post didn't specifically talk about "taking away" the money and manpower. The way it was written, it just says "spend X to get Y". There isn't really anything hinting it is a transfer, no "from them"/... Though a transfer would be most logical. Still, what happens when you don't have the stuff? What would happen if you have 5K manpower, suddenly an ally demands those 5K, but before accepting, you quickly make 5 regiments, setting your manpower to 0. The fact that these what-ifs were totally unaddressed made me wonder if there is really a transfer.

 

[LSF]

In fact, stability are admin points. So if you said that players don't care about mana, indirectly, they don't care about stability. To be honnest, when playing a huge catholic game, I always sit on +3stab with 150 curia point so every stab hit is compensated by curia point.
On the contrary, having a huge dip rep penalty can have high consequences: no more possible to have allies, integration of vassals/PU stops, etc...

I believe that because Admin mana is much more important than diplo mana. A very good player can WC without spending not even one bird mana. Try to do that without spending admin points.

And of course not all tags are catholics, so I dont think your example is ok.

The fact is stab hit for saying no to favors is unrealistic. But for most players it is a lot more damage than loss of diplo reputation.

 

[LSF]

It doesn't matter. It's getting into moon logic levels of gameyness to say that you would somehow lose internal stability because you didn't essentially press gang and deport a bunch of your population to another country just because you're buds.

Yes, because stab hit from changing colonization policy is not "moon logic of gameyness", right? All mechanics in the game are grounded on logic and realism, not on gameplay, right? A stab hit from saying no to favors is a tep away from the perfect simulation EU4 is...

People are complaining because it can relatively weaken players, not because unrealism or illogicity. And I see no problem about this behaviour. People just need to be honest in their arguments.

 

[Oglesby]

The dev post didn't specifically talk about "taking away" the money and manpower. The way it was written, it just says "spend X to get Y". There isn't really anything hinting it is a transfer, no "from them"/... Though a transfer would be most logical. Still, what happens when you don't have the stuff? What would happen if you have 5K manpower, suddenly an ally demands those 5K, but before accepting, you quickly make 5 regiments, setting your manpower to 0. The fact that these what-ifs were totally unaddressed made me wonder if there is really a transfer.

Why would you ever say no if it wasn't a transfer?

 

[FrogCrusher]

I believe that because Admin mana is much more important than diplo mana. A very good player can WC without spending not even one bird mana. Try to do that without spending admin points.

And of course not all tags are catholics, so I dont think your example is ok.

The fact is stab hit for saying no to favors is unrealistic. But for most players it is a lot more damage than loss of diplo reputation.

I don't contest that. It is something different than saying Stab Hit is the only thing players care