Maybe not an exploit, but something the AI is incapable of dealing with at this point. It'd be great if they were better.
Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations - Dev Diary 10: Balance Changes
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"exploit" now is just another local slang, nothing serious here.
In a sense its exploiting the AI's stupidity using a legitimate mechanic.
I guess I'm not sure what you're so worked up about, then. If there's literally nothing in all of EU4 that's remotely challenging for you, why do you care what the rate of annexation is? Yes, it means bad monarchs could make your WC take an extra few decades, but that really is something that will even out over time.
The only real flaw is when it lets itself dying from attri; fainting and canceling attacks have AI regroup in a single province with all its army and die from attri as long as needed be.
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Wow, it looks like we'll be forced into using HRE cheese even more if we want to do a WC. Make long stringy vassals minimized to avoid base tax, then annex, add to HRE, release and finally fill in the sides by rotating wars. It's gonna be silly. It also reinforces Europe's dominance as the place you absolutely have to get to early or you will waste so many MP and other resources compared to other countries. Adding provinces through straight coring has always been so boring.
PDS disallow provinces outside of Europe to be a part of HRE in 1.6 patch.
Doesn't really effect WC. Most of the rest of the world can be protectorated. Yes that's a word!
Pretty much all those changes sound awesome. Especially the adjustments to unit strength across tech groups.
I'm sure Johan's Ming in the multiplayer session will make good use of that.
I'm sure Johan's Ming in the multiplayer session will make good use of that.
I do make mistakes on occasion, and I want those to be the reason I'm punished. Not only that though, I also play MP, and in that environment it's a whole different world and you dont' win while outmatched unless you screw up or camp defensively with scorched earth threat while not being too far behind.
"Challenging" is defined by your goals. Surviving as France = not remotely challenging. Surviving as an Irish Minor = remotely challenging. Surviving as Mongol Khanate = challenging. World Conquest as Ryukyu = full time job.
Just because I don't really ever lose a battle or a war to the AI doesn't make the overall goal unchallenging. In fact, the very process of formulating a strategy and executing that strategy is both fun and the very reason I don't lose to the AI very often. It's not like doing the things that TMIT is talking about is trivial.
I've been looking into a lot of what you guys have been talking about, and what is the ideal composition of infantry/cav/art/ for a western nation? If you take into account losses the 1:1 of infantry to cavalry isn't good as you lose the bonus after the first battle.
in 1.5 the right cavalry ratio was no more then 6-8 (maximum)(but even 4 was enough) regiments per huge armies (even if 50k)...
now in 1.6 things may have changed for the better, since cavalry is cool, and i want a strategic reason to use it...
First of all, +1 to your name.
Optimal army composition is currently and for the foreseeable future, combat width in artillery and Cav + Inf = Artillery = combat width. People will disagree about the amount of cavalry, but due to unit deployment rules, I tend to go for more cav (as a proportion that is, say 4) in the early game and then 6-8 in the late game as a flat number. Thus at a max combat width of 40 I run 32-8-40. Naturally, depending on supply limits, you may and probably will be forced to split up your unit.
Thank the both of you, thats about the ratio I was using, though generally less artillery.
I have to say, I don't really care much for the diplo point cost of vassal annexing. I'm not opposed to there being some cost to diplo annexing a vassal, but the 15 diplo/BT seems very high. Even though the cost of annexing is higher as a base, it can easily be reduced. Just having a claim reduces it by 25%. If you go Admin, that's another 25%. There are also several nations that reduce coring cost as part of their national ideas. My primary gripe is that there appears to be no way to reduce the diplo cost of integration. This is preliminary, of course, because they may well add an idea or something to reduce the cost. We just don't know yet.
A solution presents itself, however, in another stat which renders itself obsolete by this new mechanic. Diplomatic reputation. DR currently is a very important stat, as the means to reduce vassal annexing time. It pushes statesman up to the top of the list of desirable advisors. I would humbly suggest letting DR serve as a counterbalance to the diplo coring cost by letting points in DR reduce the cost of Diplo-annexing vassals. You could rework the numbers so that there is always some cost. For example, if you have diplomacy, expansion, and a statesman, it maybe costs like 5 diplo/BT. If your lucky enough to tack on the good diplomats event, its maybe 3. This seems to serve what everyone wants. Devs get a slower early game, because of the cost of annexing vassals, but it accelerates into the endgame, as people flesh out their ideas. you have to make conscious choices about your idea groups, and you can prioritize, and play, however you want.
I think this is an elegant solution. In my personal games, I'm pretty consistently starved for diplo points from peace deals. I actually already rate diplo points as more important than admin. With no scaling coring time anymore, some of this load can more effectively be shifted over to the admin side of the equation through direct coring. It doesn't really make sense to keep diplo annexing free, as this would, in the end, probably make WC to easy. There should be a cost, I just think its a bit high as stated.
A solution presents itself, however, in another stat which renders itself obsolete by this new mechanic. Diplomatic reputation. DR currently is a very important stat, as the means to reduce vassal annexing time. It pushes statesman up to the top of the list of desirable advisors. I would humbly suggest letting DR serve as a counterbalance to the diplo coring cost by letting points in DR reduce the cost of Diplo-annexing vassals. You could rework the numbers so that there is always some cost. For example, if you have diplomacy, expansion, and a statesman, it maybe costs like 5 diplo/BT. If your lucky enough to tack on the good diplomats event, its maybe 3. This seems to serve what everyone wants. Devs get a slower early game, because of the cost of annexing vassals, but it accelerates into the endgame, as people flesh out their ideas. you have to make conscious choices about your idea groups, and you can prioritize, and play, however you want.
I think this is an elegant solution. In my personal games, I'm pretty consistently starved for diplo points from peace deals. I actually already rate diplo points as more important than admin. With no scaling coring time anymore, some of this load can more effectively be shifted over to the admin side of the equation through direct coring. It doesn't really make sense to keep diplo annexing free, as this would, in the end, probably make WC to easy. There should be a cost, I just think its a bit high as stated.
WC is not "too easy", even with diplo-annex. It still requires a lot of luck to archives. You really need to pray for good rulers, otherwise, it is just mathematically impossible.
I'm not saying it is. I've never done it. I'm just saying that if you have diplo-annex as it is now, with no cost, and increase the rate at which you can gobble territory directly with no coring time scaling, and with administrative efficiency, it will undoubtedly be easier than it is now. You are still at the mercy of rulers to a large extent either way.
To be fair, that's a lot better than reality, where World Conquest is just plain logistically impossible.