For me exploring does become boring after the 1st games but if you don´t want an auto-explore button don´t use it. It is that simple!
Exploring is repetitive and boring, an automated exploring option would be a godsend
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An option to auto explore would be great for players who are managing a large empire and don't want to waste attention on the one galley exploring sea provinces you dont really care about. I have never once explored the entire map because afer I plop down my colonists there is very little gain in exploring every tile. If Im fighting a 100k vs 100 k land war in europe the chances of me remembering my 1 galley before it dies is minimal.
Generals live on land - if their armies are beaten, they've still something to walk on. Admirals live on ships - if their ships are sunk, they need to swim, and swimming is a quite exhaustive task.
In a strategy game so focused on historical plausibility, yes. Exploring was a dangerous and uncertain business.
((Look at Spain and Columbus: Isabella had both the luck that Columbus was wrong (the trade route Columbus hoped to find was neither controllable nor profitable at the time) and that he found rich lands owned by people with grossly inferior military capabilities.))
It's not focused on historical plausibility though. Just look at the hordes, tech groups, westernization, or arbitrarily railroading of historic 'events' that ignore everything about what caused them (Burgundian Inheritance, for example).
I'm not saying you're wrong, it might be a good idea for plausibility, but it'd be a terrible idea for gameplay because it'd either have to have a high enough success rate for players to do it (otherwise they won't), or it would be a fully ignored mechanic because the cost vs payout would be arbitrarily dictated by things outside the player's control (introducing frustration, mainly). If it was high enough success rate for players to actually do it, then why bother with the RNG then?
A button that said "this fleet will automaically return to the nearest harbour before the point of no return" would be enough for me. But I guess the ability to queue movement further than one region into TI would also suffice.
I think it'd be cool if explorers were more like missionaries. Click on a province, send explorer, slowly builds up to 100%, province discovered. Could have +% ideas, +1 explorer etc
I think he means if there is a general in charge of troops aboard the fleet that sunk the admiral/explorer always dies while the general/conquistador always swims to shore.
back in the day (1.6?), there used to be pirates you'd encounter on the seas. so, it used to require even more micromanagement to avoid getting wrecked.
as it is now, the only meaningful choices now are to decide how many squares to hit before heading back. if this whole thing were better automated, you could:
1. be able to trace routes even to any unexplored squares, not just those on the edge of the known map
2. set an attrition level for the ship to return. set it too high at your own risk.
as it is now, the only meaningful choices now are to decide how many squares to hit before heading back. if this whole thing were better automated, you could:
1. be able to trace routes even to any unexplored squares, not just those on the edge of the known map
2. set an attrition level for the ship to return. set it too high at your own risk.
Many great suggestions on how to solve this, and im glad to know that im not alone in thinking exploring is tedious. Hopefully some of the Devs will notice this thread.
and... the current system is?
hell, the "pay money, crew goes out, come back and you get some uncovered tiles" sounds way more fun than anything related to "and one province at a time i steadily pushed west til i hit the antilles"
For those who are suggesting random new world.
That was the worst the worst EU4 addon. If it wasn't for the tribal nations, that dlc wouldn't be worth a single penny. The random new world option creates an unrealistic, featureless bunch of larger islands -- no real continents, island chains or real climate, no option to randomise Australia or to completely erease the new world. It's a major let down and I regret that I've bought that dlc. Another example of paradox releasing a half finished product and never returning to actually finish and polish it although it has great potential. A real waste. I wouldn't play with a random new world even if I was paid to do so.
And yes, exploration is bland and repetitive, some sort of automation would be excellent.
That was the worst the worst EU4 addon. If it wasn't for the tribal nations, that dlc wouldn't be worth a single penny. The random new world option creates an unrealistic, featureless bunch of larger islands -- no real continents, island chains or real climate, no option to randomise Australia or to completely erease the new world. It's a major let down and I regret that I've bought that dlc. Another example of paradox releasing a half finished product and never returning to actually finish and polish it although it has great potential. A real waste. I wouldn't play with a random new world even if I was paid to do so.
And yes, exploration is bland and repetitive, some sort of automation would be excellent.
I'd prefer that as well. It'd be more realistic to how nations actually funded expeditions, and remove the dull micromanagement that current exploration entails.
Basically, divide up the unexplored area into regions (like "Western coast of Africa"). Clicking on a region displays a window similar to the colonization window for provinces, with a cost, time, and chance of success. If you send an explorer and he succeeds, the entire region is revealed and neighboring regions can be selected.
Some random events could also be included for some regions, giving things like trade power boosts, relationship +- modifiers with the newly met nations, etc.
I'd find that a lot more interesting/fun than monotonously sending a boat back and forth to the next grey chunk.
This is awsome.
+1
And this can also be linked to diplotech to not make possible the new world be discovered before the eastern route around africa, for example.
The whole exploration thing wasn't a "wanna paint the map" issue, but a research for a direct contact with india without passing from ottos. In fact portugese which discovered this way dominated trade from india for decades before everyone was aware of the true potential of the new world
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Possibly... Admittedly I haven't given this much thought from the point-of-view of enjoyable gameplay: it rather rose from the desire to complicate the whole process of exploration. It would be actually pretty nice (in a 'nice = challenging' sort of way) for the player not to know what they're exactly going to find (the very semantic essence of 'exploring', and while the Random New World may please some of us in this regard, I'm not a great fan of it), and the consequent inability to steer the exploration voyages to exact ends would also throw a lovely bit of randomness to the colonizing strategies. You couldn't automatically aim for the Brazilian coast, Bermuda, or Fernando Pó.
Yes, this was my idea as well: historical plausibility and some challenge through randomized elements. An ideal historical strategy game, to me, is not one with completely predictable opportunities for pursuing your chosen goal. Contingency has a huge role to play, and makes things eminently more interesting.
I asked for this 11 months ago on a thread Johan commented. Probably not going to happen for some reason.
Babysitting explorers is indeed extremely tedious, especially when charting out new sea zones. (Patrol works fine for 'discovering' coastal provinces when you have already charted the surrounding seas.) At a minimum, I would have a toggle on fleets to go home if they are taking too much attrition (a behaviour that was implemented in previous EU games, IIRC).
I am not against the explorer comes to court, you fund them and then you get updates/events on what happens.