Game Design exercice - Creating your EU V concepts

[Nikoleis]

Recently, there is more and more talk of a need for a new iteration of the game. Be it because the code is unwieldy, that it feels like it has feature bloat, has too many underlying bugs, or simply so the engine could run better and allow faster Speed 5-ing, the reason here is unimportant. The goal of this thread is, first and foremost, for people to present what they would love to see in the potential next iteration, and have a space to expand on their ideas and discuss with others on their implications. It differs from stuffs posted in the Suggestion subforum in the sense that those are not meant to be implemented in EU IV, and are potentially only ideas thrown around for the sake of being creative. For the same reason, expanding on ideas and how it impacts different parts of the game is encouraged. Saying "Gaem ned pop nao" is different from explaining how it would work, what impact it has on gameplay and where does it fit the grander scheme. Because of the sweeping nature of those ideas, one could choose to assume parts of the previous games are ported mostly as is from one iteration to another if it simplifies the discussion.

Myself, I took some time before making this post thinking about various interactions between different systems, and know I will post ideas in several themed pieces. After all, I also make this thread to share those reflections as it is fair to partake in what I am offering too. Here is a tentative summary prone to change as I see fit, because still toying with ideas:

1. Small and big - Ruling and delegating
2. Elites and centralization - More than Estates
3. Prestige and power projection - Diplomacy by proxy
4. Expeditions and courts - Governing abroad and at home
5. Army and navy - Maintaining peace and bringing war
6. State and religion - A matter of stability
7. Trade and technology - Non equivalent exchanges
8. Fact and fiction - Alternative to history

And without further ado, let's get to that first chapter.

I - Small and Big - Ruling and delegating

One of the first observation made about EU IV is how sometimes events seems to change dramatically in term of scale. At one moment, a big icy rock decides to fly above the sky and the entire country plunge in instability, at another a backwater province randomly decides to offer 10% more tax. Yet, both are treated equally by how the game present it to you. Sure, sure, if you were to be a small OPM, that 10% tax is around 3-5% more income, can't deny that. But what if you are the British empire at its height and said province is part of a colonial trade company in New Guinea? On top of this, due to how events fires, larger empire have less things happening at once, meaning that these are less and less molding the world with small local touches.

Another one is how some things have the same cost, whatever the size of your country, while other do change. Usually, those are Mana tied, such as the effort to curb down inflation or war exhaustion, but not always. Prestige cost are also concerned, but also the price of alliances or generals on your given limit of diplomatic relation and leaders, respectively.

But would you really have to bother with everything going in your empire? Well, maybe. Or maybe not. That's a matter of centralization, which we will see later. But how do you first determine what is directly under your rule and what is delegated? How do you define the real reach of the leader you are supposed to be? What differentiate a loose vassal from an integrated one? Or a colonial entity from an simple settlement in the name of the crown? This, is where the game offers a new tool: scale of play. There would be four different scales, that echoes different situations in EU IV, but have a larger overall impact on playability.

Province:
The basic game unit doesn't change. A province stays as a geographical unit of subdivision. It's local government is mostly integrated inside larger entities, but in some case, the province is able to self rule, if you have limited control of it or offer massive autonomy, meaning it would gather it's own economy and build by itself what it needs. However self ruling provinces lacks diplomatic power outside of their direct neighbors and are pretty much isolated from the political intrigues, unless they host the center of one of the larger entities. In some cases, one would be limited in playing at province scale only, but this restrictive way of playing would be limited to tribes without a central government, a city state in a larger structure or a rebelling state left unchecked for some time.

The traits of a province are not so different from what we already have, but they have some changes too. Manpower is local, and a given province cannot raise troops in the millions. It's productivity and stability lowers if said manpower gets too low for some time, but the other side of the coin is, less people leads to less and smaller rebellions, and it is easier to get the province converted culturally and religiously. Oh, and controlled too, in case you are invaded... don't empty your provinces fully if you fear occupation, unless you plan on starving the invaders! They also bring taxes, trade goods to exchange and supplies, for feeding troops. Buildings are back, but now cost manpower to be operated and give their bonus. Manufactories are nice and all for your income and production, but only if they are operated, so juggling your manpower becomes a new exercise in balancing economy and military might. Geography returns, too, and terrain can dictate what can be constructed in some case, especially for some buildings requiring certain technologies to be suitable. Terrace farming for better supplies in mountains and hills, river mining when hills and water combines, stables requiring mounts to be present... those are merely examples and more can be imagined. One last element present in provinces sometimes are local personalities, but more on this with elites.

Stability is now found at province level. Combination of devastation, unrest and autonomy, a stable province will be happy to stay under your rule, while an unstable one will start taking matter in its own hands. Worse, still, several unstable provinces could start working together and form a new local power, one scale level above. This is impacted by your relation with the local culture and religion, which have tolerance calculated from acts taken against them. Being at war, taking harsh stances, force converting or even, if you feel inclined, straight up massacres as they happened in History, will lead to rising unrest and instability. This can be somewhat countered by sending soldiers, but while this lowers current instability, it also makes it slower to recover, as people perceive this military crackdown as oppressive. Note that the impact depends on who sends the troops, and what kind: there's a difference between a local ruler getting some levies to stop the worst cases of troubles, and a colonial master bringing the professional with a fire-at-will policy with entrenched cannons batteries!

Lordship:
The second unit is given a generic name of lordship, given the very nature of what it represent. Sort of local government with a variable level of autonomy, they represent stuffs like well integrated vassals, political subdivisions, Japanese daimyo, internal political subdivisions, small HRE members, colonial lands, trade companies, subjugated countries... the list goes on, and how you deal with each determines this status accordingly. The common traits however are: limited but existing diplomatic capacities, trade centralization, recognition of borders. A lordship toes the line between subjects, territories, states and trade node in term of EU IV

A lordship collects local taxes and supplies, control levies, can direct construction in its provinces and decides about how to open or restrict trade of good produced locally. Trade lost its premade directional flow as will be discussed in the dedicated chapter, but know that a lordship can specialize in being a major trade center, buying goods from nearby centers and then selling the bunch to a far away land for profits. This, in fact is the entire point of trade companies: buying locally cheap, and controlling the entire trade route to avoid having 5-10 intermediary markets adding their own cut to the price, while colonies will take the ob of making the product themselves when no structures already exists for local exploitation. Lordships part of the same higher entity have an easier time sharing between each other, which makes it beneficial to control, even indirectly, land far away... as long as you can maintain them in check!

Local rulers have their own ambitions too, and they listen to their people. If they think they have a decent chance at becoming independent and consider they can benefit from it, they won't hesitate, but this requires quite the difference in power, or a good occasion to seize it. The rise of the Oda clan is a very good example of that situation, as is the revolt of the Thirteen colonies, or pretty much everything from Persia to India!

Country:
Perhaps the most obvious structure there, the country is a political entity that has its own diplomacy, can mobilize a professional army, and has a political continuity of independence or at least capable of acting as such. HRE princes with some backing power, usually but not only the electors, are able to pull their weight outside of the HRE itself, for instance, toeing the line between strong Lordship and independent country, is a good example of where the line is drawn.

A country is a strong national entity, even if the concept of nationalism really took off by the end of the period. It tends to slowly convert culture into its own, as they tend to impose a central viewpoint on events and decisions. Having control on the central government, they also shape ideas and traditions by their very acts, and their prestige tends to radiate to their lordships and neighbors alike. They also can order their constituent, using their local budget with their own global one, allowing for transfer of wealth to happen internally... creating potential imbalance and thus, instability in the area having to pay more ("why taxing us only to take care of those backwater idiots?" being the excuse used by your peasants.), but also your local elites ("We go to war for the king and yet he orders more construction for those fat merchants at the other side of the country!" is likely the answer coming from the nobles.). As such, it is your job to ensure that your country is ran as if actual people inhabited it, instead of racing for raw numbers.

Countries also have a court, and can dispatch its men around to its lordships, acting as advisors, governors or similar posts. As a result a country can choose to specialize itself geographically and begins to be a full fledged system of its own that need to be kept in tight balance. Elites are sorted out at Country level, as smaller entities have those too weak to be causing troubles and fight each other. But, and that's the most important part: this includes indirectly ruled lands... so now, nobles from your vassals will bother you directly! The life of a monarch isn't an easy one! However, you are still in charge of global diplomacy and alliances at Country level have impact extending to all your constituents and even better, are considered by weaker neighbors seeking your protection. And finally, countries have the mean the launch expeditions, the new mechanic that replaces missionaries / merchants / diplomats / colonists.

Empire:

Highest rank one could dream of, empires are able to shake entire continents when they decide to make a move, and are able to engage in massive endeavors, freed from local constraints. Basically, they are the first step in the globalization process that will shape the end of the time period. Few at a 1444 start can claim this title or approach it, but those that do are pretty much the Great powers of the world. China and the HRE emperor are two examples of empires... but so is Majapahit, albeit a crumbling one, and soon the Ottomans and Persia, while the colonizers will also work on earning their title and Spain might even claim it before that with their numerous possessions.

An empire can rule indirectly on other countries, this is the power of their far reaching diplomacy. Protectorates, tributaries and the like are the titles of those possessions by proxy. While a country could have a couple of these, they define what makes an empire above and beyond a simple empire. In fact, they are so big, that they can declare local wars without bringing down the entire country in the conflict, sending specialized troops on each front and in that way, have a sort of semi constant proxy war with their rivals. Their growing sphere of influence becomes political blocks, where diplomacy tends to unify in a general motion: A rising Indian empire might have internal strife, but if Delhi decides that they dislike the English, everyone around part of the empire or not, will join this movement and have negative relations with Albion.

There is also one interesting exception here, which is a sort of empire with a limited lifespan: coalitions! Deciding to spearhead one makes you act as an emperor with limited authority on others, but allows to coordinate the war effort against the enemy. And of course, you can combine it with being an actual Emperor, leaving you with a fantastic machine that could begin a world war a century early, or close to it like the Seven years war or the Napoleonic conquests, for instance! Among other powers, continual foreign occupation, army corps able to take care of their own logistic for given operations and arbitrating lesser conflicts are at their disposal. But beware of not crumbling under the sheer weight of such a massive administration and succumb to revolts, independence declarations and simply administrative collapse!

 

[Sete]

I like the troop hiring shenanigans of Crusader kings 3.
Each area can have they cultural unique units and with counters aswell, giving a littl bit of extra strategic layer to it.
Also the game needs more attrition or less manpower.

Also development should be more natural, or by assigning someone to it or something.

 

[Zed McJack]

I like your ideas and would like to read the rest of your list with details.
How would the scaling go regards playing as a small minor to a common country or empire? Would you have 4 gameplays or 4 games or minigames? I guess some of the answers are coming in the rest or your thoughts so bring them in.

 

[Nikoleis]

Apologies as I got some shenanigans limiting my abilities to post the follow up, plus those are long to type ^^

I like your ideas and would like to read the rest of your list with details.
How would the scaling go regards playing as a small minor to a common country or empire? Would you have 4 gameplays or 4 games or minigames? I guess some of the answers are coming in the rest or your thoughts so bring them in.

Unified gameplay, but acting as zoom levels. You have some elements of gameplay limited to some layers, but you can move up and down on anything you rule directly. As in, Playing a Napoleonic France, you can control France the Empire by directing armies in Russia, France the country by setting internal policies there, France the Lordship which this late should pretty much be centralized to equate the Country layer minus some of its lesser colonial entities and the provinces of France that are part of that Lordship or have people delegated as your direct representative here. Whatever troops are local to occupied territories stays under local command and would be pretty much acting like a current vassal, yet with more control since it is pretty much a vice royalty you puppet from afar. They would be the one deciding of their responses to events, dealing with rebels, putting local buildings... but you could direct them in those matter by setting priorities like "focus on war effort", "build economy" or "pay us taxes"

Elites and centralization

As I mentioned in the above answer "centralized enough to pretty much be the same as the country". I chose France because it is a well known country with quite the good example to explain what it means. Back around the end of the HYW, France isn't unified, it is one crown with several lordships standing around with a lot of independence. Several of those are separate TAG in the current system and it is close to the goal to achieve with what was described in chapter 1, but politically, it was France that was recognized as the political entity by foreign powers such as the Papacy, so for instance matters of religions were transmitted to the King. Here, we have the clergy that can already be at odd with the local nobles due to that distinction, both wanting to influence France their way.

Subtle difference however... said nobles were not exactly always united either. As such, each of those Lordship / Vassal is its own Noble estate with internal alliances to deal with! Take a decision that helps a group, and the other nobles might have a say in the matter, creating instability locally and possible limited scale conflicts. Many time castles had to be sieged even inside de juré France because of people opposing the local power. Rest assured, you don't need to move stacks around for avoiding this, militia and forces left for inner defense can now deal with that automatically, it is just binding some manpower away during that time. In the same vein, religious minorities can also have their representatives and one could negotiate with them if they are not hostile. Some religions have a central power (mainly Catholicism via the Pope, but others as well) but others do not, so their leverage might vary not only according of their general power worldwide, but also simply local. This can lead to having talks with the Protestants during religious wars to ease a transition or rein in their power. The jewish diaspora is another actor at that time, and one could argue about the cathar uprising too!

Trade. The engine for exploration and colonization, source of many wars over basic or luxury resources, cause of piracy but also long range diplomatic exchange. Expeditions will talk more about this of course, but merchants tends to have an opinion and the money to make it count. Here it would be by administrative subdivision as not all traders are bound to b equally happy, and the English blockade of the Atlantic and Channel ports is not going to make the Mediterannean traders unhappy, on the contrary given they will get all the juicy imports! As such, keeping goods coming and going, avoiding making one area too rich or too poor, is how you avoid factions in your trade network fighting each others and in the process, potentially causing massive damage such as inflation or large scale poverty. And they do work with nobles oo so they will tend to ally each others on matters of luxury. If you have a need for salt and pepper, because said nobles are unhappy that their food isn't rsh enough, it is the merchants that will complain to you that your policy aren't leading to success! This also groups burghers under this, as they are part of those unhappy customers.

But wait, there's more! If you have stuffs like the Cossacks or the Dhimmi, you'd be right, but sometimes, other groups can have quite a lot of influence. For instance a minor family line with potential to the throne and a bloodline extending in other countries. Keeping those happy is also ensuring peace with these crowns, turning royal marriage into something more than having lots of prestige for free PU. Republics would have the main political entities as different elites that would fight for control, so factions are rolled into estates. And sometimes, a situation arises where a strong counter power appears out of the blue. The revolution is the obvious one, but the army could also be quite dissatisfied, stories of generals pushing for a putsch aren't unheard of. Doctors for instance, gained a lot of political power by the time of the enlightenment in Europe, foreign merchants are able to force their views down around trade companies... and the largest rebels are pretty much organized enough to crate their own factions! A civil war becomes an internal entity able to negotiate with their potential future new partners, and if the army and most of the nobles decide to ally them, suck to be you!

So, where does centralization come in in there is pretty obvious. Instead of having others rule for you with their own agenda, you want to have all the power for yourself so no one is going to bicker you about this or that. Oh this means of course more work by yourself to do all the hard work, but if you're competent enough, this means more efficiency! ... The competent part being possibly delegated to advisors just in case, with no actual powers but good ideas nonetheless. Previous ADM/DIP/MIL generation is done for, but also determine how well you manage matters in each of those domains. And if your abilities are not up to par, it causes widespread penalties due to inefficiency. As such, expanding the power of the state and creating a strong central power brings more control, at the price f being more volatile to sudden change, and a country can choose to prefer evolving along one or the other path depending of its situation. Of course, the general tendency should be toward internal unity as it is more efficient economically and politically, but the ability to get the talented individuals required for this will require a long work of institutional reforms that would be the engine of reforming versus entrenched traditionalism, a lot more involved than the current estate privileges.

 

[Nikoleis]

Let's get to that third chapter now where we talk about the real new mechanic using existing concepts

Prestige and power projection - Diplomacy by proxy

Prestige as it is now is a value that goes from -100 to +100, giving a sliding bonus to a variety of levers on your empire, from morale to trade. It is nice, but it doesn't help much with the one thing you would expect: people look up to the prestigious ones and wishes to follow their example to become just as great. It is all about being impressive to others and be the center of talks.

Similarly, Power projection is giving a set of bonus that are hardly helping you get your troops around and instead you farm insults and pirates for Monarch points, because as we know a better internal organization comes from sending bad words in a letter more efficiently than a skilled advisor.

Let's clean those two slates and work instead on what it means to be a Great Power, one that decide the fate of everyone in your sphere of influence. Prestige now would be only positive, but does not offer benefits directly. Instead, it is how your influence works on neighboring countries. The higher the difference in prestige you have with the target, the more your relations with them change, and not only due to events or diplomatic relations, but also passively. This is basically why people pays tribute to China for instance: it is prestigious, with arts, palaces and political clout that everyone want the attention from for protection. That's also why the HRE Emperor gets his authority. Be weak, and some people will leave, feeling the Empire isn't what it used to be. This is the Shadow Kingdoms, where Northern Italy feels like Naples, Venice, Genoa, Rome or Florence are fighting to be the great power of Italy and it is better to choose among them than some dude on the other side of the Alps.

Prestige draws attention and by that fuels prestige. It means that unless a big change happens, a prestigious country will continue to stay prestigious, as their legacy lives on. This happens because sending diplomats and merchants allows sharing prestige, and the prestige gain depends on the sum of both parties. So if a given country becomes a crossroad for political intrigue, it will gain prestige from more sources, and more people will want to send their missions there to gain more prestige themselves, with distance being a big factor on that to create local powers. As we will discuss in the chapter dedicated to Expeditions, having a web of diplomatic links focused in one point also allows relations to be improved by proxy, so any actions for or against a high prestige country will have impact on others.

Imagine for instance Japan: if you declare war on a daimyo while being one, every friendly lords to that target will also get a negative opinion of you, and their enemies will probably like what you did. Do it on the shogun, and his larger prestige due to his position will definitively have a strong impact among loyalists and opponents, triggering a cascade effect as the relation between the two groups will create natural alliance blocks before anything is ever signed as a military defensive pact. And if you manage to capture the capital, you steal most of the Shogun's prestige, propelling you on the forefront of the political landscape even if you were a small local lord. The result is similar for many historical cities that accumulated prestige as capital, either in present or past, and changing capital will only change where it accumulate, not remove it from its previous place. This is why the Ottomans capturing Constantinople is important for them, why India fights for Delhi or why capturing Beijing deals so much damage to the Ming dynasty, creating a dynamic of fighting for politically important place. Also this is why some capitals moves, like Saint Petersburg, to irradiate their prestige in a more accessible way, or in other case, to break away from a previous center to break the Elites established there, such as moving from Paris to Versailles. And because war impacts prestige, declaring a war to humiliate an enemy becomes now a method to redirect relations and alliances your way and changes the global political landscape of the area. Even sending troops to an ally without joining directly is a way to display your might, and it is where it blends with Power projection

Now, it is time to see the military side of prestige. Just consider the Genoan case of renting their ships for trade. While it helps showing their naval dominance, it also allows them to have impact on an area way larger than their small size shows, with of course their colonial ventures in the Black sea, but also control over trade all the way to the Atlantic. That way they always have ships at the ready, receive information from across Europe and are always on the lookout for new trade partners, which is what set them apart from their close rival Pisa on that front (and a couple military victories, but I did say it is linked to Prestige). In its own way, Portugal creating their network of trade ports is a way to project their naval power, extending the range of their navy in a different way. In both case, however, it is expanding the area of their control that led to them being able to operate farther away from their mainland. What it does is not increasing a number somewhere, but create new area of operations and allow better organization in those areas. Basically, areas where you can safely send troops and envoys without repercussion are now part of your Sphere of power, allowing your armies to operate fully. Anything outside of this becomes dangerous in a way not too dissimilar to attrition. Except, not limited to soldiers. Explorers for instance do need supply bases to start expanding their ability to map accurately an area, merchants won't venture away of trade routes you can control and so on. If an area is part of your Sphere of power, it will be impacted by your prestige, so it is a double edged sword. It is also sending regular reports on the surrounding, depending on distance, which allows to keep track of the changes in the world. Because yes, uncovered map area won't show you how borders are changing magically now! You get to learn from others meaning that once again, being a prestigious country brings more information your way, and your Sphere of power also gives reports, meaning that your map is not updating real time, but being a powerful country gets you closer and closer to this, making planning your alliances a way to prepare for war.

One final note on that chapter is giving some other way to gain prestige. Art is one and is the crux of the Renaissance movement, as you are producing your way up the Prestige ladder, but also stealing from others. Museums, Zoos and Arboretums do attract the eyes of visitors and displays the result of your Sphere of Power. Selling products, especially luxuries, to others is a surefire way to show your might, and thus having your trade routes cut will make you look like you lost your touch, which makes the conquest of the Mameluke territory a strong incentive to be the new Silk road terminus for other countries and steal that source of prestige. Royal marriages are of course very important, and trying to get into a prestigious family can help your own name... while spreading yours of course being a lot more effective (basically the Hapsburg way). Religious authority is quite effective among brethren positively and heretic negatively and it is clear that the Pope gets a lot more attention than simply holding Rome would give among Catholics, while holding other religious centers have similar effects (Mecca and Jerusalem comes to mind, which by the way makes Crusades a war of religious prestige). And finally, keeping your words, fighting just wars and respecting your neighbors helps. The "N CB" method of ordering your soldiers to march against someone that did nothing to deserve it is a surefire way to get your prestige ... up. But also relations down internally with your elites and externally making most of your future moves examined under a lot more scrutiny... and here you have the disappearance of Aggressive expansion and coalition forming rolled into the impact of Prestige!

But next time we will get to talk about sending around people that are not (necessarily) soldiers

 

[Nikoleis]

What is the common denominator with asking for trade transfer in India, proposing a royal marriage from Mongolia to Yemen, or bringing christian faith eastward? In EU 4, none as all come from different sources. In reality, instead of being the work of diplomats and missionaries, all these missions were made by... a single merchant. In this case, Marco Polo. Likewise, who took over colonization effort, administrative power and command of a military order? Richelieu, who would be a cardinal, thus not a general or an advisor in EU4 terms

Let's change the perception of our "tokens" individuals, who are now not going to be placed and forgotten, but active members of the government, be it internally or for foreign matters.

Expeditions and courts - Governing abroad and at home

We will start by a little segue about something mentioned before, which is knowledge of your surrounding, as it will lead to one of the main goal of expeditions, the new method for dealing with foreign matters. Your map, as mentioned, won't be actualized real time, but only display the situation last time you heard of this place, possibly in approximate ways. Such as having Ming be a name spreading along the terra incognita but no idea of who is the ruler, what is their technological level and so on! At best if you heard of them via a trade agreement with an intermediary will you know their sold products. Having some more knowledge can give you a general geographic understanding of a Country or Empire, but no idea of how it is separated in Lordships or Provinces. You might know of the one Lordship from where a trade route you used originated from still, but not the others, f you directly trade, and so on.

All this to say that Expeditions are prepared with limited knowledge and have the objective of updating those on top of any other goals, and that you receive partial data from the target too when you do... meaning sending expeditions to powerful countries is favored, tying it up to the prestige and sphere of power from the previous chapter. A prestigious country will be a better target for those, which in turn again brings more prestige, and you can promote their enemies by instead sending your expeditions to them, even if weaker, to try to propel them forward politically. Another way to fight an enemy without declaring war.

So, an Expedition ! What it represent is similar to sending merchants, colonists and diplomats around, but instead of staying there or just teleporting a letter before taking a boat back, they are actually needing to travel and carry out their missions, as long as required. Note that it is different from interacting with countries in your Sphere of Power, as those are considered having a decent enough diplomatic ties to not require dispatching a skilled envoy for that (and it helps with war declaration and trade logic, really). Sending an expedition is done toward far away areas of the world and is led by an individual bringing their skills to the work. They receive a set of missions that cannot be changed after being sent, which means that they could have orders that cannot be carried around at their destination. Marco Polo had this problem escorting a princess to marry on his travel back: the husband to be was already dead when they arrived! In the same way, having to deal with a China crumbling means renegotiating trade affairs, sending a delegation to a conquered country will negotiate with the new government, and so on.

The missions in themselves are close to what diplomats and explorers in EU4 can do, with a hint of merchants and colonists, but also cover some other cases. Missionaries are the most obvious ones as converting the pagans didn't require full occupation and happened in a variety of places, in a way that the Spread religion trade policy tries to represent. Sending missionaries to another country tries to convert the ruler to the new religion, which in turn would have a cascading effect on population. Of course, converting an emperor is more effective, but also harder than some small lordship ruler, so one might want to prepare the terrain. Faith also travels along trade routes better as the constant contact with merchants helps with spreading ideas. It also helps with sciences and ideas that will be touched upon way later. Some effects such as charter companies also have new and different effects by allowing restricted military presence, a sort of military access and naval rights to a given province only. The local power keeps however control of the province when it comes to ruling, and only buying it outright or taking the place by force would change that (this include the locals rebelling to join the new owner). Sending officers to a foreign country also enters the list of possible expeditions and helps integrate your own forces to the locals... or command rebellions, again. One can give multiple roles to a mission but since you're spreading your effort, each one will be carried with less success, the cost will increase and not only in term of ducats. Securing a new trade route takes some manpower (for the forts you are placing around to secure it), a naval expedition will require ships (which might get attacked by pirates or damaged by storms), sending presents or tributes takes on your trade goods and money to generate relation and prestige, and so on. In the case of trade routes it replace the old "sending light ships to protect a trade node" with "send trade ships along the trade route, making the trip back and forth" which is an example of expedition with lasting effect. Others include opening a resident embassy to shorten the delay of communication by counting the target as in your sphere of power, and a royal marriage lasts as long as there are descendants in place to be among the top claimants. Colonial conquests are also expeditions, in that they are armed forces specifically acting outside of your supply lines and unable to be directly commanded due to lack of communication. Their success can lead to forming a colonial entity or taking control of a port in foreign land, turning the leader into the new ruler of a lordship under your command.

And so your foreign actor turned into a domestic one. Your advisors also have their work turned into missions, on top of their help in governing your land. Generals as we saw care now part of your advisor pool and while pacifying some Mayan lands is fine, others can be tasked to other missions, such as training troops (especially on the border of an opponent as a way to force good relations out of fear), building fortifications, taking down rising revolts or even taking down some political opponents to put the elites in check. Your religious heads will of course spread religion around, but many time those also acted as scholar and can educate the next generation. Reforming your approach of your religion is also part of their portfolio and is the engine of the Reformation for instance. You might want to administer the growth of a city t help it be more competitive, oversee the production of some goods for strategic reasons, investigate in corrupted officials... there is a lot of possibilities here for high rank individuals to shine... which can be a problem. See, most of these men and women have origins among your elites or even other cultures and lands, having a complex set of ideals. Give too much work to the nobles, and they will feel they are the one in charge. Send your princess to marry, and you might invite foreigners as potential claimants in a couple generations! Start promoting holy orders, and the Pope will begin to complain, waving the threat of excommunication just so he keeps control of the church. Centralizing the state to gather loyalty around you first is a struggle, but it helps fighting back against those influences and pull those missions toward your designated objectives.

There are finally some missions that are limited to specific specialists that are not part of the court proper, but are influential individuals. Among the less obvious ones, you can attracts artists in various domains, renowned engineers, scientists of all front, humanists in search of patrons... Just a simple cook can change the world, by being tasked by royal decree to experiment with the products of foreign origins, helping spreading new plants and animal which in turn impact health of your entire nation thanks to a more diverse diet! Will you attach a naturalist to educating your heir? Or to an expedition to the unknown? Will you use a confident as an advisor or as a spy? Is this artist better here in the palace making portrait of you, or sent to another power as a prestigious act to further your relations? All this and more should most likely change the view of the game as a Speed 5 simulator during peace time. But what about war? That's for next chapter!

 

[Nikoleis]

In the grim reality of a close path, there is only war... something like that, I dunno, I'm not good with Star Trek quotes. Or it's Star Wars equivalent, War, War always change.

Joking aside I'd be curious to see how many EU4 countries historically never participated directly or indirectly participated in a war during the entire time frame. Probably close to zero. War is a constant you have to keep in mind because it does a lot more than conquering new lands.

Army and navy - Maintaining peace and bringing war

If something isn't changing from EU4, it is that armies are preponderantly made of men. The best cannon cannot shoot without someone to aim, load and fire, the sharpest blade hardly cut anything more than passerby toes if left on the ground and a ship without a crew is not going far. Manpower, however, do impact the rest of the game. More men in fields and workshops are good for the economy, after all, and more population means more babies for a given birth rate. It is also more taxes, for the cynicals out there. But, and that's where things already starts to feel quite different, men don't all go from alive to dead without a pit stop. The wounded can, with the correct infrastructure, be brought back on their legs, at least some of them. Advancing in dangerous areas such as Central Africa is also going to cause a lot of problems, but the illness will not always lead to death. An army now keeps track of that number and gets to replenish some of its losses with medical knowledge and good logistics, meaning a beaten army can get on their feet faster in good condition. On the other hand, not all men are killed by the enemies, some are also made prisoners, and what will happen of them depends on the policy of the winner on that matter. Released for money, sacrificed to their Gods, turned to slavery, integrated in the country... we are touching here the subject of Laws coming next chapter, but again, not all soldiers are lost for good, and sometimes, losing a great king general can lead to political pressure solved by emptying your treasure chest to bring him back home.

That said, equipment is also important. Deciding what to put in your army is going to be a lot more different than filling a combat width. For starter, equipment in itself has its impact. You don't put a bunch of heavy cannons in an exploration force or when attacking in empty lands, because it would slow down their progress due to the lack of roads. Elephants simply cannot fight as well in a desert or in glacial terrain, as they are not able to deal with the climate as well as, say, camels, too. On top of this, you have to remember that you cannot make stuffs you lack the resources of. If you lack copper and foundry, your cannons will have to be bought from other countries, or captured. Both cases appeared in history with the Japanese, who then managed to make their own rifles after buying some from the Europeans, and the North American tribes getting rifles and horses out of stealing those before being equipped by rival colonial powers. I'll be touching the matter of weapon design when talking about technology, but basically, over is the time of premade units across technology groups. Combat abilities will be determined by the troops, their equipment and their commanders.

Generals are back, too, but the role of being a blanket stat buff to a stack is not. Closer to Heart of Iron, you assign troops to them, and give them missions. In the same vein as your political entities, the larger the force, the less effective their bonus are, with tactical and strategic expertise allowing to counterbalance this as time goes. But, and that's maybe the most important, they are in charge of the army where you cannot directly order them. Troops inside the area of your Sphere of Power are pretty easy to handle as orders can be given quite fast, but as soon as you act outside of it, communication lines becomes tenuous, and orders can take months to arrive, or even never at all, the same way as Expedition works. When fighting oversea, it makes a strong navy able to maintain a connection by sea, all the more important. Do like the English and sink the French fleet in the Atlantic, and they lose the ability to command their forces in America. This alone should make both sending your army away on another continent and holding a strong navy more important. But this is not all.

Supplies are also important, and attrition from lacking those is severe. Attacking Russia is a pain, not because they somehow send everyone from 6 to 80 to the front, but because the amount of equipment and the ravage of freezing temperature. As such moving armies in an area consumes supplies, that only replenishes if you get back to where you can obtain some. Looting a province can only bring so much on the table, and burning your own land to prevent an enemy to reach your heartland becomes viable if you can keep the weakened enemy at bay. It doesn't help that a badly supplied army is less effective, and an attack on troops forced to flee allows to keep some of their supplies for yourself, furthering the damage. Military access only allow troops to stay around and consume resources from your own land, so it should be granted carefully to aliies. Not that someone cannot invade you without a Casus Belli to reach an army trying to hide behind a border, though. It might harm your prestige and relation, but not necessarily cause war to cross a third party's border.

And some simply don't care: non state actors. Mercenaries, pirates, private fleet, rebels militia... while most of those have either limited combat abilities or supplies, they act independently of everyone involved in the previous matter unless made to care about it. This for instance changes the way rebels work, as they will be more than happy to join force with an invader promising their independence or simply a better representation, but they will only help in local fights and not extend further much until they are integrated fully, like it was the case with the Ottoman push southward. An unstable country will tend to have more of those third parties, creating local opportunities. This also replace the old mercenaries, as now everyone has to come from somewhere, and every men count.

This leads to army scale. As mentioned in the first chapter, scale of play is important, and when it comes to war, even more so. Militia are not a professional army and don't have the capacity of reaching further than their Lordship of origin in term of supplies, for instance, and their lack of training make these poor troops, but still they can help a defender by making the occupier's life miserable if he is not accepted, too busy revolting to create supplies for them. Professional troops are Country level troops used for offense and defense, but are still predominantly geographically located around said country. They tend to fight better in it, due to terrain knowledge and cultural affinity with the people they fight for. Lastly there's Corps, your Empire level forces meant to be specialized for one type of operation. Dedicated mariners, integrated local auxiliaries and climate specific training is what those elite troops offers... for a high price, as they will require academies and years of training!

For armies and navies alike, one won't have to bother anymore with the eternal carpet sieging. Depending of the kind of force, their orders are given one scale lower than their own. If you send militia you move them at province level, but a professional army will act at Lordship level, automating everything below and limiting the busywork as much as representing the fact that you are delegating more to your officers. But if you are to take direct command of an army by leading it personally, you can go back to using even Corps at province scale, at the cost of leaving your political day to day activities to your advisors, focusing on war or peace as you need to. Taking part in military expeditions however is very risky as you might come back seeing an usurper on the throne - or not at all if you die during it, as it happened to a certain Władysław at Varna...

One last point to raise is about fleet, as I mentioned the private navy. As stated before, you only are able to maintain what you can produce, and one of the major change of that time period is about forestry and the immense amount of wood used to build the ever growing fleets of that time period. Ships are the same, and as thus, restricting or not the ability for non-state owned navies is part of your military command, while also having the right to convert those into military. No need for force limit modifiers then at sea simply because you cannot make more ships than you have trees, and this can lead to terrain being altered by over-exploitation, especially as wood is used in other industries. This in turn allows for other countries to simply buy used (and therefore probably weaker) ships for their own need. Once again war or economy, one has to balance it out.

 

[HexHQ]

You put into it damn a lot of work.
Very good ideas.
If only someone from Paradox read this...

 

[Nikoleis]

Thanks. I only do this for fun really, and don't really expect it to be for devs to make MY version of the game. Consider it a melting pots of concepts tied together as a basis, but probably not as in depth as a real design document

 

[Nikoleis]

We know what happens now when you go send your soldiers away, what to do with elites, and the main representatives of your government. There is however on glaringly forgotten group in there: the masses. Don't worry, they will come to you soon enough as you're bound to make them angry enough one day or another. But we will see that instability isn't necessarily bad.

6. State and religion - A matter of stability

It might be strange at first glace to combine the state and the religion into one global entity here for the sake of gameplay concepts, and yet, they both share one main trait in common: they have laws. Who edict and enforce these change of course, and unless you happen to control the head of a religion, your control on the latter will necessarily be limited, while the former is almost entirely yours to command.

A government is pretty much a corpus of laws. Who get taxed and how, what happens to criminals, who counts as a citizen, how do you choose your heir and so much more falls under that category. Two nearby countries can have very different laws systems, be called the same kind of government and function in tandem. However, when part of the same group, laws tends to go toward unification, as the highest order takes decisions that trickle down to smaller entities: laws can be decided Empire wide to easily cover every single countries under your rule, who then transmit those to their Lordship, and those are applied to their provinces. That said, one can also decide to apply exception to anything one rank lower to themselves. This is for example the HRE giving out imperial laws that could suffer exceptions for Free cities, or China deciding that their southern commanderies have the right to keep a different language to ease cultural tension. If said commandery also decide to tax trade with foreigners differently, it can do so in specific trade ports such as Macao, to encourage trade routes to start from this province and further its economical development, it can do so by itself if independent enough, or have to report to the central authority if required by another law. Basically, they determine how you rule your country.

The government form itself is regulated by those laws. Having a senate, instating a primogeniture rule or instead wanting specific sub entities deciding who shall rule, how to determine who have voting rights in a Republic... this is pretty much a souped up Government reform system, where instead of getting buffs, you curtail your gameplay experience and how it affect the country positively and negatively. This also covers the Elites' privileges, with laws dedicated for each sub groups. Say for instance you have two groups of rebels, one made up of your general banditry pillaging around and another who are independentists from recent conquests. You are now free to call for death for one group under your laws, but accept a taxation support to the other to ease them to your empire, accepting to receive less money for 10 years. Sounds like Harsh repression and Increasing autonomy, right? Except those are unified under the law system, and can get other group displeased if they feel those laws are creating an imbalance of power.

Religious laws are different because they tend to change less, and are not a tool of the state, but laws can still be edicted toward religious people. The Edict of Nantes is not a religious law for our purpose, but a government one. The ability to excommunicate someone however, or allowing interfaith marriage, or having to sacrifice people to the Gods, are dictated by faith. Said Faith tends to evolve locally, as new currents can develop and create heresies. In fact those are now not set in stone but can vary from the historical outcome. If the situation change dramatically, this could lead to entirely new religions existing: a fully Shinto / Christian syncretism in Japan, turning the Holy See into a mosque the same as Hagia Sophia and having a movement recognizing both prophets in a Catholic / Muslim fusion as the new reformation engine, even a leader rising himself as new Deific entity and succeeding (Robespierre tried it during the French revolution. His rule was short, but what if he had 50 years to impose the idea?). I'd even argue that when Secularism comes around, some grander ideas could replace religions, and the one great example during this time period could be the USA with Manifest Destiny keeping some of the colonists' faith combined with the spirit of the entrepreneurial push westward.

Of course, obeying two sets of rules is bound to lead to conflicts, and on top of this population as a whole will desire reforms, be it peasants or elites. Stability becomes local and is the measure of how people are working against the rules. The more change they desire, the more instability and thus the harder is this region to administrate properly. Sending soldiers can help for a time, but as the education of your people go and as your neighbor reforms, pressure will build up, creating organic civil wars, revolutions, religious upheaval and by that change toward new models of society. Coupled by the changes brought by war (which by definition brings instability where men are taken away from their home and supplies out of granaries), conquests (having your house razed tends to make you slightly miffed) or technological advancement (the struggle between cities and fields as the industrial revolution starts) and you will have to constantly juggle with people's constant unhappiness in other ways than killing rebel stacks. However all is not bad in this: instability by itself helps individuals to rise up to the new challenges and thus will be more numerous candidates to bring their talents around. This is also a good place for new philosophies to be born and scientific progress to be made in several domains. This is also a perfect excuse to find internal enemies to squash when you didn't know before how to tackle powerful entities without a good cause to go against them, if they are the source of the problem, and by doing so bringing back stability which brings better lifestyle, social development and more taxes. In the end, one could expect a cycle of unrest and peace to allow for an harmonious growth outside of simply seeking Court and Country again and again.

But noticed that we are speaking of technology now... this is coming next chapter.

 

[Nikoleis]

The one constant across history is how technology and trade are interlocked. Goods are exchanged as much as ideas, and selling technologically advanced items will pretty much always have someone wonders how does it even work, both because of human curiosity and because it is always cheaper to produce it yourself later!

7. Trade and technology - Non equivalent exchanges

Well, trade and technology... yet we will start with production. Because if you don't have goods to sell to begin with there is no trade! And goods are separated in a variety of categories, the first one being food. The benefit of food is quite obvious: serves as army supplies. If you produce more food than your population eats, then you can refill your army's supplies. Given that your working manpower lowers as you put them on military duties, your food production is bound to lower as you go. Yes this replaces neatly War exhaustion in a more scaled way. Also food variety helps with health, which helps with recovering manpower, defend against plagues and overall ups your population's global efficiency as they are more healthy and happy. This makes importing goods from other continents a quite productive endeavor, especially if you manage to grow those at home. Spices are a subset of food that multiply the effect of a varied diet, so you ultimately want both for optimal effects.

Second type of goods is raw material. Stone, sand, wood, fibers... they are by themselves not that useful as they are in need to be transformed, but still, if another country needs more of it, you can sell it away for some nice profit, especially some of the most precious goods, such as metals or gems. The third type of goods meanwhile requires workshops and manufactories to exist and are transformed goods. Making cannons requires a foundry, glassware are in need of furnaces too, naval supplies uses a variety of metal, fabric and wood alike to make sails, anchors and masts... but those requires manpower to work at full power, too, so one has to be careful! Of course, that's where using foreign workforce in trade companies or even slaves comes in play to compensate, and larger empire can wage small wars and keep a decent production going much more reliably. Luxuries goods are also part of those produced goods and are a source of prestige and stability about your richer elite. No surprise then that others will try to buy your production at an amazing price as those goods are usually rare! Sitting on a diamond or gold mine can give you such a money influx you should have no problem having a military made of mercenaries from other countries buying said good, not wanting a rival to take control of it.

As mentioned way back, Lordships are the trade unit, as the internal sharing of goods is considered to be working fine in most time. Trade routes inside a larger entity are also considered to always be established, as the central government takes care of this, but it can be cut off if there is no direct path from one place to another, meaning that keeping a trade navy is a requirement to set up goods transfer from one oversea region to another. As soon as you go to another country or empire however, things are different. If merchants can and will trade with direct and close neighbors in your Sphere of Power, already tolls makes it so prices of goods increases. And if you send an Expedition to get a trade agreement with a country further away, you then establish a trade route. Goods are shared along it and it serves as an extension of your ability to exchange goods by creating potential intermediary, choosing what kind of goods you are looking for outside of what you directly need. If countries are looking for certain goods, you can also set them as primary buyers that way to promote exchanges in directed ways. By doing so, you can exchange goods you have in surplus both ways boosting both prestige and relation, and if the bought goods are also ending as a surplus... well sell it the other way and take your share of money on the way! This should help major trade crossroads such as Persia, Italy, West China or the Caribbeans a lot richer than their land can show.

But goods are not the only thing sold, and ideas and technologies also find their way around. Technologies now works like institutions with level of implementation. Knowing of a technology is one thing, understanding it is another, then you can further upgrade the process, both to increase production and make it cheaper. But, and that's the most important: ideas cannot catch up if they are not needed or possible to create! Incan cannot create gunpowder without the basic chemical knowledge behind it, gating stuffs like cannons behind it. And this way, fortifications dedicated to resist those, for instance. The Bible being spread around with the printing press needs a religious upheaval in Christian countries before it has an impact on general education due to reading becoming a more widespread skill and idea sharing in book form becoming a commodity.

Sometimes even differences in how a technology develop leads to mixing techniques together, and shipbuilding is one of those cases. The lateen and square sails versus the junk sail, but also hull construction such as the segmented compartments from Asian ships or the increased stability for cannons that the Venetian galleasses brought to naval conflicts. And as it was said previous chapter, stability and conflict helps. Specifically, being at war is pretty much the best way to help improve weapons and defense technology, a growing revolution is bound to bring new philosophical movements ... but peace allows new and improved art and crafts, so countries tends to adapt to their current situation. Great men at the court do help propagate those new ideas, so keep an eye on some scientists, philosophers, artists or craftsmen of renown to promote or patron, even in foreign lands to make them better offers!

As one can tell, the conditions for something to happen are the most important factors, way above random chance or destiny. This is where the final chapter leads us, which you might now have guessed, brings together all the previous ones into one cohesive matter, free of exceptions and special rules.

 

[Nikoleis]

Well, last part of that long... monologue? Well, I am ranting a lot either way. But here we are, the last part, on my own vision for an EU 5.

8. Fact and fiction - Alternative to history

Europa Universalis is a game strongly rooted in an historical representation, even if many could argue that it takes some liberties and shortcuts. But even more than that, it tries to direct said history to repeat itself. Case in point, mission trees and events are at the forefront of helping the game mirror the outcome of real life. I speak of course of everything going from the Maine incident to the Steppe nomads disaster and including the special rules for forming countries like the Mughals. But while all of this helps in a situation similar to the one that happened in history, things starts to break at the seams if the conditions changes. What happens to Portugal's missions if they are beaten in India and driven back from Africa by another colonizer or a local power? Will the missions change accordingly? No, sadly. In the same vein the Shinto incidents and Christian conversion that follows could probably be quite different if the islamic world was the one opening trade with them first.

But, does it make the existence of those nudge bad? Not necessarily. They can still serve the role of creating interesting scenario and conflicts. Of course, if the in game mechanics makes these possibly redundant, an argument can be made that they can be removed and still give a good experience, but some prefers history to follow its own steps regardless of what happen while others loathes such a railroading element. And for making both side happy, enters the concept of the History tag. It would cover any mechanic that is deemed helpful to direct the system via exceptional circumstances from the base rules. When starting a new game, the option to choose if you desire Historic events or not would now exist, allowing to choose whether you want exceptions to happen for the sake of History, or if you prefer the rules to be the same for everyone for a more balanced gameplay across all countries.

EU4 also have a random nation setup, and a random new world, but it could be extended to an entire planet full of surprises and alliances, allowing for new and surprising experiences! Exploration becomes a lot more important, establishing trade and a sphere of power to master this new environment without relying on the same old Indian trade companies and with new super powers that aren't Ottomans, China or whoever comes on top in Western Europe. And because the mechanics are meant to represent back and forth between powers blocks anyway, it won't necessarily require one strong country to create a decent rival for those wanting a hard opponent.

Meanwhile, the entire period covered by the game has a lot of important events happening, and one would want to reenact these in the game. But as it was said prior, the situation can end up exceedingly different and not allow for the corresponding events to happen. Another way to resolve the problem would be of course new start dates, but then the work to keep everything updated for each period is astronomical. So as a way to circumvent this, the game can offer scenario, happening on a smaller scale and with anything outside the normal theater be abstracted, while using a custom map. If you desire playing the Napoleonic campaign, you do not have a necessity for anything outside Europe, while the Japanese reunification period requires only the islands, part of Korea and China as an Historical event sending them reinforcements if they are attacked. This would also give meaningful content for future DLC, focusing on creating said scenario, adding Historical events for the area and period that applies during the global campaign in Historic mode, and letting global systems be free so to always be able to build upon these. This also makes it so achievements are done more or less the same regardless of which DLC are owned. This would of course go with the music and unit models, and new graphics and options for non-Historic games so both side have interest in it.

... And here we are. Thanks for your time to those that decided to read those admittedly massive wall of text. I hope to have given if not inspiration at least the desire to express your own desires and ideas for the future.

 

[Skales]

Lordship:
The second unit is given a generic name of lordship, given the very nature of what it represent. Sort of local government with a variable level of autonomy, they represent stuffs like well integrated vassals, political subdivisions, Japanese daimyo, internal political subdivisions, small HRE members, colonial lands, trade companies, subjugated countries...

Everybody always forgets the Kurdish emirates :sob:

 

[Skales]

In all seriousness. I really like this thread! It shows something I have been thinking about for quite a while. I hope one day we can move away from showing countries and empires as large coloured blobs, and more like what they really are, they are patchworks.

The Ottoman Empire was a patchwork. A big shiny centre up in Constantinople radiating all around it, it was composed of provinces, all filled with their local elites and landowners, vassal princes, tributaries, local tribes, local merchants, elites, all tied together through brute force, convenience and a central imperial ideology (to which the outer parts sometimes merely pay lipservice)

I joked about this a bit above, but the Kurdish emirates between Safavid Persia and the Ottoman empire are an excellent example of lordships and a country, some Kurdish emirates are technically Ottoman Sanjaqs, with all the same rules and subdivisions as a normal province, with the major difference being that the whole thing is hereditary (not that this couldn't happen elsewhere, Bagdad and Mosul were basically independent hereditary states within the empire towards the end of the time period). But some larger Kurdish principalities were entirely outside of the system, and there was a lot of variation even there, for example, the emir of Tiblisi could keep half of the jizya tax, which was normally reserved for the ruler.

And then you have examples like Ottoman Egypt, which was pretty much its own little world with its own little political struggles, with the Ottoman sultan being a distant figure, powerful, but still distant.

 

[Nikoleis]

I'm sorry for not mentioning the Kurds, my knowledge of Aboriginal people is lacking! [/joke]

But yes, I claim in no way that I am an expert in History and I am merely trying to apply ideas that should be both generic and adaptable enough that they can fit different scenario, even those not specifically expected in the original model. Here the point is to represent subdivision in a realm, there it makes sense for these to operate as limited country in some cases. The differences you point between say, Egypt and Tiblisi would work on the basis that you have different laws for each of those subdivisions. While EU 4 has same exact vassal income tax for everyone with the odd Scutage to spice it up, here you tailor the independence you give to each constituent depending on how difficult they are to administrate, while of course trying to milk them as much as possible when nearby for your own power and prestige. So yes, those examples are following both the gameplay design exposed, and the logic that communication time and cultural ties were important factors in how much control you can have on an area that happened in real life.

 

[Skales]

I also like the idea of having various actors and factions within a province, and even acting on a large scale. So for example, on a provincial level, you can get an influential local family, or merchant guilt, or a religious order. Depending on the wealth and power of these factions, you might end up giving concessions, hence the autonomy of a province, or you could empower one of these factions to make governing easier, but you then obviously need to manage a relationship with them carefully, lest they turn on you.

I also like having factions be more organic, instead of having a predetermined set of 'tags'. So, for example, the Safavid orders starts out as exactly that - a religious sect acting on a provincial level in Tabriz, as they grow in power, they become more and more influential within the region, leading local states and empires have to deal with them, becoming a lordship level power within Tabriz, this also allows them to spread their influence beyond their borders, even reaching the Turkish tribes of Anatolia (provincial and regional level factions in their own right). Through this way, the Safavids will go from a provincial religious order, into an autonomous regional force, into a state, and finally into an empire, doing this through an alliance with local elites and Turkic tribes, which they all have to manage now when they have risen to the task. It would be especially amazing if you could play and lead them through all this!

And of course, Kurdish statelets.

Lots and lots of Kurdish statelets.

They have been ignored for far too long.

I'm sorry for not mentioning the Kurds, my knowledge of Aboriginal people is lacking! [/joke]

But yes, I claim in no way that I am an expert in History and I am merely trying to apply ideas that should be both generic and adaptable enough that they can fit different scenario, even those not specifically expected in the original model. Here the point is to represent subdivision in a realm, there it makes sense for these to operate as limited country in some cases. The differences you point between say, Egypt and Tiblisi would work on the basis that you have different laws for each of those subdivisions. While EU 4 has same exact vassal income tax for everyone with the odd Scutage to spice it up, here you tailor the independence you give to each constituent depending on how difficult they are to administrate, while of course trying to milk them as much as possible when nearby for your own power and prestige. So yes, those examples are following both the gameplay design exposed, and the logic that communication time and cultural ties were important factors in how much control you can have on an area that happened in real life.

All makes sense. Following the basic idea of representing regional factions, and making it so every state is really a patchwork of local interest, the only difference is that you scale it up and up and up. I really like this! It employs a lot of more up-to-date historical analysis.

 

[Skales]

I also like how scalable this system could be, so on a level of a province, let's say... mhm, Siwa, there's a local influential family (just that for now, though this system would ideally allow this family to one day become an imperial dynasty, if they play their cards right and the right opportunities reveal themselves). This family is a part of one of the larger regional factions (let's call them the Fiqari and Qasimi, shall we?).

These factions all compete for administrative, and other influence where it makes sense (commanders of the various military regiments the Sultan has stationed in Egypt, and obviously he could introduce another wretch into the system if he chooses to move a regiment of ethnic Albanians in for example). And other titles of importance (for example the leader of the Hajj). I am wondering to what extent different systems of taxation should be represented, Egypt operated on a tax-farming system where the elites bought the right to collect them, I think there's a good reason to represent the actual way taxes are collected in some form or another, but this is a discussion for another time.

Now, if you are the Sultan, Egypt is distant, you don't know anything about local politics, so interfering would likely be a folly, plus you have different things to worry about, so as long as Egypt pays its taxes you got nothing to worry about. But these local faction conflicts could obviously involve you in some way if they go big, like if the disturbances end up murdering your appointed governor, or you could receive a letter from local factions demanding the removal of the governor and his replacement with somebody else (which is something that actually happened historically with Egypt in particular). Or the whole thing could blow over into some sort of armed revolt. If your regime is having troubles elsewhere, Egypt could easily effectively detach from the empire, without any grand declaration of independence or revolt, and perhaps temporarily, but it could happen.

 

[Nikoleis]

You pretty much describe the interaction between Country level governor and Lordship level interest on that last paragraph, as you can send men to act as your representative. Sending the right man is of course one of those Peace time choice to make: do you select a local ruler, which will appease situations more readily but pushes for more independence, or a state loyalist foreigner of those local actors, yet more loyal to you and making the area into a more assimilated land? Strong dynasties could have such an impact that the mere idea of trying to remove them is cause to revolt (Legitimacy, maybe coupled with checking how legitimate were the previous rulers on a 25 to 50 years period to represent the memory of a generation or two, would be a good way to check this)

On the tax front, since goods are grouped in large categories (food / resources / luxury) one could tax broadly a certain kind of goods, and then puts additional taxes on specific ones, again broadly to entities one tier below for it is the local Lordship that decide taxes at province level, but the country that set the Lordship's tax objective. Asking for a grain tax on the Nile delta is both a surefire way to get money, given how productive it was, but if buyers prefers to go seek elsewhere and your goods are not sold anymore, you are going to get a well deserved large scale peasant revolt, and good luck raising an army if two third of your food production suddenly goes in the hands of the rebels! Recognizing when taxes turns too high to the point of creating an instability spiral that leads to less people paying taxes is the work of said governor above, and depending on who you asked to do that work, their priorities might be completely different.

But instead of revolts, a good administrator could be seen as a great statesman, rising in position and putting his family closer to the throne. This is where local prestige plays a role as it inflate the desire of people to rise, be it themselves or their leaders, and a family managing to stay in power, raise their own situation while staying loyal to the central government can move upward organically. Since there's succession laws in the government, working your way in the list of legitimate heir for the throne can be influenced in different ways across the globe, so that rise of power described here would take a completely different turn in say, sub saharian Africa or in the HRE.