Has Some of the Fun Gone Out of This Game?

[Freudia]

Realism you say ? How is it realism to expect consitency in gameplay mechanics ? Is it not normal for better things to also cost more ?
If you get the choice between 2 things that cost the same but have different values one being 100% better why even bother making the weaker thing?

Well, hostile core creation modifiers result in scenarios where worse things cost more, despite that making no logical sense either.

Honestly, a decent solution to coring costs could be that they divide administrative efficiency across most admin tech levels, so that you gradually get better at adding land into your realm instead of just suddenly being better at it in spikes.

 

[MordinSolis]

With admin efficiency 1 and administrative ideas you could push down coring costs to 1 paper mana per dev using overseas coring with any tag prior to the change to overseas coring--this was after the spike in coring costs. Now the same setup will cost you 3 paper mana per dev, a 200% increase, slowing down progress terribly for any tag that isn't blessed with RCC.

how is 3 adm per dev much ? by that price you could literaly core 13572/52764= 0.257 => 25% of the entire world with dev from 1444 while having only the base 3 adm per month

 

[itsuart]

I don't really agree. To make conquered lands work for you, you gotta ensure a few things. For me, I'll rather take the time to reduce local autonomy in the country to the floor values, and ensure religious and cultural unity (all primary or accepted cultures).

You don't really agree with what exactly? My point is that the only dynamic, 'fun' play is conquest havy.

 

[MordinSolis]

my bad, it was in the same patch. Nevertheless it was increased ~40%

ah i didnt read that post by wiz but still 40% up seems not that bad since you still can blobb like cracy while being tech leader even in asia if you manage well

 

[yezhanquan]

You don't really agree with what exactly? My point is that the only dynamic, 'fun' play is conquest havy.

And that is the part I don't agree with. I like the odd war here and there, but no, I don't find constant warring fun.

 

[Nuklearius]

#

 

[grandadmiralbob]

To the OP, I have well over 4k hours in this game, and to the best way I can put it....... When you're at peace you appreciate war, and when at war you appreciate peace. If you want to play a conquering game, play outside of Europe as that seems to be your style. You can also keep coalitions at bay with truces *use your imagination*.

 

[MordinSolis]

Well, hostile core creation modifiers result in scenarios where worse things cost more, despite that making no logical sense either.

Hostile coring was made to discourage people and AI from conquering for example north africa and also other places like georgia( the european one).
It also was toned down so much that its not really that bad especialy since it gets countered by overseascoring unless you are a berber yourself.

I have to agree on the second part though spreading Admin efficency would be nice since so many people seem not able to even reach the tech currently needed

 

[Xara]

This is true, but this is more of a situational case, and since Ming is a bit of an unusual/unique case (although I would say that 50% isn't completely useless, and it's still better than your enemy having it). I just disagree with the notation that you always have to core, or are forced to core a province. It is, as you said, a case of weighing up the positives and tradeoffs of the situation and making a decision.

Is this supposed to be a joke reply?

Here's the tradeoff you are suggesting:

-You get to sit at 100% or less OE
-You then get to do nothing for the rest of the game because you don't core them and can't conquer anything else without dying.

Come on. Coring is always necessary, it's just a question of timing and point availability. This is even more supported by Paradox changing the rules such that you cannot even take provinces you can't core, whereas previously you could take un-core-able provinces in a war.

 

[grandadmiralbob]

Well, hostile core creation modifiers result in scenarios where worse things cost more, despite that making no logical sense either.

Honestly, a decent solution to coring costs could be that they divide administrative efficiency across most admin tech levels, so that you gradually get better at adding land into your realm instead of just suddenly being better at it in spikes.

You, are a genius! Makes sense in so many ways.

 

[itsuart]

And that is the part I don't agree with. I like the odd war here and there, but no, I don't find constant warring fun.

What do you do then? What makes you lean back on your chair and say "yeah, that was fun! just look at my XXX!"? I'm genuinely interested because I can't play after 1700 or so because there is nothing else to do but blobbing and feels like a chore.

 

[yezhanquan]

I guess all the potential colonies got snapped up by then. Also, I tend to war in order to dominate trade nodes.

 

[itsuart]

So "I have biggest trade income" is your "I won!" condition?

 

[LastSalian]

That is simply not true.
You can conquer ALOT no problem before the game ends without taking either influence or administrative.

Here some math as proof (disclaimer this calculation disregards all events stab hits and other mp drains as well as no developing provs since not everybody has CS so of course its not accurate):

Total BT in europe 1444 2360
Total Production in 1444 2335
Total Manpower in 1444 1558

Total Dev in europe 1444 is thus 6253 comes to 62530 adm to core.(without any CC reductions form ideas adm efficency or even just claims)

You make 3 MP base if you have a 0/0/0 ruler (which is very unlikely) and no advisors.
Topped at 13MP (15 if you count National focus again not counted because of DLC) per month in ideal case of +3 advisors and 6/6/6 rulers(also very uncommon

So for a game that takes 377 years that makes 4524 months.

Worst case(impossible since you must like not play the game to at the very least get +1advisors)
4524*3=13572 adm -> 13572/62530 =0.21 so you can core 21% of europe. Not great you might think but still 1357 dev which is quite a bit.

Average case(lets say you have average rulers that have 3/3/3 and can afford lvl 2 advisors )
4524*8=36192 -> 36192/62530=0.578 so you can core 57.8% of europe. Now already 3619 dev which is more or less the dev of Rome at its greatest extend applied to eu4 map in 1444.(thats 3758 dev )

for funsies:

Best Case(also practicaly impossible since 6/6/6 rulers are sady quite rare and you cant afford lvl3 advisors as most nations the entire game)
4524*13=58812 -> 58812/62530=0.94 So you can core 94% of europe. This amounts to 5812 dev which is incredibly much and i think not something you would ever achive unless you go WC.

First of all, not impressed at all with that 57.8% of Europe.

Second thing, are you missing the ADM needed for upgrade technology and ideas?

 

[net.split]

What do you do then? What makes you lean back on your chair and say "yeah, that was fun! just look at my XXX!"? I'm genuinely interested because I can't play after 1700 or so because there is nothing else to do but blobbing and feels like a chore.

I also have a fairly war-light playstyle (most of the time -- I've done conquer-heavy games on occasion). When I'm not at war I'm exploring, colonizing, building, developing, juggling diplomats, handling events, moving troops to places of unrest / squashing rebels, reconfiguring armies, and playing around with budget elements (including sliders, advisors, merchant vessel allocation, etc). When none of those things are happening, then I'm watching the simulation on speed 3 or 4 -- I see what my allies & enemies are up to, look at what's happening on the other side of the world, etc. Basically just relax a bit and get immersed in it.

Serious veterans would find most of that boring by this point due to hours sunk into the game, but I haven't quite reached that point yet. Stellaris will be out before I do, and then EU5, so s'all good.

Anything gets boring if you've put too many hours into it.

 

[Jomini]

The real reason the fun has been slowly draining from the basic game is that every decision is pretty much the same thing, over and over again. Every region of the map is pretty much just a giant blob of provinces. You can basically ignore topography in the vast majority of wars now because there is always some path from you to the fort that doesn't hit a bottleneck.

This would not be so bad except that Forts making pathing screwy and the AI is utterly moronic at fort placement and number (the AI is pitifully slow at tearing down forts). So 90% of your battles happen in your favorite frontier provinces (mountains behind rivers, plains without rivers, etc.) or on a small patch of land where there is exactly one efficient course and some convoluted & moronic path for dodging zone of control.

Then we get to monarch points. You basically always want as many monarch points as you can get and it is only in the earliest game where there are terribly many exceptions to "always make the choice that saves the most MP". Every single top SP idea set is something that gives heavy MP discounts. Because you cannot invest points (outside of waiting on tech), you face no time tension and MP efficiency is pretty much a linear optimization problem. Some things, like stability or inflation have real choices attached to them, but cores are pretty just a giant sink and your only options are:
1. Change government for MP control (Republic, etc.)
2. Take ideas to reduce core cost (Admin, Influence)
3. Farm MP from conquistadors, estates, razing, etc.

So very quickly you reach a point where your rate limiting factor is not some strategic thing you need to make decisions about ... it is literally just waiting out a timer for MP so you can core things.

But what about diplomacy? Well that has gotten less strategic with every patch. Pdox worries about people abusing allies ... so now it is terribly difficult to get allies. Modifiers, like the nigh unto impossible to remove "neutral attitude", count for more than your entire army being dead or alive. Rivals are limited to silly game constraints - if you are an aspiring Muslim Naval power you cannot rival England even if you WANT to kick them out of Gascony. Royal marriages give you very little (outside of Game of Thrones silliness), but count for a relations slot.

Once you do get allies, well prepare to spend a whole lot of time doing nothing with them. Favors accrue slowly and you allies still do not fight coherently in wars. Of course every betrayal or realignment is telgraphed years in advance. Swapping alliances gets dicey when you own anything the AI wants and of course with how AE works you are heavily rewarded for just allying a few big threats early in the game and not changing your setup until you inherit them or outgrow all your other potential rivals.

Wars are now almost always long and longer truces follow. The cost benefit exchange of virtually all wars tends exceedingly toward maximal wars & peaces. Pretty much you want to take exactly as much land as you can afford without tripping over AE, Adm or Dip timers. Every other reason to go to war is just about never worth the cost in lost autonomy reduction, increased WE, manpower, etc.

Lastly, there are so many blob protection rackets in the game that when you get big and your enemies get big, it is just a simple grind.

The game has ever fewer non-obvious strategic decisions. Making everything run through AE and MP makes the decision you face really trivial.

 

[Viperswhip]

The short answer is, a fully patched updated game for me is less fun than one that is not. I am not an exploity player so the cheesiest I ever got was the before back date for getting Byz cores and the 1.51 cheese strategy, but I mostly play previous patches now, because I found this game quite fun around Art of War, but ambivalent after that. I still play more EU3 than EU4 because I appreciate the game style more. I think the problem is monarch points, it adds a layer of strategy, but it's luck based to a huge extent, which doesn't belong in a strategy game beyond some lucky events. However, in this game, you can get a queen with 0-1-0 who lives to be 80, nothing you can do about it.

In EU3, you just trundle along, need an advisor? Save up some points, want to go to war forever? Np, don't need to core, just put down plenty of rebels over time, then in 50 years, it's yours. I love EU3.

 

[hwoosh]

Yep, 1.12 was a huge misstep in so many ways, the gratuitously increased coring costs being chief among them. Also, everyone suddenly became starved for manpower because they removed the bonus from increased military tech. The early game became tedious and unpleasant.

I think a lot of the stuff that's been introduced since then is pretty cool, and it was interesting to play around with estates for a few hours after Cossacks came out, but I quickly fled back to 1.11 again, holding my nose. Every patch since 1.12 has hurt more than it's helped. 1.11 truly is the definitive version of the game in my eyes, and I've probably put a thousand hours into that patch since 1.12 was released.

 

[MordinSolis]

First of all, not impressed at all with that 57.8% of Europe.

Second thing, are you missing the ADM needed for upgrade technology and ideas?

As i said in the post i just looked at coring cost and adm production not anything else (or you could add a claim on every prov you take to reduce cc by 10% and adm efficency once it hits takes another big chunk out.

Also really ? over 3k dev is not enough for you on an average run ?
Do you do a WC every single run you play ?

 

[bbqftw]

Hostile coring was made to discourage people and AI from conquering for example north africa and also other places like georgia( the european one).
It also was toned down so much that its not really that bad especialy since it gets countered by overseascoring unless you are a berber yourself.

I have to agree on the second part though spreading Admin efficency would be nice since so many people seem not able to even reach the tech currently needed

With the development system its best to engineer situations where the ICC nations meet a tragic end early.