History of Map-Changes: why 1.23 is the way to go

[ElGranCapitan]

Honestly, I think Europe deserves a lot of work at this point
In Western Europe, adding more provinces to France/Burgundy/Iberia, adding the french vassals. Events surrounding the League of the Public weal and other struggles between the french nobility fighting for autonomy and the crown striefing for centralization. The French wars of Religion should play a bigger role, the current disaster never fires.
Something needs to be done to give Spain a bit of a power bump
Burgundy should participate in the french events, giving them the option to interfere on the side of the nobles against the king. Also an event chain related to a possible Burgundian Kingdom.
The HRE needs a complete mechanics rework. The reform process is so wrong I honestly don't even know how to fix it.
The Italian city states should get proper governments, for Florence a variation of the Dutch republic could work (to represent to struggle between the medici and the republican faction). Venice should elect the Doge for life, Venice also needs a serious buff, they were much stronger than they currently are
A Holy league mechanics would also be nice (Catholics forming a sort of coalition against heathen great powers)

 

[DanubianCossak]

How about just EU5 with saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, twice as large map

Do you know how much details we could squeeze into map?

 

[Ex Mudder]

Any reason why you hate Bordeaux in particular? And what would you change it to?

Brittany and Navarra have nothing to do with their second merchant in 1444.

No direct trade link from English Bordeaux to Channel - a Marketplace in Bordeaux actually feeds France / Champagne. Does make a good vassal though.

Making Paris an inland node allows massive drain of ducats from France via caravan power, and denies English / Spanish / Dutch navy the historic ability to drain trade revenue via ocean trade - and the attendant ability and need for France to challenge their naval power in the Atlantic.

Bordeaux and Champagne have very little raw trade power compared to Sevilla, Lubeck, Genoa, and Channel. Combining both of them and adding Normandy and Picardie corrects that, de-nerfs the BBB, and slightly nerfs Channel.

Spanish provinces in Bordeaux / Bay of Biscay have no trade relevance to Spain / Castile.

No direct trade trade link from Rhine to Channel. Sending both Bay of Biscay and Rhineland trade though Paris on it's way to London and the Low Countries is absurd.

 

[Sfan]

They can still transfer trade power in a random place for +10% TP in their homenode, there are quite a few countries in that situation (especially those who only own provinces in an origin node).

 

[Sol717]

and not at all on historical regions. The same is true for most of the provinces, they are based on the Republican overhaul and not the feudal regions when well, the Republican overhaul happened in the last 30 years

That applies to the whole map; if you tried to use historical regions for the whole map, you would end up having ~10,000 provinces.

 

[Mingmung]

That applies to the whole map; if you tried to use historical regions for the whole map, you would end up having ~10,000 provinces.

He did quite a job, really:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...french-provinces.1014940/page-3#post-23501807

Not all provinces are needed, but the explanations are really nice.

 

[Sfan]

That applies to the whole map; if you tried to use historical regions for the whole map, you would end up having ~10,000 provinces.

I don't mean that there should be more provinces. I mean that in several occasions, the Republican government intentionally made 3 provinces out of 3 historical ones, but mixed the historical provinces to create ahistorical borders. It's not that they are bigger, it's that they made a North-South division where there historically was a West-East one, for instance.

 

[sprites]

well we came a long way since the old EU3 map.
and i agree France could have more events/provinces/flavor, to play the BBB
I'm not a specialist in medieval history but France was more populated than the HRE back then 20 million was massive.

 

[ElGranCapitan]

I'm not a specialist in medieval history but France was more populated than the HRE back then 20 million was massive.

Are you sure about that?

While I'd agree that France had a higher population than Germany proper I doubt it had more than the Holy Roman Empire (including the highly populated Northern Italy and Low Countries)

 

[Rider_of_Doom]

Are you sure about that?

While I'd agree that France had a higher population than Germany proper I doubt it had more than the Holy Roman Empire (including the highly populated Northern Italy and Low Countries)

Both were slighty equal over the early timeframe:

1500 - Both around 16M
1600 - Around 20M

After the TYW the HRE fell off significantly with a population around 15M, while France still growed up to 21M (1700). The next century is negligible due to the downfall of the HRE, while France literally "exploded".

So, normally, France (including vassals etc.) and the HRE should be equal regarding provinces to represent the population in a appropriate way, but for the balance the HRE needs more provinces, too, if there would be a rework of France. And then the same applies for Iberia and Naples, Burgundy etc.. That could be the biggest problem for these reworks, because it needs a lot effort to get it right.

 

[Palando]

Both were slighty equal over the early timeframe:

1500 - Both around 16M
1600 - Around 20M

After the TYW the HRE fell off significantly with a population around 15M, while France still growed up to 21M (1700). The next century is negligible due to the downfall of the HRE, while France literally "exploded".

So, normally, France (including vassals etc.) and the HRE should be equal regarding provinces to represent the population in a appropriate way, but for the balance the HRE needs more provinces, too, if there would be a rework of France. And then the same applies for Iberia and Naples, Burgundy etc.. That could be the biggest problem for these reworks, because it needs a lot effort to get it right.

Your numbers for 1500 and 1600 have to be for the HRE without the Kingdom of Italy.

 

[Rider_of_Doom]

Your numbers for 1500 and 1600 have to be for the HRE without the Kingdom of Italy.

Nope. There's also Milan, which counts for France instead of the HRE, because it was a French holding for the timeframe around 1500. Later it's a holding of the HRE again, but in 1600 most Italian states had left the HRE already, so the population was overall lowered again.

The population of the HRE wasn't really that big as the amount of territory might suggest. And there's also the problem, that most of the numbers are extrapolated guesses on the basis of known town population. And in the end there's also different numbers floating around. For example: For 1600 most sources states a population between 16-21M for the HRE. It's literally impossible to find a viable number.

 

[GRWalker]

Is there a correlation between what regions are targeted in DLCs/patches and which IRL markets Paradox wishes to penetrate?

I'm wondering if MoH and Third Rome (and now CoC) were created to boost sales in East Europe, Far and Middle East. If so, the next map and mechanics changes may focus on an underperforming market rather than a saturated one (are EU4 sales in France and the Balkans saturated?)

 

[Sfan]

As for the Far East and Eastern Europe, the entire forum has begged for a new patch since months if not years before it happened, so I think that if they had the community in mind, that was rather that.

 

[Palando]

Nope. There's also Milan, which counts for France instead of the HRE, because it was a French holding for the timeframe around 1500. Later it's a holding of the HRE again, but in 1600 most Italian states had left the HRE already, so the population was overall lowered again.

The population of the HRE wasn't really that big as the amount of territory might suggest. And there's also the problem, that most of the numbers are extrapolated guesses on the basis of known town population. And in the end there's also different numbers floating around. For example: For 1600 most sources states a population between 16-21M for the HRE. It's literally impossible to find a viable number.

I have to agree that the population numbers are more like educated guesses. The problem with different borders increases the incomparability between the centuries.

I read that the population of France (with Savoy and Lorraine) was a bit lower or equal to the one of the HRE(without Italy) in 1500: 16 Mio.
The Kingdom of Italy was estimated with 4 Mio.
Different source, different numbers .

 

[Mingmung]

Is there a correlation between what regions are targeted in DLCs/patches and which IRL markets Paradox wishes to penetrate?

I'm wondering if MoH and Third Rome (and now CoC) were created to boost sales in East Europe, Far and Middle East. If so, the next map and mechanics changes may focus on an underperforming market rather than a saturated one (are EU4 sales in France and the Balkans saturated?)

I don't think there's any correlation, they seem to do what they think is cool or needed. They've said they have tons of expansion-ideas during Paradoxcon and files with interesting things they could touch upon.

People said Mists of Pandaria (World of Warcraft) was saturating the Chinese market, too. But it was actually just a cool idea the developers came up with and wanted to bring to life (and it was a great experience, in my opinion).

 

[StefanFan]

Is there a correlation between what regions are targeted in DLCs/patches and which IRL markets Paradox wishes to penetrate?

I'm wondering if MoH and Third Rome (and now CoC) were created to boost sales in East Europe, Far and Middle East. If so, the next map and mechanics changes may focus on an underperforming market rather than a saturated one (are EU4 sales in France and the Balkans saturated?)

I think it's down to multiple factors, but two of them are these. One, computers are better than 5 years ago, so the vanilla player which doesn't use mods can handle more provinces. Second, look at the so many cool overhaul mods, people want bigger maps, so they would be ignorant not to develop the map if they can. With the current pace of feature developing many mods will have a hard time to follow it especially the ones that block vanilla features and the DLC ones. I really really really can't wait for EU 5, I think it will be a masterpiece, it can't be anything else but that.

 

[Mingmung]

I think it's down to multiple factors, but two of them are these. One, computers are better than 5 years ago, so the vanilla player which doesn't use mods can handle more provinces. Second, look at the so many cool overhaul mods, people want bigger maps, so they would be ignorant not to develop the map if they can. With the current pace of feature developing many mods will have a hard time to follow it especially the ones that block vanilla features and the DLC ones. I really really really can't wait for EU 5, I think it will be a masterpiece, it can't be anything else but that.

The DLC-policy is making sure that we won't see EU5 for a very, very, very long time. Even said so by the devs: if we keep paying, they keep on making.

And how it looks and plays right now compared to 2013 is a world of difference. It could already be called an 'EU5', really.

 

[StefanFan]

The DLC-policy is making sure that we won't see EU5 for a very, very, very long time. Even said so by the devs: if we keep paying, they keep on making.

And how it looks and plays right now compared to 2013 is a world of difference. It could already be called an 'EU5', really.

Well I am pretty sure money is a factor too, but we all gotta make a living, right?

 

[alphamikefox]

As we can all clearly see, the region of the world in most need of a rework is Iceland. No chances since day 1! Disgraceful