How are Mesos/Andeans supposed to deal with 1st idea group at lvl 5?

[GrounchoVilla]

....And diseases.

Disease is insufficiently modeled in the game. If I was designing this game from scratch, I'd make the Mesoamericans and Andeans far more economically wealthy from the start, but suffer increased economic and military maluses once contact is made

We are not talking about OPM Wanka. We are talking about big, nasty Inca, which is expanding beyond their historical borders.
What happened in history, as many already said, that Spaniards fluked out, used locals etc. e.g. for Inca, Spaniards found them at their low, just after civil war and killed ruler by subterfuge. Do you really believe that 168 Spaniards (number of Pizarro troops) were enough and singlehandly conquered whole Inca Empire?

I think the problem is that this is the image often given in our history books, and also the image Pizarro himself had every incentive to inculcate. It's far from accurate of course, as the wiki links I provided show. Even with the Inca, Pizarro would not have been able to follow up the murder of the emperor without the help of indigenous armies.

 

[Lot]

Exploring and expanding to a part of the world where your nation would not normally go to just so you can westernise early is about as bullocks as it gets.

I don't care to get into a discussion about balance between the tech groups, but if you claim realism to defend this sort of nonsense you lose all credibility.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Exploring and expanding to a part of the world where your nation would not normally go to just so you can westernise early is about as bullocks as it gets.

I don't care to get into a discussion about balance between the tech groups, but if you claim realism to defend this sort of nonsense you lose all credibility.

That's fine, so long as you accept that claiming realism to justify further nerfs to the new world carries a similar void in credibility.

 

[Kagemin]

With how over the top the buffs from El Dorado were I'm guessing the Mesoamericnas and Andeans will still be in a decent, albeit tougher situation.
Without DLCs it might be a bit more than it probably should be, but that's hard to say without playtesting.

I do agree that a starting tech level of 2 would make sense for them (same as a higher starting level for the Chinese).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With how over the top the buffs from El Dorado were I'm guessing the Mesoamericnas and Andeans will still be in a decent, albeit tougher situation.
Without DLCs it might be a bit more than it probably should be, but that's hard to say without playtesting.

I do agree that a starting tech level of 2 would make sense for them (same as a higher starting level for the Chinese).

Buffs? No, the 1.9 --> 1.10 ship nerf was so drastic that even in 1.11 Aztec and Inca are only marginally stronger than 1.9, and mostly because they also got NIs. The religion bonuses are nice, but so was the ability to blithely swap into a Christian faith and not have to worry about unity or conversion strength once you got past westernization.

From a balance perspective, there has been exactly 0 patches where Aztec or Inca are/were competitively viable in a MP setting, and 0 patches where they overperformed on average. The only time these nations survive in AI hands is when the other AI arbitrarily decides not to kill them. In MP anybody who wants can just land troops in TI and walk to you, use a blind colonial conquest DoW before you can reform, and you're dead.

 

[Lot]

That's fine, so long as you accept that claiming realism to justify further nerfs to the new world carries a similar void in credibility.

Like I said, I'm not interested in joining the balance debate. It is a sad and gamey strategy that got nerfed, whether that leaves a gap in the balance of power I have no opinion on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Like I said, I'm not interested in joining the balance debate. It is a sad and gamey strategy that got nerfed, whether that leaves a gap in the balance of power I have no opinion on.

Know why that "gamey strategy" came into play for this nation group? Because despite that these nations could sail to the Caribbean and had contact into South America, PI took away ALL native ships completely. The pre 1.10 method typically used to westernize involved...dropping a colony into the Caribbean and westernizing off that directly. It was one of the least "gamey" areas to westernize in the game, since you could simply find and make contact with a western border directly.

But herp derp nope, can't have natives have heavies, so let's take away ALL ships from them too because history only matters sometimes. Of course, the reasoning for this particular change has been routinely ducked from the moment it was implemented to this day, probably because the only possible explanation for it creates a self contradiction.

 

[Magean]

The best that could be done would be to devise other things to do for New World nations. If you survive and westernize without having been gimped by Spain taking 80% of your clay, then there's no challenge. You'll be the superpower of the Americas. Conquering or milking other natives is a trivial task. Conquering colonial nations is easy too. Besides, expanding mainly through same-continent uncontested colonization makes for a quite boring gameplay.

Could there be any other viable strategy than taking exploration ? Even if you role play to an extent and don't do the seize colony trick, you have to take exploration because those two colonists simply beat any other choice you could make.

 

[GrounchoVilla]

The best that could be done would be to devise other things to do for New World nations. If you survive and westernize without having been gimped by Spain taking 80% of your clay, then there's no challenge. You'll be the superpower of the Americas. Conquering or milking other natives is a trivial task. Conquering colonial nations is easy too. Besides, expanding mainly through same-continent uncontested colonization makes for a quite boring gameplay.

Could there be any other viable strategy than taking exploration ? Even if you role play to an extent and don't do the seize colony trick, you have to take exploration because those two colonists simply beat any other choice you could make.

I think an alternative trade or diplomatic path to westernization would have been cool. If I was King Henry, I'd have been happy to sell the Inca some cannon for a bit of what became Atahualpa's ransom.

 

[harvesarmy]

Nobody could touch Qing in this period.

It is rather odd that they can be wiped in this game! Surely the British and spaniards didn't have that much of an advantage in this period?

What we need for aztec and inca is to get boats back (even just transport ships would be good enough), and maybe change the colonist for explorer. then we need stuff to give us conversion power - the events and decisions Europeans and every other religion get.

Perhaps in the future there does need to be a better tech system, one that doesn't just rely on "westernisation" and western based technologies. Perhaps nations with no contact could have come up with new tech in a few hundred years? In the short term though, perhaps a simple tech cost adjustment would be good enough.

 

[Sabotage13]

In MP anybody who wants can just land troops in TI and walk to you, use a blind colonial conquest DoW before you can reform, and you're dead.

I thought that was the intended gameplay for Meso/South American civilizations?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I thought that was the intended gameplay for Meso/South American civilizations?

If it is, then it has never been compromised and these changes are all irrelevant to that consideration.

Basically, I was using that line to utterly refute that any of these changes can defensibly use "balance" as their reasoning, because these nations have not been either competitive viable or viable in AI hands in any patch ever.

 

[josh127]

I thought that was the intended gameplay for Meso/South American civilizations?

Maybe so. Nomads intended gameplay is "Reform or Die" as Wiz told us, so maybe in the Americas the intended gameplay is "Just Die".

 

[Sabotage13]

I don't think Paradox has ever used "balance" with that particular meaning in mind. There is a clear hierarchy in place between various player options, with certain countries being evidently easier to play, with more options and overall superior gameplay than others.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think Paradox has ever used "balance" with that particular meaning in mind. There is a clear hierarchy in place between various player options, with certain countries being evidently easier to play, with more options and overall superior gameplay than others.

PI clearly does not mean LoL or StarCraft balance. But, their balance has been "make x nation do as well as we expect it to do or want it to do, with more regard to our preferences than history or any set of derived criteria applied consistently".

That still can't be rationally applied in this case, because the nations in question have consistently failed as expected in every patch. Because of that consistent failure, balance is not a possible justification for a nerf. It doesn't work any more effectively than holding a lit firework in a closed fist works for "medicinal purposes". A valid reason to nerf Mesoamerica is not impossible in theory, but balance as the reason is not that reason.

 

[Mr_Hobo]

Please stick to the topic of discussion. I'm tired of undressing this argument over and over and over again. The game is flagrantly unrealistic through and through, and any assertion that finishing westernization = "on par" is an advertisement of not understanding the game mechanic in question.

Just because some things in this game aren't historically accurate doesn't mean we have to avoid arguments in favor of historical plausibility. Adding more impossible scenarios doesn't improve the game; we should fix the new stuff AND the old. I don't want to a game that only resembles historical outcomes at the start and then gets insanely nonsensical. I'd rather fix the game so that certain outcomes are probable, although change isn't impossible.

As for how this applies to the topic at hand, I'd like to see Aztec and Inca have something to do as they tech up. But making them masters of the Americas before 1550 is not the way to go. They need something to not make waiting terrible while still limiting their power properly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Just because some things in this game aren't historically accurate doesn't mean we have to avoid arguments in favor of historical plausibility. Adding more impossible scenarios doesn't improve the game; we should fix the new stuff AND the old. I don't want to a game that only resembles historical outcomes at the start and then gets insanely nonsensical. I'd rather fix the game so that certain outcomes are probable, although change isn't impossible.

As for how this applies to the topic at hand, I'd like to see Aztec and Inca have something to do as they tech up. But making them masters of the Americas before 1550 is not the way to go. They need something to not make waiting terrible while still limiting their power properly.

Why do you seek to limit the power of some of the most destitute positions in the game exactly? Even as Tarascan where I had good luck and really cheesed westernization I wasn't "on par" until well after 1600, despite being "western" by 1531. You're given a serious hole, and if optimized play using tactics some players don't even want to touch is still behind nearly half the game, what is the incentive to nerf the position further?

The problem with the nerf using history as a basis is that

1) Wiz claims it isn't something he takes seriously.

2) Nothing was done to tone down the advantages other nations get over these nations, despite those advantages being ahistorical also...in fact during the same patch this ridiculous nerf was introduced, the treaty of tacos AND no nationalism in "primitive" lands was also introduced, making new world conquest easier deliberately.

3) Projecting a situation where new world nations didn't have access to any ships at all is flagrantly ahistorical, to the point where this nerf traded away one ridiculous unrealistic situation for another ridiculous unrealistic situation...and somehow the majority of players who don't use these nations are okay with that!

So no, usage of history to justify the changes as implemented can not hold up.

 

[GrounchoVilla]

Just because some things in this game aren't historically accurate doesn't mean we have to avoid arguments in favor of historical plausibility. Adding more impossible scenarios doesn't improve the game; we should fix the new stuff AND the old. I don't want to a game that only resembles historical outcomes at the start and then gets insanely nonsensical. I'd rather fix the game so that certain outcomes are probable, although change isn't impossible.

As for how this applies to the topic at hand, I'd like to see Aztec and Inca have something to do as they tech up. But making them masters of the Americas before 1550 is not the way to go. They need something to not make waiting terrible while still limiting their power properly.

Two points - (1) the conquest of the Americas was not an inevitability, and the survival of those empires was not an impossibility (imagine if Cortez was killed or sacrificed during La Noche Triste) and (2) the point of the game is to allow for some drift from history within some kind of vague "realistic" boundaries depending on AI and player choices.

 

[Magean]

To some extent, the Treaty of Tordesillas makes you life easier. You get wrecked once by France/Spain/Mexico, but after that you know that only one of these will come back for more easy land. Maybe England if they turn Protestant. Unless you're unlucky as I was and you happen to see a Reformed France for the first time precisely in your game as a New World nation...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To some extent, the Treaty of Tordesillas makes you life easier. You get wrecked once by France/Spain/Mexico, but after that you know that only one of these will come back for more easy land. Maybe England if they turn Protestant. Unless you're unlucky as I was and you happen to see a Reformed France for the first time precisely in your game as a New World nation...

Nope. If you don't westernize fast, you will get triple dow'd or chain dow'd. A relentless rotation of England, Iberian butt buddies, and France. If you're a little unlucky, you can look at 20+ years of consecutive war against different nations, sometimes technically against several. The worst case scenario is that they start doing this before you've even met them, such that you only meet them after DoW.

Even if you survive that, the cost is enormous and the gameplay of "doing nothing at all for 80 years then trying to recover against superpowers who won't peace out when you're winning because hurrrrr length of war" is not ideal.