I'm not looking to start a discussion on Paradox's DLC policy or whether it just makes for "lazy content", because whether or not that is true is a separate discussion. I just genuinely am curious as to how the community as a whole feel about mission trees as mechanic, and potentially with respect to the inevitable EU5.
On the forums you often get a genuine sense that they are hated and negative posts often receive lots of agrees and few disagrees. However; based on the reception of Lions of the North, there's clearly a market for them (otherwise they wouldn't do them). If you go to the workshop, you also see that Missions Expanded is one of the most popular mods to date, whereas I'm not sure there's even a "Missions Removed" mod, or at the least, it's not nearly as popular.
Now personally, I am pro mission trees. One of the biggest arguments against them is obviously railroading. This argument has a few of offshoots, namely railroading of the AI and railroading of the player. I think the I:R mission system, with some adjustments, addresses both issues, and is quite close to a perfect mission system.
I'll try to address AI railroading first. Now this topic is actually immensely complex, but in brief, there are two extreme camps: people who want things to play out exactly as history did when you don't touch anything and those that basically just want a sandbox battle royals with 1444 start map. Most people obviously fall somewhere in between with either extreme being utterly ridiculous and the former being impossible as soon as the player does something. I fall somewhere closer to the first camp, where I could play out my alt-history fantasy, shaping the way things played out and the AI reacting accordingly. Many people in this camp believe that instead of mission trees that the game should instead model the underlying reasons and motivations for a certain course of action, with which I agree. My contention is that it's not possible to model everything, especially over centuries, since it's a game and it would quickly become unfun. Some things like historical ambitions stemming from before the game start hard to model too. How does one model the Iberians' motivation to explore West and East, or some insane events like Aq Qoyunlu beating Qara Quyonlu? If one looks at CK for example, as soon as you press unpause, the map becomes unrecognisable and never approaches anything resembling history ever.
In regards to player railroading, one could simply choose not to do the missions. There's always the min-maxing argument of it being suboptimal play, but I would argue the majority of players don't min-max anyway, since it's simply an unfun cakewalk. I do agree that power creep is real though and that bonus modifiers should be toned down, kept local or entirely removed.
Finally I want to discuss why I think the I:R mission system is fantastic. The fact that you can chose between different sets of missions (and different branches within a set) at a time is fantastic for some alt-history ambitions, but also removes the railroading. New sets can become available based on previously completed ones and you can make era specific ones too. The generic missions were great too as it always gives you/AI something to strive to and more or less adapts to the reality of the map, e.g. a conquer Illyria mission if you bordered Illyria, which gave a bit more of an organic experience. I don't think the bonuses were too extreme either iirc.
For me and I think many new players too, missions are fun because they give you a direction and goal to strive towards. Along with country specific events and DHEs they also make the countries more unique, instead of just being start position A and start position B. I personally would rather envision an I:R system like a path where you could choose to follow different branches, choose to just walk onto the grass altogether, instead of a railroad. For those who absolutely dislike them I think gamerules could solve this easily, where you could just turn them (and DHEs) off entirely, or have the AI choose not follow them (ahistorical mode basically). I think gamerules are a way to make the most people happy.
Sorry for the long rambling post. I'm sure many will disagree, but please, I'd also like to hear why.
On the forums you often get a genuine sense that they are hated and negative posts often receive lots of agrees and few disagrees. However; based on the reception of Lions of the North, there's clearly a market for them (otherwise they wouldn't do them). If you go to the workshop, you also see that Missions Expanded is one of the most popular mods to date, whereas I'm not sure there's even a "Missions Removed" mod, or at the least, it's not nearly as popular.
Now personally, I am pro mission trees. One of the biggest arguments against them is obviously railroading. This argument has a few of offshoots, namely railroading of the AI and railroading of the player. I think the I:R mission system, with some adjustments, addresses both issues, and is quite close to a perfect mission system.
I'll try to address AI railroading first. Now this topic is actually immensely complex, but in brief, there are two extreme camps: people who want things to play out exactly as history did when you don't touch anything and those that basically just want a sandbox battle royals with 1444 start map. Most people obviously fall somewhere in between with either extreme being utterly ridiculous and the former being impossible as soon as the player does something. I fall somewhere closer to the first camp, where I could play out my alt-history fantasy, shaping the way things played out and the AI reacting accordingly. Many people in this camp believe that instead of mission trees that the game should instead model the underlying reasons and motivations for a certain course of action, with which I agree. My contention is that it's not possible to model everything, especially over centuries, since it's a game and it would quickly become unfun. Some things like historical ambitions stemming from before the game start hard to model too. How does one model the Iberians' motivation to explore West and East, or some insane events like Aq Qoyunlu beating Qara Quyonlu? If one looks at CK for example, as soon as you press unpause, the map becomes unrecognisable and never approaches anything resembling history ever.
In regards to player railroading, one could simply choose not to do the missions. There's always the min-maxing argument of it being suboptimal play, but I would argue the majority of players don't min-max anyway, since it's simply an unfun cakewalk. I do agree that power creep is real though and that bonus modifiers should be toned down, kept local or entirely removed.
Finally I want to discuss why I think the I:R mission system is fantastic. The fact that you can chose between different sets of missions (and different branches within a set) at a time is fantastic for some alt-history ambitions, but also removes the railroading. New sets can become available based on previously completed ones and you can make era specific ones too. The generic missions were great too as it always gives you/AI something to strive to and more or less adapts to the reality of the map, e.g. a conquer Illyria mission if you bordered Illyria, which gave a bit more of an organic experience. I don't think the bonuses were too extreme either iirc.
For me and I think many new players too, missions are fun because they give you a direction and goal to strive towards. Along with country specific events and DHEs they also make the countries more unique, instead of just being start position A and start position B. I personally would rather envision an I:R system like a path where you could choose to follow different branches, choose to just walk onto the grass altogether, instead of a railroad. For those who absolutely dislike them I think gamerules could solve this easily, where you could just turn them (and DHEs) off entirely, or have the AI choose not follow them (ahistorical mode basically). I think gamerules are a way to make the most people happy.
Sorry for the long rambling post. I'm sure many will disagree, but please, I'd also like to hear why.
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