How to buff republics
- Thread starter AnguyTheArcher
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Shorter election cycle, which can translate to more flexibility in points, or a faster time in which to level your ruler up to 6/6/6.
Shorter re-election cycles = more stats over time typically. Merchant is great IMO with 4 years. If you get a guy late 30's or even early 40's you can still re-elect twice without risking too much if you don't make him a general.
But that's because the population mostly rose up against the kings. In EU4, we sort of play the king, we shouldn't want to change into a republic. That would accurately depict history: we should be forced to change to a republic, and try to actively fight it.
I was actually going to say, after the Civil War period, England acted more like a republic establishing a long-lasting stable rule with commercialized gentry paving the way for modern democracy. Though officially it was CM.
And that was pretty powerful.
And that was pretty powerful.
Republics definitely do not need a buff. Republican nations such as Novgorod might, but the actual government type itself? No way. As was already discussed, you get 2/2/2 rulers at worst and no regencies, with the ability to elect a new ruler as it suits your needs.
The ability to distribute MP value at will has non-zero value IMO. For example you can hit tech 7 diplo faster than all but the luckiest monarchies, opening up some of the fastest non-iberian colonization possible. You can also gouge military or administrative as you advance idea groups, managing ahead-of-years.
That last one may be the single biggest advantage Republics have. With just a little planning, you'll always know how to make ideas and tech mesh most efficiently with the available points and never risk going ahead-of-time. And if you're in danger of that happening and with no ideas available? Elect a new guy and recover Republican Tradition.
The lesson the establishment seemed to learn from the Civil War and the Commonwealth was that some kind of balance was needed between the absolute monarchy of Charles I and the extremism that would come from a fully republican government (discredited as a result of Cromwell's military dictatorship). There was still room for the king to have a strong role in politics as long as he didn't try to rule by decree. But the events of the 'Glorious Revolution' gave Parliament most of the legislative power (as well as making it clear that the king's legitimacy depended on Parliamentary approval), and after that the executive power of the monarchy was gradually replaced by that of ministers in Parliament, but this took several generations to happen. I wouldn't describe 18th-century Britain as being like a modern republic - it was a genuine constitutional monarchy where the monarch had real power within the prescribed limits.
It's interesting to look at the US Constitution, which in some ways is a fossilised relic of British constitutional thought in the late 18th century (especially the concept of a balance between Parliament and the Crown). Like the British kings of the time, the President of the US retains considerable power and basically picks the administration himself, but is also beholden to Congress for legislation.
It would be good to have a better model of Constitutional Monarchy in EU4, reflecting the fact that the monarch is no longer calling all the shots. Maybe halve the effect of the monarch's base stats, but increase the effect of Advisors (could be renamed 'Ministers'), and give the ability to make one of them a Prime Minister whose bonuses are doubled (so like a Republic, you can choose to focus on one stat to some extent by having e.g. your Diplomatic minister as PM). Also, the penalties associated with a Regency should be waived, as ConMons can cope just fine with a weak monarch.
It's really debatable how much power the British monarch really had at that time. It's important to note that British law, by virtue of it's longer history, is often less explicit then that of the US; up until the EU treaties, technically it would have only taken an act of Parliament (and the Queen's signature) to remove all British civil liberties. But it would have been unthinkable for both MPs and their constituents to do so.
With that in mind, it's important to point out that 18th century British monarchs had great powers on paper, but the British monarch still does today. 18th century British monarchs were just as un-involved in legislation as modern ones, so from the perspective of a society where rules are not formally encoded, that's essentially not a real power; the King or Queen could, hypothetically, be involved in legislation, but did not then and does not now. In fact, the only power that the British monarch exercised in a regular basis in the 18th century that the Queen does not today is the command of the military: 17th century monarchs both regularly made appointments within the military and in many cases personally led troops, both of which were unthinkable today.
The government of the UK in the 18th century was obviously not a modern republic. However, it isn't a true monarchy either because the power of the monarch was largely symbolic in those days as well; parliament was as firmly in control of the governance of the country after the Glorious Revolution as it is today. The difference is that the modern Parliament is elected with broad suffrage and represents all of British society, while the 18th century British parliament was dominated by a small elite, mostly landed nobility but with increasing influence from wealthy non-nobles. In that sense, it is more accurate to say that in 18th century Britain, power was split between the merchant classes and the noble classes than it is to say that it was divided between the Kings and the public.
That said, it's not entirely clear what differences should be made in governing Constitutional Monarchy in-game. They definitely should suffer smaller regency penalties, although the regency penalties suffered by regular monarchies are arguably too large already. Increasing the effect of advisers risks being unbalanced, as a wealthy constitutional monarchy that can consistently afford excellent advisers now has an even larger monarch point advantage than they did previously. If the monarch's base stat effects were cut sufficiently we could balance the Constitutional Monarchy compared to a republic instead of compared to a monarch; the combination of the monarch's base stats plus that of the bonuses to advises should be comparable to republic leader points.
Yes the loss of Republican Tradition is much worse for Republics than the loss of Legitimacy for Monarchies. Monarchies reset their legitimacy every time their ruler dies.
4. Plutocracy should be exclusive to republic. Want to switch back to monarchy?
Enjoy your aristocratic ideas.
This makes very much sense. It's more intuitive and how I thought they worked in the first pace. Since Aristocratic ideas are generally considered a weak idea, it will discourage Republics from switching.
I would agree that, especially the non-RM Republics need a minor buff. Since Republican Tradition seems underused, why not add a government form-specific modifier to it?
Like, +10% tax for administrative republics, +10% trade power for merchant republics, +0.5 prestige for noble republics (as I've mentioned, the RM-capability is already a good enough thing in itself, they don't need much here), +0.5 tradition/year for legislative republics, ETC, all scaling upon republican tradition?
Like, +10% tax for administrative republics, +10% trade power for merchant republics, +0.5 prestige for noble republics (as I've mentioned, the RM-capability is already a good enough thing in itself, they don't need much here), +0.5 tradition/year for legislative republics, ETC, all scaling upon republican tradition?
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Well, in some ways, Constitutional Monarchy does have smaller penalties for regencies. In particular, it gives +1 legitimacy/year, which offsets the regency legitimacy penalty somewhat.
The heir will still take the throne with 100 legitimacy if he had a strong claim. Regencies are the best time to mass annex vassals because you won't have to worry about the legitimacy hits and it's not like you got anything else to do.
I think republics are good as now except one aspect -
This.
I think this is actually a nerf - switching should be an option IMO.4. Plutocracy should be exclusive to republic. Want to switch back to monarchy?
Enjoy your aristocratic ideas
So basically everyone knows it is much more advantageous to play as monarch in EU. You can royal marry, PU, diplovassalize, average royal stats are better, than rookie republic leaders, lack of legitimacy is not as damaging as RT, etc.
So it's obvious, that republics should be made more powerful for beterr balanced gameplay.
My suggestions :
1. reduce the influence of lack of RT on stability cost. 200 % is really much.
2. Republics should have lower war exhaustion, when fighting defensive wars, especially with high republican tradition. (It's pretty logical - free people don't want to lose their freedoms).
3. Maybe republics shouldn't suffer tradition hit when annexing vassals. It can be really painful. But if negative effects of lack of RT are reduced it might not matter that much.
4. Plutocracy should be exclusive to republic. Want to switch back to monarchy?
Enjoy your aristocratic ideas
So what do you think? Do you have any other ideas, that are both logical/ historical and allow better gameplay as republic?
for me i find republics STRONG so why buff ?
1. nope because you not lose stability from the death of your king, so normaly a republic stays at like +2 anyways and when you have RLY bad luck with events, then the boost that cost 200% is not higher then the 4 boost a kingdom need because their rulers die
2. free people ? i think you missunderstand the "republic" stuff ^^ rome was a republic, go ask the slaves if they was free, there can be good kings with not slave their people, there was alot kings who was loved. it depends on what, a dictatorship republic nit sound rly free while an administrative kingdom does
3. i even think its worse. i mean you be under a king you love your country and then your in a republic you have no bindings too ? why is that better then have another king ?
4. wayne is a shit idea neverless ^^
so i disagree in every single point xD
i even think buff kingdoms by let the rulers get better over time, its so stupid having a 6/6/6 or 5/6/6 overpowered ruler in a republic while having a 0-0-1 ruler in a kingdom who learns NOTHN in 70 years wtf ? xD
From what I've heard from the new patch in the dev game republic events have been drasticly reduced, by 50%. Soo that should help balance things alot.