How to make Mega-Campaigns more fun?

[hahaha01357]

One thing that invariably happens during a mega-campaign is that by the time your player-controlled nations get to the second game (or even the end of the first game) it becomes way too large and powerful. Even if the player tries to limit their own growth, we still see some huge AI blobs that never breaks up. It's a little immersion-breaking and the lack of variety is a little boring. What, if anything, have you done to make mega-campaigns more enjoyable?

 

[Guaire123456789]

In the spanish forum there is a mega-campaign very good called"Desperta Ferro." If do you know spanish is a very good idea read that

 

[onebyone]

Change country every few centuries. Or really roleplay your leaders, so that there are good rulers and bad rulers.

Ask yourself why you want to do a mega-campaign. For me it's because I like creating an alternative history and creating stories in it. So I don't mind switching countries every 150-200 years, because it gives me an opportunity to play in a different part of the World and shape that. You can also see how long your old empires last. For example, in one game I created a very powerful Tartaria empire in modern day Russia in CK2. I switched to playing Ming in EU4 and then again to Bohemia before converting to Vicky2. What was cool was that Tartaria survived all the way to Vicky2, but then collapsed because it hadn't kept up technologically. And while playing Ming I had to be careful of the powerful Tartaria to my west.

In my current playthrough I'm trying to roleplay more, which in CK2 means I try and do what the characters would. It means I only launch aggressive wars if I have a martial leader, otherwise I try to advance through diplomacy or espionage.

 

[Light CSA]

Change country every few centuries. Or really roleplay your leaders, so that there are good rulers and bad rulers.

Ask yourself why you want to do a mega-campaign. For me it's because I like creating an alternative history and creating stories in it. So I don't mind switching countries every 150-200 years, because it gives me an opportunity to play in a different part of the World and shape that. You can also see how long your old empires last. For example, in one game I created a very powerful Tartaria empire in modern day Russia in CK2. I switched to playing Ming in EU4 and then again to Bohemia before converting to Vicky2. What was cool was that Tartaria survived all the way to Vicky2, but then collapsed because it hadn't kept up technologically. And while playing Ming I had to be careful of the powerful Tartaria to my west.

In my current playthrough I'm trying to roleplay more, which in CK2 means I try and do what the characters would. It means I only launch aggressive wars if I have a martial leader, otherwise I try to advance through diplomacy or espionage.

100% this! You don't play a megacampaign to power game as as you note it gets very boring very quickly - every megacampaign I do I have some animating idea or story I want to tell that then guides or constrains my actions. For instance the latest megacampaign I just wrapped up I started as Harald Hardrada with the goal of integrating England into Scandinavian culture and then having the North Sea empire of England + Scandinavia play a roughly analogous role to historical England. My long term objectives were to colonize America with the goal of setting up a Norwegian-American Civil War in Vicky and overall preserving the balance of power in Europe to keep future great wars in Vicky and Darkest Hour competitive. So I consciously limited my Scandinavia's spheres of actions to North America and India, while trying to limit but not destroy any great powers on the continent, and then purposefully tanking to set up American Revolution and then turn the country into Revolutionary Republic.

The other thing I love doing is supporting whatever weird countries/storylines randomly emerge. For instance, in the EU portion of the game Tirol emerged from the mess of German minors to be the first among equals in HRE, but they still weren't strong enough to dominate it on their own. So I allied them as Scandinavia, protected them from France and helped them consolidate with the end goal of them being the basis for a German state in Vicky.

 

[hahaha01357]

100% this! You don't play a megacampaign to power game as as you note it gets very boring very quickly - every megacampaign I do I have some animating idea or story I want to tell that then guides or constrains my actions. For instance the latest megacampaign I just wrapped up I started as Harald Hardrada with the goal of integrating England into Scandinavian culture and then having the North Sea empire of England + Scandinavia play a roughly analogous role to historical England. My long term objectives were to colonize America with the goal of setting up a Norwegian-American Civil War in Vicky and overall preserving the balance of power in Europe to keep future great wars in Vicky and Darkest Hour competitive. So I consciously limited my Scandinavia's spheres of actions to North America and India, while trying to limit but not destroy any great powers on the continent, and then purposefully tanking to set up American Revolution and then turn the country into Revolutionary Republic.

The other thing I love doing is supporting whatever weird countries/storylines randomly emerge. For instance, in the EU portion of the game Tirol emerged from the mess of German minors to be the first among equals in HRE, but they still weren't strong enough to dominate it on their own. So I allied them as Scandinavia, protected them from France and helped them consolidate with the end goal of them being the basis for a German state in Vicky.

How would you control AI blobing such that by the time we reach the end of ck2, we don't have 2-3 AI nations controlling nearly all of Europe? Or 4-5 nations controlling the entire world by about half-way through eu4? Large countries in this game seem incredibly stable and tend to survive and grow even stronger as time goes unless they have some sort of a controllzing event or mechanic (like Ming).

 

[onebyone]

AI blobbing doesn't generally seem to be a huge problem in the megacampaigns that I have played. Actually the AI seems to be pretty bad at holding together the blobs I have created, and both CK2 and EU4 do have anti-blobbing mechanisms. I think the way I play helps avoid it as well, because I will frequently switch to play in a different place, so perhaps I am stopping the blobbing accidentally.

If you are playing a single nation throughout the game, you can make one of your goals to intervene and bring down big blobs. This is actually very historical, GB used to base it's strategy in Europe around preventing any nation from gaining too much power. So you can think of it as intervening to maintain the balance of power. (I had fun doing this once when the AI formed a mega Germany and I declared war on it instantly to force it to release nations instead of allowing it to become a superpower that would have threatened me).

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

How would you control AI blobing such that by the time we reach the end of ck2, we don't have 2-3 AI nations controlling nearly all of Europe? Or 4-5 nations controlling the entire world by about half-way through eu4? Large countries in this game seem incredibly stable and tend to survive and grow even stronger as time goes unless they have some sort of a controllzing event or mechanic (like Ming).

One way is to use a scenario editor between games to tweak the converted map. When I did my mega campaigns I would do two things with an editor: fix border gore and create vassals out of giant blobs.

 

[Caspoi]

In CK2 keeping gravelkind is a good way to limit my own power so that after my Scandinavian Empire conquers land in Brittania the two go their seperate ways and I don't try to press any claims for lands outside of my de jure lands and if I do inherit another empire we will split after a while. Another good thing to do if you are catholic is to have the Holy Roman Empire as your primary title and keep both the leader's power (crown authority or council power) low and be elective, that way you will both limit yourself in that game and make sure that even if you do conquer most of Europe it will reset in the next game. In EU4 focusing on trade, exploration and colinization will leave most of your fellow Great Powers intact and if you do go to war with them don't try to take that much of their (European) lands but release any minors that they have conquered to keep any one of them from growing too powerful. Victoria is really not that much about you conquering the world so you will be fine.