HRE still nonsensical despite fluffy mechanics

[Zhetone]

Yeah, the religious leagues sound cool and all, but do you really want them when the HRE is consolidated into about seven huge countries every game since the emperor never, ever cares about how big countries get within it?
Do you want it when Austria snakes its way from Vienna to Sundgau, and then from Sundgau to Amsterdam?
Do you really care about religious leagues when Münster annexes everything around it, Bavaria blobs massively, and all the little states are gone?

The HRE has been added to, but not fixed. It's still hideous and broken. The emperor is just like any other country except with a huge force limit and some other perks.
Countries invade each other without impunity all the time and it creates a huge mess that ends up being frustrating and boring every time I play in the HRE, and being emperor is a massive headache because you need to do Imperial Liberation wars every five seconds due to Münster annexing East Frisia every time you leave them lone, or Bavaria annexing Ulm, or whatever is happening.

Why hasn't this all been fixed?

 

[Athan.]

Because that's the main point of the game, to expand. It's what makes it fun. By the time the HRE members are that big, so are a lot of non-HRE countries around. France snakes from Belgium to Galicia. Portugal has replaced North Africa. England has already complete conquered every part of the islands, including Scotland which in real life it didn't vassalize but formed a PU with. And other parts of the world have formed mega-nations that never existed. Nothing is 100% historically accurate once you click unpause, because if it was, it would be boring.

At least, that's my take on it, since none of us are devs.

 

[Mikalos]

Ah yes, the map painter response to the issue of adding mechanics to try and actually make existing mechanics matter: BUT DAY ONE UNPAUSE = ALT HISTORY

 

[Kh3lben]

So let me get this straight.You are complaining about the AI emperor not preventing the blobing and yet you state you don't play as the emperor cause you cba to do anything to prevent it? What do you want exactly? An HRE where nothing changes? Even if that were to somehow magically happen how long would it take you to come in here and make the exact same thread about HRE being pointless ? Judging from your mentality probably no time at all,although you d be complaining about France being too OP and the HRE emperor being too weak to defend it. You cant have it all ,at least not when you decide not to act cause it's tedious and expect the game to be *fixed* to fit your playstyle.

 

[Zhetone]

There's an issue when a role clearly designed to stop fluid borders in a region does nothing to stop it and instead sits around and encourages it, directly or indirectly. I've seen the emperor take tons of land directly through conquest in the HRE. It's stupid and shouldn't happen. In real life, it wouldn't have. The HRE exists so that those things do not happen, and yet, they do. It can't be excused by saying the game allows ahistoricalness, when in reality, historical outcomes are seemingly impossible.

So let me get this straight.You are complaining about the AI emperor not preventing the blobing and yet you state you don't play as the emperor cause you cba to do anything to prevent it? What do you want exactly? An HRE where nothing changes? Even if that were to somehow magically happen how long would it take you to come in here and make the exact same thread about HRE being pointless ? Judging from your mentality probably no time at all,although you d be complaining about France being too OP and the HRE emperor being too weak to defend it. You cant have it all ,at least not when you decide not to act cause it's tedious and expect the game to be *fixed* to fit your playstyle.

It's tedious to me because they always start wars internally. They shouldn't be. The threat of the emperor should stave it off, but it doesn't.
The AI has no scruples with tedious affairs, it can declare war when it wants, and it cannot be bored. I expect it to be able to do what I find boring, but it shouldn't even have to. Please tell me how many internal wars in the HRE were fought, especially pre-Reformation.

 

[ahyangyi]

Countries invade each other without impunity all the time and...

... and being emperor is a massive headache because you need to do Imperial Liberation wars every five seconds due to ...

...

 

[Plasma Master]

Because that's the main point of the game, to expand. It's what makes it fun. By the time the HRE members are that big, so are a lot of non-HRE countries around. France snakes from Belgium to Galicia. Portugal has replaced North Africa. England has already complete conquered every part of the islands, including Scotland which in real life it didn't vassalize but formed a PU with. And other parts of the world have formed mega-nations that never existed. Nothing is 100% historically accurate once you click unpause, because if it was, it would be boring.

At least, that's my take on it, since none of us are devs.

What. The sentence "Nothing is 100% historically accurate once you click unpause, because if it was, it would be boring," has nothing to do with his post. He's pissed off about how every state in the HRE blobs, and how that's nonsensical, unfun, predictable, and completely ruins the idea of religious leagues. Who cares about religious leagues if you know it's always gonna be the same 4 blobs owning all of Germany. A big part of the 30 years war came from the fact that there were so many different states in the HRE. It was a complex conflict.

 

[Zhetone]

...

Yes, me finding constant wars in the HRE and having to be referee constantly tedious means the AI shouldn't even try to do it. That makes sense obviously.
The wars shouldn't start in the first place.

 

[Freudia]

It's tedious to me because they always start wars internally. They shouldn't be. The threat of the emperor should stave it off, but it doesn't.
The AI has no scruples with tedious affairs, it can declare war when it wants, and it cannot be bored. I expect it to be able to do what I find boring, but it shouldn't even have to. Please tell me how many internal wars in the HRE were fought, especially pre-Reformation.

Ally every single nation of the HRE. That's how the emperor can be a threat to people inside the HRE so they don't start wars internally.

Fortunately, real-life Austria didn't have to go through the bullshit of having diplo relation slots. With that said, however, what you want is a huge chunk of the map where nothing happens. That's not good for gameplay and would make playing a large number of nations in Europe pointless.

Edit: Also, both of the games I've played inside 1.8 have had relatively little blobbing inside the HRE, at least not to the degree you think exists. There's something around the realm of 30 states in the HRE in both of my saves around 1560~1600.

 

[Mikalos]

Ally every single nation of the HRE. That's how the emperor can be a threat to people inside the HRE so they don't start wars internally.

Fortunately, real-life Austria didn't have to go through the bullshit of having diplo relation slots. With that said, however, what you want is a huge chunk of the map where nothing happens. That's not good for gameplay and would make playing a large number of nations in Europe pointless.

Edit: Also, both of the games I've played inside 1.8 have had relatively little blobbing inside the HRE, at least not to the degree you think exists. There's something around the realm of 30 states in the HRE in both of my saves around 1560~1600.

Ah yes, wanting the emperor to actually emperor the HRe is "wanting nothing to happen in central europe"

 

[Zhetone]

Ally every single nation of the HRE. That's how the emperor can be a threat to people inside the HRE so they don't start wars internally.

Fortunately, real-life Austria didn't have to go through the bullshit of having diplo relation slots. With that said, however, what you want is a huge chunk of the map where nothing happens. That's not good for gameplay and would make playing a large number of nations in Europe pointless.

Edit: Also, both of the games I've played inside 1.8 have had relatively little blobbing inside the HRE, at least not to the degree you think exists. There's something around the realm of 30 states in the HRE in both of my saves around 1560~1600.

I don't care, it shouldn't be fun until you destroy the HRE. It ruins the fun playing as the Emperor or anyone outside the HRE when these things happen, honestly.

 

[Freudia]

Ah yes, wanting the emperor to actually emperor the HRe is "wanting nothing to happen in central europe"

The game does not support the intricacies of the HRE proper, so yes, in the current state of the game, wanting the emperor to actually be the emperor is wanting central Europe to be static.

I don't care, it shouldn't be fun until you destroy the HRE. It ruins the fun playing as the Emperor or anyone outside the HRE when these things happen, honestly.

Disagree. I actually find playing the emperor to be pretty amusing, at least prior to whatever patch it was that made it impossible to get IA during the Reformation. Of course, however, I actually like going through all the motions of keeping my individual states of the HRE non-blobs. Definitely would prefer that over nobody in the HRE doing anything except stare at each other across the province boundaries.

 

[Kh3lben]

It's tedious to me because they always start wars internally. They shouldn't be. The threat of the emperor should stave it off, but it doesn't.
The AI has no scruples with tedious affairs, it can declare war when it wants, and it cannot be bored. I expect it to be able to do what I find boring, but it shouldn't even have to. Please tell me how many internal wars in the HRE were fought, especially pre-Reformation.

Ok puzzle me this then,keeping in mind that we are talking about an AI that naturally has limitations.The Devs somehow manage to create an HRE that mimics historic reality down to a T.What about the rest of the nations outside the HRE?Let's take France for example.What are you going to do about an external AI that is aggressive and powerful?Are you going to program it so that it also behaves as it did in reality? Cause if you don't you can bet anything that the map of Europe will be blue up to Vienna and dark green from there to siberia.And let's say you do mod France,that is our example,to be passive/slow.Will Castile stay put? Do you see where this is going? You can't have historic realism in a sandbox RTS(apart from the bookmark starting dates) UNLESS you as a player want to do something in that direction.If you want to play to achieve a world map that by 1821 looks almost identical to what it looked in real life,then by all means do so.If you start though programming the AI to behave in such a way there are only two possible outcomes : a) You sit around too playing passively/withing your nations historical limitations and enjoy a nice documentary b)You have an incredibly easy and boring game cause the AI is too stupid to stop ya.

 

[Zhetone]

Ok puzzle me this then,keeping in mind that we are talking about an AI that naturally has limitations.The Devs somehow manage to create an HRE that mimics historic reality down to a T.What about the rest of the nations outside the HRE?Let's take France for example.What are you going to do about an external AI that is aggressive and powerful?Are you going to program it so that it also behaves as it did in reality? Cause if you don't you can bet anything that the map of Europe will be blue up to Vienna and dark green from there to siberia.And let's say you do mod France that is our example to be passive/slow.Will Castile stay put? Do you see where this going? You can't have historic realism in a sandbox RTS(apart from the bookmark starting dates) UNLESS you as a player want to do something in that direction.If you want to play to achieve a world map that by 1821 looks almost identical to what it looked in real life,then by all means do so.If you start though programming the AI to behave in such way there are only two possible outcomes : a) You sit around too playing passively/withing your nations historical limitations and enjoy a nice documentary b)You have an incredibly easy and boring game cause the AI is too stupid to stop ya.

The emperor would take the reins against an external aggressor or the HRE states would band together in alliance preferably. I don't see why you think that's unbelievable.

 

[Squirrelloid]

You do realize that France pretty much up to game start, despite nominally having a real King and not an elected pretend Emperor without legal power, still had piles of private wars between nobles within its own lands. I'm not as familiar with HRE history, but I'm guessing there was a lot of fighting between member states, even when the Emperor asked them to stop. (And ask was really all he could do).

 

[Kh3lben]

The emperor would take the reins against an external aggressor or the HRE states would band together in alliance preferably. I don't see why you think that's unbelievable.

So what you are proposing is an HRE with Renovatio Imperii already enacted in 1444? How is this historical? And even if you do so what happens when there is no external threat? They just wait or do you want them to attack as one from 1444 too?

 

[Big Blue Blob]

How many times have I seen the excuses "gameplay" and "the game would be pointless"? Too many to count. I am no fan of blobbing in the HRE either, and would like to see the states more static than they currently are, though not deadlocked. The HRE states certainly fought internal wars, but big blobs rarely developed, and the number of states did not decrease gradually over time as it does in game. To stop the game being pointless, has it occurred to Paradox to add things to do while at peace and generally provide alternatives to Paint The Map Your Colour 4? Rulers of early modern states certainly did not have boring lives while at peace. The move to centralisation, management of nobles and growing middle classes, town growth and all the other things that happened at this time have been ignored ("abstracted", as Paradox apologists would say). There are so, so many war games on the market already, it would be good if this one was not so focused on it.

 

[Athan.]

What. The sentence "Nothing is 100% historically accurate once you click unpause, because if it was, it would be boring," has nothing to do with his post. He's pissed off about how every state in the HRE blobs, and how that's nonsensical, unfun, predictable, and completely ruins the idea of religious leagues.

1) "We are not complaining about historical accuracy, why do you accuse us of that"
2) "HRE blobbing is nonsensical, and here is a list of historical accurate ways you should change the game to mimic history"

While I'm sure some of these suggestions might be useful to Paradox game design, the fundamental blobbing that individuals are decrying is endemic to the entire game, not just the HRE. If it is blocked in the HRE, its neighbors would still do it anyway. But if you want to change the way it's done throughout the game, that could work and the modding community is wide open for that.

I'm not opposed to these suggestions by the way, I just am being pragmatic about the larger game and how it oversimplifies all nations, both inside the HRE and without.

 

[Hideous]

I agree with the OP, HRE is annoyingly broken. France always rolfstomps them like its no thing, regardless whoever is the emperor, thus it all ends up just few hre blobs sharing it with few outside blobs (like france). Empire is both too weak and too disorganised. Playing as Austria, there is minimum 3-5 wars ongoing all the time within the empire, which is very silly too.

 

[Big Blue Blob]

1) "We are not complaining about historical accuracy, why do you accuse us of that"
2) "HRE blobbing is nonsensical, and here is a list of historical accurate ways you should change the game to mimic history"

While I'm sure some of these suggestions might be useful to Paradox game design, the fundamental blobbing that individuals are decrying is endemic to the entire game, not just the HRE. If it is blocked in the HRE, its neighbors would still do it anyway. But if you want to change the way it's done throughout the game, that could work and the modding community is wide open for that.

I'm not opposed to these suggestions by the way, I just am being pragmatic about the larger game and how it oversimplifies all nations, both inside the HRE and without.

I am proud to complain about historical accuracy. It is my passion, far more than actually playing any of the games.

Blobbing needs to be reduced everywhere, not just in the HRE. A general change is necessary.