I can't handle the institution mechanic anymore

[Mukaparska]

While I originally liked the idea of the institutions, in practice the ensuing tech parity of all states in late game is just too much for me. The tech difference between Europe and ROTW should increase over time, not decrease. In the early 1800, Europe should be on top of the world. It's ahistorical and completely defeats the immersion of being a European state colonizing and subjugating the rest of the world when states in central Africa are just as technologically advanced. Even worse is that when some states in Europe stagnate after entering some bankruptcy spiral, they are less advanced than a small state in central Africa. It doesn't help that they also removed the protectorates, which was another blow to the feeling of Europeans having "less advanced" subjects in the rest of the world.

I feel that the institutions are inherently broken. While the old system with hardcoded tech group maluses and "Westernization" was ahistorical as well, it did produce more historical outcomes. After all, it was indeed Europe that was on top of the world in the 1800's, even if we acknowledge the fact that Europe was not as superior in technology compared to the rest of the world as often thought. The tech difference was indeed higher in 1820 compared to 1444. The current institution system doesn't allow that.

I don't play this game too often, but I have played it since 2014. I had a long break of around 2-3 years from 2017 to late 2019, and even back in 2017 I played an old version. Always with the CK2 converter to have cool grand campaigns. In the last 2 years, I've had maybe 3 or 4 such grand campaigns in total. You know, things had changed a lot and at times I was even a bit overwhelmed by the new mechanics. Initially I was positively impressed by them, such as the institutions and government reforms and all that, but time and time again got disappointed when I learned there is no more protectorates and that for some reason all states seem to progress equally in technology. Despite many good additions, the game just didn't feel the same anymore. As if the perfectly functional core had been buried and replaced with mechanics that are nice but not necessary. I didn't feel like a European state exploring the new world and expanding the trade and colonial networks all over the globe. I felt like a European state exploring the new world, solely designed to be colonized, and then seeing the rest of the world completely the same and as advanced as Europe.

Edit:

I made a strawpoll with three possible solutions to our problem of late game tech parity: https://www.strawpoll.me/45996606

1. Reworked institution system.
2. Old tech system.
3. Hybrid system.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There is longstanding incongruity with wanting historical outcomes without the causal sequence that led to those outcomes. You cannot request that in the name of historical accuracy and be coherent.

When different things happen, you get different outcomes. When the game's model of reality diverges so much from actual reality, forcing historical outcomes through shoehorns can't be "historical". It might be immersive for larping or some other purpose, but using history for that is a fake justification.

Also, despite all of the complaints about it over the years, European start positions begin with and retain a significant advantage over other areas in the world throughout the game. That the AI is bad at shipping is not a basis for gutting a functional tech model. Even though in a dream scenario, I would like each tech group to have their own conditions to remove penalties over time from a gameplay perspective.

The tech difference was indeed higher in 1820 compared to 1444. The current institution system doesn't allow that.

Just as the previous system did not allow outcomes like Britain losing pitched battles to Mysore after 1750 with comparable troop numbers. Completely impossible back when westernization was a thing.

European nations get thousands of monarch point advantage over African and Asian nations. Tech and ideas eventually stabilize, but aside from Ming, you will reliably see European tags dominate the great power list, with the occasional representative from India (reasonable given what Mughals did) or Mamluks if Ottomans falter (also reasonable). This is about what we should expect, given their advantages. Normally HRE emperor, Ottomans, Spain, GB, France, Portugal, Russia make top 8. Sometimes 1-2 of them dies, and Europe "only" has > half the great power TAGs still.

 

[Nostalgium]

Institutions have a problem, in that they should be having a sort of snowballing effect, where they caused nations to pull farther and farther ahead. But on the flip side, I can't think of any method to implement that system that would also be fun from a gameplay point of view. European players will often get ahead regardless on account of having high dev concentration relative to ROTW and the end nodes all being there, but the AI can't really leverage these advantages to make Empire happen.

In an ideal world, insitutions would be "stackable", building off eachother to create an gap that would be increasingly difficult to close for nations without drastically modernizing, with all the counter-movements that would cause. Spitballing, but an idea could be to make not embracing an institution a viable choice in the short term. Modifiers to army morale and traditions, lower unrest, that kind of thing. Additionally, I'd suggest making each individual institution less critical, but have the culminative effect be more drastic. So missing out on, say, Colonialism won't immediately slap a 50% tech penalty, but if you miss out on Colonialism, Printing Press is going to be harder to adapt, and then Global Trade, and so on - and once you've missed out on three or four, THEN you start feeling the squeeze on tech.

That's really my main gripe with Institutions. It doesn't feel like slowly making progress over several centuries; it feels like an immediate, one-time event. And there is no choice to it either: Getting the Institution as fast as possible is always the best choice, regardless of what your internal or external situation is like. If they can make embracing institutions a meaningful choice of short term pain VS long term gain, and make institutions individually less meaningful but culminatively more powerful, I think they might be onto something.

Sorry for the rambling structure - bit of a stream of consciousness.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Europe and Europe-adjacent can also get all institutions without dev-pushing them, and that's a large advantage as well. It's not really practical to wait around for them in India or Africa in most cases, but the alternatives to dev-push are wonky and have their own costs/tradeoffs that are a lot steeper than "ally someone who is near the newest institution, unless you'll get it fast enough regardless".

If you make natural spread for global trade + after slower, you will wind up with nonsense where the disparity is so large that conquest of old world territory is as free as new world territory. There are a few reasons that would neither be healthy for the game nor historical...

 

[jamal bakr]

If they wanted to put their thumb on the scale in a historical way, it wouldn't be changing the tech penalty so Indian troops become wet noodles; it be capping their ships at dip tech 9. The maxim gun was a 19th century thing, there wasn't overwhelming land based dominance in military during this period. There was an overwhelming naval dominance, however. Consider the first anglo-mughal war, in which the EIC had no problems blockading the Mughals and destroying their shipping, but couldn't win pitched battles with them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What would stop a completely different India, China, or Indonesia with a completely different prior 2 centuries from developing or even just copying maxim guns or naval innovations, in principle, if they exist elsewhere in the world?

The problem is that in EU 4, you can have all of Portugal owned by Madurai in 1700, cored + stated, with Portuguese promoted. In this scenario, the idea that the Indian nation couldn't possibly import naval tech from Portuguese neighbors, or from the Portuguese themselves, is nonsense.

One might make the case that this scenario is also nonsense, but it is consistent with EU 4 rules/model of reality.

 

[Zaddy]

This criticism relies on the false premise that there ends up being no disparity between Europe and the ROTW. While the AI in the ROTW does receive institutions and manages to maintain mostly technological parity with Europe, if you look at the ideas unlocked, western Europeans will often have all of their idea sets unlocked and completed in the late game. Meanwhile, a ROTW nation will often be at parity or slightly behind in tech, but be significantly behind in ideas. They are still effectively at a massive disadvantage. The fact that the European AI does not capitalize on this is a failing of the AI, not because it cannot militarily overcome ROTW minors.

 

[jamal bakr]

What would stop a completely different India, China, or Indonesia with a completely different prior 2 centuries from developing or even just copying maxim guns or naval innovations, in principle, if they exist elsewhere in the world?

The problem is that in EU 4, you can have all of Portugal owned by Madurai in 1700, cored + stated, with Portuguese promoted. In this scenario, the idea that the Indian nation couldn't possibly import naval tech from Portuguese neighbors, or from the Portuguese themselves, is nonsense.

One might make the case that this scenario is also nonsense, but it is consistent with EU 4 rules/model of reality.

I think the goal is the game plays out roughly similiar to history absent player intervention, and with costly and skillful intervention, you can get radically different outcomes.

My own problem is the institution penalty is a broad "tech" based one, so if you don't get "global trade" you suddenly get worse not merely at sailing, but at administration and at musketry. In older version of eu4, when you'd get 3-5 tech levels on the ROTW, you could have space marine dutchmen vaporizing all of Indochina without breaking a sweat.... that is closer to the Victoria timeline, not the EU timeline. I actually like the current trade company meta, which relies on local vassals and naval dominance.

 

[Mukaparska]

There is longstanding incongruity with wanting historical outcomes without the causal sequence that led to those outcomes. You cannot request that in the name of historical accuracy and be coherent.

When different things happen, you get different outcomes. When the game's model of reality diverges so much from actual reality, forcing historical outcomes through shoehorns can't be "historical". It might be immersive for larping or some other purpose, but using history for that is a fake justification.

Also, despite all of the complaints about it over the years, European start positions begin with and retain a significant advantage over other areas in the world throughout the game. That the AI is bad at shipping is not a basis for gutting a functional tech model. Even though in a dream scenario, I would like each tech group to have their own conditions to remove penalties over time from a gameplay perspective.


Just as the previous system did not allow outcomes like Britain losing pitched battles to Mysore after 1750 with comparable troop numbers. Completely impossible back when westernization was a thing.

European nations get thousands of monarch point advantage over African and Asian nations. Tech and ideas eventually stabilize, but aside from Ming, you will reliably see European tags dominate the great power list, with the occasional representative from India (reasonable given what Mughals did) or Mamluks if Ottomans falter (also reasonable). This is about what we should expect, given their advantages. Normally HRE emperor, Ottomans, Spain, GB, France, Portugal, Russia make top 8. Sometimes 1-2 of them dies, and Europe "only" has > half the great power TAGs still.

When different things happen, I get the same outcomes: Technological parity with all of the world (apart from the New World).

 

[Uskayaw]

Have you seen any recent AI timelapses? Normally Europe still dominates the world by 1800s.

I think much bigger problem is giganatives and AI still not being able to keep China from exploding repeatedly.

Also, aren't CK2-converted games broken?

 

[Mukaparska]

Have you seen any recent AI timelapses? Normally Europe still dominates the world by 1800s.

But is the rest of the world equal in tech?

I think much bigger problem is giganatives and AI still not being able to keep China from exploding repeatedly.

Also, aren't CK2-converted games broken?

Broken in what way?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When different things happen, I get the same outcomes: Technological parity with all of the world (apart from the New World).

You say this like it meaningfully influences who the top powers in the game are, or that a pitched battle between a nation like GB, Spain, or France vs a "technologically advanced" Mali will result in anything but the latter getting face rolled if the AI can walk between the two nations.

In 1750 EU 4, it is often easier for a nation like GB to defeat nations in India in terms of resource cost/how effective units are compared to reality. It is always easier for them to defeat African nations compared to reality.

In many cases, Europe has 75% or more of great power slots, absent player intervention of course. I don't think the game needs to hold their hand more, it would trivialize it too much.

The hangup over "but they're same tech" is silly. The non-European nations are virtually never competitive with European nations, and are routinely much easier for player to conquer.

Broken in what way?

I think he means the literal sense. Sometimes when one or the other game gets updated (just EU 4 these days), the resulting changes would break the converter to the point where you couldn't import the save into EU 4 and get a stable map to play on. I have no idea when this does/doesn't happen over the past few years because I don't use the converter.

 

[jamal bakr]

Commonwealth needs work in simulating its basektcase of a government imo.

 

[Mukaparska]

You say this like it meaningfully influences who the top powers in the game are, or that a pitched battle between a nation like GB, Spain, or France vs a "technologically advanced" Mali will result in anything but the latter getting face rolled if the AI can walk between the two nations.

In 1750 EU 4, it is often easier for a nation like GB to defeat nations in India in terms of resource cost/how effective units are compared to reality. It is always easier for them to defeat African nations compared to reality.

In many cases, Europe has 75% or more of great power slots, absent player intervention of course. I don't think the game needs to hold their hand more, it would trivialize it too much.

The hangup over "but they're same tech" is silly. The non-European nations are virtually never competitive with European nations, and are routinely much easier for player to conquer.

But it makes absolutely no sense that the entire world is the same tech. They could as well ditch the concept entirely, and just linearly advance the tech for every single nation in the game at the same time. It essentially feels like the world has two regions: Africa-Asia-Europe that is almost equal in tech, and the New World that somehow is not. Maybe they should have similar tech parity as well, cuz why not? It's not about European states retaining some advantages over ROTW, it's about the whole concept of technology losing all relevance in the game and progressing the opposite of how it did in the real world. Growing technology disparity is by far the easiest, and most functional way of representing the growing dominance of European states back in the early modern period.

Considering how the technology and idea groups are already quite eurocentric, one could use a bit of imagination and argue they represent the EUROPEAN ideas and technologies that led to their dominance over the world, even if the ROTW had their own ideas and technologies that were relevant to them but are not represented. Now it looks like all the world is technologically and ideologically the same, and the only thing that gave Europeans an edge was a few better military units.

I think he means the literal sense. Sometimes when one or the other game gets updated (just EU 4 these days), the resulting changes would break the converter to the point where you couldn't import the save into EU 4 and get a stable map to play on. I have no idea when this does/doesn't happen over the past few years because I don't use the converter.

I guess that's what happened with the 1.33 version, at least according to many forum posts. When I used the official converter, apart from occasional small inconsistencies with the map, the only glaring flaw I experienced was that if you picked influence ideas, you could NEVER go past the second idea. Neither could the AI. You could waste mana indefinitely but it wouldn't progress unless you manually edited the save file for every single state and changed influence_ideas from 1 to 3.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But it makes absolutely no sense that the entire world is the same tech. They could as well ditch the concept entirely, and just linearly advance the tech for every single nation in the game at the same time.

Europe has a several thousand monarch point advantage over ROTW across a run at baseline, per category.

Africa-Asia-Europe that is almost equal in tech, and the New World that somehow is not.

Europe has a several thousand monarch point advantage over ROTW across a run at baseline, per category.

Growing technology disparity is by far the easiest, and most functional way of representing the growing dominance of European states back in the early modern period.

I already answered this in the post you quoted. If you want to make this argument, you should address why you believe what I said was not true.

 

[Terixis]

The war between the "it's Europa Universalis" group and the ROTW parity group is long since over. The ROTW side won.

I don't know why military westernization needed to die too though, I would really like those western pips in other tech groups.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

Commonwealth needs work in simulating its basektcase of a government imo.

Does it? They already have hellish events and a disaster covering that.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Commonwealth needs work in simulating its basektcase of a government imo.

They have a disaster and lots of events for rebels. Also ai Lithuania seems to convert its orthodox provinces alot more now, quite annoying as a "reconquering russia" even if they are 12 months with enough missionary strength for heretics bonuses

 

[Nostalgium]

I don't know why military westernization needed to die too though, I would really like those western pips in other tech groups.

I agree with this. Especially as it's not making a return as a mission reward for certain countries like Ethiopia. Unsure if there are others. Either stick with making it inaccessible and represent Ethiopia modernizing its army in some other way (like a modifier that gives a permanent bonus to discipline and ICC or something) or make it a mechanic available to anyone meeting certain criteria - like tech parity and an alliance with a European nation or something. Perhaps even have a special mechanic for it a la knowledge sharing, where you could pay for European drillmasters and advisors to come help modernizing your army on an organizational level, as during the Meiji Restoration (which is outside the time period, of course, but it's still the best real-world example we have).

 

[AvengedK1ng]

I agree with this. Especially as it's not making a return as a mission reward for certain countries like Ethiopia. Unsure if there are others. Either stick with making it inaccessible and represent Ethiopia modernizing its army in some other way (like a modifier that gives a permanent bonus to discipline and ICC or something) or make it a mechanic available to anyone meeting certain criteria - like tech parity and an alliance with a European nation or something. Perhaps even have a special mechanic for it a la knowledge sharing, where you could pay for European drillmasters and advisors to come help modernizing your army on an organizational level, as during the Meiji Restoration (which is outside the time period, of course, but it's still the best real-world example we have).

Don't forget dai viet getting - 10% artillery cost for knowing westerners but no one else gets this bonus