If you think this is true, I hope you didn't buy Conquest of Paradise or El Dorado. Playing as natives or mesoamericans has never been worse.
I don't understand the attitude of this forum
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If you think this is true, I hope you didn't buy Conquest of Paradise or El Dorado. Playing as natives or mesoamericans has never been worse.
You have to evaluate decisions under a vision, because everything sounds like a good argument, and you will never reach conclusions unless you state objectives.
Why increasing coring and diploannexation costs? The only 2 hypotheses I came up are:
- You design the game towards MP. It would make perfect sense. MP becomes more precious as you have to think twice before demanding that additional province; otherwise you may get behind tech and your enemies can take advantage of that.
- You design the game towards big powers like France, Castile, etc. only. It is obvious that the most affected nations in 1.12 are those for whom MP was so scarce that expanding, tech-ing or getting ideas had to consider all the trade-off unlike big powers.
Notice that only alternative 1 makes perfect sense. 2 is erratic as even if you are a big power, you will have to accumulate MP from time to time, wait or fast-forward, in order to expand. THERE ARE NO STUFF TO DO IN PEACE TIME. For someone who just bought the game, it will be an awkward experience to watch the screen with no other things to do. For a seasoned player, you will also have to watch the screen, come to the forums to talk about your confusion on "fanboys" or "whiners"
, or fast-forward the game at +5 speed. What's missing here?Fun.
You can't make a game or take decisions if you are not considering fun as the only and ultimate goal. After all, it's game. It's like cooking food not taking into account taste above everything else.
Unless you play MP, there is no longer fun in the game. People use to end a campain by 1700. I bet they will end it now by 1600 or 1550, after they realize how tedious the game is now.
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Increasing costs of expansion absolutely makes the game harder. "Slowing you down" is part of it but doesn't fully explain how that ties into difficulty. Here are some ways:
* It can mean falling farther behind on progression of technology, ideas, and internal stability / order.
If you're spending your MPs expanding, you're not spending them buying tech or converting culture.
* It can mean you gain fewer provinces per successful war.
Aside from merely slowing you down, it means you're paying the full costs of going to war (draining manpower, increased military expenses, opportunity cost of fighting different targets or for different reasons, risk of being invaded by another hostile nation while you're occupied) but getting less out of it in the end. This means you don't get such a huge jump in power every time you win a war, draining the difficulty each time. As a result you have to fight more wars, notably while you're still smaller. Which leads to the next point:
* It delays the "snowball" scenario.
At a certain point you're big enough that you can destroy anyone you want. The exact amount of time required here depends on your starting nation of course - the smaller you start the farther you are from snowballing. Once you snowball nothing can stop you; the only challenge remaining is how much you can take, a process even most WC advocates acknowledge to be tedious.
Frankly I think conquest is still too cheap, mostly because the act of going to war itself is cheap. You can expand by spending ADM or DIP; note the absence of MIL there? It's generally acknowledged that MIL points are in the greatest supply, which leads to MIL ideas being an obvious choice and the player having no trouble keeping up with military tech & powerful troops regardless of how many other resources are being squeezed to support rapid conquest.
I'd love to see the very act of declaring war itself require some military points. I'm not sure how to calculate the exact amount (what modifiers should exist to make it more or less expensive), but the average declaration of war should probably cost somewhere around 100-150 military points.
None of this is to say that expansion costs are the answer to snowballing or eventual ease of dominating the AI. Clearly we need a lot more than that, especially approaching the late game (hopefully Wiz's investigations into ducats will help with the midgame, which is mostly easy due to how many troops you can afford and how quickly top advisors come out). More as in a new set of systems for massive late-game war campaigns or a way for the world to unite against a massive superpower. But expansion costs certainly have a role to play in these things, especially in the near-term since adjusting those numbers is a pretty simple thing to do.
* It can mean falling farther behind on progression of technology, ideas, and internal stability / order.
If you're spending your MPs expanding, you're not spending them buying tech or converting culture.
* It can mean you gain fewer provinces per successful war.
Aside from merely slowing you down, it means you're paying the full costs of going to war (draining manpower, increased military expenses, opportunity cost of fighting different targets or for different reasons, risk of being invaded by another hostile nation while you're occupied) but getting less out of it in the end. This means you don't get such a huge jump in power every time you win a war, draining the difficulty each time. As a result you have to fight more wars, notably while you're still smaller. Which leads to the next point:
* It delays the "snowball" scenario.
At a certain point you're big enough that you can destroy anyone you want. The exact amount of time required here depends on your starting nation of course - the smaller you start the farther you are from snowballing. Once you snowball nothing can stop you; the only challenge remaining is how much you can take, a process even most WC advocates acknowledge to be tedious.
Frankly I think conquest is still too cheap, mostly because the act of going to war itself is cheap. You can expand by spending ADM or DIP; note the absence of MIL there? It's generally acknowledged that MIL points are in the greatest supply, which leads to MIL ideas being an obvious choice and the player having no trouble keeping up with military tech & powerful troops regardless of how many other resources are being squeezed to support rapid conquest.
I'd love to see the very act of declaring war itself require some military points. I'm not sure how to calculate the exact amount (what modifiers should exist to make it more or less expensive), but the average declaration of war should probably cost somewhere around 100-150 military points.
None of this is to say that expansion costs are the answer to snowballing or eventual ease of dominating the AI. Clearly we need a lot more than that, especially approaching the late game (hopefully Wiz's investigations into ducats will help with the midgame, which is mostly easy due to how many troops you can afford and how quickly top advisors come out). More as in a new set of systems for massive late-game war campaigns or a way for the world to unite against a massive superpower. But expansion costs certainly have a role to play in these things, especially in the near-term since adjusting those numbers is a pretty simple thing to do.
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A bit off topic, but great timing here. I was just showing this game and CK2 to a friend the other day, and they were very interested but unwilling to pay the big price on steam for it and the DLC. Paradox summer sale to the rescue.
I think the problem with difficulty in EU4 is that it's split between meaningful, history-mimicking mechanics (alliance system, national unrest and stress after wars, and so on), and totally arbitrary rules, like tech groups and having everything tied not to national ethos and choices and dedicated strategic systems, but to a three-stats monarch randomly chosen. The second ones really looks like speed bumps and lazy design. Arbitrary games work well (see chess) and realistic games work well (see norm koger or john tiller wargames), but this mixed approach to difficulty seems jarring.
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I beg to disagree.
If game mechanics try to be too realistic, the game becomes either too complicated, or too difficult, or plain boring. History is not a full-information game, quite the opposite.
On the other hand, if you remove the realism flavour and stick to chess-like rules, the game becomes unappealing.
So you need a middle ground between board-gaming and history-making. EU4 is one of the few succesful attempts.
(Oh, and please also note that there is quite a lot of people enjoying EU4, keep that in mind when composing a "why people cannot enjoy EU4" argument.)
If game mechanics try to be too realistic, the game becomes either too complicated, or too difficult, or plain boring. History is not a full-information game, quite the opposite.
On the other hand, if you remove the realism flavour and stick to chess-like rules, the game becomes unappealing.
So you need a middle ground between board-gaming and history-making. EU4 is one of the few succesful attempts.
(Oh, and please also note that there is quite a lot of people enjoying EU4, keep that in mind when composing a "why people cannot enjoy EU4" argument.)
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Sorry to both double-post and going slightly off-topic, just have thought of something interesting: another good middle-ground game is Civilization series. Its rules are even less realistic and more arbitrary (buying units with religion points! mining cows for food! archers having longer range than tanks!). Yet, people really enjoy these games. Moreover, they pay attention to the "historical" layer of the game: there was a long, epic, and eventually victorious battle fought by my fellow countrymen to add Polish civilization to the game.
So no, you don't only need either chess or painful realism. There is much desire for some in-between approach, and Paradox have decided to fill this particular niche, whether we like it or not. They will continue to make games with some arbitrary mechanics and some evil randomness - and hope that people will buy them. I personally very much like monarch points and random heir stats, though it sometimes makes me mad, and sometimes forces a rage-restart.
You have every right to disagree and express your own needs, as have I. But we are both likely to be overrun by the silent majority of customers.
So no, you don't only need either chess or painful realism. There is much desire for some in-between approach, and Paradox have decided to fill this particular niche, whether we like it or not. They will continue to make games with some arbitrary mechanics and some evil randomness - and hope that people will buy them. I personally very much like monarch points and random heir stats, though it sometimes makes me mad, and sometimes forces a rage-restart.
You have every right to disagree and express your own needs, as have I. But we are both likely to be overrun by the silent majority of customers.
Stop right there. This kind of mentality is anti-consumer and why so many games end up in a terrible state. Constructive negative criticism (even expressing dissatisfaction) is vital for the success of any development process, especially a game. If game developers can't handle a little bit of internet vitriol they are in the wrong business.
That being said, pdx devs are definitely willing to face harsh criticism directly, which is a good thing.
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The point is that Paradox pretends monarch points AREN'T mana, and Wiz seems to get annoyed at the reference (or "tired meme" as he calls it). As you pointed out, it's not unlike things like "Faith" points in Civ5.
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Sorry to say, but I fail to comprehend the very point of "it it mana or is it not mana" discussion. This is just a concept that anyone may like or not.
I'm not sure why Wiz tends to get annoyed at the meme, but maybe that's because of people trying to use it as a form of non-constructive criticism. It might be healthier to just ignore this kind of poking, but this is in fact none of my business. Let everyone speak for themselves.
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I personally agree that a game more focused on nation building rather than blobbing would be a better game. I just don't think they fully thought through the changes they made and how they would affect gameplay and also how they made the game more unrealistic.
In order to nation build you first need to conquer the lands for your nation (unless you are Poland who just needs to conquer a few provinces and then gets given Lithuania). Going tall doesn't work if you only have a few starting provinces.
Going back to the realism aspect why does it cost Muscovy massive diplo or admin points to annex or diplo-annex Russian territory some of it even already controlled BY THE SAME DYNASTY. Seriously how much government focus does it take to bring in such lands.
Thinking about this aspect I would have been happy for coring and diplo-annexing to cost even more than it does now in CS, but to have a very significant discount for same culture and slightly less for same culture group. You have stopped heedless blobbing but have also tried to bring in realism with the changes. Once you have formed your nation you will then expand only slowly outside your culture group, if at all, and go tall if need be.
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How? I don't have CS (and I'm not buying any more DLC until "can declare war during regency" is the default state of the game, since at present there is only one country I want to play).
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I understand your position, but it's painful to see since Milan is one of the nations that benefits the most from CS.
Also I'm guessing you Ironman since mods and Nation Designer don't appear to enter into your equation?
Which is faintly terrifying, given how strong Milan is without CS...
Custom nations are viable (I Ironman for save management convenience), but they feel flat
Which is faintly terrifying, given how strong Milan is without CS...
Custom nations are viable (I Ironman for save management convenience), but they feel flat
It's not something I'd recommend lightly, but you could always play Ironman and kill the process when you get a regency.
Truthfully, though, I haven't seen a regency in a very long time, and I almost always play monarchies. Anecdotes gonna anecdote and all, but it seems that ever since Women in History regencies are far less common. Course there's a different problem now; getting six queens in a row when you're trying to take over the HRE or were planning on Defender of the Faith for the extra missionary.
Since you are curious, let me take the liberty to answer, even though the question was not addressed to me.
Wiz, first of all, I want to tell you that I appreciate that you talk to us here. Also, I admire your courage that you put your face behind all the changes and design decisions you make (release videos etc.), no matter if I agree with them or not.
Second, among all the good stuff you bring us, the things that bother me among all these changes are those that break some features that worked fine before but then you said "Balancing" and the value of these features is suddenly so low that I do not use them in game any more. Basically, you made a decision on my behalf, removing some choices from me and fun on my part with them. Looks like change for the sake of change. Or obsession of preventing exploits.
Example 1 - Imperial Authority
A few patches back, the emperor used to get 10 IA for naming new elector. I found it fair - I do something for the empire, so I am rewarded for it. But some players used that as an exploit to revoke fast. Then so what? Though I learned this game quite well, including few exploits, I still rather enjoy playing "historically", "role-playing" by creating some alternative version of history. Using exploits does not bring me much fun, and I assume most players feel the same. Instead of IA that the player could influence with his actions in the game and feel their impact, today we have IA as some sort of time counter (with much less influence over it) causing more or less arbitrary delay for reforms. Boring - just sit and wait.
Example 2 - Locking war leaders
Before, the war leader changed according to power of involved countries. If small HRE state called for help, the all powerful emperor could answer the call and assume the leadership. If he won, sometimes incurring devastating costs in terms of manpower, money, war exhaustion etc., he could decide the spoils of war. No more! I still remember the frustration and anger when I defended 3 HRE minors in 3 simultaneous wars, almost ruined my power base in the process, who then kindly decided to let badly defeated France get away with huge fine of 35 ducats! I was furious about that. No more defending minors on my part, it is everyone for himself from now on. Again, there was this psychological link between actions in game and some reward for it that was broken here.
Example 3 - Innovative IG.
Before, including Knowledge Transfer, this IG was a relevant choice for playing tall even before patch 1.12. If you play tall, you do not make war all the time as opposed to players / AI factions who do. Your AT is naturally more scarce, and I learned it hard way how important AT is for winning battles (even in defensive war). Without it, the player is at the mercy of his allies, and that is a shaky proposition at best. Then you removed Knowledge Transfer from this IG, effectively pushing it just below the bar of being attractive enough, in competition of warmonger IG (Administrative + Religious). Then you talk about EU4 going in the direction to prefer playing tall. I do not get it.
I think I could go on for quite a while with other features where I do not get the purpose of these changes (statesman advisor, AT, claims, unique buildings, rule for picking IG category etc.). I do not mind if you make the game harder for us, especially since we learned it quite well and need tougher challenges. But I do mind if you make it harder at the expense of having fun. I am asking, because I do not understand.
Regarding patch 1.12, I think I bought on day 1 or 2 this time IIRC, tried to play several times, and then returned to previous patches for the time being. After some campaigns when I just marched my armies around Germany and Polish regions in small wars, won battles, sieges and wars, but ended without armies and manpower due to insanely high attrition, and without any AT gains to speak of. In my opinion, the overall direction is good, I like the concept of going tall over wide, just think the implementation is still half-way done. Just waiting until you get those crucial details right before I upgrade permanently.
Third, I would like to make some suggestions. I understand that you cannot provide detailed reasoning for every change you make due to sheer amount of them in each and every patch. So how about this:
A. Could you run regular Q&A sessions in this forum? Every week or month, for an hour or two, you make the choice. Players would fire questions, you reply on the fly.
B. Could you discuss the changes you plan to make BEFORE you actually make them? Some of them, maybe those essential ones? Today, you just announce them as you approach the release, which is much appreciated. But it is already late. I think you can make it to next level.
We are your customers, after all, we pay for your work. I believe this approach would be much appreciated in this community. And from marketing point of view, Paradox would make the relationship with its customers much stronger.
Yours sincerely, Z.
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This is controversial, but I loved changing warleaders - it forced you to carefully consider what could happen diplomatically during a war, and moreover, it made sense to introduce at least some asymmetry in allying great powers (it also made certain leaderlock CBs powerful, admittedly).
There should be drawbacks to being in the HRE, and while the "no-Kingdom unless elector" restriction and toning down the insane integrity bonuses is excellent, it's not unreasonable to make emperor take warleader in all imperial defense calls at the very least, in my opinion.
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Well if you hadn't stop there you would have seen that my argument is more or less the same. I still hold the same view, the forum have always been a source of constructive criticism for pds, even in the worst of times, like that of hoi3. Such criticism is becoming more and more rare, which I figure is also more tiresome for pds.
on this note of this thread... I actually liked it when things were more expensive to take... but not as expensive to core... I don't like it where it takes 15 years to get my first idea group..... especially if I am playing say brandenburg and i take Silesia...and 20 for my second... and so on..... I don't mind that the first idea tech is flipped with the first building tech... it makes more sense.... however the game is meant to be a conquest game not I shalt maintain my nation in stasis forever game... which even the Powers do now or die.
And I don't mind change, as long as some of the change makes sense from the standpoint of the player or as the case may be... the game's setting...
The way the game is set now, i like it and don't like it... (i haven't played it in a couple of Weeks either...)
I would hope that the idea isn't to make the game as Hard as Dark souls... because I hate dark Souls.... because it's do difficult for me to play... I don't like trying 30 times to get through the first dungeon and each time dieing having to start over from the opening of the dungeon...sometimes sooner sometimes later...
Dark Souls was not fun for me it was unnessarily difficult and annoying.
Some nations SHOULD be easier, some should be harder to play.. game start powers easier, and one province minors harder...and for instance Ryukyu should be really hard... even after they have conquered say the Champa it should be difficult... they're the hardest nation in the game....
I can list multiple things I find interesting in this change and things I don't find interesting.... but i am sure no one is interested in it... or any of the others...
And I don't mind change, as long as some of the change makes sense from the standpoint of the player or as the case may be... the game's setting...
The way the game is set now, i like it and don't like it... (i haven't played it in a couple of Weeks either...)
I would hope that the idea isn't to make the game as Hard as Dark souls... because I hate dark Souls.... because it's do difficult for me to play... I don't like trying 30 times to get through the first dungeon and each time dieing having to start over from the opening of the dungeon...sometimes sooner sometimes later...
Dark Souls was not fun for me it was unnessarily difficult and annoying.
Some nations SHOULD be easier, some should be harder to play.. game start powers easier, and one province minors harder...and for instance Ryukyu should be really hard... even after they have conquered say the Champa it should be difficult... they're the hardest nation in the game....
I can list multiple things I find interesting in this change and things I don't find interesting.... but i am sure no one is interested in it... or any of the others...
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I can't speak for Wiz, but I find it a tedious meme as well.
Combine that with the fact that more than 90% of posts talking about mana are not in any way constructive criticism about the game, and I tend to just ignore posts that talk about mana instead of MP.
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