I don't understand the attitude of this forum

[Quaade]

So if we removed AE and made coring free and instant, the game wouldn't become easier? That's a silly and far too narrow definition of difficulty. If anything, difficulty in games is precisely about the time it takes to do things - Dark Souls is difficult because you have to spend a large amount of time learning and dying to complete its encounters.

I for one think that AE has been nerfed a bit too much, wanted to join a coaliation to a hugely, rapidly expanding kingdom only to met that my nation did not have the 30 AE required to join. Also, can´t seem to find any way to stiffle larger nations that keeps AE down but still expands rapidly. Happened in my asian game where Ming vassalized and annexed like hell, with nothing you could do to catch up.

Also, and this is new for me since I´ve been pro coring cost and the balancing this brings. With common sense there are some provinces that are too expensive, so that could be nerfed just a bit, perhaps by bringing the claim cost up a bit, as of now I don´t really care much if I have a claim or not on provinces under 200 and usually don´t at provinces over since with 200 the amount saved by a claim is only 20. For most nations that´s only a set back for 4-5 months in adm.

Yet I dislike the announcement that investing in provinces will not increase the cost. While I believe it increased to rapidly, but taking it away entirely would mean that grassland and such quickly become much better since they will always be cheaper. Like how I would have to balance other less attractive provinces when the easy one came to expensive, however this could be resolved by increasing it after each building slot has been opened, or just nerfing the cost a bit.

I think the criticism about resource randomness in regards to Monarch Power is to some degree fair, though I also think the randomness adds a certain emotional layer to the flow of the game - you care about your monarchs and your heirs to a much greater degree than you otherwise would. I also think that if the resource randomness *really* bothered people that much, republics would be far more popular than they currently are.

However, even if we were to 'fix' this, the way to do so would not be to make fewer things use MPs as that would pretty much destroy their core design of tradeoffs.

I don´t really care for my heir atm, perhaps it´s because I also play CK2 and is damaged in that way. But have NO control on the heir, have no way to see the family and the next few heirs and no way to interact with the monarch making me care for him more than the points he gives. However I like the RNG where my great king dies of young and the new king only has 0 in a stat so I have to take the country in a different direction for some years.

My point is, make me care for them more than just the points. Make it more visual or make me see the family other than king and heir.

...

Also, give me a way to burn either adm or mil for lowering unrest, thought about it yesterday that you perhaps could lock this to a province burning a set amount to lowering unrest for a locked period of ten or twenty years, like national focus. If monarch dies and leaves you with a gain of 0 because you used the basic 3, bad luck, you should have thought about it before you locked the points to that newly conquered promised land.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

What exactly do you think 'difficulty' in an empire builder is? It's how fast you can grow powerful, and how many obstacles impede your progress. The faster you can grow powerful, the easier the game is. This is the accepted meaning of 'difficulty' in EU4 game design and what people are talking about when they say EU4 is an easy or a hard game. The fact that you have invented your own meaning for the word does not oblige anyone else to adopt that meaning.

Length of time required to complete something is a result of increased difficulty, not the other way around.

I'd guess that a campaign as, say, Milan would be much harder with instant coring and no AE, assuming that the AI was designed to take this into account. France and the other majors would instantly blob to insane degrees, faster than you could. If you make the snowballing process faster, the bigger snowballs have an even bigger advantage.

On the other hand, slower expansion in general benefits the player more, because it plays off of our inherent advantages over the AI. We're better able to handle multiple slower-burning wars, we're better able to make detailed long-term plans about how to avoid AE, or eat up large coring costs. And because we are able to deal with blocks on expansion better than the AI, our rate of growth is always greater than the AI. So, removing blocks to expansion entirely would make the AI much more competitive.

That being said, of course removing AE and coring would be a stupid idea, and overall I'm quite happy with how the game plays right now. But I think your reasoning is flawed.

 

[bzflater]

I understood your meaning, but spare me the ridiculous exaggerations in the future. 'Almost completely useless resource' means that you'd basically be fine if you had no gold at all, and I don't think anyone believes that.

Eh, I guess you're right, that hyperbole was a bit in bad taste.

 

[Beagá]

That's pretty much what I meant, though. You often have way more gold than you can realistically spend past 1600 if you play as an European nation. There should be more gold sinks in this game.
EDIT: fix

truth be said if you

1- Don´t have only level 3 advisors
2- Aren´t building four colonies at the same time
3- Don´t have naval and army forcelimit 75% fulfilled

You STILL need more money.

Again - the problem is that by the point you have all that gold, the game is already boring because as interesting as EU4 is, it sill is comp stomping. Achievements help, but they can only do so much.

 

[Swami]

Sure, but that's you personally. Take a trip around this forum or any forum talking about EU4, and watch how many words and how much emotion people put into stories about bad rulers living forever, mocking Enrique and Henry VI, making jokes about hunting accidents when someone gets a 5/5/5 heir, etc. Many players don't realize just how much they actually 'enjoy' getting occasionally screwed by the RNG.

Still it's to bad that building slots are tied to development, which is tied to monarch points. Now it doesn't matter that much for good terrain, but for instance a swamp having -2 building slots makes Amsterdam pretty much a useless province, while in real live it was the beating hart of the Netherlands. Shouldn't terrain modifiers like swamps or woods make building there more expensive, as site preparations costs more (building dikes in swamps, chopping down woods etc.), but what does that have to do with development of the province? I'm not saying a province should be able to be developed with gold, because that would be way to overpowered when you are raking in money. But I think terrainmodifiers should be 20% or perhaps even 40% building cost modifiers and not development modifiers or buildingslots modifiers.

That's pretty much what I meant, though. You often have way more gold than you can realistically spend past 1600 if you play as an European nation. There should be more gold sinks in this game.
EDIT: fix

Yeah I now run three +3 advisors as much as I can, to harvest monarch points. To be fair you can sink a lot of gold in there monthly and it gives you lot's of monarch points to develop. I think more people should direct there gold towards high level advisors if they want to develop faster and have enough money.

 

[Wizzington]

Length of time required to complete something is a result of increased difficulty, not the other way around.

I'd guess that a campaign as, say, Milan would be much harder with instant coring and no AE, assuming that the AI was designed to take this into account. France and the other majors would instantly blob to insane degrees, faster than you could. If you make the snowballing process faster, the bigger snowballs have an even bigger advantage.

On the other hand, slower expansion in general benefits the player more, because it plays off of our inherent advantages over the AI. We're better able to handle multiple slower-burning wars, we're better able to make detailed long-term plans about how to avoid AE, or eat up large coring costs. And because we are able to deal with blocks on expansion better than the AI, our rate of growth is always greater than the AI. So, removing blocks to expansion entirely would make the AI much more competitive.

That being said, of course removing AE and coring would be a stupid idea, and overall I'm quite happy with how the game plays right now. But I think you're reasoning is flawed.

Nah, it'd benefit the player because players are much better at adapting to such extreme systems and finding strategies to exploit them. New players might have a bit of a rougher time of it though.

 

[bzflater]

Oh yeah, right.
I also think that something should really be done about capitals of major nations that were historically very developed but have terrible terrain in-game like Amsterdam, Berlin and others.
In-game, it's generally a bad idea to develop them in favour of better-terrained provinces, which feels strange given their IRL importance.
Maybe terrain costs should be ignored in the capitals of countries with over 100 development? That'd be a nice touch, I think.

 

[Swami]

Oh yeah, right.
I also think that something should really be done about capitals of major nations that were historically very developed but have terrible terrain in-game like Amsterdam, Berlin and others.
In-game, it's generally a bad idea to develop them in favour of better-terrained provinces, which feels strange given their IRL importance.
Maybe terrain costs should be ignored in the capitals of countries with over 100 development? That'd be a nice touch, I think.

Yeah that's also my problem with the system. Maybe give them a -xx% development modifier to prevent abuse by capital switching through your empire you could add the discount to the cost of changing your capital. Instead of the 200 admin base cost it could go up to 800 basecost, depending on how much development you have in the province where your old capital was... Well it should be worked out more and be balanced, I'm just thinking out loud here

 

[RobRoy3]

Besides, gold, on the contrary to MP, has very little uses. It's an almost useless resource in this game, which is weird to say the least.

I dunno about that. I've been finding gold much scarcer in the latest patch; I'm tempted to say too scarce, in the early game, but that could be a function of the nations I favor.

I am looking into ways to address the excess of gold in the midgame though.

Hopefully just the mid-late game, please? I haven't seen a whole lot of complaints or jokes about excess gold in the early game (and I certainly don't have any).

If you really want a gold sink, though, why not impose increasing gold costs for upgrading land units at higher tech levels.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

As per our jokes about kings:

I don't think those jokes are necessarily a sign that people like the mechanic of random monarch points. People always joke about things that they don't like - in fact, we often resort to joking because we don't like something, and comedy helps us forget about the negatives.

I'd be much more attached to my kings and heirs if there was a little bit of personification. Not CKII level, but maybe something on the scale of Total War games, where you get an extremely rudimentary family tree, a few traits attached to each character, and occasional events surrounding the lives of the more important ones. It doesn't distract from the focus of Total War, and I don't think it would distract from the focus of EUIV. If some of those events were then made so that we had some control over our monarch points, it would be even better.

I.E. There is a young and highly effective bureaucrat rising through the ranks. Our monarch recently met him, and was impressed by his abilities. Our administration could benefit greatly if we were to give the man a position of importance, but he is not of noble birth, and promoting this man over a noblemen could greatly upset the aristocracy.

Choice 1: Employ the man, gain 1 ADM score for your monarch, lose 20 legitimacy and 20 prestige (balance this as necessary).
Choice 2: Don't rock the boat (gain 5 legitimacy, 5 prestige).
Choice 3: In fact, the Count von Dummkopf was lobbying for a position in our government... (gain 20 legitimacy and prestige, lose 1 ADM score for your monarch).

 

[Wizzington]

Early game economy is fine. Mid and late game economy is better than it was, but you still get to the 'far too much money' phase eventually.

 

[Frederick_Will]

I think the criticism about resource randomness in regards to Monarch Power is to some degree fair, though I also think the randomness adds a certain emotional layer to the flow of the game - you care about your monarchs and your heirs to a much greater degree than you otherwise would. I also think that if the resource randomness *really* bothered people that much, republics would be far more popular than they currently are.

However, even if we were to 'fix' this, the way to do so would not be to make fewer things use MPs as that would pretty much destroy their core design of tradeoffs.

Out of curiosity, what are, if any, your plans for regency councils? Are you ever going to allow them to declare war? or is there a reason for leaving them the way they are? like making republics more unique?

I always found complaints about them to be pretty valid. perhaps it is just me.

 

[TheChronoMaster]

I'd suggest some sort of 'great investment' mechanic, similar to policies but costing ducats.

For instance: Ornate Uniforms (increasing land morale at a cost of increased army maintenance), Expand Roads (increasing province trade power at a cost scaled to the provinces you control), etc. Something like that.

 

[Beagá]

I dunno about that. I've been finding gold much scarcer in the latest patch; I'm tempted to say too scarce, in the early game, but that could be a function of the nations I favor.

Hopefully just the mid-late game, please? I haven't seen a whole lot of complaints or jokes about excess gold in the early game (and I certainly don't have any).

If you really want a gold sink, though, why not impose increasing gold costs for upgrading land units at higher tech levels.

Definitedly scarcer. I for one can´t pay all said 3 level advisors while doing massive colonial build-up (massive = 4 or more) even in my french game (it´s 1620).

And that´s with milking natives for money. Imagine if you can´t go to America.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Nah, it'd benefit the player because players are much better at adapting to such extreme systems and finding strategies to exploit them. New players might have a bit of a rougher time of it though.

Well, the player will always have an advantage because they are better at everything. But unless the player is starting in a position where there are no powerful AI blobs, or if they're starting as one of the big blobs themselves, I don't see why we would have more of an advantage than we do now.

If I'm Mantua, and me and France or Austria are competing for Italy, the only way I can survive is if France or Austria go at each others' throats early on, or if either of them ignore Italy long enough for me to blob.

But forget France - I'll see day 1 DoW's from the Pope and Milan. Normally I would have time to wait, use diplomacy to establish allies, and rely on the fact that the AI doesn't declare war instantly to plan my own quick wars of expansion, to get large enough to defend myself.

 

[Pellucid]

You complain when Paradox makes the game harder. You cry out in sorrow when doing a one-tag WC as Muisca doesn't seem possible anymore. You yell when they make expansion more difficult, despite seeking out the most difficult nations to expand with in the first place. I quite honestly don't get it. Do you want the game to be difficult or not?

I don't! Bring me more difficulties, that I might eat them!

I do prefer that the difficulty be added more in the mid-late game though. The early game is already very challenging for some of the small nations. What we really need is a late-game threat.

 

[Gball]

I think the criticism about resource randomness in regards to Monarch Power is to some degree fair, though I also think the randomness adds a certain emotional layer to the flow of the game - you care about your monarchs and your heirs to a much greater degree than you otherwise would. I also think that if the resource randomness *really* bothered people that much, republics would be far more popular than they currently are.

However, even if we were to 'fix' this, the way to do so would not be to make fewer things use MPs as that would pretty much destroy their core design of tradeoffs.

My problem with the monarchs is that there isn't anything the player can do about them besides load the game back or try to game the game (thus killing immersion) by loading the 1/0/2 heir to single regiment mercs and suicide running them into enemies till they die.

Perhaps a way to do things would be for late game advisors to have a much greater impact on mana...er, monarch point generation. That could slowly show how society moved away from single man rule to more bureaucratic systems.

Also, the reason people don't play republic is because you always get a shit monarch. Sometimes getting a shit monarch > always getting a shit monarch.

 

[oblio-]

Early game economy is fine. Mid and late game economy is better than it was, but you still get to the 'far too much money' phase eventually.

I hope you can fix this just as you've fixed superfluous resources from previous versions. Such as prestige, army tradition, garrison growth, reduced revolt risk, etc. In the past most of those were maxed out by the time you were a medium size country or were totally useless for 90% of campaigns.

Now, if you could add something to keep things a bit more interesting when the country is recovering, that would be a blast. It's the only thing I'm missing after 1000+ hours of playing this game. I know that I'm not the typical player, but I think this would help even with more casual players as they'd have something to do during regencies, for example. Or when they have crappy rulers (you mentioned Henry and Enrique).

I know that you're quite tight lipped about this, but is there any hope for a DLC including some generic peace time interactive mechanics for all the countries or realistically do I have to wait for EU5? I don't mind either way, it's just about managing expectations

 

[grommile]

Also, the reason people don't play republic is because you always get a poor monarch.

Only if you never re-elect.

 

[Grand Pope Papa]

Early game economy is fine. Mid and late game economy is better than it was, but you still get to the 'far too much money' phase eventually.

You have to think where money went in real life to solve this problem. IRL Goverments were expensive to run. Policies were expensive to enforce. Large empires were very expensive to run. Curruption was much bigger than what it is in the game (one random event). Bribes were also common amongst nobles. Kings were famous for spending too much money (french revolution). And should a nation have too much gold, they would cover their city in rich stones (Venice)

In other words: make running an empire expensive.