I don't understand the attitude of this forum

[mudcrabmerchant]

Hm...add a budget for for 'government', perhaps, which greatly increases over the course of the game, and if underfunded leads to inflation, revolt risk, slowed coring times, lowered MP?

No, a generic government slider would be horrendous.

I'd rather military costs go up (with decreased maintenance when your men are campaigning in enemy land, to represent the common practice of paying your soldiers via booty), make corruption an important mechanic (same effect as inflation, but give us more ways to gain it and lose it), and make the balance of finance such that loans become an important part of managing your empire, especially as the game goes on.

 

[Wizzington]

wel where to start, ok i was very exited to read all the dev diares and they all sounded super cool to me. so yes on day 1 i was very exited bought the new dlc instandly and started my campaign with france iirc, note that im not close to an expert player, i considder myself informed but avarage player. my ultimate goal was to someday conquer the world with a huge nation, in the proces collect as many archievements as possible to learn different aspects of the game. so to be clear, for me the game was already very challenging even though i played 1200 hours of it. to sum up my experiences with common sence i tried france, castille, brandenburg, ottoman, england, ming, japan, vagyagayagaygara and 1 or 2 more countrys i like. none of them got past 1550 most i quited around 1500.

so its not that i didnt like the ideas of common sence, but ingame they yust didnt work out as i thought they would. yes my progress was so much slower then all my previous games in previous patches, and after reading up on it it got confirmed that the gamedesign was ment to be much more difficult. as you can see that in this case for me the ultimate goal was completely taken away. not with 3000 hours am i gona archieve that.

the extras common sence brought didnt work out either, development totaly pointless when u wanna expand as fast as possible, forts, wel u know rebbel scum and i really still dont get there influence area's, all my lovely unique buildings are gone. new buildings look pointless: 1 you have lots of money to create more money¿, 2 running out of building slots way too fast.

oh yeah 1 thing that reminded me of my ottoman game, was pretty cool at first: i released persia as a opm, and hey i got half of timmys territory to join persia when they rebelled, cool time to intregrate right? wrong i dont remember the exact time and cost, but heck u can see what i mean, if u compare that cost to pre cs.

what botheres me about paradox so much, wel i saw a million complaints all over the place, and yes i mostly joined the conversation because i was so stunned about this different game called eu4, but not a single response from paradox, wel i couldn keep up with all the posts so some might have gotten by me, then this community who saiz i have to go back to previous pathc and stop bitching, for the last time, NO i loved how eu4 developed until cs, so i wanted to be upto date and enjoy new patches as they came along. wel and then you have those who say, hey what do you want free coring cost to make it fun? heck where where those people complaining pre cs about coring cost being to cheap? u cant dictate how difficult the game is for ME. also i hate the fact that these HUGE changes never where discussed in the devdiares. and where simply forced down my u know what.

ok to sum up: best game ever for me, until cs. i already proposed different difficulty settings for ironman, but apperently im dumb as a monkey by saying that, so yeah end game i suppose

bil

Have you considered that the reason your progress was much slower was because you haven't gotten used to the new systems? Because yes, conquest is slowed down, but it isn't radically so. People have already done WCs with 1.12 and it just takes one glance at a 1600-ish screenshot of Teutonic Order owning half of Europe to realize that the potential is still very much there.

 

[Azieloki]

I agree with the issues that people have with the randomness of certain aspects of the game. I would always choose to be a republic if I could, but most of the games republics are located in the Italian region or the Baltic, and starting location probably has the biggest effect on a nation's play style. If it was easier to flip to a republic I would never play as a monarchy again, but unless your playing in the HRE you'll exceed the province count limit before you finish the idea groups needed to change government types. Then you have mechanics like regency councils that just leave you to twiddle your thumbs for a fairly long time. I personally don't mind the changes in this patch, and actually quite enjoy them all, but I can see why people have issues with some of them. The real problem is when you're not in a position to expand there is nothing else engaging left to do in the game. I think if some other sort of mini game was integrated into the main game for when you're not at war it would reduce a lot of player frustration/boredom. Those are just my thoughts on this though.

 

[Alex Steel]

If your biggest problem with EU4 is that it has mana then I have some great news for you: You've actually been playing Skyrim all along! You can buy a copy of EU4 with a 75% discount here.

I'm wondering. Why is it for sale on the Paradox Store and not on Steam?

 

[bzflater]

No, a generic government slider would be horrendous.

I'd rather military costs go up (with decreased maintenance when your men are campaigning in enemy land, to represent the common practice of paying your soldiers via booty), make corruption an important mechanic (same effect as inflation, but give us more ways to gain it and lose it), and make the balance of finance such that loans become an important part of managing your empire, especially as the game goes on.

Maybe make different government forms (Feudal Monarchy, Absolute Monarchy, etc.) have different maintenance costs?

 

[Wizzington]

I'm wondering. Why is it for sale on the Paradox Store and not on Steam?

Not my department, ask someone in sales.

 

[el freako]

Really old fogey coming out of lurkerdom here....

In my, admittedly rather long, experience of Paradox games they do make the games more difficult as patches progress - sometimes it does seem a bit skewed towards the MP element (as the later patches of EU2 felt) but, even if I myself play almost exclusively SP I cannot exclude MP experience from this just because it's not what I like.

1.12 was certainly a big change and I have felt my enjoyment of EU fall quite a bit.
However I think Wiz is right (at least with regards to my experience) that this is due to now having to 'learn' parts of the game again:
Monarch points are even more valuable now, money is easier to come by so those expensive advisers are more important.
You have to work with smaller forces than before and with the new fort system you can't rely on a knockout blow against the enemy's main army and then carpet-siege them - I love this feature, especially when it makes my wonderful battleplan go south fast.
You also have to choose carefully when/if you are going to specialise in some provinces compared to others.

But after all that EU4 is still the game I play most often, in fact probably nearly as much as all my other games combined.

Damn, I think this is my first post for a decade

 

[bzflater]

Maybe make different government forms (Feudal Monarchy, Absolute Monarchy, etc.) have different maintenance costs?

Another idea: corruption could be a modifier that affects the government maintenance cost similarly to inflation.

 

[kitemasaki]

Really old fogey coming out of lurkerdom here....

In my, admittedly rather long, experience of Paradox games they do make the games more difficult as patches progress - sometimes it does seem a bit skewed towards the MP element (as the later patches of EU2 felt) but, even if I myself play almost exclusively SP I cannot exclude MP experience from this just because it's not what I like.

1.12 was certainly a big change and I have felt my enjoyment of EU fall quite a bit.
However I think Wiz is right (at least with regards to my experience) that this is due to now having to 'learn' parts of the game again:
Monarch points are even more valuable now, money is easier to come by so those expensive advisers are more important.
You have to work with smaller forces than before and with the new fort system you can't rely on a knockout blow against the enemy's main army and then carpet-siege them - I love this feature, especially when it makes my wonderful battleplan go south fast.
You also have to choose carefully when/if you are going to specialise in some provinces compared to others.

But after all that EU4 is still the game I play most often, in fact probably nearly as much as all my other games combined.

Damn, I think this is my first post for a decade

I am with you on this. I hated not knowing what I was doing in 1.12, but after playing a few campaigns...I love it more than ever.

The only difference I have felt in 1.12 is that I don't blob as quickly/easily as I used to, but my usage of monarch points feels more valuable. I also really *feel* the difference of when I invest in my nation via Idea Groups, quality land, buildings, etc. I still manage to stay ahead of tech (in europe) and have a surplus of monarch points, even with using the development system. I honestly think it just comes down to a player not learning the new mechanics, which being 'knowledgeable' is badge of pride in EU. If you understand the new mechanics (really) then the game is much more strategic and in-depth than ever before.

I am glad this change happened.

 

[Ulfing]

I have to agree its about relearning the game. The last expansion brought big changes - which were hyped about in the dev diaries. I'll admit I wasn't too keen at first - Norway felt screwed by the new mechanics. At first. After relearning how to use the new mechanics to my advantage, I'm sailing along better than ever before, enjoying it better than before. The Norwegian home territories don't stay eternally piss poor and keeping the forts up to date gives me more time to ship troops back. Similar case with my second favourite start, Serbia.

I've never been a blobber. In any game. So this expansion (bugs aside) has been spot on for me.

 

[Hakuromatsu]

I agree with the issues that people have with the randomness of certain aspects of the game. I would always choose to be a republic if I could, but most of the games republics are located in the Italian region or the Baltic, and starting location probably has the biggest effect on a nation's play style. If it was easier to flip to a republic I would never play as a monarchy again, but unless your playing in the HRE you'll exceed the province count limit before you finish the idea groups needed to change government types. Then you have mechanics like regency councils that just leave you to twiddle your thumbs for a fairly long time. I personally don't mind the changes in this patch, and actually quite enjoy them all, but I can see why people have issues with some of them. The real problem is when you're not in a position to expand there is nothing else engaging left to do in the game. I think if some other sort of mini game was integrated into the main game for when you're not at war it would reduce a lot of player frustration/boredom. Those are just my thoughts on this though.

Yes, more or less.

Randomness is a necessary part of every strategy game, but the healthiest sort of randomness is giving players control of the dice -- not the outcome of the dice, but the dice themselves. If I roll a 0/0/1/0 general, I'm in control of the decision to spend another 50 MIL to roll again. If a siege is stalled at -56 after a year, I'm in control of the decision to spend more cycles rolling for siege progress, committing more artillery/generals/blockaders, or retreating (ditto with battle rolls). Even if I get hit with consecutive negative stab events, I'm in control of the decision to spend ADM to boost stab, or try playing at low stab.

But with monarch rolls...there's no control over the dice. They get rolled at the whim of the RNG, and they can completely alter the course of certain games. A system of random monarch stats isn't problematic, but a system that doesn't give the player any recourse to bad luck is.

 

[Gringovoir]

I think the definitions of difficulty and whether or not you can expand fast are somewhat misdirected. What players are interested in is the amount of problem solving that they have. This is what is fun. And the difficulty may be defined as the difficulty of solving these problems. While the content of the game is the amount of problems we solve and the tools to do so.

In many ways patches have increased the tools to solve different problems, but increased coring cost decreased the amount of problems.

As Muscovy I have to sit on overextension and do nothing after first war with Novgorod. Delayed ideas also mean I can't take religious and vassal feed as fast. That is what is disappointing not the speed per se, but that the content of problem solving has decreased with wars done at a leisurely pace.

 

[b.arts4]

Have you considered that the reason your progress was much slower was because you haven't gotten used to the new systems? Because yes, conquest is slowed down, but it isn't radically so. People have already done WCs with 1.12 and it just takes one glance at a 1600-ish screenshot of Teutonic Order owning half of Europe to realize that the potential is still very much there.

i dont understand how u can say that without an LOL, ofcource there are many who are far better then me in the game, and sure i have to learn allot of new stuff, but seriously ideagroupes with cheaper annex or cheaper coring are now musthaves, wich means the ideagroupes wich gave me different kind of advantages are nolonger available, because im locked into those ideagroupes i didnt need pre cs. the choise is gone, i considder this HUGE. have you even tryed castille? i duno whats up with that but with no 100 years war, sucky leaders that dont die and apperently a stabhit every other year, conquering granada (wich was like a bonus pre cs) then coring that shit, damn already behind in everything not to mention colonising any time soon, oh yeah also took english and france province or 2. pre comon sence this would be minor, now its impossable. heck i was about to invade portugal and morroco aswel. and to quote the comunity before they quote me, go easyer take more timezzzzzzzzzzz, do you expect to take all that for free? wel not for free, but sure howelse am i with my skillset ever gona do wc

bil

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Maybe make different government forms (Feudal Monarchy, Absolute Monarchy, etc.) have different maintenance costs?

So, a generic slider that has generic modifiers based off of generic governments that we swap between every century or so?

It would be exceedingly boring. I'd rather have nothing than have that, because then it reduces the chances of something interesting being done about the issue in the future.

 

[saegoto]

@Wiz
To decrease income in mid and late game: half production and trade efficiency gaining from technology from 10% to 5% per tech?

 

[Gringovoir]

Also continuing my above post. Since there is no problem solving during peace time (you can do it all on a pause mostly) the most fun play in some sense may be defined as the constant war. Wars were about 2 years in which on average you generate 240 admin points. So you could core 16 base tax with claims. Which is close to 25 cap as you could also vassal feed. So you could get close to the most fun gameplay as in the above definition. Now wars are faster and costs are higher. So it's much harder to be constantly at war. Hence less fun and problem solving

 

[zerosius]

If your biggest problem with EU4 is that it has mana then I have some great news for you: You've actually been playing Skyrim all along! You can buy a copy of EU4 with a 75% discount here.

trololol

 

[Grand Pope Papa]

@Wiz
To decrease income in mid and late game: half production and trade efficiency gaining from technology from 10% to 5% per tech?

This is the best idea. So simple to implement.

 

[saegoto]

This is the best idea. So simple to implement.

yea. or we could just remove it entirely.
increaceing maintenace by tech of advisors, armies, fleets could be remove/reduced too.

btw
I would love to see a difference between tax income and production income. Tax could be yearly but production and trade monthly.

 

[sub-woofer]

The fact that you've been telling the same stale joke for almost two years is not actually to your credit.

Wiz, it almost sounds like you're honestly offended by the "mana" nickname for Monarch Points. Are you? Because you need not to This is a damn good game, it got a whole load better in 1.12, and I'm really anxious to get my hands on 1.13. But...well, I'm still thinking of those three integer-type variables as "mana". Sorry, the name just...stucks in the head, being short and simple. I think you don't need to take a Diplomatic Insult CB against people using it.