So I've been thinking, one of the very best aspects of V2 is the POPs system. Not only does it allow you to genuinely role-play and identify with your nation, but it makes peacetime gameplay actually interesting, as you're (almost) always trying to educate, expand, placate, and industrialize your population, and this sort of internal development feels A LOT more substantial and personal than building spam.
Now, we're obviously never going to get a Victoria-esque POPs system in EUIV. The whole system of needs, fertility, literacy, and so on would be very difficult to implement in a game of this scale. However, I think there is a way Paradox could implement something similar to both deepen peacetime/internal strategic gameplay and provide a much more satisfying role-playing/alt-history experience.
Basically, I'd argue the game needs a way to simulate (through basic game mechanics, not events) two things: conflicts between different factions of society, and changes in population and general prosperity.
Paradox could achieve the first goal by implementing a Ming-style faction system for all nations. A lot of mods and IIRC MMTG have played around with this idea, but I think Paradox could really make it shine if they invested in it. Basically, you'd have groups like the aristocracy, burghers/merchants, clergy, soldiers, and peasants. Each faction would have a meter indicating its satisfaction with your rule, and this satisfaction could be improved via monarch points, ideas, government type, and by completing mini-missions (i.e., colonize X, build a Y in Z). With too low satisfaction, you'd risk a giant revolt. With high satisfaction, you'd get bonii. Merchants could give you a trade efficiency bonus, peasants manpower or less revolt risk, and so on. Everything you do would increase one faction's approval and decrease another's. Clergy and merchants would generally be against wars, for instance (except holy and trade wars), whereas the aristocrats would be more martially-oriented. Meanwhile, the peasants would be very much against high war exhaustion, the soldiers against huge losses, etc. It would essentially be a balancing act, though you could also choose to alienate certain factions to really solidify your favor with others. The strategy would obviously change with time and place. In most feudal states, favoring the aristocracy at the start would be a no-brainer, but increased global trade, colonization, the Reformation, etc., would begin to challenge this dynamic, and eventually you'd start to see events like the Dutch Revolt, English Civil War, and French Revolution emerging from these sort of conflicts. This, I think, would make internal gameplay much more interesting.
The second goal could be achieved by simply altering the base tax system. Instead of one semi-permanent base tax value, each province could have one temporary population value, and one temporary "prosperity" value. Each number would be between 1 and 10. For population, 1 would represent extremely sparse population, and 10 would represent millions of people; also, most provinces would have a cap for population, so you don't see central Kansas becoming as populated as Paris or something. For prosperity, 1 would represent hunter-gatherers and 10 would represent an early industrial economy--something like London in 1820. A province's values would fluctuate over time on the basis of what happens to said province. Population would naturally increase during times of stability and wealth, stagnate during instability and war, and decrease when the province is looted, occupied, or scorched. Prosperity would increase with trade income, buildings, and so on, and decrease as bad things happen in the province. Finally, a province's base tax value (before modifiers) could be calculated as (prosperity * population)/4. This system would not only give the player a much better sense of growth and development, but also make colonial growth more realistic, and allow for historical occurrences like Amsterdam eclipsing Antwerp, Vijayanagar and Poland declining, and Germany getting hammered in the Thirty Years War, WITHOUT having to rely on events or starting areas off with unrealistic base tax values. Ideally, it would make investing in one's provinces a minigame in and of itself, and would thereby greatly improve domestic gameplay.
I strongly believe that if Paradox were to implement these systems or something like them in a DLC, EUIV would match or even surpass V2 in terms of internal development and engaging nation-building gameplay.
So, what does the EUIV Community think of these ideas? What would you change, and what kind of mechanics for internal development would you suggest personally?
Now, we're obviously never going to get a Victoria-esque POPs system in EUIV. The whole system of needs, fertility, literacy, and so on would be very difficult to implement in a game of this scale. However, I think there is a way Paradox could implement something similar to both deepen peacetime/internal strategic gameplay and provide a much more satisfying role-playing/alt-history experience.
Basically, I'd argue the game needs a way to simulate (through basic game mechanics, not events) two things: conflicts between different factions of society, and changes in population and general prosperity.
Paradox could achieve the first goal by implementing a Ming-style faction system for all nations. A lot of mods and IIRC MMTG have played around with this idea, but I think Paradox could really make it shine if they invested in it. Basically, you'd have groups like the aristocracy, burghers/merchants, clergy, soldiers, and peasants. Each faction would have a meter indicating its satisfaction with your rule, and this satisfaction could be improved via monarch points, ideas, government type, and by completing mini-missions (i.e., colonize X, build a Y in Z). With too low satisfaction, you'd risk a giant revolt. With high satisfaction, you'd get bonii. Merchants could give you a trade efficiency bonus, peasants manpower or less revolt risk, and so on. Everything you do would increase one faction's approval and decrease another's. Clergy and merchants would generally be against wars, for instance (except holy and trade wars), whereas the aristocrats would be more martially-oriented. Meanwhile, the peasants would be very much against high war exhaustion, the soldiers against huge losses, etc. It would essentially be a balancing act, though you could also choose to alienate certain factions to really solidify your favor with others. The strategy would obviously change with time and place. In most feudal states, favoring the aristocracy at the start would be a no-brainer, but increased global trade, colonization, the Reformation, etc., would begin to challenge this dynamic, and eventually you'd start to see events like the Dutch Revolt, English Civil War, and French Revolution emerging from these sort of conflicts. This, I think, would make internal gameplay much more interesting.
The second goal could be achieved by simply altering the base tax system. Instead of one semi-permanent base tax value, each province could have one temporary population value, and one temporary "prosperity" value. Each number would be between 1 and 10. For population, 1 would represent extremely sparse population, and 10 would represent millions of people; also, most provinces would have a cap for population, so you don't see central Kansas becoming as populated as Paris or something. For prosperity, 1 would represent hunter-gatherers and 10 would represent an early industrial economy--something like London in 1820. A province's values would fluctuate over time on the basis of what happens to said province. Population would naturally increase during times of stability and wealth, stagnate during instability and war, and decrease when the province is looted, occupied, or scorched. Prosperity would increase with trade income, buildings, and so on, and decrease as bad things happen in the province. Finally, a province's base tax value (before modifiers) could be calculated as (prosperity * population)/4. This system would not only give the player a much better sense of growth and development, but also make colonial growth more realistic, and allow for historical occurrences like Amsterdam eclipsing Antwerp, Vijayanagar and Poland declining, and Germany getting hammered in the Thirty Years War, WITHOUT having to rely on events or starting areas off with unrealistic base tax values. Ideally, it would make investing in one's provinces a minigame in and of itself, and would thereby greatly improve domestic gameplay.
I strongly believe that if Paradox were to implement these systems or something like them in a DLC, EUIV would match or even surpass V2 in terms of internal development and engaging nation-building gameplay.
So, what does the EUIV Community think of these ideas? What would you change, and what kind of mechanics for internal development would you suggest personally?