Institutions and westernisation

[*Bubble_gum*]

Institutions are a good way to represent advancement of European civilization, but at the same time, this system does not fit well other regions. Here are just a few examples:

- Feudalism - many historians doubt that feudal system existed outside Europe (some even think that feudalism existed in Eastern Europe only, while Western Europe or Byzantine empire never had a classic feudal society). At the same time the game forces to embrace Feudalism even when you play in Asia, America or Africa which is not historically correct. And I am not mentioning hordes, that should never have feudalism, at all.

- Renaissance - European renaissance is based on reviving and surpassing ideas of classical antiquity as a result of migration of Greek scholars from the dying Byzantine empire. Countries outside Europe witnessed renaissance in different time periods, e.g. Timurid renaissance or Bengal renaissance.

- Colonialism - only European countries colonized America. No nations outside Europe had large colonies and enjoyed the benefits of being colonial nations (at least nations outside Europe did not establish semi-independent colonies).

- Printing press - China and Korea had printing press long before the Europeans. Why should they embrace a thing that they invented long time ago?

From my point of view, westernisation fits countries outside Europe much better than current system of institutions. I know many players hated the way it was represented in game, but I think that this system should be revived and reworked. Any thoughts on this topic?

 

[Terixis]

The problem with institutions is that they make the tech gap the opposite of what it should be. In real life, technology was relatively on par throughout the old world with the Great Divergence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence) not happening until Britain and the rest of Europe rapidly industrialized in the 19th century with coal-burning furnaces. In EU4, Western Europe, the HRE, and Italy rapidly gain a massive tech advantage thanks to the first 3 institutions mostly being locked to Europe and having extremely slow progress outside of it (you can force spawn Colonialism as Japan or whoever but that's only with very heavy player involvement). Beginning with Global Trade, however, institutions spawn and are adopted extremely rapidly around the world, meaning that the ROTW nations end up with very near tech-parity at the end of the game. It should be tech parity until 1700 (moving industrialization up to account for the 1820 end date)->rapid massive tech gap until 1820, but we end up with the opposite situation.

That said, it's almost certainly far too late in the game for any sort of change like that to happen. I just want military westernization to come back so I can play late game Indian/Chinese tech group countries and not cry inside about how my pips are worse and there's no way to get western units anymore.

 

[Tanuvein]

The tech progression really only makes sense for western culture groups. It's not even an inherently progressive system - as you say, feudalism wasn't common or even desired and only the west colonized the America. I think it might make more sense if institutions, but not techs, were tied to cultures or culture groups, or perhaps just geographic regions. I'm not asking for them to actually do it, but that would allow them to maybe shuffle the costs for techs around while keeping the actual unlocks consistent with what we have now, or maybe give techs different brackets for different cultures (ie, China could avoid paying penalties for adopting the first few printing press techs before adopting the institution).

The tech divide does get really tricky in this. The diplomacy techs are mostly about naval, so that works with giving it to Europe with the focus on deep sea ships. I think you could argue administration would be more advanced in the east with some standardized testing for political offices and continuously managing larger, less autonomous empires. Europe would definitely have the military advantage around the 1500s. The Ottomans with their bombards and Portuguese were already fighting over colonies in India and Malacca. The Hospitallers and Portuguese both were holding off 100,000 of men while being only around 1,000 strong, largely because of handgunners and military training doctrines.

 

[Nevars]

Instituition and Westernization or whatever never make sense in this time period anyway.

Western nations never have massive advantage in tech like the game would want you to believe.

Gun and cannon? China had it before Europe and when Europe superior model came in, asian nations adopted it with relative ease and some even have more advance gun or cannon than Europe too.

The only Area that you could argue that Europe have advantage is in ship but it's not massive of an advantage that no other nation can fight them, indeed China, Siam, etc. already fighting and winning against western europe ship.

Only in the trail end of game years that the advantage became more decisive but that's like basing your entire game mechanic around the last decade of entire 400 years of gameplay which is kind of bad thing to do.

 

[Sir.TalkALot]

Instituition and Westernization or whatever never make sense in this time period anyway.

Western nations never have massive advantage in tech like the game would want you to believe.

Gun and cannon? China had it before Europe and when Europe superior model came in, asian nations adopted it with relative ease and some even have more advance gun or cannon than Europe too.

The only Area that you could argue that Europe have advantage is in ship but it's not massive of an advantage that no other nation can fight them, indeed China, Siam, etc. already fighting and winning against western europe ship.

Only in the trail end of game years that the advantage became more decisive but that's like basing your entire game mechanic around the last decade of entire 400 years of gameplay which is kind of bad thing to do.

I mean, in Asia, this is sort of True, but every other continent eu4 messes up. Natives in America have Guns by 1500, and they have topnotch armies that regularily beat ai colonizers by 1600. Australian Aboriginies somehow have large united ccountries with modern Armies, when in reality they had zero successful coordinated defence against the English as far as I know.

But even in Asia, pretty small European forces conquered huge countries with maginitudes larger populations. Granted, this often was because of superior diplomacy and tactics, but the Game should still somewhat represent that, no? It makes me a little sad, to never see actual European conquests in India usually even Malaysia. All they do is colonize.

I think a pretty simple fix to Institutions would be, that they don't spread in the entire country once adopted, which would stop big ottomans from spreading the printing press to India by 1570. For the later Institutions, you could simply make it a requirement that the other institutions are present before they spread there.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But even in Asia, pretty small European forces conquered huge countries with maginitudes larger populations. Granted, this often was because of superior diplomacy and tactics, but the Game should still somewhat represent that, no?

How? It mostly amounts to playing better. The AI generally won't play better than the AI.

 

[Talamare]

This game has a pretty Universal stance that Europe should be dominant.
I can list at least 4 instances in which this is true.

 

[moscal]

Names always can be replaced - this is only symbols.

Feudalism more mean elements like a "social specialization of groups, better non-tribal agralism, net of trade organizated by ogranizations in trade guild or trader houses, ogranizated religion, formalized law" etc. etc. etc.

Renaissance more mean "humanism, antropocentrism in philosophy, urban economy is more important, early mercantilism, reduction collectivism in law, beginning of the bourgeoisie" etc. etc. etc.

Colonialism more mean "curiosity about the big world, early trade and settlement private corporations, higher demands on new goods, longer lines of tradenet, advanced form of administration based on statocracy in place loyality to person" etc. etc. etc.

Printing press is not only "we have cool tools". This more mean "higher culture of reading, books arent only for higher classes, better and easier education for masses, opened mind on new ideas" etc. etc. etc.

 

[moscal]

Gun and cannon? China had it before Europe and when Europe superior model came in, asian nations adopted it with relative ease and some even have more advance gun or cannon than Europe too.

So why chinese empires (and others asian powers) have import european weapons?

Why asian powers had want european mercenaries (eg. in current Bengal 1600 Portuguese merc were buyed or 1627 by Mughal Empire buyd Portuguese merc sailors)? Even during Ming Dynasty (start this option in XVI AD) and next during Qing Dynasty they had want copying europen-style of cannons and guns - not Europeans tried copying guns chinese. European have trying copying guns and cannons from Turks, by long time cuz Turks had better style.

Dar East had own period that they were better in any aspects, but your words are too far chinophilia. Non based on facts or history.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can't actually use policy that would influence culture/group behavior in the game though, so arguments along the lines of why nations imported goods or people don't hold up. EU 4's abstraction is too high-level for that sort of thing.

 

[Trensicourt]

So why chinese empires (and others asian powers) have import european weapons?

Why asian powers had want european mercenaries (eg. in current Bengal 1600 Portuguese merc were buyed or 1627 by Mughal Empire buyd Portuguese merc sailors)? Even during Ming Dynasty (start this option in XVI AD) and next during Qing Dynasty they had want copying europen-style of cannons and guns - not Europeans tried copying guns chinese. European have trying copying guns and cannons from Turks, by long time cuz Turks had better style.

Dar East had own period that they were better in any aspects, but your words are too far chinophilia. Non based on facts or history.

I think you are greatly generalizing "gunpowder empire" gun production. A lot of Asian empires were more than capable of domestic gun production. Japan itself was once the leading producer during their massive battle royal civil war. The bias here is that people think regional wars that involve only governors or nominal subjects represented the main levy of the emperor. The Mughals were the epitome of this example where plenty of wars didn't involve the main levy and were simply regional disputes. These levied troops did not have guns as they never were forced by the imperial government to change. In that case, any external purchase of guns and mercenaries is absolute. Overtime, this external reliance reduced the need of the main levy as regional wars grew into larger and larger internal affairs, reducing the need of external protection. A basic google search would prove this.

Also in regards to Ming; you do realize they've been on the collapse for about 100 years. With tons of bickering and internal conflicts, and a southern region that never had the militarization of the now Qing conquered north, Southern Ming barely had any military infrastructure to defend itself. Furthermore, the Qing fell into trade isolationism after geographically being isolated by the Yunan jungles, the Himalayas and the Siberian north. There was quite no reason for them to be militarily competitive. For centuries, the Europeans were literally begging the Mughals and Qing to buy their products due to the massive silver/gold trade deficit. It was not until the Mughals authority fell apart and thus their modern army as well, that the Europeans realize that these governor/nominal vassals were easy prey.

In other words, these Asian superpowers were military heavyweights when they started conquering, but became passive after they settled down, leading to internal strife and a more trade oriented policy. These once powerful tigers had become fat cats and I wish EUIV could better represent that.

A band-aid way to show more internal strife are more events that try to seize crownlands or reduce the loyalty of estates. A lack of war often reduced social mobility and cause a lot of nobles to be selfish, seeking more of the pie without enlarging them. Perhaps bigger but longer ticking estate related disasters would be a way to show stagnation.

 

[Trensicourt]

Names always can be replaced - this is only symbols.

Feudalism more mean elements like a "social specialization of groups, better non-tribal agralism, net of trade organizated by ogranizations in trade guild or trader houses, ogranizated religion, formalized law" etc. etc. etc.

Renaissance more mean "humanism, antropocentrism in philosophy, urban economy is more important, early mercantilism, reduction collectivism in law, beginning of the bourgeoisie" etc. etc. etc.

Colonialism more mean "curiosity about the big world, early trade and settlement private corporations, higher demands on new goods, longer lines of tradenet, advanced form of administration based on statocracy in place loyality to person" etc. etc. etc.

Printing press is not only "we have cool tools". This more mean "higher culture of reading, books arent only for higher classes, better and easier education for masses, opened mind on new ideas" etc. etc. etc.

The issue is the absolute generalization of these concepts without regards for culture and what happened historically. It belittles them. Since this forum largely has a Western-centric audience, it's kind of understandable why there isn't as much sympathy or realization of this issue. The only thing I could say is it's less belittling than the Westernization system a few years ago.

 

[currylambchop]

Feel like the spawning conditions for Renaissance and Enlightenment should be switched, along with Printing Press and Industrialisation

 

[ArtFart]

I mean the main premise of the game is/was based in Europe (hence the name....). While nowadays we have a lot of content outside of Europe and the focus seems to be more based on the entire game.

Insitutions were made when the game still focuses majority on Europe, so it makes sense they are based around that. Maybe a system of level 1-8 should be implemented, such as Europe has the current insitutions (Renaissance being a level 3 insitution for example) and other countries like Asia have it different (eg level 3 for them is printing press), but they all have tthe same bonuses.

But an issue with this is the spawning of insitutions. Most naturally spawn in Europe, and maing them spawn in each area locally would make the games balance go out of wack. It's not easy to re-establish game mechanics that have been in the game for so long.

 

[Nostalgium]

I mean the main premise of the game is/was based in Europe (hence the name....)

Europa Universalis is a legacy title. The original was based on a board game of the same name, which indeed was confined only to Europe. It is not a statement of intent by the devs - just an artifact from a different time.

 

[ArtFart]

Europa Universalis is a legacy title. The original was based on a board game of the same name, which indeed was confined only to Europe. It is not a statement of intent by the devs - just an artifact from a different time.

It still demostrates the main aim of the game however. The main aim of the original and beyond was for a Europe based strategy game, and for a while EU4 was very much Europe based for content. I wouldn't shrug the name off that easily.

Regardless, my point still stands.

 

[moscal]

The issue is the absolute generalization of these concepts without regards for culture and what happened historically.

In theory possible should be creating separate matrix of institutions for every tech-group (with influences on many things; deepest concept tech-cost etc.). But this not for EU4 - maybe for EU5

About sub-topic of guns. I wrote main as contras to concept "lack military advanges of western in technology" how was main point wroted by Nevars.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It still demostrates the main aim of the game however. The main aim of the original and beyond was for a Europe based strategy game, and for a while EU4 was very much Europe based for content. I wouldn't shrug the name off that easily.

Regardless, my point still stands.

Institutions were implemented after numerous non-Europe patches. They came alongside the "Rights of Man" patch, 1.18. That was well after several region-specific patches outside of Europe (wealth of nations, cossacks, el dorado, conquest of paradise).

Conquest of Paradise was only a few patches after release and added the native council mechanics in their original form. It seems even very early in EU 4's development, there was a push to make TAGs players can pick interesting to play.

What I said earlier isn't a trivial issue; factors that influenced technological advancement/reform in how militaries and navies were handled were things that EU 4's level of detail abstracts by necessity, despite that in real history nation policy and interactions informed when/whether/where these advancements happened. There's nothing the player can do policywise that's similar to Japan shooting forward in the gunpowder era, or subsequently isolating itself. Player can't undo Ming's shift away from exploration it was doing previously using anything other than modeling that in a very abstracted fashion by picking exploration ideas. Bburg still gets Prussian ideas even if it gets kicked to Gotland and stays an OPM pirate republic after that or something. Portugal still has naval-based NIs even if it spends 100 years landlocked. That's how the game is.

In that setting, it's not reasonable to penalize tech while denying agency for technological progress. It's incongruent with what the game allows generally.

 

[Swagnificent]

My only point on this would be that colonialism is more about the effects of the new world on the old and vice versa; I dare you to tell me th introduction of new world crops wasn't a true revolution in agriculture for instance

 

[GrandEurypterid]

While I think the ACOUP blog does a good job of explaining the flaws with the Institutions system and why it's non-historical, I think solving it properly is more a job for EU5. I feel the bigger issue is that the pattern of spread doesn't really reflect expectations; the more isolated from Europe you are, the more reason you have to create a mega-city out of nothing (e.g if you want to play in Lake Victoria or Oceania it's basically mandatory), and nations that were relatively advanced but far away (e.g China, Japan) have a harder time with tech than nations which were much less advanced but closer (e.g Tuareg tribes).

Something to make institutions spread faster through advanced regions would help a lot, I think- currently that's overpowered simply by the amount of time it takes, and the way that the AI prioritises tech first and foremost when it comes to monarch power (so you have reason to stay up-to-date, which in turn is reason to make those megacities to get it yourself so you can keep up with them). I think two changes would help-

-Changing the AI so it prioritises its spending for the current environment, rather than to stay ahead in tech. So you can either stay at parity with your neighbours and catch up when the Europeans arrive, as was historical, or game it at the cost of your neighbours using you to catch up much more efficiently.
-Making Institutions spread in a way that reflects the development of an area, rather than the development of single provinces. So, for example, having a 'X development province in same region as Institution' institution growth, or 'Adjacent trade node has X% Institution' modifier, or 'X% of autonomy in region has Institution'- so Institutions would spread quickly through areas of the map with high dev, but much more slowly through regions with low dev, so somewhere like the Kongo is more isolated from Institutions than somewhere like India.