Is the Commonwealth OP?

[Chuffy Manthrob]

In my last game as PLC I was too lazy and focused on getting the achievements so I didn't do enough to stop Russia and Ottomans getting strong. Worse yet France rivaled me and allied to Russia.

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

EDIT: Oh and all the nerfs/changes to military tradition gain really hurt me a lot too. Haven't gotten used to it yet

 

[CheesySnake]

I rarely see the Poland-Lithuania union lasting more than about 30-40 years when I play, mostly because Poland's prestige goes down the toilet for whatever reason. They seem to have a problem with rebels that pop up in the south of the country, which the AI just leaves or attacks with tiny armies to no avail. I imagine the PLC might be quite powerful when it gets rolling, but I've not actually seen it form yet...

 

[Zak Preston]

IMO only thing I would change is Lithuania getting more rebels. Poland NIs are too good maybe, but well, national idea system IS stupid.

IMHO, Polish Ideas are on par with Swedish or Prussian, making them top-3 militaristic ideas in EU4. But still if someone thinks that PLC is so OP, just... look at Lithuanian provinces size! just reduce them to 1/4 (as in French or Iberian region) and you will see that PLC is not that much larger than France or Spain. But Lithuanian provinces have much worse BT, heretic religion and very strong nationalists.

 

[PhoenixDown]

PLC can be a real monster, but one bad war with europe practically makes them a paper tiger.

 

[Mortheim]

Commonwealth is strong, but not OP. The real problems are:
1) AI Muscovy is doing poorly compared to what it did historically (you should read what Muscovy did during the reign of Ivan IV);
2) Easy strong allies for PLC (always see PLC with Hab or Fra or both);
3) AI Ottomand is Ottoderp (too passive, no pressure);
4) Humanism is OP (ruthenians love their polish catholic masters and convert to catholicism too easily compared with some religious and national problems in that region from 16yh century, if i recall correctly);
5) hordes have strong allies (while PLC can blob, Muscovy can only wait).

So, as you see, PLC is not the problem - the real problem is balance of powers. Muscovy is in a bad position, hordes are strong (at the start - because of the alliances), PLC can get really good allies from nowhere (even without problems with Ottoderp, which was the reason for the alliance in the first place) and can blob easily (114 bt Lith with 30-40k and Poland with ~120bt after TO and Mazovia), lack of internal and external problems for PLC.
And next expansion can bring some more problems, cause Poland and Lithuania can develop their provinces simultaneously (and they have some farmlands).

 

[PeterHe]

There is no nations in EU that is overpowered.
The diffrence in nations is one of the things that makes the game great, making all nations the same would be a detriment to the game.
With ottomans even i can make a 1 tag wc, where as only a select few can do it with ryuku.

 

[Xaster]

I don't think they're so OP... I rarely see the PLC forming, because Poland always loose prestige (this happen a LOT, even for Denmark and Aragon, I can't understand why I look at them and then, after a couple of months they go from +8 to -26 ). I have to admit that I tried Poland just one time, for the achievements, and stopped at 1600 (I'll try again with 1.12). It was really fun, but rebels can kick you really really hard. One time I was fighiting a difficult war against Hungary and Muscovy and I fin myself with three 18 stack rebels, while, at the same time, Lithuania had four (!) 30 stacks rebels. i peaced as soon as I could!

 

[Dnote]

Can't remember the last time I saw the Commonwealth form, certainly not happened for months.

 

[BFTeixeira]

PLC is one bad war or one rebellion way to be shredded to pieces. I played once with PLC, and although i blobbed a bit (ate Muscovy all the way east of the Urals, conquered all the Balkans away from Hungary and ottomans, and conquered almost all of Scandinavia, and ate a bit of Brandenburg, Pomerania and such), i always felt i was on the verge of breaking up. Only by the XVII century i felt i had the nation under control. Until then, is problem after problem, rebels, wars everywhere your borders, and my only solution was to maintain a long lasting alliance with Austria.

 

[grommile]

4) Humanism is OP (ruthenians love their polish catholic masters and convert to catholicism too easily compared with some religious and national problems in that region from 16yh century, if i recall correctly);

The problem is not so much that Humanist Ideas are OP. The problems, really, are:

• Lithuania is shockingly stable because Lithuanian Traditions are +15% MRS and +4 heretic tolerance (and then their sixth NI gives them another -2 global unrest), and they layer Humanist ideas on top of that.
  
• Catholics and post-Catholics have very high missionary strength.

I submit that this situation is an improvement on "Lithuania reliably gets eviscerated by East Slavic rebels", but could still do with some more work.

 

[Aries666]

I don't really see why people are so reluctant to westernize as Poland.

Step 1 : take religious ideas.
Step 2 : westernize.

Rebels issue? DOW on anybody and your allies will clean the room.

Because you can stay up to date as eastern and you will unlikely recover the MP's it cost to westernise through slightly cheaper tech.

 

[Zehir]

Poland is fine as it is, but Lithuania should be nerfed to the ground. Historicaly, Lithuania could stand against Muscovy without polish aid. Also, Poland was much more densely populated. Great Duchy of Lithuania was made mostly of marshes and steppes.

 

[Mortheim]

Ok, I didn't played Muscovy from many patches and gave it a try. So. My conclusion is : if you find Muscovy underpowered compared to PLC, start by finishing the tutorial.

Well, i love to play Pskov->Russia. So? The problem isn't that it is OP to player (to any decent player there's no OP AI nations), but that Poland is doing too good compared what happened in history after 15th century and compared to other East nations. Don't play - use observer mod, run game ~15 times (you've ran one game - that is nothing) from 1444 to 1812 and compare the results.

 

[Kh3lben]

Because you can stay up to date as eastern and you will unlikely recover the MP's it cost to westernise through slightly cheaper tech.

No, just no! You can westernise,blob massively,culture convert like a maniac and still get full tech and ideas with any eastern tech nation quite easily.

 

[grommile]

No, just no! You can westernise,blob massively,culture convert like a maniac and still get full tech and ideas with any eastern tech nation quite easily.

Eastern tech is +20% tech cost. Poland can easily get Western Arms Trade (ally an independent neighbouring Western country and maintain 150+ relations), which gives -10% tech cost (and goes away when you westernize). That means that every tech you buy as Poland, before considering NIs, idea groups, neighbour bonuses, etc. is only 60 points more expensive than the same tech bought by a Western tech country.

Westernizing as an Eastern tech country costs 2400 monarch power across the three categories. Assuming for the sake of analysis an even 800/800/800 split, that means it takes (800 / 60) = 13.33 tech intervals (i.e. on the order of 170-190 years) for the process of Westernizing as Poland to pay off at the crudest and most naïve level of analysis.

But! A monarch point is more valuable the sooner you get it, because the sooner you have it, the sooner you can spend it and thus the longer the time for which you can reap the rewards of spending it.

Thus: No, Poland (or, really, any Catholic Eastern-tech country) should not Westernize, and it's at least somewhat questionable for the Orthodox members of the Eastern group.

 

[Kh3lben]

Thus: No, Poland (or, really, any Catholic Eastern-tech country) should not Westernize, and it's at least somewhat questionable for the Orthodox members of the Eastern group.

I should have been more clear in my original post. I am not saying you MUST westernise,just merely suggesting that if you do it early enough ( before 1550s) you can still hit max tech/ideas and blob to your heart's content.

ps: Poland is a really special case as you can cheese lots of things around tech 10 by selling off land to Lithuania and then hit the magic button to form the PLC.

 

[grommile]

I should have been more clear in my original post. I am not saying you MUST westernise,just merely suggesting that if you do it early enough ( before 1550s) you can still hit max tech/ideas and blob to your heart's content.

Telling people that, without actually showing them the numbers, makes it sound like a good idea.

Which it isn't.

 

[Aries666]

I should have been more clear in my original post. I am not saying you MUST westernise,just merely suggesting that if you do it early enough ( before 1550s) you can still hit max tech/ideas and blob to your heart's content.

ps: Poland is a really special case as you can cheese lots of things around tech 10 by selling off land to Lithuania and then hit the magic button to form the PLC.

Problem with this is in order to westernise this early you also need to fall behind in tech early too. At the start of the game thiis will either result in unlocking and therefore filling fewer idea groups earlier or falling behind in mil tech as it's not really feasible to just lag in dip over the first 100 years. Also as a nation with many subjects such as Poland falling that far behind in dip is also not very desirable.

 

[Aries666]

Eastern tech is +20% tech cost. Poland can easily get Western Arms Trade (ally an independent neighbouring Western country and maintain 150+ relations), which gives -10% tech cost (and goes away when you westernize). That means that every tech you buy as Poland, before considering NIs, idea groups, neighbour bonuses, etc. is only 60 points more expensive than the same tech bought by a Western tech country.

Westernizing as an Eastern tech country costs 2400 monarch power across the three categories. Assuming for the sake of analysis an even 800/800/800 split, that means it takes (800 / 60) = 13.33 tech intervals (i.e. on the order of 170-190 years) for the process of Westernizing as Poland to pay off at the crudest and most naïve level of analysis.

But! A monarch point is more valuable the sooner you get it, because the sooner you have it, the sooner you can spend it and thus the longer the time for which you can reap the rewards of spending it.

Thus: No, Poland (or, really, any Catholic Eastern-tech country) should not Westernize, and it's at least somewhat questionable for the Orthodox members of the Eastern group.

In addition Poland start with Krakow university so are only paying 5% more for tech, 30 points a level, making westnisation almost entirely pointless.

 

[Beagá]

Yes, University + Western Arms bonus seals the deal.

But that´s because Western Arms bônus, too, is stupid.