It's time for Paradox to accept that subjects should not take up relations slots for ANY nation.

[FishieFan]

This is absolutely it. I don't get it at all. They were a paper tiger for almost their entire existence that only ever successfully invaded collapsing and destabilized states, but in this game they're basically Prussia. Other than a couple of gigantic flukes where two monarchs were killed in battles against them, their biggest military "success" was getting their asses kicked by Poland at the siege of Vienna. They couldn't even beat the Knights at Malta with a 15:1 numerical advantage.

I hate more than anything people that try to claim Ottomans were just a new Roman Empire, but how can you think they were a paper tiger when their empire spanned three continents? Sure it declined but still for the period it was a powerhouse

 

[theauthor]

Maybe we could make some sort of generic mini vassal? If the vassal is let's say below 100 or 50 dev cost and it's not part of the HRE then it cost no diplomacy slot.

 

[Pellucid]

I hate more than anything people that try to claim Ottomans were just a new Roman Empire, but how can you think they were a paper tiger when their empire spanned three continents? Sure it declined but still for the period it was a powerhouse

Who did they defeat and take the land from? The Roman Empire, which had been on life support for hundreds of years before the Ottomans even existed. Hungary, but only after Matthias Corvinus's reforms were repealed by the nobility and Hungary was reduced to basically being a state in name only; prior to this they almost exclusively lost major engagements against Hungary. The Venetians, who basically had no manpower whatsoever and relied mostly on local mercenaries who had neither the training nor equipment to meaningfully challenge a standing army. The Mamluks, who they defeated primarily through subterfuge and a well-placed traitor, as well as widespread support from local nobility. Then a bunch of fractured Bedouin and Barbary tribes.

They traded tit for tat with Austria, Poland, Persia, and Russia; sometimes they won, and sometimes they lost. Far from the "invincible heathen army" reputation they had among their contemporaries. It benefitted Austria for the rest of Europe to think that the Muslims could break into Europe at any time, so they happily played along with the invincibility narrative hoping to secure funding, support, and friendship from other nations who feared Muslim incursions.

They lost to Skanderbeg. They lost to the Knights at Malta with a 15:1 advantage. They lost to Wallachia on numerous occasions.

And they lost horribly anytime they ran up against a true great power, but by that time they were already on the decline so it might not be fair to hold that against them in their prime.

 

[Danskjävel]

In history, we don't have any instances of effects not flowing from their causes. One might hold up BI with arbitrary preference, though I see no reason the game should privilege arbitrary preference.

What you cannot do, objectively, is justify it with "history", because it's causally inconsistent to the rest of the EU 4 model. It happens in situations which didn't exist in history. You can't use history to justify that. You can use something else, but "x should happen because it happened in history which EU 4 is modeling" is a pre and self-refuted argument. If the game's causal model breaks, history as justification necessarily breaks with it.

No one is arguing that they didn't. Even the best scholars are not able to represent events or peoples unpriviledged, and none of them are, at least in the last few decades, claiming to be doing so. All historical writing is always already an entanglement of the object of writing, and the historian doing the writing. The eventual analytical points of a scientific paper or disseration are always highlighting certain things, while others are left behind.

In effect that means that historical writing as such is always "arbitrary preference" as you call it. I'd be wary calling it arbitrary though, as it's the premise of historical knowledge production.

With that established, I'm left wondering how you're going to make a historically based videogame that circumvents that. BI-event is not arbitrary, it's an analytical and design choice based on the assertion that the historical event it's made to portray is more significant than others. One might disagree that BI is more important (or enjoyable gameplaywise) than other events that are not represented, but as you're never going to be able to represent, or even understand, historical events without putting some forward and leaving others in the dark. I really don't see what's the problem with particular events that are bound to certain tags, cultures, religions and so on.

Again, while you can disagree, the rationale isn't "history". Unless you can explain why, in history, the shogunate as a system was so capable of maintaining extra relations that no matter who was shogun, that guy could maintain more relations than the otherwise best diplomatic rulers in the world by a wide margin, even thousands of km away. I expect that this is something you cannot do. But perhaps there's something to the historical system I missed. Feel free to show that .

I don't see the correlation. I'm arguing that specific traits, that are not recreatable with other tags (et cetera) are not an exception to the game rules. Exceptions are the game rules, along universal mechanics. You can critique the particular representation - I for one agree that the diplomatic representation in EU4 is pretty bad, and also that there are cases where tagspecific rules should be regional - but it's always going to be representations.

I'm no expert on Japan, but feudal societies where notoriously complex. One of the complexities is the inadequacy of the notion of "feudalism" which seem to imply it's one coherent system, where as all empirical studies seem to indicate that this "system" (arbitrarily singular wink wink) were determined by culture, era, peoples, people, geography and so on. In other words particular (and plural).
The representation of Japanese "feudalistic" society is likely off, but representing it with universal feudalistic mechanics seems futile at best.

Not arguing for that though.

You can create conditions whereby additional abilities/events/etc can happen, regardless of TAG etc. In fact, tying missions, events, governments, and more to those conditions, rather than to TAG or special cases, is more historical. It allows more "history-like" things to happen, without shoehorning them to happen or making the weight of the world alter due to a name change.

When the same people + primary culture + tech + etc have different abilities due to TAG, that isn't history. It literally can't be. It's magic.

Yes, we all want that to a certain extent. But if you remove particularities, you remove both historicity and end up with everything feeling same-ish from a game play perspective.

Nations having abilities due to tags is litterally being historical (as opposed to an universalistic approach). The fault lies with not giving other tags, which historically suffered the same conditions or even the same institutions (et cetera) the same, or similar mechanics. With dynamic culture and the like, you could appropriate certain traits from neighbours or enemies. No one wants to see Incas with Ottoman government though.

We all want more choice and depth though, you just don't get that by forsaking particularities. Obviously a diversification of subject types, and how "relation capacity" is calculated would be great. Some societies were more prone to have several smaller alliances, others were not. China had relations with other rulers/nations in particular way(s), the Iroquois did it differently.

 

[I like wars and maps]

I hate more than anything people that try to claim Ottomans were just a new Roman Empire, but how can you think they were a paper tiger when their empire spanned three continents? Sure it declined but still for the period it was a powerhouse

Territory held=sability and strenght of empire. Cause as we all know the British Empire easily roflstomped the German Empire on its own without any issues and certainly didnt collapse in on itself after only 2 wars of wich France and America did most of the actual work.

 

[Kurfürstin Adelheid]

America did most of the actual work.

America did most of the work in WW1? I don't think so...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In effect that means that historical writing as such is always "arbitrary preference" as you call it. I'd be wary calling it arbitrary though, as it's the premise of historical knowledge production.

I claim it "arbitrary" backed by years of discussing this topic where nobody can put forth a coherent set of preferences, even for themselves, which predicts which "historical outcomes" should be shoehorned into the game via event.

The alternative is to use the game's mechanics, which model the historical constraints of nations while still leaving us with a game. There is a good reason these mechanics exist, and thus we should expect an even better reason to make exceptions.

With that established, I'm left wondering how you're going to make a historically based videogame that circumvents that. BI-event is not arbitrary, it's an analytical and design choice based on the assertion that the historical event it's made to portray is more significant than others.

The reason I call out BI magic as bad design is precisely because there is no basis to claim it is "more significant than others".

One might disagree that BI is more important (or enjoyable gameplaywise) than other events that are not represented, but as you're never going to be able to represent, or even understand, historical events without putting some forward and leaving others in the dark. I really don't see what's the problem with particular events that are bound to certain tags, cultures, religions and so on.

The problem is an implementation which breaks otherwise established mechanics, game rules, and player expectations. There is no clear need for this to be done with BI any more so than it is "required" for say the formation of Qing, or Aq Qoyunlu conquering Iran then blowing up.

If there is no reason for the player to expect it's special, because there's no basis, then there's no reason for the player to anticipate incredible autonomy penalties, rebels beyond what you get for 200% OE, or for the game to ignore PU rules. It turns into a "gotcha", which then players use spoiler information to play around. In a strategy game, that's junk.

Breaking established rules to "put some historical events forward" demands an explanation for why those rules needed to be broken. No explanation exists that justifies this particular interaction. And broadly speaking, if the mechanics can't do what you want in a game, usually that's a signal that either the mechanics themselves should be updated or the thing you want is outside the game's scope. BI-like events happen organically in CK2, because CK2 has dynasty management and succession mechanics which allow for it.

EU 4 chose to place emphasis elsewhere, and then arbitrarily decides to occasionally disregard that design choice.

I don't see the correlation. I'm arguing that specific traits, that are not recreatable with other tags (et cetera) are not an exception to the game rules. Exceptions are the game rules, along universal mechanics.

*IF*

1. Daimyos are mechanically vassals unique to shogunate
2. Shogunate can have unlimited daimyo
3. 1 and 2 are justified with "historical flavor"

*Then*

1. There must be some historical evidence that demonstrates that this mechanic is derived based on historical criteria...namely the capabilities of the shogunate government as a system to be uniquely better at maintaining large numbers of diplo relations compared to any other government in the world.

There isn't any such evidence. Therefore we refute the justification of "historical flavor", because it's objectively incorrect. There might exist some other justification, but "history" is no more useful, predictive, or argumentatively valid than justifying it with "gravity", the "dead cat" item in binding of isaac, or "whales on wheels". It's non-sequitur, fake reasoning. Perhaps good reasoning exists, it's just that if so, it isn't "history" and can't be.

The representation of Japanese "feudalistic" society is likely off, but representing it with universal feudalistic mechanics seems futile at best.

Relations slots do not appear to be constrained by being feudal vs not regardless. They are equally a game constraint for 1444 Mali as they are for 1500 Aztec, 1800 revolutionary France, and USA just after its independence. "Modeling the complexity of feudalism" has nothing to do with this mechanic.

Yes, we all want that to a certain extent. But if you remove particularities, you remove both historicity and end up with everything feeling same-ish from a game play perspective.

You don't have to break mechanics to introduce or add particulars.

Nations having abilities due to tags is litterally being historical (as opposed to an universalistic approach). The fault lies with not giving other tags, which historically suffered the same conditions or even the same institutions (et cetera) the same, or similar mechanics.

No, TAG locks are necessarily the opposite of historical. The ignore causal interactions. It's bad practice.

You can get similar outcomes via checking for conditions in the game state. Historical starts/nations are more likely to meet those conditions, but they aren't the only ones who can meet them. If someone else meets the conditions, they get the outcome/modifier/whatever instead.

No one wants to see Incas with Ottoman government though.

This is not as self-evident or taken for granted as you seem to imply.

For example, out of each of these, which is the most/least plausible?

• After surviving Spanish aggression, Inca by some turn of events converts to Islam, and adopts at least some facets of the system of one of the most successful empires in the world at the time (more successful than in our timeline, and enemies of the Spanish!)
• Nogai conquers literally every populated center in the world and converts it to Coptic by 1720. Don't like Coptic? Okay, we'll go with Buddhism then. Or Judaism, why not.
• Songhai dismantles the HRE and turns all of Iberia and France into trade companies, similar to what the British did to India
• After embracing Catholicism and abandoning its government, the Ottoman monarch is elected HRE emperor, and unites 70% of Europe under one banner, most of the territory peacefully. In 1550.
• The shogun of Japan subjugates 200 previously independent countries, none of which are particularly interested in banding together, en route to a world conquest

The Inca using some "special Ottoman vassal" really stands out here? All of the other examples above are by-design possible. IRL humanity is likely to die out as a species before the AI accomplishes any of them in an unmodded game.

We reject Inca adopting Ottoman traits, but are fine with literally the entire world becoming a Jewish horde? Yet somehow people disagree with me when I call what's allowed vs not "arbitrary"

We all want more choice and depth though, you just don't get that by forsaking particularities.

You don't need TAG magic, or to break established mechanics/rules, for "particularities". Especially since the game has introduced more and more interacting mechanics, the number of particularities that the mechanics interacting can create grows too.

BI was a succession crisis. Rather than using TAG magic to privilege BI, maybe PU/succession in Christianity itself deserved a look, so it was something other than an archaic, highly opaque system with hidden variables for when they're even possible. If we consider things like Austrian, Spanish, 100YW etc to be sufficiently relevant, the solution that doesn't cheap-shot players was almost certainly to rework PUs. That way BI and similar could happen in a % of games organically, even if that % is small. In other games, similarly important PU outcomes could happen that would shape those timelines accordingly.

Instead, we have a mechanic that works so poorly that it was deemed necessary to bypass it. But only sometimes. Because reasons.

Obviously a diversification of subject types, and how "relation capacity" is calculated would be great. Some societies were more prone to have several smaller alliances, others were not. China had relations with other rulers/nations in particular way(s), the Iroquois did it differently.

Diplo cap + modifiers to it based on game state are something I've backed in this thread as a better solution which could be applied more broadly across relations in EU 4. It's an example of altering the mechanic so it behaves more closely to how you want the model to go. It's much, much better than special-casing magic into the game.

 

[CthulhuTactical]

They've already all but admitted it by making every single kind of relation they've added post-release not take up a slot. Colonial Nations, Trade Companies (which I don't really consider a subject), Tributaries, Daimyos, Protectorates, and now Eyalets have all been spared the waste of time that is the subject relation slot. The only relation added since release that takes one up are Client States, which are indistinguishable from Vassals anyway (and which Eyalets, which means "states" in Turkish, basically are, so can we just use that system instead of giving the Ottomans a magic relationship that only they can use for some reason?).

There's literally no logical or gameplay reason that Ottoman vassals shouldn't take up a slot but other nations' vassals should. If you argue that their system is somehow different, then put the ability to make that system using reforms into other nations (hell, maybe just change Feudal Nobility to have "vassals don't take up a relations slot" as its bonus instead of the income bonus).

I'm tired of all of these special snowflake mechanics that only some nations can take advantage of. EU4 long ago abandoned even attempting to be a realistic historical simulation, so preventing me from making Eyalets (i.e. Themes) as the Byzantines "because they didn't do that" is asinine. Preventing me from making my own Holy Roman Empire (with blackjack! And hookers!) in France or Italy adds nothing to the game. Poland is the only nation that can have an elective monarchy for some reason! Russians have magical self-replication powers that allow them to colonize Siberia but nobody else does! It's getting tiresome. Let us play with the mechanics you add to the game. Don't force us to play specific nations to have a good time with a new experience, especially one as snooze-inducing as the Ottomans, French, or Russians, all of whom are trivially easy for anyone experienced with the game and will provide little to no fun for people looking for a challenge.

Stop trying to prevent me from having fun! I don't understand why you do this!

There'a a balancing consideration, and PDX would have to overhaul at least some parts of balancing and game mechanics to cater to this measure. Although i agree that vassals should not take diploslot.

 

[I like wars and maps]

America did most of the work in WW1? I don't think so...

Removing 80% a sentence to take it out of context doesnt make you look any smarter dude. Go outside and breath some fresh air or visit Reddit where you will fit in better.

 

[dm99]

I'll add my few coins to the discussion.

1. A strange dispute about internal contradictions. The game is a complex system created by man. Abstractly, this is a mechanism that performs its functions. Not a single mechanism built by man provides for the existence of internal contradictions. Try to drive a car that has internal contradictions. Since the game is functioning, there are no contradictions in it. There was a case when, after a new addition, the game was unplayable for a couple of months.

2. What you are discussing, considering it a contradiction, is some modules screwed on top designed to solve one problem. Yes, they contradict the logic of the game. But they have exactly this form, because the possibilities of the game mechanism do not allow this. The question of why exactly they were screwed is quite complicated.

For example, if we take the BI, then in ancient times, the Historist sect was very strong, which constantly demanded that the events in the game must correspond to historical analogues. Since there were really a lot of them, it was easier to screw something on top than just send them far away.

3. The game is not a historical simulator, which is basically impossible to create. In it, it is fundamentally impossible to get at least some result similar to history. In it, in fact, there is no and impossible any national flavor. But people want it, and since the demands come from people who pay money, you have to come up with all sorts of pseudo-historical and pseudo-national absurdities and screw them on the top.

4. Trading companies are not subject. Although they are called subjects in the game and are located on the corresponding page, these are just territories specialized in trade. The key issue, as always, is ownership. Who owns the land? If it belonged to a trading company, it would be an subject, but no.

5. The idea that a bunch of vassals are OP is not supported in practice. Since they are practically uncontrollable, they never do what is necessary and always only what is not necessary, and at the same time spoil what is given to them for safekeeping. By and large, they just get in the way, because they create the illusion of power, which is not there (this applies to all subjects). Their only advantage is a bunch of forts, but this problem goes away with the development of technology. So if you choose, then I'd rather have these provinces in direct control than under vassals. AI is also not a fan of the vassal and integrates them as soon as possible.

6. Unfortunately, the mechanism of the game is arranged in such a way that it is impossible to achieve a smaller gradation than one country - one diplo slot. For every extra occupied diplo slot, 1 diplo mana is paid. There are only two options, as it is now, or no slots for vassals.