It's time to start EUV

[Utik]

Since we're on the topic of a pop system. Realistic? Yeah, a game that lets me conquer the world by 1821 isn't going for realism. So that argument doesn't appeal to me.

I would definitely prefer it if EU5 would not be balanced around world conquest like EU4 is. I was really happy to get confirmation that the I:R devs have no intention of making world conquests possible in its latest dev diary. I wish the EU devs would take a similar approach and make world conquests essentially impossible.

 

[grommile]

I wish the EU devs would take a similar approach and make world conquests essentially impossible.

The challenge is making world conquest impossible in a non-arbitrary way without interfering with the feasibility of historical conquests.

 

[Culann]

I would definitely prefer it if EU5 would not be balanced around world conquest like EU4 is. I was really happy to get confirmation that the I:R devs have no intention of making world conquests possible in its latest dev diary. I wish the EU devs would take a similar approach and make world conquests essentially impossible.

I find world conquest runs tedious and boring. That being said, many other players do not. Catering to any specific population of the player base is going to have some pushback. I don’t see any reason for a company who wishes to make money to alienate any potential customers regardless of my personal preferences.

 

[brantodb01]

While I agree I also feel like if they did EUV it would be a good 5 years before it gets enough content to be any good and I also feel a EUV would be lacking the modifier stacking that I love so much

 

[Mike1984]

Instead of pops system, I'd rather see something simpler - representing pops as development. Development is already in game, treating a point of development as a unit that has culture and religion would be enough to give the provinces more detail while keeping it grounded.

Well, that's not a bad start, but I think the development system needs to be far more natural. Development should increase naturally, not through the expenditure of whatever mana you have left over after doing everything else. And the ability for those "pops" to migrate would be kinda nice, too.

Honestly, I'd like them to remove the mana system entirely. It's really arbitrary, and it leads to unrealistic outcomes that require a lot of shoehorned mechanics to work around. I especially don't think that technology should be tied to the same mechanism as things like coring and development, especially when some countries have higher tech costs, which is supposed to make them be behind in tech, but in reality leads to a desperate race to get the highest military tech possible at almost any cost.

I find world conquest runs tedious and boring. That being said, many other players do not. Catering to any specific population of the player base is going to have some pushback. I don’t see any reason for a company who wishes to make money to alienate any potential customers regardless of my personal preferences.

They are tedious. But so is sitting there and doing nothing because expanding any further is just not worth it any more.

I have no issue with them preventing world conquest. But I do absolutely have an issue with them implementing arbitrary anti-blobbing mechanics which make expansion pointless beyond a certain point without actually providing anything else to do instead.

 

[Culann]

.
They are tedious. But so is sitting there and doing nothing because expanding any further is just not worth it any more.

I have no issue with them preventing world conquest. But I do absolutely have an issue with them implementing arbitrary anti-blobbing mechanics which make expansion pointless beyond a certain point without actually providing anything else to do instead.

Don’t take this the wrong way but how is this a reply to anything I said in the quote? All I said was I don’t find world conquest fun but regardless of my personal opinion, devs shouldn’t cater to any portion of the player base. Including the part I belong to.

 

[Mike1984]

Don’t take this the wrong way but how is this a reply to anything I said in the quote? All I said was I don’t find world conquest fun but regardless of my personal opinion, devs shouldn’t cater to any portion of the player base. Including the part I belong to.

It's not, really, it's more of a reply to someone else. It was just easier to tag it on to the end of that bit.

 

[Culann]

It's not, really, it's more of a reply to someone else. It was just easier to tag it on to the end of that bit.

Fair enough.

 

[3ishop]

Well, that's not a bad start, but I think the development system needs to be far more natural. Development should increase naturally, not through the expenditure of whatever mana you have left over after doing everything else. And the ability for those "pops" to migrate would be kinda nice, too.

Pops is bad for covering that though. Regional investments and real technology is the better fit for that. Currently we have all nations with the same tech tree so they get the same benefits for each tier such as production efficiency.

Also easily broken by in growing on it's own. Far too easy for players to keep their lands safe and the AI just gets walked over, I don't see the AI getting that much better. Plus that and tracking all the individual pops religion, culture and their movements sounds like a huge amount more processing required for very little overall benefit.

 

[grommile]

Regional investments and real technology is the better fit for that.

what does "real technology" mean?

 

[Eruth]

I hear this argument again and again but people still don't realise how useless it is. EU4 has now been developed for 9 years. Unless you want to wait for EU5 until 2030 or want PDX to bankrupt themselves you will have to accept that EU5 will release with WAY less content than EU4 has atm. Until EU5 has covered what EU4 has so far it won't cost any less. That means that you would basically need to buy it all again for the hundreds of dollars you mentioned just for maybe pops and better trade and some graphics.

Look at CK3; it doesn't have as much stuff as CK2, sure, but it has a hell of a lot of stuff, and a lot of great new stuff. EUV would take less time & effort to recreate EU4 than it took EU4 to create that stuff because the groundwork of research and conception has already been done. The devs would also be able to discard what players didn't like and only keep what they did.

 

[Xdevo]

Look at CK3; it doesn't have as much stuff as CK2, sure, but it has a hell of a lot of stuff, and a lot of great new stuff. EUV would take less time & effort to recreate EU4 than it took EU4 to create that stuff because the groundwork of research and conception has already been done. The devs would also be able to discard what players didn't like and only keep what they did.

I wouldn't use CK3 as a positive example of what's "good" until its fully released and has had a chance to actually be played by the playerbase. I:R had a lot of people saying it was great all the way up until launch (and a few sycophants saying it was good afterwards) and now can't manage to average 1000 players.

I would definitely prefer it if EU5 would not be balanced around world conquest like EU4 is. I was really happy to get confirmation that the I:R devs have no intention of making world conquests possible in its latest dev diary. I wish the EU devs would take a similar approach and make world conquests essentially impossible.

Almost every limitation I:R has/had on conquest was completely arbitrary, artificial, and ahistorical. These are not things to aspire to, especially given I:R's complete lack of playerbase when compared to every other PDS game in the last decade (except Victoria II, which averages around the same number of players).
I don't even see where EU4 is "balanced" around WC except in a negative way (ie to make WC harder), at least not since the introduction of Absolutism about 3.5 years ago. Nothing that has made WCs "easier" since then has been intentional with most either being bugs (Tokyo exploit, 100+ Absolution overflow, loan overflow) or terrible balance choices explicitly made for other reasons (0% autonomy Trade Companies, Tributaries in edge cases, and shogunate mechanics). The only thing in recent history that helped WCs is the whole hegemony system, but as has been established in the 15 threads about it, they only serve to make (some types of) WCs less tedious, not easier.

 

[twinxor]

Instead of pops system, I'd rather see something simpler - representing pops as development. Development is already in game, treating a point of development as a unit that has culture and religion would be enough to give the provinces more detail while keeping it grounded.

This seems like the only way to reasonably do pops in an EU-style system. But it still has the drawback that it sort of emphasizes minority populations that leaders wouldn't really care about.

 

[3ishop]

what does "real technology" mean?

I'm thinking more of real developments of the time. We have some that actually date hundreds to thousands of years, are pure game element or ideas. Such as level 4 admin tech is Temples. Humanity has been building temples for quite some time, just seems to be locked for the sake of unlocking something at that point of time. I also find it annoying that all nations that can build ships have the same ship technology, regions should get more unique elements with it.

 

[JaxElite]

Look at CK3; it doesn't have as much stuff as CK2, sure, but it has a hell of a lot of stuff, and a lot of great new stuff. EUV would take less time & effort to recreate EU4 than it took EU4 to create that stuff because the groundwork of research and conception has already been done. The devs would also be able to discard what players didn't like and only keep what they did.

Ck3 still had 5 years of development. And the main point of my argument was that the "hundreds of dollars" argument fails because it ia likely that ck3, eu5 etc will need a few good expanaions until they even reach their predecessors

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

I too am worried about feature creep - EU4 already has numerous features which neither the AI nor the average player use. However, I disagree that the solution should be to immediately develop a sequel. I think taking a few years to work on other projects and reflect on EU4 as its development continues to wind down might be helpful.

For example, while CK3 looks like it has some interesting new ideas, it generally feels a little too soon to me, having not nearly finished with CK2 (a game which is no longer being patched by Paradox, despite several important features being essentially broken). Paradox ought to vigorously patch EU4 before leaving it behind, lest we end up in the same situation.

 

[Mike1984]

Ck3 still had 5 years of development. And the main point of my argument was that the "hundreds of dollars" argument fails because it ia likely that ck3, eu5 etc will need a few good expanaions until they even reach their predecessors

Let's be honest, there's a pretty high chance Paradox is already working on EU5. Certainly I don't expect them to spend substantially less time on it than they did on CK3, especially after imperator went down so poorly.

 

[sylanna]

Let's be honest, there's a pretty high chance Paradox is already working on EU5. Certainly I don't expect them to spend substantially less time on it than they did on CK3, especially after imperator went down so poorly.

CK3 will be the benchmark for EU5. If it still has that disgusting "Missions and Ideas for Region X" DLC system, it's safe to assume that EU5 will be the same high flavor/no flavor garbage EU4 is.

Flavor should be a global baseline and DLC should improve overarching systems like governments, culture, tech etc.. As someone that doesn't play in Europe, I just won't touch EU5 until years after release if they make the same content mistakes again.

 

[Utik]

Almost every limitation I:R has/had on conquest was completely arbitrary, artificial, and ahistorical. These are not things to aspire to, especially given I:R's complete lack of playerbase when compared to every other PDS game in the last decade (except Victoria II, which averages around the same number of players).

How is it "arbitrary, artificial and ahistorical"? In I:R, expansion reduces stability and makes it harder to keep your subjects loyal and your pops of different cultures happy, leading to an increased risk of civil wars and rebellions. What does the player base have to do with anything? Did you just want to say "I:R sucks" but were too lazy to try to understand its mechanics?

 

[EarlKonrad]

How is it "arbitrary, artificial and ahistorical"? In I:R, expansion reduces stability and makes it harder to keep your subjects loyal and your pops of different cultures happy, leading to an increased risk of civil wars and rebellions. What does the player base have to do with anything? Did you just want to say "I:R sucks" but were too lazy to try to understand its mechanics?

Arbitrary, artificial and ahistorical because antiquity war marked by big empires expanding a lot and thriving due to their expansion. Furthermore, the more they expanded, the less corrupt and more prosperous they were. Civil unrest would generally happen at times of peace or after successful defeats, not when the empire was on full expansion. Hence, I:R use of AE is highly ahistorical for its time period, arbitrary and artificial as being a game mechanic in place to avoid rapid growth.

The playerbase has quite a lot to do because I:R is PDXs game with less players and their most recent one. Pretty much every single game of theirs revolve around war and expansion (Vic II and CK II being the exception here) so I think it is fair to say that if war and expansion side of I:R was better the playerbase would be bigger.