It's time to start EUV

[Xdevo]

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?

You literally cannot declare war currently with low stability in this patch. That's absolutely absurd, arbitrary, artificial, and utterly ahistorical (see Roman history). That alone is more than enough to demonstrate my point.

Even with the subjectivity of what causes corruption or rebellion, empires growing almost always (as Jarvin and myself have posted dozens of times now) results in less corruption because of the increased ability to send off second sons to make fortunes in the far off lands as opposed to attempting to take a larger share of the pie at home. In the I:R period specifically, empires rose and fell extremely quickly. The warscore system is completely and utterly antithetical to the period. There were only 3 Punic Wars, yet attempting annex Carthage in game (even with massive raiding and pop death) takes half a dozen wars. It takes something like a dozen wars to take over Maurya. The game makes the fundamental mistake of conflating speed of conquest with ease of conquest - forcing all the players to play a boring game in the meantime.

My point about the playerbase is that it makes little sense to attempt to recreate something that's failing as a product. Its the equivalent of saying that you want to make something like Anthem (or whatever your disfavorite recent game happens to be).

Also, if I wanted to say I:R sucks and were lazy, there's way more fun and less involved ways of doing so. I think the internet's proven that enough in the last year.

 

[grommile]

Flavor should be a global baseline and DLC should improve overarching systems like governments, culture, tech etc..

One of the problems with concentrating system improvements in the DLCs and flavour in the free patches is that it makes the "combinatorial hell" and "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" problems that EU4 is well known for having even worse.

So sad to say, from a project management perspective, what you want is the exact opposite of what is sane to attempt.

 

[sylanna]

One of the problems with concentrating system improvements in the DLCs and flavour in the free patches is that it makes the "combinatorial hell" and "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" problems that EU4 is well known for having even worse.

So sad to say, from a project management perspective, what you want is the exact opposite of what is sane to attempt.

Is it though? I mean Imperator just revamped the culture system and I didn't hear of any major bugs. If the game has a consistent base to begin with there is almost no reason for a system to let's say be bugged in SEA, but not in NA. It sounds more like EU4 just isn't cleanly made with that decade old EU copy&paste inception.

I also don't want flavor in the free patches. I want it to be in the release version. It's unacceptable for 90% of the mapto start out with generic stuff only. That way the release version is heavier on the content creation side instead of the programming side. The programming side has more time for mechanical improvements and testing then. It would essentially be a more Stellaris like patch and DLC cycle.

 

[Utik]

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.

I don't agree with your assessment. It's absolutely nonsensical to suggest that rapid expansion would not have a negative impact on internal stability. Do you believe the Diadochi wars would've happened if Alexander had stayed in Macedon? Either way, are you seriously suggesting there should be no anti-snowballing mechanics? The more you conquer, the more stable your realm is and the easier it becomes to conquer more. I can't imagine a worse way to design a strategy game.

 

[grommile]

I mean Imperator just revamped the culture system and I didn't hear of any major bugs.

in the free patch, or in the expansion DLC?

if it's in the free patch, then there is no combinatorial hell to worry about.

if it's in the DLC, then they have now created an increased testing burden that has to be carried forever.

 

[magriboy0750]

in the free patch, or in the expansion DLC?

if it's in the free patch, then there is no combinatorial hell to worry about.

if it's in the DLC, then they have now created an increased testing burden that has to be carried forever.

It was in the free patch.

 

[sylanna]

in the free patch, or in the expansion DLC?

if it's in the free patch, then there is no combinatorial hell to worry about.

if it's in the DLC, then they have now created an increased testing burden that has to be carried forever.

I actually misunderstood what you meant by "combination hell". A lot of problems with modularity can be prevented when it's done properly. They have to refrain from changing culture in one DLC and then modifiying it some more in a future DLC and maybe tone down the number of DLC.

I agree that it is more difficult this way (especially when pops are introduced), but if they want to keep their DLC rythm alive in EU5, I hope they change something.

An alternative would be to work with proper expansions instead of small DLC every few months. That way they can minimize the testing burden. I'm really fed up with the way content is added to the game and certain places in the world still being dead in a 7 year old game.

 

[grommile]

I actually misunderstood what you meant by "combination hell". A lot of problems with modularity can be prevented when it's done properly. They have to refrain from changing culture in one DLC and then modifiying it some more in a future DLC and maybe tone down the number of DLC.

Culture impacts huge parts of the game.

Paradox DLCs are optional.

So if you change the culture system in a DLC, you have to test that everything still works whether the culture DLC is switched off or on.

And if you have four optional DLCs that each alter a different core system, you now have sixteen configurations to test.

Fortunately Paradox had the good sense to put the changes to Imperator's culture system in the base game.

 

[AlphaMikeOmega]

If during the timeframe pop was the most important resource history would have looked completely different. Europes cities were often tiny compared to some metropolises outside of it bit we still saw european culture conquer the world. The most important resources were traderoutes and laws. Hence the domination of europe and the near east, who with their expansionist abrahamic religions and their respective law codices of semitic origin achieved a way bigger stability than most other regions on earth (most importantly the strong religious connotations made divide and conquer strategies harder than in for example the americas).
Meanwhile trade brought technological progress along. Whereever merchants went they directly or indirectly spread knowledge, the whole basis of modern globalisation rests in this truth.

Population is not remotely as relevant as one might think. Tenochtitlann, Vijayanagar, Ayutthaya dwarfed european cities.

Let's remember that Tenochtitlan lost nearly all half of its population to disease, which is a lot of why the Spanish found it so easy to conquer.

Less relevant, European law is descended not from Semitic, but from Roman Law. At any rate, why should civil/common law lend itself to stability better than other legal systems?

 

[AlphaMikeOmega]

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.

While I think I'd prefer a pop system, this kind of simpler solution has the advantage that you would know exactly how religion and culture correlate within a province without having to give each province a large matrix in which to store that data.

I also agree with @Mike1984 that population should largely change passively (with the player able to influence it directly through colonisation and recruiting, and indirectly through war, peace and disease).

 

[XYN]

While I think I'd prefer a pop system, this kind of simpler solution has the advantage that you would know exactly how religion and culture correlate within a province without having to give each province a large matrix in which to store that data.

Well yes, ideally I'd prefer pops like Victoria 2, but I like that simpler system because it would be much easier to implement, and preserves the performance - there are no complex calculations that would be required for pops.

While giving more granularity and solving the issue that culture and religious conversions create homogeneous blobs.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Let's remember that Tenochtitlan lost nearly all of its population to disease, which is a lot of why the Spanish found it so easy to conquer.

No it did not. And no that wasn't the reason nor the Spanish had an easy time conquering it.

 

[JaxElite]

Let's remember that Tenochtitlan lost nearly all of its population to disease, which is a lot of why the Spanish found it so easy to conquer.

Less relevant, European law is descended not from Semitic, but from Roman Law. At any rate, why should civil/common law lend itself to stability better than other legal systems?

European law is a mixture. Many parts grom roman law, many from semitic origins. Remember that christian laws are semitic in origin and catholic feudal europe was a hybrid between roman and christian law.

EDIT: Adding to that the muslim world also has to be included here and they are culturally and religiously semitic. Their strong ties between religious law and government made them significally harder to divide for outside powers. Yes you could try to make the different schools of islam fight each other, but attacking one sunni country without the others caring wasn't a thing. Meanwhile it was less an issue for hindus, inti, etc. Not because their religions had less unity, but because they lacked codified laws.

 

[AlphaMikeOmega]

No it did not. And no that wasn't the reason nor the Spanish had an easy time conquering it.

To be fair, I could be wrong in saying "nearly all". What's certain is that the Aztec Empire, including Tenochtitlan, were ravaged by smallpox at the time of the Spanish invasion. Disease killed up to about half the Empire's population, perhaps including Cuitláhuac.

 

[EarlKonrad]

To be fair, I could be wrong in saying "nearly all". What's certain is that the Aztec Empire, including Tenochtitlan, were ravaged by smallpox at the time of the Spanish invasion. Disease killed up to about half the Empire's population, perhaps including Cuitláhuac.

That's better. The reason I answered as I did was because I have a short temper when I see the argument that diseases killed the majority of Native Americans and that's it. This isn't true and the conquest and colonization of the Americas was a more complex process.

Anyways, I'd like to point out that the two footnotes (27,28) on Wikipedia about smallpox on Tenochtitlan comes from Guns, germs and steel and Miguel Leon Portilla (the former a very good read about early colonization and the later one of, if not the, best Aztec historians of recent times). So yes, trustworthy

 

[AlphaMikeOmega]

That's better. The reason I answered as I did was because I have a short temper when I see the argument that diseases killed the majority of Native Americans and that's it. This isn't true and the conquest and colonization of the Americas was a more complex process.

Anyways, I'd like to point out that the two footnotes (27,28) on Wikipedia about smallpox on Tenochtitlan comes from Guns, germs and steel and Miguel Leon Portilla (the former a very good read about early colonization and the later one of, if not the, best Aztec historians of recent times). So yes, trustworthy

You were right to call me out where I was wrong.

I'm reading Guns Germs & Steel currently, in fact. As I recall, it either says there was a 90-95% fatality rate from all the Old World diseases together, or that there was 90-95% depopulation from disease alone. (The former would mean less death, since more isolated peoples only encountered particular diseases centuries after Columbus and Cortez, once other areas had had the chance to repopulate.) Of course, there were other causes of natives' deaths, including genocide.

 

[Pbhuh]

I feel that there are many different things that ought to be discussed and considered for eu5.

First off Development vs Pops.

If pops would be as empty as eu3, they serve no purpose.

However current development in eu4 is bland and mostly a way to standardize power of nations.

So taking inspiration from victoria and stellaris, what would eu4 pops look like?

Well, for me, its simple. Simple give provinces a number of pops who have only two values, religion and culture.

Then have each pop represent a certain number of real life people.

Now the primary design should still stay with rough power of nations. So lets say france has 300 Dev, they should I guess get something like 300 or 600 pop in eu5.

Each would only have culture and religion.

There would be no interaction with pops individually, rather i would have a system where there is interactions with a group. Say France has 60 pop of reformed belief. Thats 10%. Then you could take actions to promote, supress this group, which can lead to them becoming catholic, dying or migrating somewhere else.

It would be more complex, but it would be more accurate. Provinces like Paris could have many minorities. Countries like the Netherlands can attract many refugees etc.

Now there is the question of value of provinces.

In EU4, value is determined by autonomy, buildings, modifiers, national ideas, development etc.

Buildings allow for spending cash for an instant improvement and are very direct.
Most actions in eu4 are direct. You boost development with a button. You take a decision idea, tech etc.

So what would make a good system for eu5?

Well id say that in eu5 buildings add to the idea of infrastructure. It would allow for small pop nations to punch above their weight.

Now comes the matter of technology.

In eu4. Its all about making sure you have most institutions, you have enough monarch points and boom, you just got 5% better trade.

To me, any overhaul of pops dynamically growing needs to be accompanied by technology being less simple boosts.

Technology should perhaps be more like victoria or stellaris. Spend effort and choice between what passive bonuses are most useful to you or have something like discovering new inventions, such as guns, better boats, military reforms, etc.

So whenever one argues about features, you cannot just look at one aspect to improve eu4. In eu4 many systems are heavily linked.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Technology should perhaps be more like victoria or stellaris. Spend effort and choice between what passive bonuses are most useful to you or have something like discovering new inventions, such as guns, better boats, military reforms, etc.

Isn't that already how EU 4? You accumulate a lot of Monarch Power (effort) and spend it either on tech to get a bunch of goodies or idea sets which let you customize your nation? The only difference I can see is that inventions are passive and have a chance to happen while ideas require investment before they pay off.

 

[Hussar1612]

I think technology has solid base right now, but Imo institutions work strangely for me. Maybe tying them with pops instead of dev will resolve the problem, but looking at India and China I doubt it. Requirements to get are set mindfully in terms 'what should I do to get colonialism', but outcome is mostly ahistorical, because Europe was "overtaking" rest of the world with some acceleration(slowly at the beggining of EU4 and pretty hard at the end). Yet in the game it's other way around, we have some sort of westernization in XVIII century, because everything after Printing Press is pretty easy to get everywhere in the world. I don't even mention dev pushes, with pops it should be way harder to push institutions.
Also establishing colonies with pops will make more sense and prevent colonization rush with Australia fully colonized in 1600s.

Well, for me, its simple. Simple give provinces a number of pops who have only two values, religion and culture.

I would consider splitting also in : rural, townsmen, clergy, nobility. And tie it nicely with estates.(with DLCs special pops like cossacks could be added)

 

[valentin4]

You were right to call me out where I was wrong.

I'm reading Guns Germs & Steel currently, in fact. As I recall, it either says there was a 90-95% fatality rate from all the Old World diseases together, or that there was 90-95% depopulation from disease alone. (The former would mean less death, since more isolated peoples only encountered particular diseases centuries after Columbus and Cortez, once other areas had had the chance to repopulate.) Of course, there were other causes of natives' deaths, including genocide.

You should drop this book immediatly. It's junk