Lack of Internal Factors

[Novacat]

One of the big issues of EU4 is the complete lack of internal factors that can drive a country. Theres no nobles to deal with, no politiking factions with their own vested interests, different cultures are just colors on a map, and the penalties of different cultures neatly divided into 'Accepted Culture', 'Same culture group', and 'Different culture group'. Revoltrisk is almost entirely raised by war exhaustion, overextension, religious/cultural intolerance. Religious difference penalties are entirely cut and dry with the 'Religious unity' and 'Intolerance' penalties, and most important of all, provinces are universally monocultural and monoreligious.

For these reasons, theres very little to do at peacetime, and very little work in maintaining a large empire once you got the cores established, just random events the game throws at you from time to time that are, most of the time, completely detached from what is actually going on in your empire. One of the more extreme examples is when I converted Sweden to Shiite, and the primary culture to Tartar, and gave away the Swedish lands to Norway. Despite completely replacing Swedish nobility with Tartar nobility, aside from the -5 stabhit on culture switch and the prestige hit for force conversion, nobody batted an eye.

Thoughts?

 

[kingofnoobs]

Agreed, We need more things to do during peacetime.

 

[BBBD316]

There have been a few threads mentioning this recently.

There is quite a bit of activity in one where you would have either a number of noble families/clergy/merchant families or a HRE like grouping of all the interested parties in your nation that would expand as you grow to include new parties with differing interests.

 

[FearTheAmish]

I +1 this.... wow this is a strange feeling i am agreeing with Novacat on something....

The meat of the problem is how to set it up. Because Paradox have flat refused to add anything vaguely reminiscent of CK2's dynasties. I think something along the faction system would be interesting though.

 

[LiberiusX]

One of the big issues of EU4 is the complete lack of internal factors that can drive a country. Theres no nobles to deal with, no politiking factions with their own vested interests, different cultures are just colors on a map, and the penalties of different cultures neatly divided into 'Accepted Culture', 'Same culture group', and 'Different culture group'. Revoltrisk is almost entirely raised by war exhaustion, overextension, religious/cultural intolerance. Religious difference penalties are entirely cut and dry with the 'Religious unity' and 'Intolerance' penalties, and most important of all, provinces are universally monocultural and monoreligious.

For these reasons, theres very little to do at peacetime, and very little work in maintaining a large empire once you got the cores established, just random events the game throws at you from time to time that are, most of the time, completely detached from what is actually going on in your empire. One of the more extreme examples is when I converted Sweden to Shiite, and the primary culture to Tartar, and gave away the Swedish lands to Norway. Despite completely replacing Swedish nobility with Tartar nobility, aside from the -5 stabhit on culture switch and the prestige hit for force conversion, nobody batted an eye.

Thoughts?

See my diatribe here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?741130-Discussion-The-EUIV-Dichotomy

 

[Aethelred]

In addition to the link posted by LiberiusX also check out these threads:

"Simple character system"-Suggestion by Vishaing: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?741632-Suggestion-Simple-Character-System
"The Valkyrier"'s post started a collection of ideas and a discussion here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?741021-Next-Expansion-Courts-of-Europe
Varyars suggestion: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...suggestion-for-improved-monarch-dynastic-play
My collection of ideas on this topic from august: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-Brainstorm-Courts-factions-nobility-estates-!

related topics:

CK II versus EU IV - lack of "realm management" as "lack of immersion": http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...ayers-rapidly-dropping-compared-to-CK2/page13
How complex can and should an "internal factors"-mechanism be? (includes a mind game/case study based on my suggestion) http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?737831-The-Provincial-System-and-Other-Traps
discusson on religion to flesh out peace-time play: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?741252-The-Next-DLC-Religion

 

[Pornek]

I said that in LiberiusX's thread already.
Imo the internal factors are already representated enough via rebels. You have preasants, nobels, particularists etc. The problem is mainly due to the way they can be dealt with, just swipe rebelstack and internal problems are gone. Giving in to rebel demands are usually a no brainer, if you dotn want to swap religion or goverment. Events follow the same chain. Take stab hit or get rebels - ofc 98/100 times you take the rebels.
Im not a fan of implementing internal concepts as in CKII, rather I would like to see an overhaul of the current mechanics.
Eg Why doesnt killing your own people (as in rebelstacks) not increase revoltrisk? I feel that is completly counterintuative. Additionally why arent the provinces, where rebels spawn not occupied - the province revolted already, why do they need to siege it?
The mechanics are there, they just have no effect on the decisions you take as a player.

 

[Novacat]

I feel that CK2 might be a bad model to look at, considering it overemphasises the nobility and the burghers and others are still as badly represented there as they are here. Given, while the dynastic game could use some improvement (I would like to see the possibility for a more extended family tree other than ruler and heir), but I feel that Vichy 2 should be more of the role model to look at.

 

[Beagá]

I already noticed that EU 4 is like EU 3 without any expansions. A frame for a game that will be great eventually, but not right now.

Nothing reaaaaally wrong with that - except that I´d expect better.

On the other hand, the fact that more and more the complains are converging means that we are finally arriving at a consensus of what the game needs most, and which are its critical flaws. Pity we´ll probably have to wait for the 2nd expansion.

 

[LiberiusX]

I said that in LiberiusX's thread already.
Imo the internal factors are already representated enough via rebels. You have preasants, nobels, particularists etc. The problem is mainly due to the way they can be dealt with, just swipe rebelstack and internal problems are gone. Giving in to rebel demands are usually a no brainer, if you dotn want to swap religion or goverment. Events follow the same chain. Take stab hit or get rebels - ofc 98/100 times you take the rebels.

Though I don't agree that rebels are a good enough analogue for internal politics, I do agree that rebels and associated events are too easy to deal with.

Im not a fan of implementing internal concepts as in CKII, rather I would like to see an overhaul of the current mechanics.
Eg Why doesnt killing your own people (as in rebelstacks) not increase revoltrisk? I feel that is completly counterintuative.

This question led to a rather heated discussion a few months ago. I think the jury is still out on this one, even in the 21st century. Historically, sometimes crushing a rebellion led to pacification, other times it just led more rebellion. I think Paradox just took a side on the argument for simplicity's sake.

Additionally why arent the provinces, where rebels spawn not occupied - the province revolted already, why do they need to siege it?
The mechanics are there, they just have no effect on the decisions you take as a player.

I agree...kind of. As I understand it, sieging represents attacking the main fort in the region. That fort would be occupied by troops loyal to the crown/republic. However, there have been times in the past when forts joined a rebellion(either out of expediency or because they sympathized). Therefore, I think it would be justified for rebels in provinces in which the rebels spawn to get a buff to the siege clock. Don't know how complicated that would be to code though.

I feel that CK2 might be a bad model to look at, considering it overemphasises the nobility and the burghers and others are still as badly represented there as they are here. Given, while the dynastic game could use some improvement (I would like to see the possibility for a more extended family tree other than ruler and heir), but I feel that Vichy 2 should be more of the role model to look at.

That's kind of what I was arguing over there, that EU4 should model the transition from CKII to Vicky II. In a sense, it's kind of sad that Paradox's Flagship IP has kind of been overshadowed by the 2 other IPs set before and after.

I already noticed that EU 4 is like EU 3 without any expansions. A frame for a game that will be great eventually, but not right now.

Nothing reaaaaally wrong with that - except that I´d expect better.

On the other hand, the fact that more and more the complains are converging means that we are finally arriving at a consensus of what the game needs most, and which are its critical flaws. Pity we´ll probably have to wait for the 2nd expansion.

Yeh, if CoP turns out as good as it looks, then I think it bodes well for EU4's future. Maybe, CK3 and Vicky3 will need to take some pointers from EU4 by then??? A shame that that isn't true in vanilla.

 

[ero_sk]

I also would like to see some enhancements to internal affairs. Wouldn't want to see feature such as family links as it is inCKII (becaus obviously CKII is based on feudal system so why not to play it then?) but some other features would be nice. Political situation was of huge importance during game period, for example born of consitutional monarchy (Great Britain) or fundaments of future democracies (Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth). Internal affairs were leading to born and deaths of nations. IMHO some new, nice features would improve game a lot.

 

[penco]

I think the real problem is that the devs looked at CKII and said "Hey, this ruler point system worked great in CKII." And then proceeded to shoehorn that system into EUIV. The problem is that in CKII those points actually model something and make sense, whereas in EUIV they are abstract and meaningless. Plus, in CKII, the accrual systems of prestige and piety were not directly tied to the ruler's stat points--those points are more or less just buffs and debuffs. And tying so many game mechanics to ruler stats makes sense in a game like CKII where it is all about individual people, but it just doesn't fit into a game like EUIV that is supposed to be about a nation.

 

[Novacat]

In CK2, however, the only thing 'monarch points' were used for was technologies. Everything else was bought and sold exclusively with coin. EU4 changed that, the only thing you can buy and sell with exclusively coin in EU4 are armies, and even then, you still need leaders to make those armies into anything beyond cannon fodder.

 

[mcmanusaur]

One internal administration proposal to rule them all.