Late Game Republics
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Republics have been underpowered for a while now.
The 'baseline' Republic ruler only has 6 stats. 1/1/4. There are costs [And risks] to re-election; and it cannot realistically be done constantly [There's some exceptions. Hamburg for example has a much easier time with certain bonuses and their Ambition]. Your ruler may die; and you really do not want Republican Tradition to fall too low; else you risk paying massive stability costs should comets and such happen.
So; let's say the average Republic has 8 stats. Because you're not going to re-elect every ruler. Sometimes you'll have no get more RT. Sometimes your ruler will die. Sometimes you'll see they spawned at 65 and not even want to risk wasteing RT. And of those that you re-elect once; even fewer will go on to be re-elected a second time.
The average ruler for a Monarchy has 9 stats. 3/3/3. This is already superior to a Republic [8 stat average]; but then you throw in the ability to effectively re-roll bad heirs through Disinheriting; which; in reality; increases the average of a Monarchy even more. The average monarch will probobly have at least 10 stats points; 2 more than your 'average Republic'.
So; Monarchies are generateing more monarch points that Republics.
Then; you throw in Absolutism; which just flat-out screws Republics over.
Then; you throw in that a Republic has a diplomatic disadvantage to a Monarchy; simply because they cannot get RM's. It is harder for a Republic to gain alliances.
Then you remember inability to get RM's also removes the potential to gain PU's. Lack of being a Monarchy also prevents Emperorship.
Then you remember a major advantage Republics had over Monarchies; no Regency; is all but gone because of Consorts.
Then you also remember that Theocracies exist; which have no Absolutism penalty; get bonuses for selecting their Heirs; generate heirs on the same basis as Monarchies; and Devotion gives stupidly good bonuses. [Seriously; Theos are really; really good and the only reason people don't point this out more is because only minors have them.]
Republics are in dire need of a buff right now in some way; shape or form. I do think they should suffer in the Age of Absolutism. However; the Age of Revolution should be good for them; as they have already embraced many of the facets of the Enlightenment. Honestly; I'd make the endgame disasters [Aspiration for Liberty and Revolution] more severe and easier to trigger for Monarchies with High Absolutism; while making them harder to trigger [Or even impossible]/easier to quell for Republics. I'd also make it harder for Monarchies to get Enlightenment [Unless they are Constitutional. Maybe slower Uni spread?] and easier for Republics [Add a rapid Capital Growth?]
For that matter; there should also be a stronger incentive to go Constitutional. Consitutional is a really cool government type and mechanic; and is quite flexible. But taking it kills your Absolutism making it effectively Roleplay-only.
The 'baseline' Republic ruler only has 6 stats. 1/1/4. There are costs [And risks] to re-election; and it cannot realistically be done constantly [There's some exceptions. Hamburg for example has a much easier time with certain bonuses and their Ambition]. Your ruler may die; and you really do not want Republican Tradition to fall too low; else you risk paying massive stability costs should comets and such happen.
So; let's say the average Republic has 8 stats. Because you're not going to re-elect every ruler. Sometimes you'll have no get more RT. Sometimes your ruler will die. Sometimes you'll see they spawned at 65 and not even want to risk wasteing RT. And of those that you re-elect once; even fewer will go on to be re-elected a second time.
The average ruler for a Monarchy has 9 stats. 3/3/3. This is already superior to a Republic [8 stat average]; but then you throw in the ability to effectively re-roll bad heirs through Disinheriting; which; in reality; increases the average of a Monarchy even more. The average monarch will probobly have at least 10 stats points; 2 more than your 'average Republic'.
So; Monarchies are generateing more monarch points that Republics.
Then; you throw in Absolutism; which just flat-out screws Republics over.
Then; you throw in that a Republic has a diplomatic disadvantage to a Monarchy; simply because they cannot get RM's. It is harder for a Republic to gain alliances.
Then you remember inability to get RM's also removes the potential to gain PU's. Lack of being a Monarchy also prevents Emperorship.
Then you remember a major advantage Republics had over Monarchies; no Regency; is all but gone because of Consorts.
Then you also remember that Theocracies exist; which have no Absolutism penalty; get bonuses for selecting their Heirs; generate heirs on the same basis as Monarchies; and Devotion gives stupidly good bonuses. [Seriously; Theos are really; really good and the only reason people don't point this out more is because only minors have them.]
Republics are in dire need of a buff right now in some way; shape or form. I do think they should suffer in the Age of Absolutism. However; the Age of Revolution should be good for them; as they have already embraced many of the facets of the Enlightenment. Honestly; I'd make the endgame disasters [Aspiration for Liberty and Revolution] more severe and easier to trigger for Monarchies with High Absolutism; while making them harder to trigger [Or even impossible]/easier to quell for Republics. I'd also make it harder for Monarchies to get Enlightenment [Unless they are Constitutional. Maybe slower Uni spread?] and easier for Republics [Add a rapid Capital Growth?]
For that matter; there should also be a stronger incentive to go Constitutional. Consitutional is a really cool government type and mechanic; and is quite flexible. But taking it kills your Absolutism making it effectively Roleplay-only.
As the above post mentions, it's not just republics that get beaten by the Absolutism stick, though republics are facing a bit of a sustained assault on their usefulness due to disinheriting being so strong, but constitutional governments as well; which also makes Parliaments into a game mechanic you actively want to avoid having access to!
Not a big fan of powercreep like that myself, I'd rather see some of those many, many bonuses monarchies have had piled up on them recently toned down a bit. Maybe make disinheriting more expensive, reduce the usefulness of absolutism and somesuch.
I have played republics a lot. I liked the idea of having average and sometimes re-elected rulers instead of moronic ones. But this game has changed too much and republics remained the same. Monarchies got buffed a lot, there is almost no regencies, and you can constantly get decent rulers on average.
Merchant republics was hit hard by the arbitrary 20 provinces limit. Yes, you can earn a lot from trade and you can create vassals that transfer trade to you and you can develop your 20 provinces but it's not enough.
When the naval manpower (sailors) was introduced this was another severe nerf to MR capabilities. 20% ship increased TP is worth nothinig when you can't afford a decent trade fleet because you suffer a permanent lack of sailors. And you can't do much about it. You have 20 provinces and that's it. Monarchies and other republics can create more states but you don't. And paying RT from excess of provinces is never worth it.
Republics (Non-MR) nowadays are just playable mediocre governments that have almost no advantages (republic cultural sufferance is not going to justify anything) compared to monarchies. And MR are just trash tier governments that can create trade leagues & posts which are good but doesn't justify all the disadvantages you get.
There was a time that it was justified saying that republics didn't get stab hits from rulers but it's also false. You get constantly disturbed by events like "A new coin" or "noble plots" that either reduces your stability or increases your inflation at the cost of RT. Upon this, if all that I said was not enough you also lose the ability to demand between 300-450 monarch points from states every X years.
I suppose they should completely change how republics work because since it was released this kiind of governments had lost the attention from the devs. Monarchies have changed a lot becominig better and better. Republics remained the same getting behind.
Merchant republics was hit hard by the arbitrary 20 provinces limit. Yes, you can earn a lot from trade and you can create vassals that transfer trade to you and you can develop your 20 provinces but it's not enough.
When the naval manpower (sailors) was introduced this was another severe nerf to MR capabilities. 20% ship increased TP is worth nothinig when you can't afford a decent trade fleet because you suffer a permanent lack of sailors. And you can't do much about it. You have 20 provinces and that's it. Monarchies and other republics can create more states but you don't. And paying RT from excess of provinces is never worth it.
Republics (Non-MR) nowadays are just playable mediocre governments that have almost no advantages (republic cultural sufferance is not going to justify anything) compared to monarchies. And MR are just trash tier governments that can create trade leagues & posts which are good but doesn't justify all the disadvantages you get.
There was a time that it was justified saying that republics didn't get stab hits from rulers but it's also false. You get constantly disturbed by events like "A new coin" or "noble plots" that either reduces your stability or increases your inflation at the cost of RT. Upon this, if all that I said was not enough you also lose the ability to demand between 300-450 monarch points from states every X years.
I suppose they should completely change how republics work because since it was released this kiind of governments had lost the attention from the devs. Monarchies have changed a lot becominig better and better. Republics remained the same getting behind.
A nref to Monarchies is also a buff to Republics indirectly. I probobly chose my words poorly; especially considering the idea I posted afterwards [Making the Age of Rev disasters easier to trigger/more severe for Monarchies]
I do think it would be a neat way to balance government types to make disasters more government-type focused. It would also give an incentive to 'Embrace the Enlightenment' and step away from Absolutism in the final age 'As Monarchies give way to Republics'.
Although; I would say Republics need a buff. They are the weakest of the three primary Government archetypes [Monarchy/Theocracy/Republic] and Theocracy and Monarchies are roughly equal with their own pros and cons IMO.
There's all sorts of things that could be done. From adding an 'Anti-Absolutism' in the Age of Revolutions that gives; say; Morale+Reduced Warscore Cost [Make it different to Absolutism; it's worse at taking land but better at things like liberating nations; taking money; revoking alliances; and so on; would be a cool dynamic for the final age! Bring Liberty to the Oppressed!]; to just buffing Republics in some way to help make up for lack of Absolutism; to nerfing Monarchies in some way [Disasters? A downside to high Absolutism like very bad events in Age of Revolution for 50+ Abso reflecting the oppressed rising up and against your tyrannical rule?]
I would say anything done to balance out lategame Republics [And Con.Mons] should also have the goal of making the lategame... more interesting. The Age of Revolution is almost a clash of ideology. Revolutionary Zeal v Absolutism. Power to the People v Power to the Crown. I'd like to see things encouraging Theocracies to Secularize as well lategame. The AoR is supposed to be a time when the old order is challenged.
Add a penalty to absolutism from disinheriting, that would make things nice and interesting.
But make no sense. A ruler being able to designate an heir of choice, rather than being bound by traditional inheritance laws is a sign of a more centralized government. On top of that, unless the penalty was very large it wouldn't achieve much since we all do C&C anyway to get a buffer above 100.
Nah. That implies that the heir's authority is fickle. The state isn't them, so to speak.
Of course the heir isn't the state, the ruler is the state. So the ruler gets to say who will be next ruler. The heir's authority isn't fickle - it's non-existent since they aren't the ruler.
If there was some kind of 'Divine Right' modifier then I could see that being reduced by disinheriting. But Absolutism is something else.
It's not only absolutism. Republics as a whole are a massive mess.
Merchant Republics and their mechanics are actually less powerful traders than your generic monarchy with happy estates.
Merchant Republics and their mechanics are actually less powerful traders than your generic monarchy with happy estates.
Where are you guys getting these numbers? In one of my games where I disinherited extremely aggressively I could only scrape my way to an average of 11.7 MP. And this was with Ryukyu, which has a bunch of prestige ideas, and it was back in patch 1.19 when removing rivals gave 10 prestige. In more recent games I've analyzed I've been pulling an average of 10.25 - 11 MP over the course of the game with what I'd call "average" disinheriting. The only reason I'd pull in less points than other players is because I emphasize admin skills over the other two, so for exmaple I'd take a 6/1/1 even though the sum total of 8 MP would be below average.
On the other hand, when I flip to a rev republic I easily average 13+ MP for the remainder of the game.
That's a function of divert trade being easily one of the most powerful interactions right now.
In fact I think that utilized properly it turns religious into a pretty decent pick. Maybe even for the religions that typically cannot utilize it well (aka everything not Islam or Christianity)
I think disinheriting overall point value is overblown but of course there's only one stat out of the three that really matters and that is why disinheriting truly excels
I disinherit everything below 9-10. That gives me an average of something like 13, slightly lowered by the trash heirs I had no time to disinherit before they came to power and the trash consorts. And there are estates on top of that, obviously, which add 2 MP to every ruler if used properly (0,7 in each category).
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I haven't played much Republics, but it seems obvious they need to be buffed. Or Absolutism nerfed.
I'll keep a 6/2/0 in most circumstances, but in general I disinherit anyone lower than 11 MP total, and generally anyone who isn't at least 4 ADM.
My numbers are from when I went over my list of rulers from a couple of games in 1.19/1.20 era and calculated my average MP income from rulers. So I weighted it by how long each ruler ruled for and included consort regencies and so forth. I found my average was around 12, and I've probably gotten more aggressive with disinherit since then.
Reman, I've watched your Milan video and I do agree that Republics have a slightly higher MP generation potential overall, in particular with Milan. I don't think that outweighs the value of PUs and RMs.
My numbers are from when I went over my list of rulers from a couple of games in 1.19/1.20 era and calculated my average MP income from rulers. So I weighted it by how long each ruler ruled for and included consort regencies and so forth. I found my average was around 12, and I've probably gotten more aggressive with disinherit since then.
Reman, I've watched your Milan video and I do agree that Republics have a slightly higher MP generation potential overall, in particular with Milan. I don't think that outweighs the value of PUs and RMs.
A Legitimacy hit would make more sense (i.e. if you disinherit, the next heir that spawns has a weaker than usual claim).
More generally, I feel like Legitimacy should be a more serious long-term project for monarchies, with more carry-over across generations, so that heir claim strength doesn't completely reset legitimacy but rather shifts it up or down. At the moment, your reigning king can tank Legitimacy without much worry, because you'll get it all back again when the strong-claim heir comes in (or you can just spam Strengthen Government). At some level, the Legitimacy of a monarchy shouldn't just be about the current king, but the strength of the traditional allegiance surrounding his dynasty and the institutions of monarchy. PU juniors should have a separate Legitimacy level that factors into Liberty Desire, and again takes a while to build up (just because your legitimacy as King of England is unquestioned, doesn't change the fact that your legitimacy as King of France is dodgy).
I also think the 'Strengthen Government' button was a mistake. If all government types became vulnerable to a legitimacy (by which I mean Legitimacy, RT, Devotion etc) crisis in a way that you can't just pay off with MIL, it would do a lot to limit the 'automatic' advantages of one government type over another while giving the player something to manage.
I mean civil war is basically a joke disaster where you waste all your stab before it hits, then pay a chunk of mil to get it all back nowadays
Fair enough. I was wondering if people were weighting MP generation by years their monarch was in power, and it seems like they are. This makes me wonder if people have developed a better disinheritance strategy that leads to higher MP. I basically just disinherit ad-hoc whenever it "feels" like the right thing to do, but whenever I push the button I always feel like there's an undiscovered probabilistic answer to whether what I'm doing is right or wrong. There probably isn't, but it still feels weird to do something in EU4 without following a warranted rule of thumb.
Disinheriting is hard thing to model. There are so many variables. You can calculate the likelihood that the next heir will be better, but you really want to calculate the likelihood that this will be the best heir you get and that is extremely hard. You have to factor in how long your current leader is likely to live, your consort if a consort regency is a possibility, and it just gets to a point where it's not really viable to work it out.
I go on 'feel', and my feeling has tended me further towards more aggressive disinheriting as I go. So rather than model it, I ended up going by results. Even getting more aggressive with it I find it's very rare that I end up regretting disinheriting someone. Regardless, I'm confident of 12 as a baseline average. I think it can be pushed higher, but you get to the point where you need to play a lot of games to say for sure.