Loan Offers and Sliders

[Delta21]

The "Offer Loan" diplomatic action is useless in singleplayer, as neither the player nor the AI uses it - I suggest that it is removed or modified in such a way that it becomes usable once more. As for Multiplayer - The feature can be improved with more complex loan offers - for example a fluctuating interest rate based on the army maintenance and war/peace status of a country. If you took a loan from a player to fight a war, you'd better pay extra for the favor, as it might as well win you the war. If you just took it for peacefully building up your countries or paying up loans, you should have the loan be a better offer than the national banks'.

Next up - Sliders: I'm sorry, but as far as maintenance goes, some sliders' positions are of such a narrow use-case that they are virtually never slid.

Missionary maintenance: ON/OFF should be a better name for this slider, as you usually want to provoke a religious rebellion (0%) or simply convert the damned province (100%). I suggest a on/off toggle for missionary funding (there would be a very slim chance of the province converting through event if you don't fund the missionaries). Also religious conversion should be more costly and damaging. It's usually forceful conversion anyway, so it could impact autonomy (+0.05) as well as unrest (the normal +5% could vary depending on religion. Buddhists might have a more peaceful approach to conversion and thus suffer a smaller malus)

Colonial maintenance: Unless you're nearing bankruptcy or your colonies are soon to be overtaken, there's no reason while you shouldn't go full-blast on this slider. You either colonize or you don't.

Army maintenance: This one is actually the only truly useful slider. If a player slides any slider during the game, this slider will account for 90% of it, guaranteed. A suggestion would be to right-click "tags" on the slider that would appear above the slider, so you could keep your favorite slider positions available (e.g. : 10% - for enough morale for movement, 55-70% - for sieging, 20-30% - for some native suppression).

Naval Maintenance: With the addition of fleet mothballing (I'm not sure if it's a free feature for the updates, so please tolerate my ignorance) this one became similar to missionary maintenance, except even more useless. I slide it to 0% only when starting out as a nation that doesn't need a fleet so I can have enough time to sell the ships. Other than that.... What, am I going to run my fleet at 70% as super-rich England so I would give Spain a fighting chance? Of course not, the lost ships are going to cost me a lot more than their maintenance.


I might have not covered all of the points and ideas that I had about these two, but these are two things that have to go or be changed. The game has had so many improvements since it started that these things are very out of place in the current game version.

 

[GiftGruen]

You always have enough morale for movement, the max morale will never go under 0.51 . Otherwise, well, I feel pretty much the same way about sliders and couldn't care less about loans (you just throw some money at the other player so he actually has some money and doesn't choke on the interest, while he will have to do you some favor for it). But I think it's not worth the effort remaking them, since adding some form of "ideal slider positions" for some situations is just going to needlessly increase the tedium.

 

[Vlad123]

The only mode to accept the loan is: Yes all cheat!

 

[Vaximillian]

The only mode to accept the loan is: Yes all cheat!

You mean yesman.

 

[Delta21]

You always have enough morale for movement, the max morale will never go under 0.51

Initial morale (on unit recruitment) isn't enough for movement if maintenance is kept at 0%. That's what I meant.

But I think it's not worth the effort remaking them

They are obviously under-used and nearly useless. Such features pale in comparison to any other feature next to them (or any other panel). Paradox should at least consider reworking them (if they haven't done so already). Utility should be the goal in my opinion, lest we fall in a trap were we'll be given options for the sake of options, but without any real use.

On that note: Consider how often you culture-convert right now, or set policies, or reduce inflation (by button). If you manage your monarch points well, chances are that you almost never use those things (with the exception of 5 policies).

There should be less of a disequilibrium between the value of taking certain actions in the game, because at this point some things just are not worth doing because their doing is glaringly damaging, or not positive at the least.
Some actions are simply there to make the game mechanics feasible, holding no inherent value but proving very useful, while some neither address game mechanics properly nor are useful - so either make them very potent/useful or address the game mechanic design in a different way. That's what I'm saying.

 

[GiftGruen]

Hm, you colored your first post. Makes it look neater than before.

The problem is that many players are going to do a min-maxing strategy in their games anyway and also want there to be a "best" way according to their strategy. Of course with perfect play and a "normal" number of good and bad events, you'll hardly ever need the mechanics that make you (and the AI) able to recover after a heavy loss. But this game is not like chess, where every piece has to be used to have a good chance to win. You have expansion mechanics, peacetime mechanics, (r)evolution of science/society/military mechanics, and you have recovery mechanics. You do not need to use every single one of them to win if your strategy makes good enough use of your finite resources using the other mechanics.

(going a bit far off-topic here, but I think I have to elaborate a bit more)

And I think that is the more "natural" setup. Chess is a very abstract depiction of two battling armies or countries. Every piece having its strengths and weaknesses is part of its symmetry. But choosing to invest into the branch that is most cost-effective and furthers your goals the most is the more natural approach because A) nature is asymmetrical and B) every lifeform does it: Plants grow more roots on the side where they find more nutrients and more leaves where they find more sunlight, animals are battling for the most promising source of food, the best shelter, the best mating partner, risking their health and sometimes their lives because they know it's going to pay off.

[/digression]

 

[Delta21]

Hm, you colored your first post. Makes it look neater than before.

I thought so as well, thank you.

But this game is not like chess, where every piece has to be used to have a good chance to win.

I agree on that. But there are pieces that don't even have a role. There's pretty much nothing that requires me, inefficiently or efficiently, to make use of a loan offer or slide the missionary maintenance slider to 50%. Even if I play poorly or I play smart, I need an objective to achieve in order to make use of these pieces. I used to send out loan offers to get some nice "kick-you-in-the-balls" casus belli against AI or humans. With recent patches this became a multiplayer-only option. So I can play this piece against humans, but not in singleplayer-mode? :< I want to be able to do it once again... or at least get a new toy to replace the broken one.

And I can't recall ever changing my missionary maintenance slider anywhere between 0 and 100%. I could do it in theory, to avoid taking a loan (and inflation increase) if the missionary maintenance reduction would put me JUST above the red line, but missionary expenses are so low that that was never the case.

I want to slide that slider that is meant for sliding, but I can't see a reason why I would want to, and treat it like an on/off button. All smart players will use it like an on/off button, but I can't fathom why even bad players (or any other type of player for that matter... judged from a different perspective than "good/bad") wouldn't treat it the same way.

 

[GiftGruen]

The only way I could think of that would make it remotely useful would be to make it like 5x more expensive and 2x or 3x as fast to convert if the slider is at full. But then that would screw OPMs with little income because the missionary system is very VERY dependent on small bonuses if your overall conversion chance is near 0 to begin with, and totally pointless if it's something like 2 or 3. Because the difference between 0 and 0.1 is not being able to convert it at all or being able to convert it within 100 months, while the difference between even 2 and 2.5 is "only" being able to convert within 40 or 50 months. So the slider would still not be very useful in the middle positions since one month at 0% and one month at 100% would be more efficient than two months at 50% (with same overall cost).

 

[Delta21]

That's why I am arguing for an on-off button or a different, more creative solution.

 

[Vlad123]

I have idea for Loans:
Positive
-Relations-
-Royal marriage-
-personal union-
-Vassal-
Less interess (exemple bank interes are 4%, if you offer 2% the object are more likely to accept your loan)
-are in war-(if a nation are in war her, need money)
Negative:
-Riva-l
-enemies-
-relations-
-have claim-

 

[BrokenSky]

TAlso religious conversion should be more costly and damaging. It's usually forceful conversion anyway, so it could impact autonomy (+0.05) as well as unrest (the normal +5% could vary depending on religion. Buddhists might have a more peaceful approach to conversion and thus suffer a smaller malus)

Cost should be based on tolerance. More tolerance means less penalties from conversion, but slightly slower conversion speed?

Colonial maintenance: Unless you're nearing bankruptcy or your colonies are soon to be overtaken, there's no reason while you shouldn't go full-blast on this slider. You either colonize or you don't.

I often go only part way when I need the money for other things (e.g. war) and am small.
By which I mean I actually use this slider sometimes. This and army maintenance and none of the others.