Merchant Republics are dead. RIP Venice.

[Atlantians]

wait why dont they just give merchant republics a lower amount of states?!! then they could still have the territories as well and still grow

@DDRJake , please hotfix this. Give Merchant Republics a rduced number of states instead of the province limit.

 

[grommile]

Which of those CBs cover Return Core, Release Country, or Cancel Subject?

 

[Artess]

Which of those CBs cover Return Core, Release Country, or Cancel Subject?

Coalition, excommunication, the HRE CBs and the ones on primitives from Expansion and Exploration. That's about it. I tried to make a hobby of breaking up every country I can, but it's not at all easy.

 

[BossAsianMafia]

Guys you can take vassals as a MR if you want to expand. MR vassals give 50% trade power as a bonus.

 

[Freudia]

Trade conflict, Cancelled Loan, Diplomatic insult, Defender of the Faith, Cleansing of Heresy, Excommunication, Trade Dispute, Coalition, Trade Protection, Support Rebels; all CBs that are fairly easy to get (some slightly more difficult, some stupidly easy) and that benefit peace offers other than take territory, ie "weaken your enemy long-term by a means other than taking their clay". Enforcing Peace and Supporting independence are also incredibly easy ways to start wars and are incredibly effective at weakening enemies.

They ran trade conflict CB into the floor this patch. Cancelled Loan is no longer a CB that exists, for all intents and purposes. Most of the other ones require proximity or the AI to do things like take enough AE to form a coalition on itself (which it rarely ever does).

 

[evilcat]

Guys you can take vassals as a MR if you want to expand. MR vassals give 50% trade power as a bonus.

That is true, but unless You plan to fully Roleplay there will be moment to exceed 20 province limit (it just happens) and then what?
You cant keep as many vassals since they all will have total vassal power vs liege malus.

 

[Benghi Bon]

That is true, but unless You plan to fully Roleplay there will be moment to exceed 20 province limit (it just happens) and then what?
You cant keep as many vassals since they all will have total vassal power vs liege malus.

And let's not forget that Republics have lower dip rep due to not being a monarchy, so integration is and was a pain, and loyalty is an even harder sought-after thing on your vassals. Oh, and royal marriages are great for keeping liberty desire low.

As if republics are even built for containing vassals. Monarchies win again, oh well.

 

[Marinaliteyears]

tall is and has always been a joke in EUIV, it's an illusion that you actually have 400 years of content playing tall. Sure it's possible, and you may even stay competitive against single player AI, but it still leaves you with nothing to do accept press a button to get 1 more development.

See, this view makes little sense to me. To me, a consistent blobbing spree is only fun for a short while, before it becomes some kind of monotonous grind. I find Staying small, and Heavily Anticipating each war to be far more rewarding and interesting, and if Im not blobbing, I may as well put my extra monarch points into development, right? Then again, I dont play 'true tall', Since I do take land whenever I see a chance, and colonize a fair amount.

To be fair, It could get pretty boring if things stabalized too heavily, such with a merchant republic, but I dont know.

 

[DukeDayve]

In the patch, having over 20 provinces as a Merchant Republic reduces Republican Tradition. By a LOT. Having barely 30 (which is, in some places, still grants too little development to upgrade government rank to Kingdom) is enough to prevent a merchant republic from gaining any RT over time at all! (The penalty is 1 per year, the exact same amount a normal republic gains.) You could get around this by granting more land to vassals... but if they get too big they'll gang up and declare independence.

One thing that wasn't changed, is that Merchant Republics are still explicitly forbidden from switching government type. No Oligarchic Republic for you, Venice. So if you like playing republics, have fun playing as a HRE minor or the Netherlands, because all the others are dead, dead, dead.

And if you wanted to play around with the trade league mechanics you paid money for, well, enjoy sitting on your hands after gaining those thirty provinces, watching the world shift without you.

This actually sounds awesome. Finding a balance between directly owned land and land owned by your vassals, with vassals potentially rebelling, not being able to expand to a ridiculous size, having to play smart instead of conquering an area the size of Europe and going HULK SMASH! whenever someone does something to annoy you...

I don't see how this new system isn't fun. In fact, I've had no interest in EUIV for about 6 months, and I've never EVER enjoyed republics in EUIV. But now I'm very tempted to fire it up and give one a try!

 

[Xinkc]

Only now I realized that the number of provinces threshold could have been number of state cores instead. Maybe even remove all state modifiers for MRs (so they would only have the 5 base ones) therefore forcing the MR to have a bunch of trade companies, colonial nations and territorial cores, maybe even inside their states.

Sigh.

That actually sounds fun.

 

[Isaios]

Quick question - does this limit of 20 relate to core-cores (i.e., those within an accepted 'state') or any provinces you own?

If the latter, for merchant republics, perhaps it could be tweaked so the limit is 20 core-cores - which allows you to pick up important trade nodes across the world

It's the latter. EVERYTHING counts, including just started colonies The latter is extra odd, they could at least have let us colonise some spice islands in relative peace. I suppose I will just have to feed my colonies to ... Molucca? One of those nice places with bonuses to Goods Produced, then force them to give me all their Trade Power as well.

Guys you can take vassals as a MR if you want to expand. MR vassals give 50% trade power as a bonus.

This is true, and will be helpful, I just wish they had added the option to demand 100% Trade Power like with Protectorates I want ALL the Trade Value, it is ALL MINE!!


EDIT: Also, Isn't the number of states from Technology a bit high? We're getting a total of 86 States from Tech alone by the end. Makes the +3 from Administrative Ideas seem ... well, kinda daft.

EDIT2: I'm feeling as though the list in the Technology tree wasn't intended to be additive. At ADM8 it says "Allow 5 States", then at ADM12 it says "Allow 6 States". That ends up being 11 States total from tech, makes more sense to me that it'd be just 6 though. Seems oddly unbalanced otherwise.

 

[ragingrondo12]

Might want to raise the numbers and put them at solid intervals instead.

Could also bake into the Rank, so that every rank Republics get +XX provinces to conquer. (10 for example) With some base #y.

 

[evilcat]

The hard province limit will never work, sorry.
Colonies - nope since starting colonies count to limit
Trading companies - count to limit
Vassals - at some point lack of Royal Mariages and power vs liege will hurt too much

There is still the option to play MR for 100 years have some fun and everything, but after that there will be more playing around arbitrary limit than actual play.

Lower state count is much better solution.

 

[Ameron]

It would make more sense if the MR got a +RT bonus for staying under 20 provinces, together with the -RT malus if over the limit. This way the MR would actually be rewarded to play small and tall, rather than just be punished if grown to medium size (a 20 provinces MR is not a huge blob, to be fair)

 

[Freudia]

It would make more sens if the MR got a +RT bonus for staying under 20 provinces, together with the -RT malus if over the limit. This way the MR would actually be rewarded to play small and tall, rather than just be punished if grown to medium size (a 20 provinces MR is not a huge blob, to be fair)

I probably would have just done the +RT for being <20 provinces and opted out of the penalty entirely. Herding the player to play in a certain way with bonuses is usually received better than herding the player to play in a certain way with penalties.

I think the lowered state cap is probably the better way to go on this topic, though.

 

[Atlantians]

Venice experienced multiple resurgences and only fell in the last few years of the game while Genoa dominated Europe through banking at its height. Merchant Republics becoming Empires or majors due to a player aware of what not to do is not unrealistic.

This is a great reason to rework and fix 'offering loans' to the AI.

This could be very lucrative for Merchant Republics, and Genoa could get a huge bonus to this.

Additionally, this would be a great way of playing both sides in a war:
Renting Condottieri to one nation at war while funding the other nation with loans!

Forget about Venice, it's Novgorod that gets utterly screwed by this.

That really is their fate.

Terrible decision Paradox, reverse it now. Dont punish a good govement form...

And DDRJake, we respect you but your post was dumb and reserved all the dislike it got. We are not happy with this change.

Very true. Dead on. @DDRJake , please, oh Scottish Overlord, recognize that defending bad design decisions with 'just mod it' is not very encouraging.

Look at this too:

I pity our Merchant republic fans who don't own Common Sense and thus, can't even play tall. How clever.

This is a great reason why Development, which is such a fundamental change, should be made a free feature. Give people discount codes if they get mad about it.

This seems like a great way to have a MR that's actually good at, you know, trading. Give them 1/3 the number of states (maybe). And I would suggest giving them a larger discount on development costs to make playing "tall" easier.

Exactly. Great idea.

Genoa's national ideas could use some serious love.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Its not like merchants/businesses didn't historically hold down large landmasses.

The East-India Trading Company and the Niederländisch Ostindische Kompanie both held far larger landmasses than what is possible in the game now. Sure they weren't republics but what could they be described as if not merchant/businesses?

Perhaps just reduce the number of states so that a small number of states could form a solid core and then allow them to use the new territories feature to control trade. Either that or give them hell of a lot of more diplomatic relations slots, like 8-10 more so they can form protectorates left and right.

 

[LordDamien]

Can I ask a honest question.. How many of you play the game just Vanilla with no mods at all ?. I mean besides doing a ironman Run and Achievements.. I see no reason why I would ever play the game Vanilla. The Modding community just makes the game so much better in my opinion. The only time I ever play Vanilla is after a expansion or patch and the mods are not updated.. But other than that I play with mods.. And that is because the Mods add things that make the game better.. Either more events or mechanics etc.

I agree having only 20 provinces as a merchant Republic is harsh.. I would prefer the option to turn into a Oligarchic republic without first becoming a Monarchy. But Vanillla Version of the game wont allow for Venice to become that I do not think without first going though a Tech Idea group. But the modding the community might just do it.. I mean it makes sense that you have a decision to form a Oligarchic republic as venice.. Its not historical.. But it would make sense that the election was only between a few families.

But this is just my opinion.. But I will say I think its stupid that your limited to just 20 provinces without taking a hit of RT. I mean their goes my dreams of talking over the new world as venice... And just taking over coastal provinces ( I picture Venice just deciding to take only the coastlines and nothing else )

 

[jaredstanko]

If you wish to blob as a merchant republic, open Steam\steamapps\common\europa universalis iv\common

Open defines.lua with a text editor like Notepad++

Locate the line

MERCHANT_REPUBLIC_SIZE_LIMIT = 20,

And change 20 to 30, or 50 or 9999, whatever your heart desires.

This change would not leave you eligible for Ironman though.

i like the change, but it seems really borked that you dont allow merchant republics to change governent types. also, this mechanic should not apply to overseas provinces!!!

or as others have said in this thread, a reduced number of states. that makes perfect sense.

 

[grommile]

Can I ask a honest question.. How many of you play the game just Vanilla with no mods at all ?.

Me.

Because a lot of mods are badly balanced, or trivial, or afflicted by the belief that more provinces is automatically better.