So I hope some of you would agree that the broken monarch point system really is one of the major undermining factors of the other various issues. One of the most relevant being the vassal feeding technique. In contrast with the not-so-appealing traditional war conquer method, what the technique does in essence is to have the vassal help you GENERATE MORE ADM to cover the extra coring cost or simply skip the coring costs altogether if you feed them lands with their cores. It is incredibly powerful simply due to the fact the game is setup in a such way there is no other way the player could in a sense "generate" such an abundance of ADM points. This technique, or exploit as some of you would view it, is the only solution to the huge gap between the otherwise uncontrollable supply and infinite demand of ADM due to how poorly the resource system is thought out and implemented. Hence the popularity of vassal feeding with its ability to save insane amounts of ADM, completely avoid OE/AE/coring duration and lack of drawbacks. In order to make traditional war conquest more appealing, they reversed the decision of bumping up AE to hell and instead nerfed it to oblivion, without solving the actual problem.
This is simply the most brilliant post I have ever read on these boards and I wish the developers would read this and take it to heart, but sadly they won't. :sad:
MP are not really a problem, it's the ARBITRARY nature of MP with zero control over how many monarch points and arbitrarily conflicting uses for them.
There's zero logic in saying that you can't choose an Administrative Idea group, no matter how attractive it might be, because you have competing uses for Admin tech. Meanwhile you might as well hire 5 or 6 generals, because you can't advance in military tech for another 10 years (without paying an awesome penalty) and yet your ruler is generating 6 MP per month in military.
Rather, however, than go on with a pointless discussion of how totally screwed up the MP system is in 1.4 I'd like to point out that some people have already tried to do something about it, by modding it.
1.
Cores Never Expire Mod. Just like it says, since cores never expire, it's always possible to find creative ways to expand by vassalizing and feeding vassals.
2.
Ruler Traits Mod. This mod allows you to educate your ruler, just like in CKII by sending him (or her) to school to learn Administrative skills, Diplomatic Skills, or Military Skills. The nation will suffer various maluses until the ruler (or Heir's) education is completed, and it will cost you 200 Admin, Diplo or Military MP, but at the end of this period, your ruler will gain +1 in whichever trait you select for the rest of his reign, plus some other minor advantages.
3.
Re-Roll Ruler Stats Mod. This one is also obvious. Allows you to re-roll and get a better monarch, without having to re-load and wait until your ruler dies again (random chance). I haven't tried this mod so I have no idea how well it works. It costs you 15 MP and you have to wait 365 days between re-rolls, but it beats just re-loading when you get that 0-0-0 monarch!
Anybody who wants to be a purist can play Ironman and just suffer along with the crappy monarch points system as Paradox intended. Some people seem to enjoy scourging themselves with whips too. It takes all kinds to make a world.
4.
All Equal Technology Groups. Haven't tried this one either, but it has the interesting idea that every country gets western technology group at the start. Wildly ahistorical, but screw that it's less ahistorical than a random map generator! Now if you play as a Western nation when you reach China don't expect the nations there to be such patsies. They might well conquer you before you even reach them because they have western tech group to start with! I like this idea and am interested to see what the AI makes of it.
5.
Expanded Monarch Points This is my favorite mod, personally. It enables you to circumvent the restrictions on MP by purchasing MP directly at the rate of 200 ducats for 10 MP (any of the three types). The only restriction is that you have to be at peace. The AI will purchase MP too, so this will help AI countries with their development, however, the player is obviously going to make better use of this system, so in late game when the player has tens of thousands of ducats sitting around doing nothing, it would enable him to build absolutely everything.
But, then late game the player is going to dominate anyway, so let's face it, that's nothing new. Still having a Paradox development team balancing this by getting the AI to use this ability to purchase MP more would be good.
Here's Delincious's comment about his mod:
One of my greatest annoyances while playing EU4 was the absolute necessity of Monarch Points, in absolutely everything your nation does. This need was so great, in fact, that I often found my self neglecting buildings entirely, as they cost too many points to build, relative to the other endeavors my points could be going towards. On the other hand, my ducats simply piled up, gathering dust and fading into uselessness.
This mod hopes to rectify this problem slightly, by allowing the player to "Invest" in certain Monarch Points, with the hefty price of 10 ducats per Monarch Point, only doable in batches of 200 ducats - 10 MP. This should allow nations which find themselves massively wealthy to be rewarded with an influx of Monarch Points to spend on infrastructure or technology.
These mods are all attempts to get around the idiotic and annoying fixed randomness of the MP system. None of them is perfect.
But, I can testify from experience that some of these mods make the game a LOT more interesting. Clearly if a few individual mod-makers can improve the game this much, Paradox has zero excuse for sticking with the existing crappy system, except that they like it or refuse to revisit past design decisions.
Well, I don't like it at all, and I'm not alone in that either.
