Monarch Points - The Evil Root of All(?) Problems in EU4???

[ARASHI]

Read it all. Agree with all except the latest paragraph : I'm fine with the europe-centered approach of a game called Europa Universalis, giving advantage to Europe in a period that historically was a period of european dominance.

I am fine with Europe getting some advantage that resemble the dominance they had during the game period. What I am against is unrealistic representation in the rate of resource generation. Having all else equal, i.e. both sides with no advisors and 0/0/0 ruler. A western tech group gets 3/3/3 per month and say chinese tech gets 2/2/2. That's a 33% difference. I would love to hear how is that justified.

 

[JK47]

Thanks for the post - found it and the related comments really interesting.

I admit I'm new to the franchise, having only played EU2 a few hours and barely playing 20 hours of EU3. However I find EU4 way more accessible than either of those games. I like the 1.4 changes to vassal feeding, now that I understand them. I do wish vassals were more inclined to buy culturally/religiously acceptable provinces, but just small tweaking really. I like the changes to AE, and I prefer AE over BB from my Victoria 2 experience.

 

[1alexey]

That I am afraid I have to completely disagree. Wonders for example has incredible strategic implications, not mentioning you are racing against rival nations to complete the project first.

You do that mostly for early wonders. Late wonders are far more predictable as you have spies that can see if people build them, and you can usually guess who would want same wonders you want.

I hope you realise the irony of the fact that you acknowledge the MP system as it stands forces you to act in certain ways and you like how it being less open and more set in stone, while in the previous post you listed card games as an example and promoted how the RNG mechanic do not tolerate set in stone play styles.

It forces you to play according to what kind of RGN ruler you got. What i mean by set in stone playstyle is you having a plan made before the RGN rolls. Your plan has to be adjusted every time RGN gives you a new monarch.

Even assuming that your are entirely correct here (which I don't think can be sustained- many of the new types of soldier available at a given tech level do not represent new types of gun, but rather innovative new formations), this does not address the fundamental point: why should developing new ideas for the deployment of your forces result in the forces being equipped with substandard equipment? I can think of no other historical strategy game that follows this model; I can certainly not think of many real-world precedents for it- and many precedents to the contrary.

Well, a great historical example would be Nazi Germany, they had great great forces overall, their equipment was horrible(aside from fighter planes), outdated and often trophy. Why couldn`t Germany just raise both well equipped and well trained and supplied their forces?

Well, they didn`t had the resources in short term, so they prioritised. You don`t have to take ideas, you can spend your points on tech and only invest in ideas when you have extra. Or you can ignore the tech and fully develop ideas, falling behind temporary, and later catching back. What is the problem?

Again, I can see no clear game-design reason for (navy versus commerce) and (land tech versus land ideas) to be the sort of choices the player is forced to make, and many historical precedents in the other direction.

You don`t make long term choice, you make short term choice of either prioritize completing ideas faster, or keeping up in tech. The grouping makes sence as both are ways of making your army stronger.

Ideas though are opportunities to invest additional resources for additional benefit, while techs are pretty much must-have stuff.

I am fine with Europe getting some advantage that resemble the dominance they had during the game period. What I am against is unrealistic representation in the rate of resource generation. Having all else equal, i.e. both sides with no advisors and 0/0/0 ruler. A western tech group gets 3/3/3 per month and say chinese tech gets 2/2/2. That's a 33% difference. I would love to hear how is that justified.

It is there to keep the cost relation between ideas and tech similar, since, as you could guess, the ideas are relativly(compared to cost you pay for techs) cheaper for less advanced groups.

 

[ARASHI]

I recently replayed CK2 and I actually had more fun, despite the fact that I like plenty of things in EU4.

A critical difference between EUIV and CKII is that CKII has a huge RPG element built in. It gives you an immersive experience as the feudal lord. Most importantly, having a bad ruler does not prevent the player from taking actions. In contrary it prompts the player to take actions. The bad ruler actually causes your position to deteriorate, by lowered vassal opinions etc. And all of a sudden you have succession problems, people plotting against you, clowns jumping all over the place trying to claim your stuff. You can't plot if you are underage but that's about it. You are free to do pretty much anything you want otherwise.

In EUIV, a bad ruler means your resource generation comes to a halt and player actions become very limited. Someone mentioned that the dev diaries stated that the design goal is to resemble how a country comes to a stalemate with a bad ruler. The problem is that, under the current MP system. Not only the country but the player also comes to pretty much a stalemate as well. Good luck trying to get your bad ruler killed.

 

[ARASHI]

You do that mostly for early wonders. Late wonders are far more predictable as you have spies that can see if people build them, and you can usually guess who would want same wonders you want.

Does that mean they don't have strategic impacts which you claimed?

It is there to keep the cost relation between ideas and tech similar, since, as you could guess, the ideas are relativly(compared to cost you pay for techs) cheaper for less advanced groups.

I am bewildered by your logic. A western nation say need 400 ADM for one idea. In my example it would take 134 months to get that idea. A chinese nation takes 200 months due to -1 MP. Hence the 33% difference. How is the "relative price compare to technology" relevant at all? To be more specific what justifies that less advance nations should generate less MP?

 

[1alexey]

In all honesty, i think Arash should just play as republic, that way you don`t get random rulers, they are perfectly predictable and player get`s a choice at what kind of MP is prioritised. That actually makes monarchies and republics quite distinct.

Does that mean they don't have strategic impacts which you claimed?

There is no dept in them. Strategic impact!=depth.

I am bewildered by your logic. A western nation say need 400 ADM for one idea. In my example it would take 134 months to get that idea. A chinese nation takes 200 months due to -1 MP. Hence the 33% difference. How is the "relative price compare to technology" relevant at all? To be more specific what justifies that less advance nations should generate less MP?

Western nation pays 600 for tech, 400 for idea, 3/2 is the cost ratio. Chinese tech nation pays 900ish(?) for tech and 400 for idea, the ratio is 2.2 Now, considering they have the malus to MP, the Chinese group is more pressed for MP, and more pressed to tech up, hence why the relativly cheap otherwise ideas are more balanced in terms of cost-benefit compared to tech cost for that group.

At least that is what i get as PI`s official stance.

 

[Asturiano]

So I started a game as the Ottomons on Ironman and my first heir - 0/0/0.

I didn't even know that was possible. I ended up simply restarting the game as I was only a decade into it. Seriously though, a 0/0/0? What kind of crap is that? For Monarch points in general I just wish there was a better use for them. ADM is FAR far too important. Diplo is important for wars, but MIL is pretty much useless other than some situational - rarely used things. Having multiple uses for them or better interaction would be nice when you get that 0/0/5 military ruler that is great in war - but you can't core anything.

It's the same with Castilla, starting in 1444, the heir is always 0/0/0

An exciting start to the game! (sigh)

 

[Plasma Master]

The main issue with monarch points for me is, as you said, they are too critical to the game, and much of the time for me is spent waiting to generate more to upgrade tech, invest in ideas, boost stability, etc. leaving me bored for a lot of the time. The game is all about going from one landmark to another, and there's nothing to do in between landmarks. Even Oregon Trail, a game that's about going from landmark to landmark, has more to do between landmarks than EU4. EU4 is invest in tech, boost stability, invest in idea, invest in tech, boost stability, invest in idea, go to war, invest in idea, boost stability, wait until you have enough points to make peace, it's all about waiting. Having a crappy ruler makes it so that it's an even longer wait. And non-western nations get arbitrary monarch point restrictions.

Technology should not even be related to your monarch, it should be about your policy, how rich you are, and competing/stealing from your neighbors. It's not super difficult to make a system that represents that. It would create more historical and sensible outcomes. I'm sick and tired of monarch points, I can't even stomach playing the game. The trade is awesome, the horde mechanics were fixed (but broken again), colonial nations are an amazing idea, and native mechanics are a good start, but the monarch points ruin that for me.

 

[Asturiano]

What really angers me is that without really considering whether this would make things better or worse, Paradox just eliminated the ONE way players had found to get around the terrible problems generated by the flawed design of their MP system: vassal feeding.

Do I have to remind you what Sun Tzu wrote about vassal feeding?

....

Do I?

 

[Jomini]

The big problem with monarch points are that they devolve into simple optimization problems. How do I get more monarch points? Hire better advisers. And that is pretty much it. How do I get more efficient at using monarch points? Idea groups, westernizing, and maybe some minor fiddling with events/governments/decisions. And that is pretty much it.

You can be richer than Midas, and that doesn't change your monarch point accumulation. You can be Ares reborn and your legions swarming up the Danube and down the Rhine - and your monarch point gain is utterly unaffected.

So for any given king you are going to be have X AMP, Y DMP, Z MMP. Well you can always trade off, short changing something military so you can functionally get (Z - e) MMP and (A + e) AMP effectively - nope. By and large each type of MP is not involved in strategic tradeoffs with the other types.

Well maybe there are deep interconnections in the buildings. Not really. Most buildings provide simple things like money + MP now for more money later, money + MP now for more manpower in just a bit, and a few incidentals (stronger missionaries, spy defense, faster troops on the roads, etc.).

So in short, to a very large degree, you have a finite number of AMP, you figure out the most cost efficient use of them and it is a fairly trivial optimization problem (how much will go into coring, how much will go into ideas, how much will go into tech, and how much will go into stab - rejigger the ideas and run with it). It doesn't matter if you have godlike administrations or lobotomized ones - the optimal AMP spend is pretty much static for any given set of goals, all the dice rolls do is allow you to pursue the same course faster or slower. There just aren't that many viable deviations. Everything in EUIV pretty much sits inside a vertically integrated silo that is controlled by just one type of resource: gold determines how big a mercenary horde you can manage, AMP determines how many bits of land you can core, and your military effectiveness is determined my how much MMP you can effectively dump into tech/rerolling generals/using forced march and the other MMP abilities.

Contrast with, well real strategy. Take WWII. You want more airplanes. Well great, that means you need to devote more of your refining capacity to aviation fuel - less gas for industry and that might even impact something like food supplies or in theater logistics. Of course you also need more manpower on the assembly line, so that comes out of the infantry or the farming sector or somewhere else. Likewise, you may need to retool some factories towards aviation production - so fewer tanks or trucks or what have you ... unless of course you build new factories, but that may limit your construction of other things like airfields and drydocks. You had as basic inputs: manpower, oil, agricultural land, mining resources, machine stock, construction capacity, and money. Doing something in one area necesssarily meant doing less in another. If you needed to, you could effectively increase any one of these, but only at the expense of the others.

EUIV is utterly unlike real strategy in this way. Your monarch points are just about utterly independent of your policy. Sure you can nibble around the edges and idea slots are very competitive ... but without strong interplay, it becomes too easy to say "That option is less cost effective than this one". So once you've made your choice, there is precious little that remains a strategic trade-off. Oooh random event where I lost stab or I lose gold - hmm well my limiting factor is AMP, not gold, so pick the gold. Hmm, my heir is crappy at ADM, so do I slow down my conquest, let my admin tech stagnate, or not purchase the idea set now? Tech stagnating is the most cost effective, let's roll with that. It is so easy to see the cost effective expenditures that most decisions aren't strategic at all. All a penalty does is force you to wait, it doesn't suggest a real change in plan.

What works much better are mixed interplays. For instance the piety system for Muslims has a lot more real trade offs, hey I want this bonus - so I need to do this in this order - crap declaring on the Shi'ites is really tempting now ... but then I lose a bonus on tech now I need to see which is better and make situational trade offs. As it is right now, the dice say what is possible and you just run down the list with whatever your MP supports ... and then wait out the artificial boring hard caps whenever you hit them.

What EUIV really needs are ways to min/max things so you have some real strategic tradeoffs. Like say, allow you to spend a bunch of MP for a higher OExt cap or spend MP to mute AE. Right now, you just go full tilt until some hard cap cuts and to say stop, then you wait until you have the time/MP to overcome that cap. EUIV is very good at the Grand part of grand strategy - I love the world it creates - however as strategy goes, at is fundemental level it is pretty shallow and lacks a lot of interesting strategic tradeoffs.

 

[keynes2.0]

I feel like the problem with monarch points is that its more about a certain amount being needed for a strategy then them making the strategy easier. Good monarchs mostly make things easier in the long term by putting you ahead in tech, they dont make much short term difference in your diplomatic overtures or military victories or country administration, they just determine how much of that you can afford to do along with how much tech. Short term uses are needed.

If a war is fought between a strong and a weak diplomatic it should be noticeable, with the better diplomat winning sympathy and getting support for his cause or acceptance of his aggression. Waging war without military points should be a grueling process as attrition and dice penalties force you to be cautious and make you seek peace against a strong opponent or exercise restraint against a weak one. And a great administrator should actually make things run smoothly, those admin points shouldn't just be a long term investment in cores and technology and ideas, you should be actively spending them to smooth over the period of instability.

If points had these short term uses they'd do more to mold your strategies. You'd want to lay low when you run out of them and save them up for emergencies. There could actually be some fun to having a crap monarch that way as they'd represent a challenge rather then a "you shall not continue" rule.

Obviously you'd also want a system that deals with stuff mattering beyond the monarch, the George III effect. But first priority really needs to be monarchs feeling like they matter rather then them limiting you.

 

[unmerged(780209)]

The other way round I think. PI won't do that because the player feels he achieves more when he is poor, regardless of the fact that the AI spends it's resources poorly and thus performs worse than in Case 2. It sounds similar, but in your case it is the player looking in, in my case it is PI looking out. And that is important as it means PI is pro-active and seriously considers what is 'best', rather than reacting to responses (or worse, fears poor response).

You may be on to something here. Players are one big problem for any developer.

#1 Players "feel" like they've accomplished more if they start out resource poor and then get "rich" (color the map, achieve goals, get a large monthly income, conquer enemies, etc.).

#2 The AI starts out resource poor and pretty much stays there because it isn't very smart and can't handle the resource constraints. Various cheats are given to improve AI performance, but then players complain that "the AI is cheating!"

They get resentful if the AI is obviously not playing by the same rules as the player: Ex: AI ships don't suffer attrition in sea zones because the AI can't handle that factor. Players see this and resent it. So, any AI cheating has to be invisible to pass without notice or players complain.

Such Player complaints are incredibly stupid of course, because they also complain that the game "is too easy."

Frankly, I'd love a game where the AI had every resource it could use and would be a real menace to the player, instead of this game where it is pitifully trying to deal with the player.

Of course, if you start out as a OPM you're probably going to run into some trouble, but if you survive and grow the first 150 years, you're going to come out on top of course, even then.

Best would be a scaling difficulty bar like most games have which gives more resources to the AI at the higher difficulty settings. Instead EUIV has a "difficulty slider" which is nothing more than some countries are more difficult than others.

At least if a player was a whiner who complains about "the AI is cheating!" he could play the vanilla game where the AI has the exact same resources as he does, and then he has no complaint that "the game is too easy!"

If he chooses to play at the higher difficulty levels, then the AI is going to progressively cheat more and more and have bigger and bigger resource advantages -- money, manpower, diplomatic points, everything.

My theory has been that the AI doesn't cheat nearly enough! It would be a lot better game if the AI put up more of a fight, and this would require giving the AI more advantages (because it's impossible to make the AI as smart as a person).

 

[TingJonKi]

Imho they shouldve done a hybrid of EU3's slider system and Eu4's MP/Idea system

sliders were nice because it showd the nations national policy, where youd be able to adapt your country to the situation presented to it

 

[unmerged(780209)]

Imho they shouldve done a hybrid of EU3's slider system and Eu4's MP/Idea system

sliders were nice because it showed the nations national policy, where you'd be able to adapt your country to the situation presented to it

The EUIII slider system was awesome! I loved it, but the developers got rid of it because players complained.

If you are familiar with European history and have some idea what "Mercantilism" is then "Free Trade v. Mercantilism" makes intuitive sense. Either you are erecting barriers to trade which will give you an advantage in your local market, but will invite retaliation so that your overall trade will suffer, or you open your markets up to competition, which will mean your merchants have to compete more in your home markets but other nations will allow your merchants fair access to overseas markets so your overall trade will prosper (if you have more trade power at least).

Narrow-minded v. Free-thinker was another example that made perfect sense. Narrow-minded helped strengthen traditional authority, so that there was less revolt risk and strengthen the church missionaries, but would also up the price of technology. Free thinker did the opposite.

And all the other slider choices were similarly familiar to anybody who had a basic understanding of European history.

But, players looked at the sliders and said "What's all this??? WTF?? How do I choose? And I can only move a slider every few years??? " It was confusing to them. So, PI decided to internalize everything.

Now, you just invest MP in tech levels so you can't really micro-manage your development like in EUIII.

 

[swm]

It is literally impossible for me to agree with the OP more.

If the developers wanted to make a simulation of Europe in the time frame, they've succeeded beautifully.
If the developers wanted to make an alternate history strategy game, they've made a poor decision with MP. Player choice is the soul of strategy, and MP just makes the decisions for you.

I stand by my previous statement in another thread:
Games (especially strategy) should reward players for good decisions, and punish them for poor decisions. I don't get to make decisions with MP.

Oh, I got a 0 Adm ruler? Guess I don't get to conquer for the next 50 years.
Oh, I'm behind in diplo points? Well, my heir is diplo 0, so that problem gets to stick around for a while.
AAHHH, Austria is assaulting all my forts, making it impossible to defend provinces! I should build expansions to my fort. Oh wait, I don't have military power.

I could understand the rolling with the punches argument if it was possible to make up for the deficiency in MP, at least trade one problem for another (I have low Diplo points but tons of military, I should be able to exchange them - I trade diplomatic problems for military ones because I think diplomacy is more important for me right now). But it isn't. The moment your heir is born, your play-style is determined for the next quarter century and all that's left for the player to do is go through the motions.

I actually prefer EUIII to EUIV because of MP. It's such a fundamentally flawed decision in such a vital game mechanic that even though EUIV is better than EUIII in every other conceivable way, MP drags the entire product down for me.

 

[EUnderhill]

In many respects the MPs remind me of how the board game worked in that one paid ducats and then rolled against the appropriate (and RNG-dependent) monarch stat to check for success; in the absence of turns the accumulation of MPs over time gives a rough approximation of when (with average luck) a successful outcome like a tech gain or colonization would come.

 

[Ibrins]

I, personally, am in the "MP is the best thing since sliced bread" group. Even if I blob up massively (as in, ~200 provinces-massive), and my ruler stats are only average, I always have enough points for techs, ideas, and then some to build up the essential buildings in pretty much all provinces:
-temples
-constables
-armories (often training camps too; max tier in designated recruitment provinces),
-maxed out naval buildings in all coastal provinces
-manufacturies. Everywhere.

Trade power? Check. Money? Check. Manpower? Check. Forcelimits? Check.
Sure, you have to take into account peace deals and coring as well, but if you play smart and pay attention to what vassals you can release, and whether your potential vassals have claims they might be willing to buy from you later on, you can avoid coring AT THE VERY LEAST half the provinces you conquer.
Every single campaign I've played so far - an'd I've put more than 400 hours into the game, if you were wondering - I've never come to a situation where everything would ground to a halt just because I got a shitty monarch or two: I just expanded in different directions, where I could avoid paying for my conquests myself.
I will admit, though, that at the start of the campaign, catching up in techs takes a while, it's hard to afford good advisors, and if you get a poor monarch to boot, the take-off might be slow. However, a few decades in, things speed up and about a century later, it is often money that becomes the limiting factor, rather than monarch points.
I don't think people should dismiss the MP system after playing for just a few minutes and getting a poor first impression. The negative responses towards the system, I've come to notice, tend to come out as either purely, or, at least, half-theorycrafts, mixed with experiences of a slow start.
I say just let game roll for a few decades, it'll grow on ya


Well, sure, as Jomini points out, there are some inherent flaws, mainly the entire system feeling a tad static at times, but that's abstracion for you. I'd be all for introducing new ways to generate/spend monarch points, but care must be taken for it not to abandon complex for complicated - the major bane of earlier PDX titles.

 

[GC13]

The big problem with monarch points are that they devolve into simple optimization problems.

*snip*

Thank you for understanding what makes strategy games fun. The fanboy factor here can get pretty high sometimes.

 

[swm]

Such Player complaints are incredibly stupid of course, because they also complain that the game "is too easy."

As one of those players, allow me to defend myself for a moment:

The problem isn't that the AI is cheating, or that the AI doesn't play by the same rules. It's both. A game that relies on a cheating, rather than intelligent AI is fundamentally flawed because it relies on an unsustainable and incredibly precarious equilibrium.

When the AI doesn't cheat enough, the player wins trivially.
When the AI cheats too much, the game veers into Fake Difficulty because even perfect play on the part of the player would not save him. This kind of difficulty is different from challenge because it poses to the player an insurmountable problem rather than only a difficult one. Whether the player survives or gets a Game Over comes down to chance and prayer that the AI does something stupid.

You're probably thinking at this point that I've presented a false dichotomy, and you're right. There is in fact a middle ground where the AI cheats just enough, and it is possible for a game designer to create, and it is fun when created. This would seem to be the best solution, but it isn't for one simple reason: The player's power is not constant.

Over the course of any game of EUIV, Civ, or any strategy game whatsoever, the player will expand or lose territory. As soon as this happens, the equilibrium is lost and the game falls into one of the two unbalanced states, from which it can never recover (except possibly for massive failures on the part of either the player or AI). The result is a strategy game that is only fun for the first 50 years/turns.

There are countermeasures to help avoid this fall. A rubberbanding bonus system (giving bonuses to the player or AI depending on who is currently losing) is one option, but it feels frustrating for the player. If I won a war, I should be rewarded. My enemies should be weaker, and Total Global Domination should be one step closer. If I lost a war, I should be punished. My enemies should be stronger, and I should have to fight harder next time to gain the same amount. Rubberbanding breaks this system on both ends, and is therefore not much of an improvement.

There are other countermeasures, to be sure, but I can't think of any that don't have fairly hefty drawbacks. The only solution is improved, intelligent AI.

If this means throwing 99.9% of office resources into AI development, then so be it. The AI is the most important part of a strategy game.

I, personally, am in the "MP is the best thing since sliced bread" group. Even if I blob up massively (as in, ~200 provinces-massive), and my ruler stats are only average, I always have enough points for techs, ideas, and then some to build up the essential buildings in pretty much all provinces:
-temples
-constables
-armories (often training camps too; max tier in designated recruitment provinces),
-maxed out naval buildings in all coastal provinces
-manufacturies. Everywhere.

Trade power? Check. Money? Check. Manpower? Check. Forcelimits? Check.
Sure, you have to take into account peace deals and coring as well, but if you play smart and pay attention to what vassals you can release, and whether your potential vassals have claims they might be willing to buy from you later on, you can avoid coring AT THE VERY LEAST half the provinces you conquer.
Every single campaign I've played so far - an'd I've put more than 400 hours into the game, if you were wondering - I've never come to a situation where everything would ground to a halt just because I got a shitty monarch or two: I just expanded in different directions, where I could avoid paying for my conquests myself.
I will admit, though, that at the start of the campaign, catching up in techs takes a while, it's hard to afford good advisors, and if you get a poor monarch to boot, the take-off might be slow. However, a few decades in, things speed up and about a century later, it is often money that becomes the limiting factor, rather than monarch points.
I don't think people should dismiss the MP system after playing for just a few minutes and getting a poor first impression. The negative responses towards the system, I've come to notice, tend to come out as either purely, or, at least, half-theorycrafts, mixed with experiences of a slow start.
I say just let game roll for a few decades, it'll grow on ya

I don't have 400 hours in the game, but I have played multiple campaigns and have consistently in those campaigns felt that MP was my limiting factor. My defining memory of EUIV was during my Hindustan campaign, when I bribed the Spanish Empire with 40k in gold that I accumulated because I couldn't spend fast enough to offset my income because I ran out of MP.

I've never seen a game where money, the thing that makes the world go round, is so useless.

 

[paradox97]

I support the system solely because I have found more entertainment in it than the weird, non dynamic cash and magistrate systems of EU3. That said I'm going to bring this old battleaxe back out to play:

money remains undervalued
this holds true especially in the late game, it's the cause for the lack of late game action. Why would there be an American Revolution? The parent countries have no need to raise tariffs, they have nothing to spend their money on. Why would the French have a revolution? They're not broke. Why does Britain need to curve Spanish trade in the Americas? The money doesn't do much for them, after all, if Britain has a better monarch it doesn't matter how Spain is doing.

I'm sorry to bring this back out, but I think it needs to be said. Money and monarch points need to be properly balanced especially in the late game. MEIOU and Taxes does in well, so it's possible within the current system. The truth of the matter is I shouldn't have 21 K as France when I should be going broke.