Hi everyone. After silently watching the furor over 1.31. and Leviathan's release and feeling a lot of people went more than a little overboard with their hyperbolic criticisms, threats, and calls for people to be fired, I have finally been moved to create a thread of my own to explain some of my own frustrations - not with 1.31. itself (although it, of course, has plenty to be frustrated with currently), but with the 1.31.1. hotfix and what has happened to one of the features I was personally looking the most forward to: monuments.
To see the extent of the 'balance' changes, please see: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/monument-balance-changes-1-31-1.1470509/#post-27478539
First of all, it appears the three tiers of monuments now cost 1000/3500/7000 ducats to build, as well as 10/20/40 years. That is a huge investment in terms of both ducats and time. You're looking at 11500 ducats and 70 years going from unbuilt to tier 3, as well as slightly less from tier 1. The time it takes, of course, can be lowered with yet more ducats, but by and large, the monuments remain a mid- to late game tool for most people - something for you to spend your ducats on when you've built up your empire and are raking in a ton of ducats. While I would like to at least be able to make use of the monuments to some extent earlier in the game without needing to play Ming, I can at least see the rationale here as something to look forward to in the otherwise increasingly dull mid- to late game. The real question, however, is what you actually get for spending 20-30 manufactories' worth of ducats.
Mount Fuji, as an example, gives -20% local development cost, 20% local tax, -0.10 monthly local devastation, 5% area tax, -0.05 monthly area devastation, and, finally, 0.5 yearly prestige at tier 3. Keeping in mind that the majority of those modifiers are local (in a hill province with livestock) or area (which is maybe four provinces), we are left with 0.5 year prestige... That's completely and utterly abysmal.
A lot of the modifiers post-nerf are similarly pointless. A bit of advisor cost reduction here, a bit of missionary strength there. While I agree that Alhambra now having 5% administrative efficiency is more balanced, while still being worth constructing as a wide player (which, keep in mind, isn't actually everyone), a lot of the monuments fall completely flat, and they're still incredibly unbalanced besides. I'd hoped for the following questions to be considered while developing the monuments, and to an extent, I suppose they have been touched on, but I still feel there's a lot of revisions to be made.
1) How large/majestic is the monument in question? Is it a smaller castle or the literal Wall of China. There should be some variance in price and power level. Having less powerful monuments that you can actually make use of before the year 1650 or starting as Ming would certainly be nice.
2) How difficult is it to use? The Pyramid of Cheops and Stonehenge are both awful now, while before they at least gave pagans a little extra oomph to stay competitive, as well as a goal to conquer and overall flavor. Similarly with Baku Ateshgah. Zoroastrian isn't exactly 'meta', so granting the player that manages to restore Zoroastrian hegemony in Persia something extra to play with is actually a good idea.
3) How useful are they in terms of the investment? If we assume they should all cost the same (see point 1) and be available to the countries that own them (like Stonehenge no longer being limited to Pagan, which, again, see point 2), they should at least be useful, right? Of course, all modifiers aren't created equal and slapping 5% administrative efficiency on everything is pretty boring, but why can't we have some that are actually powerful for a trade empire? For someone playing tall? For religious conversion? For playing the diplomatic game? For those wanting a powerful military? Most of the bonuses are just pitiful, and a lot of the bonuses are even the same (like advisor cost, which, let's face it is not something you need that badly to begin with if you can afford to spend over 10000 ducats on building a monument). There are monuments that try to accomplish this (and a precious few that might even succeed like the Bagan Temples and the 2 extra missionaries for Buddhists), but by and large monuments are just not worth it, and that makes me sad.
4) Are monuments diverse and representative? Some regions seem really overrepresented in terms of monuments while others barely have any (I think there's maybe three in Africa?). While this isn't a massive gripe, I'd just like more monuments as a whole. There are a lot of real monuments that aren't represented and some of the current monuments that seem a little arbitrary in comparison. I understand they can add more monuments in a later patch, but if monuments are a Leviathan feature, I doubt we'll see many more monuments.
TL;DR: I hoped monuments would be a fun, useful, and strategically interesting feature that would especially benefit some of the less 'meta' countries and religions, but they're overpriced and, in 90% of the cases, give little in return, which the recent nerfs have only exacerbated.
To see the extent of the 'balance' changes, please see: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/monument-balance-changes-1-31-1.1470509/#post-27478539
First of all, it appears the three tiers of monuments now cost 1000/3500/7000 ducats to build, as well as 10/20/40 years. That is a huge investment in terms of both ducats and time. You're looking at 11500 ducats and 70 years going from unbuilt to tier 3, as well as slightly less from tier 1. The time it takes, of course, can be lowered with yet more ducats, but by and large, the monuments remain a mid- to late game tool for most people - something for you to spend your ducats on when you've built up your empire and are raking in a ton of ducats. While I would like to at least be able to make use of the monuments to some extent earlier in the game without needing to play Ming, I can at least see the rationale here as something to look forward to in the otherwise increasingly dull mid- to late game. The real question, however, is what you actually get for spending 20-30 manufactories' worth of ducats.
Mount Fuji, as an example, gives -20% local development cost, 20% local tax, -0.10 monthly local devastation, 5% area tax, -0.05 monthly area devastation, and, finally, 0.5 yearly prestige at tier 3. Keeping in mind that the majority of those modifiers are local (in a hill province with livestock) or area (which is maybe four provinces), we are left with 0.5 year prestige... That's completely and utterly abysmal.
A lot of the modifiers post-nerf are similarly pointless. A bit of advisor cost reduction here, a bit of missionary strength there. While I agree that Alhambra now having 5% administrative efficiency is more balanced, while still being worth constructing as a wide player (which, keep in mind, isn't actually everyone), a lot of the monuments fall completely flat, and they're still incredibly unbalanced besides. I'd hoped for the following questions to be considered while developing the monuments, and to an extent, I suppose they have been touched on, but I still feel there's a lot of revisions to be made.
1) How large/majestic is the monument in question? Is it a smaller castle or the literal Wall of China. There should be some variance in price and power level. Having less powerful monuments that you can actually make use of before the year 1650 or starting as Ming would certainly be nice.
2) How difficult is it to use? The Pyramid of Cheops and Stonehenge are both awful now, while before they at least gave pagans a little extra oomph to stay competitive, as well as a goal to conquer and overall flavor. Similarly with Baku Ateshgah. Zoroastrian isn't exactly 'meta', so granting the player that manages to restore Zoroastrian hegemony in Persia something extra to play with is actually a good idea.
3) How useful are they in terms of the investment? If we assume they should all cost the same (see point 1) and be available to the countries that own them (like Stonehenge no longer being limited to Pagan, which, again, see point 2), they should at least be useful, right? Of course, all modifiers aren't created equal and slapping 5% administrative efficiency on everything is pretty boring, but why can't we have some that are actually powerful for a trade empire? For someone playing tall? For religious conversion? For playing the diplomatic game? For those wanting a powerful military? Most of the bonuses are just pitiful, and a lot of the bonuses are even the same (like advisor cost, which, let's face it is not something you need that badly to begin with if you can afford to spend over 10000 ducats on building a monument). There are monuments that try to accomplish this (and a precious few that might even succeed like the Bagan Temples and the 2 extra missionaries for Buddhists), but by and large monuments are just not worth it, and that makes me sad.
4) Are monuments diverse and representative? Some regions seem really overrepresented in terms of monuments while others barely have any (I think there's maybe three in Africa?). While this isn't a massive gripe, I'd just like more monuments as a whole. There are a lot of real monuments that aren't represented and some of the current monuments that seem a little arbitrary in comparison. I understand they can add more monuments in a later patch, but if monuments are a Leviathan feature, I doubt we'll see many more monuments.
TL;DR: I hoped monuments would be a fun, useful, and strategically interesting feature that would especially benefit some of the less 'meta' countries and religions, but they're overpriced and, in 90% of the cases, give little in return, which the recent nerfs have only exacerbated.
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