More Western Focus Options

[Nerga]

I like the idea of the Western Focus decision for Eastern and Ottoman tech groups if they get far enough west. I think the list of cities should be expanded, perhaps include Rome, Madrid, Paris, and London as well. And also expand to Muslim tech group.

Another thing that could be done is that for each successive tech group, have a set of cities in the tech group one level up that lets them expand. So there could be some Indian cities for Chinese tech. Maybe Istanbul for Muslim tech to go to Ottoman. Nomads/Muslim could have cities that could let them go Eastern. etc.

 

[Jomini]

Rome is far too easy to take. The Pope is a decent minor - mid power, but he can often be diplomatically isolated (e.g. Aragon inherits Naples and wants Papal Land, France wants Provence that the Pope sniped, Austria stands by its ally Milan who keeps fighting the Pope) and may even be reduced to a perpetual OPM (Catholic beats up Pope and either leaves him just Rome or releases him free in Rome).

London and Constantinople have issues as well. For the former, you can relatively easily poach it by securing Scottish transit and backing rebels in the early game. If England gets its navy bottled up early (before it gets supercharged), you can just leisurely land on the South coast and take London. Constantinople is worse because Byz starts out weak and while the Ottomans often take it, you don't actually need exploration to get there (you can rather cheaply do a series of no-CB declarations as Ming and march your way there before the Ottos take it. Sure you will need to build out a vassal (say Armenia) to give you coring range but for the points to go from Chinese to Eastern it is not a bad trade. Worse, Constantinople is pretty easy to hold for the duration just by building a huge galley fleet and a small force.

Western Focus should be limited to provinces which are hard to take - you have to beat back and fend off major powers for serious amounts of time. The TO is not a pushover at start with the many fortresses in play and worse the PLC, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia would all like Danzig. And Danzig is by far the easiest of the three to take for the ROTW.

Madrid and Paris would be nice additions however. You have to fight majors and the lands are not just easy shots along the coast. Where you can punch out the big province in a single war and then later backfill into coring range around tech 7.

Unfortunately, there are relatively few provinces that aren't relatively easy to nab in a simple smash and grab. So I'm hoping they don't spam this stuff.

 

[kviiri]

Rome is definitely no-go in my opinion, exactly for the reasons lined out by Jomini. Paris and Madrid are fine, but they are out-of-the-way for Eastern/Anatolian countries so they're unlikely to get taken before the existing three (except if Ottomans focus on recreating the Medieval Caliphate by attacking Iberia).

Another thing that could be done is that for each successive tech group, have a set of cities in the tech group one level up that lets them expand. So there could be some Indian cities for Chinese tech. Maybe Istanbul for Muslim tech to go to Ottoman. Nomads/Muslim could have cities that could let them go Eastern. etc.

The point of Western focus, as I see it, is twofold: to encourage Eastern/Anatolian nations to interfere in Europe like they historically did, and to let them Westernize because they don't usually have much of a reason to do so. Neither of these applies to tech groups beyond Anatolian, so I think this isn't really necessary. They are the ones who actually benefit from the old Westernization system.

 

[Grand Historian]

The only one I can reasonably see getting added is Venice.

 

[Danfish77]

I think it would make more sense if Western Focus didn't automatically make you western, but rather opened up the Westernization option regardless of neighboring country or tech gap, or gave you some kind of discount on Westernization. Then it wouldn't really matter how "easy " it is to get to a Western province, because the prize wouldn't be quite as sweet.

I'm also not swayed by the arguments that Rome would be "too easy" to get, as compared to other provinces. Strange things can happen in-game. Who says Vienna/Madrid/Paris are owned by major powers by the time your nation gets there? Who says 2000 development France doesn't own Rome? The point is that you take a province that is deeply part of the Western tradition and that gives your nation insight into Western civilization. Rome would be a perfect candidate.

 

[moscal]

Rome is far too easy to take.

Danzig/Praha for Poland/Lithuania.
Good bye.

My suggestion.

1. The most important centers of culture and science west world. Eg. Oxford, Paris.
2. Humanism, administration, innovation. One full ideas group.
3. No blob
4. Money, money, money (Must be funny...)

 

[Jomini]

I think it would make more sense if Western Focus didn't automatically make you western, but rather opened up the Westernization option regardless of neighboring country or tech gap, or gave you some kind of discount on Westernization. Then it wouldn't really matter how "easy " it is to get to a Western province, because the prize wouldn't be quite as sweet.

I'm also not swayed by the arguments that Rome would be "too easy" to get, as compared to other provinces. Strange things can happen in-game. Who says Vienna/Madrid/Paris are owned by major powers by the time your nation gets there? Who says 2000 development France doesn't own Rome? The point is that you take a province that is deeply part of the Western tradition and that gives your nation insight into Western civilization. Rome would be a perfect candidate.

The problem with westernization is that even with a discount, the process is just not that cost effective for Eastern or Anatolian nations. 2400 points up front is a lot. Even half of that is huge. Figure it this way. You are going to get a max of 22 techs more. That gives you net gain for Anatolian of 3300 points per tech group. Isn't this a good investment, I mean you have a 8:1 return rate? Well you also have to look at the opportunity cost. Getting behind in tech by tech 10 means you have to forgo some nice opportunities - the big jumps that occur in the first few mil techs, getting national ideas rolling, or getting range to dominate trade and colonization. Worse, you take a lot of hits during Westernization - 3 stab off the top is easily a couple of hundred points, yearly pulses for any decent sized empire will likely be another couple of hundred lost points, and the combination of rebels & more expensive advisers may well force you to drop a level in one or more slots (going from say a lvl 2 to a lvl 1 for 10 years is 120 points gone) - all of this adds up and makes that 8:1 return drop down to 4 or 3:1.

Worse this is a huge amount of early points to gain back some more late points. And it is not like the last few techs are game shattering. The last 3 admin techs just bring production and government forms that while nice, are not strictly needed. If you are willing to skip idea #8, then you can skip another 2 levels of admin. On the Dip side, it is money & naval morale with a +50 settler bonus after tech 26. Yeah, there is some value in having higher dip tech to avoid subject malus, but cutting out a few levels here is much easier than westernizing. Mil, well the last two levels are just bonuses to shock, fire & supply which are nice ... but not that necessary if your main foes at that point are rebels.

Even if the points became convincing, you still have a pretty sizeable downtime where you can't expand thanks to the +RR and the need to hold points for Westernizing. The process of Westernization itself is just too huge of a major punishment.

Westernization just isn't that good of a deal for Eastern and Anatolian. When I did my world conversion run with Ottomans, it was never worth it to consider westernizing. Why on earth would I go pick a fight with Austria and spend a lot of my AE and OExt margins in the early game for something of dubious value?

I really like that there is a big prize for fighting the major powers in heavily contested areas. The game needs to get back towards having high risk & high reward setups. Not a steady recycling of the same strategic objectives ad naseum.

Who says the provinces won't be taken? Well Rome is an obvious case as there is this magical event which restores the Pope there that I have never seen the AI not do in spite consoling a bunch of crap. You pretty much need to have the AI be non-Catholic to have Rome be held by a major. That can happen ... but it is unlikely. Further I specifically noted that what is important is the starting setup. As Karamon it doesn't matter if France might somehow chew through Provence, Savoy, Genoa, and finally the Pope through a series of claims & missions. By that time I can very easily have Rome cored, sporting the max fort, and possibly converted to Sunni.

Who says Paris/Wien/Madrid are owned by the majors? Nobody. Who says that the majors, whoever they are, will have an interest in those cities? Everything in the AI's mission structures.

I have no clue where you got the idea that this was about "giving your nation insight" into western civilization. Constantinople was, by far, the largest repository of Western Civilization (Roman, Greek, and Christian) when it fell. Rome itself had long slipped as having a great store of Western knowledge - Ravenna having been the major locus for the late Western Empire and even the Pope decamping at times. Certainly post Charles V's sack Rome had precious little of value left. I mean seriously, Danzig was only founded around 800 and was never a major seat of the Western tradition. It was neither the primary seat for the TO nor for Poland and only passed into true "Western" control in the late game.

The in game text states specifically that this is about proving your right to be taken seriously as part of the West - i.e. the leading scientists, philosophers, churchmen, etc. take notice of your nation and correspond with it.

 

[Jomini]

Danzig/Praha for Poland/Lithuania.
Good bye.

My suggestion.

1. The most important centers of culture and science west world. Eg. Oxford, Paris.
2. Humanism, administration, innovation. One full ideas group.
3. No blob
4. Money, money, money (Must be funny...)

Danzig is easy, but costly for Poland to take (the AI often gets into trouble taking down all the TO forts to get it). More importantly, every major power in the era and the mids all want the place: Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark all have an interest in Danzig so you have to weather some diplomatic & possibly military aggression to hold it.

Sajaellion might be a better option there (possibly make it a dual requirement with Skane) but part of the difficulty of Danzig is keeping Poland & Lithuania out.

Full idea group has jack all to do with what the event describes - becoming powerful enough to be taken seriously. It shouldn't matter if I'm a Religious/Aristocratic regime (as you know Aristocrats and Churchmen did the vast majority of the science in these eras); just that I hold something of value that the powers that be won't let go for a song.

England is just too easy. The AI cannot manage to War of the Roses nor early naval endeavors.

"No Blob" is farcically backwards. The event specifically describes being powerful, it should be more common if you are powerful (as you know happened in real life when Peter the Great Westernized).

Money? For what? Just to appease some macho sense that this is "harder"?

 

[moscal]

England is just too easy. The AI cannot manage to War of the Roses nor early naval endeavors.

So, any province is easy to conquest...

"No Blob" is farcically backwards. The event specifically describes being powerful, it should be more common if you are powerful (as you know happened in real life when Peter the Great Westernized).

Peter westernizated country by not using "Western Focus" but using "normal westernization".

Danzig is easy, but costly for Poland to take (the AI often gets into trouble taking down all the TO forts to get it). More importantly, every major power in the era and the mids all want the place: Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark all have an interest in Danzig so you have to weather some diplomatic & possibly military aggression to hold it.

Danzig was important, but not as a center of western culture and science. IMO ONLY center of western culture and science should be used to NF.

Money? For what? Just to appease some macho sense that this is "harder"?

Instant Westernization. So we send our elite to learn in eg. Oxford, we pay local scientists to help modernize the country and etc.

IMO NF is not "magic button" but instant process of learning and exchange elites.

 

[Jomini]

So, any province is easy to conquest...

Yeah and some are easier than others. England, Rome, and Constantinople are among the easiest places in the game to just blitz in the opening. Let's not try to make the game easy for pointless reasons.

Peter westernizated country by not using "Western Focus" but using "normal westernization".

Peter did no such thing. The development that occurred during the period completely precluded the sort of normal westernization process.

The bigger thing is that westernization is an abstract concept. Western Focus states, "By our territorial conquests we have proven that we are every part as powerful as our Western neighbors ..." Whatever brainbug you are describing is not Western Focus. The whole concept is that you have grown to be powerful enough to join the elite of the world's power brokers (and hence the international intellectual elite would more readily deign to work for you and the like).

Danzig was important, but not as a center of western culture and science. IMO ONLY center of western culture and science should be used to NF.

Rome was a back water village after Charles V's sack. Madrid was never the cultural or scientific center of Spain nor the western world writ large. Oxford was not considered among the leading western centers of learning until maybe 1600. Even Paris is not as well regarded as much of Italy, Bohemia, Venice, Constantinople, etc.

What Danzig had was a strategic value that everyone contested. Same with Wien and to a lesser extent Prague.

Instant Westernization. So we send our elite to learn in eg. Oxford, we pay local scientists to help modernize the country and etc.

IMO NF is not "magic button" but instant process of learning and exchange elites.

Lol. Sending your elite to Oxford doesn't require owning the place. Sending high governmental officials abroad to learn was done throughout the entire period.

The big thing that mattered for technological development in this era was having a reputation for being important enough that the scholars would come to you. Hence why da Vinci would move throughout Italy and eventually to France. Hence why Columbus would go from Genoa to Portugal to Spain. Why Cabot would go from Italy to England. Similarly in the military you had a lot of powerful people who sought out the most powerful court where they could get a station of power. Obviously there were standards and generally states in the East (Russia, Ottomans, Lithuania, and maybe Poland) we discriminated against - the languages were different, the religions dissimilar, and generally those on the make had little desire to shop their innovations and skills there (though the early period Ottomans were cutting edge).

This is not the modern era where you send people to college and then they come back with a fancy degree that supposedly means they've learned useful skills. This was an era where if you needed skilled teaching, most of the elite just hired tutors. Oxford, Parma, etc. where places to train tutors, not rulers.

Ultimately, tech levels themselves break down. The Ottomans should not be any worse than the west for a decent period of time, but should be slipping into a profound hole at game end. Russia should be going from slower tech progress than the Ottomans to something on par with much of the HRE. England and the Low Countries should be advancing exceedingly rapidly and outpacing Spain, Portugal, Italy, and arguably France.

What the game does NOT need is yet another pointless mechanic that is useless for any decent sized empire. We have a bajillion mechanics for sub-blob nations (Free Cities, Republican decisions, HRE admission, easy religion swapping, etc.). Having something for large nations to actually have to make strategic decisions about is a good thing. Something that only applies when you play some ahistorical game where expansion rates are pathetically slow is a step backwards.