Motivation problems with EU4 at mid game / end game.

[Lessing]

I like to grow my nation and expand. This is my kind of gameplay. I also enjoy building up my realm with buildings and making my provinces stronger and richer, but that takes the second seat to expansion.

Now I tried the Ottomans and Oman from 1444, and with both I was in the 16th/17th century when I lost the motivation to go on. With coring times increasing with size, and with coalitions forming all around me making me fight all my neighbours every 5 years, I kinda lost interest in going on. If I can't keep my playstyle after 100/200 years (because I have to fight tiresome yet not particularly difficult wars for a handful of provinces, then wait decades for them to core), sitting around doing nothing but building buildings is boring, especially when buildings do not help me get more ideas and tech, but only gold, manpower and force limits (which I don't really need), thus making it a better strategic option to not build buildings in order to conserve monarch points.

Yes, I could do the "feed your vassals" thing, but I think it's silly. If I can take land and feed it to vassals / release vassals so they do the coring, why did Paradox not cut out this middleman? The increased coring time is there for a reason. If I can circumvent it with vassals (which is tiresome as well), then why increase coring times in the first place? Why introduce a limit to expansion, and then a (very tiresome and gamey/silly-feeling) mechanic to circumvent it?

And yes, I could still fight wars while I wait for my new provinces to core, like wars to make vassals, wars to grab money, wars to break up enemies, wars to protect my trade.... but.... I dunno. Wars where I don't take any land at the end bore me. I don't feel like I'm "progressing" in any way when I do that.

Has anybody else problems with motivation after a few hundred years?

 

[unmerged(30465)]

same here. Actually, I was always bored with EU series because of this reason. I thought EU4 might be different but oh well, it is not. It's great game, no doubts, but it doesn't worth to spend so much time it takes for my opinion.

 

[unmerged(67470)]

The having to do the feed to vassals, PU thing for WC has totally demotivated me too. Honestly I've thought about opening up EUIII again.

It's just.. not the type of game I want to play. I don't mind the coalitions, they're a pain but that's fine, OTOH the coring times.. so that there is simply no way to keep expanding reasonably besides the diplomacy vassals/pu angle..

And too, I like playing Republics. I don't want to play a monarchy too often, and it becomes more necessary for W.C.

It's disappointing and demotivating. I've stopped playing the game much at all, just a couple of days after picking it up.

I normally always play a personally enforced ironman.. But normal ironman now, the saves just take too long to play the game..

And using mods to get around these things, well, it feels like cheating, and so, demotivation x10.

 

[aqvamare]

Loose! You had 200 years sexpanding, time for crumbeling, stop with teching, concentrate on buildings and slowly go down in history. Or take your savegame and switch country to one of your coaltion neighbours.

 

[FearTheAmish]

This point is usually when i decide to get an Aggressive mindest... This is perfect when your playing nations besides France/Ottomans. Like England when you leave the continent and go for Colonization, Then RETURN TO THE CONTINENT!!! (this usually goes horribly but i have started to make it work by waiting for france and spain to get into a coalition war then steal their colonies. Now tonight when i get home from work it time to steal so french lands!)

 

[unmerged(12131)]

You convinced me. I purchased EU 4 and then uninstalled it. I just didn't like the map layout. Plus, I didn't like the fonts. It looks like I won't be re-installing it anytime soon unless some new patches change the fonts and make dramatic changes in the game play.

I would have liked a random map for every EU 4 game like in Civ 5. What is the point of exploration if we already know every location? Exploration in Civ 5 is fascinating and every game produces a new world entirely.

In real history of that time folks knew little about any nation but their neighbors. Thee was no internet, no telephones and no radios. News of just 300 miles away took months go become known. Each nation should start with knowledge of his own nation historically and no information at all of anyone but neighbors.

I notice that Steam is now showing 10,490 EU 4 players while Civ 5 is showing 48,919 players.

 

[unmerged(584823)]

You convinced me. I purchased EU 4 and then uninstalled it. I just didn't like the map layout. Plus, I didn't like the fonts. It looks like I won't be re-installing it anytime soon unless some new patches change the fonts and make dramatic changes in the game play.

Wait a minute, it's a joke, no ?

 

[Syphus]

I try not to do Gamey things, and I rarely play for WC, so I don't really have this problem.

I like to sit there and expand as big as I can sometimes without using gamey tactics though, to see how far I can get before my empire explodes though.

 

[Damarow]

@Lessing: Since when does coring get more expensive when your empire is bigger? I did not notice such mechanics. Can you elaborate on that? What are your coring costs, can you give some examples? Or compare it to the numbers in the wiki?

 

[Fjoelsvider]

i have that mid game slump as well in my games... nothing to do with the htings you are having issues with..

for me its just my limited capacity to plan ahead. i start a game, and have an overall plan for the next 150-200 years, form scandinavia, colonize, get rich, stuff like that.

then i achieve that, and i realize i didnt update my plans... and i feel like there is nothing to do, when in fact its just that i hadnt come up with anyhting.


in my scandinavia i had that problem, not willing to give up around 1600 i just forged ahead a little bit unmotivated, and deliberately looked for new goals.

for example france was getting huge. i felt like "dealing with them is just gonna be tedious and coring will take forever" and all that, then i realized, nobody is watchign me, do whatever you want there is no jury at the end.

so i decided my new goal was to inherit france. did that. this time knewi had to update my plans, and it was a wonderful game...

i dont know why im writing this, maybe it might help even though i doubt it

 

[FearTheAmish]

i have that mid game slump as well in my games... nothing to do with the htings you are having issues with..

for me its just my limited capacity to plan ahead. i start a game, and have an overall plan for the next 150-200 years, form scandinavia, colonize, get rich, stuff like that.

then i achieve that, and i realize i didnt update my plans... and i feel like there is nothing to do, when in fact its just that i hadnt come up with anyhting.


in my scandinavia i had that problem, not willing to give up around 1600 i just forged ahead a little bit unmotivated, and deliberately looked for new goals.

for example france was getting huge. i felt like "dealing with them is just gonna be tedious and coring will take forever" and all that, then i realized, nobody is watchign me, do whatever you want there is no jury at the end.

so i decided my new goal was to inherit france. did that. this time knewi had to update my plans, and it was a wonderful game...

i dont know why im writing this, maybe it might help even though i doubt it

This exactly my first 3 games same thing happened... Castile i wanted to 1.) Control north africa 2.) Form Spain 3.) Colonize Caribbean/south america... when i did all those i just moved on Brandenburg 1.) Make amazing military 2.) Form Germany 3.) Make German borders = to 1900 borders Completed them all by 1660 then just lost steam.

So this time with England i made sure to give myself goals that lasted most of the game 1.) get off continent 2.) Own entire British Isles 3.) Control Caribbean 4.) Control trade route to India 5.) Take all other powers colonies 6.) Return to continent and get revenge on france.

 

[Faber81]

I never tried WC, I like to start small and try to survive - expand, but I never became too big. It's a matter of taste i think, world conquest would bore me with all the micromanagement (I like neat borders and upgraded provinces). As someone suggested before once you became big and strong try loading as one of your enemy and destroy what you built. It's really fun

 

[Tempto]

You convinced me. I purchased EU 4 and then uninstalled it. I just didn't like the map layout. Plus, I didn't like the fonts. It looks like I won't be re-installing it anytime soon unless some new patches change the fonts and make dramatic changes in the game play.

I would have liked a random map for every EU 4 game like in Civ 5. What is the point of exploration if we already know every location? Exploration in Civ 5 is fascinating and every game produces a new world entirely.

In real history of that time folks knew little about any nation but their neighbors. Thee was no internet, no telephones and no radios. News of just 300 miles away took months go become known. Each nation should start with knowledge of his own nation historically and no information at all of anyone but neighbors.

I notice that Steam is now showing 10,490 EU 4 players while Civ 5 is showing 48,919 players.

Without even mentioning the other plethora of things wrong with this post... you installed it, saw the map and font, decided you didn't like it, uninstalled it, and claim you won't reinstall unless they make gameplay changes? Without even having played it yourself?

 

[unmerged(584823)]

Without even mentioning the other plethora of things wrong with this post... you installed it, saw the map and font, decided you didn't like it, uninstalled it, and claim you won't reinstall unless they make gameplay changes? Without even having played it yourself?

Yes, that's what I mean by "Wait a minute, it's a joke, no ? ".

WHO THE FUCK PAY 40 BUCKS FOR NOTHING ? god damn it. Good riddance too.

edit: So I maintain my question, is this some kind of troll or what ?

 

[NapoleonI]

Has anybody else problems with motivation after a few hundred years?

I also abandon most of my games, because of the time it takes to core provinces. I know I could simply ignore Over Expansion and go on. But having to fight rebels eventually gets tiresome, so I quit and start a new game.


Multiplayer is still fun. But single player gets boring way too soon. I actually enjoyed doing a WC in EU3, but I don´t see how that could be enjoyable in this game.

 

[unmerged(584823)]

Personnaly, I don't abandon my game because it's getting hard to blob, I abandon them because I already have the biggest army and money after 100 to 200 years.

 

[balmung60]

I modded the coring time increase because screw waiting 40 years for a province to core.

 

[stilgarpl]

Yes, that's what I mean by "Wait a minute, it's a joke, no ? ".

WHO THE FUCK PAY 40 BUCKS FOR NOTHING ? god damn it. Good riddance too.

edit: So I maintain my question, is this some kind of troll or what ?

Haven't you read million posts/threads by SirMaru? He had the need to tell us every single time that he uninstalls every game after 12 minutes and only Civ 5 has the fonts he likes?

 

[General Baker]

I have the same issue as OP, and have done the same in EU3/CK2... I just lose enthusiasm before the 17thC.

This exactly my first 3 games same thing happened... Castile i wanted to 1.) Control north africa 2.) Form Spain 3.) Colonize Caribbean/south america... when i did all those i just moved on Brandenburg 1.) Make amazing military 2.) Form Germany 3.) Make German borders = to 1900 borders Completed them all by 1660 then just lost steam.

So this time with England i made sure to give myself goals that lasted most of the game 1.) get off continent 2.) Own entire British Isles 3.) Control Caribbean 4.) Control trade route to India 5.) Take all other powers colonies 6.) Return to continent and get revenge on france.

Now... that's not a bad idea. I generally always go into games with a "let's see" attitude... perhaps some long-term goals might be more incentive to stay on.

 

[Lessing]

Loose! You had 200 years sexpanding, time for crumbeling, stop with teching, concentrate on buildings and slowly go down in history. Or take your savegame and switch country to one of your coaltion neighbours.

While this is a valid suggestion, it is not my kinda gameplay.

You convinced me. I purchased EU 4 and then uninstalled it. I just didn't like the map layout. Plus, I didn't like the fonts. It looks like I won't be re-installing it anytime soon unless some new patches change the fonts and make dramatic changes in the game play.

:/ I did not try to convince anybody though, was just asking if anybody felt kinda similar, maybe see a new perspective.

@Lessing: Since when does coring get more expensive when your empire is bigger? I did not notice such mechanics. Can you elaborate on that? What are your coring costs, can you give some examples? Or compare it to the numbers in the wiki?

Coring times get longer. I think the cost stays the same.

edit: Reading this on the wiki: " Larger countries core province much more slowly, as each non-overseas province you own will increase coring times by 5%. This sets a soft limit to your country size, as eventually it will take prohibitively long to core provinces. As an example, at 100 province it would take 3 * (1+100*0.05) = 18 years to core a single province. "

What if I moved my capital to Australia? Would that make me core European provinces faster? (Kinda exploity though)