Motivation problems with EU4 at mid game / end game.

[minificelle]

I too have this "problem", but with pretty much all sandbox games, strategy, simulation, builders, RPG...

When you get to the point where you can no more lose, are the strongest in every aspect of the game, one shot everything, etc, there is no real point to go any further...
The initial struggle is fun, the rise in power is fun, the top dog status is fun for a while, but after that, the "hey look at me how super strong i am and how even more super strong i will be soon" is not, no point to continue...

What for ? you wont really impress the AIs and noone but you care about your game.

I still make a point to finish at least one time, just to see the end, but thats it.

 

[blaidd]

No one is saying you have to finish the whole game. I've played over 400 hours of CK2 and I've still never finished a game there. I don't plan on finishing every game I play in EU IV either, but it has a whole lot more staying power than CK2 over the whole time span of the game.

I definitely don't have that many PU's, but then I rarely use the Claim Throne button. I have enough enemies I don't need that -100 to all my allies. I only claim thrones with strategic usefulness. For example, I claimed Flanders in my French game. It was an OPM at the time, but it has lots of cores. Didn't fight the war, but I inherited the throne anyway from my claim. Started supporting Flanders Patriot rebels in all the nations that had their cores. Got a few back that way. When I got around to it, I declared war and returned the rest of their cores. Now I'm integrating them. Easy land. No OE. No wasted admin points.

The process of colonization is pretty boring, I thought so too when I played Portugal and only did colonization, but it's by no means a thing you have to waste a lot of time on as a continental power. I took Exploration as my 4th idea, although I probably should have taken Expansion, since Portugal already revealed the stuff I wanted to colonize and I haven't bothered buying an explorer myself at all yet. You just send your one colonist and maybe a transport with 2k troops in it. Fire and forget. A couple years later you do it again. Meanwhile you fight wars in Europe or do whatever you want just like a normal game. Prioritize colonies that boost your trade power in nodes you need. You don't need to paint the map, just get a few strategic locations. Then later you can paint whatever is left over.

 

[Pryderi]

Having all of Europe a nice pale green in diplomacy view is very strategically useful! And if you're surrounded by a bunch of OPMs the hate is irrelevant really. Not much anyone can do against you. And you don't need allies when france etc are your pets. Going to avoid that in my next game, the plan was to beat the empire of Charles V and that's done now.

Guess I'll have to try to mix in some colonisation in my next game and see how it works. Maybe Netherlands, not played or seen them yet.

 

[Lessing]

If you want world conquest play Total War.

Or EU3, or CK2?

Youre also playing nations that are at their peak around this time period. If you want an enjoyable game right to the end, you need to start smaller.

Like Oman, a nation that has less than 10 provinces and is the Muslim tech group?

The longer the thread, the less attention, I guess.

 

[nOxr]

What difficulty levels are you using, by the way? Would it be an idea to give the AI bonuses and at the same time make it less aggressive against the human player. Perhaps it would make it competetive without too much tedious coalition wars?

 

[Bradeh]

By the mid 1500's~ I know nobody will ever be able to compete with me. It does get to that point where it feels silly to carry on.

 

[ainyru]

Play american natives, africa or asia minors, or famous ryukyu. You will never strong enough

 

[rho]

First and most obvious point: everyone should play in whatever way they find the most fun. If you want to play for 100 years, then stop that game and start again, then go for it. If you want to play every single game through to the end no matter what happens, then do that too. It's a game, and it's meant to be fun, so do whatever you personally find fun.

That said, one thing that I like to do in many different games is to impose my own personal challenge conditions. For instance, I am currently playing as Austria in EU4, with the following rules that I've set myself:

1. I'm not allowed to declare war.
2. I'm not allowed to take any unjustified demands in war deals.
3. I'm not allowed to fabricate claims.
4. I'm not allowed to claim thrones.

Needless to say, growth is a lot slower than it would otherwise be, but I'm enjoying the challenge.

 

[DaveDash]

Or EU3, or CK2?



Like Oman, a nation that has less than 10 provinces and is the Muslim tech group?

The longer the thread, the less attention, I guess.

CK2 you cannot conquer the world.

EU3 was broken, and now fixed.

This is not a 'conquer the world' kind of game, like the Total War series is, hence the direction the devs have taken us in.

I guess it's just not your cup of tea.

So, again, if you want to conquer the world, go play Total War (with its fantasy general buffs coming in RTW2), or back to EU3 I guess.

There is also other options such as HoI3, in which there actually was a world war represented during its time frame.

 

[Lessing]

CK2 you cannot conquer the world.

EU3 was broken, and now fixed.

This is not a 'conquer the world' kind of game, like the Total War series is, hence the direction the devs have taken us in.

I guess it's just not your cup of tea.

So, again, if you want to conquer the world, go play Total War (with its fantasy general buffs coming in RTW2), or back to EU3 I guess.

There is also other options such as HoI3, in which there actually was a world war represented during its time frame.

I usually like this forum, but then I get this kind of crappy response.

1. In CK2, you can conquer the world. The game doesn't portray the entire world, so you can conquer the known world only, which is exactly the same as conquering the world in EU4, or Japan in TW: Shogun.
2. EU3 was not broken. It was working perfectly fine for a long time, and you could conquer the world quite easily. Now they changed manpower (which is not the same as fixing it. A change is not a fix), from what I know, and I dunno if you can still do a WC, but I am sure the manpower thing didn't change that much.
3. I never said I desperately wanted to conquer the world. If you had read my original post with open eyes, you would have seen that I was having motivation problems because after a certain realm size, it's not possible to expand anymore without waiting decades for cores, which is to me boring gameplay.

And if some ignorant, arrogant guy comes along and simply throws a "I guess it's just not your cup of tea" bs line toward me, I rage rage rage.

How about learning to read and to comprehend what you read?

 

[eranam]

I usually like this forum, but then I get this kind of crappy response.

1. In CK2, you can conquer the world. The game doesn't portray the entire world, so you can conquer the known world only, which is exactly the same as conquering the world in EU4, or Japan in TW: Shogun.
2. EU3 was not broken. It was working perfectly fine for a long time, and you could conquer the world quite easily. Now they changed manpower (which is not the same as fixing it. A change is not a fix), from what I know, and I dunno if you can still do a WC, but I am sure the manpower thing didn't change that much.
3. I never said I desperately wanted to conquer the world. If you had read my original post with open eyes, you would have seen that I was having motivation problems because after a certain realm size, it's not possible to expand anymore without waiting decades for cores, which is to me boring gameplay.

And if some ignorant, arrogant guy comes along and simply throws a "I guess it's just not your cup of tea" bs line toward me, I rage rage rage.

How about learning to read and to comprehend what you read?

Still you see the game a blobbing simulator. I think the fun here is getting more powerful which is far more deep than just gobbling provinces like a greedy thing. Break up your ennemies in pieces, focus on controlling trade zones and trade flow, make many vassals, but keep them weak and you'll have a lot to do. Hell, even nations I released tend to oppose me, so, in the end you will have to learn to work on relations.

You confine the game into one small aspect it has and then you find it boring... Maybe you shouldn't play grand strategy games then. The total war games offer plenty in terms of annexing gameplay.

 

[Lessing]

You confine the game into one small aspect it has and then you find it boring... Maybe you shouldn't play grand strategy games then. The total war games offer plenty in terms of annexing gameplay.

Fuck it, I will not respond to shit like this anymore. I respond to a Total War bs argument, and the next person quotes my answer and comes up with the same bs.

Fuck this. Have meaningful discussions with your hands, I am out of this crap.

 

[General Baker]

Fuck it, I will not respond to shit like this anymore. I respond to a Total War bs argument, and the next person quotes my answer and comes up with the same bs.

Fuck this. Have meaningful discussions with your hands, I am out of this crap.

Fight the powa.

 

[unmerged(464283)]

Gone of track a bit, but you could always start at a later date then 1444 e.g. 1700

 

[Beagá]

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?

All strategy games eventually reach the "boring" part, nothing new here.

Also, I honestly don´t care if WC isn´t possible because IMO games are about plausibility and WC is anything but. I honestly think exactly the opposite, with the Fabricate claims mechanic expanding, say, inside the HRE is quite easy, and don´t even get me started on Imperial Liberation/ban CBs...

Then again I only played EU 3 with Magna Mundi, so I´m Strong proponent of dificult games where plausibility is the goal. As long as you feel accomplished, it´s good enough. And to make WC possible you have to create silly and unplausible mechanics to allow it.

 

[Lakedaimon]

This is actually the first PI game where I have been incredibly motivated to continue playing. The diplomatic field is so dynamic that in the end it takes a lot of effort to be able to expand which makes it all the more sattisfying when you succeed.

Trying to knock my next target of expansion out of their alliance with a superpower and out of the coalition against me. Having to look for alternate routes of expanding, for example east instead of west, just to avoid the aggresive penalties and avoid getting involved in a coalition war. You actually have to consider these things now before you declare war and the best if all is that the diplomatic situation shifts all the time so if you pay attention you will almost always find a new way to expand.

 

[grumbold]

There has to be a balance struck between features designed to prevent AI blobbing or hugely unrealistic world empires and fun gameplay. Right now the coring mechanic is a pain but only really kicks in with overly large empires. Playing to the end of time is not mandatory, with the sandbox games you play until you get bored and then move on, much as you would do with any other game of that type. The suggestion of moving capital to Australia may even present a solution to that.

I can't remember "finishing" a single Paradox game as a large nation since EU1/HoI1 days. Sooner or later the game is just naturally "done" before the clock runs out. Still, as tedious mechanics go this one is infinitely better than HoI3 where the almost daily fluctuation of trade deals and production sliders drove me insane. I don't think I ever made it to 1941. What a waste of money that was.

 

[unmerged(157283)]

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

It's not the coring time, it's the ridiculously quick accumulation of Overextension.

 

[Grubnessul]

I don't think I have ever finished a paradox game...

 

[Lakedaimon]

Me neither up untill this game, this game remains a challenge even when you are nearing the end.