Muscovy 100 more dev than France in 1480s.

[durbal]

I never said it's healthy for Portugal and Spain to struggle. In fact, I created a thread describing it as one of the biggest problems of the current patch.

It does matter who's the stronger one because dev is just one number and not the only relevant thing to look at.
And them sitting in #2 or #3 of the GP list still doesn't mean they're strong.

The patch didn't change much about Russia itself. It's surrounded by Horde and Novgorod. Everything can beat that. Has nothing to do with railroading but Horde nations played by the AI being weak in general.

Your focus should lie (if that's really an issue for you) on making Horde nations more effective.
Not on nerfing Russia.

So...Muscovy gets a bunch of easy provinces which increase the development of the Urals region...and the result is that Muscovy has a bunch more development and can trash everything. The solution is to...increase the amount of development of the hordes? Then increase the development of PolLith which was taken away a year ago because it was overdeveloped? Then increase the development of the Middle East to cope with the increased development of the hordes? Then..then...then...

That's textbook power creep and it's becoming a real issue. I have a better solution: get rid of the extra development that was added in 1.22 because it makes the region ahistorically overdeveloped in 1444 and causes the current issue in eastern Europe. The AI isn't bad at playing hordes in particular -- it's bad at playing against much stronger enemies.

Novgorod and the hordes used to survive much longer and sometimes even win from time to time. I don't have a problem with Muscovy becoming the regional power -- but I do have a problem with the entire region collapsing in 1450.

 

[evilcat]

If anything Russia region could get some dev reduction, maybe move more of free development as event at year past 1600.
Every dev you add is just more power to mother russia. All your dev belong to us.
But...
Hordes could get magic buttons. Press the button. Get 20 cavalry since why not.

But... Third Rome is 100% optional. If you dont play Russia country you can remove it, and dont miss much. Wow.
It is important lesson, to dont mix pay to win dlc with universal fun features.

 

[durbal]

Funnily enough thinking about it now: I can't even remember the last time I actually saw Bukhara or Uzbek when playing in Europe. They're long dead by the time that region is revealed.

 

[SaucyBaron]

I'm really glad you guys even get to see a Muscovy, I have never once seen AI Muscovy survive as a great power after 1550, in 30+ games in the last few months they've been partitioned between the Ottomans (via Crimea inheritance) and either PLC or Sweden.

I would just once like to see Muscovy actually survive without player intervention.

 

[durbal]

I'm really glad you guys even get to see a Muscovy, I have never once seen AI Muscovy survive as a great power after 1550, in 30+ games in the last few months they've been partitioned between the Ottomans (via Crimea inheritance) and either PLC or Sweden.

I would just once like to see Muscovy actually survive without player intervention.

The current version of the game is 1.22 and the year is 2017.

If you think the Ottomans and PLC are eating Muscovy then you're playing a different game.

 

[YuriiH]

If you think the Ottomans and PLC are eating Muscovy then you're playing a different game.

If you think otherwise, you've never played on VH.

 

[SaucyBaron]

The current version of the game is 1.22 and the year is 2017.

If you think the Ottomans and PLC are eating Muscovy then you're playing a different game.

I legitimately cannot remember the last time that Moscow wasn't Turkish by 1600. The Ottoscum get that damn crimea event, then start eat upwards until nothing is remaining. PLC usually then gets eaten by the Ottomans too (usually too busy laying seige to Ottoman siberia to stop 200k Turks ravaging warsaw).

I mostly play in India so I rarely have an opportunity to hurt the ottomans before they've eaten a few chuncks out of Muscovy.

 

[Dominion]

I still think the Khanate event is amongst the worst and one of the main reasons why I always try to dent them early on. Without it they can't go north.
They have trouble fighting Poland/Lit ever since the Carpates got introduced (at least during the early game) and don't waltz through Circassia due to their ICC.

Getting Crimea gives them instant access to Horde land and opens a full new direction of weak and willing victims, letting them expand like mad and collapsing the whole region.

I don't mind their strength and can accept seeing them eating half of Hungary or the Arabian Peninsula, but glancing over in 1650 and seeing them fight Livonian order feels wrong.

 

[RebBrown]

Muscovy's issue is that it has a ton of dev that it cannot turn into states, needs to spend considerable diplo points to accept other cultures (pre-Russia) or get less everything from places like Novgorod, and either has to take Lithuanian low dev land from a strong opponent or trash land with wrong religion and culture from the Hordes.

They are always stronger on paper than in theory when played by the AI. A player Muscovy will develop the Renaissance and Colonialism to blow past the PLC and Hordes, but the AI doesn't. Because of the lack of states, a 'centralized' development scheme makes gaining new institutions easier than you might think.

Are they strong? Yes. Can they conquer a handful of provinces to turn them into a juggernaut (France > Nice \ Genoa \ Provence \ Barca)? No. Muscovy gets 'less' from most of the dev it conquers compared to most European states.

 

[WeissRaben]

That's stupid. You can't just nerf Russia because you don't like that a great power exists there now rather than being Swedish bait.

Russia didn't have the population of France until 1800, and by that point it controlled everything from Eastern Poland to the Pacific.

The Russian region was a depopulated wasteland by European standards, let's not pretend it wasn't; Russia was a great power despite its population, not thanks to it.

 

[evilcat]

Unique Russian govertment form Tsardom grants +10 states. And if you pick Administrative idea you get another +5. "Not enought states" is not Russian problem.
There could be a problem of no natural trade money. But NI + high patriarchy means a lot of manpower so no mercs, and that evens out a bit.

AI generally derps with big empires.

With historical demographic we need to be precise what territory we compare. In game Russia generally does better than historical Russia, beats Hordes, and dont suffer turmoil.
In game France+Iberia is everything possible.

 

[Dominion]

Development isn't purely representing population. It's an abstraction for population, economy, etc.

It's also not a single photograph of "this is how the world looked in 1444" but supposed to represent the whole timeline. The only nation getting special treatment in that regard is Brandenburg, which gets consecutive events increasing their dev as the only nation in the game.

We now have three different "this is the only thing development means" in this thread. It's an abstraction. If you want to determine their strength, look at their gameplay.

Eating 3 development Horde provinces isn't "the strongest nation and crazy overpowered".

 

[WeissRaben]

Development isn't purely representing population. It's an abstraction for population, economy, etc.

True, a well-developed economy can counter low population and inflate the numbers significantly. But a) that doesn't necessarily translate to development, but to ideas, technology, modifiers, policies, etc; and b) development represents more of a status of the province itself, as can be seen from the fact that it doesn't change when the province changes hands.
Moreover - and this is worthy of note, too - Russia was anything but an economic monster, either; it had an underdeveloped merchant class, a very diffused population, serfdom was rampant and would exist in one form or another up to the 20th century; it had the luck of some very able monarchs, idiot neighbours (cough cough Poltava cough cough), and faltering prey to be eaten to enlarge itself. That by 1480 a purely Russian Muscovy can get 100 more development than France is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[durbal]

Development isn't purely representing population. It's an abstraction for population, economy, etc.

It's also not a single photograph of "this is how the world looked in 1444" but supposed to represent the whole timeline. The only nation getting special treatment in that regard is Brandenburg, which gets consecutive events increasing their dev as the only nation in the game.

We now have three different "this is the only thing development means" in this thread. It's an abstraction. If you want to determine their strength, look at their gameplay.

Eating 3 development Horde provinces isn't "the strongest nation and crazy overpowered".

Again with the scarecrow arguments. As far as I can see, nobody said they were 'the strongest nation and crazy overpowered'. I (and others) are saying they're uncharacteristically and ahistorically (in 1444) too overdeveloped and the last patch ruined the tensions and dynamism in that region.