I am enjoying the new estates and GC play quite a bit.
Some of my current campaigns are as Morocco, Russia, Prussia, and the US (for the US, I cheated down British colonies, but hey, if France dows England before Maine fires, you can grab Cueta and get a french USA up pretty fast anyways).
Both Prussia and Russia interact with GC and estates well.
But Morocco and US got me thinking about national ideas (which in turn got me thinking about estates, more on that in a sec).
Both of these nations, for me, have underwhelming ideas, particularly morocco.
US ideas aren’t too bad, but I edited them to be what I considered more appropriate and more in tune with what a US campaign path would find useful: for example, I removed the merchant for an earlier colonist, and removed the later colonist for siberian frontiers + can purchase explorer/conq.
This way US can start with expansion+exploration+colonist, but later switch exploration or both groups out once manifest destiny is gotten - and manifest should be a significant idea, imo.
Morocco, on the other hand, aside from raiding and naval capacity, is awful. + galley combat? wth?? They are on the open sea!
So here is my first thought - buffing and focusing national ideas across the board to make them more appropriate AND significant.
An example of a nation that is just about perfect as is, is of course Russia. If anything, Russia is too strong, but the ideas gel very well with Russia play.
Morocco is an ideal example of a wth national idea set. I mean, it has no idea I am excited to get or a find to be propelling.
So, as I did with manifest destiny, give each nation one or two ideas that are a huge boost and that tie in to their aims (but that also are generally useful as well). Even op maybe. This would make national ideas more flavored.
So maybe a nation with 3 gold mines has -15% interest and -10 dev as ONE idea.
If you scan the national ideas wiki, aside from some standouts, everything is the same, and almost random too.
Then, on top of this, maybe give more unique estate mechanics, playing into each country’s stronger ideas or starting position, but also giving some estate mechanics that can completely change the optimization path of the country, then balancing by including more negative mechanics than merely loss of crownland and absolutism.
So looking at Venice (and yes, republics need some kind of estate play rework), venice has a pretty good, useful, and appropriate idea set. I’d maybe replace the diplomat with a merchant, and the attrition with 2 diplo slots (does venice worry about naval attrition in med expansion?), but otherwise its a good idea set.
Still, if venice is facing you in a war, I don’t just want to be wary of its navy, I want to fear it.
Using estates ti give more flavor to venice, you could have a guild policy that grants +2 naval leader siege or something, or +20% trade steering, or even +1 merchant, but that also gives +20% advisor cost.
Then, for an alternate path, you have an estate/guild policy that gives -5% regiment cost and +10% force limit, but has a penalty of -20% naval force limit and a whopping -10% guild loyalty (of another guild).
Maybe not the best example, its just to demonstrate how estate mechanics could be used to both allow the player to take a more alternate path with a nation, and balance out a retooling of national ideas.
So in sum:
a) retool national ideas so they are more exciting and distinguished;
b) add more estate policies that are unique to nations, tie into national ideas, but also are balanced; and
c) offer estate policies that redirect the national strengths
Finally... there does not appear to be a real downside to estate policies until absolutism. Rather than the policies that give mana, maybe each policy should either cost mana, or increase advisor cost. As is, estates currently just give way too much benefit in the early/mid game with no negative that gives you pause.
Thoughts?
Some of my current campaigns are as Morocco, Russia, Prussia, and the US (for the US, I cheated down British colonies, but hey, if France dows England before Maine fires, you can grab Cueta and get a french USA up pretty fast anyways).
Both Prussia and Russia interact with GC and estates well.
But Morocco and US got me thinking about national ideas (which in turn got me thinking about estates, more on that in a sec).
Both of these nations, for me, have underwhelming ideas, particularly morocco.
US ideas aren’t too bad, but I edited them to be what I considered more appropriate and more in tune with what a US campaign path would find useful: for example, I removed the merchant for an earlier colonist, and removed the later colonist for siberian frontiers + can purchase explorer/conq.
This way US can start with expansion+exploration+colonist, but later switch exploration or both groups out once manifest destiny is gotten - and manifest should be a significant idea, imo.
Morocco, on the other hand, aside from raiding and naval capacity, is awful. + galley combat? wth?? They are on the open sea!
So here is my first thought - buffing and focusing national ideas across the board to make them more appropriate AND significant.
An example of a nation that is just about perfect as is, is of course Russia. If anything, Russia is too strong, but the ideas gel very well with Russia play.
Morocco is an ideal example of a wth national idea set. I mean, it has no idea I am excited to get or a find to be propelling.
So, as I did with manifest destiny, give each nation one or two ideas that are a huge boost and that tie in to their aims (but that also are generally useful as well). Even op maybe. This would make national ideas more flavored.
So maybe a nation with 3 gold mines has -15% interest and -10 dev as ONE idea.
If you scan the national ideas wiki, aside from some standouts, everything is the same, and almost random too.
Then, on top of this, maybe give more unique estate mechanics, playing into each country’s stronger ideas or starting position, but also giving some estate mechanics that can completely change the optimization path of the country, then balancing by including more negative mechanics than merely loss of crownland and absolutism.
So looking at Venice (and yes, republics need some kind of estate play rework), venice has a pretty good, useful, and appropriate idea set. I’d maybe replace the diplomat with a merchant, and the attrition with 2 diplo slots (does venice worry about naval attrition in med expansion?), but otherwise its a good idea set.
Still, if venice is facing you in a war, I don’t just want to be wary of its navy, I want to fear it.
Using estates ti give more flavor to venice, you could have a guild policy that grants +2 naval leader siege or something, or +20% trade steering, or even +1 merchant, but that also gives +20% advisor cost.
Then, for an alternate path, you have an estate/guild policy that gives -5% regiment cost and +10% force limit, but has a penalty of -20% naval force limit and a whopping -10% guild loyalty (of another guild).
Maybe not the best example, its just to demonstrate how estate mechanics could be used to both allow the player to take a more alternate path with a nation, and balance out a retooling of national ideas.
So in sum:
a) retool national ideas so they are more exciting and distinguished;
b) add more estate policies that are unique to nations, tie into national ideas, but also are balanced; and
c) offer estate policies that redirect the national strengths
Finally... there does not appear to be a real downside to estate policies until absolutism. Rather than the policies that give mana, maybe each policy should either cost mana, or increase advisor cost. As is, estates currently just give way too much benefit in the early/mid game with no negative that gives you pause.
Thoughts?
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