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Martin_Mortyry

A pretentious asshole who thinks he knows history
35 Badges
Jun 4, 2015
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Let’s talk about “overpowerness” of the Commonwealth, mentioned a lot recently – the main problem seems to be weakness of Russian states caused by relatively low number of provinces in Russia along with their development, and highly developed Ruthenia since the Common Sense. Yet, numbers of people find Polish national ideas the main reason of Polish-Lithuanian dominance – IMO the ideas are good, but they’re overly militaristic:
  1. I don't see a reason to nerf “Winged Hussars”, this one is somehow explicable by the myth of Polish-Lithuanian hussars. If people really find +33% cavalry combat ability over the top, this could be lowered,(EDIT: though personally, I'd leave it at 33%)
  2. “Piechota Wybraniecka” could stay, but it should only grant national manpower – Polish infantry wasn’t too famous for their efficiency, and in reality it mainly consisted of often untrained nobles, the chosen infantry itself was made up by peasants from the king's lands, therefore granting Poland infantry combat ability is a bit off.
  3. “Focus on Field Defence” could be replaced with “Antemurale Christianitatis, giving +1 diplomatic reputation and additional religious unity/papal influence instead of morale. Both accurate with the country’s policy in XVII century and balancing its ideas.
  4. "Found the foreign section" should be replaced with something connected to trade - the Commonwealth used to provide a lot of wheat for the rest of Europe, Gdańsk/Danzig was a very important centre of Baltic trade as well - this could be represented by trade power bonus, like +15%.
And what do you think? Do you like the suggested changes, or maybe you would do something else with Polish ideas? Leave your response below, hopefully Paradox will do something with the ideas! :)
 
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Short answer: No.

Long answer: NOOOOO!!!!!! Let me have fun! It's the completely unrealistically OP development of Lithuania. Poland is perfectly fine.
 
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I agree up to some point, even shared your point of view, but then I looked closely at Polish ideas. Don't you think that Poland having 5 out of 7 ideas conected to military is too much?
Nope. It's mostly backloaded and Prussia's is better.
 
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The only nerf I can think of is decreasing 33% cavalry bonus to 25%, no other nation in the game has combat bonus higher than 20% (maybe there is one instance of some cavalry horde? I am ot sure) and PLC has already morale bonus and manpower bonus and infantry power bonus.
 
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Nope. It's mostly backloaded and Prussia's is better.

2.5% more Discipline, 5% more morale, 10% more Infantry Combat power (and 1.5% better Army Tradition) for Prussia versus 30% cheaper Cavalry at 33% more Combat Power.

The difference is noticeable, but not THAT massive, particularly when Poland starts at over 3 times the development of Brandenburg (not to mention Lithuania at 7 times the development and free feeding).

Didn't Nepal or some other tiny use to have even better Ideas than Prussia? The starting position makes the comparison somewhat pointless IMHO.
 
2.5% more Discipline, 5% more morale, 10% more Infantry Combat power (and 1.5% better Army Tradition) for Prussia versus 30% cheaper Cavalry at 33% more Combat Power.

The difference is noticeable, but not THAT massive, particularly when Poland starts at over 3 times the development of Brandenburg (not to mention Lithuania at 7 times the development and free feeding).

Didn't Nepal or some other tiny use to have even better Ideas than Prussia? The starting position makes the comparison somewhat pointless IMHO.
Still, Poland is perfectly fine as it is. Poland has an OP military because it needs one: Russia to the east, HRE to the west, Ottos to the south and Sweden to the north. We can take away it's OP military and development and it will be the laughing stock of Europe. Taking away the development is better.
 
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Still, Poland is perfectly fine as it is. Poland has an OP military because it needs one: Russia to the east, HRE to the west, Ottos to the south and Sweden to the north. We can take away it's OP military and development and it will be the laughing stock of Europe. Taking away the development is better.
Oh yeah, definitely agreed there. I'd actually prefer to move one of the later military Ideas to the front, probably Morale, and then remove the free integration decision.
 
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Lithuanian development level is the proverbial root of the evil, not Polish ideas.
 
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Military national ideas are just angel dusting when it comes to military success, as you need a good general, manpower and soldiers to win. National ideas are mostly just flavor unless they give you a decisive advantage such as an extra colonist, at least that's what my game experience was, every time.
Try playing a country and then make a custom nation with every cherry picked national idea you want. I found there's very little difference at the end of the game. It's much more important what idea groups you choose.
 
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Try playing a country and then make a custom nation with every cherry picked national idea you want.
How does "+2 land leader shock and -20% coring cost" as national traditions grab you? (And yes, I admit that does cost 340 points...)
 
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How does "+2 land leader shock and -20% coring cost" as national traditions grab you? (And yes, I admit that does cost 340 points...)

As I already said, not much of a difference at the end of the game, for me (but I never used the land leader shock so far). With Poland I had reached from the English Channel to Japan, but with a custom western state based in Moscow I only reached as far West as Vienna and Berlin, although I also took Persia and most of Japan.
 
Lithuania is the problem, not Poland. In the game Lithuania is Poland's unstoppable, giant beating stick. In real life, Poland was the stronger partner of the union and repeatedly bailed out Lithuania whenever she got into trouble. Lithuania's vast territories were largely empty after the massive depopulation caused by the Mongols. The recolonization process accelerated only after the Union of Lublin which founded the PLC.

Polish military buffs should stay, if not get actually boosted. Without them and with Eastern units and techgroup*, Poland will quickly collapse facing the armies of her neighbors.

*I was, and I am still against Poland being an Eastern tech nation. It does not make any sense whatsoever from historical point of view. Poland's decline had nothing to do with lagging behind in terms of technology but with economic decline which caused the near-extinction of the middle-nobility class.
 
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NIs are rarely what makes an AI country. What makes it is lucky bonus + starting land + missions guiding it to do things other AIs wouldn't.

In Poland's case, Lithuania getting a massive buff in the change from base tax --> development (and their freebie integration flying in the face of most game mechanics) is the primary reason why PLC is so broken-good, not Poland's NIs.

The bias in the handling between Timurids and Poland/Lith is pretty gross.
 
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The PLC was founded because Lithuania got more and more pushed by Muscovy. The last straw was the loss of Polotsk. The childless king Zygmunt II August realized that with him gone and personal union broken, Lithuania will be soon swallowed whole. He was backed by majority of Lithuania's nobility, with the exception of some magnate families like Radziwills.

I believe that the decision on founding the PLC should be conditional on Lithuania taking some serious trashing. But that's really hard to model in EU4 since in-game personal union means obligatory military alliance and Poland gets automatically dragged into Lithuania's wars. That wasn't the case historically with Poland and Lithuania before the Union of Lublin.
 
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Lithuania is the problem, not Poland. In the game Lithuania is Poland's unstoppable, giant beating stick. In real life, Poland was the stronger partner of the union and repeatedly bailed out Lithuania whenever she got into trouble. Lithuania's vast territories were largely empty after the massive depopulation caused by the Mongols. The recolonization process accelerated only after the Union of Lublin which founded the PLC.

Polish military buffs should stay, if not get actually boosted. Without them and with Eastern units and techgroup*, Poland will quickly collapse facing the armies of her neighbors.
With Lithuania being much too developped I fully agree. Most of Ruthenian provinces shouldn't have higher base tax than 3. About the Polish ideas though, I didn't want to fully eradicate militaristic NIs of Poland, these 3 were just separate suggestions. As I think that Piechota and foreign section should stay, maybe be tweaked a bit, I'd replace Field Defence with already mentioned Antemurale Christianitatis nontheless.

I also don't understand you guys' logic. Once you say that NIs don't change anything for the AI, then suddenly changing the ideas would make the Commonwealth too weak. I don't get how can +15% morale and +5% discipline not be an essential factor in fighting battles. Replacing all the mentioned ideas might be disasterous for Poland though, I can go with this one.

Still, I think that Polish ideas should be reworked in some way.
 
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With Lithuania being much too developped I fully agree. Most of Ruthenian provinces shouldn't have higher base tax than 3. About the Polish ideas though, I didn't want to fully eradicate militaristic NIs of Poland, these 3 were just separate suggestions. As I think that Piechota and foreign section should stay, maybe be tweaked a bit, I'd replace Field Defence with already mentioned Antemurale Christianitatis nontheless.

I also don't understand you guys' logic. Once you say that NIs don't change anything for the AI, then suddenly changing the ideas would make the Commonwealth too weak. I don't get how can +15% morale and +5% discipline not be an essential factor in fighting battles. Replacing all the mentioned ideas might be disasterous for Poland though, I can go with this one.

Still, I think that Polish ideas should be reworked in some way.
Because it's fun!
 
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I believe that the decision on founding the PLC should be conditional on Lithuania taking some serious trashing.

Make it conditional on Lithuania not having Russian culture provinces? And maybe add a requirement for Poland to have more total development.
 
Make it conditional on Lithuania not having Russian culture provinces? And maybe add a requirement for Poland to have more total development.
Viewed in isolation, the first part basically kills the decision stone dead, because you can't atack a PU junior separately from their overlord, and POL+LIT + POL's allies is not a combination that loses wars with MOS and such meagre allies as MOS can somehow obtain (if they're doing well they might get HUN). In combination with lowering the development level of Ruthenia and/or retuning diplomatic weighting of distance, it might be meaningful.

The second sounds like an excellent idea and should be applied to all PU-autoabsorb decisions.