New Player here coming from CK2; this is my biggest problem with this game

[WolfWaffle]

The game seems pretty fun and interesting, but it seems like it's strong armed too heavily to be historical. (Although this could be my fault for picking 'historical' lucky nations)


I like how this game is different in a lot of ways from CK2, like how governments are more centralized in this era. It seems really good. I still think CK2 is far superior but that's beside the point.

My problem is the stability modifier. It's really, really, really badly designed. To my understanding a small nation has to put in the same effort as a huge empire to become more stable. I'm not sure what was the thought behind this. If you play as a small weak nation the problems of the game become more apparent. In all honesty the stability modifier is lazily designed. I am not angry with my government(America) because they didn't put any admin points into it,(They are trying to fix things but failing terribly) I'm mad because of the war(War Exhaustion; well done paradox for that invention in this game) I'm mad because of the economy(Sorta implemented?) and I'm mad because of inflation, because my money is now worth less(It exist in the game, well done paradox).

To my understanding prestige effects legitimacy, likewise the factors above should effect stability. I think that would lead to a much more intuitive game. What are your thoughts forum people?

 

[AltarofScience]

I always play at stab 3. I also get a ton of court painters and saints performing miracles and shit to help me out. Do people ever have issues with stab? Remember that you get monarch points at the same rate as large countries. If stab costs less your country could like tech up admin super fast or core a lot more lands than a massive nation which makes no sense.

 

[WolfWaffle]

But a larger nation could get more admin points(because they are richer), and it makes no sense that a homogeneous small country would be less stable than a large empire because they produce less of these points.

It just seems to me that a game that revolves around revolts and uncertain times(reformation and democracy craze ) has such a system.

EDIT: OH i see what your getting at, a small nation could tech up faster than a smaller one. Yeah that would be bad.
But what I'm advocating is taking out the put admin points into stability modifier thing in favor of a dynamic stability modifier that reacts to whats going on inside the nation.

 

[Xeorm]

Eh, smaller countries should be more stable because the ruler has fewer things occupying his attention. Realistically, a small area will have less forces to battle against but fewer forces to battle them as well, so it never really bothered me.

 

[Equilibrius]

The game does not need more things making life tough for small nations.

 

[unmerged(804580)]

Governing a small nation, you'll need to pay attention to the smaller issues since they are relatively more important. Two mutually antagonistic households in Verona deserve the prince's attention if the prince is ruling only Verona; but not in a large, unified and centralized Italy. That is, the prince of Verona would need to spend his monarch points to address two runaway teenagers secret marriage while this would be hardly a newsworthy item to the king of Italy.

That's how I would understand (or rationalize) the things. A monarch can do only so much, and one who rules over a larger nation would only directly deal with the highest-level problems in their developing bureaucracy.

 

[Saintrl]

This game isn't CK2... 'Nuff said.

 

[WolfWaffle]

This game isn't CK2... 'Nuff said.

Who said it was?

 

[WolfWaffle]

The game does not need more things making life tough for small nations.

I'm not advocating that they make it tougher, I just think it's dull that you keep your kingdom stable via points, while other factors that naturally effect it in real life don't matter

 

[FrigidSoul]

Eh, smaller countries should be more stable because the ruler has fewer things occupying his attention. Realistically, a small area will have less forces to battle against but fewer forces to battle them as well, so it never really bothered me.

Smaller countries do have an easier time maintaining a high stability modifier in EU4, all else being equal -- simply because larger countries have more stuff on which to spend Admin points (and because coring costs scale skyward after your country reaches a certain size). Of course that's not necessarily a disadvantage for the larger country; certainly it isn't a net disadvantage for the larger country relative to a smaller one. There are, in fact, no intrinsic disadvantages to expansion in this game, unless you count throttles on further expansion.

The question, then, is whether large nations should have meaningful intrinsic disadvantages relative to smaller nations. From a pure historical perspective, the answer is yes for a whole host of reasons, most of which the game doesn't even attempt to acknowledge, much less simulate. From a gameplay perspective, the answer is much murkier. Personally, I'd say no; historical plausibility isn't an end in itself, and EU4's current design -- like it or hate it -- works as a board-game-style expansion game.

That's all EU4 is, and all it's supposed to be.

 

[Asturiano]

The game seems pretty fun and interesting, but it seems like it's strong armed too heavily to be historical. (Although this could be my fault for picking 'historical' lucky nations)


I like how this game is different in a lot of ways from CK2, like how governments are more centralized in this era. It seems really good. I still think CK2 is far superior but that's beside the point.

My problem is the stability modifier. It's really, really, really badly designed. To my understanding a small nation has to put in the same effort as a huge empire to become more stable. I'm not sure what was the thought behind this. If you play as a small weak nation the problems of the game become more apparent. In all honesty the stability modifier is lazily designed. I am not angry with my government(America) because they didn't put any admin points into it,(They are trying to fix things but failing terribly) I'm mad because of the war(War Exhaustion; well done paradox for that invention in this game) I'm mad because of the economy(Sorta implemented?) and I'm mad because of inflation, because my money is now worth less(It exist in the game, well done paradox).

To my understanding prestige effects legitimacy, likewise the factors above should effect stability. I think that would lead to a much more intuitive game. What are your thoughts forum people?

Yeah, nobody can really clarify or justify the presence of the stability modifier, other than to say "it's part of Europa Universalis and it always has been". To me it is a gross oversimplification of events that the game is dodging in leu of *COMET YOU LOSE ONE STABILITY POINT!* ... ugh. As I was saying...

 

[Asturiano]

This game isn't CK2... 'Nuff said.

Yeah, this game isn't as good. 'nuff said.

Yeah, this game is grossly oversimplified in baffling areas. 'nuff said.

Yeah, there's always been a stability point system in this game. 'nuff said.

Yeah, if you don't like this game exactly as it is you can't criticize it. 'nuff said.

Yeah, this game lives in it's own walled reality where other superior games just don't affect it. 'nuff said.

Yeah, this was in the board game this game is based on, even though the trading system wasn't so uhmmmm.. 'nuff said?

 

[Mjuice]

I'm mad because of the war(War Exhaustion; well done paradox for that invention in this game)

This part at least is already there as you get a stab hit for starting wars without proper justification. Anyway, you being angry at the government would correspond in the game to revolt risk (which is increased by a lot of things). Stability I think however depicts more how much the government has control over what is going on in the country. I agree though that things like inflation and size of the realm should probably give modifiers to the cost of increasing stability.

 

[Slargos]

Yeah, nobody can really clarify or justify the presence of the stability modifier, other than to say "it's part of Europa Universalis and it always has been". To me it is a gross oversimplification of events that the game is dodging in leu of *COMET YOU LOSE ONE STABILITY POINT!* ... ugh. As I was saying...

It is a board game mechanic.

It works, and it works well.

You could probably think up a system to replace it, but the amount of rebalancing it would take is staggering since it's so intrinsically linked with the entire system. Maybe for Eu5, huh? But then you'd have to find an alternative system that balances just as well but provides a suitable level of immersion. Good luck with that. :happy:

 

[User4035]

Its not hte best system but it balances the game because you have to decide how best to spend your monarch points.
It would make sense that there should be a stability bar which is just an indicator. And things like overextension, inflation, trade money/power affects the stability of the country and by fixing those things your country stability increases.

But it works ok now. Yeesh, in the begining you could get so many negative stability events that as some nations I just gave up and played with -3 stability all the time(england). They have fixed that in a patch to make it not so stupid.

Also as a new player you should be informed that when you pick different ideas, you get different random events. If you pick trade ideas you get events that affect trade. If you pick religious ideas you get events that say a miracle was performed and you get a free stability boost.

 

[Red_warning]

You should have more admin points left over because there are fewer provinces to upgrade compared to larger nations.

 

[neaiskink]

large and rich countries are generally more stable than large and poor because they hire advisors and get the points.
small and rich countries are the most stable, because they have little means of spending points and still hire advisors.
large and poor countries tend to be unstable because they have all sorst of things eating points and, thus, little to spend on stability
small and poor countries tend to still be stable, beacause of little need for points in other areas, they can afford to spend them on stability.

i think it works well.

 

[Magean]

Indeed, in my last game I was HRE Bohemia and didn't need direct expansion. As a result, even with an average monarch, I had plenty of ADM points left over for stab increase.

Administrative is really the field were there's no real middle ground : either you're starving for ADM power because of nerved vassal feeding and all, either you're swimming in it.

 

[glaivemaster]

In regards to alternate systems, I really enjoyed the stability mechanic in Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (a mod for Civ 4). In that game, stability was a number you had no direct control over, but went up or down based on various factors including: size of empire, rate of expansion, government among other things. 5 was max, and you almost never saw it, 3 was average and at 3 you could be perfectly happy. Under 3 your empire started to be a bit shaky (time to stop the rapid expansion) and could be hit by a couple of small rebellions, and below 2 you'd frequently see empires enter civil wars, wars of independence or outright collapse into smaller nations. It feels like this is what Paradox's stability system should try to emulate: at once a warning on overextending *too rapidly* and a very real danger of blobs falling apart under bad circumstances.

To be honest CK2 could learn very much the same lessons from that system in terms of anti-blobbing and collapsible empires (no, not the fold-up sort).

 

[praguepride]

Best advice: Keep a healthy army. Don't let your manpower drop below 10k early game, 40k mid game. Hit high BT provinces or provinces with good trade goods and get a strong economy base until you can afford a standing mercenary infantry army.