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

[Strangedane]

People trying to compare the 2 are trying to compare two different species of apples.

Completely off-topic, but I have a pet peeve.

Comparing different sorts of apples is easy as hell.
Heck, even comparing oranges to apples is easy.

If using the following setup:
A ~ J/E
O ~ J/E
Where A is apple, O is orange, J is joy and E is expense. It becomes trivial to compare them.
We can also do calories, contained sugars or even size. (though that's seldom relevant)

 

[Topsy Cret]

Imagine yourself in the time period of Europa Universalis. The overwhelming majority of society is composed of uneducated, uninformed, and superstitious peasants. Suddenly you see a fast-moving bright light in the night sky. This is something out of the ordinary, and its human nature to immediately associate events you know nothing about, even if they really have nothing to do with each other. So, comet comes, and soon thereafter a conflict erupts between states, the harvest is less impressive than usual, a village member falls ill. And something as mystical as a comet is bound to have massive religious connotations, which was a massive part of society then. Whatever. Chances are, the population is going to get uppity about this sort of thing.

As for the traveling minstrel, you will recall that the event doesn't remove stability - it adds it (as only one of the options). If you get a skilled musician roaming the country playing music (music being one of the few things that people could get behind back then) at his leisure, its such a rare, heartwarming occurrence that its bound to brighten the spirits of people who normally have mundane and difficult lives. That is to say, when people are given something to gather around and enjoy themselves (a phenomenon that may as well be alien to them), they're bound to work more enthusiastically not care too much if the state doesn't appreciate your heretic religion of choice.

That said, the minstrel event is one of the weirder ones out there.

 

[Slargos]

Wow, I didn't know it was originally a board game. Yet keeping board game mechanics in a computer game which, by its nature, could allow to dispense with the hideous abstractions which limit board games seems a bit odd to me. But I am not going to keep this up further and I find the current system to be quite enjoyable after all.

Adding complexity for the sake of adding complexity is bad design in a game.

It might be good design in a painting or a t-shirt, but it's a bad design in a game.

 

[birincikalite]

You don't need much stability.Positive is fine.

 

[Saintrl]

Somehow, I think if the devs ever released an alternative system to stability people would still get upset. For all we know if stability was abstracted in increments of 10 out of 100 instead of 1 out of 6 we would still get people who didn't like the "new system".

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You don't need much stability.Positive is fine.

...Unless you've a junk religion and are trying to convert a province over base tax 10 . Even with religious ideas, that's hard, though that group does at least reduce stab cost also.

 

[Topsy Cret]

...Unless you've a junk religion and are trying to convert a province over base tax 10 . Even with religious ideas, that's hard, though that group does at least reduce stab cost also.

Special cases, I suppose. I only keep my stability at 1, the events do the rest (for better and for worse). The fact that there's a higher MTTH for stability hit events the higher it already is, I don't much see the point. Of course, this doesn't apply when you're a small nation since you need all the money you can get.

 

[Saintrl]

Perhaps people's issue is how static stability is. If it was some kind of monthly modifier and dynamic gains or losses was determined my multiple factors... Oh wait the AI would probably crash when that happens.

 

[frostwolf846]

I've been trying to get into eu4 from ck2 but I find that eu4 is so much abstract. Stability in eu4 is a button that when pressed will increase and with certain events will decrease . Stability of your realm in ck2 is defined by in game aspects.

 

[panionios]

Your biggest problem is the stability modifier? Really?

 

[Comes Imperii]

Adding complexity for the sake of adding complexity is bad design in a game.

It might be good design in a painting or a t-shirt, but it's a bad design in a game.

Who talked about adding complexity for the sake of complexity...just thought that in 2014 we could use a deeper, more flexible mechanic to represent stability, but as I said I'm not going to keep up this argument.
The system works quite fine as we lack deeper internal politics and similar stuff. I'd like other aspects to be improved, warfare comes first to my mind.

 

[Beagá]

Adding complexity for the sake of adding complexity is bad design in a game.

It might be good design in a painting or a t-shirt, but it's a bad design in a game.

No, it´s making Stability a crucial and well represented part of any nation situation at that time, instead of changing 4 points per year and allowing you to hire artist to paint breasts for cheaper cost.

 

[Slargos]

No, it´s making Stability a crucial and well represented part of any nation situation at that time, instead of changing 4 points per year and allowing you to hire artist to paint breasts for cheaper cost.

What's the pressing need in the stability model that justifies re-writing and re-balancing the entire event, decision and modifier system?

 

[Beagá]

For starters it could make Peace time more interesting (by spicing up religious wars, civil wars chances etc, opening other strategic options) if done well. I´m not saying it´s easy to do at the stage the game is in, and probably it is something for EU 5 only or an expansion. Instead of lack of religious unity causing increased stability cost, it should be LOWER stability the main factor of internal religious unrest or at least a major one, with other factors. Naturally that is pointless in a system where you raise stab with a press of a button every year or two.

I was more pissed by other factors that are just as shallow, like the all-or-nothing religion/culture type per province, lack of population as a value and instead use of base tax only, lame dinastic model, vassal feeding etc etc. I´m no longer active here as I stopped playing EU long ago but I always suggested the game should have taken some clues from Victoria 2.

 

[PrinceCola]

My main issue with this is trade. Overly complex, makes me give up every time

I love CK2 as well, wish it was a little more like that!

 

[WolfWaffle]

Your biggest problem is the stability modifier? Really?

Why wouldn't it be?
It's immersion breaking, some things could be improved upon but I imagine the next patches will fix them.

It's still a good game with a great primise

 

[Matrim_Cauthon]

In Eu3 stability costs were scaled by province. So the bigger the empire, the more costly it was to stabilize it. Religious and cultural diversity also amplified the costs. In Eu4 this was kind of abstracted, because what matters here is how good the ruler is. So it's possible to have small countries be very unstable, depending on the size of the country.

 

[Alerias]

There are several features that make it so large nations are stretched thinner on Power. A small country has very few things to blow Power on, and thus has an easier time overall keeping higher Stab even if the cost is the same.

 

[Slargos]

In Eu3 stability costs were scaled by province. So the bigger the empire, the more costly it was to stabilize it. Religious and cultural diversity also amplified the costs. In Eu4 this was kind of abstracted, because what matters here is how good the ruler is. So it's possible to have small countries be very unstable, depending on the size of the country.

Not really. Large empires will have to spend more of their ADM power on cores and as such will have less to spend on stability. This means that while there's no direction relationship between the size of an empire and stability cost, there is a direct opportunity cost of coring new territory.