Paradox: please change the way of boosting stability!

[TheMeInTeam]

"To hell with logic, boosting stab instantly is BORING, but boosting it incrementally in a time-limited fashion without the introduction of any additional strategic consideration would be EXCITING".

Lol, no.

The question "what purpose does stability serve" in this game is a valid one. It is an ADM sink, offset by the state of the empire, significant only insofar as its impact on rebellions and the ability to declare wars/refuse deals. Time limiting it does nothing for the strategy of the game except increase the chance of rebellion should you get unlucky. Its present design is to provide incentive to manage unity and overextension. OP's suggestion adds nothing significant to the decision making process.

Also, the OP's suggestion that nations will boost up to +3 willingly signifies a fundamental lack of understanding of the current mechanic, as only in rare cases is it competent play to boost stab that high and the even AI generally doesn't.

 

[Andrzej2]

Stability should be a reflection of your current unrest, wealth, political power, military strength and cultural/religious unity. All of these things should affect stability, but stability should not affect them. Stability is just a word we use when referring to all of them collectively. I don't like how the idea of stability has become converted into a number which can arbitrarily go up or down and can have a pretty major impact on your game.

So basically if you have good cultural religious unity, good wealth, low public disorder, a good monarch, and good military strength (all relative to the size of your nation) then the game should mark you as having positive stability. This would then give you bonuses, in say diplomatic relations with other countries. In other words, stability shouldn't just be something you throw admin points at, but should instead reflect how well you are doing at balancing the critical elements of your game.

This solution would be ideal. Stability drop should reflect what really happens in the country. Maybe changes in stability should be like current disaster system - game would tick points toward lowering stability if country is losing war, have occupied provinces, war exhaustion, huge debt, blockade, undefeated rebels, regency council, ruler with low legitimacy etc. And if you are at peace, have good situation will tick points toward increasing stability.

Solutions proposed by OP are also very good and I think that not so hard to introduce (many actions in game already require time). Fixing stability is very needed becouse for now it's useless. In Eu3 having -3 stability was distaster similar to peasant's war and excomunication together. Unstable countries could easly split up like Austra-Hungary in 1918. In Eu4 stability levels are too easy to manage and unimportant.

 

[Lessing]

The VeF mod tried (and probably still does) to make stability matter more, increasing and decreasing it automatically depending on tons of factors, mainly on province stability (which works a bit like negative unrest).

The result, at least in my opinion, was a very hard to understand mechanic that definitely is not making the game better to understand (lack of visual modding possibilities did not help that).

There are already enough country variables... stability, war exhaustion, inflation, religious unity, legitimacy, prestige, power projection... I don't really think we need to make it more complicated.

 

[Red John]

I'm personally fine with stability as it is. There's no doubt it can be improved, though.

 

[johnymathias]

The VeF mod tried (and probably still does) to make stability matter more, increasing and decreasing it automatically depending on tons of factors, mainly on province stability (which works a bit like negative unrest).

The result, at least in my opinion, was a very hard to understand mechanic that definitely is not making the game better to understand (lack of visual modding possibilities did not help that).

There are already enough country variables... stability, war exhaustion, inflation, religious unity, legitimacy, prestige, power projection... I don't really think we need to make it more complicated.

I agreed, that a lot of variables instead of one stability is not good for clarity and gameplay. So in my mod I make stability recovering in disaster mechanic. This is still just one factor, of course with different modifiers (as before stab_cost_modifiers), but now recovering of stability is a process. I tested that and for me looks much better than vanilla system. But of course as a modder I couldn't do so nice in interface layer, so that is the reason why I started this thread

 

[Soulburger]

I agree that stability is a bit too easy to increase right now, at least for large empires. It makes no sense for neither game balance nor realism, that the stability cost for a world spanning empire is the same (or lower) as for a OPM. Especially as the benefits gets better the larger you are. I realise that larger nations also get hit harder by negative stability, but it still feels unbalanced right now. I would like to see increased stability costs for higher tax base nations, and maybe lessened effects from negative stability.

Time limits also makes sense, but I would rather have a soft cap like increased costs for consecutive increments. Let's say for raising again within a year. Maybe +100% times the fraction of a year since last increase (so 6 month = +50%).

Was going to post a similar idea. I do like the original idea to change the one-click process for stability increase to a time based action. That would definitely make the current process not feel so "gamey". Adding an additional modifier based on the total province count/tax count would be another step to reflect the difficulties for larger nations to stabilize their administration. Obviously, it would take some careful game-balancing to properly work for the masses.

Also adding the increase-stability-over-time mechanic appeals to me as a more strategic gaming choice. Instead of having the luxury to quickly escape a negative stability hit, a user will now have to evaluate situations and determine if they should start a stability increase to avoid problems during their war campaign that kicks off in 9 months.

 

[demoix]

Say it comets event

 

[ringhloth]

I never thought about my stability in EU3. It would go down occasionally. I would ignore it, as it would inevitably go up again, and I didn't have to do anything to make that happen. It was a pointless modifier that didn't really add to the game. In EU4, stab gains and hits are major. Events that give stability are something to strive and plan for, while events that take it away are the bane of my existence.

 

[kente]

Stability is a game mechanic. If it's boring it's not important. Whenever you choose to change a game mechanic you should always define what are the goals for those change.
After you say what are those change we can argue if it's a good idea

 

[Clownie]

The VeF mod tried (and probably still does) to make stability matter more, increasing and decreasing it automatically depending on tons of factors, mainly on province stability (which works a bit like negative unrest).

The result, at least in my opinion, was a very hard to understand mechanic that definitely is not making the game better to understand (lack of visual modding possibilities did not help that).

There are already enough country variables... stability, war exhaustion, inflation, religious unity, legitimacy, prestige, power projection... I don't really think we need to make it more complicated.

I actually really like the VeF system. Sure, it took me a while to understand, but when I first started playing EU4, I had no clue what was going on anyway.

 

[Lessing]

I actually really like the VeF system. Sure, it took me a while to understand, but when I first started playing EU4, I had no clue what was going on anyway.

But you DO have very visible indicators for most of EU4's mechanics. A modded, additional stability system whose state is only visible when hovering over a decision question mark, and whose inner details are found only in a post on the forum here, is not at all comparable to just being a clueless beginner.

 

[WeissRaben]

But you DO have very visible indicators for most of EU4's mechanics. A modded, additional stability system whose state is only visible when hovering over a decision question mark, and whose inner details are found only in a post on the forum here, is not at all comparable to just being a clueless beginner.

That's because the interface is barely moddable, and not at all in the "adding stuff" sense. Paradox could put the rules in plain sight; modders cannot.

 

[Lessing]

That's because the interface is barely moddable, and not at all in the "adding stuff" sense. Paradox could put the rules in plain sight; modders cannot.

That's exactly my point.

 

[Chieron]

As much of the problem seems to be the instantaneous increase, why not make stability work like annexations or westernization?
That is, you issue an order to increase stability [maybe even just set a target stab.], which then causes you to pay 10 ADM/month (there could be modifiers for this value akin to diprep, allowing faster stabilizing. No going below 0 ADM, too) until you reach the needed investment and only then stability will increase.
Thus, an increase would take around 10 months. Long enough to possibly have an effect, but not crippling, methinks.

 

[WeissRaben]

That's exactly my point.

Mmmmh. But I am in favour of a VeF-like system, once it can be backed by an actual interface; your reply seemed against it, instead. That's the whole point: the system should be judged, more than by how it looks, by how it works; because PDS could give it a working interface, making that one point moot in a "should it be added in the base game" argument.

 

[Thrake]

"To hell with logic, boosting stab instantly is BORING, but boosting it incrementally in a time-limited fashion without the introduction of any additional strategic consideration would be EXCITING".

Lol, no.

How's that illogical to be unable to turn in 1 day from an unstable state where people are ready to rebel, question the ruler's legitimacy,... to a very stable state where everyone is happy with the government and working hard? The current design is illogical, otherwise nations would have never fall because monarchs would just press buttons.

The question "what purpose does stability serve" in this game is a valid one. It is an ADM sink, offset by the state of the empire, significant only insofar as its impact on rebellions and the ability to declare wars/refuse deals. Time limiting it does nothing for the strategy of the game except increase the chance of rebellion should you get unlucky. Its present design is to provide incentive to manage unity and overextension. OP's suggestion adds nothing significant to the decision making process.

Although this is a personnal point of view, you make it sound as a truth. When I westernize, I expect to get rebelions all over the place (as is implied by events about people resisting westernization,...), but with the current design, I just don't. I press the magical stab button, and everyone forgets about my innovative policy. It should be a slow process, with a tough begining, and things smoothening over time, which is what a limit to stab raising would provide. Same for other situations; a stab hit during war and going in the negative could be an incentive to peace out quickly rather than suing more favorable terms.

A similar system for WE would make for shorter wars, rather than the old total war system; if I were limited in how much I could lower it, I would have to sue for peace at some point, or face the risk of dangerous rebelions. You would have to weight the possible gains and the possible losses; that would be a more logical soft cap to expansion; if you could manage your own business fine, you could keep expanding, but if you were to be a bit too ambitious and involved in a tough war, then you would have to pay the price for it. The current design just doesn't make sense; there are many mechanics that on their own could mimic disaster system, yet rather than having a "disaster-like" scenario happening with low stab while involved in a messy war with low legitimacy (rebelions because of high unrest; no need for dedicated events), it makes those modifiers insignificant and implements revolts through events.

By the way, the "time-limited fashion" used to be how it worked in EUIII, with similar modifiers (revolt risk,...); you had to choose how much gold to spend monthly for stab and tech (rather than MP), so it's not really a suggestion "without additional strategical consideration", as it would be a direct mimic of some of EUIII mechanics (one of which were better in my view). I'm guessing it has been changed to make things easier rather than just a "MP sink", but it failed at it and both stability and war exhaustion aren't modifiers to be feared anymore. Even inflation; I can be the Aztecs, get like +0.15 monthly inflation and still keep sitting bellow 2. Might as well outright remove inflation and just pop an event "you're mining gold! pay 50 ADM to proceed!" from time to time.

What I mean is that the game tries to be complex, has many modifiers, but in the end it just add rules on top to make this apparent complexity insignificant. I could go on about how I either sit on 0 prestige at start or 100 prestige 50 years in, but this is getting off topic.

 

[Mac1]

in Eu4 stability for me means:
"Always have some additional ADM points stored to be able to fast click it to +1 when bad events happening"
"Always store some more ADM points before making any stab-cost decisions"
That's all what i can say about it, besides that I forget about stability, which was one of major aspects of previous games.


I still remember Eu2 MP campaigns, when Your country stability was one of major factor showing howstrong you really are and how well prepared for fighting a long war.
You would never do actions risking instability of your country if you either dont have a NAP or some strong allies. Because if your country is unstable, you are easy target for others.

Maybe in eu2 stability was too important factor (i won't judge here), but general idea was good. When your country is suffering from religion, cultural, other problems, you will rule it less efficiently, therefore it's harder to collect taxes, harder to gather troops, harder to convince people that currently war is the most important thing.

After Stability was converted to something which you can invest with some stored points ("mana" like someone noticed), it is not so fun anymore.

Also from what I remember many factors where important in regards to stability. Currently it's only ADM related. So if you decide to not use ADM ideas, you can forget about it at all, because you will always have enough points. And on the other hand, why country which is investing in Administration will most probably have average worse stability than country investing in Military. It is also something not totally right for me.


Anyway i really like the idea of having Stability as a time related thing.
The biggest downside is bad luck, when you can get few stab hits from random events in short time and suddenly end with -3 stability, while having generally nice country.
I agree this is annoying, but i have some idea to prevent it.
What if every stab hit greatly reduces next few hits for some short time ?, let me explain that:

Let's say that one stability costs 1000 points (of something, not important right now).
-1 stability equals to -1000 points in that situation (so you end up with stability lowered by 1 and the same progress in increasing).
But this also gives e.g. -50% to power of next stab hit (which lowers with time, e.g. to -25% after year etc.)
So next stabhit if happens right away will be only -500 points. (which could either lower your stab by 1 or dont touch stab level, but just lower current progress of increasing it)
This will again lower "power of stabhit" , to make another one almost harmless if it happens too fast.

My values here were just random numbers,
but if provide good values, you can prevent country from destabilizing quickly from a very stabilized one, to -3 , which also makes the same sens as making impossible of making country quickly increase its stabilization from -3 to +3.
Stability changes should be a long term process and generally not more than +-1 possible in short time.

 

[Ri0Rdian]

Not only Stability, but Inflation and War exhaustion too. Click, change, gone, wohooo sun is shining again! Nope, should be use that action, wait a certain amount of time either till it hits, or it is gradually improving after you use th action.

 

[yerm]

How's that illogical to be unable to turn in 1 day from an unstable state where people are ready to rebel, question the ruler's legitimacy,... to a very stable state where everyone is happy with the government and working hard? The current design is illogical, otherwise nations would have never fall because monarchs would just press buttons.

This is ludicrous. Despite their ability to "just press buttons" even human players with considerable experience succumb to rebels or disasters. The stability system currently can and does force nations to end up riding low stability unless they want to sacrifice in other areas, just as historically the leaders of nations often had to choose between doing what they personally wanted or appeasing either the masses or their support base.

I further feel that "instant" stability is as historical as "gradual" stability is. A truly historical mapping of stability would combine both. A leader who makes considerable government concessions in order to end civil strife and allow him to raise an army and attack someone seems reasonably well modeled by spending a ton of "administrative monarch points" in order to raise stability and be able to declare war. If you think of admin points as government control or even government handouts, its logical and historical to be able to just divert these valuable resources into appeasing whoever you need to, in order to reduce internal strife or allow a policy decision to pass.

Although this is a personnal point of view, you make it sound as a truth. When I westernize, I expect to get rebelions all over the place (as is implied by events about people resisting westernization,...), but with the current design, I just don't. I press the magical stab button, and everyone forgets about my innovative policy. It should be a slow process, with a tough begining, and things smoothening over time, which is what a limit to stab raising would provide. Same for other situations; a stab hit during war and going in the negative could be an incentive to peace out quickly rather than suing more favorable terms.

Resistance to westernization is far better modeled with the events, which no amount of stability can prevent. Referring to above, a monarch who has the ability to influence his population or government handouts to offer to supporters (aka admin points) very well SHOULD be able to westernize easier than someone who lacks the administrative resources to fully control the process. This is historical. Having no way of softening the blow, and especially no reason to stockpile points or wait for an ideal time because it's bad no matter what, hardly makes westernizing fun!

A similar system for WE would make for shorter wars, rather than the old total war system; if I were limited in how much I could lower it, I would have to sue for peace at some point, or face the risk of dangerous rebelions. You would have to weight the possible gains and the possible losses; that would be a more logical soft cap to expansion; if you could manage your own business fine, you could keep expanding, but if you were to be a bit too ambitious and involved in a tough war, then you would have to pay the price for it. The current design just doesn't make sense; there are many mechanics that on their own could mimic disaster system, yet rather than having a "disaster-like" scenario happening with low stab while involved in a messy war with low legitimacy (rebelions because of high unrest; no need for dedicated events), it makes those modifiers insignificant and implements revolts through events.

War exhaustion is the same thing but inverted. You spend monarch points (dip this time) or you suffer. All the arguments of before apply.

By the way, the "time-limited fashion" used to be how it worked in EUIII, with similar modifiers (revolt risk,...); you had to choose how much gold to spend monthly for stab and tech (rather than MP), so it's not really a suggestion "without additional strategical consideration", as it would be a direct mimic of some of EUIII mechanics (one of which were better in my view). I'm guessing it has been changed to make things easier rather than just a "MP sink", but it failed at it and both stability and war exhaustion aren't modifiers to be feared anymore. Even inflation; I can be the Aztecs, get like +0.15 monthly inflation and still keep sitting bellow 2. Might as well outright remove inflation and just pop an event "you're mining gold! pay 50 ADM to proceed!" from time to time.

What I mean is that the game tries to be complex, has many modifiers, but in the end it just add rules on top to make this apparent complexity insignificant. I could go on about how I either sit on 0 prestige at start or 100 prestige 50 years in, but this is getting off topic.

I think you're oversimplifying and possibly outright missing the point. The current system gives us a choice, and choice is what is truly good here. If I'm sitting on a bunch of gold mines I can choose to buy down inflation, or I can take policies to reduce it, or I can take stab hits when the events that raise or lower it pop, or I can expand and lower the % that my income is from gold, or I can suffer rampant inflation. It's my choice. The difference between spending points all at once to buy it down, or gradually to reduce it, is minimal. The difference between either of these and a popup is night and day.

I'd be ok with a system that gradually lowered WE and dip points each month, or lowered inflation and admin each month, but whatever else changes I want to be in control of it - it's the whole reason to play a strategy game in the first place.

 

[yerm]

Not only Stability, but Inflation and War exhaustion too. Click, change, gone, wohooo sun is shining again! Nope, should be use that action, wait a certain amount of time either till it hits, or it is gradually improving after you use th action.

What is the difference between spending 150 dip points to lower your WE by 4, or toggling on some war enthusiasm option that lowers dip pool and war exhaustion by 15 and .4 respectively each month? Is the problem here just that you can deal with it instantly? Given the way WE accrues, if you're on top of it the moment it's starting to go up, both of these situations wouldn't be terribly different to an experienced player. with inflation and admin points, I'd argue there'd be almost no meaningful difference assuming total MP spent per penalty amount lowered stayed the same.

Stability is in its own boat because stability does not tick up and down like inflation and exhaustion; it goes in very noticeable ticks. It is a completely separate beast; making stability change gradually changes the fundamental nature of how stability is handled, unlike making mechanics accrued gradually (like WE) paid for gradually too isn't a big change.