Please dont nerf corruption, Add the option to turn it off

[Frogbait]

Once again its back to the issue of trade-offs. You are going to have to fall back on something, you dont have to burn your military tech, but that will mean a smaller economy while you deal with corruption, or less expansion while you catch up on admin tech, or less diplo annexing, or you burn your mil power, or you dont make territories states. You have alot of options here.

Its not like its one penalty type you pick, but thats the whole point of making things more difficult. The best way to make things more difficult is when you have to make trade-offs like that.

I agree, there clearly weren't any trade offs to rapidly expanding. Like Unrest, Liberty Desire (bit of a joke since 1.14), war exhaustion, money to pay an army, lack of idea groups, lack of a decent navy, inflation, diplomatic reputation, aggressive expansion, etc...

Clearly corruption has filled a void and is a completely revolutionary mechanic that clearly isn't just a poorly thought out mechanic in its current implementation who's faults were ignored for months. It's not a bad idea, just very poor implementation. Instead of making monarch points be a punishment of this mechanic as well as what is needed to stop it, it should remove one or the other. Or they could make diplo tech more appealing to take at each level. Or they could just make challenges through meaningful choices.

Not, do it our way or the highway as it's currently implemented.

Oh well, hopefully they fix it. If not then I at least had a lot of fun with EU4 and there are at least some new fun games coming along by Paradox. I've had a ton of faith in Paradox but honestly I'm just not sure anymore. The whole design direction recently of "addressing" a mechanic by nailing it with a very, very heavy hand. Natives not being able to build boats, theocracies being a great government form, hordes providing an alternative to westernizing, and now to address excessive money they've hit it 3-4 times over the head instead of doing gradual changes.

 

[misiceman]

Am I the only one who does not have a problem with Corruption? I've played for ~100 years now and I barely have to spend an effort to keep it down. I don't think it EVER rose above 5. Is it my way of playing (I don't really consider myself conservative when it comes to conquering) or what am I missing here?

The important part is who are you playing and where are you expanding into (and by how much).

 

[grommile]

Am I the only one who does not have a problem with Corruption? I've played for ~100 years now and I barely have to spend an effort to keep it down. I don't think it EVER rose above 5. Is it my way of playing (I don't really consider myself conservative when it comes to conquering) or what am I missing here?

Who are you conquering? Who are you playing? If you're the Ottomans in the early game, you'll probably hardly notice the mechanic. If you're a German with humanist ideas conquering other Germans, you'll probably hardly notice the mechanic.

If you're playing RotW without CS, you'll definitely notice the mechanic if you're conquering anything because you will have the options regarding MIL points of "flush MIL points down the toilet", "don't expand, don't take stab hits, don't get dragged into long wars, and don't get bad events", or "buy up your MIL tech and watch your economy implode due to Unbalanced Research".

 

[Magnificent Genius]

My Jaunpur>Hindustan game is being derailed by this nonsense. Coring in India is ridiculous in terms of admin, and integrating fed vassals isn't much better, so my admin and diplo tech have fallen behind, and I have been forced to plow huge amounts of mil points into developing manpower. Good news, I have no manpower worries. Bad news, I am not having fun. At all.

 

[Zoness]

My biggest problem with corruption forcing you to "play taller" as opposed to blobbing is this:

Have you ever played a "tall", small nation in speed 2-3 multiplayer? Excruciatingly boring, I'd rather watch paint dry....

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

I'm all for additions that make playing major powers more challenging.

 

[lort683]

Its never been the projectlead that did the design or overall balance of the game. Thats always been on my shoulders. Wiz did do a fair amount of the design for Cossacks & Mare Nostrum though, after starting with designwork on El Dorado.


For Mare Nostrum

I am responsible for Condottieri, Unconditional Surrender, Map Share/Steal, Automatic Repairs, Slave Raids, Mercantilism Promotion, Sailors, Naval Combat.

Wiz designed Naval Missions, States&Territories.

Espionage Rework was collaborative by me and Wiz.

Trade Leagues, Corruption was based primarily on community and beta suggestions.

Timeline was Chainguns design.

Trin Tragula did the map and content design.


Tweaks and balance are discussed with most of the team, and Wiz still joins us at weekly design meetings.


However, for Europa Univeralis.. at the end of the line, I am the one to be blamed or praised for design decisions, because I have the final say.

Where was the community asking for Corruption to be added in?

 

[VA GHOST]

Where was the community asking for Corruption to be added in?

Not that I've seen - instead this seems to be a new mechanic to stop players from blobbing - i.e. we're not playing the game like they want us to - and used corruption instead of tweaking current easily understood and simple game mechanics. (stability, bad boy points, taxes/manpower from non-core and non-culture, etc, etc)

 

[Lemont Elwood]

Corruption affects monarch point costs, not your income. The only thing it does to your income is take part of it to keep it down.

Thank you, that makes a lot more sense. Though it surely doesn't apply to Technology, right? (Fall behind in tech, gain Corruption, becomes even harder to tech up, gain even more Corruption...)

 

[MrParadux]

People just need to get used to corruption. Give it more time before casting any judgement

 

[Dayledose]

I'm all for additions that make playing major powers more challenging.

Except it doesn't make playing them more difficult, if anything it actually makes it easier, in my last testing game I played france. I basicly ate burgundy, all of netherlands and was going to start in the HRE, because the ai will go bankrupt trying to fight corruption and maintain force limits, it's fun to watch all mercs disappear in the middle of your war, it was such a challenge to beat Austria when 2/3 of their army evaporated right before my doomstack engaged them.

Honestly corruption is the best thing to happen to a blobby Western European nation ever. The difficulty you speak of doesn't seem to exist for me.

Here's how you play with this patch, pick France/Eng/Aust/Cast, ignore corruption, wait for wars to start, jump on nation already at war, take clay and ducats, core territory, raise LA, Rinse/Repeat.

Sure you might Eventually get your corruption up to 15 or 25, but by that point you should be so big and have so much income that nobody will be able to threaten you. Then you do what the Devs have forced you to do, Ruin your economy for 10 years and pay down corruption while having a huge stockpile of ducats. Really if you wanted you could avoid dealing with corruption entirely as a western nation so long as you get big enough and are making ducats, who cares that your tech is way behind when you're the only one that can field a large army?

 

[Korashy]

I'm all for additions that make playing major powers more challenging.

It hits the non major powers proportionally much harder, which is why people are complaining.

 

[FleetingRain]

"most" is a vague term, considering about 3-5% of all that play the game every week actually visit the forum, and not exactly all of them post their opinion, nor agree on that.

Yes corruption hurt nations outside of Europe. That is part of the intent, if you are neglecting adm and dip, but not MIL, its supposed to hurt.

What's the intent, nerfing ROTW or hurting people who beeline tech? I seriously hope it isn't the first but hey, we still have primitives disallowed from building boats...

 

[Korashy]

What's the intent, nerfing ROTW or hurting people who beeline tech? I seriously hope it isn't the first but hey, we still have primitives disallowed from building boats so maybe you don't care about anyone outside of Europe, right?

Honestly, it's just another attempt to make the distinctive playstyle of upper tier players in single player (I.E. the ones conquering the world) conform to how paradox wants them to play. This patch nerfed the no fort doctrine. It also nerfed the don't really tech until you get a crap ton of bonuses and spend almost all admin and dip mana on conquest/integration. I don't really know why they can't just let people play the game how they want to play it, but whatever.

 

[Dayledose]

Honestly, it's just another attempt to make the distinctive playstyle of upper tier players in single player (I.E. the ones conquering the world) conform to how paradox wants them to play. This patch nerfed the no fort doctrine. It also nerfed the don't really tech until you get a crap ton of bonuses and spend almost all admin and dip mana on conquest/integration. I don't really know why they can't just let people play the game how they want to play it, but whatever.

Which is funny to me, so let's be generous and say that the players they are trying to make conform represent 10% of the total, why would they make changes that also effect the other 90% detrimentally ( Even if they don't know it yet)? In my games I have yet to have fun playing any nation, doesn't matter who I start with I just end up annoyed, it won't force people to play the way they want all it does is annoy their customers.

What I'm waiting for is when the people who support this DLC and patch start getting bored with Western Europe and try to do some other achievements. That is when you'll see those same people change their tune and wonder why the mechanics were implemented the way they were.

 

[guachi]

I do not want to encourage "take away a use for MIL monarch points, and put its replacement behind a paywall" by paying for the most egregious instance of its occurrence.

Why not just play at a patch level that corresponds with the level of DLC you have?

Or better yet, if $5 is too much for you to pay for Common Sense (it's currently on sale) I'll buy it for you if it gets you to stop complaining about 40 minutes of labor at minimum wage.

 

[Korashy]

Which is funny to me, so let's be generous and say that the players they are trying to make conform represent 10% of the total, why would they make changes that also effect the other 90% detrimentally ( Even if they don't know it yet)? In my games I have yet to have fun playing any nation, doesn't matter who I start with I just end up annoyed, it won't force people to play the way they want all it does is annoy their customers.

What I'm waiting for is when the people who support this DLC and patch start getting bored with Western Europe and try to do some other achievements. That is when you'll see those same people change their tune and wonder why the mechanics were implemented the way they were.

That my friend is the real mystery. I'd guess cause of people seeing other people doing 3M and then screaming "it's too easy".

 

[lort683]

Not that I've seen - instead this seems to be a new mechanic to stop players from blobbing - i.e. we're not playing the game like they want us to - and used corruption instead of tweaking current easily understood and simple game mechanics. (stability, bad boy points, taxes/manpower from non-core and non-culture, etc, etc)

I'd have to agree, it makes very little sense to me.

 

[LordNeidhart]

I've always had a problem with design decisions based around punishment rather than reward. It can be legitimate, sure, but the thought process to justify "I bought this expansion because the new mechanics ensure that if I'm playing well, I'm not getting punished" is nowhere near as straightforward as "I bought this expansion because the new mechanics ensure that if I'm playing well, I'm getting rewarded" which is, I feel, far more pleasant to the player.

At it is, looking at development history for the game I do believe one can identify a long, long, looooooooong sequence of continuous "let's kick the player in the face for going conquering" decisions, something that goes all the way back to how coring times used to scale with country size to ridiculous levels, or the original incarnations of AE where you couldn't sneeze menacingly without France deciding to snap your spine in half.

Some of these features have been good, some have been bad, but frankly we're at a point where too many of them exist to the point that the latest one is as silly as a series like Diablo enacting mechanics to punish you for getting loot drops.

Ultimately however, even if you disagree with everything I'm saying, the basic question remains: Have you ever played a game where a corruption mechanic was engaging and fun?
That is my greatest fear towards Mare Nostrum, the first expansion so far I haven't bought on release day.

I already sacrifice relations, I already sacrifice commitment to the stability of the Empire, I already sacrifice soldiers, I already sacrifice MONARCH POINTS AND TECHNOLOGY, the single most important things in the entire game. Now I'm being asked to sacrifice a little bit more of everything at the same time unless I'm paying some arbitrary conquest tax that doesn't really have much of a reason for existing [having to pay the maintenance costs of armies and forts is not enough?]. Someone remind me, why is that rewarding again?

 

[Milith]

At 2 techs, it starts.

Actually it starts at 3.