PLEASE, no more Historical Lucky Nations for Ironman! Ready to cry.

[yerm]

I don't think it's the achievement whoring so much that's upset about lucky nations. It's the people who lack the self control to play ironman without the mode enabled who want to be able to change HOW they play forced ironman.

 

[Lord Finnish]

Lucky nation bonus is absurd. A nation should have to earn its greatness not get it handed from the skies.
If France wants to be a military genius factory then it should fight a lot of wars to get its land tradition up like everyone else. If they want good kings then there can be other means to buff monarchs to historically plausible levels - maybe a great power would get events boosting A-D-M through famous teachers and so on, like the current regency event that gives you 2 of chosen stat.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The issue for me - and for quite a few people here, apparently, if you'd actually bothered to read the thread - has nothing to do with difficulty. If they don't exist the game is easier in some respects, and if they do exist you can find ways to work around it and/or get a benefit out of it. They don't affect the difficulty that much at all.

Lucky nations are not a game balance thing, they are specifically intended for historical railroading. Read the tooltip on the lucky nation setting, it explicitly says that. This is my issue with it, and probably the thing I like the least about EU4: it goes out of its way to make the world in the game end up more or less like the historical outcome. This is pretty absurd, seeing as how the game is ahistorical from the instant you hit unpause. I would be perfectly OK with random lucky nations being allowed in Ironman, but historical lucky nations is just making this problem worse.



Endorsed an achievement hacker? I'm sorry, what? I'm having a hard time believing anyone associated with a game, who designed the achievements with the intention of people getting them legitimately, would ever endorse something like that.

Nevermind the fact that few people actually consider achievements to be worthwhile because of the stupid little trophy or whatever you get saying you got it. People like to actually achieve these things.

The suggestion occurred as an off-topic discussion between a non-EU IV Paradox employee and another member in my deleted thread regarding the scaling truce timer. He did indeed suggest using non-ironman and then using Steam Achievement Manager (SAM) to give yourself the achievement based on what you've felt you earned. Abookshelf is accurate to say that, and you can of course do this if you want; simply play the game however you feel is honestly and then give achievements. IMO just the autosave spam adding to the amount of time played is enough to justify doing that, though typically I just don't play ironman nor bother with achievements. Short of a handful, most of them are walkovers anyway.

 

[MrConsideration]

The only Great Power that needed 'luck' for its success was Austria, who seem to perform poorly even with lucky nations because the game simply cannot replicate the scale of Habsburg inheritance without being deterministic.

I'd support random lucky nations and, ideally, a sort of 'emergent' lucky nations. If an OPM manages to conquer four other OPMs, or a traditionally less powerful power like the Teutonic Knights or Persia enter the top 10, give them Lucky status and see what they do with it. States that are objectively powerful like France (who ALWAYS surpasses historic France without player intervention) should simply succeed or fail on their own merit.

I personally find a world where Britain, Russia, France and Spain always emerge as the premier world empires quite dull, and love wildcard worlds where Savoy forms Italy and carves up the HRE far more interesting.

 

[FreeSoc]

The only Great Power that needed 'luck' for its success was Austria, who seem to perform poorly even with lucky nations because the game simply cannot replicate the scale of Habsburg inheritance without being deterministic.

I'd support random lucky nations and, ideally, a sort of 'emergent' lucky nations. If an OPM manages to conquer four other OPMs, or a traditionally less powerful power like the Teutonic Knights or Persia enter the top 10, give them Lucky status and see what they do with it. States that are objectively powerful like France (who ALWAYS surpasses historic France without player intervention) should simply succeed or fail on their own merit.

I personally find a world where Britain, Russia, France and Spain always emerge as the premier world empires quite dull, and love wildcard worlds where Savoy forms Italy and carves up the HRE far more interesting.

Brandenburg/Prussia also required a huge amount of luck to achieve what it did, I'd say. As did (arguably) Portugal and the Dutch, and all three would be truly screwed without Lucky bonuses.

But yes, a more dynamic system that doesn't just result in a game in Western Europe being a game of "Kill France And Its 100-Tradition Godlike Generals and Troops at All Costs Or Else Stay On Its Side Forever" would be nice.

 

[ecrurudesby]

Some lucky nations require some lucky bonuses while others don't. For example +1 fire and shock is so incredibly OP for France, who takes Offensive early on anyway. +33% manpower recovery speed is also pretty OP for France. Whereas those are pretty fair bonuses for a nation like Brandenburg or Sweden, even Portugal. I'd rather give France +3 leaders without upkeep than those. Maybe even +2 leader maneuver.

 

[artemis667]

Some lucky nations require some lucky bonuses while others don't. For example +1 fire and shock is so incredibly OP for France, who takes Offensive early on anyway. +33% manpower recovery speed is also pretty OP for France. Whereas those are pretty fair bonuses for a nation like Brandenburg or Sweden, even Portugal. I'd rather give France +3 leaders without upkeep than those. Maybe even +2 leader maneuver.

So the bonuses don't need to be in lucky nations. They can be in the national ideas, in addition to, or in place of, any existing national ideas that are already used to make those historically strong nations strong in the game.

 

[CaptainChiatrol]

Game is too easy without lucky nations. I'd support "alternate lucky nations" for Ironman, but not lucky nations off.

Isn't it just as easy if you take a lucky nation like france as an ally and stay loyal to them for the trust bonus since the size and power of France combined with them being lucky keep them from almost ever losing wars so if you keep them as an ally you won't lose.

The weird thing about difficulty is lucky nations created an artificial special set of a numbers for the AI but difficulty actually makes the AI play better instead of. Why didn't they just have the good AI be the norm and have the silly artificial numbers appear on nations at the higher difficulties.

Some people just like the AI to play by the same rules that they play by instead of being like a boss from mortal combat with a seemingly infinite health bar cheating against the player.