Please reformulate the capacites system

[VineFynn]

Just make it better lol

 

[Helmic____]

It doesn’t go from being totally fine to the worse thing ever. As you cross from +1 to -1 Authority, you go from having a very minor bonus to reform time to a very mine malus to [unknown value]. You’re right, there’s a level of abstraction involved but this is a video game.

Again, this would fail to capture the intent of the system. As a democracy, I could potentially be making Interest Groups in my ruling coalition very happy. That shouldn’t give me more authority.

If an autocracy is failing to keep the Interest Groups it relies on happy, that will be handled by different mechanics than the Authority one.

If in a democracy you rely on oligarchs and the military to stay in power that should of course give you more authority. You could also make the same argument you’re making for the laws, if you’re a democracy with full rights and freedoms except freedom of the press or allowed meetings, should that give you authority to force your population to do your bidding?

in real life even democracies were able to crack down on dissent and enact things using executive power (like authority kind of is) especially during times of crises, it’s just that democracies are under much more scrutiny from the people and press and thus doing it too much would result in more unhappiness.

 

[Helmic____]

Democracies, or more broadly constitutional states, should definitely have less authority. Authority seems to be a way to differentiate the absolute power of autocracy and the constrained power of democracy, with allowances for shades of grey in between. While democratic republics and constitutional monarchies should have some room for executive action or royal prerogative (as exercised by their ministers), it would be restrained by checks and balances; the courts and the legislature. It’s not representing whether the ‘pops are ok with it’, it’s representing the freedom of the government to act within the institutions of the state. We know this because authority capacity is reduced by constitutional reform. We haven’t seen what happens when you exceed the capacity but it should represent some sort of overreach, making pops unhappy, radical, more in favour of reform. You are able to exceed your authority in a democracy, but this is dictatorial and will hopefully be reflected in the consequences. We’ll see but it looks like a good way to model the power of a government to rule by decree to me.

However, the capacity should be more explicitly tied to the institutional checks and balances on the government and less to concepts like freedom of conscience and of the press, which should more directly linked to Pops and how easily they radicalise.

I agree, and if it was tied to the independence and strength of the judiciary I would be fine with it. The problem is that it isn’t at all tied to that but general freedom laws.

 

[Ololorium]

I agree, and if it was tied to the independence and strength of the judiciary I would be fine with it. The problem is that it isn’t at all tied to that but general freedom laws.

Maybe we can look at these laws as being the de-facto situation: if we have "Free Press", that means that free press actually exists and judges decide against restrictions if the government tries to close or censor some newspaper. While if we have something like "Press Censorship" or "State Press Only", the country might have freedom of the press on paper, but de-facto the government is free to do anything it wants about the publications it doesn't like, because the judiciary is not independent (like in today's Russia, for example: our Constitution forbids censorship, but the government routinely pressures independent media).

 

[Edam42]

I agree, and if it was tied to the independence and strength of the judiciary I would be fine with it. The problem is that it isn’t at all tied to that but general freedom laws.

It is mainly tied to the institutions though: an oligarchy is a system of government between autocracy and democracy, I don't think its referring to oligarchic pops or an interest group; and national supremacy is probably related to the centralisation of the kingdom. Together with the base value, these two make up most of the authority capacity.

But, your point demonstrates that its unclear (at the moment) that it is the institutions that give/restrain authority. I do think it needs to be more specific, 'oligarchy' is too non-specific and probably needs to be broken down into what makes the state an oligarchy - lack of a lower house being a major one, as well as the absence of a High/Supreme Court or collective responsibility of a cabinet, for example, which a country like the United States did have at this point.

edit: from the reddit post - "Distribution of Power: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Elder Council, Landed Voting, Wealth Voting, Census Suffrage, Universal Suffrage, Anarchy", so oligarchy is meant to represent the second most restricted form of power.

 

[Cagallo]

So scrap the capacities system and add a random option to create two capitals because it improves gameplay, you say? Bravo. /ironyoff

 

[Negru Voda]

I understand some people may be dragged by the "mana hate" bandwagon too much, but if this capacities system doesn't make everything in the game dependent to it (like EU4's Mil, Dip and Adm currency), it seems perfectly fine and mixes with the main theme of the game.

Yeah, isn't it that the Mana hate originally started from how EU4 power points were very randomly dependent on monarch attributes, and ppl disliked how little control they had over this aspect? Which is what probably led to being able to focus monarch points, the estates giving monarch points, monarch abdication and even a few events to increase the skills of monarchs.

This original issue became nuanced into the more sofisticated complaint that "if only currencies were based in game things which the player can control, then it would be better" - which somehow ended up becoming "abstraction leads to mana currency - and mana currency is bad because it's not simulating more of the game world".

Am I recalling things incorrectly?

Aniway, when evaluating a mechanic, I just ask myself: am I gonna be able to influence this currency, or is it introducing too much RNG somewhere where I should have more control... to the point that fun is being negatively impacted? Also: Is it really abstracting away something that is going to absolutely ruin my gameplay experience, or is it grouping things up a bit to make things manageable on release?

 

[rafsq]

Yeah, isn't it that the Mana hate originally started from how EU4 power points were very randomly dependent on monarch attributes, and ppl disliked how little control they had over this aspect? Which is what probably led to being able to focus monarch points, the estates giving monarch points, monarch abdication and even a few events to increase the skills of monarchs.

This original issue became nuanced into the more sofisticated complaint that "if only currencies were based in game things which the player can control, then it would be better" - which somehow ended up becoming "abstraction leads to mana currency - and mana currency is bad because it's not simulating more of the game world".

Am I recalling things incorrectly?

Aniway, when evaluating a mechanic, I just ask myself: am I gonna be able to influence this currency, or is it introducing too much RNG somewhere where I should have more control... to the point that fun is being negatively impacted? Also: Is it really abstracting away something that is going to absolutely ruin my gameplay experience, or is it grouping things up a bit to make things manageable on release?

My main problem with EU4's main currencies is how basically most mechanics tie back to it, from recruiting new generals to coring to diplomacy acts to even researching, and how all of that is simply dependant on those numbers. If you get a good leader (aka "Get a blessing from the RNG Jesus"), you're better off than some other players that actually try to play better. It connects expansion to army quality in one single mechanic which is also tied to RNG.
I believe the general mana hate got derailed when some people considered every value on their screen "bad mana", where as an strategy game without any kind of manageable value would probably be stale, hard to develop, and quite unfun.