Please strengthen the Asian countries

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To TheMeInTeam: If all you should be doing is nudging it back and forth -- then make it so that there are only three states, without the extremes of the +100 for each, since getting there is insanely broken, and you aren't supposed to do it anyway. Again, scrap it, and just let China have three "modes" you choose from, with a small cost to switch between them. In fact, what would be good for China -- "economic" footing, "diplomatic" footing, or "war" footing -- would be just as good for any nation anywhere around the world. But the problem is that it gives you the illusion that you can push any of the factions to 100%, when that just breaks China badly.

False choices are not good game design. It's like telling people, "Sure! Keep conquering! Go for 300% OE. See what happens."

And yes, I found my experience with China to be "that bad." I actually preferred the scrappy little Navarra to the bloated, useless China.

And, not only Spain needs the nerf on colonists. Everyone in the game needs to be nerfed, so that 1600 doesn't look like 1800.

I mean, Botany Bay wasn't founded until 1788. But in the game, it's common to see someone plunked down there in the 1600s.

That's the major ahistorical problem. I can see if someone mini-maxed and really tried to hard to extend their reach. But the players and the AI are all way too expansive collectively. By the time a historical Jamestown colony would be established, often in the game the whole Eastern Seaboard of the United States has colonists on it.

The same is true of European massive invasion fleets reaching Asia. Asian powers already have to start watching their backs in the 1500s. That's historically true with the early 1500s Portuguese bases in India.

HOWEVER, the invasion forces of the time were about 800 men and fleets of a few dozen ships. What made the difference was naval gunfire.

But even with that, what the Portuguese set up were forts and factories. They did not conquer whole provinces. Not at first. There were not really "controlled territories" on the subcontinent until the 1700s after the disintegration of the Mughals and the rise of the Marathas in the 1700s.

For the period of 1500+, what EUIV needs is more of the "trading post" set up of CKII, where you can have a "presence" in a province without really being the province controller. This would make more sense to show establishment of trading posts, at least until later, when the colonial powers began to actually start making whole provinces part of their control.

These trading posts should be money-makers. Otherwise, why in the world are you doing them? But the goal is to make trade income off the province. Not "paint the map" your color. Once you do try to go from trading post to colonization or conquest, then there should be the cost of settlement, or the resort to war against its controller.

It just grates against me when I see these gigantic D-Day-esque invasion fleets with tens of thousands of troops showing up around the world. That's not how the New World was subjugated. Nor was it how India and the rest of Asia were infiltrated. At least, not at first. It was not until the 1700s when the global reach of these empires allowed moving large armies -- tens of thousands of troops -- overseas.

The main limiter on overseas attrition was scurvy -- which was not finally discovered to be preventable with citrus fruits until a book was published in 1732 by a Scottish doctor. It still took decades before the Royal Navy finally clued in.

Before then, attrition after a few months at sea should grow exponentially. Even then, outbreaks of other diseases, such as cholera, could still decimate troops traveling overseas.

Anyway, right now, I am just tired of seeing massive metropoli rivaling Vienna in the New World, the Spanish Armada in Australia, and massive doomstacks of Russian Guards Armor Divisions in Asia by the mid 1600s. All "Europa" needs to be nerfed in terms of expansionism by about a century. If it was, there would be more historical "second tier" powers who could sneak into the New World later: the Dutch, the Swedes, the Scots, even Denmark and Germany. There would be more of a ramping-up of global colonial expansion.

I know a lot of players love the way the game currently works -- because it works in their favor. They get to paint the world their color. If they can't reach it first, all they have to do is go to war with the colonial power who did spend the time to colonize it, and viola! It's theirs too.

Now, a good, focused empire should be able to do better than history did. I don't want to shut down earnest world colonizers entirely. But at the current state of expansion, it's just too fast. It makes the colonial nations far too powerful too quickly.

Anyone else feel the same way?
 
I am tired of seeing this happen:

View attachment 105549

1 Russia attacks Ming.
2 Demands 3 (or more) key provinces.
3 Releases 3 nations as vassals from those provinces (Xi, Zhou and Shun).
4 Then Russia attacks Ming again, and demands a huge amount of cores back to those vassals for no aggressive expansion. And lets face it, they shouldn't really be cores to these nations. They are puppet states who should not have any cores over those provinces in Ming! (claims would be ok, but not cores!).
5 Ming is utterly crushed, and Russia is now Russia + China = OP (annexing those vassals gives immediate cores).

And take a good look at the date. Its 1560!!! South America isn't even fully colonise by then....


Now that^ would never happen in SP by the AI. But in multiplayer, it happens all the damn time and it is utterly ridiculous. Please paradox, change it.

Well said Izob.

In addition to that in my MP game, the Mughals did it instead, and have a clear hegemony on all expansion East. Of course this is mostly a problem because there are never any players in Asia (one or two is all that is needed), and everyone is loathe to put them in.
 
I think the number of provinces in Asia is ok.
Count the number of provinces in India.

Now count the number of provinces in Germany.

Still think it's okay?

Last time I counted, India had around 70, and Germany around 80. If it feels like no great feat to conquer India, that's not surprising, because in EUIV it is a poor, low-tech region that is smaller than Germany, not a sub-continent that had about 20–25% of global GDP throughout the EU period.

I think if more provinces were added, it would only make the high-tech invaders more powerful - the situation would become worse. Because the high tech invaders would still win and claim those provinces.

More resistance to these high-tech invaders is needed, and I think that should be done by adding special national modifiers to the Asian tech groups.
The problem is that the invaders are "high-tech" in the first place. Both sides, throughout the period, were using the same essential weapons. There were no fundamental technological differences between Asia and Europe at this time. (Try the 19th century.)

There were certain advantages (by the 1700s!) in terms of European infantry tactics and drill systems, and European artillery. But when Indian armies began to fight European trained and equipped armies on the field, they soon did their best to imitate them. British dominance in India was a political process, not achieved by technologically unbeatable armies. (Try the 1880s.)

Solution: Less tech rate penalty for Asian countries. Better units at all tech levels for Asian countries.

Are there mods which are already doing this? Of course! :D
 
Old issue, and one that likely wont be fixed, Paradox has made it very clear that it is WAD that Europeans are stomping non-Europeans. After all, the game is not called 'Europa Universalis' for no reason.
Then they are wrong and we will keep telling them they're wrong. =)

Crusader Kings is a game about the Crusades. "It's not called Crusader Kings for nothing!" That doesn't mean the people you're crusading against are or should be pushovers — quite the opposite, in fact.
 
Well-said pac.

If it's "WAD," then the designers need to re-think their design goals. Because since launch, and with each patch, the game has swung wildly back-and-forth in design implementations (AE? Vassal Feeding? Colonial Nations?). And it's increasingly not working with the fan base.

Rather than focus on simply fixing player exploits, the game developers need to refocus on verisimilitude -- not through rigged, hard-coded events and national buffs -- but through plausible general systems that can allow players to change the course of history in a way that feels comfortable and plausible.

I'm not outright against Europe becoming more technically advanced as the game progresses. It is true that gunpowder changed the course of history, and the Europeans definitely used "gunboat diplomacy" to make their case known from the 15th Century onwards in Africa, Asia and the New World.

However, ironically, people tend to forget that it was the Ottomans that amassed the first huge set of bombards in the world to bring the walls of Constantinople down in 1453.

The Japanese were widely using copied versions of the Portuguese matchlock in the 1560s. To say they were enthusiastic of the prospects of the new type of weapon is an understatement. They went so gun-nuts they'd make even the modern NRA proud. In fact, they had about 40,000 arquebusiers (ashigaru equipped with tanesgashima muskets) in the Korean invasion force of 1592, out of an army of 160,000. They took Seoul in 18 days after their landing. >.>

There was no equivalent European army with that large percentage and absolute number of firearms for another century.

The one thing that should be nerfed with non-European nations is the fielding of ships with "cannon" when they technologically never had those. There should be some sort of pre-gunpowder ships that would be given a terrible malus in fire, but, if they closed, they might win by boarding actions. Because seeing "barques" and even "carracks" off the coast of North America fielded by native american tribes who have not gone "tech heavy" in their development is making me twitchy.
 
Rather than focus on simply fixing player exploits, the game developers need to refocus on verisimilitude -- not through rigged, hard-coded events and national buffs -- but through plausible general systems that can allow players to change the course of history in a way that feels comfortable and plausible.
I think verisimilitude is probably a lost cause at this point. Leave that to the mods. I accept that the vanilla game is going to focus on an MP audience.

However, even in those terms, EUIV is failing in that it is not making non-European countries viable in MP terms. A player-controlled country will do a bit better but (and I am sure a more experienced MP player will correct me if I'm wrong) they will be relying on a helpful co-player giving them a Western neighbour so they can Westernise early to stand a chance.
 
While it certainly doesn't address the issue entirely, I've found that removing the MP penalty from Chinese/Indian tech groups makes them at least somewhat more competitive. Yeah, as a colonizing European power you're still going to absolutely crush anybody in Asia due to pip advantages and such...but then again you can crush your European neighbors almost as easily by that point...
 
Well-said pac.

If it's "WAD," then the designers need to re-think their design goals. Because since launch, and with each patch, the game has swung wildly back-and-forth in design implementations (AE? Vassal Feeding? Colonial Nations?). And it's increasingly not working with the fan base.

Rather than focus on simply fixing player exploits, the game developers need to refocus on verisimilitude -- not through rigged, hard-coded events and national buffs -- but through plausible general systems that can allow players to change the course of history in a way that feels comfortable and plausible.

I'm not outright against Europe becoming more technically advanced as the game progresses. It is true that gunpowder changed the course of history, and the Europeans definitely used "gunboat diplomacy" to make their case known from the 15th Century onwards in Africa, Asia and the New World.

However, ironically, people tend to forget that it was the Ottomans that amassed the first huge set of bombards in the world to bring the walls of Constantinople down in 1453.

The Japanese were widely using copied versions of the Portuguese matchlock in the 1560s. To say they were enthusiastic of the prospects of the new type of weapon is an understatement. They went so gun-nuts they'd make even the modern NRA proud. In fact, they had about 40,000 arquebusiers (ashigaru equipped with tanesgashima muskets) in the Korean invasion force of 1592, out of an army of 160,000. They took Seoul in 18 days after their landing. >.>

There was no equivalent European army with that large percentage and absolute number of firearms for another century.

The one thing that should be nerfed with non-European nations is the fielding of ships with "cannon" when they technologically never had those. There should be some sort of pre-gunpowder ships that would be given a terrible malus in fire, but, if they closed, they might win by boarding actions. Because seeing "barques" and even "carracks" off the coast of North America fielded by native american tribes who have not gone "tech heavy" in their development is making me twitchy.

You make a good point. As ahistorically weak as Asia is on land, they can field devastating navies if they blob up; Ming or anyone who takes Ming in particular can be utterly obnoxious with their fleet.
 
Count the number of provinces in India.

Now count the number of provinces in Germany.

Still think it's okay?

Last time I counted, India had around 70, and Germany around 80. If it feels like no great feat to conquer India, that's not surprising, because in EUIV it is a poor, low-tech region that is smaller than Germany, not a sub-continent that had about 20–25% of global GDP throughout the EU period.


The problem is that the invaders are "high-tech" in the first place. Both sides, throughout the period, were using the same essential weapons. There were no fundamental technological differences between Asia and Europe at this time. (Try the 19th century.)

There were certain advantages (by the 1700s!) in terms of European infantry tactics and drill systems, and European artillery. But when Indian armies began to fight European trained and equipped armies on the field, they soon did their best to imitate them. British dominance in India was a political process, not achieved by technologically unbeatable armies. (Try the 1880s.)

Solution: Less tech rate penalty for Asian countries. Better units at all tech levels for Asian countries.

Are there mods which are already doing this? Of course! :D

Count the number of provinces in Ming. As you know, Ming is bigger than India, but Ming just had 52 provinces :eek:o
Ming vs Austria in 1444
provinces: 52(Ming) vs 12(Austria):eek:o
Manpower: 36881(Ming) vs 32958(Austria):eek:o
Army force limit: 27/36(Ming) vs 36/49(Austria):eek:o
Can you imagine the Austria how small on the map in 1444? Form the data, I can see the Ming also .......:eek:o
To sum up, Although EU4 include all over the world, Paradox(European company) still focus on Europe!:eek:o
 
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How about a modifier that increases unit attrition the further away you are from your homeland. This would make Asian wars wreck your manpower and give people like the Ming a chance to fight off the Europeans.
 
The Japanese were widely using copied versions of the Portuguese matchlock in the 1560s. To say they were enthusiastic of the prospects of the new type of weapon is an understatement. They went so gun-nuts they'd make even the modern NRA proud. In fact, they had about 40,000 arquebusiers (ashigaru equipped with tanesgashima muskets) in the Korean invasion force of 1592, out of an army of 160,000. They took Seoul in 18 days after their landing. >.>
In the end, Who won the battle? ;) Ming save their vassal Korea because the first matchlock and artillery of Japan came from Ming.;) That's why Korean worship emperor of Ming annually until now;)
 
Count the number of provinces in India.

Now count the number of provinces in Germany.

Still think it's okay?

Last time I counted, India had around 70, and Germany around 80. If it feels like no great feat to conquer India, that's not surprising, because in EUIV it is a poor, low-tech region that is smaller than Germany, not a sub-continent that had about 20–25% of global GDP throughout the EU period.


The problem is that the invaders are "high-tech" in the first place. Both sides, throughout the period, were using the same essential weapons. There were no fundamental technological differences between Asia and Europe at this time. (Try the 19th century.)

There were certain advantages (by the 1700s!) in terms of European infantry tactics and drill systems, and European artillery. But when Indian armies began to fight European trained and equipped armies on the field, they soon did their best to imitate them. British dominance in India was a political process, not achieved by technologically unbeatable armies. (Try the 1880s.)

Solution: Less tech rate penalty for Asian countries. Better units at all tech levels for Asian countries.

Are there mods which are already doing this? Of course! :D
I think there should be a decision/multiplier/mechanics/whatever like "learning from the west" which reduce tech cost but destabilize the country for nations outside of Europe after certain year (when Western Europe is technologically advanced enough). The further a nation is behind, the larger reduction should it gets. The real Westernization option on the other hand should only be available to Eastern European countries.
 
I agree with everyone who said to give Asian/lower tech countries a boost. I avoid playing anything below a 20% tech penalty because they're like cave people in this game...

I think the game creators are basing this tech system on things, like, the Korean war, where a platoon of US-led South Koreans can literally mow down hundreds of China-led North Koreans, with the help of air power, artillery and superior rifles.... that time period is no where near where this game takes place.

I don't mind Europeans having an edge in combat, but not at the level that they end up having by mid-late game. It's like they're fighting natives with sticks or something... ridiculous.

My suggestion is to... at the very least.. halve all of the current tech penalties.
 
Then they are wrong and we will keep telling them they're wrong. =)

You are wrong, not they. They designed the game, so they must be right when they say that it works as designed. Easy to understand, if your brain is a bit bigger than a nutshell.

And of course the game has to be a bit unrealistic to be both playable and historical plausible just due to the fact that no AI can be made good enough to achieve both if you want to create realistic preconditions. All your crying and rambling and whatnot simply cannot change the fact that there are technological limits PDox has to work with... or against.
 
The one thing that should be nerfed with non-European nations is the fielding of ships with "cannon" when they technologically never had those. There should be some sort of pre-gunpowder ships that would be given a terrible malus in fire, but, if they closed, they might win by boarding actions. Because seeing "barques" and even "carracks" off the coast of North America fielded by native american tribes who have not gone "tech heavy" in their development is making me twitchy.

While paradox doesn't currently do it there's no reason you couldn't have different tech penalties for different categories. I think that if you were going for realism it would make sense to improve lower tech groups overall speed but keep them back in diplo tech.
 
You are wrong, not they. They designed the game, so they must be right when they say that it works as designed. Easy to understand, if your brain is a bit bigger than a nutshell.
Wow.

For some people, the concepts of Death of the Author (not to mention the Customer is Always Right!) don't exist, do they?

No, the designer is not always right.

And of course the game has to be a bit unrealistic to be both playable and historical plausible just due to the fact that no AI can be made good enough to achieve both if you want to create realistic preconditions. All your crying and rambling and whatnot simply cannot change the fact that there are technological limits PDox has to work with... or against.
*sigh*

I'm not crying. If I was I'd use an emoticon like this: :(

I will mod the game I want to play, and use or not use what Paradox provides as I see fit. I *would* like to see them using their time and resources on more interesting things though.

None of my points have any connection at all to AI quality, so you're pulling that completely out of your nutshell.


If you *like* what Paradox is proposing, then make a nice positive post that is all excited about forthcoming features. Don't insult people who disagree with you.
 
To TheMeInTeam: If all you should be doing is nudging it back and forth -- then make it so that there are only three states, without the extremes of the +100 for each, since getting there is insanely broken, and you aren't supposed to do it anyway. Again, scrap it, and just let China have three "modes" you choose from, with a small cost to switch between them. In fact, what would be good for China -- "economic" footing, "diplomatic" footing, or "war" footing -- would be just as good for any nation anywhere around the world. But the problem is that it gives you the illusion that you can push any of the factions to 100%, when that just breaks China badly.

False choices are not good game design. It's like telling people, "Sure! Keep conquering! Go for 300% OE. See what happens."

And yes, I found my experience with China to be "that bad." I actually preferred the scrappy little Navarra to the bloated, useless China.

And, not only Spain needs the nerf on colonists. Everyone in the game needs to be nerfed, so that 1600 doesn't look like 1800.

I mean, Botany Bay wasn't founded until 1788. But in the game, it's common to see someone plunked down there in the 1600s.

That's the major ahistorical problem. I can see if someone mini-maxed and really tried to hard to extend their reach. But the players and the AI are all way too expansive collectively. By the time a historical Jamestown colony would be established, often in the game the whole Eastern Seaboard of the United States has colonists on it.

The same is true of European massive invasion fleets reaching Asia. Asian powers already have to start watching their backs in the 1500s. That's historically true with the early 1500s Portuguese bases in India.

HOWEVER, the invasion forces of the time were about 800 men and fleets of a few dozen ships. What made the difference was naval gunfire.

But even with that, what the Portuguese set up were forts and factories. They did not conquer whole provinces. Not at first. There were not really "controlled territories" on the subcontinent until the 1700s after the disintegration of the Mughals and the rise of the Marathas in the 1700s.

For the period of 1500+, what EUIV needs is more of the "trading post" set up of CKII, where you can have a "presence" in a province without really being the province controller. This would make more sense to show establishment of trading posts, at least until later, when the colonial powers began to actually start making whole provinces part of their control.

These trading posts should be money-makers. Otherwise, why in the world are you doing them? But the goal is to make trade income off the province. Not "paint the map" your color. Once you do try to go from trading post to colonization or conquest, then there should be the cost of settlement, or the resort to war against its controller.

It just grates against me when I see these gigantic D-Day-esque invasion fleets with tens of thousands of troops showing up around the world. That's not how the New World was subjugated. Nor was it how India and the rest of Asia were infiltrated. At least, not at first. It was not until the 1700s when the global reach of these empires allowed moving large armies -- tens of thousands of troops -- overseas.

The main limiter on overseas attrition was scurvy -- which was not finally discovered to be preventable with citrus fruits until a book was published in 1732 by a Scottish doctor. It still took decades before the Royal Navy finally clued in.

Before then, attrition after a few months at sea should grow exponentially. Even then, outbreaks of other diseases, such as cholera, could still decimate troops traveling overseas.

Anyway, right now, I am just tired of seeing massive metropoli rivaling Vienna in the New World, the Spanish Armada in Australia, and massive doomstacks of Russian Guards Armor Divisions in Asia by the mid 1600s. All "Europa" needs to be nerfed in terms of expansionism by about a century. If it was, there would be more historical "second tier" powers who could sneak into the New World later: the Dutch, the Swedes, the Scots, even Denmark and Germany. There would be more of a ramping-up of global colonial expansion.

I know a lot of players love the way the game currently works -- because it works in their favor. They get to paint the world their color. If they can't reach it first, all they have to do is go to war with the colonial power who did spend the time to colonize it, and viola! It's theirs too.

Now, a good, focused empire should be able to do better than history did. I don't want to shut down earnest world colonizers entirely. But at the current state of expansion, it's just too fast. It makes the colonial nations far too powerful too quickly.

Anyone else feel the same way?

The problem isn't with potential for expansion, its with the difference between our goals/knowledge and that of the historical rulers of these countries, which is further compounded by player/ai interaction.

For instance, this is a listing of wars involving spain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Spain

When i play as Spain (and not attempting WC) Europe is ignored entirely and all resources dedicated to colonizing the Americas and crossing over to Asia. If I had to participate in all those wars historically fought by Spain, it would significantly set back my overseas expansion.

As for the failure of the AI, I move the majority of my troops off the continent, but the AI just sees my troop count and full manpower and doesn't take advantage of my troops being a continent away to attack me.

Historical rulers fought to maintain the status quo, players tend to fight only when there is gain to it or if it has low cost.
 
Dramatically increase sea attrition, remove the indian and Asian MP malus, buff their units,start them at tech 3 and increase the province density without compromising game performance to much(although I've heard that tags influence lag a lot more than provinces).

Remove Spain's free colonist and slow down colonization. I'd like to see someone either than spain Portugal colonize the whole new world. England and france can usually get some colonies but nothing even remotely close to what they historically had. Also I would like to see a Brittany/Norway/Sweden or even potentially a german state found a colony....somewhere. Heck Kurland founded a couple colonies. ALSO NO MORE SPANISH OR PORTUGEESE SIBERIAN PLEASE
 
There should be a few different issues with naval powers that are not currently simulated in the game:

"TL 0 (Zero)" -- you do not have ships. You probably have nothing more than war canoes or fishing boats. You can build a primitive commercial boat for trading along coasts, but it is utterly without significant weapons.

"TL 0.5" -- you have ships with only primitive non-cannon weapons (bow-and-arrow or the equivalent). They only do minimal damage and, instead, cause mostly only morale loss during the fire and shock phase ("fire" and "shock" damage would consist of bows and arrows or the equivalent missile weapons, killing crew, but not really damaging the ship; whatever damage might be caused would be from, say, ramming or fire arrows torching the rigging). Their goal is to board an enemy and overpower them -- hence, mostly only "morale" damage. If they happen to capture a gun-toting ship, unless the nation has already gotten to an appropriate tech level, the "captured" ship turns into an ungunned ship instead. (They have no way to utilize the cannons or even mill the requisite gunpowder.)

China should definitely have cannons aboard ship from game start (they had been using them for naval battles from the 14th Century). Definitely Mediterranean ships too. I am not sufficiently schooled to know the developmental history of naval cannon for the Indian or South East Asian countries.