Quantity ideas could use some nerfing

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Quantity in general should be toned down significantly.

Wars past 1700 begin rivaling ww1 in scale.

Some tags by the late game can pull army numbers that exceed their entire male population for the given period.
 
  • 16
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Let's get the whole quantity is "optimal play" in SP myth sorted out... Slacken + good micro are sufficient to make manpower irrelevant. You do not need quantity for it. Offensive is stronger than quantity in an "optimal scenario."
To say that "good micro" can "make manpower irrelevant" amounts to saying that manpower is relevant.

The issue with quantity is that it makes manpower irrelevant even with incompetent playing.
 
  • 6Like
  • 4
Reactions:
To say that "good micro" can "make manpower irrelevant" amounts to saying that manpower is relevant.

The issue with quantity is that it makes manpower irrelevant even with incompetent playing.
But it is true, I believe quantity is a lot less relevant in the last few patches. But the problem is more the balancing of monarch point generation then manpower.

I feel monarch point generation is very high atm, especially since the rework of the estates. You can get 1 monarch point per month per type, but you can also get advisors discounts. Advisor cost is also reduced a lot from other sources, this allows for very cheap advisors, especially with the easier 50% off advisors via events and diets. Furthermore, estates give a easy way for more prestige, which makes disinheriting heirs even stronger.

This leads to monarch points becoming a lot less of a bottleneck then it used to be, and subsequently, this reduces many of the other bottlenecks, like manpower. Also developing is 'nerfed' because of the current form of government capacity, which disincentives developing if you blob. This is problematic especially for mil points, which were already overflowing on previous patches. Right now, rolling generals and slackening are strong enough to make quantity unnecessary. I often rather pick defensive or offensive then quantity.
 
  • 4Like
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
I think the bigger problem than quantity is with regimental camps and conscription centers. I did test with Lithuania - starting FL is 33, with regimental camp in every province it increases to 80 and with conscription center to 125. Quantity gives +50% but buildings in low development provinces give +300%.

Flat bonus to FL is to big for wide nation, buildings could give bonus dependent on total development or decrease recruitment time.

What else can we build in low developmnent provinces? Churches or workshops don't improve income. Barracks in 3 dev province is 125 manpower but conscription center is 2 FL, it can be increased further by quantity and other modifiers - Ottomans with quantity and ofensive will get over 4 FL from one building
 
Last edited:
  • 7
  • 1Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
I think the bigger problem than quantity is with regimental camps and conscription centers. I did test with Lithuania - starting FL is 33, with regimental camp in every province it increases to 80 and with conscription center to 125. Quantity gives +50% but buildings in low development provinces give +300%.

Flat bonus to FL is to big for wide nation, buildings could give bonus dependent on total development or decrease recruitment time.

What else can we build in low developmnent provinces? Churches or workshops don't improve income. Barracks in 3 dev province is 125 manpower but conscription center is 2 FL, it can be increased further by quantity and other modifiers - Ottomans with quantity and ofensive will get over 4 FL from one building
Maybe Regimental Camps and Conscription Centers can be changed to "0.X Force Limit per Province Manpower"? It'd limit the effectiveness to spamming them on 3 dev near-wastelands.
 
  • 5
  • 3Like
Reactions:
It is clearly stronger than other military idea groups (has been at least since they transitioned away from merc spam, might've been before that but that's so long ago I can't remember anymore). People who aren't taking any military idea groups don't need to be noting that you can play without military idea groups.
I don't agree. The reason I brought up playing without military idea groups is because the OP is calling for a nerf of a military idea group. But they're already completely dispensible because as a category they are far too weak when compared to Admin and DIplo idea groups. Selecting any military idea group--and that includes Quantity--weakens me compared to picking something else. The military groups need buffs, not nerfs.

Does you being an unstoppable genius demigod at eu4 have anything to do with how the military ideas are balanced against one another? Personally I don't think so.
The fact that military idea groups are completely dispensible means their "balance against one another" is irrelevant. The real issue is that they aren't worth taking at all. All of them need buffs. None of them should be nerfed.
 
Last edited:
  • 11
  • 5
Reactions:
The fact that military idea groups are completely dispensible means their "balance against one another" is irrelevant. The real issue is that they aren't worth taking at all. All of them need buffs. None of them should be nerfed.
This is only true if you have a deep understanding of the game mechanics. You tell someone who's new to the game MIL ideas aren't worth picking up, and you'll almost certainly sabotage them more than you help them. The way you'd make military ideas more relevant in SP to very skilled players is to make the game's AI significantly better, to the point where it can seriously challenge someone who has mastered the game. While I'm all for a more competent AI, and in quite a few respects we have seen that happen (except for them now being massive cowards ofc, but the AI in general does better on the current patch than it has in the past), I actually really, really don't want to be competing against an AI who tries to, and more importantly actually knows and understands how to pull off a world conquest.

I agree that Quantity ideas are mega OP relative to other MIL ideas, but I'm quite tired of seeing people claim MIL ideas are worthless because they're suboptimal for the meta min-max WC runs. Those aren't what the game should be balanced towards, because the meta will always be found, and with a deep enough understanding of the game mechanics, the challenge will always end up becoming execution, rather than opposition.
 
Last edited:
  • 13
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Thats a horrible idea. Maybe quantity is a problem in multiplayer where it makes your manpower go from 1 million to 3 million meaning your wars take 3 times longer to stop but in singleplayer quantity prevents games from turning into a "wait for manpower to come back" simulator. You can say "just use mercenarys" I would gladly but by the time I can afford them and the time I need them to replace my manpower are far apart alongside the fact that mercenarys feel so terrible to use that you genuinly prefer to take 100 years longer to get a achievenment then ever using them.
 
  • 13
Reactions:
It's definitely very strong. If you take quantity, it pretty much removes the last hurdle to just pushing as much as you want. I do take other ideas for roleplaying purposes first sometimes (still usually mil tech because of excess points), but its generally less effective except for perhaps hordes. You can certainly play single player without it, but you can play singleplayer without every expanding or starting wars so that doesn't really mean much. If you do expand and seek out wars, its just more powerful than the others. Most of the other mil trees will provide bonuses, but not more than you can get from drilling, prestige and all of that. Quantity is the only one that gives considerable bonuses outside of that, and since numbers usually win no matter what, that's pretty meaninful. It lets you switch to a professional army just as soon as mercs become inefficient, makes coalitions pretty laughable since you'll outnumber the whole thing unless several of them have quantity, and it has very strong policy unlocks. In a lot of cases it also makes the most sense in game - nation barely has enough men to defend itself? Well, recruit more people of course.

Since the game doesn't have an independent population mechanic, the simple modifiers from quantity make manpower a forgettable mechanic even with constant, unceasing war. It's the only one that actually removes a bottleneck so is naturally more significant than the other military groups which tend to only modify what can already be modified multiple times over, manpower replenishment is pretty rare in national ideas.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
"faster sieges" is more interesting than "more men"

Is it really, though?

By the nature of EU4 warfare, you're not really going to win serious wars by siege races. The average siege lasts more than enough for a army to walk across an entire continent and attack the besieging army, and +20% siege speed doesn't change that.

Ultimately, the only thing that actually wins a siege is a bigger army.
 
  • 7
Reactions:
Is it really, though?
Yes.

Faster sieges means less time spent waiting for forts to fall so I can submit a territorial peace treaty.

(I'm talking about SP. I have no idea what the dynamics of MP are.)
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I'm quite tired of seeing people claim MIL ideas are worthless because they're suboptimal for the meta min-max WC runs.

Think about what you said here for a moment. It's true: military ideas ARE suboptimal for WC runs. But what sort of run has more warfare in it than any other? What run is, in fact, an almost constant series of battles and sieges? A WC run. And in a warfare focused campaign, military ideas are a bad pick. If the whole military category is suboptimal when you're fighting constantly, that is a clear indication that its ideas (whose primary reason for existence is to help you fight) are underpowered. The payoff for taking them is so low that even in a WC, they aren't worth it. They need buffs, not nerfs. Perhaps Quantity needs fewer buffs than the rest, but they all need improvement.

BTW, my last WC was 5+ years ago, and I plan to never do another. The tedium and boredom are far too great, the fun minimal. I'm not part of the "meta min-max WC" crowd at all. But that doesn't change my opinion about military ideas.
 
Last edited:
  • 5
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
BTW, my last WC was 5+ years ago, and I plan to never do another. The tedium and boredom are far too great, the fun minimal. I'm not part of the "meta min-max WC" crowd at all. But that doesn't change my opinion about military ideas.
The game was very different 5 years back... Since then, many nations had buff in their NI in the form of Moral + discipline. Forts are now everywhere. I still rarely pick MIL in my 4 first ideas (expect defensive if I need the moral) but offensive is a must for cleaning wars past a certain point.
The thing is that troop quality is far more heterogeneous today than before. In my last campain, I took 2 MIL groups to compete with France + Spain and it was very touch times but after beating them, I steamrolled on everyone, I didn't need this military ideas anymore. So in short and in my view, MIL ideas are needed when surrounding by nations with moral/discipline boost when none in the NI. Each time PDX revisit NI, they put moral or discipline in it because otheewise the fan crowd would say the the NI of their favorite nations are garbage. In 3 years, 80% of the tag will have +10% Moral at least LoL.
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Let's get the whole quantity is "optimal play" in SP myth sorted out... Slacken + good micro are sufficient to make manpower irrelevant. You do not need quantity for it. Offensive is stronger than quantity in an "optimal scenario."
Quantity is only considered meta because of its policy with economic (an already very powerful group) which reduces dev cost. On its own it competes with offensive but consider the development meta.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Think about what you said here for a moment. It's true: military ideas ARE suboptimal for WC runs. But what sort of run has more warfare in it than any other? What run is, in fact, an almost constant series of battles and sieges? A WC run. And in a warfare focused campaign, military ideas are a bad pick. If the whole military category is suboptimal when you're fighting constantly, that is a clear indication that its ideas (whose primary reason for existence is to help you fight) are underpowered. The payoff for taking them is so low that even in a WC, they aren't worth it. They need buffs, not nerfs. Perhaps Quantity needs fewer buffs than the rest, but they all need improvement.

BTW, my last WC was 5+ years ago, and I plan to never do another. The tedium and boredom are far too great, the fun minimal. I'm not part of the "meta min-max WC" crowd at all. But that doesn't change my opinion about military ideas.
What would you say is the reason MIL ideas are suboptimal for WC runs, asides the obvious that being better at fighting battles does not make your land more stable when you're coasting at 150% OE, and doesn't let you take more land in a peace deal? Because I'd argue that it's because you quite quickly get enough manpower that you can absorb losses. It's not exactly a secret that once your empire passes a certain size, MP ceases to be an issue unless you're catastrophically mismanaging your armies - and that's what makes Quantity so powerful.

If you lean into military ideas, especially with a nation that has a powerful baseline for doing so like Oda, Sweden or Prussia, you can straight up take 2:1 odds and consistently win VS someone who hasn't. MIL ideas make you better at fighting battles, not conquering land, and that's alright.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
MIL ideas make you better at fighting battles, not conquering land, and that's alright.
Conquering land allows you to build bigger armies. 25% gov capacity increase from admin allows me to state 25% more land so I can have 25% more FL, manpower + it gives cheaper coring. More development allows me to upgrade government rank and get even more gov capacity.
I usually don't take quantity unless I wan't to stay small on purpose - like some HRE nation or use multiple PUs like Provance and it's the only way to increase my army size
 
Everyone saying 'faster sieges win wars' fail to consider that more armies = sieging more forts. That said, Offensive is arguably the only idea group that's a close Mil idea group pick (it has some great policies with other strong idea groups).

In this patch, Quantity is overperforming a lot in the same way that old Influence was (before it got nerfed for being so much better than all other Diplo groups).

I'm fairly sure people like lambda would reconsider the usefulness of certain idea groups (and the concept of optimal play) if they had to play the game without savescumming etc. Even then, if Offensive happens to be better than Quantity for the best 7 players in the entire community, Quantity may still be overtuned as hell with just how strong it is compared to other idea groups. Force limit and manpower are extremely potent modifiers in the aftermath of merc spam removal, and Quantity gives way too much of them.

'But slacken standards though!'

You guys realize that the bigger your manpower pool is, the more manpower you get from slackening? Quantity is even more efficient at slackening than any other idea group, so...
 
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
Conquering land allows you to build bigger armies.
This, essentially, is the heart of my argument for why MIL ideas are suboptimal in WC runs in general, yes, and why I think MIL ideas shouldn't be rebalanced with the goal of making them viable in WC games. It also shows why, relative to other MIL ideas, Quantity is so powerful.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Everyone saying 'faster sieges win wars' fail to consider that more armies = sieging more forts. That said, Offensive is arguably the only idea group that's a close Mil idea group pick (it has some great policies with other strong idea groups).

In this patch, Quantity is overperforming a lot in the same way that old Influence was (before it got nerfed for being so much better than all other Diplo groups).

I'm fairly sure people like lambda would reconsider the usefulness of certain idea groups (and the concept of optimal play) if they had to play the game without savescumming etc. Even then, if Offensive happens to be better than Quantity for the best 7 players in the entire community, Quantity may still be overtuned as hell with just how strong it is compared to other idea groups. Force limit and manpower are extremely potent modifiers in the aftermath of merc spam removal, and Quantity gives way too much of them.

'But slacken standards though!'

You guys realize that the bigger your manpower pool is, the more manpower you get from slackening? Quantity is even more efficient at slackening than any other idea group, so...
Have we truly reached the point that players are now claiming that other players who do batshit insane runs are only good at the game cause of savescumming and base their entire playstyle and idea choices around the concept of savescumming? Think we reached a new level of delusions on the forums today.
 
  • 4
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions: