Rant on unreal westernization...

[zbyrne]

I'm not going to dismiss the Spanish conquests, but I will say that if you're going to be making alt-history, dismissing the events because of the means is a much better idea than dismissing the means because of the events.

Understanding why or how something happened helps you immensely in determining what would make likely and plausible alt-history, knowing what happened means you know the Original Timeline, but helps jack squat in alt-history.

That's a fair and reasonable point, and I can't disagree with it, particularly in a game design / alt. history sort of way. To that point, it'd actually be cool if you could conquer the New World in the same way that Cortez and Pizarro did - very quickly thanks largely to luck and disease.

But unfortunately you can't.

 

[zbyrne]

I would say the definition of eurocentrism is looking at history through a biased lense in the favour of Europe, or a disproportionate focus on Europe. As I said before, eurocentrism extends to far before the colonial era, to the Persians. More and more revisionist historians have started to shed light on the Persians positive side, discrediting previous, Eurocentric views based on Greek writing, Persia's enemy

I know what you mean - and that goes well beyond just the Greeks and the Persians, you can factor in the subsequent Crusades and the whole Muslim and Catholics. Hell even factor in the Cold War, and the contemporary business with the likes of ISIS and Islamic extremism and fundamentalism. Basically we have long had a East vs. West narrative, and it has existed for a very long time, in all sorts of shapes.

But for me, the definition of Eurocentrism isn't anything to do with said East vs. West narrative. It's that since the Early modern period (1492 basically) Europe in particular (as opposed to America later on) has and did dominate the world so utterly. Western civilization dominating the globe stems from this.

For me, the opposite to Eurocentrism is that in detracts agency from native peoples, and basically stipulates that they actually did things themselves or where influenced by massive global movements, as opposed to being influenced or shaped by European nations and their policies. Personally I don't fully buy into that sort of New History.

 

[wingzero890]

my face every time look in this thread

 

[Path]

No, westernization doesn't make much sense.

Landing 100,000 Swedish troops in India in 1550, conquering the world with Albania, or sacking Paris with your glorious Aztec empire don't make much sense either, though. It's a game, not a simulator--RotW needs something to give at least players a chance against the European space marines. I'll take a flawed westernization process over spending the entire game crippled.

 

[FrigidSoul]

Cortez was not actually permitted by the monarch to take on the Aztecs, and the Renaissance mentality isn't exclusive to Europe specifically. In theory, had any other culture had the same rediscoverence of facts from an older empire it could have gone into a renaissance like state where risky ventures are encouraged. In EUIV terms the Renaissance is almost like a modifier, not an integral or exclusive part of the culture, but an overlay over an existing culture

The fact that Europe had a Dark Age and a subsequent period of rediscovery is part of Europe's history and therefore its culture. Your claim that similar things could have happened elsewhere is true, but it's not a rebuttal to the original claim.

Perhaps we're getting our wires crossed: if your goal here is to argue that in an EU4-like alternate history any culture could have gone through the various processes that led to the Renaissance and/or age of discovery in Europe, then absolutely. I never disputed that. I'm all for an equal opportunity alternate history in the game. Hell, I spend half my time on this forum pissing off history buffs with pro-gameplay arguments.

This side discussion about history is just that, a side discussion. It is nevertheless interesting to explore what happened in real history, and why.

It's not uniquely European, but it is unique to strongly militaristic cultures with primogeniture succession, a military nobility and practically no way to gain status through the path of an administrator, bureaucrat or diplomat. So in effect, it is uniquely European.

Well said. There's nothing intrinsically European about it, but Europe had the conditions to create the environment.

 

[Beagá]

No, westernization doesn't make much sense.

Landing 100,000 Swedish troops in India in 1550, conquering the world with Albania, or sacking Paris with your glorious Aztec empire don't make much sense either, though. It's a game, not a simulator--RotW needs something to give at least players a chance against the European space marines. I'll take a flawed westernization process over spending the entire game crippled.

Perhaps but two wrongs don´t make a right.

Also, define crippled. IF cherokee manage to get 30 provinces but in the end lose to europeans would you say they are crippled?

Despite, ya know, performing 2000% better than they did in real life?

Anyway, since Pdox staff have more week of vacation it´s not very productive to post suggestions here. They won´t be read. I´m saving all ideas for later.

 

[Denkt]

Removing techgroups altogether would be much more realistic then removing any ability for non western to develop technology as easy as western nations.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

Perhaps but two wrongs don´t make a right.

Also, define crippled. IF cherokee manage to get 30 provinces but in the end lose to europeans would you say they are crippled?

Despite, ya know, performing 2000% better than they did in real life?

I would say they aren't crippled IF this game worked outside of blobbing.

In another game with more detailed management and/or better warfare simulations, simply outdoing historical limits could be quite fun but for EU4 not for me. Of course this is purely personal response, others may very well enjoy playing as historical victims and just delaying the historical failure by few decades.

And you are right in that two wrongs don't make a right... but this is a case of one wrong lessening another wrong because remember in vanilla as western power you can start clearing India the moment you can land troops there because not only did they have tech cost penalty, but their unit pips were FAR worse comparative even on time (didn't westerrn units, by the end could have had like double the pips?)?

The whole tech group is just too loaded but it is one of easier way to implement historical flavor so it's just in this rough spot. Better implementation of this is how Ming is plagued with stability concerns. Yes I know 1.12 ~ 1.13 Ming is too stable but what I mean isn't the balance of it (it was once super unstable) but rather how it tries to model the deficiencies of its government. Instead of just saying "oh yeah, cause Ming is Chinese so they are fucked", EU4 says "Ming's government is suffering from internal divisions and their authority can go down the toilet really fast".

Granted, the sad solution to Ming's problem is to 'westernize', but it's the only nation I can think of that tries to model an explanation for why it had issues blobbing out of control, when on paper what they governed should have let them just roll all over the world.

 

[EMT0]

Audacity, after a certain point, becomes indistinguishable from skill. The so-called Battle of Cajamara didn't arrange itself. Were Pizarro's opponents naive? Sure, but the bottom line is that Pizarro turned what seemed like an impossible situation into a victory -- through negotiation, deception, and daring. (And in fairness, it was 7,000 "unarmed retainers;" let's not make it sound like the emperor showed up with three doddering advisors and his great aunt Susie. He wasn't that stupid.)

And what about Cortes?

I understand that it's unpopular to lionize conquistadors these days, but to sit here and handwave what these men dared to do on the basis that it was "lucky" is to go way too far in the other direction. Imagine, for a moment, that we were to discover a wealthy empire of indeterminate size on, say, Mars. Would you be willing to take an expedition of 200-500 men up there to conquer it. even if you thought they were "primitive"? That's what we're talking about here; just the attempt is so freaking ballsy as to defy reason -- and then to pull it off? Ridiculous, almost irrespective of the circumstances.

It's so ridiculous as to make one wonder whether there wasn't something unusual about Spanish (or indeed, European) culture to encourage individuals to risk so much in pursuit of their own fortune. In Cortes' case, he even had to defy the governor of Cuba to get where he was going.

The most critical element in declaring Pizarro's conquests luck is how he managed his expedition, by first exploring, spreading disease, and returning a few years later with the blessings of the King of Spain. It was Pizarro's trip that resulted in the spread of disease into Ecuador, and there where the Sapa Inca and his heir both came down with the sickness and proceeded to die, leading to a brutal civil war made even worse through the facilitation of disease that war causes. Pizarro arrives the day after Atahualpa finally beats Huascar in this exhaustive civil war. Quite frankly, the man has the devil's luck, he could never have known the consequences of his actions.

Part 2 of his devil's luck is the newly established sole Sapa Inca being incredibly weak politically and choosing to use Pizarro as an example of his magnanimity to his vassals. The Andes has a long and dare I say sacred tradition of wining and dining rulers in order to get what you want politically by bestowing lavish gifts of goods, women, gold, and festivities upon them. It's actually how Cuzco got off the ground under Pachacuti; he came upon many riches and proceeded to use them to bribe the local lords to provide manpower to modernize Cuzco.

Now, the thing about the Inca is that they increasingly came to not utilize this system as the empire went from strength to strength, giving the Sapa Inca more relative power over his unruly nobles by placing extended family and loyal followers in control of newly conquered lands taken through war or even declaring the lands the personal estates of the Sapa Inca. Manpower was king in the Andes, and the greater the Sapa Inca's potential armies grew(remember that all men are required to serve militarily for several years) the less he relied on wining and dining his nobles, outside of doing so for independent lords to vassalize them peacefully.

What Atahualpa hoped to do was to turn Pizarro into an example of the Sapa Inca's power, wealth, and prestige by vassalizing him through Andean customs. Make him a show of force to the more rebellious northern provinces of the Empire. That's why he threw a feast for him. Little did he know that he was screwing around with the man with the devil's luck...

 

[qwertzuiop]

I've never understood why people think that the age of discovery/ the discovery of the Americas in particular somehow gave the Europeans magical power to dominate the world... if anything, they dominated the sea. Actually, during the early modern era, many of the empires outside of Europe reached their peak: the Ottoman Empire (ok they were not so much outside of Europe...), Safavid Persia, the Mughal Empire, and China during the Qing dynasty.

In this regard, Europa Universalis is not a historical game. I know it doesn't need to be fully historical and interesting gameplay is the most important thing. If it was a historical game, it would be called Eurasia Universalis or something.

By the way, I really like the feature of westernisation in Victoria 2. It feels much more appropriate for the era, non-western nations are called 'uncivilized' or even 'primitive' which is okay because these words were really used at that time (in comparison, the word 'westernisation' was never ever used in the EU4 era and is completely anachronistic). You are basically forced to become westernised, but at the same time it feels very rewarding when you can finally click that button. You are choosing reforms for your military, admistration or industry, and when you've done enough so you are more or less on the same level as the western powers, you are regarded as westernised. It just makes sense, in EU4 on the other hand it just feels like "change my techgroup, please".

Even in Victoria 2, I'd say that non-western countries are portrayed as too weak in some parts, but these are minor details. In EU4, it feels like a major game concept issue.

 

[Sarmatian]

Removing techgroups altogether would be much more realistic then removing any ability for non western to develop technology as easy as western nations.

I thought along the same lines, but tech groups are so ingrained in EU IV that I doubt Paradox would change that. I thought of "non-western modifiers" like a discipline penalty/ morale penalty/higher army maintenance/lower trade efficiency/lower tax efficiency.... that would differentiate between Europe and ROTW. That would give Europeans the edge in the long run and would allow us to assign different modifiers to different countries. Obviously, some countries would have a few of those modifiers, some would have a lot, depending on their level of advancement and aptitude (some could have armies as good as European but poor tax efficiency, and some would have poor armies but great trade). Not all would have to suck at everything. Those modifiers would have then be removed through a series of individual reforms.

There were a few problems - it would be rather complicated system with a complicated method of removing the maluses, and, because of the way EUIV is designed, good military nations would dominate most probably after some time.

 

[PeterCorless]

Rather than just rail on how the system (doesn't) work these days, I just wrote up my ideas in a Suggestion thread.

 

[LRDK]

Are you talking general Arabic succession (which I'm not too up on), or the Ottoman succession that is presented as Arabic in CK2? Because if it's the latter, then the extent of how open it is works against it. The fact that any sons can rise to become king, means they will all fight over the old kingdom, rather than creating new ones. You want a culture that pumps people whose motivation is: "I have tasted the life of a king, and I will regain it by any means necessary or die trying.", and then you want a culture is "locked down" enough that they can't regain a "King's Life" within the old kingdom. The stereotype is called "Second Sons", but it might be more accurate to describe them as third, fourth of fifth sons in actuality. People who genuinely have no chance of inheriting.

I'm not going to dismiss the Spanish conquests, but I will say that if you're going to be making alt-history, dismissing the events because of the means is a much better idea than dismissing the means because of the events.

Understanding why or how something happened helps you immensely in determining what would make likely and plausible alt-history, knowing what happened means you know the Original Timeline, but helps jack squat in alt-history.

Are you talking general Arabic succession (which I'm not too up on), or the Ottoman succession that is presented as Arabic in CK2? Because if it's the latter, then the extent of how open it is works against it. The fact that any sons can rise to become king, means they will all fight over the old kingdom, rather than creating new ones. You want a culture that pumps people whose motivation is: "I have tasted the life of a king, and I will regain it by any means necessary or die trying.", and then you want a culture is "locked down" enough that they can't regain a "King's Life" within the old kingdom. The stereotype is called "Second Sons", but it might be more accurate to describe them as third, fourth of fifth sons in actuality. People who genuinely have no chance of inheriting.

I'm not going to dismiss the Spanish conquests, but I will say that if you're going to be making alt-history, dismissing the events because of the means is a much better idea than dismissing the means because of the events.

Understanding why or how something happened helps you immensely in determining what would make likely and plausible alt-history, knowing what happened means you know the Original Timeline, but helps jack squat in alt-history.

Succession=/=culture

 

[LRDK]

But t

Succession=/=culture

but I was taking ck2 style succession. I don't know much about it, that's why I used a ? mark

 

[Axe99]

Sorry to jump in after reading the OP and a smattering of posts in-between, but can't agree more on the silliness of westernisation. At the moment, with the rate of westernisation, it sometimes feels we might as well be playing on a random map with randomly generated empires, rather than a historical GSG. Still a very fun game, but the current westernisation thing is the second-silliest part of the game to me (first silliest is that trade only moves in one direction). I'd prefer if PDS wanted to make a 'balanced' world conquest game, that they did away with history altogether and made a fantasy-style game, rather than move EU in that direction.

Also - what is westernisation anyways? Originally, it meant you got the same units as western powers, now it just means cheaper teching - so you have the odd situation where we've somehow automatically given developing nations the intellectual/economic infrastructure of a western nation (the stuff you need to develop things with), but they're not allowed to convert this into western-style units, ever. It's a really, really odd mechanic, and comfortably the most historically implausible mechanic in the game at the moment. How many nations effectively westernised historically? As far as I recall, the only one that could be argued to have done it was Peter the Great's Russia.

Some thoughts (not all consistent with each other, just brainstorming) on ways to deal with the whole 'different types of nations' issues:

- Different idea groups for western/chinese/muslim nations.
- Different military unit options based on idea groups, rather than being 'European/Muslim', what-have-you.
- Idea groups having prerequisites and more granularity.
- Having the potential to access specific 'western' idea groups, if certain conditions are met - that way, you could have historically plausible developments of certain things, but not the whole 'just sit still for eight years and you're there'.
- Have the prerequisite for any kind of westernisation to be as close to 'advanced' as possible - the idea that you need to be under-developed to have a chance to develop is crazy. A nation that wants to westernise should need to burn its MP on tech, rather than avoid teching. This way, bordering a western nation (even a trade company) gets you the 'neighbour bonus', which is all the help non-western countries should get.
- A more nuanced model for MP cost for techs. Current model is pretty rough'n'ready.

 

[moorsonthecoast]

Axe99, added to the suggestion thread.

 

[bbqftw]

Perhaps but two wrongs don´t make a right.

Also, define crippled. IF cherokee manage to get 30 provinces but in the end lose to europeans would you say they are crippled?

Despite, ya know, performing 2000% better than they did in real life?

Anyway, since Pdox staff have more week of vacation it´s not very productive to post suggestions here. They won´t be read. I´m saving all ideas for later.

with current system, ROTW is spending ~30% of the game behind the curve on tech, much more than that behind the curve on ideas (parity around 1700s, and that's with ridiculously early westernization strats that are no longer possible in 1.13). Who even plays into late 1700s anyways?

This seems pretty 'crippled' to me.

And you want to make it worse?

 

[wingzero890]

Just remove the tech groups from the game, keep the unit pip curves or make them even more extreme. Then ROTW can actually play the game without a massive tech malus, and if they want to not get wrecked by Westerners in the later periods they can westernize their military, and get western units (aka, how it used to be). Because that is really what westernization was.

 

[Ame]

Just remove the tech groups from the game, keep the unit pip curves or make them even more extreme. Then ROTW can actually play the game without a massive tech malus, and if they want to not get wrecked by Westerners in the later periods they can westernize their military, and get western units (aka, how it used to be). Because that is really what westernization was.

Japanese wore western clothing shortly after Meiji began his reformation (and that is what westernization is based on).

 

[bbqftw]

Just remove the tech groups from the game, keep the unit pip curves or make them even more extreme. Then ROTW can actually play the game without a massive tech malus, and if they want to not get wrecked by Westerners in the later periods they can westernize their military, and get western units (aka, how it used to be). Because that is really what westernization was.

It's possible (but rather unpleasant) to fight Western units with nomad ones in the 1700s with decent play so this seems rather reasonable.