Revanchism, Nation size and Westernization.

[keytium]

I understand that Revanchism isn't even in the game yet, so suggestions involving it in relation to game balance seem rather premature, but I when thinking about the latest Deb Diary I suddenly realized that as a mechanic it could help address one of the big problems with Westernization.

So if we think about it why would Ming ever westernize? The AI shouldn't know hundred of years in advance that it needs to in order to keep up in the eighteenth century. If it is at the height of its power completely dominating the entire eastern world there would be no reason for a country to want to change their entire way of life. On the other hand small countries desperately clinging to survival have a big motivator to innovate. This concept is already in the game, with the way that large nations take longer to westernize. I think it can be improved though.

My suggestion is this, increase the penalty to westernization from nation size, but to counteract that by having Revanchism decrease the effect of the large nation westernization speed malice. For example if at 100% Revanchism only 50% of the current large nation malice is applied to westernization speed, and at 0% Revanchism 150% of the current large nation malice is applied. Obviously I have no way of testing those numbers so they might be ridiculously large or small, but I think the theory is sound.

This change would mean that large nations under no threat would be less likely to westernize, but once the Westerners arrive and start stealing all their stuff they would be able to westernize slightly quicker. While at the same time this adjustment wouldn't negatively effect the smaller ROTW nations at all.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

I always find it fairly difficult to really grasp concepts of the game before they are released, the dev diaries dont always cover the entirety of what or how they might work, my suspecting is that revanchism will not nearly be as effective at game changing as it sounds, for large nations. While on paper I agree with your suggestion, increasing the westernisation costs is something that will make the game less dynamic, things that make the game less dynamic are very seldom taken in. at the moment from my understanding of how the mechanic might work, I would suggest just having a slightly lower westernisation at higher levels of revanchism, without increasing the overall cost. Its difficult enough for medium nations to go western.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This mechanic would needlessly penalize ROTW players and create incentive for odd long-range conquests to westernize faster, the exact opposite of having an interesting choice regarding the mechanic.

 

[keytium]

This mechanic would needlessly penalize ROTW players and create incentive for odd long-range conquests to westernize faster, the exact opposite of having an interesting choice regarding the mechanic.

I'm not sure I follow. Surely this would be a buff to player westernization? A player who is power gaming could easily lose 100% warscore of provinces in such a way that they could be reclaimed in 15 years time and thus westernize significantly faster. The large AI nations on the other hand might have a little more trouble westernizing as early as they currently do, but would westernize faster in the late game as the Western tech nations start to encroach on their land. This would mean that large non-western nations under threat would get a significant power boost to help them resist the westerners and stop them from death spiraling after being defeated by the Europeans once. A game where Spain, Britain and Portugal take little pieces along the Chinese coast is interesting and historically plausible, one where they over the course of fifty years carve up the entirety of China between them is not. This system I think encourages the first over the second.

As far as incentive for odd long-range conquests, how? I understand that currently for optimal westernization speed it is often required to colonize or conquest hop towards Europe which I agree is odd, but how would changes to revanchism affect this?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Why would you actively encourage players to make otherwise losing plays on purpose? That's counterintuitive nonsense.

By adding a penalty to playing the game well (IE expanding quickly), you encourage players to target colony hops (or more realistically conquest) towards a western border even faster on pain of penalty/hindrance later. Once upon a time, westernization progress was not capped at 5/5/5 per month, and the results were asinine...you'd frequently see 100+ year attempts at westernization to the point where it became a non-viable option, so people gamed it to avoid that outcome.

As it stands, you're already in a gigantic hole if you're a non-European westernizing, doing it + fully catching up is often >100 years as a process...yet you're advocating making this slower/more costly still and simultaneously encouraging players to do otherwise odd things from a gameplay standpoint to get around the restriction.

 

[keytium]

Well first I want to say that I agree that conquest-hopping towards Europe is not something that should be encouraged, but that I think that is a very different issue to what I'm currently proposing and that different measures should be taken to prevent such behavior. Luckily the AI doesn't do it and in single player the player never needs to do it(unless maybe you're Ryukyu) in order to become the most powerful nation on the planet so it is only a major issue in competitive multiplayer games.

To clarify, perhaps my numbers did not properly represent my purpose, but I was never suggesting that the average westernization should be more costly. With the exception of the larger Super Blobs this change was intended to be advantageous for ROTW nations.

By adding a penalty to playing the game well (IE expanding quickly),

The entire game is based around penalizing fast expansion. Over-extension, The technology/expansion trade off inherent to the monarch point system, truces, aggressive expansion, unrest. Coming soon revanchism. All mechanics that are designed to penalize expansion. The central game play component of EU4 isn't expanding, that is incredibly easy, it is expanding in a way that won't ruin your chances later. Surely the more penalties to expansion, the more things you need to work around to get and keep that land, the better right? Min/maxing when you expand to save on westernization costs is exactly the same as the normal trade up between diplo/admin tech and annexing/coring. Tech or land? The same choice, but on a longer time scale. I think this is something that can't really be changed without seriously upsetting the balance of power in the game.

I also think that encouraging players to accept the loss of territory every now and then is a good thing. Which is something that revanchism will help with a little. I know that some people deeply dislike ever losing a single war and I don't want to ruin the game for them, but I find EU4 so much richer and more rewarding when coming back from defeat compared to when I am steamrolling from victory to victory so I think that encouraging a gameplay style that allows for more loses is a good step.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The entire game is based around penalizing fast expansion. Over-extension, The technology/expansion trade off inherent to the monarch point system, truces, aggressive expansion, unrest. Coming soon revanchism. All mechanics that are designed to penalize expansion.

The key difference is that these put brakes on or slow conquest, they serve as rate limiters. They exist because expansion is the highest-return action you can take, and without them the game would progress/end faster than intended. Your westernization proposal does not serve as a rate limiter, it instead serves as penalty whereby the player is hammered for engaging in what is otherwise optimal gameplay, and does so in a way that constrains gameplay approach (IE rush westernize before getting big, as opposed to something else becomes a centralizing earlygame choice, even more so than already).

Not all of the other brake mechanics are well-designed/implemented either, some are. Usually centralizing choice/strategy is a bad step though, and while some of the patch changes have resulted in more centralized choices I don't see any evidence that such is a design intention.

I also think that encouraging players to accept the loss of territory every now and then is a good thing.

Even the best of us lose wars sometimes, especially when taking risks to expand quickly. Despite that, it's not a good reason for a mechanic that actively encourages players to lose wars *on purpose*.