Pretty much every derailment of a multiplayer game I've run into has resulted from some players figuring out how to stack bonuses in a particular area (mostly military, but surpringly! sometimes trade) and achieving absurd levels of bonus. For example, Reformed Defender of the Faith Noble Republic Prussia + Defensive + land morale advisor + policy nets you +95% morale, which is not even funny.
It could be interesting instead to scale the extent to which stacking bonuses benefit you. The approach would be like this:
This gives Prussia +33%, which is arguably the highest you're going to get barring an event effect and a policy (which I think would max out at another 15% -> +3, for +36 morale)
Compare this to other countries under this scheme:
Prussia in the best possible shape: +36%
Prussia with defensive ideas: +23%
Prussia with no ideas: +20%
A country with no +morale idea, but with defensive and a morale advisor: +17%
A country with just a morale advisor: +10%
A country with nothing: +0% (here for scale I guess?)
Whereas the current spread is:
Prussia in their best possible shape: +95%
Prussia with defensive ideas: +35%
A country with no +morale idea, but with defensive and a morale advisor: +25%
Prussia with no ideas: +20%
A country with just a morale advisor: +10%
A country with nothing: +0% (here for scale I guess?)
In the bottom example (the way it is now) the ease of stacking bonuses causes a country's morale advantage to quickly become a runaway morale advantage. In the above example, it's easier to catch up part of the way (you're just one advisor away from being half as good as Prussia with no bonuses) but no easier to catch up the whole way (you're not three advisors away from being as good as Prussia at their best).
The same can and should apply to other areas, particularly trade, where it's again easy to stack +trade power to the point where other countries that don't have a good base bonus have no chance of even being competitive, let alone catching up.
The game's starting positions help to mitigate this (after all, Prussia usually starts as a small German statelet ... or a pretty powerful monastic order I guess but I'll ignore that for now. Oh, and let's not forget that France also has +20% morale and can gin up exactly the same setup), but by 1600 in any multiplayer game, most players will have expanded considerably and had plenty of time to figure out how to break the game. Then you end up with games that end in 1650 because someone has cobbled together +50% morale or +25% discipline or +60% trade steering or +50% trade power and has effectively ended the ability of any other player to compete.
It could be interesting instead to scale the extent to which stacking bonuses benefit you. The approach would be like this:
- Pick the highest bonus that you have. In the aforementioned example, it would be Prussia's 20% morale boost from ideas.
- Then, add the other ideas, but divide their effects by 5. So Defensive grants +3% morale, noble republic grants +2%, reformed grants +3%, and defender of the faith grants +1%, the policy grants +2% and the advisor grants +2%.
This gives Prussia +33%, which is arguably the highest you're going to get barring an event effect and a policy (which I think would max out at another 15% -> +3, for +36 morale)
Compare this to other countries under this scheme:
Prussia in the best possible shape: +36%
Prussia with defensive ideas: +23%
Prussia with no ideas: +20%
A country with no +morale idea, but with defensive and a morale advisor: +17%
A country with just a morale advisor: +10%
A country with nothing: +0% (here for scale I guess?)
Whereas the current spread is:
Prussia in their best possible shape: +95%
Prussia with defensive ideas: +35%
A country with no +morale idea, but with defensive and a morale advisor: +25%
Prussia with no ideas: +20%
A country with just a morale advisor: +10%
A country with nothing: +0% (here for scale I guess?)
In the bottom example (the way it is now) the ease of stacking bonuses causes a country's morale advantage to quickly become a runaway morale advantage. In the above example, it's easier to catch up part of the way (you're just one advisor away from being half as good as Prussia with no bonuses) but no easier to catch up the whole way (you're not three advisors away from being as good as Prussia at their best).
The same can and should apply to other areas, particularly trade, where it's again easy to stack +trade power to the point where other countries that don't have a good base bonus have no chance of even being competitive, let alone catching up.
The game's starting positions help to mitigate this (after all, Prussia usually starts as a small German statelet ... or a pretty powerful monastic order I guess but I'll ignore that for now. Oh, and let's not forget that France also has +20% morale and can gin up exactly the same setup), but by 1600 in any multiplayer game, most players will have expanded considerably and had plenty of time to figure out how to break the game. Then you end up with games that end in 1650 because someone has cobbled together +50% morale or +25% discipline or +60% trade steering or +50% trade power and has effectively ended the ability of any other player to compete.
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