Small nations are a literal grind now

[Jomini]

To Jomini:

After reading your responses, I came to think that we're not on the same page when it comes to what constitutes "a strategy game."

Correct, I expect a challenging, multifaceted, and historical grand strategy game. You expect a predictable, linear, and ahistoric button clicking game that rewards playing slow.

Taking over the Austrian Low Countries in one war or establishing Rhein Confederacy (as in history) isn't exactly what I demand from the game - perhaps I just don't have such a high expectation from just a video game. I don't mean to be condescending or demeaning, please don't get me wrong on this point - I just don't expect a video game to be capable of reflecting the actual history.

This wouldn't exactly be hard to put in. Right now, pretty much all the control mechanisms are rate based. How many provinces can I hold before I go over OExt, 25 BT worth and I have a mostly fixed amount of OExt burn - it is a simple rate limitation as going over 100 is pretty much strategically bankrupt. How about diplomatic expansion (and including returning vassal cores)? Again, you are limited by numbers of relations slots and MP gain; it is limited by rate. How about AE? Well everyone treats it as a simple rate limit - conquer only X here, then wait for the AE to burn down from a fixed cap. All of these are magical limits on rates.

So what if we flipped some of these things from limiting to rate, to, maybe, making the opposition more challenging and giving the player more strategic choices? Say instead of making coalitions small time affairs, we gave coalition members bonuses (like to morale, discipline, manpower, and tax rates - all of which are quite arguably historical) against the coalition target? Assuming we could balance that, it would allow the game to do the Napoleonic Wars - we could have big peaces because the risk wouldn't be that Europe locks down and win or lose 4 provinces change hands, but if you got big, you might actually lose wars and you might get dismembered Congress of Vienna style.

Much though I disagree with people about the overall strength of internal pressures; it would be wonderful if we got rid of the utterly ineffective rebel death-of-a-thousand cuts approach and started doing some real factional modeling. This way as you got bigger, you'd have to devote more to juggling internal demands. You might need to decrease takes and lower manpower just to keep the people inside the empire happy. Again, this would be a control mechanism that isn't a simple timer gussied up to look pretty - it would be a fairly smooth degradation of net conquest value. Not only that, it could make peace time play, vastly more interesting.

For the same reason, I still don't get why you're upset about your example with Sweden, but after pondering for a while, I think you expect the game to reflect a realistic piece of history, that it's unrealistic that Livonians and other Baltic states would care about otherwise threatening Sweden. In reality, it might even be in their interest that you take a few provinces from Sweden to weaken them. On the other hand, I expect the game to follow its own rules, and nothing more - to me it's a balance of potential reward and potential risk, and weighting the two is sufficiently "strategic" to me.

I understand, you are one of the forum dwellers who likes the feeling when you have some "hidden knowledge" about how game the mechanisms that makes the game fun when you exercise it. That style though, is elitist. For all the players who don't come on the forums, like my wife, there should be a well integrated risk/reward curve and control mechanisms should have multiple ways out. They certainly shouldn't be counter-intuitive where following any major power's historical path gets a casual player into lockdown. For instance, my wife played Poland, and like a good Pole she took 4 provinces from the TO - which is exactly what happened in the Peace of Thorn (excepting of course that this was slightly more lenient than the actual Peace of Thorn as some trade/political concessions can't be made in game). So what happens? She gets a coalition formed of Lithuania, Pomerania, the Livonian order, and I think Sweden. They declare war, she wins. What does she do? What anyone thinks you do when someone troublesome attacks you - hurt them back. So she took a couple of provinces from Pomerania and I think one from Lithuania. Now the coalition gets huge and the next war involves Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, the eastern half of the HRE, the Livonian Order, and France (who I think got pulled in as the overall war leader thanks to alliance chaining).

Now sure, her play is vastly below efficient, but she shouldn't have to come on the forums, figure out the AE modifiers for everything, and then know the intricacies of chain alliance calls just to play a basic game with a major power. The game should take and have a sliding scale so as she blobs too much, too quickly the game responds incrementally. If a coalition forms, there should be obvious ways out other than just waiting down a timer. Given that the most historical coalitions were broken by force of arms, it really should be possible for a new player to go to war with a coalition, see some obvious peace options (preferably at the top of the list) that say something "reduce coalition" (say 66% WS, reduces AE of all coalition members by 25) or "ban from coalition" (locks each nation out of the coalition for say 12 years, no AE reduction, cost scales with the size of each nation).

But might those things be too powerful for elite players? Maybe, but here's the thing, if you don't like them - don't use them. You, after all are a strong player, and as Jorgen notes you can play with whatever limitations on your own behavior you want. In any event, I highly doubt that it would be that hard to craft good control mechanisms so that coalitions don't become lockdown mode or even so risk commensurate losses/gains can be made against them - while still making the "avoid coalitions" route the most efficient.

What a statement, given Jomini's own neutral writing style. Everybody certainly agrees that the game should accommodate all playstyles and all historical outcomes. But we are talking about a game here and immortal developers.

Jomini is arguing, but what it really comes down to is this:
1) 1.4 was terribly easy
2) 1.5 is harder, perhaps too hard for newcomers.

In a unperfect world I vote for option 2 and hope that PDS makes the game more closer to the fantasy of Jomini in the future.

1.4) Was too boring - the lack of external pressures made the game a boring linear optimization of waiting for the OExt timer to go down (hence the horde of Orthodox OE -> HRE threads to minimize that timer) with a dash of diplomatic progress on the side.
1.5) Is easier and more boring. The strategic choices have been simplified from 1.4 to 1.5; so many things that were strategic concerns in 1.4 are completely ignorable in 1.5. Just manage the AE gain and you are good to go. The times in 1.5 when I want to pause the game and reconsider my strategy are essentially nil. I'm pretty much locked in for the next 10 years whenever I do something that triggers decent AE. It is, however, boring because you have to follow the same exact course over, and over again. Find an HRE minor you want to take down, either vassalize it or claim it, kill it, core it; then ignore the HRE for a decade or more, go beat up somebody outside (Orthodox Russians are nice, maybe snake down to the Muslims), then come back and do the exact same thing again. Yeah, you can throw in the odd vassal feeding spree (wahoo Ukraine) and perhaps something like breaking France ... but 1.5 is piss easy strategy once you know the secret sauce and resign yourself to playing an ahistorical fantasy sim where it makes more sense for Prussia to expand into Russia and North Africa at the same time than to actually consolidate the Baltic. It just is a repetitive, boring grind.

If 1.5 were actually challenging - making me stop and reconsider my strategy because hey something changed or offered me a bunch of ways to play, it would be different. But Pdox made the game more tedious and more trivial to optimize. Both are terrible for a grand strategy game.

Have you tried playing with easy AI difficulty instead? AI nations are much more lenient towards you.

Yep, and its pathetic. This isn't a question of difficulty, it is a question of tedium. When I'm a big giant blob, I want every AI and their brother gunning for me. I don't want the AI being lenient. Further, while the stealth +50% AE goes away, you still run into the same wall - coalitions define all your strategic parameters and end up trumping everything else. Yeah, you have a bit more play before AE/Coalition hell sets in, but once you are there, the game still shuts down into a simple linear optimization.

And that's the point. Coalitions don't make the game harder. They make the game more tedious. The game is only marginally less of a grind on easy and still ends up in the same easy/slow equilibrium.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are no true purpose to the game, you bring your own purpose. You can pretty much "win" the game with a relatively small power if that is what you try to achieve.

The inertia as you call it is there to make the game actually last the 400 years, and there are plenty of things to do outside combat if you just look closely enough. It might be that you are not particularly interested in the part of the game, but it doesn't mean there are other things to do.

Increasing the timer between actions so that it takes longer to complete the game adds no depth whatsoever. Most of the "non-war" things you describe involve assigning a guy to something and waiting until he finishes it...once you've assigned said guy there are no further decision points. War, while simplistic in many regards, has more frequent decision points and a lot more from a risk/reward standpoint.

Claiming the game actually lasts 400 years is a foolish. If it's effectively over (aka nobody can stop the player any longer), then mechanics that prevent the player from ending it without adding any real challenge in the process are pure, unadulterated tedium. Unless you're running with junk OPMs, the game can be *functionally* over (IE unless the player loses on purpose, there's no realistic other outcome than him being able to beat everyone else) by 1600. To justify a forced timer simply so that the game "lasts" another 200 years is comically terrible.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Increasing the timer between actions so that it takes longer to complete the game adds no depth whatsoever. Most of the "non-war" things you describe involve assigning a guy to something and waiting until he finishes it...once you've assigned said guy there are no further decision points. War, while simplistic in many regards, has more frequent decision points and a lot more from a risk/reward standpoint.

Claiming the game actually lasts 400 years is a foolish. If it's effectively over (aka nobody can stop the player any longer), then mechanics that prevent the player from ending it without adding any real challenge in the process are pure, unadulterated tedium. Unless you're running with junk OPMs, the game can be *functionally* over (IE unless the player loses on purpose, there's no realistic other outcome than him being able to beat everyone else) by 1600. To justify a forced timer simply so that the game "lasts" another 200 years is comically terrible.

Well, we don't play the same game then... I continually check alliances and move my diplomats around to forge new alliances, worsen them and so on, this take time if you like to care about such things. I enjoy it, you don't... war for me is many times secondary. I play to get my score to keep rising, I don't necessarily need lots of land to do that, I only need enough to feel secure. It all depend on what nation I play.

I wouldn't mind a more dynamic diplomacy system, but I can play what we have right now and I still enjoy the game even though the AI is on the weaker side.

In my opinion the game is not broken and works, if you don't find it fun just quit playing and come back when you see they changed thing to your liking.

 

[Bagle]

In a historical context, the nations in the HRE mostly expanded diplomatically and they did not go on a wild conquest spree in the 1400. Just jump through the different ages and look at the HRE, not much change during the earliest times. Someone had probably stopped Brandenburg from that wild expansion.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Correct, I expect a challenging, multifaceted, and historical grand strategy game. You expect a predictable, linear, and ahistoric button clicking game that rewards playing slow.


This wouldn't exactly be hard to put in. Right now, pretty much all the control mechanisms are rate based. How many provinces can I hold before I go over OExt, 25 BT worth and I have a mostly fixed amount of OExt burn - it is a simple rate limitation as going over 100 is pretty much strategically bankrupt. How about diplomatic expansion (and including returning vassal cores)? Again, you are limited by numbers of relations slots and MP gain; it is limited by rate. How about AE? Well everyone treats it as a simple rate limit - conquer only X here, then wait for the AE to burn down from a fixed cap. All of these are magical limits on rates.

So what if we flipped some of these things from limiting to rate, to, maybe, making the opposition more challenging and giving the player more strategic choices? Say instead of making coalitions small time affairs, we gave coalition members bonuses (like to morale, discipline, manpower, and tax rates - all of which are quite arguably historical) against the coalition target? Assuming we could balance that, it would allow the game to do the Napoleonic Wars - we could have big peaces because the risk wouldn't be that Europe locks down and win or lose 4 provinces change hands, but if you got big, you might actually lose wars and you might get dismembered Congress of Vienna style.

Much though I disagree with people about the overall strength of internal pressures; it would be wonderful if we got rid of the utterly ineffective rebel death-of-a-thousand cuts approach and started doing some real factional modeling. This way as you got bigger, you'd have to devote more to juggling internal demands. You might need to decrease takes and lower manpower just to keep the people inside the empire happy. Again, this would be a control mechanism that isn't a simple timer gussied up to look pretty - it would be a fairly smooth degradation of net conquest value. Not only that, it could make peace time play, vastly more interesting.


I understand, you are one of the forum dwellers who likes the feeling when you have some "hidden knowledge" about how game the mechanisms that makes the game fun when you exercise it. That style though, is elitist. For all the players who don't come on the forums, like my wife, there should be a well integrated risk/reward curve and control mechanisms should have multiple ways out. They certainly shouldn't be counter-intuitive where following any major power's historical path gets a casual player into lockdown. For instance, my wife played Poland, and like a good Pole she took 4 provinces from the TO - which is exactly what happened in the Peace of Thorn (excepting of course that this was slightly more lenient than the actual Peace of Thorn as some trade/political concessions can't be made in game). So what happens? She gets a coalition formed of Lithuania, Pomerania, the Livonian order, and I think Sweden. They declare war, she wins. What does she do? What anyone thinks you do when someone troublesome attacks you - hurt them back. So she took a couple of provinces from Pomerania and I think one from Lithuania. Now the coalition gets huge and the next war involves Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, the eastern half of the HRE, the Livonian Order, and France (who I think got pulled in as the overall war leader thanks to alliance chaining).

Now sure, her play is vastly below efficient, but she shouldn't have to come on the forums, figure out the AE modifiers for everything, and then know the intricacies of chain alliance calls just to play a basic game with a major power. The game should take and have a sliding scale so as she blobs too much, too quickly the game responds incrementally. If a coalition forms, there should be obvious ways out other than just waiting down a timer. Given that the most historical coalitions were broken by force of arms, it really should be possible for a new player to go to war with a coalition, see some obvious peace options (preferably at the top of the list) that say something "reduce coalition" (say 66% WS, reduces AE of all coalition members by 25) or "ban from coalition" (locks each nation out of the coalition for say 12 years, no AE reduction, cost scales with the size of each nation).

But might those things be too powerful for elite players? Maybe, but here's the thing, if you don't like them - don't use them. You, after all are a strong player, and as Jorgen notes you can play with whatever limitations on your own behavior you want. In any event, I highly doubt that it would be that hard to craft good control mechanisms so that coalitions don't become lockdown mode or even so risk commensurate losses/gains can be made against them - while still making the "avoid coalitions" route the most efficient.


1.4) Was too boring - the lack of external pressures made the game a boring linear optimization of waiting for the OExt timer to go down (hence the horde of Orthodox OE -> HRE threads to minimize that timer) with a dash of diplomatic progress on the side.
1.5) Is easier and more boring. The strategic choices have been simplified from 1.4 to 1.5; so many things that were strategic concerns in 1.4 are completely ignorable in 1.5. Just manage the AE gain and you are good to go. The times in 1.5 when I want to pause the game and reconsider my strategy are essentially nil. I'm pretty much locked in for the next 10 years whenever I do something that triggers decent AE. It is, however, boring because you have to follow the same exact course over, and over again. Find an HRE minor you want to take down, either vassalize it or claim it, kill it, core it; then ignore the HRE for a decade or more, go beat up somebody outside (Orthodox Russians are nice, maybe snake down to the Muslims), then come back and do the exact same thing again. Yeah, you can throw in the odd vassal feeding spree (wahoo Ukraine) and perhaps something like breaking France ... but 1.5 is piss easy strategy once you know the secret sauce and resign yourself to playing an ahistorical fantasy sim where it makes more sense for Prussia to expand into Russia and North Africa at the same time than to actually consolidate the Baltic. It just is a repetitive, boring grind.

If 1.5 were actually challenging - making me stop and reconsider my strategy because hey something changed or offered me a bunch of ways to play, it would be different. But Pdox made the game more tedious and more trivial to optimize. Both are terrible for a grand strategy game.


Yep, and its pathetic. This isn't a question of difficulty, it is a question of tedium. When I'm a big giant blob, I want every AI and their brother gunning for me. I don't want the AI being lenient. Further, while the stealth +50% AE goes away, you still run into the same wall - coalitions define all your strategic parameters and end up trumping everything else. Yeah, you have a bit more play before AE/Coalition hell sets in, but once you are there, the game still shuts down into a simple linear optimization.

And that's the point. Coalitions don't make the game harder. They make the game more tedious. The game is only marginally less of a grind on easy and still ends up in the same easy/slow equilibrium.

You are never going to get an AI that will challenge you so I suggest you move on to greener pastures if that is your main gripe. You could try and play the game differently and concentrate more on diplomacy or more goal oriented conquest, the AI can NEVER stop an overly aggressive player no matter what mechanics you change, there are too many flaws that you can exploit in the AI behavior once you learn them. You are only left with the option of giving substantial bonuses to combat AI and only expand what you view as reasonable for just keeping your realm secure so you can concentrate on getting the highest score possible.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, we don't play the same game then... I continually check alliances and move my diplomats around to forge new alliances, worsen them and so on, this take time if you like to care about such things. I enjoy it, you don't... war for me is many times secondary. I play to get my score to keep rising, I don't necessarily need lots of land to do that, I only need enough to feel secure. It all depend on what nation I play.

I wouldn't mind a more dynamic diplomacy system, but I can play what we have right now and I still enjoy the game even though the AI is on the weaker side.

In my opinion the game is not broken and works, if you don't find it fun just quit playing and come back when you see they changed thing to your liking.

Saying that broken features are fine because your style doesn't encounter them is not a valid defense of a mechanic. Try again.

Also, when you're leading 4-7 vassals and are a great power, it's not exactly rocket science to hold onto a great power ally, nor does it take a great deal of strategic thought. This garbage only breaks down further outside of Europe; as Tibet when me + vassals can beat every nation in India China, and the hordes put together and not run afoul of manpower difficulties by 1550-1600 AD, why do I care about improving relations with the scrub bags left over in India like Malwa and Vijaynagar, who are 4 techs behind me despite being in a better tech group and have joined into (and then left) coalitions? Nothing I could do with a diplomat would make them like me, even if I did it pre-emptively. AIs will swap hostile for fun, even as longtime allies at +200. You pick your allies where you can, manage AE until you can beat the coalitions, then get caught in a grind even after you completely and utterly annihilate them. However, even allies aren't an option now, because PI intentionally made it harder to ally nations like the Ottomans for nations like Tibet...because reasons. Maybe the Ottos could use some help vs Russia? Nahhhhhhhhhhhh. There's 0 things I can do to get enough +relations to overcome the penalties, except of course to conquer towards them...which one would think should have the opposite effect of making them like me and want to ally...but as long as I dismantle Timmy via vassal feeding, they'll be more than happy.

I get that some people like skill equalization, such that losing manpower inefficiently and making bad decisions doesn't matter because of the AE timer + coalitions stopping the people who play better. However, skill equalization is bad design, unless you're just doing it via matchmaking so that people are playing with reasonably comparable opposition.

There's no justification for 0 unit being a serious barrier to attaining war score. That's the opposite of rational, which is why you're not defending it rationally.

You are never going to get an AI that will challenge you so I suggest you move on to greener pastures if that is your main gripe. You could try and play the game differently and concentrate more on diplomacy or more goal oriented conquest, the AI can NEVER stop an overly aggressive player no matter what mechanics you change, there are too many flaws that you can exploit in the AI behavior once you learn them. You are only left with the option of giving substantial bonuses to combat AI and only expand what you view as reasonable for just keeping your realm secure so you can concentrate on getting the highest score possible.

If you actually read what he posted and concluded his argument was about the challenge from the AI, and not from the standpoint of engaging decisions in design...then rather than finding another game I would recommend picking up grade-level reading comprehension skills . Argue the points being made, not something else.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

It doesn't matter, you both only argue your "opinion" of what you "feel" is wrong and most of it boils down to that the AI can be exploited and you "feel" there are boring play in between wars (which is not true for everyone). These are only opinions worth anything but to you. It does not make your opinions more right than others. There is nothing inherently wrong with linear strategy in some fashion just because some find it boring. I do happen to agree that linear decision making is suboptimal in the fun department, I also wrote a suggestion on what I thought would be fun earlier in this thread.

There is no point in arguing with you since you have already decided that your opinion of what constitute fun is the "right" opinion and everyone who don't agree is wrong. I'm probably the better person that acknowledged that you have the right to not think the current version (or any version of it as it seems) is not fun, and you are perfectly in your right to think that way. Just accept that not everyone agree and find fun in the current version as it is.

The design decisions might not agree with everyone on every topic, me included. Saying that it is broken just because you don't like it when others obviously do usually means it is a matter of opinion, there is none being right. To be frank your opinions are noted and perhaps Paradox will as well. I bet they will not change the core mechanics of the game no matter how much you scream about them. So you will have to live with them until they decide to change them.

 

[Ivashanko]

You are never going to get an AI that will challenge you so I suggest you move on to greener pastures if that is your main gripe. You could try and play the game differently and concentrate more on diplomacy or more goal oriented conquest, the AI can NEVER stop an overly aggressive player no matter what mechanics you change, there are too many flaws that you can exploit in the AI behavior once you learn them. You are only left with the option of giving substantial bonuses to combat AI and only expand what you view as reasonable for just keeping your realm secure so you can concentrate on getting the highest score possible.

That just isn't true. Magna Mundi (the mod) successfully kept people from 'breaking' the game for centuries- even when playing as a major player in Western Europe I lost a few wars to strong alliances that popped up to counter me (not because I had a lot of infamy, the AE near equivalent)- I didn't- but because I was large enough to pose a threat for the rest of time. As Russia, even when I had expanded massively there were difficulties even in the 19th century defeating some neighboring nations (my nation was never really threatened though). My troops- which were very technologically advanced and pretty efficient- simply couldn't stand up to armies that had been completely set up to defend against Russian aggression (in MMtM national ideas were much stronger, and AIs didn't have a list they almost always picked from, so they were able to realistically respond to my overt aggression). If I moved too many of my troops over to deal with the Europeans I risked a revolt being successful or another nation attacking me on another, unprotected front (which happened a few times actually). It was a lot of fun.

So the AI can deal with humans to a certain degree if you give them to the tools to do so. They'll rarely out think the human but they can put up a good fight.

In my most recent game as the Teutonic Order I had conciliated much of the Baltic and was doing well until a few members of the aristocracy did something stupid which helped spark off a peasant rebellion- I then spent decades dealing with revolts, low stability, enemy nations attacking me when I was down- but it was fun because I had a variety of choices to deal with the issue. I eventually restricted serfdom to appeal to the peasants- but that pissed off the aristocracy who latter would launch a civil war against me partly because of those choices. I also sold off territory in order to keep from going bankrupt (money is much harder to come by in MM than in the non-modded series), and played enemies off each other through the use of spies, diplomacy, and the surrendering of provinces. I even had to let some places go in order to boost my government's administration efficiency so that they could deal with my crumbling nation.

In the end I had to restrict the rights of the Jews in order to gain stability I desperately needed- which boosted Antisemitism in my lands (causing more pogroms to form), hurt the provinces locally by lowering their population growth and financial productivity, and kept Jews from trying to come to my country in the future. I also latter adopted the national idea Bill of Rights to placate the plebs (and piss off the aristocracy, which has been in a low scale war with me ever since).

These stories aren't uncommon in the mod, and this level of strategic choices are, in my opinion, what Paradox should be shooting for.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It doesn't matter, you both only argue your "opinion" of what you "feel" is wrong and most of it boils down to that the AI can be exploited and you "feel" there are boring play in between wars (which is not true for everyone).

Degrees of freedom and #decision points are not matters of "opinion". They're quantifiable. That coalitions simplify the equation rather than add depth is indisputable. It's good only if players like things simpler or can't handle the extra context. The reason there's "no point to arguing with us" is that you aren't actually arguing with us. You are quoting us, then arguing against things that were never said, while completely ignoring what we are saying.

Of course that's useless to argue. You're arguing with nothing. Address the points made, not ones you fabricated.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

That just isn't true. Magna Mundi (the mod) successfully kept people from 'breaking' the game for centuries- even when playing as a major player in Western Europe I lost a few wars to strong alliances that popped up to counter me (not because I had a lot of infamy, the AE near equivalent)- I didn't- but because I was large enough to pose a threat for the rest of time. As Russia, even when I had expanded massively there were difficulties even in the 19th century defeating some neighboring nations (my nation was never really threatened though). My troops- which were very technologically advanced and pretty efficient- simply couldn't stand up to armies that had been completely set up to defend against Russian aggression (in MMtM national ideas were much stronger, and AIs didn't have a list they almost always picked from, so they were able to realistically respond to my overt aggression). If I moved too many of my troops over to deal with the Europeans I risked a revolt being successful or another nation attacking me on another, unprotected front (which happened a few times actually). It was a lot of fun.

So the AI can deal with humans to a certain degree if you give them to the tools to do so. They'll rarely out think the human but they can put up a good fight.

In my most recent game as the Teutonic Order I had conciliated much of the Baltic and was doing well until a few members of the aristocracy did something stupid which helped spark off a peasant rebellion- I then spent decades dealing with revolts, low stability, enemy nations attacking me when I was down- but it was fun because I had a variety of choices to deal with the issue. I eventually restricted serfdom to appeal to the peasants- but that pissed off the aristocracy who latter would launch a civil war against me partly because of those choices. I also sold off territory in order to keep from going bankrupt (money is much harder to come by in MM than in the non-modded series), and played enemies off each other through the use of spies, diplomacy, and the surrendering of provinces. I even had to let some places go in order to boost my government's administration efficiency so that they could deal with my crumbling nation.

In the end I had to restrict the rights of the Jews in order to gain stability I desperately needed- which boosted Antisemitism in my lands (causing more pogroms to form), hurt the provinces locally by lowering their population growth and financial productivity, and kept Jews from trying to come to my country in the future. I also latter adopted the national idea Bill of Rights to placate the plebs (and piss off the aristocracy, which has been in a low scale war with me ever since).

These stories aren't uncommon in the mod, and this level of strategic choices are, in my opinion, what Paradox should be shooting for.

Well, you are not going to get it from Paradox since they like their game to be more open ended, mods can usually add great deal of additional challenges I will not argue anything there.

I've just started playing with the "Veritas et Fortitudo" mod, that seem pretty interesting... I'm not sure about the difficulty, but it seem harder than the vanilla version at least.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Degrees of freedom and #decision points are not matters of "opinion". They're quantifiable. That coalitions simplify the equation rather than add depth is indisputable. It's good only if players like things simpler or can't handle the extra context. The reason there's "no point to arguing with us" is that you aren't actually arguing with us. You are quoting us, then arguing against things that were never said, while completely ignoring what we are saying.

Of course that's useless to argue. You're arguing with nothing. Address the points made, not ones you fabricated.

It is mostly about opinion even there. If most players accept it as it is and still enjoy it then it is a matter of opinion. No matter how much you will quantify it. I never said that I find part of what you say is not right either, I actually find part of what you say as sound. I just find the way you present it to be quite rude in general since you both tell people they are boring, want to play easy games and all that stuff. That's not a good way to try and get your point across. That and not everyone want the type of game that you would like to have, many are quite happy to simplify things for the sake of realism or just game balance or having an AI that can cope with the mechanic, take your pick.

 

[Jomini]

Jorgen:

Statements like "decision points", "cost effectiveness", and "linear optimization" are not opinions. These are well defined mathematical terms that are used by professionals and academics to talk about conflict. When your "strategy" is just a linear optimization that implies certain things, none of which are because anyone "feels" something. It implies those things (like there being just one frontier possibilities curve), regardless of if I end up brain damaged and come in here tomorrow saying "I really like everything now".

Further, yeah a better AI would make most problems better, but EUIV's design amplifies AI deficiencies. For instance, AIs are notoriously bad at spotting threats. So what does EU do? It penalizes one form of "becoming a threat" and tells the AI to ignore other types of "becoming a threat". Yeah it makes sense that the Ottomans should be less worried about somebody vassal feeding their way through Persia ... but once a big, expanding state is on their border, they should care a lot more about it, than about how Adal has been annexing land in Hedjaz, Najd, and Yemen. As is, the AI bumbles along not caring as long as I stay below the magic number.

A better design mechanism would do a basic balance of power calculation for at least half of the "should I take action against this expanding power or not" decision. That would make the AI much better at being a semi-viable opponent.

Likewise, having a magical limit to coalition gains doesn't actually make the AI stronger. Like shown above, you eventually reach the limit of a coalition in spite of any further outrages you might commit. If instead of having coalitions work mostly by limiting the rate of conquest, we made them work by making the AI stronger directly, then as you go back for fifths at the Chinese buffet, it might actually be a challenge.

Further, a lot of the design changes suggested have been things that make the game more accessible to people who don't read the forums or play really well with lots of Pdox experience. It is intuitive that when someone attacks you, you make them weaker. It isn't intuitive that the only ways you can actually weaken your coalition enemies without making things worse is to release nations (until cores disappear) or feed your vassals cores (also time limited to around 1600 in many cases). It isn't intuitive, at all, that if you beat a nation you can't negotiate some sort of "now go away so we don't have to do this again" peace. In like fashion, it is a bunch of "hidden" secret sauce to know who coalitions will form. I mean if I get caught fabricating this claim - who will care, how much, and will they form a coalition? Sure people who read the boards get the answers from folks combing defines.lua, but that information is neither given nor intuitive for new players.

Me, I'll still likely play the series until it gets truly horrid, I expect a Pdox game to go through a year of teething. However, I would like it if every other patch didn't "utterly ruin" my wife's games as she put it.

And it is particularly galling that you say this BS when the changes being proposed won't effect you at all. You already ignore much of the game balance through house rules and you can keep right on playing how you've always liked to. I can only assume you are too selfish to allow others the same option.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I just find the way you present it to be quite rude in general since you both tell people they are boring, want to play easy games and all that stuff.

It gets increasingly hard to not do that back. You need only go earlier in this thread or several others to find these exact things being said to us in the first place. If that's what people understand, then that's what gets used unfortunately. If someone instead actually communicates with what's being said, this kind of thing doesn't happen.

many are quite happy to simplify things for the sake of realism or just game balance or having an AI that can cope with the mechanic, take your pick.

I can argue, and with strong supporting evidence, that coalitions fail all 3 of these things:

Realism: No. In real wars, victorious nations took well beyond what would normally be the war score limit in game against coalitions. Certainly, there was no magic force field in real wars protecting defeated coalitions. As Jomini pointed out, even the process used to create them doesn't reflect history, but is rather a gross misrepresentation of history (IE Poland vs TO example where taking 4 provinces causes a massive coalition).

Balance: Simply put, this game was never, ever designed around balance. Its fundamental premise is imbalance...just look at how western tech units fight others over time. Even in MP, nations are not balanced whatsoever...where balance is found is a delicate shifting of politics, to the point where it is almost entirely the human minds creating it (or failing to do so, opening up a runaway), not the game. In SP, coalitions are not a serious threat to large nations whatsoever, while they are an enormous threat to small ones operating on a smaller scale, which is completely backwards if "balance" is the goal.

AI: The AI will join coalitions and force the human to concede after full carpeting him...even letting him keep his army if he hides it somewhere. The AI will leave coalitions at 73 AE instantly after the offender vassals an adjacent nation. The AI will join coalitions and let the target use that as a means to break a truce without penalty. The AI will join coalitions against nations it can't reach (especially notable in Africa, where Kilwa will join against Songhai or Mali against Ethiopia). The AI can be persuaded to leave the coalition against an adjacent France because of something done near Hungary, while France has a claim on its only province. This isn't working here, either.

Coalitions are designed as a rate-limiter, a punishment for expanding too quickly in one area (that is the only competent argument for them I've seen, ever). However, they don't even achieve that goal, except against nations where rationally using what is implied as a "coalition" is nonsensical.

 

[Variton]

1.4) Was too boring - the lack of external pressures made the game a boring linear optimization of waiting for the OExt timer to go down (hence the horde of Orthodox OE -> HRE threads to minimize that timer) with a dash of diplomatic progress on the side
1.5) Is easier and more boring. The strategic choices have been simplified from 1.4 to 1.5;If 1.5 were actually challenging - making me stop and reconsider my strategy because hey something changed or offered me a bunch of ways to play, it would be different. But Pdox made the game more tedious and more trivial to optimize. Both are terrible for a grand strategy game.

Which makes newcomers to come to the forums, saying that the AI beats them and HRE nations are just too hard to play? Here you are just overrun by the basic reality. Trying to say white is not white, because it has a hint of grey in it does not make it black nor black white. No matter how hard you try to nitpick at it.

This isn't a question of difficulty, it is a question of tedium.

Yes, it is a question of difficulty. And tedium is just your opinion. Coalitions and AE add an extra set of rules to look after. You have to balance relations, manpower, money ... AND AE AND coalitions. More is more no matter how you try to circle it.

... Yeah, you have a bit more play before AE/Coalition hell sets in, but once you are there, the game still shuts down into a simple linear optimization...

Again, not true. In many cases AE and coalitions are not the main factor limiting your success. Especially if you have been wise enough to avoid them.

Saying that broken features are fine because your style doesn't encounter them is not a valid defense of a mechanic. Try again.

The coalitions are there and they work, I have seen it. I can give you a screencap of their existence if you like. You have to try harder to prove otherwise. (or on a second note, seeing your post count/time of registration, please dont)

Jorgen: Statements like "decision points", "cost effectiveness", and "linear optimization" are not opinions. These are well defined mathematical terms that are used by professionals and academics to talk about conflict.

And using terms like "decision points", "cost effectiveness" does not make your statements true.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, it is a question of difficulty. And tedium is just your opinion. Coalitions and AE add an extra set of rules to look after. You have to balance relations, manpower, money ... AND AE AND coalitions. More is more no matter how you try to circle it.

"oh look, this will give me 11.2 AE, while that will give me 15 AE. I have 2.0 multipliers here, so I'll just stay below x" --> is basic math that challenging?

Your assertion is inaccurate. The cap on expansion in an area makes manpower, money, and to a lesser extent relations less meaningful. If your AE timer > other concerns, it rate limits you to the point where even if you screwed up royally in the war and lost 3/4 of your manpower...well it barely matters because AE will take just as long to burn off as it will for someone who lost 1/12 their manpower.

AE serves as skill equalization. Skill equalization is not difficulty. Skill equalization is bad design. This kind of design element serves the exact same purpose as players in Madden dropping 3x more interceptions than in real life; to let weak players stay in the game longer.

By the way, you have ignored obvious counter points like a unified truce timer, minimal demands from distant large coalition leaders (IE no real penalty for losing these wars, either), and the ability to buy out of coalitions for a guaranteed 5 years of peace from every single nation near you. Nothing shows a weaker position than routinely failing to even address the opposing view's points...which has happened consistently in this thread. Can you right the ship?

Again, not true. In many cases AE and coalitions are not the main factor limiting your success. Especially if you have been wise enough to avoid them.

They don't limit success, they limit one's options on attaining it. They are trivially avoided if you know the multipliers and can do basic math, but being forced to avoid them removes otherwise interesting options, expressly because beating a coalition carries no real reward...until you're big enough for them to fail their purpose and actively help you.

The coalitions are there and they work, I have seen it. I can give you a screencap of their existence if you like. You have to try harder to prove otherwise. (or on a second note, seeing your post count/time of registration, please dont)

Take a gander into my signature, but you're going to have to do better than you are right now, resorting to fallacies .

And using terms like "decision points", "cost effectiveness" does not make your statements true.

And ignoring arguments, posting canned garbage, and making irrelevant general statement drivel does not even constitute an argument.

 

[Variton]

"oh look, this will give me 11.2 AE, while that will give me 15 AE. I have 2.0 multipliers here, so I'll just stay below x" --> is basic math that challenging?

As challenging as any other math involved. So? Adding more math is more.

Your assertion is inaccurate. The cap on expansion in an area makes manpower, money, and to a lesser extent relations less meaningful.

And NOT having it makes alliances, diplomacy, money and building, many ideas and most other stuff less meaningfull, I know, I did play on 1.4 long enough. Original hypothesis of real life observation stands.

Take a gander into my signature, but you're going to have to do better than you are right now, resorting to fallacies .

I don't have to. You are actively participating in this game of yours which makes you disqualified as a judge. Fallacies are all yours.

And ignoring arguments, posting canned garbage, and making irrelevant general statement drivel does not even constitute an argument.

Ignoring nitpicking is something most sane people do. Veterans of internet forums just know that there is no ending it. And before you go on: No, the last poster does not win. I plan to end this endless argumentation before it begins.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Jorgen:

Statements like "decision points", "cost effectiveness", and "linear optimization" are not opinions. These are well defined mathematical terms that are used by professionals and academics to talk about conflict. When your "strategy" is just a linear optimization that implies certain things, none of which are because anyone "feels" something. It implies those things (like there being just one frontier possibilities curve), regardless of if I end up brain damaged and come in here tomorrow saying "I really like everything now".

Further, yeah a better AI would make most problems better, but EUIV's design amplifies AI deficiencies. For instance, AIs are notoriously bad at spotting threats. So what does EU do? It penalizes one form of "becoming a threat" and tells the AI to ignore other types of "becoming a threat". Yeah it makes sense that the Ottomans should be less worried about somebody vassal feeding their way through Persia ... but once a big, expanding state is on their border, they should care a lot more about it, than about how Adal has been annexing land in Hedjaz, Najd, and Yemen. As is, the AI bumbles along not caring as long as I stay below the magic number.

A better design mechanism would do a basic balance of power calculation for at least half of the "should I take action against this expanding power or not" decision. That would make the AI much better at being a semi-viable opponent.

Likewise, having a magical limit to coalition gains doesn't actually make the AI stronger. Like shown above, you eventually reach the limit of a coalition in spite of any further outrages you might commit. If instead of having coalitions work mostly by limiting the rate of conquest, we made them work by making the AI stronger directly, then as you go back for fifths at the Chinese buffet, it might actually be a challenge.

Further, a lot of the design changes suggested have been things that make the game more accessible to people who don't read the forums or play really well with lots of Pdox experience. It is intuitive that when someone attacks you, you make them weaker. It isn't intuitive that the only ways you can actually weaken your coalition enemies without making things worse is to release nations (until cores disappear) or feed your vassals cores (also time limited to around 1600 in many cases). It isn't intuitive, at all, that if you beat a nation you can't negotiate some sort of "now go away so we don't have to do this again" peace. In like fashion, it is a bunch of "hidden" secret sauce to know who coalitions will form. I mean if I get caught fabricating this claim - who will care, how much, and will they form a coalition? Sure people who read the boards get the answers from folks combing defines.lua, but that information is neither given nor intuitive for new players.

Me, I'll still likely play the series until it gets truly horrid, I expect a Pdox game to go through a year of teething. However, I would like it if every other patch didn't "utterly ruin" my wife's games as she put it.

And it is particularly galling that you say this BS when the changes being proposed won't effect you at all. You already ignore much of the game balance through house rules and you can keep right on playing how you've always liked to. I can only assume you are too selfish to allow others the same option.

Strange thing is that I agree on most of your points of what I would feel would be a better game, so I don't argue those points at all. My so called "house" rules are nothing but objectives in the game to make it more challenging, nothing more. There are strategies beside expand, expand, expand... you can "win" the game without that mentality.

I don't like linear mechanics because they are artificial and I wold love a better AI. Some part of the AI is decent, but others are too easy to exploit after you played a while. One of the problem that I fear is that if they changed the mechanic in the way that either you or me proposed earlier the AI would just become even worse because the game would become more complex and less easy to choose the best path, something the AI is not very good at. So it is my belief that it might even get worse if it was changed unless it is possible to teach the AI to properly use that mechanic. If that is so it might be better to just leave it as it is.

That also take us back to opinion. Your position of fun does not have to be fun for someone else, those that are content and happy is still happy even if you are not, you should respect that. I would like to change many things, but at the same time I can enjoy the game as it is.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

And NOT having it makes alliances, diplomacy, money and building, many ideas and most other stuff less meaningfull, I know, I did play on 1.4 long enough. Original hypothesis of real life observation stands.

Are you actually citing your 1.4 experience as evidence ? Please tell me I just misread that. And no, those things are also less meaningful, aside from your 1 great power ally the game allows (2 if you have diplo ideas and press for it...assuming they're close enough). Lacking money is an early-game rate limiter too, but it's nothing in the face of AE. Building are not materially affected regardless (unless you can show they are). The relevant "diplomacy" is "get allies then improve relations with people who will get pissed so you can get away with more". Riveting.

Then later, diplomacy is removed as a serious factor. You don't care how much they hate you; they only can and typically will declare every 5 years, unless you deliberately declare on a new member to make it sooner. Rather than careful diplomatic planning, you now just swat down the bugs every 5 years or less, all for minimal gain.

As challenging as any other math involved. So? Adding more math is more.

Basic arithmetic is not grand strategy, and this title is centered around the latter.

I don't have to. You are actively participating in this game of yours which makes you disqualified as a judge. Fallacies are all yours.

Cower away like most other posters then. While not ideal, neither is it surprising.

Ignoring nitpicking is something most sane people do.

Handwaving legit points with supporting evidence while having nothing to back up one's own point of view...real smooth.

I plan to end this endless argumentation before it begins.

Yes, it is very clear that all the trash rabble in here is far too scared to actually formulate an argument and present it clearly. They'd much prefer to quote things, not address them, and state opinions unrelated to the points made. That certainly does not constitute an "argument", although it does imply a lot of unfortunate things about the people doing it.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

TheMeInTeam;16971000]"oh look, this will give me 11.2 AE, while that will give me 15 AE. I have 2.0 multipliers here, so I'll just stay below x" --> is basic math that challenging?

Your assertion is inaccurate. The cap on expansion in an area makes manpower, money, and to a lesser extent relations less meaningful. If your AE timer > other concerns, it rate limits you to the point where even if you screwed up royally in the war and lost 3/4 of your manpower...well it barely matters because AE will take just as long to burn off as it will for someone who lost 1/12 their manpower.

AE serves as skill equalization. Skill equalization is not difficulty. Skill equalization is bad design. This kind of design element serves the exact same purpose as players in Madden dropping 3x more interceptions than in real life; to let weak players stay in the game longer.

It doesn't matter if the mechanic is boring to you, it does not have to be to others. First of all, it is just a mechanic designed to do just what you feel is bad and that is to be an equalizer and steer the game into the realm of historic plausibility. That is the whole function of the mechanic. It does not matter that in your "opinion" this is easy/boring or whatever you like to call it.

The whole thing is a complete abstraction. It is a simple mechanic to a simple problem. I have no problem managing my AE and having lots of things to do and fun in the mean time. The AI still have problems with manpower and depleting it, other AI nations can jump on them after a war. This often lead to less blobbing by the AI and more blobbing by the player, which in a sense make the game easier and not harder, coalitions don't influence that much, the AI plays bad anyway. In most of the game that I played there have not been that many coalitions, the AI usually avoids them.

Play a few hands-off games and you will see that the end result will be a pretty good and plausible historical outcome for the most part. I have actually done a few with 1.5 now just to see how they end. It is when you throw in the player that things get distorted, mainly if the player are super aggressive, the AI have a hard time understanding who is the real threat and coordinate attacks against that threat. This is more a problem with the strategy AI.

TheMeInTeam;16971000
By the way, you have ignored obvious counter points like a unified truce timer, minimal demands from distant large coalition leaders (IE no real penalty for losing these wars, either), and the ability to buy out of coalitions for a guaranteed 5 years of peace from every single nation near you. Nothing shows a weaker position than routinely failing to even address the opposing view's points...which has happened consistently in this thread. Can you right the ship?

I have several times, I just don't care to repeat myself, it is pointless.

TheMeInTeam;16971000
They don't limit success, they limit one's options on attaining it. They are trivially avoided if you know the multipliers and can do basic math, but being forced to avoid them removes otherwise interesting options, expressly because beating a coalition carries no real reward...until you're big enough for them to fail their purpose and actively help you.

First of all, most players will not do that. Quit gaming the game... piling on more math will not solve it either. There are very few games that don't utilize linear mechanic that are easy to predict, in fact which games don't? If I did a game I would try and avoid it, but I'm not sure many people would be able to play it because the learning curve for new players would be huge and programing and AI to use it even harder.

 

[brifbates]

Yes, it is very clear that all the trash rabble in here is far too scared to actually formulate an argument and present it clearly. They'd much prefer to quote things, not address them, and state opinions unrelated to the points made. That certainly does not constitute an "argument", although it does imply a lot of unfortunate things about the people doing it.

Oh the irony...

Debate basic: you believing something to be true (factual) does not make it so. This is particularly true in arguments like this one...

"The rewards available for beating a coalition are not commensurate with the risk/effort/resources needed to do so" which is one of the base points of your argument is not a fact, it is an opinion.

Some, possibly many people agree with your opinion and don't contest the point, however, that does not make it a fact. It *IS* a fact that you can get more out of a peace deal against a nation equivalent in size, etc. to the coalition, however, that doesn't make your statement previously listed a fact. Why, you may ask? Because fighting a coalition is a different mechanic than fighting a war against a single nation the same size and different rules apply. You not liking those rules doesn't make them wrong and your opinion a fact, it just means you (and likely many others) don't like them. Yet you constantly spout stuff like that last post clearly attempting to belittle those who don't share your opinion and argue against it with just as much factual data behind them (0 being equal to 0).

Here's something you should learn: people are entitled to their own opinion on issues that aren't hard facts, if someone was arguing that the rewards available in a coalition war are the same as in a single large country war the same size you can rightfully ridicule them for arguing against the facts. When you start bashing people for arguing against your opinion with their own then you are the "trash rabble".