The problem with beeing behind in Asia is that it limits your play style massively. I mean, you are expected to be able to attack Europe with native Americans but tacking on a European with east Asia early game? Pay please. Locking experiences behind paywalls after you already have paid whole price for the base game is as scummy as it gets.
So... development is still not a free feature. Yeah...
- Thread starter Zeratulr
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You don't have a techpenalty early on with the most asians and its only growing over time so where is your problem there? If you attack early into europe you get their institutions and you remove your disatvantage over time. Also how exactly do you attack early with an east asian nation? I, for myself, don't see shit in europe with the most asian nation for the start.
It's interesting because this is one DLC feature that they have integrated with subsequent game systems, much unlike Estates. Not just the obvious Institutions but the -Development cost modifier has been proliferating through the game for a while now. It's a feature that as an owner of CS I'm very happy has been well integrated into the rest of the game (as I play it, with all DLC except Third Rome).
It strikes me that there are problems almost whatever they do. Integrate properly like development and you make the game difficult to play for people who don't own the DLC. Don't integrate as with Estates and you end up with a silly mini-game that feels weirdly disconnected from a bunch of things it should intuitively interact with. Require each DLC for each subsequent patch and DLC and you screw over your playerbase even worse. I'd not be happy if I had to buy Third Rome which contains nothing of interest to me in order to get future patches. Start integrating global mechanics from older DLC into the base game and PDS devalue their own products and risk backlash from DLC buyers who feel the value they paid for is no longer there.
I think some variant of that last option is the best way forward. You can mitigate all the downsides pretty significantly. How much do PDS actually make from the sales of 2 year old DLCs? Most of us who are regular players of the game, the 'whales' if you will, are not going to be waiting that long for that new feature that we want to get our hands on. I think most consumers of DLCs can be sold on that approach if it's communicated properly that it will result in us having a better game to play.
The other possible approach is the one Stellaris seems to be going for which is to include nearly all global mechanics in the free patches, and especially all the really important ones like Traditions and Factions. We still perceive value in the expansions because we get all those nominally free features at the same time as the paid ones and so we intuitively include them in our perception of how much value we get. People who buy the expansions significantly after release are doing so generally at a substantial discount and so they perceive value as well. I've recently spent $30 to get Synthetic Dawn and Utopia and I feel like the cumulative value of those two expansions plus 1.5, 1.6, and 1.8 (there was no release 1.7) is far greater than the sum of Third Rome, Cradle of Civilization plus 1.22, and 1.23. Admittedly it remains to be seen exactly what CoC/1.23 brings and a potential 1.24 which for fairness would be included in that comparison as well.
Also as a further note, I'll not be impressed if rank 5 advisors are DLC and not patch. That's straying deep into pay to win territory. Spend $20 on this DLC to get an extra 6 MP per month in the mid-late game.
It strikes me that there are problems almost whatever they do. Integrate properly like development and you make the game difficult to play for people who don't own the DLC. Don't integrate as with Estates and you end up with a silly mini-game that feels weirdly disconnected from a bunch of things it should intuitively interact with. Require each DLC for each subsequent patch and DLC and you screw over your playerbase even worse. I'd not be happy if I had to buy Third Rome which contains nothing of interest to me in order to get future patches. Start integrating global mechanics from older DLC into the base game and PDS devalue their own products and risk backlash from DLC buyers who feel the value they paid for is no longer there.
I think some variant of that last option is the best way forward. You can mitigate all the downsides pretty significantly. How much do PDS actually make from the sales of 2 year old DLCs? Most of us who are regular players of the game, the 'whales' if you will, are not going to be waiting that long for that new feature that we want to get our hands on. I think most consumers of DLCs can be sold on that approach if it's communicated properly that it will result in us having a better game to play.
The other possible approach is the one Stellaris seems to be going for which is to include nearly all global mechanics in the free patches, and especially all the really important ones like Traditions and Factions. We still perceive value in the expansions because we get all those nominally free features at the same time as the paid ones and so we intuitively include them in our perception of how much value we get. People who buy the expansions significantly after release are doing so generally at a substantial discount and so they perceive value as well. I've recently spent $30 to get Synthetic Dawn and Utopia and I feel like the cumulative value of those two expansions plus 1.5, 1.6, and 1.8 (there was no release 1.7) is far greater than the sum of Third Rome, Cradle of Civilization plus 1.22, and 1.23. Admittedly it remains to be seen exactly what CoC/1.23 brings and a potential 1.24 which for fairness would be included in that comparison as well.
Also as a further note, I'll not be impressed if rank 5 advisors are DLC and not patch. That's straying deep into pay to win territory. Spend $20 on this DLC to get an extra 6 MP per month in the mid-late game.
So I don't argue that the DLCs need restructuring/bundling whatsoever.
But what you say here confuses me. First you are talking about westernization. In order to westernize you need to have a western neighbour. Before that you just had a flat penalty to tech cost.
Now if you have a western neighbour the institutions are gonna spread to you pretty fast, and you don't have to pay monarch points for it. You will probably get them like maximum of 20 years later or so.
And 20 years is like 20% tech cost which was eastern tech group i believe. And in a lot of cases you just didn't bother westernizing as them.
And later institutions aregetting around the world really fast.
Then you say it is a balance change, but ignore what balance is mostly about: you and your most direct neighbours. Like I said, if everyone pays more, nobody pays more.
Also ith institution spread etc. I would argue that you probably pay less monarch points for teching nowadays then back when westerniation was a thing. Keep in mind that you have to pay mp for westernization. But don't quote me on that as I have no direct comparison on hand.
And yes, not owning DLCs restricts the play style. But: you don't want to invest money to gain access to playstyle XYZ, then play without it.
Does that sound familiar? Oh yes right pretty much everything you pay for has exactly the same concept: pay for it and get access to it or don't. Doesn't matter if it's gaming, clothes, food, ...
It is business. And a business needs to be profitable in order to stay in business. Otherwise it's out of business fast.
And just to reinforce my message: I agree with the restructuring/bundling whatever of the DLCs. But just making it free is not reasonable but just complaining: "Why do i have to pay money for something i want to enjoy?".
(And yes the last point was a little bit controvers and extreme, I appologize for that. But I had to cut it there due to time contraints.)
Early might have been a bit misleading. What I meant was earlier than 1700s. So that's mid I guess. Kinda funny how you say if you attack early you can negate the difference and proceed to ask how it's possible to attack early isn't it?
You know, I never really paid attention before. What happens to the Economic Idea Group or other Ideas that reduce dev cost when you don't have Common Sense?
You get production efficiency bonus if I'm not mistaken, definitely something boosting your production.
Not working well is kind of an understatement ;-) a bit tired of seeing Paris-lvl Madagascar province... and it´s not the only reason... While I would think it was awesome if there were some logic to it, sprawling empire or something else... but when the rest of the provinces are 3-7... it really feels off to have 35 capitol there
