Well, if you blob, you will most likely fall a bit behind in tech, in order to manage overextension. Seems like a fair tradeoff to me.
So, how will it be with blobs? Still blob universalis or otherwise?
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The problem in EU3 was they didn't fall behind. In fact, due to their ridiculous borders they would get a lot of neighbour bonuses.
In my games the Ottos always did best when they got a few early provinces in dalmatia/poland/baltic and they could "leech" tech from the HRE states.
The "neighbor" in "neighbor bonuses" does not actually mean "neighbor" but rather "countries in the same tech group"
The tech system works differently this time. To increase tech, you need to spend monarch points, which you also need to use to core freshly conquered territory so you avoid the massive maluses of overextension. So quickly blobbing will either leave you a long way behind on tech (and ideas) if you try to consolidate your gains, or open to revolts and other nasty maluses throughout your empire if you don't. It's a nice system that should better simulate the rise and fall of blobs.
I hope so, but it depends on how they balance it. The trouble is that when countries are relatively unstable you get a whole bunch of people whining on these forums about rebellions. But as rebellions are potentially the primary source of blob-fracture it is a very hard balance to strike.
Going by the big journalist MP game that we've probably all read, it looks like rebellions will actually be a threat, especially if you're overextended (not the mechanic, just in over your head). A couple of poor decisions seem to be able to cause a whole heap of issues which, presumably, will be worse for the AI than for a human (in the capacity to deal with them, that is).
Real world blobbing - Selected blobs of 1538:
And Charles V had very ugly borders.
The Hapsburg empire got so big due to inheritance rather than conquest. It was also hard enough to keep together that Charles V ended up retiring because he couldn't cope with all the stress, and dividing his realms in two to try and make them more manageable. Even then, the Spanish half ended up losing most of the Netherlands and North Africa.
The Ottomans are a more legitimate example of blobbing, although there are several differences between the Middle East and Western Europe which make it highly unlikely that, say, France would have been able to replicate their success. For one thing, the Middle East was generally less fortified than W. Europe, so it was possible to sweep through enemy lands in a way which would have been impossible in Flanders or Germany. For another, Egypt was already ruled by a separate foreign caste (the Mamelukes) before the Ottoman conquest, so the Turks didn't generally encounter much resistance from Egyptian society as a whole (because to them, it was just a matter of one set of foreign rulers being replaced by another). W. Europe, on the other hand, had an influential hereditary aristocracy and an increasingly large and well-educated middle class. Both these groups would have to be won over if you wanted to properly control the country, which would complicate the process of conquest somewhat.
I think that this is partly because rebellions in EU3 tend to be annoying rather than really threatening. Generally what happens when your country runs into instability is that you spend all your time playing whack-a-mole with rebel stacks, which is just tedious, boring and not at all fun. If rebels present more of a challenge in EU4 -- and it looks from the dev diaries that they will -- fighting them should be more enjoyable.
'Blobs' are perfectly fine, but I want something to be done about the borders that they result in. Most EUIII AI empires are nonsense from a logical point of view. Like that Austrian empire from page 1 - to defend their Russian territories they'd have to march across Hungary, the Carpathian mountains, Moldavia, then 1,000 miles north (by which point it would probably be winter) before being able to fight any actual enemies. Logistically impossible. Defending settlements on the Volga or Caucasus would be even more of a nightmare than that. Yet in EU games armies can freely march anywhere at any time without costing any extra money.
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Not quite. Although there is no direct maintenance increase, military access rights, attrition (in remote areas) and simple time to travel do make defending a separated area.
That said, I would certain advocate the AI claiming contiguous provinces first in peace settlements. Also I would advocate non-contiguous provinces having a higher result risk.
Yes, there are some extremely minor disincentives that come with taking your army from a friendly controlled Vienna to Moscow, but it's hardly something that any player would lose sleep over in the way monarchs of the time would have had to.
Is this not the old "Gameplay vs realism"-debate? Sure the blobbing is unrealistic, and sure, they are too easy to hold for the AI. On the other hand, usually a crushing defeat means the end of a blob, and with the coalitions I believe this is more likely to happen. Plus the blobs are a fun challenge to beat.
I for one say that blobbing should not be (further) limited in 4. In 3 there were enough mods that made the game more "realistic". So for those who hate AI blobbing, there will sure be enough mods to limit it. For those of us who actually find it fun to see Austria in Russia and Spain in Turkey, we can use the vanilla
I for one say that blobbing should not be (further) limited in 4. In 3 there were enough mods that made the game more "realistic". So for those who hate AI blobbing, there will sure be enough mods to limit it. For those of us who actually find it fun to see Austria in Russia and Spain in Turkey, we can use the vanilla
The second I saw this I knew there would be plenty of people excusing this all and saying it's realistic and fun.
Blobs are NOT fun because the game becomes something where you just throw a few big armies at each other in a style similar to 1800's warfare when there should be plenty of smaller states participating too which just got eaten by others.
It's not fun to have blobbing, nor is it realistic in 90% of cases.
Blobs are NOT fun because the game becomes something where you just throw a few big armies at each other in a style similar to 1800's warfare when there should be plenty of smaller states participating too which just got eaten by others.
It's not fun to have blobbing, nor is it realistic in 90% of cases.
Pretty much. There will be whining about rebellions. Rebellions will be nerfed. Rebellions will then become a completely meaningless mechanic that serves no useful gameplay purpose because they will have no chance of causing any harm. Others will complain that it's now too easy to blob and they will be shouted down by people who say that they shouldn't ruin the game for others if they can just mod it (which will be hypocritical, because their own whining will be what ruined the game to begin with).
See CK2.
I hope there are loads of blobs. I hope every country is a blob. I hope there are loads of little one-province blobs in Germany. I hope that Ulm will blob. I hope it will blob until it controls the entire province of Ulm.
I am a blob.
I am a blob.
Mh. See patch 5.2 for EU3, as well - measures to curb expansion and absurdly early centralization were put in, here and there, but were all removed after a week of constant whining. Only the reduced manpower stood - and with the announce of EU4 we could see why.
Mh. See patch 5.2 for EU3, as well - measures to curb expansion and absurdly early centralization were put in, here and there, but were all removed after a week of constant whining. Only the reduced manpower stood - and with the announce of EU4 we could see why.
If whiners are whining, it means they are doing something *right*.
I was really excited for the blobs in EU4... nice big juicy targets. In EU3 you had the liberation CB... in EU4 we have coalitions and hopefully still have the liberation CB. That should be more than enough to make life difficult for blobs. Why all the complaining?
France expanding subtly into the Rhine and the Low countries is alright and the coalitions would be great for that.
What I don't want is France annexing Spain, Portugal, and half of Germany.
What I don't want is France annexing Spain, Portugal, and half of Germany.