And buffs large, expanding nations more than small, so it seems counterproductive.
Staying small. Is there a point, or a way?
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And buffs large, expanding nations more than small, so it seems counterproductive.
I'm only talking single stacks of it. Not the whole thing. A single stack of revolt being as big as most of your army, is just silly.
I haven't played around with it yet, but would it be possible to use the Autonomy system to reward staying small? For example adding a ticking increase for every province you own so that large countries are on a permanent slide towards full autonomy. The way to combat it would be to build expansive Adm buildings or reform the government. Smaller countries on the other hand would get full benefits from their provinces.
You could also increase base income from capitals, just as you increase base manpower and force limits.
Another idea is to expand the model with triggered modifiers to also include penalties to tax, production and trade income. Increased stability and advisor cost from size would also be a good idea if it's possible.
You could also increase base income from capitals, just as you increase base manpower and force limits.
Another idea is to expand the model with triggered modifiers to also include penalties to tax, production and trade income. Increased stability and advisor cost from size would also be a good idea if it's possible.
Capital has 2 addtional BT, it's not a little amount. I really think that rewarding a player for staying small in EU4 is the same as rewarding him for playing basketball in FIFA.
You should get some sort of buffs for being a small nation for a duration of time. For an example, less stability hits while if you're larger you have to face those consequences.
Of course being small is undoubtedly hard and challenging. Pretty much every nation who did not expand got expanded into by their enemies.
Of course being small is undoubtedly hard and challenging. Pretty much every nation who did not expand got expanded into by their enemies.
Go right ahead. I only wrote it because you asked for a way to add the large country tech penalty.
That said, I disagree on that last point. Blobbing is the main thing that is fun. You're rewarded and encouraged to conquer, while staying small mostly amounts to doing nothing.
An odd assessment, given that blobbing is pretty much the stated goal of the game.
I guess it's possible to stay small and be quite powerful (stay in top-20 at least), but only as a crazy colonizer. You can make friends with great powers and take part in their wars as an ally or help your CNs conquer natives in New world. But are you ready for years of complete boredom? =))
Up to Napoleon? Not really. And Napoleon expanded into big and small without much preference for either?
The problem with the whole "trigger some nerfs when you reach a certain size" thing is that you get into a really weird min-max situation around each of those breakpoints. If it's a simple # of provinces check, then you only go across those breakpoints if you're capturing a really valuable province. Otherwise you can actually be weaker than you were before you took the trash province.
For a real fix (if this is something you want to have in your game), consider how progressive income tax systems work. You pay a higher tax rate as your income increases, but only on the income you earn beyond that breakpoint. So if you're taxed 10% on your first $20,000, then 15% on the next $20,000 (as a simple example), you don't actually suffer any direct penalties for going beyond $20k income. You simply don't get as much of a gain from the second 20k as you did from the first 20k.
To implement this in EU4, you need to modify the aggregate numbers directly instead of relying on provinces. If you penalize provinces at an increasing amount as you gain more of them, then you create another weird min-max game about the order in which you conquer provinces. Instead, you modify individual values.
Consider Base Tax as an example. Perhaps the first 25 Base Tax is free. The next 25 Base Tax only gives 90% return (before autonomy), then the next 25 Base Tax gives 80%, and so on up to some desired maximum (you can tweak any of these numbers as you see fit of course). So with these numbers, a 50 Base Tax nation would have an effective tax of 47.5; a 75 Base Tax nation would have an effective tax of 67.5; and a 100 Base Tax nation would have an effective tax of 85. You can use smaller breakpoints or larger percentage reductions to penalize growth further.
These numbers would be applied before other modifiers (like actual tax %, autonomy, etc).
Because this effectively nerfs most nations in the game, you'd want to balance this by then applying a static boost for every country. For instance, you could grant a "free" 10 Base Tax to all nations, which you then wouldn't include in the maths above. This would reduce the income discrepancy somewhat between OPMs and larger nations; even though both receive the boost, the resulting taxes are closer together percentage-wise than before (and even closer after our "progressive" nerf above).
Then you do similar things for manpower and production. Trade power is more dicey; might be best to leave that alone.
Scripting implementation of this is left as an exercise to the reader
For a real fix (if this is something you want to have in your game), consider how progressive income tax systems work. You pay a higher tax rate as your income increases, but only on the income you earn beyond that breakpoint. So if you're taxed 10% on your first $20,000, then 15% on the next $20,000 (as a simple example), you don't actually suffer any direct penalties for going beyond $20k income. You simply don't get as much of a gain from the second 20k as you did from the first 20k.
To implement this in EU4, you need to modify the aggregate numbers directly instead of relying on provinces. If you penalize provinces at an increasing amount as you gain more of them, then you create another weird min-max game about the order in which you conquer provinces. Instead, you modify individual values.
Consider Base Tax as an example. Perhaps the first 25 Base Tax is free. The next 25 Base Tax only gives 90% return (before autonomy), then the next 25 Base Tax gives 80%, and so on up to some desired maximum (you can tweak any of these numbers as you see fit of course). So with these numbers, a 50 Base Tax nation would have an effective tax of 47.5; a 75 Base Tax nation would have an effective tax of 67.5; and a 100 Base Tax nation would have an effective tax of 85. You can use smaller breakpoints or larger percentage reductions to penalize growth further.
These numbers would be applied before other modifiers (like actual tax %, autonomy, etc).
Because this effectively nerfs most nations in the game, you'd want to balance this by then applying a static boost for every country. For instance, you could grant a "free" 10 Base Tax to all nations, which you then wouldn't include in the maths above. This would reduce the income discrepancy somewhat between OPMs and larger nations; even though both receive the boost, the resulting taxes are closer together percentage-wise than before (and even closer after our "progressive" nerf above).
Then you do similar things for manpower and production. Trade power is more dicey; might be best to leave that alone.
Scripting implementation of this is left as an exercise to the reader
You'll probably have a tough time as a non-HRE OPM, such as Albania, but as a Merchant Republic with little more home provinces than Venice starts the game with (maybe 9 provinces total) I can totally dominate the game. You just need to study the trade map, plan a route from your home trade node to a rich region and then proceed to take all Important Centers of Trade. Upgrade all the trade buildings in those nodes and you will become very rich. Take ideas which make mercenaries cheap and quick to recruit and you will become a very powerful military force - at least powerful enough to make majors think twice about taking you AND your allies on.
EU4 has made remaining small a lot easier, in fact, and totally possible.
If you're a Feudal non-HRE OPM, landlocked, and do not/cannot do anything to change that situation...then good luck. OPMs were chewed up throughout history...and who can blame 'em?
EU4 has made remaining small a lot easier, in fact, and totally possible.
If you're a Feudal non-HRE OPM, landlocked, and do not/cannot do anything to change that situation...then good luck. OPMs were chewed up throughout history...and who can blame 'em?
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A couple modifiers increasing tech, stability, and monthly global autonomy would probably be quite effective. Differing culture groups gaining higher revolt risk when nationalism arises would be neat as well. And vice versa for very small countries. While small nations did ultimately get conquered for the most part during this time period, excluding the HRE which had a bunch of special stuff going on, it is rather frustrating that small nations are lacking in any "tall" mechanics. But this is quite easily fixed with some quick modding so I hardly can complain too much.
This has to be one of the most ludicrous statements I've ever read on this forum.
You're saying that the game design is the result of a programming error?
Well I do think that 4-6 province nations do have the ability to thrive, I had failed attempt to form the dutch as a minor, however it was quite a pleasant game trying to balance the majors against each other.
With all buildings and a trade focus I could have so many mercs that nations didn't dare bother me.
With all buildings and a trade focus I could have so many mercs that nations didn't dare bother me.
This is the only thing about eu3 I liked. Smaller nations were better a trading and teched faster. Small nations that focus on trade should have a bonus to pulling in trade, and a bonus to how quick they can tech,
When someone uses the phrase "a bug, not a feature", it generally means "didn't turn out as intended". Designs can have "bugs" too.
I'm not personally against the desire to play tall, but that shouldn't translate to nerfing the crap out of expansion. That's where mods like VeF get it wrong (and this is a directly response to the VeF-esque suggestions some people have given) -- if you're going to make another playstyle viable, don't do it by making people suffer for some other playstyle.
All of you who proposed nerfs to large nations should play Ming once.
Then you will know nerf is never a good way to balance a game.......
Then you will know nerf is never a good way to balance a game.......
I don't know.. it is kind of sad that vassals occupy a diplo-slot. It would be more fun playing a small nation when you don't have to worry about your limitation in diplomatic relations. There I could see a reward.
A huge France having 1235 minors as vassalls is probably not the best choice and probably not even funny, but as say serbia having 4 small vassals around and still being capable to maintain one or two strong alliences (which would cost a diplo-slot ofc) would be very interesting.
A huge France having 1235 minors as vassalls is probably not the best choice and probably not even funny, but as say serbia having 4 small vassals around and still being capable to maintain one or two strong alliences (which would cost a diplo-slot ofc) would be very interesting.
It's not only about making it more viable to stay small, nerfing big countries actually can make it more interesting to grow big. As of now, it's too easy to reach the critical mass of base tax when you become unstoppable, and it's too problem free to be a big country. Just adding more and more negative modifiers is of course a very unsatisfying way of doing it. I hope future patches include some features that portrait the internal challanges of growing big. The Autonomy system is a step in the right direction.
Could there not be missions to increase the Base Tax of your few provinces as a small nation by meeting certain conditions such as getting ahead on a certain tech. Would give small nations something to work towards whilst not requiring them to go to war.