Staying small. Is there a point, or a way?

[ChildeR]

I guess nothing about big nations should be nerfed, since lots of players enjoy warmongering, but we need some buffs to small/medium homogeneous states to give an alternate gameplay.

I much prefer buffs to smaller nations rather then nerfs to larger nations, though they have to be balanced out so that buffs for smaller-medium nations dont overflow to larger nations.

That sentiment makes no sense. Power only matters in relation to others. A buff to smaller realms is equivalent to a nerf to large ones, if they are balanced similarly. I would prefer most balancing being done through nerfs at this point because it results in smaller numbers that are usually easier to track.

 

[Nunn45]

That sentiment makes no sense. Power only matters in relation to others. A buff to smaller realms is equivalent to a nerf to large ones, if they are balanced similarly. I would prefer most balancing being done through nerfs at this point because it results in smaller numbers that are usually easier to track.

you can buff something without it being a nerf to something else, increasing the capacity for small nations to have relevance wont directly impact larger nations unless designed to do so.

 

[Zak Preston]

you can buff something without it being a nerf to something else, increasing the capacity for small nations to have relevance wont directly impact larger nations unless designed to do so.

My savegame with epic partitioning of France and Castile seems to have crushed...
Anyway, in conclusion:

• You can play as a small nation and even survive if you have a strong vassals horde surrounding your core nation
• I can't see it possible to play a nation on low-BT and manpower provinces if you are going to stay really small (1-14 provinces). That means that outside of Europe even medium-BT\Manpower provinces are rare and you are super vulnerable to any European nation if you don't westernize quickly.
• If you play as a small nation the whole timeline, get ready for significant nothing-to-do periods (sometimes 20-30 years) with constant relations improvements.
• Aristocratic ideas are your best friends if you are afraid of aggressive neighbors.
• If you want to maintain a large army (60-100k) you must have a lot of really strong vassals, a few decent CNs and a large trade fleet. if you lose a lot of trade ships, you are screwed.
• Your vassals and marches are kinda stupid when it comes to expanding their territories, which means that most of times you will have to fight on yourself.
• Sometimes vassals stop fabricating claims completely.