Suggestion: Diminishing Returns for Size

[Zander]

At present, every nation gets some static bonuses (force limit, monarch points, etc.) that effectively act as a boost to one-province minors. Past that point, however, scaling is almost linear: although states/territories restrict you a bit eventually, for the most part a 50-province nation is twice as powerful as a 25-province nation, when the same is not remotely true of a 2PM compared to a OPM.


Various ways have been suggested to make huge nations less of a cakewalk, since historically even the largest nations still had their own problems. (And because many, though not all, players find the game dull once they can knock over all opponents without difficulty.)
The problem is that some of the most realistic and reasonable ways to slow down the snowball would be frustrating for the player:
- having more and more nations band together against you
- having more and more internal difficulties.

I honestly think perhaps the best way in terms of "feel" would just be to have stronger diminishing returns. For example, if a nation 2x the size only had 1.2x the troops and money, then you would never really reach "complete runaway" size... 16x the size would mean 2x the power, and 256x the size would mean about 4x the power. Possibly that's too extreme - YMMV - but I really think something based around that idea would help, at least as an option at the start of game.

 

[Dokar]

I agree that there should be some form of diminishing returns to represent the difficulty in administering, taxing and conscripting in a large empire. Especially if that empire be a multiethnic one.
A 100 province empire should not be twice as powerful as a 50 province empire in practice (given each province having equal value on an individual basis).
Perhaps the maximum number of states needs to be adjusted. I think higher autonomy in some way for very large empires is a decent solution and fairly realistic (I guess) solution. The problem with simply decreasing the maximum number of states could be that 75% autonomy is a bit too high.

Maybe some sliding scale of minimum autonomy. The problem is implementation. If you simply have it work through your total development that could mean that a "tall" nation would eventually start experiencing autonomy just through having relatively few highly developed provinces.
I think such a solution to work at all should be tied to "physical" size of the empire rather than total development.

One might argue that this would greatly punish nations in geographical areas of low development though.

 

[Zephyrum]

Honestly, I like the rapid scaling. A better solution would be to focus on improving gameplay options and strength of small nations, not nerf the big ones.

 

[netherlink]

I came up with an idea on that matter a while ago:

Another modifier for every nation, which increases LA by X in every province but the capital ofc per province. Say 1% LA per province, so an 50 province big country would've a base LA of 50%. Then let Admin Efficiency reduce that modifier, to show how later, more absolute empires, somewhat managed to better maintain such. Rank etc could have modifiers to that, too.

Not a really big change, but maybe that's enough?

 

[Dokar]

I came up with an idea on that matter a while ago:

Another modifier for every nation, which increases LA by X in every province but the capital ofc per province. Say 1% LA per province, so an 50 province big country would've a base LA of 50%. Then let Admin Efficiency reduce that modifier, to show how later, more absolute empires, somewhat managed to better maintain such. Rank etc could have modifiers to that, too.

Not a really big change, but maybe that's enough?

Yes, some change in autonomy is probably best. With your idea, I think that in the best of worlds autonomy would change very little the closer you get to the "core" of your empire while the provinces furthest away, be they state or territory, would feel the brunt of the impact in autonomy.

 

[bbqftw]

The best part of these threads is seeing just how little most of these suggestors actually understand about the game.

Actually, the mechanics of diminishing return already exist with the state limit. Exception is one big mechanic that rhymes with braid companies.

In fact, it was one of the devs (Johan) having this woeful ignorance regarding the game that led to the introduction of trade companies in current form. So that is a cautionary tale of balancing without knowledge.

Your suggestion would lead to a rash of people doing WCs staying as OPM. Come to think of it, that doesn't sound so bad..

 

[deathbypie]

If they just changed(nerfed) trade companies, that alone would pretty much accomplish what you want. A mass of 75% autonomy wrong culture provinces are worth almost nothing.

No matter what happens, there will always come a point where the player is too strong to be challenged. In part because of how easy it is to outplay the ai, and the fact that all land you take just weakens others.

 

[Zander]

The best part of these threads is seeing just how little most of these suggestors actually understand about the game.

Actually, the mechanics of diminishing return already exist with the state limit.

Not sure why you felt it necessary to add the random abuse. And I did specifically mention states/territories, but it's hard to argue that the current state system is introducing meaningful diminishing returns until you get to a truly vast size. Perhaps that's because the state limit is too high, as Dokar suggests above, or because the 0%/75% autonomy limit is too binary, as various people have proposed changes for.


I'm all for fixing the current trade company implementation, and support your wish to do so. But I'd also say it's not the only issue out there.

Your suggestion would lead to a rash of people doing WCs staying as OPM. Come to think of it, that doesn't sound so bad..

That would at least be entertaining. But I also agree that a strict scaling on "number of provinces" is not the best way to go either. A 20-dev one-province nation should probably be better than a 20-dev three-province nation, but not much.

 

[schondetta]

Right off the bat force limit is something that comes to mind sort of a joke as its real easy for the limit to become arbitrarily huge as you get bigger. Manpower does a better job being precious through most the game I would say

 

[Conch]

Game is fine as it is, at least in this regard. And a 50 province state can easily be more powerful than a 100 province one, simply because the province count does not tell translate into power.

 

[Drachenfels]

In my opinion it's not about diminishing return.

I will tackle it both ways.

1) History

There was nothing diminishing in Commonwealth forming real union with Lithuania, GB forming Raj or Russia conquering tribes of the east.

2) Gameplay

Focus should be not on diminishing returns but cost of maintaining huge empire. Maybe something along those lines, as long as you are high-stability, low inflation, low unrest sprawling empire, you are a god-emperor. But once you enter time of trouble it should be viable to spawn vassals, release some lands in order to get it straight again (or just suck it, and spend tons of cash and/or monarch points). Easier said than done because how would that looks like?

 

[Jules Brunet]

Well, one simple way would be to remove the number of state bonus and the cultural union bonus from government rank. It wasn't because one country was bigger that it's administration was better, nor that more people associated themselves with it. State should be link only with technologies and idea, just like culture. By doing so, you just removed 10 possible state for big country, that they can have fairly early (like, an unified Japan...).

 

[Ketilsen]

No matter what happens, there will always come a point where the player is too strong to be challenged. In part because of how easy it is to outplay the ai, and the fact that all land you take just weakens others.

I think the main problem is that this point comes too early. I'd like to play to the end of the game's period, but when I'm unthreatened top dog in 1600 every time, the last half of the game is just boring. The "too strong to be challenged" point needs to come later than it does now, and I think some of the suggestions in this thread might be good ideas worth seriously investigating.

 

[bbqftw]

What start and what difficulty you are playing is very relevant for knowing 'uncontested top dog' status.

For example the ottomans reach this unthreatened #1 position by 1450.

As a side note, it is very bizarre when people that refuse to play on higher difficulties also simultaneously complain about fast snowballing speeds.

 

[Jules Brunet]

What start and what difficulty you are playing is very relevant for knowing 'uncontested top dog' status.

For example the ottomans reach this unthreatened #1 position by 1450.

As a side note, it is very bizarre when people that refuse to play on higher difficulties also simultaneously complain about fast snowballing speeds.

Well, there is 2 different things here. Sure, Ottoman, France and Ming start in ''top dog position'', since they where in that position. That isn't abnormal, and if you want an easy start you should go for them. What's isn't normal is that an OPM can easily get to this point in 100 years, without that much backlash. And even France, Ottoman and Ming, historically, were't able to eat all their neighbour easily the way EU4 makes it.

For the difficulties: it doesn't make IA clever, just make it cheat with bigger bonus. It isn't something that I found interesting in the first place.

 

[Ketilsen]

What start and what difficulty you are playing is very relevant for knowing 'uncontested top dog' status.

Higher difficulties aren't too relevant here. Higher difficulties make the early game harder, while the later game isn't affected too badly (human brains beat static bonuses); what we're talking about is making the middle and late game harder.

 

[bbqftw]

AI bonuses do make the late game harder - since you generally are loaning early to beat your early opponents (it makes a big difference when OPMs start on 7-8 units vs 3-5 on normal), it does lasting damage to your economy.

You are basically losing 10-20% of your economy due to this interest. This is nontrivial. You don't get highly profitable wars in VH until 150+ years in, in normal practically every war besides gp level slugfests pay themselves off within an year.

The AI also blobs far more competitively, and they get comparatively more power out of the dev they do conquer. For example I can be #1 GP starting as opm in 120 years yet still field army 6x smaller than ottoman/Ming.

Finally, alliance utilization is what allows early starts to snowball out of control. This isn't impossible on VH but the very nature of the -20 penalty and higher AI army sizes makes these gamechanging alliances harder to swing.

Fine, you don't want to play against aggressive AI that doesn't collapse to rebels and has a few bonuses. When I am doing very weird things I typically play normal too. Just don't simultaneously claim that the game is too easy to snowball.

Re: AI cheats - EU4 is very unique in that normal offers a challenge to the first time player. In other franchises like TW or Xcom you are expected to play at higher difficulties for the first playthrough if you want a challenging experience, so compared to those AI cheats aren't a big deal to me

 

[Kadanz]

I like the way M&T and Common Universalis tackle these things with CE (communication efficiency in M&T) and GC (Government Capacity in Common universalis) they limit expansion and require you to focus on internal improvements or suffer penalties when ignoring them.

 

[Jules Brunet]

AI bonuses do make the late game harder - since you generally are loaning early to beat your early opponents (it makes a big difference when OPMs start on 7-8 units vs 3-5 on normal), it does lasting damage to your economy.

You are basically losing 10-20% of your economy due to this interest. This is nontrivial. You don't get highly profitable wars in VH until 150+ years in, in normal practically every war besides gp level slugfests pay themselves off within an year.

The AI also blobs far more competitively, and they get comparatively more power out of the dev they do conquer. For example I can be #1 GP starting as opm in 120 years yet still field army 6x smaller than ottoman/Ming.

Finally, alliance utilization is what allows early starts to snowball out of control. This isn't impossible on VH but the very nature of the -20 penalty and higher AI army sizes makes these gamechanging alliances harder to swing.

Fine, you don't want to play against aggressive AI that doesn't collapse to rebels and has a few bonuses. When I am doing very weird things I typically play normal too. Just don't simultaneously claim that the game is too easy to snowball.

Re: AI cheats - EU4 is very unique in that normal offers a challenge to the first time player. In other franchises like TW or Xcom you are expected to play at higher difficulties for the first playthrough if you want a challenging experience, so compared to those AI cheats aren't a big deal to me

And it block you into a blob fest strategy. Playing tall lose quite it's senses in VH when neighbour will always have more from their Dev. The only way to gain relative power in those condition is to eat your neighbour, while in Normal you can play more conservative.

VH will also make some idea group more useless than in Normal. Espionage for instance: -20% of manpower recovery do not have any value when they already have +50%. Or Diplomatic: playing to get peaceful vassals/ ally/ support for the HRE become quite harder if not impossible when you start with a -20 for no reason.

 

[bbqftw]

People have revoked the privilegia staying as an OPM on VH, lol.

Tall play is perfectly viable there. I've done it, @EmpressKaori does it practically every game.

Its just harder than normal, but almost every strategy is harder to execute.