Suggestion on how to alleviate horrible RNG that is just frustrating

[Blood4u]

Hi there fellow enjoyers of EU4 i am coming todayy with some suggestions on how to alleviate some of the horrible rng case scenarios i have been part of lately .I have started an Austria game to see the new changes since i havent played them since before forts were introduced and not with all the addons and ive got hit by 2 really awfull scenarios that both are almost restart worthy which is not fun ever.First i declared PU over Bohemia ,got the PU after some decent long war,and some days after i got the PU my ruler dies and i lost the PU.There on the spot i just wanted to shut down the game because i had already restarted a couple of times due to electors not wanting to get to stay at 100 relations by rivaling themself so instead of declaring the war in 2 months it took me more close to 1 year until the improve relations got them ready.So the prospect of doing that again was not fun but there i go doing that again.And the second sceario is me being in a war pretty late into the game(having PU over alot of countries) and during the Ottomans war i lose the emperor position because my heir wasnt big enough,suddenly my 100 land force limit shrinks to 50 and from being -1,-2 ducats monthly i am accuring -60 ducats!! which is insane to say the least.Killing half of my trops just lost me the war because Ottomans are Op with only 3 star generals with 5/5 shock fire and siege and they mawed down my pu members.It's at this point i just don't see it a fun interaction in RNG.

I propose for discussion to have temporary buffs in both scenarios because this is just absurd RNG which you cannot work around at least not in the first case,Puing over someone will always give them - opinion of you and your king dying instantly after is impossible to stop.

Why not make it impossible to lose the PU for 1-2 years after you have just got it ,like a buf "recent unification" which gives you enough time to boost the relations up with said PU member ,this way you can still lose the Pu if you do stupid stuff like seize land and then the ruler dies(you decided to make the relationship bad) but it safeguards from this extremely bad rng which you cannot solve.

The other buff i would like to have in game is "former emperor" which grants you the same benefits the emperor had for at least 1 year so if it happens you are in an offensive/defensive war you are not completly deleted from the game because you somehow lost emperorship due to rng.You also can't game it to last until the end of your war,it just lets you know that you should end this war preeety fast.It also gives you time to remove your troops etc.

Just curios what is the opinion on having this modifiers trigger,i honestly think it's just a net benefit on the user experience,it doesn't tarnish anything in terms of gameplay and it doesn't make the game easier,just less frustrating.

 

[FrogCrusher]

Another topic with frustrating RNG is siege roll. Sometimes, the AI siege race you just because dices want that.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

I understand that rng in a videogame is often frustrating, but I'm sure the Spaniards also found it very frustrating when all their invasions of Britain got wrecked by storms outside of their control.

Luck is a very important factor in everything.

 

[petertju]

Hi there fellow enjoyers of EU4 i am coming todayy with some suggestions on how to alleviate some of the horrible rng case scenarios i have been part of lately .I have started an Austria game to see the new changes since i havent played them since before forts were introduced and not with all the addons and ive got hit by 2 really awfull scenarios that both are almost restart worthy which is not fun ever.First i declared PU over Bohemia ,got the PU after some decent long war,and some days after i got the PU my ruler dies and i lost the PU.There on the spot i just wanted to shut down the game because i had already restarted a couple of times due to electors not wanting to get to stay at 100 relations by rivaling themself so instead of declaring the war in 2 months it took me more close to 1 year until the improve relations got them ready.So the prospect of doing that again was not fun but there i go doing that again.And the second sceario is me being in a war pretty late into the game(having PU over alot of countries) and during the Ottomans war i lose the emperor position because my heir wasnt big enough,suddenly my 100 land force limit shrinks to 50 and from being -1,-2 ducats monthly i am accuring -60 ducats!! which is insane to say the least.Killing half of my trops just lost me the war because Ottomans are Op with only 3 star generals with 5/5 shock fire and siege and they mawed down my pu members.It's at this point i just don't see it a fun interaction in RNG.

I propose for discussion to have temporary buffs in both scenarios because this is just absurd RNG which you cannot work around at least not in the first case,Puing over someone will always give them - opinion of you and your king dying instantly after is impossible to stop.

Why not make it impossible to lose the PU for 1-2 years after you have just got it ,like a buf "recent unification" which gives you enough time to boost the relations up with said PU member ,this way you can still lose the Pu if you do stupid stuff like seize land and then the ruler dies(you decided to make the relationship bad) but it safeguards from this extremely bad rng which you cannot solve.

The other buff i would like to have in game is "former emperor" which grants you the same benefits the emperor had for at least 1 year so if it happens you are in an offensive/defensive war you are not completly deleted from the game because you somehow lost emperorship due to rng.You also can't game it to last until the end of your war,it just lets you know that you should end this war preeety fast.It also gives you time to remove your troops etc.

Just curios what is the opinion on having this modifiers trigger,i honestly think it's just a net benefit on the user experience,it doesn't tarnish anything in terms of gameplay and it doesn't make the game easier,just less frustrating.

in general, I like the RNG part of the game. It shouldn't be all clear beforehand what will happen. There is enough positive and negative RNG in the game to balance each other out. For every comet sighted there is a plus stability event. The proposed changes do make the game easier and less punishing. You should constantly be checking if you are the next emperor (this could be a warning though).

 

[Blood4u]

While i do concede you can check the emperor constantly to see if you are getting the next one or not,this is reminescent of the Regency situation before the fort system was introduced and before devlopment existed where you were just blobbing around. The only way you could counterract would be to not do anything for 15 years(max depending on heir age).This is extremely stale gameplay especially if you have been deving and recoving manpower already to not be able to wage war.It would be more elegant and fun for the player to let him do his wars accordingly ,much rather have 15 years of interaction without the dread that i lose half my country if im suddenly in a hard war when the emperor decided to die which he can die at all ages unfortunatly as i was highliting my first case which does not seem to have any way to counter it atm if your king dies asap after you pu its game over.

 

[Arizal]

While I don’t like that much the idea of nullifying RNG, I can understand that OP talks about sudden changes coming from uncompromising mechanics, and that is might be a good idea to soften the edge a bit.

Just like some bonuses do decay with time, the imperial bonuses could do that, as people retain memory that you were the emperor after all and don’t withdraw all at once from a war the empire started.

In the same vain, despite a initial dislike of a new dynasty, a new acquisition declaring independance two years after it was beaten doesn’t look that good. Maybe the cooldown to opinion driven independance could be the duration of the truce, but that might be too much. I’m uncertain on that one, since the idea would be to not declare war while your king is old and about to die.

Also, the whole rivalry system can be very frustrating and I don’t like how it’s completely random and uncompromising, but I guess that’s another point entirely.

 

[petertju]

I understand the frustration. The thing I like in bad RNG is that it forces me to play better. Imagine the challenge of the Ottoman war scenario. All of a sudden you need to fight a war with half your forcelimit. Do you go in debt or do you try to peace out as fast as possible? And how do you become emperor again? It can bring out the best player in you. Also, losing a war is not as damaging as you often think, I've often ragequit after a lost war, but after loading the save back up, it is quite easy to bring it back afterwards.

I do concede that the old regent mechanic could be extremely frustrating. However, it also gave you opportunities to give your country a breather and makes you focus on country building, advancing technology, reducing AE, diplomacy and recovering. Definitely less exciting, but it did strengthen you a lot in the right circumstances.

 

[SPAMbuca]

I get the frustration at all but I also think that without the RNG, the game would become a lot less replayable and more railroaded. Because of the RNG, especially in christian nations, tags can suddenly go up or down, nations can lose war you would not expect or would suddenly share a border with you.

A balance would be nice though as monarchs, some of the biggest events in the game and combat rolls are perhaps the most decisive parts of the game and all random.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

in general, I like the RNG part of the game. It shouldn't be all clear beforehand what will happen. There is enough positive and negative RNG in the game to balance each other out.

For some mechanics, yes. For others, no. And this is one factor in determining whether a particular mechanic's RNG is positive vs negative for a game.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

And this is one factor

sorry, what is one factor?

 

[MojaveDreams]

the skill is mitigating and allowing for RNG otherwise the game would be pure math and logic...the world does not work that way.

 

[Blood4u]

When an Rng effect happens and the solution to that is better restart your game because you are screwed at that point that is a bad type of rng there is no skill mitigating that type of rng.

I’m uncertain on that one, since the idea would be to not declare war while your king is old and about to die.

Just as a remember that Friedrich the ruler of Austria is 29 at the start of the game ,the war with bohemania ended in less than 5-7 years from the start of the game and he died horribly,this isn't a case of him being old,what are we going to propose next ,not to go to war with a ruler that isnt 15?But this makes me think the bonuses could be tweaked to take into account ruller age.If your ruler is older than 45-50y(dont know the exact value just giving numbers)you don't benefit from the bonuses otherwise they scale,if your ruler died lets say before 40 you get full bonuses which could be the entire duration of the truce and the same for the emperor bonuses.This would make it impossible to game and still a net benefit to the user experience at the very least for recently aquired PU members.

Any mechanic that makes you want to rr game because you were just unlucky to get it(couldnt make it not happen) and that swings your game so heavily(if i wouldve lost pu with Poland/lithuania it woudlve been game over way later and i just wouldnt touch the game with a stick for how retarted it could be) should not exist period,its frustrating RNG.

the skill is mitigating and allowing for RNG otherwise the game would be pure math and logic...the world does not work that way.

Why don't we have rebels poping completly random in all provinces you own at the same time with 35% of your army in every single provinces,just randomly you can't fight it maybe it happens maybe it doesnt,who knows just another way to brick your game cause it seems you think it's skill to be able to fight this RNG that just happens with no rime or reason.

The second you feel like pulling a lever this game stops working,it's a STRATEGY game not a god damn casino.(and yes i am exagerating,there isnt that much painfull rng left, but it seems some people really think insane rng that swings games is good)

 

[prismaticmarcus]

When an Rng effect happens and the solution to that is better restart your game because you are screwed at that point that is a bad type of rng there is no skill mitigating that type of rng.

you would hate stellaris, then.

 

[Blood4u]

you would hate stellaris, then.

I do hope i don't get hopelessly in love with it if that's the name of the game there.

 

[Blindbohemian]

If a foreign monarch forcibly imposes a union on a nation and then immediately dies, of course that nation declares independence.

Last time I played there literally was bad luck protection for such an occurrence: the “restoration of union” casus belli.

I don’t see the problem with the situation where you lost HRE bonuses. You could have gone into debt, ended the war then and there as best you could, or deleted half your army and got wrecked. That you went with the worst option is not a problem with the game itself.

 

[Arizal]

When an Rng effect happens and the solution to that is better restart your game because you are screwed at that point that is a bad type of rng there is no skill mitigating that type of rng.
[...]
Any mechanic that makes you want to rr game because you were just unlucky to get it(couldnt make it not happen) and that swings your game so heavily(if i wouldve lost pu with Poland/lithuania it woudlve been game over way later and i just wouldnt touch the game with a stick for how retarted it could be) should not exist period,its frustrating RNG.

Honestly that's how I think about historical events. When they don't happen that's disappointing, because they were supposed to. I think however that this expectation that the game will just magically make it right comes from railroading. You expect the mission about Bohemia not to fail because Bohemia was handed to you on a silver platter. If it had been the result of a believable mechanic, we might not be here.
edit: what I mean is those sort of discrete "mechanics" create expectations which are divorced to the game functioning otherwise.

Just as a remember that Friedrich the ruler of Austria is 29 at the start of the game ,the war with bohemania ended in less than 5-7 years from the start of the game and he died horribly,this isn't a case of him being old,what are we going to propose next ,not to go to war with a ruler that isnt 15?But this makes me think the bonuses could be tweaked to take into account ruller age.If your ruler is older than 45-50y(dont know the exact value just giving numbers)you don't benefit from the bonuses otherwise they scale,if your ruler died lets say before 40 you get full bonuses which could be the entire duration of the truce and the same for the emperor bonuses.This would make it impossible to game and still a net benefit to the user experience at the very least for recently aquired PU members.

Other than tied to the truce timer, I don't see how such a rule could be implemented and still be true to the game mechanics. The rationale can be that the recently PUd nation would be exhausted by the war of subjugation and unwilling to try its luck so soon after its defeat.

Why don't we have rebels poping completly random in all provinces you own at the same time with 35% of your army in every single provinces,just randomly you can't fight it maybe it happens maybe it doesnt,who knows just another way to brick your game cause it seems you think it's skill to be able to fight this RNG that just happens with no rime or reason.

The second you feel like pulling a lever this game stops working,it's a STRATEGY game not a god damn casino.(and yes i am exagerating,there isnt that much painfull rng left, but it seems some people really think insane rng that swings games is good)

You'll laugh (or not), but it used to be the case! In EU1 to 3, rebels would pop up randomly based on the revolt risks they had in their respective provinces. It was prior to the implementation of rising percentage based rebel revolts, who might feel a bit too predictable today.

 

[Blindbohemian]

You'll laugh (or not), but it used to be the case! In EU1 to 3, rebels would pop up randomly based on the revolt risks they had in their respective provinces.

Early EUIV as well. It was a crap mechanic but it was better than what we have now… rebels signalling their intention to their rulers is bizarre in the extreme.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

sorry, what is one factor?

How many dice rolls a particular thing gets.

If you roll lots of times, you're likely to get luck washing out pretty quickly. If the outcome of any one roll isn't too large, RNG is similarly not decisive.

However, if you have large differences in outcome contingent on relatively few rolls, that is when RNG can start overtaking skill/player agency. Not sure I agree with OP's evaluation of this though.