Suggestion - Re-Re-Thinking Ideas

[Blindbohemian]

Holy wow. Give the man a small cigar. And funding. And developers. I want to play this game.

 

[Eretrios]

Good luck to balance that and to code the AI

 

[Pornek]

Why should Philip's Austria need to learn to reduce WE, if they do not go to war, ever? Of course, they will receive a brick in the teeth as soon as war arrives, wanted or not, but what compels anyone in the nation (be it the burgers, the aristocracy or the monarch) to work on something that they do not need nor can see needing?

I assume you mean like it is now ?

For balance reasons. If you give the player the choice to always take the most optimal path, you basically eliminate any choice. The idea that a player would take an idea that is a bad idea, because he is given a choice, is simply false. If you remember the change to vassal-feeding from 1.3. to 1.4.(?) and the explaination from Wiz or Johan it follows the same vein. Yes, there was the choice to either core or simply sell the province to your vassal, but as he stated it was suboptimal play if you didnt vassalfeed. So there was no choice, one of the option was superior in every regard.
What ideas did you take in EU III ? The ones that were in the best interest of your country. I feel like 90 % of the time I took military drill as first idea. Yes, I could have taken church attendance duty I was given the choice. However most of the time it would have been the suboptimal move.

It would also lead to even more snowballing.

Look at CKII in that regard, the most optimal strategy is to invest into retinue tech. The more retinue you get, the easier it is to take land, which in return gives you retinue, which in return makes it easier to take land and so on.

Personally I dont see aristocracy, monarchs or burghers in the game. While I know a lot of you would like the entire population to play a more influental role I dont. I play a country and a strategy game. The game as it is right now - for me - is too distant to create that immersion.

 

[Sorellis]

Couldn't make it All the way through Because of the random capital Letters at the beginning of some Words. But from what I read sounded good

 

[Dr. Dan]

I assume you mean like it is now ?

For balance reasons. If you give the player the choice to always take the most optimal path, you basically eliminate any choice. The idea that a player would take an idea that is a bad idea, because he is given a choice, is simply false.

In Multiplayer, assuming the parties involved are interested in getting the highest score, sure. In single player, I've taken espionage before. Why? Because it was fun. Your argument applies to the current system as well. There are "cookie cutter" builds for each nation.

That being said, it's a false argument. There may not be any optimal build. Your build could depend on your opponents build. Similar to many good strategy games, there can be a "rock, paper, scissors" implementation of ideas. Also, they could throw some bones to singleplayer gamers who aren't interested in min/maxing their nation every game.

If you remember the change to vassal-feeding from 1.3. to 1.4.(?) and the explaination from Wiz or Johan it follows the same vein. Yes, there was the choice to either core or simply sell the province to your vassal, but as he stated it was suboptimal play if you didnt vassalfeed. So there was no choice, one of the option was superior in every regard.
What ideas did you take in EU III ? The ones that were in the best interest of your country. I feel like 90 % of the time I took military drill as first idea. Yes, I could have taken church attendance duty I was given the choice. However most of the time it would have been the suboptimal move.

It's fine if you want to optimize your nation. I've done it. I've also played less than optimally. There is nothing dictating what you do, aside from you. You can play the game as a WC scenario every time or just focus on conquering India. The point is, there is choice.

It would also lead to even more snowballing.

Depends on the implementation. There are still hard caps on how and what you get in the OP.

Look at CKII in that regard, the most optimal strategy is to invest into retinue tech. The more retinue you get, the easier it is to take land, which in return gives you retinue, which in return makes it easier to take land and so on.

Yes, snowballing exists in CKII, as it does in EU4. Just pick a large nation and voila! You can snowball even faster. I'm not certain that his suggestion makes it any easier to snowball than currently. How can you be so sure?

Personally I dont see aristocracy, monarchs or burghers in the game. While I know a lot of you would like the entire population to play a more influental role I dont. I play a country and a strategy game. The game as it is right now - for me - is too distant to create that immersion.

The suggestion doesn't require these things. It is simply assigning values to these populations as "fluff". Naming an idea "burghers" does not require the actual implementation of a burgher population with its own stats. That's really a debate for another thread, though saying the game is currently distant does not impose that it must be distant.

 

[dharper]

I didn't have the time to respond properly before, but I wanted to say how much I like this idea.

One of the ways that EU4 disappointed me was removing country sliders from the game. Back in EU2 and 3, you could control your country by moving a slider once every decade, becoming more innovative, or more decentralized, or focusing on quality over quantity. When I heard that the sliders were being replaced with idea groups, I was optimistic...but it didn't live up to my hopes. If you choose one quality idea, you are stuck with all of them. You can't choose just one, or change your mind and go for quantity. Or rather, you can - but it doesn't remove the effects of quality.

Worst of all, from my point of view, it removed one of the ways in which countries felt different. It added a lot of replayability to have a country start as narrowminded and aristocratic, then start a new game as one that was innovative and plutocratic. I remember liking one of the features of the Magna Mundi mod for the same reason: you started the game with three ideas chosen for you by the game, making each country very different from each other. In EU4 you can't do that - well, you can, but it means giving the country an entire idea group.

I think the EU4 system has some benefits: it's nice to be able to tie events to an idea group, and nice to get a bonus for collecting the whole set. But I do wish we could choose ideas freely! That way, it would be a sensible strategy to collect all 7 quality ideas - but it might be more realistic to choose ideas based on what challenges you were facing at the time. And modders could go wild! It would be fantastic to have the ability to set triggers for ideas the way we can for idea groups. That way, you could keep Revolution and Counter for the late game, and make the different governments feel much more meaningful.

All in all, I would really like to see this change. I don't hold out a lot of hope for it, but I'd certainly buy the DLC.

 

[GrafKeks]

I do actually like the current system, and if anything I'm in favour of not being able to pick ideas at all but rather develop them through events and action. But besides that I'd keep the current system.

 

[Pornek]

In Multiplayer, assuming the parties involved are interested in getting the highest score, sure. In single player, I've taken espionage before. Why? Because it was fun. Your argument applies to the current system as well. There are "cookie cutter" builds for each nation.

That being said, it's a false argument. There may not be any optimal build. Your build could depend on your opponents build. Similar to many good strategy games, there can be a "rock, paper, scissors" implementation of ideas. Also, they could throw some bones to singleplayer gamers who aren't interested in min/maxing their nation every game.

It's fine if you want to optimize your nation. I've done it. I've also played less than optimally. There is nothing dictating what you do, aside from you. You can play the game as a WC scenario every time or just focus on conquering India. The point is, there is choice.

With the way the current game seems to be designed and intended to play there isnt much room for non-optimal builds. Especially if you look at non-western countries. Downright conquest/colonization is more or less the only possibility you have.
Yes, there could be a rock, paper, scissors implemention but there isnt and neither in OPs. The entire difference between OPs suggestion and the current system is the idea system ala EU III with MP.
Anyways I know I would never pick Organized Recruitment (Innovative) if Im given the choice in an open ideagroup field. Instead I would straight go for the juicy bonuses and neglect everything that isnt benefical for my goal or outright bad. Right now Im forced to take these, whether I like it or not.

You can WC scenario, colonization or trade empire right now aswell.

Depends on the implementation. There are still hard caps on how and what you get in the OP.

Yes, snowballing exists in CKII, as it does in EU4. Just pick a large nation and voila! You can snowball even faster. I'm not certain that his suggestion makes it any easier to snowball than currently. How can you be so sure?

Maybe, maybe not. Obviously that would entirely depend on what is possible at what time, but Im certain in my hands the choice wouldn't be 'lets take the worst idea'.

The suggestion doesn't require these things. It is simply assigning values to these populations as "fluff". Naming an idea "burghers" does not require the actual implementation of a burgher population with its own stats.

Im aware that OP's suggestion didnt require these things. That was just in response.

That's really a debate for another thread, though saying the game is currently distant does not impose that it must be distant.

Yes.

In the end the suggestions - as others have pointed out aswell - would need heavily rebalance and rework how the entire system works. With the ideas how they are in the current system, there are two possiblities good and bad.

 

[I_AM_King_Midas]

This is definitely impressive and exciting. I will come back later and post more.

 

[Vishaing]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

To Pornek;
I do understand that this will require a great deal of work to balance, but that's also true of the current system, the devs are still trying to get the Balance Right and are heavily modifying the existing ideas to try and balance them.

Yes, you will be able to cherry pick your ideas for what you want. Why is that bad? Is it a bad thing that the Landlocked Mongol Khanate won't have to invest in ships? And it's not like this is unbalanced or unrealistic. By not having to invest in Big Ships they won't, meaning that if they eventually do get a coast they won't be able to properly make use of it. If they try to put together any Naval Invasions of, say, Japan, these invasions will likely fail.

I think the best way to balance the system is just to make it diverse enough that there is no "Perfect" build for a country and making sure that every Idea has something that you could want. Packing an Idea Group full of 3 crappy ideas that are almost pointless and 4 amazing ideas that everyone should want isn't Balancing it, its just putting more drudgery into the game.

Like it was said, not having to invest in War Exhaustion Reduction is balanced by not having War Exhaustion Reduction. A Competent Player will be able to leverage the Ideas they Do have into victory through clever strategies, whether that is having a strong economy and throwing hundreds of thousands of mercenaries at your enemy, having a developed diplomatic corps and surround yourself with allies to do the fighting for you, or having an extremely small but deadly fighting force that wins the war before you accrue much War Exhaustion.

By providing multiple paths to victory we ensure that there is no Optimal Build.

 

[KPJ]

Damn, if only Vishaing were designing some game for this time period, I would totally buy that!

This system is great as you've described it Vishaing, but of course some ideas would never get picked.

I've just given up on EUIV, it's not what I wanted, and it's not becoming anything I want. It has a narrow scope and doesn't simulate the period very well at all.

If only Paradox would let some former modders make a 15th-18th century game, it would really please the people who wanted a different direction. It might not open it up to new players like EUIV does, but there is something to be said for games which appeal to a smaller base.

 

[Savoyer]

IF ONLY PARADOX STOP THERE 2,99 $ Dollar DLC Feed up Policy and start to make SERIOUS changes in the game.
The game is fun, I don't think is "OMG totally" shit, is just need focus, improvement, discipline and dedication that the Devs are to lazy and retard to show off, they prefer to do a RANDOMIZED (UGLY) NEW WORLD dlc and charge you 20$ for it. OMG.
Idea system could be rework soft-style (Maintain NI but add flavour to each idea and Look it that ceartain idea to be unlocked with a Tech (Year X or Year Y) and Rework the Idea Group to make it more interesting. It's a soft version that would work perfect with policies (NI could unlock Unqiue Policies), and Tech could have a 'revamp'. No more Retard trade and colonial tech with DIPLOMATIC name (WUT? DIplomatic unlocks Naval and Trade Relatead stuff LOL). Techs could stay 3: Military (Armies and Navies), Economies (Taxes, Trade and Colonies) and Culture (Ideas, Religion and Goverment). [YES, like CKII]

Or Expand Tech on to 5 to 7 Lines: Economy(Taxes and Industries), Commerce(Trade and Colonies), Culture(Ideologies[ideas] and Traditions), Army, Navy and Diplomacy (thus Expanding Diplomacy, boosting Spies and showing Late concepts, like Treaties, Declaration of Neutrality, etc) {LONG LIVE VickyII}
Economy and Culture uses GOV/ADM Points, Commerce and Diplomacy uses DIP Points. Army and Navy uses MIL points. (Simplified, I'm coming with this ideas as I write.)

Going into a MAJOR reforme for Ideas would make it insanily hard and Amazing. But Techs must be reworked first, but assuming that... The game would start what really happened during Late Medieval Era (XV Century) to the Renaissance (XVIth to XVII) and the Enlightement (XVIII to XIX). The Concept of IDEOLOGY, INNVOANTION, IDEAS. Humanism, Militarism, Freedom, Plutocracy, Theocracy, GENIOCRACIES, The Greek and Rousseau concepts of democracy. Classic and the start of Romance. Drama, Poetry, Science, and, of course, War.

NOT! NO PAINT THE MAP IDEOLOGY. Why Paradox? This is wrong in soo many levels. Choose a Colour you like > Conquest with Gamey > Win. LOL

 

[I_AM_King_Midas]

This would be so exciting if this was an expansion in the future.

 

[AgentPaper]

So, basically EU3's system with even more overly-complicated but ultimately irrelevant rules tacked on to make it seem like it's really cool and interesting when instead it's actually even more simplistic and brain-dead than the original system.

Yeah, no thanks.

 

[Vishaing]

I'm always open to criticism. Explain what you don't like about it and I will address that.

 

[AgentPaper]

I'm always open to criticism. Explain what you don't like about it and I will address that.

I'm saying that your system is fundamentally flawed, and has all the problems that the EU3 system had which were (mostly) fixed with the switch to EU4 and idea groups. Specifically, it makes the various countries more, not less, similar, because everyone will simply cherry-pick the best ideas and ignore everything else. Maybe Portugal will have the idea that gives Explorers and Austria will pick the one that gives more diplomatic relations slots instead, but all the straight bonuses like Discipline, Morale, Production, Tech cost, and so on will be picked by everyone. There might be interesting decisions on a handful of ideas early on, but after a short time you'll have all the important ones and at that point it just becomes a matter of "what helps" vs "what doesn't do anything for me".

The current system, while not perfect, is much better since it encourages long-term planning and creates real, albeit minor, differences between countries. Every country has a different priority on which idea group they want first, which is true only true because the small number of idea groups (versus 100+ ideas) allows them to be balanced against each other.

There are changes I'd like to see made to the system, but those are changes within the system, not throwing it out and replacing it with something else, starting the entire balancing process over for dubious gains.

 

[Vishaing]

You say this like the big bonuses to Discipline and Production Efficiency and everything else would all be available right from the start. I already covered that, there would, ideally, be Idea Trees with flexible branches and you would have to build up to some of the fancy ideas. Balance should come from having no obvious "Best" answers, not from shackling those Best Answers to crap and making you select them as a package deal.

Really though, I have to disagree with the fundamental point you are making. There isn't anything at all in the current system that encourages diversity and quite a lot that discourages it. After all, Investing in Quality is identical no matter what country you are playing as, with no strategic choice at all except, maybe, 'when' you click a button, and in the end there are vastly fewer choices, and enough slots, that countries are going to wind up having far more similarities than differences. Remember its not 100+ Ideas that you select from, its 16 Idea Groups for 8 Slots. If you unlock all of your Idea Groups and fill them, which most players will, you will wind up with Half of all of the available Ideas. My system would ideally have you finish with far less than that.

 

[AgentPaper]

You say this like the big bonuses to Discipline and Production Efficiency and everything else would all be available right from the start. I already covered that, there would, ideally, be Idea Trees with flexible branches and you would have to build up to some of the fancy ideas.

It doesn't matter if they're available from the start or only 100 years into the game, that only changes how long the player has to wait to press the button. The players (and the AI, unless they're intentionally programmed to be stupid) will pick the best ideas out of the bunch regardless.

As for having a "tech tree", how is that different from idea groups? Country A that goes down the fifth branch will always have the same exact ideas as every other country that goes down that branch.

Balance should come from having no obvious "Best" answers, not from shackling those Best Answers to crap and making you select them as a package deal.

Oh, of course, it should be balanced by being balanced! What a concept! Sure, it'd be great if all of the ideas were equally useful, but doing that over a hundred or more individual ideas is simply impossible, especially for a game as complex as EU4. This is the whole point of idea groups, by reducing the complexity down to 15 choices in three groups of 5, it becomes much, much easier to balance them against each other and make them all useful. And tying "bad" ideas to "good" ones allows you to tie in abilities that, while not especially powerful, do change how the game plays and makes it more interesting overall.

Really though, I have to disagree with the fundamental point you are making. There isn't anything at all in the current system that encourages diversity and quite a lot that discourages it. After all, Investing in Quality is identical no matter what country you are playing as, with no strategic choice at all except, maybe, 'when' you click a button, and in the end there are vastly fewer choices, and enough slots, that countries are going to wind up having far more similarities than differences. Remember its not 100+ Ideas that you select from, its 16 Idea Groups for 8 Slots. If you unlock all of your Idea Groups and fill them, which most players will, you will wind up with Half of all of the available Ideas. My system would ideally have you finish with far less than that.

What's the last country you played? Which idea groups did you pick for it, and in what order? Now, remembering those, which country did you play before that? Which ideas did you choose, and why?

Yes, every country that picks Quality will have the same bonuses. But that's not the point. The point is, which countries pick Quality, and why? England likes it because it boosts their army and their navy at the same time. Prussia likes it because it stacks well with their national ideas to give them uber discipline. Russia doesn't care so much for naval matters and has plenty of troops to overwhelm with, so they don't care so much.

Russia like Expansion because it lets them colonize Siberia more quickly, and gives them a CB on Asia. GB and Portugal like it too, as a supplement for Exploration. The Ottomans care not for any of those, since it's neither western nor in a good position to colonize, so it would rather pick Naval to give it an edge against Venice and Spain and dominate the Mediterranean. Poland has no use for any of that, so he'll take Diplomatic and enjoy having more vassals than usual. Or maybe this isn't a normal game, and Poland conquers the coast and takes Naval to dominate the baltic? Or maybe the Ottomans hustle down to India and use Exploration to beat the rest of Europe to Indonesia? Or maybe GB decides they want to be the emperor and they take Diplomatic to help them bully their way into central Europe?

All of these things are choices that you, the player, need to make, and all of them have an impact on the game. The country you play impacts which ideas you want to pick, and which ideas you want to pick impacts how you play your country, creating interesting decisions and scenarios that you wouldn't get with the system you're proposing here.

 

[Savoyer]

It doesn't matter if they're available from the start or only 100 years into the game, that only changes how long the player has to wait to press the button. The players (and the AI, unless they're intentionally programmed to be stupid) will pick the best ideas out of the bunch regardless.

As for having a "tech tree", how is that different from idea groups? Country A that goes down the fifth branch will always have the same exact ideas as every other country that goes down that branch.



Oh, of course, it should be balanced by being balanced! What a concept! Sure, it'd be great if all of the ideas were equally useful, but doing that over a hundred or more individual ideas is simply impossible, especially for a game as complex as EU4. This is the whole point of idea groups, by reducing the complexity down to 15 choices in three groups of 5, it becomes much, much easier to balance them against each other and make them all useful. And tying "bad" ideas to "good" ones allows you to tie in abilities that, while not especially powerful, do change how the game plays and makes it more interesting overall.



What's the last country you played? Which idea groups did you pick for it, and in what order? Now, remembering those, which country did you play before that? Which ideas did you choose, and why?

Yes, every country that picks Quality will have the same bonuses. But that's not the point. The point is, which countries pick Quality, and why? England likes it because it boosts their army and their navy at the same time. Prussia likes it because it stacks well with their national ideas to give them uber discipline. Russia doesn't care so much for naval matters and has plenty of troops to overwhelm with, so they don't care so much.

Russia like Expansion because it lets them colonize Siberia more quickly, and gives them a CB on Asia. GB and Portugal like it too, as a supplement for Exploration. The Ottomans care not for any of those, since it's neither western nor in a good position to colonize, so it would rather pick Naval to give it an edge against Venice and Spain and dominate the Mediterranean. Poland has no use for any of that, so he'll take Diplomatic and enjoy having more vassals than usual. Or maybe this isn't a normal game, and Poland conquers the coast and takes Naval to dominate the baltic? Or maybe the Ottomans hustle down to India and use Exploration to beat the rest of Europe to Indonesia? Or maybe GB decides they want to be the emperor and they take Diplomatic to help them bully their way into central Europe?

All of these things are choices that you, the player, need to make, and all of them have an impact on the game. The country you play impacts which ideas you want to pick, and which ideas you want to pick impacts how you play your country, creating interesting decisions and scenarios that you wouldn't get with the system you're proposing here.

In fact, you make sense. EUIV is a much better system then EUIII. My only view is that no every single country had the 'same' techs, I prefer tech tree instead of Go-For-It Tech. I prefer focus over Equality and race-like stuff (Who have the lvl 10 Mil first or who have the lvl 20 ADM first). Ideas are good they need (as I posted early) a more DEEPER HISTORICAL FLAVOUR. Maybe each 'NI' cost a whole 7 ideas to finish. I would have more Flavour and Rewrading. And the Last and constant complaing is the Reward factor. The game force you to expand. Now with WoN, Merchant countries might have more chance, but... It's always expand. Get Vassals, Colonies or Conquest. There is no 'Swiss' or 'Tuscany' way of Play the game. Focus on Economy, Selling Mercs, Focusing in Science and Innovantion. Ideas need Rework and Expansion. REAL Ideas. More Unique for the game. And maybe Ideologies... Ideologies and 'Discoveries' would change the game in a much deeper way.

 

[Thund91]

Very nice, thought out ideas OP. I'd love to see these changes to the game, but nothing drastic will happen until EUV I'm afraid.