Suggestion - Re-Re-Thinking Ideas

[WeissRaben]

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?

Always Diplomatic, always Religious, always Defensive, always Exploration (if not landlocked), always Quality, at least. I do not think I'm the only one, either. There simply are groups which are head and shoulders above the others, and everyone takes them, every time. The order may vary, yes. The concept, doesn't.

 

[AgentPaper]

Always Diplomatic, always Religious, always Defensive, always Exploration (if not landlocked), always Quality, at least. I do not think I'm the only one, either. There simply are groups which are head and shoulders above the others, and everyone takes them, every time. The order may vary, yes. The concept, doesn't.

Perhaps those are what you always take, but if so, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't think I've ever taken the same set of ideas in the same order twice, and as often as I've found a "sure pick" that I thought I would take every time (which looks quite similar to your list there), I've found that there are reasons not to take those just as often as there are reasons to take them.

For example, Religious is great if you're expanding aggressively into wrong-religion provinces, but if you aren't, it's a waste. And even sometimes when you are, it's overkill, since you can get bonuses from other areas, such as decisions, advisors, conquest of holy grounds for more missionaries, etc.

Diplomatic is very generally useful, but I don't think it's a problem for there to be one or two "staple" idea groups that you take more often than not, since it can still be an interesting choice to choose not to take those ideas every once in a while, rather than the other way around as it is with most ideas.

For the military ones, I do agree that those end up a bit samey, but that's more a result of the warfare system itself being a bit samey, with little distinction between countries, so you can't blame the idea group system too much for that one. There's still a few interesting choices to make there.

And finally, don't ignore the order you're taking things in. There's a world of difference in how the game plays when you take exploration as your first or fourth idea, after all. And choosing whether to take, for example, Diplomatic or Quality as your first idea group is a real choice, one you have to consider every game you play. Perhaps sometimes it is an easy choice, but other times it is not, and that is the strength of the idea group system.

 

[WeissRaben]

Perhaps those are what you always take, but if so, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't think I've ever taken the same set of ideas in the same order twice, and as often as I've found a "sure pick" that I thought I would take every time (which looks quite similar to your list there), I've found that there are reasons not to take those just as often as there are reasons to take them.

For example, Religious is great if you're expanding aggressively into wrong-religion provinces, but if you aren't, it's a waste. And even sometimes when you are, it's overkill, since you can get bonuses from other areas, such as decisions, advisors, conquest of holy grounds for more missionaries, etc.

Diplomatic is very generally useful, but I don't think it's a problem for there to be one or two "staple" idea groups that you take more often than not, since it can still be an interesting choice to choose not to take those ideas every once in a while, rather than the other way around as it is with most ideas.

For the military ones, I do agree that those end up a bit samey, but that's more a result of the warfare system itself being a bit samey, with little distinction between countries, so you can't blame the idea group system too much for that one. There's still a few interesting choices to make there.

And finally, don't ignore the order you're taking things in. There's a world of difference in how the game plays when you take exploration as your first or fourth idea, after all. And choosing whether to take, for example, Diplomatic or Quality as your first idea group is a real choice, one you have to consider every game you play. Perhaps sometimes it is an easy choice, but other times it is not, and that is the strength of the idea group system.

Now take your reply and tell me why it doesn't apply to EU3, or Vishaing's proposal, as well. I have heard a lot of "everyone always takes the same things in EU3" song before, but it came out that no one could really agree on what this "same" things were, same for the ideas.

 

[gsabram]

This is noticably similar to the Social Policy system of Civilization 5, specifically the compounding cost as you progress further, and the ability to choose between the best ideas available in the moment while ignoring long term goals.

I think it's important that if a system like this is implemented, you've got to create long term consequences for the most tempting early decisions. Other wise everyone figures out the "safe" choices pretty quickly, and that just becomes the default way to WC. Perhaps by only allowing a set number of "idea group" slots (6-8), and significantly less slots than the total number of idea groups that are potentially available (including the unique religion, national, cultural groups that you've mentioned). This way, a person who chooses from the six most OP idea groups at the beginning of the game shoehorns themselves into their country's flavor and strategy early, but a person who is patient and fills out one group at a time can adapt much better to the developments of the world around them. The best idea groups would only unlock if the a player finishes their first five idea groups prior to beginning the last group. This way there are competing incentives for diversity/adaptability, and you would need to recognize that the needs of your country may change from year to year.

 

[AgentPaper]

Now take your reply and tell me why it doesn't apply to EU3, or Vishaing's proposal, as well. I have heard a lot of "everyone always takes the same things in EU3" song before, but it came out that no one could really agree on what this "same" things were, same for the ideas.

Because EU3's ideas were nowhere near balanced. Military Drill was far and away the best idea, and if you didn't take it first, you're almost certainly making a mistake. After that, it does get a bit wider in what you can pick, but the point is that the dozen or so ideas you supposedly can pick from are an illusion, and in reality you have four, maybe 5 ideas to pick from. Then you take another idea, and now you have 1 less good idea to pick from. And so on, until you run out of good ideas to pick from.

Simply adding in more ideas (as Vishaing seems to want to do) doesn't actually help this, because to have an interesting choice you need more options of the same quality, and the more options you create, the harder it becomes to balance all of those against each other, and in fact it becomes more and more likely that one of them will be much stronger than the others (ie: Military Drill), actually reducing the significant choices for the player, rather than increasing them.

The way you get interesting decisions is by placing limits on the player, and by being realistic in how many options you can actually present to them without messing up the balance.

It's simply not possible to balance all 100+ ideas against each other, no matter how you break them down or what requirements you add for them. In the end, you'll be lucky to get the same ~15 or so "good" ideas that the player has an interesting choice to choose between. Except it's still worse than the current system, because now it's also needlessly complicated and bloated with useless ideas that serve little purpose except as a trap for new players who think Glorious Arms sounds like a cool idea.

 

[Vishaing]

Yeah, my sentiments are essentially the same as WeissRaben; How exactly is the current system free from these issues while mine is especially vulnerable? I have placed limits on the player in the form of the scaling cost of Ideas, and by introducing a conscious choice between specialization and diversification which currently pretty much doesn't exist.

You asked, I think somewhat hypothetically, why a country wouldn't just invest straight into the direct bonuses; +Production Efficiency, +Trade Efficiency, +Discipline, and the answer is the same as now; Because there are other things that are more cost effective for their situation.

I mean, why would you invest in Production Efficiency unless you already have some high Production Value provinces? If your country is entirely based on Low-Tax Grain Provinces, you won't get much out of a fancy idea that gives +5% or whatever PE. The Berber States and other countries in such a situation would profit more from other things, like Trade or Piracy focused Ideas. Ultimately they might still invest in some PE eventually, and why is that a bad thing? Pretty much every country developed all of the areas a little bit at least, some will specialize, others will be more general. My system lets you have a passing interest in Production Efficiency without going into it whole hog.

And say some country does invest in all of the straight bonuses, ignoring for a moment that this would be wildly expensive in terms of Monarch Points since each Idea increases the cost of All Subsequent Ideas including Ideas in different categories, why is that a bad thing? They'll wind up with a very Tall Nation, that dominates its area, but cannot expand much beyond it. Take Trade Efficiency. Okay, you've got a ton of Trade Efficiency, good for you. You don't have many Merchants, so while your Provinces Trade like Gangbusters, you can only extend your reach into two other Trade Areas. Meanwhile a country that Invested in Merchants and skimped on the Production Efficiency can trade Around you, even if they cannot trade through you.

Currently, that choice doesn't exist. There is only 1 Trade Idea Group, and all of the other "Trade" bonuses are just tiny ideas scattered around in the other groups. The only way you can specialize in Trade is via hand-me-downs from other Idea Groups, and by picking Venice at the start of the game.

As for Discipline, why would the same factors not apply? Russia will be more interested in investing in Quantity than Quality, Prussia will be more interested in investing in Quality. Although Personally I don't understand why anyone would ever choose an option that wasn't max discipline, to each their own.

I don't doubt that pretty much everyone will invest in some level of discipline, much like Production Efficiency. That makes sense, and its entirely historically accurate, everyone tried to have a disciplined fighting force, some just did it better or had more resources to invest into it. The diversity will come in who does specialize and who doesn't.

For Instance, Austria will be in a bit of a pickle. Prussia can invest in Massive boosts to Quality because they are small and mostly homogeneous, so they don't really need to spend their points elsewhere except maybe some scattered economy related Ideas. Austria on the other hand is a large Multi-National Empire. They'll need to invest in ideas to reduce the penalties from wrong-culture provinces. Russia on the other hand will be in a somewhat similar boat because of their massive Muslim Tartar population, but they can go in the opposite direction and instead invest in ideas to convert them and Russify them.

Likewise, France might want to get involved in Naval Matters, but being surrounded on the Continent by Spain will necessitate some devotion to a Land Army that, say, England won't experience.

And also like I said in the post, ideally we would have the ability to modify the cost of ideas on a case-by-case basis. In a truly ideal world we would even be able to modify how much each idea increases the cost of the next idea the country tries to choose. So if there is some idea that does provide a considerably higher bonus than others we can adjust the cost accordingly. If +10% Discipline costs as much as 2 extra Merchants and a boost to Steering Power, it becomes a bit more difficult of a choice, especially for someone who wants to be involved in Trade.

EU3's system wasn't balanced, Okay. My system isn't EU3's System.

@gsabram: I was thinking, if there is any sort of Idea Tree, introducing "Dead End" paths that could provide considerable short term bonuses but not unlock, or negatively impact the cost of later ideas. For instance, you might be able to invest in Heavy Cavalry that revolves around the concept of the Knight, but then that wouldn't translate to a Modern Gunpowder army as well.

 

[WeissRaben]

Because EU3's ideas were nowhere near balanced. Military Drill was far and away the best idea, and if you didn't take it first, you're almost certainly making a mistake. After that, it does get a bit wider in what you can pick, but the point is that the dozen or so ideas you supposedly can pick from are an illusion, and in reality you have four, maybe 5 ideas to pick from. Then you take another idea, and now you have 1 less good idea to pick from. And so on, until you run out of good ideas to pick from.

Simply adding in more ideas (as Vishaing seems to want to do) doesn't actually help this, because to have an interesting choice you need more options of the same quality, and the more options you create, the harder it becomes to balance all of those against each other, and in fact it becomes more and more likely that one of them will be much stronger than the others (ie: Military Drill), actually reducing the significant choices for the player, rather than increasing them.

The way you get interesting decisions is by placing limits on the player, and by being realistic in how many options you can actually present to them without messing up the balance.

It's simply not possible to balance all 100+ ideas against each other, no matter how you break them down or what requirements you add for them. In the end, you'll be lucky to get the same ~15 or so "good" ideas that the player has an interesting choice to choose between. Except it's still worse than the current system, because now it's also needlessly complicated and bloated with useless ideas that serve little purpose except as a trap for new players who think Glorious Arms sounds like a cool idea.

No. If you had war in the first years as an absolute truth, Military Drill was far and away the best idea. As Holland, I don't even think I ever took the thing - it usually would be at least some 30 years, before I stretched my legs with battle. Until then, I built up to make up for the small size. Now, Byzantium was a country that needed MD as their first idea. But not every country was Byzantium.

 

[Thrake]

I agree the overall system is too rigid. While not perfect, EUIII system of ideas was much more flexible and you didn't ended up with every nation with the same idea groups after unlocking 4th one, so I would favor anything going that way, though your system looks a bit too messy and complex to balance and work around properly.

I don't think that there should be bonuses tied to unlocking X ideas in a branch (like military); that would just put an incentive in getting them all which would remove the actual choices attached to it; the bonus for picking all mil ideas should be to indeed specialize in mil. Giving something on top of that would just streamline progression, where every one with an emphasize in mil will pick all the mil ideas because 5 mil ideas are better than just 4. If there is no attached bonus, then, I don't know; perhaps I won't pick an idea boosting cav because I don't care much about cav, and would rather focus on say trade to be able to field more men while stealing part of my ennemies income. Now add say a discipline bonus and picking the +cav idea will be a no brainer, unless it's a trash choice and then it would just lead to streamlined choice again (I pick good ideas first, then what's left to get the special bonus).

 

[AgentPaper]

Yeah, my sentiments are essentially the same as WeissRaben; How exactly is the current system free from these issues while mine is especially vulnerable? I have placed limits on the player in the form of the scaling cost of Ideas, and by introducing a conscious choice between specialization and diversification which currently pretty much doesn't exist.

The current system is not free of those issues. Yours is especially vulnerable because it has many more available options. More options means less balance, given the same amount of time spent balancing both systems. Your system is inferior to the current one because it would, in the end, give the player less options and less decisions to make, not more.

I would say that the current idea groups have been under-served, but only in that there have been very few balance changes made to them. We're starting to see a bit more with the Wealth of Nations patch, but it's still got a ways to go before I could say I'm happy with it.

 

[Sebastian Jarl]

I agree with your criticisms, but I think the solution to it would be better served if we rely on the concept of policies Paradox is introducing. Policies have the great opportunity in becoming more plentiful over time, making choices of idea groups less rigid, whilst at the same time making what idea groups you choose an important long-term decision. However, we tweak it slightly by first getting rid of ideas (but not idea groups!) and the upper limit of five policies. This provides a better incentive for actually utilising policies, as there will be an excess of monarch points that can be directed towards them, and allows the policies to majorly effect what your nation feels like.

Secondly, we make policies not just tied to two idea groups, but also to each idea group and your government type. For instance, having the idea group "religion" and the government type absolute monarchy could open up the policy of "Mandatory Church Attendance", whilst innovative and despotic monarchy could idea groups could open "Enlightened despot". This would make the countries feel more different from each other, and give a sense of evolution over time as well.

Thirdly, start each country off with three idea groups. The blank slate all nations start with now is quite frankly ridiculous, and means that countries don't feel that different from one another. Because of the way policies are structured, your previous ideas are really quite important to which ones you then choose later. Nations certainly had identities in 1444, and this is a great way of showing that whilst at the same time leaving you quite free to pursue different yet reasonable alternate strategies.

Fourthly, replace unique national ideas with unique national policies. This addresses a frequently voiced concern here in the forums: nations get their unique bonuses regardless of what is happening. Do we want to give Spain a bonus to colonisation? Sure, but now instead of getting it for free, the policies for colonisation could be slightly stronger. Are you playing as a protestant Irish monarchy? No problem, go ahead and use the monarchy points for something that is more useful in your circumstances.

Fifthly, bells and whistles. Maybe make some special policies that are less likely to come by due to more specific requirements, e.g. unlocked by 4-5 idea groups and a particular religion or government type. Make certain policies incompatible with each other. Unlock a policy after events such as the peasant wars. Make instituting and revoking certain policies come with risks, e.g. increased fundamentalist RR if you enact the "Edict of Nantes" or increased aristocratic revolt risk if you try to remove "serfdom". Make the game tell us stories!

 

[Mannstien]

Great ideas Op, I feel boxed in for years and years with the current ideas system because what's in some of groups I have little use for but I'm forced into them just to get one or two that I want.

 

[crusaderking]

I agree with your criticisms, but I think the solution to it would be better served if we rely on the concept of policies Paradox is introducing. Policies have the great opportunity in becoming more plentiful over time, making choices of idea groups less rigid, whilst at the same time making what idea groups you choose an important long-term decision. However, we tweak it slightly by first getting rid of ideas (but not idea groups!) and the upper limit of five policies. This provides a better incentive for actually utilising policies, as there will be an excess of monarch points that can be directed towards them, and allows the policies to majorly effect what your nation feels like.

Secondly, we make policies not just tied to two idea groups, but also to each idea group and your government type. For instance, having the idea group "religion" and the government type absolute monarchy could open up the policy of "Mandatory Church Attendance", whilst innovative and despotic monarchy could idea groups could open "Enlightened despot". This would make the countries feel more different from each other, and give a sense of evolution over time as well.

Thirdly, start each country off with three idea groups. The blank slate all nations start with now is quite frankly ridiculous, and means that countries don't feel that different from one another. Because of the way policies are structured, your previous ideas are really quite important to which ones you then choose later. Nations certainly had identities in 1444, and this is a great way of showing that whilst at the same time leaving you quite free to pursue different yet reasonable alternate strategies.

Fourthly, replace unique national ideas with unique national policies. This addresses a frequently voiced concern here in the forums: nations get their unique bonuses regardless of what is happening. Do we want to give Spain a bonus to colonisation? Sure, but now instead of getting it for free, the policies for colonisation could be slightly stronger. Are you playing as a protestant Irish monarchy? No problem, go ahead and use the monarchy points for something that is more useful in your circumstances.

Fifthly, bells and whistles. Maybe make some special policies that are less likely to come by due to more specific requirements, e.g. unlocked by 4-5 idea groups and a particular religion or government type. Make certain policies incompatible with each other. Unlock a policy after events such as the peasant wars. Make instituting and revoking certain policies come with risks, e.g. increased fundamentalist RR if you enact the "Edict of Nantes" or increased aristocratic revolt risk if you try to remove "serfdom". Make the game tell us stories!

You are right that the new policies mechanic would be quite an amazing tool for modders, but only if the triggers and the cap are moddable.

 

[saegoto]

I'm wondering who will pay 400 adm points for +10% tax effciency, +1 advisor pool, +10% prodution effciency, -10% land maintenance, -1 interest per annum. Everyone is gonna take -20% core creation cost, +3 missionary strength, +50% better relation over time, -2% tradition decay, +1 leader without upkeep etc.

 

[nOxr]

Really impressing suggestions! Good work. It would increase replayability with 750%. The challange is how to present this to the players in a streamlined interface. It has to be easy to see which ideas are available now and in the future depending on my choices.

 

[Ivashanko]

bah, the AI will not be able to manage it. surely.
the stricter the rules, the better the AI.

I think if your suggestions would be adopted any decent game could happen only in multiplayer, you would kill singlepayer.

One of the sub mods for MMtM makes the AI pick NIs extremely well. It can be done.

Edit: Also, and not to get into a huge argument, but isn't the god in 'God knows' supposed to be capitalized? Isn't it functioning as a proper noun, rather than a general term?

 

[Giacomo1405]

do you know if... (by today rules)
the ai chooses ideas based on situations or only based on the list of historical-ideas in their files?

i understand that sometimes they don't follow that line, but in the end they seem to have only the ideas in that line (the most bending thing of that rules being the subversion of the order)...
so if it so, then with the OP system, you could simply create a bigger list...

 

[crusaderking]

I'm wondering who will pay 400 adm points for +10% tax effciency, +1 advisor pool, +10% prodution effciency, -10% land maintenance, -1 interest per annum. Everyone is gonna take -20% core creation cost, +3 missionary strength, +50% better relation over time, -2% tradition decay, +1 leader without upkeep etc.

I will pay for +10% tax efficiency, -10% land maintenance, and -1 interest per annum because I want to increase my tax income, reduce my expenditure and make loans cheaper. I may even take +1 advisor pool and +10 production efficiency if they are associated with further benefits. For example, increasing advisor pools increases the presence of different kinds of advisors, and that will come in handy, especially if I'm looking for a statesman. Increasing production efficiency will also be interesting because that might be the base for further ideas that make me branch out into a manufacturing power. Just saying. It depends on the context for sure.

I think you are looking at the simple inclusion of Vishaing's ideas into the game without seeing how that inclusion might radically alter the way we play the game itself. Suppose, his ideas were implemented, there is no longer any necessity to paint the map my color for lack of anything else to do. Thus, reductions in core-creation costs wouldn't be important. In fact, I have never used that idea despite having conquered half of Europe (including Hungary) in every game I've played as Brandenburg, Austria and Burgundy, while role-playing the game. +3% missionary strength may not be important given that in 1.6, religious unity is more dependent on tolerance.

People like Vishaing, WeissRaben and a lot of others (don't remember some of their names) want to see EU4 to provide a narrative for our game, rather than it simply being - "Ohh this King came next, I increased some techs, bought a few ideas because they are no-brainers, conquered a few provinces, King died. Rinse, wash and repeat."

 

[Vishaing]

I'm Back! In unrelated news, creating a Map Rendering Engine from scratch is unsurprisingly complicated.

Thanks all for the support.

@AgentPaper : I want to start this off by saying I do understand where you are coming from and appreciate the critiques, I just disagree with you. Still, thank you for your time.

I think the biggest thing helping to keep this system balanced is actually its diversity and flexibility. I don't doubt that people will start coming up with certain 'builds' for countries, in fact I encourage it. However I think the system will naturally resist an attempt to find a sort of "One Build to Rule them All" simply because there will be too many directions you can take your country.

So while there may be a Trade Build (with sub-builds for Wide Trade Empires and Tall Trade Empires, a distinction that is actually possible in my build, and which isn't really in EUIV as it is now since, again, there's only 1 Trade Idea and it is identical for all countries), and a Colonization Build, and a Discipline Build, there won't be a "Win the Game" build. Values will have to be adjusted, I'm not going to deny that, but I don't think it would really be that much more work or impossible, and I think the added flexibility and potential for strategy is more than worth the risk.

Furthermore, It was my hope that by making the Idea System involve actual strategic choice on an ongoing basis it would actually give us something to do in Peace Time, making a game without a focus on outright conquest actually interesting, thus further diversifying the potential goals and ensuring that there is no true 1 Great Build. There might be only 1 viable build for World Conquest, but even that will have to vary based on your starting country, and its kind of already the case since any WC attempt pretty much relies on the HRE.

Also as an aside, I am not completely hostile to the Idea Groups concept, I just want some actual strategy and choice to go into advancing down them. An alternate, vastly simpler, idea I had thought of would be to just provide different alternate ideas at each point on the Group. So you would still select "Quality" as your idea group, but then when you went to invest in your first idea in that group you would have a choice between 2-3 different ideas. You would only be able to choose one, and they would be somewhat related, so you might have to choose from an Infantry Power Idea, a Cavalry Power Idea, or an Artillery Power Idea.

Ultimately I decided to go with my more radical suggestion because it is what I would prefer to see.

@Sebastian Jarl : I'm not too happy with Policies in their current implementation, and did not take them into account when writing this up. I think they have potential, but they are under utilized by a too rigid and arbitrary implementation. Also by tying them to Idea Groups they limit how many there can be and limit their usage to pretty much only Europeans. I think your ideas certainly have merit.

I do really like the idea of Unique National Policies. That's interesting. And I also agree that countries should definitely start off with some Idea Groups. That is part of the reason why in my system you don't have to get up to an arbitrary tech level before you can choose your first Idea. This would let us properly back-date countries some ideas.

@saegoto : Values will have to be adjusted, I don't think any one idea should provide boosts of the level you are suggesting. For instance, I would split the +50% Better Relations over Time into two ideas which each give +10% and a third which gives +20%. So it is a choice between investing 400 Admin Ideas into +10% Tax Efficiency or investing 1320 Diplomacy Points into +40% Better Relations over Time, and greatly increasing the cost of all subsequent ideas on top of that.

And as others have said, they will choose different ideas if they want to do different things. Suppose you do take all of those bonuses, okay, you can conquer and core and convert and be forgiven. Is that going to work well against the country who has invested their points in massive numbers of Discipline and Infantry Shock ideas? Or will you wind up as Austria going up against Prussia?

@Giacomo1405 : They choose primarily based on their historical list, but there is some AI scripting that determines priority, and this can shift the list's order around. The AI will avoid taking a Dip group if they already have 2 Dip groups and no others, for instance. Wiz gave a full rundown on their decision making method once but I have forgotten it.

In my version they would likely still have a Historical Idea List, but I would ideally like it to be far more dynamic. And this isn't impossible as Ivashanko pointed out, MM did it despite the Ai Scripting tools available to modders for EU3 ranging from "Crippled" to "What's an AI?" Although it did lead to weird quirks, especially when dealing with newly created nations. I remember in one game I helped the US declare independence against Britain, and they decided their first idea should be a Military One, and then the system fell apart in the face of Rapid Idea Advancement and they ended up chooseing All the Military Ideas and winding up with the strongest land army in the world.

@nOxr : That's where I would like to see the "Idea Epochs" used. Worst Case Scenario I would use a Pop-Out Window you could open that would have the entire Idea List shown, with connections and tech levels displayed. You could hover over the Ideas for more information. I don't doubt that designing the interface will be difficult, I've done Interface design myself.

Thanks All!