Suggestions for making tall playing the real alternative

[Seb19999]

Hi folks,

I understand that there are two camps: people who want to do world conquest and people who want to have challenging game after year 1550.

I'm in the second camp and I'm aware I'm in the minority. I only play weak OPM's and I find game boring when between 1500 and 1550 I become one of the great powers. I deeply believe that WC should be impossible in this game, even European conquest should be impossible. I'm aware that possibility of painting the map is the thing that sells the game to many players. So possibly the only way to create a game that will make both type of players happy is to create two modes of play with different game balances (for example "impossible" level of difficulty in which blobbing is limited by game rules). Still, I have some ideas that make blobbing difficult or not so much advantageous to the relatively peaceful tall playing. To be honest, I have many ideas so it will take few posts to publish them.

I want to start with proposing cultural and administrative unity mechanics.

Religious, cultural and administrative unity

I think that cultural unity (CU) and administrative unity (AU) should be added and they should work similarly to religious unity.

I propose four degree of cultural tension:

• the same culture group (+1 local unrest, -15% tax, production, manpower, 50% weight to CU)
• the same meta culture group (+2 local unrest, -30% tax, production, manpower, 75% weight to CU)
• the same continental culture group (+3 local unrest, -45% tax, production, manpower, 100% weight to CU)
• other cultures (+4 local unrest, -60% tax, production, manpower, 125% weight to CU)

Meta culture group should consists of 3-4 culture groups: for example Italian, French and Iberian or East Slavic, West Slavic, Balkan.

Basic idea is that cultural tensions are much higher when Ottomans conquer Vienna than when Austria conquer Brno. Obviously, it can be -10%, -20%, -30% -40%. Depends on game balance.

I think that RU, CU and AU should have real impact on all monarch points cost : 70% unity gives +6% extra monarch point costs, 50% unity gives +12%.

So very divided empire, with 50% RU, CU and AU would have +36% monarch points costs. This would be a real cost to blobbing in all directions.

CU unity is based on total developments and weights.

AU unity is the percent of development in states.

CU and AU should have the same impact on stability cost as RU.

I think that promoting culture should be a process: like converting culture. Its length and cost should be based on development. I think it should be cheaper but slower than converting culture.

The other ideas are coming soon...

 

[Impognagrift]

Cool, but you should post suggestions in the suggestion subforum I think

 

[humb]

You should check out the MEIOU&Taxes Mod if you like playing tall. It introduces a ton of realistic internal management and makes it harder to blob and (the thing that strikes me the most unrealistic of vanilla) making newly conquered land profitable.

 

[Camtheman]

Your ideas are good, (I'm firmly within the first camp but I still want it to be harder but not impossible to WC)

But making it possible to play tall would be very simple.

Halving the base dev cost (currently 50) and lowering the minimum dev cost to 1 (It's currently 5)

Might also move up development efficiency. It would take very little.

 

[Rikissa]

The real problem with playing tall isn't that it's not viable, it's just boring.

 

[petertju]

Your ideas are good, (I'm firmly within the first camp but I still want it to be harder but not impossible to WC)

But making it possible to play tall would be very simple.

Halving the base dev cost (currently 50) and lowering the minimum dev cost to 1 (It's currently 5)

Might also move up development efficiency. It would take very little.

The cost for developing was a lot lower, but people didn't like it because you would get metropoles in the middle of Africa. Which does make a lot of sense to me.

 

[hermithill]

Some players (and I am one of them) do expand not because they want/like to paint the map, but because they have nothing else to do. What the OP proposes is certainly interesting, but it does not solve this problem: to be honest, if the solution is to force the player to kill rebels instead of letting him/her to fight neighbours, I still prefer the second choice (= current form of the game).

 

[Bibor]

It's easy to make higher development more viable.

1. Make local development effectiveness (tax, trade power, goods produced, manpower etc.) scale with total country development divided by number of provinces owned.
2. Courthouse should remove terrain development penalties and add +1 building slot like university.
3. Town hall should negate estate autonomy cap.
4. A high enough development province (say, 40) should be able to switch goods produced (from fish to silk/glass/paper, for example).
5. Mercenary purchase cost (not ukeep) should scale down on a dev/province ratio, capped at zero ducats at 40dev/province average.

Yes, a nation with 20 provinces of 40 development each should be able to beat any world power twice its size.

 

[RadRussian]

The game already favors taller empires by limiting number of states one can get. Territories are capped at 75% and are useless, practically speaking. A better avenue for expansion would be creating vassals and colonial nations. Second way you could make yourself stronger is by making your rivals weaker - make them break alliances and release nations, etc.

It's different if you go for a full WC.

 

[Bibor]

The game already favors taller empires by limiting number of states one can get.

The # of states cap is too generous.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is a "make two games" suggestion, not a real two modes of play suggestion.

Tall in EU 4 is a bit of a joke. Make a completely different game with completely different mechanics and win conditions and it's a different matter. That game isn't EU 4.

 

[Dracolithfiend]

I'm part of the third group. The group that can't complete a world conquest on current difficulty and finds the game difficult after 1550 as any nation (except perhaps ottomans for me). I'm so bad that one time I even tried to westernize during the Time of Troubles.

 

[Seb19999]

Some players (and I am one of them) do expand not because they want/like to paint the map, but because they have nothing else to do. What the OP proposes is certainly interesting, but it does not solve this problem: to be honest, if the solution is to force the player to kill rebels instead of letting him/her to fight neighbours, I still prefer the second choice (= current form of the game).

I'm afraid that most ideas to make game harder will make it more boring because this will force player to take longer breaks between the wars. Conquest will give less resources and will drain additional resources (rebels).

The best solution will be to enhance economic or diplomatic part of the game and to let the player focus on part he enjoys the most. In current game the choice is limited to military/conquest. This is why is either blobbing or being bored for many players.

 

[Seb19999]

My second idea is about devastation, prosperity and development.

I think devastation should be a much stronger force in the game. There should be a real advantages of not having an enemy troops within the country. Also recovering should take much more time. We know from history that sometimes it took decades to recover from wars.

Devastation should be caused by siege (+0,5 monthly), occupation (0,1) blockade (0,05), presence of enemy troops (100% of supply limit should give 0,1) and attrition that the army present in province experience (2% attrition should give 0,2 - work for any army: friendly, neutral and enemy). Those should be addictive. During EU4 times wandering armies caused great havoc and real devastation. Attrition means that there is more soldiers than province can supply - it basically means that the looting of food takes place.

So siege by huge army with 5% attrition should give 0,5+0,1 (100% of supply limit) + 0,5 (5% attrition) 1,1 devastation monthly.

Devastation should go down 0,1 monthly, 0,5 if there is a fort, 0,2 if there is fort nearby. I think that it should take few times longer to lose devastation than to gain it.

Also the level of devastation should give a chance of losing development. I propose 1/10 of devastation. So 10 devastation gives 1% chance of losing 1 percent of development in province. There can be upper limit at 1%. This will force game to calculate development in more details.

Devastation should also give malus to income and manpower: I propose 5 times devastation level (up to 50% for 10 devastation).

Being in state of prosperity should give a chance of gaining development. I propose 0,1% monthly chance of gaining 1 percent of development (so from 20 to 20,2). Maybe there should be bonus for long uninterrupted period of prosperity.

This obviously should be balanced and can be weighted by terrain and climate, policies, ideas, etc.

The basic idea is that it should be a real alternative to conquest through wars. There should be a real incentive to keep country out of the wars. Wars should be costly and peace dividend should be substantial.

During the EU4 period development of regions (measured as GDP) increaser by between 100% (Italy, India) and 1000% (England). So good rule of thumb should be that country that avoids devastation and has pro-development policies should gain about 300% to 400% of generic development: 20 dev province should become 60-80 dev province. With the player action (manual increase of development) one can copy results of England or Netherlands.

I don't think that exact numbers are important (they should be balanced) but enhancing devastation and prosperity mechanics can really make tall playing a viable alternative to blobbing.

 

[Foefaller]

I think to make tall a compelling alternative to wide, you need three things to become true:

1.) CBs and wargoals that do NOT give territory becoming as valuable as ones that do. To expect systems and mechanics to become as equally compelling as winning wars and militarily dominating your rivals is, IMO, wishful thinking. Instead, you should be promoting mechanics that discourage simply amassing more and more land, beyond simply vassals > territories once at state limit, and make using CBs like Trade Dispute, and wargoals like Humiliate and transfer Trade Power things you might actually pick over land, not just a tool to break alliances for a third party or something you take after picking out all the land AE and coring distances will let you acquire. I would also argue that some CBs, especially those that forbid the taking of territory and returning/revoking cores, should not inherently call all the allies on both sides into a massive conflict.

2.) Trade dominance actually means something other than more money. While there is no dev diary about it yet, the bullet point on the Cradle of Civilization store page about Trade Policies makes me hopeful they are already going in the right direction on this. Dominating a Node shouldn't just mean you get the most money or power to direct the flow of wealth from it, it should also come with some influence over the region that trade node covers. More power to the purse.

3.) AI should be able to be worthy competitors in trade and naval warfare. The historical "Tall" nations that punched above their weight in this period, namely the Netherlands and Great Britain, did so on a dominance of trade and the ability to protect it with their navy. Of course, "compelling Naval war with the AI" is almost the platonic ideal of an oxymoron at the moment, for a variety of reasons, and considering most tall nations not named Prussia are probably going to be more interested in trade and the navy needed to protect it than amassing vassals, that easy dominance makes naval warfare significantly more boring than land conquest. If AI nations could actually become naval powers worthy of respect, you might actually get some fun out of a war that doesn't involve that many land battles.

 

[Canute VII]

While there is no dev diary about it yet, the bullet point on the Cradle of Civilization store page about Trade Policies makes me hopeful they are already going in the right direction on this.

You should check the wiki for the dev diary on trade policies...

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

There's nothing unrealistic about blobbing. There is very much unrealistic about competing with blobbers by pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

 

[Canute VII]

I like thinking about "Cultural Unity (CU)" and "Administrative Unity (AU)", but I disagree that it should give the exact same effects as "Religious Unity" for that would be (a) boring and (2) make no sense (e.g. minus church power?).

I do agree,though, that

• lack of CU should give
  • (moderately) increased stability cost like e.g. +0.5% per percent below 100% CU (scaling to +50% at 0% CU),
  • -0.05 tolerance of true-faith/heretics/heathens per percentage point below 100% (scaling to -5 at 0% CU) and
  • -0.1% idea cost per percentage point below 100% (yes, actually a bonus), scaling to -10% at 0% CU
• 100% CU should give
  • +0.5 religious conversion strength and
  • -2.5% tech cost OR +1 tolerance of the true faith

and

• lack of AU should give
  • increased cost of mercantilism (maybe +0.5% per percent below 100% AU) and
  • increased cost of strenghten government (maybe +0.5% per percent below 100% AU) and
  • +0.25% advisor cost per percentage point below 100% (scaling to +25% at 0% AU)
• 100% AU should give
  • +1 possible advisors and
  • -10% harsh treatment cost

 

[Drachenfels]

Agree with opinion that game merely needs expansion on diplomatic front. It would be lovely to have a way to break ottoblob by diplomatically forcing independence of let say armenia.

 

[Philthy]

I like this line of thinking, generally.