Hello,
Right now, when you aren't sticking to the ideas meta you are easily punished in a multiplayer context and this leads to less interesting gameplay. By getting Quantity and Economic with their policy, it is is too strong mainly because it gives you a 30% dev cost reduction and 60% more force limit in total.
These idea groups and their policy synergise too well at the start of the game to the point that nothing else is close to being as good for almost all countries. There are of course other bonuses in these groups as the manpower and production efficiency help a lot too, but I don't feel these aspects in the respective groups need any nerfing. They just should give less dev cost reduction and forcelimit when combined if we want to see people pick different things in multiplayer games. I would also suggest buffing a couple of policies linked with Defensive as well as Divine ideas.
Here are some suggestions how I think this could work in practice:
If you were to entirely remove the 10% dev cost reduction from the Agricultural Cultivation policy and replace it with something like a 10% national tax modifier then I think this would be a good move to make it nerfed but still a decent policy since it would still give a nice 10% forcelimit as an administrative policy. Dev cost reductions are rather abundant in the game anyway and I feel it would be nice to make it harder to develop land. It certainly wouldn't kill off tall gameplay by doing this, instead it would increase the options of how you could play tall as well as generally in multiplayer.
The other nerf would be to keep Quantity as it is but end with a 40% force limit modifier rather than 50%.
I still think these would still remain the most popular 2 idea groups to pick despite these nerfs but you wouldn't be so brutally punished for not taking these groups with these changes in a multiplayer setting. These changes are good for colonial countries like Portugal too as you want to be going exploration so it means you aren't missing out as much by going for the idea groups you are meant to with that country.
You could also help to rebalance things by making some of the policies connected with Defensive Ideas stronger. The Spy Discovery Act with Administrative gives 20% Foreign Spy Detection which is honestly a useless modifier which is not made up by the small benefit of -0.1 annual corruption. Changing the Foreign Spy Detection to almost anything else would be an improvement. While not useless in single player, in multiplayer the Public Welfare Act policy giving -1 unrest and -10% stability cost modifier just is not enough. I think the -10% stability cost modifier does especially little in both single and multiplayer contexts. Something like a 10% goods produced modifier or 10% production efficiency bonus could make it far more appealing to use. Since the ramparts manufactory/building isn't seen often, I wonder if by getting defensive ideas you could get a discount on buying those? Or similarly you can have an event where a free one could start being built in your highest fort level province to give you something unique early on that you can't always afford.
Divine ideas are underwhelming, even in late game when it gets a bit better so a buff is needed. The first idea 'Servants of God' just gives +1 yearly Devotion or +0.5 Legitimacy which is not something which is hard to keep at 100 as a theocracy. If you added an extra effect to this idea like -10% infantry cost as people are more willing to die for the state/god so won't mind being paid less money or something it just might make it a bit better. It also ends with underwhelming modifiers, I feel like it could have at least a 20% manpower increase, 15% just makes me feel sad knowing it could be 50% if I had just done Quantity. Divine already has some decent policies though.
I also think you can add in some more events tied to idea groups or policies which add a really interesting extra layer to picking an idea set. That can also work to resolve some balance issues too as some nasty events tied with quantity might put people off always relying on it if it has some perceived risks and some good events in defensive like the ramparts one I mentioned earlier can spice things up quite easily.
I hope these are useful suggestions
Right now, when you aren't sticking to the ideas meta you are easily punished in a multiplayer context and this leads to less interesting gameplay. By getting Quantity and Economic with their policy, it is is too strong mainly because it gives you a 30% dev cost reduction and 60% more force limit in total.
These idea groups and their policy synergise too well at the start of the game to the point that nothing else is close to being as good for almost all countries. There are of course other bonuses in these groups as the manpower and production efficiency help a lot too, but I don't feel these aspects in the respective groups need any nerfing. They just should give less dev cost reduction and forcelimit when combined if we want to see people pick different things in multiplayer games. I would also suggest buffing a couple of policies linked with Defensive as well as Divine ideas.
Here are some suggestions how I think this could work in practice:
If you were to entirely remove the 10% dev cost reduction from the Agricultural Cultivation policy and replace it with something like a 10% national tax modifier then I think this would be a good move to make it nerfed but still a decent policy since it would still give a nice 10% forcelimit as an administrative policy. Dev cost reductions are rather abundant in the game anyway and I feel it would be nice to make it harder to develop land. It certainly wouldn't kill off tall gameplay by doing this, instead it would increase the options of how you could play tall as well as generally in multiplayer.
The other nerf would be to keep Quantity as it is but end with a 40% force limit modifier rather than 50%.
I still think these would still remain the most popular 2 idea groups to pick despite these nerfs but you wouldn't be so brutally punished for not taking these groups with these changes in a multiplayer setting. These changes are good for colonial countries like Portugal too as you want to be going exploration so it means you aren't missing out as much by going for the idea groups you are meant to with that country.
You could also help to rebalance things by making some of the policies connected with Defensive Ideas stronger. The Spy Discovery Act with Administrative gives 20% Foreign Spy Detection which is honestly a useless modifier which is not made up by the small benefit of -0.1 annual corruption. Changing the Foreign Spy Detection to almost anything else would be an improvement. While not useless in single player, in multiplayer the Public Welfare Act policy giving -1 unrest and -10% stability cost modifier just is not enough. I think the -10% stability cost modifier does especially little in both single and multiplayer contexts. Something like a 10% goods produced modifier or 10% production efficiency bonus could make it far more appealing to use. Since the ramparts manufactory/building isn't seen often, I wonder if by getting defensive ideas you could get a discount on buying those? Or similarly you can have an event where a free one could start being built in your highest fort level province to give you something unique early on that you can't always afford.
Divine ideas are underwhelming, even in late game when it gets a bit better so a buff is needed. The first idea 'Servants of God' just gives +1 yearly Devotion or +0.5 Legitimacy which is not something which is hard to keep at 100 as a theocracy. If you added an extra effect to this idea like -10% infantry cost as people are more willing to die for the state/god so won't mind being paid less money or something it just might make it a bit better. It also ends with underwhelming modifiers, I feel like it could have at least a 20% manpower increase, 15% just makes me feel sad knowing it could be 50% if I had just done Quantity. Divine already has some decent policies though.
I also think you can add in some more events tied to idea groups or policies which add a really interesting extra layer to picking an idea set. That can also work to resolve some balance issues too as some nasty events tied with quantity might put people off always relying on it if it has some perceived risks and some good events in defensive like the ramparts one I mentioned earlier can spice things up quite easily.
I hope these are useful suggestions
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