The Emperor launch was a failure

[love sweden]

Please do not mention sales for those are only relevant to investors and Paradox itself and not us the players Im talking about the DLC for us as players. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/439552068835868684/762112810007396352/unknown.png
This is the review score for a DLC wich Paradox worked almost 2 years on. Almost equally as much negative reviews as positive reviews. Im not even sure if you can count the positive reviews as positive since alot can be summed up to "Its not completely unplayable anymore so you can buy it if you want". Meanwhile some negative reviews go above and beyond to explain what they find is wrong with the DLC and the game in general even if I do not agree with all of their points it really makes you realise those annoyances you really hate arent just subjective flaws, like this review wich is probably the longest there is:
"♥♥♥♥ you Paradox. Thanks for yet again not testing the patch or DLC and breaking certain parts of the game. Paradox is extremely lucky that CA is equally, if not, more incompetent then them. Sucks I still have to buy this ♥♥♥♥ to play the full experience.

For those of you who want to know all the things that are broken or retarded here you go.

Hegemonies (Untested) - First of all, the only good/viable hegemony is the economic one since it just requires a flat income. Naval hegemony requires 250 ships (what the ♥♥♥♥?) and Military hegemony requires 1000 regiments which is achievable but eh... Now, the reason I'm quite confident this wasn't tested is because for whatever reason Paradox decided to make having a hegemony give you a massive penalty with ALL nations in the game. Yes, this includes ur subjects, so have a fun time keeping them loyal.

Catholicism - Please explain to me how this is a buff for Catholics? I still wouldn't bother going Catholic as a non-Catholic nation because it offers ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The only way Catholicism is good is if there are no other Catholics since Curia Controller is purely based on RNG. Golden Bulls? A pointless, forgettable mechanic. What about the Council of Trent? Another pointless, forgettable mechanic. All of the other Christian religions (except maybe Hussite) are better than Catholicism even after getting "buffed".

Holy Roman Empire (Untested) - Here is the cherry on top of all the untested ♥♥♥♥ in the DLC/patch. Everything was absolutely broken about the HRE on release. Let's start with IA gain. When the DLC was released, the HRE could be united in 15-20 years after the start of the game. WHAT THE HELL! 15-20 YEARS! Please, explain to me how the hell that slipped by. In order to combat this problem, they massively reduced IA gain to the same thing it was before. Incredibly tedious/boring. The AI can't even use the mechanics for the HRE correctly anymore. They get ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rolled by the Reformation Centers that dominate central Europe once the reformation begins. Shadow Kingdom was completely broken since the Italian states would instantly rejoin the HRE after leaving adding 10 IA per entry. 2 HRE reforms are completely pointless and skippable. Decentralization is completely inferior to centralization. And god forbid you play anyone in the HRE. Have fun sitting there sucking your thumb for an hour in order to attack someone and grab a couple provinces. The DLC that was supposed to make the HRE fun again made me not want to play in the HRE even more. Multiplayer was completely broken by OP broken-ass Austria that could control half of Europe by 1500.

AI (Untested) - Paradox isn't exactly know for competent AI, but this patch is significantly worse than before. The AI regularly collapses their own nation by going into massive debt spirals that make them go into a bankruptcy loop. Why does the AI do this? Oh, by refusing to disband mercenaries after wars end and keeping them the entire game. This makes most AI nations completely useless to ally since they refuse to join your wars or do anything of the sort. The AI still attempts to carpet siege the corners of your empire. Nothing was fixed.

Mercenaries (Untested) - The mercenary system went from being brokenly OP to becoming almost pointless. Mercs are utterly useless if you are a larger nation since they are way too large and have awful army comps (this still isn't fixed btw). They have limited manpower that can run out extremely fast. And as mentioned before, they completely break the AI.

Mission Trees - Most of the mission trees are extremely forgettable and tend to be copies or extremely similar to other mission tress. A lot of mission trees have pointless missions that have massive time jumps from being something you can do around 1460 to jumping past the Age of Reformation into the 1600s with nothing to do in between. Since most campaigns don't last till 1550 those missions will never be played. Many missions are extremely dumb and contain largely useless rewards or claims. The only nation that has a decent mission tree out of the ones I've played is France and even that still suffers from massive time jumps.

New Buildings - Uh, two words. Completely Pointless. Almost all the new buildings are completely useless (Coastal Defence? Give me a break) and just a money sink.

Governing Capacity - Technically, this is an improvement over the old system which was Territorial Corruption, but that doesn't make it good. Many nations like Muscovy who start as duchies have a hard time dealing with the GC costs and are forced to spam courthouses and statehouses in order to cope with the costs. It's just another way to limit expansion although this one also hurts you playing tall as well.

All in all, a completely broken and ♥♥♥♥ DLC. The only reason Paradox gets away with things like this is because their main rival, Creative Assembly, is hopelessly incompetent at making good games. Both ToB and Troy have been utter failures. Hope you enjoyed this rant!"


You could say treating Emperor so harshly is unfair when Golden Century exists but the difference is Golden Century was made by a single guy in his weekend while Emperor had a 2 year development cycle with entire EU4 team including Johan for probably over half of it so the expectations are much bigger rightly so. I also didnt see many people come to the defense of Emperor when you criticized it in chatrooms and other forums outside of those few individuals who would even defend Paradox sending a mailbomb to their house. Even if it doesnt not seem like it in the echochamber known as the Paradox Forums and Reddit alot of people are dissatisfied.

 

[swagmeister]

They need to front load more governing capacity so there are ways to grow early on. You could state way more stuff before tech 8 in 1.29. Now I catch myself going way over cap even with territories by like tech 6 twiddling my thumbs until tech 8 can be unlocked.

 

[RAID186]

They need to front load more governing capacity so there are ways to grow early on. You could state way more stuff before tech 8 in 1.29. Now I catch myself going way over cap even with territories by like tech 6 twiddling my thumbs until tech 8 can be unlocked.

It's almost as though managing large amounts of territories should put a strain on your empire....

GC is fine, you can hit around 4k dev by 1600 and still handle your GC reasonably well. Kingdoms can have 700 GC on day 1, that's more than plenty. If you can't handle it then expand with vassals a little, or keep more land in territories temporarily so you don't shoot yourself in the foot with Core Creation cost.


Even in WCs GC is easy enough to handle as most nations, as most impacts from it are offset by ideas/huge amounts of income.

 

[Meglok]

Nice dramatic rant. And I disagree with a lot of it. But that is my opinion, others may differ. And you know the old saying about opinions.........

 

[swagmeister]

It's almost as though managing large amounts of territories should put a strain on your empire....

GC is fine, you can hit around 4k dev by 1600 and still handle your GC reasonably well. Kingdoms can have 700 GC on day 1, that's more than plenty. If you can't handle it then expand with vassals a little, or keep more land in territories temporarily so you don't shoot yourself in the foot with Core Creation cost.


Even in WCs GC is easy enough to handle as most nations, as most impacts from it are offset by ideas/huge amounts of income.

governing capacity is easy to manage, after tech 8.

Am I just not allowed to complain about change I don't like rather then get lectured on how to work around it? I just want early expansion to be limited by AE like it used to be for YEARS. Governing capacity, territory corruption and states/territories are all just band aids to a made up problem that never existed.

 

[JaxElite]

While some criticism towarda PDX for the Emperor launch is valid, you need to differentiate between DLC and patch content.
A buggy patch with issues is annoying but bo disaster. For paid content it is different

 

[Battlex]

They need to front load more governing capacity so there are ways to grow early on. You could state way more stuff before tech 8 in 1.29. Now I catch myself going way over cap even with territories by like tech 6 twiddling my thumbs until tech 8 can be unlocked.

Maybe you shouldn't be able to state everything so quickly. You can vassalise as well as use the 3 estate privleiges to boost gov capacity to get enough dev

 

[RAID186]

governing capacity is easy to manage, after tech 8.

Am I just not allowed to complain about change I don't like rather then get lectured on how to work around it? I just want early expansion to be limited by AE like it used to be for YEARS. Governing capacity, territory corruption and states/territories are all just band aids to a made up problem that never existed.

It still is limited by AE. If you're taking up to 1000 dev (around where your gov cap will start actually impacting you) then you'll probably be getting limited by AE and coalitions.

And with that being said, Coalitions are easy to manage anyway, and have been for YEARS. GC is hardly a block limiting your expansion either.

Regardless of whether or not you want a limit or something to slow you down, it's not uncommon for larger nations during this period to be decentralized - which is represented in the game through high autonomy and vassals(workarounds of GC).

GC is infinitely better than State Limits, and just because there was never a problem doesn't mean we should have perfect control over every inch of our territory, State Limit was a way to represent this, and GC is an improvement on that system.

 

[st360]

What you wrote:
hegemony requires 1000 regiments which is achievable but eh... Now, the reason I'm quite confident this wasn't tested is because for whatever reason Paradox decided to make having a hegemony give you a massive penalty with


What I saw:
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

 

[Xinkc]

I can't disagree with much of this, but the following quotes I do disagree.

Mission Trees - Most of the mission trees are extremely forgettable and tend to be copies or extremely similar to other mission tress. A lot of mission trees have pointless missions that have massive time jumps from being something you can do around 1460 to jumping past the Age of Reformation into the 1600s with nothing to do in between. Since most campaigns don't last till 1550 those missions will never be played. Many missions are extremely dumb and contain largely useless rewards or claims. The only nation that has a decent mission tree out of the ones I've played is France and even that still suffers from massive time jumps.

France has the only decent mission tree that you've played? I assume you have only played 1.30 France and nations with generic or regional trees. Otherwise, sleeping on Spain, Great Britain, Savoy, Provence, Milan, Bohemia, and many more mission trees is utterly baffling.

As per the time gaps. I'd prefer the missions not be a quickly finished endeavor. The fact they last longer is kind of nice.

New Buildings - Uh, two words. Completely Pointless. Almost all the new buildings are completely useless (Coastal Defence? Give me a break) and just a money sink.

Coastal defenses definitely aren't worth the cost, but Naval Batteries are troublesome for naval work and satisfying when you employ them to shred enemy navies.

The new manufactories are interesting as well, giving an alternate use for several low tier trade goods. The Ramparts help for more defensive strategies and the Statehouse definitely helps towards governing capacity. Statehouses also come in handy if/when gem prices tank.

Governing Capacity - Technically, this is an improvement over the old system which was Territorial Corruption, but that doesn't make it good. Many nations like Muscovy who start as duchies have a hard time dealing with the GC costs and are forced to spam courthouses and statehouses in order to cope with the costs. It's just another way to limit expansion although this one also hurts you playing tall as well.

The duchies that have trouble are the one's constrained from moving up a rank and unwilling to use the estate privileges that give +100 governing capacity each. They're free to take them. Heck Muscovy has 4 estates which means they could get +400 day one.

 

[EarlKonrad]

France has the only decent mission tree that you've played? I assume you have only played 1.30 France and nations with generic or regional trees. Otherwise, sleeping on Spain, Great Britain, Savoy, Provence, Milan, Bohemia, and many more mission trees is utterly baffling.

As per the time gaps. I'd prefer the missions not be a quickly finished endeavor. The fact they last longer is kind of nice.

The new manufactories are interesting as well, giving an alternate use for several low tier trade goods. The Ramparts help for more defensive strategies and the Statehouse definitely helps towards governing capacity. Statehouses also come in handy if/when gem prices tank.

I'm torn on the new missions. On the one hand I like how varied they all are with many having entirely new requisites and rewards, on the other some mission trees are utterly strange and hard to follow (Austria says high), have some missions which require a very specific setup (France 15% Autonomy says high too) and for whatever reason gives crap rewards (like France and Bohemia giving tons of claims that WILL expire before tou can make use of a quarter of them or the Hanseatic League mission which kills your diplomatic slots in exchange for getting weaker). So a mixed bag overall that needed some additional polish.

I'm equally torned on the new buildings. Batteries range from damaging the integrity of the AI to nichely useful and I never build any of the new manufactories aside from the GC one. I just can't spare the ducats to invest on sailors (lol never), or manpower (I find it much better to drill -> slack recruitment) or ramparts (too big of an investment for +1 attrition + defensiveness and unless the AI besiges the fort it is purely wasted money).

So in theory I like the new buildings but in practice I never have the money to build them when they would have been useful and when I do have the money they become pointless so might aswell just build another 20 infantry regiments for the same cost as a manufactory.

And yes I know that ramparts + edict/TC investment is brutal but if you are playing wide how many times will you be able to have enough forts to cover a front so that the AI will have to siege them? Not often.

 

[Katsue]

Hegemonies (Untested) - First of all, the only good/viable hegemony is the economic one since it just requires a flat income. Naval hegemony requires 250 ships (what the ♥♥♥♥?)

I don't actually have the dlc, but is this supposed to be hard? I feel any Great Power coloniser will have no difficulty in finding a use for 250 ships. I think that by the end of my Sligo game I had almost 250 ships protecting trade, never mind my transports or my war fleets.

 

[iClipse]

I'm torn on the new missions. On the one hand I like how varied they all are with many having entirely new requisites and rewards, on the other some mission trees are utterly strange and hard to follow (Austria says high), have some missions which require a very specific setup (France 15% Autonomy says high too) and for whatever reason gives crap rewards (like France and Bohemia giving tons of claims that WILL expire before tou can make use of a quarter of them or the Hanseatic League mission which kills your diplomatic slots in exchange for getting weaker). So a mixed bag overall that needed some additional polish.

Yeah, some of them are really weird. I had my head scratching as the Papal States. I'm tasked to convert certain areas and nations, but I don't have any benefit from having these converted in the first place. Why task me with something that has no consequence, positive or negative?

I'm equally torned on the new buildings. Batteries range from damaging the integrity of the AI to nichely useful and I never build any of the new manufactories aside from the GC one. I just can't spare the ducats to invest on sailors (lol never), or manpower (I find it much better to drill -> slack recruitment) or ramparts (too big of an investment for +1 attrition + defensiveness and unless the AI besiges the fort it is purely wasted money).

The manpower one, is actually a useful manufactory. To give an example, when playing as Arabia, you have plenty of trade income, but terrible provinces, with not so great trade goods. Building a +750 manpower manufactory makes these small 3 development desert areas actually useful. They don't take up much government capacity and with a monetary investment you make an otherwise terrible province quite good. The new buildings really make you think a bit about building your nation other than just spam manufacturies literally everywhere.

The state house is kind of a necessary evil with the government capacity. In that area it does it job well.

The sailor one.. Yeah.. It's not useful. The Rampart. I've built it once. It did what it had to do, but it only works when playing a small rich nation, or somewhere where you can defend with lots of chokepoints. And there aren't too many of those.

I don't actually have the dlc, but is this supposed to be hard? I feel any Great Power coloniser will have no difficulty in finding a use for 250 ships. I think that by the end of my Sligo game I had almost 250 ships protecting trade, never mind my transports or my war fleets.

It's 250 heavy ships, which is more than you usually need in any kind of run and also kind of expensive to build and maintain. Still, it's the easiest Hegemony to get.

 

[Vin55]

the biggest issue with the new buildings that they are in manufactury spots. So you will never buy them but opt for more money, money buys you armies, and solves everything else in the game. I would opt to increase basic building slots by 1 and instead move those buildings into another special building spot, so you cannot spam all but 1 per province if you have the money.

 

[Katsue]

It's 250 heavy ships, which is more than you usually need in any kind of run and also kind of expensive to build and maintain. Still, it's the easiest Hegemony to get.

Okay, I will admit that 250 heavy ships is pretty preposterous.

Funnily enough, I did build a couple of Impressment Offices in that Sligo game. Fish is a pretty worthless trade good, and I was very low on sailors at a few points.

 

[iClipse]

the biggest issue with the new buildings that they are in manufactury spots. So you will never buy them but opt for more money, money buys you armies, and solves everything else in the game. I would opt to increase basic building slots by 1 and instead move those buildings into another special building spot, so you cannot spam all but 1 per province if you have the money.

Honestly, I feel it's fine. It's what the devs intended and I do feel it works well. You make a choice between money, or something else that's useful.

The only thing regarding building construction that should REALLY be fixed is the amount of micromanagement that's necessary to build courthouses everywhere.

Can be fixed in multiple ways, but I'd be glad if the devs just choose one.

Some possibilities:
1) Make Courthouses give +1 building slot
2) Make Universities give +2 building slots -> this is my favorite, since it both acts as a lategame money sink as well as a solution and is easy to implement. Every province you conquer has to get a University and then a courthouse as well, making every province a -500 money investment lategame. Since infinitemoney in the lategame is a thing, I feel this helps counter that.
3) The most elegant solution would be to implement some kind of macrobuilder, or replacement builder where you open that macrobuilder and can replace buildings with other ones in one click, both showing what you lose (income, manpower, trade power) as well as what you gain.

 

[Xinkc]

I'm torn on the new missions. On the one hand I like how varied they all are with many having entirely new requisites and rewards, on the other some mission trees are utterly strange and hard to follow (Austria says high), have some missions which require a very specific setup (France 15% Autonomy says high too) and for whatever reason gives crap rewards (like France and Bohemia giving tons of claims that WILL expire before tou can make use of a quarter of them or the Hanseatic League mission which kills your diplomatic slots in exchange for getting weaker). So a mixed bag overall that needed some additional polish.

I'm equally torned on the new buildings. Batteries range from damaging the integrity of the AI to nichely useful and I never build any of the new manufactories aside from the GC one. I just can't spare the ducats to invest on sailors (lol never), or manpower (I find it much better to drill -> slack recruitment) or ramparts (too big of an investment for +1 attrition + defensiveness and unless the AI besiges the fort it is purely wasted money).

So in theory I like the new buildings but in practice I never have the money to build them when they would have been useful and when I do have the money they become pointless so might aswell just build another 20 infantry regiments for the same cost as a manufactory.

And yes I know that ramparts + edict/TC investment is brutal but if you are playing wide how many times will you be able to have enough forts to cover a front so that the AI will have to siege them? Not often.

I definitely agree with your points. They could definitely be better, but they're definitely not like the OP says.

It's 250 heavy ships, which is more than you usually need in any kind of run and also kind of expensive to build and maintain. Still, it's the easiest Hegemony to get.

Yeah, the naval hegemony really only pairs well with that achievement for 500 heavy ships.

the biggest issue with the new buildings that they are in manufactury spots. So you will never buy them but opt for more money, money buys you armies, and solves everything else in the game. I would opt to increase basic building slots by 1 and instead move those buildings into another special building spot, so you cannot spam all but 1 per province if you have the money.

Yeah, the new manufactories could be improved if they had their own special building slot or something.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Okay, I will admit that 250 heavy ships is pretty preposterous.

Funnily enough, I did build a couple of Impressment Offices in that Sligo game. Fish is a pretty worthless trade good, and I was very low on sailors at a few points.

O'm starting to think that the 250 Heavies requirement was chosen with the upcoming naval battle changes in mind. 250 Heavies is a weirdly specific number when compared to the other Hegemonies, harder to field, less necessary (as having 1K regiments or 1K ducats) and the bonuses for fielding them are subpar. Granted, in 1.30 it is easier to field larger navies if you want to (Impressment Offices) but still unnecessary.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

O'm starting to think that the 250 Heavies requirement was chosen with the upcoming naval battle changes in mind. 250 Heavies is a weirdly specific number when compared to the other Hegemonies, harder to field, less necessary (as having 1K regiments or 1K ducats) and the bonuses for fielding them are subpar. Granted, in 1.30 it is easier to field larger navies if you want to (Impressment Offices) but still unnecessary.

It was originally 1,000 heavies which people rightly pointy out to be utterly ludicrous. So they reduced it to the merely insane 250 heavies.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

While some criticism towarda PDX for the Emperor launch is valid, you need to differentiate between DLC and patch content.
A buggy patch with issues is annoying but bo disaster. For paid content it is different

When the buggy patch is required for the use of the paid content it is a distinction without a difference.