The Ledger is too powerful and weakens the whole point of Espionage

[pingouin2ter]

Hello everyone!

After a few hours of EU4, I have come to the conclusion that the ledger is too powerful. With that tool the player knows pretty much anything about anyone but more particularly the player knows exactly the army size of its enemies before going to war. I have almost developed a pavlovian reflex by checking pages 24 and 25 before going to war. Does not make much sense in term of gameplay nor it makes a lot of sense in the historic period.

At the same time we have an espionage idea group that feels quite underwhelming to a few people. I believe there is an opportunity there by making the espionage group a bit more powerful in term of intelligence gathering and review the ledger.

I suggest something of the sort :
- Remove ledger pages 24-25 in Ironman Mode.
- Instead give a sense of the other nations army strengths and manpower reserve. Possibly, a red/amber/green enemy manpower indicator if they are at 80%, 40 to 80 or below 40.
- Rework Infiltrate administration to after a period of time, one year for instance, you get more detailed information of another country armies.

 

[Hakuromatsu]

Amen.

 

[Karnak]

this is a very good suggestion.

you should only have access to things like stats of your own nation, events common to the world such as wars and CBs, and general non-specific info about the rest of the world.
force limits should be considered fair game, as should ideas. the number of provinces and national identity of a nation would be obvious.

checking the treasury and army size of a potential target ruins a lot of immersion. not to mention current manpower.

so make a new espionage system that works on a per-target basis for this sensitive information, and you might just make espionage worthwhile.

 

[CaptainChiatrol]

I agree espionage may be a bit UP (I think it's better then naval in most situations but not by a huge margin and that doesn't make it worth selecting) but I don't want to limit ledger information just to make up for it's badness.

 

[kralex]

Infiltrate Administration would be quite useful, and perhaps sufficient reason to consider taking Espionage, but is obsoleted by the exiled units exploit. Blow a whole idea group when you can just leave a few untouchable infantry units scattered around the map? IA also has the risk of detection and incurring... what was it, Prestige hit? The exiled units cost a bit of Forcelimit and maintenance, but both are negligible in the later game.

The exiled units exploit is immensely powerful, and I think I'd miss it if it were gone, but still... it's just an exploit that stacks the game the wrong way. Maybe exiled units should be completely blind. Maybe they should be deleted if exiled for more than a year.

Edit: reposted at http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?820992-Exiled-units-should-be-blind&p=18507148

 

[hollwander91]

ledger should have no information about forcelimits, current number of soldiers, ships ,manpower or income. the first time i came across ledger i couldnt believe what i was seeing

 

[Yorkie-GBR]

Or, you could turn it off.

 

[IIWW]

Or, you could turn it off.

How? It is possible on SP?

 

[Freudia]

How? It is possible on SP?

Well, in SP you have the ability to not use it yourself. In MP it can be disabled. This honestly sounds more like an issue with people lacking self-restraint, honestly.

Anyways, if espionage had some sort of assassinate mechanic tied to it, it'd be a lot more useful.

 

[ero_sk]

Very good point, although I never thought about it. Using ledger is a bit of cheating from certain perspective and I have to admit- I use it too. Not only before declaring but sometimes during the war. However if the player could not see the army and navy in ledger then AI shouldn't also be able to see our forces, which is not the case currently.

 

[Draecesstra]

i like looking at the ledger at game end (1820), why do you want it to be removed? if espionage would change the ledger, nobody would still use it in singleplayer, the ledger isnt "always" necessary. In Multiplayer you already cant see the troop count in the war overview but looking in the ledger is still possible.

solution for single player is really easy. just dont look everything up. eu4 is a glass game, everyone knows nearly everything all the time. that is for alle players the same. so where do you want to stop? seeing their idea groups? their vassals? their income? tradepower? buildings?

its fine like it is, in multiplayer, everyone has the same "view". in singleplayer, yeah, you can look, but you dont have to. removing it or adjusting with espionage ruins more than fun than it ever could create.

 

[Yorkie-GBR]

How? It is possible on SP?

Not straight out of the box no, but I you set a MP session and play it as a SP you can, of course you don't get Ironman. Not ideal I know but its a work around that works.

 

[Pilot00]

They could combine the two. Have the ledger only give (estimates on large margins) on military matters and leave the score etc untouched. Then overhaul espionage so that the more you progress up to it, it will unlock more accurate info (still not precise though).

 

[Thrake]

Well, in SP you have the ability to not use it yourself. In MP it can be disabled. This honestly sounds more like an issue with people lacking self-restraint, honestly.

Anyways, if espionage had some sort of assassinate mechanic tied to it, it'd be a lot more useful.

I personnaly would rather have the remove FOW disabled because that's just OP and usually the single idea in the whole set that is an incentive at picking espionnage, and would rather have (another) overall of the idea group, including most aspects of the ledger to be either absent or shady (as in rough estimations rather than numbers; as OP suggested: low manpower, mid, or high at best). I think it hasn't been done because the AI would probably be quite terrible at picking targets without being sort of omniscient.

 

[Hopit]

I love how some people can't stop themselves from cheating and come to the forums asking the devs for making a mechanic to stop them from cheating...

 

[Autoclave]

ledger should have no information about forcelimits, current number of soldiers, ships ,manpower or income. the first time i came across ledger i couldnt believe what i was seeing

It was my reaction as well. I mean why am i supposed to know this??

 

[kralex]

The ledger is a perfectly legitimate part of the game, and not a cheat. Which, by the way, is the problem under consideration in this thread.

 

[Fishman786]

The AI checks your army size (amongst other things) before declaring war. Why should this be invisible to the player?

 

[Viperswhip]

Wow, you know, don't look at it then...

Is it turned off in MP? Maybe an option to disable it, but you know it just puts you on a level playing field with the AI.

Don't remove stuff like this, don't remove choice, I hate it when games do that. If you don't want to use it, don't, if it's an MP issue, then ya, I don't care, I don't play MP.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wow, you know, don't look at it then...

Is it turned off in MP? Maybe an option to disable it, but you know it just puts you on a level playing field with the AI.

Don't remove stuff like this, don't remove choice, I hate it when games do that. If you don't want to use it, don't, if it's an MP issue, then ya, I don't care, I don't play MP.

MP already has an option to disable it.