Dear readers,
Recent weeks have seen me return to EU4 after an 18-24 month absence. Having come to grips with most of the changes, I am enjoying playing the game a lot again, especially in co-op multiplayer.
Outside of the introduction of a number of mechanics, as always, what stands out to me is the relative 'blobbyness' of AI nations. I see a lot of stable big strong countries forming, repeatedly across games, and perhaps even a bit of sameyness in Europe? What's standing out at the moment is that the formation of Russia by Muscovy is basically a given (which was once only frequent or even rare), the PLC lands tend to be consolidated (I'll admit it's not always the Commonwealth as it depends on the event firing or not, but I don't see Commonwealth explosion or other weird things). France is strong but doesn't eat proper into Iberia or HRE. Ottomans start slower, but never fail to become huge. The HRE has remained its usual anything-can-happen cocktail at least.
Anyway, I do enjoy seeing some historical nations go strong, but perhaps miss a bit of the anything can happen feeling. Note that this is my observation from only a dozen of games on the current patch, so the sample set is obviously very limited. I'm curious though what the insight of frequent players is in what changes have led to this. My gut says that it's a stability thing, that perhaps internal struggles like rebellions are less severe than before (at least for the AI). Let me know what you think! Or maybe I'm wrong and you want to tell me why you think that is.
TLDR: medium to large countries in AI hands seem more stable than ever before, which trends in the development of EU4 are the root cause in your opinion?
Recent weeks have seen me return to EU4 after an 18-24 month absence. Having come to grips with most of the changes, I am enjoying playing the game a lot again, especially in co-op multiplayer.
Outside of the introduction of a number of mechanics, as always, what stands out to me is the relative 'blobbyness' of AI nations. I see a lot of stable big strong countries forming, repeatedly across games, and perhaps even a bit of sameyness in Europe? What's standing out at the moment is that the formation of Russia by Muscovy is basically a given (which was once only frequent or even rare), the PLC lands tend to be consolidated (I'll admit it's not always the Commonwealth as it depends on the event firing or not, but I don't see Commonwealth explosion or other weird things). France is strong but doesn't eat proper into Iberia or HRE. Ottomans start slower, but never fail to become huge. The HRE has remained its usual anything-can-happen cocktail at least.
Anyway, I do enjoy seeing some historical nations go strong, but perhaps miss a bit of the anything can happen feeling. Note that this is my observation from only a dozen of games on the current patch, so the sample set is obviously very limited. I'm curious though what the insight of frequent players is in what changes have led to this. My gut says that it's a stability thing, that perhaps internal struggles like rebellions are less severe than before (at least for the AI). Let me know what you think! Or maybe I'm wrong and you want to tell me why you think that is.
TLDR: medium to large countries in AI hands seem more stable than ever before, which trends in the development of EU4 are the root cause in your opinion?
