The Nerf to Prestige - A Great Step Forward?

[saied_88]

Let's face it, prior to 1.11 (or was it 1.10?) prestige was that really useful bonus to your nation that you almost never really paid attention to simply due to the fact that it was ridiculously easy to gain. Stack wiping a couple of 1k stragglers during a war and winning battles in general made it ridiculously easy to maintain high prestige. Enter 1.11 and suddenly decision making is a lot more interesting.

Now that prestige is considerably more difficult to come by (winning humongous battles often gives you no more than 1 or 2 prestige now) a lot of the game's 'useless' missions have actually become worth pursuing. The majority of the generic missions in the game give you a 'measly' 5 prestige but that's not to be taken lightly anymore. Before the nerf I found myself never pursuing these because they weren't worth the effort. What used to be a 'useless mission' is now something definitely worth completing.

Many of the events that fire give you a choice of losing prestige or losing X and I literally ALWAYS found myself choosing to lose prestige pre 1.11. Not the case anymore. You think about it now. It is a priority and effort is required to maintain it. If prestige represents the glory honor and status of a nation then it only makes sense that the majority of nations wont be swimming in it.

I love the new change. It has never been more satisfying to smack that juicy -30 prestige from a peace treaty on France after that long and bloody war that took 80 % of your manpower. What does everyone think?

 

[matk]

I'm with you on this one. Hitting prestige gain with the nerf bat has actually made it relevant. Some missions/decisions actually involve a hard choice now. NIs that have prestige are more useful too. It certainly makes the PU game a little less stable.

Don't get me wrong, its not impossible to keep prestige high, but it takes some effort to do so. The 'Improve our prestige" mission used to be an automatic +1 stability for the first war you fought, but now it might take a couple to get there.

[Note: There could still be some balancing done with regards to decisions/missions providing prestige, but it is already a major improvement from before.]

 

[JolietJake]

I'll agree with this, I would just like to see some of the negative prestige events balanced a bit more to reflect this. A 33 prestige loss or even the 10 loss requires an inordinate amount of time and focus to recoup. Not that I don't think I should spend time and effort to recoup or have negative prestige events, just that the value should be adjusted down now that prestige itself is much more difficult to gain.

 

[Florryworry]

Don't quite understand the -100 to prestige by manning up and telling the pope "You know what, you're doing it wrong."

 

[Mztr44]

It only takes a minor gameplay adjustment and you can farm prestige nearly as easy as before. That being, at least for me, when I would peace out an allied nation in a war i'd ask for ducats. Instead, now I ask them for Concede Defeat. Bam. 10 prestige, after doing this for a few wars and boosting to 100, the prestige you get from winning battles is almost enough to keep you floating near 100 and you can start asking other concessions from allies if you want with the occasional concede defeat as needed.

That said, I do think the change was for the better. It cheapened the worth of Prestige when you could boost it just by wiping a few single stack armies.

 

[AdmiralPrice]

Now I just hope the AI doesn't get huge prestige buffs because, you know, it's an idiot.

 

[kralex]

I whined a lot on this forum about how Prestige is too easy to gain, rendering it meaningless, so naturally I'm delighted by this change. Yes, you can still get Prestige reasonably quickly by demanding Concede Defeat, but what's new is that demanding Concede Defeat is actually worthwhile now. Before, I'd rather have demanded 15 ducats, because I always was at 100 Prestige at the end of a war already. Also, as OP wrote, many of the formerly meaningless missions are now worthwhile. A formerly trivialized game aspect has become relevant again, and the game is richer for it.

 

[lolada]

Agree, both Prestige and Army tradition gain changes are great, gameplay is more interesting and choices are meaningful.

 

[birincikalite]

Noticed that a lot in my England game. Started by getting "Improve our prestige" to get free stability... Couldn't get it even though I had PU'd France...

 

[InFerroVeritas]

I haven't had any trouble racking up prestige since 1.11. Except as Japan. But in that case I was getting wrecked by reactionary rebels, Christian zealots, and -1 prestige/year malus from Western Trade. I'd be concerned if I was even able to hit 0 under those conditions.

 

[Red John]

Not too happy that winning a 'humongous battle' nets you less prestige than making Aachen concede defeat.

 

[josh127]

Don't like it. Random events are far too OP to not give you any prestige unless you're on a major roll. Dump the random event prestige losses and it might be OK, so ask again after they do that and I see how it plays and I might change my mind.

 

[hashinshin]

Don't quite understand the -100 to prestige by manning up and telling the pope "You know what, you're doing it wrong."

Always assumed prestige isn't how you view yourself, but how others view you. Sometimes it doesn't work quite right since your prestige with catholics would be obliterated, but your prestige with protestants would be high.

In either regard, swapping religions would be a massive prestige drop. Can you immune if a devout Catholic randomly decided he was Lutheran now? You'd obviously think less of him.

 

[Violent AI]

Couldn't resist

 

[saied_88]

Not too happy that winning a 'humongous battle' nets you less prestige than making Aachen concede defeat.

Yea definitely with you on this one.

 

[Yxklyx]

The prestige change is great but the army/navy tradition change is a bit severe.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Toning down massive prestige hit events is in order. The less gain is reasonable, but losing 33 because of some ceremony disrupted and not even an alternative option is crazy. Is that ceremony disrupted really more costly to the global prestige of the country than winning dozens of battles and extracting large gains from worst rivals? Is it really worth over six alliances?

 

[Freudia]

I don't really have an opinion on the prestige gain nerf (I haven't played enough of this patch to tell; been too busy), but if prestige is supposed to be how other countries view you, then prestige probably shouldn't affect morale. The unfortunate thing about the change is that it results in a scenario where the winners keep winning and the losers keep losing, at least in theory.

That's probably fine, but for some reason people are averse to snowballing in strategy games.

 

[Johan]

I'll agree with this, I would just like to see some of the negative prestige events balanced a bit more to reflect this. A 33 prestige loss or even the 10 loss requires an inordinate amount of time and focus to recoup. Not that I don't think I should spend time and effort to recoup or have negative prestige events, just that the value should be adjusted down now that prestige itself is much more difficult to gain.

Yeah, events need a large new balance check.

 

[InvisibleSandwi]

I wouldn't mind prestige gain being slightly nudged up, or maybe something like a small over time prestige bonus for being a particularly large or high ranking nation, but the current system is still better and more sensical than going from nothingness to being the world's prestige leader.