There are too many mechanics that penalise the player rather than offer challenges

[Travis_Bickle]

I'm going to be as constructive as possible here. If anyone thinks I am being unreasonable or have misunderstood something about the game, I am open to criticism.

However, I just feel as though there are too many mechanics in the game that penalise the player rather than offer legitimate challenges. I can give you some examples in my current France game (1620 or so).

Let me paint the picture.

Some of you will have seen me bemoaning not getting the BI in another thread. Well on this play through, everything went perfect. I can't complain at all. The first 100 years I did extremely well. However, we're now in a position in which successive 0/2/0 rulers, endless religious wars and revolts whilst watching my rivals the Ottomans build a 320k strong army and Spain colonise most of the world have done me in. It's simply not a challenge, or fun, to spend a half your game under dud rulers who set you back decades on technology, let alone the inability to use colonial ideas, and the debt that comes with constantly fighting rebels.

I'd be fine if this was all a part of my own bad strategy, but I don't see how it is.

Successive 0 something rulers are out of my control. I had a horror situation of disinheriting a 0/1/2 heir to get a 0/2/0 heir. This as the no.1. power in the game and prestige over 90. Obviously this ruler went on to live to 72 when as soon as you get a nice 5/4/5 type ruler they die at 17.

On the admin side, it's impossible to invest in technology, ideas, coring and keep stability up like this. It's pure luck and has nothing to do with my strategy. This also effects my ability to colonise (expansion ideas) and I pretty much had to concede the Americas to Spain.

Then you have the religious wars. Fine, historical event. But I have 21% religious unity, I don't want to turn Protestant or Reformed, and the stability effect means I have at constant 36k stacks of Protestant rebels popping up that totally drain my finances. Is the game forcing me to play Protestant? Is there no way to remain Catholic? It just gets insanely frustrating when your two rivals are dominating half the world and you're still fighting stacks of Protestant rebels in Rethélois. Remember what I said before, no ruler with admin points above 0 for a while means I cannot even complete religious/humanist ideas to combat this. I think I'll spend 100 years fighting rebels trying to get back to 50% religious unity whilst my rivals seemingly blob around no problem...more on that later.

Oh, and to top the insult to injury, just as I finally think maybe my admin points aren't irrevocably bad...comet sighted.

The Ottomans have eaten half the world. A user does that and it's a 100% coalition but seems coalitions don't fire for the AI. A strong Commonwealth, Spain and Russia rival them but refuse to join in a war against them despite the fact the combined manpower could potentially stop them eating the whole world . If they are this big in 1620 by the end of the game they will probably have a 1M man army or something. There's nothing I can do. I can raise 180k men in my forcelimits but with these endless religious wars I won't be able to afford that. In previous versions of the game it was way easier to get allies to join wars but this version makes it extremely hard.

Spain's colonial regions are far bigger than they are as a country (no seriously they own the entire Americas aside from California) and if all their subjects declared war on them they'd be finished, but that never happens.

So I am faced with the fact I am severely disadvantaged in my game to a massive Ottomans and powerful Castile, pretty much because:

1) My rulers since 1500s have never had a points attribute over 3 and have almost always had a 0 if not two. My next heir is a 2/4/1 but when I compare this to my rivals, Spain has a 5/5/5 and the Ottomans have a 5/4/5. It doesn't seem fair.
2) My admin points are continually getting shot by random events.
3) Religious wars in France are broken and seemingly the only way to end them is to spend the rest of my game fighting rebels and converting provinces. Can't do humanist ideas cause no admin points.
4) My finances are terrible from constantly losing men to rebels.
5) Ottoman and Spanish AI has grown insanely huge, no one bothers to try and cut them down to size and I can't negotiate some coalition to prevent them.

Like I said, if you can tell me where my strategy has failed here. I'll admit I am wrong and listen to what you have to say, and your advice, but it doesn't feel like I've done anything wrong here other than suffer at the hands of how RNG based this game is.

I'm fine with challenges and difficulty. I'm really not fine with investing many hours in a game that takes a runny dump on your enjoyment by throwing constant events in your face unrelated to skill that severely disadvantage you.

Does anywhere here actually enjoy fighting rebels for 100 years?

 

[Howl]

Disinherit heirs and abdicating rulers is the way to go. Farm prestige by declaring pointless wars that you can easily win and peace out for stuff you don't want. Cancel rivalries which you have no interest in gives a good return for warscore to prestige. Be it OPM or Ottoman.

Hire higher level advisers. Humanism is a must pick.

Given your other thread on the BI and you stating everything went swimmingly for the first 100 years, I cannot image how your economy could be suffering.

Why do you have so many rebels? Are you in a disaster you cannot get out of?
Religious turmoil is supposed to be a difficult time in Europe. Typically it is not, but from the sound of it you have not expanded much anywhere else and most of your core is flipped. So either suck it up until you can convert the provinces again (annoying) or convert.

So Spain has taken over half the New World? Who cares? They have all these lovely provinces right next to you that will give you massive warscore in any war. And they will even refuse to defend them. Declare on Spain whenever you feel like it. Take strategic forts in Iberia, to make them less annoying. Other first take all their new provinces in non colonial nations, like Cape and all the Islands. Then in future wars, you don't have to go there and occupying mainland Spain will be all there is needed to win any war easily. Then fully annex them for all the colonies you ever wanted.

Ottoman is a lucky nation and gets reduced AI. Also user bias. They most likely do not expand fast enough to cause any coalition anyway. AIs hardly ever do.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Disinherit heirs and abdicating rulers is the way to go. Farm prestige by declaring pointless wars that you can easily win and peace out for stuff you don't want. Cancel rivalries which you have no interest in gives a good return for warscore to prestige. Be it OPM or Ottoman.

Hire higher level advisers. Humanism is a must pick.

Given your other thread on the BI and you stating everything went swimmingly for the first 100 years, I cannot image how your economy could be suffering.

Why do you have so many rebels? Are you in a disaster you cannot get out of?
Religious turmoil is supposed to be a difficult time in Europe. Typically it is not, but from the sound of it you have not expanded much anywhere else and most of your core is flipped. So either suck it up until you can convert the provinces again (annoying) or convert.

So Spain has taken over half the New World? Who cares? They have all these lovely provinces right next to you that will give you massive warscore in any war. And they will even refuse to defend them. Declare on Spain whenever you feel like it. Take strategic forts in Iberia, to make them less annoying. Other first take all their new provinces in non colonial nations, like Cape and all the Islands. Then in future wars, you don't have to go there and occupying mainland Spain will be all there is needed to win any war easily. Then fully annex them for all the colonies you ever wanted.

Ottoman is a lucky nation and gets reduced AI. Also user bias. They most likely do not expand fast enough to cause any coalition anyway. AIs hardly ever do.

The prestige hit me from continually disinheriting heirs is rough. That's what I did, several times, but it's rough even hiring Prestige advisors.

My economy is wrecked from constantly fighting rebels, who have just forced converted me to Reformed so my save is over and I can't be bothered to start a new one.

I have so many rebels because I have/had 21% unity from the religious wars in which almost all my provinces turned Reformed. What was I supposed to do?

I can't even afford to core a province from Spain and I'm fairly sure they'd beat me in a war.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

To be honest the unrealistic French wars of religion annoys me more than anything else.

 

[Howl]

Like I said, if you can tell me where my strategy has failed here. I'll admit I am wrong and listen to what you have to say, and your advice, but it doesn't feel like I've done anything wrong here other than suffer at the hands of how RNG based this game is.

To be honest, I think this is the problem. You don't know where you went wrong.
Screenshots would help alot for people trying to give you advice.

Diplomatic situation, economy, military, rebels etc. Even the armies of the world ledger.
How could Spain possibly beat you in a war? After your BI thread I would expect you to hold France proper, received the main part of Burgundy et al, with random PUs and vassals in other places.

As for disinheriting. Yes it is a harsh penalty. It also is a harsh decision, quite uncommon historically. That is why you have to go out of your way to farm prestige if you have to disinherit alot.

What is it that makes the french war of religion so unrealistic? Religious strife and civil war are terrible.
From a gameplay perspective and reading up on them on the wiki I would say the disaster should be avoided at all costs. Seems the simplest way is to complete humanist ideas before the Age of Reformation, which is a good idea anyway.

So after reading the wiki, I conclude you did actually trigger the desaster and cannot get out of it. And it is destroying your country, which is not so surprising given the events associated with it.

 

[Tarroque]

I often forget to do this myself, but have you been placing crap rulers/heirs as the commanding general of the 1st "Lone Warrior" Suicide Regiment?

 

[schaedel]

I don't see any problem, to be honest. France proper, rebels or not, is for sure rich enough to afford 1 single Lvl 2 advisor. So, if need arises: Focus ADM, 1 Lvl 2 ADM-advisor and not to forget clergy-estate privilege (forgot the name) Even with 0 ADm that will provide 8 points each month, if that is not enough, I don't know. And are there events which take ADM-points without a choice? I can't recall one

 

[st360]

There are too little punishing mechanics. The evidence for that being that a 2/2/2 development Asian island can conquer the world and has a achievement for it. Or the achievement for a Indian minor owning Germany.

I think the game would be more varied if every national idea set had 2-3 bad national ideas to reflect the negative aspects that nation had to deal with (like general backwardness for Russia, or Hapsburg inbreeding for Austria).

You're just complaining about a specific problem of lack of monarch points (or I suspect just a lack of admin points), and while there are ways around it, I do agree that they are a ridiculous RNG bottleneck.

 

[cuendillar]

From what you wrote, you clearly lacked the willingness to adapt your strategy to circumstances. The strength (and locations) of the reformation varies from game to game, insisting on staying Catholic when the circumstances clearly were worse than usual for doing so wasn't exactly a good strategic move.

Long timeperiods with poor rulers is restrictive, but your error there too might very well have been that you were unwilling to adapt and wanted to play as if you had an average/good ruler. Hitting Spain when their forces are overseas could have let you seize money and warreps without too much trouble (it's just 35 warscore), maybe with a humiliation thrown in for good measure (50+ gives one extra monarch point/category) and kept Spain weaker. You could then use the money to either build buildings or deficit-spend on advisors to catch up on tech. The Ottomans should've been kept from expanding by allying strong nations around them, in order to keep those safe for as long as possible.

Also, with 0 adm rulers, why are you even considering getting those idea groups? They may be strong otherwise, but not if another useful group can be filled much faster.

There were other ways to deal with the rebels than to throw away your manpower and money on them as well. Honestly, your best bet is probably to allow yourself to be force-converted by rebels to get out of the disaster first. It's a concession, but knowing when to admit a temporary defeat will let you come back to your full strength sooner.

 

[WolframS67]

To be honest the unrealistic French wars of religion annoys me more than anything else.

The normal religious disaster during the age of reformation "Religious Turmoil" is fairly harmless. The "French Wars of Religion" is highly unpleasant, because the finishing conditions are really harsh.
Several differnt ways to counter it:

• Flip Protestant or Reformed when available and convert provinces with the additional +10% missionary strength for 10 years. With the additional help of CoR the country should be stable within 10 years.
• Take Humanist as first or second idea group, before the Age of Reformation. Always a solid choice in Central Europe.
• Enable the "Edict of Nantes". That is a decision for France, available if 3 provinces have been auto-converted by the reformation. It gives +2 ToHer, -1 ToT, +25% RU. Should suffice to keep the RU above +75%.
• Once one province is auto-converted send a missionary. It is not possible to convert this province back to Catholic because of "religious zeal". The idea is to provoke unrest in this province and have Protestant (or Reformed) Zealots appear as a Rebel Faction. Then "accept demands". That gives +4 ToHer, -3 ToT and -10% missionary strength for 10 years. Means -3 unrest in Catholic provinces, but because of the way RU is calculated the +4 ToHer gives a boost to RU. So RU should be above +75%, even if half the country has heretic provinces. This can be repeated every 10 years and it is even possible during wars to "accept demands" of these Zealot Rebels.
• Try to slow down the progress of the disaster. Legitimacy for example effects tolerance of all religions, which effects RU.
• Let another disaster trigger first, that you can handle better. More a general idea, situational.

If the disaster already started:

• What do the Rebels want? Sometimes it is possible and better to accept their demands.
• Declare a war. Let your allies or/and enemies fight your rebels. Situational.

 

[Gm_Kaiser]

I often forget to do this myself, but have you been placing crap rulers/heirs as the commanding general of the 1st "Lone Warrior" Suicide Regiment?

If I recall correctly, sending in a suicide army doesn't increase the likelihood that a ruler will die. Simply making your ruler a general that is leading increases likihood he'll die, doesn't matter how much combat he's in.

 

[damnt512]

You complain about playing France ? Seriously ?

 

[K'shar]

To be honest, sounds like a great game. When I play a major, challenge is gone 100-150 yrs in

 

[sekelsenmat]

To be honest the unrealistic French wars of religion annoys me more than anything else.

French Wars of Religion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Casualties and losses
Approximately 3,000,000 killed

I hope you know that for the smaller populations of the time, this was a World War-like event for France, the country was absolutely devastated. The only unrealistic thing is probably that in the game you can simply convert to reformed and be done with it, and that remaining catholic is too hard. In reality the wars would continue anyway even if the central power converted. The rebels would be the catholics instead simply.

In Germany the same world war-like event happened, that's the 30 years war.

 

[Silvanel]

I dont know if this is solution for You, but if You take religious as third idea group and expand fast enough You can keep RU high enough simply by covnerting all those sunni/fetishist/animist provinces in Africa to catholic.

 

[Tarroque]

If I recall correctly, sending in a suicide army doesn't increase the likelihood that a ruler will die. Simply making your ruler a general that is leading increases likihood he'll die, doesn't matter how much combat he's in.

That was changed with Emperor

 

[sekelsenmat]

That was changed with Emperor

In the free patch?

 

[iClipse]

Seems like several things went wrong. I might be echoing what others have said in this thread, but:
1) Humanism. Make it a habit of taking this idea group early and in every run. While I'm recently having more fun with Religious ideas, Humanism just makes a run so much easier and run smoother. A lot of the advantages that it offers are less obvious. But in short, Humanism gives you fewer rebels. Fewer rebels means you have to spend less money on army and can spend more time with low army maintenance. You also don't need to convert everything, saving you money on missionaries. The fact that you're saving money, also means you can start building temples and workshops everywhere sooner, which gives a snowballing effect -> More manufacturies sooner -> earlier access to lvl 3-5 advisors. Fighting fewer rebels also means you have more manpower, so you can go to war more often and don't have a fallout from a war where you spent all your money and manpower.
Adding on this, humanism makes the religious wars a breeze, since your religious unity won't tank as much.
As you're still learning the game, Humanism just gives you the easy way out until you've mastered it (and even then, it's a top tier idea group in single player).

The 'cant' do humanism because of admin power seems like a weak excuse. Even with a 0 admin power leader, you can do it. Focus admin. Get the privilege from the church estate, get an advisor. That's +4 admin power/month without ruler and without the base 3 admin power you can get each month. Falling behind admin tech for a while is not an issue. If you're conquering stuff while so low on admin, and your nation is falling apart, your priorities aren't right.

2) Stability. Make sure your stability is always at least +1. Going from 0 tot +1 costs as much as going from -1 to 0, but starting at -1 you get quite a few negative modifiers. Being at +1 stab gives 2 benefits: prosperity and the fact that a random stab drop through an event doesn't hurt you so much, since being at 0 stability has no downsides in contrast to being at -1.

3) Your rulers and your heirs. Everyone gets the dreaded 0-2-1 ruler once in a while because of a bad combination of circumstances. It's not a big issue. It's a big issue if he stays a ruler for 50 years though. Especially as a Monarchy, you have several ways of getting rid of him. First, make your ruler a general an drill your army when possible with him. Drilling gives increased chance of dying. Second, abdicate when possible. Regarding your heirs, always disinherit below average heirs. Say you get a 3/3/2 ruler, you can decide to keep it, depending on your current prestige and prestige generation. If you're for example at 0 prestige, and only gaining about +1/year, you might want to keep that heir. If you're at +100 and still gaining prestige, disinherit is the obvious choice. That said, prestige is easy to come by, especially as France and next to the HRE. The simple trick is the following. Declare on whatever nation that you feel like you can win against easily. The more (small) allies it has, the better. CB doesn't really matter, we're not doing this for the conquest. Full occupy any minor in the war, and seperate peace them for: removing all rivals and allies. This gives about 10-15 prestige for every seperate truce, while not giving any aggressive expansion. Do this and you can farm 50-75 prestige in a single war. Bonus points if you can make the HRE emperor weaker.

Ottoman always has great leaders because of their government. The fact that Spain has a great leader is either due to event or because of luck. The AI has equally often (if not more) bad leaders than the player.

4) Trade and money. France has fantastic provinces, but a really terrible trade set up. You're kind of sandwiched in between two major trade nodes, while not really benefiting from either. Focus on conquering either the Genoa trade node, or the English channel. I recommend the English channel, but both are great.

Regarding the rant on Ottoman and aggressive expansion. They don't get coalitioned mostly because of the religious setup. If you conquer a catholic province, catholic countries will get mad at you. If ottoman conquer an orthodox province, othodox countries will get mad at them. Except, there aren't many, and they're often far from each other. The Ottomans also have a luck bonus, permanent claims and lot of different religions around them, so they don't get coalitioned often. Still, France is an absolute powerhouse (Imo the strongest starting country in the game). If you're conquering provinces from cobeligirents for example, you'll get coalitioned much more quickly, since it gives double aggressive expansion. And next to the HRE it's even more AE.

 

[RobbieAB]

• Take Humanist as first or second idea group, before the Age of Reformation. Always a solid choice in Central Europe.

Isn't this like "How to cope with Europe 101"? I mean, I don't think I have ever played a Europe game since I was a complete noob where this wasn't a massive part of my idea group selection process. Sure, sometimes I wouldn't actually take it, but I would know exactly what risk I was taking.

If you are playing in Europe and you aren't taking one off religious or humanist, you must have a plan to deal with the reformation. It sounds like @Travis_Bickle neither picked one of these idea groups, AND failed to have a plan to cope with the reformation. This is a strategic failure (though a very easy strategic failure to make!).

 

[EarlKonrad]

In the free patch?

Yes