Things to be Done to Improve Golden Century

[Dakka]

Originally, I posted this on the final DD of 2018. I was told to post it here instead. It will no doubt get far less views here, but I guess this is the only way I can get this complaints out and in the public eye. Without further introduction:

While I appreciate your promise to listen to feedback, @DDRJake, I would like to take a few moments to give you some feedback of my own.
I was unable to speak much on the development of Golden Century during development, something that I honestly regret as I'm sure some people on the forums who know me would be able to attest that Iberia is my "pet" region. It's no secret the controversy surrounding this Immersion Pack, and I will openly say I wasn't overly thrilled with it either.

However, I am not one who enjoys kicking a dead horse. Rather, I would like to give my personal thoughts on the content itself and how it can be improved in a way that could alleviate many of the woes expressed on the forum, and hopefully redeem the DLC (and patch), at least partially, in the eyes of the community.
These being:

• Portuguese Ideas - I won't go into detail as these have been discussed ad infinitum, but Portuguese Ideas need to be overhauled. Their current set gives them the worst military in the game and, as a result, one of the worst idea sets in the game. I'd highly recommend taking a look at a lot of the suggestions listed here. Portugal was certainly not known as a military powerhouse (especially when compared to the other European colonizers), but it wasn't a pushover either, and I think it at the very least deserves some form of naval buff to represent their navy that was very competent during the first half of the game.
  
  
• Flagships - They need to have their costs changed. @Van Kasten went into great detail in this thread. To summarize my particular two issues: 1. there is no reason to not take a heavy, especially when all three flagships cost the same amount of ducats. 2. multiple flagships would make sense for larger navies. Something like +1 for every hundred naval force limit would be good and could allow you to have more than one flagship to try various combinations rather than just the "best" one every time.
  Aside: The Spanish Armada giving naval attrition reduction is a bit of a sick joke and should probably be changed, don't you agree? Naval maintenance cost or some such, I think, would be much more appropriate.
  
  
• Pirate Republics - Having these be able to have a much more effective republic and administration than legitimate governments (ie Merchant Republics) is honestly very silly and I think is a significant reason as to why many people refer to these as "fantasy" or "meme" governments. I would highly suggest placing a state count malus on Pirate republics, raise their autonomy floor, or some other penalty built directly into their government form to reflect the fact that these loose confederations were not actual states. Furthermore, some sort of penalty to diplomacy, such as a diplomatic reputation hit, I feel, would be appropriate.
  
  
• The Iberian Map - Without meaning to sound hostile, I would also like to point out that the quality of the Iberian map was not up to the higher standards presented in other regions or patches, such as India in 1.26 "Mughals" patch, the Middle East in the 1.23 "Persia" patch, or even the work done in the Caribbean in the current patch. I humbly request taking some time to do some further tweaking to this region, perhaps using the "Common Proposal" compiled by @navaluiki and the other members of the forum or @Mingmung's Iberian Map proposal for inspiration.
  
  
• The Council of the Indies - I will refrain from going into too much detail, as I have already recently posted a thread on this matter here, but this reform for the Iberians needs to be changed to something else. It currently gives a discount to the exact opposite to what the Iberians did, does not match the description of the reform itself, and should be replaced by a more fitting modifier, such as reduced Liberty Desire or extra colonial growth.
  
  
• Smaller Nitpicks -
  1. The Navarra Personal Union event should relinquish Aragon's hold on Naples, should they choose to pursue it, as historically, Aragon split its dynasty between the Crown of Aragon and Naples.
  2. Granada should not have a core on Ceuta, as far as I am aware. I don't know of any historical basis for it, but if prove otherwise I would be more than happy to retract this complaint.
  3. The Reconquista mission should check for Muslims rather than non-Catholics in Iberia. The current set-up leads to Tenerife preventing the continuation of the tree, which is honestly a bit odd.
  4. The Isabel event should have its MTTH reduced from 1000 months. Other historical WiH rulers, such as Catherine the Great and the Ottoman Sultana both have a MTTH of 200 months, despite having better statistics than Isabel. I have already mentioned this to @neondt and I would like to follow-up on this conversation. The only reason I can think of this limit would be to "balance" the Iberian wedding, but seeing as that is already likely to happen through player intervention when playing as Castille, I do not believe a reduction in her MTTH to be that much of a game-breaker.
  

Anyway, these are my personal issues with the DLC that do not (at least from what I can tell) drastically alter the design of the Immersion Pack, nor require any additionally programming work to be done. Most should be fairly easy changes that can be done in a matter of minutes (such as Council of the Indies or Isabel's MTTH). I truly do believe that most of these concerns are shared by a significant portion of the community unhappy with the Immersion Pack/Patch and addressing these would do a great deal towards the current attitude towards your latest product, as well as be a show of good faith and that you truly are ready and willing to listen to the feedback being presented to you.
I hope you found the time to read through my post and I would like to thank you for doing so if you have made it this far. I can't necessarily speak for the community as a whole, but for myself I will say: I don't hate you, I'm not trying to talk down to you, I am simply voicing my concerns as a loyal customer and what I would like to see from you as a developer.

 

[twinxor]

Thank you -- this sums up a lot of the weakness I was seeing in "Siglo de Oro".

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

Nice suggestions!

Flagships - They need to have their costs changed. @Van Kasten went into great detail in this thread. To summarize my particular two issues: 1. there is no reason to not take a heavy, especially when all three flagships cost the same amount of ducats. 2. multiple flagships would make sense for larger navies. Something like +1 for every hundred naval force limit would be good and could allow you to have more than one flagship to try various combinations rather than just the "best" one every time.

Tie them to the number of admirals. It makes sense in terms of flavour (flagships are almost by definition the ship captained by the admiral), it increases the cost in a subtle and imo more strategic way, since now you also have to hire admirals and give up a leader slot, it keeps the number of flagships low, and doesn't cause snowballing like tying it to FL would.

Granada should not have a core on Ceuta, as far as I am aware. I don't know of any historical basis for it, but if prove otherwise I would be more than happy to retract this complaint.

I believe the Nasrids held Ceuta for a few years during the 14th century, but on that basis you could just as easily give Morocco a core in, say, Gibraltar. The relationship between Granada and Morocco was very complex, constantly meddling with each other's dynastic struggles, allying and attacking each other, etc. It would be much better captured in CKII. Still, giving a core to Gibraltar in Ceuta seems very strange to me, from both historical consistency and gameplay perspectives.

 

[ElGranCapitan]

Small things that I'd like to see:
The tercio age ability should be available to Castile as well as Spain (just like the Commonwealth age ability is available to Poland as well). Tercio were founded in the 1490s, when the Age of Reformation begins in game, not the 1530s when tech 10 allows forming Spain. Castile/Spain is the only nation that has it's age ability only available for two thirds of the age
The mission tree should be expanded with mission to conquer North Africa and fight the Ottomans in the Mediterranean. That part is sadly missing, I was surprised to find no mission referencing the Conquest of Tunis

 

[Franciscus123]

Very much agree. The Portuguese Ideas and the map changes seem to me the most pressing concerns, and easy to tackle at the same time due to the gargantuan amount of community support and feedback for them.

 

[Dakka]

Tie them to the number of admirals.

That sounds a bit abuseable if one spammed admirals. I think limiting it by force limit would be a bit better in that regard. Unless of course admirals gain their own leader slot seperste from generals, and flagship was based on the Admiral cap. In that case I would fully support your idea

Jake said he liked how my thread was presented and that they were “actionable”, so hopefully we may see some of these in an upcoming Hotfix or patch.

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

That sounds a bit abuseable if one spammed admirals. I think limiting it by force limit would be a bit better in that regard. Unless of course admirals gain their own leader slot seperste from generals, and flagship was based on the Admiral cap. In that case I would fully support your idea

Sure, that would be even better yeah, I also really like the idea of separating the idea slots. But even without that change, are flagships really so good that you would be willing to spend the 50 dip and pay the extra monthly mil on top of all the ducat costs just to have more of them?

Edit: I should clarify, when I first proposed the change (not here) I also suggested that the number of 'active' flagships in a sea tile would be restricted to one -- no stacking of bonuses on a single fleet or sea battle, you can just have more of them running around.

 

[Dakka]

I should clarify, when I first proposed the change (not here) I also suggested that the number of 'active' flagships in a sea tile would be restricted to one -- no stacking of bonuses on a single fleet or sea battle, you can just have more of them running around.

Yes, I recall reading this from you before. I’d actually tweak it a bit so that only the “Fleet” modifiers get cancelled out. Makes no sense for a ship to suddenly have less cannons or a weaker hull by being in the presence of another ship

The tercio age ability should be available to Castile as well as Spain (just like the Commonwealth age ability is available to Poland as well).

Yes, this is definitely an annoying problem with the age bonuses. Would make sense for these to be shared with their “parent” tags.

 

[Generaloberst_ZA]

Make Portuguese ideas great again!!!!!!!!!

 

[SoCCo]

Hello man,

Thanks for taking your time to write all of this down, i'll reply with my own feedback to your post, please don't hate me for my opinions.

• Portuguese Ideas - why in the name of Lord of Whatever should Portugal get military ideas? their military achievements:
  • conquest of a bunch of primitives who never knew what Iron or Bronze is.
  • lost it's king Sebastian I and most of the army (nobles) against Morocco at the battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578
    
  • won an independence war against a Spain that was fighting 3 wars at the same time: vs the Dutch (80 years war), vs the French 1635–59 while helping the emperor in the 30 years war (besides the huge financial and military costs to keep their empire alive across the world and keep the Ottomans/Barbary pirates down in the Medit.)
  • lost/won some battles in the Indian Ocean against weak Indian states or against the Mamluks who were technologically inept at that point(the same reason they lost against the Ottomans - inability to use fireweapons other than as cannons).
  • lost a big part of their colonial empire against the Dutch, who by all means have rather poor military ideas for what they achieved.
  • every single European war they got involved, it was always someone else doing the fighting for them.

let me get more into this "military ideas for Portugal" thingy here. Denmark, Saxony, Netherlands, Bavaria, Venice, Savoy have worse military ideas than they should have. We're talking about nations that actually meant something in terms of military prowess during the time frame covered by EU4. meanwhile the Portuguese achieved mostly exploration, conquest of natives and trade - and their NIs represent it well. you are able to reach the natives of Africa, Indonesia and Americas quicker than anyone else, you don't have strong NIs, but you have a huge bonus on Tech against them, because you know, institutions and all that, besides the strong West European cultural unit pipes and being fairly safe, as long as you keep Spain or France as an ally in Europe, which means a lot, since you can basically move your entire fleet and army to bear against anyone in the said continents without being worried that you will be invaded at home. Let's talk about Denmark, Saxony, Netherlands, Bavaria, Venice and Savoy:

• Venice - it was one of the main nations that fought and developed tactics and technologies in the first 120 years of the game. It got somewhat crushed by an alliance of biggest powers in Europe at that time during the War of the League of Cambrai, until France changed sides. The final blow came from the Ottomans when they were at their peak power and started to pick off their islands one after the other.
• Saxony and Bavaria are both weak militarily, considering their NIs, they both were major factions in the 30 years war and pretty much all wars that happened after that between the Hapsburgs, France, Ottomans or others. They are no Prussia-Brandenburg, or Austria for that matter, but they were much stronger than Portugal.
• Savoy - they had limited involvement in the Italian Wars and 30 Years War, but their power only increased after that, to the point where they were the only major native Italian power, besides the Pope, that helped them unify the country. they packed a punch far greater than they are represented in the game, with their 0 military NIs and weak economy to even try to sustain an army, especially since they are bordering or eventually will border BBB, Austria, Spain and possibly others. They are so weak, they can't outlive Milan and Burgundy, which they actually did.
• Denmark - heirs of the viking age, are represented as a joke that tries to do trade while being blocked by HRE in the south, England on the seas and Lion of the North in well, the North. their only room of expansion is in the Baltics, where they'll have to fight off Commonblob or Russia. What makes them important? well, read some history about the Danish involvement into all the wars covered by EU4. sure, they fought and lost, mostly against Sweden, but they sure packed a punch and they were hard to take down, something that is not represented by their NIs.
• Netherlands NOT HOLLAND - the fathers of early modern infantry tactics and those that took the art of fortress building and sieging in 1580s to what became the norm for the next 250 years. Their NIs give them 10% fire damage and 10% siege ability, skipping the naval ideas/traditions. what they lack is the force limit modifier, discipline and military tech advantage over others, or the fact that they were the supreme innovators in pretty much everything. they didn't invent everything, but what they didn't introduce themselves, they picked it up quick and made it better (i'm looking at institutions mechanics here). Netherlands' land is easy to develop and reach a big force limit. They lack the discipline they were known for, they lack any notion of Mil Tech bonus or at least Infantry CA, but they wrote the book how infantry should fight from 1580 until way after 1821. Netherlands needs different ideas than Holland, something that can allow them to be the military monster they were, able to fight multiple large enemies at the same time on both land and sea (naval wars vs England, 80 years war vs Spain's empire, later wars against France). They only failed due to the disunity of late 18th century and Napoleon, but that's in the 1790s and the game will be over really soon.

I'm sorry, but all of you Portugese fanboys who cry about NIs fail to admit one fact that the love for your country blinds from you (and i respect your love for your country, but that should not affect EU4): your nation was great at something: exploration and trade. their NIs represent it. their position allows them to create a huge trade and colonial empire, while being really safe at home (just ally Castille/Spain, and if they turn off the alliance with you for whatever reasons, ally France against them instead).

Some of you have asked for better age mechanics, or better ideas that allow them to colonize or trade, or more naval provinces that represent the big sailor pool and naval force limit - i fully agree with you on this one, but you're no European Military power in any way. you couldn't even beat Morocco and your current capital was conquered from Muslims by English crusaders on their way to the Holy Lands, same English(or later British) troops defended it against Napoleon during the Peninsular War and your Independence war was against a nation committed to 3 large European wars that went bankrupt multiple times in the recent history. Had Spain been at peace with France and the Dutch, not fighting the Dutch and active against the Muslim powers in the East, they would have crushed Portugal. I think it's unfair to consider giving Portugal land NIs that would put them on par with Netherlands, after all, they fought their Independence War for 80 years, most of it on their own with limited support from England or France. You started your Independence War against a financially weak and militarily overextended Spain and only won because they were too busy to give you enough of a slap.

• Flagships - Almost every Flagship of note in any important battle was what is represented as a Heavy. Ventians, Swedes, Genoese - all "great galley" nations had famous Galleon type ships as Flagships. There is no reason to take a lightship Flagship either. Should the cost be less for Light/Galleys? HELL NO. why? because only few nations ever afforded the expense of Flagship that was different than any other standard ship-of-the-line in their arsenal. Right now, a rich Lubeck/Hamburg can easily afford a flagship, while in history Hamburg had none and Lubeck only got one. if someone wants to get a Light/Galley flagship for whatever purpose, they should be allowed to do that, the cost in ducats is meaningless. should nations like GB, Netherlands, Spain, Ottomans, France, an Indian SuperState, Ming/Qing be allowed to build more flagships? sure yes, 1 flagship for every 100 Naval Force Limit should be a thing, with some tweeks to fleet bonuses, if both Flagships are present in the same Fleet/Battle. Maybe Naval Leaders should be split from the Land one and somehow we're able to assign a Naval Leader to a Flagship and only in that case the Flagship will apply bonuses, without a Naval Leader the ship will be standard version what it was made from (Heavy/Light/Galley)
  
  
• Pirate Republics - yarrrrr, i agree that this should be done better and more balanced.
  
  
• The Iberian Map - without going into details, Iberia never had the population of Indian continent, or the multitude of small nations that have to be represented. Take a look at how India looked before Dharma and Mughal/Persia patches that affected the region and take a look at it now. Number of nations and provinces doesn't represent development and speaking of development, never in the history of the world, was Iberia on the whole, more developed in terms of manpower or economy than the Indian region - NEVER. pretty much same thing could be said of Iran+Iraq+whateverstan (greater Persia). you have no basis to point fingers at India and cry that Iberia didn't get the same amount of love. it's same with me pointing fingers at some rich dude who got his Ferrari and Yacht from his papa and has sex with super models, my dad's name is not Oligarch McRich, means i have to live my life on my limits, and mapwise, Iberia has reached it's limits, at least compared with much richer and less well done maps of Europe (wink wink at Italy, HRE (Germany, Swiss, Bohemian crown lands, Austria), Greater Netherlands and France.
  

I understand the pain of Iberians in general, who most likely got excited after finding out that Iberia was next Immersion pack, especially after Dharma, Russia and other Immersion packs
did so much for those regions. Hell, i'm Romanian, if DDRJake would announce Immersion pack of Romanian region, i would be excited too, but i would never expect EU4's NIs of Moldavia and Wallachia give them something like +300% morale, +50 discipline and freakin' Tiger Tanks for Cavalry and F22s for Arty when it has no basis from historical point of view. I love all 4 "major" Iberian nations (sorry Navarre). I love all 4 of them because they are all fun, they were fun before, but now with the new additions (Holy Orders being a huge one), it makes things even better. Portugal could use some love when it comes to sea provinces, but EU4 devs should not touch NIs, not to give them any land ideas at any rate. I'm really sorry, but your achievements between 1444 and 1821 make you as relevant as a Romanian principality or some other minor nation that didn't do many great things about land warfare.

lastly, NIs never represent people's dreams, or bad things. they represent 7 ideas, 2 traditions and 1 ambition (10 in all) bonuses to what they were known for, best 10 things if they were known for more things. in very few cases, NIs are tweeking a nation to help them for game ballance, like Russia's Advisor cost/corruption reduction ideas, who make me wonder how come Russia is so known for fighting corruption or cheap advisors.

I wish you lovely holidays.

 

[Zephyrum]

• conquest of a bunch of primitives who never knew what Iron or Bronze is.

• lost/won some battles in the Indian Ocean against weak Indian states or against the Mamluks who were technologically inept at that point(the same reason they lost against the Ottomans - inability to use fireweapons other than as cannons).

You could've just stopped there - you're about as wrong as it possibly gets.

Many of these "weak Indian states" were far wealthier than european monarchs could ever dream of being. The sack of Malacca alone rendered more wealth to the average soldier than nobles in Portugal would make in some years. Let alone when compared to empoverished eastern states like Wallachia or Moldavia.

 

[Franciscus123]

Hello man,

Thanks for taking your time to write all of this down, i'll reply with my own feedback to your post, please don't hate me for my opinions.

• Portuguese Ideas - why in the name of Lord of Whatever should Portugal get military ideas? their military achievements:
  • conquest of a bunch of primitives who never knew what Iron or Bronze is.
  • lost it's king Sebastian I and most of the army (nobles) against Morocco at the battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578
    
  • won an independence war against a Spain that was fighting 3 wars at the same time: vs the Dutch (80 years war), vs the French 1635–59 while helping the emperor in the 30 years war (besides the huge financial and military costs to keep their empire alive across the world and keep the Ottomans/Barbary pirates down in the Medit.)
  • lost/won some battles in the Indian Ocean against weak Indian states or against the Mamluks who were technologically inept at that point(the same reason they lost against the Ottomans - inability to use fireweapons other than as cannons).
  • lost a big part of their colonial empire against the Dutch, who by all means have rather poor military ideas for what they achieved.
  • every single European war they got involved, it was always someone else doing the fighting for them.

First off, it's not only only the Portuguese "fanboys" calling for better national ideas, a lot of players here have been vocal about it. A lot of threads and posts have been written about it, and they all have the sufficient historical research behind it. The points you are presenting completely fail to respond to those. King Sebastian was a once in a time thing, and one can easily find something similar with every nation in Eu4. Primitives who did not know what iron or bronze was? That is just uneducated if you're calling Morocco, the India States, the mamluks and many others in India primitives. The independence war against spain lasted 60 years and by the end of it be best Spanish troops had been relocated to Portugal - Spain failed to take it back. And you say Portugal fought Spain while the latter was fighting a 3 sided war, well Portugal was busy retaking its empire from the Dutch in the Dutch Portuguese War. What do you mean by every single european war someone else was fighting for Portugal? After the 17th century maybe yes, a lot of foreign support was provided, but for more than half of the period, Portuguese armies punched well above its weight. You also fail to address the naval prowess of the country, which dominated the seas well into the 16th century - lets not forget who the harbingers of the carrack and galleons were. Then you go on to say other nations also need to have their military ideas addressed - no one here as said otherwise, and I personally agree that for example Denmark should have something like infantry combat ability. All in all, you are simply nitpicking without having a look at the bigger picture. The only reason Portugal succeeded as it did was because of its outstanding navy, the skill of its commanders (at least until the 17th century) and because it had a first mover advantage in exploration - it never colonised has extensively as the game makes it seem because of its extremely low manpower/population, it is the first thing we are taught in school about the Portuguese empire - since it focused on taking strategic cities in rich trade routes and then dominating through its navy. The "colonisation" of Brasil happened mostly through slaves and plantations, and not many ethnic portuguese moved there until late 18th century and particularly until Napoleon invaded Portugal at the end of the EU4 timeframe. Not to mention Angola and Mozambique, which were hardly colonised with ethnic Portuguese at all until the late 19th, early 20th century. All in all, for most of the timeframe of EU4, Portugal deserves some military love, especially in terms of naval military ideas - no one is asking for it to be a green Prussia, or the Prussia of the south, and I don't know how many times i have said this now. Just someone to do their research right, which you clearly haven't by calling us fanboys and saying Indians, Mamluks, Ottomans and Mallaccans, to name a few, primitives. Look at some of the other threads will you?

 

[navaluiki]

• The Iberian Map - without going into details, Iberia never had the population of Indian continent, or the multitude of small nations that have to be represented. Take a look at how India looked before Dharma and Mughal/Persia patches that affected the region and take a look at it now. Number of nations and provinces doesn't represent development and speaking of development, never in the history of the world, was Iberia on the whole, more developed in terms of manpower or economy than the Indian region - NEVER. pretty much same thing could be said of Iran+Iraq+whateverstan (greater Persia). you have no basis to point fingers at India and cry that Iberia didn't get the same amount of love. it's same with me pointing fingers at some rich dude who got his Ferrari and Yacht from his papa and has sex with super models, my dad's name is not Oligarch McRich, means i have to live my life on my limits, and mapwise, Iberia has reached it's limits, at least compared with much richer and less well done maps of Europe (wink wink at Italy, HRE (Germany, Swiss, Bohemian crown lands, Austria), Greater Netherlands and France.

First of all. Can you explain then why the island of Great Britain has so many provinces when there were just two countries there? Scotland alone has like 12 or 13 provinces and England has 29. So we have a 43 province Great Britain splitted in just 2 nations that didn't even changed their borders (as Scotland still existed after creating the UK). Even the isle of Mann is province, come on.
By the way, how can you say the Netherland is less well done? Some provinces of Iberia are misplaced. For example, 3 of the 4 provinces of Valencia barely cover their city. And central Spain is still covered by large, ugly provinces. And they were not that unpopulated either. Just the province of Valladolid alone was already more populated than Scotland for example.
So what we hoped was just a map of Iberia as detailed as other regions of Europe that were recently patched (yeah I'm going to bring Scotland as an example again).
I'm not saying Italy or the Low Countries can't be improved, actually I'd like to see them enhanced, but they are currently a 1000 times better than the map of Iberia, despite having it been patched less than a month ago and having "its own DLC" (yeah I put " because it wasn't even focused on Iberia)

Hello man,

Thanks for taking your time to write all of this down, i'll reply with my own feedback to your post, please don't hate me for my opinions.

• Portuguese Ideas - why in the name of Lord of Whatever should Portugal get military ideas? their military achievements:
  • conquest of a bunch of primitives who never knew what Iron or Bronze is.
  • lost it's king Sebastian I and most of the army (nobles) against Morocco at the battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578
    
  • won an independence war against a Spain that was fighting 3 wars at the same time: vs the Dutch (80 years war), vs the French 1635–59 while helping the emperor in the 30 years war (besides the huge financial and military costs to keep their empire alive across the world and keep the Ottomans/Barbary pirates down in the Medit.)
  • lost/won some battles in the Indian Ocean against weak Indian states or against the Mamluks who were technologically inept at that point(the same reason they lost against the Ottomans - inability to use fireweapons other than as cannons).
  • lost a big part of their colonial empire against the Dutch, who by all means have rather poor military ideas for what they achieved.
  • every single European war they got involved, it was always someone else doing the fighting for them.

let me get more into this "military ideas for Portugal" thingy here. Denmark, Saxony, Netherlands, Bavaria, Venice, Savoy have worse military ideas than they should have. We're talking about nations that actually meant something in terms of military prowess during the time frame covered by EU4. meanwhile the Portuguese achieved mostly exploration, conquest of natives and trade - and their NIs represent it well. you are able to reach the natives of Africa, Indonesia and Americas quicker than anyone else, you don't have strong NIs, but you have a huge bonus on Tech against them, because you know, institutions and all that, besides the strong West European cultural unit pipes and being fairly safe, as long as you keep Spain or France as an ally in Europe, which means a lot, since you can basically move your entire fleet and army to bear against anyone in the said continents without being worried that you will be invaded at home. L

Some of you have asked for better age mechanics, or better ideas that allow them to colonize or trade, or more naval provinces that represent the big sailor pool and naval force limit - i fully agree with you on this one, but you're no European Military power in any way. you couldn't even beat Morocco and your current capital was conquered from Muslims by English crusaders on their way to the Holy Lands, same English(or later British) troops defended it against Napoleon during the Peninsular War and your Independence war was against a nation committed to 3 large European wars that went bankrupt multiple times in the recent history. Had Spain been at peace with France and the Dutch, not fighting the Dutch and active against the Muslim powers in the East, they would have crushed Portugal. I think it's unfair to consider giving Portugal land NIs that would put them on par with Netherlands, after all, they fought their Independence War for 80 years, most of it on their own with limited support from England or France. You started your Independence War against a financially weak and militarily overextended Spain and only won because they were too busy to give you enough of a slap.

Hell, i'm Romanian, if DDRJake would announce Immersion pack of Romanian region, i would be excited too, but i would never expect EU4's NIs of Moldavia and Wallachia give them something like +300% morale, +50 discipline and freakin' Tiger Tanks for Cavalry and F22s for Arty when it has no basis from historical point of view. I love all 4 "major" Iberian nations (sorry Navarre). I love all 4 of them because they are all fun, they were fun before, but now with the new additions (Holy Orders being a huge one), it makes things even better. Portugal could use some love when it comes to sea provinces, but EU4 devs should not touch NIs, not to give them any land ideas at any rate. I'm really sorry, but your achievements between 1444 and 1821 make you as relevant as a Romanian principality or some other minor nation that didn't do many great things about land warfare.

lastly, NIs never represent people's dreams, or bad things. they represent 7 ideas, 2 traditions and 1 ambition (10 in all) bonuses to what they were known for, best 10 things if they were known for more things. in very few cases, NIs are tweeking a nation to help them for game ballance, like Russia's Advisor cost/corruption reduction ideas, who make me wonder how come Russia is so known for fighting corruption or cheap advisors.

I wish you lovely holidays.

Last but not least, these things, apart from being offensive to the Portuguese, are not true. Saying that their land warfare achievements are as impresive as a minor national like a Romanian Principality is just a lie.
It's also quite funny, as the Romanian Principalities have quite good military ideas. If they had the same land combat skill as the Portuguese, they should have Portuguese-tier military ideas (i.e. none). You even contradict yourself

 

[Piccaji]

I dont know if this is the right place to coment this idea but here we go.

Portugal should have more flavored events in India, not just a core in Goa and some claims trough Asia ( I dont know if in the recent times these things have changed ). I say this because many people have the idea that portuguese India ended after D. Sebastião "o nosso glorioso e querido Rei", wars were fought and even some lands retaken (or lost!) with the time, alliances made as so enemies. Even in the XVII century we had a good power base, even tho we were no longer the Lords and Masters of the Indic Ocean, there is a reason why Goa (for example) lasted until 1960`s.

Said this I will just trow some ideas, I am no programmer to change things.

- Macau cant be a claim land event, because first: Portugal never conquered Macau, it was given by the emperor himself after Portugal helped him in some quest ( I dont remember what it was yikes), and second: it is impossible (and stupid) to go to war against Ming ( I mean even if we got the 1% chance of winning the war, the country would be devastated with 0 manpower and no cash ). I propose that Macau is given as core to Portugal if there is a strong positive relation between them and has suceded with some mission;
- Have an event regarding Nagasaki, like Portugal gaining some prestige, ducats and a slightly trade boost in the area ( ressembling the China-Macau-Japan trade route );
- Diplomatic events of Portugal with the Indian powers gaining some relation boost towards Hindu powers in the region and claims, to secure at least an early advantage, since Portugal at the beggining of their Asian dominance the lands that were conquered were gifts for helping the country X defeating country Y, and the Y was many of the times a muslim power, to destroy the monopoly that they had in the spice trade (not to mention the whole crusade spirit);
- Events with the Dutch East India Company would be very good, the island of Sri Lanka is a good example of the friction between them (trade wars casus belli, events with Portugal having their Asia provinces raided by the Dutch and land claims specially in Indonesia)
-More missionary events, they were the true ambassadors in the region serving as diplomats and many times has councillors to the Indian Realm.

As I said this are just some ideas, I dont even know if this is the right place to post this, maybe these ideas were usefull maybe not, I just wanted to show that Portuguese India didnt ended in 1578, many things happened after that obviously, some lands even managed to be taken in the XVIII century and by the end of that century the finances of the Indian Realm were very positive, the fact of UK - Netherlands (Dutch?) wars and the American Revolution gave some space to Portugal breath.

 

[Dakka]

Hey @DDRJake,
Just wanted to follow up on this thread. Before the break you said:

Thanks. It's a good concise list of actionable improvements. I'll review what can be done with them.

While I have the utmost faith that you have read through my suggestions, I didn’t notice any of them listed in the patch notes from this week’s DD.
I was curious if these ideas were still under consideration for a future patch and just didn’t make it this time due to the focus of the current patch being on big fixes or if they had been outright rejected. Only asking because I truly believe that these changes could drastically improve the Golden Century content and I’m genuinely curious as to what the team thought on the matter.
Thank you

 

[withche.07]

As addition I really wanna see Sephardic Jews to be introduced at patch after Golden century.

 

[twinxor]

As addition I really wanna see Sephardic Jews to be introduced at patch after Golden century.

I think a lot could be done with religious minorities! Some mods have made an interesting stab at this, but it doesn't seem like something Paradox is too interested in considering.

 

[Dakka]

I think a lot could be done with religious minorities! Some mods have made an interesting stab at this, but it doesn't seem like something Paradox is too interested in considering.

I actually suggested adding the Jews as an estate to Neondt. He said it was an interesting idea and one he has thought of before. Could possibly make it.

 

[Romanix90]

I think that they should do a patch 1.30 or what ever to fix GC. Make GC more chalenging, for example :

- Holy Orders should be more chalenging to mantain via events where you would pay the price for having HO in your state (if you keep HO you would pay lets say some gold for mantaining them or if you revoke HO you would get bad relations with Pope or something like that).

- Minority expulsion should also come with price. If you succed in expeling them your colonial province will be better developed. Only downside would be is that those minorities would rebel. Basically to chalange player to deal with revolts but if the player succeds he/she will have better developed colonial provinces. Just some thouts though. Sorry for bad English

 

[Mingmung]

Enrique's stats should change as well. He wasn't an incompetent fool who didn't even rule like Henry of England or a drooling idiot like that last Spanish Habsburg ruler.

1, 2, 1 would be solid.

Anyway, this thread is gold, unlike Golden Century.