Upcoming Britain DLC, underwhelming?

[Vampiresbane]

So fairly big fan of Britain. My second campaign was right after my first with Spain. But so far the suggested, upcoming improvements or changes for the upcoming DLC are not that impressive to me.

For me, personally, if you're going to do a DLC for Britain, you're going to totally revamp something that really needs a boost, like...Naval Warfare. They're going to do something with Naval Doctrine, but I have a feeling it's just an on/off button for different types of navies. Click here for better trade, Click here for better warships, etc.

Am I the only one feeling like this?

 

[Eh up me duck]

Nice try, Macron.

 

[Sfan]

Well so far I'm yet to see anything interesting in the Pack, I agree.
At least Third Rome gave unique units and gov to a few tags, and new mechanics to a massive religion. This adds a ridiculously small religion, an absolutely uninteresting mechanic with Innovation and a very minor naval thing. Coal/Industrialisation, new provinces and the new mission system are way more interesting additions imo, but they're part of the patch. So far, I'm even to the point where I'm not sure I'll buy it, which is... very odd for me to say for an EU4 expansion.

 

[GoatMagic]

Well so far I'm yet to see anything interesting in the Pack, I agree.
At least Third Rome gave unique units and gov to a few tags, and new mechanics to a massive religion. This adds a ridiculously small religion, an absolutely uninteresting mechanic with Innovation and a very minor naval thing. Coal/Industrialisation, new provinces and the new mission system are way more interesting additions imo, but they're part of the patch. So far, I'm even to the point where I'm not sure I'll buy it, which is... very odd for me to say for an EU4 expansion.

I stopped buying updates at Third Rome and keep my eye out on updates and dev diaries to see if they are bringing EU4 back in an interesting direction. It's sad that the dev diaries for other Paradox games are so interesting and build hype, whereas I just feel disappointment in EU4.

 

[makaramus]

I gonna be honest if there is no naval revamp I gonna wait for discount (%25 minimum) before buying it I mean england is actually got EXTREMLY STRONG IDEAS
IF! only navies were important
I mean look at them in theory they are unstopable at naval warfire!
but you dont need to be unstopable in naval warfire because navies not that important
seriusly naval ships must be able to occupy coastal cities it makes sense sailors can land and occupy cities(if cities are not protected by forts ofcourse)

 

[Merovingio]

After the last DD I strongly believe it is time for EUV.

 

[Golladan]

There's a screenshot of Naval Doctrines in the pack's store page.

 

[Sfan]

I stopped buying updates at Third Rome and keep my eye out on updates and dev diaries to see if they are bringing EU4 back in an interesting direction. It's sad that the dev diaries for other Paradox games are so interesting and build hype, whereas I just feel disappointment in EU4.

After the last DD I strongly believe it is time for EUV.

Oh I totally disagree with that.
Third Rome only affects a handful of countries, but it drastically improves the experience and made Orthodox very interesting.
And CoC is an awesome expansion, I pretty much only played Muslim nations since it was released and I can't stop having fun. Exploiting dev is nice, and the new trade goods are very welcomed. I don't use professionalism at all because some small bonuses won't make me stop to spam mercs, but I see its use for tall play or MP.

And I still like the patch that comes with Britannia, it's just that I don't see me spending money for an useless mechanic (Innovativeness), a mechanic affecting something I almost never care about (Naval combat), a religion locked to 2 tags unless you culture switch and extra missions for a region.

 

[Bouchart]

Innovativeness looks weak, but I suspect it'll be strengthened a little in a follow-up patch. Anglicanism looks like a poor man's Catholic. Naval Doctrine won't matter since naval combat is mostly about mass Heavies. Industrialization and coal won't matter since it's late game.

Paradox hasn't given a release date yet, so there may be a couple more things in the upcoming patch that haven't been revealed, but it looks very weak so far. I doubt I'd buy it even at a significant discount.

 

[Chief of Staff]

While I'm generally OK with what they had announced (actually more excited about province additions for the British Isles yay), I wish they had planned an overhaul to the mechanics for the Parliament and trade companies as part of this DLC. Right now, they are probably one of the most meh part of the game trying to build the British Empire.

That was perhaps a most disappointing part about the upcoming DLC for me. Hopefully, they will get an opportunity to work on these two things in future before they stop working on EU4 and start planning for EU5. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Bouchart]

Trade companies aren't meh at all. 0% autonomy floor is sweet.

 

[Badesumofu]

While I'm generally OK with what they had announced (actually more excited about province additions for the British Isles yay), I wish they had planned an overhaul to the mechanics for the Parliament and trade companies as part of this DLC. Right now, they are probably one of the most meh part of the game trying to build the British Empire.

Trade Companies are just about the single most overpowered mechanic in the game. So while I agree they need an overhaul, they are far from 'meh'. Unlimited 0LA provinces in some of the richest provinces in the game and free merchants. They are so powerful that high-level players mostly play with only one state because nationalisming everyone is much stronger than having states.

Parliaments are 'meh'. Even if you don't care about admin efficiency they are still meh. The good news is that this new DLC will probably mean a bunch of people play England which means they will be forced to play with a parliamentary government and will subsequently come to the forums to very politely request that PDS do something worthwhile with parliaments. Because parliaments should be much better and more interesting to play with than they are currently.

 

[XYN]

Oh I totally disagree with that.
Third Rome only affects a handful of countries, but it drastically improves the experience and made Orthodox very interesting.
And CoC is an awesome expansion, I pretty much only played Muslim nations since it was released and I can't stop having fun. Exploiting dev is nice, and the new trade goods are very welcomed. I don't use professionalism at all because some small bonuses won't make me stop to spam mercs, but I see its use for tall play or MP.

And I still like the patch that comes with Britannia, it's just that I don't see me spending money for an useless mechanic (Innovativeness), a mechanic affecting something I almost never care about (Naval combat), a religion locked to 2 tags unless you culture switch and extra missions for a region.

Third Rome improves the experience, seriously? It is one of the most clumsy and nonsense DLC I've ever seen, both in gameplay and immersion.

Not only it breaks immersion for anyone with at least cursory knowledge of the region, it also breaks AI which stops buying artillery.

 

[Me_]

They can't all be winners. Some DLCs are just weaker than others. So far it seems like the "Immersion packs" are going to be the worse ones.

 

[Reboundingdice]

On the steam page there is music and unit packs listed, and they will probably be revealed properly later on.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/760070/Immersion_Pack__Europa_Universalis_IV_Rule_Britannia/

This is an immersion pack after all, so a naval rework would probably or at least hopefully come as part of a larger future update.

 

[Bearjuden]

They can't all be winners. Some DLCs are just weaker than others. So far it seems like the "Immersion packs" are going to be the worse ones.

When your official policy is to not work on any past DLC, yes, you do in fact have to make sure they're all winners. If you want people to buy it, you have to make it a quality product, and Paradox has hamstrung themselves by saying that not only do they have to make a quality product, but they have to make a quality product on their first attempt every time. Big surprise, they aren't capable of doing that. If they allowed themselves to work on old DLC and bring them up to snuff, then it would be okay, you could buy a bad DLC, because you'd know it would eventually be worth it, even if they whiffed their first or even second shot at it.

Suppose it makes sense with their name, though. If you got it for free, they'll keep working on it until it's a decent product. If you payed for it and it's terrible, then their response is that it sucks to be you. Quite the paradox indeed.

 

[XYN]

When your official policy is to not work on any past DLC, yes, you do in fact have to make sure they're all winners. If you want people to buy it, you have to make it a quality product, and Paradox has hamstrung themselves by saying that not only do they have to make a quality product, but they have to make a quality product on their first attempt every time. Big surprise, they aren't capable of doing that. If they allowed themselves to work on old DLC and bring them up to snuff, then it would be okay, you could buy a bad DLC, because you'd know it would eventually be worth it, even if they whiffed their first or even second shot at it.

Suppose it makes sense with their name, though. If you got it for free, they'll keep working on it until it's a decent product. If you payed for it and it's terrible, then their response is that it sucks to be you. Quite the paradox indeed.

I hope they will go with mandatory incremental expansions in the future. Modular DLC were fine when there were a few of them, but now it is evident it bites them back when you see sets of assorted mechanics which don't interact at all.

 

[C.N.]

As I see it, the only thing that seems worthwhile is Anglicanism and the new missions. Coal comes too late, and the rest are worthless additions. I might be willing to pay the same as for Third Rome, but only because the free patch adds things that I have wanted for a long time. If it's more expensive, then it really becomes hard to justify getting.

 

[Nyrael]

After the last DD I strongly believe it is time for EUV.

And we will gain absolutely nothing with it. Actually, we lose all the unit packs, advisor portraits, etc. (as cosmetics rarely go from one game to another).

What we need are a few updates that focus on revamping existing mechanics, connecting them together, overhauling them to be useful or better fit modern times, etc. But for that we don't need a new game. New games should only be done when the very core of the game needs to change (CK2 for example could use it as it's core mechanics and engine get in way of potential new ideas and mechanics).

 

[Telenil]

When your official policy is to not work on any past DLC, yes, you do in fact have to make sure they're all winners

Paradox does occasionally change past DLCs. The random new world generator in EU4 or the silk road and decadence mechanics in CK2 got significant modifications long after release.