Preamble
I believe Westernization, as it is now, needs improvement to make it more enjoyable, sensible and allow for greater player input. In the latest patches, ROTW has had a lot of new provinces and countries added and westernization is really important if one plays in ROTW. Paradox have gone back and forth, making westernization too easy or too hard, but they haven’t change the underlying mechanics for a long time. Purpose of this thread is to talk about how westernization can be improved. I will be offering my views and I would like to hear your opinion on them. I will also be throwing some numbers around – those will be used just as an example, I haven’t really thought this through enough to have balanced numbers. I will be talking at first about how it is set up at the moment and why I think it should be changed – the proposed ideas for change start from “So, how to improve the current situation? “, so you can just start from there, although I’d recommend reading from the beginning.
What is westernization?
Both historically and in EUIV, westernization refers to polities understanding they lag behind western countries and taking necessary steps catch up. Two most obvious examples from history are Russian reforms under Peter the Great and Japanese Meiji restoration. There have been many unsuccessful attempts and many other more or less successful.
In EUIV, it refers to the process of westernization at the end of which your country changes its tech group to Western. To be allowed to westernize, you need to own or be adjacent to western tech country core (not trading company!) and be 7 techs behind.
In the light of this, westernization process in the game can be divided into two aspects:
1) When to allow westernization
2) How to deal with the process itself
I will talk about how we can improve these two aspects, in my humble opinion, keeping in mind that westernization needs to: a) interesting and fun, b) hard but achievable and c) allow more involvement from the player.
1. When to allow westernization
At the moment, non western tech country needs to own or be adjacent to a western core and be 7 tech behind. This is a rather arbitrary limitation. For some countries, those in eastern and ottoman tech, it is hard to even lag behind that much. Now they can westernize painlessly and instantly if they own certain provinces. BUT, for the rest of the world, Asia and Africa, lagging behind is not the problem, it is that elusive western core. Most western provinces in those continents will be trading companies so in order to westernize, Asian and African countries often have to colonize all the way to Americas, which is silly and totally unhistorical. If the player wants to do that, that is fine, but it is extremely weird to be forced to colonize all the way to Brazil as an Indian nation, often when you have Europeans right on your doorstep, carving their way into Indian core territories.
2. How to deal with the process itself
At the moment, as soon as you’re allowed to westernize, you can start the process which starts draining (or investing) your Monarch points by a certain amount every month. The process length is based on your tech group and the size (read: development) of your country, the bigger it is, the less monarch points are drained and it takes longer. During the process, bad stuff happens to your country.
This is rather poor mechanic, both from historical and from gameplay points of view. It forces you to keep your country small to achieve easier westernization. It has been allieviated some when Paradox made the lowest amount of monarch point that can be drained 5, which allows even the largest countries to westernize in a reasonable amount of time. The problem with this is that it doesn’t take into account any external or internal factors. It is based just on the total development of your country, period. Some countries, depending on the situation, should have easier or harder time westernizing, and most importantly, players should be able to influence it somewhat. It is sensible to make it somewhat harder for larger countries, but it feels bad since player don’t have any influence on it.
So, how to improve the current situation?
I will start with number 2, the process of westernization itself. Instead of having your Monarch points drained based on your total development, we should instead get a slider, similar to missionary, colony, army… maintenance ones. On that slider, we should be able to set how many Monarch Points we want drained every month (3-21, obviously ranging from 1 to 7 in each category). The catch obviously is, it costs money. The more Monarch points you want drained and invested in westernization per month, the more you have to pay, with costs exponentially increasing the more you want to invest. Also, possibly even revolt risk and other nasty stuff that happens during westernization can go up if you try for a rapid westernization.
To make it harder for large countries to westernize, the costs should also be scaled to total development level. So, if you want to westernize as China, for instance, you can do it relatively quickly, if you can afford it , but be prepared to pay an arm and a leg for it. This has the added benefit of creating another money sink which is especially important for ROTW countries, as they can get really large and rich, and because they lag in tech, they often can’t spend as much on buildings.
Another important aspect which should affect the costs, is how aware your country is of the need to westernize. I will tackle this issue in the next paragraph, when I talk about the first aspect - When to allow westernization.
When to allow westernization – Historically, some countries understood earlier the need to westernize. They had more contacts with the western world, they were more immediately threatened or some other reason. To make it solely dependent on western cores and -7 techs is too simplistic. There were many more factors at play.
Instead, we should have sort of a scale to represent just how aware your country is of the need to westernize. That would work with some sort of “Westernization Awareness” (WA for short) which should work similar to current Power Projection – based on what happens around you, you should be getting points to your Westernization Awareness. Some should be permanent, and some should be fading, exactly like Power Projection works. The scale should go from 0 to 100. Player should be allowed to westernize when a certain amount is accumulated.
For instance,
1) +1 point for every 10 or 20 trade power western nations hold in your trade node – permanent as long as western nation are present in your trade node.
2) + 1 for every western trade company that borders you – permanent as long as it borders you
3) +2 for every western core province that borders you – permanent as long as it borders you
4) +2 for every western trader in your trade node - permanent as long the trader is present in your main trade node
5) +5 if the western country embargoes you – permanent as long the embargo is in place
6) +2 if a western country DOW you – fades after some time
7) +0.1 for every battle (or maybe scalable with size of battle?) – fades after some time
8) +1 for every 5 points of development lost to a western nation – fades after some time
9) +2 for every province a neighbouring country lost to a western country – fades after some time
10) +1 for every tech level your behind a western nation bordering you (or trading in your node?) – permanent as long as it borders you.
… and similar things. Obviously there can be many, many more ways to gain or lose westernization point.
Player should be allowed to westernize when they have, for instance, 20 Westernization Awareness points. What’s deal with the 0-100 scale of WA points, then? Simply, the more points you have, the easier it would be to westernize. The westernization slider I mentioned, in which you decide how much money you want to spend to westernize quicker? Well, the amount of money should drop significantly. At high levels of WA, everyone and their mother in your country understands the need to westernize, thus you don’t have to spend that much money to keep the process going or suffer such a huge unrest.
So, in theory, if you’re Ming China, some Europeans show up, start taking some of your trade, bringing your WA to 20, you can westernize, but it would cost a lot (for instance a 50, 100 or 200, ducats per month to do it at reasonable pace. On the other hand, if those westerners start declaring war on you, taking your provinces, beating you in battles, taking most of your trade etc… and bring your WA to 100, you can westernize at a fast pace for only 5, 10 or 20 ducats per month.
Pros:
1) It allows the player to have input when and how to start westernization and gives options to speed it up
2) It takes into account a wide variety of factors, instead of just tech lag
3) It makes sense from a historical perspective
4) It is more interesting than the current method
5) It creates another money sink, as there is little use for money except for armies/navies
6) It stops ahistorical and weird strategies players have to employ in order to westernize
7) It also keeps Monarch Point cost, which I guess is important to Paradox.
8) It keeps the “hard, but achievable” aspect, and gives player more choice.
9) It would hopefully stop or slow down the "chain westernization"
Cons:
1) It may be slightly confusing at first, although I believe it is straightforward and logical enough so I don’t expect players to have many issues in the long run
2) It would be a bitch to teach AI when is the proper moment to westernize, although I think that could be served by the old solution, give the AI some bonuses and/or less penalties.
3) It would need to be properly balanced, to discourage strategies of players losing wars on purpose to bring their WA high so that it would be extremely easy to westernize. The balance between factors which the player can influence and those he can't needs to be in the Goldilocks zone, ie. "just right".
If anyone is still reading at this point, thank you for bearing with me
. I’d really like to hear your opinions. If I have been unclear, tell me, and I will try to explain better. English is not my first language. Cheers.EDIT: Edited based on the points raised in the discussion.
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