What do you think could be done against post-1600s snowballing?

[Regaccio]

Despite common knowledge, Paradox has attempted to tackle the snowballing problem a few times. The States and Territories system was one attempt at that and I think it worked, but it doesn't really go far enough, and the state limit is a bit too generous. Estates are also probably meant to empower smaller countries by forcing larger ones to deal with some autonomy, but they actually end up being either beneficial or irrelevant most of the time. The penalty for non-accepted cultures is another one. (although this is a little redundant now since you can only accept cultures present in states anyway)

There are a few ways gigantic super-countries could be made less powerful. The most powerful and logical one I've seen in EU4 is a system that gradually increases autonomy the further away a province is from the capital - in MEIOU and Taxes, it's called Communication Efficiency. The idea is that far-flung areas are harder to impose your will upon. It's also not a perfect system but I think it's better than the base game where Ryukyu can make a State in Flanders, get to 0% autonomy, and reap almost as much money as if the Dutch did the same. With that system you can also spend money on Regional Capitals, which are a building that cost ducats in maintenance but act as another "capital" for autonomy purposes. There are also Road Networks which reduce the drop in CE between provinces, and building Docks actually has a purpose now (muh sailors!), since they reduce CE between coastal areas.

A simpler way to implement something like that would be to have a distance cap for creating states. If a state's closest province is x distance from capital province, it's not eligible for statehood. It's less elegant but probably easier to create.

Another change that could make larger countries more difficult to keep together: Scaling the base cost of Stability by your country's development. It doesn't make sense that an OPM and a massive empire have to expend the same amount of effort (monarch points) to stabilize their entire country.

I also think the penalties for having wrong culture provinces aren't harsh enough. Separatism shouldn't just go away then be gone forever, leading to perpetual peace. People should resist culture conversion, and it should cause unrest like Religious conversion does. There should be incentive to spread your culture, and likewise it should be difficult to do so. Right now the AI never converts culture at all.. That means that either the AI just handles cultures poorly, or there's really no point in engaging with the Culture mechanic at all besides "accept whatever has the highest percentage points in the cultures list, then forget it".

Finally, if all else fails, there could also be a generic disaster that represents the collapse of a great empire. Maybe the trigger is having a combination of negative stability, high War Exhaustion, etc, just a lot of bad things, persisting for a while, not being resolved. And it would cause a spike in unrest in provinces with foreign cores, and events causing separatist rebellions. Think of it like the Mandate mechanics except for every country... Because China isn't the only empire that collapses when it's ravaged and unstable.

 

[Rikissa]

What kind of gigantic super-countries are we talking about? Are wa talking about AI blobs, because some of the mechanics proposed here seem more targeted at the AI than the player? Or are we talking about rapidly expanding player blobs? Anyone who has actually done a WC as a small country probably knows that WC blobs are paper tigers under most circumstances. Autonomy will hardly drop down because you're constantly at war and it's often a long time before the pieces drop into place. You cannot really expand like you do in SP in a multiplayer game for exactly these reasons.

 

[Tuscany stronk]

Nerf absolutism and give high absolutism debuffs,such as monthly corruption and unrest.Make culture penalties harsher,scaling with absolutism.
Rework stability,the actual players are too ''stable''.Instead of spending adm at start and wait events for fullfill 3 stability points,stabily should scale from -100 to 100,with monthly changes depending on global unrest,overextension,being at war,non-accepted culture provinces,loans and low manpower pool.
All these are mine ideas for making blobbing less boring.
Instead add internal conflicts that are fun to manage and improve tall gameplays,giving other choices than blobbing.

 

[StefanFan]

I'd go for cultural incompatibility. Make cultural differences highly abrasive after a certain point in time. You are European and hold lands in Asia? Make cultural rebellions snowball the bigger you get, ie the more incompatible cultures you own in the same area. Those rebellious cultures don't even have to be compatible between themselves, because they will just temporary work together to get rid of the oppressor.

EDIT: Just an example.
1-5 incompatible culture provinces in a region, you get a 1 malus.
5-10, 2malus
11-15, 4 malus
16-20, 7 malus, etc.

At a breaking point unless you will dedicate your life to fight the rebels, you will be toasted. You will either release the provinces, or die.

EDIT2: I would define an area as a collection of provinces which have uninterrupted land connections through a province owned by the mother country.

 

[checro]

At a breaking point unless you will dedicate your life to fight the rebels, you will be toasted. You will either release the provinces, or die.

If you think that would be fun, you are a true masochist...

 

[StefanFan]

If you think that would be fun, you are a true masochist...

Lol, that was not the point. It's a mechanic that can forbid WCs and make you think late game which provinces are worth keeping and where, what wars to fight, etc, instead of just taking everything around you. This can also be sweetened up with an occupation bonus for the player. If you owned the cradle of a culture for more than 50-100 years, then that culture will loose most of it's "incompatibility" with your culture.

EDIT: To still allow WCs but make it more fun instead of tedious, instead of fixed penalties, events can be used to spice up things late game when too many provinces of incompatible cultures are owned. Like X suddenly declared independence, and you will have to fight an army that protects 10 breaking up provinces in a fixed period of time, etc.

 

[checro]

Lol, that was not the point. It's a mechanic that can forbid WCs and make you think late game which provinces are worth keeping and where, what wars to fight, etc, instead of just taking everything around you. This can also be sweetened up with an occupation bonus for the player. If you owned the cradle of a culture for more than 50-100 years, then that culture will loose most of it's "incompatibility" with your culture.

EDIT: To still allow WCs but make it more fun instead of tedious, instead of fixed penalties, events can be used to spice up things late game when too many provinces of incompatible cultures are owned. Like X suddenly declared independence, and you will have to fight an army that protects 10 breaking up provinces in a fixed period of time, etc.

Why would I conquer them at all? I'll just play to the point of "largest alowed" and start a new game...

 

[Rikissa]

It's strange how the argument that WC is too tedious and that it should be more tedious can co-exist.

 

[StefanFan]

Why would I conquer them at all? I'll just play to the point of "largest alowed" and start a new game...

Because of the challenge. I am not talking about a fixed limit that you can't pass by. You will be able to do it all the way if you plan carefully, if you convert cultures that will create problems, if you fight off the events, if you take down the new challenges.

It's strange how the argument that WC is too tedious and that it should be more tedious can co-exist.

Not really, it's a matter of what people consider fun. Some will like to have it easy, some would like to have it challenging, some would like to have it tedious. So it's a matter of perspective, all arguments are sane, since they defend different tastes and positions.

EDIT: Challenging does not equal tedious. Tedious means dull and repeating. Challenging is demanding, provocatory.

 

[checro]

Because of the challenge. I am not talking about a fixed limit that you can't pass by. You will be able to do it all the way if you plan carefully, if you convert cultures that will create problems, if you fight off the events, if you take down the new challenges.

How about they don't change anything so we who think it is hard enough can play, and you just do a one culture run every time?

 

[StefanFan]

How about they don't change anything so we who think it is hard enough can play, and you just do a one culture run every time?

That would be off topic "What do you think could be done against post-1600s snowballing?"

 

[tip001]

It would be interesting if PDX is doing something with trade goods to make late game blobbing interesting. Below rough ideas are also much more realistic I think.

1) You should be able to create a monopoly around a trade good. Lets say 75% of all goods gives a monopoly which will 4 fold the prices and gives a massive "trading in" bonus like 100% naval force limit for naval supplies or +8 rep for ivory. This concept is far more realistic.
2) On top of that introduce strategic regions with higher yields instead of the current flat yield or change yields per province globally on regional basis. The current flat yield is completely a-historic. Having regions with especially high yields of certain goods makes conquering them much more interesting to get the monopoly, hence income boost and "trading in" bonus.

A WC is far from easy as you have to connect multiple wars together as efficiently as possible while keeping unrest low. I think personally its tedious but some like that. It becomes just war-mongering, right?

If you introduce things like monopolies and regional good spikes with huge bonuses this will give the late WC game an extra dimension as the direction of WC will be in part based on this. Currently the whole trade good mechanic is mostly ignored with the exception of gold. There were trade goods during this period far more expensive than gold for example.

What do you think of this idea? Just brain storming

 

[Arilou]

Autonomy should be more important and dangerous.

For starters, autonomy should start rising automatically unless you have a fort or an army (or maybe some buildings like courthouses) nearby, requiring you to crack down on them (and thus generating unrest) if you want the province to stay under your control. (stuff like different religion, different culture, etc. would accelerate this process)

If a province reaches 100% autonomy it should have a chance to just slip out of your grasp, becoming independent without any actual fighting.

 

[StefanFan]

Autonomy should be more important and dangerous.

For starters, autonomy should start rising automatically unless you have a fort or an army (or maybe some buildings like courthouses) nearby, requiring you to crack down on them (and thus generating unrest) if you want the province to stay under your control. (stuff like different religion, different culture, etc. would accelerate this process)

If a province reaches 100% autonomy it should have a chance to just slip out of your grasp, becoming independent without any actual fighting.

In such a case forts should either be cheaper and/or also provide benefits, like a tax and trade bonus for the province state.

 

[Northernwwater]

As long as there is a achivement to conquer the world with Ryukyu, snowballing will probably never be adressed properly.

Yes. Most of the achievements are like, "Own every purple province while bending over backwards and touching your toes".

 

[makaramus]

I'm always a bit wary of these threads because they frequently amount to non-WC players complaining about how easy it is blob and how boring it is. Well fine, if you don't like it, don't do it. If you find the game too easy then play VH-OPM start.

is world conquest should be target of game is question... is being able to achive ultimate end actually good thing?
again this isnt someting about difficulty but its someting about being boring... becoming so powerful that fast is not fun :/
lets say ottoman... at start of game it feels fun you declaring multiple wars in region planning your idea groups and influancing region
yet after conquering mamluks you are like "huh... so ... I gonna attack papal state? or go after muscovy... pfff "

because here is the thing: you becoming so powerfull that conquering 200 dev more feels like not important and not worth micro controling 250 k army :/ it feels like a chore and causing many campaign cant see age of revolution

 

[Horn and Ivory]

I've got to agree with the blobbing players above that making blobbing more tedious doesn't solve the problem so long as blobbing is still the best way to get a bunch of things done. Want to reform the HRE? Blob to add provinces. Want to spread your dynasty for PUs? Blob to gain development. Want to raise your profile on the international stage? Take provinces from your rivals. Want to improve your trade? Take over those trade centres. Even if the provinces give you negative effective returns in ducats and manpower, it'll still be worth taking them because it denies that land to your enemies, and if the result of your expansion is that you have no nearby enemies capable of fighting you it doesn't matter if the provinces are basically worthless to you.

For this reason I think all 'solutions' to blobbing on the lines of diminishing returns and increased rebellions are just misguided on a deep level. If you make blobbing a tedious diminishing-returns rebel-fest, it won't stop us blobbing so long as that's what the game is built around. It'll just make for a more tedious frustrating game. Though ideas like communication efficiency are better than 'increase base unrest' or 'seperatism lasts 200 years' I still don't think they address the basic problem and I don't feel like they would produce a revelatory change in the way I played. It might reduce blobbing speed, but players would still find themselves looking for ways to overcome those limitations and blob faster.

Something to make 'bad times' that you have to weather and then come back from might be nice, so that a nations history isn't just one long unlimited expansion without setbacks - cooldowns on raising stability and reducing war exhaustion would help to produce the right kind of effect. Disasters (and old Westernisation) used to have this effect back when I was a worse player, and I enjoyed the change of pace and the sense that I might have to give up a province or two if a strong neighbour attacked while my troubles were at their worst.

But the main thing I'd like to see are AIs that are more interested in containing powers that look like they might become regional hegemons. Real nations that got very powerful (most notably, Spain, then France, and to some extent Great Britian) weren't limited in their expansion by rebel spam, but by fighting long expensive inconclusive wars against coalitions determined to stop them. That's what I'd like to see more of.

I guess 25% autonomy in trade companies would also help a bit.

 

[StefanFan]

The point should not be to make it more tedious. It should be to make it more challenging, and impossible to do it all the time by good/expert players. Sometimes events should overwhelm the player, but as it is, for an experienced player is a walk in the park, and for the average player is extremely achievable. Even the beginners can do it if they follow a good guide carefully. Which is totally wrong, from my point of view.

 

[makaramus]

here is the idea: let us have automated armies (we will pick wich ones to be automated by 1 by 1.
let us have automated building (by categories like "buildings to incrase production" or "buildings incrasing trade most" etc...)
and then make game a little bit slower to blob

now since we dont need to micro everything and watch everything closer we should be much more efficent in wars so conquer stuff easier .

by the way: Make coring faster when you are giant!

if micro required to control armies reduced there will be places to incrase game difficulty in diffrent manners

note: By difficult to blob I mean like incrasing aggresive expansion rate at certain locations like india,china and arabia since those areas hardly triggering any coalition

 

[Bayes]

Despite common knowledge, Paradox has attempted to tackle the snowballing problem a few times. The States and Territories system was one attempt at that and I think it worked, but it doesn't really go far enough, and the state limit is a bit too generous. Estates are also probably meant to empower smaller countries by forcing larger ones to deal with some autonomy, but they actually end up being either beneficial or irrelevant most of the time. The penalty for non-accepted cultures is another one. (although this is a little redundant now since you can only accept cultures present in states anyway)

There are a few ways gigantic super-countries could be made less powerful. The most powerful and logical one I've seen in EU4 is a system that gradually increases autonomy the further away a province is from the capital - in MEIOU and Taxes, it's called Communication Efficiency. The idea is that far-flung areas are harder to impose your will upon. It's also not a perfect system but I think it's better than the base game where Ryukyu can make a State in Flanders, get to 0% autonomy, and reap almost as much money as if the Dutch did the same. With that system you can also spend money on Regional Capitals, which are a building that cost ducats in maintenance but act as another "capital" for autonomy purposes. There are also Road Networks which reduce the drop in CE between provinces, and building Docks actually has a purpose now (muh sailors!), since they reduce CE between coastal areas.

A simpler way to implement something like that would be to have a distance cap for creating states. If a state's closest province is x distance from capital province, it's not eligible for statehood. It's less elegant but probably easier to create.

Another change that could make larger countries more difficult to keep together: Scaling the base cost of Stability by your country's development. It doesn't make sense that an OPM and a massive empire have to expend the same amount of effort (monarch points) to stabilize their entire country.

I also think the penalties for having wrong culture provinces aren't harsh enough. Separatism shouldn't just go away then be gone forever, leading to perpetual peace. People should resist culture conversion, and it should cause unrest like Religious conversion does. There should be incentive to spread your culture, and likewise it should be difficult to do so. Right now the AI never converts culture at all.. That means that either the AI just handles cultures poorly, or there's really no point in engaging with the Culture mechanic at all besides "accept whatever has the highest percentage points in the cultures list, then forget it".

Finally, if all else fails, there could also be a generic disaster that represents the collapse of a great empire. Maybe the trigger is having a combination of negative stability, high War Exhaustion, etc, just a lot of bad things, persisting for a while, not being resolved. And it would cause a spike in unrest in provinces with foreign cores, and events causing separatist rebellions. Think of it like the Mandate mechanics except for every country... Because China isn't the only empire that collapses when it's ravaged and unstable.

In the most recent major expansions mandate of heaven and cradle of civilization they added lvl 5 advisors and absolutism, so it doesnt seem like they are trying to tackle snowballing that much anymore.