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

[durbal]

iScripts, c'mon. You are normally a smarter poster than this (I mean ignorant RPcrowd always will say what they say, but I did expect more from you..)

What I mean by 'scripts' isn't the online cheat type, I mean that there's a lack of dynamism because everything tends to be so deterministic. There aren't multiple ways to deal with a problem or avoid a problem -- they tend to be the same ways, and late-game mechanics like absolutism play out almost identically in every game. Idea groups are almost always identical (partially due to internal balance reasons, partially due to the metagame involving some mechanics like espionage simply not being worth it). And that just points to the lack of mechanics besides war and conquering, which is where the tedium of war-truce-war-truce late-game blobbing comes from. WC itself isn't inherently boring as a concept, but the way it's executed in the game certainly is for me.

I don't think there are many players who would be opposed to fixing existing broken mechanics or introducing new ones that would separate the great players from the good.

 

[bly08]

Maybe you can find some other challenges such as doing a non-coring WC, an HRE WC, a horde HRE WC, Native one tag/faith/culture,etc, which I believe are different enough from normal blobbing to satisfy even the most jaded WC vets.

 

[Mutagen_Prime]

I like estates, and I don't think estates and regional governors are mutually exclusive. They could be combined into a very nice game mechanic.

True. I mean the end-game goal would be to neuter and weaken your aristocracy so that by the time the age of absolutism rolls on most of your innate core states have no single noble of repute remaining who can claim hegemony over any given allotment of land in your immediate vicinity. But distant lands would still need some form of local noble administering it with varying degrees of loyalty, largely depending on how far away he is, his cultural compatibility etc. Honestly I feel like this could solve all our problems but it's far too CPU-intensive and programmatically-demanding for any given expansion.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

The great struggle for most governments in this period was being able to raise funds and maintain any kind of standing army, these were in no way guaranteed functions. In Eu4, revenue and standing forces are a constant that never really diminish.

This is absolutely on point.

One thing that you see constantly in the time-period is governments continuing for years to use old tax systems that no longer reflect economic realities, and then getting into horrible trouble as a result. The Spanish Empire and the Ming are obvious and striking examples. (And on top of this, we have the fact that it was for a long time nearly impossible to collect taxes without the support of the local nobility - one of the big problems of, for example, Charles I of England.) And the fact that Britain was able to consistently reform its revenue system later in the time-period was one of the foundations of its success - by the early to mid 1700s it had pretty much replaced its nobles with a reasonably functional bureaucracy which answered to parliament rather than local interests while Spain was still negotiating lump sums with each city, year on year.

It seems like corruption is supposed to model this to some extent, but there's nothing that goes remotely far enough to reflect reality. You could make a whole DLC about creating unified, efficient tax systems. Wouldn't be sexy but it'd make the game feel a lot more like the time period.

 

[StefanFan]

The thing is that when you remove money from the game, you block access to a lot of features that cost money, making the game dull, since you will have way less decisions to make.

 

[Brynjar]

The thing is that when you remove money from the game, you block access to a lot of features that cost money, making the game dull, since you will have way less decisions to make.

At the moment there is far too much money in the mid/late game, which leads to an utter lack of decisions. Affording everything, mercs, advisors, ships, going way over force limit and building anything you could possibly want isn't really enabling decisions. Having to actually choose what you want to spend money on could create much more interesting gameplay.

 

[inreadible]

Yes, it's a bad thing. There is no reason the game could not be just as dynamic and fun right up until 1821. World history in 1821 was not a world of unchecked blobs. It still had great powers but there is and still is today always major and serious checks to power.

No matter how quickly or how difficult the start was for any WC I don't believe they have any fun the last 100 or 50 years - except the glee in envisioning the one color 1 tag 1 faith picture they will have as a trophy. The last 50 years might as well be shaved from the game.

I still have to say that I really haven't seen any suggestions that would actually do what people claim or think they'd do. It seems that some people want that the game would stay as exciting for the whole timeline as it is in the beginning, but in truth if your hard-built nation could just crumble in the blink of an eye because of arbitrary unrest and rebels for conquering outside of your culture group I doubt a lot of people would enjoy it.

Also, changes that limit the size that you can (or should) conquer would in my opinion cause players to conquer to a certain size and stop. So if the problem is that you get bored, I don't see how you wouldn't get bored when you conquer all of your culture group, pick most military ideas and you would yet again be the strongest country and return to forums and complain the game is boring. I am willing to listen to reason, but all I hear is "let's prevent people (and AI) from blobbing because I got bored of being the strongest country around".

 

[StefanFan]

At the moment there is far too much money in the mid/late game, which leads to an utter lack of decisions. Affording everything, mercs, advisors, ships, going way over force limit and building anything you could possibly want isn't really enabling decisions. Having to actually choose what you want to spend money on could create much more interesting gameplay.

Does that still apply if you are not a blob? Because the problem might not be money, but the topic of this thread. Something against blobbing.

your hard-built nation could just crumble in the blink of an eye because of arbitrary unrest and rebels.

Well, this is Europa Universalis, so if you think about history, well, that's what happened, among other things. It wasn't possible and still isn't possible, and probably it will never be possible to hold a huge part of the world for extensive periods of time. This is not Blob universalis.

I find in this thread quite a lot of interesting ideas that can be applied in a way or another to make the game more interesting and challenging. At least the second part of it, which is a major part of the game, not just 20 30 years.

 

[bbqftw]

I still have to say that I really haven't seen any suggestions that would actually do what people claim or think they'd do. It seems that some people want that the game would stay as exciting for the whole timeline as it is in the beginning, but in truth if your hard-built nation could just crumble in the blink of an eye because of arbitrary unrest and rebels for conquering outside of your culture group I doubt a lot of people would enjoy it.

Also, changes that limit the size that you can (or should) conquer would in my opinion cause players to conquer to a certain size and stop. So if the problem is that you get bored, I don't see how you wouldn't get bored when you conquer all of your culture group, pick most military ideas and you would yet again be the strongest country and return to forums and complain the game is boring. I am willing to listen to reason, but all I hear is "let's prevent people (and AI) from blobbing because I got bored of being the strongest country around".

this is fundamentally why I find tall play so uninteresting. When you get to pick non blobbing groups it actually accelerates the point at which you become militarily unstoppable.

People would end up bored faster and if you can't see this then play both styles until you understand.

Sub 20 dev start, WC pace, VH, 1600 - 3k dev of TC land with corruption burning 25% of your income, 200 FL, no mil ideas, only influence to improve diplo position, loans around 20% of limit, the only buildings you have are conquered ones

Sub 20 dev start, tall relaxed pace, VH, 1600, 1500~ dev, 200 FL, no unbalanced tech, either something like diplo defensive quantity or econ quality offensive, all manu built, no loans.

Guess which one thrashes ottomans..

 

[Brynjar]

Does that still apply if you are not a blob? Because the problem might not be money, but the topic of this thread. Something against blobbing.

If you read the op you'll see that he wants to make the late game more interesting and fun, not just a mindless grind. Introducing actual choices for what you can spend money on would do that.

 

[bbqftw]

At the moment there is far too much money in the mid/late game, which leads to an utter lack of decisions. Affording everything, mercs, advisors, ships, going way over force limit and building anything you could possibly want isn't really enabling decisions. Having to actually choose what you want to spend money on could create much more interesting gameplay.

its far too much money when you aren't playing to blob, or with constraints making survival difficult. Since then you can do things like leisurely pick money wars, things you often don't have luxury to do when playing vs the clock.

How is this not obvious? Do people not look at their corruption slider and wonder what happens when you are hovering between 50-100% most of the time?

"I don't challenge myself the entire game, why is it so boring?"

Play as a minor in Europe, no alliances allowed, VH. You'll find your concerns about too much money in game quickly vanish. You won't even have to worry about blobbing since the game will pressure you for every border you open up to attack

 

[inreadible]

Does that still apply if you are not a blob? Because the problem might not be money, but the topic of this thread. Something against blobbing.

Well, this is Europa Universalis, so if you think about history, well, that's what happened, among other things. It wasn't possible and still isn't possible, and probably it will never be possible to hold a huge part of the world for extensive periods of time. This is not Blob universalis.

I find in this thread quite a lot of interesting ideas that can be applied in a way or another to make the game more interesting and challenging. At least the second part of it, which is a major part of the game, not just 20 30 years.

Well, this is also a game, and to succeed as a game it should entertain and reward people, not punish them. I cannot see how artificially limiting the nations' sizes would make the game more challenging because this would also hinder the AI and move the point where you become unbeatable even earlier in the timeline.

 

[Brynjar]

Play as a minor in Europe, no alliances allowed, VH. You'll find your concerns about too much money in game quickly vanish. You won't even have to worry about blobbing since the game will pressure you for every border you open up to attack

Why not limit yourself to a maximum of 10 militatry units, no ships and no developing while you are at it? If the solution to have fun in the game is to play minors on VH, it should be pretty obvious that the game needs some work to become more fun/challenging.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

This thread has turned into a mess...
Fun fact to the people suggesting cranking up difficulty or forcing rules on yourself:
This doesn't solve the issue. Late game is a dull blobfest if you blob, not to mention the amount of blobbing being absurd, due to idea combinations and Absolutism. Playing tall is often quite dull because there aren't really peace-time mechanics to speak of, except maybe colonizing, which isn't much to speak of. Look at CK2 and Vicky 2 and you see how peace-time mechanics can make games so much better. Introducing arbitrary measures(VH or some random rules that are probably only made because a lot of the people suggesting this are Youtubers, so they need to stand out by doing random stuff) doesn't fix the problems of the game, more like it makes it frustratingly difficult, especially if you play an RNG start like Byzantium, where you restart 10 times to get the perfect start and now you get a -20 modifier to allying Hungary because potato.

 

[Cataphract887]

Why not limit yourself to a maximum of 10 militatry units, no ships and no developing while you are at it? If the solution to have fun in the game is to play minors on VH, it should be pretty obvious that the game needs some work to become more fun/challenging.

The franchise of EU has always been like this. Every strategy game like Total War or Civilization or the space 4xs have this same problem. Ultimately you either make the AI cheat more, or you deliberately play worse or semi-RP like I have been doing, in order to make the game more interesting. In previous EU I would frequently tag switch to fix up a collapsed france with 10 provinces for instance.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

The franchise of EU has always been like this. Every strategy game like Total War or Civilization or the space 4xs have this same problem. Ultimately you either make the AI cheat more, or you deliberately play worse or semi-RP like I have been doing, in order to make the game more interesting. In previous EU I would frequently tag switch to fix up a collapsed france with 10 provinces for instance.

As someone who actively played EU2/FTG, I would somewhat disagree. WC was still possible in those two games, but it was MUCH harder and far riskier.

 

[gigau]

Not 48 hours ago, i wrote a post... si i'll make it bigger :

Guys, whatever the opinion, let's not be abrasive.

People have different playstyle, different experiences, different languages,...

Bear that in mind when you decide to participate in another discussion.