Greetings to you all fellow enjoyers of EU4!
This is the first time I post on this forum (mostly because I never felt the need to) but I have been playing EU4 for a while now. I think I have crossed the 1000h treshold actually, even though I'm more the casual player kind and not the achievements-seeker kind. Keep this in mind when reading my post, as my impression of the game is probably very different from the competitive EU4 players who play a lot in multiplayer and/or play a lot in ironman.
This is simply a post -and probably one of the many about the same topic- advocating for finally stopping the development cycle of EU4 in order to fully focus on EU5. But since I'm not someone to just throw my salt and leave, I wanted to add some suggestions about what should be -in my eyes- the core ideas of the future EU5 game. Not sure if any developper will ever read it, and not sure if it can have any impact at all. But atleast, it might feel good to share the ideas with the community.
Knowing myself though, this might be long. So sit back and relax, and enjoy the reading :')
It's time to switch to EU5
Before anything, here is just a little bit for those who are not convinced that it's time to leave EU4 as it is. If you're already convinced of it, just skip
Development inefficiency
For having read quite the number of topics and discussions on this forum, I know for a fact that there are a good amount of you who would still like EU4 to receive a few last major updates before switching to EU5. The argument will usually be that there are some regions currently in EU4 that are greatly lacking flavor, and it's important that they are reworked before development cycle ends. I'm not saying that this argument is irrelevant, because yes, it's true that there are several regions in EU4 that feel very lacking of flavor compared to others.
But let's face it. There will always be regions that will feel less flavored than others. What were once the first mission trees, that felt very full of content then, now look pathetic in comparison to the new mission trees of recent updates, that are bigger and more developped. And as new and better mission trees are developped, the older ones will always feel more bland in comparison, and thus it could be that there would always be the feeling that some regions lack flavor. Because in the absolute, it's not that they lack flavor, it's that they lack flavor compared to others.
And the problem is that, for the development of an update that includes between 10 and 20 new missions trees, the required time will be much longer than it should, if you look at the actual amount of content that has been added. Because, for each mission tree of each insignificant country, you need to conduct historical research in order to find ideas about how to play a country that most people never knew about initially, and more importantly, you need to do balancing.
Balancing is the key word here. There are so many countries, so many missions, so many ideas, so many mechanics, in this game, and a such a big expectation of balance from multiplayer scene, that each addition to the game must be a nightmare to balance with the rest. I don't have any statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if each addition to the game takes more time to balance with the rest than to research and actually develop.
And the other key aspect is the accumulation of bugs. With each update, you see a ton of topics of people complaining about the absurd amount of new bugs, about old bugs still not being fixed, about AI being dumb af, about QA not doing their job... And it's fair. You don't want the game you enjoy to be filled with bugs.
But EU4 will be 10 years old in about a year. 10 years old. In the meantime, there have been tons of different mechanics being developped, tons of different modifiers stacking with each others, tons of new in-game resources to manage. A lot of core mechanics were developed 8-9 years ago, probably without imagining that they'd have to be re-adapted to new mechanics years later. I don't know if you realize, but it's extremely annoying and time-consuming to build features on top of features that were developped years ago, with a code that was not made to facilitate future adaptation. I am a developper myself, so I can tell you. As a developper, you usually want to avoid doing that if you can. Heck, even dealing with a code that is 2-3 years old is painful already, so I don't even wanna imagine what it's like to touch a code that is 8+ years old... Considering this, I'm not surprised that they have such a hard time improving the AI.
But EU4 development team must be doing this all the time each time they add a new mechanic, a new modifier, a new content, ... This, and all the balancing issues I mentioned earlier.
So, I think I wouldn't take too much risk by saying that the more time goes and updates are being made, the harder it is for developpers to develop new content. The game is just too old, it's not time efficient. The engine is outdated and can't take anymore. They did mention that they won't add new provinces to the game, because of it. And the engine is not something that can just be changed, it's a core part of the game. It's no longer efficient from a developper point of view to continue the development cycle of EU4.
Difficulty of access for new players
That was for the developper point of view. What about the players?
A lot of us only seem to have issues with lack of balance, bugs, lack of historical accuracy, lack of flavor, ... But those are complaints that are mainly made from older players, who are used to the game, who have most likely played every major nation first, started from every possible part of the world, have seen most of the content that exists. But let's take a look for a moment at more fresh players.
I have mentioned that the stacking of new mechanics and new modifiers make it hard for developpers, but it also sucks for new players. If you are a new player who gets to the game now. First, there is the barrier of price, with the absurd amount of DLCs. But let's consider that you still buy some of the most important DLCs. Even if you don't have all DLCs, the amount of mechanics, of subtleties, of abstract modifiers, that already exist makes the game very intimidating for a new player. And each new update makes it a bit harder to access. All this for a game that looks and feels outdated, graphically and engine-wise.
There are often people complaining that the game is too easy. But one gotta keep in mind that with most games, having 300-400h of playing means that you have mastered the game, and you would never complain that the game is too easy because you're supposed to have mastered it. But most players are not willing to invest 1000h on a game that's just about looking at a map. And spending your first 200h having no idea what you're doing is not really motivating.
We tend to forget it because we feel like there's a lot of activities on the dedicated forums and subreddits, but the EU4 player base is a niche player base. This is partly due to the genre itself, and nothing can be done about it. But the sheer initial complexity of the game and the price barrier make it harder over time to attract new players.
This also has an impact on the economical model. Once again, I don't have any numbers, but I think there are less and less people buying EU4. And probably now the continuous development of this game is mostly financed by the sell of DLCs alone. A development cycle of 9 years is usually what massive multiplayers games can afford, not niche games. And it's also why we get to pay so much for DLCs. Although this one part could be blamed to the economical strategy of Paradox, probably not fitted for the size of the playerbase of their games.
The 2 core pillars of EU5 (as believed by me)
Alright now, let's get to main business: discussing what should be the core ideas of a future EU5, as people who don't have any experience in game design!
I took some time to think about it, to think about what would make EU5 a better game than EU4. Some simple answers came to mind at first, those I have seen coming often, like "more historical accuracy", "No mana", "more flavor", "more provinces", "Pops", ... But after taking a bit more time, while some did still sound good to me, some others ended up seeming too superficial to really create a better game.
So in the end I came up with 2 pillars, that should represent the core ideas of the philosophy of EU5's game design:
A game that evolves and adapts
So, at some point, I took some distance to review in my head what happens in the real life equivalent of the time span of EU4, namely from 1453 to 1821. And then it struck me how much this period of time saw massive changes in technologies, in doctrines, in societies, in state structure, in nation building, how much "the mechanics" of the world in 1453 were so different than in 1821. And then, I became unable to unsee how static of a game EU4 is in comparison. By that, I don't mean that nothing happens in the game, far from it. After all, the map will always change a lot over those almost 4 centuries. But what doesn't change are the mechanics: The game is played the same in 1453 as in 1821, everything is just on a bigger scale.
Now, maybe you're gonna tell me "well, that's normal, you can't have different ways of playing in one same game". Yeah, but what if?
I believe that compared to CK3, HOI4, I:R and future V3, EU4 is the game that involves the biggest changes in technology, society, doctrines, etc... , between real life equivalent of start and end date. Considering that, I think that one unique core feature of EU5 would be that the game evolves over the course of its time period, and isn't the played the same way in the early game and the late game, to truly represent the massive change the world has undergone. Not to the point of being an entirely different game, but still very impactful changes.
What I mean there is that, since EU is a sandbox gain that allows ahistorical scenarios, the game should be able to manage and create new scenarios to adapt the current course of in-game of events, instead of always sticking to historical events when it no longer makes sense. It makes no sense that Ottomans would gain claim on Levant if they have themselves been beaten up, it makes no sense that Austria gets ton of personal unions if they have become weak af.
A game that feels more alive
So, if you are still here, I have discussed how I think the game should be more adaptative to itself and to the flow of time, but now I'd like to discuss what I see as the second pilar: how the game should feel more alive.
What do I mean there? It's simple. EU4 is a game whose design has chosen to go for a lot of abstraction to represent the world and your country's management, mana is the central mechanic of the game. The problem is that this mana in itself, and most of the various modifiers don't represent anything. What does it truly mean when you spend 50 admin? What does it mean when you spend 700 admin to purchase a new tech? What does it mean when you have 30% professionalism? What does it mean when you have a trade efficiency of 20% and mercantilism of 10%? What does it mean when a province has 25 development? Quickly, you stop caring about the concrete implication of those values, and you just try your best to stack up as many modifiers as you can, because anyway, in EU4, more is always better, and you paint the map.
With the capacities of 2013, it might have made sense to go for such an approach. But with V3 dev diaries, paradox has shown us that they are now able to come up with game designs that are much more concrete, more "organic" as I like to say. And this is what I'd like to see for a future EU5: no abstraction of every concept, no hysteria of modifiers everywhere. The game must "feel alive", and as you play, you must feel like things make sense, that the world you see on your screen is not just a map with lot of numbers, but something that you actually understand. There will always be a layer of abstraction of course, but it should be avoided each time it's relevant to the game design.
Aaaaaalright, I think I have expressed all the ideas I had in my mind (I actually had to write the titles on a paper to not forget them all lol). I think this got a bit out of hand and the text is long af, which probably means that no one will bother reading it. And I don't even think any paradox developer will ever see it. But, just in case, who knows.
In any case, if you've read it all, feel free to express your thoughts, adding more of your own ideas, developping some of mine, disagreeing with my points, etc... I doubt it will affect in any way EU5, but it will give me the illusion of doing something productive, so there's that ahahhahahah
Thank you for reading, and have a nice day/evening
This is the first time I post on this forum (mostly because I never felt the need to) but I have been playing EU4 for a while now. I think I have crossed the 1000h treshold actually, even though I'm more the casual player kind and not the achievements-seeker kind. Keep this in mind when reading my post, as my impression of the game is probably very different from the competitive EU4 players who play a lot in multiplayer and/or play a lot in ironman.
This is simply a post -and probably one of the many about the same topic- advocating for finally stopping the development cycle of EU4 in order to fully focus on EU5. But since I'm not someone to just throw my salt and leave, I wanted to add some suggestions about what should be -in my eyes- the core ideas of the future EU5 game. Not sure if any developper will ever read it, and not sure if it can have any impact at all. But atleast, it might feel good to share the ideas with the community.
Knowing myself though, this might be long. So sit back and relax, and enjoy the reading :')
It's time to switch to EU5
Before anything, here is just a little bit for those who are not convinced that it's time to leave EU4 as it is. If you're already convinced of it, just skip
Development inefficiency
For having read quite the number of topics and discussions on this forum, I know for a fact that there are a good amount of you who would still like EU4 to receive a few last major updates before switching to EU5. The argument will usually be that there are some regions currently in EU4 that are greatly lacking flavor, and it's important that they are reworked before development cycle ends. I'm not saying that this argument is irrelevant, because yes, it's true that there are several regions in EU4 that feel very lacking of flavor compared to others.
But let's face it. There will always be regions that will feel less flavored than others. What were once the first mission trees, that felt very full of content then, now look pathetic in comparison to the new mission trees of recent updates, that are bigger and more developped. And as new and better mission trees are developped, the older ones will always feel more bland in comparison, and thus it could be that there would always be the feeling that some regions lack flavor. Because in the absolute, it's not that they lack flavor, it's that they lack flavor compared to others.
And the problem is that, for the development of an update that includes between 10 and 20 new missions trees, the required time will be much longer than it should, if you look at the actual amount of content that has been added. Because, for each mission tree of each insignificant country, you need to conduct historical research in order to find ideas about how to play a country that most people never knew about initially, and more importantly, you need to do balancing.
Balancing is the key word here. There are so many countries, so many missions, so many ideas, so many mechanics, in this game, and a such a big expectation of balance from multiplayer scene, that each addition to the game must be a nightmare to balance with the rest. I don't have any statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if each addition to the game takes more time to balance with the rest than to research and actually develop.
And the other key aspect is the accumulation of bugs. With each update, you see a ton of topics of people complaining about the absurd amount of new bugs, about old bugs still not being fixed, about AI being dumb af, about QA not doing their job... And it's fair. You don't want the game you enjoy to be filled with bugs.
But EU4 will be 10 years old in about a year. 10 years old. In the meantime, there have been tons of different mechanics being developped, tons of different modifiers stacking with each others, tons of new in-game resources to manage. A lot of core mechanics were developed 8-9 years ago, probably without imagining that they'd have to be re-adapted to new mechanics years later. I don't know if you realize, but it's extremely annoying and time-consuming to build features on top of features that were developped years ago, with a code that was not made to facilitate future adaptation. I am a developper myself, so I can tell you. As a developper, you usually want to avoid doing that if you can. Heck, even dealing with a code that is 2-3 years old is painful already, so I don't even wanna imagine what it's like to touch a code that is 8+ years old... Considering this, I'm not surprised that they have such a hard time improving the AI.
But EU4 development team must be doing this all the time each time they add a new mechanic, a new modifier, a new content, ... This, and all the balancing issues I mentioned earlier.
So, I think I wouldn't take too much risk by saying that the more time goes and updates are being made, the harder it is for developpers to develop new content. The game is just too old, it's not time efficient. The engine is outdated and can't take anymore. They did mention that they won't add new provinces to the game, because of it. And the engine is not something that can just be changed, it's a core part of the game. It's no longer efficient from a developper point of view to continue the development cycle of EU4.
Difficulty of access for new players
That was for the developper point of view. What about the players?
A lot of us only seem to have issues with lack of balance, bugs, lack of historical accuracy, lack of flavor, ... But those are complaints that are mainly made from older players, who are used to the game, who have most likely played every major nation first, started from every possible part of the world, have seen most of the content that exists. But let's take a look for a moment at more fresh players.
I have mentioned that the stacking of new mechanics and new modifiers make it hard for developpers, but it also sucks for new players. If you are a new player who gets to the game now. First, there is the barrier of price, with the absurd amount of DLCs. But let's consider that you still buy some of the most important DLCs. Even if you don't have all DLCs, the amount of mechanics, of subtleties, of abstract modifiers, that already exist makes the game very intimidating for a new player. And each new update makes it a bit harder to access. All this for a game that looks and feels outdated, graphically and engine-wise.
There are often people complaining that the game is too easy. But one gotta keep in mind that with most games, having 300-400h of playing means that you have mastered the game, and you would never complain that the game is too easy because you're supposed to have mastered it. But most players are not willing to invest 1000h on a game that's just about looking at a map. And spending your first 200h having no idea what you're doing is not really motivating.
We tend to forget it because we feel like there's a lot of activities on the dedicated forums and subreddits, but the EU4 player base is a niche player base. This is partly due to the genre itself, and nothing can be done about it. But the sheer initial complexity of the game and the price barrier make it harder over time to attract new players.
This also has an impact on the economical model. Once again, I don't have any numbers, but I think there are less and less people buying EU4. And probably now the continuous development of this game is mostly financed by the sell of DLCs alone. A development cycle of 9 years is usually what massive multiplayers games can afford, not niche games. And it's also why we get to pay so much for DLCs. Although this one part could be blamed to the economical strategy of Paradox, probably not fitted for the size of the playerbase of their games.
The 2 core pillars of EU5 (as believed by me)
Alright now, let's get to main business: discussing what should be the core ideas of a future EU5, as people who don't have any experience in game design!
I took some time to think about it, to think about what would make EU5 a better game than EU4. Some simple answers came to mind at first, those I have seen coming often, like "more historical accuracy", "No mana", "more flavor", "more provinces", "Pops", ... But after taking a bit more time, while some did still sound good to me, some others ended up seeming too superficial to really create a better game.
So in the end I came up with 2 pillars, that should represent the core ideas of the philosophy of EU5's game design:
- A game that evolves and adapts
- A game that feels more alive
A game that evolves and adapts
So, at some point, I took some distance to review in my head what happens in the real life equivalent of the time span of EU4, namely from 1453 to 1821. And then it struck me how much this period of time saw massive changes in technologies, in doctrines, in societies, in state structure, in nation building, how much "the mechanics" of the world in 1453 were so different than in 1821. And then, I became unable to unsee how static of a game EU4 is in comparison. By that, I don't mean that nothing happens in the game, far from it. After all, the map will always change a lot over those almost 4 centuries. But what doesn't change are the mechanics: The game is played the same in 1453 as in 1821, everything is just on a bigger scale.
Now, maybe you're gonna tell me "well, that's normal, you can't have different ways of playing in one same game". Yeah, but what if?
I believe that compared to CK3, HOI4, I:R and future V3, EU4 is the game that involves the biggest changes in technology, society, doctrines, etc... , between real life equivalent of start and end date. Considering that, I think that one unique core feature of EU5 would be that the game evolves over the course of its time period, and isn't the played the same way in the early game and the late game, to truly represent the massive change the world has undergone. Not to the point of being an entirely different game, but still very impactful changes.
- More impactful Eras:
EU4 already has a system of eras, but it mainly involves a different set of modifiers, along with one flavor mechanic (reformation, absolutism, revolution). But I think it could be brought much further, and be the core concept of this "mechanics evolution" I mentioned. If we keep this number of 4 Eras, they could divide the game truly in 4 phases, each involving a gradual evolution of the mechanics of the game. So that, switching from one Era to the other doesn't make you completely lost, but the playstyle between first and last eras is very different.
I can't tell you exactly which mechanics to change and how, since I'm not a game designer, but I have come maybe with some ideas.
- Adaptive Eras:
Not only should eras bring changes in the way you play and be impactful on the game, but they should also not be something global, and more something adapted for each country. China didn't go through the same changes as Europe in those 4 centuries, and not with the same pace. Ottomans didn't know the same evolution as the western europeans. Some countries got "stuck" in one eras for much longer than some others.
As such, I believe that advancing to a new Era should be something proper to each countries, with different requirements such a technology progress for example, and influence from neighbors. This way, a modern Spain on Era 3 could come knock at the door at a China still playing with the rules of Era 1.
But also, under right circumstances, it could also be possible to quickly go through some eras, barely even playing with them, such as with a rapidly modernizing Japan, for example.
And finally, flavor could imply entirely eras and different mechanics for some parts of the world. It could be a great seller for flavor packs. (see paradox, I'm even giving you ideas for dlc roadmap)
- Gradual focus of importance of Dynasties:
So, Europa Universalis is not supposed to be like Crusader Kings, a game focused on dynasties, titles and character relationships. But, in the 15th and 16th centuries, and even as far as the 17th century, a lot of conflicts in Europe, atleast western Europe, were about dynastic conflicts, and putting a brother/nephew/son on the throne of a neighbor country. This is briefly adressed in EU4 with the personal unions and the "claim throne" actions, but doesn't really represent what it was about irl, and anyway no one really understands how this mechanic works.
Instead, I think that it would be a good idea to put more focus in dynasties, atleast in the first Eras, and slowly shift this focus away as you progress through Eras and the focus goes from dynastic conflicts to nation-building. In the first era, you could have an important part of the playstyle based on your ruling family. You could have an interface allowing you to know who is your ruler, their consort, their children, and siblings. They wouldn't need to have a detailled visual, traits, relationships, and all that. Just knowing who they are and which claims on which thrones they have, based on their ascendency. In the same way, you could have more control over royal marriages, choosing who to marry with who, once per foreign country. Thus, you could have descendants that have claims on other thrones, which could allow you later on to wage war to install members of your dynasty on said-throne.
As you progress through eras, you would start loosing visibility on your dynasty, only a reduced circle of your family: for example, only children and consort, and then only heir and consort. When you reach the last era, as it's no longer about building dynasties but building a nation, the whole dynasty interface would become mostly irrelevant, only letting you know who is your ruler, and losing ability to claim foreign thrones.
- Centralization and estates:
One struggle as you play through the eras, especially from mid-game, should be the attempt at centralizing the country. Estates should have an even stronger role in the first early, where they have strong control over your territory, preventing you from doing certain actions depending on the estate in question.
The main one would be the nobility, obviously, who would actually own land, and most of your territory at start of the game, and it could prevent you from building stuff directly in noble-owned provinces. Meaning that you wouldn't be able to have a strong control over your own country at the first era.
Clergy could directly own some lands and have a varying influence in other provinces, preventing you from collecting full taxes. Other estates would have other effects, and would depend on what's your country and government type.
One requirement to enter the 3rd "absolutionism" era could be to have successfully placated your estates and gained control over most of your territory. From this point on, you would be able to truly control your provinces, and build stuff as you wish. So, you progressively lose control over your dynasty but you gain control over your territory, as eras pass by.
- Evolution of economy and trade:
Economy and, more importantly, trade, would be also heavily impacted by the change of Eras. Trade should be one of the main focus of EU, and as such, it's important that you really see the impact of Eras on how trade works. The economy of first era would be mostly similar to late medieval kind of economy, not a lot of big trading networks, trading being mostly on a local scale. Regional trading leagues such as Venice would be shining at the early game, being the only ones to be able to have an extended trade network.
But as you pass through era, the scale of trade would quickly increase, tending toward global trading, which would completely change the dynamics. Mid-game should be heavily trade oriented, trying to build trade posts in foreign lands as you reach Era 3.
And as your reach the last era, with new technologies increasing productivity of crops and other stuff, internal economy would make a come-back, and it would be time for countries who didn't have access to big trading networks to shine.
I'm not sure at this point how to truly represent the evolution of scale of economy and trade without relying on a ton of modifiers like in EU4, but the goal would be to make those changes more impactful on your gameplay.
- Evolution of warfare:
The warfare is one of the things that changed the most irl during those 4 centuries, and it should be represented in EU. Currently, in EU4, progressing into the game only means more soldier, stronger forts, more cannons, more modifiers. To begin with, even the way you organize armies and conduct campaigns should be affected.
In the first era, you shouldn't be able to spam lot of little stacks of units, armies should mostly remain as one, and the number of sub-armies you can divide your stack in should be limited by your number of generals, plus the mercenary armies. Battles should be very decisive, affecting much more the war scores, wars being often decided by a few major engagements.
And later on, you can start conducting more skirmish strategies by splitting your armies into lot of small stacks (although they could still be all part of one "army"), wage longer and deadlier wars.
Supplies should also play a role and be a major factor in your ability to expand and wage wars far from your capital.
Also, probably that the way combat works should be made less abstract and involve more variety of types of units, to be more than just a contest of having more soldiers/more modifiers.
- Evolution of casus belli:
Casus Belli should also change over time. The way they are handled in EU4 represent more how peace would be settled in 17th or 18th century, with people formally making an agreement and discussing the content of the peace treaty, and how much land is taken. But in early era, casus belli should be more similar to CK, with a defined goal, that can be both huge or small. This kind of defined casus belli could allow rapid expansions such as the annexation of Mamluks by Ottomans, or Manchu invasions, ...
In the later Eras, peace should be more like in EU4, with the twist that, after mid-game, it starts becoming harder to expand in your home region, while you gain the ability to do mass conquests outside of it. You can see how in Europe, after some point, territorial gains from wars were fairly small in Europe, but could involve mass conquest in overseas territories.
And some special casus belli, such as mughal invasion, napoleonic coallition, or others, could allow you to directly conquer land you occupy until your country becomes to weary for war.
What I mean there is that, since EU is a sandbox gain that allows ahistorical scenarios, the game should be able to manage and create new scenarios to adapt the current course of in-game of events, instead of always sticking to historical events when it no longer makes sense. It makes no sense that Ottomans would gain claim on Levant if they have themselves been beaten up, it makes no sense that Austria gets ton of personal unions if they have become weak af.
- Dynamic mission trees:
This could be a bit hard to implement but it would be so rewarding for those of us who are not obsessed with historical accurate development (which means, most of us), and would like to have ahistorical scenarios that feel coherent. Countries could have historical missions if they follow their historical path, but it would change if the player takes a completely different approach, or if the world itself has changed to a point where in no longer makes sense. Gaining claims on areas based on where you are expanding and what's your culture, development bonuses in your current capital, changing the locations of some events to adapt current circumstances, etc...
Basically, I want to feel that the game is reacting to what I'm doing or to what some unexpectedly successful AI is doing, and not just following the historical script as if nothing. There could be other and better ways than dynamic mission trees tho.
- Flexible trade nodes:
I'm sure I'm not who has always felt confused that the direction of the trade between trade nodes can never be changed. If the world follows a historical course, they make sense, but if it takes a completely different turn, it would make sense that the trade network itself would become modified. If I have become a very powerful and rich nation in a start trade node, I should be able to make it so trade starts flowing toward my trade node as well. Basically, if you're a powerful country that controls most of a trade region, you should be able to reverse the direction of trade toward your trade node, or just make it bidirectional instead of just monodirectional.
- Stop stacking up modifiers:
I don't have a precise solution for this, but the game design should be thought so that going further in the campaign doesn't mean just stacking up modifiers infinitely. Unlike in EU4, in real life, more doesn't always mean better. One of the reason of why EU4's late game is so boring is because everything is on such a bigger scale, everything has so many modifiers, that it all feels pointless because how overpowered you have become, among other things.
A game that feels more alive
So, if you are still here, I have discussed how I think the game should be more adaptative to itself and to the flow of time, but now I'd like to discuss what I see as the second pilar: how the game should feel more alive.
What do I mean there? It's simple. EU4 is a game whose design has chosen to go for a lot of abstraction to represent the world and your country's management, mana is the central mechanic of the game. The problem is that this mana in itself, and most of the various modifiers don't represent anything. What does it truly mean when you spend 50 admin? What does it mean when you spend 700 admin to purchase a new tech? What does it mean when you have 30% professionalism? What does it mean when you have a trade efficiency of 20% and mercantilism of 10%? What does it mean when a province has 25 development? Quickly, you stop caring about the concrete implication of those values, and you just try your best to stack up as many modifiers as you can, because anyway, in EU4, more is always better, and you paint the map.
With the capacities of 2013, it might have made sense to go for such an approach. But with V3 dev diaries, paradox has shown us that they are now able to come up with game designs that are much more concrete, more "organic" as I like to say. And this is what I'd like to see for a future EU5: no abstraction of every concept, no hysteria of modifiers everywhere. The game must "feel alive", and as you play, you must feel like things make sense, that the world you see on your screen is not just a map with lot of numbers, but something that you actually understand. There will always be a layer of abstraction of course, but it should be avoided each time it's relevant to the game design.
- Give us the Pops:
Nothing super original about this one, I have seen a lot of people demanding a population mechanics, and I do agree that it would be a good idea for EU. No need to make it as in-depth as with Victoria, since it's not the focus of the game, but it would be great having a population for each province that grows or declines, migrates to other provinces, dies when there is famine or war, gets converted to manpower when there is war, gets transfered to oversea territories when you colonize, ...
In a province, you'd only need to know how much population there is, what's the expected change in the next year, and how wealthy is it in average. This would allow to represent development, prosperity, devastation in a concrete way. And would also allow for passive "development" increase, as population would naturally grow, the speed of it impacted by the various migrations ongoing and the wealth level of the population.
I guess that it could also be nice to know in a province which percentage of the population comes from which culture, and from which religion, as it could affect some other aspects, while offering a better representation of the world (for example allowing minority groups to play a role, like jewish communities).
- Make trade more concrete:
Trade is one of the core aspects of the period of time of EU4, so it shouldn't be allowed to be reduced as well to just abstract numbers, values and modifiers. There should be more focus on the ressources themselves, knowing which ressources are being traded/transported in a trade region, where they come from, and how what's its worth, based on how far it's traveling to reach its destination and its rarety. You should also have some control over which ressource you wanna focus more on, which you wanna put embargo on, which you refuse to trade, which you buy, etc...
Currently, in EU4 I can know that I have 50% control in this trade node, that I have 15% trade efficiency, 5% mercantilism, with 10% good produced modifier, and the price of this ressource being X, I'll have X money being transfered to next node But now, I'd prefer to know that there is X amount of Y ressource that I'm transporting here, x amount coming from those provinces, x amount that I'm producing from my region and x amount that I'm buying from foreign countries. And when it reaches its destination, it will cost x amount, based on the distance it has travelled and the other closest sources of this resource, and it takes X years for the me to earn the profit, but it repeats every year.
You could even make some stock of one ressource, and then sell it, etc...
Zones that see a high trade activity would see an increase of population growth in the main provinces, directly linking trade with the population systems.
- More impactful religion:
Currently, as with most things in EU4, religion is just yet another stack of modifiers that don't affect much besides those said-modifiers and the color of the religious maps. I don't know at this point how it could be done, but different religions should give you a different feeling and a bit of a different approach on how you play the game. It could impact how your country is structures, how the religious estates control land, etc...
But also, it should be more impactful in earlier eras, and become less relevant as you reach late-game.
- "Organic" technology:
Technology should be more than just some amount of mana points you pay every 10-20 years to gain some modifiers and be ahead of your neighbors. Instead, I'd like to see a system where, instead of having different levels of diplomatic/military/administrative technologies, you have "innovations" that spawn somewhere in the world. The spawn location in question would usually be a country's capital, depending on the "innovative level" of the country (representing how much it's investing in science), the year and the region. It will then spread in the world, a bit like institutions. When it spreads to a province, this province can start using whatever inventions or improvement it brings.
You could thus either choose to let it spread passively and wait until it reaches you, or you could adopt it as a state innovation and then let it spread from your capital. But in order to adopt it as a state innovation, you'd have to be neighboring a country that has it, be very friendly with a country that has it, or have enough spying level of this country.
Some improvements/inventions would be dependant on the province, and some would be global to the state if the state has adopted the related innovation.
So here, two new concepts: innovations and innovative level.
And innovations shouldn't be divided in categories, and they shouldn't necessarily follow each other in a precise order, you could have several innovations spawning around the same time and spreading. It could be anything, from military inventions, agriculture improvements, social changes, trade evolution, ... Anything that was supposed to make a big change irl.
- Policies:
Still something a bit vague in my mind, but basically the idea is to replace idea groups and national ideas. The thing in EU4 is that, while idea groups and ideas are very impactful in early game because it makes every country specialized in something, by the time you reach late game, everyone ends up having the same kind of modifiers in total, and atleast 2/3 idea groups in common.
The idea of policies would be to represent the direction that your country is following. They would be much more limited in number than ideas/idea groups, but more impactful, in order to truly make your country stand out from its neighbors. Some policies would be native to the country itself (like 1 per country maybe), and some could be acquired as time goes.
The idea is to really affect your gameplay depending on what policies you have adopted. If your country has adopted "colonialism" and "global trade" policies, then you won't play it the same as a country with "multiculturalism" and "expansionism", or as a country with "militarism" and "fanatic proselytism", or "revolutionary republicanism" and "defensive spirit", etc...
I feel like 2 is not a bad number actually, but maybe 3 would offer more combinations.
- Concrete centralization:
As I have mentioned earlier, centralization was one of the main struggle of the time period, and I feel like it's a shame to truly represent it with just a percentage of autonomy. Decentralization, autonomy, ..., should be more impactful.
I spoke a bit about estates earlier, and how nobility could be directly controling a vast part of your land at start. Well I think this could be tied with the centralization mechanics. With a high degree of decentralization, not only you'd only have limited options on how to affect provinces controlled by nobles, but entire statescould be left in the control of local lords, such ottoman pashas, or french dukes, with various options of action on those states depending on your level of centralization.
Each state would have its own level of centralization. With a lower centralization level, the states could even be in the hands of different vassal countries, with various level of autonomy as you increase centralization (march/autonomous vassal, vassal, integrated vassal). Then it becomes part of your country under control of a lord, with various level of controls. And then, the state become in your control, with local lords in charge of provinces, until you finally achieve complete centralization and the whole state is in your control.
Decentralization could also be something you implemented on purpose, for example with overseas states that you'd leave in the control of a trade company, letting them manage the trade themselves, even if it means you won't collect the whole profit.
I think this gradual approach would feel more alive, and more representative of how things worked. It could also make internal unrest more dangerous, as some states with low centralization could throw your country in civil war by declaring independance, for example.
- Dynamic coring:
Coring should also be made less abstract. Instead of being X adm points and waiting x amount of time until your province suddenly switches from territory to core, I think coring should follow a gradual approach, like for centralization. Either it would just directly start as a very decentralized area, or starts by starting a different process of passive integration, waiting a certain amount of time, depending on various criteria, until you can officially consider those provinces as part of your country and integrate them as decentralized states.
- Realistic expansion:
I'd like to see more realistic blobbing, and actual collapses of empires.
For the blobbing part, I mean that unlike in EU4, in real life the increase of money, manpower, etc..., is not all the time proportional to the amount of land you possess, especially in those times. At some point, you reach a point where your empire won't gain that much more money through direct expansion, where you won't really be able to increase the size of your army that much, because of the administrative strain, logistical issues, corruption, etc... I would like to feel like maintaining a big blob is actually a struggle, forcing you to be careful even when you are one of the top 3 empires of the campaign. I guess a kind of more punitive and more realistic EU4's administrative cap.
Which leads me to the point about collapse of empires. I'd like to actually see empires being able to collapse under the right conditions. And I don't mean a bunch of rebel stacks who will increase autonomy and reduce your manpower. I mean a real crisis where entire areas of your empire could secede, throwing you in a brutal civil wars, that your rivals are sure to make profit of.
The triggers could be various and dependant as well on the era. Religious tensions could play a higher role in the reformation era, while the last era, with the rise of nationalism would be basically a death sentence for multicultural empires that aren't well prepared. It would have to also come with a possibility to have a much bigger impact in supporting rebels, making you able to truly try to cripple your rivals, even if it means that you have to go bankrupt in the process. Now, you're finally able to get rid of those annoying ottomans without having to conquer yourself most their land, chunk by chunk.
So in short, more punitive rapid expansion, that prevents you from increasing your income and power on an exponential basis, and possibility to collapse yourself or provokate the collapse of your rivals under right conditions. Tho, the feature could be turned off for world-conquest fans.
- Nomads:
Nomads should work very differently from the rest of countries and have something closer to how tribes work in EU4, until they centralize and settle more. No much more to add there, just bringing it on the table.
- Playing tall:
And while I'm on the last bit, it should also be made viable and actually enjoyable to play tall, which doesn't mean concentrating the hell out of your vassals' development, and pillaging all capitals around the world.
Aaaaaalright, I think I have expressed all the ideas I had in my mind (I actually had to write the titles on a paper to not forget them all lol). I think this got a bit out of hand and the text is long af, which probably means that no one will bother reading it. And I don't even think any paradox developer will ever see it. But, just in case, who knows.
In any case, if you've read it all, feel free to express your thoughts, adding more of your own ideas, developping some of mine, disagreeing with my points, etc... I doubt it will affect in any way EU5, but it will give me the illusion of doing something productive, so there's that ahahhahahah
Thank you for reading, and have a nice day/evening
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