What should be the core concepts of future EU5

[Haïdouk]

@Ferdinand_Bardamu
Thank you for the kind words, glad that the efforts I made trying to make this huge block of text somewhat helpful and irrelevant got appreciated

But I would have a hard time commenting on what is "EU4 culture", to be honest. Even in this pretty niche community that we are, there are a lot of different kinds of players who expect different things from the game. There are the achievement seekers, who know every mechanics of the game and abuse them in everyway to do stuff that don't make sense in a roleplay way but that are effective, there are the very competitive players who love multiplayers and are all about balancing and such, there are the map painters who like to build huge blob and conquer the worlds, there are the chill casual players (like me) who enjoy the sandbox aspect of the game while trying to remain coherent with a narrative we've built to ourselves, and there are the historical accuracy obsessionists who watch carefully every little flavor details and wanna stick to history as much as possible.
EU4 has mechanics that are extremely abstract and reduce a lot the "immersion" aspect, but it allows somehow all these different categories of players to feel satisfied with the game. And I'm pretty sure if they decide (and I hope they'll do) to design EU5 with more grounded and "concrete" mechanics, some stuff you can do with EU4 won't be possible anymore, or it will be harder. And some parts of the community might not like it.

Personnally, I would prefer a game that makes me feel more in immersion in the campaign's narrative, letting me feel that there is a sort of different story with each campaign, and that I'm not forced to conquer all the time in order to not be bored. But yeah, I think it would inevitably mean that mindlessly blobbing becomes harder. In that sense, EU5 would be a game with a different "philosophy" than EU4
But I'm liking what they're showing with Victoria 3 so far, it gives me some hope that this is the kind of approach they might take.

 

[uberjedi]

Better trade mechnics. Not mana or extra buttons. But a way to affect the flow of produced goods so that you have to make strategic considerations.

 

[arosenberger14]

I would like to see a central tension between stability and dynamism. If you optimize everything so that your people are happy, your lands prosperous, and your military strong, it should be harder to change. After all, why change when everything works well? Then, 50 or so years later, you find that your institutions have become sclerotic and unable to deal with demographic changes, natural disasters, or a hot new empire on your borders with some dynamic new economic or military tech. On the flip side if you run your state as dynamically as possible, it'll be hard to remain stable... maybe you can conquer vast swathes of land really quick, build a massive colonial or trade empire, or upend your nation's social order, but that'll come with massive blowback which can risk knocking you back down to near where you started. Focusing on this theme would lead to a much more dynamic and interesting game where you can better model things like the rise and fall of the Spanish Empire, the Ming, or other gunpowder empires of the Era, colonialism, and the rise of Europe relative to Asia (or maybe vice versa if Europe becomes more static and stable).

 

[Olaf Trygvasson]

I like your idea to model this, but for it to work there shouldn't be a button that magically reduces war exaustion in an instant. I think some mods do that also with stability.

100% agree, and I would expand that to inflation and other things as well. The logic behind it doesn't even make sense- how is a ruler going to go out and say "hey that war wasn't so bad, right? It was great!" and the population just says "oh yeah he has a point, I'd be down to do that again." There is a reason that most nations only experience major conflicts once per generation

I'm okay with investments making the change quicker, but nothing should change in an instant.

One of the things that bugs me about EU4 is how much the player is able to change the people you rule, how it is guaranteed what a thing will do, and how making it succeed is just a matter of time. Take religion, for instance. During the reformation, various states weren't able to just spend some gold to have priests go out and try to convince their population to become protestant or stop being protestant, that is kind of the entire point of it. Or the absolute lunacy that is EU4s cultural conversion, where you can make anyone anywhere in the world switch to the exact culture of your homeland in, at the most, maybe a decade. The Romans are one of the best cultural assimilaters of all time, and it took them centuries to get the average people of their provinces to act close to how the Romans themselves did, but never quite adopting full Roman ways. Or the Native Americans, who were subject to attempted "cultural conversion" for centuries and- though their culture has been irreparably harmed- have not completely assimilated into "normal" American culture. Things like culture, religion, and all those many other things about your subjects should be subject to influence by the state, but they should generally be things you have to accept and maybe try to minimize the impact of, not things you can easily directly change

 

[DominusNovus]

The opening post was entirely too long. So, I’ll say that they should start with Imperator as a foundation, make it feel like EU4, then add a bunch of the economic features from Vicky3.

I think the single most important development of the entire period covered by the game is the creation of a global economy, by linking the eastern and western hemispheres by maritime trade. The Columbian Exchange absolutely needs to be properly modeled. European colonists and African slaves coming to the New World, and crops, livestock, and diseases from both hemispheres being spread to the other utterly remade the world.

 

[Seaweed and Mayonnaise]

Besides the good stuff already covered here, I think for such a long game EU5 could also improve upon the ages and institutions mechanics. I think they were on the right track, and I see a lot of potential to improve on them and give us players something new to look forward to and do every 50 or so years in game. For example, I think the build-up from the reformation to the league war is really well done in EU4, but then the game doesn't really try to do anything similar until 200 years later with the revolution.

The core of this period is colonization, trade, and conquest and I think those deserve the most focus in EU5. But below these, exploration should be focus of 15th century, but EU4 does a fairly mediocre job of it. Reformation in mid-16th century, and done well in EU4. Absolutism in early-17th century, and I'd like this period to introduce some new mechanics/challenges with estates - its way too passively done in EU4. Enlightenment in the early 18th century which should really focus on social changes and internal dynamics. Which would then of course lead to revolutions in the late 18th century, which should really the main big event to close the game - a bit like how WW1 feels in V2.

 

[Loganplayseu4]

On top of the obvious core tenets of the period, I feel like something that could really add extra depth to a potential EU5 would be to better show the power struggle between the crown, estates, and people. Estates should be a lot more active, with the benefits and deficits of a loyal and disloyal estate being more than a few rebels and some modifiers (for example, disloyal estates could do their own diplomacy with other nations and could outright take money and resources), and loyal estates could supply militias in times of war and help in various other ways), whilst the people are a lot more like V2, with pops and their treatment helping to dictate what rebels you may get, and rebels, in general, being less of a mere speedbump. In other words, make the people and estates more powerful compared to the crown, and have all 3 fight eachother for power. Absolutism, then, plays a role in curbing the other 2 for the crown.

 

[jamal bakr]

I enjoy the more arcade playstyle of EU4 compared to more grognard games. I think the main focus should be on exploration, colonization, wars of religion, these major events in europe and how they impacted the rest of the world. IMO the worst tendency in EU4 is writing ww2 back into the 16th century, so you can have your War in the East between Nazi Prussians and Vaguely Communist Russians. At least try to keep the meme stuff to "easter eggs" like the Orlesian events and government reforms that you pretty much have to know already exist to find them.

 

[grommile]

your War in the East between Nazi Prussians and Vaguely Communist Russians.

I'm pretty sure I've never seen this happen

Prussia hardly ever forms, and the Muscovites have often been really struggling in recent patches.

 

[arosenberger14]

On top of the obvious core tenets of the period, I feel like something that could really add extra depth to a potential EU5 would be to better show the power struggle between the crown, estates, and people. Estates should be a lot more active, with the benefits and deficits of a loyal and disloyal estate being more than a few rebels and some modifiers (for example, disloyal estates could do their own diplomacy with other nations and could outright take money and resources), and loyal estates could supply militias in times of war and help in various other ways), whilst the people are a lot more like V2, with pops and their treatment helping to dictate what rebels you may get, and rebels, in general, being less of a mere speedbump. In other words, make the people and estates more powerful compared to the crown, and have all 3 fight eachother for power. Absolutism, then, plays a role in curbing the other 2 for the crown.

You and @Olaf Trygvasson are zeroing in on one of the other things I think should be a major theme of EU5: state building.

Consider how the King of France in 1450 might go about levying taxes on his subjects. At the baseline, there are the rents that serfs pay to their lords, who then pass them up the feudal chain. However, outside the King's demesne, these rents are the property of the nobility or the church, and the King cannot dip his hands into them without their permission, which when granted is usually far less than what he wants or needs. There are cities with some trade and industry, but these too have historic exemptions and limits on taxation. There are taxes on monopolized goods such as salt (the gabelle) but these are difficult for the tiny French bureaucracy to enforce, and likewise riddled with exemptions. Perhaps the King could try to levy a head tax and contract it out to tax farmers, but a good amount will be lost to the inevitably corrupt tax farmers while arousing the hostility of the peasantry. Maybe new monopolies or duties on trade, but again the small size and capacity of the French bureaucracy will likewise hamper these efforts. Relying on the nobility to levy increased taxes again runs into the issue that they are incentivized to keep it for themselves, same with the Church. Finally, the King has the option to take out loans, either from bankers, or in the form of promising future privileges (usually exemptions from taxation) in return for an up-front sum. France of this era suffers from a crippling lack of state capacity, it is short on the funds it needs to operate and win wars (the main expense for governments of this era), and lacks the funds or political conditions it needs to invest in increasing its ability to raise funds.

Historically the French Kings went with an ever-increasingly complicated and regressive set of tax schemes that relied heavily on tax farming, cutting the nobility and its irritating rights to choose how much they were taxed out from the process, and selling titles and such to make up the shortfall until the entire system collapsed in the French Revolution. In contrast however, England started with a much more sophisticated bureaucracy and over time brought the nobility in to their government by expanding the powers of Parliament, broadly gaining buy-in from the wealthy people to be taxed by granting them a level of political control over the government in return. As a result, the English government could raise far more money off a far smaller tax base than France, but at the cost of being beholden to the political goals of the people in Parliament who wanted things like taxation of colonies in the Americas that caused them to revolt.

All this serves to illustrate that building and maintaining a powerful state should be a challenging and continuous process throughout EU4 that should be both start-dependent and a constant back-and-forth. You shouldn't just spend some mana to select an idea or click a button to reduce "local autonomy" or "estate power" to irreversably centralize your institutions for the rest of the game, they should be something you have to develop similarly to how you develop provinces in EU4 or your dynasty in CK3. And like in CK3 and Victoria 3 there should always be internal interests that are trying to tear down, subvert, or co-opt that centralized state to their own ends, be it lowering their own tax burden, pursuing ideological or economic goals, or just acquiring power.

It'd also open the door to more varied playstyles; conquest nations like the Timurids or hordes that rely on conquest or extortion/looting for revenue could play significantly differently from feudal nations or centralized empires with their own formal bureaucracy like the Ming. Islamic states with their slave soldier/administrator castes like the Ottomans or Mamluks could face their own internal challenges, autocratic nations could have their capacities more strongly tied to their ruler's stats and traits, while more republican ones would be more constrained by the desires of the dominant interest groups. Running the state should be its own major thing in the game with its own institutions and "tech tree" that is a continuous and dynamic challenge throughout the game instead of just a series of buttons you click to progressively get stronger and stronger.

 

[grandadmiralbob]

Keep ideas, or something akin to it. And let that be the ONLY permanent bonus a nation gets.

 

[Loganplayseu4]

In regards to what I stated and state building in general, I recently put together a good statement to put it in less words, whilst including another concept I'd like to see (more depth for subjects):
The crown, estates, and people fight each other whilst the subjects draw power from all 3.

Another concept I'd like to see is historical dynamism. As in, more stuff like CK3's culture system, and such.

 

[nyetflix]

Make impossible for the Europeans to conquer the interior of Africa, in accordance with what has happened historically. Thus : no WC, and no game oriented map painting

Yeah pretty much. But also other "impossible" regions of the world: the Amazon, parts of Central America, the American Great Plains, American Southwest-north Mexico, Patagonia and Gran Chaco of South America, the Arabian desert, Tibet, Sahara oases. We should base this on universal terrain or climate types, and not just hard coding in "Africa is hard". Mountainous and hilly areas wouldn't be impossible in the same way as jungle or desert, but still noticeably different.

It also shouldn't just be war that's affected: if somebody does manage to get a foothold in these areas, they should be fundamentally different to adminster. More autonomy, much easier to break away, can't built or convert there, etc.

We need more wastelands as well, they go a long way to actually making different regions feel realistic and kind of go along with this purpose.

 

[nyetflix]

This is a great post. One thing I would add is that we need changes to colonization. I would like to see the Spanish jesuit missions and European forts/trading posts in Africa and Asia distinguished from colonization and just owning a province. This is such an interesting part of the game and deserves to be better fleshed out and more enjoyable gameplay.

 

[nyetflix]

represent the massive disparity between developed states in Europe/Asia/Middle East and tribals in Africa and America. Something like:

• Domesticated Livestock
• Domesticated Horses
• Legal Codes
• Feudal Hierarchy
• Banking

Just to be clear, we shouldn't have a blanket "Eurasia advanced; Africa + Americas primitive" but rather go on a case by case basis. Eurasia has the steppe hordes while Mesoamerica, the Andes and the core areas of Africa were decently advanced, home to empires, kingdoms, and cities. These had massive class distinctions that probably deserve inclusion in "Feudal Hierarchy". Sahel cultures were really good at using horses, while they did not exist in the Americas or the forested parts of Africa. I would also add metal weapons, which did not exist in the Americas. Not sure about the existence of legal codes and banking in these places.

 

[grandadmiralbob]

I hope they either remove achievements, or add some that make sense.
It's kind of a blanket thing to say, but more peace time mechanics would be nice. Buidlings, chain events, and make it to where NOT clicking a button determines if you're "religious/humanist," or "quality/quantity," or things like that, but how you ACTUALLY run your nation. Makes more sense imho.

 

[Don_Quigleone]

I'll throw in some thoughts:
1. There are simply too many provinces, such that many things that operate on a per province basis (especially development and construction) become tedious as the game goes on. This was much less of a problem in earlier versions of EU with lower province counts. The number of provinces also makes it much more difficult to pin enemy armies down, causing a lot of wars to consist of chasing enemy armies around in a rather tedious and unfun manner. It's fine to want to represent the world in a more granular manner, but it should be handled in a way that doesn't require adding more provinces.

2. An overreliance on modifiers. As time has gone real strategy has been replaced with figuring out creative ways to stack modifiers. There are so many modifiers that each one is rendered individually less significant and more boring. At a point, they also render other factors like terrain or attrition less important. I remember in EU2 campaigns could be lost because you decided to assault an enemy in mountains, or siege Russian provinces in winter. In EU4, this is much less often a factor as the preponderance of modifiers can render these factors insignificant(it's also why warfare is often most interesting at the very beginning of the game).

3. Trade is confusing, convoluted and unintutive. The one aspect of EU4 that is almost unchanged since release is the trade system. Personally, I think this system above all others should be completely overhauled. Ideally, we'd have a system closer to real life IE where we send ships to buy goods in one market and sell them at a profit in another, requiring us to set up an infrastructure to support such trade, rather then what we currently have with it's rather difficult to understand concepts of "trade power" "trade steering"(what the hell is trade steering supposed to represent anyway???) "trade efficiency" etc. etc. If Railroad tycoon II back in 1998 can have a working and fun system of supply and demand, changing prices and arbitrage, then surely an EU5 released in the 2020s could as well?

 

[Zoot1337]

I would like:

- localization in Italian
- Comprehensive and updated Tutorial
- more emphasis on units in combat

 

[Zoot1337]

Just to be clear, we shouldn't have a blanket "Eurasia advanced Africa and Americas primitive" but rather go on a case by case basis. Eurasia has the steppe hordes while Mesoamerica, the Andes and the core areas of Africa were decently advanced, home to empires, kingdoms, and cities. These had massive class distinctions that probably deserve inclusion in "Feudal Hierarchy". Sahel cultures were really good at using horses, while they did not exist in the Americas or the forested parts of Africa. I would also add metal weapons, which did not exist in the Americas. Not sure about the existence of legal codes and banking in these places.

I'm not really competent enough to determine this, but I wonder if feudalism isn't too partial to European development

 

[Sarmatian]

1) Drop traditional army recruiting. Make army only recruitable through estate and domestic policies mechanic - this needs to happen, it would simulate society and warfare much, much better.

2) don't mass produce shallow DLC without thinking how they incorporate into existing game mechanics as a whole.