What should be the core concepts of future EU5

[Mik_C]

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really do not want to see pops in the Europa Universalis series.

Victoria III is a society sim that's interested in economy at the point in history when consumerism, resource management and mass politics became a powerful global force. Without all three of those ingredients I don't think pops are necessary or useful (and they are inescapably a huge drain); even with all three of those ingredients I don't think pops are the only or necessarily the best way to model the things Victoria is interested in.

Europa Universalis is not a society sim, is not terribly interested in the economy, and is not set amid the industrial revolution. Pops would add nothing useful to Europa Universalis that couldn't be achieved with less complexity and computational overhead in some other way.

I think it's reasonably well-accepted that each of Paradox's major grand strategy games has a central "offering" based on the historical period it represents: Crusader Kings is a grand strategy game, but more than that it's a game about feudal lineage and internecine dynastic politicking. Victoria is a grand strategy game but more than that it's a game about mass politics and industrialisation. Hearts of Iron... something something warfare. It's fairly well-accepted that by comparison Europa Universalis lacks a key central identity and is kind of just a game about painting the map.

This means two things, to my mind:

1. Europa Universalis could (probably) be improved by having a central identity for the design philosophy to be built around; from movies to architecture to cookery, things are better when there's a central pillar to bring it all together, and;
2. Europa Universalis's hypothetical core identity needs to be formulated and implemented in such a way that it doesn't ruin the game for the audience its built who like it because they can paint the map.

Europa Universalis begins with the final collapse of the Roman Empire, the unravelling of ecclesiastical absolutism in Europe, the acrimonious end of perhaps the most famous feudal conflict in the Hundred Years War and the dismantling of the über-feudal entity in Burgundy. From those beginnings in the late medieval period Europa Universalis spans the breadth of the early modern period, charting the fracturing of supranational ecclesiastical orders, the centralisation of feudal realms, the unification and calcification of rough natural borders between "culture groups" and concluding with the first total wars seeing massive armies of conscripted citizens fighting on behalf of centralised Westphalian nation-states. The shifts in the structure and organisation of political entities across the Europa Universalis period are absolutely enormous, and a lot of them (unlike the shifts in the Crusader Kings period, often driven by climate and technology) are discernible and even influence-able at the macro scale where we sit as players.

So I think the key central identity that Europa Universalis is built around should be a world that's changing underfoot even as you work to dominate it.

I think every mechanic in Europa Universalis V, so far as is reasonably practicable, should be designed so that the incentives and the ways you engage with it change over the course of the game. Things that were a good idea in the early game should be a really bad idea in the late game; things that are a great idea in the end-game might be a huge gamble in the middle, and so on.

With that in mind, I think a key mechanic that needs to underpin the above is centralisation. Europa Universalis should in large part be a game about balancing the amount of control you want to have over your lands and resources against the costs and difficulties of managing all that land and resource. And how do we make that fun? By organising the game not around pops, which represent individuals who were largely irrelevant from the beginning to the end of the time period, but around estates and subjects.

So that's what I think should be the core concept of a future EU5: it should be relentlessly focused on making the game-world and the "rules" change over time. It should achieve that primarily by making the key concern of countries, alongside warfare, be centralisation, and the player should be able to implement their strategy for centralisation (or decentralisation) and mess with their enemy's strategies, through a massively expanded system for estates and subjects.

I think on the one hand this would make Europa Universalis a vastly better "history game" in that it would actually reflect history rather than forcing you to play as an idealised Westphalian state the like of which barely existed by 1821, let alone 1444 and would satisfy the map-painter crowd by allowing them to paint maps to their hearts' content with the added ability to adjust and collect modifiers by playing with estates.

Things I would like to see redesigned around this core concept
There are four major game elements that I think need to be completely overhauled and rebuilt around the core concept of "change" and "centralisation".

1. I think internal politics need to be completely removed from EUIV (which won't be hard given they barely exist) and carefully reassessed bit by bit to ensure they interconnect, create interesting strategic choices and change over time.
2. Trade and wealth needs to be reassessed to a) ensure that it's not just an inflow of money bolted on to the side of your economy like it currently is in EUIV, b) that the wealth of your country and people rather than just your treasury is a strategic concern, and c) that the important types and sources of trade and wealth change over time.
3. Technology, "ideas" and government reforms need to be removed and completely reexamined.
4. Unit types and recruitment need to be redesigned from the ground up.

I have specific proposals for each game element, but this is a really long post already and no one actually likes reading other people's ideas for game design philosophies, so I'll leave it here.

I agree that pops are not entirely needed... IF the diversity in the population is modeled in some way. People in the forum wants pops because they don't want a return to the 1 province - 1 religion - 1 culture thing.

Pops aside, I completely agree with the rest of your post. One thing that always bothers me in EU4 is how religious vs humanist is modeled. This is very tied to the centralization aspect that you commented.

- Beeing tolerant and accepting diferent cultures (even in your grup) should not be a free "no rebels play": you should have to make consesions that lower your centralization/absolutism -> local governance
- There should be a purpose for wanting a one faith one culture in your realm as it happened in some empires -> more control.

-> Play for example with minimum autonomy and governing capacity cost on provinces that have a different majority.
-> Represent nobility, clergy and merchants from different relevant cultures/religions in your empire, not only generic estates that follow the interests of the crown.

On the other hand, I like the aproach of meiou and taxes that some have commented: what you don't gain because of autonomy shouldn't be voided, it should remain in some local administration (local nobles, local mayor...) that uses those resources to improve that region. This is a way to have your estates doing something actively.

 

[MojaveDreams]

War needs to be completely changed.

Multiple wargoals should be able to be selected
Conditional access changed. ( I use a mod that requires 50 opinion to be able to grant access & it feels so much better)
AI needs to defend!!!! instead of attacking a distant ally leaving there country open

The whole system of war needs changing.

Trade should be more dynamic

Navies should have more use for the time period just read up on portugal

 

[Workiwork]

i want EU 4 with everything good, and without anything bad. surely easy to have consensus about what is what

i liked the more realistic approach of earlier EU versions but i like what i have now with EU4 so... don't try to make EU 5 into something else. EU 4 is a glorified Risk and EU 5 should be the same. its a board game on steroids and no historical simulator. but i would not lean any stronger into the arcade side.

But i could see a few of the previous made suggestions working great. i just do not ever want to see EU 5turned into some punishing game that says "no! your fun is bad, play the way i say!" (magna mundi eu 3 mod... *cough*)

 

[Blindbohemian]

One thing that always bothers me in EU4 is how religious vs humanist is modeled. This is very tied to the centralization aspect that you commented.

Absolutely! And that's what I mean about everything tying back to a key centralisation mechanic. Stability? Related to centralisation. Autonomy? Centralisation. Rebels? Centralisation. Religion? Same again.

- Beeing tolerant and accepting diferent cultures (even in your grup) should not be a free "no rebels play": you should have to make consesions that lower your centralization/absolutism -> local governance
- There should be a purpose for wanting a one faith one culture in your realm as it happened in some empires -> more control.

I think a step in the right direction would be abandoning the religious/humanist dichotomy completely. It makes some sense in the modern world: you can have separation of church and state or you can have a religious state, but in the Europa Universalis period the idea that you could completely separate church and state before the late game is preposterous.

It should be a choice of how religious and how humanist? "Innovative" versus "narrow-minded" in EU3 made a lot more sense than religious versus humanist. That way you can be a state with extreme religious stricture that's nonetheless egalitarian when it comes to culture and language, or a religiously tolerant ethnostate that doesn't care who you worship as long as you speak and look right, or anything in between.

On the other hand, I like the aproach of meiou and taxes that some have commented: what you don't gain because of autonomy shouldn't be voided, it should remain in some local administration (local nobles, local mayor...) that uses those resources to improve that region. This is a way to have your estates doing something actively.

Yes—it should go further than that, though: if you piss off the local nobles, burghers, clergy, mayor, feudatories, yeomen or even peasants they should use those resources against you. At a stroke that eliminates the whole weird artificial structure of "rebels" and "revolt risk" and the weird problem of rebels getting upkeep paid and manpower out of nowhere (and endless rebel hordes out of 1/1/1 provinces), and transforms rebels into a reasonably-predictable, comprehensible, interesting problem.

It would also mean that rebels can be more than just armies that get spawned and wander around killing stuff. The local powers might use their resources against you simply by investing in developing their powerbase and increasing their autonomy. By putting money into buying weapons from your neighbouring state. By fortifying their position among the local elites so that more and more gets siphoned off. Rebels and corruption and resistance within nominally-controlled territory would become an interesting and ongoing challenge rather than a weird boring speedbump.

 

[Word_Smith]

So I think the key central identity that Europa Universalis is built around should be a world that's changing underfoot even as you work to dominate it.

Dear Lord in heaven above, this is an excellent articulation of something I've always found missing in modern EU4. The world feels so stagnant. The tech gap used to shift the global power dynamic over time in previous iterations of the game, but now there's nothing from keeping every in-game moment from feeling the same regardless of the time period or geographic region.

 

[Blindbohemian]

The world feels so stagnant.

Yes. The technology gap is a great example, as you've noted. Another one (which I thought the new trade system was intended to fix but it hasn't fixed at any point in EUIV's history) is that the trade landscape never really changes: English Channel is a Very Wealthy Trade Node at the beginning of the game, and a Very Wealth Trade Node at the end of the game. Ditto Venice, Genoa and Sevilla. There is no hint of the seismic shift that took place almost precisely across the EUIV period as Europe's commercial centre of gravity shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic littoral.

There is no representation of the reasons why France had so many powerful vassals, why Aragon had so many vexatious regional cortes, why the Ottomans had to carefully manage their timariots and who they put in charge of which provinces, why the Emperor of Japan required daimyo from adjacent territories to come to court at alternating times... There's no discernible difference between playing a feudal kingdom and a kingdom with maximum absolutism.

And it just goes on and on. There's no serious representation of the incredible unbalancing force that gunpowder proved to be on the battlefield, such that the Ottomans conquered Egypt (why on earth does Paradox insist on calling Egypt "Mamluks"? It's like calling England "Anglo-Norman Nobles") after pulverising their military capability with essentially a single battle. There's no attempt to capture the different "feeling" and strategic meaning of levée en masse armies such as we saw in the wake of the French Revolution versus the professional mercenary condottieri-esque forces that dominated European conflicts in the fifteenth century.

The list goes on and on. "Stagnant" is a perfect way of putting it. Europa Universalis charts a period of staggering change, and yet as you say it feels like the game world is in a state of more or less stasis. All that changes is borders wriggle back and forth across the landscape, and numbers in general get bigger.

 

[finmise]

Do you have any suggestion for Imperator: Rome 2 ?

 

[Word_Smith]

Do you have any suggestion for Imperator: Rome 2 ?

I suggest that they finish the game instead of abandoning it like they did with IR:1

 

[Ixal]

The economy must be much tighter, especially trade.
In EU4 you can get a ridiculous amount of money through trade but later also through production and coupled with the mercenary system which is still not fixed it means that some countries can absorb millions of casualties without even touching their own manpower.

 

[grommile]

The economy must be much tighter, especially trade.

I don't want the SP game to be easier to win.

 

[Drinko]

Make embargo and trade goods matter more.

 

[jamal bakr]

i think starting from scratch, I'd like different nations to play more distinctively, as well as religions. Have more toggles with trade offs, less megabuffs.

For example, I was thinking about how the christian denominations are currently set up. Basically they are just a continunum of buffs, with catholicism being the most jacked, and anglicanism being the most weak. I think if they started from the begining again, they could say "what should this religions *thing* be?" For that, I'd say have catholicism be the integration religion, which struggles with inflation. So you get abilities that allow you to trade integration discount with yearly inflation (and significant amounts of it). Protestantism (now renamed to Luthernaism) should be the army drill and discipline religion (for Prussia/Sweden, etc). Reform should be the goods produced, tolerance version. I'm not sure anglicanism should exist as something seperate from reformed.

In the same, try to give an "generalized idea" to the nations. I really enjoy portugal, because it is designed with a central idea, unique idea: get to india super fast. Between starting with +25% range, its first age ability, etc, its basically designed to get to the indies a century before anyone else. Prussia has a singular purpose as well; incredibly jacked troops. I'd try to do the same thing for the rest of the majors, try to give them a "theme" to build them around.

 

[grommile]

Protestantism (now renamed to Luthernaism)

Plz no

martin luther wasn't even born at the start date and the mechanics don't force it to spawn first in Bavaria

 

[Mik_C]

In the same, try to give an "generalized idea" to the nations. I really enjoy portugal, because it is designed with a central idea, unique idea: get to india super fast. Between starting with +25% range, its first age ability, etc, its basically designed to get to the indies a century before anyone else. Prussia has a singular purpose as well; incredibly jacked troops. I'd try to do the same thing for the rest of the majors, try to give them a "theme" to build them around.

Please not. I don't want EU5 to be nation "destiny" mission trees 2.0.

History should not be predefined for each nation, but for some general situations that ANY nation could try to meet.

- There souldn't be national ideas that come from moments in history that never happened in my current run.
- There shouldn't be missions that give you free PUs (or other free stuff) only because it happened in reality, without some logical reasons as why it is happening in my current run.
- There shouldn't be events that force a situation that happened in history only because it happened without checking if the reasons why it happened also exist in my current run.
- There shouldn't be special goverments that only X nation can have because it's that nation and in real history were that way.

Instead:
- National ideas should be influenced on critical situations that your nation experienced and on how you are playing.
- Missions should be generic enough that any nation can get them only if certain requisites are met.
- Events should be generic enough that can happen to any nation that meets some requisites.
- Goverments should all be available behind some requisites.

Intead that requisites are "is X nation", check for example the goverment, culture, religion, ideas, what it's happening...

A good EU5 would be a game where situations similar to real ones history are not scripted, but emerge because of the simulation, that should always be modeled like:
Requisites -> Situations -> Offcomes

(Never Nation->Offcomes).

Exeptions:
- Situations that are happening at the start date because they started before it.
- Requisites that happened before the game start.

About flavour: I hope the dev team adds flavour to the game expanding the possible requisites-situations-offcomes in a generic way. It's okay to focus a DLC on Great Britain to add flavour to it, but, instead of giving over-tailored custom mission trees to 3 nations, generalize those missions so any nation can have them if they meet some requisites. Obviously it would be easier for England or Great Britain to meet many of the requisites, but if any other nation meets them they should have the missions too.

Finally, on the topic of flexibility, I hope that the formable nations system is changed so there are a lot more options. Give a reason for changing your tag other than better missions/ideas, make it more like an statement that a great change happened in how your nation runs: maybe you changed religion, you changed some important aspect of your goverment (before the switch, because the switch is a consequence of the change), maybe you want to say to the world that now all people of X culture are represented by your country, maybe there has been a dinasty change and your country is represented by the ruling dinasty and not by the idea of nation...

 

[finmise]

Please not. I don't want EU5 to be nation "destiny" mission trees 2.0.

History should not be predefined for each nation, but for some general situations that ANY nation could try to meet.

- There souldn't be national ideas that come from moments in history that never happened in my current run.
- There shouldn't be missions that give you free PUs (or other free stuff) only because it happened in reality, without some logical reasons as why it is happening in my current run.
- There shouldn't be events that force a situation that happened in history only because it happened without checking if the reasons why it happened also exist in my current run.
- There shouldn't be special goverments that only X nation can have because it's that nation and in real history were that way.

Instead:
- National ideas should be influenced on critical situations that your nation experienced and on how you are playing.
- Missions should be generic enough that any nation can get them only if certain requisites are met.
- Events should be generic enough that can happen to any nation that meets some requisites.
- Goverments should all be available behind some requisites.

Intead that requisites are "is X nation", check for example the goverment, culture, religion, ideas, what it's happening...

A good EU5 would be a game where situations similar to real ones history are not scripted, but emerge because of the simulation, that should always be modeled like:
Requisites -> Situations -> Offcomes

(Never Nation->Offcomes).

Exeptions:
- Situations that are happening at the start date because they started before it.
- Requisites that happened before the game start.

About flavour: I hope the dev team adds flavour to the game expanding the possible requisites-situations-offcomes in a generic way. It's okay to focus a DLC on Great Britain to add flavour to it, but, instead of giving over-tailored custom mission trees to 3 nations, generalize those missions so any nation can have them if they meet some requisites. Obviously it would be easier for England or Great Britain to meet many of the requisites, but if any other nation meets them they should have the missions too.

Finally, on the topic of flexibility, I hope that the formable nations system is changed so there are a lot more options. Give a reason for changing your tag other than better missions/ideas, make it more like an statement that a great change happened in how your nation runs: maybe you changed religion, you changed some important aspect of your goverment (before the switch, because the switch is a consequence of the change), maybe you want to say to the world that now all people of X culture are represented by your country, maybe there has been a dinasty change and your country is represented by the ruling dinasty and not by the idea of nation...

You should move this "suggestion" page. These implementations are congruous.

 

[Mik_C]

You should move this "suggestion" page. These implementations are congruous.

Well, I don't expect this to be implemented in EU4 at this stage of the game and I hope that EU5 devs will check all this topic where there are more ideas that should be considered.

Maybe the entire topic should be moved to suggestions instead.

 

[Ixal]

Yes, please no mission trees which push nations into a certain direction.
But its unlikely PDX will not use them. Many(?) people like them and they are easy DLC material.

 

[jamal bakr]

Yes, please no mission trees which push nations into a certain direction.
But its unlikely PDX will not use them. Many(?) people like them and they are easy DLC material.

most dlc material is just extremely powerful buffs to the selected nation. Majaphit, colossus of the earth! Able to force vassalize France in a single war!

What I mean by my initial post is this: there is currrently a growing congruence between how a castile to spain game plays and how an england to britain game plays after the first 50 years or so. When you think you want more generalized, sandboxy approach you are imagining a game that has wonderful responsivity and infinite permutations; in reality, you are going to get the same game with a different flag. National Ideas and the like means there is something distinctive about an English playthrough or a Holland playthrough that is distinct from a Kilwa playthrough. You know what game actually gives you what you think you want, with complete customization? Stellaris, where at the end of the day whether you are playing as a egalitarian StarShip Troopers bird in a space suit or an ancient hive mind fungus in a space suit amounts to +10% minerals produced.

 

[saegoto]

Please not. I don't want EU5 to be nation "destiny" mission trees 2.0.

History should not be predefined for each nation, but for some general situations that ANY nation could try to meet.

- There souldn't be national ideas that come from moments in history that never happened in my current run.
- There shouldn't be missions that give you free PUs (or other free stuff) only because it happened in reality, without some logical reasons as why it is happening in my current run.
- There shouldn't be events that force a situation that happened in history only because it happened without checking if the reasons why it happened also exist in my current run.
- There shouldn't be special goverments that only X nation can have because it's that nation and in real history were that way.

Instead:
- National ideas should be influenced on critical situations that your nation experienced and on how you are playing.
- Missions should be generic enough that any nation can get them only if certain requisites are met.
- Events should be generic enough that can happen to any nation that meets some requisites.
- Goverments should all be available behind some requisites.

Intead that requisites are "is X nation", check for example the goverment, culture, religion, ideas, what it's happening...

A good EU5 would be a game where situations similar to real ones history are not scripted, but emerge because of the simulation, that should always be modeled like:
Requisites -> Situations -> Offcomes

(Never Nation->Offcomes).

Exeptions:
- Situations that are happening at the start date because they started before it.
- Requisites that happened before the game start.

About flavour: I hope the dev team adds flavour to the game expanding the possible requisites-situations-offcomes in a generic way. It's okay to focus a DLC on Great Britain to add flavour to it, but, instead of giving over-tailored custom mission trees to 3 nations, generalize those missions so any nation can have them if they meet some requisites. Obviously it would be easier for England or Great Britain to meet many of the requisites, but if any other nation meets them they should have the missions too.

Finally, on the topic of flexibility, I hope that the formable nations system is changed so there are a lot more options. Give a reason for changing your tag other than better missions/ideas, make it more like an statement that a great change happened in how your nation runs: maybe you changed religion, you changed some important aspect of your goverment (before the switch, because the switch is a consequence of the change), maybe you want to say to the world that now all people of X culture are represented by your country, maybe there has been a dinasty change and your country is represented by the ruling dinasty and not by the idea of nation...

if so every nation is the same game experience

 

[Idle America]

NO MORE MONARCH POINTS. Money and Prestige are the only "mana" systems we need in this game.