whats the point in forming nations ?
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It removes them from the accepted culture list, because they are by default accepted. Open a province screen and check the cultures, if they are "Swedish" in green text, it is 100% accepted.
You lost Hannoverian because your main cultures now pushed it below the 10% mark.
When you form a new nation / cultural union, you start out with no accepted cultures (losing Nowegian, Swedish and Hannoverian). Then the game checks, if you are eligible to GAIN new accepted cultures. You had enough provinces to RETAIN Hannoverian as accepted, but not to regain it (iirc you need 20% of total basetax for a new accepted culture and won't lose it unless you get below 10%). Swedish and Norwegian are accepted automatically, as you are the cultural union of the group (you don't get a notification about this).
The cultural union or new ideaset are indeed usually the only worthwhile boni from forming nations. At least, gameplay-wise. Getting a new flag, color and sense of achievement are fine too. The claims are rubbish, and the prestige inconsequential.
edit: sniped.
Forming Italy is definitely a dubious proposition. Most Italian states start with good ideas of their own, and the cultural union isn't worth much because Lombard is so overwhelmingly dominant. In fact, you could argue that Lombard is a relatively weak choice of primary culture, because even large non-Italian powers can get it accepted quite easily, and the remaining Latin provinces don't count for much.
England/GB doesn't gain much for similar reasons (Scotland is fairly poor), but at least it doesn't really lose anything (except the ability to culture shift I suppose - a shift to French might make sense if England wins the HYW).
I'm not sure England can accept a culture shift. I've conquered France, and I don't have the option.
Forming Great Britain after conquering Scotland has never made much sense to me. When England conquered Wales in the *mumblemumble* century, it was still 'The Kingdom of England'. I don't see how it would have been any different had Scotland been conquered in the same way. I think it might be better if you were the senior partner in a personal union with the other country.
Forming Great Britain after conquering Scotland has never made much sense to me. When England conquered Wales in the *mumblemumble* century, it was still 'The Kingdom of England'. I don't see how it would have been any different had Scotland been conquered in the same way. I think it might be better if you were the senior partner in a personal union with the other country.
I know Scandinavia is a trap, if you form it as Sweden for instance you wont get the Swedish events to fire iirc.
You need to move your capital to France and have your capital culture 'dominant' (I'd go for Cosmopolitaine as it is the most widespread, and probably somewhere in the Antwerp trade region). This requires some province management, but I think it's feasible if you vassalise Scotland and sell them some English provinces.
I agree that the formation of Great Britain is a little odd, but it's not completely unreasonable. One reason Wales didn't count for much in terms of naming is that the English didn't regard it as a kingdom even before the invasion (as opposed to Scotland and Ireland).
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Most formable nations are cultural unions meaning that all cultures in a certain culture group become accepted, and remain accepted regardless of what percentage of the tax base they consist of. In addition, Great Britain in particular I believe has some events and missions unique to it and not England. The only formable nation that is definitely not worth it is Scandinavia, since you lose any unique Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian events respectively. (Although something to point out is that the really good Swedish events are actually unlikely to fire in any given game in most circumstances.)
Danish events are nice but not such a big deal. Norway doesn't have any events left by the time it can form Scandinavia.
Right. But for many tag switches, the new flavor events are another argument in favor of switching.
They're never as good as Sweden's (of course), and some are actually bad. But they provide some interesting events, generally mid-late game, that should particularly appeal to more history-oriented gamers.
But I think all tag switches should also swap your idea set. If I, as Hansa, really want to become Great Britain, seems like I should get their ideas, just as I would if I became Netherlands or Prussia.
Maybe. But historically (there's that word again) England and Scotland had both been ruled by the Stewart dynasty for, well, for a good while before the Act of Union. Attempts to unite the two countries had been made during that time but they were unsuccessful. There were also the Jacobite rebellions and various other tensions which would be interesting to model in-game. Oh well, this is Europa Universalis, not Britain Universalis.
Indeed, the very first Stuart king of England tried to do it almost as soon as he inherited the throne. He styled himself "King of Great Brittaine", but this title had no legal standing due to English opposition. Compared to real history, in EU4 it's very easy to fully integrate new lands and make them loyal subjects, but this issue is hardly specific to Britain.
A conquered Scotland would probably have had a similar status as Ireland (which was incorporated into the name of the country upon formal integration).
I started as England, annexed Ireland, Scotland and France, and I formed GBR by about 1535. I moved my capital to Antwerpen before I switched to GBR. I then had to move it back again, after forming GBR changed it back to London - without telling me in the tooltip that it was going to do that! That was super annoying, because I lost several months' of trade income before I noticed that I was no longer auto-collecting in Antwerpen.
Anyway, as soon as I integrated France I got Cosmpolitaine as accepted culture. But I've never had any Decision or Event related to Culture Shift.
Do I need to do something else to enable this? What is the province management you mentioned?
EDIT: Sorry, I just realised you said about capital culture. Antwerpen is Flemish and a non-accepted culture, so obviously that won't work. So to test it out I just tried moving my capital to Ile de France instead, which is Cosmpolitaine and Accepted (because it's >20% Base Tax.) I've fast forwarded a few months, but still no Decision about Culture Shift. Do you know what else I should do?
Namely, the restrictions on expansion and the restrictions on releasing nations through core decay.
Though I don't think it should be possible to WC, I do think that AE is too punishing. I think the problems with expansion should be more internal than external. Don't get me wrong, I think coalitions are a neat idea, I just think they are treated as a panacea, when they just end up aggravating. AE seems to have only gotten worse since release(admittedly it has been kind of a roller-coaster ride).
Yes, under certain circumstances, the entirety of Poland should be able to be devoured by Russia, Prussia and Austria in one war. And, yes, you should be able to neuter France by releasing her duchies. Entire Swathes of colonial territory should be able to change hands in one war. Colonies shouldn't cost enormous sums of ADM and DIP to convert culture and core. which leads me to my next thought...
Though I don't know if it's a result of Multi-player testing(though it very well could be from Johan's comment), this whole notion of pushing a button to core or culture convert a province feels like something from an arcade game. Maybe it would make sense if it were explained. EU3s system of coring and culture converting made more sense. I won't disqualify EU4's system out of hand, I just think it could be done better(like using colonists to culture convert or something like that).
In summation, I love EU4. I am usually a major defender of it. As I said, I want there to be a balance between historical plausability and gameplay, but I really don't want EU to turn into a very sophisticated game of risk, grand strategy starcraft, or a game where you are punished for not following some standard strategy that 'every' human player in MP uses.
I get your point, it's hard to determine if X,Y, or Z feature was a result of MP testing. I will concede that I don't. Though, like I said, Johan said that most testing has been done in MP since EU2. There have been really good points in that thread on how SP and MP testing don't necessarily result in mutually exclusive results.
EDIT: I think this is one of the games major flaws. In MP you're focused on conquest, when this era was about so much more than that. So it stands to reason that certain mechanics would be implemented because their lens is one of MP where everyone is out to conquer one another; to win per se. Players, like me, who set their own goals and achievements don't need to go warmongering to have fun or to prove something. Sure, the goal to conquer your neighbor should be available, but so should the option of building your country into a stable economic power as a goal unto itself. As the current game stands, it feels like everything is just meant to lead to more conquest, albeit at a restricted pace.
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Very interesting analysis and thoughts, thanks.
I am a tad confused though.. is it possible you're confusing me for someone else? You responded to my comments here in this thread of course. But then you made multiple references to an MP thread that I don't know if I've even read - and certainly not all the way through - let alone commented in
Could you link me to his comment? I haven't read it.
I have never made any points related to MP testing My points in this thread, when I quoted you, was about strategy/gameplay versus historical plausibility. I don't care about historicality so I don't mind if features have no basis in reality. I just want them to be fun and strategic and challenging.
But that's not an MP/SP point, because I only play SP (thus far). I want features that require me to strategise and plan in my single player games, and I don't mind if they then end up having no relation to reality. For example being a single button press to do something major like cultural shifting. As long as pressing that button has implications that I have to weigh up, and as long as there's enough different kinds of buttons to press, and sufficient complexity and subtlety behind deciding when and what to press, and why, such as to give the player sufficient choice and control and resulting in the whole thing requiring thought and planning and the formation of strategies.
I didn't know that and, as an exclusively SP player, it worries me somewhat! It also seems a little odd. Although MP is important, it seems to me highly likely that the vast majority of player-hours in EU4 will be in SP. It should therefore have the preponderance of test hours.
There's that recent thread (and maybe it's the one you're referring to re Johan comments?), about "Sire should I kick you in the head" or whatever - someone in that thread, upon viewing the recent MP video, said "it seems clear to me now that MP is the focus." That took me by surprise. I still haven't watched that video, and I should . But it surprised me because, having read these forums for two months and read thousands of posts, I never got that impression before. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I read a dev say "this feature is mostly there for MP players." In fact the first time I saw reference to that was just a couple of days ago - re Enforced Peace, Wiz explained that the option to accept an Enforced Peace (thus ending the war, without the sender getting added to the war) was never used by the AI, and the possibility existed only for MP games. That sounded perfectly fine for me; OK the AI can't handle doing that (and Wiz explained why - it was too hard to get the AI to accept it intelligently, it was a huge exploit), so for SP games it's just a "join this war" button, but with humans it can work either way. Fair enough, that sounds to me like a balance of SP/MP that's just fine.
So that's why it'd never occurred to me that MP might be a focus. I'd never seen lots of comments along the lines of "yeah that feature is only for MP". But if indeed they do most of their testing only in MP, then that does sound rather different to what I expected; whether or not they're deliberately prioritising MP over SP, the mere fact that they apparently don't test SP nearly as much means that they are going to end up prioritising MP by default.
I fully agree that the game should be about more than just conquest. For different reasons than you - I don't care about the historicality, I just want a varied and interesting and fun and strategic game. EU4 is all of those things (times a million) for me already; but I think it could be even better if there was more stuff to do that didn't revolve around conquest. Not because the conquest stuff is in any way bad for me - just because more is almost always better, and more varied is even better.
One of EU4's great strengths, for me, is that I can rotate between different types of gameplay, different kinds of challenges, different physical things to do of varying types - require varying skills and priorities and thought processes. But they do all mostly come back to conquest, or facilitating conquest. So variations that have nothing to do with conquest - for example, dealing with internal politics/factions - would undoubtedly be a good thing, and would extend the game's appeal even further for me.
Sorry that this post is rather rambly, very tired and need to go to bed - but was both confused and interested in your references to this MP debate, which I've not really been involved in but would like to know more about.
I am a tad confused though.. is it possible you're confusing me for someone else? You responded to my comments here in this thread of course. But then you made multiple references to an MP thread that I don't know if I've even read - and certainly not all the way through - let alone commented in
Could you link me to his comment? I haven't read it.
I have never made any points related to MP testing
My points in this thread, when I quoted you, was about strategy/gameplay versus historical plausibility. I don't care about historicality so I don't mind if features have no basis in reality. I just want them to be fun and strategic and challenging. But that's not an MP/SP point, because I only play SP (thus far). I want features that require me to strategise and plan in my single player games, and I don't mind if they then end up having no relation to reality. For example being a single button press to do something major like cultural shifting. As long as pressing that button has implications that I have to weigh up, and as long as there's enough different kinds of buttons to press, and sufficient complexity and subtlety behind deciding when and what to press, and why, such as to give the player sufficient choice and control and resulting in the whole thing requiring thought and planning and the formation of strategies.
I didn't know that and, as an exclusively SP player, it worries me somewhat! It also seems a little odd. Although MP is important, it seems to me highly likely that the vast majority of player-hours in EU4 will be in SP. It should therefore have the preponderance of test hours.
There's that recent thread (and maybe it's the one you're referring to re Johan comments?), about "Sire should I kick you in the head" or whatever - someone in that thread, upon viewing the recent MP video, said "it seems clear to me now that MP is the focus." That took me by surprise. I still haven't watched that video, and I should . But it surprised me because, having read these forums for two months and read thousands of posts, I never got that impression before. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I read a dev say "this feature is mostly there for MP players." In fact the first time I saw reference to that was just a couple of days ago - re Enforced Peace, Wiz explained that the option to accept an Enforced Peace (thus ending the war, without the sender getting added to the war) was never used by the AI, and the possibility existed only for MP games. That sounded perfectly fine for me; OK the AI can't handle doing that (and Wiz explained why - it was too hard to get the AI to accept it intelligently, it was a huge exploit), so for SP games it's just a "join this war" button, but with humans it can work either way. Fair enough, that sounds to me like a balance of SP/MP that's just fine.
So that's why it'd never occurred to me that MP might be a focus. I'd never seen lots of comments along the lines of "yeah that feature is only for MP". But if indeed they do most of their testing only in MP, then that does sound rather different to what I expected; whether or not they're deliberately prioritising MP over SP, the mere fact that they apparently don't test SP nearly as much means that they are going to end up prioritising MP by default.
I fully agree that the game should be about more than just conquest. For different reasons than you - I don't care about the historicality, I just want a varied and interesting and fun and strategic game. EU4 is all of those things (times a million) for me already; but I think it could be even better if there was more stuff to do that didn't revolve around conquest. Not because the conquest stuff is in any way bad for me - just because more is almost always better, and more varied is even better.
One of EU4's great strengths, for me, is that I can rotate between different types of gameplay, different kinds of challenges, different physical things to do of varying types - require varying skills and priorities and thought processes. But they do all mostly come back to conquest, or facilitating conquest. So variations that have nothing to do with conquest - for example, dealing with internal politics/factions - would undoubtedly be a good thing, and would extend the game's appeal even further for me.
Sorry that this post is rather rambly, very tired and need to go to bed - but was both confused and interested in your references to this MP debate, which I've not really been involved in but would like to know more about.
To be eligible for cultural shift, you simply need to have the capital belong to the target culture. Whether it's accepted or not is irrelevant (though it's hard to imagine many scenarios where it wouldn't be accepted).
Once you've got your capital in the desired location, you will see the decision if you meet the "potential" criteria, even if you don't meet all the "allowed" criteria yet. However, if you've already formed GBR, that is one of the prohibited tags, so you're out of luck, you don't even have the potential. For the next attempt, you could have switched while you were still ENG. Just make Ile de France your capital, and you'll be able to do it if Cosmopolitane is the "dominant" culture. Unlike "accepted", which considers tax value, "dominant" is purely number of provinces. That's the province management you'll need to do: you may need to acquire one or two extra Cosmopolitane cultured provinces and/or sell one or two English cultured provinces off (Scotland). I can't remember how ties work; I think they may go to the capital province but perhaps tax values do get considered in that situation.
@TheBloke: I'm pressed for time and will read your post and comment in a bit. Here is the link to the other thread: Link
Note that I started the thread just after my comment this morning(this afternoon for you I believe) and before your initial reply.
Note that I started the thread just after my comment this morning(this afternoon for you I believe) and before your initial reply.
OK, I have time to read and reply now. I don't really think you and I are at odds in this. I think making the game more historically plausible could and should go hand in hand with more player choices.
I want an internal system with the player having limited influence over their internal politics. Sure, the player should be able to make decisions on how to influence the internal system, but there should always be a level of exogeneity that ensures that doing X+Y doesn't always equal Z. Like CKII and Vicky2 your government type(or crown authority) should determine just how much control you have. EU4 should be about the transition from CKII politics to Vicky2 politics, amongst all its other features. I still need to process this, mcmanasaur has put a lot more thought into it than I have.