End Game Tags. Do they make sense historically? Maybe.
Does it solve the issue with ahistorical tag switches? Partially.
When I first looked at them it seemed to be a list of tags, that are limited in their ability to form other nations. Instead of adding 20 times "Tag can't be XXX" for every decision, they would be stored in other file, with their exceptions next to them.
But it rises problems already.
Why isn't Prussia an EGT (End Game Tag)? Should they be able to form anything else than Germany/HRE/Roman Empire? Add to list.
Why isn't Aragon an EGT? Should they be able to form anything else than Spain/HRE/Roman Empire? Add to list.
And so on.
Which leads to a conclusion, shouldn't we limit all countries to only the possible historical tags for them? Let's say Poland, they should be able to form HRE/Roman Empire/PLC and nothing else. But it goes against the very thing EGT could solve - limiting the amount of necessary requirements put into decisions and the option to tweak them all at once.
Can we do it without EGT? Is there something that can limit players from tag-switching to countries they shouldn't go to and avoid going into a hell for programmers with just adding every single country into the list?
Yes we totally can. Actually we've already had the limitation - cultures.
The issues with tag-switching isn't in tags, but in culture shifts. It is the big limitation put on countries and most formable nations base on this. If you own Northern India it doesn't mean you form Mughals unless you are of right culture, you can conquer Italy as France, but you are still French. It ought to be the limiting factor, and it isn't in current versions.
With the changes to cultures' management (which I still love) came a change to culture-shift (which I hate), an easy way that can make any country culture shift into anything just by unstating land.
As I said in other post; It doesn't do it's job. You can easily culture-shift if you want (Ming into Japan? click-click-click, Done), but it causes problems when you should; your country is 33% Moroccan, 33% Berber and 33% Algerian, but you are Portugal exiled from Iberia - you can't shift to any of them.
So before the final decision comes with a system that won't solve much apart from throwing barrels at players expecting it to discourage them from finding a way around it (We will always find something), I want to propose just changing culture-shifting.
Now to important question: "When you should be able to culture-shift and when not?" and the answer is "When your country is mostly of this culture group and it isn't some minor one."
I came up with: 75% of your non-TradeCompanies lands (stated or not) has to be of it's culture group and this culture has to be the most common culture in your empire.
Example: France with 10% French 5% Breton 45% Castilian and 40% Catalonian can culture shift to Castilian only.
I think it would greatly limit the possibility of exploiting it. If you want more protection add a rule, that a culture shifting nation can't have vassals or marches to prevent good-old releasing them from your cultural lands. It's not like culture shifting isn't something that can be done only under very strict circumstances, so why not?
Also a wide empire of many cultural groups won't be able to change theirs, but a small one can. Also culture shifting in your own group (which shouldn't be a huge issue) isn't problematic and all you need is more land of target culture than yours (if you have only these 2 in your country). And a nation that is expelled into lands of foreign culture group isn't locked anymore, because of "has to be in more than 50%" requirement.
Adding a list of locked tags in a file that can be easily accessed by all decisions isn't a bad move: add HRE, Roman Empire, Papal State, Ming, Otttomans (maybe even few more), but it totally shouldn't be a main counter to tag-switching as it just won't work as well as limiting culture shifting and that is even without noting that shifting needs changes anyway.
Does it solve the issue with ahistorical tag switches? Partially.
When I first looked at them it seemed to be a list of tags, that are limited in their ability to form other nations. Instead of adding 20 times "Tag can't be XXX" for every decision, they would be stored in other file, with their exceptions next to them.
But it rises problems already.
Why isn't Prussia an EGT (End Game Tag)? Should they be able to form anything else than Germany/HRE/Roman Empire? Add to list.
Why isn't Aragon an EGT? Should they be able to form anything else than Spain/HRE/Roman Empire? Add to list.
And so on.
Which leads to a conclusion, shouldn't we limit all countries to only the possible historical tags for them? Let's say Poland, they should be able to form HRE/Roman Empire/PLC and nothing else. But it goes against the very thing EGT could solve - limiting the amount of necessary requirements put into decisions and the option to tweak them all at once.
Can we do it without EGT? Is there something that can limit players from tag-switching to countries they shouldn't go to and avoid going into a hell for programmers with just adding every single country into the list?
Yes we totally can. Actually we've already had the limitation - cultures.
The issues with tag-switching isn't in tags, but in culture shifts. It is the big limitation put on countries and most formable nations base on this. If you own Northern India it doesn't mean you form Mughals unless you are of right culture, you can conquer Italy as France, but you are still French. It ought to be the limiting factor, and it isn't in current versions.
With the changes to cultures' management (which I still love) came a change to culture-shift (which I hate), an easy way that can make any country culture shift into anything just by unstating land.
As I said in other post; It doesn't do it's job. You can easily culture-shift if you want (Ming into Japan? click-click-click, Done), but it causes problems when you should; your country is 33% Moroccan, 33% Berber and 33% Algerian, but you are Portugal exiled from Iberia - you can't shift to any of them.
So before the final decision comes with a system that won't solve much apart from throwing barrels at players expecting it to discourage them from finding a way around it (We will always find something), I want to propose just changing culture-shifting.
Now to important question: "When you should be able to culture-shift and when not?" and the answer is "When your country is mostly of this culture group and it isn't some minor one."
I came up with: 75% of your non-TradeCompanies lands (stated or not) has to be of it's culture group and this culture has to be the most common culture in your empire.
Example: France with 10% French 5% Breton 45% Castilian and 40% Catalonian can culture shift to Castilian only.
I think it would greatly limit the possibility of exploiting it. If you want more protection add a rule, that a culture shifting nation can't have vassals or marches to prevent good-old releasing them from your cultural lands. It's not like culture shifting isn't something that can be done only under very strict circumstances, so why not?
Also a wide empire of many cultural groups won't be able to change theirs, but a small one can. Also culture shifting in your own group (which shouldn't be a huge issue) isn't problematic and all you need is more land of target culture than yours (if you have only these 2 in your country). And a nation that is expelled into lands of foreign culture group isn't locked anymore, because of "has to be in more than 50%" requirement.
Adding a list of locked tags in a file that can be easily accessed by all decisions isn't a bad move: add HRE, Roman Empire, Papal State, Ming, Otttomans (maybe even few more), but it totally shouldn't be a main counter to tag-switching as it just won't work as well as limiting culture shifting and that is even without noting that shifting needs changes anyway.
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