Who decentralize the HRE ?

[Blust]

Only a fool would do it.


Decentralized HRE : generate a lot of IA ; has a vassal swarm if you spend 25 IA on one enemy country to create a CB ; you don't win extra cash ; you can lose elections
Centralized HRE : generate more Imperial Authority ; has vassal swarm wprking with any CB ; vassals pay money ; hereditary empire



There's no balance. Eveything the decentralized Empire does, the centralized path does it better.

Isn't something off ? Or am I missing a key element here ?

 

[Piotrzeci]

I think the centralize-decentralize system was an idea because people would revoke the privilegia and then not unite HRE, so it was a choice between working towards a stronger but not united HRE with vassals or a centralized white blob in Europe... except then it didn't, which was a shame.
So yeah... I don't really see the point of decentralized either. It's already far too much trouble to deal with 9 Free Cities tbh, I don't need 12.

 

[Alyosha]

I think almost everyone assumed that the vassal swarm would be in the Decentralized path. Guessing that after a DevClash someone felt it shouldn’t be and... they made the Decentralized path useless.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Only a fool would do it.


Decentralized HRE : generate a lot of IA ; has a vassal swarm if you spend 25 IA on one enemy country to create a CB ; you don't win extra cash ; you can lose elections
Centralized HRE : generate more Imperial Authority ; has vassal swarm wprking with any CB ; vassals pay money ; hereditary empire



There's no balance. Eveything the decentralized Empire does, the centralized path does it better.

Isn't something off ? Or am I missing a key element here ?

You are indeed missing a key element. The key element is: no one has any idea why the decentralised path is the way it is.

You can go back and read the HRE related DDs and still have no clue what they were thinking with all these reforms and having the vassal swarm on the centralised path.

Truly the biggest mystery in gaming's history.

 

[Astalic]

Decentralized seem to be for a specific deal with your elector in multiplay (you give them more manpower).
But aside this specific situation where there is a lot of player in the HRE who decide to team up against the rest of the world, there is no point in this path.

I don't know if it was possible, but a new mechanic where everybody is vasal (or some kind of vassal where you can't integrate them) of the emperor and the emperorship isn't hereditary would have been better. This and the unification on the other side (without the vassal swarm step).

 

[FrogCrusher]

Who? The ones that are doing Mulhouse achievement, and that's it ^^

 

[Siddy00]

I suppose it depends on your goal. With the old reforms or the centralisation path, you eventually end up absorbing the rest of the HRE, either directly (if you enact the final reform) or indirectly (if you keep the vassal swarm). As I see it, the decentralisation reforms give you the option to grow a healthy and thriving HRE, while retaining the ability to rally against real outside threats. To put it a different way, from my perspective the centralisation path views the HRE as a tool (for the emperor), and the decentralisation path views the HRE as a purpose. From what I can tell, the latter is not something that suits many players here (and it definitely won't net you a world conquest), but it does suit my own play style and I'm glad for it

 

[Me_]

It's a false choice, as it makes more sense to stop at the vassal swarm in centralization than to go for decentralization. There really is no point in going decentralized ever unless for pure roleplay.

 

[Nyrael]

Maybe they wanted you to choose between Unified HRE and the Vassal Swarm HRE, during the process another Dev decided it would make more sense for the Swarm to be part of Centralized, and now we are back to square 1 but now there is also a useless Decentralization path.

 

[Blust]

They should just plain delete the vassal swarm from centralization path. I just can't wrap my head around the idea of why it's still there while it was already the most broken thing in EU4 (with shogun vassal swarm sorry).

 

[Guibou]

They should just switch out the 2 reforms we are talking about. Put the vassal swarm as the end of decentralized, but with the penalty that you cant ever integrate vassal part of HRE. Put the ''call hre agaisnt ennemy'' in the centralized path. That way you have a real gameplay choice, unite to be the ultimate power, or get stronger vassal to do the work for you.

 

[holyvigil]

Only a fool would do it.


Decentralized HRE : generate a lot of IA ; has a vassal swarm if you spend 25 IA on one enemy country to create a CB ; you don't win extra cash ; you can lose elections
Centralized HRE : generate more Imperial Authority ; has vassal swarm wprking with any CB ; vassals pay money ; hereditary empire



There's no balance. Eveything the decentralized Empire does, the centralized path does it better.

Isn't something off ? Or am I missing a key element here ?

Let's say you are playing Austria. Your multiplayer allies are playing Brandenburg and Bohemia. You start going down the centralization path. Who in there right minds would vote for you for emperor?

Decentralization's point is that there is something for the Emperor to do in a multiplayer game.

 

[Piotrzeci]

Yeah, I just checked some DevDiaries and found this

Another evident issue with HRE play, one that can be seen by playing as Emperor or talking to anyone who has, is that the final reform feels like a trap. An army of HRE subjects to unleash on your foes and carve up the map as you see fit? Now that's an enjoyable reward for reigning in the Empire, however smashing that final reform, absorbing the entire empire and losing all the effects you've built up, considerably less so. While we don't have the exact details, we see this as something that should be split: where there is a clear path for reform in the HRE, either towards decentralized power or all land under one ruler, so that players don't feel the need to purposefully hold back on completing the HRE reform path.

So yeah, there was an issue that was one of the driving factors for the changes and it later was decided to just be kept as it was anyway.

 

[Blust]

Let's say you are playing Austria. Your multiplayer allies are playing Brandenburg and Bohemia. You start going down the centralization path. Who in there right minds would vote for you for emperor?

Decentralization's point is that there is something for the Emperor to do in a multiplayer game.

Then it should be called "multiplayer" and "singleplayer" paths, not "decentralized" and "centralized". And I'm a bit skeptical about a whole feature which is only balanced for multiplayer and totally ignore singleplayer aspect. Vassal swarm should be removed from centralized path.

 

[Froonk]

Main issue isn't that vassal swarm is part of the centralized HRE, the main issue is without vassal swarm benefits of being emperor are very weak. In real life, Austria benefitted massively from HRE's revenues and manpower. Austria as a duchy could never hope to stand against likes of Ottomans and France yet was able to muster as much men in field as Ottomans in several occasions, such as in Battle of Mezőkeresztes or Battle of Saint Gotthard, as well as in sieges such as the dual sieges of Buda in 1684 and 1686.

Now manpower and forcelimit wise, emperorship grants a rather substantial bonus especially when you pass the decentralize reforms. However the income is absolutely pathetic, you get 0.5 ducats per year per prince when you pass the appropriate reforms for tax revenues. If we assume a rather sizeable empire of 80 princes, that amounts to merely 6 ducats per month. This should substantially increase in both reforms, but especially with the decentralized reform increasing the revenue from both princes and electors to grant much more income to field armies. Moreover, HRE famously had what's called a "Turkish tax", where by all princes were obliged to pay the emperor certain amount of income for war efforts. Similarly, in decentralized path when the emperor is at war against non-empire enemies the emperor should gain a war time income bonus and perhaps a mercenary cost reduction.

In other words, a decentralized empire should be able to rely on raw income of the empire much more than a centralized one, which already directly benefits from the development.

 

[holyvigil]

Then it should be called "multiplayer" and "singleplayer" paths, not "decentralized" and "centralized". And I'm a bit skeptical about a whole feature which is only balanced for multiplayer and totally ignore singleplayer aspect. Vassal swarm should be removed from centralized path.

They shouldn't rename it. It would break immersion and roleplay.

 

[AngryRedMidget]

I think it's just a roleplay thing, for people who get emotional about their virtual subjects. It also serves to teach younger folks about why autocracy is a re-occurring phenomenon in a democracy, and the way executive power will always want to usurp all other sources of power, so that decisions are streamlined and efficient in wartime, and the executive power reaps all rewards.

As it is, revoke the privelegia is far too powerful, and IMO should simply be removed and replaced with ewiger landfriede, or be a massive imperial authority malus instead of a bonus.

Austria in 1.30+ is like crack, once you try it, you realize how shit everything else is, and at least for me, it killed replayability of EU4.

 

[Vohen]

Decentralized is fun for the novelty and roleplay if you're into that, but not much else unfortunately.
As many, I initially thought the vassal swarm would be the end goal there, but thinking more deeply about it, I guess it really didn't make much sense.
After all, going from an only de jure vassal, de facto fully sovereign, to a de facto vassal fully submitted to the emperor is indeed a step towards centralization.

That said, decentralized could still be a much better path than it is now.
One possibility would be to fully empower the imperial diet, using incidents as issues where princes could vote for many boosts for them, while keeping that powerful CB of course.
Internal disputes could be solved in the diet, and those issues could increase manpower, development, trade, and many other things in the empire in a way to benefit every prince, and it'd make the diplomatic game inside the empire very interesting and important.
With those issues boosting each prince in a tall way essentially for free, and having the side effect of facilitating the gathering of IA to use the special CB, I imagine it could become a quite powerful option.
I don't know if this would make decentralized actually competitive with the vassal swarm, given just how broken it is, but it's at least be far more interesting.

As for the vassal swarm itself, they had really only two options, either nerf it or boost the HRE tag itself.
I can see the first option having a heavy backlash from the community, as many people do love the massive power revoking gave them.
So they went for the second option, with a very powerful mission tree for the HRE and Germany.
But that wasn't enough, it's still not competitive with vassal swarming, so the issue remains unfortunately.

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

Decentralized is fun for the novelty and roleplay if you're into that, but not much else unfortunately.
As many, I initially thought the vassal swarm would be the end goal there, but thinking more deeply about it, I guess it really didn't make much sense.
After all, going from an only de jure vassal, de facto fully sovereign, to a de facto vassal fully submitted to the emperor is indeed a step towards centralization.

That said, decentralized could still be a much better path than it is now.
One possibility would be to fully empower the imperial diet, using incidents as issues where princes could vote for many boosts for them, while keeping that powerful CB of course.
Internal disputes could be solved in the diet, and those issues could increase manpower, development, trade, and many other things in the empire in a way to benefit every prince, and it'd make the diplomatic game inside the empire very interesting and important.
With those issues boosting each prince in a tall way essentially for free, and having the side effect of facilitating the gathering of IA to use the special CB, I imagine it could become a quite powerful option.
I don't know if this would make decentralized actually competitive with the vassal swarm, given just how broken it is, but it's at least be far more interesting.

As for the vassal swarm itself, they had really only two options, either nerf it or boost the HRE tag itself.
I can see the first option having a heavy backlash from the community, as many people do love the massive power revoking gave them.
So they went for the second option, with a very powerful mission tree for the HRE and Germany.
But that wasn't enough, it's still not competitive with vassal swarming, so the issue remains unfortunately.

This. The Vassal swarm is a logical step to centralization - not the alternative. They probably made that original statement without thinking that aspect fully through and later got the better of it. The idea behind the Decentralized path is good, it just seems a bit lackluster numberwise. However, even if they were stronger it will always be restricted to MP and Roleplay, as the vassal swarm will always be superior. I don't really see a problem with that.

One option which might help is to make decentralized faster compared to centralized - increasing IA cost of the centralized path or give higher IA gains for decentralized. So that if you become HRE in the mid-game you might have no time anymore to go down centralized but decentralized is possible.

 

[Sokullu_Mehmet]

I have three alternative suggestions for potential balance:

1- Make vassal swarm last step in decentralized path, remove vassal swarm as a step in centralized path and allow direct annexation without this step
- This last step may not be direct annexation but instead a sort of quasi civil war pre unification that allows foreign powers to intervene as well
2- Make vassal swarm last step in decentralized path as current vassal swarm with full benefits, keep vassal swarm also in current path but in much weaker form (e.g. scutage vassals only, no wartime benefit)
3- Make vassal swarm step in centralized path very unstable forcing player to progress to unification quickly