Why Common Sense lacks, well, common sense!

[Number 7]

The tradeoff for "weaker rulers on average" is "you can spend RepTrad to improve them" and "you get to choose what they're good at and you will never have a 0/0/0 troglodytic derplord".
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I find republics have better rulers on average, so even the trade off doesn't really exist... you can go through a period of 4-1-1 or 1-1-4 and not be that bad off, a 4 in a stat is pretty good, and otherwise you have 5-2-2 or equivalent which is way better than most monarchs i get who average 3 or lower in every stat

 

[Ame]

DotF is not "a purely fantasy concept". Some Pope (one of the Popes called Leo) declared Henry VIII Defender of the Faith before his conversion to Protestantism, and ever since Defender of the Faith is written in Latin on British coinage.

When did Henry VIII ever declare war on a non-catholic power in defense of catholicism? In terms of both how England was thought of, how it actually operated and what the foreign policy was Henry VIIIs England would not at any point have been defender of the faith. Henry kept the title after becoming protestant and was never especially inclined to defend German protestant.

 

[doktorstick]

Sure - and if I could play Ironman-without-achievements (I like not having to think about the tedious mechanical task of saving the game) while using gameplay-affecting mods, I would consider doing so.

Is monthly autosave insufficient, somehow? Is it your own personal lack of willpower that prevents you from save-scumming other "ironman save" events?

 

[LemonMonk]

When did Henry VIII ever declare war on a non-catholic power in defense of catholicism? In terms of both how England was thought of, how it actually operated and what the foreign policy was Henry VIIIs England would not at any point have been defender of the faith. Henry kept the title after becoming protestant and was never especially inclined to defend German protestant.

Agreed with your hostorical stuff, but what does that have to do with anything? I mentioned my bit as you claimed the DotF title was "a purely fantasy concept". I cited an example to disprove your absurd remark. P'Dox are creating a video game, they are not making a carbon copy of real history. DotF exists as something different in EU than reality. Whether DotF works in the games rendition is immaterial in the way that you and I have been discussing.

 

[grommile]

Is monthly autosave insufficient, somehow?

Nothing less than "automatic save on exit, to a single uniquely-named save file per campaign" is acceptable.

 

[mackwolfe]

Which gets back to "why can't regency councils declare war?"

Fear of a regency council - and inability to declare war - is what prevents me from making my King a general all the time, unless the heir is 13 or 14 years old already.
I kind of like this limitation . Can be very frustrating when it prevents you from getting an achievement, but it adds flavor and variety .

 

[grommile]

Fear of a regency council - and inability to declare war - is what prevents me from making my King a general all the time, unless the heir is 13 or 14 years old already.

I approximately never make my king a general unless playing a horde (where, effectively, you don't get regencies); I still sometimes end up losing 20+ years to regency within the first 100 years of the game. Which, in combination with various other things, means that I regard Milan as the only country of interest, and I'm not in the mood for another Milan game right now.

 

[Nassau]

I can not really speak for other parts of the world, but in the Netherlands a fort did really stop such an army from moving, because going though the fort or the city was the only way to get from A to B.


Unless you wanted to move across a shallow lake, marsh or other bad terrain.


Take for example Groningen, access to the city itself was possible only by a few ways, sealing off each entrance would mean there was no way to get to the city. Sieging it took a long time, longer than what is portrayed in EU4.

Same for Friesland. You could of course land an army on the shore, but that was only an option when having knowledge of the waters and when controlling a nearby port where the ships could dock (needed to unload cannons, horses, supplies and basically all the men). From land Friesland was hard to reach, cause of swamps and lakes.

Holland, when land was flooded, was just insane to conquer, you could take a few cities, but first you would have to get passed so many barriers and other provinces...


A fortress in EU4 being impassable does make sense.

 

[208]

Now I'm just wondering why you were unpaused. Were you waiting out a truce timer or something?

I don't recall now.

 

[Chewy Yui]

Sure, we'll change this as soon as we implement realistic logistics and have half of your 40k doom stack die from dysentery while you are trying to get it into enemy lands.

Dying from dysentery? Europa Universalis 4: Oregon Trail confirmed

 

[Korsan82]

Sure, we'll change this as soon as we implement realistic logistics and have half of your 40k doom stack die from dysentery while you are trying to get it into enemy lands.

That, or we'll just keep the current system because realism is not a meaningful argument.

"It's too hard, we'll simplify it" seems to be the new design philosophy.

 

[Aries666]

I find republics have better rulers on average, so even the trade off doesn't really exist... you can go through a period of 4-1-1 or 1-1-4 and not be that bad off, a 4 in a stat is pretty good, and otherwise you have 5-2-2 or equivalent which is way better than most monarchs i get who average 3 or lower in every stat

No monarchs get an average 3 in every stat not 3 or lower

 

[Aries666]

I approximately never make my king a general unless playing a horde (where, effectively, you don't get regencies); I still sometimes end up losing 20+ years to regency within the first 100 years of the game. Which, in combination with various other things, means that I regard Milan as the only country of interest, and I'm not in the mood for another Milan game right now.

As a horde you should be proactively killing off your rulers due to "no child can be Khan" giving you a ruler between 3/3/3 - 5/5/5

 

[zsImmortal]

Fear of a regency council - and inability to declare war - is what prevents me from making my King a general all the time, unless the heir is 13 or 14 years old already.
I kind of like this limitation . Can be very frustrating when it prevents you from getting an achievement, but it adds flavor and variety .

I'm going to massively disagree. It only takes 1 huge regency council to ruin games (for me at least). Had an amazing Ottoman game (pretty much at war non-stop, massive overextension all the time, great fun), easily going to pick up the Sultanate of Rum achievement and possibly the 1001 provinces, only to get slapped with a 14 year regency. And it's not even losing 14 years of conquest that bothered me. It's the fact that I just don't feel like sitting on 5 speed for 14 years (obviously I'd do a bit, leave the game and do other stuff and come back the next day because I really don't find the sitting on speed 5 fun). Then I just lost the great mood. I just ended up quitting the game after doing a few years after the regency and just didn't feel the same way. So I just deleted the file because I was never going to get back into it for that one. So can we please just not have to deal with the regency bullshit? It doesn't add anything.

Or, since they don't even get the advantage of forcing/getting PUs, make the limitations not apply to non-christian nations or have a work around for them (like supporting a weak claim ruler in a coup or keeping the regency for the heir).

 

[Grimely]

I'm going to massively disagree. It only takes 1 huge regency council to ruin games (for me at least). Had an amazing Ottoman game (pretty much at war non-stop, massive overextension all the time, great fun), easily going to pick up the Sultanate of Rum achievement and possibly the 1001 provinces, only to get slapped with a 14 year regency. And it's not even losing 14 years of conquest that bothered me. It's the fact that I just don't feel like sitting on 5 speed for 14 years (obviously I'd do a bit, leave the game and do other stuff and come back the next day because I really don't find the sitting on speed 5 fun). Then I just lost the great mood. I just ended up quitting the game after doing a few years after the regency and just didn't feel the same way. So I just deleted the file because I was never going to get back into it for that one. So can we please just not have to deal with the regency bullshit? It doesn't add anything.

Or, since they don't even get the advantage of forcing/getting PUs, make the limitations not apply to non-christian nations or have a work around for them (like supporting a weak claim ruler in a coup or keeping the regency for the heir).

I would really appreciate better dynastic mechanics for well, everyone, but Muslims and the Ottomans in particular. Uncles would usurp from minor children, brothers would wage wars against brothers, campaigns of assassination and intrigue were commonplace. It got so bad that eventually all heirs to the throne were locked inside of the harem to be kept for 'safe-keeping' if secondary heirs were ever needed.

 

[yerm]

Just let regencies declare war. Nothing else to it, just remove that barrier and let it be done.

Enforced PUs are now absurd AE, and you have lower comparitive -LA and extra disasters on top of less average and less controllable MP gain. Monarchies are flat out weaker than republics, theocracies just got a nice buff, and regencies suck in other ways; there's no need for the regency DOW block.

 

[Beagá]

Can you tell me - from a purely gameist perspective, in the first instance, since we've established that any historicist justification is at best shaky - why regencies should not be allowed to declare war?

I have - for all practical purposes - no agency regarding whether I get a regency council. Sure, reckless play with respect to converting my leader or heir into generals can increase my risk, but there is literally nothing I can reasonably do, as a country with more than 20 provinces, to mitigate my risk. And when I get one, I am denied gameplay without compensation. No interesting new gameplay is opened to me. The game is strictly less interesting during a regency council than otherwise.

Wow you really hate it eh

Again, I´m not against making regencies wage offensive war as long as they get a malus/maluses.

What would you suggest?

 

[Pyske]

Can you tell me - from a purely gameist perspective, in the first instance, since we've established that any historicist justification is at best shaky - why regencies should not be allowed to declare war?

I have - for all practical purposes - no agency regarding whether I get a regency council. Sure, reckless play with respect to converting my leader or heir into generals can increase my risk, but there is literally nothing I can reasonably do, as a country with more than 20 provinces, to mitigate my risk. And when I get one, I am denied gameplay without compensation. No interesting new gameplay is opened to me. The game is strictly less interesting during a regency council than otherwise.

Sure. It is a negative event, and serves much the same purposes: you have minimal control over events other than by selecting certain idea groups or government types which can reduce its MTTH. They provide a setback for you as a player to overcome through your player agency and skill.

I agree that you have little agency in whether regencies happen. They provide an obstacle to the straight-forward path of conquest, and force highly-skilled players to work around them through clever play (such as convincing allies to DOW, baiting rivals, expanding through participation in defensive wars) or to making trade-offs to mitigate their chances (+heir chance ideas, royal marriages, not making your heir or monarch a general).

Now, I would like to see some more ways to prevent regencies or to mitigate them. More ways for desperate and aging kings to designate less-legitimate heirs, for example. Faction-based jockeying to be appointed as the regent, as another example. But those are feature requests and enhancements.

From my perspective, regencies are not broken, just less interesting than they could be.

 

[grommile]

Wow you really hate it eh

Again, I´m not against making regencies wage offensive war as long as they get a malus/maluses.

On what basis do you believe they need to suffer a malus for declaring offensive war, when they already suffer maluses just for being a regency? (-2 legit/year, and the regents have a mean expected stat value of about 1.8 compared to 3 for a king/queen)

 

[Aries666]

Sure. It is a negative event, and serves much the same purposes: you have minimal control over events other than by selecting certain idea groups or government types which can reduce its MTTH. They provide a setback for you as a player to overcome through your player agency and skill.

I agree that you have little agency in whether regencies happen. They provide an obstacle to the straight-forward path of conquest, and force highly-skilled players to work around them through clever play (such as convincing allies to DOW, baiting rivals, expanding through participation in defensive wars) or to making trade-offs to mitigate their chances (+heir chance ideas, royal marriages, not making your heir or monarch a general).

Now, I would like to see some more ways to prevent regencies or to mitigate them. More ways for desperate and aging kings to designate less-legitimate heirs, for example. Faction-based jockeying to be appointed as the regent, as another example. But those are feature requests and enhancements.

From my perspective, regencies are not broken, just less interesting than they could be.

Working around a mechanic that serves no purpose and that is purely restrictive in nature with no means to prevent is not something that requires skill. You cannot "convince" an ally to declare war, enforce peace is rarely a viable option and requires luck in who declares war on who and suggesting that you should disband a portion of your army to entice a war dec from a rival simply serves to demonstrate how preposterous a mechanic regencies are.