Why is the vast majority of rulers in 1444 as terrible as they are?

[Godd_Howard]

I don't understand this. The scale we're talking about suggests that the "average ruler" that you speak about is a 3/3/3. If the game agreed with the assessment that the "average ruler" was a 0/1/0 or thereabouts, that would be the average, correct?

But we are not arguing for the mathematical scale. You can't measure a person's capability to run a country with many aspects of diplomacy, warfare and economy on such a simple scale. I'm saying that 3/3/3 or 3/4/4 is above the average and when you get into 5/4/5 or higher its genius teritory. It's an abstraction not a definitive number like in CK2 for example, where your 35 Diplo king is a god at making alliances but can't lead armies due to having only 5 Martial skill, in EU4 he can still roll a good shock or siege pip even if he has 2 Mil. skill.

 

[Zaddy]

The 9 point total isn't the average outcome of stat rolls. It's the most likely. It's also different from saying it represents the average skill levels of the rulers in the world. You get the average stats by calculating every ruler's stats in the game so if you want to find out what they average ruler stats that the devs feel it is in 1444 than you can calculate it.

But we are not arguing for the mathematical scale. You can't measure a person's capability to run a country with many aspects of diplimacy, warfare and economy on such a simple scale. I'm saying that 3/3/3 or 3/4/4 is above the average and when you get into 5/4/5 or higher its genius teritory. It's an abstraction not a definitive number like in CK2 for example, where your 35 Diplo king is a god at making alliances but can't lead armies due to having only 5 Martial skill, in EU4 he can still roll a good shock or siege pip even if he has 2 Mil. skill.

Accepting this premise that the actual "average" ruler is below a 3/3/3 in the time frame, this line of logic suggests that, magically after 1444, the average ruler went from basket-case incompetent to "above average" (as you say, the argument says 3/3/3 and above should actually be considered ABOVE average). This makes sense to you guys?

 

[Godd_Howard]

this line of logic suggests that, magically after 1444, the average ruler went from basket-case incompetent to "above average"

Considering how many times I have to crash my game because I get 1/2/3 heirs I would have to disagree on this.

(as you say, the argument says 3/3/3 and above should actually be considered ABOVE average). This makes sense to you guys?

So yes it makes perfect sense to me. That is how I always viewed the ruler stats in EU4.

 

[Zaddy]

Considering how many times I have to crash my game because I get 1/2/3 heirs I would have to disagree on this.


So yes it makes perfect sense to me. That is how I always viewed the ruler stats in EU4.

I don't understand how this actually responds to my post lol. Yes you can still get garbage heirs. Seems irrelevant when the average is randomly much higher for post-1444 heirs than 1444 monarchs.

 

[Less2]

The high-statted rulers overwhelmingly succumbed to hunting accidents. Duh.

 

[Zaddy]

The high-statted rulers overwhelmingly succumbed to hunting accidents. Duh.

everything makes more sense now...

 

[Godd_Howard]

I don't understand how this actually responds to my post lol. Yes you can still get garbage heirs. Seems irrelevant when the average is randomly much higher for post-1444 heirs than 1444 monarchs.

Simply put I don't think the game generates more above average heirs than what you would have at 1444. If anything it goes out of it's way to deliver those below average heirs almost every time when I play. When I get a 5/4/4 I make 10 back up saves just in case. Idk what heirs you get but if you get above average heirs that much it's pretty lucky.

That's why I like republics in EU4, you can just keep upgrading your ruler with each election instead of hoping for a good heir.

 

[Hecko]

Accepting this premise that the actual "average" ruler is below a 3/3/3 in the time frame, this line of logic suggests that, magically after 1444, the average ruler went from basket-case incompetent to "above average" (as you say, the argument says 3/3/3 and above should actually be considered ABOVE average). This makes sense to you guys?

The renaissance did happen. Great thinkers were born, new ruling philosophies took shape, and Political sciences advanced.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Why is the vast majority of rulers in 1444 flat out terrible?

Easy! To slow down the progress of the game. The more strong starting rulers there are in the world, the easier it will be for nations to tech and get ideas early. Having most rulers be bad with bad/good heirs also helps to make some countries naturally stronger than others.

Lastly, it would be interesting to analyse this a bit further. What region has the highest concentration of strong rulers? And weak? How many countries start with good ruler/heir, bad ruler/heir, good ruler bad heir, and bad ruler good heir?

The newer tags, do they tend to get strong starting monarchs or bad ones?

I'd hazard a guess that monarch and heir stats got inflated as time goes on. For example, if you set the date to when Vlad rules Whallacia (don't recall the exact date right now) you'll see that he is a 3/0/5. That is quite bad! Would he be such a bad ruler if he was introduced in, say, 1.29? I don't think so. I bet he would be at least a 3/3/6.

 

[lambda x.x]

Also, people say "it's based on history," but I find that hard to believe for all/most cases -- there are many regions where we don't have clear documentations that give strong confidence in how competent a ruler was, and I'm even less confident that EU4 developers got everything right without any errors.

For example, Ryukyu's ruler is 18 years old at game start when he should be 30 or something like that. I'm sure there are many errors on that degree for minor nations/underlooked regions, so I wouldn't feel inclined to believe that all ruler stats were well-researched.

(And also in gameplay terms, I agree... TTM for example is demoralizing early because of a really crappy young ruler. I personally feel like non well-researched rulers should just be randomized.)

 

[Zaddy]

Simply put I don't think the game generates more above average heirs than what you would have at 1444. If anything it goes out of it's way to deliver those below average heirs almost every time when I play. When I get a 5/4/4 I make 10 back up saves just in case. Idk what heirs you get but if you get above average heirs that much it's pretty lucky.

That's why I like republics in EU4, you can just keep upgrading your ruler with each election instead of hoping for a good heir.

I mean I'm sorry but this is just wrong, sure you can get a string of bad luck but the ruler stat gen formula is known, it's a normal bell curve, peaking at 9 stat total.

The renaissance did happen. Great thinkers were born, new ruling philosophies took shape, and Political sciences advanced.

Okay but this occurs for everything single nation in the game, from Italian Renaissance states to Native American tribes in the mountains of present day British Columbia.

I think y'all are mega stretching with this lol

 

[Zaddy]

Easy! To slow down the progress of the game. The more strong starting rulers there are in the world, the easier it will be for nations to tech and get ideas early. Having most rulers be bad with bad/good heirs also helps to make some countries naturally stronger than others.

Lastly, it would be interesting to analyse this a bit further. What region has the highest concentration of strong rulers? And weak? How many countries start with good ruler/heir, bad ruler/heir, good ruler bad heir, and bad ruler good heir?

The newer tags, do they tend to get strong starting monarchs or bad ones?

I'd hazard a guess that monarch and heir stats got inflated as time goes on. For example, if you set the date to when Vlad rules Whallacia (don't recall the exact date right now) you'll see that he is a 3/0/5. That is quite bad! Would he be such a bad ruler if he was introduced in, say, 1.29? I don't think so. I bet he would be at least a 3/3/6.

This I can accept more readily. I think it's basically a way to slow down the initial snowball of the player except for a few power nations

 

[Teutonic Terror]

There's a TON of discussion and "maths" in this thread, but not a lot of argument/logic backing up which side their examples support.

The way i see it, the pre-generated rulers in 1444 are pretty bad, but if you play for a few decades and these rulers are replaced with randomly-generated ones, the mean will be significantly higher. The points in favor of this are that the "most likely" (median?) stat for every ruler/aspect is a 3, and that most 1444 rulers are much worse than 3/3/3. Now, I don't have concrete numbers on these (and any numbers should disregard disinheritance/republics because they bias the overall stats) so that might be wrong, but if randomly-generated is better than manually-decided historical figures like OP thinks, we then have the question of "why?"

Personally, I think when the devs created these numbers they didn't think 9 points total was average, maybe more like 6 (considering republics and ruler-designer's default are both 6), rather than 1444 rulers across the entire world were overall worse than 1500s or 1700s rulers.

 

[Hecko]

I mean I'm sorry but this is just wrong, sure you can get a string of bad luck but the ruler stat gen formula is known, it's a normal bell curve, peaking at 9 stat total.

Okay but this occurs for everything single nation in the game, from Italian Renaissance states to Native American tribes in the mountains of present day British Columbia.

I think y'all are mega stretching with this lol

Everyone was always advancing and developed their own philosophies. Ideas were always being transferred through trade and then adapted to the local culture. Everywhere else is up to RNG.

 

[Zaddy]

Everyone was always advancing and developed their own philosophies. Ideas were always being transferred through trade and then adapted to the local culture. Everywhere else is up to RNG.

I mean again, this would make more sense if this random jump was tied in any way to the Renaissance. Every country on Earth (minus Republics and a few special governments) uses the exact same ruler stat formula. EVERYWHERE is up to RNG.

 

[Barbu]

Obviously 1444 was the height of an idiosyncrasy .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But who the hell says that 3/3/3 represents the average ruler capability in that time period? 3/3/3 represents an average point distribution in terms of stats for the player, which is what the wiki implies.

The game's roll for rulers is 2d4-2. If I'm not mistaken, the average for that is a bit under 3, but the point represented in the OP stands. It's an internal inconsistency.

In terms of time period who says a 0/0/0 isn't the average stat of the rulers back then?

The game says.

It would be like saying since the max level is 100 in an rpg than the average level of all beings in existence of that world should be 50.

It is not like saying that, no. That isn't even close to analogous.

I think the problem is some of us are thinking about the strictly arithmetic average(which while it is "The average" doesn't take into account any historical context) while others are saying it makes sense to have 1/2/1's and 0/1/0's everywhere because it's logically an "average ruler" to have in 1444.

Point being that the latter is an incoherent position. You can't have a ruler simultaneously be average and below average. The game's rules/world define an average, and somehow a majority of the pre-existing rules are well below.

The 9 point total isn't the average outcome of stat rolls. It's the most likely. It's also different from saying it represents the average skill levels of the rulers in the world. You get the average stats by calculating every ruler's stats in the game so if you want to find out what they average ruler stats that the devs feel it is in 1444 than you can calculate it.

You can input 10,000 or millions of 2d4 - 2 rolls if you want, your empirical outcome will still conclude that the 1444 rulers are inconsistent with what the game otherwise dictates as average, which is consistent with OP's criticism.

But we are not arguing for the mathematical scale. You can't measure a person's capability to run a country with many aspects of diplomacy, warfare and economy on such a simple scale. I'm saying that 3/3/3 or 3/4/4 is above the average and when you get into 5/4/5 or higher its genius teritory. It's an abstraction not a definitive number like in CK2 for example, where your 35 Diplo king is a god at making alliances but can't lead armies due to having only 5 Martial skill, in EU4 he can still roll a good shock or siege pip even if he has 2 Mil. skill.

I don't understand how this actually responds to my post lol. Yes you can still get garbage heirs. Seems irrelevant when the average is randomly much higher for post-1444 heirs than 1444 monarchs.

It didn't lol.

Simply put I don't think the game generates more above average heirs than what you would have at 1444.

It is empirically evident that the game's rules for "average" do not match the distribution of 1444 rulers, period.

Personally, I think when the devs created these numbers they didn't think 9 points total was average, maybe more like 6

I strongly suspect the devs knew what the average roll would be for 2d4-2 when they implemented it into the game.

 

[deathbypie]

Simply put I don't think the game generates more above average heirs than what you would have at 1444. If anything it goes out of it's way to deliver those below average heirs almost every time when I play. When I get a 5/4/4 I make 10 back up saves just in case. Idk what heirs you get but if you get above average heirs that much it's pretty lucky.

That's why I like republics in EU4, you can just keep upgrading your ruler with each election instead of hoping for a good heir.

Have you heard of confirmation bias?

Confirmation bias - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Battlex]

3/3/3 is the average stats for all non-event-generated heirs, isn't it?

All the gov reforms that give an extra point would boost it slightly.
Heirs can dietranslate it to what the average ruler is

The game's roll for rulers is 2d4-2. If I'm not mistaken, the average for that is a bit under 3, but the point represented in the OP stands. It's an internal inconsistency.


The game says.


It is not like saying that, no. That isn't even close to analogous.


Point being that the latter is an incoherent position. You can't have a ruler simultaneously be average and below average. The game's rules/world define an average, and somehow a majority of the pre-existing rules are well below.



You can input 10,000 or millions of 2d4 - 2 rolls if you want, your empirical outcome will still conclude that the 1444 rulers are inconsistent with what the game otherwise dictates as average, which is consistent with OP's criticism.




It didn't lol.

It is empirically evident that the game's rules for "average" do not match the distribution of 1444 rulers, period.


I strongly suspect the devs knew what the average roll would be for 2d4-2 when they implemented it into the game.

You can roll dice for what average heir should be, but you cannot easily simulate how long an heir may take to produce, heir producing events, heir death, request relative as heir heir. Ottomans also massively drop current average heir stats due to being 111s largely

 

[LeKaiser]

This is one of those posts that raises reasonable questions, but like... does it matter? Does my immersion in the game improve if my starting monarch has 1-2 more points on average? Like it's a valid point, but I would only care about Paradox changing this if they had fixed literally every other thing in the game first.