Why the balance change for missionaries? [Megathread]

[DDRJake]

What I don't get is why neither @Groogy nor @DDRJake explain the motivation behind this change

From the dev diary, just above said change:

An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.

The motivation behind both the corruption from large expansion and missionaries/culture change in states only is all here: to prevent taking more land from simply always being the most powerful thing for you to do for your nation. If you see land of a different culture group, different religion and undesirable for making a state and core, then you should have to consider if making a direct land grab is the best move, as opposed to subjugating it, forcing trade power from the owner, establishing a powerful ally there, investing in tolerance of heretics/heathens etc.

Now, some people may not agree with the motivation behind the changes, and that's fine, but not agreeing with them doesn't mean they're not there. Whenever we do so called anti blobbing changes like these, the feedback is always prominent, and we do listen and communicate with the community.

Some changes are simply unpopular, that goes for most walks of life. We didn't put these changes in thinking "people are gonna love this", we did it to break the stale strategy of direct conquest always being best.

 

[Hoegaart]

Thanks for clearing this up @DDRJake

I personally like the motivation for this change that simply conquering all the lands have been the superior option. It does add a layer of strategic and long term planning, when this is not always the case.

 

[lolada]

Makes sense to be honest ^^.

 

[Denkt]

Making it more important to decide if you should conquer or not is nice. I think the current problem is what humanist and religious are for. Currently it seems the only advantage you have with religious is the CB while humanist is basically the penalty you have to pick to remove any considerations what to conquer as you simply tolerate everything anyway.

Religious require you to invest into missionaries and it is slow, humanist is instant and even have better revolt risk reduction in true faith land than religious have as well have really low revolt risk and other trouble from non religious land for doing really nothing. Yes it is a penalty idea, one that you pick because you choose to conquer alot but religious is also a penalty idea that is basically a worse version of humanism other than the CB.

 

[RMS Oceanic]

Thanks for the answer, Jake.

I understand the desire to dissuade mindless conversion, and clever use of vassals and PUs can help circumvent the restriction, but I see two scenarios where the hard lock on conversion feels awkward.

- Trade Companies. As is, you can't convert in trade company land. You have to convert before you add the land to your TC. Well now you have to make it a state as well before you add it to a TC, when it's already meant to be an either/or decision, as demonstrated by TC's exemption from the corruption penalties. Again vassals can compensate for this, but with the additional nerf to annex costs it feels remarkably cumbersome, and meaning you put off the benefits of TCs for 15-20 years.
- Rome. To form Rome you need to directly own provinces (so no vassals) in 78 different territories (give or take, I may have miscounted). Even with the incoming higher starting states the only nation that could own all those provinces in states is Russia with the Revolutions Age splendor power. So again if you want religious conformity you have to juggle states around.

I guess I just don't see why mindless expansion and conversion have to be joined at the hip. Isn't there a way to hamper one but not the other?

 

[Calanon]

From the dev diary, just above said change:

An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.

The motivation behind both the corruption from large expansion and missionaries/culture change in states only is all here: to prevent taking more land from simply always being the most powerful thing for you to do for your nation. If you see land of a different culture group, different religion and undesirable for making a state and core, then you should have to consider if making a direct land grab is the best move, as opposed to subjugating it, forcing trade power from the owner, establishing a powerful ally there, investing in tolerance of heretics/heathens etc.

Now, some people may not agree with the motivation behind the changes, and that's fine, but not agreeing with them doesn't mean they're not there. Whenever we do so called anti blobbing changes like these, the feedback is always prominent, and we do listen and communicate with the community.

Some changes are simply unpopular, that goes for most walks of life. We didn't put these changes in thinking "people are gonna love this", we did it to break the stale strategy of direct conquest always being best.

What do you think of people's idea/suggestion that the bonus for religious ideas be changed to allow missionaries to convert in territories? I think that'd be a better bonus than -25% culture conversion cost.

 

[Batano]

From the dev diary, just above said change:

An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.

The motivation behind both the corruption from large expansion and missionaries/culture change in states only is all here: to prevent taking more land from simply always being the most powerful thing for you to do for your nation. If you see land of a different culture group, different religion and undesirable for making a state and core, then you should have to consider if making a direct land grab is the best move, as opposed to subjugating it, forcing trade power from the owner, establishing a powerful ally there, investing in tolerance of heretics/heathens etc.

Now, some people may not agree with the motivation behind the changes, and that's fine, but not agreeing with them doesn't mean they're not there. Whenever we do so called anti blobbing changes like these, the feedback is always prominent, and we do listen and communicate with the community.

Some changes are simply unpopular, that goes for most walks of life. We didn't put these changes in thinking "people are gonna love this", we did it to break the stale strategy of direct conquest always being best.

Thanks for the clarification @DDRJake , while I read the "anti blobbing" part, I attributed it more to the corruption change, which I actually like. I did not realize that this is also your motivation for the change of the Conversion mechanic. While I do personally think that outright killing any missionary chance in territories is a bit too much, I will see how it plays out and give feedback when I had some time on Dharma.

Thanks

 

[Hoegaart]

Making it more important to decide if you should conquer or not is nice. I think the current problem is what humanist and religious are for. Currently it seems the only advantage you have with religious is the CB while humanist is basically the penalty you have to pick to remove any considerations what to conquer as you simply tolerate everything anyway.

Religious require you to invest into missionaries and it is slow, humanist is instant and even have better revolt risk reduction in true faith land than religious have as well have really low revolt risk and other trouble from non religious land for doing really nothing. Yes it is a penalty idea, one that you pick because you choose to conquer alot but religious is also a penalty idea that is basically a worse version of humanism other than the CB.

I agree, some sort of change for the Religious Idea group is warranted. These changes will make Humanism the best choice if going wide.

Thanks for the answer, Jake.

I understand the desire to dissuade mindless conversion, and clever use of vassals and PUs can help circumvent the restriction, but I see two scenarios where the hard lock on conversion feels awkward.

- Trade Companies. As is, you can't convert in trade company land. You have to convert before you add the land to your TC. Well now you have to make it a state as well before you add it to a TC, when it's already meant to be an either/or decision, as demonstrated by TC's exemption from the corruption penalties. Again vassals can compensate for this, but with the additional nerf to annex costs it feels remarkably cumbersome, and meaning you put off the benefits of TCs for 15-20 years.
- Rome. To form Rome you need to directly own provinces (so no vassals) in 78 different territories (give or take, I may have miscounted). Even with the incoming higher starting states the only nation that could own all those provinces in states is Russia with the Revolutions Age splendor power. So again if you want religious conformity you have to juggle states around.

I guess I just don't see why mindless expansion and conversion have to be joined at the hip. Isn't there a way to hamper one but not the other?

From what I remember at the top of my head, I don't believe you need all provinces to be the same religion in order to form Rome. Hence I don't really see the issue you are claiming. State or territory you directly own the land.

 

[Piotrzeci]

I think this change is an opportunity to make religious ideas great again. Humanist is overall better and have an instant effect.
If religious are given more tolerance of true faith and ability to convert territories, it could be a great change. Basically once you have territories it is a moment when you decide- tolerance from humanism, more states from administrative or keeping on converting with religious.
It might be a great change or just a stupid nail to the coffin of religious ideas. I strongly disagree with just a change as it is presented, because it isn't even a nerf to expansion, as long as you pick great humanist ideas. I don't want to be a humanist feudal theocracy!

 

[mursolini]

From the dev diary, just above said change:

An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.

The motivation behind both the corruption from large expansion and missionaries/culture change in states only is all here: to prevent taking more land from simply always being the most powerful thing for you to do for your nation. If you see land of a different culture group, different religion and undesirable for making a state and core, then you should have to consider if making a direct land grab is the best move, as opposed to subjugating it, forcing trade power from the owner, establishing a powerful ally there, investing in tolerance of heretics/heathens etc.

Now, some people may not agree with the motivation behind the changes, and that's fine, but not agreeing with them doesn't mean they're not there. Whenever we do so called anti blobbing changes like these, the feedback is always prominent, and we do listen and communicate with the community.

Some changes are simply unpopular, that goes for most walks of life. We didn't put these changes in thinking "people are gonna love this", we did it to break the stale strategy of direct conquest always being best.

This change is very badly communicated for several obvious reasons:
-Religious idea group is largely focused on conversion(and conquest), which would be pointless because you can`t convert conquered territories anyway. I`m hoping you know what you`re doing here, because the poit of this idea group just got thrown into trash bin.
-Humanist idea allows you to just wish away the religious problems altogather, which now becomes extremely powerful, to the point of must-have.

There are also huge missed opportunities! At the moment, only Muslims seem to have religious minorities be represented as something more than just constantly rebelling idiots. Big empires usually were able to negotiate with particular religious leaders and integrate them into the state, after which rebelion problem would go away. I`m really hoping we will see something like estate solution to rebels, that would lock you out of some bonuses/estate interaction/ex in exchange for stability,
because the game simply forbiding ANY conversion of territories without fleshing out religious mechanics is awful!

 

[PrimeYuri]

From the dev diary, just above said change:

Now, some people may not agree with the motivation behind the changes, and that's fine,

I can understand the motivation of the changes (though I also disagree with that one) but the problem here (at least how I think the majority of the disagreeing people see it) is the direct correlation between blobbing and adding corruption/lower religious unity that is just wrong. Conquering will still be better even if it gives a bit more corruption. It just makes it more annoying.

 

[Piotrzeci]

You claim these changes were not meant to be the most liked and popular, but there isn't that much argue over corruption change. We dislike missionaries change, because we think it is a bad choice.
I understand the intention, but even after DDRJake explained it, I still am not convinced it is a right way to go. You want to nerf expansion, then do so, but try not to make humanist ideas a magical solution, that doesn't even make sense for some nations, governments or national ideas sets.

 

[Denkt]

I don't think the missionary change is bad but the problem is that there needs to be other changes to support the idea.

Lets look at the two penalty idea groups religious and humanist:

• True faith unrest: -4 vs -5, humanist wins
• Heretic: +2 vs -3, humanist wins by far
• Heathen: +3 vs -2, humanist wins by even more

Humanist gets no penalty from any religion, religious do. Humanist is not affect much if at all by the change because you don't have much if any need for conversion as your heathens are about as stable as true religion for normal nations.

So basically you nerf religious, an idea group that already limited with only the CB and its role playing value as its saving graces.

This is why more changes are need, like why not make stability much more important for tolerance, for example you could cap the tolerance value to your stability so +3 stability mean max 3 tolerance while -3 stability means max -3 tolerance. You could even reduce or increase tolerance with stability so that polyreligious empires really need high stability to function otherwise they risk collapse due to religious unrest.

I think it is quite realistic that stability would have major impact on tolerance and stability is currently a relic from EUII or even EU (which have not played), 2 decades later stability have seen little change other than it now cost monarch points and it is easy to maintain high stability for a large nation as before stability cost increased with size and got extremely expensive for a large polyreligious empire.

Lets look at three examples:

• Large polyreligious empire:

Before the change humanist wins because it simply remove all problems instantly while religious really give no serious advantages while it is slow, cost resources as well takes hundreds if not thousands of clicks.

After the change religious lose even more because you wont be allowed to convert everything.

• Mid sized polyreligious empire:

Before the change humanist win because it simply solve everything instantly, only the CB is the saving grace of religious and that still lose to the speed and simplicity of humanist.

After the change, same as before but humanist wins by far as the empire advance to large size.

• Small monoreligious empire:

Before the change both ideas are poor choices here and in any advance in size humanist is going to win.

After the change, humanist simply gets better if the empire advance in size.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

Honestly, I would love that religious tolerance be somehow tied to stability.
Then again, stability is so cheap to increase, except by the really early part of the game, but after the first 20-30 years, it's extremely cheap.
Perhaps increasing stability should be tied by the number of provinces/states/territories you control.
I think this could lead to more anti-blobbing.

 

[Denkt]

I think stability needs a rework to be honest, a relic from 2 decades is something that starts to feel quite old.

You have to be careful about increasing stability cost as it use monarch points which can hardly be increased by size unlike gold but that is a reson why I think it needs to be reworked so it actually become a thing that can end empires but to become the destroyer of empires it probably need a very major rework from the bottom up.

 

[netherlink]

Ezy fix: new Religious idea perk (finisher or whatever): You can now convert in territorial cores.
Problem solved?

 

[lolada]

I don't know ... everyone complain how huge empires are super stable. Now with more corruption and more religious issues its a step in right direction.

Would be nice to reduce micro and annoying thing in game tho. State/unstate convert should not be a thing. Corruption is also a bit ugly mechanic by default.

 

[Denkt]

I don't know ... everyone complain how huge empires are super stable. Now with more corruption and more religious issues its a step in right direction.

The problem is that humanist is left untouched by all of this.

 

[EquilinT]

Glad to see the answer everyone have been seeking for a while now.

 

[Reman]

From the dev diary, just above said change:

An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.

The motivation behind both the corruption from large expansion and missionaries/culture change in states only is all here: to prevent taking more land from simply always being the most powerful thing for you to do for your nation. If you see land of a different culture group, different religion and undesirable for making a state and core, then you should have to consider if making a direct land grab is the best move, as opposed to subjugating it, forcing trade power from the owner, establishing a powerful ally there, investing in tolerance of heretics/heathens etc.

Now, some people may not agree with the motivation behind the changes, and that's fine, but not agreeing with them doesn't mean they're not there. Whenever we do so called anti blobbing changes like these, the feedback is always prominent, and we do listen and communicate with the community.

Some changes are simply unpopular, that goes for most walks of life. We didn't put these changes in thinking "people are gonna love this", we did it to break the stale strategy of direct conquest always being best.

The problem is that taking land is the fun, strategically interesting part of EU4, whereas playing tall is only fun for 2-3 games.

It's good that you guys noticed the lack of balance between these two playstyles. However, in almost every thread that's discussed this topic in months prior, the broad conclusion has been that you should provide better internal development mechanics for tall players, not that you should nerf wide play.

I'm more critical of your mindset than the actual changes you're implementing. I don't think adding corruption to non-TC territories and nerfing missionaries will do anything significant to stop blobbing. It just makes trade companies and Humanist ideas the One True Playstyle. That's... alright I guess. It's been like this for a while now, and I'd like more strategic alternatives to slaughtering Indonesians from 1530 - 1600 every game, but I can live with it.

However, the mindset that you should nerf the interesting playstyle instead of providing better alternatives to tall players is very troubling.