You shouldn't be able to disinherit newborns

[cotne22]

The disinherit mechanic, while good on paper, has turned monarchies into a weird breeding lottery, with kings repeatedly throwing away their newborn children with basically no consequences. At least implement a minimum age for disinheriting, 10-15 years, so it makes a bit more sense historically. Also, I wouldn't expect the disinherited sons to just sit around and accept their fate - there should be an event where based on the claim strength the heir you just disinherited has a chance to revolt and try to overthrow the current ruler.

 

[Hezekiah]

That's fine if the developers also add a "take heir hunting" decision.

 

[Uskayaw]

I agree. The entire disinheriting system is pay2win (because it's only available with DLC) and it nerfs republics and theocracies.
Besides, you shouldn't even be able to see stats of newborns.

 

[lambda x.x]

alternatively, perhaps newborn heirs shouldn't have fixed stats -- young heirs should improve their stats over time w/ ideally some player agency.

 

[FrogCrusher]

Instead of revisiting this mechanic it would be great to fix the reason why we need it. As explained, fixed totally random monarch points is bad design. The difference between a 1 3 0 and a 5 4 4 is so huge.
It's like the fact that you cannot declare war during regencies ans stare the screen during 11 years. Consorts change this but the base mechanic is still dumb.
Frankly speaking, it is well known that EU4 has to much RNG, leading to have mechanic to counter this, leading to high variance depending on DLC etc...
Other areas are: siege rolls, general generations (welcome restart x times your game to get a general with siege pips), rival selection (you can start a new game and not be able to rival the same people...).

I did Candar achievements few weeks ago and it took me 5 restarts. I'm not against randomness, EU4 is not chess game. But the thing is that sometimes, the only way to win without cheesing is to pray that some RNG will permit you some manoeuvres. In this example, waiting for Ottos to focus first on Albania + Venice, plus possibility to ally Mameluk + Dow them with promise lands on Mameluk. It is not particularly fun to play 2 hours waiting for the good dice roles.

 

[kdsw]

It is not particularly fun to play 2 hours waiting for the good dice roles.

Then don't? If you need some luck for something to work, no reason to have to wait for ages until it comes if you really have no other options. It doesn't even need to be direct RNG-rerolling, also maybe taking opportunities you hadn't seen before.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

The next problem manifests in the weirdness that if the royal disssapointment former heir had had an accident 14 years ago, you could've cycled through multiple other choices in that time, but since they were present, everyone in the extended royal family apparently just temporarily forgot how having more kids works. But then you run into the relevance of family trees, and potential rulers as actual people, and the general territory of "Things the developers are on-record as saying belong in Crusader Kings, not EU."

So I don't disagree with you, but I also don't think anything is likely to change here anytime soon.

 

[Nostalgium]

How dare you suggest chain-drowning your children in the well isn't precisely how monarchies were governed?!

But yes, I agree. Or rather, I would put a cooldown on it - 10 to 15 years. Whether you use it on a 0 or 30-year old in that period is your perogative.

 

[holyvigil]

The next problem manifests in the weirdness that if the royal disssapointment former heir had had an accident 14 years ago, you could've cycled through multiple other choices in that time, but since they were present, everyone in the extended royal family apparently just temporarily forgot how having more kids works. But then you run into the relevance of family trees, and potential rulers as actual people, and the general territory of "Things the developers are on-record as saying belong in Crusader Kings, not EU."

So I don't disagree with you, but I also don't think anything is likely to change here anytime soon.

I think that would be a good nerf to monarchies. Currently they could use a small nerf like that.

 

[nobodyinparticular]

alternatively, perhaps newborn heirs shouldn't have fixed stats -- young heirs should improve their stats over time w/ ideally some player agency.

Monarchies should have various events regarding the upbringing of an heir - altering claim strength, monarch points and traits. You could send your heir to a military academy - granting them the Martial Educator trait, increasing military skill by 1 while reducing administrative and diplomatic by 1. You might get an event where your heir comes up with a sneaky way to increase income to the crown - giving them the embezzler trait but also a burst of cash. Just to give some examples.

 

[Kapi96]

nah, disinheriting newborns is realistically the easiest. They can't defend themselves and babies dying (especially in those times) isn't uncommon so nobody's going to ask any questions.

 

[FrogCrusher]

nah, disinheriting newborns is realistically the easiest. They can't defend themselves and babies dying (especially in those times) isn't uncommon so nobody's going to ask any questions.

Except that IRL nobody could have said that the baby will be 0 0 0 leader or 6 6 6 one

 

[Runite Drill]

Disinheriting is overrated. I want to sell my newborn for juicy ducats $_$

 

[egolend]

Disinherating a weak legitisamcy heir makes a lot of sense - the ahistoric part is knowing the stats at birth. On the other hand in history there was often a brother/cousin who could take the throne but then you start to get into CK territory.

 

[Nostalgium]

Disinherating a weak legitisamcy heir makes a lot of sense - the ahistoric part is knowing the stats at birth. On the other hand in history there was often a brother/cousin who could take the throne but then you start to get into CK territory.

Of course, recent updates made claim strength of heir all but irrellevant, as it grows fairly quickly over time. Taking a weak claim heir with great stats in events is an absurdly safe bet if your king isn't pushing 60 or actively sieging forts in Tibet for a hobby.

 

[Workiwork]

it is to late in eu4s lifetime for big changes to monarch power und consensus seems to be that "we" do not want mana for eu 5

but i would have given a nation a max number of mana points per month. let's say 10 or 12 or something like that. you would look how you reach 10/12,

example = base 3, great power +1, advisor +2, monarch +3 and you already have 9. no need to reroll until you get +6.


as said, it is to late in the lifetime of eu4 for that, the whole balance would have to be changed to fit a new average mana value. if eu 5 uses mana at least for some actions (and i think a few currencies will be understood as mana by fans even if they are not the same as in eu4) maybe something like that would be an idea.

 

[MachopPower69]

I agree with Lambdaxx, heirs should start with 0/0/0 and gain monarch power over time until they are of age, like in Crusader Kings. Perhaps give them mini-traits that are weaker versions of adult traits and when they become of age they are randomly assigned one of their traits to be carried over as a permanent trait.

For example, at 14, your son has three traits: One that boosts Discipline by 1%, the second boosts global colonists by 5 and the third increases corruption by 0.01. When they turn 15 the RNG chooses between these three traits and gives them the adult version of the child traits.

What I can see from this is the nerf to spending 50 prestige for a reroll and a rebalancing of heirs and monarchies. I mean, babies aren't born with a sword, a pen and a book in their hands because they have 6/5/6, right?

 

[Aepdneds]

Except that IRL nobody could have said that the baby will be 0 0 0 leader or 6 6 6 one

Of course you can know this, if it is named Alexander, Caesar or Johan he is great, otherwise dump him.

https://i.redd.it/3rj3ukse27a21.jpg

 

[arosenberger14]

Instead of revisiting this mechanic it would be great to fix the reason why we need it. As explained, fixed totally random monarch points is bad design. The difference between a 1 3 0 and a 5 4 4 is so huge.
It's like the fact that you cannot declare war during regencies ans stare the screen during 11 years. Consorts change this but the base mechanic is still dumb.
Frankly speaking, it is well known that EU4 has to much RNG, leading to have mechanic to counter this, leading to high variance depending on DLC etc...
Other areas are: siege rolls, general generations (welcome restart x times your game to get a general with siege pips), rival selection (you can start a new game and not be able to rival the same people...).

I did Candar achievements few weeks ago and it took me 5 restarts. I'm not against randomness, EU4 is not chess game. But the thing is that sometimes, the only way to win without cheesing is to pray that some RNG will permit you some manoeuvres. In this example, waiting for Ottos to focus first on Albania + Venice, plus possibility to ally Mameluk + Dow them with promise lands on Mameluk. It is not particularly fun to play 2 hours waiting for the good dice roles.

I gotta disagree with your premise here, in my opinion monarch stats having such a big impact on strength reflects the huge impact both competent and incompetent rules historically had on states and can challenge and constrain players in a way that doesn't scale down with how hard they blob. Yeah the RNG can make some especially hard starts a pain, but when you're starting behind the 8-ball it's supposed to be hard. If anything, all the mechanics we have to gain monarch points that have been expanded since the game's release have made monarch stats matter too little.

Where EU4 falls short is by failing to accurately depict the tradeoffs and mitigation strategies states employed around absolutist monarchial rule in this era. You should be able to choose whether to go down the high risk high reward route of centralizing power in the hands of a single individual at the risk of having to deal with your own Louis XVI or Charles II, or of building up institutions that distribute state power more decentralizedly at the cost of having to deal with the competing interests of whatever bureaucratic, noble, priestly, democratic, etc... interests it's been handed off to.

 

[currylambchop]

Monarchies are already boring as hell, and now you want to make them the weakest too?