EUIV - Development Diary - 11th of February 2020

[Lysenkoite]

Another reason not to go Anglican now they'll get a tiny DoF bonus, to go with their poor religious mechanics and a relations penalty.

 

[Groogy]

It seems like @Groogy is open to the idea of DoF being an experience-style system based on actions actually defending the faith, which is awesome. I was expecting this to be a non-starter since it’s clearly harder to implement/balance, but it’s so much richer! It opens up a new play style for those who like tall play, and it also rewards being the “good guy”, which is incredibly rare in a game where almost every objective is conquest.

As far as having a DoF for non-Christians/Muslims, it seems like it would make more sense if it works this way. Let other faiths have one, but they start with no bonuses. Only after building up a tradition of actually defending the faith do they get bonuses, whereas Christians/Muslims would start with some because the tradition already exists.

Been thinking about it and we will not be going with this, not because it is harder but because it will start interfering with a bunch of other things. One example is the mechanic of stealing the title of DotF. You've built up all that "experience" and someone else takes it, does that mean the new guy gets your hard work? Do you lose all of it? If not does it sit in stasis for ever? Or should it prevent stealing all together? And a bunch of other problematic issues. Even if it is a cool idea of that you build up you being the "good guy" it's not the direction we want to go, we want to focus on the land and the nations part of the faith.

 

[Mindel]

Been thinking about it and we will not be going with this, not because it is harder but because it will start interfering with a bunch of other things. One example is the mechanic of stealing the title of DotF. You've built up all that "experience" and someone else takes it, does that mean the new guy gets your hard work? Do you lose all of it? If not does it sit in stasis for ever? Or should it prevent stealing all together? And a bunch of other problematic issues. Even if it is a cool idea of that you build up you being the "good guy" it's not the direction we want to go, we want to focus on the land and the nations part of the faith.

If you implement DotF losing the title as soon as they lose a war or decline a call to arms, then there should be no issues with others taking the title. I would think the most sensible approach is that the new guy starts from scratch, and the old one loses all of their previous experience.

That said, if you're going to go with a static measure, I still think just counting countries is not the right way to do it. For the same reasons as before. The idea that a fragmented Christian world is empowered with conversion bonuses where a unified one is not makes no sense to me.

 

[MatthewP]

Been thinking about it and we will not be going with this, not because it is harder but because it will start interfering with a bunch of other things. One example is the mechanic of stealing the title of DotF. You've built up all that "experience" and someone else takes it, does that mean the new guy gets your hard work? Do you lose all of it? If not does it sit in stasis for ever? Or should it prevent stealing all together? And a bunch of other problematic issues. Even if it is a cool idea of that you build up you being the "good guy" it's not the direction we want to go, we want to focus on the land and the nations part of the faith.

Sad, but I get it. I think @Mindel has a pretty good solution for that particular issue, but that's not really the point. It's a whole new mechanic/minigame, which is a big project. I think it would be really cool but it's certainly not something you can just slap on top of the update in a day, and if it's not what you want to focus on, better to stick with something simpler.

In that case, I think looking at the dev of the religion which is not controlled by the player would be a good metric. Number of nations seems odd for the DoF to care about, but letting the player blob to increase the bonuses is equally bad.

 

[Stepkick]

Hope there are changes to religious ideas to include more missionaries

 

[Tacitplague]

I think that tying the new DOF mechanics to the number of countries is bad, the current system would imply that the ottomans who usually have to do very little defending of their faith early on are doing a better job at it than say Ethiopia if they managed to consolidate and withstand a Muslim invasion. It also means the smaller religions such as Coptic are hardly ever going to be able to use the mechanic as even if and Ethiopian player was to fend off the Sunnis and push up to Armenia there's still likely more catholic nations than Coptic, as such the catholic DOF is seen as doing a better job than the poor Copts who just pulled off a miracle.

Perhaps we could use a system similar to the current HRE mechanics whereby you lose points towards the next rank by: not defending your brothers in the faith,attacking members of your own faith without a legitimate grievance I.E rivals and people with you cores are Ok something like that, having provinces of the true faith controlled my members of other faiths and by having provinces converted away from your faith. This would give the intensive to try and liberated all peoples of your faith, even if you won't be able to directly control the land it would stop you losing your DOF rank.

Then the ways in which you build your rank could be a mixture of: gaining points when provinces are converted to your faith I think this should apply to anyone so that even weaker members of the faith have a reason to play their part and work towards the religion wide bonuses, gain points by defending your brothers in the faith ideally the harder the war the more you get, force converting other nations and by liberating provinces of the true faith, giving points subject to the amount of development liberated and the method in which they are freed. Such as forcing a nation to be released or returning cores would give the most as you didn't gain anything it was purely to help the faith, while conquering provinces would sill give some but not as many.

Is you're still wanting an incentive for players to leave countries alive you could also add a passive ticking up crease in rank based on how many nations follow the faith similar to the princes system within the current HRE.

It could be like a competition between the most powerful nations of each religion whoever has been taking the most actions to benefit the religion would be granted DOF as they are the most revered by members of the faith for their Pious and selfless acts for the faith. In order to stop it swinging from one country to another constantly perhaps there could be a short period after receiving the DOF in which you cannot be dislodged but people still accumulate points against you so you'll get some time to enjoy the benefits.

This way I feel it would reward those actively involved in the defence of the faith as opposed to the largest member of the faith.

 

[Drytak]

What if you use a system like power projection.
You get or lose points for doing things. When you reach 25/100 point you get the first tier bonus, at 50/100 you get the second tier bonus, at 75/100 you get the third tier bonus + you can get a defensive call to arms, and at 100/100 another bonus, and lastly at -25/100 you get a malus to relation with country of same religion.

(These are some examples)
You can get points by
- be in a war with a country of different religion that has provinces of your religion (a monthly or yearly bonus, like 0.1 a month or something)
- be the difender of a war against a different religion country
- not having country with different religion boarding you (with a max points, like can't get more than 5 points that way)
- conquering land of your religion from a different religion country (like with power projection you get for getting land from a rival)

And you can loose points by
- be at peace (and without truce) with a different religion country that border you
- lose land in a war against a different religion
- be in a war against same religion country
- you change religion (you go to 0/100) and get a malus to relation with the old religion countries

 

[Amtep]

perhaps further restrict provoke revolt so that you can't do it if there's an army in the province or moving to the province, so that you can't rebel bomb neutrals who just got military access thru your country...

What about restricting it so that you can only do it if your own army is in the province?

That would fit the intended use, and would also fit conceptually -- it means that army is the one doing the provoking.

(Btw "the province" is not quite right. Many rebellions can spawn in multiple provinces. So, your army should be in one of the provinces where it can spawn.)

 

[Make Victoria 3]

One example is the mechanic of stealing the title of DotF.

Will this stealing at least be limited to nations that are at least within rivalry range (or closer) so it is impossible for a weak nation to steal it from like the ottoblob. Also will the required amount of nations with your faith be changed to something like number (and development) of true faith provinces instead? Having to keep 49 opms minus vassals of your faith around is just bothersome (assuming you want the max bonus).

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

While I will miss getting pretty great bonuses for 500 ducats and very little risk of being called into wars as Orthodox or Coptic, I think this is probably a good move.

 

[brifbates]

Is Poland/Lithuania getting some love in this expansion or at least some historical missions ? Current mission tree is a joke

How do you make a mission tree to get smashed to oblivion? You know, what historically happened to the PLU...

Personally I think they (and other nations) should get negative attention (i.e. removing ahistorical fantasy missions that make blobbing easier).

 

[kontinos]

If the problem is that people will exploit the new mechanic and get the bonuses of DotF and just back up when they actually have to be DotF, a mild solution could be that you get DotF for 50 years, or for 3 (arbitrary number) wars as DotF where you are compulsory dragged into the war, and either win and keep DotF or lose and also lose DotF, whatever happens first.

 

[Astalic]

You can just use a formula like :
(Number of province in the world/number of country with the faith)/5 = number of province with your faith needed to win one tier.

I used /5 but you can just put weight on each level making the 2nd and 3rd really easy to get and the last ones difficult.

Bonnus become way easier to get if there is numerous country to defend and the real matter is the number of province (dev work too) your faith have. DotF must now protect against conversion, convert province (more utility in religious idea) to get the last tier.

The drawback of such formula is it will be really easy to get a tier 5 DoF early game (with developement you need ~500 dev with 50 country) and then it will be harder and harder to maintain it.

 

[LeonH4rdt]

I like the idea, but I think there chan be a better way to aproach it if the faith is weak and there are too little countries following that faith, like a different bonus, meaning that you are the protector of a weak or dying religion, a bastion, giving a way to spread it out and convert other countries easier

 

[Will Steel]

I really like the "provoke rebels" feature. If there is one thing Tropico has taught me, it is that you lure and kill rebels before they grow too much.

 

[Dusanak]

Been thinking about it and we will not be going with this, not because it is harder but because it will start interfering with a bunch of other things. One example is the mechanic of stealing the title of DotF. You've built up all that "experience" and someone else takes it, does that mean the new guy gets your hard work? Do you lose all of it? If not does it sit in stasis for ever? Or should it prevent stealing all together? And a bunch of other problematic issues. Even if it is a cool idea of that you build up you being the "good guy" it's not the direction we want to go, we want to focus on the land and the nations part of the faith.

What if it wasn't about just claiming the title but more about all nations having a slider, which increases based on doing things "defending" their faith? The title and the bonuses of the defender of faith would be granted automatically to the nation which has done the most for its faith, be it intervening in defensive wars against heretics and infidels, converting nations and provinces, going on Crusades, etc. It would become a bit of a competition to become the DotF.

 

[MehmedTheSecond]

Is counting the number of countries the right way to measure success for defender of the faith? This seems to punish defenders if large numbers of small countries start eating each other and consolidate into larger powers. But this phenomenon doesn't seem to have much to do with religion, really.





Addendum

Here is an idea: how about measuring defenders of the faith by actual job performance? That is, making defenders earn credit by actually defending fellow nations from infidels.

Every new defender starts at level 1, and earns points each time it answers a defender call to arms and successfully defends. It loses some credit if the war is lost, and it loses a lot if it either declines the call or renders "unsatisfactory condottieri performance". When the defender reaches a certain number of points, it gets promoted (or demoted).

How much each war is worth depends on how big the infidel opponents are. If you keep fighting off Ottomans on behalf of others, you deserve a prize for it.

This is the best option in my opinion. Plus, you should get these points from converting provinces to the Faith depending on the dev of course, sending gift to brethren, taking provinces from the infidels depending on the dev etc. And you should lose points from taking True Faith provinces from the war from a Brethren, Humiliating your brethren, breaking alliance with brethren, when a revolt happens in a True Faith province etc etc. Of course there also should be events to gain or lose points

 

[Kalderus]

Been thinking about it and we will not be going with this, not because it is harder but because it will start interfering with a bunch of other things. One example is the mechanic of stealing the title of DotF. You've built up all that "experience" and someone else takes it, does that mean the new guy gets your hard work? Do you lose all of it? If not does it sit in stasis for ever? Or should it prevent stealing all together? And a bunch of other problematic issues. Even if it is a cool idea of that you build up you being the "good guy" it's not the direction we want to go, we want to focus on the land and the nations part of the faith.

I'm a bit unclear on this response @Groogy . Does "We will not be going with this" refer to not allowing non-Christians/Muslims to be DOTF, or not having an "experience" based DOTF progression system?

 

[GrouikNodi]

Imo, the mechanic based on the province, total dev or nation have some flaws imo.
For the 2 first, imagine you play Castile and rivaled France, France is the DotF. Now, if you colonize or invade/convert north Africa it will boost your rival... More generaly the DotF gain bonuses for what other nations do not what HE does.
The nation count has the same problem but reversed, if the other nations blob the DotF is punished even if he trully defend the faith.

What do you think of a "run" between the nations of the same faith for the most casualties on heretics (1point) or heathen (2points) (land warfare only) . The difference between heretics & heathen may be ignored. Each nation has a score according to how many soldier they have ever killed. The DotF, by responding the call would be able to score a lot and so grow in tier. If an other nation have a better score than the DotF, he could claim the title (CB or whatever). Some other actions could add some points to the score.

 

[jpm1983]

What if you use a system like power projection.
You get or lose points for doing things. When you reach 25/100 point you get the first tier bonus, at 50/100 you get the second tier bonus, at 75/100 you get the third tier bonus + you can get a defensive call to arms, and at 100/100 another bonus, and lastly at -25/100 you get a malus to relation with country of same religion.

(These are some examples)
You can get points by
- be in a war with a country of different religion that has provinces of your religion (a monthly or yearly bonus, like 0.1 a month or something)
- be the difender of a war against a different religion country
- not having country with different religion boarding you (with a max points, like can't get more than 5 points that way)
- conquering land of your religion from a different religion country (like with power projection you get for getting land from a rival)

And you can loose points by
- be at peace (and without truce) with a different religion country that border you
- lose land in a war against a different religion
- be in a war against same religion country
- you change religion (you go to 0/100) and get a malus to relation with the old religion countries

This is honestly the best idea, but the current implementation is super simple to code so probably a long shot.