Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 20th of December 2022 - Unit Pips Rebalance

[wkscrombie]

currently in our nightly 1.35 tests ottomans are doing better than in 1.34..

Despite their units getting nerfed? Strange. Unless they’ve received some new buffs we haven’t been told about yet, say, a new mission tree…

 

[Thaif]

I'm not enough of a gearhead to pretend I grasp all of the minutia that goes into to the unit pips, compositions, etc, nor do I play MP in any "competitive" way.
My experience is that the biggest stack wins and if you don't have one you are done. This seems to be amplified by the recent stack wipe change.

If the game always turns into whack-a-stack it's not much of a strategy, and even less grand strategy unless we count the spectacle.
If we could set unit types on an Army(stack) scale, the tactical and strategic elements of the game would get a facelift. Having to maneuver, adjust and direct your armies to work as a sum their parts would be much more engaging and broaden the warfare aspect.
It would also somewhat simulate the slow, punctuated but inevitable change and development of armies and strategies during the time period from late medieval shock focused armies to the chess like maneuvering, strategy and tactics of the Napoleonic wars.

As for the units and tech themselves; Earliest cannons are from the middle of the 1200's in China, and spread to the rest of the world during the 1300's, mostly from the 1320 onward.
Considering the game starts at 1444 there should be some artillery units at Tech 4-6 with few if any Morale or Shock pips as the early cannons were used against "soft" targets meaning anti-infantry/cavalry. These were cumbersome and temperamental pieces as the revolutionary Limber was not yet widespread during late 1300's to early 1400s in addition to the potential material and manufacturing defects.
The game balance of early game artillery is a tricky prospect considering how much this would dramatically affect early game combat and sieges. Perhaps the system as it is can't have so early artillery due to how much of an effect it would have comparatively.
Tech groups would have slightly different artillery units similar to infantry/cavalry though not to the same extent. Chinese and Anatolian are the two obvious ones, but so are Indian and Muslim tech groups as cannons spread there a bit earlier(30-50 years) than Europe.

EU4 isn't historical simulation, it's far too open ended for that, but should at least try to be authentic or inspired by history adjusted by the necessary game balance. Adjusting the tech group unit pips is a necessary thing due to the other changes affecting combat, but it doesn't really change the gameplay or mechanical aspects beyond adjusting the established winning formulas.

Last weeks Idea Group changes and additions were an overall positive for me and the active feedback/communication is greatly appreciated as I know from personal experience how unproductive and unpleasant it can be.

Happy holidays and enjoy the New Year!

 

[Pavía]

Hi there! It looks like we're dealing in this DD with some controversial topics, not only related to the Unit Pips themselves. It's fine for us to discuss them, as we in PDX Tinto have been working on being more open to the community since Leviathan; but please stay civil and kind with the Team, as we also deserve respect for our work, and this is a red line not to cross when discussing issues.

I also want to say to stress that we read and take into account all the comments, even if we don't reply to all, or if it takes some time for us, so be sure that we will be thinking about everything commented on the DD (being the main reason for showing these changes early in the development cycle!). This is also something for those of you that are not so noisy, but usually nice in your posts: again, we're reading you, and your posts are very helpful to us.

---

Classical let's nerf Ottomans again. Also a cavalry pip rebalance would be nice.

I don't feel like you should nerf the ottomans that much earlygame. They were a genuine threat and their unit pips being so much stronger early techs helps them be that threat that they were historically. Nerfing them just so they're more on par with western countries when they don't even reach their historical borders half the time ingame feels a bit silly. I don't like the change. It'd be better to nerf them on lategame techs rather than earlygame.

As Johan has already pointed out, what we want is not to outright nerf the Ottomans, but to try to better balance them. It's a difficult task, as they're a very central country in the game, and we've got to cover a bunch of different scenarios (SP, MP, AI...), so take this is a first step, not a final one.

But you do realise, that playing late game on mp game started to be unplayable? Instead of playing the game and use what was the bast in late game you have a shi### game, where you fight With doom stacks because you can get instant sw if they have twice your size? When you add huge perf issues game has in a late when you start to use those few kk stacks it adds to totally broken game after 1750. The same with single Player, when you just abuse this 2x size army thing to wipe all AI enemies. I hope that "some tweeks" will mean like changing this stack wipe rule to like 4-5 Times bigger. Not twice only.


Just think how stupid it is now. You are sieging enemy fort with, Well 240k troops (so waaaay overstacked). Then the Defender just use 500k stack and force march in your stack. You wont react quickly enought to sent instant reinforcements. So after 1750 you will have instant wipe after like 10 days of battle. So as attacker you need to have much bigger stacks end this ends up in stacks of few mln fighting few mln. And one missclick when you and your allies armies won't be combined then you can see stackwipe for 1kk Just because first line broke. So one mistake, one missclick, one lag and your whole army is wiped.

I cant understand, why you are changing such a meaningless thing as unit pips, when the game is completely broken at current state. It doesnt matter at all, what pips unit have, if you have 2 times more units. Fighting strong AI? Just merge all of your units in one stack, wipe all their armies. Simple as that.

Playing Multiplayer? Right now is completely unplayable. You have more disciplined army? More ICA/ACA/Whatever? Doesnt matter. Just merge all of your units in one stack, wipe all their armies. Simple as that. There's no strategy. There's no tactics. There's no way to outplay your enemy. If you ever enter to battle outnumbered 2:1, you will get stackwiped. There's no reinforcements. No real battles. Just stackwipes. Try to loose 2-3 million army in one stack, cause of 2:1 rule. No matter, how strong your army is.

Do you even know, how your game looks like lategame? Just some tweaks? Remove 2:1 rule or there is literally no point playing this game anymore. Im not even talking about performance issues - playing with lag/spikes on speed 1 is just absurd. Looks like no more EU4 for some people...

But this is a new feature, or rather bug, introduced in one of last patches.

I'm avare that game devs curretly don't know how they game looks like in multiplayer late game but maybe they should have at least check that? Few months ago war was really fun. You had to properly manage your stacks, reinforce battles, try to intercepts support stacks with your arty stack. Just game where skill could win the war with more powerful enemy. Currently game devs ruined that. Last mp is a clownfest. All players have 1 stack with over million troops. Just that, no skill, no fun. Additionally game is lagging at speed 1 !!!

I have an advise. When introducing new features maybe it's worth to do some regression tests? With people that do understand the game? At this moment you have killed muliplayer games.

And these are the kind of posts that are very, very close to the red line I mentioned. Do you want to drag our attention to the imbalances of the current MP meta? That's fair, and as I also said, we can discuss it. What it's not fair is stating this so aggressively. Our intention as devs is to drive the game in the right direction, and we're putting a lot of effort into it. We also play regular MP games, even if we don't broadcast Dev Clashes as before (mainly because of infrastructure issues attached to the setup of the new studio). And we run regression tests regularly, too, run by people with a lot of hours poured into the game. So, again, and I don't want to repeat this anymore, we deserve respect for our work.

That said, going into the topic, we may want to make some tweaks to the new combat system. In this case, the more detailed feedback and proposals you give to us, the better for everybody, as it would be easier for us to adjust the changes. It looks like one of those could be precisely to change again the stackwiping rules, to numbers more fitting gameplay not based on doomstacking. Any other suggestions that you may think would help with this?

Regarding game performance, this is something we've been working on in the last few months. We already improved it in 1.34, but it's true that we have a lot of lag and spikes in the late game, which is also the hardest to tackle; we'll try to do our best on this, although we can't promise anything, as this is a very complex issue.

All in all I'd wager this is bad change to the game (besides for me liking the nerf to Anatolian because I have unreasonable hatred to the Ottomans), what this change primarily does is widen the gap between Europe and rest of world. I understand tech groups exist to emulate trends within history, that being of European military might, along other things like decline of nomadic powers.

But tech groups are imo really bad way of emulate it, it does not matter how well you are doing as Asian power for example, whether that be up to tech Mughal Empire or Japanese empire, your army will simply be worse then Europeans for no fault of your own. Even if you go military ideas, even if your nation is drilled/built for war, even if you are same if not higher tech then Europeans, if its not unit pip tech it does not matter, you will be behind for no fault of your own.

Sacrificing Muslim tech group for sake of keeping gap between Anatolian and Muslim is so bizarre to me, Morocco already has hell of journey to go on, and now their gap with Western Castile/Aragon/Portugal is even wider?

Further defensive pips for artillery are more or less always better then offensive pips, so what is the point of adding defensive artillery? It's an automatic pick. If anything this is nerf to the AI who won't automatically pick defensive, and buff to players of certain skill/knowledge who will always know to take defensive artillery from now on.

I like the idea of tinkering with tech groups/unit pips, but this to me just seems like nerf to Polynesian/Aboriginal/Anatolian/Muslim/Indian/Chinese and Nomadic, and buff to High American and artillery.

And this is an example of a well-driven criticism, so thanks for it. We're going to think about this, as we're aiming for a general rebalance, not regional, with these changes, so we will take what you are saying into account in the further tests and rebalance we'll be doing.

Given that you are mostly considered a noob until 1444 hours - that means you've added at most 3 more QA testers or they are all noobs.

I am not sure which is better.

third possibility: they each, individually, have over 5000 hours.

Yes, each of our Embedded QAs has more than 5,000 hours at the game individually, and there are other members of the Team with those figures as well.

 

[Dig_NW]

Hi there! It looks like we're dealing in this DD with some controversial topics, not only related to the Unit Pips themselves. It's fine for us to discuss them, as we in PDX Tinto have been working on being more open to the community since Leviathan; but please stay civil and kind with the Team, as we also deserve respect for our work, and this is a red line not to cross when discussing issues.

I also want to say to stress that we read and take into account all the comments, even if we don't reply to all, or if it takes some time for us, so be sure that we will be thinking about everything commented on the DD (being the main reason for showing these changes early in the development cycle!). This is also something for those of you that are not so noisy, but usually nice in your posts: again, we're reading you, and your posts are very helpful to us.

---

As Johan has already pointed out, what we want is not to outright nerf the Ottomans, but to try to better balance them. It's a difficult task, as they're a very central country in the game, and we've got to cover a bunch of different scenarios (SP, MP, AI...), so take this is a first step, not a final one.



And these are the kind of posts that are very, very close to the red line I mentioned. Do you want to drag our attention to the imbalances of the current MP meta? That's fair, and as I also said, we can discuss it. What it's not fair is stating this so aggressively. Our intention as devs is to drive the game in the right direction, and we're putting a lot of effort into it. We also play regular MP games, even if we don't broadcast Dev Clashes as before (mainly because of infrastructure issues attached to the setup of the new studio). And we run regression tests regularly, too, run by people with a lot of hours poured into the game. So, again, and I don't want to repeat this anymore, we deserve respect for our work.

That said, going into the topic, we may want to make some tweaks to the new combat system. In this case, the more detailed feedback and proposals you give to us, the better for everybody, as it would be easier for us to adjust the changes. It looks like one of those could be precisely to change again the stackwiping rules, to numbers more fitting gameplay not based on doomstacking. Any other suggestions that you may think would help with this?

Regarding game performance, this is something we've been working on in the last few months. We already improved it in 1.34, but it's true that we have a lot of lag and spikes in the late game, which is also the hardest to tackle; we'll try to do our best on this, although we can't promise anything, as this is a very complex issue.

And this is an example of a well-driven criticism, so thanks for it. We're going to think about this, as we're aiming for a general rebalance, not regional, with these changes, so we will take what you are saying into account in the further tests and rebalance we'll be doing.


Yes, each of our Embedded QAs has more than 5,000 hours at the game individually, and there are other members of the Team with those figures as well.

Hi, thank you for the answer. I for no means wanted to sound disrespectfull or so. I only wanted to emphasize the current state. If a bit too hars? Then sorry for that. In general, The game in 1.34 seems to by much more stable on MP game. Just this 2x SW rule should be, imho, changed. Simple rebalancing it to like 4-5x would probably fix the problem as this would still allow to do a sw on much smaller armies and yet again would force to buil one, big stack as it wouldn't be so effective any more

 

[Pavía]

Hi, thank you for the answer. I for no means wanted to sound disrespectfull or so. I only wanted to emphasize the current state. If a bit too hars? Then sorry for that. In general, The game in 1.34 seems to by much more stable on MP game. Just this 2x SW rule should be, imho, changed. Simple rebalancing it to like 4-5x would probably fix the problem as this would still allow to do a sw on much smaller armies and yet again would force to buil one, big stack as it wouldn't be so effective any more

Thanks for your apologies, it's appreciated. And I'm glad about your comment on the stability of the MP, as we've put a lot of effort since the new Nakama environment was released (in late 1.30) into reducing as much as possible the number and frequency of desyncs (and this is also something that we've internally noticed quite well, having participated in the EUIV Grandest Lan in 2021 under 1.32, and in 2022 under 1.34, and experiencing a much more reduced number of desyncs and rehosts).

 

[Svenska Super]

Hi there! It looks like we're dealing in this DD with some controversial topics, not only related to the Unit Pips themselves. It's fine for us to discuss them, as we in PDX Tinto have been working on being more open to the community since Leviathan; but please stay civil and kind with the Team, as we also deserve respect for our work, and this is a red line not to cross when discussing issues.

I also want to say to stress that we read and take into account all the comments, even if we don't reply to all, or if it takes some time for us, so be sure that we will be thinking about everything commented on the DD (being the main reason for showing these changes early in the development cycle!). This is also something for those of you that are not so noisy, but usually nice in your posts: again, we're reading you, and your posts are very helpful to us.

---

As Johan has already pointed out, what we want is not to outright nerf the Ottomans, but to try to better balance them. It's a difficult task, as they're a very central country in the game, and we've got to cover a bunch of different scenarios (SP, MP, AI...), so take this is a first step, not a final one.



And these are the kind of posts that are very, very close to the red line I mentioned. Do you want to drag our attention to the imbalances of the current MP meta? That's fair, and as I also said, we can discuss it. What it's not fair is stating this so aggressively. Our intention as devs is to drive the game in the right direction, and we're putting a lot of effort into it. We also play regular MP games, even if we don't broadcast Dev Clashes as before (mainly because of infrastructure issues attached to the setup of the new studio). And we run regression tests regularly, too, run by people with a lot of hours poured into the game. So, again, and I don't want to repeat this anymore, we deserve respect for our work.

That said, going into the topic, we may want to make some tweaks to the new combat system. In this case, the more detailed feedback and proposals you give to us, the better for everybody, as it would be easier for us to adjust the changes. It looks like one of those could be precisely to change again the stackwiping rules, to numbers more fitting gameplay not based on doomstacking. Any other suggestions that you may think would help with this?

Regarding game performance, this is something we've been working on in the last few months. We already improved it in 1.34, but it's true that we have a lot of lag and spikes in the late game, which is also the hardest to tackle; we'll try to do our best on this, although we can't promise anything, as this is a very complex issue.

And this is an example of a well-driven criticism, so thanks for it. We're going to think about this, as we're aiming for a general rebalance, not regional, with these changes, so we will take what you are saying into account in the further tests and rebalance we'll be doing.


Yes, each of our Embedded QAs has more than 5,000 hours at the game individually, and there are other members of the Team with those figures as well.

Could you also look into simplifying and improving trade? I still find things unclear like why no merchant on home node, or protect trade or privateer with ships, can you guys tweak this, improve upon this.
Also look into building system and defensive options, take some things from ck3
That population, equipment counters and other stockpiling is missing i forgive and hope to see in EU5
Would be great to reboot this game within couple weeks and use as stop gap measure to bridge time gap about VIC3
Im interested in the war aspect of the game but my favourite country is bohemia and i always try to develop it economically and like the game much because of its economical and global trade situation which are kind of lacking the finishing touch.

 

[Tempscire]

It used to be, not anymore. Now if first row collapses within first 12 days (ie time where you cant retreat) as well as enemy having double the amount of troops in the battle it results in stackwipe regardless of overall amount of troops in reserves. This is especially visible in late game where full backrow of artillery completely melts the infantry. In the multiplayer campaign we play rn this resulted in battles in which 800k were stackwiped within seconds after getting engaged by a single stack with 2.5 mln troops. This behaviour is new and wasnt part of the game before recent patch

This is definitely a bug and not intentional. A quick review of the history of this change:

In 1.34 zombie regiments were removed. I spotted that this leads to 2:1 overruns not working in a lot of cases. The reason for this is that now regiments can retreat before 12 days have passed. And what happens, if all regiments retreat before day 12? This actually depends on the order of calculations. Does the overrun condition get checked first or the retreat condition. If you check the retreat condition first, the army will just retreat without getting stack wiped even though the 2:1 conditions are fulfilled. Therefore, I advised to be cautious about the order of checks, as this is a new problem due to the fix to zombie regiments.

Unfortunately there seems to be an error in the new implementation. While the idea was to check whether one has a factor of 2:1 and the whole enemy army is out of morale( and therefore has no reinforcements), somehow only the first row seems to be taken into account.

Therefore, this should be just a bug in the implementation, which can happen but should clearly be fixed as soon as possible.

 

[strqfzd911]

Since you've taken time to look into unit pips, have you guys considered adding unique artillery units for each tech group? Currently it dosen't make much sense that everyone uses the same artillery units.

 

[romothecus]

currently in our nightly 1.35 tests ottomans are doing better than in 1.34..

Can you show this data somehow? It'd be interesting to see where and how they are doing better.

 

[Danieri]

I like that you are actually considering all tech groups and not only Anatolian. IMO, there should always outside counter-balancees to Western countries, either Russia, Ottoman Empire or another country. However, it would be nice if Persia/Mamluks (maybe even Morocco/Tunis?) actually had a chance to fit into that role too, but since you are nerfing their pips too I´m inclined to think that they will collapse faster now than before. Have you considered "switching" the pips in those tech groups instead of just removing them? Maybe giving them a slight rebalance to make them focused on their offensive capabilities (making it easier to attack other muslim grups, and matching western countries defensive capabilities) while remaning weak to Western and Ottoman attacks.

 

[durbal]

Can you show this data somehow? It'd be interesting to see where and how they are doing better.

Probably due to a greater relative advantage over Muslim units.

 

[Slaytanic]

Could you also look into simplifying and improving trade? I still find things unclear like why no merchant on home node, or protect trade or privateer with ships, can you guys tweak this, improve upon this.

Sorry, but you have posted the same thing like 3 times in this thread already, perhaps reflect upon what Pavia said about being noisy.

While trade could use some improvements, the things you list sound much more like you personally not understanding how it works. Perhaps attempt to improve your knowledge of the mechanics before requesting them to be rewritten for your sake?

 

[Gwik]

And these are the kind of posts that are very, very close to the red line I mentioned. Do you want to drag our attention to the imbalances of the current MP meta? That's fair, and as I also said, we can discuss it. What it's not fair is stating this so aggressively. Our intention as devs is to drive the game in the right direction, and we're putting a lot of effort into it. We also play regular MP games, even if we don't broadcast Dev Clashes as before (mainly because of infrastructure issues attached to the setup of the new studio). And we run regression tests regularly, too, run by people with a lot of hours poured into the game. So, again, and I don't want to repeat this anymore, we deserve respect for our work.

True, I shouldn't start with my post so aggressively. My intention was just to highlight an issue in the way it will be visible. Don't take it personally. In every IT projects bugs happen. Really nice to see that you are taking a look at the issue.

"So, again, and I don't want to repeat this anymore, we deserve respect for our work" - Just to be on the same page. You deserve respect, as every human does (well, except bad people). That is not questionable. For your work, you deserve and get salary, not any special respect. And with this salary (paid from players wallets) we show our appreciation to your work, not with any special respect.

 

[grommile]

Don't take it personally.

Your exact words were:

"When introducing new features maybe it's worth to do some regression tests? With people that do understand the game?"

That's going to be taken personally. Always. It's an implicit (and very close to explicit) accusation of incompetence. You cannot avoid that by saying "don't take it personally".

 

[Gwik]

Your exact words were:

"When introducing new features maybe it's worth to do some regression tests? With people that do understand the game?"

That's going to be taken personally. Always. It's an implicit (and very close to explicit) accusation of incompetence. You cannot avoid that by saying "don't take it personally".

No? Why? Game is just an IT project. In banking app you can have testers that do a great job and are not financial experts. Same in all other IT projects where software tester doesn't need to be domain expert. But asking/advising that sometime for regression or exploratory tests there should be people with a very good domain knowledge is not anyhow personal kick to anyone. Just project advise.
I mean all assuming that this issue is just a bug. Because if this behavior is just the effect of functional decision to introduce "1/2 stackwipe rule" then I will take back my words. QA is not any problem. Design decision behind this rule was just silly and not thought through.

 

[FairyTaleツ]

Hi there! It looks like we're dealing in this DD with some controversial topics, not only related to the Unit Pips themselves. It's fine for us to discuss them, as we in PDX Tinto have been working on being more open to the community since Leviathan; but please stay civil and kind with the Team, as we also deserve respect for our work, and this is a red line not to cross when discussing issues.

I also want to say to stress that we read and take into account all the comments, even if we don't reply to all, or if it takes some time for us, so be sure that we will be thinking about everything commented on the DD (being the main reason for showing these changes early in the development cycle!). This is also something for those of you that are not so noisy, but usually nice in your posts: again, we're reading you, and your posts are very helpful to us.

---

As Johan has already pointed out, what we want is not to outright nerf the Ottomans, but to try to better balance them. It's a difficult task, as they're a very central country in the game, and we've got to cover a bunch of different scenarios (SP, MP, AI...), so take this is a first step, not a final one.



And these are the kind of posts that are very, very close to the red line I mentioned. Do you want to drag our attention to the imbalances of the current MP meta? That's fair, and as I also said, we can discuss it. What it's not fair is stating this so aggressively. Our intention as devs is to drive the game in the right direction, and we're putting a lot of effort into it. We also play regular MP games, even if we don't broadcast Dev Clashes as before (mainly because of infrastructure issues attached to the setup of the new studio). And we run regression tests regularly, too, run by people with a lot of hours poured into the game. So, again, and I don't want to repeat this anymore, we deserve respect for our work.

That said, going into the topic, we may want to make some tweaks to the new combat system. In this case, the more detailed feedback and proposals you give to us, the better for everybody, as it would be easier for us to adjust the changes. It looks like one of those could be precisely to change again the stackwiping rules, to numbers more fitting gameplay not based on doomstacking. Any other suggestions that you may think would help with this?

Regarding game performance, this is something we've been working on in the last few months. We already improved it in 1.34, but it's true that we have a lot of lag and spikes in the late game, which is also the hardest to tackle; we'll try to do our best on this, although we can't promise anything, as this is a very complex issue.

And this is an example of a well-driven criticism, so thanks for it. We're going to think about this, as we're aiming for a general rebalance, not regional, with these changes, so we will take what you are saying into account in the further tests and rebalance we'll be doing.


Yes, each of our Embedded QAs has more than 5,000 hours at the game individually, and there are other members of the Team with those figures as well.

Hey. I'm not sure about this patch, as again everything except Western Europe is nerfed. Especially ottomans rebalance.

I have a great expirience in MP and relatively good level of understaing ingame balance, and me and few other people from ukrainean mp community had a suggestion about Ottomans balanace.

Can Janissares be hired not for military points? Because spending around 4000 points of mana for hiring average midgame army is a terrible way of spending mana.
May they consume manpower and be hired for nobles loyalty (current and maximum), corruption, flat unrest in all heathens provinces (~10 unrest when 50% of limit is janissares to represent from whom they are hired), negative legicimacy (to represent alternative source of power in empire) or whatever except mana? Because price of 10 mana per unit is extremely broken. And the ottomans suffer great problems with quality in the late midgame, when janissares could really solve these problems partly

 

[Svenska Super]

Sorry, but you have posted the same thing like 3 times in this thread already, perhaps reflect upon what Pavia said about being noisy.

While trade could use some improvements, the things you list sound much more like you personally not understanding how it works. Perhaps attempt to improve your knowledge of the mechanics before requesting them to be rewritten for your sake?

ok lets be constructive, quote me what pavia said about being noisy plz

Furthermore, in this thread i can't recall having mentioned trade more than two times ? quote me if else, the mechanics are complicated in some cases and not always clear, i think you should be appreciative of people who like to contribute somehow in simplifying things.
If on a home trade node is an open mechant slot why than say no merchant needed? Plenty other things like when upgrading a province that its very unclear unless you remember everything in which tech group a facility becomes available to upgrade production on a trade good.

they don't have to rewrite anything for me. If you are actually a developer yourself or personally linked to it than you are not an example of a person who allows an open discussion.

 

[Dovahkiin220]

I think if the new dlc is for the middle easterns then you should really make the unit pips better and stronger cause man they dont stand a chance after the europeans get gustavian infantry.but the nerf for the ottomans and the muslims in early game is kinda fair cause they are kinda strong.i think from mid game to endgame, middle easterns and the ottomans should be weaker than the europeans but not that weak.if you can add some missions that can improve the unit pips for the middle eastern guys its perfect.of course it should have some good and challenging requisitions for that mission.(please consider this request plzzzzzzzzzz.)

 

[zldl]

I'm very glad you're taking the time to look at these details carefully for the next patch, but I must say I'm pretty disappointed with the changes made here. It was already farcical that an Indian/Muslim/Chinese tech group global empire in the lategame would have worse quality troops than any random HRE OPM just by virtue of which part of the map they originate, and now basically every major non-European tech group is getting nerfed further. I get it's to recreate dynamics of colonial domination so that AI European countries are able to go down at least a semi-historical path, but the whole system is way too inflexible and essentialist for a game which encourages exploring alternative history. It is reasonable to assume that in a world where, for example, Vijayanagar became a superpower trading goods as far afield as Australia all the way to the Channel, dominating every neighbour and claiming worldwide military hegemony, that the development of military technology would occur in different places and at different speeds than in our history.

Obviously army quality in the game is impacted far more by ideas & policies but, especially if you enjoy EU4 largely for the RP alt-history elements, it just feels like a weird way for this system to work. I wouldn't suggest an overhaul out of the blue for this exact reason, that it's not impactful enough on gameplay; since this is something you're working on anyways, it could be worth taking a more holistic look at how this system fails the fiction of the game somewhat.

 

[SebasR]

It looks like one of those could be precisely to change again the stackwiping rules, to numbers more fitting gameplay not based on doomstacking. Any other suggestions that you may think would help with this?

The only mayor problem with the stack wipes right now is that when the front line retreats and if the other army doble the size, the smaller army gets stack wipe independently of the reserves, i think this is very easy to solve, if they have reserves they shoudnt get stack wipe, and fight and only if all the army retreats before the retreat limit pass should be stack wipe

Here is an example of what is happening, 120k faces 500k prussians but since they are more than double when the first line retreats they get instantly stack wipe even if there are 2 more lines of infantry with full strength and moral.

After just 5 in game days.

i don't attach the twitch clip because I'm not sure if it's allowed. if it is allowed please tell me so i can edit the message