EU4 Development Diary - 25th February 2016

[puggle999]

So if France expanded heavily into Spain, but didn't make it a state, it'd be for half coring costs?

 

[CrabHelmet]

Seems more intuitive than the current overseas system to me. A lot depends on how it is presented in-game, though.

"It's not as bad as it could be" is not a good defense. The real reason that polities in the EU4 era experienced diminishing returns to far-flung territories was distance. In an era when it takes 3 months to send a receive a reply from an area, that area necessarily has to be autonomous because some things require immediate response. That means setting up governors or nawibs or pashas or whatever you want to call them who can raise their own stream of revenue and can act, within certain constraints, of their own accord. Helping constrain massive empires was as simple as having either an autonomy floor dependent on distance from the capital or ticking autonomy based on distance from the capital; with the distance modifier reduced by building roads or improving naval technology for overseas distances or instituting the kind of early postal systems a lot of the European empires employed. This is a really simple and obvious mechanic that already works with things present in the game (autonomy and measuring distance).

Instead, they add this system. What are the benefits of this system compared to the one above? What they're proposing is a) more complex, b) less intuitive, c) less immersive, and d) probably worse at constraining large empires anyway.

 

[Kollatius]

So if France expanded heavily into Spain, but didn't make it a state, it'd be for half coring costs?

And you'd get 3/4 less manpower, tax income and force limit from that territory

 

[Solaxe]

Not a fan of corruption. It's a terrible mechanic. It's always been in every single game that had it. It's just another pointless thing to make player even more frustrated.

 

[radiatoren]

Good DDRs (Development Diary Replies). I see a need for a more specified state mechanic than what seems to be the gist of the OP. Particularly IRT smaller nations and the territories bordering them.

The corruption mechanism is a new feature I find interesting, but it will be impossible to understand all the ramificationsof it without playing the game.

The changes announced are highly ambitious and very intertwined with the game-mechanics. Careful with the balancing and interactions here!

 

[Kollatius]

Not a fan of corruption. It's a terrible mechanic. It's always been in every single game that had it. It's just another pointless thing to make player even more frustrated.

Because corruption IS frustrating to a ruler of state... if one of your trusted advisors takes some little coin from the goverment treasury, hurting the economy, military and a bunch of other things. The very concept of corruption is that it is BAD for you and something to crack down on HARSHLY

 

[Xara]

Sounds like two more layers of complication added on in an effort to curtail player growth in a game whose primary appeal is player growth.

No thanks.

 

[Kollatius]

Sounds like two more layers of complication added on in an effort to curtail player growth in a game whose primary appeal is player growth.

No thanks.

Well, states do seems especially harsh on expasonistic players... having minimum LA of 75% outside states seems pretty harsh... at least that's a pretty big buff to administrative ideas and makes them quite attractive (that 1 additional region of a extra 3/4 forcelimit manpower, sailors, naval forcelimit is no joke)

 

[ChildeR]

"It's not as bad as it could be" is not a good defense.

"Better than the current" means it is an improvement. But yes, I meant that it actually does not seem unintuitive to me.

Instead, they add this system. What are the benefits of this system compared to the one above?

Previously people have suggested a straight up distance dependence and Wiz at least was of the opinion that it is too fiddly and leads to undesirable consequences in terms of where your capital should be moved. I'm not sure I disagree.

Having only two categories of territory (or 3-4 depending on how you count uncored) is in some ways simpler than a continuum. And making decisions on the level of regions makes them more significant, which is also a good thing. But the proof is in the pudding and I definitely want to see how this plays in practice.

 

[balmung60]

I'm very wary of the states mechanic, as its costs factor in distance from capital. While this sounds nice in theory, my experience with range calculations in EU4 tells me that what's "close" will often be far less intuitive than it sounds, especially if even small bodies of water get involved.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Well, states do seems especially harsh on expasonistic players... having minimum LA of 75% outside states seems pretty harsh... at least that's a pretty big buff to administrative ideas and makes them quite attractive (that 1 additional region of a extra 3/4 forcelimit manpower, sailors, naval forcelimit is no joke)

It's bizarre because the ADM idea group was already mandatory for anyone embarking on serious conquest.

 

[Mangraz]

So a large empire can't turn all of their areas into states, right?

 

[Kollatius]

It's bizarre because the ADM idea group was already mandatory for anyone embarking on serious conquest.

Yeah... then again, I'm not the type of player who expands all that much

So a large empire can't turn all of their areas into states, right?

How large is a large empire? Half of Europe? Probably in the very late game. All of Europe? Not so much from the sound of things

 

[123e55]

What should we expect for the next week?

 

[CrabHelmet]

"Better than the current" means it is an improvement. But yes, I meant that it actually does not seem unintuitive to me.

I am strongly unconvinced it is better than the current system. From the description in the Dev Diary, I could have Portugal and Southern Indian as states. It would be expensive, because Southern India is very far away from Portugal, but possible to rule Southern India with 0 autonomy from Lisbon. This literally nonsense. Barring the premature invention of the teleport, you simply would not be able to rule an area that far away with no autonomy. Given the 4 month travel time to get there, the fact you then have to wait for the seasons to change until you can get the monsoon winds back, and then the 4 month return travel time, news would not go from Goa to Lisbon in under ~10 months. You cannot rule an area with no autonomy when it takes 10 months to be able to send a message and receive a reply. At the very least, the current system prevents this (excepting when you have a land bridge from Lisbon to Goa); and is therefore better at achieving what is clearly the main intended goal of this mechanism.

Previously people have suggested a straight up distance dependence and Wiz at least was of the opinion that it is too fiddly and leads to undesirable consequences in terms of where your capital should be moved. I'm not sure I disagree.

I mean, why does it lead to undesirable consequences? Generally speaking, it gives you an incentive to move your capital nearest to the wealth-weighted centre of your empire. That's... more or less where most historical capitals were. There are some exceptions - St. Petersburg because a port capital was desirous when trying to mimic Western norms, Beijing because the Yongle Emperor feared the Nanjing court faction and wanted to cultivate his own personal power sphere in Beijing - but for the most part capitals did actually act to try and minimize the distance from key wealth centres (while remaining in a wealth centre themselves).

The main undesirable point I've seen Wiz talk about is Portugal moving their capital to e.g. Rio, but given Johan has just defended that in this thread...

Having only two categories of territory (or 3-4 depending on how you count uncored) is in some ways simpler than a continuum. And making decisions on the level of regions makes them more significant, which is also a good thing. But the proof is in the pudding and I definitely want to see how this plays in practice.

It's not simpler when you have to add the regions mechanic on top of the autonomy mechanic and the distance mechanic. And there shouldn't even be decisions on the level of regions; the entire regions system is largely silly because most of the regional areas are teleological conceptions where Paradox has looked at the map in 1821 and decided the regions in 1444 should look like this, despite the fact they could have developed very differently.

 

[Mujado]

Finally, one of the remaining espionage actions we mentioned in an earlier development diary is related to corruption. You can for a very high cost of your network place down a spy to increase corruption in the target country for five years. Of course, only one can do it in the target at a time.

Sorry, but what benefit would this even be when AI goes into 50k debt to win a war against you creating infinite mercs... ?

 

[uncldead]

Sounds like two more layers of complication added on in an effort to curtail player growth in a game whose primary appeal is player growth.

No thanks.

This is a very good comment.

The game is becoming more and more complicated. It's ok with us, old and experienced players. But how much time will need a novice to understand the corruption and inflation concepts?

And this territory-regions system. Why game needs it? Game already has autonomy concept - just make it multiply depending on range from capital.
Game already has religion and culture concepts - it's enough to display the differences between territories. It doens't need another layer of XX-century synthetic mega-regions.

P.S. I dare you, I double dare you - do not separate russian culture

 

[Jomini]

So yet another set of prescriptions of how to play the game. Westernize or die, no unbalanced teching, etc.

Also how well has the AI been tested to handle "states", this sounds like a really wonky feature and I would hate for the AI to be gimped by it.

 

[fcpureza]

Making a relation with the previous dev diary, I must say that states sounds like a good idea. One of the many fears that new Subsaharan Africa created is that soon enough Portugal and/or Spain would create a blob right in Congo and neighboor regions as soon as the 16th century begins. With states, AI should be more cautious about where they want to expand they empire - and also the players. The costs of a quick expansion can be huge and weaken your empire in Europe. So...I liked it.

 

[wergy]

I never thought I would say that, but what the hell?! Overseas provinces WITHIN EUROPE?! What sense does this make? Seriously! THis is really, really stupid...
Take Austria for example! Breisgau, being on the far side of the Alps is considered part of Austria's state, even though it's 6 provinces away form teh capital. Whereas if Moravia is conquered, it will be consider oversea, even though it's only two provinces form the capital.

Or Savoy. Oh poor guys are so doomed. Their capital is in the French region, some of their territories are in South-Germany and some in Northern-Italy. Note that they are actually BORDERING Savoy's capital....

What an idiotic idea is this?