Mission trees are a curse

[PalmanusBraht]

Because I am a gamer, and in every game I will do what gives me power in order to be competitive. There is a reason why missions give you such strong bonuses, because Paradox wants you to do them. Of course you can simply ignore them, but no player in a competitive environment would do so and miss out on some of those insane bonuses they provide.

I'm not talking about multiplayer, 99% of the people play these games alone xd

 

[Failtier]

I'm not talking about multiplayer, 99% of the people play these games alone xd

Fair enough, though the AI also completes missions if it accidentally fulfills the requirements.

 

[PalmanusBraht]

Fair enough, though the AI also completes missions if it accidentally fulfills the requirements.

my point is, I could make the same argument you've made... "I am a gamer" can be said by you, me, or any other ''gamer" for any other reason. For you gaming is being competitive, for me it may be doing the mission tree. My brother for example only plays Eu4 PRECISELY because there are missions to complete, I don't know why, but he never plays nations that have no custom mission trees... there are just different kinds of players with different tastes.

 

[JacceDON]

Guided experience is one form of experience that video games can give a player. There's nothing wrong with RPGs and story driven games. I don't believe that grand strategy games, or rather this particular grand strategy game should be about it.

Real history is literally the greatest story ever told, the most fleshed out and detailed backstory and the most comprehensive lore a game could ever have. You want to replace that with randomized generative AI-slop, and that is why you are part of a minority that will never get your way.

You have this idea about how flavour and content can be generated within the simulation, but you fail to grasp that ALL flavor that isn't irl history OR narratively written by a human writer is arbitrary. That's like wanting to read fantasy written by ChatGPT - a made up world created by an algorithm.

You might want to play a digital board game, but most people want an immersive and complex historical GSG - mission trees offer that, and that's why we will have mission trees (if not at launch then eventually).

 

[theowovsk]

My take on it is that without mission trees, playing a nation in a historical way would be fundamentally less fun as there is less incentive and flavor, and in my view random events and advances aren't enough to replace the narrative a mission tree provides.

With that being said, deviating from the path of the mission trees does indeed make a run suboptimal. There should be multiple mission trees, or a "main" mission tree and various selectable mission trees. Example: Here is your main byzantium mission tree. Want to colonize? Here, pick this preset colonial mission tree.

My point is that there are multiple ways of achieving goals in EU5. If you want to pursue a specific goal, you should have some sort of incentive or narrative to go along with it. Why would you colonize as castile, when there are other ways of achieving economic and territorial growth?

This whole discussion also seems to tie with the other threads discussing claims. If getting claims is fundamentally hard, how would players expand without mission trees simulating the actual historical claims that a country had? By building "spy network"? That would just make the gameplay loop boring

 

[Kuantum]

I’ve been thinking about mission trees and whatnot, the "flavour" thing... I love EU IV, but playing Kongo feels almost the same as playing Portugal.

I mean, as Portugal, I colonize, conquer the Maghreb, Castile, etc..

As Kongo, the game gives me colonies in Africa, gives me a colonist, I "steal" Renaissance and Feudalism from Malindi, take Exploration ideas...

and less then 100 years later Kongo is a superpower,

Has all of southern Africa, pushing toward Ajuraan, and colonies in Brazil, the Ivory Coast, and the Cape,

I have Carracks, and Caravels, my military level is 11, Portugals and Castile is 10...

I don't know, there’s a lot of so-called flavor - but in reality, no real flavor at all.

And this is not just mission trees, ideas also.

There is nothing really diferent between Kongo or Portugal... and I'm very curious to see how this plays in EU V.

 

[SAmaster]

Hearts of Iron isn't a typical grand strategy game. It is focused mainly on following the history of WW2 and accordingly has to be heavily structured and railroaded to make sure things 100% happen when they are supposed to (eg Germany must invade Poland around late 1939). It takes place over less than 10 in-game years while EU5 will take 500 years too, my point still stands.

No it doesn't. You just went 'that doesn't count' and that's it.

 

[SAmaster]

1. Opportunity cost. Devs have limited resources, they could instead work on mechanics and dynamic content. There are so many more ways to play a country than there are ways to play a mission tree. So why spend resources on making content that will be played through three times out of a hundred instead of spending resources on dynamic content that could influence fifty playthroughs out of a hundred?

Mission trees also tend to be nation-specific, so development resources are spent on specific playthroughs of specific nations, rather than dynamic content that may apply to various playthroughs of many nations. So it's not an efficient, scalable use of development resources.
With nation-specific mission trees, countries are "missing" content until they get a DLC with content specifically for the country.

2. I would want England to play differently from Hungary organically from having different demographic, political, cultural, international, historical setup, not because they each have a scripted mission tree. However, if, through gameplay, England ends up in a situation similar to Hungary's at the start, then I would want England to experience the similar consequences and have the similar goals and tools and options as Hungary did. But that would not be possible with nation-specific mission trees. I don't want interesting content locked behind single, or a few countries.

3. Game mechanics and balance get designed around the mission trees, so it's not something tacked on that can be ignored. The mission tree paths are naturally tested more than other playthroughs of the same country, so the game tends to get balanced around the mission trees.

4. It's top-down design tendency that's in conflict with bottom-up emergent gameplay. Hypothetically, the mission tree designer might say, "It would be fun for the players to conquer x as y." and so that mission is added, but then the players complain that it's too difficult to conquer x, so the game balance gets tweaked to make that easier. So roleplaying believability, gameplay, balance all can get compromised like that to serve the mission tree narrative. It's backwards compared to the game saying, "Here's your starting situation and here are your tools, see what you can accomplish," which is much more interesting and fun, and to me, the main reason to play Paradox grand strategy games.

As I've described in #1, rigid scripted content exists in the place of dynamic mechanical content. The more of it means the less of the latter. I want less of it and more of the latter. I want gameplay enriched and countries differentiated by things like Societal Values, Control, religion, demographic makeup, resources, development, diplomacy, not scripted mission trees.

1. They do spend resources on other aspects of the game. What aspects of the game are you arguing are getting taken away? Also can someone for the love of god define 'dynamic gameplay to me, because at this point it's becoming a nonsense word. When I think of a game that is entirely dynamic I think of CK2 or Stellaris where gameplay revolves entirely around events or event chains that are the exact same for every tag you play. Which makes every run of those games feel incredibly same-y. There's no real thing as a 'diplomacy based' run of Crusader Kings or a 'Conquest run' of Crusader Kings, because what your country does entirely depends on your ruler, who can fill any role you want. You could play as Genghis Khan and instead of going out and conquering everyone you could just switch your focus to diplomacy and run things that way. Or if you play as Genghis Khan he'll play the exact same as any other nomadic ruler, just with extra good stats this time.

2. Why? Why do you want that to ONLY come about from 'dynamic' systems? How is the fact that England is gonna start with a lot of sailors anyway from it's costlines to begin with mean that you have to remove mission trees?

3. List examples.

4. List examples.

I really like the mission trees in EUIV as a way to add special content to each country. However, they do also make the player pursue certain decisions that they may not otherwise have taken and hence tend to make each play through of a nation more similar. In my England/GB games (95% of all my games, so I play this a lot), after visualising Scotland and conquering Ireland, I will almost always declare War on Norway to claim the North Atlantic Islands still belonging to Norway. However, if it was not for missions, I would likely just take the islands and sit back and wait for war score and then take them. However, due to the mission that requires humiliating a rival and getting war reparations from 3 countries, in the vast majority of of cases I land troops on the continent to peace out Denmark's allies and then finally take the Danish capital and other areas until I can get a peace that gives me both the mission and the territory I want. Similarly, I also try to build up three alliances with strong European powers for another mission, in spite of the fact that I will normally ditch some if not all of them as soon as I am done with the mission. I mention these examples to illustrate how the mission tree will often lead the player to do things the same way over and over again, even if it is not really something that fits with the chosen game style, just to unlock the missions (to access later missions). With this in mind, I actually do not think that a traditional mission tree as in EUIV would be a good idea. Instead, why not tie it into the parliament mechanic, where different estates may have a range of different goals they would like to see you work towards in exchange for their support, say 3-5 for each estate represented. Then you can pick which ones you think would be a good idea, and get immediate support from the estate for this parliament, and depending on whether or not you succeed, a buff or penalty for that estate in the next parliament.

I agree, those kinds of missions feel artificial and existing as an excuse to make the player engage with gameplay systems in ahistoric manners.

I understand the complaint here, and it's a valid one, but I remember eu4 from before missions and I prefer what we have now tbh. Granted, you mentioned you think this game will be different enough from eu4 such that we won't need guidance. What are your thoughts on dynamic missions such as what imperator Rome had? Obviously stuff within the first 50 years should give some starting narrative, eg Castile should want to make a tributary out of granada, Brandenburg should want to remove the wittelsbachs, France and England should want to finish the hyw. The dynamic missions in imperator were really great design wise, they let me escape the funk of "what now?" as they gave tailored advice.

No they weren't. I haven't heard anyone talk about how much they like 'the Matter of Gaul' generic mission tree. Every time I hear someone praise Imperator Rome's mission tree system, it sounds to me like they've never played it, and they think it sounds good on paper.

I think the concept of Missions itself is too game-y for what Paradox Tinto is trying to do with EU5. Missions are not very historical after all. Instead, it would be better IMO to use this design space to reintroduce Idea Groups to some degree and call them Ambitions.

• Military Ambitions: Territorial expansion, building a powerful army or navy, achieving military dominance, pursuing military reforms (e.g., Prussia's drive for military professionalism, the Ottoman military modernization)
• Diplomatic Ambitions: Aiming for influence over other states, forming powerful alliances, creating personal unions, becoming the leader of international organizations
• Technological/Innovative Ambitions: Seeking to advance science, technology, or administrative efficiency (e.g., Enlightenment-era Britain)
• Colonial/Exploration Ambitions: Pursuing overseas colonies, discovering new lands, establishing trade empires
• Cultural Ambitions: Promoting a national culture, language, seeking to become a cultural hegemon (e.g., France’s cultural dominance in the 17th–18th centuries)
• Governmental/Administrative Ambitions: Centralizing power, reforming government institutions, achieving greater absolutism or constitutionalism (e.g., France’s move toward absolutism, England’s Glorious Revolution)
• Humanist/Social Ambitions: Promoting tolerance, social reforms, or internal stability,
• Espionage/Intelligence Ambitions: Engaging in covert operations, destabilizing rivals, or gathering intelligence

You can still have your standard stuff like Brandenburg trying to conquer Pommerania, but Ambitions are generally a broader category of goals a country wants to pursue over longer periods; they are much more reactive with some leeway for interpretation and don't necessarily railroad players. Also, I am not a huge fan of giving huge rewards for accomplishing missions, but I am not sure how to handle this.

I also don't want idea-groups abandoned. But I think them being a replacement for mission trees is absurd, when mission trees were added on top of national idea groups. When talking about history, I think there should be more depth to historical events- like say the Spanish colonization of Mexico. This should not be restricted to 'happenstance' IE did you as the player choose to conquer mexico, or ignore it completely? There should be SOME prompting towards this historical outcome. And I don't want to hear someone (not you, just others in this thread) say 'Spain should conquer Mexico, solely for strategic reasons' because that implies that every nation should conquer Mexico for strategic reasons and get access to the exact same content. What I want is both players and AI to be prompted (read: not forced) to conquer mexico, and for them to get more depth and flavor to do so. I don't want it to be limited solely to a couple of events that pop up.

Because I am a gamer, and in every game I will do what gives me power in order to be competitive. There is a reason why missions give you such strong bonuses, because Paradox wants you to do them. Of course you can simply ignore them, but no player in a competitive environment would do so and miss out on some of those insane bonuses they provide.

This doesn't sound like a game design problem. This sounds like a 'you play like a crazy person' problem. And hey- I have a lot of crazy ways I play the game, I just don't insist that it's the only valid way to do so, and that the game should be designed solely around how I play the games.

 

[Sirbab]

No they weren't. I haven't heard anyone talk about how much they like 'the Matter of Gaul' generic mission tree. Every time I hear someone praise Imperator Rome's mission tree system, it sounds to me like they've never played it, and they think it sounds good on paper.

Odd, well you can increase that number to one! Also, smh lol, I have played plenty of IR. I actually liked the way it worked, even if it was repetive. It felt like a good starting point on how to handle dynamic trees.

 

[SAmaster]

My take on it is that without mission trees, playing a nation in a historical way would be fundamentally less fun as there is less incentive and flavor, and in my view random events and advances aren't enough to replace the narrative a mission tree provides.

With that being said, deviating from the path of the mission trees does indeed make a run suboptimal. There should be multiple mission trees, or a "main" mission tree and various selectable mission trees. Example: Here is your main byzantium mission tree. Want to colonize? Here, pick this preset colonial mission tree.

My point is that there are multiple ways of achieving goals in EU5. If you want to pursue a specific goal, you should have some sort of incentive or narrative to go along with it. Why would you colonize as castile, when there are other ways of achieving economic and territorial growth?

This whole discussion also seems to tie with the other threads discussing claims. If getting claims is fundamentally hard, how would players expand without mission trees simulating the actual historical claims that a country had? By building "spy network"? That would just make the gameplay loop boring

I don't know about that specific example. A lot of people have said 'you should want to colonize because that alone will advantage your nation'. I kind of have that opinion for nations that didn't colonize historically- it's not so much a punishment for playing ahistorical, more so a lack of reward for deviating so heavily. I wouldn't be opposed to a sort of 'generic colonization tree' that can be slapped on to any nation that decides to go that route in and of itself though.

Odd, well you can increase that number to one! Also, smh lol, I have played plenty of IR. I actually liked the way it worked, even if it was repetive. It felt like a good starting point on how to handle dynamic trees. View attachment 1299150

Okay, but what can you tell me that you actually like about the 'Matter of X' trees? Themselves. Not the concept of them- what about the generic trees THEMSELVES do you like? I don't mean to badger you, just drill down on this idea.

 

[benjaminoon]

No it doesn't. You just went 'that doesn't count' and that's it.

All you did was "ermmm... ackshually" me and did nothing to address my point about mission trees. I provided my reasoning for why Hearts of Iron is not a typical grand strategy and requires a mission tree like system because it must be railroaded to follow WW2. What more am I supposed to take away from your comment?

 

[Sirbab]

I don't know about that specific example. A lot of people have said 'you should want to colonize because that alone will advantage your nation'. I kind of have that opinion for nations that didn't colonize historically- it's not so much a punishment for playing ahistorical, more so a lack of reward for deviating so heavily. I wouldn't be opposed to a sort of 'generic colonization tree' that can be slapped on to any nation that decides to go that route in and of itself though.

Okay, but what can you tell me that you actually like about the 'Matter of X' trees? Themselves. Not the concept of them- what about the generic trees THEMSELVES do you like? I don't mean to badger you, just drill down on this idea.

So to be perfectly blunt, I like direction. A lot of times with these games I have executive dysfunction where I want to do 15 different things, manage the pops, go get slaves, build buildings, check on that one province to see if I have enough influence, etc etc that it gets exhausting. The mission trees then exist as a touchstone that I can keep a consistent line of thought and progress over about a decade.
Granted, I think the executive dysfunction bit is likely my VAST (more commonly known as adhd). But, it is also nice to get little objectives and get the dopamine for these little objectives. In mental wellness, I think having actionable goals is good, and these missions provide that while also making your nation usually more resilient in the long term.
Would I prefer if every single nation had perfectly sculpted mission trees for every eventuality? Yes, obviously lol but that would be an ungodly amount of labor from the team so I accept dynamic missions as a compromise. The devs can make trees for an expected series of paths, Rome will conquer Carthage, Carthage tries to conquer Rome, etc, but if you say form Israel and want to conquer Greece? Yeah not happening.

I can get more into it for given missions for what I like and what I don't, but I think it's a great base that would be much better with more work put into it, and many more variable missions for eu5.

 

[SAmaster]

All you did was "ermmm... ackshually" me and did nothing to address my point about mission trees. I provided my reasoning for why Hearts of Iron is not a typical grand strategy and requires a mission tree like system because it must be railroaded to follow WW2. What more am I supposed to take away from your comment?

What does it having to do with WW2 mean that it's not a paradox grand strategy game? Victoria 3 is about the industrial revolution, does that mean it's not a 'typical grand strategy' game? It having a compressed timeframe ends up not holding water when you remember that the game is simulated down to the hour- campaigns take just as long from a player experience, the difference between it and EUV on a timeframe scale is just that the transportation and communication technology of the error means troops and resources were moved around faster in real time. A full campaign still takes a couple of days to play through to completion. The ammount of time that passes in game isn't really relevant to how its played, what is relevant is how much time the player spends on decisions, and how decisions they make in the early game can play into things several hours into playing the game.

So yes, it sounds like you're saying Hearts of Iron IV doesn't count as a grand strategy game, simply because it relies way more on mission-trees, and to the benefit of its gameplay. I don't like the character system in Crusader Kings, and I would argue against using the exact same system in EUV, but my reasoning wouldn't rely on the idea that Crusader Kings isn't a 'real' grand strategy game.

 

[SAmaster]

So to be perfectly blunt, I like direction. A lot of times with these games I have executive dysfunction where I want to do 15 different things, manage the pops, go get slaves, build buildings, check on that one province to see if I have enough influence, etc etc that it gets exhausting. The mission trees then exist as a touchstone that I can keep a consistent line of thought and progress over about a decade.
Granted, I think the executive dysfunction bit is likely my VAST (more commonly known as adhd). But, it is also nice to get little objectives and get the dopamine for these little objectives. In mental wellness, I think having actionable goals is good, and these missions provide that while also making your nation usually more resilient in the long term.
Would I prefer if every single nation had perfectly sculpted mission trees for every eventuality? Yes, obviously lol but that would be an ungodly amount of labor from the team so I accept dynamic missions as a compromise. The devs can make trees for an expected series of paths, Rome will conquer Carthage, Carthage tries to conquer Rome, etc, but if you say form Israel and want to conquer Greece? Yeah not happening.

I can get more into it for given missions for what I like and what I don't, but I think it's a great base that would be much better with more work put into it, and many more variable missions for eu5.

Okay I can sympathize with that- I agree those generic mission trees are preferable to no mission trees.

But I'm sure you can sympathize with me when I say I don't see them serving as a replacement for EUIV mission trees yes? Cause that's usually how I hear the Imperator Rome missions referenced- as the superior system, when I find it vastly inferior. Most mods I've seen tend to completely ignore the modular nature that Imperator Rome offers for 'mega-trees' that act pretty much just like EUIV trees- if not more railroaded since they tend to be more closely tied together, rather than offering alternate branches to go down (IE you have one BIG tree, as opposed to one big tree, and a few smaller side trees).

Now, when people say they want a 'modular' mod tree, what I don't want is Imperator Rome trees. What I'm open to is the idea we have the regular EUIV mission tree that pertains to all the major content of that nation, and then there are a few that can be unlocked through gameplay additions. IE- a nation like Israel as a nation that wasn't formed in EUV's era likely wouldn't have a lot of expansion options (and this may be a bad example, since I imagine a new Israel isn't going to be super expansionist, since the need to convert everyone to judaism provides a major headache), so having a generic expansion path is preferable to having zero paths.

 

[Sirbab]

Okay I can sympathize with that- I agree those generic mission trees are preferable to no mission trees.

But I'm sure you can sympathize with me when I say I don't see them serving as a replacement for EUIV mission trees yes? Cause that's usually how I hear the Imperator Rome missions referenced- as the superior system, when I find it vastly inferior. Most mods I've seen tend to completely ignore the modular nature that Imperator Rome offers for 'mega-trees' that act pretty much just like EUIV trees- if not more railroaded since they tend to be more closely tied together, rather than offering alternate branches to go down (IE you have one BIG tree, as opposed to one big tree, and a few smaller side trees).

Now, when people say they want a 'modular' mod tree, what I don't want is Imperator Rome trees. What I'm open to is the idea we have the regular EUIV mission tree that pertains to all the major content of that nation, and then there are a few that can be unlocked through gameplay additions. IE- a nation like Israel as a nation that wasn't formed in EUV's era likely wouldn't have a lot of expansion options (and this may be a bad example, since I imagine a new Israel isn't going to be super expansionist, since the need to convert everyone to judaism provides a major headache), so having a generic expansion path is preferable to having zero paths.

Yes, hand made trees are usually preferable to dynamic trees. The caveat is sometimes they are overly restrictive to gameplay, especially in mp. "hey you wanna ally?" "sorry man, my finisher requires that I take Ruthenia which is your capital region, so I can't."
It's not to say hand made trees can't avoid this, look at the modal missions from more recent eu4 expansions that let you ally or conquer a region and continue.

 

[SAmaster]

Yes, hand made trees are usually preferable to dynamic trees. The caveat is sometimes they are overly restrictive to gameplay, especially in mp. "hey you wanna ally?" "sorry man, my finisher requires that I take Ruthenia which is your capital region, so I can't."
It's not to say hand made trees can't avoid this, look at the modal missions from more recent eu4 expansions that let you ally or conquer a region and continue.

I mean there are certain countries that are gonna be geo-strategic enemies. There has to be trade offs between which countries you're gonna ally and which you're gonna invade. I mean can you think of any scenario where a Scotland and England player are gonna want to ally, even absent mission trees?

 

[Sirbab]

I mean there are certain countries that are gonna be geo-strategic enemies. There has to be trade offs between which countries you're gonna ally and which you're gonna invade. I mean can you think of any scenario where a Scotland and England player are gonna want to ally, even absent mission trees?

Probably if a third party like Denmark, or France starts making landfall and conquering land in the isles. But I think that's starting to stray from the op topic.

 

[Arizal]

Alright how about this- Byzantium starts without any large claims on its former territories. For a resurgent byzantium how would you portray them claiming large swathes of their former imperial territory through generic game-mechanics available to everyone?

Byzantium is an empire. With dynamic IR like missions, you could have missions "branches" giving to any empire claims for neighbour regions fullfilling some requirements of wealth, religious and cultural proximity.

You could supplement this by having personalized text for specific countries claiming the territory, so that if it's your *precious* byzantium who gets the missions, they would mention the glory of Rome.

Heck, you could even have "shadow claims" that would nudge the missions actually being provided to a Roman successor so that they don't go claiming Persia before trying to get Egypt. This wouldn't be so much as a mission tree component as much as a mechanic that could apply to any country having some sort of glorious past or claiming to have one, or who could integrate with another.

Personally, I heavily enjoy mission trees. Not because the rewards make me OP, but because I like being given "tips" for how to play. I set long-term goals while following the short-term goals of the mission tree. If dynamic mission trees were added, like others have mentioned, that would make it even better, allowing me to do these historical goals and keep things relatively nice, while I can pursue other goals if I choose. I would just make the rewards really minor or even just flavor, then add dynamic missions (That mission chapters and mission books thing that other person mentioned sounds good), then you can get mission trees that fit well in the more open gameplay that EUV seems to be pursuing.

But feel free to disagree, I've noticed most people disagree with my gaming opinions.

That's a compelling argument for tutorial and goal giving missions, and despite being very "generic" missions leaning, I wouldn't want to deprive you of that gameplay tool. I think that having some tasks being given to you can help you make sense of the game.

Actually, the first thing I do in any Paradox game is to check the flags at the top of the screen. In a way, this is reacting to a prompt asking me to solve a problem. Missions derive from that same urge.

Real history is literally the greatest story ever told, the most fleshed out and detailed backstory and the most comprehensive lore a game could ever have. You want to replace that with randomized generative AI-slop, and that is why you are part of a minority that will never get your way.

You have this idea about how flavour and content can be generated within the simulation, but you fail to grasp that ALL flavor that isn't irl history OR narratively written by a human writer is arbitrary. That's like wanting to read fantasy written by ChatGPT - a made up world created by an algorithm.

You might want to play a digital board game, but most people want an immersive and complex historical GSG - mission trees offer that, and that's why we will have mission trees (if not at launch then eventually).

You can't expect a game in which your very presence is disruptive, to not talk about the countless decisions being taken by each TAG every day/month to give historical results.

The people who lived real history didn't know what was coming for them. Pretending history had to go a certain way reduces their sense of having had some agency to nothing.

I want the game to respond to what is happening in the story it is making, not to surimpose our world's history on top of it. I'm not against "flavour", as in if there is an event resembling history happening, the game could use a flavor text, but I don't want the game to force outcomes, or the least possible, so that I can keep the feeling that what I'm doing matters and that what is happening is unpredictable, because at the time, it was.

 

[Being Earnest]

CK2... where gameplay revolves entirely around events or event chains that are the exact same for every tag you play.

False. The fact that you think this, and the fact that you think events constitute dynamic gameplay is bemusing. Besides, events are not the exact same for every tag- they depend on culture, religion, relationships, government type, situation, etc.
Gameplay revolves around characters' abilities, vassal relations, laws, claims, neighbours, terrain, religion, marriage ties, government/society type, buildings, technology, etc., and most importantly, it revolves around what I think would be fun to try.

There's no real thing as a 'diplomacy based' run of Crusader Kings or a 'Conquest run' of Crusader Kings, because what your country does entirely depends on your ruler, who can fill any role you want.

What the country does entirely depends on what I choose to do within the limits defined by the country's strengths and weaknesses (including the ruler) and outside opportunities and threats.

You could play as Genghis Khan and instead of going out and conquering everyone you could just switch your focus to diplomacy and run things that way.

Good.

Or if you play as Genghis Khan he'll play the exact same as any other nomadic ruler, just with extra good stats this time.

Good. Those extra good stats set him apart from any other nomadic ruler and influence the playthrough in a meaningful way. And if I happen to get a different nomadic ruler that has the same stats? I wouldn't want him locked out of the same sorts of opportunities, flavour, mechanics, and content just because his name isn't "Genghis Khan."

2. Why? Why do you want that to ONLY come about from 'dynamic' systems? How is the fact that England is gonna start with a lot of sailors anyway from it's costlines to begin with mean that you have to remove mission trees?

"However, if, through gameplay, England ends up in a situation similar to Hungary's at the start, then I would want England to experience the similar consequences and have the similar goals and tools and options as Hungary did. But that would not be possible with nation-specific mission trees. I don't want interesting content locked behind single, or a few countries."

3. List examples.
4. List examples.

Have you played EU4? Have you played EU3 for comparison? If not, you seem to have played CK2 and seem to understand the distinction already.
We just want different things. That's all there is to it.

 

[SAmaster]

Byzantium is an empire. With dynamic IR like missions, you could have missions "branches" giving to any empire claims for neighbour regions fullfilling some requirements of wealth, religious and cultural proximity.

You could supplement this by having personalized text for specific countries claiming the territory, so that if it's your *precious* byzantium who gets the missions, they would mention the glory of Rome.

Heck, you could even have "shadow claims" that would nudge the missions actually being provided to a Roman successor so that they don't go claiming Persia before trying to get Egypt. This wouldn't be so much as a mission tree component as much as a mechanic that could apply to any country having some sort of glorious past or claiming to have one, or who could integrate with another.

That's a compelling argument for tutorial and goal giving missions, and despite being very "generic" missions leaning, I wouldn't want to deprive you of that gameplay tool. I think that having some tasks being given to you can help you make sense of the game.

Actually, the first thing I do in any Paradox game is to check the flags at the top of the screen. In a way, this is reacting to a prompt asking me to solve a problem. Missions derive from that same urge.

You can't expect a game in which your very presence is disruptive, to not talk about the countless decisions being taken by each TAG every day/month to give historical results.

The people who lived real history didn't know what was coming for them. Pretending history had to go a certain way reduces their sense of having had some agency to nothing.

I want the game to respond to what is happening in the story it is making, not to surimpose our world's history on top of it. I'm not against "flavour", as in if there is an event resembling history happening, the game could use a flavor text, but I don't want the game to force outcomes, or the least possible, so that I can keep the feeling that what I'm doing matters and that what is happening is unpredictable, because at the time, it was.

Okay. How do you go about implementing this 'Glorious Past' system? And how do you implement it for yet-to-be empires like the Mughals?

False. The fact that you think this, and the fact that you think events constitute dynamic gameplay is bemusing. Besides, events are not the exact same for every tag- they depend on culture, religion, relationships, government type, situation, etc.
Gameplay revolves around characters' abilities, vassal relations, laws, claims, neighbours, terrain, religion, marriage ties, government/society type, buildings, technology, etc., and most importantly, it revolves around what I think would be fun to try.

What the country does entirely depends on what I choose to do within the limits defined by the country's strengths and weaknesses (including the ruler) and outside opportunities and threats.

When I play Crusader Kings what compels the story content as opposed to the numbers content? Like I can build a new castle in some location. But what makes that castle something more than a statbonus on a set of land? I can hire an advisor, what makes that advisor more than a set of numbers?

The only story content that crops up is the events that is determined by a set of factors going in your court, like personal relations, advisor positions, and your ruler stats. The only thing is, the major thing seperating them isn't the culture of your location, but your religion. You explain to me what else seperates playing in England vs. Hungary.

Good.

Bad.

Good. Those extra good stats set him apart from any other nomadic ruler and influence the playthrough in a meaningful way. And if I happen to get a different nomadic ruler that has the same stats? I wouldn't want him locked out of the same sorts of opportunities, flavour, mechanics, and content just because his name isn't "Genghis Khan."

Bad. What's the point of Ghenghis Khan existing then? At that point you're better off playing Civ.

"However, if, through gameplay, England ends up in a situation similar to Hungary's at the start, then I would want England to experience the similar consequences and have the similar goals and tools and options as Hungary did. But that would not be possible with nation-specific mission trees. I don't want interesting content locked behind single, or a few countries."

"Why? Why do you want that to ONLY come about from 'dynamic' systems? How is the fact that England is gonna start with a lot of sailors anyway from it's costlines to begin with mean that you have to remove mission trees?"

Have you played EU4? Have you played EU3 for comparison? If not, you seem to have played CK2 and seem to understand the distinction already.
We just want different things. That's all there is to it.

I'm not making your argument for you. List examples.