A collection of EUIV Mechanics currently unimplemented in EUV

[SAmaster]

In the most recent dev diary (#32) one of the dev responses asks which mechanic currently absent in EUV from EUIV we'd like to see. And I figure this would be a good thread to gather the fans thoughts on which mechanics appear absent that we might be worried about and want to see a return, or confirmation that we want the removed. I'll start-

>National Ideas
This one worries me because I think every tag should have something that makes it play at least slightly differently than every other nation. Otherwise you really have no reason to not do anything but play the major nations. This is a problem I think Crusader Kings has- once you've worked your way up from Count to Emperor, there's not really much else you can do to make the experience different. Now I think this was done away with to be replaced with the National Values sliders system. But I don't think the sliders are really a replacement- because at the end of the day the sliders are mutable. They can be changed by the player, and I think in short order players will find the optimal/path of least resistance to them and you have the same problem of doing the same strategies every time.

Now to pitch my own idea, while I want National Ideas to return, I think a complement to them could be a cultural modifier for every culture group. Now this might come with an issue for Hybrid Cultures, but you could just pick which one modifier it gets, rather than letting it get multiple. In general I think Cultures end up being pretty universal in that the only important thing about them is their size- how large a culture can easily be integrated into your society. Whereas I'd like them to give a gameplay benefit.

>Idea-Groups
Like National Ideas I think this was folded into the National Values sliders. And like them, I don't see this as a replacement. I think nudging the sliders over the various decades of a campaign is going to be a much more passive experience than looking at the ideas menu, strategizing, and committing to a path for your country that will impact your strategy. Your first idea group is one of the most important, and I think engaging, decisions you make while playing the game.

Personally I suspect a lot of people will think the sliders will work tremendously better than either of the above two systems, and they'll get pretty bored of the sliders by their fifth campaign, at which point I hope that we can get Paradox to get them back in. Optimally as a free patch feature, since this was a base-game option in EUIV.

>Developing, Concentrate Development, Razing, and Develop Infrastructure
Now this one I have fewer criticisms for Paradox. For one, I do agree that it's odd you can stockpile development and create a city overnight in a random province. I'm worried though that adding development from a cabinet interaction is a little too passive. I'm also worried that it's a bit more limiting- in EUIV I could spread out development across a region, while I'm worried that having a cabinet member do it is gonna restrict it to a single tile that will have to be babysat for a number of years. It's not necessarily that I want the old system as is- more that I don't want developing a province to be turned into a passive mechanic.

Likewise though, Concentrate Development seems gone. Now- personally this isn't a feature I'm sad to see go, I never used it because I didn't see the point in redistributing development all that much. But I thought I'd mention it for completeness sake.

Razing however is something a lot of people enjoyed. Though I doubt this is completely gone, and we're just waiting for the right dev diary to talk about it, so I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt here, and move on.

Develop Infrastructure I think could be an interesting one. Personally I think the name is silly- I think it was meant to represent stuff like building roads, yet it never impacted troop movements. Now we have actual roads. But I like the mechanic of turning a good province into a better one, with the benefit being to small and tall nations. And I would like that to return. In fact- developing your nation was initially aimed to promote Tall playthroughs. And I think in general we haven't heard much about how those playstyles will be suited, so I'd like a dev-diary on this. However- what I think could be implemented, as a complement to Develop Infrastructure, is Land Reclamation. This would be expensive and take a long time, and would be limited to coastal and wetlands provinces, but it would improve such tiles. Venice would be one of the chief benefactors of this, and I think it happened often enough in history to be worth implementing.

>Local Organizations
Now this is a mechanic I think is probably obscure to most people. Starting with Spain you could grant buffs to areas in exchange for Mana, and it was expanded to a few more nations. This might be replaced though with the 'micro-nations' they've added. Now- I'm not actually arguing for a return of these, though I think the idea has merit and could be expanded in EUV, but I'm not demanding it return as is. Just that I would like to see Paradox continue to experiment with the idea. In general I like the idea of buffing up my territories.

>Flagship/Naval Doctrines
Not a mechanic a lot of people focused on, but I do think Naval Gameplay needs fleshing out. I like the ability to customize your own flagship, though it was often a little too expensive. I also liked nations being able to customize the way they approached naval warfare that could set them apart from other nations. I see no reason why these mechanics should make a return.

>Monuments
This seems to have been replaced by the 'Great Works' system. However, I don't think it's been explained quite well what exactly the Great Works do for you as a player. Now I think Great Works are good for representing say written works of art, or paintings or the like, or even small artifacts. That helps build up a lot more national character than buildings alone would.

However I fear this doesn't work as a replacement- Monuments had two key components- that they made a tile much more strategic in its importance, and to different nations depending on culture or religion making certain tiles more important than others, and that they offered another way to invest in the nation. I want to see a return to Monuments from EUIV, with the ability to invest and upgrade them.

The rest here I think we just haven't heard as much about, and will be discussed later, but I'm gonna add for sake of completeness-
>Mandate of Heaven System
We'll likely get lots of info on this in the next dev diary, and I honestly would be surprised that very many important systems would get cut.

>Syncretic Religions
We've only just heard about some religious mechanics, and I want to see more of them. But with how religion has been retooled, I'm especially interested to see how syncretism would be reworked with it.

>Espionage
No word on this period. I would be shocked if it's not in the game, but I hope that the espionage system is expanded.

>Crusades
I think this has been mentioned, just not what it mechanically entails.

>Defender of the Faith
I don't think this has been mentioned, but I would be surprised if it's not there or downsized from it's last implementation

>Trade Companies
I think this one will be interesting since I expect them to become micro-nation vassals, but I'd like to see more of this. I think it would still be fun to be able to 'invest' in these like in EUIV, but I don't think the system needs to be the same.

>Schools of Thought
Unique to Islam, where they added a unique bonus to different tags, and you could 'borrow' others with good relations. I thought it was fun. And honestly, I think a similar system could be added to Hinduism with the differences between the Vaishnava's and the Shaivites. In general though we haven't gotten too much info on Islam.

>Migration/Federation Mechanics
Used by the American tribes, most of whom are replaced by SoP's. They've confirmed that SoP's will be unplayable at release, and I can't blame them. But personally I enjoyed migration mechanics, and the general gameplay loop for tribes trying to reform in EUIV. It was far from perfect, but I want to see it improved rather than axed. I especially liked how some mods were able to use the mechanic- for instance Anbennar with it's knightly companies. So I hope some sort of migration mechanic, and Federation Mechanics make a return. In particular, I'm sure players will love the ability to play as a mercenary company and travel across Eurasia.

>Exile Minorities
This wasn't something I was a fan of, since it lets you do ahistoric things like ethnically cleanse Wales by sending all the Welsh to Cuba and stuff. But I think with new population mechanics this could be improved in EUV. Rather than ejecting these pops, I think it makes more sense to like drop a flag that attracts that population to your target location- not everyone will leave, but a large chunk might who leave jobs that could be filled by your population. This might also work better for say the UK which never exiled religious minorities- they left of their own volition (the Puritans are lying to you about how much persecution they fled) to set up their own model societies.

>Cultural Unions
This one is me being paranoid. But this mechanic was absent in Imperator Rome, and it's the #1 thing I hate about that game. So far I don't think Cultural Unions have been discussed, while 'Cultural Unification' has. Now there's been enough backlash on that that they made it a toggleable feature, which is good. What I'm hoping this means is that it wasn't an attempt to remove Cultural Unions which I consider to be extremely important for expansion. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think Cultural Unions have been discussed much.

>Artillery Barrage/Naval Barrage
So far neither has been mentioned regarding warfare. Now I'm not wedded to the idea that it has to be in there. Though I think if it's not something needs to replace it- it's was something I found an important part of sieging.

 

[titan.bevel]

Like it or hate it, but nationa ideas and ideas groups were replaced not with national values sliders, but with advances that are nation specific (for the first) or focus group that you select at the start of an age (for the second)

 

[SAmaster]

Like it or hate it, but nationa ideas and ideas groups were replaced not with national values sliders, but with advances that are nation specific (for the first) or focus group that you select at the start of an age (for the second)

I don't mind the advances system, but I'm skeptical of it.

Here are the problems as I see it-

>There isn't a guarantee that the AI is going to use these advances because of the way they are going to be buried in the tech tree
>They aren't going to be equal as every tag isn't going to get an equal number of these advances
>I can't look at which advances a nation has that sets them apart in the diplomacy screen

Some people complained about National Ideas creating winners and losers, but I see this as a much worse system.

I would say that advances should be tied to certain cultures- like how the Andean cultures were better able to farm a mountainous terrain. But they do an even worse job of replacing national ideas than the sliders would.

 

[Knarraldin]

If all it took for you to dislike Imperator is the lack of cultural unions, you're going to hate EU5.

 

[Sindai]

You already get different techs for several characteristics other than tag, including culture group:

We also have a lot of unique advances for what culture you are playing, or what religion you are playing, if you are a country that can own locations or not, and for what type of government you have.

Some of the ideas from the idea groups ended up directly as advances unique for certain types of countries, like the Horde Government ones were converted to unique advances for Steppe Hordes, and the Divine Ideas as unique advances for Theocracies.

 

[strattonthebard]

Trade companies seem like they will obviously be building based companies, right? We haven't heard about specific mechanics but it seems like those will cover it.

We know there's a "build spy network" interaction and that espianoge increases siege effectiveness against a target, amongst other things. Not a very deep or complex system but it does seem to exist.

 

[dbruser]

I think your take on monuments will be pretty unpopular here. There are a lot of people VERY critical about how overpowered monuments are when they were added to EU4.

Great works already do what monuments would have done and there are exact replacements. You just don't get crazy empire-wide buffs for holding the province.

I do like how EU4 national ideas were front and center when picking nations, and I hope that they get better UI regarding nation being special on nation-selection too. However even if sliders become boring, it's not like idea groups were particularly interesting to interact with.

 

[SAmaster]

If all it took for you to dislike Imperator is the lack of cultural unions, you're going to hate EU5.

A lack of cultural unions makes culture groups pointless. Especially how Imperator worked, where only citizens give increased army sizes. To Macedonians Athenian Culture is about as useful for you as Punic culture. You are just as well off trying to culture convert literally everyone, save for a few large sized cultures. I think it's appalling there isn't even a mod that rectifies this, and I can't think of a single good reason to do it this way.

I think your take on monuments will be pretty unpopular here. There are a lot of people VERY critical about how overpowered monuments are when they were added to EU4.

Great works already do what monuments would have done and there are exact replacements. You just don't get crazy empire-wide buffs for holding the province.

I do like how EU4 national ideas were front and center when picking nations, and I hope that they get better UI regarding nation being special on nation-selection too. However even if sliders become boring, it's not like idea groups were particularly interesting to interact with.

Then just don't make them so OP then.

Otherwise, I'd like the same little tool tip, and I'd like the ability to invest in them to make them more powerful. After all- buildings like the Great Wall of China were built over the course of centuries by multiple different dynasties.

 

[Knarraldin]

A lack of cultural unions makes culture groups pointless. Especially how Imperator worked, where only citizens give increased army sizes. To Macedonians Athenian Culture is about as useful for you as Punic culture. You are just as well off trying to culture convert literally everyone, save for a few large sized cultures. I think it's appalling there isn't even a mod that rectifies this, and I can't think of a single good reason to do it this way.

Then just don't make them so OP then.

Otherwise, I'd like the same little tool tip, and I'd like the ability to invest in them to make them more powerful. After all- buildings like the Great Wall of China were built over the course of centuries by multiple different dynasties.

Their idea of cultural groups being important is the cultural union mechanic. If you don't like it and want to turn it off, that means is that you will have to deal with culture groups not meaning anything.

As I said, if you don't like that idea, and that by itself is enough to make you disinterested in playing, you will hate EU5.

 

[SAmaster]

Their idea of cultural groups being important is the cultural union mechanic. If you don't like it and want to turn it off, that means is that you will have to deal with culture groups not meaning anything.

As I said, if you don't like that idea, and that by itself is enough to make you disinterested in playing, you will hate EU5.

You mean cultural unification.

Now YOU explain to ME why cultural unification is-

A. A better gameplay mechanic
B. Make sense historically.

 

[strattonthebard]

You mean cultural unification.

Now YOU explain to ME why cultural unification is-

A. A better gameplay mechanic
B. Make sense historically.

what is the distinction between cultural unification and "cultural union"

 

[SAmaster]

what is the distinction between cultural unification and "cultural union"

The terms here aren't great since they are similar, but in EUIV, previously certain tags would automatically assume all cultures in its culture group- for instance France accepted all French cultures by default. They then changed this to make it so it was automatic for any tag that reached Empire tier- so the French Kingdom did not automatically accept all French Cultures (though- this unlike Imperator did not impact its ability to raise armies, and non-accepted similar cultures still gave more tax and manpower than non-accepted cultures) but the French Empire would.

Cultural Unification as a new mechanic proposed by Paradox would be a button you push upon owning all the cultures within your culture group on the map that would start a ten year process that assimilates them to the mother culture. In one example- Russia would push the button and all Ukrainian cultured pops would turn into Russian, and getting rid of all Ukrainian culture.

The fact that there's a current Russo-Ukraine War where the Russians are arguing that Ukranian national identity is a mind-fake invented by NATO should illustrate why this didn't happen historically.

I also find it a boring mechanic. What's the point in having SO MUCH cultural diversity in EUV, to the point of including minority populations (something I applaud) if you want the players to remove that cultural diversity? I find it much more interesting if a nation ISN'T a monoculture (the only one that really exists today is North Korea, and they certainly didn't exist in the games timeframe) but comprised of several different cultures producing a greater whole.

So a Cultural Union provides the increased tax, manpower, and lowered unrest that Unification would, except it wouldn't have this weirdly ahistoric dissolution of historic cultures, and it would happen earlier (achieving Empire Rank is easier than owning all your cultures pops when they're going to be migrating a bunch outside your borders).

The only reasons I've seen people give for why Cultural Unification would be a good mechanic is based on gross misunderstandings of national identities. Like people assume that China is home only to Chinese people, because we aren't trained to recognize the HUGE ethnic diversity that exists in the country.

 

[Nitan17]

In one example- Russia would push the button and all Ukrainian cultured pops would turn into Russian, and getting rid of all Ukrainian culture.

I swear every complaint about culture unifications picks the worst examples. No, the only cultures that can be unified into Russian culture are the ones in Russian culture group AND with Russian Language. The only cultures with the latter are Muscovite, Novgorodian and Pomor, unifying those into one culture sounds pretty accurate to me.

 

[SAmaster]

I swear every complaint about culture unifications picks the worst examples. No, the only cultures that can be unified into Russian culture are the ones in Russian culture group AND with Russian Language. The only cultures with the latter are Muscovite, Novgorodian and Pomor, unifying those into one culture sounds pretty accurate to me.

If that's the case, I don't really see the point of the mechanic. Why not just rely on regular assimilation? It also sounds like it's noticeably worse than Cultural Unions from EUIV if Russia doesn't have a means to automatically accept Ukrainian. My objection isn't that there aren't cultural similarities, and that they should be in the same groups- just that Ukrainian culture was never done away with.

Even in that case, I'd still argue it's really silly- as in the English example, this would get rid of Lowlander Scots and turn them into English. And if you tell a Glaswegian Scotsman that he's actually English he'll punch you in the face.

So again, I fail to see why this is a mechanic that should replace Cultural Unions, and someone needs to make that argument to me.

 

[strattonthebard]

People keep using examples of cultures that very much do survive to the modern day as distinct regional identities as examples of why the mechanic doesn't make sense when it is specifically modeling the way that the cultures of regional power centers like Paris or Moscow ended up assimilating a number of closely related but distinct regional cultures into a national identity, a process which occurred in a number of countries in this time period. It's not perfect but no system that assigned a pop a single "culture" identity will ever be, but it does a decent job of representing how the increased centralization of state power impacted regional cultures in this time period.

 

[Knarraldin]

what is the distinction between cultural unification and "cultural union"

It was obvious from the context that I meant cultural unification and simply misspoke, given I said that "this mechanic is how Tinto thinks it should work." Everything I said still stands. Tinto believes that culture groups should unify into a single culture via the unification mechanic and that is the extent of culture groups having any meaning at all, as far as we're aware. If he doesn't like it, he should play a different game, because this one isn't for him.

 

[SAmaster]

People keep using examples of cultures that very much do survive to the modern day as distinct regional identities as examples of why the mechanic doesn't make sense when it is specifically modeling the way that the cultures of regional power centers like Paris or Moscow ended up assimilating a number of closely related but distinct regional cultures into a national identity, a process which occurred in a number of countries in this time period. It's not perfect but no system that assigned a pop a single "culture" identity will ever be, but it does a decent job of representing how the increased centralization of state power impacted regional cultures in this time period.

I don't see why such a system is necessary. Culture is not the same thing as nationality. Many people in the US are of Mexican Culture, but identify as being part of the American National Identity. Likewise there are many Scots, Welsh, even Irish who don't identify as English but do identify as being part of the British national identity in addition to their cultural heritage.

You can quite simply be both. Which I think is what the pro 'Cultural Unification' people miss. You can be both Scottish and British. In this case, I imagine claims for cultural unions and cores that will defect back to mother countries work well to simulate this, without the need to push a cultural unification button.

It was obvious from the context that I meant cultural unification and simply misspoke, given I said that "this mechanic is how Tinto thinks it should work." Everything I said still stands. Tinto believes that culture groups should unify into a single culture via the unification mechanic and that is the extent of culture groups having any meaning at all, as far as we're aware. If he doesn't like it, he should play a different game, because this one isn't for him.

What's with the weird gatekeeping nonsense? Are you just telling me to shut up because I disagree with the developers? When they specifically have been trying to listen to community feedback when making the game? They already made it an option to toggle off thanks to negative feedback. I also note that you don't argue that this is either a system that works better, or makes more sense historically. You're just saying I should shouldn't be allowed to disagree.

 

[Knarraldin]

I don't see why such a system is necessary. Culture is not the same thing as nationality. Many people in the US are of Mexican Culture, but identify as being part of the American National Identity. Likewise there are many Scots, Welsh, even Irish who don't identify as English but do identify as being part of the British national identity in addition to their cultural heritage.

You can quite simply be both. Which I think is what the pro 'Cultural Unification' people miss. You can be both Scottish and British. In this case, I imagine claims for cultural unions and cores that will defect back to mother countries work well to simulate this, without the need to push a cultural unification button.

What's with the weird gatekeeping nonsense? Are you just telling me to shut up because I disagree with the developers? When they specifically have been trying to listen to community feedback when making the game? They already made it an option to toggle off thanks to negative feedback. I also note that you don't argue that this is either a system that works better, or makes more sense historically. You're just saying I should shouldn't be allowed to disagree.

I'm telling you that you have a disagreement with the developers and they aren't going to listen to you, as their sole solution to disagreement with the cultural unification mechanic is the ability to simply toggle it off. They're not going to change it, expecting them to is folly on your part. They think you're wrong. They think that entire concept is bad and so they didn't do it. If you have a problem with that, this game will not be for you, and you should stop paying attention to this game because they're not going to change it.

Edit: Frankly, I'm also getting annoyed with this view that a lot of people on this forums seem to have that just because they have a problem with a specific mechanic, there should be a toggle that radically changes the balance of the entire game for their personal satisfaction. The game is designed like this, and instead of them spaghetti coding their way into an impossibly buggy game again I'd rather they just refused to implement the toggles altogether and make a functional game that doesn't have to account for all of the potential side effects of having toggles for every other mechanic.

 

[dbruser]

A lack of cultural unions makes culture groups pointless. Especially how Imperator worked, where only citizens give increased army sizes. To Macedonians Athenian Culture is about as useful for you as Punic culture. You are just as well off trying to culture convert literally everyone, save for a few large sized cultures. I think it's appalling there isn't even a mod that rectifies this, and I can't think of a single good reason to do it this way.

Then just don't make them so OP then.

Otherwise, I'd like the same little tool tip, and I'd like the ability to invest in them to make them more powerful. After all- buildings like the Great Wall of China were built over the course of centuries by multiple different dynasties.

They already are in the game, just as great works fully incorporated into a larger system. I don't think there's anything that allows you to further invest in them, though some may have event chains to become grander (this was really rare anyways).

 

[SAmaster]

They already are in the game, just as great works fully incorporated into a larger system. I don't think there's anything that allows you to further invest in them, though some may have event chains to become grander (this was really rare anyways).

Most cathedrals in Europe were built up upon over the course of centuries. Most examples I can think of would be ones that spent centuries to reach their current state of grandeur that we tend to think about.

I also think that a physical building should have a bit more going on for it, than say a book.

Also- I didn't mention it, but I'd also like such a system to incorporate Natural Wonders. Though I think there's an argument if a nation should be able to 'invest' in natural wonders, I think they should offer the same kind of strategic importance, with similar buffs. Though- natural wonders might provide buffs to whoever holds them. I might be tempted to say this wouldn't be the case for 'holy mountains' but I think the new 'Holy Sites' mechanic would give them religious importance to those religions, while the 'natural beauty' part could still be enjoyed by everyone.