A New Method of Stability?

[ODaly]

One of the things I could never quite understand about EU3 was how stability management was designed. Sure it's simple enough to know that high stability is good, low stability is bad, and you've got to invest your income to raise it back up.

...but that's it, and I think it's an overly-simplistic way of going about things. Stability management should be a major concern for large empires, and it deserves to play a bigger role in the game than an annoyance that you throw money at for a few months or a year to get back to normal. By deepening the factors that influence stability, and how stability is measured, it can be a core aspect of nation management instead of being simply a speedbump. Diplomacy, economy, NIs, rulers' stats, slider moves, colonies, and to a lesser extent, decisions and events, can affect stability along a smooth scale of measurement. What? That doesn't sound so different from how things are already? Keep reading.

Nearly everything the player does should affect the nation's stability, and usually negatively. First, stability gradually increases over time but cannot be sped up simply by diverting your income into some mysterious "stability fund", and will continue to increase as citizens grow accustomed to the status quo. Nations could earn an increase in stability growth for their diplomatic standing such as: low/no infamy, Catholic nations with strong papal ties, HRE states on good terms with the emperor, and others. Conversely, nations with many uncored provinces or unlawful HRE territory, excommunicated nations, or nations with religiously persecuted populations would suffer a stability growth penalty. Economically, stability bonuses could be earned by owning a rich CoT, being the head of a trade league, and controlling monopolies, while taking loans or going bankrupt would obviously hinder stability growth.

Both taking or changing NIs would confer a hit to stability, with penalties or bonuses applied if a nation's NIs contradicted or complemented each other. The same could be said for advisors: those of a similar nature represent a nation with a strong sense of direction, while mismatched ones would pull the government's focus in too many areas. Likewise, stability effects of advisors and NIs could also be linked. The crowning of a ruler, especially one with low legitimacy, would always damage a nation's stability (obviously, this wouldn't be much of a problem for republics), though the ruler's stats, augmented by advisors, would be one of the main determining factors of stability growth. Slider moves would always weaken a nation's stability, as it represents a dynamic shift in the status quo. These factors together can represent the nation itself almost like the personality of an individual character, with strengths, weaknesses, goals, and motives.

Random events such as natural disasters, plagues, and the infamous comet would also affect your stability, but because of their random nature, they'd only temporarily halt stability growth instead of directly decreasing it.

How on earth will anyone maintain stability if every little change has a negative impact? For this, stability would need to be represented along a more complete and more gradual scale, probably measured in percentage: from perfect peace and prosperity at the high end, to complete anarchy (no taxes, troop desertion) and full-blown civil war or revolution (nationalist rebels, pretender rebels, colonies declaring independence) at the low end. A diminishing return on stability growth would allow quicker recovery of low stability, while keeping countries at a fairly reasonable level of stability during a period of prosperity. Perfect stability would be difficult to achieve, and any nation reaching it may have had to stagnate relative to its peers to do so.

 

[ODaly]

These factors would need to be balanced in a way that would never result in negative stability growth except perhaps in only the most extreme cases of mismanagement. By no means would a nation need to be single-minded in its pursuits to maintain a solid level of stability, though nations with a single focus having priority at all levels of government would have an easier time managing a very high level of stability. Smaller nations could follow either a path of versatility or a single area of expertise, while larger, sprawling empires would find themselves needing to devote more focus to internal affairs, defense, and administration to prevent themselves from becoming spread too thin. Perhaps as time goes on, government technology level or form of government would allow easier stability management, making larger empires more efficient in the later stages of the game.

 

[MilosM]

Agreed, I always considered stability investment to be silly.I hope they will make stability not only more important, but also more difficult to control.In EU3 it is to easy to gain stability, because you can directly influence it, I don't remember when was the last time I was below +1 except when westernising.

 

[ANO1453]

An interesting proposition. I like it, better than throwing money to improve stability in the blink of an eye.

 

[alh_p]

Good suggestion, I quite agree that the stability slush fund in EU3 is too arbitrary. Perhaps more than that, it's the idea that stability is nothing but a good thing for a state which I think is plain wrong(I think there's a pithy comment to that extent in the EU3 manual somewhere).

My only reservation about tinkering with stability is that somehow we will still need to be able play as warmongering tyrants (or, ahem, liberators). After all, nothing would ruin stability like a good (bad) war...

In particular I like the suggestion at the end of the OP that too much stability is actually detrimental - this strikes me as especially realistic. High stability states being at the forefront of inovation is a thoroughly modern perspective, in fact history usually shows the opposite, or at least that they are peaking...

Adversity or chance leading to some sort of advantage which is pushed as far as it can go, until those around the innovator catch on or the innovator overstratches or stagnates seems more historical to this amateur historian.

In game terms, it means a nation would need to navigate a current of stability, sufficient to avoid the +ve and -ve extremes of stagnation or collapse.

 

[Arcvalons]

So it'd be something like a 1-100 scale? But involving yourself in wars, changing policies, etc. would decrease it, while it would normally increase over time?

 

[nOxr]

Interesting idea. I like that you can't solve stability by throwing money at it. It would give a cost to every action, and effectively punish very active countries, for example the player, while giving inactive stagnation an upside. It would make it impossible to plow ahead in high speed and give you strategic choices where you sometimes would have to postpone actions until your country is more stable. You could also link events to different levels of stability.

 

[hhyy_best]

So it'd be something like a 1-100 scale? But involving yourself in wars, changing policies, etc. would decrease it, while it would normally increase over time?

Agree, make stability something like prestige from -100 to 100 with larger impacts. A default country will have stability slowly moving to 0. Modifiers and ability of kings will speed up the stability improvement or speed up the decay. When you do anything ''wrong'', it will impact this value directly or/and give a buff for the decay speed. Normally, the stability will recover to a balanced level through time. However, if you do seveal thing wrong together, the country is eventually doomed. Unless you do something to pacify the society, such as roll back a slide move, stop the war, lower the tax rates etc.

 

[MilosM]

As someone mentioned countries that stagnate for too long should also suffer, maybe we should gain tech points from battles(both naval and land), and there should be some other way of acquiring points for other techs.

 

[unmerged(353072)]

I don't mind the current way stability is represented though it is very simple for a complex thing it is very easy to grasp which is good because it can have some negative impact if it is low.

What I want to change with stability it how important it is. Currently having low stability it kind of bad but when you get to -3 it doesn't seem to be that much different than -1. Yes, you get more revolt but those are more of pests then anything serious. I think that if stability is -3 it should bring just about any country to it knees because I mean you have no stability in you nation that has to have very serious ramifications to it. Although if they increase the spectrum from (-3)-3 to (-10)-10 I wouldn't mind as long as it accurately shows in game-play that you country is in a bind when you stability is in the negatives.

 

[dancescenario6]

In particular I like the suggestion at the end of the OP that too much stability is actually detrimental - this strikes me as especially realistic. High stability states being at the forefront of inovation is a thoroughly modern perspective, in fact history usually shows the opposite, or at least that they are peaking...

Adversity or chance leading to some sort of advantage which is pushed as far as it can go, until those around the innovator catch on or the innovator overstratches or stagnates seems more historical to this amateur historian.

In game terms, it means a nation would need to navigate a current of stability, sufficient to avoid the +ve and -ve extremes of stagnation or collapse.

This is a good idea! So, say stability is a -100 to 100 scale, anywhere from -50 (to reflect a need to innovate to improve the country) to 50 (reflecting the positive environment science can thrive in) would experience a positive modifier to technology, whereas extremes in either direction would hinder technology.

 

[ODaly]

... My only reservation about tinkering with stability is that somehow we will still need to be able play as warmongering tyrants (or, ahem, liberators). After all, nothing would ruin stability like a good (bad) war ...

I probably could've been more clear in my second post, but the way I see it is the player's activity limited by stability would be related to how focused their nation's government is. If a player wishes to be the warmongering type, they would invest in military advisors, NIs, sliders, and so on. Thus, if the nation is pointed to military strength without a large diversion of focus elsewhere, the stability growth rate for such a strong emphasis would allow the player to be more active in *ahem* liberations than, for example, a nation dividing its attention between military and culture, or any number of distractions from their military. Of course, like in EU3, unjustified wars would still be a relatively large stability hit, while aiding allies, or other solid justifications would be have a smaller impact.

So it'd be something like a 1-100 scale? But involving yourself in wars, changing policies, etc. would decrease it, while it would normally increase over time?

Yes. Either a 0 - 100 scale or like was also mentioned -100 - 100. Like I said in the OP, stability would always increase over time, so the player's attention would instead be drawn to managing stability growth instead of the stability level directly.

Interesting idea. I like that you can't solve stability by throwing money at it. It would give a cost to every action, and effectively punish very active countries, for example the player, while giving inactive stagnation an upside. ...

While I didn't originally mean for the idea to be a punishment for players who do too much, it would be a regulatory system so that you could be doing something, but not always doing everything. As it is now, the primary limitation is funding, and it should be more complex than the depth of your pocketbook.

Agree, make stability something like prestige from -100 to 100 with larger impacts. A default country will have stability slowly moving to 0. Modifiers and ability of kings will speed up the stability improvement or speed up the decay. When you do anything ''wrong'', it will impact this value directly or/and give a buff for the decay speed. ...

While I hadn't considered the natural shift to 0 on a -100 to 100 scale, it could be another good model. Instead of every change subtracting from stability, changes could give either a positive or negative shift depending on how well they fit into the national "persona".

What I want to change with stability it how important it is. Currently having low stability it kind of bad but when you get to -3 it doesn't seem to be that much different than -1. Yes, you get more revolt but those are more of pests then anything serious. I think that if stability is -3 it should bring just about any country to it knees because I mean you have no stability in you nation that has to have very serious ramifications to it. Although if they increase the spectrum from (-3)-3 to (-10)-10 I wouldn't mind as long as it accurately shows in game-play that you country is in a bind when you stability is in the negatives.

Yes, as I briefly mentioned in the OP, very low stability would be catastrophic. Large revolts, troop desertion, civil war, revolution, colonial independence. The bottom end of stability would be just that: anarchy.



EDIT: On a different note regarding maximum stability, perhaps a soft cap could be calculated based on how "schizophrenic" the nation's government is. Absolute stability could still be achieved, but stability growth and the soft cap would be higher or lower depending on how many areas of interest are being juggled. Though maybe that's getting a bit too complex...