Good job, I like seeing the culmination of efforts by Tinto and the community put into this update/ I have high hopes for it.
I did want to mention a few things that are unbalanced in the game that could either be patched fairly easily or really should be looked at in the future. I'm not trying to suggest new content here, but come up with solutions to balance existing issues.
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Is it possible to look at
making Parliaments stronger either in the post-release patch or in the next update?
I made a suggestion and a post on a dev diary about how
England is
4,000+ behind on Monarch Power over a whole game, with
2 new privileges behind added and the nobility estate giving manpower recovery speed and reduced land maintenance in addition to now a permanent (if you take it)
+2 diplomatic relations puts Parliaments
WAY behind other government types.
I suggested that, except for England, the nobility could be added back to Parliament and you could just take an Absolutism hit as a balance for adopting Parliament.
Alternatively, Parliament seats could increase local autonomy by
+5% or
+10%,
or the number of seats you have to assign per development could be greater. While it's better than the agenda of the diet, the parliament debates aren't substantial enough to compete with the benefits of having a nobility estate. Either new government reforms could be added for Parliaments, or the other Estates could have unique privileges similar to the nobility to make up for the lack of them.
Finally, I think that the
-30 Max Absolutism for
"English Monarchy" is way too punishing and incentives players to
always side with the Royalist during the English Civil War.
There should be an Absolutism penalty, but
-30 is too much.
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Furthermore, if the
Council of Trent, Papal screen visibility, Golden Bull: Immensa Aeterni Dei, and the
Treaty of Tordesillas are all reworked then I think players would have a lot more fun:
For
Papal Screen VIsibility Any heathen should be able to reasonably know who the crusade target is. Furthermore, a Heretic should be able to know what positions were taken on the Council of Trent. Papal influence, invested influence, and which nations' cardinals favor reform in the Council of Trent should be secret to other religions.
However, knowledge only gives the player more power to plan and make decisions.
The problem with the
Treaty of Tordesillas is that it gives a nation an entire colonial region for a
mere 5 provinces. It should require you to save either
50 or
100 Papal influence for the pope to declare a colonial region to be yours.
This, should not be a permanent colonial claim. Only letting a nation claim it for
50 years. Alternatively, the
Treaty of Madrid could be added as an event, removing the ability to claim a colonial region permanently. As an added effect, c
olonization occurs too quickly so this reduces the needless
+10 settler increase which isn’t needed to buff nations that already colonize the most.
For
Immensa Aeterni Dei the
+1.66 per cardinal
makes embracing institutions early fairly worthless, you can’t always predict when the next pope will die, or if the Curia Controller becomes a country on the edge of the institution spread, and embracing the institution anyways.
“Cardinals spread institutions” is currently
+20 Institution growth and you get
−10% Embracement cost and
+25% Institution spread. This should be nerfed and a comprise made. Instead of a guaranteed
+1.66 monthly spread (excluding spread modifiers both the player and AI usually have).
It should be +1.00 monthly at least. Maybe only
+0.50 monthly spread (excluding all modifiers) It could be reduced further, but this change makes it so that the
Renaissance spread slows down to the rest of the world slightly, making technological differences more of a factor that can be used, even in Europe for a short time.
Finally, the
Council of Trent is pointless when the Curia Controller can completely Ignore what positions the majority of Cardinals favor!
There is no Wiki Page showing what factors on the AI determine what they will pick. However, it is
FAR TOO COMMON to either get "
completely conciliatory" or
"completely harsh" and not more of a balance of both.
For Example:
www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/rsrlr0/there_is_something_off_about_this_council_of_trent/
reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/klxzhs/anyone_else_hate_the_council_of_trent/
forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/trent-council-doesnt-work.1458872/
I think that the Council of Trent can be improved in a few ways. The first way is making the AI favor one choice over another based on the Cardinal ratio in support. i.e. 4:3, 2:3, 3:4 etc... in addition to positive relations of all heretics to the curia controller.
The Pope/ curia controller shouldn't get to choose which position to take by only waiting to pay for the more expensive choice. The AI should pick based on weights from its own stance and the number of cardinals. Furthermore, the AI should be motivated to naturally seek a balance between the two rather than going exclusively harsh or conciliatory (unless the ratio of harshness/ is overwhelming).
The second issue I have with the Council of Trent is this:
imgur.com/r/eu4/NGnIm41
-100 relations permanently cancels out countries from Royal Marriages & Alliances and is totally ridiculous and possibly game-breaking depending on an Ironman game's objectives!
It should never be able to reach this high.
Currently, government type affects neighboring heretic religion, while this makes sense to a degree of persecution taking place, it means that monarchies like England, Sweden, Denmark, etc... are hit with a massive
-40 opinion of "Neighboring Heretics" from their Catholic neighbors. In addition to the
-40 relations from a harsh council of Trent.
- forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/what-changes-the-neighboring-heretic-religion-modifier.823645/
I see two solutions to this. The first is
reducing the opinion of heretics given either by the Council of Trent or the differences in government type. The second solution is to add a
"Same/Different Government Type" modifier which gives
positive relations for the same government type and
negative relations for a different government type.
I'm surprised this already isn't included in the game since monarchies have historically looked down upon merchant & elected republics. However, even with this, the modifier affecting the opinion of heretics is
still excessive among government types.
As England, if you decide to go Anglican for roleplaying/ironman reasons it is extremely difficult to keep your historical alliance with Portugal since it has a permanent
-80 relations for the rest of the game.
Similarly, if you're unlucky enough to share borders with
Austria because of the Burgundian Inheritance, you'll lose them as an ally instantly too, and
you can't ally another catholic kingdom for the rest of the game with -80 relations.
I think that if this modifiers was a net
-60 to -40 relations it would make the council of trent more palatable.
While the current privilege
"religious diplomats" gives "
Brethren of Faith" +25 opinion to the true faith.
A new clergy privilege of
"promote shared beliefs" could give
"Ecclesiastical Understanding" +20 opinion to heretics. Although, this should require the Council of Trent picking at least
2 harsh concessions.
I don't know if the following bug still exists, but I've seen that the Council of Trent can also affect other religions which aren't labeled as
"Heretics"
- forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/has-the-opinion-penalty-from-the-council-of-trent-been-fixed-in-1-31.1473303/
Not even the Coptic Kingdom of "Prestor John"
is immune from this.
In a land far far away. a numidian King was surrounded by heathens, for years the petty king fought with his men to defend his home land. He prayed every month tick to his Coptic god for the knowledge of the magical lands of Europe where his...
forum.paradoxplaza.com
forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/ibadi-is-apparently-a-heretical-form-of-christianity.1463837/
Here is a similar solution that proposed adding more Mechanics in general to the Council of Trent and I thought it might be helpful to include if this issue is looked into:
- forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/council-of-trent.1478396/
My final point about the Council of Trent is this:
Why do these modifiers persist for the rest of the game if the religious conflict in Europe is resolved?
Regardless of who is allowed to be Emperor, the fact that it still can affect the outcome of a game is ridiculous. Eventually, even if Catholicism won the 30-Years-War, people would start to acknowledge and respect protestants more equitably 100 years later.
I'm just a bit disappointed that there isn't an event 100 years after the council of trent, or during the
Age of Absolutism which causes these massive relations modifiers to expire and not last for the rest of the game.
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Thank you for reading. I'm excited to see how the new patch affects gameplay and the balance of power in Europe.
