EU4, Power Creep, and Determinism

[Kurfürstin Adelheid]

Does anyone else feel like the buffs to major countries in the recent Development Diaries were a bit much? I say this coming from the perspective of someone who likes the game to have a less pre-determined outcome. All of those countries already had big advantages due to their starting position and lucky nation status, as well as their ideas. I am not disputing they could use some flavour. But I think there is a case to be made for moderation. In my opinion the mission trees for some of the Electors and regional formables in the HRE strike a balance between being flavourful, fun and rewarding, and not being too OP. Some of these new mission trees go over the top in my view. It is essentially adding more and more buffs to countries that already have buffs and start out stronger than everyone else anyway due to their geography and development. I am just concerned that the same countries will blob over and over again even more than they do now. To an extent this happens anyway but so far there remained the possibility of countries other than the ones that did well historically doing well without player intervention. Now I worry this will become much more unlikely. I am concerned these changes will make the game more deterministic.

Also, I said this in another thread, I think the Angevin Empire is a bit odd. It feels out of place, like it belongs more to CKII/III rather than EU4. I always understood EU4 about being about the rise of the modern nation state. But here you have this middle ages concept being brought back from the brink of death. I feel like it needs to be reworked a bit more to 'fit in' better with the rest of EU4...and something needs to be done about the ideas. They are a bit much given the ease and earliness at which they can be accessed.

Basically I think more of a balance needs to be struck between making things flavourful and fun and rewarding whilst not making them too OP.

 

[Cuke]

Power Creep is a universal Evil. Determinism is good, though. The best EU was EU-2 AGCEEP. However, the whole scripted affair with Henrys and Elizabeths in the event chains feels wrong for EU4, which was supposed to have randomly generated rulers.

 

[Kurfürstin Adelheid]

Determinism is good, though.

I just find it forced and boring...Why should X happen just because it happened in real life? The game is not modelling real life, because at least one nation is controlled by a semi-omniscient disembodied spirit with the power of foresight...Unless you are playing in spectator mode. Also, it gives insufficient weight to the element of luck.

 

[I like wars and maps]

You might think so but players seem to like green numbers you can click alot so the devs are very heavily encouraged to just make every dlc have more green numbers in them each time. Determinism I cant comment since a player usually would like to do what their host nation did but better or what they would have done if they suceeded. Wich most often if not all the time means more territory and power through vassals and such. THE REAL PROBLEM is actually that missions hamstring the player into doing the determinism the devs want you to do and nothing else since the bonuses are too OP pass up. Yes you COULD have gotten into India 100 years earlier but if you did that you would miss out on getting the free claims and buffs and special new TC company thingie as Britain. Thats the true determinism a sandbox game making you feel stupid for playing with the sand beyond the instructions given.

 

[jonjowett]

Unfortunately, Paradox lives or dies by building a popular game then selling power creep in DLCs. Also unfortunately, I don't think there's any other good way for them to pay their staff. (Cosmetics? lol no, I'm already turning my graphics way down for less melting. Mobile game pay-to-win? Please no. Donations? Unlikely, they're so big now I don't think donations could ever cover salaries - you could pay maybe 3-5 FTEs on donations, and I think they have hundreds. Subscriptions? That's a hard sell given that their most profitable games are pay-once and came out years ago. Did I miss anything?)

On balance, since it really is power-creep (not power-avalanche), I think their choice is the best of a lot of bad options. (Kinda like democracy in the famous quote - it's a bad system of government, but it's better than all the others.)

 

[Kurfürstin Adelheid]

You might think so but players seem to like green numbers you can click alot so the devs are very heavily encouraged to just make every dlc have more green numbers in them each time.

But the thing that makes it fun is that you can't do it all the time so it is rewarding when it does happen...Right? Like eating sweet things. If you constantly eat sweet things the effect of each individual thing is reduced because you become used to the effect, so you need more and more to get the same feeling of satisfaction...Is this what Paradox is doing with the mission trees?

THE REAL PROBLEM is actually that missions hamstring the player into doing the determinism the devs want you to do and nothing else since the bonuses are too OP pass up.

I don't mind some of the missions such as the regional HRE ones but yeah they could be more dynamic.

On balance, since it really is power-creep (not power-avalanche), I think their choice is the best of a lot of bad options. (Kinda like democracy in the famous quote - it's a bad system of government, but it's better than all the others.)

It would be less bad if the smaller nations got good bonuses, like the already strongest ones are getting (on top of everything else they have) but I doubt that will happen. I just feel like the already strong countries are being made even stronger and everyone else is just left the way they were.

 

[FishieFan]

But the thing that makes it fun is that you can't do it all the time so it is rewarding when it does happen...Right? Like eating sweet things. If you constantly eat sweet things the effect of each individual thing is reduced because you become used to the effect, so you need more and more to get the same feeling of satisfaction...Is this what Paradox is doing with the mission trees?

Yearly intake of sugar continues to climb year on year. There is complaint about 101 modifiers now in mission trees and randomly unique things cough east india company cough but the next dlc looks set to turn the map upside down with how powerful the majors are once more. England losing its mission pu on France is dumb so we'll see how well its received

I don't mind some of the missions such as the regional HRE ones but yeah they could be more dynamic.

Diet missions now allow us fixed and dynamic ones

It would be less bad if the smaller nations got the kind of bonuses the already strongest ones are getting on top of everything else they have but I doubt that will happen.

Why should the smaller ones get buffs for just being small, then they'll become big more easily?

 

[Kurfürstin Adelheid]

Why should the smaller ones get buffs for just being small, then they'll become big more easily?

What I was saying is that everyone should within reason get roughly the same level of buffs, not that small nations should get more buffs to make up for being small. As opposed to now where the already strong nations get even more buffs than everyone else. I don't think it is a good idea to give certain nations a disproportionate amount of buffs just because they did well historically. They already start out in a position to do well anyway because of their geography, lucky nation status, ideas and development. They don't need more buffs in their mission tree than everyone else.

 

[Jespoke]

I hope they for future updates will hand out variations of the unique mechanics and modifiers that the majors are getting in this DLC. Like what they did with Livonia, except spread out to minor powers where they make sense, instead of all of them into a single country.

 

[zorkman]

The major European countries have always had buffs compared to the rest of the nations, but that has gotten worse & worse over the years. It was bad enough early on with all the bonuses they got made worse by the appalling Lucky Nations mechanic, making all games one big bore as all the games panned out the same, unless you were playing one of them or intervened. Now with mssions it has go far worse, & seemingly even worse in the future. One way that would help is stop all these cheating nations in Ironman getting these ridiculous bonuses, whilst the rest of the nations become really unlucky ones. It should be called unlucky nations except for the privaliged few.

 

[jonjowett]

It would be less bad if the smaller nations got good bonuses, like the already strongest ones are getting (on top of everything else they have) but I doubt that will happen. I just feel like the already strong countries are being made even stronger and everyone else is just left the way they were.

This is just commercial reality. The nations that get special effort are historically-successful and/or historically-unique and/or memeable and/or have large numbers of EU4 players.

 

[brifbates]

On balance, since it really is power-creep (not power-avalanche), I think their choice is the best of a lot of bad options. (Kinda like democracy in the famous quote - it's a bad system of government, but it's better than all the others.)

Have you been reading the last few dev diaries?!?!? I don't see any reasonable person calling the difference between the live version and the coming patch for a couple nations power-creep. It's utterly ridiculous how much France and Spain in particular are getting buffed, especially when the current game state would pretty strongly argue that Spain (at least) should be getting nerfs instead.

 

[Buladelu]

I'd much prefer devs tie special mechanics to cultures, government types, religions, wonders etc rather than giving them to specific countries (maybe it's fine if it's a formable country). From the immersion POV I don't see why are some of these mechanics are tied to specific countries. From the gameplay POV it's only bad as it limits playstyles. I guess any Russian minor can use Russian Modernization mechanics cause everyone in this region is supposed to form Russia. But I don't get why Iberian countries are the only ones who know how to holy order, or as I understand Enlgish/British people are the only ones who can get parliament angry at their king.

But in other ways, from the balance point of view I'm OK with that. Let a specific number of countries be endgame bosses. Their dominance is never guaranteed, and even if it makes a lot of other starts more challenging at the same time it makes others easier.

EU4 is the ultimate rubber band difficulty game. I imagine a lot of people are only interested in playing some specific countries and it's fine if they get a more guided experience. Pro players will still conquer the world as Cherokee in 100 years or something. People in the middle will have a more varied experiences, as from what I saw some of the new paths for majors can be relatively challenging.

 

[R.Graymarch]

In this week dev diary, I wrote that I was "sad to confirm that the game does not go at all in the direction I like playing :/", direction being power creep, mission trees everywhere (railroading) and also DLC that go further than existing "regional focus" DLC. Reactions were half support, half red X.
Sample is not enough to make a statistic but some people do like this approach. I'm not a fan of it so I expressed it politely (people do what they prefer with their time and money after all) but otherwise, except not buying the DLC, I cannot do much more. C'est la vie.

 

[theauthor]

Also, I said this in another thread, I think the Angevin Empire is a bit odd. It feels out of place, like it belongs more to CKII/III rather than EU4. I always understood EU4 about being about the rise of the modern nation state. But here you have this middle ages concept being brought back from the brink of death. I feel like it needs to be reworked a bit more to 'fit in' better with the rest of EU4...and something needs to be done about the ideas. They are a bit much given the ease and earliness at which they can be accessed.

I'll be honest why? England player that didn't choose to ditch France holding would inevetably gobble up France or restart and if England-France union happen the Angevin empire would make sense(if i'm being pedantic they shouldn't call themself emperor, it's not like having 2 kingdom at the same time make you prestigious enough to call yourself emperor)

 

[Rhomaioi]

For my part, I love that tags are getting more unique and distinct content. After almost 5000 hours of playing EU4, it feels great to get some real spice. Playing it this much is also why I disagree with adding any more general mechanics (that apply to everyone or a large group of tags) because if it's present in every playthrough, it just loses its charm. Besides, I thought we all agreed after Leviathan that the game really doesn't need any more new mechanics; there's already plenty. The existing ones just need more depth, and they've been getting that.

I don't get the powercreep argument either. Powercreep is only really bad in multiplayer games, and EU4 multiplayer communities play with their own custom balance mods anyway so it doesn't even matter there either. Though I do think that the lucky nations concept should be retired after this upcoming patch, in part because of all the new stuff.

 

[jonjowett]

Have you been reading the last few dev diaries?!?!? I don't see any reasonable person calling the difference between the live version and the coming patch for a couple nations power-creep. It's utterly ridiculous how much France and Spain in particular are getting buffed, especially when the current game state would pretty strongly argue that Spain (at least) should be getting nerfs instead.

I guess I see it as boring easy-mode nations being made even easier. I guess I assume that only newbies play them?

 

[iClipse]

I don't really agree.

We've had powerfull stuff for a long time already. Permanent 10% admin efficiency for Mughals as well as the Diwan stuff? What about permanent war score cost for any Mongol culture nation? Or just Hordes in general and the way to become them through forming Tibet? You could argue those 'broke' the game as well. I'd argue however that having more ways to reach a certain power level makes the game more interesting, since you've got more ways of playing the game. Now, I'm not a fan of making it easy to stack all these buffs, but it's not like if you wanted to max out admin efficiency, you couldn't already.

I mean, just throwing random buffs to nations isn't a good way of making things interesting, but I'm sure a balance can be struck. If you give GB some kind of permanent bonus for conquering India, would that imbalance multiplayer? I'm guessing it changes how you approach stuff and you can't let Great Britain conquer India entirely.

Is the Angevin idea set good? Yes, maybe a bit too good, but you could always have formed Italy instead for even more improved relations as well as better CCR.

Regarding AI nations. I've never seen an AI complete a mission tree. So not sure if these 'buffs' change anything at all, unless giving more options to the single player.

Anyhow, what I see are more ways to play the game.

 

[FishieFan]

I guess I see it as boring easy-mode nations being made even easier. I guess I assume that only newbies play them?

What about people that like their home countries?

 

[bokorthedust]

Regarding AI nations. I've never seen an AI complete a mission tree. So not sure if these 'buffs' change anything at all, unless giving more options to the single player

I absolutely agree. Yes, the new trees are powercreeped, but no AI is going to accomplish them (certainly not the juicy stuff), so they are SP features. Multiplayer players might have a bone to pick though, but since I don't engage in multiplayer I have no opinion that matter. My only problem with the new trees is that they've exclusively become the go to new content for the developers, and even their "new" ideas are a rehash of previously retired mechanics. Yes, the game is old, and probably will be put out to pasture once it turns 10 this summer, but I am sad for the missed opportunities to flash out the lesser played tags of the game.