I don't think EU5 will be fun on its release. Perhaps a year afterward. Per usual, I'll just wait until things are smoothed out before investing in a new software title.
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Seems like Paradox has made their newer games much more accessible, but that only exposed the core weakness.
At its base the games from CK, EU, Stellaris, HOI, etc, have always been extraordinarily lenient on the player. The difficulty comes from learning the game mechanics and interface.
Once someone is acclimated to that we have what is essentially a stable blob of a player realm that easily expands and sees no serious internal strife that commonly ripped apart/stagnated these realms. With no internal strife to churn the player's game and make large blobs (theirs particularly) unstable, there's nothing to engage the player except expand. Problem is that it's just ultimately shallow gameplay as you eventually become so big there's no external challenge large enough to engage the player anymore.
We have to have a big France or Ottoman to grow extraordinarily large or else we have no end game challenge. AI is always incompetent for not growing as fast or too fast compared to disparities in player skill. Rather than ask for realms that increasingly get more unstable as it gets larger, so players and AI would increasingly need to focus attention inwards until it occupies most of their time. Punishment for ignoring it being a fracture like multiple large cultures/religions or entire culture/religion groups declaring a nationalist independence revolt with foreign backing. Some internal strife to churn large realms up and keep blobs to a manageable size, where you don't need half the world in a coalition to barely engage a player.
At its base the games from CK, EU, Stellaris, HOI, etc, have always been extraordinarily lenient on the player. The difficulty comes from learning the game mechanics and interface.
Once someone is acclimated to that we have what is essentially a stable blob of a player realm that easily expands and sees no serious internal strife that commonly ripped apart/stagnated these realms. With no internal strife to churn the player's game and make large blobs (theirs particularly) unstable, there's nothing to engage the player except expand. Problem is that it's just ultimately shallow gameplay as you eventually become so big there's no external challenge large enough to engage the player anymore.
We have to have a big France or Ottoman to grow extraordinarily large or else we have no end game challenge. AI is always incompetent for not growing as fast or too fast compared to disparities in player skill. Rather than ask for realms that increasingly get more unstable as it gets larger, so players and AI would increasingly need to focus attention inwards until it occupies most of their time. Punishment for ignoring it being a fracture like multiple large cultures/religions or entire culture/religion groups declaring a nationalist independence revolt with foreign backing. Some internal strife to churn large realms up and keep blobs to a manageable size, where you don't need half the world in a coalition to barely engage a player.
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I have little hopes for this being solved, even if it MIGHT be improved a little.
The core issue seems to be AI really, and trying to come up with AI that would act at least somewhat like a real human agent is tenfold as difficult in a GSG game compared to, dunno, your average RPG.
Most importantly there just doesn't seem to be that much motivation for it. If you look at EU4, you have more people complaining about supposed AI cheating, because they feel overwhelmed by it, than people asking for AI to be improved, as currently it's unable to handle half of the tools that the player is given.
EU4, and other PDX gsgs, are so "frontloaded" in how overwhelming the initial experience is as you are dropped into a game with a thousand different mechanics, numbers and buttons, that only the most dedicated players will even get to be able to notice how awful some underlying aspects of the game are.
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Well, difference between GSG and RPG is RPG generally has a limited amount of experience/levels over time and devs can scale difficulty based off of that estimated level.
In GSG expansion is based off player skill, or more accurately in Paradox games, based off player familiarity with interface/mechanics. More familiar they are, easier it is to do things like expand.
Which is why I prefer having internal be an actual difficulty modifier rather than rely on the external as Paradox mostly does. The larger the realm the more unstable it is, with various cultures and religions to wrangle together. That way those unfamiliar with the game can remain small and focus on learning it rather than managing the realm, while those familiar don't get bored halfway into the campaign and abandon it before the end date as is so very common for most players.
It's difficult to do of course as it's frustrating to lose progress with say, a realm fracture, independence war, civil war if you slip up on increasingly intensive realm maintenance as you grow larger. But I find it necessary as allowing constant growth with near nonexistent internal strife just means AI must be "unfair" (Very Hard bonuses) or blob out of control to even have a hope of engaging the player later in the game.
In GSG expansion is based off player skill, or more accurately in Paradox games, based off player familiarity with interface/mechanics. More familiar they are, easier it is to do things like expand.
Which is why I prefer having internal be an actual difficulty modifier rather than rely on the external as Paradox mostly does. The larger the realm the more unstable it is, with various cultures and religions to wrangle together. That way those unfamiliar with the game can remain small and focus on learning it rather than managing the realm, while those familiar don't get bored halfway into the campaign and abandon it before the end date as is so very common for most players.
It's difficult to do of course as it's frustrating to lose progress with say, a realm fracture, independence war, civil war if you slip up on increasingly intensive realm maintenance as you grow larger. But I find it necessary as allowing constant growth with near nonexistent internal strife just means AI must be "unfair" (Very Hard bonuses) or blob out of control to even have a hope of engaging the player later in the game.
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EU4 players are allergic to taking any losses.
When I noticed how insanely wildspread savescumming over even simple things is when I've realized that what you are talking about would probably just not be very succseful.
EU4 players by and large draw their enjoyment from feeling powerful. The success of mission trees recently - which are mostly about making the player feel powerful - is an example of that. If you make it so that they'll be able to lose their progress if they screw up like this, they'll either just save scum A LOT or stop playing.
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I think there are two fundamentally different groups of EU4 players.
One group plays for the Challenge. These guys use the word "boring" a lot when discussing the game. "I only play OPM vassals on very hard, otherwise the game is boring!" - basically, the game is entertaining to them as long as they are likely to lose, the enjoyment for them comes from adrenalin, from overcoming insane odds. Unfortunately for them, they are very good at solving problems, so after a while they learn all possible exploits and crazy strats for "doomed" tags, and at this point there's no Challenge for them anymore. This leads to a constant struggle between the devs patching out exploits and the Challengers finding new ones almost immediately.
Then, there's another group, people who just want to play in a sandbox. They enjoy the ability to play out some story in their head while playing the game. It might be a "my favorite nation conquers as much as possible" story, or it migt be "my favorite nation becomes very strong and prosperous" story, or it might be "my favorite religion converts all the heatens" story, or anything else, really. They want about as much challenge as a kid playing with their toys: the enemies should look scary and there should be an illusion that they can win, but if the enemy actually win it will be just annoying and frustrating, not "fun" at all! Fun is when my story can continue, not when it's rudely interrupted by an enemy blob or bad RNG!
Apparently, most players belong to the second group, so the game is mostly catering to them.
I think there is room between the two extremes. I enjoy making my favourites do well, but I also wouldn't want it to be too easy, or it doesn't feel as rewarding.
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It sounds pretty widespread, yes. No problem if they do it more often then.
I prefer my sandbox not ballooning endlessly until I need a galaxy strength coalition to engage me. And then beating that once means game's "over," rest is a tedious grind as, for example, 34% of the world (you) vs 66% then turns into 35% vs 65%. The enormous amount of unfinished campaigns (play until end date) is just a testament to how consistently players just lose engagement once they grow too big. No amount of save scumming re-engages the player at that point.
You put it better than I ever could
although I think what you mention in your conclusion is a bit self-created
EU4 didn't cater to the 'sandboxers' anywhere near as much in the past. I think we had two turning points, really. One was 1.28, which is the first instance that I can think of of EU4 going in a wildly ahistorical direction - as in to what they showed in the game previously - for the purpose of enhancing that 'player sandbox' , and I'm thinking of the weird focus on pirate republics and such, as well as the first instance of mission trees with insane rewards to a point of having the potential of literally just ending the campaign outright in the first few decades for the "non-sandboxy" people
The 2nd turning point was 1.31, when Tinto came over, and they gave up on creating new mechanics, thus the natural focus became just creating mission trees which... yeah
Think its natural that the moment you start focusing less on making a strategy game, and more on a sandbox (kind of like, dunno, totally accurate battle simulator except its totally accurate history simulator), those who like that will stay and buy the DLCs you make, and those who don't will just.. not
^A disclaimer that I don't think making a sandbox out of EU4 is "wrong" even if it's not quite my style for the most part .
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I find a happy medium by actually implementing the internal conflicts, since unlike external only conflicts, internal conflicts should scale in frequency and nuisance as the realm would. Just as the player or AI has more to work with, so would their nobles, merchants, clergy, rival brother, Different culture, etc.
We could keep the goals contained and unambitious, which would leave realm management manageable.......or go on massive half continent sub 100 year conquests, watch it get unmanageable and likely fracture within the conqueror's third generation. Something fairly common with realms of the earlier parts of this era. With increasingly unmanageable internal threats scaled to realm size, we no longer need an excessively competent AI or ridiculous VH or Lucky buffs designed to make end game blobs for external challenge. There'd just be a natural equilibrium realm size for a regional power rivaled to other regional powers of realm that has reached equilibrium.
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Is there any post mortem for Imperator? I understand it probably won't ever be available to the public, but it's interesting to think about.
Unless EU5 is actually super amazing and a huge improvement on EU4 I'll just play EU4 until EU5 goes on sale for 20 bucks, I can wait.
i do not see any problem with "unfinished" campaigns. You reached your own goal. why play till 1820? Those are not really unfinished campaigns to begin with. you finished your game.
More internal and peacetime content would be nice if it was fun. A one Tag WC might be unrealistic and of questionable fun, but you would have to work hard to make "you are too big, now you get negative stuff thrown at you" make a better game.
More internal and peacetime content would be nice if it was fun. A one Tag WC might be unrealistic and of questionable fun, but you would have to work hard to make "you are too big, now you get negative stuff thrown at you" make a better game.
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So reach your goal, nothing stopping you doing so at whatever date. Unlike what we have now, Internal keeps players engaged all throughout the time period as their realm churns from expansion as any realm does.
I find the blase treatment of different cultures, realms, factions of nobility and such, providing little to no permanent internal problems rather more unrealistic. Worse, more trivial as you get larger, when the opposite should be true historically and gameplay wise.
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i doubt it. it will not keep players engaged. it will keep players annoyed. but i would be totally on your side IF it would be good gameplay. i would take it with pleasure and be happy to have something to do but grow. i just do not believe it.
the first thing that pops into my mind is magna mundi. that eu 3 mod had all that stuff and did just punish you for everything you did. Punish in the name of realism and historicity..
still i would be happy to be proven wrong.
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And this has got doubly difficult in recent years. Since 2019 or so I’ve seen the question emerge and come up more and more frequently: should EUIV AI play like a historical country (a real human RPing), or should it play to conquer the world (like a “real human”)?
In the past a great portion of EU’s audience was playing to explore alternate history, build up a country, unify some historically un-unified home region or write an AAR. It’s only since EUIV, and not even since the beginning of EUIV, that a good portion of the audience has seemingly pivoted to focus on “optimal play” (a contradiction in terms of ever I heard one), world conquest and other methods of turning this video game into a job.
So now the AI designers get to decide what kind of human the AI should behave like: if it plays like an RPer then world conquest is even more laughably easy; if it plays like a WCer then the game is utterly unsatisfactory for RPers. I don’t envy them.
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It should react to the player.
Is the player just vibing in his single province in Lubeck? Yeah AI can play more or less historically (as in. with historical plausability)
Is the player blobbing and trying to conquer the world? yeah maybe it's kind of dumb that you can conquer half of the world and the other half is apparently fine with that and carries on with their merry exploration administrative idea groups picks.
I'd like the AI to be like a human being not in that it tries to become the strongest country, but that it acts somewhat plausibly according to how a ruler, rulers and people of such times would, especially in terms of adaptation to changing dynamics of the world rather than pretending that the world in 1444 is the same as in 1700s.
But that's extremely hard to make
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So now we need two different AIs and a way for it to determine which of the two is needed, right? Because when you’ve conquered half the world it’s already too late for the AI to go “oh, world conqueror is on the way, time to start playing competitively”. But then also it can’t do that too early, because no matter how good the player if the AI decides on 11.11.1444 that the human is a world conqueror they’re 100% doomed…
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Nope, in fact, what I describe is already how the AI works to a degree, just that it'd need to be significantly expanded in a targeted manner.
We don't need two AIs.
We need AIs that are able to correctly compute several metrics about the world and their surroundings in somewhat real time
"How safe am I"?
"Given the history of this country, how likely are they to try to harm me"
"This country seems to have picked trade ideas over quality so they probably don't care too much about military, so I can be more likely to ally them"
"Oh this (player) country seems to have conquered half of the world, maybe I should think of it as a threat, start allying others and get military idea groups"
And is that working successfully? If the AI was remotely competent at detecting and reacting to world conquerors then world conquest should be virtually impossible: even within existing mechanics however big you get, the coalition you’re perpetually facing should be several times larger and perfectly prepared to trucebreak and go deep into debt and all the rest.
I don’t know. This “AI should detect my intentions and play against them (but not too well or I won’t have a chance)” seems like a big ask to me.