Given the state of new PDX games these days, do you actually think EUV will be any fun?

[Arizal]

@Blindbohemian I get what you mean when you talk about the AI being either too "competitive" or too passive. The devs tried to balance the HRE for it to not become a huge collection of blobs for a long time. Having huge blobs destroys the immersion, but when you yourself are a blob, it seems unfair to scold the AI for that.

I think this is a symptom of a bigger problem. The AI has no regards for balance of power. Yes, there are rivals, but when the only value producing coalitions is AE, which can be burned or avoided, it is only a matter of time before the world consolidates into a few blobs.

I think the player should be incentivized more to use the return cores and release countries options. Upsetting the balance of power should be a big deal, so that if a Louis XIV's grandson is about to inherit both Spain and France, countries who are independant and fear the hegemony of France should gang up against it, even if it's not an agressive move. Sure, some countries could be soothed, and total domination shouldn't be completely impossible, but it's currently far too easy to just become the stronger country without ever having to fight a coalition war.

This would require a total reworking of AE and the way diplomacy work, though, and would likely be seen as the game "punishing" "competitive" players.

"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"

1. That makes sense.
2. Never. The AI should not be evaluating its position relative to history. The game has its own history, being procedurally generated.
3. If the country picked trade and has strong allies, yes you can be friendly to them, but if they play like a total noob with no protection whatsoever, go feed on them.
4. Yes, that's what I'm saying above. More than just a country being agressive, its position in the world should be evaluated as a threat to the "Westphalian order".

 

[Jarvin]

2. Never. The AI should not be evaluating its position relative to history. The game has its own history, being procedurally generated.

Sorry I should've clarified. That's exactly what I meant

It's kind of like: this country spent 200 years ever since the game started trying to conquer its neighbors, maybe I should consider that before i just let them do more of that.

 

[Blindbohemian]

I get what you mean when you talk about the AI being either too "competitive" or too passive.

My sense is that WC players don’t actually want a competent AI, because a remotely competent AI would coalition and kick the hell out of them three months into the game. So might as well make the AI RP real good. I agree that a concern for the balance of power is a sensible element of that.

 

[Jarvin]

My sense is that WC players don’t actually want a competent AI, because a remotely competent AI would coalition and kick the hell out of them three months into the game. So might as well make the AI RP real good. I agree that a concern for the balance of power is a sensible element of that.

That's a pretty wrong sense I think.

WC players aren't WC players because they specifically only want to WC. They are WCers because that's kind of the "peak" of what you can do in this game.
WC players will by and large be happy if the AI kicks their butts better, because solving the challenge of the gameplay is kind of what they enjoy.

 

[Blindbohemian]

That's a pretty wrong sense I think.

WC players aren't WC players because they specifically only want to WC. They are WCers because that's kind of the "peak" of what you can do in this game.
WC players will by and large be happy if the AI kicks their butts better, because solving the challenge of the gameplay is kind of what they enjoy.

I hope you’re right. If that’s the case it would solve a lot of the key tensions I mentioned earlier in this thread, because just making the game deeper and harder might prevent them from WCing but would still mean there are extreme challenges for people to overcome. However when I’ve seen suggestions put forward in the past I have seen people respond “but then WC would be impossible”. Similarly, I've seen many people enraged by the fact that starting as Ardabil is really, really hard rather than, say, celebrating that what should be an extremely difficult start is extremely difficult. I’m not entirely convinced.

 

[Arizal]

Sorry I should've clarified. That's exactly what I meant

It's kind of like: this country spent 200 years ever since the game started trying to conquer its neighbors, maybe I should consider that before i just let them do more of that.

Oh, sorry, I mistook entirely what you meant. Ok, so you would like the AI to consider that if a country has been pacifist for the past 50 years, the AI would consider it more trustworthy than a total warmonger... Like, the AI would basically assign to you one of the personality it gives to the AI rulers.

I actually don't dislike this idea, but I'm not sure how far we can go with it. I would propose a derivative idea to what you are saying. Maybe a value could affect trust. If you are known to betray everyone, people would be less likely to want to be your allies, whereas if you have been a loyal ally to everyone (and I mean by that actually helping them in wars), you would have a trust boost.

I hope you’re right. If that’s the case it would solve a lot of the key tensions I mentioned earlier in this thread, because just making the game deeper and harder might prevent them from WCing but would still mean there are extreme challenges for people to overcome. However when I’ve seen suggestions put forward in the past I have seen people respond “but then WC would be impossible”, so I’m not entirely convinced.

Right, I have been on those forums for long enough to see that many mechanics aimed at representing the inner struggles of countries or the difficulty to maintain a large empire through diplomacy or internal strife have been rejected because they lead to a static world or were deemed “unfun”. When they weren’t removed, they were dumbed down to oblivion.

Internal politics is treated like a minigame. I like the estates, but when they are under control it takes a lot for something bad to happen to you. Revolts only come from recently conquered territories, so you don’t really have a sense of the vastness of your empire. Since managing your empire is so easy, and since having peace with your neighbor is also very straightforward, having insane borders and looking for more is the way to go if you want to have something to do.

 

[Johan]

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.

not sure we have one publicly.

 

[Xam Enyap]

I'm sure EUV will be great a few years after its release, and a bunch of DLC, yes.

Im not even sure about that lately. CKIII is still just underdeveloped generically medieval RPG fluff with very little grand strategy or cultural flavor. I dont know maybe it's me getting old but newer games are kinda meh and I cant even properly put in words why it seems so. They feel like they are not made for someone like me but with other audience in mind. Old games felt like they were made for history geeks who grew up in 80 - 90-ties, reading history and history fiction while salivating over gorgeous paper maps.

 

[SolSys]

Im not even sure about that lately. CKIII is still just underdeveloped generically medieval RPG fluff with very little grand strategy or cultural flavor. I dont know maybe it's me getting old but newer games are kinda meh and I cant even properly put in words why it seems so. They feel like they are not made for someone like me but with other audience in mind. Old games felt like they were made for history geeks who grew up in 80 - 90-ties, reading history and history fiction while salivating over gorgeous paper maps.

I think you just described getting old(er).
You simply cannot mentally afford the time to get into games like you used to when you were younger (or even 5-10 years ago).

Nowadays, I play some random game once a year over the holidays only if I know they last around 15 hours or less
The rest of the time? -- job, bills, family, life, and so on.

I still buy a game every now and then in the hopes that I'll get to play it once I'm retired and will have time (and money) to do so.

 

[Bohemian_warlord]

My sense is that WC players don’t actually want a competent AI, because a remotely competent AI would coalition and kick the hell out of them three months into the game. So might as well make the AI RP real good. I agree that a concern for the balance of power is a sensible element of that.

From what I noticed AI doesnt really matter that much, its just too dumb to prevent WC. The main issue to WC and expansion in general are artificial speed limiters (e.g. you cant legally take entire country after you physically conquered it). It feels more like the devs are coping with inability to program competent AI rather than making the game easier; which is understandable as the game is very complex.
In terms of game design philosophy it is better to avoid artificial limiters and just program proper "balance of power" algorithms into AI . Catering to players who want easy WC will just alienate both the challenge-oriented players and history-oriented ones.

I say, let the devs do their best to develop good, competitive AI. One can give it human-like quirks afterwards.

 

[grommile]

I say, let the devs do their best to develop good, competitive AI. One can give it human-like quirks afterwards.

The problem is, 99% of the AI's opponents are... the AI.

And broadly speaking, the AI cannot be better than itself.

 

[Koopatin]

I think you just described getting old(er).
You simply cannot mentally afford the time to get into games like you used to when you were younger (or even 5-10 years ago).

Nowadays, I play some random game once a year over the holidays only if I know they last around 15 hours or less
The rest of the time? -- job, bills, family, life, and so on.

I still buy a game every now and then in the hopes that I'll get to play it once I'm retired and will have time (and money) to do so.

i have NES games on the pile of "for retirement" i think we will not really play them... at least my NES will still work then.

*edit* turtles nes... stupid jump in the sewers... i will do it one day!

 

[Bohemian_warlord]

The problem is, 99% of the AI's opponents are... the AI.

And broadly speaking, the AI cannot be better than itself.

Yea, which is good for Paradox because they can test the game against itself and see if it yields plausible history without expensive playtesters. But at the end of the day you have to throw player into the pit and if the AI was balanced properly, the average player should more or less blend in without looking too strong or too weak.

Player is fundamentally different from AI, because he can learn and exploit loopholes in AI code. AI can only learn by being updated by devs.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

The problem is, 99% of the AI's opponents are... the AI.

And broadly speaking, the AI cannot be better than itself.

Sure it can; just ally whichever AI you want it to be better than.

 

[Brynjar]

Johan tells us he wouldn’t repeat mission trees while the team is churning out DLC that’s basically just mission trees.

That's not an entirely accurate interpretation of what he has said. He has said that he doesn't like the current mission trees/system. Afaik he has nothing against Imperator style mission trees.

I don't like the current mission system in EU4 at all. The UI is unwieldly, and its very "unscaleable", as in a country only ever has one tree.

I much prefer the mission system in Imperator.

I don't think the current mission tree design we have in eu4 is very good. There are lots of great gameplay experiences that our content designers have created with it that many many people like to play though.

Me personally, I think that the Imperator Mission System is far superior and would make for a more adaptive, more immersive and more expandable experience.

Me personally, I am not a huge fan of our current mission system, and I tend to prefer more open-ended systems.

I would love to see mission trees gone entirely from EU5, but I fear we are going to be stuck with mission trees in some form.

 

[Arizal]

Well, they reintroduced missions in Victoria 3 as agendas, so yes, it seems that the crowd of people asking for “content” and “flavour” will win because it is easier to make a railroaded story pack than new mechanics representing a struggle one or many countries lived and that other countries could have experienced.

I have been vocal in the past by stating my hatred for mission trees (not for the people making them, though) and I don’t think I’ll ever like a mechanic aimed at giving discrete bonuses to specific countries based on a dubious (sometimes caricatural) understanding of their history. To me, this shouldn’t have its place in a grand strategy game which relies on its core mechanics and rules.

But… that debate has been done and redone over the years. In other threads it has been said that mission trees were hurting EUIV in the long run. Seems like they still managed to make a few other expansions based on that. Did they sell well? Is the game better? Would there be a way to make a DLC system which reconciles the player base? Assuming my concerns are shared by other players, of course.

 

[Marquoz]

I think you just described getting old(er).
You simply cannot mentally afford the time to get into games like you used to when you were younger (or even 5-10 years ago).

Older, but not old. When you're genuinely old, you retire, and then you can game as much as you did as a child. That's what I'm doing.

 

[John Smith74]

Well, they reintroduced missions in Victoria 3 as agendas, so yes, it seems that the crowd of people asking for “content” and “flavour” will win because it is easier to make a railroaded story pack than new mechanics representing a struggle one or many countries lived and that other countries could have experienced.

I have been vocal in the past by stating my hatred for mission trees (not for the people making them, though) and I don’t think I’ll ever like a mechanic aimed at giving discrete bonuses to specific countries based on a dubious (sometimes caricatural) understanding of their history. To me, this shouldn’t have its place in a grand strategy game which relies on its core mechanics and rules.

But… that debate has been done and redone over the years. In other threads it has been said that mission trees were hurting EUIV in the long run. Seems like they still managed to make a few other expansions based on that. Did they sell well? Is the game better? Would there be a way to make a DLC system which reconciles the player base? Assuming my concerns are shared by other players, of course.

The arguement that mission tree DLCs sell well doesn’t really consider the counter factual - that they would sell better than a DLC that improves or creates new generalised mechanics instead. I think the latter would sell much better imo. But, the problem I think is that mission trees are much easier to create and implement than generalised mechanics and so less risk of a buggy unbalanced DLC release, especially given EU4s lifespan. So basically I think currently mission tree DLCs have a safer return on investment than mechanics DLCs. I doubt this would be the case after the release of EU5.

 

[skyman100]

As much as I would like to be hype for a EUV I just can't do it after VIC3, and CK3 being downgrades for me on top of the UI while being pretty is not well designed. It is fairly obvious that PDX in its sequels are trying to stray away from its old more hardcore players and pushing its games to be simpler and pretier with content drip fed back from the previous title. CK3 for example has sold back features from CK2 as dlc multiple times. Imagine EU5 doesn't ship with estates for example and it's added a year later tweaked a bit and sold to you in dlc 2. If It ends up being good I would be overjoyed but I won't hold my breath.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

One of the important, if unappreciated, benefits of the whole Imperator experience is the fact that if the game had never existed and the mistakes there hadn't been made, the exact same mistakes almost certainly would have occurred in EU5 instead.

EU5 better be a masterpiece, because the pain I felt when Imperator closed was immense. Paradox basically RPed the Vandals and ransacked Rome, siphoning the best development team to all the other projects

In all seriousness though, I’m really happy that Johan is very willing to learn from his mistakes and move forward. I wish other developers were more communicative as such.