How much does « flavour » affect gameplay?

[ero_sk]

There will be flavour and indeed some country-specific, gameplay-affecting content such as unique estates and advances (as per Johan, national ideas are now blended under advances). Personally I think that it's good. Lack of flavour and unique mechanics lead to each country feeling like a little machine, affected by its position on the world map, population and some other attributes, but machine nevertheless, not differing much from others. This was demonstrating itself in the release version of Vicky 3, and has been one of the main sources of complaints ever since.

 

[Kvesir]

The flavor of many countries gives them unique mechanics, opportunities or challenges. It is significant. If it didn't then it would have been impossible for the game to simulate what historically happened.

However, that does not mean that what historically happened is railroaded - it means that many countries will have more narrative around what they did historically, which is something the absolute majority of players want. It gives the game more unique content that breaks the unitary sandboxy monotony that it would otherwise have.

Yes, I’m the type of guys who hate mission trees and dislike national ideas and any type of bonus which is linked to specific tags.

Do you also hate the HRE for being a mechanic specific to central Europeans?

 

[JacceDON]

Tamerlan was around 16 in 1337. I don't see his coming in power as inevitable by that point.

Timur was born on April 8th 1336 (and he is a baby at the start of the game as per the Tinto Flavour post). I don't know why specifically the english language Wikipedia page claims that he was born in 1320 (every other language got the year right).

 

[Lord_Telchar]

Ok that's funny. This is exactly the reason why I want the game to not be railroaded, role play. And I have a hard time seeing how a glorified history book allows that. I also have difficulty understanding how the same story being repeated again and again is interesting. Why does it always have to be a strong colonial Spain? Why not a resurgent Al Andalus? Why not Mali pushing through the Sahara and then the Mediterranean sea? Why always a strong HRE? Why not a slow decline or a complete explosion? Why always the same states too? You said it doesn't have to happen always, but railroaded means at least most of the times. How is it even possible to roleplay within history if the mechanics of the game don't simulate it properly? You know, the whole causes/consequences thing instead of the fate/essence thing.

I think you misunderstand a bit what I'm saying - I want the game resemble history through robust systems, not necessarily events that give certain countries free PUs or something like that. For example a problem with EU4 is that through the systems in place Spain becomes super powerful, similarly the PLC dominates it's region, but the historical crisis that led to their decline are not well modelled, so both kinda stay in that powerful position.
Some of these things are very hard organically model, so a certain amount of specifc PLC flavour is probably needed to model it's problems - and I think that only makes the gameplay more interesting.
Portugal trying to get to India was not a random occurance, but a centuries long policy, the game should model that.
Similarly, a resurgent HRE after the Interregnum is quite likely given the dynamics of the time, but the EU4 AI simply was incapable of modelling that, and I hope the EUV AI can.

What's needed is a healthy balance of railroading and a pure sandbox.

 

[JacceDON]

Ok that's funny. This is exactly the reason why I want the game to not be railroaded, role play. And I have a hard time seeing how a glorified history book allows that. I also have difficulty understanding how the same story being repeated again and again is interesting.

Any alternatives to real history are shallow and uninteresting by design. Once you diverge from the timeline we actually know anything about (our own) you end up with having to make stuff up - and despite how far simulations and calculations have come we're still decades away from anything resembling a realistic alt-history simulator.

With a game like EU5 the result of removing the railroading (and leaning into the sandbox) is about as deep as fantasy written by ChatGPT, fantastical but pointless to even pay attention to. Real history is so deep and vast that you can spend an entire professional life just learning scraps and pieces of it - THAT is the lore I want in a historical GSG, not the randomized slop of an AI-algorithm.

 

[Arizal]

Do you also hate the HRE for being a mechanic specific to central Europeans?

No, because the HRE existed in 1337. Maybe not in its later stage (the Golden Bull was in 1356), but close enough. It's evolution could be foreseen.

The flavor of many countries gives them unique mechanics, opportunities or challenges. If it didn't then it would have been impossible for the game to simulate what historically happened.

However, that does not mean that what historically happened is railroaded - it means that many countries will have more narrative around what they did historically, which is something the absolute majority of players want. It gives the game more unique content that breaks the unitary sandboxy monotony that it would otherwise have.

There is a difference between giving random modifiers caricaturing what happened in countries at the time and building a mechanic able to represent how things actually were.

Of course, if other countries were able to get an HRE treatment, it would be cool, but I understand the limits of that approach. But the most possible, bonuses to countries should be given because they are in certain situations, not because they enjoyed them historically.

That said, country unicity isn't as good as it sounds. The way y'all talk about it and about countries sounds like you talk about pokemons, each with their attacks, abilities, types and strength and weaknesses. This is the type of thing that should be modded lol, not sandbox.

Exactly! Britain, use the Wooden Wall! France, use Elan! Prussia, use your Space Marines. Those are mere memes. They should have no place in a game which purports to seriously represent history. Or, as people said in this thread, they should be optional or showed in a way to respect their historical inception (even though those processes are far from being fully understood even today).

Prussia wasn't extraordinary during the napoleonic wars. France's nobility was crushed at Crecy and Agincourt. Where were the winged hussards when Poland was partitined? You can't simply take very temporary prowess and turn them into permanent features of a country.

 

[Kvesir]

Any alternatives to real history are shallow and uninteresting by design. Once you diverge from the timeline we actually know anything about (our own) you end up with having to make stuff up - and despite how far simulations and calculations have come we're still decades away from anything resembling a realistic alt-history simulator.

With a game like EU5 the result of removing the railroading (and leaning into the sandbox) is about as deep as fantasy written by ChatGPT, fantastical but pointless to even pay attention to. Real history is so deep and vast that you can spend an entire professional life just learning scraps and pieces of it - THAT is the lore I want in a historical GSG, not the randomized slop of an AI-algorithm.

While I agree with you, I think the argument of OP is that the bare mechanic simulation of the game should be deep enough to allow history to be simulated organically, and not that it should have randomized alt-history narratives. I.e. "make all the unique privileges available for everyone". There are two problems with this approach:

1. It would definitely cause the game to lose content overall, because unique flavor elements that were crafted to tell a specific narrative will be folded into generalized ones that probably already exist. For example, many unique disasters will be just replaced with the generic ones.
2. There is a realistic limit to how deep the sandbox can go. Actual history is so vast that unique flavor always touches upon things that are not represented in the sandbox at all, and to extend the sandbox so much that it can simulate anything in history is obviously impossible because this is a game and the game should be released eventually.

And to be fair, I am also an advocate of having a sandbox that is deep enough to make for immersive alt-history scenarios, but this shouldn't come at a cost for the historical flavor. For example in the Mali Tinto Flavor thread I suggested that there should be a generalized disaster for an empire to collapse in a similar way to the unique Mali disaster, and Pavia agreed with me. I just don't think that the existence of such a generalized disaster should mean that the unique Mali one should be deleted - it's cool that it exists, because actual history gives us more to see in that narrative.

 

[Ru8bin]

I'm probably in the minority, but I'd say it won't affect gameplay that much.

I know people were/are accusing I:R and Vicky3 of not having enough flavour. That "playing every country feels the same". And I don't really get it. It's kinda obvious that it's generally a good idea to industrialize and so on. Some nations should industrialize and others shouldn't, just so that they could be "played differently"?

Most likely there will also be one optimal way to play EUV - pop growth, trade expansion, transformation of society from peasants to burghers and so on. In the end it'll most likely be better to have strong trade center, plenty of burghers and clergy, professional army and the like. And some people will complain that "all tags feel the same, you just have to build towns, switch to professional army and spam marketplaces".

Are three unique techs really a gamechanger? Is renaming three laws to native names instead of generic English one enough? I doubt it. Unique units will most likely have the biggest impact on gameplay, but that's it.

Flavour events are always nice and welcome, but that's also not a gamechanger that will make the player play in a completely different way than when playing another tag. Base strategy regarding pops, economy and warfare will still apply to almost all states. It doesn't mean I don't want flavour events/units/laws/techs and so on - they're great and greatly enhance the experience. I just don't think it'll have any serious impact on how people will play the game.
Flavour should be there only to feel the difference between different tags, not to make anyone OP.

I think you're overlooking what meaningful flavour actually brings to a strategy game. Saying "every country ends up industrializing or trading" is like saying "all roads lead to Rome"—sure, but the journey matters.

It's not just about reaching the same general goals like economic growth or military strength—it's about how each country gets there based on its geography, culture, starting conditions, and unique challenges. In real life, two countries might both become rich, but one does it through oil, the other through tech innovation. That difference in path is what makes things interesting.

Flavour mechanics—like unique laws, events, units, or government systems—aren’t just aesthetic. When done right, they nudge you toward different strategies, forcing you to play in ways that reflect the country’s historical or thematic strengths. A tribal confederation shouldn't play like a mercantile republic, even if both want prosperity.

So it's not about making one tag overpowered or "completely different" in every system. It's about making each feel like it belongs in its own world with its own logic. That’s what good flavour does

And the last thing: replayability is what makes Paradox games stand out. Nobody would have tens of thousands of hours in these games if every playthrough felt the same. The reason people keep coming back isn’t because of a single “optimal” strategy—it’s because every nation offers a different story worth telling.

TLDR : flavour will make a big difference, especially with Tinto’s dynamic events and region-specific mechanics(which you would know if you are following up dev diaries). Unless you're roleplaying as Antarctica, flavour is going to shape how you play.

 

[Arizal]

Let me give you a crude example : the janissaries.

At heart, they were slave soldiers from children of religious minorities abducted when they were little and raised to praise the ruling dynasty.

How could it have been possible elsewhere? Well, a possible answer could be in the laws and societal values. Maybe, in order for countries to have access to "slave soldiers", first they would have to have slavery enabled as a law in some form, and maybe a specific form of law that allows for enlisting religious minorities, even "heatens", something that wouldn't be very useful in western Europe.

Then, they would have to be spiritualist, to have serfdom to a certain degree, to be belligerent, to have a focus on quality, to be offensive and to be communalists. Those are simply traits I thought of on the top of my head. If ottomanophiles have a different, more informed, idea on what made the janissaries what they were, they would most likely be better able to strike the right balance.

All of those requirements would likely make very rare for countries to actually achieve their version of "slave soldiers", but it would still be possible. It might be a bland, not that flavorfoul version of janissaries, but it would have all the same traits as the original version. The Ottomans would have the unique name and some flavour events with real history explanations to them.

 

[SAmaster]

I'm probably in the minority, but I'd say it won't affect gameplay that much.

I know people were/are accusing I:R and Vicky3 of not having enough flavour. That "playing every country feels the same". And I don't really get it. It's kinda obvious that it's generally a good idea to industrialize and so on. Some nations should industrialize and others shouldn't, just so that they could be "played differently"?

Most likely there will also be one optimal way to play EUV - pop growth, trade expansion, transformation of society from peasants to burghers and so on. In the end it'll most likely be better to have strong trade center, plenty of burghers and clergy, professional army and the like. And some people will complain that "all tags feel the same, you just have to build towns, switch to professional army and spam marketplaces".

Are three unique techs really a gamechanger? Is renaming three laws to native names instead of generic English one enough? I doubt it. Unique units will most likely have the biggest impact on gameplay, but that's it.

Flavour events are always nice and welcome, but that's also not a gamechanger that will make the player play in a completely different way than when playing another tag. Base strategy regarding pops, economy and warfare will still apply to almost all states. It doesn't mean I don't want flavour events/units/laws/techs and so on - they're great and greatly enhance the experience. I just don't think it'll have any serious impact on how people will play the game.
Flavour should be there only to feel the difference between different tags, not to make anyone OP.

I don't think it's about the 'optimal' way to play, for instance colonizing in most instances is optimal in that it's a way to expand your land, but a lot of players ignore it, because colonizing doesn't offer too much engagement outside of historical colonizers. Even then depending on the run it may be ignored.

I'd say it's more about engagement- does playing this playstyle get rewarded? For instance, Horde gameplay is fun because you are constantly rewarded for conquest, and the ability to raze rewards you with mana points and cheaper provinces to core- even though the land you get is worth less when you get it. Playing Tall is engaging when it allows your small nation to compete as a global power, and influence global events in a way you otherwise wouldn't. Forming the HRE vassal swarm is engaging because you can sick them on enemies and let wars run on autopilot.

Now I don't think tags should be created equally- there should be winners and losers because that's what happened in history. If you want to pick a nation with no bonuses or flavors and use it to try to do a world conquest (like say a Three Mountains run) then that should be made to be challenging. I think there's a question of balance, but the answer isn't 'Uniform equal balance for all tags'. You're not gonna get that anyway, since some nations will start off in stronger positions than other- certain parts of the map are gonna be richer than others due to geography.

What I think is important about flavor mechanics is that the engage with a certain kind of playstyle that makes playing that game unique- not that it makes them overpowered. For instance, playing as the Knights is fun because you engage with the papacy and you get to raid coasts- so you have a strong position despite being a OPM. You can expand sure, but the strengths of the Knights suit them being an OPM, rather than a playing wide nation.

 

[SAmaster]

I have to admit that I find the asymmetry that inevitably arises from mission trees, flavors and bonuses etc. to be a unique selling point. Just as it has always been historically.

However, it should still be kept within certain limits.

It definitely should be balanced, which is why I don't understand the people who want them axed completely.

What I've suggested is 'modular' trees, which is what I think people mean when they say they want Imperator Rome trees (who in actuality, have terrible trees outside the unique ones, and being forced to pick them is boring and not engaging). Basically I imagine each country has a starting tree, with a unique tree per age that they unlock. You should be able to preview all these trees on the same page. But, you have the ability to weld on certain trees under certain conditions- an example would be Spain would get a unique exploration mission to simulate what happened with Colombus, as would other historical colonizers. But ahistoric colonizers get a generic (small) exploration tree that is welded onto their mission tree if they picked exploration ideas for instance. And likewise they could get a small generic colonization mission tree, while historic colonizers get more in-depth ones to reflect their historic activities.

This could also apply in other circumstances- so Venice would have a lot of missions about upgrading the city of Venice, but say if France takes it, they can unlock a 'City of Venice' tree to reflect that Venice would remain an important trade and cultural hub, and not just another random city that they own. Orthrodox Nations could unlock a semi-generic 'Stewardship of Constantinople' tree if they retake Constantinople from the Turks (or maybe someone else) that reflects the unique diplomatic questions such a conquest would ask (like say, would you want to release the Byzantines, or something else?).

In this way, while you'll have a lot of tag-specific trees, there's a lot more crossover to deal with unique events that it makes sense multiple tags would encounter. For instance- if the Mayans take Tenochitlan, maybe they unlock a portion of the Aztecs tree regarding northern Mexico, as the Mayans would likely want to develop the region in similar ways? But this would be very different from a Spanish/Mexico tree that would oversee the region in a very different way.

In a way these might be similar to the 'Matter of Gaul' mission trees of Imperator Rome, though what I'm arguing is that they'd be tailored per region to be specific, and semi-generic to certain tech-groups, while also not locking you out of other mission trees you could pursue at the same time.

 

[IAmBecomeDeath]

There absolutely is some flavor events which could be considered overpowered. Poland getting a PU over Volhynia and Lithuania through events seems pretty strong to me.

 

[Arizal]

Now I don't think tags should be created equally- there should be winners and losers because that's what happened in history. If you want to pick a nation with no bonuses or flavors and use it to try to do a world conquest (like say a Three Mountains run) then that should be made to be challenging. I think there's a question of balance, but the answer isn't 'Uniform equal balance for all tags'. You're not gonna get that anyway, since some nations will start off in stronger positions than other- certain parts of the map are gonna be richer than others due to geography.

But... it appears to me like you mix up two different things. Initial features, like territory, laws, privileges, societal values, buildings should indeed be different, and they may take a while to change, and there is an opportunity cost to change them, so that if you don't play the country as it presents itself, you lost some potential, but that's not the same as unique advances, privileges, units, buildings, mechanics... Those are things that are put on top of the general rules to make certain TAGs inherently better.

It was impossible in 1337 to guess that one day, Berlin would be the capital of a north german kingdom second in power to the Habsburg empire. Eck, it was impossible to guess that the Habsburg empire would once cover so much territory. Prussia, France, the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain didn't have their destiny written in the clouds. Their name didn't bear glorious future.

France might have, more than in the 1444 start of EUIV, appeared as a great power. But Brandenburg and Austria certainly weren't. The Ottomans were nascent and could have been replaced by anyone, including probably a (lucky) resurgent Byzantium.

The goal here isn't to make alt-history for alt-history purpose, I certainly wouldn't like DAhE (dynamic ahistorical events), coming from the imagination of content designers, it's to recognize that the processes that made history were complex and that many (if not all) historical events couldn't be guessed in advance. For that to be a lesson of the game, they would need to let go of the urge to force outcomes.

 

[InvisibleBison]

Any alternatives to real history are shallow and uninteresting by design. Once you diverge from the timeline we actually know anything about (our own) you end up with having to make stuff up - and despite how far simulations and calculations have come we're still decades away from anything resembling a realistic alt-history simulator.

With a game like EU5 the result of removing the railroading (and leaning into the sandbox) is about as deep as fantasy written by ChatGPT, fantastical but pointless to even pay attention to. Real history is so deep and vast that you can spend an entire professional life just learning scraps and pieces of it - THAT is the lore I want in a historical GSG, not the randomized slop of an AI-algorithm.

Sure, real history is deep and vast, but grand strategy games are not the place for that depth and vastness to be shown. Creating alternate histories is fundamentally baked into the premise of the genre. In order to make the game mimic history, you have to remove the gameplay from the game - ie, deny both the player and the AI the ability to make different decisions than the nation they're playing as actually made. The idea that you can have a game that is historical in some ways but not in others is just absurd.

 

[SAmaster]

While I agree with you, I think the argument of OP is that the bare mechanic simulation of the game should be deep enough to allow history to be simulated organically, and not that it should have randomized alt-history narratives. I.e. "make all the unique privileges available for everyone". There are two problems with this approach:

1. It would definitely cause the game to lose content overall, because unique flavor elements that were crafted to tell a specific narrative will be folded into generalized ones that probably already exist. For example, many unique disasters will be just replaced with the generic ones.
2. There is a realistic limit to how deep the sandbox can go. Actual history is so vast that unique flavor always touches upon things that are not represented in the sandbox at all, and to extend the sandbox so much that it can simulate anything in history is obviously impossible because this is a game and the game should be released eventually.

And to be fair, I am also an advocate of having a sandbox that is deep enough to make for immersive alt-history scenarios, but this shouldn't come at a cost for the historical flavor. For example in the Mali Tinto Flavor thread I suggested that there should be a generalized disaster for an empire to collapse in a similar way to the unique Mali disaster, and Pavia agreed with me. I just don't think that the existence of such a generalized disaster should mean that the unique Mali one should be deleted - it's cool that it exists, because actual history gives us more to see in that narrative.

Exactly. The two cakes approach.

We can have unique disasters that are tag specific, and general disasters. Like say Sweden got a unique peasants war disaster, and everyone else could encounter a general peasants war disaster.

But... it appears to me like you mix up two different things. Initial features, like territory, laws, privileges, societal values, buildings should indeed be different, and they may take a while to change, and there is an opportunity cost to change them, so that if you don't play the country as it presents itself, you lost some potential, but that's not the same as unique advances, privileges, units, buildings, mechanics... Those are things that are put on top of the general rules to make certain TAGs inherently better.

I mentioned some tags SHOULD be inherently better than others.

The goal here isn't to make alt-history for alt-history purpose, I certainly wouldn't like DAhE (dynamic ahistorical events), coming from the imagination of content designers, it's to recognize that the processes that made history were complex and that many (if not all) historical events couldn't be guessed in advance. For that to be a lesson of the game, they would need to let go of the urge to force outcomes.

Okay explain this, because I have no idea what you're talking about.

I understand the idea of say 'I think it'd be fun if the Byzantines became the dominant balkan power instead of the Ottomans'. I think that should be rare, but I understand wanting to see the level of alt-history.

What I less understand is 'we should allow it so the AI never colonizes as Spain, and they just end up as an irrelevant rump-state that ends up getting eaten by Genoa' or some such.

Let's phrase it this way- I think the 'railroading vs. sandbox' dichotomy is what we're really talking about (I'm thinking about making a thread on that specific topic), where do you want to put the needle on that spectrum? For me, I want it put it at like 75% railroading, 25% sandbox. I want to see historical empires rise, because I don't want to play through, as another person put it, ChatGPT history.

 

[SAmaster]

Sure, real history is deep and vast, but grand strategy games are not the place for that depth and vastness to be shown. Creating alternate histories is fundamentally baked into the premise of the genre. In order to make the game mimic history, you have to remove the gameplay from the game - ie, deny both the player and the AI the ability to make different decisions than the nation they're playing as actually made. The idea that you can have a game that is historical in some ways but not in others is just absurd.

It's certainly difficult but not absurd. Most Paradox games do this to an extent.

HOI4 for instance generally portays the ups and downs of WW2 until you click the 'random focuses' buttons which is when it REALLY goes off the rails. Otherwise the nations you expect to see in the Axis and Allies show up, and their historical military strengths and weaknesses tends to shine through.

Honestly about the only truly ahistorical thing I'd say is the ability of the Axis to actually cap the USSR- but I guess there's no 'shoot Stalin' button for if the war REALLY takes a turn, so they want to simulate Stalin's ability to truely botch things, and not 'railroad' that he did manage to turn things around by letting the military do its job.

 

[Arizal]

Exactly. The two cakes approach.

We can have unique disasters that are tag specific, and general disasters. Like say Sweden got a unique peasants war disaster, and everyone else could encounter a general peasants war disaster.

Indeed, this is another way of doing what I want... as long as the peasant war disaster of Sweden doesn't end up giving them more modifiers.

I mentioned some tags SHOULD be inherently better than others.

And I disagreed.

Okay explain this, because I have no idea what you're talking about.

I understand the idea of say 'I think it'd be fun if the Byzantines became the dominant balkan power instead of the Ottomans'. I think that should be rare, but I understand wanting to see the level of alt-history.

What I less understand is 'we should allow it so the AI never colonizes as Spain, and they just end up as an irrelevant rump-state that ends up getting eaten by Genoa' or some such.

Let's phrase it this way- I think the 'railroading vs. sandbox' dichotomy is what we're really talking about (I'm thinking about making a thread on that specific topic), where do you want to put the needle on that spectrum? For me, I want it put it at like 75% railroading, 25% sandbox. I want to see historical empires rise, because I don't want to play through, as another person put it, ChatGPT history.

It should be rare because Spain (or Castille and Aragon) starts in such a powerful state compared to Genoa. But if 'Spain' gets utterly smashed by France, Portugal and Granada, and reduced to a rump state around Barcelona, why shouldn't Genoa conquer it?

But okay, let's entertain the analogy with HoI4. Let's pretend you can have a toggle in which you can turn off the mission trees and even generalize many of the unique bonuses, and turn off the others. Would I be satisfied?

Yes.

 

[Ispil]

What is a tag, really?

Primary culture and religion can be changed. Ruling dynasty can be changed. System of government can be changed. Even the name can be changed, from a technical perspective (the name of a country is something entirely scriptable). Flags are no different.

So what makes a tag, a tag? What makes England, England, in this game, if so many core components of it can be changed out with something else? It's not the culture, or the religion, or the ruling dynasty, or the system of government, or the name, or the flag.

It is what they lay as their claim for what they are. The heritage in which they claim to represent. That claim, and that heritage, is the basis for country-specific flavor and mechanics (as opposed to culture-specific or religion-specific or government-specific or dynasty-specific or geography-specific or whatever else).

That, to me, is the basis both of formable countries and of what country-specific flavor should be.

 

[SAmaster]

Indeed, this is another way of doing what I want... as long as the peasant war disaster of Sweden doesn't end up giving them more modifiers.

Why shouldn't Sweden get a WORSE modifier for a unique disaster? This seems like a thing to get caught up on only for purist reasons.

It should be rare because Spain (or Castille and Aragon) starts in such a powerful state compared to Genoa. But if 'Spain' gets utterly smashed by France, Portugal and Granada, and reduced to a rump state around Barcelona, why shouldn't Genoa conquer it?

No, I'm talking about a scenario where Spain is reduced to a rump state because they are bad at the game- they mismanage their economy, get a ton of corruption, get decadent uncaring monarchs, etc. etc. not cause of outside factors that cause an equally large and powerful empire to take their place (like the Byzantium/Ottomans example).

But okay, let's entertain the analogy with HoI4. Let's pretend you can have a toggle in which you can turn off the mission trees and even generalize many of the unique bonuses, and turn off the others. Would I be satisfied?

Yes.

Yeah I'm fine with the ability to toggle features on and off- certain features I'm a bit leery of- like people suggesting the ability to turn India off in CK3, but hey, more player freedom right? I honestly prefer that it's done on a per-mechanic basis too, than a pre-DLC basis since there might be some aspects of a DLC I like or don't like.

I actually love the ability to select specific focus-trees for HOI4 to create certain scenarios- like say an 'Allies Vs. Comintern' run.

My only issue is that I doubt EU5 can be so flexible as to pre-select certain routes- it's too dynamic in that way (and I'm not saying it shouldn't be). HOI4 generally gives four mission paths for each tag based on ideology (with occasionally sub-paths, more common for mods), but I actually wouldn't want a railroading in a sense where I can toggle the 'Buff Byzantium' path so that I can play a game with a resurgent Byzantium in every campaign. That'd be fun, but also I wouldn't want that to be quite so artificial. I do think there is some room for 'toggleable paths' but I think they don't rest with the individual mission trees.

I've mentioned before in other threads I'd like Paradox to do a 'Nuke Europe' option that turns off European Colonization so we can play in the America's without the fear of the Spanish Armegeddon, but I think that should be done via some ingame system (like worse climate, or more aggressive black death, or even an alt-hist setup) rather than individually turning off colonization for all the big players. Another option I've suggested would be a 'Classical Resurgence' in the monothiestic world, but that again wouldn't be tied to tags (or if it is, it's limited) but event chains that spawn centers of reformation for the old-god religions (NOTE: This would be a very wacky option that has to either be unlocked like per mission tree on an individual run, or again, toggled on and off, with off by default- this would only be for players that want to do the meme run).

What is a tag, really?

Primary culture and religion can be changed. Ruling dynasty can be changed. System of government can be changed. Even the name can be changed, from a technical perspective (the name of a country is something entirely scriptable). Flags are no different.

So what makes a tag, a tag? What makes England, England, in this game, if so many core components of it can be changed out with something else? It's not the culture, or the religion, or the ruling dynasty, or the system of government, or the name, or the flag.

It is what they lay as their claim for what they are. The heritage in which they claim to represent. That claim, and that heritage, is the basis for country-specific flavor and mechanics (as opposed to culture-specific or religion-specific or government-specific or dynasty-specific or geography-specific or whatever else).

That, to me, is the basis both of formable countries and of what country-specific flavor should be.

We should note that any formable requires there to be no other country that is that tag. To form England, England must first be destroyed.

Anyway, while I'm a materialist, I think it's a mistake that people often make to assume that nationalism is this nonexistent fiction- that governance is purely down to numbers on a spreadsheet. But I think nationalism is real, as real as Morale as at any rate, and this should be represented in the game as something more than just numbers on a spreadsheet.

One can argue that nationalism as a force was invented with the Treaty of Westphalia, but I argue that it's precursors stem back to this era- It was CERTAINLY a major factor in the Scottish War of Independence, which forged the Scottish national identity like no other event in history (and there's a LOT to choose from).

 

[InvisibleBison]

It is what they lay as their claim for what they are. The heritage in which they claim to represent. That claim, and that heritage, is the basis for country-specific flavor and mechanics (as opposed to culture-specific or religion-specific or government-specific or dynasty-specific or geography-specific or whatever else).

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're trying to say here. How is this different from culture? And how does this justify tag-specific content? What does it mean that England claims to be England and represent English heritage, and how does that justify them having unique civil wars in the 15th and 17th centuries (or whatever bespoke content England ends up getting)?