I'm afraid of EU5

[Robotx2300]

Given PDX's recent takes on simplifying their newer games and making them more alt-history based i'm genuinely afraid of a potential EU5 just being a worse game with graphic improvements.

CK2 was my favorite game for so long but CK3 just doesn't have the same magic and while HOI4 is ok, even today I still prefer HOI3. Given the recent updates about Vicky3, i'm afraid that realism and complexity are being thrown out the window and left for modders to fix. Even now while I love EU4 and is my favorite game of all time with 8,544 hours played I still wish it had a bit more historic feasibility.

For example, the whole Iran situation as it stands is 9/10 Qara Qoyunlu is never taken out by Aq Qoyunlu so that the later can then go on to form Persia, The Mughals never get to form how they did historically instead rather it's usually by an uncollapsed Timurids just blobbing into India, and then even still they just get ganked by a Bahmanis/Jaunpur/Bengal mega hugbox. Also with the whole "Qing China" thing, I get it that they want to make it a scenario based challenge to give it some "fun" points but honestly something like a "Historic outcomes" option rather than just "Historical Lucky Nations" would be really fun for dealing with situations like they did in History.

The Manchu tribes are either just too weak or the AI is too stupid to actually use the mechanics as they should be used for the sake of conquering China and I know that Korea got a bit of a nerf in the last patch but you can't even tell. They just blob into Manchuria like they always do which is ridiculous. Another stupid thing that seems to happen every game is the lack of Oda ever getting to a position where they can actually "Beat" Ashikaga. For whatever reason the devs failed to realize that 12 Ashikaga troops will always beat Oda's 2.

I could literally go on and on about the lack of scaling control for OP nations like Spain or Ottomans where once they get to their world dominating position, they never fall off like they would have historically. The AI colonizes way too quick and in places that usually wouldn't had even been considered for at least another hundred years, and my God, the USA is such an unloved joke of a nation that even when it does form it somehow just gets eaten up by other colonial nations like "Florida".

The transfer of colonies between european nations is also really poorly represented since to even take the stupid colonies you pretty much need to go to an all out war with the colonial power due to the low amount of war score that sieging them brings. Something as easy as a colonial war casus belli with overseas provinces counting for 5x more warscore would make this so much more feasible.

I am sick and tired of seeing "Spanish Alaska" and "Spanish Australia" by 1650 and frankly it wouldn't even be that bad if Spain was just able to fall off like they did in history but no. Instead we have a huge quirky funny alt history deathstack simulator and while some people love that, the whole reason why I switched over to EU4 from CK2 is the later's ridiculous lack of historicallity ESPECIALLY in Iberia.

I'm almost certain that people are just gonna post the "hur hur just use this mod bro" response or "EU4 can't be historic because blah blah processing memory data also it game so it can't be railroady" I just want the option. The later start dates are a nightmare and it shows how little attention they've been given because nobody plays them but nobody plays them because they've never been given any attention.

Iv'e tried the mods. Voltaires's Nightmare, Meiou and Taxes, 1356, extended timeline, etc. My whole point is that while I know that EU4 isn't perfect, it's still the best thing out there for being at least somewhat plausable as a history simulator.

PDX's recent games have made me realize that it's probably gonna be the last; and while i'm still gonna play EU4 and i'll probably try out EU5 till I shelf it, I at least wanted to write this post to vent my feelings on my favorite game of all time and my favorite developers of all time before the ship sails off over the horizon for the last time. I am excited for this new DLC but I do have to say, i'm anxious about the fact that it is probably gonna be one of it's last.

 

[ImperatorRoman]

For the love of God, please format this better. Absolutely no one is going to read an entire wall of text like this.

 

[Kapi96]

That's... a wall of text! :O

 

[nobodyinparticular]

May I introduce you to this invention known as a paragraph?

 

[Susan1972]

If you want historical accuracy, read Simon Schama. The only way to maintain historicity in a game is to not make it a game. Gaming is about decisions and challenges and to ensure absolute accuracy over 400 years is to take away the decisions and remove the challenges.

 

[Anna_Gein]

I am eager for EU V.

EU IV post released content should have stopped years ago period. I loved the game when it was released but it is time to move on.

I want a modern experience. One with flavour without feature bloat.

Though I definitively share OP's concerns about the wider art direction taken in the recent years. To be honest I stopped playing CK3 rather quickly and I prefer to play CK2 instead.

 

[Robotx2300]

For the love of God, please format this better. Absolutely no one is going to read an entire wall of text like this.

I tried to break it up a bit but honestly this was more of a rant to get some feelings out than a post to actually be taken seriously. I don't know how to format better than just spacing so i'm sorry.

 

[Robotx2300]

If you want historical accuracy, read Simon Schama. The only way to maintain historicity in a game is to not make it a game. Gaming is about decisions and challenges and to ensure absolute accuracy over 400 years is to take away the decisions and remove the challenges.

Hoi 4 does it really well with the ability to choose whether the ai will choose things historically or randomly. It would not be difficult to add in a checkbox to make the ai choose the historic decisions in events. Personally, I don't think this would make the game any less fun, just add a sense of expectancy like in hoi4.

 

[Susan1972]

Hoi 4 does it really well with the ability to choose whether the ai will choose things historically or randomly. It would not be difficult to add in a checkbox to make the ai choose the historic decisions in events. Personally, I don't think this would make the game any less fun, just add a sense of expectancy like in hoi4.

I would never have thought that HOI4 would be an example of how to improve a game. You get to choose which rails you're on, which is still an improvement over Vicky 2 lol. And I'm sure the devs really don't want to come up with alternate schemes for all the nations in the game.

 

[Thorum]

I think the game works because you never know what will happen. The biggest complaints are that the mingpocalypse and the complete destruction of the Americas always happen, adding more stuff like that shouldn't be the way to go

 

[deretao]

I agree with you in every word.
This cicle of lauching versions and then make corrections with the support of the players i think its ok. What is bothering me is that PDX is making too many tests with us. Every version is showing a new problem. And if you think after all this years, the dev learned a lot and would not make the same mistakes... UR WRONG. Now the ottos are just blobbing again, like years ago. By now, with all the recent changes, the game is being decided until 1550. The strongest nation by this time will be the strongest nation until the end (and i really meant it. in all my last games, the first OttoXAustria war decides the fate of the balkans for the whole end of game, and 9 out of 10 games the ottos end up blobbing in austria, russia and commonwealth directions)

The game is urgently lacking mechanics like Balance of power (AE is important only in the short time), ascendancy/descendancy of power, military acces, supply chains in wars, and the forming of importante nations like Safavids Persia and Mughals.

I cant even play the Conquest of Paradise DLC. After years, the dev tought that modifying the first dlc to appear a brand new DLC full of bugs is a good idea... EU4 is more boring, labourious and predictable than never.

And this laziness (i will call it that way because i dont know the real problem) is not happening only in EU4, it just happened in the last DLC of Stellaris too.
Im not afraid of EU5 yet. But ill be depending on what the Vic3 turn out to be.

 

[Atomcreator]

Agree with most things the OP said. I have very little confidence for an EU5 after seeing whats come out during the last few years. I really agree about having a more historical 'option' too. Perhaps like the HOI4 one, where countries will choose a more historical focus. An arbitrary Sandbox is just too vague for me at times.
They also just refuse to fix stuff that is glaringly bad. Like vastly OP game breaking natives and countries that never collapse, just snowball faster and faster.

 

[VI Imre]

Somewhere along the line Paradox realized that it's easier to package a bunch of low effort features into a dlc than to make comprehensive and engaging mechanics that actually try to simulate historical circumstances. And they are bleeding their hardcore base away thanks to expansions such as Golden Century or Leviathan that introduce features that actually make the game worse. Just look at the quality drop of the forums compared to 5 years ago.
No wonder Vicky2 reaches all time simultanious player number peaks again and again, Vicky2 and CK2 are probably the peak of paradoxian gsg.

 

[Susan1972]

Somewhere along the line Paradox realized that it's easier to package a bunch of low effort features into a dlc than to make comprehensive and engaging mechanics that actually try to simulate historical circumstances. And they are bleeding their hardcore base away thanks to expansions such as Golden Century or Leviathan that introduce features that actually make the game worse. Just look at the quality drop of the forums compared to 5 years ago.
No wonder Vicky2 reaches all time simultanious player number peaks again and again, Vicky2 and CK2 are probably the peak of paradoxian gsg.

My experience with Vicky 2 resulted in the suspicion that if I'd just left a Drinking Bird toy poised over the C key and left the room for 5 hours while the game ran on top speed, the outcome would have been little different from actually playing it. Slowly nudging along mostly irrelevant elements while steaming towards a foregone conclusion may rock your world but some people like to have their actions have impact.

 

[Marquoz]

My experience with Vicky 2 resulted in the suspicion that if I'd just left a Drinking Bird toy poised over the C key and left the room for 5 hours while the game ran on top speed, the outcome would have been little different from actually playing it. Slowly nudging along mostly irrelevant elements while steaming towards a foregone conclusion may rock your world but some people like to have their actions have impact.

You and I did not play the same game at all. Nudging those "irrelevant elements" causes immense changes. Austria can take over Germany. France can tear India away from the UK. The German colonial empire can swamp everyone else's. Russia can become the world's greatest industrial power. Etc. etc. etc.

 

[Susan1972]

You and I did not play the same game at all. Nudging those "irrelevant elements" causes immense changes. Austria can take over Germany. France can tear India away from the UK. The Germany colonial empire can swamp everyone else's. Russia can become the world's greatest industrial power. Etc. etc. etc.

If you say so. The only effect I ever had was deciding which half of my country revolted.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Given PDX's recent takes on simplifying their newer games and making them more alt-history based i'm genuinely afraid of a potential EU5 just being a worse game with graphic improvements.

I'd bet it's better if for other reason then they'll have more time for game design spending less time leveling up as amateur historians.

 

[delusonalism_]

hoi4 historical focus works because the game takes place over such a relatively short period of time and has few historical variables to work with

the timespan of the europa universalis series is far greater than anything hearts of iron tries to model. how is the AI meant to keep up with any kind of historical path with player agency impacting the map over nearly 400 historical years worth of gameplay, let alone the fact that in many cases with how the game is modelled it would be impossible for it to feasibly achieve these tasks within its constraints as an AI?

 

[Keksburg]

In brief, not that OTL historical or real

 

[Workiwork]

historical inspired arcade game is what eu 4 is. and that is what eu 5 should be... it is never a good idea to change to much. if you want something like eu but historical correct.. Make a new game. and i would even play that game.

You use an old name for another style of game, and you will get the worst of two worlds... old fans that are pissed about the changes and you still get no new fans because they did not like the series so far and will not try it now.