I'm afraid of EU5

[ImAdrian]

In general, games can be split into story-driven and sandbox. Story-driven games take you along a (mostly) predetermined path, to present a story, similar to what a movie does. In those types of games you can be as historically accurate as you want.

Sandbox, on the other hand, is meant to be re-playable: which implies adding randomness to AI and freedom of choice for the player. EU4 is a sandbox. How can you be 100% historically accurate while maintaining these elements? It's impossible. Maybe you just want to play a story-driven historical game instead.

 

[grommile]

9/10 Qara Qoyunlu is never taken out by Aq Qoyunlu

So this one really, really jumps out at me, because it's a fine example of "Reality Is Unrealistic".

AQ's defeat of QQ was an astonishing result that lay well outside of what the combat mechanics can reasonably be expected to provide. Attacking, outnumbered, in a mountain province? You will lose that fight pretty much every time.

 

[Owen123]

Spoiler: Open for a jump scare

 

[ArtFart]

I personally don't really want an EU5. I feel a lot of the features of EU4 will be dumbed down and sold as DLC. Not to mention that it'll be very barren of content compared with current EU4 + all DLC. Also, I love the date changer, and knowing there's no chance for that to be in the game makes me sad. CK3 is a great example as to why modernising games isn't always the best idea.

 

[Atey]

I personally don't really want an EU5. I feel a lot of the features of EU4 will be dumbed down and sold as DLC. Not to mention that it'll be very barren of content compared with current EU4 + all DLC. Also, I love the date changer, and knowing there's no chance for that to be in the game makes me sad. CK3 is a great example as to why modernising games isn't always the best idea.

I used to accept this as a fact but lately I am not convinced. You say there is a lot of mechanics in EU4 that would be missed in EU5. I see a lot of mechanics in EU4 indeed but they are all based around a core that is seriously outdated. I'd like a fresh start with EU5 and I'd like the devs to think long and hard about how they add content to the game so as not to end up with another DLC button fest. As to what features I would like to see in the EU5 core:

• Full characters, not just names and modifiers. Also make all characters equal, for example to make it possible for a general to become a ruler through natural game progress, no scripting. Rulers should also have more kids than 1, EU4 does a terrible job at modelling dynastic politics.
• Full population, I prefer simplified Victoria pops and don't particularly enjoy the Imperator/Stellaris style pops but any sort of population mechanic would be a huge upgrade over funneling mana into land to make it more valuable.
• Dynamic trade. Enough said.
• Progress from the middle ages into the modern era. Changes in drafting (levies vs regular conscription) and army composition. Make mercs really shine throughout the 17th century, currently I almost never hire them this late. Make me feel the change in dynastic politics, the change in societal structures, the end of serfdom and emancipation of the population, the revolutions.
• Improved diplomacy. I want to see the Swiss confederation in all its beauty. I don't want any more of the fixed senior/junior partner crap. I want to be able to make comprehensive peacetime and wartime deals with other countries. No more one-sided peace deals. I want the HRE to be a natural part of the game – a loose confederation – not a special phenomenon that is gone for good once somebody manages to destroy it.

 

[ArtFart]

I used to accept this as a fact but lately I am not convinced. You say there is a lot of mechanics in EU4 that would be missed in EU5. I see a lot of mechanics in EU4 indeed but they are all based around a core that is seriously outdated. I'd like a fresh start with EU5 and I'd like the devs to think long and hard about how they add content to the game so as not to end up with another DLC button fest. As to what features I would like to see in the EU5 core:

• Full characters, not just names and modifiers. Also make all characters equal, for example to make it possible for a general to become a ruler through natural game progress, no scripting. Rulers should also have more kids than 1, EU4 does a terrible job at modelling dynastic politics.
• Full population, I prefer simplified Victoria pops and don't particularly enjoy the Imperator/Stellaris style pops but any sort of population mechanic would be a huge upgrade over funneling mana into land to make it more valuable.
• Dynamic trade. Enough said.
• Progress from the middle ages into the modern era. Changes in drafting (levies vs regular conscription) and army composition. Make mercs really shine throughout the 17th century, currently I almost never hire them this late. Make me feel the change in dynastic politics, the change in societal structures, the end of serfdom and emancipation of the population, the revolutions.
• Improved diplomacy. I want to see the Swiss confederation in all its beauty. I don't want any more of the fixed senior/junior partner crap. I want to be able to make comprehensive peacetime and wartime deals with other countries. No more one-sided peace deals. I want the HRE to be a natural part of the game – a loose confederation – not a special phenomenon that is gone for good once somebody manages to destroy it.

I disagree with most of these points I won't lie. What is it with people wanting a Victoria, CK, EU4 hybrid game for EU5? Pops are for the Victoria franchise, Characters are the CK franchise, and EU is for the war/conquest simulation. Same goes for dynamic trade, again, that's a Victoria specific thing.

I'd rather have EU stay as EU, not become this mish mass of PDX games, that's a recipe for disaster imo.

Regardless:
- I don't think this would fit into the EU game really, I understand the appeal but EU is more of a generalised game, and it's never specific in it's dynastic characters etc. We already have ruler traits, which could be made more prevalent and impactful maybe, but going full on and having each person as a real 3D character wouldn't fit in this game I don't think, not to mention how fast they would die over and over, EU isn't like CK where you spend a lot of time deliberating over specific events and taking it slowly, the majority of the player base play speed 5 most times, and as a result you'd see a general, rise up and die within 5 minutes, pretty wasted imo.
- Again, this adds too much complexity to an already complex game. Not to mention it would HAVE to be dynamic and scale as time progresses. It would also make it micromanage hell. EU isn't like Vic where you spend a lot of time in your designated land and rarely expand, the game is set for you to expand significantly, and micro-managing all the pops for a vast empire would be hell.
- Could be added, but again is very complex. The current system is fine imo, some improvements could be made sure, but it does what it should.
- This one I do agree with, greater impact on military tactics should be expressed more, more troop types, more merc prevalence would be cool, but is it worth making an entire new game for it, not really.
- Again, this could fit, but EU is majority a war game, not a diplomacy simulation. It does play a part, and it could be improved, but it can't take EU away from it's core gameplay of being a conquest game.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

I think that part of the problem is the EU occupies a very transitional time period. In the 15th century, things we associate with Crusader Kings were very relevant at the time, and most of the Victorian elements didn't exist. By the end of the 18th century, things we associate with with Victoria were very relevant at the time, and Crusader King's elements were obsolete. I know EU is neither, but, honestly, even you did just make a game that starts off being like CK, and ends up being like Viccy, you'd still have something with its own unique identity, since neither of those two games actually do that. I'm not saying you should make EU5 like that, but I don't think it would necessarily be bad if you did.

EU4 tries sometimes. Look at army professionalism; at the beginning, you're more (supposedly) encouraged to use mercenaries. As time passes, you modernise, and transition to a standing army. Allegedly. The problem is that, even if you actually were using mercenaries at the beginning (and a lot of people don't), the gameplay doesn't really noticeably change compared to later on. You don't really "feel" the kind of significant differences that standing armies made in the world.

My hope for EU5 is that it either fully commits to evolving, transitory gameplay, or it commits to something static yet satisfying in its own way. I just don't want them to do the latter, but attempt to disguise it as the former.

 

[Thorum]

And there I was thinking hoi was the conquest and war game of paradox.

More seriously, all pds games are similar, the attributes you describe result from how Europe looked in their respective time periods. And the renaissance period (aka eu) was the historical transition period between feudalism and the time of great powers.

 

[Thorum]

Well, that post was outdated before I was able to post it. Thanks, rom

 

[ImAdrian]

EU V shouldn't be too complex at its core. A lot of people like EU being a map painter where not everything is simulated in detail.
But, while the core should remain simple, I would personally like to see expansions that are more deep and complex than the "add 3 buttons" DLCs we have now.

For instance, an expansion could further develop the population system, another could make trade more complex, etc. Why expansion and not base game? Because you can choose to turn it on/off, so people can still keep it simple if they want to, or expand on a specific feature.

 

[TolHydra]

I do not understand why so many of you seem to believe historical accuracy and fun gameplay are mutually exclusive. Derailing the shackles of history in a game that at least tries to take itself seriously is more fun than, say, in any godawful CK map that lasted more than 20 years since its start date.

Reviving 1444 Byz wouldn't be quite so fun if their writing wasn't so clearly on the wall without player intervention.

As for EU5, I can't wait. It's not like I won't ever be able to return to EU4. Just as I frequently do for CK2.

 

[noblehunter]

I want EU5 because EU4 has so many issues baked in: the military access problem, monarch points being dubious, uneven mission rewards, estates being not well integrated, etc. There's a lot of good ideas but the best way to get them is to start a new game without all the tech debt. I just don't think EU4's problems are solvable without going to EU5.

 

[deretao]

if the problems are solvable in eu4 or not i really dont know. what i know is that the devs sometimes doesn want to make a change and sometimes cannot make it. Like safavids persia doesnt seem to be an unsolvable problem, but here we are (almost) never seeing it forming.

I think, for the survival of this series, it must have options. Players like me just see fun in games that focus on strategy in limited/restricted scenarios. Others doesnt mind if a game based on history doesnt reproduce history. In this moment players like me are having no fun playing eu4.

About Vic2, this is the greatest strategy game of PDX for me. I hate the micromanaging of so many things, maybe the dev team are immune to tendinitis, but the players are not. But the pop system and diplomacy options pleases me much more than the mechanics of eu4.

Somebody said about trade mechanic. Changes in this mechanic is a MUST. It just seem too stupid for Russia having to move its port city to a weak trade node just to link all its trade routes. Anybody that plays middle east will have problem going to africa: your trade nodes will not link.

I think if the game is having so many trouble with the land combat mechanics, it should focus on diplomacy and maritime combat mechanics. The timeline of the game is one that we saw empires based on land power descending in importance and empires based on maritime power and commerce gaining the upper hand. Greater empires like Russia, Ottomans, China and Mughals, after its expansion phases, have limited power in interfering on nations that hadnt a border with it. On the other hand, Portugal, France, UK, Spain and Netherlands, all, in one time or another, could interfere in lands far far away from home. And they could estabilsh monopolies in trade routes that were never so great, by that time, as it were in the game timeline.

 

[grommile]

Like safavids persia doesnt seem to be an unsolvable problem,

If you specifically want the Safavids, rather than just a unifier of Iran, event-based mechanisms are your only option, because some of the fundamentals of how EU4 works make anything else non-viable.

 

[LastSalian]

I agree CK3 was a major disappointment, better graphics, but a lot of the substance of CK2 was lost. That said, I want EU5, trade must be reworked to be more dynamic, but likely that will piss off to history-accuracy maniacs.

 

[deretao]

If you specifically want the Safavids, rather than just a unifier of Iran, event-based mechanisms are your only option, because some of the fundamentals of how EU4 works make anything else non-viable.

It doesnt need to be safavids. I just need some AI nation to form Persia.

 

[Darsara]

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.

I mostly had "Germany forms 20 years yearly because Austria spent all their Influence trying to outbid me to Sphere Venezuela rather, letting Prussia casually sphere Saxony" and everything like what you've described being the result of actions more like taking a mallet to world balance. I think most cases of 'small nudges' by players upsetting everything was either things that weren't 'small nudges' in a fair assessment or weren't actually the result of the little actions, with a rare few lucky breaks.

 

[sjobenrit]

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.

fully agree.

 

[Vohen]

I can't say I'm afraid of EU5, nor am I really looking forward to it, but I do think EU4's development has to end soon, the game has already reached (and arguably far surpassed) its own technical limit.
That said, about EU5 itself, CK3 was a clear sign of just how hard it is for a sequel to compete with its predecessor with all the DLCs (a problem Vic3 shouldn't have at least, since that's only th the case for post-CK2 PDX games), so while I'll keep a close eye out, I can't say I'm too optimistic.

 

[Kanem Bornu]

You'll get piled on for this OP because this community makes new "EU5 when?" post every other day.

I'm with you though. The newer PDX titles just don't do it for me the way the older titles did. EU4 feels like the one of the lasts of a great era for Paradox. It's almost certainly nostalgia bias on my part, because CK3 seems to be loved (based on 90%+ positive reviews on Steam) yet I got bored of it within 50 hours or so. The 3D models do literally nothing for me, so the newer DLCs like putting your 3D model in a court with other 3D models almost feels like a parody of grand strategy. But to each their own, and if 90% of the community likes it then what do I know.

But the good news for curmudgeons such as myself is that I can continue to play EU4 or earlier even if EU5 ends up not being for me either.