Improvements to end game statistics

[josh127]

I don't play EU4 because I'm concerned about whether I can or cannot beat the AI and "win". It's an open ended game with no victory conditions after all. Like most grand strategy games I play it to improve on what I have done in prior runs. At the end of the game though, EU4 doesn't offer much for me to decide how well I did outside of looking at my empire and deciding if I feel happy with it. More importantly though, it doesn't do much to help me understand what areas I need to improve on.

I think it would be great to be able to pull up stats for income and expenses of the many different resources you're spending so you can figure out what areas you want to improve on next time. As a "nice to have" addition there could be a list of past games where you could easily bring up results from different games, but this wouldn't be totally necessary for the feature.

Some of the areas that could be addressed:

Admin Points, Diplo Points, Military Points -
How many did I make over the course of the game?
Then broken down by: Events, Missions, Monarch, Base, National Focus, Advisor, etc.

How many did I spend?
Then a breakdown by Techs, Ideas, over Military Ruler/Diplo relations, etc.


Manpower -
How much was generated?
Breakdown: Province base, Building bonus, Events, etc

How much was spent?
Breakdown: Losses in combat, losses in attrition, built units, etc


Money
Generated?
Breakdown: Tax (further breakdown overseas, same continent, province base, buildings), Trade and Production (similar types of further breakdown to tax), Gold, Tariffs, Spoils of War, etc

Spent?
Buildings, Military (costs, maintenance, merc cost, merc maintenance, different unit types), Naval (similar to military breakdown), diplo expenses, etc (Money has an in game screen and all the different areas could be included, but could include a further breakdown for most to understand how it was generated/spent)


Additionally, there are plenty of things that could be included that are a little more minor. Power Projection, Score, and Prestige immediately come to mind.


Having totals on these would be great, but even better would be able to see graphs of them. The ledger already has graphs which show all countries and allow you to compare. I feel that might be overkill and it would be just fine to only keep track of the stats for the player. After all, if this is for posterity and also finding places to improve your game, the AI isn't the important one here.

 

[Tacticalenforce]

Great idea!

 

[Wizzington]

More fun endgame statistics is one of those things that I want to do but I don't know if we'll ever find the time for. Personally I'd like a map of empire borders over time.

 

[josh127]

Fair enough. I would like the map too, but it sounded like a lot more work. Let me share the situation that brought this to mind because it wasn't about being fun for that game, but rather being an improvement to my play overall which hopefully would increase replay value.

We played an MP game with random nation build and I created a custom western Irish minor. I never play western nations these days but thought it might be fun. At the end of the game I had only made it to Admin 27, and I would generally outperform that being Indian Tech half the game. As we talked through the game, it came up how nice it would be to have stats so we can measure progress game to game. Hey, it's great nostalgia to watch the borders expand again, but it's something else to say "I way overspent on coring and next time I want to be more efficient".

Everyone wants to constantly optimize their game no matter how good they are, and these sorts of stats can keep you coming back. Plus, there's a lot of frustration that shows up on the forums from people who want to get better. If the stats exist we can say "Post your post-game stats" and start comparing and as a community come up with ways to improve.

Anyway, I'm sure it's not a top priority, but I'm still trying to make a case for it. Of course, I'd still prefer some variation of the campaigns idea for adding flavor and a bit more focus, but that's a different game benefit entirely.

 

[PreXident]

Fair enough. I would like the map too, but it sounded like a lot more work

For maps there are already community projects (my replayer, Chronicle, etc), but of course offical solution would be superior. And the other statistics could be really useful indeed!