Mission trees are a curse

[SAmaster]

Yes. The way that mission trees have prerequisites and forced order is one of the many things I dislike about them. As an example. I was recently playing Italy. Since I was allied with Hungary, I didn't want to complete the part of the mission tree that required breaking said alliance and and taking their land. However, this was one of the earlier missions so it basically totally blocked an entire portion of the tree. Independent decisions would not have had this problem. Italy would have had several decisions for "Reclaim Greece" and "Reclaim Anatolia" (among the other Roman territories). I'd have been able to conquer Greece/Anatolia and just ignored the stuff I didn't want to do (yet).

Right, so in this case it sounds like it's a problem of ordering. Now- certain things should be prerequisites for another- for instance 'Colonial Ohio' should be locked behind a 'Colonial thirteen colonies' mission. In your case though, I think rather than a 'trunk' (one mission after another) there should be a branch design (you have like a 'babys first conquest mission' and then they branch individually to 'reclaim greece, reclaim anatolia' to provide better flexibility in that case. Does that sounds like a good change?

Yes. If that's what you want to do. If your idea of fun is stacking military modifiers and dominating the AI nations, you should be able to do that anywhere in the world. Similarly, you shouldn't be forced to play Austria to focus on diplomacy and marriage. Or be forced to play specific nations in specific ways. Some nations may start further along one path or another, but you as the player or the AI should always have the ability to shift paths depending on the way the game progresses or your own preferences. Maybe you won't have enough time to fully shift, but you shouldn't be prohibited from trying.

You say 'forced' a lot, is that the same as unsupported? Or to put it another way- you don't think that there should be certain 'bad' strategies? A way to play the game incorrectly and give yourself the headache for it? Because nothing DOES stop you from 'trying' to play as militarized Austria. You can go all Mil-ideas if you want. It's jut that Austria's national ideas won't be balanced for military, they are balanced for diplomacy. This isn't a nerf- Austria doesn't get -5% discipline, they just don't receive +5% discipline. Is the fact that Austria can't do conquest AS WELL as Prussia can the same as being FORCED not to do it? Cause I find that position very silly.

What I'm not advocating for is a system where say, Austria invades and conquers Hungary and the game slaps the players hand and forces them to give the land back because they are playing it 'wrong'. I'm just advocating for a system wherein Austria has a more engaging time trying to expand diplomatically unlike most other tags in the game.

But you're saying you don't want any nation to be able to 'lean in' to one strategy over another, all tags must be kept at a completely neutral balance?

Because you like Austria more than Prussia? You hate the color blue? You want to directly fight the Ottomans earlier? You think their starting position is more fun? There's lots of reasons to play any particular nation.

None of those reasons sound good. Especially the color idea. You're gonna have to make a better argument.

 

[JacceDON]

I'll add what Johan said on reddit, when replaying to a post about the Mission tree poll that was on youtube.

That has already been posted several times, read the thread. Also, always link to whatever you're referencing.

 

[kagami1999]

How are they going to push out low effort slop dlc if there aren't missions though???

 

[A Pink Duck]

Right, so in this case it sounds like it's a problem of ordering. Now- certain things should be prerequisites for another- for instance 'Colonial Ohio' should be locked behind a 'Colonial thirteen colonies' mission. In your case though, I think rather than a 'trunk' (one mission after another) there should be a branch design (you have like a 'babys first conquest mission' and then they branch individually to 'reclaim greece, reclaim anatolia' to provide better flexibility in that case. Does that sounds like a good change?

Why? There's lots of ways to get to Ohio. You can go up the Mississippi & Ohio Rivers, you can come down through the Great Lakes from the Gulf of St Lawrence. You could even march all the way from the Pacific or march down from the Hudson bay if you really wanted to do things the hard way. The owning of Ohio should have no requirement to first own the 13 colonies. If you own Ohio, you probably own some other region (or you just snaked there so you don't own "enough"), so you'd probably be able to take the decision associated with that, but declaring that there's only one "correct" way to reach Ohio is silly.

It does not. Why should I need to conquer some random location before I get to conquer Greece/Anatolia (or anywhere)? The one has nothing to do with the other.

You say 'forced' a lot, is that the same as unsupported? Or to put it another way- you don't think that there should be certain 'bad' strategies? A way to play the game incorrectly and give yourself the headache for it? Because nothing DOES stop you from 'trying' to play as militarized Austria. You can go all Mil-ideas if you want. It's jut that Austria's national ideas won't be balanced for military, they are balanced for diplomacy. This isn't a nerf- Austria doesn't get -5% discipline, they just don't receive +5% discipline. Is the fact that Austria can't do conquest AS WELL as Prussia can the same as being FORCED not to do it? Cause I find that position very silly.

Well Actually (pushes up glasses), Austria does get +5% discipline (basically every national idea set has that nowadays, the power creep is real). They don't get Prussia's Infantry Combat ability, morale, and Army Tradition bonuses. But a big part of Prussia's power is their government reform which gives up to +10% discipline (and cost reductions). Which I've already made clear that I want other nations to have access to.

Obviously, It's EU4/EU5. Everyone is going to be conquering to some extent or another. But I get the impression that you want mission trees that are even more restrictive than the EU4 ones. Such that you are "forced" to follow the historical path regardless of what you the player wants to do. Your posts are full of explicit statements that you want the game play out historically, if necessary via heavy handed railroading. How am I supposed to interpret that in any other way than you want to force nations to play "the right way"?

What I'm not advocating for is a system where say, Austria invades and conquers Hungary and the game slaps the players hand and forces them to give the land back because they are playing it 'wrong'. I'm just advocating for a system wherein Austria has a more engaging time trying to expand diplomatically unlike most other tags in the game.

But why. Why should Austria be the only one who gets to have an engaging time expanding diplomatically? Sorry France/England, even though your dynastic struggles were literally chosen as the starting point of the game, you aren't Austria so your diplomatic efforts don't get to be as good. Them's the breaks. What does it even mean to be "more engaging"? Does that mean they get free PUs? Are they just better at Royal marriages? For all that Prussia is famous for their Militarism, Bismark was an incredible diplomat (and so famous he got a donut named after him). It is fair to say that Germany as a unified nation would likely not exist without him. Why don't they get to be good at diplomacy if they want? And it's not like Austria has some sort of monopoly on royal marriages, everyone in Europe was doing it.

None of those reasons sound good. Especially the color idea. You're gonna have to make a better argument.

Well I think "because they have a powerful mission tree" is a bad reason as well. So I guess we're even.

 

[benjaminoon]

The comments from Johan denouncing mission trees should have ended this thread. All of you are still arguing just for the sake of arguing.

 

[SAmaster]

Why? There's lots of ways to get to Ohio. You can go up the Mississippi & Ohio Rivers, you can come down through the Great Lakes from the Gulf of St Lawrence. You could even march all the way from the Pacific or march down from the Hudson bay if you really wanted to do things the hard way. The owning of Ohio should have no requirement to first own the 13 colonies. If you own Ohio, you probably own some other region (or you just snaked there so you don't own "enough"), so you'd probably be able to take the decision associated with that, but declaring that there's only one "correct" way to reach Ohio is silly.

My point was about how 'snaking' is a very illogical way to play the game from a history standpoint. Maybe you like exploits, but I think a game that is so dedicated to simulating parts of history shouldn't be encouraging an exploit like that, hence it is something that should have a gated prerequisite behind it.

Well Actually (pushes up glasses), Austria does get +5% discipline (basically every national idea set has that nowadays, the power creep is real). They don't get Prussia's Infantry Combat ability, morale, and Army Tradition bonuses. But a big part of Prussia's power is their government reform which gives up to +10% discipline (and cost reductions). Which I've already made clear that I want other nations to have access to.

Obviously, It's EU4/EU5. Everyone is going to be conquering to some extent or another. But I get the impression that you want mission trees that are even more restrictive than the EU4 ones. Such that you are "forced" to follow the historical path regardless of what you the player wants to do. Your posts are full of explicit statements that you want the game play out historically, if necessary via heavy handed railroading. How am I supposed to interpret that in any other way than you want to force nations to play "the right way"?

You still aren't addressing your use of the word 'forced' though, which is where I think the disconnect is, because as I point out, we're not talking about 'forced' we're talking about 'lack of incentivization' which I think is the real heart of the issue, and we shouldn't move past that lest we risk talking past each-other again.

Why is it 'forced' if it's just not incentivized? Austria's diplomacy focus is incentivized. Being able to PU Hungary only 'disincentivizes' conquering them by providing an easier alternative. But conquering Hungary as Austria isn't harder than it is for most nations, it's just some nations (such as Prussia) will have an easier time doing it. Before we move on, you need to convince me this is the same as 'heavy-handed railroading' before I could begin to tackle that argument.

But why. Why should Austria be the only one who gets to have an engaging time expanding diplomatically? Sorry France/England, even though your dynastic struggles were literally chosen as the starting point of the game, you aren't Austria so your diplomatic efforts don't get to be as good. Them's the breaks. What does it even mean to be "more engaging"? Does that mean they get free PUs? Are they just better at Royal marriages? For all that Prussia is famous for their Militarism, Bismark was an incredible diplomat (and so famous he got a donut named after him). It is fair to say that Germany as a unified nation would likely not exist without him. Why don't they get to be good at diplomacy if they want? And it's not like Austria has some sort of monopoly on royal marriages, everyone in Europe was doing it.

Who said anything about monopolization? Did I say that? Could you quote the part of my post where I argued that should be the case?

Well I think "because they have a powerful mission tree" is a bad reason as well. So I guess we're even.

Mission trees offer rewards for a different playstyle. Your move.

View attachment 1301236

The comments from Johan denouncing mission trees should have ended this thread. All of you are still arguing just for the sake of arguing.

You say that like its a bad thing. Frankly I don't see why it bothers you.

 

[Sithodox2286]

Gameplay revolves around characters' abilities, vassal relations, laws, claims, neighbours, terrain, religion, marriage ties, government/society type, buildings, technology, etc., and most importantly, it revolves around what I think would be fun to try.

CK2 is actually doing very good without a "clear chain of goals" (missions, focuses). A big part of you gameplay is to deciside what you should do according to your starting position. Starts as a viking lord could be very different if you are in Iceland not Denmark. Same goes to feudal Catholic player. 1066's Ireland was well-regarded as how people should start when they are learning the game, while crusader kings (lol) and latin lords in Greek in later start-date could be rather difficult.

Apart from I think if you are Zoroastrian, then you would have series of decisions show you what ultimately you should do. But, even so, I often just ran from Iran to places like Central Asia and India. Establishing a "Mughal Zoroastrian" type of thing, and try make the idea prosper.

Even in EU4, when I play Byz, I stop going through the route to restore empire in the mediterranean at some point. Instead, I starting to try PU muscovy and establish an "Eastern Roman Empire" ranging from Greece to Siberia.

There is nothing really diferent between Kongo or Portugal... and I'm very curious to see how this plays in EU V.

About that, I have mentioned similar thing in another thread, you know what, I got a "respectfully disagree" and that's it, so ...

I think the title should actually be "don't make mission trees the only way you can play and don't repeat missions to just make your tree bigger".

The latest DLCs and MODs in EU4 and HOI4 tend to have excessively long mission tree. While IR's missions are ok in length but only give you claim, small buffs and some stability points etc.

As a modder myself, made few dozen long and branching mission trees, I feel the trees are just over-used.

Branchings are good, but do you really need, like, 5 different ways to remind you to take that tiny province in south Italy?

The players tend to love missions, because most people don't really play a TAG 5-10 times. So they don't realize the content of different, long and branching missions (especially those got 50-80 missions) are actually tedious repetitive conquest of same region. If you don't believe me you can just go and count how many missions in the vanilla game and mods are about gain the Mandate of China. And how many are there are about different routes and ways to conquer the whole of France?

More than that, missions too long and complex would just make you ran out of buff and mechanics you can use to reward players.

I mean, I got tired of writing flaour text and ps event pictures to much similar mission that assign to different TAG of similar region or same TAG different branches. idk why people would just love them and keep them coming. Probably because mods like Third Odyssey are just doing a very good job in missions, which make people starting to have faith in the missions.

Based on my perspective of a modder back in EU4, I think missions in EUV should (at least try to) be unique addition to flavoured TAGs, while repetitive content should be made general and not repeatedly in the future development to just make the mission tree look longer. It's a bad practise and realy hurt my modding working hours.

My ideal mission tree should only be directing you to take key location of a region, or make key reform in your laws or estate etc. Like selecting a goal for your TAG to acheive in like before you warp up tonight playing ( or in next 2 hours). Then reward you with a fine buff or new mechanics once in "a while" to keep your brain going.

 

[Sithodox2286]

The comments from Johan denouncing mission trees should have ended this thread.

So far I think missions are a planned feature of the game. I remember that multiple streamers confirmed there is a placeholder interface for missions. I think what Johan meant back then was that missions should be carefully managed.

 

[Dagda]

So far I think missions are a planned feature of the game.

Missions are already in the game. They just won't be EU4's mindless awesome buttons

 

[Arizal]

There was a question about playstyle, how I select my country.

I usually hit the « random » button a few times, until I hit a country I find it’s starting position interesting, preferably one I didn’t try yet.

I don’t care for mission trees or national ideas, or more accurately I despise them. I play with the aim of building my country, not to fulfill the fantasy of a content creator.

I also read some something about Ohio… Why should having a mission to control Ohio happen after you own (presumably) all of the historical Thirteen Colonies? What does Ohio have to do with Georgia?

 

[SAmaster]

There was a question about playstyle, how I select my country.

I usually hit the « random » button a few times, until I hit a country I find it’s starting position interesting, preferably one I didn’t try yet.

I don’t care for mission trees or national ideas, or more accurately I despise them. I play with the aim of building my country, not to fulfill the fantasy of a content creator.

I also read some something about Ohio… Why should having a mission to control Ohio happen after you own (presumably) all of the historical Thirteen Colonies? What does Ohio have to do with Georgia?

Geographic access man. It makes strategic and historic sense to try to lock down (if not completely then pretty close) a coastal region before trying to control an inland region like Ohio.

 

[Arizal]

Geographic access man. It makes strategic and historic sense to try to lock down (if not completely then pretty close) a coastal region before trying to control an inland region like Ohio.

Like France got Ohio through Mississippi and St-Lawrence River? Granted, it didn't end well for them

 

[SAmaster]

Like France got Ohio through Mississippi and St-Lawrence River? Granted, it didn't end well for them

You mean through a coastal region they already controlled? IE Louisianna/Quebec?

 

[Myxach]

Missions are boring content that we will complete once and then forget about it.. And the problem with EU4 is that the last updates were ONLY about Missions. The game has not been improved for several years and only mission packs were released. Why improve the game if the developer can just release a mission pack for Zimbabwe? . Most of them did not even add much uniqueness, but simply added a button to conquer the region .... It is the mission tree that is the reason why the late game is so uninteresting. On the one hand,, they make the game easier, and on the other hand, they waste the developers' time, which could have been spent on improving the game.

 

[A Pink Duck]

Who said anything about monopolization? Did I say that? Could you quote the part of my post where I argued that should be the case?

My brother in Christ, the paragraph you quoted was literally in response to you saying

I'm just advocating for a system wherein Austria has a more engaging time trying to expand diplomatically unlike most other tags in the game.

And I even quoted it. That explicitly means that Austria should be "more engaging". Whatever that means, but based on your other comments I'm interpreting it as unique buffs making them inherently better at diplomacy than all other tags. Which, to be clear, I think has the potential to be very bad, depending on the buffs. Access to extra diplomatic capacity? Probably fine. Free PUs via mission trees and decisions? Not fine.

Like France got Ohio through Mississippi and St-Lawrence River? Granted, it didn't end well for them

If control is worth anything, this should basically be the only way to do things for Ohio specifically. The Appalachians are not quite as big as the Rocky Mountains but they are still a major barrier that significantly blocks control spread. And the best part is that it would be controlled by game mechanics and not the divine fiat of mission trees.

 

[JoshuaFitzgerald]

How are they going to push out low effort slop dlc if there aren't missions though???

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[Arizal]

How are they going to push out low effort slop dlc if there aren't missions though???

This is a serious question, though. How are they going to make DLCs?

 

[uberjedi]

This is a serious question, though. How are they going to make DLCs?

Here is a wild idea.
Make well thought out game mechanics that work for everybody, instead of arbitrary bonuses for some nations.

 

[Failtier]

Here is a wild idea.
Make well thought out game mechanics that work for everybody, instead of arbitrary bonuses for some nations.

Tours & Tournaments for CK3 is, e.g., a good DLC because it does exactly this, adding new mechanics for everyone. Roads to Power, on the other hand, adds mechanics to the Eastern Roman Empire, which are often praised, but it's only for the ERE.

IMO, there should be DLCs with core mechanics (like Activities) and flavor packs for specific regions, but a good DLC shouldn't just focus on one specific region or tag.

 

[Jarvin]

This is a serious question, though. How are they going to make DLCs?

Mission trees became a thing in 1.25, about 5 years after the base game released, and they haven't become the primary part of new updates until 1.32
We've had a fair bunch of patches & DLCs that were quite successful without having a single mission in them.
Instead, they focused on expanding the game's mechanics (institutions, development, estates...) while typically reworking one region at a time and updating its content and flavor