Mission trees are a curse

[Cymsdale]

I am prepared to receive every red X, but I miss the old 'dynamic' missions that EU4 had before they added mission trees. Yes, the system had some jank, but instead of improving on it they just threw it out and replaced it with something worse. I never liked EU4 as much after that.

 

[I like wars and maps]

Your "compromise" is an outright insult to those who argue in favour of mission trees. By suggesting that they implement missions as a tutorial for newer players to have a hand to hold while learning how to navigate the UI and stuff (with the implication that they eventually graduate to proper little make-your-own-adventure-larpers like yourself) you spit in the face of those you purport to engage in honest discourse.

You go ahead and download a mod that gives you full freedom to write your own sloppy fanfic time and time again, your dishonest approach is unconducive to anything more constructive from me in this thread.

You conquer the Balkans and Hungary as Croatia ONCE and suddenly you are on the same level of fanfic writer as Mehmed X Radu romances.

Despite how I might appear I'm no savant who autistically arranges my playthroughs to exactly mimic irl history, I just want there to be some effort from PDX to have the setting be somewhat reminiscent of actual history - and to orient the core gameplay around it. Mission trees offer reasonable direction both for the AI and the player to accomplish this, but still it is only a component in a greater whole.

Brother the AI never follows its own mission trees cause the conditions are too complex and difficult to do. What historical worlds you saw in EU4 was entirely done by the AIs own volition without regard for the mission tree. If that is why you like them then you need to look at something else entirely cause missions arent that.

 

[Duchy-2]

what makes that castle something more than a statbonus on a set of land? I can hire an advisor, what makes that advisor more than a set of numbers?

Your imagination

 

[SAmaster]

Thanks for the honest question.

First, for any country, I would look into their past and see which empire they could claim to attach their past to. This could be a multi-tiered system linked to how far away they are from the empire they claim a filiation to. For example, France, could claim to reform Charlemagne empire, and further in history they could claim to reform the Roman empire.

I'm not saying they should have a mission tree asking them exactly to do that, but that if they get conquest missions, they should be geared towards reclaiming land in those areas before going to conquer Britain or Spain. That way you keep the imprint of history without sacrificing the possibility for a less fortunate country to get the exact same advantages. For example, Lituania, who as far as I know doesn't have such a past, would keep getting generic missions about expanding in its immediate vicinity while France would be turned towards Italy.

You could also imagine giving a choice between reclaiming the old empire and building something new. I mean by that each time you complete a "page", a "tree" or whatever, you could choose between the glorious past or a new objective. That way France wouldn't be locked into conquering Italy, but could instead go with Spain or England or anything else making sense in their situation.

As for the Mughals, well, they didn't exist at game start. They were a contingency of history. You could have them as a formable, since in my ideal TAGs would just be TAGs without any special destiny or bonuses. If then a mongol based empire came to conquer parts of India, you could name that empire the Moghol empire. What the "Timurids" could do as a shadow claimed country would be to reclaim Genghis Khan empire, though. This is an empire that existed in history, ever so briefly, and Timur was someone of mongol descent.

But I hear you about steering the "timurids" to do exactly that : get in India. Maybe instead of asking you how the timurids came to conquer India, you should ask yourself why did they do it historically? From what I understand, Babur didn't go to India because he had a divine call, but rather because his position in Afghanistan was untenable. He was threatened by the Uzbeks and, most importantly, the Delhi sultanate was collapsing.

Basically, Babur exploited a power vacuum. This is the type of situation you could see in-game if a big empire collapses and you find yourself in a position where you can quickly sweep in. There is no need for mission trees asking specific regions. Instead, you could get missions aimed to exploit such opportunities.

As Babur, you are threatened on your west flank. Your dream of restoring the mongol, or even Timurid empire, is shattered. Then comes the new that the Delhi sultanate is crumbling. You receive a prompt informing you of that general situation, and the nobles of your country support the endeavor of exploiting the situation. You go.

That's, I think, what most people talking about "dynamic gameplay" in this thread are about. They want the player to react to the in-game history, not to recreate ours without agency. And that's how Babur might have felt. He wasn't going there to restore a glorious empire of the past. He seized the day.

It's sounding to me like your emphasis on 'dynamic gameplay' requires the stars to align for the player, let alone AI, to form the Mughals, since it relies solely on whether or not expanding into India is 'strategically advantageous'.

I suspect your response is you are completely okay with that, because you find that to be more organic, I find it more artificial.

The rewards and optimum play is a fair point. And it's also just annoying to see the AI use the rewards (permaclaims are the most obvious example) when you try to ignore them, so you have to totally mod them out.

Give me examples where this has happened to you.

Anyways, that's all peanuts compared to my central objection. GSG's are a type of roleplaying game. The player is in charge of crafting a historical narrative. Which is why PDX hoping to better simulate imperial downfall is a good thing. The problem with mission trees is that they get in the way of the creativity of the player. PDX designs certain countries around them, preseting the player with a non-dynamic, right way to play that country. I want to be left free. I want to be able to push certain countries in certain directions. Yes, you are still incentivized to go certain ways with certain countries. Advances are a good example of this. They are the replacement for ideas, and countries have certain unique advances so you are incentivized to pick a certain advancement group to advance in in a certain age. But you can ignore it, and gain the same amount of bonuses still, since there is something else to do. It's flavour, it pushes newer players who may want the handholding in a certain direction, but I won't be worse off for choosing to say "no PDX, thanks for the offer, but I'm a big boy and I make big boy decisions".

Give me an example.

Sure, but this can be tied in directly with the tag can it not? We can recognize these spaces being tied to these entities. That kind of "national unification" is very natural. But why should Russia get permaclaims on the steppe? That kind of connection is not there. Certainly, they may want to expand there and may have very good reasons to want to, but does it warrant the kind of recognition that a permaclaim gives? I would say not.

That's a matter of which tag deserves permanent claims and which ones don't. You acknowledge they have their place, I argue they have their place outside of country formation- for instance I don't think Byzantium should start with claims over the old roman empire, but they should be able to piece by piece gain them as they reverse their downfall.

I don't care for the majority opinion.

You should when you are discussing removing a major mechanic in the game. Think about it- everyone here who is saying that Missions should be completely removed is only thinking about how they play and enjoy the game, and treat that as the single most important thing Paradox should care about in game-design. But if a majority of people enjoy their conclusion, why should Paradox pay more attention to your opinions than theres? Because your opinions are more important?

None of you are arguing that people who enjoy mission trees would enjoy the game better for their absence. Which isn't a hypothetical- for most of the games lifespan it lacked mission trees, and they were received positively when they were added. All of you are arguing that YOU want them removed, not how others will enjoy the game more if they are removed.

I never engaged in custom nations, as I see they defeat the point of historical roleplay. But I'd never argue that they should be removed, because I know there's a minority of players who engage with that mechanic and have fun, and I wouldn't place my enjoyment of the game above there's, and that's when they are a small minority of players.

Do not pretend as if missions are the only flavour there is.

I'm 'pretending' that the advances, unique units, and events only cover so much.

To larp. The benifit of playing Prussia in that scenario is to larp. Which is "gsg's as rpg's" as I described them above, but in a more crude manner.

Mission trees help me larp. A lot.

 

[IMT]

As someone who has played even more hours of multiplayer EUIII and EUIV than single player I hope PDX goes ahead with having extensive options to turn features like missions and their rewards off and on. I found aiming for the most op rewards and deliberately trying to sabotage the ability of other players to achieve the letter of the terms they needed to get their most op rewards rather gamey.

 

[Arizal]

@SAmaster What would be "artifical" in having a system in which you can rebuild an historical empire (in this example the Mughal one), but the game won't show this as the most obvious answer if the circumstances don't align?

You are right, it seems we respectfully disagree over the meaning of the word "artificial" in an historical GSG. For me, the artificial path is to force the creation of historical empires, to lock on top of the features of the game the ideal which would be real history and try to force it. We could have the same discussion about Prussia.

 

[SAmaster]

It is completely fair to argue fully from one own's perspective. Just like you believe that your gameplay preference is more important than his.

I don't. What are you a crazy person? I'm arguing his perspective is more limited and failing to account for others.

When people say they can't play the game with mission trees, I demand their reasoning. And I keep hearing stuff like 'they railroad', 'the game should be entirely dynamic', 'you should be able to choose any playstyle you want' and I have been trying to drill down on each of these, because I don't believe they hold up to scrutiny. I don't believe my perspective is more important, I believe there's a bunch of 'vibes' going down, and not a whole lot of concrete arguments. Anyone who doesn't like mission trees is valid in thinking that, even if it is pure autism. But this isn't about 'who has the best perspective', it's about 'who has the best argument'.

The issue with the HoI series is its limited scope. It has always heavily relied on scripting to achieve a conflict that feels like WW2. Japan attacks China in 1937. Germany makes a deal with the USSR to attack and devide Eastern Europe in a particular way, only to go on to backstab them in 1941. The game is about combat in a very limited timeframe and must hit specific beats to feel right. PDX has never achieved that with dynamic sytems, thus the scripting. Heck, a often repeated complaint is about the unrealism of economic growth that each HoI game has one way or another. But that doesn't matter because of the game's scope. You do not need to deal with the aftermath of the war, the moment you achieve victory you close the game. The Europa Universalis series has always had a much wider timeframe. A war is but a blip on the map and your considerations are always much wider. Because of this, it has always relied more on emergent systems because scripting and railroading creates greater dissonance. Scripting and the flavour text and modifiers that goes along with that have a tendency to increase in distance from the actual state of the world the further you get from the start date. Scripting and railroading are more contentious issues in EU than in HoI because of the scope and what the game tries to depict. HoI is a series about war, in EU war is but one tool at your disposal, this is why these games set out to achieve enjoyable experiences in different ways. This is also why EU5 and CK should have different character systems. In CK, the state is made up of different characters and their personal and feudal relationships. In EU, they are moreso tools for the state to use. Different games have different considerations

But it's still silly to say 'Hearts of Iron doesn't count as a grand strategy game that benefited from a mission tree system'. Anyway- while I certainly acknowledge they are trying to accomplish something different in Hearts of Iron than EUV, I don't think that discounts the concepts of mission-trees. Certainly I don't think that Hearts of Iron focus trees would work well for the flexibility that EUV would demand- they don't offer a wide range of flexibility as new factors come into play, you get locked into them (and to be fair, going through five different government changes in that game would be silly). But at the same time EUV mission trees don't influence the game as heavily, where it informs your entire economic and military strategy, or government type.

This feels like dissonance. An admittance that what PDX is trying to do is trying to statisfy the playerbase's urge to have its cake and eat it too. "Yes, I want to change history, but I want to have it in this little bubble and not affect the rest of the world." At what point do we have to admit that this is a balancing act that will not hold, and that if the player wants to fight the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna, perhaps they should pick the startdate where the Ottomans are at the gates of Vienna, instead of starting back in 1337?

I don't mind Paradox moving to being more simulationist. I think a lot of things should be better simulated than abstracted- for instance the role of minority populations, that's a big plus for me.

What I disagree with is the idea that total simulation is the goal that needs to be strived for- I strongly believe that abstraction isn't a 'necessary evil' to be done away with, once something can be fully simulated. At that point you're just looking at a spreadsheet simulator. I believe that mission trees are an abstraction, and I feel that's the REAL reason why some people don't like them, because they want the game to simulate every possible historical factor and have the game branch out from there. The problem is A. I think a perfect simulation of history would just play history out in real time, B. it's a video-game, video-games require some degree of abstraction.

I likewise don't like the idea that national ideas and idea groups are going to be replaced by ambient sliders in their entirety, that's a seperate discussion but it's the same kind od idea.

I have as well, and I think that mission trees, especially the newer ones, have made the game worse. Nations that I used to enjoy playing are no longer fun because the mission trees strongly encourage you to play in a specific way. It doesn't feel like I'm playing a game where I have agency anymore. I'm just rotely following directions. Conquer here, develop this, ally this nation. It's boring.

Give me an example.

 

[SAmaster]

@SAmaster What would be "artifical" in having a system in which you can rebuild an historical empire (in this example the Mughal one), but the game won't show this as the most obvious answer if the circumstances don't align?

You are right, it seems we respectfully disagree over the meaning of the word "artificial" in an historical GSG. For me, the artificial path is to force the creation of historical empires, to lock on top of the features of the game the ideal which would be real history and try to force it. We could have the same discussion about Prussia.

I don't see how mission trees 'force' the creation of historical empires though. I've had plenty of runs where I don't see Prussia or the Mughals spawn.

I think there's a seperate discussion of how 'railroaded' historical content should be. Personally, I like history. I can appreciate alt-history fanfiction, but I don't wnat to start a game with the intent of playing around as a colonizer in the carribean, I sail down there, and the Chinese have 'dynamically' colonized it already because the AI decided with their huge economy it would be 'strategically advantageous for them to do so'. Mamlukean Australia is a perfect distillation of this actually- at one point they decided that any nation can colonize, so long as the AI had enough coastline provinces. The Mamluks started with the correct number, and would go and explore discovering Australia centuries earlier and colonizing it since it was the only chunk of land they could steer back to their home trade node. That sort of thing is why I'm incredibly skeptical of the idea we should just have the AI make all the decisions for us when it comes to simulating history, because it turns out what is 'strategically advantageous' isn't always even remotely close to what happened in history.

They faced a similar problem with the PLC- they weighted decisions so the AI would always pick the one that would be in its interests to do so. Which meant that Poland would ALWAYS pick the union with Lithuania because there were literally no downsides. Now personally that doesn't bother me too much, but for some players (and I suspect you'd be one of them) it was an issue if you wanted to expand in that region early game, as you'd always have to fight Poland and Lithuania as a block- that historical content was therefore 'railroaded' and therefore Paradox went and put in artificial checks in the game to give like a 1/10 chance they'd reject the union to spice up how eastern-europe would play.

Again- why I'm very skeptical we should let the AI make all the decisions for us.

 

[Tollie69]

What about instead of in game rewards, missions give 'out' game rewards?
Like in hoi4 you get these ribbons, what if say you complete the historical mission tree for Castile / Spain you get cool flair to show off. Almost like achievements?

Gives the advantages of mission trees without the disadvantages?

 

[A Pink Duck]

Give me an example.

Basically all of them. But some highlights include Persia, Egypt/Mamluks, Italy, Germany, and more.

 

[IAmBecomeDeath]

History is interesting of course, but there are plenty of mini narratives that happen in the course of a paradox campaign that are just as fascinating. It's history that makes England winning the hundred years war an interesting outcome in game. This is why I don't like railroading and want a sandbox. History provides the context that makes the world interesting. If the eventual world state is pre determined every game, I can't think of anything more boring.

 

[A Pink Duck]

History is interesting of course, but there are plenty of mini narratives that happen in the course of a paradox campaign that are just as fascinating. It's history that makes England winning the hundred years war an interesting outcome in game. This is why I don't like railroading and want a sandbox. History provides the context that makes the world interesting. If the eventual world state is pre determined every game, I can't think of anything more boring.

Exactly. Changing history is basically the entire reason I play these games. Forcing the game to slavishly recreate history sounds like the worst thing they could possibly do.

Mamlukean Australia is a perfect distillation of this actually

I think Mamlukean Australia is great. And I'm glad the mechanics allow for it to happen. If I showed up on the American West Coast and saw some Korean or Chinese colonial nation already there, that would be awesome. Maybe not all the time, but often enough to see regularly.

 

[SAmaster]

Basically all of them. But some highlights include Persia, Egypt, Italy, Germany, and more.

Expand on that, give me specifics.

I think Mamlukean Australia is great.

You are a heathen and should be burned at the stake for your crimes against god.

 

[Arizal]

I think Mamlukean Australia is great. And I'm glad the mechanics allow for it to happen. If I showed up on the American West Coast and saw some Korean or Chinese colonial nation already there, that would be awesome. Maybe not all the time, but often enough to see regularly.

I think we disagree with this slightly. If the game represents well the causes that made those things unlikely, we should see those artifacts rarely, not regularly.

 

[A Pink Duck]

I think we disagree with this slightly. If the game represents well the causes that made those things unlikely, we should see those artifacts rarely, not regularly.

Sure. How regular is "regular"? I more meant often enough that a player could reasonably see it. Closer to 1 out of 10 then 1 out of 100.

 

[Duchy-2]

I am prepared to receive every red X, but I miss the old 'dynamic' missions that EU4 had before they added mission trees. Yes, the system had some jank, but instead of improving on it they just threw it out and replaced it with something worse. I never liked EU4 as much after that.

Couldn't agree more. I have an entire seperate copy of EU4 set on 1.23 just for that reason alone

 

[J_Master]

Give me examples where this has happened to you.

One prolific example I was always annoyed by is the situation where England would gain permaclaims on Northern France through Hundred Years War related missions, but getting kicked off the continent anyways. This could result in the situation that by the 1600's England > Great Britain would've lost the cores on Normandy, but retained the permaclaims

Give me an example.

Mission trees help me larp. A lot.

Let's take these together. Prussia is all about militarism. But what if I want to play different? What if for whatever reason the burghers seize controll over the Teutons/Prussia and form a merchant republic and I want to play like that? A merchant republic Prussia. There is just nothing for that. At that point, you're going to have to ignore a pretty big feature that PDX has been pushing to the playerbase for years now, whilst at the same time. The example of the English/British permaclaims then remind you that you're explicitly having to ignore a feature

That's a matter of which tag deserves permanent claims and which ones don't. You acknowledge they have their place, I argue they have their place outside of country formation- for instance I don't think Byzantium should start with claims over the old roman empire, but they should be able to piece by piece gain them as they reverse their downfall.

Yes, and I think it would be better if they were combined with more dynamic features, like the decision to form France if you started as a French vassal, or the assumption of the Mandate of Heaven if you start as a Red Turban rebellion, instead of it being the reward for completing 5 arbitrary steps in the mission tree.

You should when you are discussing removing a major mechanic in the game. Think about it- everyone here who is saying that Missions should be completely removed is only thinking about how they play and enjoy the game, and treat that as the single most important thing Paradox should care about in game-design. But if a majority of people enjoy their conclusion, why should Paradox pay more attention to your opinions than theres? Because your opinions are more important?

None of you are arguing that people who enjoy mission trees would enjoy the game better for their absence. Which isn't a hypothetical- for most of the games lifespan it lacked mission trees, and they were received positively when they were added. All of you are arguing that YOU want them removed, not how others will enjoy the game more if they are removed.

I never engaged in custom nations, as I see they defeat the point of historical roleplay. But I'd never argue that they should be removed, because I know there's a minority of players who engage with that mechanic and have fun, and I wouldn't place my enjoyment of the game above there's, and that's when they are a small minority of players.

You ignore why I said that. I think the game would be better for it, and I am genuinly trying to argue that point. I dislike the "appeal to popularity" and I much prefer the point to be argued. Plus, if PDX does come with a better feature, why would 85% of the community still continue to support a legacy feature? It just represents the status quo

I don't. What are you a crazy person? I'm arguing his perspective is more limited and failing to account for others.

When people say they can't play the game with mission trees, I demand their reasoning. And I keep hearing stuff like 'they railroad', 'the game should be entirely dynamic', 'you should be able to choose any playstyle you want' and I have been trying to drill down on each of these, because I don't believe they hold up to scrutiny. I don't believe my perspective is more important, I believe there's a bunch of 'vibes' going down, and not a whole lot of concrete arguments. Anyone who doesn't like mission trees is valid in thinking that, even if it is pure autism. But this isn't about 'who has the best perspective', it's about 'who has the best argument'.

No I am not and I'm a bit annoyed that this is not the first time that you make that argument. The same argument can be made about you. Aren't the arguments for missions just "vibes" as well? "They give me goals." "They're flavour." In the end it's about how the players enjoy the game, which nescesarily are more "vibes based" if anything

What I disagree with is the idea that total simulation is the goal that needs to be strived for- I strongly believe that abstraction isn't a 'necessary evil' to be done away with, once something can be fully simulated. At that point you're just looking at a spreadsheet simulator. I believe that mission trees are an abstraction, and I feel that's the REAL reason why some people don't like them, because they want the game to simulate every possible historical factor and have the game branch out from there. The problem is A. I think a perfect simulation of history would just play history out in real time, B. it's a video-game, video-games require some degree of abstraction.

I agree with the part on total simulation and abstraction. It's funny actually, since any simulation must abstract, it's moreso just a choice of what you chose to abstract. Stability is obviously a abstraction, but it's also a abstraction of a easy to understand concept that would otherwise become a hassle to represent through simulation. On the other hand, they try to improve on it, since now it is not a static modifier that is affected by events, but a slider with a baseline which is the part you seek to influence as much in the positive direction. The problem isn't the abstraction. A genuine question even because I can't come up with the awnser: what are mission trees an abstraction from? Because they don't really abstract anything, they're a pure game mechanic.

I likewise don't like the idea that national ideas and idea groups are going to be replaced by ambient sliders in their entirety, that's a seperate discussion but it's the same kind od idea.

The sliders aren't the only replacement for national ideas and idea groups. The most direct replacement actually is the advancements, and I like how countries have unique advancements for country specific boosts, but you can still just go whatever way and don't lose out on a amount of boosts. It's a great balance of country specific flavour and generic content to allow for emergent gameplay. My first games will definitely be along the route of picking all country specific boosts, I can admit as much, but a highly aristocratic Dutch game where trade takes a solid backseat is coming.

 

[Vlad123]

So literally your argument is 'WE MUST THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER' then.

Think positive: THEY CAN THROW THE BABY AND STILL THE BATHWATER!

 

[SAmaster]

Sure. How regular is "regular"? I more meant often enough that a player could reasonably see it. Closer to 1 out of 10 then 1 out of 100.

Until they patched it it was literally every game for me.

One prolific example I was always annoyed by is the situation where England would gain permaclaims on Northern France through Hundred Years War related missions, but getting kicked off the continent anyways. This could result in the situation that by the 1600's England > Great Britain would've lost the cores on Normandy, but retained the permaclaims

That should certainly be removed I agree. That said- I don't think there are too many cases in which a nation would claim land and then revoke those claims- as the English abandoned any continental aims after the Hundred Years War. That said- I figure having a PU with France (as should be the outcome of a successful hundred years war) works much better as the reward than the claims do- even if the English got the PU, the integration of France should prove its own hurdle after all.

Let's take these together. Prussia is all about militarism. But what if I want to play different? What if for whatever reason the burghers seize controll over the Teutons/Prussia and form a merchant republic and I want to play like that? A merchant republic Prussia. There is just nothing for that. At that point, you're going to have to ignore a pretty big feature that PDX has been pushing to the playerbase for years now, whilst at the same time. The example of the English/British permaclaims then remind you that you're explicitly having to ignore a feature

In that case I think there should be a mild punishment for you not playing into the historical role- I would compare this to a colonial Kongo campaign. The Kongolese aren't prevented from focusing on colonies, just as Prussia isn't prevented from doing trade-focus. It's just they don't get the same bonuses to colonizing as historical colonizers do, just as Prussia wouldn't have the same bonuses as Venice or the Hansa would. And I think this should be the case- certain nations excelled at certain things than others, and I don't believe this is something that can be easily transferrable. I'm a materialist, so I don't think that say cultures are inherently superior over another or anything, but I do think there's a ton of compound factors that drive these things that an administration can't just push a few buttons to do just as well as.

In any case, you CAN do a merchant Prussia run. I just think it's silly you insister either A. you have to be rewarded for it, B. in the absence of rewards for merchant Prussia, rewards for historical militarist Prussia MUST be entirely removed.

Yes, and I think it would be better if they were combined with more dynamic features, like the decision to form France if you started as a French vassal, or the assumption of the Mandate of Heaven if you start as a Red Turban rebellion, instead of it being the reward for completing 5 arbitrary steps in the mission tree.

Yes, but you ignore my Byzantium example because that CAN'T be dealt with via country formation, as Byzantium exists at the start date- and they shouldn't start with claims all over the former Roman Empire. I'm for your suggestions, what I don't understand is why that must mean any sort of permanent claim rewards from missions have to be removed. Are you arguing we can't do this on a case-by-case basis?

You ignore why I said that. I think the game would be better for it, and I am genuinly trying to argue that point. I dislike the "appeal to popularity" and I much prefer the point to be argued. Plus, if PDX does come with a better feature, why would 85% of the community still continue to support a legacy feature? It just represents the status quo

I'm hearing an awful lot of 'I would likes' not a lot of 'players would enjoy'. Pretty much all the arguments I've heard are for why people on a personal level don't like mission trees, and not how they impact enjoyment of the player base writ-large. Which is why I'm skeptical this is really about making the game better for everyone.

I like mission trees. I like the railroading and the gameyness and the artificiality. Why would I, as someone else who plays Paradox games, be better off for the removal, why am I wrong to like mission trees, and how should my like of mission trees be weighted against your dislike of them when it comes to design philosophy?

No I am not and I'm a bit annoyed that this is not the first time that you make that argument. The same argument can be made about you. Aren't the arguments for missions just "vibes" as well? "They give me goals." "They're flavour." In the end it's about how the players enjoy the game, which nescesarily are more "vibes based" if anything

I'm trying to be as concrete with my points as much as I can, which is why i'm trying to drill down in the arguments and talk about specific examples as much as I can, so we can delve into the merits of this or that system, rather than people repeating their opinions more and more. The more we can talk about specific mission trees, the happier I'll be.

I agree with the part on total simulation and abstraction. It's funny actually, since any simulation must abstract, it's moreso just a choice of what you chose to abstract. Stability is obviously a abstraction, but it's also a abstraction of a easy to understand concept that would otherwise become a hassle to represent through simulation. On the other hand, they try to improve on it, since now it is not a static modifier that is affected by events, but a slider with a baseline which is the part you seek to influence as much in the positive direction. The problem isn't the abstraction. A genuine question even because I can't come up with the awnser: what are mission trees an abstraction from? Because they don't really abstract anything, they're a pure game mechanic.

To me it's pretty obvious. It's the historic narratives that pure 'dynamic simulation' cannot portray. The Hundred Years War should be more than just one of many wars you fight, it should be a climactic event. But a purely dynamic system isn't going to be able to determine which wars are the big important ones and which ones aren't. Hence it's something that should be tied to the narratives of both England and France, as in real life the Hundred Years War is built into their respective national identities to this day.

This may be tied tangentialy to a liberal-conservative thing- liberals have the habit of discounting nationalism as a real force, as liberals tend to be materialists. I'm a liberal myself, but I think this is a chronic mistake that's made- nationalism is a real force that has tremendous impact, it's just also an intangible one you can't quantify (similar to morale in armies). A pure numbers simulation can't simulate nationalism really. By it's nature nationalism isn't something that you can just measure against each-other, who has a higher nationalism score? England or France? Well the answer is that it's not about who has more 'points', their nationhood is expressed in different ways that inform different decision making.

We could go back to the Prussia example, Prussian national identity is heavily tied to its heavy militarization, and going 'merchant Prussia' defeats the entire point of this national identity.

I suppose a question should be asked- what do you think the role of national identity is? Based on prior comments I'm going to assume you want it to be completely malleable, able to be transitioned from one state to another on the whim of the player. I'd argue that's entirely ahistorical, even rulers have had to bow to the national circumstances of their country, they persist even amongst massive regime changes. Again this is why I don't like Crusader Kings as that nationalist element is completely absent.

The sliders aren't the only replacement for national ideas and idea groups. The most direct replacement actually is the advancements, and I like how countries have unique advancements for country specific boosts, but you can still just go whatever way and don't lose out on a amount of boosts. It's a great balance of country specific flavour and generic content to allow for emergent gameplay. My first games will definitely be along the route of picking all country specific boosts, I can admit as much, but a highly aristocratic Dutch game where trade takes a solid backseat is coming.

I'm fine with advances, I just don't think they should serve as a replacement for national ideas. For one on a purely gameplay level, ideas gave every tag a unique (or semi unique) buff that could inform their gameplay and thus starting strategy. And I'm not of the opinion that every tag should start on an even playing field at game start.

 

[WeissRaben]

You're just saying 'there should be other ways to create flavor and historical narratives' and I think that's a reasonable thing to say. I don't get how then we have to entirely ditch mission trees to accomplish that.

Opportunity cost. There's solid chances that if you went and modeled the Burgundian Inheritance with specific events, there is no way for something similar to the Burgundian Inheritance to happen somewhere else to some other nation, because instead of covering the even with generalizable mechanics, you slapped a rigid structure in place to cover that specific case and called it a day.

(Disclaimer: the Burgundian Inheritance is an example, I do not know the degree of railroading regarding it.)