We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
What are you talking about lol I JUST provided to you an example of what overpowered means. You can stack yearly legitimacy if you want, it isn't "overpowered" because not everyone will choose to do that (because it does not allow you to exercise any disproportionate amount of power).
Is your opinion really that every stacking modifier is OP and thats what makes the game good?
"And average amount of players seems to agree, since that's the direction the devs have taken and the amount of players now is more than 5 years ago." Im gonna pick this apart because its stupid.
First of all, I just described how overpowered modifiers were nerfed because it was bad for the game, so no, ~overpower all the modifiers~ is not the direction the game is going. Second, a decision being popular doesn't necessarily mean its good. Good game design has nothing to do with how well its received. Mobile games are extremely popular but I think we can all agree that those tower defense games you see in porn ads are garbage.
Third, a larger player base doesn't mean the game is de facto better than it once was. Perhaps you're unaware of WoW classic. How would a new player to EU4 even have the frame of reference to compare the current state of the game to old? You're assuming they were aware of the game and choosing not to play it because it didn't have enough hand holdy mission trees yet.
I dont even know im bothering to rebut this incredibly insipid post; you seem to be getting heavily downvoted in here
if you want to play the mission trees, they can be really fun. if you do not want to play/ follow them, they can be quite annoying, dangling a carrot in your face, saying "do you REALLY not want your free 3 PUs?"
And you can think what you want about people with low self-control, but it really is taxing to know that you could get free stuff if you only did what the devs wanted you to do.
Sure, they're different. But what about your 5th time playing a North American tribe? It's there that missions can differentiate your plays.
Same about India. I can think of a few ways how to play in India. But not 10 different ones. And having different mission trees will make it more replayable.
In addition to Anbennar-style story-focused MTs (that seem to be the main attraction of this mod, as the writing is not bad at all and it leads to interesting stories you can't express through pure gameplay mechanics) I see two ways of MTs being satisfying:
1) Make them an additional alternative "tech tree". I think a lot of earlier MTs leaned to this direction. They suggest some initial moves and give some situational bonuses for them, and then they provide some permanent bonuses for early-to-mid game things that you're likely to do anyway. I've recently played Florence and it was a nice example of that: you can do the whole MT before you become the regional power and you get thematic boosts to development and trade. After that you can probably switch to Italy and get even more permanent bonuses, but it's optional (I was doing Prince of Egypt achievement so I had none of that). I understand that for many people this would feel hollow and the game becomes boring around the midgame though, so you don't see a lot of these.
2) Turn them into a real game mechanic, like Imperator: Rome did. You might not have played I:R but the idea is MTs there are more like proclaiming the focus of your country. You state your desire to conquer a region and you get sub-tasks focused on conquering specific sub-regions that mirror a more "historical" way of conquest (as in with little border gore and with establishing garrisons along the way). You commit to developing a province and you get tasks to improve infrastructure in specific ways to get special modifiers - like some town gets a permanent bonus as a trade capital cause you poured resources into it. While big boys get special MTs with more interesting decisions everyone get those conquest/infrastructure/government upgrade MTs that feel like a useful tool instead of railroading. Devs could have achieved it by other means but MTs there are flexible and flavorful, even if there are not enough types.
The second way is obviously not something devs can introduce without a sequel, but I wish MTs for most countries were more like the first way for most countries with some special additions here in there, like Provance crusader missions. Major countries already feel powerful enough to get wherever they want after early missions, and things like Ditmarschen getting bonuses for conquering Russia are not very interesting, it feels more like a funny achievement rather than a subject of a mission.
What are you talking about lol I JUST provided to you an example of what overpowered means. You can stack yearly legitimacy if you want, it isn't "overpowered" because not everyone will choose to do that (because it does not allow you to exercise any disproportionate amount of power).
Is your opinion really that every stacking modifier is OP and thats what makes the game good?
Well, what makes the game good for you? When I come to this forum, it feels filled with people that don't actually enjoy the game they're playing.
With the regards of stacking modifiers. I clearly worded that wrongly, because it's not possible to stack every modifier with decent results. Yearly legitimacy is a fine example, because legitimacy is capped at 100 regardless of what you do. If it wasn't capped at 100 and bonuses could go higher when above 100 legitimacy (with 100 as an equilibrium point), then I'm pretty sure, that yes, it would be OP to stack yearly legitimacy.
Anyway, there are many modifiers that can be stacked to make you OP. Ever played with 15 diplo reputation? You can use the AI as your puppets with no rebute. Prussia with Discipline? Stacking Morale? Aggressive expansion reduction? Core creation cost? Admin efficiency? War score cost? Goods produced? Tech cost? Advisor cost? Combat ability? Fire damage? Regiment cost? Siege ability? Diplomatic annexation cost? The list goes on. And picking ONE of the aforementioned, and stacking it makes the game fun for me, yes.
Pick any one of these, stack it, and you'll feel 'overpowered' though.
"And average amount of players seems to agree, since that's the direction the devs have taken and the amount of players now is more than 5 years ago." Im gonna pick this apart because its stupid.
First of all, I just described how overpowered modifiers were nerfed because it was bad for the game, so no, ~overpower all the modifiers~ is not the direction the game is going. Second, a decision being popular doesn't necessarily mean its good. Good game design has nothing to do with how well its received. Mobile games are extremely popular but I think we can all agree that those tower defense games you see in porn ads are garbage.
Third, a larger player base doesn't mean the game is de facto better than it once was. Perhaps you're unaware of WoW classic. How would a new player to EU4 even have the frame of reference to compare the current state of the game to old? You're assuming they were aware of the game and choosing not to play it because it didn't have enough hand holdy mission trees yet.
You really think that the game would have grown if the average played though it was getting worse over time? It's when people stick to it that it grows. People that don't like what it has gotten leave the game.
Don't really care. Getting magical internet upvotes is good for a small dopamine rush, but matters little in the end. I've made my point. People disagree. I rest my case.
That is already the wrong way around.
Im not being promted to conquer X, Y or Z because the situation is fitting for it.
Im looking for situations that let me conquer X, Y and Z in a resonable manner because the Mission says i should
and not doing so means i lose hundreds of Dip and Adm one way or the other.
Im not doing something because it would improve my situation in a cost-effective manner.
Im doing it because i get to click a button if i do.
But, you're still doing stuff in regard of your environment, no?
As an example in my latest Japan game. I unified Japan. Then my mission tree prompts me to conquer Korea. It was however not cost effective to conquer Korea at that point since it was my 40K stack vs Ming's 200k stack. So I then choose to conquer another area. That had nothing to do with the mission tree. Sure, I want to conquer Korea at some point because it gives certain rewards, but I'll only do so when the rewards outweigh the costs.
To put things simple, you can always make the choice:
1) Do I conquer the stuff my mission tree tells me to and get X reward + provinces?
2) Do I conquer other stuff, that's way easier to conquer and don't get X reward, but still get provinces?
Simply following your mission tree isn't always the optimal path. And it's adapting to your environment that makes for a good player. Sure, you want to follow it often. But not always. And not always ASAP. Not all permanent modifiers are always useful (like having +3 yearly absolutism in the 1500s).
I don't see how it reduces choice, other than incentivize certain things to do that make stuff possible that's otherwise not possible (like changing unit types as Ethiopia).
As a general note: I also never said that balance should be throw out of the window. Just that mission trees in their entirety are a mechanic I like having and have fun with.
Having a +50% permanent admin efficiency for conquering a single province is just beyond stupid. But having SOME permanent modifiers on endgame tags that require significant investment and effort is a good thing to have. Permanent provincial modifiers are my favorites. They're helpful, permanent, yet not OP and lost upon losing said province.
Does there exist a better system? Probably. But I've yet to experience one.
Well, I'm one of them. I stopped playing this game once, because it became boring. That was just before Rule Brittania was released, which anecdotely was when mission trees were introduced. The first iterations were not good, though. It's only from emperor and onwards that they became somewhat decent and fun.
I used to play my favorite nations and new nations in my favorite areas every new patch. Map changed, mechanics changed, tags changed, new tags arrived and the way games generally played out changed. The last three years (at least) changes has been geared more towards Mission trees. Idea changes has been great though.
Mission trees can indeed be fun (the first time you play through it), but I tend to agree with Johans assessment that Imperators mission system is better fitting for the type of grand strategy games Paradox is known for. If given the same level of attention that MT's have had over the years of course.
The story telling elements from MT's is great too. I just don't want to have the same story over and over, so there's that: a paradox.
Yes, because AI could use events and others to a degree, but it cannot use mission trees.
I reiterate: you are playing a game in a world based on history, except only you, the player, are given the protagonist powers.
Also I just don't know how you can compare the few events you'd get in the past, or maybe some special govt reforms (I remember when peeps in the MP community were complaining about unique indian govt reform that gave you whole 5% discipline) to a literal list of claims, modifiers, custom mechanics and others that you get for doing mission trees. Quantity and scale matters here.
Also yes, westernization sucked. We've had a lot of bad mechanics in the past, but i don't think that's a valid reason to justify other bad mechanics existing in the game right now
This is a very weird way to defend a clearly poorly designed system from QoL-perspective.
Even if you are OP, or yourself, or others here, who are clearly more commited members of the playerbase and know where to find information like this -> this is a hassle, and there's a clear lack of QoL.
But most people aren't OP, yourself or others here. For them playing videogames might be about just... y know, buying them and playing. They'll read some info on new DLCs and whatnot, but that's about it. For those people missions' tooltips lacking meaningful gameplay-related context is an even a bigger problem.
It's bad if the player doesn't know what he can expect to get in a strategy game, and has to use external resources for it. And yes, this was also a problem with old events, though luckily we didn't have as many super important ones.
I am very clueless as to why yall seem to be arguing against the experience of using mission trees being objectively made better, unless you are trying to claim that it'd ruin your experience if aforementioned Ethiopian mission for army reform did specifically tell you about its rewards. It's literally a matter of adding one or two sentences to the localization, and this somehow caused a discussion across like 15 posts.
OK
I am disagreeing with OPs notion that you have to do tons of research before playing a nation. You can check the wiki if you really want to, but thats hardly more than a 5-10 min activity. Its also not necessary as you can very well start playing. So saying I have to look this stuff up isn't true in my opinion. Its necessary to play optimally, but not to play the game itself.
I disagree that there is no way to figure out how to get western units which are so crucial to optimal play. Using logical thinking and simply checking the mission tree will narrow it down to one mission and an event caused by it. I am not saying that there isn't room for improvement. Newer mission trees already have that improvement as mentioned by people speaking against mission trees. So the issue isn't with mission tree, but with older missions not having the same level than the new ones and the issue is simply adding some lines of text (something never brought up before your post). Instead its missions are bad.
There is also some minor stuff that i find illogical. Here is what i mean:
Mission trees are so incredible OP, but I still need these boni asap or I loose.
I did a ton of research yet in a war I only took one province instead of making claims or saved up diplo points to take more land.
There is only the mission tree route that I can follow as opposed to just expand into other directions in addtition to the one suggested by the mission tree.
I either follow a mission tree to the end or completely ignore that. I am often ignoring parts of trees when my goals don't align with the tree so I don't see what is the problem here.
Mission trees requiring me to attack allies. Yeah thats actually pretty similar to RL and is also true for stuff like formable tags.
Lastly I am not convinced by potential dynamic mission trees.
I feel liek this might result in half a dozen generic missions based of different directions (e.g. conquest, diplomacy, economic, influence,...). So instead of reconquering Switzerland as Austria since thats your ancesteral homeland you are getting a mission since you own Konstanz or random Province No. 34 next to it.
One of the appeals in EU4 for me is the historical background. If Castile slowly takes over provinces in Italy I am reminded of the Italian wars and maybe read some stuff about them again. Austria getting a PU over Hungary and Bohemia (at least sometimes) is nice since that was happening historically.
In a dynamic mission tree I don't see stuff like that happening. Instead it might be France getting a PU over Brittany because they are neighbours and a randomlly generated mission tells them to do it. It would turn more into Stellaris where I don't care one bit for randomly generated AI empires there is no history behind it. Don't get me wrong Stellaris is awesome and it doesn't matter as much there since its not a historical game.
I want to be a colonizer so I guess I can pick any coastal nation and secure myself from potentially aggressive neighbors.
I want to become the HRE emperor so I guess I can pick a smaller nation if I want a harder start or a bigger one. I should also probably take diplo ideas.
Mission EU 4:
As Teutonic Order, does Poland declare war on you by event in 2 years or 7, and is it a defensive war where you should get lots of big allies or an offensive one where you're alone vs a 40k army? Answer wrong and you loose the game. Dont know what event I'm even talking about? Sorry, that's probably a game loss.
Also, I like playing with lots of tributaries but I'm bored with playing as a tribe or in Asia all the time. What countries allow you to have tributaries trough their missions, and are any of them Christian (Id really like to do a Christian tributary run)?
I would like an actual answer to those last 2 questions. I dont know if you will want the wiki to answer them (heads up, the wiki wont help).
I think dynamic missions / trees are a great way to alleviate some of the concerns of the game becoming dull or boring since missions tend to be static (Do X Get Y)
As far as I am concerned, as a player first and foremost, I had tons of fun playing through the historical missions of nations such as the Teutons, Ottomans, Sweden etc and then retrying the alt-history paths, especially with the Teutons.
It's certainly far from perfect, as we are limited by the technology of our time but it's a nice way to implement variety and help you construct your narrative, as much as we can. Would you like to spearhead the HRE ? Sure, we can accommodate that and give you a different set of missions. Would you like to conquer it instead ? Done, no problem. All while keeping such mission paths isolated, so if you want to ignore them and move to other missions, you can do so. This choice (especially in newer trees after 1.33) is in your hands. Making missions takes a long time, researching / designing / scripting is a difficult process when the framework of the game is old and we are trying to provide fresh content every patch, if I could wave a magic wand, I would make all content (trees, reforms, privileges) much deeper and flavorful in an effort to provide you with more replayability while maintaining as much of the sandbox feeling as possible.
As a player, I like mission trees but I am not blind to their shortcomings either. I have a lot of fun playing them and I understand concerns such as readability and "hidden rewards" which is why we implemented Event Insights, as a way to give you an idea of what you will get, with sacrificing as little immersion as possible. As you can see, the development of the game is not symmetrical and I would like to believe that with every update we become a little better and wiser, thus making better content for everyone. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you are a minority or a majority, your opinion on the game should be heard and ideally discussed, and if we don't agree it's no issue, we are united in our love for this game that has been going on for over 10 years now.
As Teutonic Order, does Poland declare war on you by event in 2 years or 7, and is it a defensive war where you should get lots of big allies or an offensive one where you're alone vs a 40k army?
Also, I like playing with lots of tributaries but I'm bored with playing as a tribe or in Asia all the time. What countries allow you to have tributaries trough their missions, and are any of them Christian (Id really like to do a Christian tributary run)?
I would like an actual answer to those last 2 questions. I dont know if you will want the wiki to answer them (heads up, the wiki wont help).
As Teutonic Order, does Poland declare war on you by event in 2 years or 7, and is it a defensive war where you should get lots of big allies or an offensive one where you're alone vs a 40k army? Answer wrong and you loose the game. Dont know what event I'm even talking about? Sorry, that's probably a game loss.
The danzig rebellion was in the game before the mission tree. Its also an event and the mission tree is actually warning you about. I remember being warned about it in a MP game before LotN and someone explaining the conditions which as far as I remember I couldn't see in game (it was just seize crownland and dev a bit to get to 40 %). Again you bring up something that has nothing to do with mission trees but is a general trend (more historical events).
You can also chose to let danzig go anmd play from there. Adapting to development was proposed by opponents of mission trees, but I guess that only applies when the player is in charge.
Also yeah games can end in defeat. Thats something some people seem to struggle with. I have abandoned a ton of runs where I either miscalculated or got fucked by RNG, an event I didn't know about or simply an ally abandoning me when I got DOW due to debt that I didn't constantly checked. I then closed the game took a breather and tried again later. Shit happens sometimes.
Also, I like playing with lots of tributaries but I'm bored with playing as a tribe or in Asia all the time. What countries allow you to have tributaries trough their missions, and are any of them Christian (Id really like to do a Christian tributary run)?
Funny because thats completly different to your original post. So again shifting the topic here. Considering tributaries are a game mechanic how is there any connection with your mission tree problem again?
Please take a moment to consider this thread as a whole. There are a number of people here who strongly disagree with each other, yet everyone makes the effort of remaining civil ; why is it that you're the only one who can't do the same ? Your condescending and aggressive tone doesn't make you more convincing, it just makes you look immature. For everyone's benefit, please keep things cordial.
The danzig rebellion was in the game before the mission tree. Its also an event and the mission tree is actually warning you about. I remember being warned about it in a MP game before LotN and someone explaining the conditions which as far as I remember I couldn't see in game (it was just seize crownland and dev a bit to get to 40 %). Again you bring up something that has nothing to do with mission trees but is a general trend (more historical events).
You can also chose to let danzig go anmd play from there. Adapting to development was proposed by opponents of mission trees, but I guess that only applies when the player is in charge.
Also yeah games can end in defeat. Thats something some people seem to struggle with. I have abandoned a ton of runs where I either miscalculated or got fucked by RNG, an event I didn't know about or simply an ally abandoning me when I got DOW due to debt that I didn't constantly checked. I then closed the game took a breather and tried again later. Shit happens sometimes.
Funny because thats completly different to your original post. So again shifting the topic here. Considering tributaries are a game mechanic how is there any connection with your mission tree problem again?
Some nations get tributaries enabled as a mechanic from a mission reward, which apparently you didn't even know about (I don't blame you). Its precisely the point of my original post. That the game is becoming too arcane and obfuscated with hidden TAG mechanics, mission or not. Ethiopias problems in my first post wouldn't had been solved if they where turned into events.
I'm okay with people disagreeing about the game direction. Some want it more sandbox, some want it more historical. What frustrates me is that some people just read the word "mission" and start arguing against nobody that missions which don't tell you what reward youl get or missions that want you to win 5 wars in a row against a 3x stronger enemy for 2 provinces at a time are good and just a "difference in personal taste".
I think dynamic missions / trees are a great way to alleviate some of the concerns of the game becoming dull or boring since missions tend to be static (Do X Get Y)
As far as I am concerned, as a player first and foremost, I had tons of fun playing through the historical missions of nations such as the Teutons, Ottomans, Sweden etc and then retrying the alt-history paths, especially with the Teutons.
It's certainly far from perfect, as we are limited by the technology of our time but it's a nice way to implement variety and help you construct your narrative, as much as we can. Would you like to spearhead the HRE ? Sure, we can accommodate that and give you a different set of missions. Would you like to conquer it instead ? Done, no problem. All while keeping such mission paths isolated, so if you want to ignore them and move to other missions, you can do so. This choice (especially in newer trees after 1.33) is in your hands. Making missions takes a long time, researching / designing / scripting is a difficult process when the framework of the game is old and we are trying to provide fresh content every patch, if I could wave a magic wand, I would make all content (trees, reforms, privileges) much deeper and flavorful in an effort to provide you with more replayability while maintaining as much of the sandbox feeling as possible.
As a player, I like mission trees but I am not blind to their shortcomings either. I have a lot of fun playing them and I understand concerns such as readability and "hidden rewards" which is why we implemented Event Insights, as a way to give you an idea of what you will get, with sacrificing as little immersion as possible. As you can see, the development of the game is not symmetrical and I would like to believe that with every update we become a little better and wiser, thus making better content for everyone. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you are a minority or a majority, your opinion on the game should be heard and ideally discussed, and if we don't agree it's no issue, we are united in our love for this game that has been going on for over 10 years now.
I would like to strongly argue that you could achieve the same replayability without railroading players through mission trees. What youre actually talking about are dynamic rewards, not trees. The ability to choose between "do I want perma claims on poland or do I want to PU them" is more interesting than Do X Get Y but if youve railroaded it behind "do these other missions first though" you are forcing the player to repeat the same campaign up until that point to achieve that. the dynamic reward would be better implemented through an event or a national decision or even a combination of both, because at least then you can still get that dynamic reward but without having to repeat the same process youve already done over and over again.
more replayability while maintaining as much of the sandbox feeling as possible.
If this is a priority then I would suggest using event chains that trigger off MTTH instead of a button click that elucidates exactly what will happen and when and what your options are. For example, having the Burgundian Inheritance be truly random instead of "press abdicate when youre ready to start it". If you as the player have no control over when an event starts, that maintains a degree of randomness that mission trees do not. MTTH, IMO is better than "make these conditions evaluate to true" because even if you know exactly what triggers the event or that the event exists in the first place, whether it triggers in a reasonable time frame or it takes you by surprise or whatever is more exciting/random than clicking the button to make it happen. You flip a light switch, the light comes on. Repeating that trial yields no mystery, unlike the randomness of MTTH.
Maybe im in the minority here but I actually think laying out a mission tree that gives you event insights is bad, because if youre the kind of player who doesnt want a sandbox experience and instead wants to do the developer themepark ride, once youve completed all the missions (even repeated playthroughs to get the dynamic reward you care about experiencing this time), why would you ever replay that country? You already know every possible outcome because its spelled out for you. Do these actions in this order to get X reward on demand. Contrast that with replacing missions with a combination of national decisions and events, unless the player deliberately goes researching the forums/wiki/YT/etc they wont even be aware of what all is possible to happen. Maybe theyve played Burgundy ten times and this is the first time the inheritance event actually fires. That is more engaging then "if you click this button these things will happen". Im really reaching to put myself in the shoes of a singleplayer mission tree player here, but I imagine if you could look at a country in the start screen and certify "youve done 100 percent of the content for this nation" you wouldnt pick it again.
Personally, ive played several nations with scant mission trees 20+ times each (primarily Brandenburg, Burgundy, Milan and Byzantium, and mostly in older versions of the game) because the experience is extremely dynamic without relying on any railroading. I think the focus should be on letting the players write their own story over the course of their campaign, and the best way to help them do that is make the base features as engaging as possible. Compensating for shallow features like the estates, rebels, disasters, etc being absolutely feckless, ignorable nonentities by pouring depth into the mission tree themepark is helping players tell YOUR story.
Maybe its cheaper, maybe its easier, I dunno I dont work there, just saying the game is more fun when you dont already know exactly whats going to happen and in what order.
Or you could skip all that and try transitioning the game to Esports or something because the greatest introduction of randomness is playing with other people. Were it not for multiplayer, I wouldnt have thousands of hours on this game. Maybe bring back the dev clashes vOv
To be honest, why would you ever replay any country? E.g. atm in my game, 25 tags survive in Europe alone, and I've only played 2 of them (once each) in 1000 hours.
I think dynamic missions / trees are a great way to alleviate some of the concerns of the game becoming dull or boring since missions tend to be static (Do X Get Y)
As far as I am concerned, as a player first and foremost, I had tons of fun playing through the historical missions of nations such as the Teutons, Ottomans, Sweden etc and then retrying the alt-history paths, especially with the Teutons.
It's certainly far from perfect, as we are limited by the technology of our time but it's a nice way to implement variety and help you construct your narrative, as much as we can. Would you like to spearhead the HRE ? Sure, we can accommodate that and give you a different set of missions. Would you like to conquer it instead ? Done, no problem. All while keeping such mission paths isolated, so if you want to ignore them and move to other missions, you can do so. This choice (especially in newer trees after 1.33) is in your hands. Making missions takes a long time, researching / designing / scripting is a difficult process when the framework of the game is old and we are trying to provide fresh content every patch, if I could wave a magic wand, I would make all content (trees, reforms, privileges) much deeper and flavorful in an effort to provide you with more replayability while maintaining as much of the sandbox feeling as possible.
As a player, I like mission trees but I am not blind to their shortcomings either. I have a lot of fun playing them and I understand concerns such as readability and "hidden rewards" which is why we implemented Event Insights, as a way to give you an idea of what you will get, with sacrificing as little immersion as possible. As you can see, the development of the game is not symmetrical and I would like to believe that with every update we become a little better and wiser, thus making better content for everyone. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you are a minority or a majority, your opinion on the game should be heard and ideally discussed, and if we don't agree it's no issue, we are united in our love for this game that has been going on for over 10 years now.
Thank you for responding. I would like to just clarify my position because I wrote the original post in the heat of the moment:
1) I would like less front loaded missions.
An example of this is starting missions where nations need to do something trivial like build up their army up to force limit, develop a province 5 times or improve relations and they get permaclaims on 30+ provinces in a row. In practice, this gives the player hundreds of admin and diplo points and reduced AE at a time when they benefit from it the most (early). We all know how powerful snowballing is in this game, from spawning institutions to being ahead on military tech and outgrowing your neighbors. 30 permaclaims in 1600 are cool. 30 permaclaims in 1445 feel mandatory to do on day 1.
2) I would like better explained missions.
Ethiopia gets +2.5 autonomy a year in every province until you do a long-ish mission chain. This is not something you can not rush madly; by 1490 all your provinces will be at 100% autonomy and your game will be lost before 1470. The way to fix this is pretty hidden in a forest of missions, and the way to complete them is written in hard to understand "programmers language":
This is an example of how I see most longer mission requirements as a lay person with no programing knowledge:
"Complete the mission "Reform the monasteries!"
Requires all of the following to be true:
*Requires one of these to be true:
*Religious estate loyality over 60
OR
*Completed religious ideas
AND
Year is before 1550
OR
*Requires one of these to be true:
*Average autonomy is 50
OR
*Requires one of these to be true:
*Own 30 provinces
AND
*Be at peace
I can kinda orient myself most of the time by reading key phrases, but It feels like hacking game code, not reading something meant for "normie" players.
3) I would like simpler, easy to understand missions.
In order to complete an important Ethiopia mission, I need to "Enact Biblical Sabbath Reform". This is not a reform, or a decision, but a privilege (for the religious estate, not the nobility or merchants) which doesn't appear until certain triggers are met, so you are expected to see its not in the religious estate at the game start but then check anyway. And it can never be seen if you go Jewish (common for Ethiopia), and you're supposed to do the mission in another way.
There is zero explanation of this in the game. And if you don't know this, your Ethiopia game will fail; you cant get around it. And its part 3 of a 3 part equally confusing mission tree.
4) I would like the starting window for picking your nation in EU 4 to contain two sentences on what unique rewards the nation has.
"This nation can become a horde". "This nation gets lots of personal union claims". "This nation gets a free colonist from its missions".
5) Ideally, I would like some limited flexibility in missions.
Things like "Conquer OR ally Morocco" are positive examples of this. If I conquer 7 out of the 10 claims, can I complete the mission and move on to the next? Often times I'm 1 province short of completing a mission because my ally has it, or I didn't have 3% more warscore to get all 10, and such. Giving a reward for owning 80% of previous claims instead of every single claim would help.
