My ideas

[BelisariuS.F]

This post is a part of this post.

How warfare historically looked like in the EU time span in Europe? In that time frame wars were waged in two main, distinct ways.
The first was war of attrition. The significant difference between Europe and the rest of the world was that, because of various causes (this itself could be a subject for a an article), practically never happened that a single empire would conquer entire, or most of the continent (and held it for centuries). In other regions empires had been rising and falling regularly. Europe, after the Rome's fall, have been consisting of a large number of countries of varying size, and even for Napoleon it was impossible to turn Europe into a single state (and this difference is the main reason why Europe has ultimately overtook other regions - more states -> more competition between various technologies, ideologies, political systems; impossible for a single state, single ideology or religion to suppress progressive ideas in the entire region -> faster progress). European states mostly didn't have resources to allow their armies operate on the enemy territory long enough to defeat him completely and conquer his country (and defend themselves against the enemy's allies), so mostly they didn't even try it (especially since the second half of the XVII century; even the Frederick the Great was unwilling to venture his armies more than four days' march from a supply base or over twenty miles from a navigable river). Wars mainly consisted of sieges (for example, Nine Years war - 7 major battles, 21 major sieges; French invasion of Dutch Republic in 1672 - 0 battles, 6 sieges) and the purpose of most battles was to protect the army conducting a siege. Even after a won battle the winning army didn't chase the enemy to finish him off, because it didn't have enough resources to keep it for long (attrition was to high). Peace was a result of long negotiations, which were completed only when the warring states were exhausted by war. Territorial result of those negotiations was at best a transfer of some provinces (sometimes, like in Seven Years' War, there were NO territorial changes in Europe).

The second type of warfare was ultimately established by Napoleon. It was characterized by a fast tempo of operations and spectacular results. Without getting into much detail, corps system, living of the land and the organizational skills and military talent of Napoleon allowed for rapid maneuvers over a wide area (like during the Ulm campaign) and maximally exploiting a won battle (as it happened after the battles of Jena-Auerstadt). It lead to short wars, lasting several months resulting in decisively defeated enemy army and occupied enemy capital.

How the warfare in EUIII looks like against those two types of warfare? Well, it lies somewhere between them. On the one hand attrition is much lower than in was in reality (partly because it is reduced by auto-reinforcement). The result is that we can romp deep in the enemy territory not caring much about attrition (only caring about manpower, if we have it too little).
On the other hand, lost battle doesn't have that much negative impact on the defeated army as it was historically. Defeated army can run away, regenerating its morale, and the only effect is that the next battles will be shorter (and attacking the enemy from several provinces won't make any difference, since the game doesn't take encirclement into account).
The ultimate effect of this is ping-pong, where we are chasing the defeated army province after province and we have to fight several battles until we defeat it completely, or we have to back off because the morale of our army reached to low a level.
So, ultimately we are able to occupy most of the enemy country (or all of it, in case of the smaller countries), but we are not able to decisively shatter the enemy army and win the war even if we had not occupied any provinces.

I propose changes that would allow us to utilize both types of warfare.
Attrition must be significantly raised, and best if it gets higher in provinces farther from the provinces controlled by us (or allies). It should be so high, that it will scare the players (and AI) away from chasing the enemy army into his territory. It will cause, that the military operations will be concentrated near borders, so a defeated army could withdraw inside the country and regenerate (of course if the country is big enough). Army that is conducting a siege, when attacked, should receive penalties to its defensive capabilities. Sieges should not start automatically after entering the province, but there should be a button for starting and breaking the siege. Wars would be focused on sieges, and battles would be mainly fought to protect an army conducting a siege. All of this would allow to represent the attritional warfare that dominated in that period.

The next significant change should be that lost battles should be much more devastating for the defeated army. After a lost battle the army should regenerate much slower than in EUIII, and if attacked again shortly after a lost battle it should cease to exist as an effective force. To make it possible, I would introduce a second parameter, besides morale, describing the effectiveness of the army - cohesion. I think that morale alone is not sufficient enough to describe the effectivenes of the army unit. Morale is good enough for a single soldier, but to describe effectivenes of the whole army unit more essential is the general cohesion and organization of the unit. So I would add cohesion, and change behavior of morale a bit. Morale should regenerate faster. Cohesion should work as a modifier - the lower the cohesion, the less effective the army is and the greater the danger of loosing.
Maybe after a lost battle some of the soldiers of the lost army should be immediately transfered to manpower (the lower the cohesion the greater the number of transfered soldiers)? I could represent, for example, those soldiers who deserted after the battle, and it would make a defeat more significant.
I think that it would be best if a negative effect of low cohesion would rise not linearly, but exponentially. Thus starting a battle with cohesion that is not max or near max should be a bad idea. Moreover, cohesion should change much slowly than morale. Especially in battle it should fall slowly than morale (so, for example, the winning army could finish the battle with 80% cohesion and the losing army with 40%). And it should regenerate much slowly after a lost battle.
One more important thing - flanking and surrounding the enemy (attacking from more than one province) should give LARGE bonuses to the flanking army.

Combination of high attrition, serious disadvantages of low cohesion and bonuses gave to the flanking army would cause, that the player (and AI) would have a possibility of rapidly and decisively defeating enemy forces, but he would have to plan especially for this. It wouldn't suffice just to chase after the enemy army from province to province. You would have to plan the placement of your armies and their maneuvers, to catch the enemy army when its exposed the most. The need to defeat some particular enemy in such a way, could have an influence on our longterm strategy and diplomacy. For example, we could try to gain military access to some country which would allow us to outflank the enemy forces through the provinces of that country. Or just try to take those provinces by force.

In this system warfare would also be influenced by a character of the region where the war is taking place. A region with smaller provinces and more friendly terrain would be easier for maneuver warfare than bigger provinces and more difficult terrain (generally it would be better for this system to add more provinces). We could introduce other factors influencing the warfare, like giving commanders bonuses to their efficiency of conducting sieges, bonuses to the speed of movement, bonuses lowering attrition etc. We could make some provinces to have a negative influence on cohesion, so it would be smart to avoid them. Historically, that kind of regions fulfilled an important role in many campaigns. For example, Portugal during the Napoleonic wars. Portugal was surrounded by terrains that were very difficult for any army, so it was best to avoid them. That's why Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, which were placed on the friendly passes, where so important to control.

The level of the state's development should also have an influence on the character of warfare. Higher levels of the government tech should lower the attrition (the state became more efficient in providing supply to its armies). The highest levels of land tech should introduce the living of the land, which should allow armies to move on the enemy territory for some time with much reduced attrition. So, the farther in campaign we are, the more of maneuver warfare there should be. Also, the offensive <-> defensive slider could introduce bonuses to those two types of warfare.

Now, what the war during which we destroyed the enemy forces should give us? First and foremost, it should give us a possibility of gaining more provinces than we could get with the same warscore in war won only by occupying provinces. How to achieve this? Well, first we have to force the enemy to surrender, even if we had not occupied his provinces. My idea (maybe you will have a better idea) is to introduce a special king of victory, lets call it "total victory", which can be achieved after fulfilling some conditions. What conditions? The game should monitor the size (and maybe the state the army is in (cohesion level)) of the enemy army in relation to our army (the allies should also be somehow taken into account). If the enemy army becomes too weak in relation to our army, then the first condition is met. The second condition will require us just to occupy the capital of the enemy. So, to totally defeat the enemy we need to shatter his army and take his seat of power. Then we should receive the full warscore, be able to take ANY enemy province (excluding his capital) for a much lowered warscore cost. Other peace conditions also should cost less. The enemy if forced to accept that kind of peace proposal. That kind of warfare and victory would be more profitable, more satisfying, more fun, but harder to pull off.

All of this would make wars more varied and more interesting. At the one side of spectrum we would have wars consisting mainly of sieges and battles protecting the sieges, ending when the war exhaustion becomes to high. On the other side of spectrum we would have wars consisting of maneuvers and decisive battles and ending with the enemy forces shattered. And the rest somewhere in between. Of course, everything should be properly balanced, because too much wars of attrition would become boring (at least I suspect), and too much total victories would lead to blobism. And of course, AI should be smart enough to be able to conduct a maneuver warfare, trying to flank the enemy, recognize that its army is exposed etc(but after HOI3 Paradox have some experience with this).

 

[BelisariuS.F]

MY IDEAS - military progress

This post is a part of this post.

Here I present my idea to make the warfare in EU more true to history and more interesting. Historically, in EU's time frame there had been a constant process of change in warfare. EU has a unique chance to simulate the causes of this process in a realistic way (at least more realistic than it is in EUIII). In EUIII military progress is a result of throwing money on the military tech. It means that the main factor that decides how fast a country develops its army is how rich it is. This system completely ignores certain important factors that have an essential influence on the speed of progress.

The first factor is PRACTICE. To know if some new tactic, new method of using particular weapon, new technology will work, you cannot just theorize. You have to try it in practice. And in the case of military it means a necessity to wage wars and to fight battles. The real effectiveness of the particular method of warfare only reveals itself in confrontation with the enemy. Only then you can see what works, what doesn't, what needs to be changed, what needs to be thrown away, if something new must be invented. The war itself is the laboratory where new methods of warfare are being tested. In EUIII time frame practice had even greater importance than it is now, because progress depended more on inventing better methods of using existing weapons (and proving on the battlefield that they are better - pike hadn't start to dominate at the start of renaissance because it was a newly developed, but because the Swiss demonstrated to the rest of Europe that the pike used in a disciplined formation can defeat knights), than on throwing money on better tanks, planes, warships...
Examples.
The Swiss, fighting against knights and winning, saw that pikes and halberds are effective against cavalry. When fighting against the Milanese and loosing, they learned that they should lower the numbers of halberds and increase the numbers of pikes.
Spanish commander Cordoba was defeated by French at the battle of Seminara. Thanks to this battle he realized that he must reorganize the army and he increased the numbers and significance of firearms in his army.
Basically the entire Italian Wars were a laboratory of warfare, where new methods of using pikes, firearms, artillery and cavalry were tested and perfected.
The experience of battle had shown, at the end of XVI, that it would be better for cavalry to charge with sabres instead of attacking in caracole.
In general, even if you invent something just by theorizing, you have to check it in practice, if it works as you expect (of course, as with everything, there are some exceptions, for example, the infantry drill invented by the Nassau brothers started to gain popularity even before it was truly tested in battle).

The next factor is MOTIVATION. In order for people (individual humans or organizations) to progress and not stagnate (or to progress relatively slowly) they have to have a motivation. And the greatest motivation comes from NEED (as they say, the need is the mother of all inventions). If you HAVE to do something, because otherwise you will face some unpleasant consequences, then you generally have no choice and you must do it. In the context of military progress the need is created by the war itself. Defeat in a war brings very unpleasant consequences, so you are strongly motivated to find better ways to defeat your enemy. During peace there is a lesser need and motivation to concentrate on military matters. There are more important matters. During war, you have to think of how do defeat your enemy. For example, if it wasn't for the long war against Spain, the Nassau brothers wouldn't have the need to study the Roman military tactics and to develop a better infantry drill). The Roman navy during the first Punic War is also a great example. When the war started, Rome had no significant naval experience and no strong navy. But the war brought the need to create a strong navy.

And once we are at war, the most significant factor that creates the greatest need and gives the greatest motivation is FAILURE. Nothing motivates to change like lost battles (especially spectacularly lost battles) and lost wars. They clearly show that something is not right, and even those who claimed that there's no need to change cannot deny it (very often, if not most of the time, it happens that people that are tied to current methods of doing things are against the changes and only failures silence them (except the situations when they have too much power, as it was the case, for example, with Janissaries; in this case they may stifle progress)).
Examples.
The lost battle of Arbedo had shown to the Swiss that they should increase the numbers of pikes and decrease the numbers of halberds.
The lost battle of Seminara had shown to Cordoba than he should reorganize and modernize his army.
Difficulties that Gustav Adolph faced against the Polish cavalry had shown him, that he should strengthen his own cavalry (and difficulties that the Polish commander Koniecpolski faced against the Swedish infantry had shown him, that he must strengthen his own infantry).
Poor showing of the French army in the Seven Years War revealed, that the army needs a reform, and spawned a debate about needed changes, that were ultimately introduced by the revolutionaries and later brought to its full potential by Napoleon.
During the Napoleonic wars the Prussian army lagged behind other countries, because after the impressive showing during the Seven Years War it had not partake in any conflict major enough to show progressing backwardness of the army. Only when the Prussians suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Napoleon, they started serious reforms (up to that point there were some attempts at reforms but they were slow).
Lack of defeats may show that something that is considered new and better, is not necessarily that much better. For example, in the first phase of the 30 Years' War catholic forces still used the deeper infantry formations, influenced by the Spanish tercio, and managed to perform quite well against the newer, linear formations influenced by the Dutch infantry, which delayed the adoption of the latter until 1631 (after the defeat at Breitenfeld).

The last significant factor that influences the speed of progress is LEARNING ON THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS. Countries had not need to invent by themselves every technology, every method of warfare. Every new military idea that had been proved effective had spread and was implemented by other countries. So, when a country invented something new, it contributed not only to its own development, but to the development of every other country in the region (and ultimately in the world).
Examples.
After the Swiss had shown the efficiency of infantry blocks armed with pikes they were adopted by the most of Europe.
Better ways of coordinating arquebusiers with pikemen developed during the Italian Wars spread to other European countries that were not participating in this conflict.
When Swedes started to improve their army, they emulated other, better armies. Later, Gustav Adolph improved this army making it even better than other armies. When it had shown it's value during the 30 Years War, other countries started to emulate it.
When Peter The Great decided to modernize his army (and the country itself) he traveled around Europe and brought modern ideas to his country.
When Frederic The Great shown the value of his army during Seven Years' War, other countries sent observers to Prussia to learn about the Prussia military.
When Prussia defeated France in 1871, they had shown to the rest of Europe the effectiveness the modern General Staff.

So, I propose that the main parameter deciding of how fast the next land tech level will be reached should be the the difference between our land tech level and the land tech level of two countries: the most developed country of the directly neighbouring countries and the most developed country in the world, with the assumption that the closer country will have a higher influence (of course, the value of the difference should be modifed to fit the equation). It represents the fact, that the knowledge from the neighbouring countries spreads to us, and that the most developed country also draws the attention of other countries (there should be some limit, for example, the farther the country is, the lower the influence it has, and in some cases it should have a zero influence (for example, when it is situated on the other continent, or when we don't know of its existence). We could also represent the fact that some rulers (like Peter the Great) of countries that lagged much in military technology behind other countries, actively tried to catch up with the most developed countries by emulating them. So if a ruler has a maximal military stat (and/or administration stat), and his country is far behind in military tech, then he gives much more bonus to the speed of adopting the technology from the most developed countries.
Influence of other countries should be modified by a parameter that represents motivation and practice. It should rise when we are fighting wars and battles (it shouldn't rise when we are at war but we don't fight, otherwise it would be easy to exploit), and rise faster when we are loosing battles, and when we have lost a war. It should stay higher for some years after a war and then start to fall.

These parameters should be modified by the money invested in the land tech. The money itself should have a lower influence than the previous parameters. That is, high investment with a low motivation and a low influence of other countries should result in a much slower progress than a low investment with a high motivation and a high influence.

What influence on the gameplay all of it would have? First and foremost, it will cause that if you want to have a top of the line army, you have to wage wars. But it doesn't mean that you HAVE TO CONSTANTLY wage wars, because in this system, even if you are far behind, once you start to wage wars you could catch up with the more developed countries much faster than in EUIII. In this system, planning of development of your coutry could be more interesting. Keeping the military investment high during a longer peace would be a waste of money, while keeping the military investment not high enough during wars would be a waste of opportunity. So the player could deliberately plan periods of peace, when he invest in other techs.

This system would make possible what happened in history - a country with backward military catches up with others, and, thanks to great rulers, even surpasses them and creates new standards. For example, Johann of Nassau wrote in 1601 about the Swedish army: "The Swedish cavalry in general is badly equipped, having no armor; the foot is badly clothed and armed, in fact not having a single pike in use or in possession and being mere farmers...". After 30 years this army was the best in Europe.

One more thing. Subsequent military tech levels should modernize our army more often. Between the levels that give a new unit type there should be levels giving upgrades to the units of our army. It would represent:
- gradual improvement of methods of warfare utilized by the already existing unit types, for example, gradual improvement of the cooperation of arquebusiers and pikemen that took place in the XVI century, platoon firing, cavalry starting to abandon the caracole in favor of charges with sabers at the end of XVI century, etc.
- new technologies, such as, new firing mechanisms, carronades, copper sheathing, etc.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

MY IDEAS - military

This post is a part of this post.

Read this post only after reading this and this.

TEMPORARY ARMIES AND STANDING ARMIES
I think that EU should somehow represent the fact, that historically in Europe throughout the most of the game's time span most of the countries didn't have a standing army, and only in the second half of the XVII century European countries started (under the influence of the Louis XIV actions) to introduce standing armies. The question is, how to introduce temporary armies without forcing the player (and AI) to disband most of his army after every war. I think that we could use the already existing possibility of lowering the amount of money spent on army maintenance. The maintenance slider should be modified, so we could lower the maintenance costs to ZERO. In this state, army units will have a zero morale and zero cohesion, so they will be totally unfit to fight, but the army will generate NO costs. In order to prevent such an army unit from being immediately destroyed (for example, by some rebel army), we should introduce a possibility of removing that unit from the map, and putting it on the list of units that still exist, but are not deployed. This, in abstract way, would represent the disbanding of the army, without actually disbanding it. Moreover, cohesion grows much slowly than morale, so I think that if we increase the army maintenance, then the cohesion of undeployed units should grow faster than the cohesion of deployed units (so it will take a less time to bring the unit to its full efficiency before deploying it, than it takes after a lost battle). I would also give a possibility of selectively turning on max maintenance for single army units, so we could have units acting at full efficiency and, for example, hunting rebels. Important thing - we should be allowed to undeploy units ONLY if we are not during a war AND a specified time since the last battle of the given unit has passed (otherwise it would allow for exploits, for example, our army unit is about to be annihilated (during war, or during peace when fighting rebels) and we are undeploing it and redeploying after it regenerates). Question remains, how to force the player/AI to lower the army maintenance to zero. The answer is here. If the army maintenance cost was so high, that not enough money remained for other needs, then the player/AI would be forced to lower the maintenance to zero.

The last question is, how to present the transition to a standing army. How to make a standing army a viable option. We can use the fact, that the spreading of standing armies in Europe in the second half of the XVII centry had been connected with the increase of the size of the armies (in the second half of the XVII century Louis XIV significantly increased the size of his standing army (early 1660s - maximum of 70000 during wartime, 10000 during peace; 350000 during the Nine Years' War; 150000 during peace after the Dutch war) and with time, other countries emulated it). Establishing a standing army should be a national decision, with effects: maintenance cost of a unit drops significantly (maybe even by half or maybe even more); the possibility to lower maintenance to zero and to undeploy units disappears, and the minimal maintenance level should be somewhere between 50%-100% (tests would show, which would be best). It would mean that the player could wage wars with much larger armies (even twice as large) with the same maintenance cost but he would not have the possibility of lowering the cost of the army to zero. If the army would become to expensive to maintain it at its full size all the time, then he would have to disband part of the army, rise taxes or take loan. Prospects of having a standing army would be connected with how developed the state's financial system is. Having a national bank (which is described here) would very desired. Without it, we would have to pay a high interest rates, or increase taxes, upsetting the people, which can put us on the path that France followed, and lead us to revolution (which is described here). Standing armies would be one of the elements giving us great possibilities, but bringing a risk, that everything will crumble if we won't be careful.

ARTILERY
Artilery should be separated into two kinds, developing in parallel (and available to be recruited both at the same time) - heavy and light. Heavy artilery should be more powerful than light artilery, but its movement speed should be low. Light artilery should be moving at the speed of infantry (and a horse artilery, available at the end of the XVIII century, should be faster than infantry). First types of a light artilery might be a bit slower than infantry, but later it should catch up (thanks to this, there will be a period at the start of the game when we would have to decide if we want to trade speed for power). Thanks to this, the development and usage of artilery would be more realistic. We would use heavy artilery in sieges and light artilery in battles. This would tie in to what I described here.

GREAT CONQUERORS/RULERS
One of the things I miss in EU (and in other grand strategy games) are the rulers/commanders who in their skills and accomplishments are off the scale. People which appear on the stage of history once in several centuries. People like Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Gengis Khan (and also the "lesser great ones", like Babur, Tamerlane, Shaka Zulu) etc. That's why I propose that in every region/continent, once or twice throughout the campaign should appear a ruler with a "great commander" or a "great ruler" tag. Great commander, as long as he lives, will give a LARGE bonuses to various stats connected with military (military investment, attrition, commander & unit stats, morale etc). He himself should receive bonuses to his stats as a general. Great ruler, in addition to that, should give bonuses to other, nonmilitary stats. Magnitude of the military bonuses should be so great, that if the country's army is backward as compared to other countries in its region/continent, it should catch up with them in relatively short time.

If this kind of ruler happens to the player, it will work as a temptation to maximally use his potential and to start playing aggressively. So, it may bring GREAT rewards, in terms of conquests, but also a great risk, if he overextend himself (debt, lots of provinces ready to rebel, provoking too large coalition directed against him). I think it will make the game a bit more interesting.

NAVY
There needs to be a greater difference between big and small ships. Historically, big ships were more expensive to maintain than small ships, and outside of wars and battles they were sitting in docks. Small ships were used for patrolling, escorting and protecting overseas trade. To represent it in the game, I would separate the naval maintenance into big ship maintenance and small ship maintenance. It would allow to dock the big ships during peace. Small ships would constantly patrol, fighting pirates and protecting trade. We could also introduce an "evade battles" button for every fleet, giving it high probability of evading battle with stronger fleets.

Another thing that should be introduced is a possibility of hiring corsairs (something more significant than the current 'Commission Privateer' espionage mission), with the task of preying on the enemy's overseas trade. To countries that are not powerful enough to compete with the enemy in direct naval battles it would give a possibility of harming him at sea at least in some way (historically it was the case with France during the wars of Louis XIV - after failed attempts to defeat England at sea, Louis stopped trying and hired the corsairs to pray on the English trade).

 

[BelisariuS.F]

MY IDEAS - diplomacy

This post is a part of this post.

The first thing that should be changed, is that relations between states should be represented by relations between monarchs (or any other governing entity). This means that relations between countries would reset to zero after every change of the governing entity (like, obviously, death of a monarch). This would be true to history. Historically, the monarch of a country A could be warring with the monarch of a country B, but when the monarch of a country B died, relations between the countries became neutral, or even those two countries formed and alliance, if it was advantageous for them at that moment.

Which brings us to the second thing that should be changed. Diplomatic decisions made by the state should be, first and foremost, guided by ITS PRAGMATIC INTERESTS, not by relations. Historically it often happened, that two states would form an alliance, because it was in their personal interest at that moment, some years later they would be in a war against each other, because it was in their personal interest at that moment, and some years later they again would be at each other's throats. And that was because they made decisions based on their own personal interest, not on who likes or doesn't like who (for example, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Great Britain fought against France and Spain, and four years later Great Britain and France fought against Spain during the War of the Quadruple Alliance). Sometimes two countries could fight at the same side and at separate sides during the same war (as it happened during the Italian Wars). Heck, even two mortal enemies as Hitler and Stalin formed a pact.

Third thing that should be changed, or rather expanded, are alliances. Alliances in EUIII are limited, especially as compared to peace negotiations. We have a lot of options if we want to talk with our enemies, but not enough options if we want to make allies. There should more types of alliances, for example:
- an offensive coalition directed against a country X. If any country of the alliance attacks the country X, then the alliance countries are obliged to join the war. Any country that plans to take a piece of X, or curb it's power should consider joining this kind of alliance (and, as I proposed, regardless of its own personal relations with the states that are in this alliance);
- a defensive coalition directed against a country X. If any country of the alliance is attacked by the country X, then the alliance countries are obliged to join the war. Any country which feels threatened by the country X should consider joining that kind of alliance;
- a defensive and offensive coalition directed against a country X;
- a general alliance, lasting to the end of the current government, where countries are obliged to help each other in every war. I think that in this particular alliance, willingness to form it should depend on the relations between the governments.
- pact of non-agression for a determined period of time - useful when you want to go to war with one country and need to be sure that you will not be attacked by some other country.

Maybe diplomatic negotiations should be an actual negotiations? For example, we ask for a pact of non-agression in exchange for a sum of money (the developers should take a look at the diplomacy interface in the Crown of Glory - Emperor's Edition, as it allows to create a treaty consisting of many various elements). We could also introduce a possibility to offer an alliance that would last for a specified period of time.

And the last thing, if a country became powerful militarily, then the countries in the same region/continent should feel threatened by it and be more willing to join alliances against this country, whenever they are proposed, REGARDLESS OF ITS CURRENT BADBOY LEVEL. So the more powerful a country becomes, the greater the opposition it will face.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

MY IDEAS - economy

This post is a part of this post.

INFLATION - NO, DEBT - YES
First of all - get rid of the inflation caused by the treasury slider, because it has nothing to do with how the inflation is caused in reality. Someone said on the forums, that it is an abstract way of representing the fact that governments never had enough money to wage wars. But, instead of using some unrealistic, too abstract abstractions we could represent it in a realistic way. Indeed, governments didn't have enough money to support armies during long wars, so they were forced to take loans and they were in perpetual debt that had been constantly rising. Even the richest countries were in debt (Spain, despite the fact that it had a regular influx of gold from the New World, bankrupted four times in the XVI century (and between 1570 and 1607 the Spanish army in Netherlands mutinied 50 times because of the lack of pay)). So, let's make a debt management an essential part of running a country and waging wars. Historically, the costs of maintaining an army during war had been enormous. For example, between 1679 and 1725 the Russian army during war ate 90% of the state's income. During the Seven Years' War, Prussia spent its entire reserve of 13 million talers, gained 43 million talers from the increased taxes, which was a heavy burden on the population, and debased the currency of the state three times, which created a further 29 million. So, lets make a unit maintenance cost so high, that YOU WILL HAVE TO take loans before and during wars. This would tie neatly with my idea for temporary and standing armies, described here, and with the idea for a more realistic causes of revolution, described here. Costly armies, combined with what I described here, would make wars more of a high-risk/high-reward adventures than it is EUIII. You could gain more, faster, but you could loose more if you fail. And what's more, it will make managing large and richer countries more challenging - larger armies, bigger possibilities, but also larger costs and a greater risk of messing up your finances if you overreach.

The interface for debt management should be more developed. There at least should be a possibility to set the amount of money you want to borrow; and it should be possible to repay the debt at any moment you want, before the expiry date, not JUST at the expiry date.

Bankruptcy should be more often, but much less severe. The main disadvantage of bankruptcy should be an inability to take loans for some time.

National bank - this should be a national decision available at a certain government tech (lets say, somewhere in the middle of the XVII century, or maybe earlier, AND at a certain trade or production tech level (so only if your government and your economy are developed enough). And it should not lower the inflation, but it should lower the interest rates of the loans. Cheap loans - this was the advantage that the countries with a national bank had over countries without it (a cite from some book "Those who loaned money through the banks were also in charge of the state purse strings and they could be sure to repay themselves without default").
Summing up - managing the national debt should be a normal element of governing a state.

Support limit - this should be gone. First - it would be not needed with the already expensive armies. No need to make them even more expensive when you exceed some artificial limit. Second - it would give the player another tricky thing to balance. Without the game telling him what is the optimal army size, he himself would have to balance costs against military needs.

OVERSEAS TRADE EMPIRE
I intended to propose a possibility of creating an overseas trade empire in the style of the Portuguese empire, but, judging by EUIV previews, the developers came up with pretty much the same ideas, so I will only add one. Introduce two kinds of ports: a military port and a trading port. Military ports should allow ship building and serve as a naval base. If you want to block war fleet of the enemy - you should block only the military ports. Trading ports should be places where the profits from the overseas trade routes flow in (they should not allow ship building and do not serve as a naval base). If you want to cut off the enemy from the overseas trade - block his trade ports.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

MY IDEAS - governance & various stuff

This post is a part of this post.

NOBLES - BAAAD
What was one the main processes that had been running in Europe after the middle-ages? Curbing the power of the nobles and transitioning from aristocracy to meritocracy, where your skills are more important than the social class you belong to. I propose to use the aristocracy <-> plutocracy slider to simulate this process in the game. Change "plutocracy" to "meritocracy". Change its effects, so the more meritocratic the country is, the more efficiently if functions (in everything: military, government, trade, production). This would mean that there is only one desired direction of change - to meritocracy. But the transition shouldn't be easy. Curbing the power of the nobles should be a rough ride. Every change towards meritocracy should bring a high risk of one of the things: noble rebellion, which if successful will move the slider back towards aristocracy (sometimes more than one level back), lowered stability, no change of slider. Also, add much more levels between min and max and remove any time limit between changes, so you can change it whenever you want. BUT, the faster you will make another change towards meritocracy, the greater the risk should be and the more severe the effects. This should be balanced, that if you want to play safely, then you have to wait some tens of years between changes (with subsequent successful changes this period should become shorter and shorter - the less power the nobles have, the greater the chance of curbing their power even more) and, if you start the game with max aristocracy, you will not have a chance to move totally to meritocracy (at least not without the revolution; revolutionary republic should automatically move the slider towards meritocracy), so if you want to achieve that, you have to play more aggressively with the nobles, and piss them off more often.

The possible minimum and maximum level at the given moment should be limited by government types (noble republic having the lowest maximal level of meritocracy, and constitutional republic having the highest minimal level of meritocracy), so it would be impossible to be fully meritocratic in the systems characterized by a great power of nobility.

MORE REALISTIC CAUSES OF REVOLUTIONS
If we implement a standing army, as described here, rise the army maintenance cost, as described here, and give the ability to raise taxes (besides wartaxes) with the effect of pissing off the people, then we could utilize all of it to make the causes of revolutions more realistic. One of the main causes the French Revolution was that the state was effectively bankrupt and had to levy very high taxes on the common people. And the main reason of the state's financial difficulties were wars, which caused an enormous debt (in 1788, 26,3% of the national income went to the support of the army and 49,3% to repayment of the debts taken during the previous wars). Also, the reason why, during that period in history, the rebellion could turn into a revolution AND SUCCEED was the fact that armies were standing armies dominated by common people. Earlier, armies were dominated by nobles and mercenaries. So, whenever common people rebelled, they were supressed militarily. But when armies became dominated by common people, when common people rebelled against the rulers with the goal of bringing more power to themselves, the army, instead of suppressing them - supported them (financial difficulties of the state affected also the well-being of a common soldier). Another reason was the Enlightenment, which brought a new ideas of liberty and democracy (which affected even some nobles, like the Marquis de La Fayette).

So, we could emulate all of that in the game. It could work like this. Expensive armies mean that you have to take debt. If you allow the costs of managing the debt to rise to too high (which can happen if you have large army but don't have a national bank) then you may be forced to tax you subjects more heavily, which will make them upset and more likely to rebel. If you, at the same time have a standing army, which in itself puts greater burden on your finances, required government tech level and a innovative <-> narrowminded slider closer to innovative, then a revolution could happen (instead of just a anti-tax rebellion) and most of the army should join the revolutionaries.

VARIOUS
- The centralization slider should modify the influence of the current ruler's stats on other parameters. The less centralized the country is, the lesser the influence. Government types could also have a similiar effect - in the constitutional monarchy the ruler should have a lesser influence on the country than in the absolute monarchy.
- Make the government types affect more aspects of your country, because somehow I personally feel that they have less impact on the shape of your country that they should have. Also, revise their current effects. In the case of some of them I don't see how they are connected with the particular government type. For example, why absolute monarchy gives +5% to discipline? Why feudal monarchy gives +15% to force limits?
- Introduce more conditions required to transition between government types. Also, it would be nice if a transition to a new government type brought risk of rebellion caused by the people whose power will be diminished in the new government (most obvious example - transition from a feudal monarchy to an absolute monarchy), that, if successful, will result in transition to the old government type.
- I think that the current and detailed size of armies of other countries shouldn't be automatically visible in the ledger. It should be only an approximation and should be refreshed from time to time. Its exactness and when it is refreshed should depend on: spy activity, diplomacy, distance from our country, if we are in a war against them or we are allied with them etc.
- Spies should be MORE available, and if their efficiency and usefulness normally is so-so, then their efficiency should rise dramatically if you use them very often. I want to play a relatively small but rich trade country which has a strong spy network, and can afford to regularly use it to forge claims on the enemy country, destabilize it internally and then attack. It would be fun.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

MY IDEAS - summary

I intended to post this before Paradox starts working on EUIV, but oh well ...

I've created several posts where I describe my ideas for changes in EU. Some of those changes I think should be implemented. Other changes (the most significant) are just ideas that would make the game interesting for me, and other players may think that they suck (or that they are ok, but will be hard to balance and make playable). Most of them are not as thought out as they could be, because I figured that it would be better to post them and more people will analyze them.
Everything is written as "what, according to me, should be changed in EUIII" and, with one exception, I don't reference the EUIV features announced by Paradox.

Here are the posts:
warfare
military progress
military
diplomacy
economy
governance & various stuff

The common factor in many of the proposed changes, besides making the game more true to history, is making it more unpredictable and more challenging. In EUIII, when you are playing some strong country, (you've picked a strong country, or you've developed a weaker country) then you practically know that you will create a strong empire that will be getting stronger and stronger as the game progresses. Many players don't even finish the campaign, because at certain point their country got so strong, that all of the challenge is gone. For me, the ideal situation would be when you couldn't be sure in what shape you country will be at the end of the campaign, EVEN IF YOU ARE PLAYING A COUNTRY THAT IS STRONG AT THE START OF THE CAMPAIGN. Every campaign should be different in terms of the player's end results. For example, in one campaign you take some risks that pay off, you have some luck, and your country ends up as a strong empire. In the next campaign your risky decisions bring catastrophic effects and your country crumbles in the middle of the campaign. I another campaign you have some luck and you get a great commander/ruler, you rapidly conquer a great empire, but you overextend and your empire crumbles under rebellions or after a war against some large coalition. Another campaign is full of ups and downs, you gain some and then you lose some, just like it was the case in history with many countries. In another campaign you follow a path that most empires followed: the rise, period of a domination punctuated by periodic crises, the fall. That kind of variety would make the game much more interesting and creating an empire would be more satisfying (and I think that for someone who is interested in history it would be more interesting to experience various paths of development of a country, and not just rising to power and being powerful to the end of the game).

The main factor that should allow to create such a variety is a high risk/high reward factor. The game should provoke the player to make decisions that might give him higher rewards than it is possible now in EUIII, but, in case of a failure, punish him by higher losses than it is now in EUIII.

I know that at this point most of the changes have NO chances of finding itself in EUIV, but maybe, if enough people like them, they will be implemented in future expansions. Or EUV. So, what do you think (read ALL of the posts before you comment in any of them)?

 

[s1234567890m]

so... why not put it all in one thread?

 

[AlHasanAlbaghdadi]

You're not getting any likes if you use that attention-seeking attitude

 

[bitmapmedivh]

Better to petition a moderator to merge all your threads into one. Thread spamming like that is a good way to earn infringement points.

 

[Captain Gars]

Please don't spam the forum by opening up a half dozen threads.

 

[Iche_Bins]

First of all: wow, you really put some thought into this.
I think you did not make that many threats because of some attention-seeking attitude , but because it would be easier to discuss these ideas separate. Thats a whole lot to discuss it at once.

Just some thoughts to your ideas:
Diplomacy: More options, especially with your allies are really needed, I like these ideas. Also the resetting of relations with the death of a monarch is a nice idea, but what happen with wars? Imagine you are just winning a war and all the sudden their or your monarch die and you have to declare war again?

Government and various: The Aristocracy stuff sounds good, but it looks like it will get the risk of being easily exploitable, and hard for the AI to manage.
The smaller points are good, except maybe the spy one, it sound to much that it would favour the player to much, or become t much of a hassle to play around with spies.

Economy and military: It is one big change that would totally alter EU. Your Idea would be more realistic, but will it still be fun for the average player? Making it too hard and complex can be bad for sale figures. They sound intriguing though. I'm just worried that it would not be as fun as it is now. people want to build up an empire and be proud of it. Usually it is bad when said empire gets destroyed, because the game is hard-wired to do so.

 

[Tornadoli]

Great ideas! It would be great if even some of those ideas would get implemented.

 

[Darkath]

How exactly is this spam ? The posts were long enough to stand by themselves, didn't they ? May be he shouldn't have opened them all at once, granted.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

How exactly is this spam ? The posts were long enough to stand by themselves, didn't they ? May be he shouldn't have opened them all at once, granted.

Don't comment on a moderator decision on the public forum, if you wish to do so use the PM-system.

See the forum-rules.

2.{Talk to staff by PM} You will not argue with, comment on or question the actions/authority/ or comments of the Paradox staff (Administrators, Moderators, etc.) in a public forum. Should you wish to do so you are directed to contact the Paradox staff via PM (the private messaging system - see “How to Contact Staff” below).

 

[BelisariuS.F]

Wow. Sorry.

I've created separate threads because I thought that it would be just toooo many subjects to discuss in just a single thread (all of it takes about 10 pages of A4 format). I posted them at the same time, because they are connected, so they had to be posted together.

Economy and military: It is one big change that would totally alter EU. Your Idea would be more realistic, but will it still be fun for the average player? Making it too hard and complex can be bad for sale figures. They sound intriguing though. I'm just worried that it would not be as fun as it is now. people want to build up an empire and be proud of it. Usually it is bad when said empire gets destroyed, because the game is hard-wired to do so.

Yes, I was sure that many players (and the developers) would not like it, because it would make the game harder (from the developers point of view - less sales).
Nonetheless, I think that difficulty is a matter of proper balancing. You can implement all of this and balance it so it would be just a bit harder, and the rest would be in the hands of modders.

 

[MilosM]

I think there should be two kinds of relations, relations between monarchs(or governments) and relations between people of two countries.

 

[Evie HJ]

I think there should be two kinds of relations, relations between monarchs(or governments) and relations between people of two countries.

The later group is seriously not relevant, especially not in this era.

 

[liamgamer55]

The later group is seriously not relevant, especially not in this era.

It might affect how likely the troops are to sack the land.

 

[unmerged(264070)]

wow, great post, good suggestions. Very well written as well! Are you a history student?