Nations are too blank at the start of the game in EU V (and EU IV)

[P.Quirinius]

One thing that I think is unrealistic and probably gives player an edge over the AI iv EU V is how much you can change your nation on day one. From what I've seen it is common practice to give out a lot of privileges before unpausing. For example Red hawk in has game as Serbia starts with two privileges for Clergy and none for Burghers and Peasants, but immediately gives these estates 14 new privileges. Similarly I've seen players determining policies like the levy age, which seems particularly important, on day one. My point is, if it is going to be normal to have many more privileges after the start of the game, what the hell were the nations doing before the player took over? And did they never feel the need to determine the levy age until the player take over? And if they did not, why are you suddenly allowed to determine it. I think it is unrealistic. Secondly, I think it gives the player an edge, because the player will be able to figure out which privileges and policies are the best and always give them to the estates, while the AI nations will likely have to chose suboptimal privileges and policies for role play reasons.

I believe that making the nations less blank by giving almost all of them suboptimal privileges, policies and government reforms would have several important benefits:
1. It would make the game feel more realistic. You would feel more like you are taking over a real nation and not creating kind your own custom nation.
2. It would make early game expansion more difficult, you would not be able to set up your economy and military in the optimal way, but instead you would need to struggle with your estates losing their satisfaction and stability on every privilege change, getting the levy age policy you want would require concessions in the parliament and while the autocracy could be quite strong, it could be hard to implement without a civil war. The early game should be more about fighting your own people over these issues and less about conquering your neighbours. The rise of nations like the Ottomans could be made more likely by giving them an almost optimal start game privilege and policy setup and not by overpowered bonuses like basically +2 cabinet members, similar to how Belgium can grow quickly in Victoria 3 partly thanks to its good starting laws without having any overpowered railroady modifiers. A lot of the starting privileges could be like serfdom or slave trade in Victoria 3, which are not strictly negative (you can want them if you want your landowners strong), but you almost never want them.
3. It would make the start of the game less onerous. In Victoria 3 at the start of the game you only need to choose a technology to research, set up a few decrees, start improving relations with a few nations, set up rivalries, start building, potentially reform your government, start trying to change one law, declare a war if you want to minmax infamy and trigger corn laws if you want to abuse the game mechanics. These are mostly small changes that will only have impact over time. As of now in EU V it seems, that besides doing most of these things or something analogous to them you will also be making a small revolution in your country by making a lot of long term changes besides changing taxes and so on, which will probably take a lot of time. I find it quite annoying how in EU IV every game starts with giving out mostly the same privileges every time before you can actually start playing. It would be better if you could just add a privilege or two, identify another one you want to change and start working towards that.

By the way, related to this, I also don't like how most nations seem to start with 0 inflation. Eastern Roman empire has a lot of inflation at the start of the game to represent their issues, which is nice, but it feels unrealistic and a bit gamey that most other don't have any, like if they had no similar (smaller) issues of their own. Overall, it would be nice if ever nation had a lot of internal issues the resolution of which would take a lot of the nations resources which would make conquest harder to afford and more rare in the early game.

 

[Sulphurologist]

Wholeheartedly agree with that idea., but you might have misremembered Serbia's setup.
Serbia actually STARTS with 8 priviliges for the nobility!

(20:49)

I agree that every nation should feel like a moving train when you start the game. Trying to change direction should need a lot of effort.
Hawk proposed that he'd rather see it reduced to 2, but I disagree, trying to deviate your nation towards a certain direction should be part of the early game experience imo.

Of course this is an incredible amount of work to implement for each nation, but when nations receive flavor it would be nice to do a pass of which startup-modifiers they start with. Be it high numbers of priviliges, inflation due to a bad state of the economy, low legitimacy due to recent dynastic changes, devastation in provinces due to recent wars,...

 

[Dewit]

I partially disagree regarding the Inflation.
For one it would be cool if its not only the ERE with debt/ inflation but there are more important issues to be addressed before by the developer first.

It would mean a lot of research (and debates in forums lets be real) for little gain.
Even if they just blanket introduced debt or Inflation for any/ all nations, it would be pretty much just as "realistic" as it is now but with way more discussions.

If you have numbers on national debt/ inflation for certain countries at/around the start date, feel free to start a thread about it to collect sources etc.

 

[Briloner]

Hard disagree:

- there are several privileges set in. Many nations have rather entranged estates - look at Byzantium having purely negative corruption-privileges for all estates

- the flexibles things like levy-age, etc just lead the player to make decisions.

- priviledes are hard to revoke - too much of a lock-in, if all are set before start.

- the meta is to give out a lot of privileges anyway.
The AI and thus automation goes there, too.
In the end you click alot, butvhave very similar outcome.

--> So you merely decide the composition of some privileges.
The strong and the bad and the nation-defining ones are already there.

 

[P.Quirinius]

Wholeheartedly agree with that idea., but you might have misremembered Serbia's setup.
Serbia actually STARTS with 8 priviliges for the nobility!

I know I did not mention the nobility because this is estate is fine in that setup in my opinion. I know it would be a lot of work, but it is actually because they did the work for the nobility that I thought they could do it for the other estates as well. I don’t think it needs to be super historically accurate, I actually assume it is likely not in the case of Serbian nobility.

 

[titan.bevel]

I think a solution that would maybe require less "intensive preparation" for each nation, would be to make ASSIGNING priviledge less of a "I click and it happens", and more of a hassle. The various ways this could be achieved would be that giving one estate a priviledge could anger the others, or that you'd tie it somehow to parliement (so you need to balance it with other uses of parliement).

Similarly, you could make it that changing policies is more costly, or even has a cost even if you're going from no policy to a policy. If no data is available for the starting policies of all laws, I'd be fine with a randomised setup for "minor" policies, like the levy age i.e.

I could quite well see a DLC down the line where laws, priviledge and parliement are (evn more) tightly interconnected, and you almost can't change policies or priviledge without going through one, or angering severely your estates. Maybe even in base game, who knows !

 

[Fawr]

I'd also like to use this to make different countries different. If countries are a blank slate then you do the same day1 in France as you do in your next game's day 1 in Hungary.

 

[Briloner]

I'd also like to use this to make different countries different. If countries are a blank slate then you do the same day1 in France as you do in your next game's day 1 in Hungary.

I totally agree.

Thankfully it has already been done - according to the youtubers, who discussed it.

(Of course, we can discuss whether some privileges more should be pre-set or not, but your wishes are already fulfilled.)

 

[Dewit]

I totally agree.

Thankfully it has already been done - according to the youtubers, who discussed it.

(Of course, we can discuss whether some privileges more should be pre-set or not, but your wishes are already fulfilled.)

can you name a source, please?

 

[Wildrake]

Remember when a few people pointed out that the Yuan empire didn't collapse due to natural disasters or some unexpected events, like in-game, but instead due to massive economic issues like inflation and deficit, constant rebellions, and other internal struggles

 

[Rule Britannia]

One thing that I think is unrealistic and probably gives player an edge over the AI iv EU V is how much you can change your nation on day one. From what I've seen it is common practice to give out a lot of privileges before unpausing. For example Red hawk in has game as Serbia starts with two privileges for Clergy and none for Burghers and Peasants, but immediately gives these estates 14 new privileges. Similarly I've seen players determining policies like the levy age, which seems particularly important, on day one. My point is, if it is going to be normal to have many more privileges after the start of the game, what the hell were the nations doing before the player took over? And did they never feel the need to determine the levy age until the player take over? And if they did not, why are you suddenly allowed to determine it. I think it is unrealistic. Secondly, I think it gives the player an edge, because the player will be able to figure out which privileges and policies are the best and always give them to the estates, while the AI nations will likely have to chose suboptimal privileges and policies for role play reasons.

I believe that making the nations less blank by giving almost all of them suboptimal privileges, policies and government reforms would have several important benefits:
1. It would make the game feel more realistic. You would feel more like you are taking over a real nation and not creating kind your own custom nation.
2. It would make early game expansion more difficult, you would not be able to set up your economy and military in the optimal way, but instead you would need to struggle with your estates losing their satisfaction and stability on every privilege change, getting the levy age policy you want would require concessions in the parliament and while the autocracy could be quite strong, it could be hard to implement without a civil war. The early game should be more about fighting your own people over these issues and less about conquering your neighbours. The rise of nations like the Ottomans could be made more likely by giving them an almost optimal start game privilege and policy setup and not by overpowered bonuses like basically +2 cabinet members, similar to how Belgium can grow quickly in Victoria 3 partly thanks to its good starting laws without having any overpowered railroady modifiers. A lot of the starting privileges could be like serfdom or slave trade in Victoria 3, which are not strictly negative (you can want them if you want your landowners strong), but you almost never want them.
3. It would make the start of the game less onerous. In Victoria 3 at the start of the game you only need to choose a technology to research, set up a few decrees, start improving relations with a few nations, set up rivalries, start building, potentially reform your government, start trying to change one law, declare a war if you want to minmax infamy and trigger corn laws if you want to abuse the game mechanics. These are mostly small changes that will only have impact over time. As of now in EU V it seems, that besides doing most of these things or something analogous to them you will also be making a small revolution in your country by making a lot of long term changes besides changing taxes and so on, which will probably take a lot of time. I find it quite annoying how in EU IV every game starts with giving out mostly the same privileges every time before you can actually start playing. It would be better if you could just add a privilege or two, identify another one you want to change and start working towards that.

By the way, related to this, I also don't like how most nations seem to start with 0 inflation. Eastern Roman empire has a lot of inflation at the start of the game to represent their issues, which is nice, but it feels unrealistic and a bit gamey that most other don't have any, like if they had no similar (smaller) issues of their own. Overall, it would be nice if ever nation had a lot of internal issues the resolution of which would take a lot of the nations resources which would make conquest harder to afford and more rare in the early game.

I personally like the idea of the player having a lot of decisions to make on day one, which means that you can start shaping the game in a certain way from the get go. Who is to say that what the streamers tended to do in their videos is the only play style and this would be followed by every player? Personally I have spent a lot of happy hours tinkering with the decisions for England in EUIV before unpausing, to find out what works best for my play style, and look forward to doing the same in EUV. These decisions can also add variety for people who tend to play the same country over and over again, and depending on the strategy you wish to pursue, you will likely make different choices. Locking in many more privileges will take agency away from the player, push the player towards playing the country a certain way initially, and make the start of a campaigns less varied. I think doing this would be a mistake.

 

[cary__]

The problem I see with countries being already "gameplay ready" is that, as they will certainly not be ideal, it will ultimately result in the same thing as in EU4, where you either change all settings before unpausing, or alternatively wait until the cooldown to change them when you can. Another thing is if there is some system in place to prevent this, which could be understood as a form of railroading, which seems to be a very controversial topic on here.

I personally like the idea of the player having a lot of decisions to make on day one, which means that you can start shaping the game in a certain way from the get go.

These systems get metagamed relatively quickly, where its not so much about making decisions to improve your particular playstyle or further your particular goal but instead just clicking the "be stronger" buttons before being able to play the game.

 

[titan.bevel]

it will ultimately result in the same thing as in EU4, where you either change all settings before unpausing, or alternatively wait until the cooldown to change them when you can. Another thing is if there is some system in place to prevent this, which could be understood as a form of railroading, which seems to be a very controversial topic on here.

The proper alternative imo would be to make the countries gameplay ready quite suboptimally (as historically they were), and have the change be more than a simple cooldown, but rather an interconnexion with other systems. This way removing it will be one of the many competing priority (and not a "remind me to click that button every X years"), and hopefully it will fall on the good side of the "railroad" where the initial situation IS railroaded, but the reactions following it are entirely the player's ones.

 

[P.Quirinius]

I personally like the idea of the player having a lot of decisions to make on day one, which means that you can start shaping the game in a certain way from the get go. Who is to say that what the streamers tended to do in their videos is the only play style and this would be followed by every player? Personally I have spent a lot of happy hours tinkering with the decisions for England in EUIV before unpausing, to find out what works best for my play style, and look forward to doing the same in EUV. These decisions can also add variety for people who tend to play the same country over and over again, and depending on the strategy you wish to pursue, you will likely make different choices. Locking in many more privileges will take agency away from the player, push the player towards playing the country a certain way initially, and make the start of a campaigns less varied. I think doing this would be a mistake.

I see that some people see what I suggest as railroady, but it is not. (I hate railroading almost in any form) A railroad needs to lead from one point to another and cannot exist in a single point alone. What I am suggesting is that this starting point should be more fixed, but then you can walk, ride or drive, but not fly (you have hundreds of years to reach your destination and flying as bad for the environment) in whatever direction you want. On the other hand I would say that what I believe you want is "teleporty": you change your nation a lot in a blink of an eye.

Imagine you start with about twenty privileges. Every about 5 years you manage to revoke one and replace it with another that you actually want. In 100 years you will be playing the England you wanted that you made yourself through a simulation of plausibly historical processes by playing the game not a custom nation placed in the location of 1337 England and vaguely inspired by it by which you replaced the actual England.

Imagine in Victoria 3 you could start as France and decide on day one that you want to switch to a parliamentary republic, with laissez-faire economy and census suffrage. That would not be fun (to prevent jokes, I know many people think it is not fun either way).

 

[Jarvin]

I see that some people see what I suggest as railroady

Ironically I feel like it's the blank state start that's actually more railroady in a weird, indirect way.
Blank state means that different starts feel more similar to each other, and thus can be optimized in a repeatable way more easily.
Most countries starting with no estate agendas means that I am kind of compelled to do the same set-up of getting specific good privileges as any country, with only a few exceptions.
Technology being mostly uniform (unit pips don't matter) and most countries not starting with any significant bonuses means that I don't need to think about whether I should use cavalry or not, because the answer is just no no matter who you play as

While for more defined starts you can still technically just look up a "good" way of doing it, it's still a much less available information, and so you are more likely to have to come up with your own strategy of dealing with things, which in turn will make you succeed in some ways but fail in others~~

If you are less guided into doing something specific every time you start a new campaign, because it's hard to figure out a solution that applies universally to every start, then that feels like the opposite of railroading, at least if it's done well and isn't just a "you start with X privilege that's bad, you have to gather 10 strawberries to remove it"

 

[Rule Britannia]

I see that some people see what I suggest as railroady, but it is not. (I hate railroading almost in any form) A railroad needs to lead from one point to another and cannot exist in a single point alone. What I am suggesting is that this starting point should be more fixed, but then you can walk, ride or drive, but not fly (you have hundreds of years to reach your destination and flying as bad for the environment) in whatever direction you want. On the other hand I would say that what I believe you want is "teleporty": you change your nation a lot in a blink of an eye.

Imagine you start with about twenty privileges. Every about 5 years you manage to revoke one and replace it with another that you actually want. In 100 years you will be playing the England you wanted that you made yourself through a simulation of plausibly historical processes by playing the game not a custom nation placed in the location of 1337 England and vaguely inspired by it by which you replaced the actual England.

Imagine in Victoria 3 you could start as France and decide on day one that you want to switch to a parliamentary republic, with laissez-faire economy and census suffrage. That would not be fun (to prevent jokes, I know many people think it is not fun either way).

But you already have certain privileges that have been given out and that you may wish to get rid off, and you have others which you may wish to give that have not yet been given out. I think this is a nice balance, compared with every country starting with a lot more privileges already given. If there is a privilege that it makes sense that the country already has at start then fine. However, I do not think you should lock in privileges just so the player cannot choose them if e.g. England would not historically have had those privileges. Now, it may be that you wish to have a limit on the number of privileges that can be given out at any one time, e.g. max one per estate per x years, but I have no idea how that would work with the gameplay in general.

 

[J_Master]

I think OP is pretty spot on. Plus PDX has been moving a lot in this direction already. Plenty of countries in HoI4 start out with mediocre or bad national spirits you somehow have to work your way around. In EU4 too they have been adding certain estate privileges to represent certain starting situations. And to go to the unnoficial inspiration for a lot of EU5, in MEIOU & Taxes you basically spend the vast majority of your early game revoking privilege after privilege in a attempt to centralize your state

 

[Briloner]

WHICH BLANK SLATE????

Debt is set at start, inflation is set at start and roughly more than half of the privileges, ... are set at start!!!!

Do we talk about Europa Universalis 5 (formally know as project Caesar) or am I in the wrong forum here.

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You only add some more of an impossible large bag of privileges at start.

The only estate, where the privileges are not properly set, are burghers. However those are just beginning to rise and the historical path is not set. Meaning, the role of nobles are set at 1337 - the role of burgers not - or at least it is changing. It is ok for players to plot their course more freely here.
Furthermore, just because you see youtuber set a couple of privileges from a bag of privileges, that does not mean they can pick from the same bag.

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Having said all that, I think some privileges more could be locked in, but not many.

I guess, the levy law is something I am ok with but could be locked. I see, why that screams "too much sandbox".
Here is why it should be free to choose at start:
- some options draw players in, make them aware of mechanics and gives them the impression, they handle their country. In short, I believe them to be more immersive, than just watching my country
- I think, it is not such a hard-lock, because laws are easier to change than privileges - I guess
- I honestly would be hard-pressed to set it historically. I could get start privileges form burgher for France, but levy-laws? not really.

 

[Signthe]

Maybe this is another contender for a rule the player can just turn on/off.

I'd also like pre set alliances and defensive leauges while we're at it.

 

[Bisonmask]

This is what made me stop playing EU4 the first time I tried it, every single game as a new player starts with you sitting in the estate's window with a guide or video pulled up on another screen to see which privileges are good or bad for starting as that country. Half the time you end up clicking the same privileges and selling titles anyway

Already set privileges would be a massive improvement to the new player experience and making privilege changes more restrictive would make countries more asymmetrical