I already made a thread about other Paradox games I'd want them to take inspiration from for EU5 (or any game, really), so I figured with a new forum I'd start one here for non-Paradox games. I'll address each of the three design concerns laid out by Johan.
Believable World:
Believable World:
- Differentiation between empty land, cultivated land, and urban land, something like Humankind's "district" system. Not necessarily the same mechanic, but the same feeling that as your cities grow, they expand across the province and replace empty land and farmland with a sprawling city, and that this has a meaningful effect on provincial output. It would also be nice if control of the city versus the province were differentiated, which would be great for representing colonies, multiple HRE regions, and situations like Constantinople at gamestart.
- Something similar to but more realistic than Solium Infernum's "vendetta" system for wars. Essentially, in Solium Infernum you can't just declare a war of annihilation. When you declare a vendetta, you declare specific goals, and if you reach them the war ends immediately, as opposed to a "Blood Feud" which is an annihilation war. Obviously wars ending immediately like this wouldn't be desirable, but some kind of different small-scale versus large-scale war system where it's easier to declare limited wars with a narrow scope that end after a year or so as opposed to every war between majors feeling like a massive world war.
- From Civ 3, an "AI Aggression" setting with 5 options. At max aggression, the AI should behave like a human trying to WC, juggling truce timers and AE. At minimum aggression, I would actually have it behave almost the same as the current EU4 AI, where it won't declare war on nations it likes and should be generally content to sit around at peace most of the time unless they have a wargoal handed to them. The "normal" setting should be mostly Realpolitik behavior out of the AI unless there's high trust or a long, mutually beneficial relationship between two powers, but NOT constantly seeking expansion necessarily. I would fully expect some starts to be literally impossible at max aggression, since many nations start in a situation where they'd be an immediate target of multiple powers they'd have no hope against. Any setting should be Ironman Compatible unless they add some kind of "no aggression" mode. EU4 does NOT feel like what I would consider a "realistic" political simulation to be, but importantly different people have different levels of cynicism when it comes to global politics. Allowing the player to decide whether he wants to play a game where meaningful interpolitical relationships are honored (low aggression), a game that feels like cutthroat politics where they always have to look over their shoulder (medium aggression), or a game where it feels like they're competing against human players trying to "win the game" (high aggression) would allow each player to choose the type of immersion they want.
- I actually think that nation-specific mechanics REDUCE replayability, since each play of an individual nation will begin to feel the same if you always have the same tools. I feel like something like a reduced scale version of Humankind's culture system would be a good addition; I don't like that your nation actually changes to a new one in Humankind, but I wonder if some kind of similar evolutionary culture system would be good. Essentially, if you look at a nation like the Teutonic Order, you'd see them at the beginning of the game as being a "Crusader State" culture (just like Livonia, Cyprus, and Rhodes). As the game progresses and culture evolves, you might get to choose between becoming a "Secularized Monarchy" (like Bohemia) toward becoming the Kingdom of Prussia, or could choose to evolve into a "Mercantile State" (just like Lubeck, Venice, and Genoa) by tilting your culture more toward the burghers and become the Prussian Confederation. ALL "Crusader States" would start with the same evolutionary options, and then each of those options would have evolution options that make sense, etc, forming a "culture tree." Likewise, a culture like Byzantines might start as an "Imperial Remnant" culture (just like Trebizond, Athens, and Epirus) and then get to choose whether to attempt to reclaim lost glory as an "Imperial Contender" culture focused on expansion to become Rome (which Spain might start the game as) or evolve into a "Cultural Hegemon" concerned with creating a new cultural identity, where a state like Byz, Athens, or Epirus switches to Greece and Trebizond switches to Pontus. Then, instead of mechanics like Pronoia or special units or Trade Leagues being tied to specific tags, they'd be tied to specific cultural evolutions.
- 1
- 1
- 1
