Thoughts on the new institution tech penalty cost?

[iClipse]

I'm still testing it out a bit.

Even with tech penalties, your neighbours don't tech up as much and it's much easier to remain at tech parity with your neighbours. They might reach a certain tech more quickly, but they'll be 'stuck' there. That said, if these neighbours are from Europe, you're out of luck.

When behind on tech on a specific type you can more easily catch up, because the tech increase is based on your current tech, and not on the next one. So the 'unbalanced research' is more easy to counter now.

Usually after an institution spawned I kept on teching up for a while, because the initial extra costs weren't as harsh. Because of this you could take your time developing an institution. You either develop immediately, or tank +15, +30% tech cost from the start. My approach to this will have to change somewhat.

I like it generally. The UI could be improved though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In most cases it doesn't change much since you either set up a way to get it via spread or institution sharing, or you're nowhere near that being practical so you dev push.

As Mali, I dev'd slightly for feudalism in reasonable time, dev pushed renaissance and printing press. Colonialism I got by conquering into Morocco. Allied Castile, they spread it to me, I spread it to Morocco (vassal), who shared it to me. Weird but whatever. I'm sure Castile or England (both 80 trust allies, lol) would have given me printing press, but it was taking them too long to get it.

Remaining ones would be auto spread, but I went for 10k gift and ended that run.

 

[Gnivom]

Thanks everyone for sharing your feedback, I will keep following this thread to see what people think and gather ideas.

Let me just share some of my thoughts since I'm the one responsible for this rework
- Balance wise, the only real change is supposed to be that the tech penalty will now be more forgiving when you are behind on tech than when you are ahead, unlike the old system which often did the opposite.
- This means if you are used to being ahead of your neighbors in tech, and especially if your neighbors get the institutions before you do, you should expect to have to swallow a somewhat greater tech cost than before. This applies very much to Gougluinn's Ottomans example.
- On the flip side, if you allow yourself fall behind in tech, this will be a lot easier to recover from.
- In most cases, as some here have noted, the balance hasn't really changed. In Swagmeister's Ethiopia case for example, I guess he would have the same problem with the old system. However in the new system, he also had the option to temporarily fall behind on tech until Renaissance reaches him. Which in the old system would have been terrible, because then he would just have had to pay the Colonialism penalty instead.

Anyway, I'm very much open to changing this system based on feedback, so please keep putting your thoughts here.
Personally I enjoy playing with the new system though, and I had one Lübeck and one Semien campaign

 

[Victoria 3 finally]

I believe its good.
Not every corner of the world needs to be available for WC or being a superpower.
Otherwise no matter how many "flavor" you put every country feels the same; due to tech spreading the same.
And the penalty for each age is set to max 50% which I believe it's quite a forgiving system. Since it allows you to tech up 3 more till you reach the "scary" 50% penalty.
I wished it was set to 100%.
The gold penalty, when you build non-embraced tech buildings isn't that much of a big deal too.

Overall it's a quite forgiving system I believe but not as forgiving as the old system I agree. The previous system was a pathetically laughable system to allow more MEME nations on Youtube.

and it isn't that much of a big deal at early since your lands are small and you get to spend a bid DEV and less coin.
Through the game, you will get strong anyways...

But where is the "new institution event" window I wonder? It was a good reminder.

It's clearly done for the sake of stabilization of the game. Calculating penalty ticks would be less cost/effective for the game since it isn't really a groundbreaking feature or even an enjoyable one.

Tell me you only play in Europe without telling me you only play in europe.

 

[currylambchop]

I think the cost for each tech should go up by 10 instead of 15.

 

[ruzen]

Tell me you only play in Europe without telling me you only play in europe.

 

[ruzen]

Since DEV's showing interest I will elaborate more on the subject.
It's better. Better to understand without calculating the little penalties in overtime. You know the consequences clearly and how to manage them.

As balance goes, yes you don't see that changes. The world shapes as before (with little changes) but having said that since it comes with little more changes you cann't specifically tell the reasoning.

As for the feature, it is quite an insignificant thing when you think about it. Yes, you get more penalties for not embracing but ahead of time penalty is still the king.
When you think about it, "embracing" an institution should be a big deal. Yes, the gold cost is somewhat ok for this. But the penalty?

The penalty of only 50% means it isn't important as ahead of time so it makes a little inconsistency of the "times" concept.
You are having a big penalty for researching ahead to reflect the times but you are having less penalty for not catching up with the times.

When you become bigger and bigger the game requires you to more development to catch up with the times but I feel like it's less costly to spend one time to achieve the techs bonuses. (I didn't do the match because I can already experience it) One would argue it's less effective, maybe if we playing in a peaceful game but it's war! Achieving a tech early on is a much more significant deal, with building timing, bonuses, or army composition.


Therefore it needs to be less forgiving not every country needs to be present with the times. There was no internet back then.

 

[TheSleep3r]

Thanks everyone for sharing your feedback, I will keep following this thread to see what people think and gather ideas.

Let me just share some of my thoughts since I'm the one responsible for this rework
- Balance wise, the only real change is supposed to be that the tech penalty will now be more forgiving when you are behind on tech than when you are ahead, unlike the old system which often did the opposite.
- This means if you are used to being ahead of your neighbors in tech, and especially if your neighbors get the institutions before you do, you should expect to have to swallow a somewhat greater tech cost than before. This applies very much to Gougluinn's Ottomans example.
- On the flip side, if you allow yourself fall behind in tech, this will be a lot easier to recover from.
- In most cases, as some here have noted, the balance hasn't really changed. In Swagmeister's Ethiopia case for example, I guess he would have the same problem with the old system. However in the new system, he also had the option to temporarily fall behind on tech until Renaissance reaches him. Which in the old system would have been terrible, because then he would just have had to pay the Colonialism penalty instead.

Anyway, I'm very much open to changing this system based on feedback, so please keep putting your thoughts here.
Personally I enjoy playing with the new system though, and I had one Lübeck and one Semien campaign

Will the dev team be taking a look at the horrible balancing of lategame institutions? The issue is widely known, with all insitutions starting with the Global Trade spreading extremely fast, with the final effect of making the global tech levels equal. In the lategame there should absolutely be nations (in Africa and Asia, Polynesia as well) that are behind in technology. Europa Universalis is a grand strategy game, not a 4X game; there is no reason to break authenticity and immersion, seeing some tribes practicing Napoleonic strategies with their modern troops - right now all nations have all technology levels at 32 in 1821.

 

[Gnivom]

Will the dev team be taking a look at the horrible balancing of lategame institutions? The issue is widely known, with all insitutions starting with the Global Trade spreading extremely fast, with the final effect of making the global tech levels equal. In the lategame there should absolutely be nations (in Africa and Asia, Polynesia as well) that are behind in technology. Europa Universalis is a grand strategy game, not a 4X game; there is no reason to break authenticity and immersion, seeing some tribes practicing Napoleonic strategies with their modern troops - right now all nations have all technology levels at 32 in 1821.

I agree with this problem and would personally love to spend some time on reworking it. But I can't promise you that we will, unfortunately.

 

[ruzen]

I think,
Rather than fine-tuning the penalties.
Leaving the penalties as they are but putting a solid rule would be a better choice.

As an example,
It would be much easier (as a rework) to lock all buildings and unit compositions If a country doesn't have the institution in question.
But still giving them the all other options like, idea slots or other bonuses.

Because it's often the case is much more efficient to first building the building then cathing up the institution.

 

[gougluinn]

- This means if you are used to being ahead of your neighbors in tech, and especially if your neighbors get the institutions before you do, you should expect to have to swallow a somewhat greater tech cost than before. This applies very much to Gougluinn's Ottomans example.

i've been misunderstood with this case i guess no idea why people downvoting. i wasnt critising the new system, just talking about the UI (graphical) changes. we used to track our tech status vs developed countries tech level by looking that years written in red percentage -in the screenshot i shared- for letting us to know how many years we are ahead/behind in tech. but with this UI (i am talking about percentages written in red next to hour symbol in tech UI) i cant understand if i am ahead or behind in tech vs advanced countries.

that red percentages in new UI only shows true if you embraced all techs. so my request from pdx team is adding both symbols up there. i want to see my tech status independently from institutions that i have embraced.

this is important because i have never paid more monarch powers to techs. i have always (most cases) level up tech in exact time not a year ago with increased +5% percentage. so in this version you can not track this if there is newly popped out institution.

 

[holyvigil]

My limited experience is in a 1533 crash Hawaiian game.

With that said so far it doesn't seem too different.

It seems like it will be tougher for the Europeans to actually dominate in tech though based on what people have said. Now they kind of have always have a small advantage.

 

[swagmeister]

After giving up on the Mali campaign, I opted to try mutapa, a much more chill experience that has to catch up with everyone else. With all the gold income it was honestly better than expected, though having 4 gold mines right there made paying for +2 and 3 advisors to dev push and pay for techs made it far easier than disaster ridden Mali. I was able to be ahead of time in tech by 1520. That start is fairly safe though as long as you can win your first war with Kilwa. The AI seems to be less inclined to spend all of their points on techs now so that made catching up with the new system a little bit easier than the old one.

Honestly out of everything I think the only tech that I wasn't happy about needing an institution for was tech 3 requiring feudalism.

 

[MordredViking]

I think it’s a step in the right direction but I’d still like to see more insitutions with less of a jump, so say 25% max penalty with twice as many. That way you could have more institutions spreading around the world, some from China and India for instance.

Im also far more in favour of having more ways to start an institution in your capital through ideas, buildings, advisors etc. Developing for institutions is one of my most hated “features”, it just makes no sense to me why a province in the middle of no-where suddenly gets the institution just because it was low developed, flat and produced cloth.

I made a mod some time ago where you could start getting colonialism slowly in your capital if you had Quest for the New World, and Renaissance if you had Innovative Ideas completed. Meant there was a more interesting spread of tech, and you’d end up with hotspots that spread it as the AI would sometimes get them too.

 

[_Bachus_]

I'm 1520 and yet no colonialism. But penalty for 2 techs already for no colonialism embraced.

 

[_Bachus_]

Colonialism spawned in England. Not seen that for a long time.

 

[MachopPower69]

I miss the +1% tech cost per year institution thing. It just feels weird that you instantly get 15% right as the Renaissance spawns and you have to live with it for 30 years.

 

[_Bachus_]

A little update: 10 years past: 1530 now, still no country in the world has Colonialism. It is still stuck in England and will be for like 10-20 years it seems. Every country in the world already pays 30% cost increase for techs. It looks like they will pay 50% increase for the next 2-4 techs, and the rest of the world for the next 10 techs.

Was this intended?

No country has colonial nation in 1530 also. Not sure what went wrong with colonial changes but they seemed to go for Africa instead of America. Maybe they got confused looking at the maps.


So far my feeling with the changes is that you are more encouraged to stay behind techs than before. Because you can't really do anything. The cost is constant right away. You can't jump on techs in front of the increase like before. And AIs are more behind also than before so you can get away more by staying behind. Not sure if that was intended. Probabely not. Most countries lagged 1-3 techs. Outside Europe problem even worse. Usually they got them right where peanalty ahead of time got away. It can be this weird colonialism spawn, but usually you payed 5% increase or some small increase and jumped on techs in front and wait for institution. Now you can't do this. You need to wait for instituations. And if spawn is long way from you, countries are stuck with huge increase comparing to before the change. And dumb AIs pay those increase priceses leading to them being seriously behind in techs later compared to player. I'm seeing countries have problems with points. No ideas filled, lagging with techs, can't core land, etc.

Maybe it's only colonialism period. I will update what I'm seeing in later periods.

 

[Mirochi]

I started playing with Novgorod and immediately missed the previous institution mechanic. Maybe I am an old-minded person, I don't know. My opinion might change if the current mechanic gets updated

 

[_Bachus_]

As an example of AI drain of mana points: Muscovy took 2 ideas during like 90 years of in-game time. Ais clearly prioritize to not get behind in tech, but to do so they pay huge increase of mana for techs. Before the changes AIs didn't pay those increases in such amounts. There are plenty of countries with 2-5 ideas from 3 idea slots right now in Europe. Most of them have problems filling idea groups. Only couple of countries in europe have almost 3 slots filled in 1530. All those points went for increase in techs I assume. I see Ais taking +, 30% 50% cost for techs in Europe. In Europe. Like France bought 5 techs for 30%-50% increase. This rarely happened before. Before it was like this: Institution spawned and AI had like 20 years to take Techs with reasonable cost because it accrued with time. Now AIs pay those +30%, +50% across Europe leading to huge mana drain for AIs.

I think this change backfired massievely and blew in PDX faces. They changed sth that was actually working for a new system that AI don't understand at all and make terrible choices leading them to bunkrupcy in mana and money. And now the question: Has anybody even tested this?