AI would always take tech even with big maluses, especially mil tech. Cue screenshots of ming being at +100% tech cost and still on-time with tech thanks to +3 advisors.
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Castile can't fill ideas either. Basically the only case where AI is filling sth is where they have 5 in ruler mana. Otherwise they can only buy those expensive techs. There is no point left for ideas or coring or deving for AIs.
Granted I had Colonialism spawned in England. But it's still the issue. If Colonialism would spawn in Spain, England starts paying +30,50% for techs before it institution gets to them leading to AI mana drain. Basically AIs after those changes lost like 5000-10000 mana points across the game. Yes it also affects player but we can circumvent the issue by spawning institution manually or just staying behind. AIs don't do that. They simply waste mana points.
Granted I had Colonialism spawned in England. But it's still the issue. If Colonialism would spawn in Spain, England starts paying +30,50% for techs before it institution gets to them leading to AI mana drain. Basically AIs after those changes lost like 5000-10000 mana points across the game. Yes it also affects player but we can circumvent the issue by spawning institution manually or just staying behind. AIs don't do that. They simply waste mana points.
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Same observation.
I'm playing the Ottomans, in order to test the new mechanisms (jumped from 1.30 to 1.32 directly).
It's 1507, I have 27 tech and 14 doctrines (for several years ~1500). Colonialism has not popped. Castile and Poland have 23 tech and 3 doctrines ; France : 21 tech and 3 doctrines ; England 23 tech and 4 doctrines ; Denmark 21 + 4 ; Florence and the Pope 25 + 5 - France is rather big, being allied with me, so they probably used a bunch of ADM and DIP points, but the other countries have a rather normal size. I know that the super-kings of Ottomans helps a lot, but I don't remember such a difference, specially in terms of doctrines (and I don't remember such a late colonianism). I dont know exactly what happens, but it seems that the new system of penalties prevents the nations from taking tech when the corresponding institution has not popped (Edit : or finally wasting monarch points by eating the tech penalty ?).
I'm playing the Ottomans, in order to test the new mechanisms (jumped from 1.30 to 1.32 directly).
It's 1507, I have 27 tech and 14 doctrines (for several years ~1500). Colonialism has not popped. Castile and Poland have 23 tech and 3 doctrines ; France : 21 tech and 3 doctrines ; England 23 tech and 4 doctrines ; Denmark 21 + 4 ; Florence and the Pope 25 + 5 - France is rather big, being allied with me, so they probably used a bunch of ADM and DIP points, but the other countries have a rather normal size. I know that the super-kings of Ottomans helps a lot, but I don't remember such a difference, specially in terms of doctrines (and I don't remember such a late colonianism). I dont know exactly what happens, but it seems that the new system of penalties prevents the nations from taking tech when the corresponding institution has not popped (Edit : or finally wasting monarch points by eating the tech penalty ?).
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Another example: Cologne. Can't fill ideas. They are in Europe. Countries in Europe behave like in Asia right now. They drain all their mana points to take those +15%,30%,50% techs and have nothing left for ideas, deving and other stuff like coring or paying diplo for peace deals. I assume mana drain in rest of the world is even worse.
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As a side note: AI Morocco has just done this. So maybe PDX made countries outside of Europe stronger by making european countries drain all their mana also.
I'm definetely seeing weird shit in this update.
I'm definetely seeing weird shit in this update.
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And I have 63 innovation (in 1507 - I can even have 71 by taking 2 addtional tech). I believe that I got about 24 just with the doctrines (14 with the first group and 10-12 with the second (admin), which is not very normal).
But Ottomans have 5 times already attacked Albania with reconquest CB to just peace them out for war reperations. So some thing have not changed. AI improvements??? Next time PDX better think twice before you say sth. THe AI is massively worse in 1.32 and PDX worked on................... surprise...................... AI improvements. Sometimes not working is just better thing to do.............
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Ah, ah - no
: in my game, only 5 countries have more that 10 doctrines in 1507 : OE (me - 14), Bahmania (13), Saxe-Lauenburg (12), Malwa and Bade (10) - India performs better than Europe, now - 1
The average of ideas taken for countries in 1531 is 8. in 1531 there is no AI country with full 21 ideas. Only 10 countries are in 12-20 range. There are like 20-30 countries in europe with 4-6. In Europe.
At the same time average of tech is 29. Max is 30.
So AI beelines for techs massively at the cost of everything else.
Before they beelined also but with accruing costs they paid much less of these increases, at least in Europe. This change threw Europe AIs out with bathwater.
At the same time average of tech is 29. Max is 30.
So AI beelines for techs massively at the cost of everything else.
Before they beelined also but with accruing costs they paid much less of these increases, at least in Europe. This change threw Europe AIs out with bathwater.
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Colonialism starts spreading in Europe finally by Cardinals spread institutions. By the way what triggers it? Catholic country needs to have it or is there something else?
Hmm
For the EU5 I hope Paradox keep the "westernize" button because obviously, people don't know what institutions are for. Making players horrified when they are behind.
For the EU5 I hope Paradox keep the "westernize" button because obviously, people don't know what institutions are for. Making players horrified when they are behind.
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Have you tried tag switching around? I may be misremembering it but I seem to recall that in prior patches the AI would rush ideas if tech was too expensive for it. I had assumed that this would still be the case. Are nations hording MP for tech or are they simply ignoring ideas? I can see a correlation between them but maybe tech cost isn't the culprit? Could be an unrelated bug.
Not really. I had Colonialism spawned in England and 20 years past the date. This is the culprit as all nations went for +50% tech cost, draining them from mana.
I still in 1536 had no colonial nation. Castile and Portugal was bogged down by tech penalty and couldn't even fill Exploration and Expansion beyond first 2 ideas. This delayed Colonialism increasing tech cost even more which cause typical colonial nations not be able to fill ideas. Finally colonialism spawned but in England. Took 20 years to spread increasing the cost even more. AIs don't have points for anything because of this. I've seen countries sitting with uncored land for 20 years because they're paying +50% for techs in Europe.
The thing is that before if you hadn't had colonialism you wouldn't pay any increases. Now it's regardless of spawn and you get full increases of cost right away. Yes the're are 15%, 30% and 50%, but still you get it right away, not after 15 years or so. So you have 3 techs taken with institution penalty but it didn't even spawn to begin with. And player always will deal with this. But AI was completely broken by this change. They went for those +50%. Plenty of countries attacking taking land and don't have any points for coring land, etc, etc. Countries without ideas being so weak they went broke faster.
This change nerfed AIs massively. They are 20-50 years behind in ideas, devving, building less buildings, having smaller armies etc, than in previous patch.
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In my Brandenburg game, everyone, including me, was struggling with technology because of the Renaissance being slow and my ruler having crappy stats. The new technology rework didn't work as intended because the technology doesn't increase slowly, it just adds 10% every 10 years flat. I also am behind in technology because of it.
It works fine from what I can tell into two games (As Butua then Qara Qoyunlu). The technological gap between Europe and the ROTW builds up pretty well and in a more logical way.
So, fine? Yes.. Until Global Trade pops up.. Or not...
Tweakenings are probably needed for AI and the way some institutions spreads around the world, but overall I prefer this new system.
So, fine? Yes.. Until Global Trade pops up.. Or not...
Tweakenings are probably needed for AI and the way some institutions spreads around the world, but overall I prefer this new system.
They said they working on improving AI. And we've got a massive AI nerf. AIs lost ideas, lost dev, have less modifiers, have less buildings and armies than before. They even colonize later than before on average, and this was like main focus of the update.
This is just a random consqueqnece that PDX didn't even see and predict. It just happened to them and they are baffled. Shows you how this is done. Someone makes some change and it blows randomly in their face because they didn't see what the change causes and changes. They should say: "we're changing this and that and we'll see what it will change" instead of "we're working on improving AIs". They just look dumb now. Because AIs got even more dumb than before working on this improvement. And if someone was working on improving sth and the effect is completely opposite, should they continue in other areas? It leads to disaster..................
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How does the new system compare to the old in regards to tech disparity?
Is there a bigger or smaller gap between Europe and the ROTW? And does the gap surge earlier or later?
Overall, have tech costs increased or decreased?
Is there a bigger or smaller gap between Europe and the ROTW? And does the gap surge earlier or later?
Overall, have tech costs increased or decreased?
AIs pays more for techs across the whole game, like more 5000-10000 mana points than before. This AI mana isn't going to ideas, deving, coring etc. So AIs got massively weaker by this change. They neeed more time to get to the same point than before (time gets those lacking points).
I think this is just an unintended effect of the change. Hard to imagine devs trying to wreck AIs and at the same time saying they're working on improving them.
As for overall cost they increased but only if you pay them. Meaning player can wait / spawn institution and then get the techs, and only pay those +15%, +30% , + 50% for essentials.
AIs pay always no matter the cost increase for techs. Before they paid accrued cost. +1%, +5% and had plenty of time to get institution. Now cost jump is from the tech and not from institution spawn. So it leads to weird situations like in my game above. You can have a situation where institution didn't even spawn yet and every country pays +50% for techs. Before this didn't even happen at all, accrued cost started only if institution spawned. And as every humans seeing this, I adapted and went behind in tech. At the same time Ais drained like thousands of mana for those +50% increased tech in Europe. So I had 21 ideas and plenty of dev, and Ais had 6 ideas on average, useless tech and couldn't core land because of those +50% increase to techs. Countries sitting with uncorred land for 20-30 years for lack of mana.
Granted this was some weird scenario where Colonialism didn't spawn right (but tech changes caused that, for colonizers payed more for tech and didn't have points for exploration ideas, so it delayed Colonialism, causing even more tech mana points drain), but I assume this is prevelent in every game but somewhat not to that extreme level I saw.
But if you got weak AI Portugal (mana ruler), and Castile is starting with those 0,0,0, then I imagine if you don't play as Colonizer yourself, you very often can get into this mess where AIs can't fill Exploration, Expansion ideas and can't even start colonizing properly. It all depends on instituiton spawn but before change this didn't even happen to begin with. And it happened in my first game so it can't be that uncommon to have delayed colonization from this tech changes. I'm in 1544 right now. No AI has colonial nations still.
This tech change is massive. You still can have games that look the same like old one, depending on spawns etc. But it causes weird scenarios that didn't even happen before.
If an AI is on institution spawn it doesn't change anything for them. Yes. But if an AI is long way from it, they pay hugely more points in comparison to old system. If those AIs have poor rulers they are basically screwed. I'm seeing countries with 4 ideas in 1544 still. They pay those +50% much more than before. Because in old system 1) AI not payed increased cost for techs if institution didn't even spawn -> now they do, 2) AI not payed those increase prices right away. They had time to take techs with discount that was smaller with time. -> now they don't have that time.
And as an AI has no idea how to circumvent this problem, they just take +15%, +30%, +50% costs. I have like majority of countries in Europe take +50% costs for tech. This was never the case in like 8 years of EU4. PDX just achieved new level of screwing AIs.
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I think the basic idea is fine, but one of the problems is that taking a tech at any given time in the current numbers incurs dramatically higher penalties than before, unless you are more than a full tech behind. Only if you immediately dev up institutions it is the same as before, but the AI and new players will never do that and will just pay the big penalties.
I think even pushing every single Institution requirement one tech later would be an option, though I think it would be better to change the penalties from
15% -> 30% -> 50%
to
5% -> 20% -> 35% -> 50%
That sticks closer to the old penalties, but ramping by 15% pr tech where the old system had 13%. It however still runs up against the problem that techs and institutions are not synced so this is actually cheaper than before on specific institutions if they spawn exactly on time, and institutions being able to spawn significantly late can cause even these mild numbers to be a lot more expensive than before.
Edit: Thinking more about it, these numbers are probably a bit undertuned for institutions spawning on time, where staying even just slightly behind is already cheaper than the old system. But you get the idea.
I think even pushing every single Institution requirement one tech later would be an option, though I think it would be better to change the penalties from
15% -> 30% -> 50%
to
5% -> 20% -> 35% -> 50%
That sticks closer to the old penalties, but ramping by 15% pr tech where the old system had 13%. It however still runs up against the problem that techs and institutions are not synced so this is actually cheaper than before on specific institutions if they spawn exactly on time, and institutions being able to spawn significantly late can cause even these mild numbers to be a lot more expensive than before.
Edit: Thinking more about it, these numbers are probably a bit undertuned for institutions spawning on time, where staying even just slightly behind is already cheaper than the old system. But you get the idea.
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