Of course you can, there's a very old feature called "difficulty levels". It ought be possible to enjoy any country on the very easy difficulty. If you want a challenge - play on the highest one.
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Of course you can, there's a very old feature called "difficulty levels". It ought be possible to enjoy any country on the very easy difficulty. If you want a challenge - play on the highest one.
The difference is that people want to fight smart AI, not cheating AI.
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Alright, but I hope Foix won't be the most difficult nation ever, after all Burgundy should be able to rise to a major power within first 100 years with some luck (although the capital was in Brabant iirc, so not sure to what extent it was actually Burgundy) and while the position of Foix seems to be a bit worse, it should not be that difficult. I guess after thousands of hours of gameplay, you can pick a Native American nation, sink hours and hours into the first 150 years of the game, realise you are not strong enough and get conquered by the colonisers and try again, until you succeed
I don't think you should use "coring time" as a measure of expansion speed. They're not some limit on expansion like in EU4. In the first place, cores are supposed to be limited yo your own and accepted cultures. The base "not freshly conquered" status is "integrated". Even then, unintegrated locations don't contribute to OE that you can't allow to pass over some arbitrary cap.
I think we should expect a large empire to be a little bit of Core, more Integrated and even more Unintegrated.
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That would be integration time, not coring time. Also since there isn't an overextention penalty (EU4s too many uncored lands). This alone wont have the slowing effect that you might think.
Again I think this is a "we don't know yet". We do know that core lands is better that just integrated land which is better than whatever is below that. We have seen an event that have 'cored' chunks of land. We do know that there are methods other than integrating to increase control (although it will be capped)
I dont think the AI will instantly go from war to war and prepare claims on territory bordering the territory you are about to conquer. Nor do I think that the AI is going to expand, while ignoring coring. I dont think you can expand with lots of uncored territory in the first place, since rebels can break your country apart. AE is the first bottle neck, but coring is the second one.
There are some things that are confirmed:
-Battle royal in Anatolia.
-Battle royal in China.
-Maybe collapse of Golden Horde.
-Maybe collapse of the Delhi Sultanate.
Other than that I dont see a big tag appearing within the HRE or iberia/maghreb blobbing into the maghreb/iberia, entirely disregarding coring and religious differences. Nor do I think we will see the Mamluks blobbing around. The vast majority of the world should not look fundamentally different.
It's probably going to be one of the tribes or the SOPs just because of their low literacy and population, though that wouldn't scare me into trying to play Cahokia into space.
And the thing is that there is basically no "smart AI". Almost (?) every game uses AI bonuses or simply cheats to make higher difficulties more challenging. That's how it looks like in EUIV:
Code:
difficulty_very_easy_player = {
global_manpower_modifier = 0.5
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.50
land_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5
naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5
global_regiment_cost = -0.33
global_ship_cost = -0.33
inflation_reduction = 0.05
global_unrest = -5
war_exhaustion = -0.05
core_creation = -0.25
advisor_pool = 1
diplomatic_upkeep = 1
free_leader_pool = 1
diplomatic_reputation = 2
interest = -2
improve_relation_modifier = 0.10
ae_impact = -0.33
yearly_corruption = -1.0
}
difficulty_easy_player = {
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.50
global_unrest = -5
interest = -2
ae_impact = -0.33
yearly_corruption = -1.0
}
difficulty_normal_player = {
}
difficulty_hard_player = {
}
difficulty_very_hard_player = {
}
##########################################################################
# Handicap Modifiers for AI
##########################################################################
difficulty_very_easy_ai = {
}
difficulty_easy_ai = {
}
difficulty_normal_ai = {
}
difficulty_hard_ai = {
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.50
global_unrest = -1
war_exhaustion = -0.05
interest = -1
ae_impact = -0.33
}
difficulty_very_hard_ai = {
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.50
global_manpower_modifier = 0.5
land_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5
naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5
global_regiment_cost = -0.33
global_ship_cost = -0.33
inflation_reduction = 0.05
global_unrest = -2
war_exhaustion = -0.05
core_creation = -0.25
idea_cost = -0.25
interest = -1
improve_relation_modifier = 0.5
development_cost = -0.2
build_cost = -0.25
ae_impact = -0.33
}Higher difficulty doesn't make AI smarter and in EUV things will be the same.
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From this dev diary (second image): It does not really seem viable to have a lot non integrated provinces, it seems that the owner does almost everything to make the population of Cagliari happy, except they lack wine and legumes, but they are at zero satisfaction and even if satisfaction was positive it would be not enough for them not to revolt, it would need to be at least 18 %. Now imagine it was a different religion province or a different language group, which seems to be pretty impactful on antagonism. The -50 satisfaction penalty from non integrated conquered provinces seems to be extremely punishing. I think that non integration will have effects similar to non cored -> overextension in EU IV except it will take longer time to deal with and will not affect your integrated provinces.
I think 100 or 200 hours should be enough even for new players to get a grip on game mechanics. In this day and age when you can find youtube guides and make "guys what am I doing wrong?" posts on reddit (also possibly watching a few let's plays about it which might gave you the idea to try the game in the first place). Trying the game with OPMs or native tribes as a starter is a challenge that will might even surprise experienced players too, so if that's your first game you are kind of asking for it. If you are a completely new player you probably have at least some notion of what you are getting into and you are ready for the commitment a GSG gives you (and TBH you are a nice example for it since you are here on this forum even after a rough start). So I'm not worrying about new players.
For veteran players, it's gonna be like crack 2.0. (Eu4 extended my college studies for a time I refuse to admit even to myself..... was worth it though).
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Looking at the TT, Johan mentioned various things to do to increase it so not they didn't do almost everything.
Looking at the progress (0.35%/month) it would take about 23.8 years to get to 100.
Hopefully during that time we have done things to improve this like build a castle (hopefully province wide effect) and get the wine and legumes. Probably stationed a free cabinet member or army to help when available.
Also Numbers aren't final. (I hope that doesn't take 25 years of a working cabinet member to integrate, otherwise I see a lot of 'flavor' like Timmy's core this whole area added.)
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The slow integration isn't the problem. Its that non integrated areas give a hefty -50% conquered malus to their satisfaction. While integrating it almost erases it completely. I'm worried only conquered areas would be the primary source of rebellion, and when you integrate them. Its no longer an issue.
Obviously don't know the game balance. But I'm just thinking about it historically. It doesnt make sense. People didn't hate inherently their conquerors until the concept of nationalism came about. It was usually due to the conquers doing something to them to make them hate them. Or just ruling poorly. In any case, their lives have to be negatively affected. Think of how the Visigoths and Al-Andalus/Córdoba conquered Iberia, but the local people didn't try too hard to kick them out. Most internal fighting was between the elites of those realms vying for power.
But there's one thing im not certain on. What role does Non-accepted, tolerated, and accepted culture have? Johan said non-accepted pops would be pretty miserable. But on the pop satisfaction tooltip, it mention nothing about being accepted or not:
Depending on how big on an effect culture acceptance/tolerance is, ruling over multiple "conquered" areas could be viable at the very least. But that -50% conquered is HUGE. Im hoping tolerating or accepting cultures reduces its impact or something
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I think "Sardinian view of Catalan" is the acceptance level (or at least represents the relationship between the two cultures, but since I can't remember anything else spoken about the subject, it must be the acceptance level), which is neutral I guess in this case (can't remember the proper name for it). I guess if you conquer a non-accepted culture, itt will be a negative modifier. So non-accepted will be dissatisfied somewhat, and also that population will stagnate in growth, compared to accepted and primary culture. I guess that is the "miserable" part.
Also I'm sure that there are many examples when the conquered populace actively disliked their conquerors even back then. Many wars and conflicts came with raids, destruction and atrocities, sometimes new laws, etc. I think it also represents (even if in an abstracted way) how well the new territory is integrated into the country (lawlessness, banditry, getting a new foreign lord in your village instead of the previous one whose family ruled there for generations, also fresh memories about enemy activity in your homeland in the previous months/years). If integration is not just legally attaching the new land to the new overlord, but also people getting used to the new reality, and having law and order again, the satisfaction debuff is kind of understandable.
I hope the difficulty won’t be crazy. I’ve played Paradox games for more than twenty years but I absolutely don’t have the time to put 300+ hours in just to learn the game. I think in EUIV, which I have played since release, I have like 600 hours. The game shouldnt be designed to be really challenging for a paradox veteran who have played it for maybe 100 hours, if they choose to play France or any other major. Of course a weak OPM should be much more difficult.
The thing with paradox games is, none of them have ever been challenging once you learn them. Its just that there is alot to learn and it takes time. If it takes 500 hours to learn the game it won’t be enjoying even for most fans.
I never liked the ”end game bosses” of EU4 either. Taking down blob after blob is more tedious than fun. Although that is maybe more a problem of scale and micro.
The thing with paradox games is, none of them have ever been challenging once you learn them. Its just that there is alot to learn and it takes time. If it takes 500 hours to learn the game it won’t be enjoying even for most fans.
I never liked the ”end game bosses” of EU4 either. Taking down blob after blob is more tedious than fun. Although that is maybe more a problem of scale and micro.
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Well what we do know is that cultural opinion ties into how well much cultural capacity it will cost to accept that other culture. The higher the opinion of each other, the less it costs to accept that culture. So cultural opinions and acceptance are two separate things. So cultural opinion is probably what the "Sardinian view of Catalan" value represents. But nothing is showing what being Non-accepted represents.
So perhaps pops in a conquered and integrated territory gets slapped with a conquered malus, and then tolerating or accepting them can reduce the conquered malus by a certain amount? Not sure. Dont think its ever been directly shown or described what effect accepting cultures can do.
And yeah, people don't like being conquered due to stuff directly impacting them. Not just "Oh were conquered? I dont like this" You have to oppress them, try to ban practice of their religion, suppress usage of their language, burn down their homes, loot their possessions, steal their food as your army marches through. But generally, a peasant farmer doesnt know or care who is ruling over them. I'm sure many peasants had no clue the Roman empire even fell and got rapidly gobbled up by Germanic tribes. They probably just thought a knew Emperor(s) was in charge. And when they finally found out years later, It was just mild surprise and then they went back to farming and paying taxes. Especially since many of the times conquerors leave in place what ever institutions were there prior. For most peasants, nothing changed. Just another person (you don't even remember the name of) calling themselves king for yet again.
And for nobility. Some would be happy to kneel to their new rulers. Some would despise and resist. Depends of various factors. But its not just a guaranteed resistance.
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The Roman Empire was an exception in a sense that the last centuries of the western half was ravaged through and through with civil wars. The new kingdoms (for example the Lombard Kingdom) was actually bringing order to the commoners which was a welcome change for most of them. But I agree, conquest sometimes was smooth, I guess the "Conquered" satisfaction debuff is an abstraction for disorder that comes with acquiring land (and also a gameplay mechanic to hold you back for a little while among other things). And I still think that this debuff comes from the fresh conquest, and not cultural differences. The image you posted made me remember, that beside cultural acceptance, there will be emnity too (that is the neutral-neutral columns before the acceptance column), which shows how cultures treat each other. Sardinians are non-accepted, but the culture is neutral to the Catalan primary culture, hence the 0% penalty in the satisfaction.
My assumption comes from this paragraph:
I think the 50% "Conquered" malus is Separatism. It will never go away as long as Sardinian is Non-accepted, but if Aragon integrates Sardinia (which I think is not integrated in your previous post picture), it will go down to 10% from 50%, which is much more manageable.
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So you are against or pro everything happening historically accurate?
The problem is that any strong countries should occur organically, within the paradigm derived from the game's mechanics. And players will always be able to outsmart the system if they really want to, because that's the nature of any game.
Quite often when I hear players complaining that the late game's too easy, I see people who lack self-restraint. But I'm the kind of player who actually almost always plays EU4 till the end and enjoys it. My solution is very simple- at some point I stop increasing in size, and focus on maintaining the balance of power, preventing other countries from growing too big.
If anything, EU5 should make the internal management more difficult (but organic) as the size of a country increases, incorporating different cultures and territories into the broader empire. This would be a natural brake on becoming too big and too powerful, as the internal situation would require directing some resources inward.
Quite often when I hear players complaining that the late game's too easy, I see people who lack self-restraint. But I'm the kind of player who actually almost always plays EU4 till the end and enjoys it. My solution is very simple- at some point I stop increasing in size, and focus on maintaining the balance of power, preventing other countries from growing too big.
If anything, EU5 should make the internal management more difficult (but organic) as the size of a country increases, incorporating different cultures and territories into the broader empire. This would be a natural brake on becoming too big and too powerful, as the internal situation would require directing some resources inward.
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If these three countries are easy the control system has failed to limit large powers. Being big should provide safety from a game over yes but it should also create more things to do and more complexity in those activities. If getting larger makes the game easier you get a game that becomes less interesting the more you play
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There is so much you can do, before you overload new players. 200-300 hours down the line and you have figured out the game again and it is "too easy". Chess also appears complicated and hard at first. Play it 10 000 times and you will get to high elo and play it really fast.
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