What are the chances of A PDS 1400-1820 game with internal country mechanics?

[Axe99]

I'm a huge fan of EUIV, but the game does have something of a focus on conquest. It's a top game, I'll still play it heaps, and I'm aware that the PDS stance on EUIV is that it's a conquest game, not a country management one, and this is all good .

Sooo, if EUIV won't focus on country management, how about a game that does? PDS definitely has the chops (the internal mechanics of CK2, blended with some of the ideas in the Vicky series, wouldn't be a bad starting point, although definitely aren't the only potential starting angle*), and PDS has a great brand to launch it (Just call it something with Europa Universalis in front of it), and I think it would have a bunch of people interested in playing it. With PCs becoming more powerful over time, there should hopefully be more scope for machines to cope with the depth of the simulation as well.

For example, you'd have mechanics for the ruling 'people' in your nation, as well as representatives of various cultural and religious groups - when there was a rebellion, you'd be negotiating with these groups (as would be the case if you were another nation supporting one of these groups to rebel), have to keep them (their 'pops', although I'm not suggesting pop modelling as complex as Vicky 2) and their leaders happy (or happy enough), and could potentially (depending on your laws) have the possibility of imprisoning the ringleaders, putting in place your own representative to look after the group (at the risk of them being knocked off or new factions forming, or similar), and all sorts of other stuff.

It would also open up the potential of a deeper and more dynamic economic and trading game - the economics of EUIV are fine for a conquest game, but are a bit limited for a broader simulation.

There's heaps of other things that could be done, and it could be a ripper of a game - is there any interest in this from PDS/the fans?


PS - apologies if there is a thread around for this somewhere - had a look in this forum back over the last few months to check and couldn't find any.

 

[ozmono2005]

I'd definetely like to see a game from PDS that was more about running a country internally rather than playing chess at the geo-political level.

Ever played Democracy? It's a fun game and the core of the game is very simple. You have so much political capital to spend on x and x affects a b and c either positively or negatively and is received in different ways by different segments. I mention it not because of the core experience though but because I think it proves that internal politics can be fun. Ideally if Paradox did something with more internal politics I'd rather it be closer to their other games. That said, Vicky II felt needlessly sluggish. Lots of information and factors involving the population of the nation but too few ways to actually influence it or rather be a part of it and feel involved in the internal politics of the nation. Having wealth, differing needs being fulfilled, political bents of those citizens was great but at the end of the day it felt like a lot of information and a big system was going somewhat to waste.

Anyway I'd like to see Paradox design something more focused on the internal politics of a nation than they have done so far but I'm not sure that EUIV timeline would be better. I would think a game starting around the turn of the twentieth century would be better suited for internal politics but than again you'd have to factor in the World Wars than.

 

[Axe99]

Thanks for the tip on Democracy, haven't played it but will remember to give it a look . Totally agree that there was a lot of potential with Vicky 2 to really take advantage of the wealth of info they had there. Actually influencing the populace was a bit 'hands off' for my liking, it would have been good if as well as the reforms (that were really a track towards a certain end) that you had temporary policies that weren't necessarily good or bad, but favoured some groups over others, so get their support more or less (although I'd personally probably merge the two systems together).

I think if they made the focus of the game on running your country, rather than on expanding it (even with their internal mechanics, Vicky 2 and CK2 are still primarily about expansion/war) - so that you can still expand, but the gameplay mechanics are focussed on keeping the country running as well as possible - then they could come up with some pretty interesting and deep mechanics.

 

[Mixxer5]

I'd like to play game which balances well dependencies between global situation and internal one. Obviously wars had huge impact on ruling country (or living at all), but only thing that EU actually succeeds in is showing how states blob. And only thing that stands in their way are coalitions- both things are purely military, while any internal mechanics mostly don't matter.

 

[Lys91]

I would rather love Victoria III to start around 1789. That would be great with better management/representation of coup d'état/revolt. A game that does not too poorly represent political change of the early late XVIIIth early XIXth century, where the French empire rise and fall. We may even have a Victoria game were the Spring of Nation occurs and were the most important conflict of the time period are represented (i.e. the rivalry between France Prussia/Germany to become the continental dominant power) rather than having DLC about ACW, which in the grand scheme of things is not too significant for the time period. One may hope...