What are Your most important wishes for EU5 mechanics?

[Testeria]

Personally - I would love to see more CHOICES integrated into EU5 systems. For example: sure, absolutism may be good for many reasons but let the player CHOSE low absolutism for some other bonus (for example I once proposed that Husaria unit would be much stronger with low absolutism).

Someone else proposed that high manpower means growing unemployment ergo growing unrest.

Make all the absurdly good choices in EU4 break something else and add to trouble.

What kind of new features do you wish for - mechanic wise?

 

[xrws31]

Pursuing the discussion between @Arizal @Testeria and @Jarvin about National Ideas.

I also dislike them more and more, for another reason than the sake of a supposed equilibrium or a virgin state of the world at game start.

I don't like them because they're related to what happened in another dimension (our own) rather than in your own game. For instance, when seeing FRA having national ideas as a colonizing nation, that may not match at all the game I want to play. And when seeing Aboriginal ideas based on events that happened in the 19th century, that's frankly over-ridiculous.

Now comes the question: "Ok, then what?"

I've seen the word "choice" mentioned very frequently in the messages above mine. I think my idea that would (or rather, "could") conciliate both ideas: instead of national ideas, just having policies (the same way they work now) working the same as now, but with multiplicated effect. Something like:

• 5 "great" policies (being the current policies, whose bonuses would be x1.5);
• 2 "greater" policies (x2);
• 1 "greatest" policy (x3).

This way, if you want to use those policies, you may. If they're not that useful in any given context, you may just use another one.

It would be much better for the game equilibrium, you would have the choice to not use them, and the IA could be competitive just by scripting a few modifiers (let's say FRA doesn't have any colony because they're stuck in Europe and their territory is divided by two and there are religious revolts because of the Reform, then it would make the IA much better if not taking colonial ideas but rather something about religion, legitimacy or coring).

Assuming all nations have access to the same policies (which is presumably the whole point of making them not nation-specific), how would this not result in everyone always choosing the same optimal set of policies? Everyone's gonna pick CCR, Discipline, Morale, AdmEff, DevCost, etc etc. Resulting in every nation playing exactly the same and the only difference being which provinces you start with?

 

[Testeria]

Pursuing the discussion between @Arizal @Testeria and @Jarvin about National Ideas.

I also dislike them more and more, for another reason than the sake of a supposed equilibrium or a virgin state of the world at game start.

I don't like them because they're related to what happened in another dimension (our own) rather than in your own game. For instance, when seeing FRA having national ideas as a colonizing nation, that may not match at all the game I want to play. And when seeing Aboriginal ideas based on events that happened in the 19th century, that's frankly over-ridiculous.

Now comes the question: "Ok, then what?"

I've seen the word "choice" mentioned very frequently in the messages above mine. I think my idea that would (or rather, "could") conciliate both ideas: instead of national ideas, just having policies (the same way they work now) working the same as now, but with multiplicated effect. Something like:

• 5 "great" policies (being the current policies, whose bonuses would be x1.5);
• 2 "greater" policies (x2);
• 1 "greatest" policy (x3).

This way, if you want to use those policies, you may. If they're not that useful in any given context, you may just use another one.

It would be much better for the game equilibrium, you would have the choice to not use them, and the IA could be competitive just by scripting a few modifiers (let's say FRA doesn't have any colony because they're stuck in Europe and their territory is divided by two and there are religious revolts because of the Reform, then it would make the IA much better if not taking colonial ideas but rather something about religion, legitimacy or coring).

That would not work, because NI are supposed to integrate some "specialty" of the tag's culture and history, something that is not resolved by other rules - for example, the very peculiar Jäger culture of the Prussian state, that is just not possible to replicate in-game by any other means.

Now - if I understand You - we could move NI to Imperator-like Mission Trees, where if You choose a different path for Prussia, You would not get militaristic NI but something else - probably more on the lines of a new multi-branch Livonian Order mission tree (I suspect this is actually something transported to EU4 directly from EU5!).

So in the new version of the game, NI would be rooted in the country's mission tree and would change depending on the player's choices.

 

[Elfryc]

Do you mean that instead of national ideas or missions, countries would have "national" policies?

Assuming all nations have access to the same policies (which is presumably the whole point of making them not nation-specific), how would this not result in everyone always choosing the same optimal set of policies? Everyone's gonna pick CCR, Discipline, Morale, AdmEff, DevCost, etc etc. Resulting in every nation playing exactly the same and the only difference being which provinces you start with?

That would not work, because NI are supposed to integrate some "specialty" of the tag's culture and history, something that is not resolved by other rules - for example, the very peculiar Jäger culture of the Prussian state, that is just not possible to replicate in-game by any other means.

Now - if I understand You - we could move NI to Imperator-like Mission Trees, where if You choose a different path for Prussia, You would not get militaristic NI but something else - probably more on the lines of a new multi-branch Livonian Order mission tree (I suspect this is actually something transported to EU4 directly from EU5!).

So in the new version of the game, NI would be rooted in the country's mission tree and would change depending on the player's choices.

Sorry, I've been unclear if you're all reacting the same

In my view, idea groups should be kept: "Humanist Ideas", "Innovative Ideas", "Quality Ideas" etc. Those offer choices, that's a good thing.
Now, those prescripted "National Ideas", depending on what happened in another dimension and that may don't fit the current context in game, should be just left aside.

So, keeping the same system as in EU4: as soon as you complete 2 idea groups, you may adopt a policy.
Those policies you're offered would be the same as of now, whatever the nation you're playing. Save if you picked the 2 idea groups that are favored by your nation: then you would be offered some better versions of some policies (that would not be the same depending on the nation you're playing).

So, to sum things up: when opening the policies UI you would be shown:

• tons of usual policies, the same as for any nation;
• something like 5 "great" policies, prescripted for your nation: the same policy as offered to any nation, save the bonus for your nation would be x1.5;
• 2 "greater" policies (bonus x2);
• 1 "greatest" policy (bonus x3).

This way, you would be encouraged to adopt some ideas to get a peculiar set of policies -- meaning the IA would follow a quasi-historical way. But:

• you could decide not to work your way towards some policies the game (and history) encourages you to use;
• you could change your policies to fit the context (if you've got a sudden military priority you could renounce one "greater" colonial policy to pick a usual policy that's available but doesn't any peculiar bonus -- the Napoleon way, to say so, who sold Louisiane and renounced "colonial ideas" to focus on Europe and military/administrative ideas).

EDIT: re-reading the quotes: Arizal got it right with naming that "national policies".
If you pick any colonisation-related policy, it would be a "usual" policy if you're playing HAB. But if you're playing SPA and this is scripted in game as one peculiar important policy for this very nation, then this same policy bonus would be x2 or x3 when compared to those gained by HAB.
So yeah "national policies" fits well

 

[Testeria]

Sorry, I've been unclear if you're all reacting the same

In my view, idea groups should be kept: "Humanist Ideas", "Innovative Ideas", "Quality Ideas" etc. Those offer choices, that's a good thing.
Now, those prescripted "National Ideas", depending on what happened in another dimension and that may don't fit the current context in game, should be just left aside.

So, keeping the same system as in EU4: as soon as you complete 2 idea groups, you may adopt a policy.
Those policies you're offered would be the same as of now, whatever the nation you're playing. Save if you picked the 2 idea groups that are favored by your nation: then you would be offered some better versions of some policies (that would not be the same depending on the nation you're playing).

So, to sum things up: when opening the policies UI you would be shown:

• tons of usual policies, the same as for any nation;
• something like 5 "great" policies, prescripted for your nation: the same policy as offered to any nation, save the bonus for your nation would be x1.5;
• 2 "greater" policies (bonus x2);
• 1 "greatest" policy (bonus x3).

This way, you would be encouraged to adopt some ideas to get a peculiar set of policies -- meaning the IA would follow a quasi-historical way. But:

• you could decide not to work your way towards some policies the game (and history) encourages you to use;
• you could change your policies to fit the context (if you've got a sudden military priority you could renounce one "greater" colonial policy to pick a usual policy that's available but doesn't any peculiar bonus -- the Napoleon way, to say so, who sold Louisiane and renounced "colonial ideas" to focus on Europe and military/administrative ideas).

EDIT: re-reading the quotes: Arizal got it right with naming that "national policies".
If you pick any colonisation-related policy, it would be a "usual" policy if you're playing HAB. But if you're playing SPA and this is scripted in game as one peculiar important policy for this very nation, then this same policy bonus would be x2 or x3 when compared to those gained by HAB.
So yeah "national policies" fits well

I believe the new NI will be mission-tree based, but this is an interesting take. Kind of like NI should be conditional: You have to go a certain route to get access to Your national ideas.

 

[Nostalgium]

I'll just quote myself from a different thread:

I'd personally like to see EU5 double down on Estates, and make them a third pillar to warfare and diplomacy. The Estates should wield tangible power in your state, and should not be as easily appeased as they are in EU4. If you want to travel a more tolerant path in a country that has a deeply rooted, intolerant Clergy estate, that should be a real challenge. If you want the Crown to wield absolute power, you should really need to play around and curtail the nobility to make this happen. You should be able to ally with some estates to wrangle others into submission; the conflict within should be as complex diplomatically as the conflict without, if not more so. It should even be possible, I think, for a badly disgruntled estate to seek foreign help in pushing their agenda. Your aristocracy is deeply intermarried with the French due to your 75 years of royal marriages while gunning for their throne? You BET they'll have some ties to call on when you try to revoke their control of the military.

Other than that, it's the usual stuff. Colonialism BADLY needs an overhaul, the combat system could do with more depth to better simulate the transition from mercenary-supplemented levies to professional armies, and they finally need to work out a way to represent tribal populations in a way that doesn't play identically as societies that are recognizably state-like. But Estates is the big one for me.

PS:
Everything @Twoflower said about I:R. IR 2.0 is secretly one of PDX's best titles, and is a better template for what EU5 should look like in general mechanical terms than EU4 is.

 

[Austregisel]

Dunno, but scraping most mana system they can is a good base to make new mechanics.

 

[vaLor-]

Personally - I would love to see more CHOICES integrated into EU5 systems. For example: sure, absolutism may be good for many reasons but let the player CHOSE low absolutism for some other bonus (for example I once proposed that Husaria unit would be much stronger with low absolutism).

Someone else proposed that high manpower means growing unemployment ergo growing unrest.

Make all the absurdly good choices in EU4 break something else and add to trouble.

What kind of new features do you wish for - mechanic wise?

Remove the lucky nations modifier; It's a lazy, sloppy bandaid for the AI indicating a lack of skill or willpower in properly balancing certain nations.

 

[vaLor-]

Why the hate on NIs and missions?

Nations in history have personalities, if you understand them well enough, and would have geared their nation a certain way different to others elsewhere or even those nearby. As someone mentioned, France gets a colonial idea in their NIs because their nation would colonize due to their environment and lack of continental expansion (pre-napoleon) would push a France in any situation to do so. Allowing full modularity to all NIs for the player/AI would simply create a scale of modifier-stacking that would become nonsensical.

Missions are a non-essential chain of events/progressions that offer a historical experience or aspirations emulating that of said nation during the historical timeline.
EU4 is a historical game after all, so missions (or something similar) are quite critical as a mechanic or for a gameplay experience.

 

[vaLor-]

Disable the requirement of using ironman to get achievements like they did with Vic3. Let us use mods so the next time it takes the devs 2+ years to add something extremely obviously needed like courthouses having +1 build slot we can just download a QoL fix ourselves.

What would be the point of achievements then, if the game's rules no longer apply?

All achievements earned (previously) would become practically invalidated by a single mod that would grant all of them.

Better question: Why should you be eligible for achievements when changing the gamestate? If you wish to play a certain way, simply do so because you want to play the game that way.

As for your suggestion on CCR,

Reduce the overcentralizing nature of core cost reduction as the end-all, be-all modifier in 99% of cases. This could be done through some combination of 1) splitting the effects of "core cost" and "core time", then being more generous about giving them in larger amounts now that they have half their original effect. 2) Diversify the sources of CCR away from religions + national ideas so it doesn't feel terrible to play as something like Orthodox Novgorod. 3) Reduce the severe impact of overextension down to something more sane like it is in every other Paradox game, with perhaps the RoI of conquest being reduced in other ways to compensate.

The modifiers to core creation reduction (and war score cost) are inherently too powerful to ignore if playing optimally. These modifiers change such a fundamental part of EU4 to such a large extent that they would have to be far weaker than they are now to be considered suboptimal by a serious-minded player.
However, I don't think that players actually want to have to weigh the pros and cons of 20% production efficiency versus 10% CCR (or something like it) in their WC campaign. They like the conquest modifiers and how it allows them to play, so in my view the solution is to simply decrease war score cost and core creation cost across the board, and reduce or remove entirely the modifiers pertaining to it.

 

[vaLor-]

What I am saying that just the choice between two different buffs rarely makes an interesting choice between two different strategies. You already have plenty of options in the form of priviliges that cost absolutism. What you seem to suggest is that every country should have a choice if they want to PURSUE high or low absolutism and both should have roughly equal bonuses for low and high absolutism. But Absolutism is really something the player should pursue for vast majority of cases, but as a long-term goal that comes at short-term costs so the strategy mostly comes in the form "do I want stuff right now, or do I want to have high absolutism later?" not "Do I want high absolutism or do I want low absolutism?" The key to better gameplay regarding absolutism is to improve the ways player gains absolutism (fighting against nobility). Then you would also have more fun gameplay regarding low-absolutism strategy. e.g. "I am surrounded by enemies, better play it nice with the nobles so they will not stab me in the back" contrasted to "OK, Its safe out there, time to go North Korea on those pampered a$$es".

Speaking in general. A choice in a game will always be either OPTIMAL or SUBOPTIMAL. If you implement a choice that is always and globally OPTIMAL, then its not really a choice is it? It becomes the "Meta" and thats bad game-design. One which unfortunaly plagues paradox games due to their complexity (not hating on the devs here, its really just hard to make complex games like this). Therefore you need choices that are good or bad depending on situation. If you are designing the choice, you need not only think of what buffs and debuffs to add there, but also WHEN and WHERE will the choices be OPTIMAL or SUBOPTIMAL. If the optimal strategies dont agree with what was the way historically, then thats still a bad game design because most of your players are history buffs, so should iterate until you roughly get sane or better, plausible results. Btw, one thing which I see underestimated is how much having this kind of soft geographic/materialist determinism or historical authenticity makes these games more accessible to the "normies", who generally speaking try to act like the countries acted historically instead of acting according "meta" knowledge acquired by studying paradox games.

In short, when designing choices, its important to think "in which situation will player choose which option" else you risk further bloating a bloated game. EU4 has plenty of choices, but not that many meaningful choices.

Husaria in the game are the "winged hussars" from Lions of the North DLC, those declined as a military units at the end of 17th century. 18th century cuirissers were still an effective fighting force, but no longer relevant enough to legitimize a social class.

Yes, it is - and I don't like it at all. It makes the game shallow: players just pursue 100% absolutism as fast as they can and forgot. It also makes any customization through estates nonexistent for the rest of the game. It is one of the things that makes late-game tedious and annoying.

We may discuss if low absolutism was bad for PLC and other countries in history - but this is a game and devs should make low absolutism a meaningful choice at least for countries with republican traditions like Novogorod, PLC, or England. Countries with low absolutism should be better off economically, they should have a cultural impact on neighbors, and much faster incorporation of institutions - and countries with high absolutism should always be at risk of collapse, especially with a really bad monarch or during a tedious war or when losing a war.

EU4 mechanics is based on random events and opportunity cost - and in my opinion, that means that things like high absolutism or even high administrative efficiency should sometimes be a suboptimal choice for the player. This could be easily achieved if every positive modifier or currency like AE or Manpower always had a cumulative bad side to it - and local traditions also have a meaningful and lasting effect. Not sure if this design concept is compatible with the current PDX design philosophy.

Ooooh I just had another idea!
Get rid of the "binary" claims of EU4 and replace them with a floating point value between 0 and 1, with 0 being no claim whatsoever and 1 similar to a permanent claim in EU4 in terms of claim strength.
This claim value for a given natio would depend on several variables, e.g.:

Province has the same culture as the nation: +0.3
Province has the same culture group, but not the same culture, as the nation: +0.1
Province has the same religion as the nation and the nation is the caliphate: +0.2
Province directly borders the nation: +0.1
Government legitimacy: +0.001 per point if legitimacy
Culture is accepted in nation: +0.1
Nation has fabricated a claim on this province: +0.5

Each nation has a, mostly tech based, claim threshold at which the claim becomes pressable as a CB - e.g. if a nation has a claim threshold of 0.6, the nation has a cb on all provinces in which it has a claim strength of 0.6 or higher. When conquering a province, the AE generated by it is reduced by a factor of 0.5 times claim strength on the province, and CB cost reductions apply if the claim strength on the province at least matches the nation's claim threshold.

Some ideas...

1) A pop system. It doesn't need to be as detailed as Vicky's - maybe something more like Imperator's would be more fitting, but it would be nice if populations had tangible feels. It would also be nice if provinces could produce multiple goods. This would also allow you to actually represent religious and ethnic minorities in a real way. At the very least, provinces need more texture if internal matters are to be of greater concern

2) Absolutely we need to represent different methods for taxation, as well as internal governing mechanics and interests. You wouldn't just be able to get loans from magic banks - you could also, say...sell future tax income to some nobles or enterprising merchants for a nice big chunk of change. And having all those ducats sure seems tempting, doesn't it?
Just sign on the dotted line, don't ask about what happened to Spain and France, it wasn't that bad.
This would also create an interesting tension for Muslim realms: do you convert conquered territory to make it more stable and to be better able to leverage its manpower in your armies....or do you just charge them the jizya and call it a day?

3) Bidirectional trade flow. There's no reason trade flow should be restricted: trade value should be able to flow freely between nodes in either direction, and no node should be completely isolated. Or be a black hole from which no trade value can escape, as Genoa, Venice, and the English Channel are currently. You would, of course, still restrict connections based upon geographic and nautical sense, but this would allow ahistorical trade empires to truly flex their muscle, and for European powers to squeeze every last dime from their colonial empires even if they went off the rails a little. You might; however, create a certain sense of gravity that makes it harder to pry trade out of a node in which a powerful trade empire is collecting.

4) More sensible tech. As we all know, in OTL, Europe surged ahead of the rest of the world technologically starting from the Renaissance through the invention of the Printing Press, but afterwards the rest of the world caught up and achieved tech parity, blunting European incursions into India and the East Indies. And also China remained the most technologically advanced society on the planet.

That doesn't seem right! But neither would railroading the rest of the world into hopelessly falling behind. I'm not a game designer, nor am I at all an expert on the period, so I don't know how you would do it right, but certainly I don't think it works now. For the rest of the world, the first three institutions are sinks you dump hundreds of monarch points into to surpass your neighbors and keep parity with some pale guys far away.

5) Better representation of supply lines
As we also know, the combined federation of the Pawnee, Onondaga, Mohawk, Pequot, Abanaki, and Fox crushed the first English colony like a bug, but then the English shipped their entire army of ~50,000 over the Atlantic Ocean and crushed them right back.

Oh wait, no, that's nonsense: though Indigenous peoples did frequently skirmish with European settlers in North America, to varying degrees of success, but they never won a war, so the above scenario should be an aberration. They were typically too diffuse and other nations hundreds of miles away did not march through the territory of dozens of other tribes unmolested to render aid to their brethren. More organized tribes did; however, cleave to European colonial powers in exchange for certain guarantees as to their territorial integrity (guarantees the restless colonists typically did not honor, of course) and to renew their own grudges against their rivals.

In any case, sending a large army far afield should be an expensive and difficult undertaking bedeviled by attrition and difficulty supplying them. This would encourage European powers to seek coastal footholds in far away places before launching campaigns of colonial conquest and chains of ports to help ease the difficulties of supplying distant campaigns. And encourage them to make friends with some natives. At least, for a time...

6) It should be hard to keep a large empire together

No empire lasts forever, but your average EU4 empire does, unless it runs into an even bigger, hungrier empire, of course! Nonetheless, you almost never see European countries with significant holdings in India, because the subcontinent typically consolidates into a hyper-stable collection of three or so mega-states. Ming China needs all kinds of bespoke events to get it to fall apart. The Ottomans and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth rarely decline, and certainly never for the reasons they actually did. This means you never get anything like the circumstances that allowed the British to become the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent, or for Persia to rise and challenge the Ottomans for supremacy in the Middle East.

Great posts. This is the best thread I've seen on this subject so far.

 

[Reman]

What would be the point of achievements then, if the game's rules no longer apply?

All achievements earned (previously) would become practically invalidated by a single mod that would grant all of them.

Better question: Why should you be eligible for achievements when changing the gamestate? If you wish to play a certain way, simply do so because you want to play the game that way.

There have been many threads on this topic which have answered these questions, but for a quick response:

It's very easy to circumvent Ironman right now through memory editing, EU4ConsolePatcher.exe, savescumming through task manager, etc. If you're fine with cheating to get achievements, it's very easy to do so through a number of ways, or by just using Steam achievement unlocker.

On the other hand, it's actually very difficult to use mods and still earn achievements, so if you wanted to have a mod that gives +1 building slot to courthouses for the first 2+ years that GC was in the game, you'd be forced to pick between a massive QoL improvement and achievements.

None of the in-game achievements are particularly impressive, so there's no need to guard them that hard. They're nice as a little goal to structure some casual campaigns around. If somebody wants to use overpowered mods to cheese all the achievements, nobody should really have a problem with that. They could have just done it easier through the methods I mentioned earlier.

The modifiers to core creation reduction (and war score cost) are inherently too powerful to ignore if playing optimally. These modifiers change such a fundamental part of EU4 to such a large extent that they would have to be far weaker than they are now to be considered suboptimal by a serious-minded player.
However, I don't think that players actually want to have to weigh the pros and cons of 20% production efficiency versus 10% CCR (or something like it) in their WC campaign. They like the conquest modifiers and how it allows them to play, so in my view the solution is to simply decrease war score cost and core creation cost across the board, and reduce or remove entirely the modifiers pertaining to it.

Agreed that CCR is way too powerful, which is why I suggested splitting core *cost* and core *time*. It's likely that core time would still be overcentralizing, but it wouldn't be quite as crazy as the combined time+cost CCR is now.

I don't think warscore cost is too powerful right now, since in many ways it's just another military bonus like siege ability or discipline that lets you convert soldiers + gold into conquered land faster. Theocracies can probably stack it too easily, but otherwise it's mostly fine. You need high CCR to make warscore cost a powerful modifier, otherwise you bottleneck on coring cycles first anyways.

Decreasing the cost of conquest is probably necessary, since the whole reason coring time is such a big deal is because overextension is like 10-100x more punishing than equivalent mechanics in any other Paradox game, and coring time lets you be rid of it faster.

 

[I like wars and maps]

What would be the point of achievements then, if the game's rules no longer apply?

All achievements earned (previously) would become practically invalidated by a single mod that would grant all of them.

Better question: Why should you be eligible for achievements when changing the gamestate? If you wish to play a certain way, simply do so because you want to play the game that way.

With mods you can make every area of the world more fun, add things the devs are lacking at (everything wich isnt OP mission modifers) and fix problems you have with the game. Its like mods with Bethesda games, alone they are trash with infinite better alternatives, but since you can mod out every flaw and just add in more stuff you like people still play them. Not to mention Paradox having to actually compete with mods will force them to make better content. Just look at missions before and after Emperor. Nearly half of them are superior to mission tree mods whereas before the mission trees were so basic and terrible almost everyone with some historical knowledge and maybe 2 weeks could make something better.

 

[eanske]

Personally - I would love to see more CHOICES integrated into EU5 systems. For example: sure, absolutism may be good for many reasons but let the player CHOSE low absolutism for some other bonus (for example I once proposed that Husaria unit would be much stronger with low absolutism).

Someone else proposed that high manpower means growing unemployment ergo growing unrest.

Make all the absurdly good choices in EU4 break something else and add to trouble.

What kind of new features do you wish for - mechanic wise?

I agree wholeheartedly. One of my biggest problems with EU 4 is snowballing and I think that one of the main reasons for it, is that almost every reward only has positives. Including actual downsides could also result in mechanisms that would destabilize empires so we would actually see countries and empires demise instead of ever-growing.
Throw in basic pops that have culture and religion instead of single-nation provinces and pops that must be used for war instead of magical manpower so that it won't be possible for the Ottomans to field armies of 1M soldiers without completely destroying the economy and I think the basics of the game will be so much better.

 

[cursorhiker]

Talking about what navies should be try to represent in EU5 (and a couple related topics):

1. The impracticality of large-scale overland trade and supply in the Early Modern period.

Can't really emphasize this enough. Large-scale trade over any kind of distance had to travel by water until the invention of the railroad, and this isn't really emphasized in EU4. Likewise, Spain can keep an army of basically any size in the Netherlands worry-free, when in real life the Dutch (and French and English) privateers that infested the Channel made their logistical position in the Spanish Netherlands extremely precarious because the bulk of their soldiers and supplies had to travel overland via the Spanish Road. The Venetians or Knights Hospitaller posing a threat to Ottoman trade in the Aegean Sea is more annoying than anything else, where in real life the primary cause of the wars between them was disruption of trade routes.

2. More stringent rules for military access

Military access is one of the worst mechanics in EU4, turning every single war into a land war and removing all geography except the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from the game. Outside of the HRE, military access should be hard to get and basically be one step removed from making someone a vassal or tributary. Spain asking France for access to go fight those irritating Dutch or France asking Spain for access to force those annoying Portuguese to comply with the continental system should be met with peals of laughter.

3. Difficulty of supplying large expeditionary forces over land and of expeditionary warfare in general

Expeditionary warfare - fighting at a long distance from well-established bases and especially from home territory - is extremely difficult and only powerful or advanced nations were able to do it during the time period. Even then, expeditionary forces were historically tiny: Portugal captured Malacca with less than a thousand men, the British captured Quebec with just under five thousand, Cortez had only a couple thousand Spaniards in Mexico, and Clive won at Plassey with just three thousand. Less developed or powerful states should find it difficult and without a blue water navy/merchant marine really shouldn't be able to fight like this at all. Having a built up base in the region - Goa, Gibraltar, Batavia, etc. - should make it a lot easier.

4. Prestige associated with having a blue-water navy

Pretty simple, having a powerful fleet you can sail around and show off should be inherently prestigious.

5. Regional wars that are mostly fought via naval actions

Linked to military access, the Anglo-Dutch wars, the Ottoman-Portuguese Wars, and various other wars throughout the era were mostly fought with naval engagements and coastal raids and occupation. Every war being a total war is one of the EU series' biggest problems.

6. The importance of riverine trade to the era

Linked with point 7, inland trading cities should only really prosper if they are on a river, and the blocking of that river should be potentially devastating,

7. Blockading chokepoints (Gulf of Aden, Scheldt River)

Having a fleet of sufficient power in a chokepoint region, coupled with controlling the coastal regions there, should let you block it off to all trade except your own without necessarily being at war. Ideally, war would be less binary in general - see point 5.

8. Blockading in general - more difficult and more devastating

EU3 navies didn't "unlock" blockading until a certain tech was reached to show the impossibility of blockading with early navies. Really, blockades should be much harder to implement - the Royal Navy at the end of the game's era was hard-pressed to maintain a full blockade of France. For most of the game, again, blockades should be aimed at key naval bases or trade cities and should be devastating to that region as well as to war support among the population.

9. Inherent capacity of fleets to occupy key areas (forts, ports)

Especially at the end of the era, large ships had crews of hundreds of men. Nelson's Victory had a crew of eight hundred! A large fleet could carry hundreds of marines and sailors which could (and were historically) used to capture key cities, ports, and fortresses. Envisioning something like the Total War games, where a sufficiently strong fleet can capture a coastal fortress or city and hold it as long as they remain in port. Examples of this are all over the era, and taking a key trading city or major port should be a big problem for the unfortunate nation on the wrong end of it. Ideally, provinces should be much smaller to allow for these tiny occupations and show the slow development of Euro colonization in America/India.

10. Representation of merchant marines

Ideally, the central mechanic of EU5 trade should revolve around trade routes and creating new ones. Once created, a merchant marine would be needed to "upkeep" said route. Say the French need to transport x units of lumber and y units of fur each year from Canada, that will require a certain number of merchant ships.

11. Should be worth it even against a navally superior foe

Another reason EU4 navies generally aren't worth it is if yours is weaker you may as well not have one. Even if your navy is drastically outmatched, things like raiding trade routes or supply convoys should have an outsized impact on your foe.

12. Uti Possidetis Peace Deals

This is an extremely radical suggestion, and breaks with every single Paradox game barring Stellaris. Basically, once captured a region should automatically be yours in any peace deal, unless you choose to give it back. This is not only more historically accurate, but would allow colonial wars to play out much more realistically. This would probably be hellish to balance but it could make small-scale warfare significantly less annoying to enforce; if I capture Jamaica as Britain it should be on the Spanish to try to get it back at the negotiating table, not on me to try to get it.

13. European dominance at sea
The true "Great Divergence" starts somewhere in the late 1600s/early 1700s, but even prior to that European nations should be extremely hard to match at sea. Historically, the Ottomans invested a ton of money and effort into it and never quite managed it, especially in the early 1600s when the galley began to fall out of favor, and they went about this mainly by hiring a ton of European ship designers and builders.

 

[ZéMalta]

I got this impression that if Victoria 3 proposes itself as a Society Builder (if you agree that it achieves it or not, not being the point here), then EU5 should be a Nation Builder. Which is a matter of culture, technology, religion, ideology and government/law; that together would build the identity of the future nation. I mean, yeah, the european states weren't nations, but the game's time period saw the beginnings and motions of our modern definitions and forms of nations. So a nice design ethos that ties the mechanics already found in the previous game, and integrates them in the making of something bigger.

So Missions, Ideas, Religion and Estates should be a back and forth. Reforms and Ideas should be way more drastic in effect, not just pumping or moving a bit of the insides of the government, but shaping it up differently. Besides, they should get stronger or weaker with the times (both by neighboring countries and internal changes), and not just remains static after being brought.
I envision a system similar to Religions and Culture in CK3, only having some progression and verticality; some Ideas would need to strengthen up and flourish before you can embrace a more extreme or complex version (or step) of it. And investing money and power on great theorists and defenders of these Ideas should buff the advancement of these ideas. Before you can stablish them, they need to be known and be solid.


Snowballing should also be addressed, not because I think the game needs to be harder or more challenging, but because as countries became more powerful, the whole feel of the Balance of Power got spread on the european politics. So if a country started conquering the continent, getting too powerful (financial or militarily) the others would take notice. Alliances, coalitions and the like would pop up in no time. Sovereignty doesn't exist if everybody is eating at the same table, and nobody wants one person eating their (or other's) food, or eating more than them. It is all a big game stage. Trade shouldn't be more important than diplomacy in my opinion. Not here.

 

[Bohemian_warlord]

I got this impression that if Victoria 3 proposes itself as a Society Builder (if you agree that it achieves it or not, not being the point here), then EU5 should be a Nation Builder. Which is a matter of culture, technology, religion, ideology and government/law; that together would build the identity of the future nation. I mean, yeah, the european states weren't nations, but the game's time period saw the beginnings and motions of our modern definitions and forms of nations. So a nice design ethos that ties the mechanics already found in the previous game, and integrates them in the making of something bigger.

So Missions, Ideas, Religion and Estates should be a back and forth. Reforms and Ideas should be way more drastic in effect, not just pumping or moving a bit of the insides of the government, but shaping it up differently. Besides, they should get stronger or weaker with the times (both by neighboring countries and internal changes), and not just remains static after being brought.
I envision a system similar to Religions and Culture in CK3, only having some progression and verticality; some Ideas would need to strengthen up and flourish before you can embrace a more extreme or complex version (or step) of it. And investing money and power on great theorists and defenders of these Ideas should buff the advancement of these ideas. Before you can stablish them, they need to be known and be solid.


Snowballing should also be addressed, not because I think the game needs to be harder or more challenging, but because as countries became more powerful, the whole feel of the Balance of Power got spread on the european politics. So if a country started conquering the continent, getting too powerful (financial or militarily) the others would take notice. Alliances, coalitions and the like would pop up in no time. Sovereignty doesn't exist if everybody is eating at the same table, and nobody wants one person eating their (or other's) food, or eating more than them. It is all a big game stage. Trade shouldn't be more important than diplomacy in my opinion. Not here.

Vicky 3 is already the game about nations and nation-state bulding, I dont think EU should beat it because arguably nationalism peaked during Vicky timeline. EU timeline is about crafting a centralized state from feudal realm, that can sometimes be a multinational empire and sometimes a (precursor to) nation-state. So EU always was and probably should be an Empire builder with an option for starting an empire from unifying a nation in certain cases (Italy, Russia, Germany...).

CK3 mechanic for culture doesnt really fit EU, because in CK3 the cultures are somewhat independent from rulers and it makes sense why one ruler could enact his will over the cultures in provinces he doesnt own. I dont see why EU would benefit from having more "epic warrior culture" buff-bloat.

Regarding nations...EU would benefit more from replacing the current core system with a system that divides the actual core provinces inhabited by players nation from provinces populated by subjugated nations and improving unrest and rebellion so that the subjugated peoples have better chance to rise up. Or from implementing better "cultural distance" mechanic so that Poles wouldnt be equally as distant from Germans as they are from subsaharan Africans. And having that cultural distance dynamic, would be nice as well so that France can progressively unify its various various regional identities into a single French culture.

 

[Kellendros95]

I think National Ideas must not only provide bonuses, but also set conditions under which legitimacy goes down.
You have Naval Ideas, but your fleet is small and bad -> your government is bad at providing what's yout society sees as important -> your legitimacy falls.
Of course, you must have a way to drop and replace them, but it shouldn't be instant action.

 

[Kyoumen]

I would like it to have any sort of gameplay model whatsoever where there is meaningful gameplay to be found in something other than making your big (insert colour) blob an even bigger (insert colour) blob.

Also, it should have a system that does not break horribly due to the existence of China, causing inevitable kludgy fixes down the line.

The great thing about the first is that if becoming an even bigger blob is not the be all and endall of the game, the second part may well not be an issue!

 

[Reman]

I would like it to have any sort of gameplay model whatsoever where there is meaningful gameplay to be found in something other than making your big (insert colour) blob an even bigger (insert colour) blob.

Every time EU4 has tried to go down this path, the mechanics they've implemented have ended up somewhere between irrelevant and catastrophic (e.g. terrcorr).

 

[Kellendros95]

Another one: technology system should be similar to Institutions in EU4 or tech in Victoria 3. Each technology is invented somewhere (may be more than once) and spreads - and you get more techs from spread, not from direct research. Perfect if you can't just decide what tech is researched in your country - may be, like the system from Alpha Centaury (you choose direction, but not exact technology).

And another one: do something with military access system. It should be possible without full alliance, but hard to get and costly to provide. Armies eat something when they are on other country territory. Even if this isn't your enemy. Also, if someone provide military access to your enemy you must not receive access too, but you must have the possibility to attack this country as a part of the same war, without triggering its alliances.