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?

 

[grandadmiralbob]

The same guy that improves nations with your neighbors/allies, is the same guy who finds these weird documents that say that my 4 cousin Bert used to own that field over in YOUR land. So if they keep "diplomats," split them with spies or something. And if they do keep that, tell them to fabricate a claim on a province so I don't have to remember to click on it when I hit 20, 25 points.

 

[grommile]

So if they keep "diplomats," split them with spies or something.

The difference between a diplomat and a spy is apparent only to your own diplomatic corps.

 

[Jochen_Mongolia]

My wish is EUV needs to have proper population system with numbers and ethnically diverse, historically accurate pool from which we can recruit and train the soldiers and having the proper workforce distributed together with slaves+POWs.
Building an economy based on pop number is always better and realistic in any game.

Thank you Devs for your tireless great works for EUIV.

 

[Hermerico]

Very much this. I can not understand why so many people keep saying things like "every nation should be able to use mechanic X" about every single mechanic. Diversity is the core of replayability. Dealing with the same problms in different ways. Facing different problems. Having stronger bonuses for one area of the game or the other. If every nation would be able to use the EoC mechanic, then what would be the point of playing in China. If every religion had access to the Papacy (just renamed), then what would be the point of having multiple religions.
Diversity and mutually exclusive options are what motivates one to play again and again. I remember Stellaris on release. It was horrifyingly bland. One playthrough was enough to see 95% of the game's content. What would be the point of playing again? To perhaps see the remaining 5%, but at the cost of repeating so much? EU5 needs to have diversity embedded in it from day 1.

I agree with the argument that diversity is required, i disagree with the argument that diversity should be achieved by limiting certain mechanics to certain tags or regions.

The choice shouldnt be: Will i play Prussia for a militaristic approach or Austria for a diplomatic approach?

The choice should be:
I'm playing the Netherlands because i want to play as the Netherlands.
Now will i conduct my nation to be a staunch Catholic and uphold the power of Rome or will I disrupt it by going Protestant?
Will I try to sieze power in the Holy Roman Empire or try to disrupt it?
Will i devote myself to be an economic powerhouse and dominate trade, or a military powerhouse and conquer Western Europe?
Will I attempt to form a Colonial Empire or restrain myself to my core homeland? And if I colonise, will i try to establish a large colony in the New World or go for a trade network in Asia?
Will i hold absolute power as a divinely ordinated monarch and centralise my country to ruthless efficiency or embrace liberal philosophical values as a republic or parlimentary monarchy?
Will i legitimise my power by virtue of a strongly upheld religious values and identity? Or by sustaining social cohesion by virtue of a culturaly homogenous nation with a strong ethnic identity? Or perhaps due to a certain set of philosophical principles and values that holds the nation together?

Diversity happens when all these options are equally viable if fully comitted to and offer completely distinct experiences when followed, while also being incompatible to follow all these options efficiently in the same playthrough.

I'm not saying all options should be equally easy to achieve, a country like the Ottoman Empire is in a much better starting position to follow a playthrough of agressive military expansion but also of cultural and religious tolerance. A country like Korea is in a much better position to play a more defensive mindset and focusing on domestic issues, and optimizing their homeland to maximum efficiency.

A country such as the Mughals would have a much easier time pursuing a policy of religious and ethnic tolerance in the diverse Indian subcontinent than to try to convert everyone to their culture and religion.

A country like Portugal is in a much better position to pursue a policy of overseas expansion and defense of their core homeland than to attempt to wage wars of conquest in Western Europe which is going to be dominated by much larger and well established realms such as Spain, France, Britain and the HRE.

In conclusion, diversity should be achieved by allowing every nation to take different approaches when dealing with the same problems, rather than designating certain tags to certain playstyles.

 

[Olaf Trygvasson]

Unrelated, another thing I'd like to see is tying garrisons to manpower, allowing the stationing of troops in a city or fortress to plus up the default garrison. If I snatch a small fortress on the Indian coast with a few thousand expeditionary force, I should be able to station them in the fortress to avoid getting attacked in the field by a big Mughal army. In addition, army professionalism should be the holy grail of endgame armies, with small professional armies being able to decimate armies several times larger than them (Wellesley's victory at Assaye is a perfect example).

Honestly, why not go farther? This would be a bold move, but get rid of automatic garrisons, and have garrisons be player controlled armies with an option for any given army to be garrisoned or in the field. That is more accurate to how the period was, and allows the player to make the decision to start emptying fortress garrisons to pull troops to a front on the other side of the country

 

[EUnderhill]

I agree with the argument that diversity is required, i disagree with the argument that diversity should be achieved by limiting certain mechanics to certain tags or regions.

The choice shouldnt be: Will i play Prussia for a militaristic approach or Austria for a diplomatic approach?

The choice should be:
I'm playing the Netherlands because i want to play as the Netherlands.
Now will i conduct my nation to be a staunch Catholic and uphold the power of Rome or will I disrupt it by going Protestant?
Will I try to sieze power in the Holy Roman Empire or try to disrupt it?
Will i devote myself to be an economic powerhouse and dominate trade, or a military powerhouse and conquer Western Europe?
Will I attempt to form a Colonial Empire or restrain myself to my core homeland? And if I colonise, will i try to establish a large colony in the New World or go for a trade network in Asia?
Will i hold absolute power as a divinely ordinated monarch and centralise my country to ruthless efficiency or embrace liberal philosophical values as a republic or parlimentary monarchy?
Will i legitimise my power by virtue of a strongly upheld religious values and identity? Or by sustaining social cohesion by virtue of a culturaly homogenous nation with a strong ethnic identity? Or perhaps due to a certain set of philosophical principles and values that holds the nation together?

Diversity happens when all these options are equally viable if fully comitted to and offer completely distinct experiences when followed, while also being incompatible to follow all these options efficiently in the same playthrough.

I'm not saying all options should be equally easy to achieve, a country like the Ottoman Empire is in a much better starting position to follow a playthrough of agressive military expansion but also of cultural and religious tolerance. A country like Korea is in a much better position to play a more defensive mindset and focusing on domestic issues, and optimizing their homeland to maximum efficiency.

A country such as the Mughals would have a much easier time pursuing a policy of religious and ethnic tolerance in the diverse Indian subcontinent than to try to convert everyone to their culture and religion.

A country like Portugal is in a much better position to pursue a policy of overseas expansion and defense of their core homeland than to attempt to wage wars of conquest in Western Europe which is going to be dominated by much larger and well established realms such as Spain, France, Britain and the HRE.

In conclusion, diversity should be achieved by allowing every nation to take different approaches when dealing with the same problems, rather than designating certain tags to certain playstyles.

I play Portugal if I want colonization and trade, Sweden if I want Nordic Space Marines, Venice for a traders game, Spain/France for a bit of everything...think of them like characters in the grand drama that was the era depicted. If you want the heroic lead, don't cast yourself as Puck or Bottom.

 

[grommile]

I play Portugal if I want colonization and trade

Portugal's a bad example there, because you could delete all the "national flavour" content and Portugal would still be the natural choice for someone who wanted to play a European colonialist, simply because of their map position.

 

[Blindbohemian]

I play Portugal if I want colonization and trade, Sweden if I want Nordic Space Marines, Venice for a traders game, Spain/France for a bit of everything...think of them like characters in the grand drama that was the era depicted. If you want the heroic lead, don't cast yourself as Puck or Bottom.

But they weren’t the characters that they ended up being in said grand drama until after the era finished. There was nothing in 1444 saying Sweden would have Nordic space marines, Portugal would not, and Austria would be a diplomatic powerhouse. What was preventing Sweden from becoming a trading and colonial power and Portugal from becoming an “army with a state”, hiring out its Iberian space marines as mercenaries feared across Europe?

All of the playstyles you’ve listed and more should be in the game and viable, but they should be emergent from the position a country is in and the way it’s run, not inextricably tied to the tag you choose.

 

[Beefalaxx]

I would like internal politics to exist

 

[Johan]

What was preventing Sweden from becoming a trading and colonial power and Portugal from becoming an “army with a state”, hiring out its Iberian space marines as mercenaries feared across Europe?

All of the playstyles you’ve listed and more should be in the game and viable, but they should be emergent from the position a country is in and the way it’s run, not inextricably tied to the tag you choose.

Geography would still drive a lot of the needs. In the 1444, Sweden has basically no seaport on the west coast, and is a firmly baltic sea focused country.

 

[cursorhiker]

Honestly, why not go farther? This would be a bold move, but get rid of automatic garrisons, and have garrisons be player controlled armies with an option for any given army to be garrisoned or in the field. That is more accurate to how the period was, and allows the player to make the decision to start emptying fortress garrisons to pull troops to a front on the other side of the country.

Well the ideal would be as you state, where state-owned fort garrisons are drawn directly from your manpower pool and must be paid maintenance just like any other troops, and each fort would have a "recommended garrison" and a "maximum garrison" number.

However, during the early game, noble-owned castles and in some cases fortified cities should provide and pay for their own troops, which would take the strain off the central government - but provide powerful local powerbases for those elites should they decide to revolt or cooperate with foreign powers. Envisioning a system sort of like Imperator's provincial governors, but in some cases they'd be hereditary feudal nobles, in some cases appointed. Likewise, puppet states could be made to accept overlord garrisons to ensure loyalty and integrate them more fully at the cost of paying for all those men.

This would keep big blobs under control, as countries have to keep large garrisons to keep their subjects from revolting.

 

[Blindbohemian]

Geography would still drive a lot of the needs. In the 1444, Sweden has basically no seaport on the west coast, and is a firmly baltic sea focused country.

Exactly. “emergent from the position a country is in”.

 

[Jernau_]

My main wish for EU5 is that they stay away from pops, and keep the core game pretty similar to what EU4 is now.

 

[Hermerico]

I play Portugal if I want colonization and trade, Sweden if I want Nordic Space Marines

This doesnt even make any sense in the first place and is based entierly on personal bias and falsifiable historical beliefs.

Provide a single piece of historical evidence that suggests Sweden deserves better military quality than Portugal.
As far as I know, these two countries never faced eachother in the battlefield in order to be compared.
However, they did fight a common enemy during the 30 years war, Spain, so we can compare Portugal and Sweden based on their performance against Spain (during the Age of Absolutism, both outnumbered by a similar rate compared to Spain: 2 to 3)
Sweden fighting Spain 1634 - Swedish defeat
Portugal fighting Spain 1659 - Portuguese victory

But if Spain is not enough evidence, there is another common enemy we can compare performances in relation to:
Sweden fighting the Netherlands 1659 - Swedish defeat
Portugal fighting the Netherlands 1649 - Portuguese victory

So, if anything, there is stronger historical evidence to indicate Portugal actually had better "Space Marines" than Sweden.

But wait, there's more.
Despite Portugal having a "Trade Empire", Sweden actually had a superior GDP per Capita than Portugal
Most of Europe did in fact.
So tell me again, why does Portugal deserve any sort of Economic/Trade bonus when in fact it performed a lot worse than most other European countries economically?

Now, we can measure cocks, or we can admit that countries arent fantasy archetypes, inherently better or worse than eachother, and instead their historical performances are the result of several factors working with eachother rather than inherent "tag" bonuses.

 

[Johan]

Sweden fighting Spain 1634 - Swedish defeat

We can have plenty of debates that all countries deserve similar bonuses, but using the Battle of Nördlingen as an example of swedish army being overrated is not the best one, considering almost half of it was german militia.

With eu4 mechanics and stats, the results would be similar most of the time.

 

[I like wars and maps]

Portugal's a bad example there, because you could delete all the "national flavour" content and Portugal would still be the natural choice for someone who wanted to play a European colonialist, simply because of their map position.

No natural choice would be Spain cause they are bigger and in the same position. Even better choice would be France where you just kill Portugal, Spain and England. Using such arguments we can say the perfect country to reestablish the Byzantine Empire is the Ottomans too since they got a better position. Flavor and specilization is important espacially in such a game as EU4 with hundreds of tags of wich most follow the exact same geopolitical goals. If it wasnt for national ideas we might aswell remove half of the tags since they just do the same thing.

 

[arosenberger14]

Military wise, aside from costs/logistics, the main limitation on having a strong military through most of history wasn't so much manpower as it was trained manpower. Until guns became good enough in the late 1700's it just wasn't feasible to train soldiers in a reasonable time frame, and experienced soldiers would wipe the floor with green ones. The complex thing to model was that different types of populations had different baseline levels of trained manpower. Peasants and the urban poor were generally completely unskilled, but tribal groups and most famously steppe nomads had populations whose day to day skills translated much better to warfare, and as such could much more easily mobilize and disband armies.

Hence states adopted various strategies to maximize their military power that all came with their own advantages and risks, both economic and political. Mercenaries minimized the risk of setting up rival internal political powers, but maximized the economic expense from direct payments and devastation to the land, Feudal and militia systems shifted the expenses down from the state to more local actors, but at the cost of making it more difficult to mobilize armies abroad and creating local power bases with their own interests that could challenge the central state. Soldier castes (either slave or other) were somewhere between the two models, while a standing army was so ruinously expensive and politically dangerous only the richest and most organized states like China relied exclusively on them.

Modelling all these factors could make the game much more complex flavorful while presenting the player with alternate playstyles that scale differently over the campaign. Despite some encouraging steps, modern Paradox games haven't really done a good job at capturing them though. CK3 takes a good stab at distinguishing between trained and untrained troops with its levy/MAA system but has issues with how jank and exploitable it is. Vic3's military interest group and IR's legion commander loyalty start to model the political risks/tradeoffs that come with a military, but don't really pull in all the socioeconomic factors as well. Hopefully EU5 will build off both and deliver a new system that is better at modelling the various military models of the time period and their political/economic tradeoffs.

 

[grommile]

No natural choice would be Spain cause they are bigger and in the same position.

Spain is not in the same position as Portugal (and neither is Castile, really). Similar, but very definitely not the same. Castile is much better positioned to do things that aren't colonization.

The problem with National Ideas (and Mission Trees) is that they're a thoroughly ham-handed way for the game to tell you "ur doin it rong".

If we have to have that kind of "if you don't do this you will spend the entire playthrough hamstrung compared to a Custom Nation with no more than 50 of its points spent on ideas", it should be tied to culture and geography, not tag.

(And yes, that does mean I think that e.g. every Low Saxon inland OPM should play basically identically.)

 

[Hermerico]

Castile is much better positioned to do things that aren't colonization.

This is also wrong.
In Eu4... maybe.
In real life, Castile was in a much better position for colonization than Portugal.
They both had equally easy acess to the Atlantic, but Castile had the key advantage of having 5Milion people to colonise with as opposed to a mere 1M Portuguese.
This is why Castile did colonize at least 3x more than Portugal did. Even France and England colonized just as much in the Americas as Portugal did, despite the fact that Portugal had a 150 years headstart.

Eu4 completely fails to represent Portugal accuratly mostly because it doesnt have a population mechanic. Population was the single greatest Portuguese weakness, and this is not visible in the game at all. Portugal starts 1444 with a 26k force limit, for comparison, the only time Portugal fielded an army that large was in 1809 during the Napoleonic wars.
Portugal only has a single battle where it lost more than 10k men, they lost 20k in an effective stackwipe in Morocco and it was enough bankrupt its economy and colapse the country out of existance for 60 years as a result.
If playing Portugal meant that losing 20k would be a death sentence, then one would HAVE to rely on "space marines" to compensate this crippling manpower shortage.

 

[grommile]

This is also wrong.

I phrased myself poorly.

For everything that isn't the exploration game, Castile's position is much better than Portugal's; for exploration it's a relatively smaller amount better.