Only if score is the only thing you get from mission trees.
Nothing else.
At all.
Ever.
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Nothing else.
At all.
Ever.
One idea I had for revolt risk is that it should be less "peasants with pitchforks" and more reflected in how loyal they act. If RR is high, you have to spend a ton of effort to eek out taxes and manpower from the provinces, and when at war the provinces with high RR will be more likely to just up and surrender to sieges since they don't care about the state.
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So can anything in the game, though.
There’s no reason why mission trees would be better for determining score than anything else in EUIV. In fact mission trees are worse than most things: what if I want to play a tall Ottomans? Or a land-power-in-Europe Spain? Or colonial Poland? Why should my score be hamstrung because I’m not doing what the mission tree wants me to do? Why should Ferghana have a massive “the devs haven’t made them their own mission tree yet” malus, meaning it’s impossible for them to achieve a competitive score?
I stand by my assessment: there is literally nothing desirable mission trees can do in EU that actual mechanics can’t do better. You are trying to find ways for mission trees to be useful rather than assessing the usefulness of mission trees; they’re a solution looking for a problem. There’s no problem they solve that isn’t better solved by better AI or mechanics design. They’re just bad.
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I have a vague memory from a stream several years ago hearing Johan and/or Chris King talking about how they had a requirement that EU4 (or was it CK2?) had to be at least 25% (or was it 40%?) better than its prequel, and that it would be something they would want to apply to any future sequels. For me they were far off that for CK3, but I hope that is something that is still the goal for EU5.
As for lessons more directly related to recent games, I hope Paradox acknowledges that there is a market for a game with at least a half decent AI at release. The terrible AI in Imperator and CK3 was for me the single biggest turn off from those games, as I never felt there was any kind of risk to what I did in those games. Vic3 also appears to see a big negative impact from the bad AI.
In addition to that I hope Paradox will focus on making a functional UI rather than a pretty and "accessible" UI as we have seen in CK3 and Vic3. I don't want to have to click/hover through 3-4 different menus/tooltips to find frequently used information.
As for lessons more directly related to recent games, I hope Paradox acknowledges that there is a market for a game with at least a half decent AI at release. The terrible AI in Imperator and CK3 was for me the single biggest turn off from those games, as I never felt there was any kind of risk to what I did in those games. Vic3 also appears to see a big negative impact from the bad AI.
In addition to that I hope Paradox will focus on making a functional UI rather than a pretty and "accessible" UI as we have seen in CK3 and Vic3. I don't want to have to click/hover through 3-4 different menus/tooltips to find frequently used information.
Even in CK3 they managed to ruin it with hooks which in the few hours I played the game pretty much always could be used as an I win button.
For me it's the opposite. There are few things more annoying than getting those permanent claims half a decade or more after I conquered the area since I was presented with a perfect opportunity before taking the prerequisites for those missions. The old colonizing mission which caused me to colonize one 3 dev province over another 3 dev province gave me more joy than the current mission trees.
As someone who have critizised the lack of attention to AI in Paradox games for years, and as someone who thinks mission trees as they are currently implemented in EU4 is the worst mechanic ever implemented in a Paradox game I couldn't care less how badly the AI handles mission trees. I can't see it being worth the effort required under any circumstances. An AI "guided" by mission trees just sounds like an AI which is extremely easy to manipulate/exploit.
For single player games I don't see why anyone would care about "podiums". For multiplayer I don't see how an AI would ever be expected to affect how worthwhile it is to reach the end game.
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Why would you want to predetermine which nations are likely to do well?
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I don't think this is true, and even if it was I don't think it's worth the level of railroading you're suggesting.
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The way you can click through on any game term in any text box in CK3 should definitely be in EU5.
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I think Mission Trees are nice, but mostly be modular and Culture based. Like, different cultures, faiths and regions, should mesh into a different Tree made of the same materials. But, having one or another core, mission or branch that is unique. I also think the rewards should be boosts for some years, not permanent bonus.
I just think that longterm, modular, meshing and based on common cores design is better, with a peppering of unique.
I also believe a fun way to make Mission would be to have a single path to follow, and in each stage there are different possible branches to go, and they are chosen by a Diet or similar definition, of internal powers of the realm. Making you jockey and wrestle with them to choose the right one to follow. This could also work as a Realm Focus (like a Character Focus in CK) - while you are following a Mission you get some bonus specific to it - that nets some more enduring boost if completed, and some debuffs and bad effects if failed to be completed in time.
I just think that longterm, modular, meshing and based on common cores design is better, with a peppering of unique.
I also believe a fun way to make Mission would be to have a single path to follow, and in each stage there are different possible branches to go, and they are chosen by a Diet or similar definition, of internal powers of the realm. Making you jockey and wrestle with them to choose the right one to follow. This could also work as a Realm Focus (like a Character Focus in CK) - while you are following a Mission you get some bonus specific to it - that nets some more enduring boost if completed, and some debuffs and bad effects if failed to be completed in time.
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Even now EUIV is only debatably better than EU3. EU3 rocked.
I agree that this would be better than the current mission tree design, but I don’t think it’s better than (for example) the old pick-one-of-three-dynamically-generated-missions system. Because:
- It can’t respond to what you’re doing in-game. Why should a Navarra that emigrates to North America perpetually have missions it can’t complete or progress past because the devs thought Iberian-culture tags should have X or Y mission to do with provinces in Iberia and fighting France?
- It can’t respond to the order you’re doing things. Why should I have to conquer Fars before Ferghana as a Persia formed from Khorasan because the devs expected Persia to be formed by Ajam or Ardabil?
- It can’t continue perpetually, whereas dynamically generated missions can always dynamically generate. Why should I have no more missions because I got to the end of the list of things the devs imagined for a tag or culture group?
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I agree that EU4 1.34 is only debatably better than EU3.
But I'll go out on a limb, and say that EU4 1.18 with RoM installed is by and large considerably superior to both EU3, and EU4 1.34.
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Mmm, for me it was Art of War, I think. I didn’t much like monarch-points-into-development and since then it’s been mostly downhill, in my view.
1.18 made Monarchies playable again. (I was thoroughly burned out on regency council nonsense.)
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Some of the things EU5 could take from a previous Paradox title are three things from EU4.
1.) No random new world. I think we can all agree that what probably sounded like a neat idea on paper was, in retrospect, a colossal waste of time. It was good it was tried. May the concept be burned and never used again.
2.) Having every year as a possible start date. Not a big thing, but few people start at any other point than 1444. Best just to double down on the timedates people use.
3.) Both EU4 and Imperator this one, absolutely no mana system. There are far better ways of dealing with all the systems mana is currently working with in EU4 than mana.
I do find it interesting that Johan himself has interacted on this thread. I've seen a growing assumption that EU5 maybe in active development with rumours of a reveal later this year, the evidence for this theory is that EU4 is winding down (there may be one final bit of DLC yet to come but it will be a small one), that Paradox Tinto devs have spoken in elegiac terms of leaving EU4 in a good state when development ceases and the fact that EU4 is now the most antiquated 'active' Paradox game and thus the most obvious candidate for a new iteration (one which can take all the lessons learned over EU4's development and use them to build a better base game). Johan's interactions in this thread make me think this theory is slightly more likely than I previously did.
1.) No random new world. I think we can all agree that what probably sounded like a neat idea on paper was, in retrospect, a colossal waste of time. It was good it was tried. May the concept be burned and never used again.
2.) Having every year as a possible start date. Not a big thing, but few people start at any other point than 1444. Best just to double down on the timedates people use.
3.) Both EU4 and Imperator this one, absolutely no mana system. There are far better ways of dealing with all the systems mana is currently working with in EU4 than mana.
I do find it interesting that Johan himself has interacted on this thread. I've seen a growing assumption that EU5 maybe in active development with rumours of a reveal later this year, the evidence for this theory is that EU4 is winding down (there may be one final bit of DLC yet to come but it will be a small one), that Paradox Tinto devs have spoken in elegiac terms of leaving EU4 in a good state when development ceases and the fact that EU4 is now the most antiquated 'active' Paradox game and thus the most obvious candidate for a new iteration (one which can take all the lessons learned over EU4's development and use them to build a better base game). Johan's interactions in this thread make me think this theory is slightly more likely than I previously did.
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Personally I enjoy the random new world although I find quite a few of the tiles to be abominations so I generally have to re-start multiple times to get an acceptable rnw. In fact, because of the colossal mess they made of the new world in 1.31 it's the only way I can stomach playing the current version. I would, however, prefer a truly random new world more like the original implementation, it needed some marginal improvements not to be chucked aside for the stupid tiles system.
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I adore the random new world, although its generation and integration into the rest of the world (triangle trade events when the RNW is all fur provinces?) could be dramatically improved. I think it’s worth keeping and iterating on.
Not least because RNW trade nodes are far more dynamic than regular ones: it’s not at all unusual for all RNW nodes to be routable either east or west. That and RNW often putting landmasses nearer (which is to say within reach of) Asia often makes for a more interesting game.
Not least because RNW trade nodes are far more dynamic than regular ones: it’s not at all unusual for all RNW nodes to be routable either east or west. That and RNW often putting landmasses nearer (which is to say within reach of) Asia often makes for a more interesting game.
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I suspect you will be disappointed in regards to it being kept and iterated on. It is impossible for me to search through all the posts in an attempt to locate one or two specific examples that may have been given years ago by the devs, but I believe RNW is considered more or less a failure by the dev team (though if I am wrong on that I am happy to be corrected).
Essentially it's a gigantic development time sink for a feature barely anyone uses. I'd be stunned if they bother to bring it back.
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People love lucky nations, right? That feature never gets any complaints.
I strongly suspect you’re right, but I still thought maybe worth pointing out that there are those of us who appreciate it! I’d even be down for a feature that could (semi-) randomise continent-by-continent: exploring a regenerated Europe and Asia as Mali would be cool.
Except for the fact that designing complex, intriguing, dynamic, and universal mechanics in incredibly time intensive to develop. Don't forget how broken even a well designed one can be. It's not sustainable for a long term game project that continuously updates to add massive new interesting systems and mechanics.
Also, why do mission trees need to "solve a problem." It's a game mechanic, its primary purpose is just to be fun. And judging by the reception Origins and LotN, the majority of the community thinks it is.
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Because they cause problems, so they need to solve a problem that is worse than the one they cause.
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