Post-Mortem
What worked.
The mechanical backdrop of EU4 obviated a lot of the usual stress and book-keeping that is involved in running a quest with resource management. It also removed having to roll for national opinions/alliances/relations, etc. It provided an easy method to export maps without having to make one and fiddle with it manually (...much). This also enabled rapid updates.
The early narrative was fun and easy to understand.
The inclusion of internal metrics such as the role of religion added depth and challenged modern-day ethics on what a government should and should not do.
What didn't.
There was no real way to express the population issue in game mechanics, so Elysia rapidly grew out of proportion compared to what it should have been capable of.
The lack of peer enemies made a slow and unstoppable steamroll effectively inevitable, and the opportunities for others to stop you are at minimum 100ish years in the future, almost 20 turns away.
As things proceeded, the procedural and management aspects became increasingly broad, and much of the new content materialised there instead of in the actual narrative, meaning that those simply reading then missed out on it.
The management aspect also increased points of friction between players, which sometimes erupted into arguments that nobody likes to see and proved stressful for all parties. Some individuals were more culpable than others.
Lessons to learn.
Starting on an even playing field is important. 1 development in the New World should mean the same as 1 development in the Old World, since you're all playing by the same rules. The New World's prosperity is predicated on a stream of colonists and population movement which were not applicable in this case.
There must be opponents and rivals across a spectrum of powers. Historicity was a weakness here, not a strength. Even without the Colombian Exchange, Elysian dominance of the continental US was assured and this fed into the above problems. Players should have to contend with weaker nations (which can be bullied, invaded, influenced, etc) on their own, nations of similar strength, and nations of greater strength (to work around, ingratiate, aspire to overthrow).
There needs to be a balance between automation and granularity. The idea of developing by area rather than individual game provinces was good, and later removed entirely by the idea of the Theme Office. It would have been a better idea to attach these costs to the actual colonization process, which would have both slowed expansion and made each area feel 'completed' and an integral part of the country. Equally, ship purchasing should be been by block rather than individual vessels, limited by the number of built docks and infrastructure. There should be more directional rather than specific choices to be made.
Ethical/internal/political decisions are always more interesting than the bonuses (which bypass immersion for numbers) or planning a spreadsheet for most people. These became less common as the obvious questions were knocked out of the way and the national foundation was set. But these should have remained quite regular, reflecting contemporary events, scandals, and power struggles.
As an added question (which isn't binding or even especially pressing, more a thought on what might be appealing in future), what kind of quest format do you enjoy?
[ ] Narrative Based (Great is the Fall of Gondolin)
[ ] Mixed Narrative/Nation Builder (Atlantis Rising)
[ ] Mechanics Based Nation Builder (From the Ashes/Elysian Dream)
What sort of setting do you like best?
[ ] Medieval (Lord of the Rings, generic fantasy, fictional history, etc.)
[ ] Scifi (Stargate, Star Trek, Stellaris, etc)
The mechanical backdrop of EU4 obviated a lot of the usual stress and book-keeping that is involved in running a quest with resource management. It also removed having to roll for national opinions/alliances/relations, etc. It provided an easy method to export maps without having to make one and fiddle with it manually (...much). This also enabled rapid updates.
The early narrative was fun and easy to understand.
The inclusion of internal metrics such as the role of religion added depth and challenged modern-day ethics on what a government should and should not do.
What didn't.
There was no real way to express the population issue in game mechanics, so Elysia rapidly grew out of proportion compared to what it should have been capable of.
The lack of peer enemies made a slow and unstoppable steamroll effectively inevitable, and the opportunities for others to stop you are at minimum 100ish years in the future, almost 20 turns away.
As things proceeded, the procedural and management aspects became increasingly broad, and much of the new content materialised there instead of in the actual narrative, meaning that those simply reading then missed out on it.
The management aspect also increased points of friction between players, which sometimes erupted into arguments that nobody likes to see and proved stressful for all parties. Some individuals were more culpable than others.
Lessons to learn.
Starting on an even playing field is important. 1 development in the New World should mean the same as 1 development in the Old World, since you're all playing by the same rules. The New World's prosperity is predicated on a stream of colonists and population movement which were not applicable in this case.
There must be opponents and rivals across a spectrum of powers. Historicity was a weakness here, not a strength. Even without the Colombian Exchange, Elysian dominance of the continental US was assured and this fed into the above problems. Players should have to contend with weaker nations (which can be bullied, invaded, influenced, etc) on their own, nations of similar strength, and nations of greater strength (to work around, ingratiate, aspire to overthrow).
There needs to be a balance between automation and granularity. The idea of developing by area rather than individual game provinces was good, and later removed entirely by the idea of the Theme Office. It would have been a better idea to attach these costs to the actual colonization process, which would have both slowed expansion and made each area feel 'completed' and an integral part of the country. Equally, ship purchasing should be been by block rather than individual vessels, limited by the number of built docks and infrastructure. There should be more directional rather than specific choices to be made.
Ethical/internal/political decisions are always more interesting than the bonuses (which bypass immersion for numbers) or planning a spreadsheet for most people. These became less common as the obvious questions were knocked out of the way and the national foundation was set. But these should have remained quite regular, reflecting contemporary events, scandals, and power struggles.
As an added question (which isn't binding or even especially pressing, more a thought on what might be appealing in future), what kind of quest format do you enjoy?
[ ] Narrative Based (Great is the Fall of Gondolin)
[ ] Mixed Narrative/Nation Builder (Atlantis Rising)
[ ] Mechanics Based Nation Builder (From the Ashes/Elysian Dream)
What sort of setting do you like best?
[ ] Medieval (Lord of the Rings, generic fantasy, fictional history, etc.)
[ ] Scifi (Stargate, Star Trek, Stellaris, etc)
