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Europa Universalis IV

RiverDelta said:
Personally, I think it's less iffy to portray a group as a state that wasn't because your mechanics require it than to just say "eh, all those people didn't really exist except as a number for colonization".
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The issue there is that the game is in part about colonization, and if the land used for it had states in the game then either you'd have to have a unique means of conquest that would likely break the game balance or be so narrow as to be rather insulting or you have to essentially have a colonial system that just plain doesn't work meaning that really only the players would have any use out of it.
 
VolantRedX said:
The issue there is that the game is in part about colonization, and if the land used for it had states in the game then either you'd have to have a unique means of conquest that would likely break the game balance or be so narrow as to be rather insulting or you have to essentially have a colonial system that just plain doesn't work meaning that really only the players would have any use out of it.
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Why though? There's plenty of ways to get this done if you're creative with the interface.

You could let people send in colonists even if the territory is occupied (and have to fight to defend them when the natives object) or use colonial CBs plus having to handle colonized people once conquered.
 
Nyvis said:
Why though? There's plenty of ways to get this done if you're creative with the interface.

You could let people send in colonists even if the territory is occupied (and have to fight to defend them when the natives object) or use colonial CBs plus having to handle colonized people once conquered.
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The issue I believe is humans would handle this just fine. AI would fail horrifically. Remember eu4 literaly doesn't allow AI to experience native revolts because the AI wouldn't be able to cope.
 
Byzantine said:
The issue I believe is humans would handle this just fine. AI would fail horrifically. Remember eu4 literaly doesn't allow AI to experience native revolts because the AI wouldn't be able to cope.
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Nothing stopping you from coding a different mechanism for the AI that just looks at respective strengths and resolves the conflicts without having to be on the map.
 
VolantRedX said:
The issue there is that the game is in part about colonization, and if the land used for it had states in the game then either you'd have to have a unique means of conquest that would likely break the game balance or be so narrow as to be rather insulting or you have to essentially have a colonial system that just plain doesn't work meaning that really only the players would have any use out of it.
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You wouldn't really want state mechanics but you at least want to show these are different unique peoples and cultures. For one thing it would make colonization far more interesting by offering some level of interaction. That was what they were going for with Leviathan only they choked so badly with the release it's overshadowed the idea of tribal lands, which are a good step forward. The point is that visually there is functionally no difference between completely uninhabited land and indigenous nations besides a number, and then certain indigenous nations exist as states and others don't, which is very strange.

You would need to rebuild it from the ground up but the state mechanics, though extremely flawed, are just better, because then the player is forced to engage. It's a basic educational tool; a teenager playing EU4 and learning history through it is far less likely to conceptualize of these places as empty if they have to interact with indigenous peoples, even if it's only to conquer them.
 
Cetashwayo said:
You wouldn't really want state mechanics but you at least want to show these are different unique peoples and cultures. For one thing it would make colonization far more interesting by offering some level of interaction. That was what they were going for with Leviathan only they choked so badly with the release it's overshadowed the idea of tribal lands, which are a good step forward. The point is that visually there is functionally no difference between completely uninhabited land and indigenous nations besides a number, and then certain indigenous nations exist as states and others don't, which is very strange.

You would need to rebuild it from the ground up but the state mechanics, though extremely flawed, are just better, because then the player is forced to engage. It's a basic educational tool; a teenager playing EU4 and learning history through it is far less likely to conceptualize of these places as empty if they have to interact with indigenous peoples, even if it's only to conquer them.
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Honestly I'd just like the idea that colonization creates and intermixes cultures being represented on some level. Like New Spain was very distinct from Spain within a generation or two. You had natives who had their own culture, the slaves who all had their own, the complex race and culture hierarchy created to maintain minority rule amongst the locals, and the super-elite of European immigrants who themselves had a very different culture than Europe at the time. Frankly, the best option would be to take control over colonies away from the main country as soon as the colony is established. I just doubt the AI could handle it.
 
Cetashwayo said:
You wouldn't really want state mechanics but you at least want to show these are different unique peoples and cultures. For one thing it would make colonization far more interesting by offering some level of interaction. That was what they were going for with Leviathan only they choked so badly with the release it's overshadowed the idea of tribal lands, which are a good step forward. The point is that visually there is functionally no difference between completely uninhabited land and indigenous nations besides a number, and then certain indigenous nations exist as states and others don't, which is very strange.

You would need to rebuild it from the ground up but the state mechanics, though extremely flawed, are just better, because then the player is forced to engage. It's a basic educational tool; a teenager playing EU4 and learning history through it is far less likely to conceptualize of these places as empty if they have to interact with indigenous peoples, even if it's only to conquer them.
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Yeah, but the fundamental issue is that EU4 is game first and foremost about states and not people. Everything from the ground up is state-centric (which is wonky in age of transition to modern state, and wonky twice for nomads or whatnot). So incorporating non-state entities is both against vision of the game (it's game about states) and would require uprooting much of mechanics of the game (because mechanics are about state).

To incorporate non-state entities more thoroughly, they should make an entire new game with more attention to non-state things. Like, to begin with, actually include population into the picture.
 
TBH a lot of colonialism wasn't really state based. As I recall M&T has conquistador "rebels" spawn in Mexico during a set period, which is more authentic to how Cortez et al operated.
 
ctulhuslp said:
Yeah, but the fundamental issue is that EU4 is game first and foremost about states and not people. Everything from the ground up is state-centric (which is wonky in age of transition to modern state, and wonky twice for nomads or whatnot). So incorporating non-state entities is both against vision of the game (it's game about states) and would require uprooting much of mechanics of the game (because mechanics are about state).

To incorporate non-state entities more thoroughly, they should make an entire new game with more attention to non-state things. Like, to begin with, actually include population into the picture.
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Pretty sure they did that. It's called Victoria 2. :V
 
VolantRedX said:
Honestly I'd just like the idea that colonization creates and intermixes cultures being represented on some level. Like New Spain was very distinct from Spain within a generation or two. You had natives who had their own culture, the slaves who all had their own, the complex race and culture hierarchy created to maintain minority rule amongst the locals, and the super-elite of European immigrants who themselves had a very different culture than Europe at the time. Frankly, the best option would be to take control over colonies away from the main country as soon as the colony is established. I just doubt the AI could handle it.
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Dynamically creating mixed and colonial cultures is something mods have done. I know MEIOU does it. That could serve as a base maybe.
 
FriedIce said:
If you want a game which treats stateless societies with agency Vicky (for all that I love it) is not that game. Like, there's only four subsaharan African nations in it and most of colonisation is just portrayed as filling in gaps in a map.
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Ah, fair. I guess in my rush to make the joke, I overly-fixated on the "actually include population into the picture" part of the post.
 
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obssesednuker said:
Ah, fair. I guess in my rush to make the joke, I overly-fixated on the "actually include population into the picture" part of your post.
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My post :V

And population-centric game wouldn't be Vicky2, idk even know what it'd be, I don't think I saw a strategy game not about state or individuals at the top of the heap. It would probably have to be a mix of something genuinely brand new to do with pure population and CK2 mechanics for the local elites, whatever those are for any particular society.
And then you'd add state mechanics to that soup, and it sounds like a mess already.

Honestly though, now that I think about it, I just cannot recall a single game about population without a context of state. Closest would be,uh, god sims like Black and White, and those are about, well, gods and not people. Maybe the literature focusing (at least as far as I know) on states and individuals as opposed to masses is part of the problem, idk.
 
It's probably also related to the fact that simulating a single state is way easier than simulating an ever shifting number of people.
Even in Vicky 2, which simulate far more than most games, the smallest unit is a group of pops rather than actual individual people.
 
Athas said:
It's probably also related to the fact that simulating a single state is way easier than simulating an ever shifting number of people.
Even in Vicky 2, which simulate far more than most games, the smallest unit is a group of pops rather than actual individual people.
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Turns out that simulating large groups of people and how they interact with an economy is hard.

As in the people who pull it off get Nobel prizes. Its the holy grail of economics.

Which BTW means you will never see a game do a good job of this for a very long time after said sim model is developed, as all of the entire entertainment industry? Nothing compared to what sorts of money could be made by having a working simulation model for the economy. And that means that companies are willing to pay top dollar for the best of the best.
 
The next part of Teaching Paradox has been published.

Part II: Red Queen.

This time covering how the game simulates the strategic logic via the Realist theory. Meaning a state first and foremost has to look out for its own security to survive, resulting in it threatening the security of smaller states to protect itself from larger ones, demonstrated in the example of Burgundy.
 
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ShyPerson said:
The next part of Teaching Paradox has been published.

Part II: Red Queen.

This time covering how the game simulates the strategic logic via the Realist theory. Meaning a state first and foremost has to look out for its own security to survive, resulting in it threatening the security of smaller states to protect itself from larger ones, demonstrated in the example of Burgundy.
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I think you meant to link this. As your current hyperlink links to this page of this very thread.
 
So, I have a question:

Is the game at least finally stable enough to play if you aren't near the areas Leviathan touched? Specifically, I want to play a Mughal game.
 
Voikirium said:
So, I have a question:

Is the game at least finally stable enough to play if you aren't near the areas Leviathan touched? Specifically, I want to play a Mughal game.
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If you're avoiding the Leviathan features anyway, just roll back to a previous patch. There's still several mechanics that are broken for all tags, like force vassalization not working with regular conquest CBs.
 
FelOnyx said:
If you're avoiding the Leviathan features anyway, just roll back to a previous patch. There's still several
mechanics that are broken for all tags, like force vassalization not working with regular conquest CBs.
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Potentially unpopular opinion, but IMO favour trading is a useful enough feature that it's worth putting up with force vassalisation being broken for. That they also buffed favour accumulation rates slightly is the cherry on top.

Voikirium said:
So, I have a question:

Is the game at least finally stable enough to play if you aren't near the areas Leviathan touched? Specifically, I want to play a Mughal game.
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None of the current bugs are gamebreaking - just a bit annoying - and if you know what they are you can totally work around them. I would argue that concentrate development, pillage capital and favour trading more than make up for it. They're useful.
 
The latest in the Teaching Paradox series has dropped

Part III, Europa Provincalis

This time it's about how the game manages the world outside Europe. It mainly zeroes in on how the trade system bares little resemblance to how it worked out in real-life, and the big issue of slavery. Specifically how little is made of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade mechanically and that it does not address any other form of enslaved that existed in the same era.
 
The last part is out!

Teaching Paradox, Europa Universalis, Part IV

This time it covers how the game chooses to answer the big question; why Europe. Largely the game seems to base its answer on some dated assumptions. Assumptions which severely handicapes non-European states in ways that do not hold up to historical scrutiny, though it is better than Europa Universalis III's system.

Also next time it's Victoria II's turn to face historical scrutiny, so those announcements will be moved to the appropriate thread.
 
ShyPerson said:
. Largely the game seems to base its answer on some dated assumptions. Assumptions which severely handicapes non-European states in ways that do not hold up to historical scrutiny, though it is better than Europa Universalis III's system.
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At this point, it is the least true that it's been, however. The Institution system means the later ones are almost trivial to get, the hardest hump for the Non-Euro States is actually in the early to mid-game. Global trade is easy for even the AI to get just from natural spread from trade centres. Advisors up to 5 monarch points if you have the cash to splash, greatly reduces the pressure large non-Euro states are under tech and idea wise, setting up a solid trade hub with the good non-Euro Trade goods is enough to get ahead of tech. Naval warfare is still way too unimportant, which is the key European advantage as mentioned in the article. Trade companies have stopped being Euro-Centric and can be used by anybody.

And The devs have added a bunch of Non-European states which have ridiculously overpowered ideas, because of development power bloat. Idea groups, which are barely mentioned in the article, are one of the biggest power disparities but are country-based, not region-based. Missions as another power source are also very patchy, with some nations having great missions, but most missing out. Missions are more, but not exclusively Euro-Centric.

And the devs have created far more states, which don't meet the proper qualification as one while adding no non-state actor mechanics that could better represent them.
 
Aussiehawker said:
At this point, it is the least true that it's been, however. The Institution system means the later ones are almost trivial to get, the hardest hump for the Non-Euro States is actually in the early to mid-game. Global trade is easy for even the AI to get just from natural spread from trade centres. Advisors up to 5 monarch points if you have the cash to splash, greatly reduces the pressure large non-Euro states are under tech and idea wise, setting up a solid trade hub with the good non-Euro Trade goods is enough to get ahead of tech. Naval warfare is still way too unimportant, which is the key European advantage as mentioned in the article. Trade companies have stopped being Euro-Centric and can be used by anybody.

And The devs have added a bunch of Non-European states which have ridiculously overpowered ideas, because of development power bloat. Idea groups, which are barely mentioned in the article, are one of the biggest power disparities but are country-based, not region-based. Missions as another power source are also very patchy, with some nations having great missions, but most missing out. Missions are more, but not exclusively Euro-Centric.

And the devs have created far more states, which don't meet the proper qualification as one while adding no non-state actor mechanics that could better represent them.
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Ideas and missions are irrelevant to the arguments the article makes. The priority is the analysis of how the games core mechanics replicate the era the game seeks to depict. Ideas and missions are essentially magic, serving only a gameplay purpose, and are therefore not relevant in the analysis the article seeks to conduct.

I advise bringing this stuff up in the comment section of the page if you want the authors takes on those things.
 
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