Expelling minorities

[Recce]

It's broken right? I have expelled like 3 provinces now but the culture and religion of the place I expel remains the same.

[Mr.M]

...got nerfed.

[Recce]

Originally posted by MrMonokel2000:

...got nerfed.

How?

[Mr.M]

Via 1.30 patch; and the thing you described: religion and culture wont change anymore.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Before 1.30:
Expelling
- cost money AND diplo points
- changed religion or culture of colony to those of origin
- changed religion or culture of origin province to owner's religion/culture
- colony got a dev boost

Now:
Expelling
- only costs money (completely free with the -100% for Exploration Ideas, you even GET money when you decrease Expulsion Cost even further!)
- changes religion or culture of colony to those of origin
- moves dev from origin province to colony (making to origin cheaper to manually convert/culture convert)


The thing with Minority Expulsion is that it used to be good to deal (or rather not deal) with wrong cultures/religions from a gameplay perspective but the mechanic was completely unrealistic from a historical perspective.
There were tons of threads how historically unrealistic the mechanic is.
Now they changed it to a (somewhat) better "historically justifiable" implementation and we get tons of threads how bad it is now for "optimal" gameplay.

You simply cannot please everyone.

[parent child bowl]

Originally posted by Tulduil Iphukiir:

Before 1.30:
Expelling
- cost money AND diplo points
- changed religion or culture of colony to those of origin
- changed religion or culture of origin province to owner's religion/culture
- colony got a dev boost

Now:
Expelling
- only costs money (completely free with the -100% for Exploration Ideas, you even GET money when you decrease Expulsion Cost even further!)
- changes religion or culture of colony to those of origin
- moves dev from origin province to colony (making to origin cheaper to manually convert/culture convert)


The thing with Minority Expulsion is that it used to be good to deal (or rather not deal) with wrong cultures/religions from a gameplay perspective but the mechanic was completely unrealistic from a historical perspective.
There were tons of threads how historically unrealistic the mechanic is.
Now they changed it to a (somewhat) better "historically justifiable" implementation and we get tons of threads how bad it is now for "optimal" gameplay.

You simply cannot please everyone.

Making things more historically accurate doesn't mean that they have to become weaker. PDX being ♥♥♥♥ at balancing is historically accurate though.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by parent child bowl:

Making things more historically accurate doesn't mean that they have to become weaker. [...]

I never said that.


I just used this example to illustrate that the developers can NEVER please every single player.
The playerbase is far too diverse and that EU4 does NOT have an "official" goal doesn't really help.
Each player has to choose his or her personal objectives (which can be everything between extremes like True One Tag WC+One Faith+One Culture as Sami Anglican Ryukyu and play as Hamburg from 1444 till 1821 and stay Free City all the time).

There is nothing like "the typical EU4 player":
- Some players value historical accuracy above everything else and would even accept worse gameplay in exchange ("generals shouldn't be able to teleport between armies")
- Some players want the game as historical as possible but never sacrifice gameplay for more "accuracy" ("cavalry and artillery regiments should have less men than infantry but battle calculation are far easier with same sizes")
- Some players just want to paint the map and want that to be as easy as possible ("OMG nerf Ottomans plz")
- Some players want to paint the map and want that to be as hard as possible ("it's not an achievement if everyone can do it", "mission trees are bad, you shouldn't be able to get PUs over half the world")
- Some players ....... you get the idea

Every (mechanical) change is welcomed by some players and disliked (or even hated) by other players. And then there are the players who are not impacted at all by the change ...
(To be clear: I am talking about mechanical changes, fixing bugs and removing exploits (which comes with the "feuture or exploit?" discussion is another topic).

In an ideal world every change would please all types of players but unfortunately that is completely impossible.
There might be an agreement among several types of players that Mechanic/Feature A is bad but why it is bad and how it should be changed can differ massively.

Between all these opinions the developers have to make choices.
You have three options to make the developers consider "your" favourite choice/solution/change:
1) Make a suggestion over at the PDX forum. Take your time to explain why mechanic A is bad, why your change would be better for the game (Tip: "Mechanic A is bad because I don't like it" doesn't make a compelling arguement). Stay civil and argue based on facts or well-reasoned(!) opinions, not on "mysterious subjective feelings". Try to understand the arguements for the current implementation and other suggested solutions (of course, you don't have to agree but you should understand where the other side(s) is/are coming from). Try to convince the other side(s) (again, by arguements, simply repeating your opinion over and over or even name-calling does not help at all).
2) Apply for a job at Paradox, become developer yourself and do your favourite changes yourself (but be prepared that some players may not like those).
3) "Buy" Paradox and as shareholder influence the general direction of EU4 (e.g. towards more or less historical accuracy).


Until then you can change many mechanics/features to your "preferred solution" by modding (which isn't really difficult for many changes).
Also there is always the option to play on an older version if you don't like the direction at all which EU4 took over the last patches.

[parent child bowl]

Originally posted by Tulduil Iphukiir:

Originally posted by parent child bowl:

Making things more historically accurate doesn't mean that they have to become weaker. [...]

I never said that.

Well that's what it comes down to though and everything else you wrote is irrelevant, because people don't have an issue with the "more historically accurate" part of the change, but with the fact that it almost never makes sense to use that mechanic now. Other changes in the update were great. If I'd consider the game to be total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I wouldn't play it.

If you think that working as a developer at PDX gives you power over the way the direction of the game, I have bad news for you. The only one that decides is Johan and I think that I am not alone in thinking that EU5 would become a lot better if someone else was in charge.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

I think Johan said (maybe in the Emperor release stream?, trying to find the quote later) that he would like to remove Expulsion completely from the game (because it caused so many controversies) but could not do it because it is part of Golden Century which people paid money for.

I agree that Expulsion is very situational now:
You can get around the "reduce dev in your own province if you expel from a 1/1/1 like Arguin or Cornwall (of course the colony then does not get additional dev, too)
However, the "cost overflow" can be great: Exploration Ideas+Government Reform gives +0.6 ducats per colonist. If you expel with three colonists you get 1.8 ducats instead of paying 6.
That can be a great advantage over "normal colonization" for small/poor nations (Irish Minor etc).

The "apply at PDX" part was poorly worded on my part: It is, as I wrote above, only an "option to make the developers consider 'your' favourite choice", not a guarantee that they will do it (or in this case you can do it). I know that you won't have free rein when you are a developer yourself but you would be closer to the decision process and may have an easier time to present your case.