What's the point in appanages?

[LSD]

Seems like another pointless "feature". You can't get more of them, and you'll swallow them long before the turn of the century, so the "appoint crown prince" heir thing won't see much use.

I saw in patch notes you used to need 50% crownland to eat them, then people complained and they reverted it.

So what is their point? In fact, what is the point in bloating the game with pretend "features" that aren't well thought out or balanced, and then later rendering them utterly meaningless?

At least we have even more mission trees though, eh...

[Kapika96]

It's meant to diversify France a little more and show that they're not as united as other countries. Their appanages can still fight and conquer each other, the only other subjects that can do that is Japanese daimyo. Not really a useful feature (unless you're playing as one of them), but adds a bit of flavour at least.

Plus I quite enjoyed the appoint crown price mechanic last time I played France. Being able to pinch an heir with good stats is always a nice bonus! I think I've used that more than I've used any of the unique daimyo interactions too.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by LSD:

So what is their point?

To make things harder on France. They are worse than ordinary vassals pretty much across the board. Annexing them angers the nobility, and they can fight each other. You want to wipe them out, not keep them around.

[Vlad the brazilian]

flavour, basically and also prevent france from getting PUd since you can apoint one of the vassals as next heir of france

[LSD]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Originally posted by LSD:

So what is their point?

To make things harder on France. They are worse than ordinary vassals pretty much across the board. Annexing them angers the nobility, and they can fight each other. You want to wipe them out, not keep them around.

The "only above 50 crown land" thing might have sort of done that, but they go rid of it. They can fight each other, but they don't.
So they're just vassals under a different name.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by LSD:

Originally posted by Marquoz:

To make things harder on France. They are worse than ordinary vassals pretty much across the board. Annexing them angers the nobility, and they can fight each other. You want to wipe them out, not keep them around.

The "only above 50 crown land" thing might have sort of done that, but they go rid of it. They can fight each other, but they don't.
So they're just vassals under a different name.

I'm playing a France game right now, and I witnessed Orleans attack Bourbonaise in my campaign. It was really annoying, too, because I was about to start annexing Orleans. But I had to wait for their war to finish, and it slowed me down considerably.

As I said, appanages exist to make things harder on France. Internal conflict and nobility loyalty hits are there to create problems.

[ChaffyExpert]

It's actually great for if you want to set up a game or mod it so you have a bunch of vassals of a nation fighting each other, that isn't daimyos or the HRE mechanics.

[kesa822000]

Sounds sorta like the HRE ;

Just when your Emperor thinks he has everything sorted out , and can coast to Revoke the Priviligia / turn to fighting external wars ,

some Elector goes and annexes two Imperial Free Cities in a month.

Republics at 10 development don't grow on trees , and , after all , the reason you didn't annex Nuremberg , Konstanz , or Mennigen yourself was because you LIKED the status qou , thank you very much.

Uggggghhhh .

But then THAT'S the charm. :)

[ChaffyExpert]

Originally posted by kesa822000:

Sounds sorta like the HRE ;

Just when your Emperor thinks he has everything sorted out , and can coast to Revoke the Priviligia / turn to fighting external wars ,

some Elector goes and annexes two Imperial Free Cities in a month.

Republics at 10 development don't grow on trees , and , after all , the reason you didn't annex Nuremberg , Konstanz , or Mennigen yourself was because you LIKED the status qou , thank you very much.

Uggggghhhh .

But then THAT'S the charm. :)

how the ♥♥♥♥ do you annex 2 imperial free cities without having a coalition so big it makes Napoleon seem like he was fighting 1v1s.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

That's what I don't particularly like about HRE Emperor gameplay. Sure, it makes you ridiculously powerful when you get to the point of obtaining the vassal swarm, but up until then it's a matter of almost constantly warring and balkanizing substantial HRE nations to keep as many members as possible. It's like herding cats, except the cats are all trying to swallow each other whole and you need to keep going around pulling them back out by the tail.

[Marquoz]

I like that analogy. The HRE is like herding cannibal cats! Insightful.

[kesa822000]

Originally posted by Emperor Palpatinate:

how the ♥♥♥♥ do you annex 2 imperial free cities without having a coalition so big it makes Napoleon seem like he was fighting 1v1s.

Different rules for the player and the AI ??

I don't know what the exact numbers are , but just taking ONE province --- that happens to be a Free City --- seems to royally piss everyone off .

I would know ; My favorite German State is Luneberg , which directly borders Lubeck , Hamburg , and Bremen.

A far more annoying question to me is that Free Cities are supposed to be under the protection of the Emperor . Well , I have played roughly 90% of this game as the Emperor , and have NEVER yet been called into a war to defend a Free City.

Yeah , I'm sure the war was declared on another party , the Free City was just a third party ally to the war .

That never seems to prevent the Free City annexations , though.

Just as the presumed large hit in aggressive expansion seems to serve as no deterrent.

[salatrin]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Originally posted by LSD:

The "only above 50 crown land" thing might have sort of done that, but they go rid of it. They can fight each other, but they don't.
So they're just vassals under a different name.

I'm playing a France game right now, and I witnessed Orleans attack Bourbonaise in my campaign. It was really annoying, too, because I was about to start annexing Orleans. But I had to wait for their war to finish, and it slowed me down considerably.

As I said, appanages exist to make things harder on France. Internal conflict and nobility loyalty hits are there to create problems.

Its even more annoying when a French Appanage attacks another French Appanage and releases additional French Appanages.

[LSD]

But as France you're involved in wars in perpetuity, which is likely why most people never see them do anything.
It's just a dumb implementation. Either go the whole hog or don't bother.

[HypnoSkales]

Originally posted by LSD:

Seems like another pointless "feature". You can't get more of them, and you'll swallow them long before the turn of the century, so the "appoint crown prince" heir thing won't see much use.

I saw in patch notes you used to need 50% crownland to eat them, then people complained and they reverted it.

So what is their point? In fact, what is the point in bloating the game with pretend "features" that aren't well thought out or balanced, and then later rendering them utterly meaningless?

At least we have even more mission trees though, eh...

yeah, I wish they had kept the 50% crownland mechanic, that made centralising France actually an interesting challenge to overcome
i guess it seems like pdx prefers mindless blobbing over historical accuracy though....

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by HypnoSkales:

i guess it seems like pdx prefers mindless blobbing over historical accuracy though....

The three previous EU games were far more historically accurate than EU4. And players complained about it endlessly. There were literally thousands of threads (I'm not exaggerating at all, thousands) on the official forums, Steam, and elsewhere complaining about railroading and too little freedom.

So EU4 very deliberately became more of a sandbox. A few early major historical events and tendencies were left in the game (Iberian Wedding, Burgundian Inheritance, Treaty of Tordesillas, etc.), but even those few got a much bigger random factor. Player freedom increased enormously, for good and for ill.

So yes, Paradox "prefers mindless blobbing over historical accuracy" in this iteration of EU. EU4 is the least historical game in the series--intentionally so.