Stop min/maxing my history RP game

[Comrade Maethor]

"Check out my 1446 HRE vassal swarm to claim the mandate!"
"Watch me colonize all of America in ONE MONTH!"
"To do this strat, you must form country A, then conquer half the world, form country B, release a quarter of your territory, move your capital to Jan Mayan, form country C, then convert to Hellenism, then form country D, then go back in time, form country B again. . ."

Obviously, I can enjoy the game the way I want to enjoy it, and I know that I am choosing to write this. Despite that, I do feel like PDX has shown some preferential treatment to the side of the community that views EU4 as a number game rather than a history game. Everyone should be entitled to play the game how they want to, but I'm just annoyed at how much this community focuses on absurd min/maxing to basically break the game into their submission. The latest DLCs from PDX seem like they pay special attention to players with these skills, as some of the new missions are kinda ridiculous.

[Marquoz]

I both agree and disagree with you. I'd like EU4 to be more historical, definitely. If I were in charge, I'd make world conquest absolutely impossible. No one would ever be able to control more than 25-30% of the world, and that only by the very end of the game. I'd also nerf hordes into the ground, prevent the kind of tag-switching abuses you mention, and make many other changes.

On the other hand, while those are my preferences, I'm just one customer. Paradox needs to sell the base game and DLC to many thousands to stay in business. And, as you pointed out, people like me (and you) have the option to engage with or ignore content that goes against our inclinations. I think that's the best anyone can expect.

[Octopuses]

It's just how some people prefer to play. I don't see any problem there. It's the same as speedrunners in literally every single player game.

[Ls-Meleko]

eu2 was more like what your describing....you couldnt rush events they simply happened at particular time if the conditions were met, kinda soft locked countries into a historical event chain.

[Kapika96]

You could just not look at the game on youtube?

[Mossy Oak]

I think youre probably several thousand hours behind the people youre talking about. At a certain point I would fully expect the majority of players hitting 2-10k hours to start looking for the most crazy aggressive and impressive strategies possible to make themselves motivated to keep playing. Honestly kind of cringe post. Not sure how this didnt immediately come to your mind when you typed this complaint. Alot of the new missions are supposed to have 2-3 end goals that are very extreme, that way there's a real challenge for even the most experienced players atleast somewhere in the mission trees.

Also the really ridiculous missions are usually on the big boys in 1444, so yea, youre going to need a bigger challenge for a more competent country.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

just do M&T like everyone else that wants a more historically plausible EU4. It even gives you more stuff to do during all the down time.

yeah, I'd like a lot more of M&T's stuff integrated, so it could run more smoothly, but at the end of the day, it's a much more extreme version of the game, even if IMO it's also easier as a lot of stuff is more intuitive and you can clearly see and understand why it's happening.

[Marquoz]

Origineel geplaatst door Comrade Maethor:

"To do this strat, you must form country A, then conquer half the world, form country B, release a quarter of your territory, move your capital to Jan Mayan, form country C, then convert to Hellenism, then form country D, then go back in time, form country B again. . ."

I was thinking some more about this part and decided to see what I could come up with. You can certainly create a longer tag chain with more strong permanent bonuses than the string that follows, but many of them would require you to play until very late into the game (Dithmarschen's 5% Admin Efficiency is a perfect example of this). I'm looking for something relatively quick and efficient that still seriously boosts your power. I'm also ignoring tags that just give military bonuses because I literally don't care about them. So,

1) Start as Bohemia. Complete the following missions:

--Defenestration of Prague (+1 Diplo rep, +1 missionary strength vs heretics)
--Bohemian Commonwealth (-15% Diplomatic annexation cost)
--Peace in the Empire (+1 to all future monarchs' diplomatic skill and -5 years of separatism)

Some nice stuff there. I'm especially fond of the diplo annex one. While playing Bohemia, conquer Austria, get the Burgundian inheritance, take over all of the Ottoman's European possessions, dismantle the HRE, convert to Protestant or Reformed, take over most of Germany, conquer Naples, and conquer Sardinia-Piedmont to prepare for the next steps.

2) Switch to Austria. Austria has a HUGE number of potentially great modifiers, like Admin Efficiency, but some of them only come very, very late in the game. You won't stay Austria that long. Instead, we'll grab

--Ostend Company (+1 Merchant, +5 Global Trade Power, +25% Colonial Range)
--Scourge of Europe (+2% Missionary Strength and +1 Diplo Rep)
--Whatever else is immediately available (or close to it)

3) Switch to Sardinia-Piedmont for:

--Powerhouse of the North (+5% Admin Efficiency, +10% Goods Production)
--Union with Naples (-10% Diplomatic Annexation cost, +1% Legitimacy)

Another 10% off diplo annexation! Combine that with the 45% from Admin/Influence and the 15% from Bohemia, and you're at -70% cost! Whee!

4) Switch to Prussia for:

--German Confederation (+5% Admin Efficiency)
--Balance of Power (+10% Max Absolutism). You need a rival for this one. Hopefully, someone like Ming, France, the Timurids/Mughals, or Spain will be strong enough to qualify. Leave them alone and let them grow while you're playing Bohemia.

Prussia also offers another +10% Max Absolutism, but only if you're willing to play it through the Enlightenment. I wouldn't.

5) Switch to Germany, our endgame tag, for:

--Kaiserreich (5% Admin Efficiency)
--Everything else it offers

6) You can even become Rome after Germany if you want, for its national ideas (25% CCR is nice, but you give up 5% Admin Efficiency from Germany's national ideas to get it).

That should be plenty, lol. And while I've never played this way, there are players who do. Just for kicks, I may fire up a Bohemia campaign soon and try it out.

[Dante_Deepdarkness]

I understand your point, but personally I don't see the problem having both options available.
In fact I was planning a bit tag switch to get several achievements from the Indian tags, but it will be pointless, after checking them I need to start as for several of them, so a 3 -maybe 4- achievement hunt forming Punjab and Bharat will be it (maybe Garwhal before Punjab, despite I’m not sure if it can be done, or at least not being a real pain), whenever I decide to go for it.

[RCMidas]

Origineel geplaatst door Marquoz:

You can even become Rome after Germany if you want, for its national ideas (25% CCR is nice, but you give up 5% Admin Efficiency from Germany's national ideas to get it).

Not any more. King of Kings redid both Byzantium and Roman Empire's ideas somewhat. The latter now gets +5% Admin Efficiency as their penultimate idea (alongside the truly broken +10% Tax Modifier...) rather than a capstone. Which is now the hilarious +33% Manpower Modifier. Russia wishes it had the ideas of restored Rome!

[nottheguywhotookyour2cent]

You probably never talked to any of the EU4 "devs" yet. They absolutely hate these kinds of players but ONLY if they do it with the base mechanics of EU4, the devs despise players who do things without mission trees and every mechanic wich isnt a mission tree.

Origineel geplaatst door Comrade Maethor:

The latest DLCs from PDX seem like they pay special attention to players with these skills, as some of the new missions are kinda ridiculous.

You almost found the culprit but you dont seem to see the issue. The problem isnt the players, its the mission tree system in itself. It basically forces eternal escalation of rewards cause why the hell would any player buy a mission tree for Mitzubishi a one province minor in Japan wich gives you only 25% extra defense on provinces contained within the region of Korea and only for 25 years. When you can play the Ottoman mission tree and get 3 entire sets of national ideas worth of permanent buffs and 7 new mechanics, wich are just repackaging old mechanic like vassals but removing any of the penaltys attached. The only thing people in this thread complained about is tag switching to get a ton of permanent modifiers from mission trees. Tag switching wasnt a problem before mission trees cause the best you could do before was tag switching to Tibet to become a horde so you can more easily do certain achievenments.

[Dmformom]

Brother it's a singleplayer game, you can play however you want. Why are you letting other peoples playstyle on a singleplayer game affect you?

[Ashling]

Origineel geplaatst door nottheguywhotookyour2cent:

You probably never talked to any of the EU4 "devs" yet. They absolutely hate these kinds of players but ONLY if they do it with the base mechanics of EU4, the devs despise players who do things without mission trees and every mechanic wich isnt a mission tree.

Johan, the EU4 lead, said he ignores the mission tree in his games. He's okay with it because different people ignore different things.

I think the focus on missions is more because they've been bug-fixing and fleshing out the world for the past few years. And mission trees are kinda easy to make and something which is kinda lacking across the world. It's also why a lot of nations also got more fluff stuff like you said: new subject types and government reforms.

[Preacher]

Mission trees just give insanely OP buffs and claims on half the world for recruiting 10k men.

Then PDX slaps a 20 dollar pricetag on it

[Marquoz]

Origineel geplaatst door Preacher:

Mission trees just give insanely OP buffs and claims on half the world for recruiting 10k men.

Then PDX slaps a 20 dollar pricetag on it

That's not true. Some of the new trees make their nations harder, not easier. Mali and Majapahit with their disasters, Russia with its tribute, Byzantium with its starting penalties and problems, etc. And even the ones that provide major buffs take work to get. Even allowing for the hyperbole in your post, there's nothing anywhere close to getting "claims on half the world for recruiting 10k men."

[dbond1]

Obviously Preacher is using hyperbole to make his point, and while what he says isn't literally true, there's a kernel of truth to it.

I'm torn over mission trees. I like having them for my own nation, and I can chase or ignore them as I see fit. For the AI I think the mission trees railroad the AI more than I'd like to see. Permanent claims are great, but it also means that nations are directed in which way they go.

EU IV is still insanely variable, but mission trees combined with Lucky Nations in an attempt to reproduce historical-shaded outcomes reduces the variability that makes this game so replayable. I only play ironman, while a friend never does. His maps are more wild and fluid than what my set up generates. That's down to LN rather than mission trees, but the two together make the AI more rigid than what I would like to see.

Like France getting a restoration CB over Naples. That's fine, but now they always take it. But they never invade England (probably almost never for accuracy's sake). I want them to go north sometimes, west sometimes, south sometimes and east the rest.

For mission trees to work to my satisfaction for the AI there really needs to be some sort of RNG there too. Alternative mission rewards to add variability back in to how the AI proceeds in conquest.

I already know what happened historically. I want EU IV to be a what-if generator, alternative history. I think the game leans a bit too much in to chasing historical outcomes, or at least encouraging them, and I'd prefer it all to be far more random than it already is.