Questions about Mesoamerica. @Paradox

[Sad Lad]

I had just spent hours playing as the Mayans and set myself up. I had issues across the point until my game collapsed in 1560's. Europe took too long to get to me so I couldn't see them to rival as I was ranked 40ish while Aztecs near me where around 60ish on world scale.

Complacency is the only thing I am building playing this snooze fest. Despite fighting my neighbors that rivaled me in power, I could not get it down. As the warning that it is getting high is popping up, so is the plague. My capital due to an event went from 160k to about 40k, no big deal. But wait, no one in my WHOLE COUNTRY is sick. Okay, no big deal. I close contact and continue to wait as bad events hit me over and over. Then the compliancy event fired and it was something with a crown. In one day, I go from making +30 to -22, my stability was at 90 but due to the event that wrecked my capital, it was -20 even after milking estates.

Is this how Mesoamerica is meant to be played, being an afk npc to just have everything collapse just before the Europeans arrive to swoop in and absorb all my progress? If so, I think that is the only thing Paradox got right in this game IMHO.

Remove Complacency as if I was a citizen at that time, I wouldn't be upset at peace and prosperity. Don't think that would create unrest in one of our most brutal times in history. I don't want to be at a constant state of balance, once things are balanced, something unreal enters the arena just to make things unbalanced again.

[Sad Lad]

One more thing, I do have a screenshot where almost 15k troops of mine we completely taken out by 71 troops who were created in the tile upon entering it due to low morale.

Literally not possible despite how tired, hungry, wet, unarmed, crippled an army may be. 15k take 71 no matter the scenario.

15k naked tired people against 71 natives with bows. Maybe I loss 1k?
Unreal but more realistic than all 15k, come on.

[PDXRyagi]

the Complacency mechanic was removed from the game entirely in 1.4 (Oct 28th), so hopefully that will alleviate some of the frustrations you describe.

On the topic of getting spammed with bad events, it's too complicated to for me to go into details on here unfortunately.

For the issue you describe with the troops, it's due to stack wiping. And this is has a lot of balancing to be done. If you'd be willing to make a bug report we can investigate it faster.
Thanks for your detailed feedback by all this by way! It's super valid and represents a lot of areas of the game that need improvement.

[Narrowmind]

Thank you for hearing the voice of the community.

[Sad Lad]

It wasn't being spammed bad events but when the great pestilence happened and hit near panama, Despite not a single one of my people dying someone had to take the blame? That lead to the massive down swing. I can't recall what it said but it set me in a position of prosperity to collapsing due to the complacency event firing after.

Neighbors being strong is nice but are there things like "lucky nations" or stronger AI starts from EU4 and Stellaris? While I continued to grow my nation, urbanize, market control my region, build road, etc. The Aztecs did not unify, they conquered in an odd pattern, never had more than 2-3 roads connected and maybe 3 cities total. They rivaled me on an eco level, an expansion level, and an army level. How?

I also understand stack wiping but what is that ratio? In EU4 it is a 10/1 and that totally makes sense that you would either surrender or die. This instance my army was walking on a nice gravel road from the tile I raised them in. After walking six tiles a small little stack of 71 is raised in the tile mid movement. I got stack wiped 15,553 to 71, which would be 220.06 to 1. Could you take one 220 men who just ran a marathon, in the same if not worse gear? I couldn't personally. I would surrender.

Morale is nice and for sure adds tactics compared to EU4 death balls but COME ON. I think a certain number threshold should nullify that to a degree. Perhaps a small tick fight like EU4. When you fight without money going to your military and rebels rise up, you fight a like 1-3 tick battle and literally CAN come out on top depending on the numbers.