What does this community think about alternate start dates?

[KroganCharr]

My personal opinion is that alternate start dates are a good idea, with asterisks. Let me start from the top.

The first (and very fair) objection I will likely get is that nobody cared about the alternate start dates in EU4, so Paradox shouldn't waste time and resources on them in EU5. I hear that. However, I'd like to offer a theory: I believe this was a self reinforcing cycle. The more Paradox developed the 1444 bookmark, the more people played it, and the more people played it, the more Paradox invested in it - until the later bookmarks became barely more than starting at 1444 and skipping the years.

I think that is a shame. I believe there are lots of cool potential scenarios that we lost in EU4 by focusing on 1444 only. We have hints of this in the American Revolution war, or Revolutionary France. If there had been special flavor and mission trees specifically for that bookmark, rather than everything assuming you started in 1444, I believe more people would have played those scenarios. Consider: We had a wealth of Sweden content and got Carolus Rex into the soundtrack, but the Great Northern War barely exists in EU4, you have to manually look up the correct year, and then you get no flavor whatsoever for your trouble. Playing that scenario as any of the major involved parties - Sweden, Russia, Denmark-Norway, Poland-Lithuania-Saxony, maybe even Prussia or the Ukrainian rebels, could have been pretty cool.

My main citation of how this *can* work is Crusader Kings. Both CK2 and CK3 had multiple bookmarks, and people playing them. I also enjoyed the late CK2 scenarios of where you played a specific character with a specific objective, but I don't know how popular they were.

What I don't think needs to come back is selecting specific dates freely, like EU4 and to a limited extent CK2 allowed. I treated that as a nice "watch the map change and look at how Paradox rated the rulers" thing, but I never played that either and I doubt many other people did.

I know this is not the priority right now, and I realize it's unlikely to happen even in the future, if and when Paradox gets the basics of EU5 working well. But I'd still like to get some opinions.

[meister32]

They should just add the EU4 starting date (1444) for those who miss it so much and be done with it. Too much work for too little return.

[Nico]

If the community truely wants new starting dates then they can just make mods for them. I see no reason why the devs themself should waste their time on such an unpopular and time intensive feature.

[Takichi]

Honestly the ONLY Reason why i would find other Start Dates interessting would be because of Nations Like Ming or Wu (in Asia for Example) which only Form after a Nation (in this Case Yuan) goes down and is destroyed. I would love to Start with such a Nation from the Start and Form China or such things.

But for that they dont Need an Alternative Startdate, they would simply need an A-Historical Game Start. Maybe something like the Player be Able to Choose from a Second List which includes every by Event Formable Nation and a Rule which spawns all those Nations at the Start of the Game or allows you to decide which Nations of which Time Periode shall spawn to the Start. Like for Example "Only Succesor Event States which from in 1600" or something like that.

[somethingoffensive]

1444 please

[Bruccy]

the early start date lets me consolidate scotland , anything later and the games cast and scotlands doomed to failure

[Miskatonic]

I'll never use them, but apparently people want them so I guess it's a good move? They talked a lot about how much work it is to make and it feels like there are more important things they could be working on but what do I know. I feel like a nation designer would see more use.

[Big Boss]

Originally posted by Nico:

If the community truely wants new starting dates then they can just make mods for them. I see no reason why the devs themself should waste their time on such an unpopular and time intensive feature.

IF they were an unpopular feature or request, Paradox wouldn't be entertaining creating a new start date champ. There are two camps asking for another start date, 1) There are those who think the start date is the reason why we never see familiar world powers of the period rise and 2) there are those who think the start date is too early and want one closer to the Age of Exploration, so they don't have to spend a dozen hours just to see colonization and the reformation

Many are asking for new start dates because the current one is so poorly balanced and designed it almost never leads to plausible historical outcomes. They (incorrectly) blame the start date for this, instead of Tinto's deliberate design decisions and lack of mechanics to railroad outcomes. Personally I'm not against adding a new start date for the sake of the second group but all that new start date is going to do is make everyone in the first camp realize it's EU5's poor design which stops us from seeing strong Russia, the Ottomans, Austria, a united Spain, etc, etc. rather than a 1337 start.

[KroganCharr]

I do think it is a valid perspective that EU5's start date choice kind of pilfers into what should be Crusader Kings territory.

[Preacher]

Starting in 1337 with this kind of game was a disaster.

[unskilled-]

They need to give us the 4500 BC start date just because.

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by unskilled-:

They need to give us the 4500 BC start date just because.

Something like a Terra Universalis spanning all of known history would actually be pretty cool, though it'd likely never happen in a proper way because of the amount of work that it'd require.

[Wollheinze]

I think 1453 would be a good one.

[harrisone16]

I honestly don't mind the current start date, my concern is time spent building new start dates could be better spent fleshing out the existing one. It seems a main reason this one was chosen was to include the 100 years war. If that's the case, I wish it affected more of Europe as it did historically.

[KroganCharr]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Originally posted by unskilled-:

They need to give us the 4500 BC start date just because.

Something like a Terra Universalis spanning all of known history would actually be pretty cool, though it'd likely never happen in a proper way because of the amount of work that it'd require.

The main problem with that idea is that different eras demand entirely different mechanics. For example, the dynastically focused gameplay of Crusader Kings only makes sense during eras where dynasties and title inheritance were important, it wouldn't work in a Hearts of Iron era setting, just like air combat mechanics make no sense in a medieval setting. The core gameplay would have to change so drastically over the games that you are basically developing entirely different games and stitching them together. I think separate games with save file imports are the way to go if you want to do a multi era spanning super-campaign.

Originally posted by Wollheinze:

I think 1453 would be a good one.

Let's face it, Paradox fans has so many "byzantophiles" that making a EU game where Byzantium is gone and not playable would be a mistake. Although I guess it could work if they support restoring it as the Morean rump state or Trebizond.

[Preacher]

Originally posted by KroganCharr:

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Something like a Terra Universalis spanning all of known history would actually be pretty cool, though it'd likely never happen in a proper way because of the amount of work that it'd require.

The main problem with that idea is that different eras demand entirely different mechanics. For example, the dynastically focused gameplay of Crusader Kings only makes sense during eras where dynasties and title inheritance were important, it wouldn't work in a Hearts of Iron era setting, just like air combat mechanics make no sense in a medieval setting. The core gameplay would have to change so drastically over the games that you are basically developing entirely different games and stitching them together. I think separate games with save file imports are the way to go if you want to do a multi era spanning super-campaign.

Originally posted by Wollheinze:

I think 1453 would be a good one.

Let's face it, Paradox fans has so many "byzantophiles" that making a EU game where Byzantium is gone and not playable would be a mistake. Although I guess it could work if they support restoring it as the Morean rump state or Trebizond.

They are not as egregious as the people who support buffing the Ottomans with any and all disregard to the logistical problems they had invading Europe (non-existent in any grand strategy game) so they can be "historically accurate". Probably a bit of ancestral guilt clouding their judgement.