How's the game without sphere of influence?

[spike86]

hi all, long time Victoria fan, but no longer pdx fan after what they did with my favourite game (IR).

so I'm not trusting them enough to purchase SOI full price, waiting for a sale.

How's the game on 1.7 without SOI?
is it fun enough for another run?
is there enough domestic change to explore without the foreign stuff SOI add?

[Vellsi]

Most significant changes, being economy and subject management, are present without SoI but there are also a few major issues with design and balance right now, so if you are not under pressure to go join in, I'd say it's better to wait until those have been resolved with an update. Sphere of Influence was a rather buggy release and they're still working on getting basic features working without issues.

[John Hadley]

I personally enjoy the gameplay less with 1.7 than before it. That might be due to temporary bugs because there are definitely some somewhat major issues caused by bugs, but there are other issues I have that it is unclear whether they are due to bugs or the game is working as intended and the resulting gameplay just feels unpleasant or improperly balanced to me.

Things I have enjoyed:
1) The game runs faster

Things I don't enjoy:
1) The AI is extremely much more aggressive in interfering in civil wars due to "ideological differences" which can have a magnitude much greater than all pacts and opinion modifiers combined. For instance, if you end up with a rebellion that includes both landowners and devout in it Austria will probably side with the rebellion against you, no matter what your reputation with them is.
2) The AI makes poor decisions about what to build sometimes in private construction, but you can't just remove the private buildings you don't want, you have to buy the buildings before you can destroy them. Its was a waste to even have to destroy them in the previous version but a double waste now if you have to pay for them just to destroy them.
3) The new trade union is much more difficult to use than previous custom unions as it costs a lot more influence and causes a lot more rebellions.
4) The new system for decreasing the autonomy of subjects is much more difficult to actually get to a position that you can annex anyone.

Overall a lot more hassles and a lot less enjoyment playing as a medium sized country such as Sweden or Spain than before for me.

[Gorlos]

I've been trying Japan several times now (vanilla) and and closest I got rid of shogunate was switching side to intellegencia revolution but when war ended I was again Shogunate (wars bug).

[Gorlos]

I won the war mentioned above.

[Damedius]

I like the game a lot more prior to 1.7 right now. 1.7 is too buggy. 1.7 also nerfed the early game for a lot of countries. So the early game is even longer for a lot of countries and painfully boring for many.

I feel like the meta gamers and forum dwellers on the officials forums are going to steer the game towards being more tedious as the game continues to develop. These are the people who know all the meta's and mi/max everything. So instead of min/maxxing to dominate, you will have to min/max just to be competitive.

[spike86]

thank you all for the answers

I'm in no hurry right now (I have an infinite backlog after all 😅) so I can wait before putting another 50 hrs in the game.

I'll probably wait next sale, maybe by then most critical bugs will be fixed

[Ilhan]

Very boring. I could only play for 170 hours without sphere of influence. Now I started again. You can learn the game without sphere of influence and then buy it when you are bored.

[Ole "Slim Jolo" the Hobo Hero]

Originally posted by Gorlos:

I've been trying Japan several times now (vanilla) and and closest I got rid of shogunate was switching side to intellegencia revolution but when war ended I was again Shogunate (wars bug).

Yea I noticed in my current game it's past 1890 and Shogunate is still kicking along just fine (they do have an open/free trade market though)

My annoyances are mostly still with random and inconsistent AI, I wish there were kinda more barriers to the types of plays powers can get involved with to cut down on how often what should just be a regional civil war or something over a random puppet succeeding turning into WW1 over and over lol

I don't actually mind private construction / investment and it shoulda been there from 1.0 and proof game was simply not ready at release and is now being balanced with expensive dlc's in a way I feel like that is more brazen than other paradox releases, lol

Game still needs much more expanded diplo, market, and mil options. Mil system itself is still just overall disappointing to me.

Game def runs better but I also built a newer pc recently so I don't actually know how it'd have improved on my old processor lol

Wish games character options weren't so shallow. A character either 'exists' doing a thing like agitating, leading army, etc, or they 'die.' Obviously I don't want a crusader kings level of interaction, but given how populations and individuals were such pivotal players in victorian stuff, it's funny that the only interactions you have with 'historical figures' is exiling or bolstering and they don't really otherwise exist besides that. Though in terms of concept creep maybe that's also asking for way more than is really trackable for the average player

[Gorlos]

Originally posted by Ole "Slim Jolo" the Hobo Hero:

Originally posted by Gorlos:

I've been trying Japan several times now (vanilla) and and closest I got rid of shogunate was switching side to intellegencia revolution but when war ended I was again Shogunate (wars bug).

Yea I noticed in my current game it's past 1890 and Shogunate is still kicking along just fine (they do have an open/free trade market though)

My annoyances are mostly still with random and inconsistent AI, I wish there were kinda more barriers to the types of plays powers can get involved with to cut down on how often what should just be a regional civil war or something over a random puppet succeeding turning into WW1 over and over lol

I don't actually mind private construction / investment and it shoulda been there from 1.0 and proof game was simply not ready at release and is now being balanced with expensive dlc's in a way I feel like that is more brazen than other paradox releases, lol

Game still needs much more expanded diplo, market, and mil options. Mil system itself is still just overall disappointing to me.

Game def runs better but I also built a newer pc recently so I don't actually know how it'd have improved on my old processor lol

Wish games character options weren't so shallow. A character either 'exists' doing a thing like agitating, leading army, etc, or they 'die.' Obviously I don't want a crusader kings level of interaction, but given how populations and individuals were such pivotal players in victorian stuff, it's funny that the only interactions you have with 'historical figures' is exiling or bolstering and they don't really otherwise exist besides that. Though in terms of concept creep maybe that's also asking for way more than is really trackable for the average player

Yep usually I build too much because I try to find the sweet spot xD

[Adiemis]

My biggest problem without the DLC is that i dont have any population in my states to fill up jobs. So i dont need to build something, because there is nobody who is willing to work there.
I have no idea if thats a bug, or becasue i dont own these DLC

[runekiller]

Playing without dlc is fine but it's feel like playing a harder game:

• Limited subject interaction compared to the dlc, making me less interest to vassalize any nations. Role playing as a colonization nation is much better now, since we can invest at our colonial now.
  
• Only trade league and locking 3 principles, make me feel this feature feel like pure advertisement. I would take it as the essential mechanic of forming a power bloc but surely it need to have more options of identity and additional 1 principle to pick.
  
• Power blocs making the vanilla gameplay fresh but since we cannot do foreign investment it's much harder to invite and maintain power bloc members.
  
• The new ownership type and lobbies is good and feel fresh. Same thing... something still locked behind.

Overall as a vanilla player I like the 1.7 gameplay but it package itself as an advertisement, which I personally don't like.