Europa Universalis IV

For those interested, here's a peak at some of what's going to be in next week's patch (bolding by me):

 

Well, the new idea groups give me plenty more ammo to add to the next version.

 

YES! They should also rework those retarded "border incident" events. Choosing between getting a claim + pissing neighbor off versus -1 stability is a no-brainer right now.

 

I would just remove it altogether

 

List of changes for the upcomming patch: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723710-1.2-Fix-List-Compilation-thread

 

Paradox really wants to push spending adm point on inflation, but it still didn't look like a good deal. They are even go so far, that changed usefull NI with tax bonuses for that useless inflation reduction cost for some nations. Except for Russia, which now have cheaper cores instead of tax bonus. And abusing vassals would be much easier.

But otherwise pretty good patch.

 

There needs to be more ways of spending monarch points overall as a western/eastern/muslim nation you dont really need to worry about falling behind in tech and swim in them anyway.

 

I found this on Paradox forum. It seems someone has a sense of humor.

 

They must be joking.

 

You noticed?

There are other funny stuff in patches.

 

Not in case of Adm points, since there are always need in them. And there must be a desperate situation for inflation to became an issue. It also may be a case with regular abuse of natives for money grab, but I consider it an exploit even with added inflation.

Since WE made cores more expensive, it wasn't worth to use that option. Military points cost look more like appropriate trade off.

 

You know what problem I have with EU IV? These advisors, it should be reasonable to expect they would cost the same + inflation. They seems to rise in price, thus you must throw money on monetary improvenments, instead of supporting piracy, and enemy rebels and other stuff, just to be able to afford them.

 

Advisors could be taken out and replaced with something else.

 

With all innovative ideas, advisors should not be a problem by the end of 16 century for the most countries.

 

You're not supposed to be able to use advisors all the time. And soon enough you'll have more money than you ever dreamed of so they aren't an issue, even if you're a sprawling empire.

 

Perhaps a non-scaling modding overhaul does not have to wait for all these patches and DLCs.

 

It seems that best use for money is colonisation. With 20$/month you can colonise 5 at once.

 

Are bankruptcies frequent at all?

 

No shit.

There was a thread on their forums asking how/why the AI decided to be hostile to certain nations even when players never did a thing to them and kept high relations. Wiz (AI dev) responded and basically said that the player wasn't supposed to be able to influence AI much, because otherwise the player might be able to avoid fighting wars.

It wouldn't be a problem if the game had a decent combat system (HoI), or was based on a short time period which needs to model certain nations being heavily predisposed to hating each other (Victoria), but EU is neither of those. It's a sandbox game with one of the weakest combat systems I've seen in a strategy game.

 

I'm guessing the problem is yet another hardcorded issue.

 

Well AI should also fight for a world domination. What they expected, rose garden?

But, advisers are one of few ways how to counter the "Asia you'd have -1 penalty". If monarchs of certain countries would get these bonuses, it would be much less problem. But they removed lucky nation effect, when these nations are not governed by AI.

Actually I recounted it, and if Aztecs received +2 bonus, it would still not help them. At first it looked reasonable, but then I found they start at tech 0. Nothing wrong with that, they should be that low. But it means that even with +2 bonus, they will not be able to get that high before encounter with Spanish, when they could have received these -2 penalty as an effect of interactions with EU countries (removed by westernization).

 

I don't think that was the intention of every kingdom on the planet, though.

 

Well as long as they will not gang up against the player, majority of kingdoms were quite aggressive. (with exception of Korea, they were quite content to be Chinese vassals.)

 

It was the intention of every. single. ruler. on the planet ever. Those are the kind of people that get to rule - people who want it all. Of course not all nations wanted to literally conquer the globe, some tried to monopolize trade others to just cut out some lebensraum. Size doesnt matter, huge Russia wanted to expand, medium Sweden wanted an empire, little Courland wanted colonies.

This was the age of constant war, not really a thing we can understand nowadays. War was common, neighbors waged wars, cities on each other, barons on each other, guilds on each other. On every step of the social ladder.

 

The advisors are poorly thought out atm. Their benefits in monarch points are, as a whole, much more interesting than their usual advisor bonuses and ends up being the sole reason to hire them -- to compensate for a bad ruler, bad tech group, to stay ahead in the tech race, or to accumulate the points as you need them for pretty much everything. The only points that feel less useful are the military points, as there isn't all that much you can do with them.

The fact that they are such a money sink, however, leads to building up a powerhouse economy to be able to support high-level advisors, who in turn give you points to spend on buildings to reinforce said economy, etc. In the late game I usually end up spending more money on advisors than on the army and navy combined.