All non-western nations were heavily nerfed in income due to the way paradox changed production income. Before it was something like 1 + 0.05 * base tax, now its something like 0.2 * base tax, which means that the 95% of non-west nations entirely composted of 1 or 2 base tax provinces produce far less, while France and shit are nearly unchanged. This also affects their trade value since trade comes from production.
There's also the fact that the new westernization change is far, far slower if you are larger. We're talking taking 150 years if you are a big nation.
Also the penalties are harder.
Also you don't get western units, you just get the western tech school.
Also you only get western tech school after you finish, not when you start, so those 10s or 100s of years will be years that you are still paying 1500 MP to tech.
Also once you westernize you'll only get -10% tech cost from being way behind the rest of the world rather than -25%.
Arguably some of the changes make sense but for the most part its just arbitrary crap made for stupid reasons that they didn't seem to test or justify. Like the last change was literally done just because some players in Europe would wait and stock points for a -5% bonus after someone else pushed the tech button first (totally reasonable, this is why push-button-for-tech is dumb). So in order to prevent western europeans from saving a whole 10 MP on a tech by waiting a few months, they penalized westernizing nations by thousands of MP when they need to catch up.
Separate from the westernization changes, the whole thing with AE being drastically OP then UP after every patch/hotfix combo just goes to show that while AE was theoretically a better idea than Infamy, balancing it out and making it work properly is a hell of a task. One that Paradox still has yet to really nail. Kind of silly to play a game when crucial elements of balance change by a factor of 3 on a whim.
They pumped-up France? It seemed ok before the patch, it was quite realistic to me rather than the overpowered BBB monster from EUIII. Unified France by 1500 in EUIII has more troops than in it had pre-French Revolution, it was too damn ridiculous.
I do remember Muscowy was already too strong before, is it even more cheesy?
France mainly got buffed up by the fact that vassal annexations are mega quick now. Ridiculously quick, like 3 or 4 months for those small guys. The penalty is you pay Diplomatic power, but hell if anyone really cared about that stuff other than the colonizers.
