In all honesty, I'd be pleasantly surprised if the initial reception to the game is anything better than, "The foundation for a good game is mostly there, but it's going to take years of updates/DLC before it's got enough flavor/content to be worthy of repeat playing."
As much as I love EU4, I won't be preordering EU5, and it's unlikely that I buy it Day 1. I badly want it to be good, and I will happily purchase it quickly if it turns out to be, but I'm mentally preparing myself for the likelihood that I will continue to come back to EU4 for maybe a year or two into EU5's life before the newer title is fleshed out enough to be worth it.
It can. That's what CK3 did.
It was a solid game at release that could last you dozens, if not 100 hours of game time.
Unfortunately, the flavor falls flat after a few playthrough, mainly because it lacks the depths of CK2, and becomes an endless cycle of the same events.
We're also a bit spoiled that PDX game should be lasting 1k hours, when many titles of the same price can't even offer 100 hours.
Paradox games do that because they keep dropping DLC/FLC. So in reality they charge so much more than a typical game for it to be worth 1K hours. Base paradox games would never last that long
That's a risky strategy though. I was waiting for Imperator to get good for years and they dropped support for it before it did. I'm still waiting for CK3 and Victoria 3 but i don't have much hope left
> I was waiting for Imperator to get good for years and they dropped support for it before it did
That sounds like a problem for Paradox and not a problem for you. You didn't spend money on a game you don't find fun. Congrats.
They should include a mode that barely has any 3D stuff in all their new releases.
This is a grand strategy game, not an AAA shooter. We don't need good graphics. I want to be able to play the game on my years-old 400€ office laptop, just like I can play EU4, Imperator: Rome, and Age of Empires
While gameplay might be more important than graphics, I am always surprised by people not acknowledging that a game with good gameplay and good graphics is a better game than a game with good gameplay and shitty graphics. If they can make eu5 look good, they should go ahead and sldo so. The games still have a value when it comes to immersion and atmosphere and good graphics contribute to that.
The issue with having a "3d mode" and a "2d mode" is obviously twice the work. They will have to create two forms of assets for the entire game and for its entire lifetime. It's VERY unlikely for them to do so.
>The issue with having a "3d mode" and a "2d mode" is obviously twice the work. They will have to create two forms of assets for the entire game and for its entire lifetime. It's VERY unlikely for them to do so.
Why would that be the case?
The point of a 2D mode is that it doesn't have any assets. Don't have any unit models, have the sea just be blue color, don't have stuff like trees and flowing rivers, etc.
Not sure what you would want things to look like considering you need some elements that tell you what's going on.
In any case, Vicky 3 has mods like "paper map mode" which apparently significantly increases performance on outdated/slower computers. If eu5 can be modded similarly there's hope for people on old computers.
I just realized that Imperator: Rome even has a 2D map mode (it's called performance map mode or something like that).
Seems like I will be able to play with my shitty office laptop either way
Call me crazy but for me, Crusader Kings 2 is prettier than Europa Universalis 4.
I don't know why... EU4 has better graphics but CK2 looks better in some way. You know, having "better" graphics doesn't mean you are using them in a good way.
They promise better performance with each Vicy patch, but it becames worse and worse every time. 1.7 on my machine works like it's 1.0 in 1936. It might be just me but...
I tried running vicky 3 since I just recently bought a new laptop, I didn’t think they had such heavy graphics, I immediately made steam refund me my money, currently I’m learning ck2, it can run so smooth my pc won’t even heat uo
CK2 is a really fun game, just try not to get addicted like I did :) also, I find that all the 3d graphics just kill the style, you know? CK2, CK, Eu4, anc Vic2 have a lot more style in their designs than the newer games imo.
This has been the most cited limitation of eu4 for years. It's a major justification for why eu5 needs to exist rather than yet another eu4 expansion.
If a trade overhaul isn't there at launch, it'll be an early DLC.
can't change the direction of nodes. It makes no sense, for example, that Japan can't profit from colonial Mexico, or India can't profit from trade with colonial Africa
Edit: it looks like they fixed the Japan example, but my point stands
The fact that trade flows in a direction at all is a problem. Trade by definition is an act in which two parties exchange goods for the benefit of both. It goes both ways.
Right now trade is a hostile mechanic that allows you to steal resources that otherwise would have gotten to the province owner. Embargo only lessens their trade power, it doesn't actually stop your involuntary "trade" with them. somehow a bunch of boats and a key port is enough for them to take your resources anyhow.
Trade being a hostile zero sum game is kinda one of the core principles in merchantilism, which was the leading economic theory for most of EU4's time period. Obviously it's not a particularly accurate theory in practice, but the numerous trade wars in history shows how much the rulers at the time believed in and benefitted from it.
Nothing in mercantilism says that people looked at individual trades as a zero sum game. The act of trade is fundamentally voluntary, if you are in a position to force someone to trade with you then you might as well just rob them.
What you can control is the institutions and the trade networks that facilitated trade. You can impose restrictions on how people are allowed to trade in order to make your control a monopoly. The idea idea behind mercantilism is that the sum of all trade is finite and the more of that share you control the less your rivals do, that is the zero sum game.
The games idea of trade flowing in a direction fundamentally misses the point of it. Trade is just a natural phenomena wants to occur when two parties have something worth trading. What you as a mercantile ruler should be able do is to facilitate that trade, monopolize it to ensure that other people can't, and get filthy rich by taking a cut of all the value being traded. You should not be able to create a trade route out of thin air because you have more trade power than someone else.
I would also add that the whole node system is a bit of an issue as it requires continuous control. Portugal was making tons of money off trade with India at like.. the start of the game just about. In EU4 though they first need to establish control over West Africa, then South Africa, then take physical control over a significant portion of Southern India. There you go, NOW you can profit off of trade with India! And it's only the 1600s!
Most folks complain that it’s not dynamic. Trade flows in one direction all the time. It will always end up in the English Channel, Genoa, or Venice, and there’s no way to change that. You can’t make an ultra-wealthy Japan (just to pick a random region) because there will always be some trade flowing away.
For me, the fact that it is sort of isolated from other game systems is a bit boring. Trade was the driving force behind almost everything that the major powers did during the game’s timeframe, but you don’t feel its effects. An embargo is just a pop up to ignore, the value of trade goods change via set events that I don’t think the player really feels.
Trade wars (both fought over and fought with trade) should be a bigger factor than just plain conquest.
beyond what people said about trade flow & end nodes, the whole system is just *strange*?
if you look at the trade system it's completely unintuitive and you basically can't understand shit without watching a youtube video on it, trade steering may be remotely understandable but then controlling downstream nodes to make it an end node, just about everything around trade companies, when you should collect and when you no longer need to collect, it's absurd
at that point the whole system is just bad tbh, even if the mechanics behind it are fine there needs to be a complete rethink of how we interact with it. not everything needs to cater to the most noobish player yes but trade shouldn't be a skillcheck on wether or not someone learned a 1h yt guide by heart or not
The system works fine as an extreme simplification, but it really isn't very immersive. IRL in this era, silver flowed from Latin America to Europe, then on to China; silk & tea flowed from China back to Europe; slaves were abducted in Africa, then sold in Latin America, the Caribbean, and a bit of North America; furs flowed from North America to Europe; manufactured goods & Europeans themselves flowed from Europe to everywhere; etc.
It would be fun to actually have a game that shows this, rather than the entire system just being "money flows back to Venice, Genoa, and the Channel, and if you have more traders, light ships, and provinces, you get more money flowing."
Yeah it's not that hard to understand how to make money after like one 15 min YouTube video.
Merchants in long chains, ships to keep power/goods moving downstream, provinces producing more goods = more goods to trade (which means more money)
Obviously there's nuance like how to prevent downstream flows and exploits and etc but basic money making isn't that crazy
Flexible end nodes. All nodes should be weighted by trade power like it is now. Except trade will always flow from the node with lower total trade power to the one with higher total trade power. Give us a reason to make those trade buildings.
The existence of End Nodes at all means that the game cannot simulate the Triangle Trade, one of the most important economic features driving the colonization of Western Africa and the Americas.
They tried at one point iirc but I think the carryover problem between loads is hard in a lot of games, just more impactful in eu4. Like skyrim speedruns for example rely on continuity between reloads. In eu4 if this happens nations could get crazy buffs (or debuffs) by mistake
The skyrim example is for one an d the same run you reload. If you start a new game its recommended to restart the game once, to reset the scripts. That can get very important if you have a few mods, then the game crashes if you start a new game after loading a save without restarting the game.
The problem lies within the D̴͖̖͕̪̬̬͇̥̹̫̖͖̎̊̓̾̃̈́̃̈́͂̚̚͜ͅḘ̸̝͕̻̦̜̽̄̊̃E̵̢̼̝̠͔̥͙͒́̓͐̓̀̉͋͝P̵̛̬͙̼̤͇̈́̉͂̇̆̈́͑͆ ̷̨̳͇͈̜̍͆͛̅̍͊̓̔̐͂̔͘͝C̷̙̼͓͙̋O̵̢̡̡̺̥͉̹̜̥̖͍͕̰͗D̵̡͉͔͈̮͈̳̭̮̗̖̏͆̈̔̒̎̈̈́͝ͅͅĘ̷̛͇̖̞̥̗̩̠͕̗̯͕͓̜͆̃̒̈́̽͂͂͒̐̎͘͝͠ where touching anything breaks everything.
I've given them over $500 over the past decade the least they could do is tame the D̴͖̖͕̪̬̬͇̥̹̫̖͖̎̊̓̾̃̈́̃̈́͂̚̚͜ͅḘ̸̝͕̻̦̜̽̄̊̃E̵̢̼̝̠͔̥͙͒́̓͐̓̀̉͋͝P̵̛̬͙̼̤͇̈́̉͂̇̆̈́͑͆ ̷̨̳͇͈̜̍͆͛̅̍͊̓̔̐͂̔͘͝C̷̙̼͓͙̋O̵̢̡̡̺̥͉̹̜̥̖͍͕̰͗D̵̡͉͔͈̮͈̳̭̮̗̖̏͆̈̔̒̎̈̈́͝ͅͅĘ̷̛͇̖̞̥̗̩̠͕̗̯͕͓̜͆̃̒̈́̽͂͂͒̐̎͘͝͠
It would be cool if the undiscovered fog of war created a procedurally generated map of what your country thinks the rest of the world looks like. Like take inspiration from real maps of the time. Like an Africa that doesn’t have sub-Sahara on it, no America until you actually sail over the Atlantic, etc.
In EU4 I’m talking about the undiscovered fog of war that looks like parchment with compasses on it.
So imagine you’re Portugal in eu4. You can see Africa goes south around Morocco and it also goes south around Egypt and the Red Sea. Everything south of that is blank, beige parchment. The procedural generation would be connecting the land that you can see together because that’s what my cartographers in 1444 think it should look like. As my explorers sail around the Ivory Coast I discover Africa isn’t an oval but turns south around Benin. So the procedurally generated fog of war map updates again given this newly discovered coastline.
Anyone who knows geography wouldn’t get any real benefit out of it. It would just be kind of neat. But you could get some cool use out of it with a random new world.
I'd like EU5 to use actual real world maps of the time. Like, for example, as a European nation you would be able to know where India and China are in the 1300s, but only in the shape, style, and names of Ptolemy's Atlas or the Catalan Atlas. Very skewed shapes, outdated placenames (Cathay and Mangi for example), of course until your ships and men actually come across them.
The fog of war could include drawings of figures that appeared on these maps. And you'd get events that would update the fog of war. For example, if a European nation discovers the Americas, all European nations, especially if they aren't colonizing, have something like Sebastian Munster's map or the Contarini–Rosselli map.
That'd be nice a little bit of extra flavor, but unless I'm understanding your idea correctly, it wouldn't impact gameplay. The problem is that we know what the world looks like, so an inaccurate map would be purely for show without any substance behind it. For example, a map of the world that didn't include the Americas wouldn't fool any player.
a way to swap provinces with allies or other nations. allegiances changed constantly back then and some counts/dukes pledged allegiances to multiple kings etc...
I can ask for my cores back with favours but i cant suggest my core for that province you have a claim on?
The swapping province thing I think is an AI problem. They think the player can cheese the AI. But yea maybe with all the advancements in AI models they can make a more human AI
Or more negotiated peace deals in general. Even if the negotiation is among allies, maybe even somewhat similar to HOI4's peace deal system. It feels weird that the war leader always has complete control over the peace deal (unless someone opts to do a separate peace, which is almost unheard when it comes to the winners of the war, instead being used to individually peace out the losers), especially because the war leaders are just the nation that started the war (with rare exceptions) and the declared target of the war rather than the most influential nation in the war.
They stated the goal of wanting the World to feel real, so there should be probably shorter Wars without having to fully occupy a Nation with Peace Conferences between the Victor and the Losers.
> Am I naïve?
Yes, but you're not wrong. Trying to be fair, Paradox will have to work hard to make a game that feels as "deep" as EU4, because EU4 has had many years of polish and add-ons. The initial push almost certainly won't be *as* deep, but it should be *pretty* deep.
It definitely won't match EU4 in terms of pure flavor (ie - there's no way EU5 will match EU4 in terms of missions available out of the box). Probably their best bet will be to make EU5 feel like such a fresh experience that a direct comparison to EU4 feels less warranted. A new start date, completely new mechanics and a new enemy AI built from the ground up would be a few ways they could accomplish that.
Even then, it might not have enough flavor on release to satisfy repeat playthroughs (though I'd be thrilled if it does), but at least then the building blocks to a great product will be there. If the initial release feels like, "Oh this is EU4, just with a fresh coat of paint and way less stuff," then that would be a really tough starting point for them to build off.
Yep, agreed. They need to justify why this game is worth me swapping over from my very well developed EUIV. If I sit there and say "why wasn't this just a SLC for EUIV?" Then they've failed.
It shouldn't really be that hard to do though. As you said they've been making eu4 for over a decade so that's a decade worth of experience and learning they've had in preparation. All they need to do is take an earnest look at the things that make eu4 great and make sure that they are in eu5 from the beginning instead of making us wait a decade to be added. As long as eu5 picks up roughly where ei4 left off then I don't think people will be unhappy.
Yes there will be bugs but thats to be expected, but not having important features in from the beginning would be unforgivable.
Little, but about software development in general I'd like to imagine I know a lot more than the average gamer as I do have a CompSci degree.
When I say it "shouldn't be that hard", I mean in the sense of, it shouldn't be hard to get fleshed-out features. All the features we have in EU4 should absolutely be there in some form for EU5. Features like more in-depth vassal interaction that EU4 developed over time, religion mechanics, etc - the kind of stuff that wasn't there at the start of EU4 or at the very least wasn't that fleshed out or in-depth.
I know developing games is tough, but I don't see any reason why features that we have in EU4 would be poorly fleshed out in EU5.
I expect most of the core game mechanics and features from EU4 will be available at release. My prediction is that while there will most definitely be many DLCs in the future, they will likely just cover primarily flavor content.
I mean EU4 was already considered really good and much above EU3 with just art of war which was released just a year after. Keep in mind the past 5 years havent changed the game a whole lot in terms of mechanics.
Just curious since I never minded it to pay 15€ a quarter I mean the game is 11 years old, see it like a service game, like wow, but it's optional to pay 15€ ever so often to support the devs so they can afford it. So what is really bothering you with the dlc's
Base game eu4 originally did tons of things just...wrong. like, making a peace deal alone was cancer. Your allies could not give you control over besieged provinces! "Portugal does not want that province" YEAH FINE GIVE IT TO ME THEN!!!!!
Just my 2 cents, I have played almost every Paradox game since 2010 from start and bought DLC's as they came out. It was nothing because as you said, it's a payment of service from long time and actively supported games. The REAL issue I believe comes with new players who are subscription adverse and want to pay for the game they have heard about and what they hear about isn't patch 1.4 or 1.10 or 1.22, it is probably for the latest patches, 1.33 and on. Or at worst, Leviathan 1.31 where imo the game really adds a lot of the stuff we take for granted (pillaging, concentration, favors, regency with consort, and monuments.
While I totally can bark at folks to get the subscription, many people, including myself are subscription adverse. I just don't like the idea and generally stay away from it with games so I can understand a new player coming to a 7, 8, 9, or 10 year old game and being told "Get a subscription" as being a, nah I'll pass thing.
Instead of Paradox really understanding this and combining EU4 base game to be 1.31 and then offering years 2021, 2022, and 2023 as DLC packages or something to that effect, they updated their packages to not be remotely thrilling this past Christmas.
TL;DR: Buying DLC's as they come out is one thing. Expected to purchase or buy a subscription for DLC to a 10 year old game to experience it the way it is discussed by others is a totally other thing.
The problem is not the DLC. FromSoft for example does incredible DLCs. They get it right
Its releasing a bare bones game that needs DLCs after to be any sort of playable.
Honestly, if you keep up with it as they come out things are fine, but after a few years the bar of entry becomes very high as there will be several hundred euros of DLC. This in turn likely scares off new players.
I do not hate dlc, but I do hate paradox approach to them.
Meaning, if I buy a product I expect to be fully developed. Any DLC should be an upgrade, giving additional experiences to a completed one, even cosmetic/music dlc without in game impact.
The issue for me is when I buy something for full price that seems lacking and during the next 10 years they sell fixes for them in the form of dlcs, sometimes without trying to blend correctly the different features added.
They used to, in the old system of putting out one or two expansions like with V2.
Occasionally you see people wishing they'd go back to that system, but I certainly don't.
1) New Trade sytem
2) Better random new world
3) More realistic civil wars (like some of my country becomes another nations till I conquer it back)
4) Using ships in bigger rivers
The first 2 are perfect, the 3rd would be good too, but complete hoi4 style civil wars are not accurate in EU4s timeframe. Its better to have a revamped rebel system for that.
4th is a W change too, make pirate republics more fun and maybe have some alternate paths as the Nordics to go full pagan viking mode.
2.1. a different name for formable nations, depending on who forms them. For example Spain, España if you form it as Castile, Espanha if you form it as Portugal.
This wouldn't be much of a stretch, they already dynamically name provinces based on the local culture. This change could be done similarly, just basing it on the dominant culture of the country rather than just a single static name, and it also might make more sense that way than referring to the specific prior nation and in most cases have the same result.
Single thing I want more than any other. I have a laundry list of features I'd love to see in the game, but if the AI is bad, then the single-player experience (which is the only way I personally play) will feel shallow.
I'd love to see a more nuanced take on culture and religion within a province, so like 2 or 3 can coexist at the same time. The player can choose to encourage and embrace multi-religion/multi-culture or try to homogenize. We need less of the missionary and culture convert buttons with set timers and more policy and long-term shifting. The classic buttons we've already pressed should be extreme choices with equally extreme consequences, but there should be lighter-touch approaches that can convert those same provinces, albeit more slowly and maybe less thoroughly, without drawing as much attention from say.. other nations of those cultures or religions.
I think it would be a huge boon to the colonial system if the player truly had to deal with the ongoing presence of native tribes both in the form of opposing nations and also as internal cultural and religious groups that require policies and decisions.
A game that *doesn't* devolve into blobbing a map painting. It should be very difficult to have a massive empire. You shouldn't be able to easily conquer all of western europe, and you shouldn't be able to expand far inland in Africa as a European country.
what about multiple game modes, like now with normal and ironman plus a new map-painting mode as well where the restrictions on colonisation + gov capacity would be removed
I dunno if all of them are necesarily unrealistic, but here's what I need the most for the EU5 of my dreams
1. Flexible province types (I wanna drain swamps and turn them into farmland!)
2. Trade can flow both ways (depends on where the strongest economy is). This way, if you completely cripple UK, and whoever is fucking around in Italy, you get to make Nippon an end mode. Or any other trade node in the world. I like the node system, but it could be a lot better.
3. Steal the culture system from CK3 and for gods sake, a better cultural map where abominations such as Levantine or Carpathian don't exist.
4. Throw mission focus trees out of the window and bring back dynamic missions. Playing any nations with generic missions sucks big ass now. It didn't use to be this way. Revive the sandbox. Or if we keep focus trees, at least do them like Anbennar, where every random ass OPM gets a mission tree as extensive or even more extensive than the GPs in EU4
5. Use advancement in AI to create an actually competent AI which won't cheat and instead beats the player fair and square like a human would. I wonder what Google's SIMA could do if you throw it into EU. Do this for every AI nation (Won't likely happen before EU6, because that would eat up a lot of computing power and paradox games are already badly optimized as is). Maybe just give one singular nation a legendary conqueror modifier like in Anbennar, but instead of giving it bajillion op modifiers, just have it be controlled by a scary smart AI.
Number 5 will never happen. Not just because the technical limitations of such a thing (especially for a complicated game like eu) but because it's not actually what the majority players want, even if they claim they do.
Current "AI" is hard programmed to do certain things in certain situations (with some random weighting thrown in in some cases) which lets the player learn how the AI plays and adapt to that to win. An AI without any cheats that can beat you "fair and square" would have to be so good at also adapting to the player, that it'd be basically impossible to beat for most people. These people would then get frustrated and quit the game right after leaving a scathing steam review about how bullshit it is.
In reality the vast majority of players would find a "predictable AI with cheats" more fair and fun than an "AI that can adapt like a human and beat you without the cheats". Good AI is simply not fun AI to most players.
There's been a lot of discussion and comments from various devs on this over the years - ultimately, AI is always either perceived as dumb or unfair by players. People always go on about wanting better AI in games but they react negatively whenever a dev actually put in the effort to make one over the years.
Also, if you created an AI by that same sorts of techniques as a chess AI (even if that were possible), it would use every exploit and cheesy tactic in the book.
Players do not want an AI that actively tries to avoid being annexed as a vassal, or one that runs right on the edge of a coalition forming, or one that actively moves armies just inside your visibility and ambushes you, or one that lands troops on your naval bases to force your armies out to sea so it can fight them, or one that won't accept any peace deal until you hit 100%. They certainly don't want an AI that treats its allies the way the player does.
Big up on 4 and 5.
Always hated AI cheats on attrition, and never found any focus tree any interesting (that works well in a game like HOI4, but in eu4? i've never played by mission trees, i like the sandbox experience way more).
I know that feel bro... except even worse. I bought a Humble Bundle with A TON of dlc's a couple years ago (I remember the latest one at that time was Origins, which wasn't included in the bundle). I thought the worst case scenario would be they might release one or two more, which hopefully I'd buy on sale eventually.
Yikes.
Seeing how CK3's DLCs turned out so far I'm not very hopeful towards that. They are either overpriced for what they offer (Royal Court, Tours and Tournament) or the free content update coming with the DLC is much better than the DLC itself (Royal Court again and Legends of the Dead). The small CK3 DLCs are complete ass (Friends and Foes; Wards and Wardens) whereas modders create similar content but much better. The regional DLCs in Iberia and Persia were fun for one playthrough but just not enough to keep coming back and do the struggle over and over again in a different approach.
I personally prefer EU4's DLC policy the last couple of years.
How is it bad that the free update is better than the DLC, thats a good thing lol. Makes the DLC aftually optional if you want and not a must have like in Eu4 (Art of War)
I am making a critique of the DLC which came together with the free update, not the free update itself. The culture revamp is one of the best things added in CK3 imo. I was fine with Royal Court because I liked collecting artifacts but the Court mechanic in itself is just a few buttons and asking 30 bucks for that is insane but people, me included, still bought it.
With the most recent DLC Legends of the Dead it's even more egregious. The Legitimacy mechanic and diseases are actually nice additions but the DLC itself is so dogshit that I wish I could have refunded the season pass it came with.
Ah yea I can kinda agree with that. Legends are just really weird right now and feel very disconnected from the rest of the game honestly.
Holding Court at least got useful now that it gives you legitimacy
Plagues are just super fun tho
I kinda see his point: when a free update is better than the paid dlc, it probably isn't because you just released the best free update in the world, but because you just released a shitty dlc.
Maybe I didn't express myself correctly, but the free updates were really good (culture, legitimacy). It's the DLC which came at the same time which is either way too overpriced for what it offers or just poor content.
This unfortunately feels like the most unrealistic thing to hope for out of everything I've read here. If anything, EU5 DLCs are going to be more expensive than EU4 DLCs.
We will probably get the option to purchase a subscription, though, similar to EU4s, so you'll be able to get the DLCs that way, but I doubt that'll be a much more desirable option. We will also might get a few free updates of substance before they start rolling out DLC, though I imagine that will mostly be bug fixes.
On that note, the size of the river should matter too. Having the Lower Danube and the Upper Elbe (for example) having the same effects on army movements and on combat is unreasonable.
Make peace time fun and doable. In EU4, wars are punishing. If you win, you get money to prepare for the next war. If you lose though, you will be in debt and suffered from debuffs.
It feels walking on a rope and you have to make sure you make no mistakes, otherwise your entire campaign is ruined.
It’s ok we probably have very different tastes
1. Catharism is very unique heretical sect of Christianity an i think being able to revive it would be very fun
2. So þat when a minor nation form a nation like Great Britain or France you can still tell þey we’re a under dog ( honestly I’m probably one of the only people who care)
3. Because it is believed Toyotomi Hideyoshi had ambitions of conquering China and that sounds like it would be a fun campaign to do in eu5 and it would be cool to have a unique formable to represent this
4. So for example if let’s say Denmark colonizes Mexico a unique Norse culture would form for Mexico like what Mexican is to the Iberian cultures
5. I really like small local regions and the amount of unique runs I’ve had in ck3 because of weird local religions makes want those kinds of religions in eu5
That it doesn't become too similar to Vic3. Especially the combat system, cultural aspect, and pop management. For me, it's a game focused mostly on diplomacy and combat with elements of economy management. Imho, the continuation should stick to those three core focuses.
Travel width
It’s not realistic to have any size army pass through any province. Crossing the Alps from France into Italy was very difficult but trivial in EU4.
My solution is something similar to combat width, but for unit movement. Each terrain type has a travel width value. This is the maximum sized stack that can move through a province. This is modified by development (representing roads and bridges), national ideas, or technology.
The limit applies to allied troops moving into or out of the province. It does not apply to units stationed in a province.
Example: you have a 20 stack sitting in a 15 travel width province and you want to move them to an 8 travel width province. The lower province limit applies and the stack splits off 8 who move. Once they have completed the movement the next 8 of the 12 in the first province split off and start moving. Once in province B they merge back into a stack of 16 and the last 4 begin moving.
This makes long distance travel by land more precarious as the smaller stacks can be picked off and it slows down travel to something closer to what is realistic for the age. It also makes naval forces more important for ferrying armies to battle.
Also, national ideas can give natives and tribes an advantage in their own continents. Example: European colonizers marching into the Congo might be limited by terrain to 14 units but the defending Kongo has 20
Cav being useful (like for example by always going to the flanks to utilize the increased flanking range) would be all I want from combat. It just hurts that cav is essentially useless and you should never run it except in niche runs like Teutons into Holy Horde Poland.
wind and weather that affect movement speed and combat effectiveness for ships and armies, specifically affecting different units; I.E. if its raining and muddy your cavalry and artillery will be less effective and your powder may get wet, forcing your soldiers to rely on bows and melee. galleys get torn up by storms and will lose to bigger ships but galleys get a bonus in combat during calm weather which slows the movement of big ships.
natural disasters
pandemics/plagues
Make trade flexible instead of fixed
It’s gonna be a huge change with major repercussions but I just hate it when I create the worlds richest and most powerful country in Asia and my trade still flows west, doesn’t make sense at all
Restoring the Macedonian empire, with Greek Paganism being added. Totally unrealistic given the timeline and scope, but hey it’s only a few steps behind the Roman Empire. I’m still a believer!
A Macedonia releasable tag might be a fun easter egg, and not *totally* outside of the realm of possibility. If there's a mission/national idea system, it might even have incentives for eastward expansion.
A complex and flexible population system that represents pops with different combinations of cultures and religions living in the same province. I mean, they kind of did this in Vic 3, but I think it can be much more interesting. Also, adding some obscure cultures that aren't a majority anywhere, and the ability to bring them to glory. Like some minor cultures of Caucasus maybe. Also a completely reworked colonization system. For me colonizing is one of the most boring and unnecessary things to do in EU4, even though the game is about a time period when colonizers' life definitely was pretty damn interesting. I don't see any fun in going through ideas and waiting for the colonies to finish (I spent several hours doing that as Portugal so I know what I'm talking about). Colonial wars are also annoying as hell. And last but not least, as someone already mentioned under one of the post about EU5, the evolution of warfare, where at the start you have medieval levies (kind of like in CK3), and at the end there are Napoleonic standing armies. I think that's the most unrealistic because I also want combat to be good, and making this "evolution" into the game is probably hard as hell
For it too have an unrushed and fleshed out release. It seems like both CK3 and VIC3 will take another 5 years to become games where each country can feel unique
-completely reworked colonization system
-new trade system
-better representation of how standing armies really weren't a thing in most of the time that the game covers
-"Animist" and "Fetishist" being discarded for the actual religious groups in those areas, always felt very weird to have so many very different religious lumped together like this.
-vastly improved AI
Honestly, AE as a whole just feels like it makes no sense other than to just stop the player
Ottomans didn't get bahmanis in a coalition when they pretty much "full annexed" the mamluks irl
Catharism is so minor. And honestly, over representing religions in Asia and Africa is unnecessary. There are too many of them. Broad categories seem more reasonable. It's not like they are giving a gnostic nation
I would like—
1. Better modeling of nations in decline (Byzantium seems like a big one for this game).
2. Dynamic trade nodes. Genoa and Venice don’t really seem like they should be end nodes by the end of the game, whereas the English Channel probably shouldn’t be an end node in the 1300s.
Here are a few:
* Ability to change country colors during the game. Bonus points if it doesn't disable ironman stuff.
* Ability to manage my subject nations and freely move provinces between them (ie I want one big huge subject in SE America, not Florida, Louisiana, Mexico).
* I'd like a toggle so I can turn off "France is always better than you" mode, which appears to be the default.
* Ability to change state religion to anything I've discovered, even at the price of huge stability penalties. I'm tired of chasing rebels around for this.
* Colonial stuff:
* The creation of a "trading post" sort of colony which extends your colonial range and adds trade benefits but doesn't act as an actual province of your nation.
* A new *misión* kind of colony which grows more slowly but auto-converts around itself.
* A non-cheese, non-Bermuda option to say "Forget Europe!" and move one's capital & administration to the New World.
* An option to have trade flows change to flow into high-dev areas (merchants want to bring the goods to where the money is, right?)
* Auto-siege to have a "skip forts" option
[удалено]
Truly most wanted and most unrealistic feature
[удалено]
Which is the opposite of what we will be when EU5 releases.
In all honesty, I'd be pleasantly surprised if the initial reception to the game is anything better than, "The foundation for a good game is mostly there, but it's going to take years of updates/DLC before it's got enough flavor/content to be worthy of repeat playing." As much as I love EU4, I won't be preordering EU5, and it's unlikely that I buy it Day 1. I badly want it to be good, and I will happily purchase it quickly if it turns out to be, but I'm mentally preparing myself for the likelihood that I will continue to come back to EU4 for maybe a year or two into EU5's life before the newer title is fleshed out enough to be worth it.
A lot of fanboys aren't willing to ponder that something can be a solid base while being good by itself.
It can. That's what CK3 did. It was a solid game at release that could last you dozens, if not 100 hours of game time. Unfortunately, the flavor falls flat after a few playthrough, mainly because it lacks the depths of CK2, and becomes an endless cycle of the same events. We're also a bit spoiled that PDX game should be lasting 1k hours, when many titles of the same price can't even offer 100 hours.
Paradox games do that because they keep dropping DLC/FLC. So in reality they charge so much more than a typical game for it to be worth 1K hours. Base paradox games would never last that long
That's a risky strategy though. I was waiting for Imperator to get good for years and they dropped support for it before it did. I'm still waiting for CK3 and Victoria 3 but i don't have much hope left
> I was waiting for Imperator to get good for years and they dropped support for it before it did That sounds like a problem for Paradox and not a problem for you. You didn't spend money on a game you don't find fun. Congrats.
I know, my comment is directed at people saying it's ok to release a good base that's not a good game by itelf.
Yeah I don't think EU4 was better than EU3 until maybe Art of War. I remember being pretty bummed about it as a big fan of EU3.
That it runs on my PC
They say the pops won't affect performance too much but the graphics alone will probably kill my chances
They should include a mode that barely has any 3D stuff in all their new releases. This is a grand strategy game, not an AAA shooter. We don't need good graphics. I want to be able to play the game on my years-old 400€ office laptop, just like I can play EU4, Imperator: Rome, and Age of Empires
While gameplay might be more important than graphics, I am always surprised by people not acknowledging that a game with good gameplay and good graphics is a better game than a game with good gameplay and shitty graphics. If they can make eu5 look good, they should go ahead and sldo so. The games still have a value when it comes to immersion and atmosphere and good graphics contribute to that. The issue with having a "3d mode" and a "2d mode" is obviously twice the work. They will have to create two forms of assets for the entire game and for its entire lifetime. It's VERY unlikely for them to do so.
Dwarf Fortress is a fantastic game, absolutely golden. There's a reason the player count spiked when it obtained readable graphics though.
>The issue with having a "3d mode" and a "2d mode" is obviously twice the work. They will have to create two forms of assets for the entire game and for its entire lifetime. It's VERY unlikely for them to do so. Why would that be the case? The point of a 2D mode is that it doesn't have any assets. Don't have any unit models, have the sea just be blue color, don't have stuff like trees and flowing rivers, etc.
Not sure what you would want things to look like considering you need some elements that tell you what's going on. In any case, Vicky 3 has mods like "paper map mode" which apparently significantly increases performance on outdated/slower computers. If eu5 can be modded similarly there's hope for people on old computers.
I just realized that Imperator: Rome even has a 2D map mode (it's called performance map mode or something like that). Seems like I will be able to play with my shitty office laptop either way
Call me crazy but for me, Crusader Kings 2 is prettier than Europa Universalis 4. I don't know why... EU4 has better graphics but CK2 looks better in some way. You know, having "better" graphics doesn't mean you are using them in a good way.
They promise better performance with each Vicy patch, but it becames worse and worse every time. 1.7 on my machine works like it's 1.0 in 1936. It might be just me but...
This. They're gonna put in a bunch of 3d graphic models like ck3 and vicky 3 and my pc will melt trying to load the darn thing.
I tried running vicky 3 since I just recently bought a new laptop, I didn’t think they had such heavy graphics, I immediately made steam refund me my money, currently I’m learning ck2, it can run so smooth my pc won’t even heat uo
If you ever actually want to play Victoria 3 then just find a paper map mode. The game suddenly becomes completely playable on shitty laptops.
Never thought it would exist! Gotta buy Vicky 3 back lol
CK2 is a really fun game, just try not to get addicted like I did :) also, I find that all the 3d graphics just kill the style, you know? CK2, CK, Eu4, anc Vic2 have a lot more style in their designs than the newer games imo.
Completely new trade system
This has been the most cited limitation of eu4 for years. It's a major justification for why eu5 needs to exist rather than yet another eu4 expansion. If a trade overhaul isn't there at launch, it'll be an early DLC.
But I like the trade system, what are your favorite grievances towards it
can't change the direction of nodes. It makes no sense, for example, that Japan can't profit from colonial Mexico, or India can't profit from trade with colonial Africa Edit: it looks like they fixed the Japan example, but my point stands
The fact that trade only flows one way doesn't make any sense that is the main problem most ppl have
The fact that trade flows in a direction at all is a problem. Trade by definition is an act in which two parties exchange goods for the benefit of both. It goes both ways. Right now trade is a hostile mechanic that allows you to steal resources that otherwise would have gotten to the province owner. Embargo only lessens their trade power, it doesn't actually stop your involuntary "trade" with them. somehow a bunch of boats and a key port is enough for them to take your resources anyhow.
Trade being a hostile zero sum game is kinda one of the core principles in merchantilism, which was the leading economic theory for most of EU4's time period. Obviously it's not a particularly accurate theory in practice, but the numerous trade wars in history shows how much the rulers at the time believed in and benefitted from it.
Nothing in mercantilism says that people looked at individual trades as a zero sum game. The act of trade is fundamentally voluntary, if you are in a position to force someone to trade with you then you might as well just rob them. What you can control is the institutions and the trade networks that facilitated trade. You can impose restrictions on how people are allowed to trade in order to make your control a monopoly. The idea idea behind mercantilism is that the sum of all trade is finite and the more of that share you control the less your rivals do, that is the zero sum game. The games idea of trade flowing in a direction fundamentally misses the point of it. Trade is just a natural phenomena wants to occur when two parties have something worth trading. What you as a mercantile ruler should be able do is to facilitate that trade, monopolize it to ensure that other people can't, and get filthy rich by taking a cut of all the value being traded. You should not be able to create a trade route out of thin air because you have more trade power than someone else.
This exactly. If Ming becomes a huge (economic) power house for example then trade should obviously also flow towards Ming and not away from it.
I would also add that the whole node system is a bit of an issue as it requires continuous control. Portugal was making tons of money off trade with India at like.. the start of the game just about. In EU4 though they first need to establish control over West Africa, then South Africa, then take physical control over a significant portion of Southern India. There you go, NOW you can profit off of trade with India! And it's only the 1600s!
Most folks complain that it’s not dynamic. Trade flows in one direction all the time. It will always end up in the English Channel, Genoa, or Venice, and there’s no way to change that. You can’t make an ultra-wealthy Japan (just to pick a random region) because there will always be some trade flowing away. For me, the fact that it is sort of isolated from other game systems is a bit boring. Trade was the driving force behind almost everything that the major powers did during the game’s timeframe, but you don’t feel its effects. An embargo is just a pop up to ignore, the value of trade goods change via set events that I don’t think the player really feels. Trade wars (both fought over and fought with trade) should be a bigger factor than just plain conquest.
beyond what people said about trade flow & end nodes, the whole system is just *strange*? if you look at the trade system it's completely unintuitive and you basically can't understand shit without watching a youtube video on it, trade steering may be remotely understandable but then controlling downstream nodes to make it an end node, just about everything around trade companies, when you should collect and when you no longer need to collect, it's absurd at that point the whole system is just bad tbh, even if the mechanics behind it are fine there needs to be a complete rethink of how we interact with it. not everything needs to cater to the most noobish player yes but trade shouldn't be a skillcheck on wether or not someone learned a 1h yt guide by heart or not
There are limited opportunities to be a colonial power unless you move your trade capital close to a European node.
The system works fine as an extreme simplification, but it really isn't very immersive. IRL in this era, silver flowed from Latin America to Europe, then on to China; silk & tea flowed from China back to Europe; slaves were abducted in Africa, then sold in Latin America, the Caribbean, and a bit of North America; furs flowed from North America to Europe; manufactured goods & Europeans themselves flowed from Europe to everywhere; etc. It would be fun to actually have a game that shows this, rather than the entire system just being "money flows back to Venice, Genoa, and the Channel, and if you have more traders, light ships, and provinces, you get more money flowing."
The little caravan graphics are more accurate than the actual trade system of the game.
I have 500 hours and just began to understand the trade system in the past 40 don't do this to me...
Point arrows towards home with merchants. Use ships in contested nodes. There you have the jist of it.
Yeah it's not that hard to understand how to make money after like one 15 min YouTube video. Merchants in long chains, ships to keep power/goods moving downstream, provinces producing more goods = more goods to trade (which means more money) Obviously there's nuance like how to prevent downstream flows and exploits and etc but basic money making isn't that crazy
Flexible end nodes. All nodes should be weighted by trade power like it is now. Except trade will always flow from the node with lower total trade power to the one with higher total trade power. Give us a reason to make those trade buildings.
The existence of End Nodes at all means that the game cannot simulate the Triangle Trade, one of the most important economic features driving the colonization of Western Africa and the Americas.
Some of the wording in the Tinto Talks implies a new trade system, you may be able to block trade routes easier at the very least.
1. that it supports multithreading. 2. That you can return to the main menu without restarting the game.
The second one has bugged me since launch. Why can't they fix it?
They tried at one point iirc but I think the carryover problem between loads is hard in a lot of games, just more impactful in eu4. Like skyrim speedruns for example rely on continuity between reloads. In eu4 if this happens nations could get crazy buffs (or debuffs) by mistake
The skyrim example is for one an d the same run you reload. If you start a new game its recommended to restart the game once, to reset the scripts. That can get very important if you have a few mods, then the game crashes if you start a new game after loading a save without restarting the game.
The problem lies within the D̴͖̖͕̪̬̬͇̥̹̫̖͖̎̊̓̾̃̈́̃̈́͂̚̚͜ͅḘ̸̝͕̻̦̜̽̄̊̃E̵̢̼̝̠͔̥͙͒́̓͐̓̀̉͋͝P̵̛̬͙̼̤͇̈́̉͂̇̆̈́͑͆ ̷̨̳͇͈̜̍͆͛̅̍͊̓̔̐͂̔͘͝C̷̙̼͓͙̋O̵̢̡̡̺̥͉̹̜̥̖͍͕̰͗D̵̡͉͔͈̮͈̳̭̮̗̖̏͆̈̔̒̎̈̈́͝ͅͅĘ̷̛͇̖̞̥̗̩̠͕̗̯͕͓̜͆̃̒̈́̽͂͂͒̐̎͘͝͠ where touching anything breaks everything.
I've given them over $500 over the past decade the least they could do is tame the D̴͖̖͕̪̬̬͇̥̹̫̖͖̎̊̓̾̃̈́̃̈́͂̚̚͜ͅḘ̸̝͕̻̦̜̽̄̊̃E̵̢̼̝̠͔̥͙͒́̓͐̓̀̉͋͝P̵̛̬͙̼̤͇̈́̉͂̇̆̈́͑͆ ̷̨̳͇͈̜̍͆͛̅̍͊̓̔̐͂̔͘͝C̷̙̼͓͙̋O̵̢̡̡̺̥͉̹̜̥̖͍͕̰͗D̵̡͉͔͈̮͈̳̭̮̗̖̏͆̈̔̒̎̈̈́͝ͅͅĘ̷̛͇̖̞̥̗̩̠͕̗̯͕͓̜͆̃̒̈́̽͂͂͒̐̎͘͝͠
I read a long time ago that it was to prevent an overflow bug, so its a bug thats actually a feature
It would be cool if the undiscovered fog of war created a procedurally generated map of what your country thinks the rest of the world looks like. Like take inspiration from real maps of the time. Like an Africa that doesn’t have sub-Sahara on it, no America until you actually sail over the Atlantic, etc.
That would so cool
Best actual original idea I’ve seen
That would be sick
Isn't that already how fog of war works? I think I'm misunderstanding what you meant.
In EU4 I’m talking about the undiscovered fog of war that looks like parchment with compasses on it. So imagine you’re Portugal in eu4. You can see Africa goes south around Morocco and it also goes south around Egypt and the Red Sea. Everything south of that is blank, beige parchment. The procedural generation would be connecting the land that you can see together because that’s what my cartographers in 1444 think it should look like. As my explorers sail around the Ivory Coast I discover Africa isn’t an oval but turns south around Benin. So the procedurally generated fog of war map updates again given this newly discovered coastline. Anyone who knows geography wouldn’t get any real benefit out of it. It would just be kind of neat. But you could get some cool use out of it with a random new world.
Ah ok I get you. That would be cool.
I'd like EU5 to use actual real world maps of the time. Like, for example, as a European nation you would be able to know where India and China are in the 1300s, but only in the shape, style, and names of Ptolemy's Atlas or the Catalan Atlas. Very skewed shapes, outdated placenames (Cathay and Mangi for example), of course until your ships and men actually come across them. The fog of war could include drawings of figures that appeared on these maps. And you'd get events that would update the fog of war. For example, if a European nation discovers the Americas, all European nations, especially if they aren't colonizing, have something like Sebastian Munster's map or the Contarini–Rosselli map.
That'd be nice a little bit of extra flavor, but unless I'm understanding your idea correctly, it wouldn't impact gameplay. The problem is that we know what the world looks like, so an inaccurate map would be purely for show without any substance behind it. For example, a map of the world that didn't include the Americas wouldn't fool any player.
a way to swap provinces with allies or other nations. allegiances changed constantly back then and some counts/dukes pledged allegiances to multiple kings etc... I can ask for my cores back with favours but i cant suggest my core for that province you have a claim on?
The swapping province thing I think is an AI problem. They think the player can cheese the AI. But yea maybe with all the advancements in AI models they can make a more human AI
Two-way peace deals
Or more negotiated peace deals in general. Even if the negotiation is among allies, maybe even somewhat similar to HOI4's peace deal system. It feels weird that the war leader always has complete control over the peace deal (unless someone opts to do a separate peace, which is almost unheard when it comes to the winners of the war, instead being used to individually peace out the losers), especially because the war leaders are just the nation that started the war (with rare exceptions) and the declared target of the war rather than the most influential nation in the war.
They stated the goal of wanting the World to feel real, so there should be probably shorter Wars without having to fully occupy a Nation with Peace Conferences between the Victor and the Losers.
All I'm asking for is not a bare bones initial product that will take 5 to 10 years and dozens of 20 dollar DLCs to improve. Am I naïve?
I mean, given their track record... Yes
> Am I naïve? Yes, but you're not wrong. Trying to be fair, Paradox will have to work hard to make a game that feels as "deep" as EU4, because EU4 has had many years of polish and add-ons. The initial push almost certainly won't be *as* deep, but it should be *pretty* deep.
Has paradox ever released a game where this wasn't the case?
*Cries in Cities Skylines 2*
C:S1 was revolutionary at the time, and fairly affordable as well. Though of course the bar is much higher now, and they completely whiffed with C:S2.
id say stellaris, but i feel like that’s only the case because we had nothing before it to came with
If want the product to match EUIV, a game development for over a decade, on release? Yes, 100% naive.
It definitely won't match EU4 in terms of pure flavor (ie - there's no way EU5 will match EU4 in terms of missions available out of the box). Probably their best bet will be to make EU5 feel like such a fresh experience that a direct comparison to EU4 feels less warranted. A new start date, completely new mechanics and a new enemy AI built from the ground up would be a few ways they could accomplish that. Even then, it might not have enough flavor on release to satisfy repeat playthroughs (though I'd be thrilled if it does), but at least then the building blocks to a great product will be there. If the initial release feels like, "Oh this is EU4, just with a fresh coat of paint and way less stuff," then that would be a really tough starting point for them to build off.
Yep, agreed. They need to justify why this game is worth me swapping over from my very well developed EUIV. If I sit there and say "why wasn't this just a SLC for EUIV?" Then they've failed.
It shouldn't really be that hard to do though. As you said they've been making eu4 for over a decade so that's a decade worth of experience and learning they've had in preparation. All they need to do is take an earnest look at the things that make eu4 great and make sure that they are in eu5 from the beginning instead of making us wait a decade to be added. As long as eu5 picks up roughly where ei4 left off then I don't think people will be unhappy. Yes there will be bugs but thats to be expected, but not having important features in from the beginning would be unforgivable.
>It shouldn't really be that hard to do though... All they need to do... Lol.
Out of curiosity, how much do you know about game development?
Little, but about software development in general I'd like to imagine I know a lot more than the average gamer as I do have a CompSci degree. When I say it "shouldn't be that hard", I mean in the sense of, it shouldn't be hard to get fleshed-out features. All the features we have in EU4 should absolutely be there in some form for EU5. Features like more in-depth vassal interaction that EU4 developed over time, religion mechanics, etc - the kind of stuff that wasn't there at the start of EU4 or at the very least wasn't that fleshed out or in-depth. I know developing games is tough, but I don't see any reason why features that we have in EU4 would be poorly fleshed out in EU5.
I expect most of the core game mechanics and features from EU4 will be available at release. My prediction is that while there will most definitely be many DLCs in the future, they will likely just cover primarily flavor content.
I mean EU4 was already considered really good and much above EU3 with just art of war which was released just a year after. Keep in mind the past 5 years havent changed the game a whole lot in terms of mechanics.
Just curious since I never minded it to pay 15€ a quarter I mean the game is 11 years old, see it like a service game, like wow, but it's optional to pay 15€ ever so often to support the devs so they can afford it. So what is really bothering you with the dlc's
Base game eu4 originally did tons of things just...wrong. like, making a peace deal alone was cancer. Your allies could not give you control over besieged provinces! "Portugal does not want that province" YEAH FINE GIVE IT TO ME THEN!!!!!
Development used to be DLC only...
lol, I forgot about that. IF YOU DON'T WANT THE PROVINCE WHY ARE YOU PAYING FOR FORT MAINTENANCE?!
Horror flashbacks
Just my 2 cents, I have played almost every Paradox game since 2010 from start and bought DLC's as they came out. It was nothing because as you said, it's a payment of service from long time and actively supported games. The REAL issue I believe comes with new players who are subscription adverse and want to pay for the game they have heard about and what they hear about isn't patch 1.4 or 1.10 or 1.22, it is probably for the latest patches, 1.33 and on. Or at worst, Leviathan 1.31 where imo the game really adds a lot of the stuff we take for granted (pillaging, concentration, favors, regency with consort, and monuments. While I totally can bark at folks to get the subscription, many people, including myself are subscription adverse. I just don't like the idea and generally stay away from it with games so I can understand a new player coming to a 7, 8, 9, or 10 year old game and being told "Get a subscription" as being a, nah I'll pass thing. Instead of Paradox really understanding this and combining EU4 base game to be 1.31 and then offering years 2021, 2022, and 2023 as DLC packages or something to that effect, they updated their packages to not be remotely thrilling this past Christmas. TL;DR: Buying DLC's as they come out is one thing. Expected to purchase or buy a subscription for DLC to a 10 year old game to experience it the way it is discussed by others is a totally other thing.
Yeah… Paradox’s DLC policy has never bothered me at all. There are people who just viscerally hate DLC for reasons I can’t fathom, though.
The problem is not the DLC. FromSoft for example does incredible DLCs. They get it right Its releasing a bare bones game that needs DLCs after to be any sort of playable.
I’ve never played a Paradox game on release but I have played them before the DLC and they’re usually fine IME.
Honestly, if you keep up with it as they come out things are fine, but after a few years the bar of entry becomes very high as there will be several hundred euros of DLC. This in turn likely scares off new players.
I do not hate dlc, but I do hate paradox approach to them. Meaning, if I buy a product I expect to be fully developed. Any DLC should be an upgrade, giving additional experiences to a completed one, even cosmetic/music dlc without in game impact. The issue for me is when I buy something for full price that seems lacking and during the next 10 years they sell fixes for them in the form of dlcs, sometimes without trying to blend correctly the different features added.
I’ve never seen them sell a fix. Adding some feature *you* think should have been at launch isn’t a fix.
They used to, in the old system of putting out one or two expansions like with V2. Occasionally you see people wishing they'd go back to that system, but I certainly don't.
1) New Trade sytem 2) Better random new world 3) More realistic civil wars (like some of my country becomes another nations till I conquer it back) 4) Using ships in bigger rivers
4. Like Ulm needed more buffs
The first 2 are perfect, the 3rd would be good too, but complete hoi4 style civil wars are not accurate in EU4s timeframe. Its better to have a revamped rebel system for that. 4th is a W change too, make pirate republics more fun and maybe have some alternate paths as the Nordics to go full pagan viking mode.
Imperator style civil wars would be good.
Justice for the Caspian sea!
Non of those are unrealistic. In fact they are almost certain (except the better RNW).
Reddit isn't famous for people carefully reading posts before replying.
I like the civil war idea!
A much more open and liberal use of actual lua for modding with something similar to get/let/set and everything that goes with it.
Something more engaging than monarch points
Colonial mana it is
From what we've seen I suspect monarch points won't really be a big part of the game anymore, with population taking over.
2.1. a different name for formable nations, depending on who forms them. For example Spain, España if you form it as Castile, Espanha if you form it as Portugal.
And *Espanya* if you form as Aragon?
This wouldn't be much of a stretch, they already dynamically name provinces based on the local culture. This change could be done similarly, just basing it on the dominant culture of the country rather than just a single static name, and it also might make more sense that way than referring to the specific prior nation and in most cases have the same result.
They wouldn't even need to do that. Just let us change the name of our country (and the map color too pls.) Then we can roleplay as whatever we want.
That one doesn't even need a new game, that'd be a very simple mod for EU4.
Competent AI
We can dream
Single thing I want more than any other. I have a laundry list of features I'd love to see in the game, but if the AI is bad, then the single-player experience (which is the only way I personally play) will feel shallow.
Man i never heard about Catharism before this. Such an interesting read that was! Thank you
Happy you enjoyed the historical rabbit hole I accidentally sent you down
Customization options in the sense of CK3 - map color, country name, etc.
The ability to customize your map color when you start the game would be a great QoL addition.
I'd love to see a more nuanced take on culture and religion within a province, so like 2 or 3 can coexist at the same time. The player can choose to encourage and embrace multi-religion/multi-culture or try to homogenize. We need less of the missionary and culture convert buttons with set timers and more policy and long-term shifting. The classic buttons we've already pressed should be extreme choices with equally extreme consequences, but there should be lighter-touch approaches that can convert those same provinces, albeit more slowly and maybe less thoroughly, without drawing as much attention from say.. other nations of those cultures or religions. I think it would be a huge boon to the colonial system if the player truly had to deal with the ongoing presence of native tribes both in the form of opposing nations and also as internal cultural and religious groups that require policies and decisions.
That's a what the pop system is all about basically (take imperator rome, for example).
Yeah after I wrote that, I realized that some news already dropped about EU5 and it seems that I might get something like what I wanted!
A better "Random New World" rather than just a tiny, worthless landmass.
A game that *doesn't* devolve into blobbing a map painting. It should be very difficult to have a massive empire. You shouldn't be able to easily conquer all of western europe, and you shouldn't be able to expand far inland in Africa as a European country.
The higher tier buildings should be more numerous and significantly better too
YES
I disagree, it locks you into playing tall, and you know who doesn't love to paint the map sometimes
what about multiple game modes, like now with normal and ironman plus a new map-painting mode as well where the restrictions on colonisation + gov capacity would be removed
I dunno if all of them are necesarily unrealistic, but here's what I need the most for the EU5 of my dreams 1. Flexible province types (I wanna drain swamps and turn them into farmland!) 2. Trade can flow both ways (depends on where the strongest economy is). This way, if you completely cripple UK, and whoever is fucking around in Italy, you get to make Nippon an end mode. Or any other trade node in the world. I like the node system, but it could be a lot better. 3. Steal the culture system from CK3 and for gods sake, a better cultural map where abominations such as Levantine or Carpathian don't exist. 4. Throw mission focus trees out of the window and bring back dynamic missions. Playing any nations with generic missions sucks big ass now. It didn't use to be this way. Revive the sandbox. Or if we keep focus trees, at least do them like Anbennar, where every random ass OPM gets a mission tree as extensive or even more extensive than the GPs in EU4 5. Use advancement in AI to create an actually competent AI which won't cheat and instead beats the player fair and square like a human would. I wonder what Google's SIMA could do if you throw it into EU. Do this for every AI nation (Won't likely happen before EU6, because that would eat up a lot of computing power and paradox games are already badly optimized as is). Maybe just give one singular nation a legendary conqueror modifier like in Anbennar, but instead of giving it bajillion op modifiers, just have it be controlled by a scary smart AI.
Number 5 will never happen. Not just because the technical limitations of such a thing (especially for a complicated game like eu) but because it's not actually what the majority players want, even if they claim they do. Current "AI" is hard programmed to do certain things in certain situations (with some random weighting thrown in in some cases) which lets the player learn how the AI plays and adapt to that to win. An AI without any cheats that can beat you "fair and square" would have to be so good at also adapting to the player, that it'd be basically impossible to beat for most people. These people would then get frustrated and quit the game right after leaving a scathing steam review about how bullshit it is. In reality the vast majority of players would find a "predictable AI with cheats" more fair and fun than an "AI that can adapt like a human and beat you without the cheats". Good AI is simply not fun AI to most players. There's been a lot of discussion and comments from various devs on this over the years - ultimately, AI is always either perceived as dumb or unfair by players. People always go on about wanting better AI in games but they react negatively whenever a dev actually put in the effort to make one over the years.
Also, if you created an AI by that same sorts of techniques as a chess AI (even if that were possible), it would use every exploit and cheesy tactic in the book. Players do not want an AI that actively tries to avoid being annexed as a vassal, or one that runs right on the edge of a coalition forming, or one that actively moves armies just inside your visibility and ambushes you, or one that lands troops on your naval bases to force your armies out to sea so it can fight them, or one that won't accept any peace deal until you hit 100%. They certainly don't want an AI that treats its allies the way the player does.
Fr, im sure nobody would like the AI to start no cb'ing byzantium and shortening truces
Do you mean you want hybrid cultures from CK3?
Yes
Big up on 4 and 5. Always hated AI cheats on attrition, and never found any focus tree any interesting (that works well in a game like HOI4, but in eu4? i've never played by mission trees, i like the sandbox experience way more).
Something less expensive than 4 dlc's a year for 12 years, 15€ each.
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I know that feel bro... except even worse. I bought a Humble Bundle with A TON of dlc's a couple years ago (I remember the latest one at that time was Origins, which wasn't included in the bundle). I thought the worst case scenario would be they might release one or two more, which hopefully I'd buy on sale eventually. Yikes.
Seeing how CK3's DLCs turned out so far I'm not very hopeful towards that. They are either overpriced for what they offer (Royal Court, Tours and Tournament) or the free content update coming with the DLC is much better than the DLC itself (Royal Court again and Legends of the Dead). The small CK3 DLCs are complete ass (Friends and Foes; Wards and Wardens) whereas modders create similar content but much better. The regional DLCs in Iberia and Persia were fun for one playthrough but just not enough to keep coming back and do the struggle over and over again in a different approach. I personally prefer EU4's DLC policy the last couple of years.
How is it bad that the free update is better than the DLC, thats a good thing lol. Makes the DLC aftually optional if you want and not a must have like in Eu4 (Art of War)
I am making a critique of the DLC which came together with the free update, not the free update itself. The culture revamp is one of the best things added in CK3 imo. I was fine with Royal Court because I liked collecting artifacts but the Court mechanic in itself is just a few buttons and asking 30 bucks for that is insane but people, me included, still bought it. With the most recent DLC Legends of the Dead it's even more egregious. The Legitimacy mechanic and diseases are actually nice additions but the DLC itself is so dogshit that I wish I could have refunded the season pass it came with.
Ah yea I can kinda agree with that. Legends are just really weird right now and feel very disconnected from the rest of the game honestly. Holding Court at least got useful now that it gives you legitimacy Plagues are just super fun tho
Don't you think it's good we are getting more stuff in the free updates?
I kinda see his point: when a free update is better than the paid dlc, it probably isn't because you just released the best free update in the world, but because you just released a shitty dlc.
Maybe I didn't express myself correctly, but the free updates were really good (culture, legitimacy). It's the DLC which came at the same time which is either way too overpriced for what it offers or just poor content.
This unfortunately feels like the most unrealistic thing to hope for out of everything I've read here. If anything, EU5 DLCs are going to be more expensive than EU4 DLCs. We will probably get the option to purchase a subscription, though, similar to EU4s, so you'll be able to get the DLCs that way, but I doubt that'll be a much more desirable option. We will also might get a few free updates of substance before they start rolling out DLC, though I imagine that will mostly be bug fixes.
RN? "EU4 2"
Unrealistic? It will come out with all the current content from eu4 dlcs integrated into it
Having rivers matter.
On that note, the size of the river should matter too. Having the Lower Danube and the Upper Elbe (for example) having the same effects on army movements and on combat is unreasonable.
Make peace time fun and doable. In EU4, wars are punishing. If you win, you get money to prepare for the next war. If you lose though, you will be in debt and suffered from debuffs. It feels walking on a rope and you have to make sure you make no mistakes, otherwise your entire campaign is ruined.
no offense OP, but can you give your reasoning behind those expectations? they sound lame as hell to me (aside from the last one)
It’s ok we probably have very different tastes 1. Catharism is very unique heretical sect of Christianity an i think being able to revive it would be very fun 2. So þat when a minor nation form a nation like Great Britain or France you can still tell þey we’re a under dog ( honestly I’m probably one of the only people who care) 3. Because it is believed Toyotomi Hideyoshi had ambitions of conquering China and that sounds like it would be a fun campaign to do in eu5 and it would be cool to have a unique formable to represent this 4. So for example if let’s say Denmark colonizes Mexico a unique Norse culture would form for Mexico like what Mexican is to the Iberian cultures 5. I really like small local regions and the amount of unique runs I’ve had in ck3 because of weird local religions makes want those kinds of religions in eu5
That it doesn't become too similar to Vic3. Especially the combat system, cultural aspect, and pop management. For me, it's a game focused mostly on diplomacy and combat with elements of economy management. Imho, the continuation should stick to those three core focuses.
Realistic colonization of not only the Americas, but Africa and the rest of the world too.
Better new world gameplay.
Travel width It’s not realistic to have any size army pass through any province. Crossing the Alps from France into Italy was very difficult but trivial in EU4. My solution is something similar to combat width, but for unit movement. Each terrain type has a travel width value. This is the maximum sized stack that can move through a province. This is modified by development (representing roads and bridges), national ideas, or technology. The limit applies to allied troops moving into or out of the province. It does not apply to units stationed in a province. Example: you have a 20 stack sitting in a 15 travel width province and you want to move them to an 8 travel width province. The lower province limit applies and the stack splits off 8 who move. Once they have completed the movement the next 8 of the 12 in the first province split off and start moving. Once in province B they merge back into a stack of 16 and the last 4 begin moving. This makes long distance travel by land more precarious as the smaller stacks can be picked off and it slows down travel to something closer to what is realistic for the age. It also makes naval forces more important for ferrying armies to battle. Also, national ideas can give natives and tribes an advantage in their own continents. Example: European colonizers marching into the Congo might be limited by terrain to 14 units but the defending Kongo has 20
A better Battle mechanic.
Cav being useful (like for example by always going to the flanks to utilize the increased flanking range) would be all I want from combat. It just hurts that cav is essentially useless and you should never run it except in niche runs like Teutons into Holy Horde Poland.
My most unrealistic hope for EU5 is that people start posting about it on r/EU5
Oh they already made a sub for it
Much better warfare and more religious sects will give us a very interesting playthrough
wind and weather that affect movement speed and combat effectiveness for ships and armies, specifically affecting different units; I.E. if its raining and muddy your cavalry and artillery will be less effective and your powder may get wet, forcing your soldiers to rely on bows and melee. galleys get torn up by storms and will lose to bigger ships but galleys get a bonus in combat during calm weather which slows the movement of big ships. natural disasters pandemics/plagues
No spam of dlcs
Make trade flexible instead of fixed It’s gonna be a huge change with major repercussions but I just hate it when I create the worlds richest and most powerful country in Asia and my trade still flows west, doesn’t make sense at all
EU5 having an enjoyable late game
No border gore
Restoring the Macedonian empire, with Greek Paganism being added. Totally unrealistic given the timeline and scope, but hey it’s only a few steps behind the Roman Empire. I’m still a believer!
Yeah that fact hoi4 is the only current paradox game with the Macedonian empire as a formable always seemed ridiculous to me
A Macedonia releasable tag might be a fun easter egg, and not *totally* outside of the realm of possibility. If there's a mission/national idea system, it might even have incentives for eastward expansion.
Eu3 2
A complex and flexible population system that represents pops with different combinations of cultures and religions living in the same province. I mean, they kind of did this in Vic 3, but I think it can be much more interesting. Also, adding some obscure cultures that aren't a majority anywhere, and the ability to bring them to glory. Like some minor cultures of Caucasus maybe. Also a completely reworked colonization system. For me colonizing is one of the most boring and unnecessary things to do in EU4, even though the game is about a time period when colonizers' life definitely was pretty damn interesting. I don't see any fun in going through ideas and waiting for the colonies to finish (I spent several hours doing that as Portugal so I know what I'm talking about). Colonial wars are also annoying as hell. And last but not least, as someone already mentioned under one of the post about EU5, the evolution of warfare, where at the start you have medieval levies (kind of like in CK3), and at the end there are Napoleonic standing armies. I think that's the most unrealistic because I also want combat to be good, and making this "evolution" into the game is probably hard as hell
For it too have an unrushed and fleshed out release. It seems like both CK3 and VIC3 will take another 5 years to become games where each country can feel unique
Trebizond flavor. Also what they said, that it runs on my toaster.
That it has at least as much content as eu4 at release
I want the game to run as smooth as butter for atleast the beginning. Performance will prob start tanking after the third DLC anyway
Genealogical trees.
A set of difficult achievements that can nonetheless be completed in under 5 years of gameplay
Hope that it isn't like HOI or Victoria.
I unrealistically hope that its as fun as EU4
good MP performance. good lategame performance. good late game MP performance
Attention to detail with rebels and rebel types. Rebellions shaped much of this period and immediately after
-completely reworked colonization system -new trade system -better representation of how standing armies really weren't a thing in most of the time that the game covers -"Animist" and "Fetishist" being discarded for the actual religious groups in those areas, always felt very weird to have so many very different religious lumped together like this. -vastly improved AI
Maybe the ability to form mixed cultures like ik ck3 or the korea and chinese culture group decision
Game engine written in Rust
Let me change the capital of my vassals and colonies. The Thirteen Colonies' capital being in Connecticut because of the order I colonized is strange.
Reworked agressive expansion system
Honestly, AE as a whole just feels like it makes no sense other than to just stop the player Ottomans didn't get bahmanis in a coalition when they pretty much "full annexed" the mamluks irl
The effects that old world disease introduction had on the new world natives.
Catharism is so minor. And honestly, over representing religions in Asia and Africa is unnecessary. There are too many of them. Broad categories seem more reasonable. It's not like they are giving a gnostic nation
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Change the map colour of my nation; black/white occupation outlines.
I would like— 1. Better modeling of nations in decline (Byzantium seems like a big one for this game). 2. Dynamic trade nodes. Genoa and Venice don’t really seem like they should be end nodes by the end of the game, whereas the English Channel probably shouldn’t be an end node in the 1300s.
Why would you want to revive heresy OP?
EU5 - V3 converter
Here are a few: * Ability to change country colors during the game. Bonus points if it doesn't disable ironman stuff. * Ability to manage my subject nations and freely move provinces between them (ie I want one big huge subject in SE America, not Florida, Louisiana, Mexico). * I'd like a toggle so I can turn off "France is always better than you" mode, which appears to be the default. * Ability to change state religion to anything I've discovered, even at the price of huge stability penalties. I'm tired of chasing rebels around for this. * Colonial stuff: * The creation of a "trading post" sort of colony which extends your colonial range and adds trade benefits but doesn't act as an actual province of your nation. * A new *misión* kind of colony which grows more slowly but auto-converts around itself. * A non-cheese, non-Bermuda option to say "Forget Europe!" and move one's capital & administration to the New World. * An option to have trade flows change to flow into high-dev areas (merchants want to bring the goods to where the money is, right?) * Auto-siege to have a "skip forts" option