• Fix the Jannisarries event.
  
• Require Hungary to have actually declined before Austria's 'The Decline of Hungary' mission can fire.
  
• Find out if there's an event that gives Austria a PU over Hungary, if so remove it, and replace it with one that gives them a PU over Bohemia.
  
• Remove the rule that says PUs break on negative prestige. Now that 'Support Independence' is a thing, this has no reason to exist.
  
• Make owning Novgorod a requirement for Muscovy to qualify for the 'Subjugate Kazan' mission.
  
• Remove whatever the hell it is that sets the AI to be hell bound on connecting two disparate halves of it's empire; getting Military Access should be fine. This should fix Burgundy constantly coalitioning itself into the ground after annexing Lorraine, and Austria snaking across Southern Germany.
  
• Make HRE members refuse to be diplovassalized by the Emperor, or by an outside power. Perhaps make Personal Unions more likely within the Empire somehow.
  
• Fix the blobbing in the Empire somehow; that baby should be chock full of minors right up until the late game - this probably extends into a much wider complaint about how there are very rarely minor victories. It's really rare to see just one or two provinces change hands between medium to large powers. Any victory needs to be a total victory before the AI accepts peace, meaning that wars usually end for huge concessions or for war reps.
  
• Make the Timurids less stable.
  
• Strengthen Crimea so that they don't get essentially annexed by Genoa.
  
• Rework the Burgundian Inheritance so that it gives preference to CAS/SPA, if they have a royal marriage. And probably make it more likely too. The choice of Spain is purely to make the Netherlands breakaway more interesting.
  
• Speaking of which, make independence wars something the overlord can't call their allies into unless other outside powers also intervene.
  
• Do something to make France more likely to get its cores back from England. The 300 Years Cold War is getting pretty stale.
  
• Make the AI unwilling to march it's entire army across continents to assist their partner in wars, unless their own enemies or rivals are involved.
  
• Figure out what's making Castile wind up in Brazil, and Portugal wind up in the Caribbean, and swap it. Portugal should be focused on getting to India.
  
• Remove most of the colonist granting ideas from the idea lines, and give them to the historical colonizers. I'd leave one in Exploration, but only one. Slow down colonization in general.
  
• Make civil wars more common in general. England has a couple good ones, and Castile got those new events, but nobody else has enough. Where's my French Wars of Religion and intra-Habsburg feuds?
  
• Buff the Ottomans. Whenever they wind up in an early fight against multiple European powers (usually because they attacked Genoa), they get crushed. Although if the problem of the AI marching its entire army across continents got fixed, this likely wouldn't be necessary.
  

PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jul 11, 2015

Another Person fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jul 11, 2015

PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jul 11, 2015

Another Person fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Jul 11, 2015

• I don't think I've ever seen Habsburgs on the Spanish throne. Now there is an event for Castille forming a personal union with Aragon, why not one for Austria forming one with Spain/Castille (Maybe only if Spain is formed, because then it would very probably be too large for Austria to inherit or integrate)? That would break up the Iberian hugbox, as Spain would then be forced to assist with Austria's interests in the HRE and Italy rather than ganging up with Portugal to beat up the Berbers for as long as the union lasts, and would also limit Spanish expansion to the New World for that time.
  
• Agree and would like to restate that the Emperor should not be allowed to diplo-annex (maybe not even diplo-vassalize) or integrate HRE members, that's what the HRE reforms are for.
  
• gently caress the Iberian hugbox, find ways to break it up without making them go hog wild and conquer and hate each other. EU IV really needs some kidn of non-hostile thing you can enter in a country's history file similar to "historical_friend = TAG" that makes the AI very unlikely to either ally, rival or claim the provinces of the country in question. It's not a problem that Portugal and Castille declares wars on and conquers Berber provinces it's that everytime it happens the Bebers have to face all of Portugal, Castille and Aragon together be it an offensive or a defensive war.
  
• Related to the hugbox, I've seen Portugal and Castille convert the entirety of Morocoo to Catholic way too many times, historically they could not even convert the small areas they actually conquered and ruled. I guess this is due to all the missionary strength they receive from the combination of decisions and religious ideas. Many of these decisions should be changed to only give missionary strength vs. heretics (like the counter-reformation decision), or Muslim provinces should impose further penalties on missionary strength.
  
• As you say Portugal should be focused on getting to India. Give them missions to conquer Yemeni and Omani provinces and get them into conflict against the Mamluks.
  
• A large portion of or a majority of the Mamluk fleet should be in the Red Sea, historically they came into conflict against Portugal and fought the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, the Mamluks should either guarantee or vassalize some Indian coastal minors to hopefully make them go to war with Portugal. If possible the Ottomans should get dragged into this as well
  
• Rename Ottomans to "Turkey". I've lost track of the number of games I've had where the Ottoman dynasty has changed and they are ruled by a "Daei" or a "Batuhan" or something instead, it makes no sense that it would then continue being called "Ottomans" or the "Ottoman Empire" as "Ottoman" was not a nationality, an Ottoman was a member of the House of Osman the ruling family of the Ottoman Empire, or as it was referred to by Europeans at the time "Turkey", it would be no more out of place than Austria not being called the "Habsburg Monarchy" or Persia going by the name used by Europeans rather than "Iran" or "Safavid Empire"
  
• In addition to or in place of the above, the Ottoman dynasty should be more durable! Why does Austria have an event that spawns an heir of their dynasty and not the Ottomans? The Ottomans dynasty reigned for moe than 600 years, starting with Osman I in 1299 and ending with Mehmed VI in 1922. Ideally I'd like a unique government form, like many other nations have gotten over time. Make it work pretty similar to a Despotic Monarchy like the Ottomans already have and make succession more like theocracies, except you choose among members of the House of Osman . The Ottomans did not use primogeniture or anything like that, successors were designated or they grabbed power for themselves or they were installed as puppets of powerful harem and government figures, the Ottomans should also be prone to frequent civil wars on succession (to go along with buffing them externally and fixing the Janissary Decadence event). Speaking of the harem, the Ottomans in this new government form should likely be barred from royal marriages, very few Ottoman sultans married and if they did it was usually someone from within the harem who would almost certainly be someone who had been enslaved prior to being in the harem thus not making it a marriage of the kind that bound dynasties together. Needless to say the Ottomans should lose this government form if they westernize
  
• The Ottomans could do with a disaster to represent the decline of the Timar system of military fiefs, especially if they are made stronger by other means. By the late 17th and early 18th century many Timars were no longer able to allow a Timariot to equip himself and his retainers optimally, indeed many could no longer afford horses, and some even sold off their weapons. This in turn increased the military importance of the Janissaries and also led the Ottomans to seek out other more irregular supplements to their armed forces, many of which were literally bandits turned soldiers (banditry was common in revolt-ridden Anatolia and many peasants owned matchlock muskets).
  
• In short; buff up the Ottomans to make them dangerous, such as giving them a powerful unique gov type (which is somewhat offset by frequent pretender civil wars ) and powerful modifiers to represent the Janissaries and Timariots and slow them down and reverse their fortunes by triggering disasters related to the decline of these systems from say the late 17th century onwards.
  
• Persian provinces should NOT be Shiite at game start! The majority of Iran was Sunni in 1444, Shi'ism was restricted to Turkic peoples (Azeris) and Mazandaranis in the north. The Safavid conversion of Iran was a real big deal in history and real game-changer as far as later and even modern developments go. The fact that it has been like this since at least EU2 will never cease to mildly infuriate me.
  
• Remove Persia's cores at the start date, replace them in Persian culture (non-Persian culture provinces like Khorasani and Baluchi already have their own tags) provinces with a number of minor states based on medieval or regional entities to still give the Timurids a hard time with separatists. The Safavids largely defined what is today Iran after they conquered it, largely in response to their rivalry with their amibitous and dangerous Ottoman neighbors. They united Iran under their rule by patronising and imposing Twelver Shi'ism (prior to them most of Iran was Sunni like Turkey) and Persian culture (a large proportion of the people of Iran were Turks, including the Safavids themselves). The decision to form Persia should give claims on the Persian region. Persia should have Ottomans as their historical rival and
  
• Add Safavids to game start. They could be a minor power in Azerbaijan along the Black Sea coast in 1444 (they resided in Ardabil). However I think it would make for a more fun position to be a bit ahistorical, as in 1448 they were driven from Ardabil by Jahan Shah of the Qara Koyunlu (Black Sheep Turkomans) and sought refuge within the lands of the Ak Koyunlu (White Sheep Turkomans) and eventually settled down in Azerbaijan. Shaykh Junayd, the Safavid leader, even married the daughter of the Ak Koyunlu ruler (and her mother was a Komenmoi princess), so the more fun position would be to have carve out some lands for the Safavids in Ak Koyunlu-ruled Azerbaijan and make them an ally (maybe a vassal) of the Ak Koyunlu and possibly a historical friend. The Safavids headed a Sufi religious order and claimed descent from the Prophet, they had a large number of followers, and significantly a great many of these were Qizilbash (Turkish groups that proliferated in Azerbaijan, western Iran and Anatolia at the time, you could say they were part-tribe and part Shi'ite military order) which was the reason they were driven from Ardabil, Jahan Shah saw the Safavids as dangerous particularly if led by an ambitious leader.
  
• The Safavids should have a powerful idea set based around the support they received from the Qizilbash and their status as Sayyids. A unique government form might be appropriate but I think ideas, and powerful event modifiers and missions would be more appropriate. Many of these missions should naturally be focused on the conquest of Azarbaijani and Persian provinces.
  
• Persia, if ruled by Shi'ites and more than a given number of provinces are Sunni, should get a decision to reflect the historical conversion of the country to Shi'ism if they have a theologian advisor, giving a significant bonus to missionary strength vs. heretic. Most of the country was converted to Twelver Shi'ism (the branch the Safavids came to espouse when they conquered Iran) within a generation, through an active and organized effort aided by Safavids bring in a large number of Iraqi religious scholars who were to form the basis of what became Iran's Shi'ite priesthood. While Sunnis and Zoroastrians (there were still a few of these left) were forcibly converted under threats of violence and exile, Jews and Christians were largely left alone, with Jews and Armenians enjoying several privileges in return for their subordination.
  
• It seems in recent patches that Ming are far too durable, I've never seen them conquered by the Manchus, though in earlier patches I often saw them completely blow apart, and recently I've seen them expand east and stay almost completely on technological parity with the West throghout the entire game without westernzing. I don't really know enough about Chinese history to suggest a nerf of my own that would make sense though
  
• Japan should have a Shogunate mechanic similar to but distinct from the way the HRE works rather than the current system of vassals that are allowed to fight each other.
  

Randarkman fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jul 12, 2015

Randarkman fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jul 12, 2015

TTBF fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jul 12, 2015

Randarkman fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jul 12, 2015