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ilitarist posted:I think the longevity of EU4 is there because of Mission Trees. On forums I see plenty of people saying stuff like I don't want to play as this country, they have unique MT but it wasn't updated for a long time. I don't know if I agree with this. The timing might be pure coincidence but Mission Trees were pretty controversial when they launched, and while I don't wanna claim they specifically drove away a chunk of the playerbase, it's somewhere around that time that EU4 started to turn into people playing Anbennar or just putting it down, whereas before then it'd been pretty constant buzz. A whole bunch of things were happening at around that time so maybe it's not fair to fault the trees specifically as much as what seemed like kind of a philosophical shift in the game's development in general. I think Mission Trees make each country more unique to play once, but then a lot less interesting every time afterwards. But since for a lot of people the game is about playing the same few countries a bunch of times, I don't know if that's a good tradeoff. I'd already mostly stopped treating EU4 like my day job like a year before they were added but they're part of a bunch of things that generally make the game feel kinda off to me now.
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Oct 9, 2023 19:38
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The mission trees I've tried (Ethiopia, England, Ottomans) have been kind of horseshit. The Ethiopia one gives you free permanent claims over like half of Africa and the Middle East.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:12
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Randallteal posted:The mission trees I've tried (Ethiopia, England, Ottomans) have been kind of horseshit. The Ethiopia one gives you free permanent claims over like half of Africa and the Middle East.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:22
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If EU4 didn't have mission trees I wouldn't have the hours I do in it. Granted, Anbennar accounts for a solid number of them but I don't think I'd have put a tenth of the hours I have into Anbennar if it didn't have missions.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:38
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I like the mission trees but the UI is godawful for them. Which granted, is true about a lot of stuff in EU4.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:43
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Zeron posted:I like the mission trees but the UI is godawful for them. Which granted, is true about a lot of stuff in EU4. Yeah, but I've been moving little armies around various maps on various computer screens since the goddamn 1980s, and UIs used to to be far worse.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:47
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:How recently did you try the Ottomans? They got reworked recently. All three got mission trees early when they were not very creative so yeah they kinda suck. I did an Ottomans run right after the last DLC dropped. It might have been a little more interesting, but it still felt too constricting and too rewarding at the same time. It gives you a ton of permanent claims and bonuses if you follow the path exactly, but if you stray for any reason (say because you allied with Hungary or Venice instead of fighting them), you lose out not just on the mission for conquering their stuff but all the missions after that in the tree. I'm not totally anti-tree. I like most of the ones I've seen in HOI4. Sometimes they have some of the same problems but it feels like they aren't meant to launch their countries into world conquests, where as the EU4 trees I've seen are so strong that they shoot you through all of that nation's historical goals in 150 years or so and leave you mega-overtuned.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:52
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Koramei posted:I don't know if I agree with this. The timing might be pure coincidence but Mission Trees were pretty controversial when they launched, and while I don't wanna claim they specifically drove away a chunk of the playerbase, it's somewhere around that time that EU4 started to turn into people playing Anbennar or just putting it down, whereas before then it'd been pretty constant buzz. Can you imagine Anbennar without mission trees?
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Oct 9, 2023 21:02
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For me mission trees are like checklists. I see them and lose all agency. Just playing to check stuff in the checklist. Of course as people point out you can ignore them but I have trouble ignoring stuff that I know will make my gameplay more "optimal". So I end up not playing instead. I vastly preferred when the game was more open. I am sure EU5 will have mission trees (I hope not) so this kind of game is probably dead for me.
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Oct 9, 2023 22:13
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I liked the first mission system better than the mission trees. If conditions changed, a story mission might disappear or reappear, as you work through randomized missions. The mission tree now, as mentioned above, is a checklist. Why do I get +25% to goods production the first time I conquer a state, but nothing else for 400 years? Bring back the old mission system.
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Oct 9, 2023 22:54
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Yeah, Anbennar needs mission trees for the fictional world to work. You can have a fun game as Portugal dominating the Iberian peninsular as an alt-historical game because you know the real history, but the mission trees are one of the main ways Anbennar explains why Lorent and Gawed hate each other, for example.
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Oct 9, 2023 23:08
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Koramei posted:I don't know if I agree with this. The timing might be pure coincidence but Mission Trees were pretty controversial when they launched, and while I don't wanna claim they specifically drove away a chunk of the playerbase, it's somewhere around that time that EU4 started to turn into people playing Anbennar or just putting it down, whereas before then it'd been pretty constant buzz. A whole bunch of things were happening at around that time so maybe it's not fair to fault the trees specifically as much as what seemed like kind of a philosophical shift in the game's development in general. Mission trees were released in early 2018, and at least if this thread is anything to go by Anbennar didn't really take off in popularity until early 2021 (before this it got about one post a month in the thread on average), though. My recollection is the exact opposite, for what it's worth, that mission trees were widely loved because they replaced the old system where the missions all still existed, but you had to draw them at random from a list and you couldn't see the conditions. So unless you looked it up you could never know as France that in order to pull the mission to annex Savoy you had to first complete the mission to sieze Burgundy, whereas now the tree clearly spelled that relationship out. In the old system if you were allied to Burgundy and waiting for the Savoy mission to appear, you'd be waiting forever and might never realise what's wrong.
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Oct 9, 2023 23:19
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Reveilled posted:Mission trees were released in early 2018, and at least if this thread is anything to go by Anbennar didn't really take off in popularity until early 2021 (before this it got about one post a month in the thread on average), though. My recollection is the exact opposite, for what it's worth, that mission trees were widely loved because they replaced the old system where the missions all still existed, but you had to draw them at random from a list and you couldn't see the conditions. So unless you looked it up you could never know as France that in order to pull the mission to annex Savoy you had to first complete the mission to sieze Burgundy, whereas now the tree clearly spelled that relationship out. In the old system if you were allied to Burgundy and waiting for the Savoy mission to appear, you'd be waiting forever and might never realise what's wrong. The issue with the old mission system was that the mission conditions were often total rear end, much like how the majority of the other historical content which existed in the game during the early days was set up such that it would never happen unless you fit an unreasonably precise set of conditions. Missions in general were also mostly not terribly rewarding. The change to the current mission system was also (gradually) accompanied with a huge reconceptualisation of what exactly missions should relate to and what kinds of rewards they can give. Regardless of how you feel about mission trees, they're definitely meaningful and impactful on gameplay.
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Oct 10, 2023 08:46
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Count me in as another mission tree hater.
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Oct 10, 2023 09:00
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Transparency in the conditions that spawn events/missions is good. It expands the decision space by providing the player with the information needed to make decisions on what to pursue for whatever goal the player wants. Making missions a series of "cannot be deviated from" steps is bad. It shrinks the decision space by making the player pursue one specific objective regardless of what the player's goal is.
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Oct 10, 2023 09:34
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Grevlek posted:I liked the first mission system better than the mission trees. If conditions changed, a story mission might disappear or reappear, as you work through randomized missions. The mission tree now, as mentioned above, is a checklist. Why do I get +25% to goods production the first time I conquer a state, but nothing else for 400 years? Every feature that depends on TAG alone is dumb and stupid. Sure, there are some reasons for why it might be important for, say, Russians to hold Constantinople more so than for Prussians, but all these things can be gentrified by culture, religion etc. And Missions are duplicated by 3 other mechanics - triggered modifiers, estate agendas, decisions and events in a way. Also achievements. Imperator: Rome system is much more cool and varied but wasn't expanded. I'm hoping for something like that dynamic system in EU5. You're an old world nation having a colony in Americas - now you can select a special mission tree for America colonization, maybe Spain and Portugal get some special node in there but it's not like the game only reacts with flavorful events to your actions only if your country was destined to do so. And, again, you already have a lot of stuff like this with triggered modifiers and decisions - people don't get a mission to confirm tassalocracy or mend the schism, or get bonuses for conquering Mecca/Rome, they do it and a game system reacts.
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Oct 10, 2023 09:48
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Imoerator: Rome was headed in a cool direction, shame it released in such a poor state that it never recovered the playerbase.
Frionnel fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 12:00
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I like mission trees but hey reading this thread I just found out about Anbennar so I guess I'll try that out.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:16
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Count Thrashula posted:I like mission trees but hey reading this thread I just found out about Anbennar so I guess I'll try that out. You'll never be able to go back to vanilla.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:27
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Anbennar is the second-best total conversion mod for a game ever (after Fall From Heaven 2 for Civ 4). It's not quite as transformative as FFH was, but it's even broader in scope. You could choose to play a new nation with its own mechanics and complex mission tree every single time you start Anbennar and not run out for years, even discounting the fact that they're still adding huge amounts of content.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:51
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But also if you don't like MT you probably won't like Anbennar. I don't. It hides essential information behind hidden nodes in mission trees or even events, and as it's a buggy mod for a buggy game you might follow a guide to trigger something and still fail. It also suffers from UI not being able to present essential information. It adds important racial component and you it's hard to see what other countries are in terms of race. And as a lot changes with MTs and modifiers from them you can't see at all what happens in other countries. Maybe these dwarves have steampunk cities and dug out barlogs in the deep, maybe that country turned into a necrocratic horde - you won't know.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:57
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ilitarist posted:It hides essential information behind hidden nodes in mission trees or even events, and as it's a buggy mod for a buggy game you might follow a guide to trigger something and still fail. I have several hundred hours in Anbennar at this point and have literally no idea what you're talking about here.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:04
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Anbennar does have a problem with the missions that are only revealed later in the tree, where often you'd like to know about them earlier than that so you can prepare for them. Or Escanni adventurers not being able to see their formable's mission tree until they actually form it.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:16
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Zurai posted:I have several hundred hours in Anbennar at this point and have literally no idea what you're talking about here. I've played exactly 2 games, both as recommended countries. One was adventurer humans that would transform into a new kingdom, and kingdom missions had very specific requirements that would change what I'd do as an adventurer if I'd knew about them beforehand. The second was a dwarf country with literally whole MT being hidden for a few years before an event unlocked parts of it, giving me time to do things that made very little sense for the following missions. These dwarves needed good relationships with specific countries and unlocked special way of dealing with native orcs IIRC. As for the bugs I tried to trigger Black Demesne event and I understand I've fulfilled all condition but didn't get it. I understand it's a common occurrence for all kinds of things. ilitarist fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 18:17
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Staltran posted:Anbennar does have a problem with the missions that are only revealed later in the tree, where often you'd like to know about them earlier than that so you can prepare for them. Or Escanni adventurers not being able to see their formable's mission tree until they actually form it. For the former, I'm pretty sure it's a spoiler thing for the most part. The mission trees are the story of the country, and being able to read ahead too far would take away some of the fun of exploring that story. There are some exceptions (the Command, for example, has a section of their mission tree that you can change by event every decade or so, and the whole section swaps out every time), but mostly when I've encountered mission trees that expand, it's been a spoiler/story thing. I can see how it would be a problem for people who have to have everything planned out from the start, but it's never been a big deal for me. Just go with the flow. For the latter, there's really just no way to do it. The Escanni nations can turn into like 6 different formables each. Any attempt to let you see all those nations' mission trees would be a complete UI hell. And it's not like vanilla EU lets you do this either. You get the same "New Traditions" event popup asking you if you want to swap to the new ideas and missions with zero info available on what they are. Not exactly fair to call Anbennar out for not solving a problem from the base game that doesn't have a real solution. ilitarist posted:As for the bugs I tried to trigger Black Demesne event and I understand I've fulfilled all condition but didn't get it. I understand it's a common occurrence for all kinds of things. The only bugs I've ever encountered in Anbennar are crashes, and I'm pretty sure those are mostly because I'm playing on mismatched builds of Anbennar and various Anbennar submods (the latter aren't updated to the beta build). I did a Black Demesne game once (and will never do it again) and aside from a restart because my starting wizard king died too fast, everything happened like it was supposed to. I've had to look a few things up for various nations to figure out why I couldn't get something to work, but it's always ended up being a PEBKAC error, not a bug in the game. Not saying that bugs don't exist, just that Anbennar has always worked pretty much as intended for me personally.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:36
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Zurai posted:For the latter, there's really just no way to do it.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:45
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(posted by mistake)
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Oct 10, 2023 18:46
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ilitarist posted:I'm sorry you read my post it as "this mod is trash and liking it is a sin", let me repeat my point: Anbennar is really dependent on mission trees and UI can't present some of the essential information. The very idea of a "spoiler" means it' less of a strategic experience and more of a storytelling/roleplaying thing, which, again, you probably wouldn't like if you don't like mission trees and want a more freeform strategic experience. I mean, fair, but saying "You won't like <mod for game X> if you don't like <game X>" is pretty much a tautology.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:52
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Mission trees are just an element of EU4, you may not like them and still love the game. Anbennar is Mission Trees extravaganza and there it's not just one of the elements but the core pillar.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:55
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ilitarist posted:Mission trees are just an element of EU4, you may not like them and still love the game. Anbennar is Mission Trees extravaganza and there it's not just one of the elements but the core pillar. No, here I have to call foul. Mission trees are no more restrictive on your gameplay in Anbennar than they are in base EU4. You can ignore them exactly as much in both cases. The only difference is that you don't automatically know the general history of the country in Anbennar without the mission trees because it's not something we all learned in school.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:03
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I don't really like mission trees.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:21
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Zurai posted:No, here I have to call foul. Mission trees are no more restrictive on your gameplay in Anbennar than they are in base EU4. You can ignore them exactly as much in both cases. The only difference is that you don't automatically know the general history of the country in Anbennar without the mission trees because it's not something we all learned in school. In my few last games I've played as countries with mostly generic MTs and like 5 or 7 missions, all achievable in the early game. These were all important countries with unique content and associated achievements. MTs had very little bearing on my playthroughs. In Anbennar you play to follow MTs. Will you play a country with just 5 missions in Anbennar? It's incomparable.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:31
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Zurai posted:No, here I have to call foul. Mission trees are no more restrictive on your gameplay in Anbennar than they are in base EU4. You can ignore them exactly as much in both cases. The only difference is that you don't automatically know the general history of the country in Anbennar without the mission trees because it's not something we all learned in school. This seems really optimistic wrt the history education of the average person tbh.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:38
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Eh, people are more intelligent than generally given credit for when not put on the spot.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:39
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Well my school did all of the history of Anbennar so idk wtf garbage curriculum you were raised on
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Oct 10, 2023 19:40
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Gaius Marius posted:Eh, people are more intelligent than generally given credit for when not put on the spot. Intelligence isn't knowledge.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:47
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ilitarist posted:In my few last games I've played as countries with mostly generic MTs and like 5 or 7 missions, all achievable in the early game. These were all important countries with unique content and associated achievements. MTs had very little bearing on my playthroughs. In Anbennar you play to follow MTs. Will you play a country with just 5 missions in Anbennar? It's incomparable. I wouldn't because I like the mission trees. But there's zero reason why you couldn't or wouldn't. There are plenty of countries with unique content and associated achievements that aren't forcibly linked to mission trees. There are literally in-game achievements that have nothing to do with the mission trees (example: "Starting as Blackbeard Cartel, become a pirate republic" or "As a nation with harimari primary culture, hold the Raja title, be the Chosen of the Khet, and convert to one of the Khetist religions").
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Oct 10, 2023 20:07
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DrSunshine posted:Well that's interesting:https://www.ign.com/articles/star-trek-infinite-is-a-new-grand-strategy-game-from-paradox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adebhvd_u2Q Looks like its stellaris with some EU4 bits. Is this the old mod team for the star trek stellaris mod? Did they go back on their third party stance?
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Oct 10, 2023 20:52
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That looks like, 98% Stellaris but with a nicely done Star Trek skin. Not exactly against it I suppose.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:51
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I wonder if there are any other third party projects out there using Clausewitz or if this just got approval because it made so much sense. This has been something of a growing genre of late and I wouldn’t hate it if they lent out the engine to more studios.
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