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#31

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Josquius - Today at 01:25:04 AM

Again we're already spending more on regional transfers - and have since 1990 than Germany did on reunification. And every single East German region has overtaken the North of England. I don't see any reason to assume that would change if we just keep going or actually redistribute more. In my view because it's not just money - spent on alleviating inquality - but democratic control of revenue raising and spending powers that allowed East German states to make decisions that have boosted their economy. If they want a tram system they can pay for it themselves from their own tax base.

Germany did it very differently though. These weren't just transfers to keep the lights on at a minimal level, which obviously leads to continuing to circle the drain ad nauseum, they actually put the money into developing the east.
Investing in capital rather than just cash flow.

Germany also had the advantage of the west already being a polycentric place and the country having a flexible housing setup unlike the UK.

Edit: I wonder if part of the difference is that you think if there's local control over tax the only way they'd compete is through cutting taxes. Whereas I think higher taxes, for public investment (particularly in transport) would actually be more effective - like cities around the world including all of those French ones that are richer and more productive than similar sized British cities. It's not because they've slashed taxes.

I don't believe this is a good way to compete.
I very much do believe our reform voting parts of the country will whether honestly and in good faith or deceptively and just caring about immediate household finances see this as the best way to compete.

I also think without local ability to raise revenue it will basically always boil down to everyone in the country fighting over small change from Whitehall. Inevitably, having followed the best practice (recommended by a London consultancy), with review by independent experts (who live in London and the South East), the civil service (based in London) will not fund many projects in the North. (This ties to my other suspicion that fundamentally even people in Paris fundamentally like the rest of France if only as a place to holiday, while I really do think a lot of Londoners/South-East genuinely don't really give a fuck/like much of the rest of the country - especially after the Brexit vote.)

This is where trying to help people keep links to their home town would be nice.
I don't think enough gets made of this. London was so pro remain and random towns out there pro brexit because a huge chunk of the people who read from those towns are in London.

Sounds like there's a lot that can be changed there without just telling the rest of the country they're cut off and now on their own.
This will only entrench Londons dominance.

#32

Gaming HQ / Re: Europa Universalis V confi...

Last post by Syt - Today at 01:12:11 AM

Johan is asking for YOUR feedback ...

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/what-do-you-think-are-the-biggest-issues-right-now.1891147/

We have been reading through feedback in various ways, and identified the following major common complaints. We are not talking about "AI needs to do X better", or "this UI could use some QoL features" here..

AI Aggressiveness

A lot of the AI work in the last weeks before launch and the weeks after was to make it more aggressive as some of the biggest complaints pre-release was that "the AI does not do anything, it does not expand".

Now for 1.0.10 there is a part of the community that thinks it has gone too far. Particularly with two aspects. The AI is doing too many no-cb wars, and the HRE before the Papal Bull is basically free real estate.

For 1.1, we will be adding an AI-Agressiveness game rule, where we will have at least 3 settings, a rule with AI never doing no-cb wars, to a less aggressive version of now, and a final setting for even more aggressive than 1.0.10.

A rule for AI will not use no-cb wars on HRE is something we are considering as well.

We are also looking into making no-cb wars a bit more costly in general.

AI Subject Assimilation Bug
This is something we are looking into fixing, very likely to be possible to get into an 1.0.11 or so in mid January.

Levy, Mercenaries, Regulars
Reducing the ability of the levies while also making the recovery functional has made the game less fun for a lot of people in the first hundred years in particular.

We are not happy with levies being this bad, nor are we happy with the fact that mercenaries are something you are hardly ever using.

What we are looking at for 1.1 is to severely reduce the cost of hiring mercenaries, so that they are a valid choice to bolster your armies.

We are also rebalancing (again) levies vs regulars, to reduce the power difference between them further.

When we are more satisfied with the new balance, we'll do an in-depth explanation of how it will work.

Nobles Marrying problem
The removal of being able to marry anyone you wanted to anyone else you wanted is a complaint raised by quite a few in the community, as in many cases you ran out of characters.

The design is that the game should maintain about 1 non-royal dynasty per cabinet position, and make sure every one of those dynasties have at least 2 married males alive at any time. This should create on average 4-5 adult males per dynasty on average, which together with making sure the royal house is huge, should provide lots and lots of characters.

HOWEVER... There are not enough females, nor are enough produced to support this design, as whenever a character is generated, you end up with the same situation repeated, dynasties never surviving.

For 1.1 we are reworking this, and giving newly created characters (both at start or when randomly generated), both a wife and a daughter.


River Map Mode
It was not obvious to us how many were using this semi-broken debug mapmode, but we have now been working on making a new non-debug mapmode for rivers for 1.1.

Rival Mechanics
Yeah, the rival mechanics in EU5 is basically EU4 without the power projection benefits, and it's not something anyone is happy with. We have a new design that is partially implemented now, and will be ready for 1.1, where we have removed the prestige hit from not having rivals, and eased up restrictions on who you can put as a rival dramatically.

However, we have a new calculation that identifies if another country is a threat to you, and for every rival you have that is a threat to you, you will get a bonus that is currently giving you prestige and diplomatic reputation.

We have also added a new casus belli you can manufacture on anyone that has set you as a rival, that gives a superiority wargoal, and we are also looking into adding a new casus belli that can be used on any rival that is a threat, which makes it cheaper to conquer things than the Humiliate Rival CB does.

Slavery Systems
The problem with slavery in the game is that we don't have an intra-market slave distribution system. So unless you can ship slaves back and forth between your market and another, you will not be able to fill buildings and/or rgo's that needs slaves unless you get a constant flow of new slaves to the market.

For 1.1 we are looking into a slave-"migration" system, where surplus slaves will move about inside markets, if laws allow it.

Naval Pain Points/Bugs
Naval Combat is not in a state anyone is 100% happy with right now. The 1.0.4 stackwiping was removed for 1.0.10 beta in favor of ticking damage on fleeing ships and a high capture chance at "what was going to be stackwipes" did not work out great, as ships only fled a single location almost all times. For 1.1 we will move back to that design more, but also make probabilities of critical hits sinking damaged ships higher, and if it was going to be a stackwipe, what would be left of the fleet would make a shattered retreat. The goal here is to make naval engagements more decisive.

There are also complaints about navies moving too quickly, which we will investigate further, but in general the design idea is for ships to move at historical speeds around the map.

The Patrol the Seas naval objective will also try to keep ships at port if there is normal or severe winter in the sea.

Gamespeeds are not ideal for Multiplayer
Particularly speed 3 feels too slow and speed 4 feels too fast when playing. We are working on a system for 1.1, to have 7 different game speeds, with a speed half-way between 3 and 4, and make 2 slower and add another one between 2 and 3.

Setup in China
There has been a lot of feedback about the setup in China, particularly around cultures and harbor setup, and we are doing an overhaul there for the 1.1 update.

Now you are saying, why is this not already in a patch coming to us. Well, I will explain in a post later these holidays how the process works on developing things, and how things work for us, and how we adapted it to what you want as well.

We will also post a detailed roadmap for what we are doing in 1.1 (soon).

Anyway, what other things do you guys think are a huge pain point at the moment?

[Denmark insists on respect for territorial integrity after Trump appoints envoy to Greenland]

#33

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Legbiter - December 22, 2025, 11:31:09 PM

https://apnews.com/article/denmark-greenland-trump-landry-special-envoy-7df618b975f25f7a606ec84f6d82bff9

Denmark insists on respect for territorial integrity after Trump appoints envoy to Greenland

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The Danish foreign minister said Monday his country insists that everyone, including the United States, must respect "the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark" after President Donald Trump ‍announced the appointment of Louisiana's governor as the U.S. ‌special envoy to Greenland.

Trump called repeatedly during his presidential transition and the early months of his second term for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, and has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island. In March, Vice President JD Vance visited a remote U.S. military base in Greenland and accused Denmark of underinvesting there.

The issue gradually drifted out of the headlines but, in August, Danish officials summoned the U.S. ambassador following a report that at least three people with connections to Trump had carried out covert influence operations in Greenland. Denmark is a NATO ally of the United States.

On Sunday, Trump announced the appointment of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as ‌special envoy to Greenland. He said that "Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security, and will strongly advance our Country's Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World."

Landry wrote in a post on X that "it's an honor to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S."

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a brief statement emailed by his ministry that "the appointment confirms the continued American interest in Greenland."

"However, we insist that everyone — including the U.S. — must show respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark," he added.

Earlier this month, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service said in an annual report that the U.S. is using its economic power to "assert its will" and threaten military force against friend and foe alike.

Very hostile act against an ally. Denmark needs to strongly protest this act and stage military exercises.

#34

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by The Minsky Moment - December 22, 2025, 08:42:44 PM

I mean, her brother is in prison for raping a child, so... maybe she has a soft spot for paedo rapists?

Aye, these hoes don't be mad at Megan
These hoes mad at Megan's Law

#35

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - December 22, 2025, 07:50:05 PM

One interesting from the Colville piece is he mentions this joint paper by the Centre for Policy Studies and a Labour think tank. CPS was literally the think tank founded by Thatcher and Keith Joseph in 1974 (the year before Thatcher's leadership challenge against Heath).

What's particularly interesting is it's not the first time where we've seen this type of think tanks uniting. Just before the budget the CPS joined with the Institute of Public Policy Research (set up by Blair but then became a Corbyn-aligned think tank), the New Economics Foundation (Corbyn-aligned) and Bright Blue (Tory think tank) among others.

It's kind of interesting - and feels quite unusual - to see the partisan think tanks able to align like that. But whether on the right or left, while they may have different details in how to do it they are broadly agreed: we're far too centralised, planning is too restrictive and the tax system is too complicated. But it's pretty unusual to see groups like the CPS and NEF, say, issuing joint papers. Unfortunately while the partisan policy wonks may be providing ideas - the main parties seem to find it too difficult politically/don't have the skills to pull it off.

#36

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by crazy canuck - December 22, 2025, 07:39:20 PM

Sheilbh, another example from here to support your point is our local governments can levy a tax on car fuels to help pay for the construction of roads, transit etc. without that additional access to revenue not much infrastructure would get built by local governments.

#37

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2025

Last post by Sheilbh - December 22, 2025, 07:22:21 PM

Marked appropriately by Bob Mortimer RIP

bob mortimer
@RealBobMortimer
So so sad.A lovely brilliant funny giant of a bloke. Oh Man....RIP Chris .. Boro legend forever. Love to family and friends.

#38

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by mongers - December 22, 2025, 07:17:42 PM

I mean, her brother is in prison for raping a child, so... maybe she has a soft spot for paedo rapists?

Additionally maybe the turning point gig is the only crowd she can now attract?

#39

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Sophie Scholl - December 22, 2025, 06:30:05 PM

I mean, her brother is in prison for raping a child, so... maybe she has a soft spot for paedo rapists?

#40

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2025

Last post by grumbler - December 22, 2025, 06:23:26 PM

That was the greatest game show ever.