Europa Universalis IV announced

[Solmyr]

Why don't we play a game without any rules first, and then see if we need something?

Also, some country being OP is no reason to institute special rules. Some other country will still be OP after that. Countries being OP is historical, that's what grand alliances are for.

[DGuller]

In some cases, the OP factor comes from national ideas that are way unbalanced, because the modifiers were set many patches ago.  Prussian discipline is the prime example:  unless you fuck things up, the Prussian army is a firing squad.  Yeah, you can play around that, but then the Prussian players game would be ruined, because the only alternative for the other powers is to strangle Brandenburg in its crib.

[Queequeg]

Brandenburg's geopolitical situation isn't that fantastic, though.

[DGuller]

Brandenburg's geopolitical situation isn't that fantastic, though.

Doesn't matter if you can execute all invaders.

[Anatron]

The current session showed this 1v1 rule is not worth to use.
If the third person is not informed whats going on it can lead to misunderstandings.Players not intervene like me because they think there is a  1v1 is going on.

[crazy canuck]

To work well house rules need to be easy to understand and implement.  Also, the need for the rule needs to be obvious.

I am not sure any of Viking's proposed house rules meet those tests.

[Anatron]

About Capitals:

The Capital had a diferent meaning in the middle age then today.It was the seat of the King.

For example by France Paris-> Versailles

In Hungary the original Capital was Székesfehérvár (my birth town) .Mathias Corvinus moved it to Buda because of the Danube river.

I am sure there are a lot more what the game not handles and I also dont know about it.

About the culture thing if there is no requirement currently about the culture, then it should be added.I can not rememebre its necessery or not.

[Viking]

The current session showed this 1v1 rule is not worth to use.
If the thrid person is not informed whats going on it can lead to misunderstandings.Players not intervene like me because they think there is a  1v1 is going on.

Dude, I tried to warn you about my fleet sailing around into the baltic..... I ran into the trade fleet by mistake...

It didn't help that you weren't on mumble, everybody else knew it was an arranged 1v1.

[Viking]

To work well house rules need to be easy to understand and implement.  Also, the need for the rule needs to be obvious.

I am not sure any of Viking's proposed house rules meet those tests.

Well, Id argue that Player Vassals and Conflicting ideas meet both tests.

[crazy canuck]

It didn't help that you weren't on mumble, everybody else knew it was an arranged 1v1.

Yeah, that is the problem with special house rules that are not really necessary.

[Queequeg]

Brandenburg's geopolitical situation isn't that fantastic, though.

Doesn't matter if you can execute all invaders.

France and Russia can get colonial empires and crush it, and Austria can blob super fast. TBH I think Prussia's disp bonus makes some sense. It was a real power at the end despite being a shitty, sandy, infertile bog of a country.

[Solmyr]

To work well house rules need to be easy to understand and implement.  Also, the need for the rule needs to be obvious.

I am not sure any of Viking's proposed house rules meet those tests.

Well, Id argue that Player Vassals and Conflicting ideas meet both tests.

Player Vassals means what? Players having vassals or becoming vassals?

And doesn't everyone basically go for military ideas in MP anyway? At least in EU3 everyone took the +1 morale idea first, regardless of country. Also, good luck filling those six military ideas while still having enough MP for tech and manpower buildings.

[crazy canuck]

To work well house rules need to be easy to understand and implement.  Also, the need for the rule needs to be obvious.

I am not sure any of Viking's proposed house rules meet those tests.

Well, Id argue that Player Vassals and Conflicting ideas meet both tests.

Ok so now we are down to 2 that might be potential house rules.  Lets look at both of those.

1 - Idea groups. Opposite ideas groups cannot both be picked. So Innovative-Religious, Aristocratic-Plutocratic, Offensive-Defense and Quantity-Quality cannot BOTH be picked by any nation.

This rule is easy to understand and implement but it is not obvious to me why this rule makes sense, other than if you have some kind of role playing objective in mind.  Since MP is not role playing It is not immediately obvious to me why you would have such a rule.  If a player wants to load up on all the military ideas (and take the hit of not being able to use their military points to tech up or build military buildings) then why artificially restrict them from making that strategic decision?

As for player vassals - I dont fully understand why that is obvious either since you didnt give a reason.  Becoming a vassal has its own tradeoffs without a lot of benefit.  So I am not sure what obvious need there is for this rule is either.  If anything any players entering into a vassal relationship with another player would likely put a big target on themselves and their whoever has vassaled them.

[Viking]

To work well house rules need to be easy to understand and implement.  Also, the need for the rule needs to be obvious.

I am not sure any of Viking's proposed house rules meet those tests.

Well, Id argue that Player Vassals and Conflicting ideas meet both tests.

Player Vassals means what? Players having vassals or becoming vassals?

And doesn't everyone basically go for military ideas in MP anyway? At least in EU3 everyone took the +1 morale idea first, regardless of country. Also, good luck filling those six military ideas while still having enough MP for tech and manpower buildings.

Yes, players becoming vassals. Peter Ebbesen's england diplovassalized player controlled france to keep aragon, italy and netherlands from force peacing him. My Prussia diplovassalized netherlands to add 30 to my force limit and 30k to my manpower, when preparing to defend myself from slargos' castille allied with russia, lithuania and denmark. That should be banned since it doesn't reduce the vassals force limits or manpower.

Everybody (with any sense) goes for as many military ideas as possible. Taking Offensive, Defensive and Quality are no-brainers. Only countries with strong military ideas can survive not taking them. But, if you are country without any discipline ideas and take quantity you will not win a land battle for the first half of the game against a player.

Edit: you will not win a remotely even land battle, if you take quantity the idea is to never have a fair battle.

Edit2: the reason for the conficting ideas rules is to give choice at all. Rather than take all asap, you have to pick which suits you best and which of the other groups you prefer. Right now there is one best choice (take all of them) for all players.

[crazy canuck]

Edit2: the reason for the conficting ideas rules is to give choice at all. Rather than take all asap, you have to pick which suits you best and which of the other groups you prefer. Right now there is one best choice (take all of them) for all players.

The fact that you dont like people optimizing ideas for MP play isnt a very compelling reason to make a rule against optimizing ideas for MP play.