It was time to clean things up and press up the Restore Roman Empire button.
The main reason why it was taking so damn long is that I didn't want to break any truces. So while that was going on, I was doing some casual conquering in Africa and Indonesia.
I finally got Imperialism CB as I was about to get that last province, so I started mass declaring cleanup wars on random island nations I couldn't have taken before due to lack of convenient CBs. In just one last year before clicking the final button, I removed about 12 countries from the map.
At this point nothing stops it from being a World Conquest. There's still 133 years, and I already control 55% of global development.
At current admin efficiency (60%), staying at optimum 100% OE all the time (32% OE per 100), and -45% coring time, I'd be able to core about 188dev per year, or the whole rest of the world in a bit less than 65 years. Not even counting client states, another 10% admin efficiency discount, and optionally going over 100% OE, as I have permanent +3 stability, +11.5 tolerance of true faith, -9 base unrest, and will get more once I get other monuments.
It's basically impossible for true faith provinces to rebel, and I can convert about 10 provinces a year. Nearly 2000 land and naval forcelimit each, nearly 2000k max manpower, 5000 monthly income (at 650 expenses).
I think that's the closest I got to EU4 WC, as actually going for WC would be stupidly tedious, and Fun and Balance arguably makes it even more tedious, giving everyone two more ally slots, so wars tend to spillover more.
Anyway, here's what I think of 1.32.
The worst parts of 1.31 got fixed (AI deleting own armies at peace, all the issues with moving dev to capital, ridiculously broken monuments etc.), so game is in reasonably playable state, but it's much less balanced than it used to be.
Here's the full list of monument bonuses I got, and getting newly conquered province from zero to max level was trivial at this point (8500 gold and 350k manpower - both basically meaningless at this point):
- Administrative Efficiency: 0.05 (Alhambra 3)
- Admiral Cost: -0.1 (Murud-Janjira Fort 3)
- Advisor Costs: -0.55 (Parthenon 3, Pyramid of Cheops 3, Santa Maria del Fiore 3)
- Aggressive Expansion Impact: -0.1 (The Grand Palace of Bangkok 3)
- Appoint Cardinal cost: -0.2 (Saint Peter's Basilica 3)
- Army Tradition: 0.5 (Tower of London 3)
- Autonomy: -0.1 (Borobudur Temple 3, El Escorial 3)
- Average Monarch Lifespan: 0.1 (Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 3)
- Burghers Loyalty Equilibrium: 0.1 (Bara Katra 3)
- Caravan Power: 0.73 (Aït Benhaddou 3, Bam Citadel 3)
- Church Power Modifier: 0.3 (Duomo di Milano 3, Notre-Dame Cathedral 3)
- Clergy Influence: 0.1 (Saint Peter's Basilica 3)
- Clergy Loyalty Equilibrium: 0.5 (Duomo di Milano 3, Hagia Sophia 3, Pyramid of Cheops 3, Sankore Madrasah 3)
- Culture Conversion Cost: -0.25 (Borobudur Temple 3)
- Curia Powers cost: -0.1 (Saint Peter's Basilica 3)
- Diplomatic Relations: 1 (Petra 3)
- Diplomatic Reputation: 3 (Alhambra 3, Petra 3)
- Envoy Travel Time: -0.33 (Petra 3)
- Fabricate Claims Cost: -0.5 (City of Khami 3, Petra 3)
- Global Trade Power: 0.25 (Aït Benhaddou 3, Belem Tower 3, Suez canal 3)
- Governing Capacity Modifier: 0.25 (El Escorial 3, The Grand Palace of Bangkok 3)
- Governing Capacity: 100 (Royal Palace of Caserta 3)
- Idea Cost: -0.15 (Pyramid of Cheops 3, Saint Peter's Basilica 3)
- Improve Relations: 0.15 (Versailles 3)
- Income from Vassals: 0.3 (Alhambra 3, Versailles 3)
- Institution Spread: 0.5 (Sankore Madrasah 3)
- Liberty Desire in Subjects: 10 (Alhambra 3)
- Max Accepted Cultures: 1 (Borobudur Temple 3)
- Merchants: 2 (Bam Citadel 3, Bara Katra 3)
- Missionaries: 1 (Holy City of Jerusalem 3)
- Missionary Strength vs Heretics: 0.03 (Holy City of Jerusalem 3)
- Missionary Strength: 0.01 (Stonehenge 3)
- Monthly Fervor: 2 (Duomo di Milano 3, Notre-Dame Cathedral 3)
- Monthly Piety: 0.002 (Hagia Sophia 3)
- Monthly Splendor: 3.5 (Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 3, Santa Maria del Fiore 3)
- National Tax Modifier: 0.2 (Versailles 3)
- National Unrest: -2 (Borobudur Temple 3)
- Naval Force Limit Modifier: 0.3 (Murud-Janjira Fort 3)
- Naval Maintenance Modifier: -0.2 (Murud-Janjira Fort 3)
- Navy Tradition: 1 (Murud-Janjira Fort 3)
- Nobility Influence: 0.1 (Versailles 3)
- Nobility Loyalty Equilibrium: 0.1 (Versailles 3)
- Papal Influence: 5 (Duomo di Milano 3, Hagia Sophia 3, Notre-Dame Cathedral 3)
- Possible Advisors: 1 (Parthenon 3)
- Prestige Decay: -0.01 (Santa Maria del Fiore 3)
- Prestige: 4.0 (Doge's Palace 3, Holy City of Jerusalem 3, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 3, Royal Palace of Caserta 3, Tower of London 3)
- Reform Progress Growth: 0.45 (Doge's Palace 3, Royal Palace of Caserta 3)
- Religious Unity: 0.1 (Notre-Dame Cathedral 3)
- Republican Tradition: 0.5 (Doge's Palace 3)
- Resistance to Reformation: 0.5 (Duomo di Milano 3)
- Sailors: 0.25 (Belem Tower 3)
- Ship Trade Power: 0.3 (Bara Katra 3)
- Stability Cost Modifier: -0.25 (Stonehenge 3)
- Tariffs: 0.2 (El Escorial 3)
- Technology Cost: -0.15 (City of Khami 3, Sankore Madrasah 3)
- Tolerance of Heathens: 1 (Stonehenge 3)
- Tolerance of Heretics: 2 (Hagia Sophia 3, Stonehenge 3)
- Tolerance of the True Faith: 3 (Hagia Sophia 3, Notre-Dame Cathedral 3)
- Trade Efficiency: 0.1 (Aït Benhaddou 3)
- Trade Steering: 0.2 (Bara Katra 3)
- Treasure Fleet income: 0.2 (El Escorial 3)
- Vassal Force Limit Contribution: 0.5 (The Grand Palace of Bangkok 3)
- War Score Cost vs Other Religions: -0.15 (Malta Forts 3)
- Yearly Absolutism: 1 (The Grand Palace of Bangkok 3)
- Yearly Corruption: -0.1 (Parthenon 3)
- Yearly Patriarch Authority: 0.005 (Hagia Sophia 3)
And there was a bunch of extra decent monuments available in HRE and South East Asia for the taking I just didn't get to yet. The stuff open for grabbing includes +10% goods produced in Amsterdam, -2 unrest in St Petersburg, +1 missionary in Ostlandet, two more pope mana monuments in HRE, +2 diplo slots in Pegu, -10% tech cost in Korea, and the list goes on and on.
I think the key issue is just how easy it is to stack all those bonuses. If you were limited to only a few monuments per country, that would be a lot better. In CK2 price goes by 40% for every monument you already control (by 80% for each of same category), and CK2 never overflows with gold the way EU4 does, so I don't think that would even work. Maybe just make every monument require spending a accepted culture slot on it?
Somehow Catholicism became the strongest religion, but only on condition that you control curia during Council of Trent, or AI makes so many non-stupid choices, as conciliatory choices are just so ridiculously weaker than harsh choices, it feels like basically a fuck you to the player. You lose curia RNG, AI picks all the bad choices, deal with it. Especially −10% War score cost vs other religions (which you can absolutely stack with -15% from Malta monument, -20% from age objective, and some other discounts) is stupidly good bonus AI will happily throw away for weak −10% Curia powers cost.
Hilariously people online usually whine about the opposite case - where they were playing heretics, or allied with heretics, and Pope took harsh positions while they'd rather have conciliatory.
Funnily enough, I was completely overflowing on Pope mana even after having modifier for controlling Rome that was supposed to prevent me from getting any Pope mana.
Beyond that, there were other issues, like the unguarantee exploit (which AI was also using), AI endlessly pointlessly pillaging each other's capitals. The game overall feels really clunky, with so many poorly connected systems, and UI not being sure what it should do. I think the time is right for EU5.
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