Originally posted by pauljdupre:

This seemed like the best place to post a lengthy write-up like this one, so here I am.I hope that this discussion can be used as a place to discuss the points I bring up.

First off, I want to congratulate the past and present Common Universalis teams for making a mod that is, in my opinion, the best EU4 mod out there. I say this having checked out multiple other overhaul mods, including several full playthroughs of Meiou and Taxes (which I quite enjoyed). Meiou is a different game though, forced to run on Paradox's EU4. Common Universalis makes Eu4 what it always should have been.

Therefore, everything I say should be taken as constructive criticism from a huge fan of the mod


Development and the Economy:

This is a main selling point of the mod. I love the dynamic development that truly depends on how you treat and invest in your provinces. I even like that dynamic development is quite slow until the end of 1600s/1700s, this feels historically accurate and creates a race to set up the technology, buildings and ideas to reach that stage of growth before others.

That said, I think it may be a bit too extreme. As France, a wealthy nation, none of my urban development grew (except in Paris, most of which was event driven) until the 1600s, even though my provinces were prosperous since the 1400s, never got sieged down, and i invested in them whenever I could. This was a tall colonial france, where I stayed within my borders, but only agriculture ever grew for the first 2/3rds of the games.

To fix this, I think that technology, buildings, ideas and modifers that reduce development time should instead increase increase speed of development, like the aristocratic idea does for agricultural development, and be slightly stronger by themselves. This would make it less about compounding modifiers and more about having them. The way the current system works (I think), -50% dev time for 10 years is much better than -10% dev time for 50 years. You can then make literacy affect urbanization growth with increasing returns, maintaining some of the feel of the urban explosion of the 1700s. It's just frustrating to never gain urban dev no matter what for the first 250 years of the game.

Also, there's a bug (or maybe strange feature) where agricultural development can't increase in provinces you've colonized until a colonial nation gets them.

Military: The CU system actually integrates professionalism like it should have been. Leaders also feel much better, the autogeneration is extremely fun. I think this system is flawless.

Art: This is a great addition, especially with the new tech system, to give you an impactful diplo points sink. I think that the mod could do a better job of stressing how important and powerful art can be, as I missed out on it during my first few playthroughs.

Navy: With the new update, transport ships can also protect trade, and actually do it better than light ships. This took me a while to get my head around, but I think I like it. It simulates a civilian fleet that is very profitable but vulnerable to war.

New tech system: I love the auto-tech system! This was a stroke of genius, it makes literacy and buildings feel integrated into your nation's advancement organically. Even playing tall coloniak france, I never ran out of things to do with my monarch points.

There are kinks to work out, though. Colonial nations, for instance, never tech up after being created. Every 50 years, I had to go into the console and tech them all up manually. The reason for this seems to be that for the purposes of research progress, all techs are several hundred years ahead of time. I assume this is more of a bug than a feature, but it makes New World colonization feel like a lost cause.
The AI in Europe seems to handle the system ok, though they always lagged a bit in tech compared to the player after the 1600s. In the rest of the world, countries are very far behind, maybe too far behind? I feel that they are too technologically close to the europeans in vanilla by the 1700s and the mod does a great job of fixing that, but I wonder if it's slightly too far.

Estates: I like the move towards making estates autonomous as opposed to monarch point cows every 20 years. However, I think that the nobles take power too easily in every province. It turns out that only small barren provinces are ever controlled by the burghers, because their minimum of 2 urban development (1 commerce and 1 production) can stand up to 1 or 2 agricultural development. I would increase the power that burghers get from literacy and urban development, and maybe cut the amount of power nobles get from agricultural development.

AI and estates: By the 1600s, most AI countries have been forced into Oral Tradition by the nobles. This would be ok, except the absolutism requirement to go back to sovereign law is difficult to achieve even for a player. These countries are then crippled for the rest of the game, with 50% autonomy provinces adjacent to their capital. Additonally, because New world provinces start with low agricultural development, all 6 of my colonial nations spent the first 50 years of their existence being destroyed by burgher rebels, which is strange.

Ui: This, I think, is CU's greatest weakness. Switching from feudal conscription to volunteer conscription, for instance, is a crucial transition from early to mid-game. However, it is mentally exhausting to read the conditions for switching and figuring out which you do or don't meet. In vanilla, requirements are separated so that you can use the green checkmarks to verify individual conditions quickly. I think CU should try and do this as much as possible.

Conclusion: If you made it all the way to the end, thank you! If any developper of the mod wants feedback, has questions or wants help with testing, I am more than happy to help. Thank you for the great mod, and let's have a discussion!