Fun and Balance mod for EU4 1.10.1

Here's Fun and Balance updated for 1.10.1.

Direct downloads:

• Fun and Balance for EU4 1.10.1 - Download.
• Fun and Balance for EU4 1.10.1 and Extended Timeline (0.12.0 version) - Download.
• (Shattered Europe version waiting for upstream mod update)

Nation Designer changes

Most of the changes for new version are unsurprisingly for nation designer. Custom idea bonuses are unlocked up to much higher level, for most up to level 10, at steeply increasing cost, and many missing bonuses are added.

As even one level 10 idea typically costs 225 points you won't generally be able to access them at default point cost (it can be increased from menu to up to 800, or modded even higher if you so wish).

Nation Designer costs are currently so ridiculously unbalanced that I made no attempt whatsoever at trying to balance them - costs for additional levels are simple extrapolations from existing bonuses of existing national ideas, so 100-150 points gets you something comparable to typical existing idea group, leaving you with a few spare points for a small starting area.

I completely removed restriction on max custom ideas from same type, as well as restriction on which idea groups you can take so if you want to take 6 military ideas in a row, suit yourself. I very strongly disagree with such arbitrary restrictions on player's freedom to play crazy setups, unless they are genuinely addressing major exploits, which they are definitely not here.

New governments are unlocked at costs vaguely corresponding to tech levels they get unlocked at. That includes most custom government types. Only papacy and celestial empire are kept disabled, as I'm not sure if that won't break the game somehow.

Custom nation distance limit is increased as well, so you can have Genoa-shaped nation if you so wish.

Oh and I fixed it so average zero-cost ruler/heir is 3/3/3, as is actual average monarch in game - there's no reason whatsoever to penalize custom nations with -1 mana of each category for the first few decades of the game for no reason.

Nation Designer - what's missing

I didn't add any new flags, colors, cultures, religions, unit pack settings etc.

Unfortunately it's not possible to add ideas that give any bonuses except numerical ones. So no new CBs, abilities etc. via ideas. At least not in straightforward way, there could be some scripting trickery here, but at that point you're probably better off editing game files yourself.

And again - Nation Designer is crazy unbalanced. Land is cheap, Western tech group is crazy cheap, decent ideas are ridiculously expensive, but then good ones are really pointless ones cost just as much. If anybody feels like balancing that out, I'm be happy to hear better numbers. Or I might try fixing it myself someday, but it's a bit too crazy right now.

Nation Designer synergies

Many existing features of Fun and Balance work really well with Nation Designer, like:

• Controlling area of another nation gives you that nation's missions from the pool, so your custom nation will have interesting missions, changing as it goes through campaign (well, if you play in area with existing nations with special missions, if you start in Alaska, not really).
• You can form almost every culture's primary nation
• Holy sites allow for some unusual religious scenarios
• A lot of arbitrary limitations is removed, which together with nations of your own design gives you a ton of flexibility to do unusual things

Definitely take advantage of that!

And remember that you can use Nation Designer not only to create a nation for yourself, but interesting opponents too. Maybe playing 800-point blob with ridiculous bonuses all the way isn't your thing, but playing as an OPM against a few such blobs, huh?

Other changes

Norse and Jewish religions now have their holy sites (same as in CK2, so easier than most other religions) with associated bonuses and missions. (there are no holy sites in Extended Timeline version yet)

Sadly really random lucky nations I was so excited about don't seem to be really working as well as they're supposed to. I might replace that with script-driven lucky nations system in the uture.

Horde bonuses reduced a bit from old versions of Fun and Balance, as they went a bit too far.

Qing decision changed to switch you to Chinese tech and despotic monarchy instead of requiring it as prerequisite, so AI has some chance to do it. (in previous patches form Manchu decision did it instead, Qing makes more sense)

Everything is optional

The mod is built in a way that different features and tweaks don't depend on each other if possible, so if you want to play with just some but not all of its features, or change or add something, it should be fairly easy. Except religions, that's a bit too hard to disentangle.