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EU4 - Development Diary - 10th March 2016

Hello everyone, and welcome to another development diary for Europa Univeralis IV. Today, we focus on many of the core aspects of Mare Nostrum, our next expansion.

First, we have completely changed how naval missions work, introducing a unified system that includes settings for when your ships should return to port for repairs and how aggressive the fleets should be.

Naval Missions are selected from the new mission interface, and each mission targets either a sea/coastal region or a trade node. The old missions to Protect Trade, privateer, Hunt Pirates and Explore are available (depending on which expansions you currently own), just as before, but Mare Nostrum adds three new naval missions.
  • Hunt Enemy Fleets - Your ships will automatically try to hunt down weaker enemy fleets in the region to sink them.
  • Blockade Enemy Ports - This divides your fleet, and attempts to blockade as many ports as possible in the region.
  • Intercept Transports - Your ships will protect coastlines in region and prioritize attacks on any transport fleet.
1ToyfDJ.jpg


The Detach Damaged feature for Ships has gotten a huge boost in Mare Nostrum. Now, ships that are detached from a fleet will a automatically rejoin their original fleet when they have been repaired.

In 1.16, naval leaders will also get siege pips. Each of those pips will increase blockade efficiency by 10%. If you have Mare Nostrum, you’ll now also able to reassign naval leaders while fleets are at sea, as long as they are within supply range.

Some people have complained about how blockades are not really visible. Now there is also a thick red line on the coastlines where you are blockaded, and a purple one is shown where you blockade.
cLuCFtl.jpg


Naval Combat has gotten a complete overhaul as well. First of all, we removed the positioning mechanic, as it was not terribly useful, and players couldn’t really affect it anyway.

Now, there is a restriction in how many ships can fire at a single time in a naval combat. 20 ships is the baseline, 10% more ships can fire in coastline, and there is a variation of 10% more or less based on the differences between the maneuver ability of each fleet’s commander..

Also, Morale Damage is inflicted on all ships still floating whenever a ship is sunk, with up to 2% damage.

A ship being sunk has a chance of being captured instead of sunk, which depends on the enemy commanders maneuver value. If a fleet retreats, all its captured ships are immediately scuttled.

Stay tuned, because next week, we’ll tell you all about condottieri !
 
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Since Sailors are a thing now...

Why not add X amount of crew to each ship (depending on the amount it takes to build the particular ship type) and allow for attacks/sieges to utilize some of the sailors on-board these ships as regular troops?

Think of a "LAND MARINES" button that deploys some of these sailors to siege an unfortified coastal province (or islands). Similar to how forts can use garrisons to attack small armies or become a useful reinforcement to an ongoing land battle.

Sailors should then only be able to be replenished by docking. Naval attrition should have an effect on them too.
 
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Would be nice if after the inverntion of cannons you could use ships as sort of artillety for battles. I think in colonial warware that was a strategy used a lot.

At the very least heavy ships should count for the cannon bonus when sieging coastal provinces that they're blockading.
 
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I don't know about you lot, but I believe there's a big difference between firing and being in the battle
Let's hope so, because they seem to be labouring under the misconception that all battles were like the battle of the spanish armada. While in truth that battle was odd because of the constraints on the region where they were figting.


Since Sailors are a thing now...

Why not add X amount of crew to each ship (depending on the amount it takes to build the particular ship type) and allow for attacks/sieges to utilize some of the sailors on-board these ships as regular troops?

Think of a "LAND MARINES" button that deploys some of these sailors to siege an unfortified coastal province (or islands). Similar to how forts can use garrisons to attack small armies or become a useful reinforcement to an ongoing land battle.

Sailors should then only be able to be replenished by docking. Naval attrition should have an effect on them too.
Or just remove transports and make all ships being able to transport then you can put marines on your boats as you please.
Then again marines are usefull for borarding and stuff too.
 
In 1.16, naval leaders will also get siege pips. Each of those pips will increase blockade efficiency by 10%. If you have Mare Nostrum, you’ll now also able to reassign naval leaders while fleets are at sea, as long as they are within supply range.

A perfect time for me to bring up a old screenshot of mine!

15n5e2o.png
 
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Let's hope so, because they seem to be labouring under the misconception that all battles were like the battle of the spanish armada. While in truth that battle was odd because of the constraints on the region where they were figting.
Well the DD does spefically read:"There is a limit on how many ships can FIRE"
 
Well the DD does spefically read:"There is a limit on how many ships can FIRE"
Yes I know I just responded to the last time you said that. And if it represents the active portion of two lines passing each other then I'll buy. Because that means that the ships rotate in which ones are firing and taking damage.
 
Since Sailors are a thing now...

Why not add X amount of crew to each ship (depending on the amount it takes to build the particular ship type) and allow for attacks/sieges to utilize some of the sailors on-board these ships as regular troops?

Think of a "LAND MARINES" button that deploys some of these sailors to siege an unfortified coastal province (or islands). Similar to how forts can use garrisons to attack small armies or become a useful reinforcement to an ongoing land battle.

Sailors should then only be able to be replenished by docking. Naval attrition should have an effect on them too.
So much this. It should also be possible for the entire crew to die and the ship then floating around deserted for a bit, where it can be captured.
 
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Still waiting on more map news... so France is updated, Ireland is updated, Central Africa is updated, anywhere else?
Scandinavia, England, Scotland and Flanders.
 
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What about some DLC renders of unitpacks that we were promised this week? :p
 
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Odd, no dev replies whatsoever this time, I wonder if they are holding out on us or if they simply are busy.
 
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I'm not really certain the new naval combat width is actually that much of a nerf to galleys. Heavies already munched galleys pretty hard unless the galleys had a pretty fair numbers advantage, and the new combat width changes just mean that there is a maximum to how many ships can actively participate in the battle at once. So you can still drop sixty galleys on the other guys ten heavies, but only twenty of them will be able to fight at a time. It probably doesn't actually change the equation that much.
 
I'm not really certain the new naval combat width is actually that much of a nerf to galleys. Heavies already munched galleys pretty hard unless the galleys had a pretty fair numbers advantage, and the new combat width changes just mean that there is a maximum to how many ships can actively participate in the battle at once. So you can still drop sixty galleys on the other guys ten heavies, but only twenty of them will be able to fight at a time. It probably doesn't actually change the equation that much.

Before, you would have 100 galleys for 20 heavy. Your 100 galleys would fire at the same time and have a chance to destroy some of the heavies. Now, they can fire only 20 at the same time and might not be able to dent on the heavies.

Combat width is a great concept but I hope this new iteration takes into account the quantity vs quality dilemna (by counting the CW in terms of hull for example).
 
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Come on, guys, who would waste an admiral to blockade?
I always prefer to save my points. Only in the very, very, very rare cases where I think I might lose a crucial battle do I buy an admiral. I might need the points for tech, idea groups, et cetera, it's just not worth it, especially going over my limit in generals. With special buildings removed it just makes that general cap even more crucial.
 
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How about making the siege pips actually give siege bonus? A city being bombarded from the ocean should not only get the -2 from "port not blockaded" removed, but actually give the siege a bonus to progress. I guess giving a general 2 transports and getting a siege progress from it is too unbalanced, but you could always give the bonus only to heavies, and only if a good chunk of them are present, like with blockading, where you need a certain amount of ships to do anything.
 
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