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EU4 - Development Diary - 13th of December 2016

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll talk about the biggest feature of our next expansion. A system we called “Ages of Europa Universalis”.

The game is now divided into 4 separate ages, where different rules apply in each age. Each age also have objectives you can fulfill, and abilities you can use use.

  • Age of Discovery => 1400 -1530
  • Age of Reformation => 1530 - 1620
  • Age of Absolutism => 1620 - 1710
  • Age of Revolutions => 1710-1821

Each age have seven objectives that can be fulfilled, and if they are fulfilled, you gain +3 power-projection as well as 3 splendor each month.

Now you may ask? What is splendor then? Well.. Splendor is the age specific currency you use to purchase abilities. There are seven abilities in each age that each country can purchase, and there is also four unique abilities in each age, where countries that historically were powerful in that age can unlock a special ability.

Whenever a new Age arrives, you power projection from objectives start decaying, and you now lose all the abilities you purchased in the previous age.

Today we’ll take a look at the Age of Discovery, which is the first Age.

eu4_140.png


Rules
Religious Rules are valid. (Previously before 1650)
Peasants War, Castilian Civil War, War of the Roses can only happen in this Age.

Objectives
  1. Capital in old world, discover Americas
  2. Own Territory on two continents
  3. Embrace Renaissance and keep it in all state provinces.
  4. Own a 30+ development city
  5. Own 5 Centers of Trade
  6. Have at least 2 personal unions.
  7. Humiliate a Rival
Abilities
  • Allow Edict “Feudal De Jure Law”
  • Transfer vassal wargoal
  • Create a claim bordering claims
  • 50% longer lasting claims.
  • Explorers & Conquistadors do not cost maintenance while on missions.
  • Finished colonies gets +1 random development.
  • Gain +1 attack bonus in your capital's terrain type
  • Ottomans : +33% Siege Ability
  • Portugal : +50 colonial growth
  • Denmark : 30 less liberty desire in subjects.
  • Venice : +50% Trade Power from Ships

Another cool concept we have related to the Age mechanics is the Golden Era. A golden era can be started once per game for a country, as soon as you have fulfilled 3 objectives in an Age, and lasts for 50 years.

A golden age gives you 10% cheaper costs for anything you spend monarch power on, your land and naval morale increase by 10%, and you produce 10% more goods.


The free patch keeps track of which age the game is in, and uses it for triggers for disasters and events.
 
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Abilities
  • Create a claim bordering claims

Does this mean we wont be able to create claims at the beginning of the game? One of the ways of getting a CB against a country. If this is true didn't the community overwhelmingly reject the removal of this a while back?

Bordering claims, not your territory. This would make it so, if you claim one province, you can use that claimed province to claim adjacent ones, even if none of your provinces touches those. (assuming I understood correctly)
 
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Actually it may be bigger than it looks, if they pull it off well it could mean that the game becomes radically different every century, giving incentive to play all the way to the end date.
That's why I said "I hope my opinion can change in the future". They said this was going to be the biggest change ever made to the game so I expected something really big, and this doesn't look that big to me. Let's hope future diaries will make me and other sceptics change our mind!
 
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Awfully eurocentric and christiancentric. And on top of that this looks arcadish.

I am not sure what 'arcadish' means in the Grand Strategy Genre.

I mean, that really isn't a term used in this genre, nor applicable.

World of Tanks is 'arcadish', as opposed to War Thunder.
 
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Ok I'm gonna be the towns idiot who asks if this is gonna be a paid or free feature
and if its paid can you tell us how much is gonna cost
Looks like the system with objectives and abilities is expansion material, but the free patch only keeps track of ages so that events/disasters only happen in the correct ages.

This preview is pretty euro-centric. Shouldn't there be goals that cater to the succesful ROTW nations as well?

Actually, only the PU one is really limited to christians, succesful ROTW countries can still accomplish the others:
Discovering new world: mostly doable by east asian/west african countries, but many europeans won't get it either.
5 COT: large empire anywhere
Large city: pretty sure Ming starts with it.
Embrace Renaissance: easier for europeans, but a truly succesful ROTW country will have developed to get it.
2 continents: same as discovering new world, as well as some countries on borders between continents.
humiliate rival: Universal
 
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More flavour for Europe! That Ottoman buff was desperately needed. I'm glad that the developers are really fleshing out the European majors, they really were lacking in DHE's and flavour. Can we get some more European unit packs too? The game is Europa Universalis after all, it would be senseless to put any effort into the rest of the world (unless it is colonisable by Europeans of course).
I dunno, I mean I really really want to see more Asian content but era-based mechanics are nothing to sniff at either. Yeah the static national abilities for overused majors are possibly a bit underwhelming, but the rest will vastly alter the game.
 
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I kind of hope the nation specific bonuses can be turned off, like lucky nations. Id like to just keep the universal bonuses
 
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OMG, wow Paradox! You weren't lying when you said that this would be the biggest change and addition to the game since ever! I am really glad you did this. Era-based mechanics is a really good way to make each era 'feel' different too, insted of just bigger modifiers etc. I think you really did something good here. :)
 
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After thinking on it for a moment, it would also be nice if there were some thematic objectives specifically for the non-european countries, who can't get PUs. Establishing friendly relations with the colonizers for example.
It would indeed be nice if, at least in some future patch, there could be different ages for non-Europeans. Most of the objectives listed by Johan for the Age of Discovery don't really make much sense for, say, Ming, Ethiopia or the Hurons, or even exclude them explicitly (Personal Unions, and the capital in the old world for for pre-Columbian Americans).
On the other hand, if this concept were to be expanded upon, it could end up making the ROTW more interesting (by giving it different objectives and abilities).
That said, even if the Ages feature only really applies to Europeans (in 1.20), this doesn't really take anything away from the ROTW...
This sounds like quite a huge and interesting addition.
 
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I am not sure what 'acadish' means in the Grand Strategy Genre.

I mean, that really isn't a term used in this genre, nor applicable.

World of Tanks is 'arcadish', as opposed to War Thunder.
An arcade game, imo, is a game with zero immersion filled with non-sensical mechanics just for the fun of it.
I have nothing against that, but maybe that means my wallet won't open anymore for Pdx. If arcade was my thing, i'd be a civ player.
 
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Wait, are they expanding back to 1400? Why say "1400-1550" instead of "1444-1550", while also saying "1710-1821"?
 
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More flavour for Europe! That Ottoman buff was desperately needed. I'm glad that the developers are really fleshing out the European majors, they really were lacking in DHE's and flavour. Can we get some more European unit packs too? The game is Europa Universalis after all, it would be senseless to put any effort into the rest of the world (unless it is colonisable by Europeans of course).

It's not THAT euro centric
ROTW countries can get all the objectives except the PU one (and there are maybe 2 or 3 countries even in Europe which are able to do that)
But some unique bonuses are quite unlogical (Denmark SHOULD lose its PUs, Ottomans dont need another bonus, their blobbing is quite historically relevant)
 
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I dunno, I mean I really really want to see more Asian content but era-based mechanics are nothing to sniff at either. Yeah the static national abilities for overused majors are possibly a bit underwhelming, but the rest will vastly alter the game.

I think a bit underwhelming is an understatement.

Stay tuned, next week we’ll talk about something that will probably be the biggest feature added to the game since we started EU4.

Country modifiers!
 
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