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EU4 - Development Diary - 15th of May 2018

Hello! So today's Dev Diary will be covering the ways to enter the Subcontinent of India. We’ve added two mechanics to help you gobbling up all those new juicy provinces in India if you are coming from distant lands.

First is the new unique government that the true heirs of Timur the Lame can claim, or as we good friends of him like to call him, our good Amir Timur. The Mughal Diwan will give the empire a bureaucracy capable of integrating the vast swaths of lands that lie before it. The reform mechanic replaces the promotion of cultures to one where the nation integrates a culture by assimilating it into its government. Assimilation of a culture happens when the nation have conquered every single province of that culture and that will make that culture a permanently accepted culture of the country.

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Though besides only becoming promoted, if the Mughals manages to integrate an entire culture group into their empire they’ll get some small boni from the cultures contribution to the empire's administration. However this bonus is not permanent and is only kept as long as they can keep control of all the provinces.

Keep in mind all values are very work in progress and are very much subject to change and hit with nerf hammers!

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The second feature we’ve added is for the Europeans and is called Charter Trade Company. This is a new diplomatic tool which will let you setup a trade company in foreign distant lands like Africa, South East Asia or India. The interaction has a base cost for establishing the expedition to the east. This cost is calculated on your colonial range meaning as you progress in technology it will get cheaper, or if you have modifiers that steers your nation to the more adventurous type. This action can only be used on Trade Company Charter regions and any provinces you gain from this will automatically be made into a Trade Company province.

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It’s a small feature, but we put a lot of focus on making sure the AI uses this as one would expect . We did this since we know this has been a major pet peeve of you lot, ranging from it not being worth it shipping your troops over half the world to just simply the AI never does.

So we put our elbow grease on to make it possible to “get started” in the far east and that the colonizers of Europe would understand how to do this. While playing this is how it turned out for me with Spain buying provinces in Madagascar, Gujarat, Coromandel and Portugal in Goa and the Malabar Coast. Also bonus with the Turkish West India Company next to the Spanish Gujarat.

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Next thing on the agenda is PDXCON! You should look up the EU4 booth and I'll happily tease you about how cool the upcoming features are :cool:
See you there!
 
@Groogy Historically India was about 8-10 mill techs behind europeans, now with europeans getting provinces and giving India institutions for free, how far do you see India ever fall behind ?
ever more than 3 techs in mill ?
if not then u need to make some real considerations hoe to change that
 
Special Event to cede the island :)

I've been playing with the Expanded Estuaries and Trade Centers mod, which has events to cede a specific province (forgot the name) in india and macau in china to portugal, and I think hong kong to england as well. I'm fine with that kind of solution, but since we are getting this new system, why not do it right?
 
Will the AI be focused on trying to expand these possessions as well? And will they perhaps build forts/ station troops etc to ensure they arent pushed out again?

This is a worry of mine, hopefully the AI will see improvements so that it has armies stationed in India and doesn't leave it's newly acquired lands vulnerable, maybe Sepoys as special recruitable units in Indian cores?

@Groogy
As someone that plays a wide range of nations across the map is there any possibility of having more variety/unique art for the government forms and mission trees depending on region? I understand it's a lot of work for your artists but European icons/art for all the world is rather dull, maybe have a European, Asian, Indian, New World, African and Middle Eastern split? maybe in future patches?
 
@Groogy Historically India was about 8-10 mill techs behind europeans,


Eh that's not how the Europeans conquered India though. Britain conquered it by supporting local regimes when a power vacuum was created (see the fall of Mughals)
The Indian military machine was not as primitive as you perceive it. In fact the Mughals and the Brits both relied on the Rajput's Purbias who were excellent riflemen. Among a lot of other also hired local guns.
 
Pleasantly surprised with that buying provinces feature. Gonna make game more historical and open new strategies. And exploits tho.

While you are at it, playing with Exploration and trade regions, take 5 min and change something in Expansion idea group so we have a reason to pick it. Gonna add some fresh blood to the game.
 
Not to be a stickler: But will there be mechanics in MP to prevent Indian power blobs from just denying Europeans? A big complaint in the MP community at present is the removal of westernization for institutions has powered up India so hard that they're almost consistently eating up 5-6 of the great power list along with Asia (meaning, stronger than Euros.)
 
@Groogy
As someone that plays a wide range of nations across the map is there any possibility of having more variety/unique art for the government forms and mission trees depending on region? I understand it's a lot of work for your artists but European icons/art for all the world is rather dull, maybe have a European, Asian, Indian, New World, African and Middle Eastern split? maybe in future patches?

We want more art of course but it doesn't grow on trees :(
But we have planned to squeeze in more art on it if we have time,
 
@Groogy Historically India was about 8-10 mill techs behind europeans, now with europeans getting provinces and giving India institutions for free, how far do you see India ever fall behind ?
ever more than 3 techs in mill ?
if not then u need to make some real considerations hoe to change that
Trade companies don’t spread institutions
 
No because of Celestial Emperorship we can't have Ming sell provinces I'm afraid :(
If they would get a huge player buy a province which refuses to be a tributary then China will pretty much collapse immediately. Doesn't make sense for the AI to kill itself for that.

Makes sense, but you could make Macau an island to prevent that. Just saying it is possible.
 
Hmm I'm not sure how I feel about the Chartering Trade Companies thing... it seems like a band-aid to compensate for the European AIs inability to project power in Asia: instead of having the Europeans fight in India, just let them buy provinces outright. Why can't provinces be bought anywhere else? (and why aren't Aden and Hormuz Trade Companies yet?) It still seems very ad-hoc and unhistorical, but I'm willing to wait and see how fun it is in practice. At least it's another money sink for countries near end-nodes with infinite cash...
 
We want more art of course but it doesn't grow on trees :(
But we have planned to squeeze in more art on it if we have time,
I’m eager to see what art is added for this expansion. India already has a good deal of unique units, but I’m sure quite a few more can be added (like Mughals). Indian advisors?
Any chance of some more vanilla unit updates?
Makes sense, but you could make Macau an island to prevent that. Just saying it is possible.
Or just have trade company provinces not affect mandate.
 
Hmm I'm not sure how I feel about the Chartering Trade Companies thing... it seems like a band-aid to compensate for the European AIs inability to project power in Asia: instead of having the Europeans fight in India, just let them buy provinces outright. Why can't provinces be bought anywhere else? (and why aren't Aden and Hormuz Trade Companies yet?) It still seems very ad-hoc and unhistorical, but I'm willing to wait and see how fun it is in practice. At least it's another money sink for countries near end-nodes with infinite cash...

Prior to the 1700s this is how European powers expanded in India though. The exception would be Portugal who did what you might call picking off OPMs more or less.
 
Eh that's not how the Europeans conquered India though. Britain conquered it by supporting local regimes when a power vacuum was created (see the fall of Mughals)
The Indian military machine was not as primitive as you perceive it. In fact the Mughals and the Brits both relied on the Rajput's Purbias who were excellent riflemen. Among a lot of other also hired local guns.

And yet the basic problem that ever since institutions were introduced the whole world has the same tech level as they spread incredibly fast remains.
And instead of fixing that you code the AI to sell provinces to european powers because now the AI has hardly any chance to aquire their historic oversea provinces thanks to the massive Dev buff of India, the complete lack of anti-blobbing mechanics and equal tech levels.

Currently you also could also remove institutions and tech penalties and nothing much would change.
 
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Makes sense, but you could make Macau an island to prevent that. Just saying it is possible.

I’m eager to see what art is added for this expansion. India already has a good deal of unique units, but I’m sure quite a few more can be added (like Mughals). Indian advisors?
Any chance of some more vanilla unit updates?

Or just have trade company provinces not affect mandate.

@Groogy No, it doesn't make sense. Like I said and showed, one unconnected province owned by a 5000 dev country gives Ming less than -0.01 mandate/month. It's been based on a number of connected non-tributary provinces for a long time now.
 
@Groogy No, it doesn't make sense. Like I said and showed, one unconnected province owned by a 5000 dev country gives Ming less than -0.01 mandate/month. It's been based on a number of connected non-tributary provinces for a long time now.
Indeed, so instead of completely barring the empire of china (and other empires) from selling provinces, why not just add a malus based on the amount of mandate loss the province would mean compared to the EoC's current gain?
Or, as mentioned before, let trade company provinces not count for mandate.

Basically any solution is fine as long as we don't get some weird absolute rule that empires won't sell provinces. Just seems like an arbitrary cutoff point, and not very historical.
 
Hello! So today's Dev Diary will be covering the ways to enter the Subcontinent of India. We’ve added two mechanics to help you gobbling up all those new juicy provinces in India if you are coming from distant lands.

The new mechanics look interesting but I don't see how they help with blobbing as the bonuses require you to have already owned the culture/culture groups. Getting there in the first place seems like the hard part with the drastic increase in AE and development.
 
Indeed, so instead of completely barring the empire of china (and other empires) from selling provinces, why not just add a malus based on the amount of mandate loss the province would mean compared to the EoC's current gain?
Or, as mentioned before, let trade company provinces not count for mandate.

Basically any solution is fine as long as we don't get some weird absolute rule that empires won't sell provinces. Just seems like an arbitrary cutoff point, and not very historical.

Perhaps Empires could be give a flat modifier that made it less likely for them to sell provinces instead?
 
Perhaps Empires could be give a flat modifier that made it less likely for them to sell provinces instead?
That does seem like a better solution than just a flat out no for empires. As Groogy stated before the EoC will have mandate issues, but that should be fixable in other ways too.
 
Are the eyelid icons on the left-hand side of the map a new thing? I don't recall seeing them before.

It's buttons available when you are a spectator.