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EU4 - Development Diary - 16th of February 2021

Hello everybody and welcome back to another EUIV dev diary and it has been a while for me!

Shortly before EUIV moved over to sunny Barcelona, I devoted some of my time to reworking Australia as I felt the current map of the continent was a bit lacking and very annoying to own what with all these little unconnected islands amidst the wasteland. On top of that, the continent being an entirely uncolonized block of nothing before colonialism seems a little inaccurate, given how lively the continent actually was before the Europeans arrived.

So, first thing to note is that Australia is now entirely connected through colonisable provinces, with the great Pilbara now connecting the north and west of Australia.
20210215172646_1.jpg

Another important rework comes in the form of the new states Australia now enjoys. What I wanted out of this is I wanted Australia to be on par with the other colonial regions in the game in terms of province count and strategic importance.
20210215170805_1.jpg

When shaping the states and provinces, I wanted to hit a nice balance between pre and post colonial Australian borders, so state borders are largely determined by colonial Australian state boundaries, while provinces are more determined by the distribution of Aboriginal peoples. All provinces also have both their Aboriginal and colonial names depending on who owns the province.
1613408346626.png

The Australian Gold Rush can now be yours, with Australian provinces enjoying a high chance of gold and some provinces in the south having a chance for gems, and a few key provinces able to produce coal.
20210215172855_1.jpg

Next, I’ll highlight some of the playable nations down under. Up north we have the Larrakia Federation composed of all of the top-end nations you see here, with Larrakia and Tiwi enjoying a unique set of national ideas. The Larrakia federation was responsible for much of pre-colonial Australia’s wealth through trade with the Makassarians. This trade also brought with it some Islamic influences, though the Aboriginal people of Australia never fully converted.
20210215170717_1.jpg

LAR_ideas = {
start = {
global_trade_power = 0.1
trade_efficiency = 0.1
}

bonus = {
global_ship_trade_power = 0.2
}

trigger = {
tag = LAR
}
free = yes #will be added at load.

LAR_makassar_trade = {
merchants = 1
global_foreign_trade_power = 0.1
}
LAR_federation = {
diplomatic_upkeep = 2
}
LAR_dreaming = {
global_autonomy = -0.05
}
LAR_dowed = {
legitimacy = 1
republican_tradition = 0.2
global_unrest = -1
}
LAR_ceremonial_scarring = {
shock_damage = 0.1
}
LAR_hospitality = {
diplomatic_reputation = 2
}
LAR_kenbi_land_claim = {
core_creation = -0.15
}
}

TIW_ideas = {
start = {
female_advisor_chance = 0.75
shock_damage_received = -0.2
}

bonus = {
leader_land_shock = 1
}

trigger = {
tag = TIW
}
free = yes

TIW_yiminga = {
may_recruit_female_generals = yes
global_manpower_modifier = 0.2
}
TIW_dreaming_totem = {
tolerance_own = 2
}
TIW_kulama = {
production_efficiency = 0.1
}
TIW_purrukapali = {
naval_tradition_from_battle = 0.5
}
TIW_marriage = {
heir_chance = 0.5
global_unrest = -1
}
TIW_isolationism = {
land_morale = 0.1
}
TIW_one_people = {
culture_conversion_cost = -0.25
}
}

Moving along down south we have the Eora people, the original inhabitants of the Sydney area.
EOR_ideas = {
start = {
diplomatic_reputation = 1
light_ship_power = 0.15
}

bonus = {
num_accepted_cultures = 2
}

trigger = {
tag = EOR
}
free = yes

EOR_lifestyle = {
naval_morale = 0.15
}
EOR_bands = {
state_maintenance_modifier = -0.25
}
EOR_enduring = {
religious_unity = 0.25
tolerance_heathen = 1
}
EOR_protect = {
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.1
global_sailors_modifier = 0.1
}
EOR_sacred = {
own_coast_naval_combat_bonus = 1
}
EOR_pemulwuy = {
land_morale = 0.15
}
EOR_berewaldal = {
merchants = 1
global_foreign_trade_power = 0.1
}
}

The Kaurna people, first inhabitants of Adelaide.
KAU_ideas = {
start = {
female_advisor_chance = 0.75
global_tax_modifier = 0.3
}

bonus = {
development_cost = -0.1
}

trigger = {
tag = KAU
}
free = yes

KAU_totemic_matriarchy = {
may_recruit_female_generals = yes
tolerance_own = 2
}
KAU_pangkarra = {
governing_capacity_modifier = 0.1
}
KAU_coastal_pangkarra = {
global_ship_trade_power = 0.2
}
KAU_redgum_shelters = {
build_cost = -0.15
}
KAU_communal_ownership = {
global_unrest = -2
}
KAU_old_tjilbruke = {
stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
reform_progress_growth = 0.15
}
KAU_south_australia_act = {
core_creation = -0.2
}
}

Palawa, first people of Tasmania.
PLW_ideas = {
start = {
stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
land_morale = 0.1
}

bonus = {
monarch_military_power = 1
}

trigger = {
tag = PLW
}
free = yes #will be added at load.

PLW_oyster = {
production_efficiency = 0.1
}
PLW_dual_identity = {
legitimacy = 1
num_accepted_cultures = 1
}
PLW_darwin = {
shock_damage = 0.2
}
PLW_parlevar = {
ae_impact = -0.15
}
PLW_writers = {
technology_cost = -0.1
}
PLW_survivors = {
fire_damage = 0.1
}
PLW_enduring = {
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.25
}
}

Kamilaroi, one of the most populated collective of Australian nations.
GMI_ideas = {
start = {
land_morale = 0.1
shock_damage = 0.1
}

bonus = {
land_forcelimit_modifier = 0.33
}

trigger = {
tag = GMI
}
free = yes #will be added at load.

GMI_sacred_caves = {
core_creation = -0.15
}
GMI_land_of_languages = {
num_accepted_cultures = 2
}
GMI_fertile_soils = {
development_cost = -0.1
}
GMI_dhulu = {
diplomats = 1
envoy_travel_time = -0.25
}
GMI_matrilineal_lineage = {
legitimacy = 1
republican_tradition = 0.2
female_advisor_chance = 0.5
}
GMI_familial_law = {
global_autonomy = -0.05
}
GMI_red_kangaroo = {
global_unrest = -2
}
}

I would have loved to have made ideas for all nations in Australia, but alas time was not on my side there so if you do not have unique ideas, you will get the shared Aboriginal Ideas.
generic_aboriginal_ideas = {
start = {
tolerance_own = 1
stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
}

bonus = {
shock_damage = 0.1
}

trigger = {
culture_group = aboriginal_australian
}
free = yes

aborig_art = {
prestige = 1
}
aborig_fire_stick_farming = {
development_cost = -0.1
}
aborig_walkabout = {
movement_speed = 0.1
}
aborig_outback = {
land_attrition = -0.1
}
aborig_sacred = {
global_tax_modifier = 0.1
}
aborig_dreamtime = {
religious_unity = 0.2
}
aborig_music = {
improve_relation_modifier = 0.2
}
}

But Aboriginal culture is not a single monolithic entity, so it has been divided into its own group. If we were being entirely accurate about this, almost all provinces in Australia would be their own culture, so some generalization has been done for gameplay purposes.
20210215173636_1.jpg

On top of all these new nations, the Aboriginal Australians also have access to the new Alcheringa religion! Most commonly known to colonizers as “Dreamtime”, Alcheringa refers to the vast distinct religions found among the Australian population. Though each people usually have their own distinct faith, most Australian faiths have a concept of “Dreamtime” or “The Dreaming”, a time of myth and legend that simultaneously occurred in the distant past and continues to occur around us every day.
20210215173412_1.jpg

Every Aboriginal people has their own pantheon of gods and “Dreaming Stories”. Alcheringa uses a system similar to the Fetishist cult system, with new stories becoming unlocked via missions.

These missions vary in what you must do, from defeating enemies in battle, to building an oceangoing vessel for the first time, to turning the Makassar trade on its head and dominating trade in the Moluccas.

The Aboriginals also enjoy all new unit models.
image (21).png


That’s all for this week, hope you all enjoy my last hurrah of EUIV content.
 
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Australia colonization began in 1788, nearly the end of EU4's game timeframe. Australia's gold rush started in 1851.
Facts.
Why is Australia getting all these buffs?
For me it was a dead place, only usefull for one or two missions and the good old joy of painting the map.
Why does Australia need to "be on part with other colonial regions" when those colonial regions were vastly larger, richer, more populated, more important to history, earlier colonized, and stronger?
The other colonial regions deserve to be interesting to play, I think we agree on that, but why Australia doesn't? If you did read what the devs and some wonderfull people shared here you woulded understand that Paradox did't stop everyone and everything to do this...
Is the game not supposed to be based in history?
It is based on history, we are all free to criticize when the gameplay isn't what we espect. Make yourself heard.
Couldn't this exact same rational be used for buffing, say, North Africa to the same level as China?
I doubt the Aboriginal AI will ever do much with this buffs, it shouldn't change the european conquer.
From the MP point of view I can't say anything, I never will play with more than 4 people, isn't my thing.

Again, thanks for the work dear HOI4 dev, have a great day.
 
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If they're low dev and never leave the continent, what's the issue? You afraid one of the groups is going to conquer China because they don't have bad ideas?
The issue is that the design philosophy now seems to go away from being based on history to entirely metagame reasons to ensure some kind of balance or give buffs to certain nations.

And to be honest, it looks like someone is overbuffing his pet project.
 
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Did you consult with any authorities on Aboriginal history as to the accuracy of depicting Aboriginals as living under state-like entities?
 
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NIs, religions, are at least somewhat ignorable as long as they aren't buffed to the point where we see other nations trying to switch to new religions/tags in Australia because they are stronger. So they can be "interesting", if that's how you want to put it. But just on a pure dev and income (especially gold) basis Australia being "on par" with other CNs is incredibly ahistoric and massively shifts balance. This should not be happening in a game that pretends to be historical. It's one thing to give extra dev to Europe because the game actually needs that to bring about a reasonably historical outcome but it's totally different when you just go around handing out regional province and dev buffs that reflect neither historical reality nor gameplay need.

Also, whoever said that you need massive amounts of provinces and dev in a region to be "interesting"? Players have played interesting games starting out as a 1/1/1 isolated in Siberia and Alaska.

On a tangent, can we just pause for a minute and consider how absurd it is that the entire new world, including the great empires of Aztec/Mayans/Incas, vastly more advanced than anything in Australia, are considered "primitives" unable to build boats whilst we now have a Great Britain-tier Abbo naval power?
 
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On a tangent, can we just pause for a minute and consider how absurd it is that the entire new world, including the great empires of Aztec/Mayans/Incas, vastly more advanced than anything in Australia, are considered "primitives" unable to build boats whilst we now have a Great Britain-tier Abbo naval power?
And also have vastly inferior NIs. Who would have thought that if you pitch Aztecs and Australia's aboriginals against one another the Aztecs will lose because they have less morale.
 
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Yeah, and I'd add that the Pacific Northwest particularly particularly needs work. It remains basically untouched in 1.31, other than a handful of missions and their actually nerfed new national ideas. I'm still really hoping that they'll take another look there to add impassable terrain (to represent the Cascade and Coast ranges), more provinces (since the current province count is so abysmally low), and more estuaries/natural harbors (since the region is full of both). That's the bare minimum of what it needs; it'd also be great to get more tags, since many parts of it were extremely densely populated.
Yeah, America really needs more natural barriers, its not fun to chase a 3k stack halfway across the continent.
 
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NIs, religions, are at least somewhat ignorable as long as they aren't buffed to the point where we see other nations trying to switch to new religions/tags in Australia because they are stronger. So they can be "interesting", if that's how you want to put it. But just on a pure dev and income (especially gold) basis Australia being "on par" with other CNs is incredibly ahistoric and massively shifts balance. This should not be happening in a game that pretends to be historical. It's one thing to give extra dev to Europe because the game actually needs that to bring about a reasonably historical outcome but it's totally different when you just go around handing out regional province and dev buffs that reflect neither historical reality nor gameplay need.

Also, whoever said that you need massive amounts of provinces and dev in a region to be "interesting"? Players have played interesting games starting out as a 1/1/1 isolated in Siberia and Alaska.

On a tangent, can we just pause for a minute and consider how absurd it is that the entire new world, including the great empires of Aztec/Mayans/Incas, vastly more advanced than anything in Australia, are considered "primitives" unable to build boats whilst we now have a Great Britain-tier Abbo naval power?
I wouldnt mind if they threw Reformation out of the window myself, wouldnt mind a path to have boats eventually even if it was difficult, an actual Sunset Invasion before Europeans arrive as a VH Achievement challenge would be fun to have.
 
And also have vastly inferior NIs. Who would have thought that if you pitch Aztecs and Australia's aboriginals against one another the Aztecs will lose because they have less morale.
NIs have always been kind of silly, gamey things though. I don't think you can criticize any specific comparison of them since the whole system is fairly dysfunctional and mostly based on memes (prussian space marines, infinite russians, etc).
 
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NIs have always been kind of silly, gamey things though. I don't think you can criticize any specific comparison of them since the whole system is fairly dysfunctional and mostly based on memes (prussian space marines, infinite russians, etc).
See my post about Ulm.
Ulm is prime meme material, but each NI can be linked to something in its history.

Can you do that for the aborigine tags?
 
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the australian tags probably shouldnt have naval ideas, but they did have warfare and even had guerilla warfare against the british.
Aboriginal people had a long history of sailing and constructed boats for trade and possibly even seeing navel combat, so I don't see why not give them navel ideas, even if they didn't have "navies" in the sense European nations did.

It'll be decades till they could even get navies to compare to even most other nations in SEA regardless.

1613512123283.png
 
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The issue is that the design philosophy now seems to go away from being based on history to entirely metagame reasons to ensure some kind of balance or give buffs to certain nations.

And to be honest, it looks like someone is overbuffing his pet project.
Sure. I don't see how that's necessarily an issue in itself though as opposed to a simple change in direction. Especially given that even in multiplayer these will hardly ever make a difference before other powerful picks. When you take it out of the realm of mechanics it essentially becomes a question of flavor.

Since at least being based on anything seems to be your standard for ideas for other small tags that never became major powers on the world stage, Couldn't an example like @Mommy 's suffice?
 
The issue is that the design philosophy now seems to go away from being based on history to entirely metagame reasons to ensure some kind of balance or give buffs to certain nations.

And to be honest, it looks like someone is overbuffing his pet project.
So, your argument is that peoples that never reached a certain achievement in history and will also likely never reach the analogous achievement in the game should be told, if by supreme effort in the game they do actually achieve said feat, "sorry, dude, but you didn't get this far in history so you get zip"? That seems unnecessarily harsh for a player who has taken on that challenge.
 
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Mainly I just think national ideas aren't a measurement of how "good" a country is. I could give Palawa every military buff in the game and they'd still crumble to the British Empire when the time comes because national ideas alone don't determine the outcome of an EU4 campaign.

We can't win with national ideas. If we make them strong, people complain because they're better than X national ideas, but if we make them weak people complain because then there's no point to play them. The design I take to it, which is not everyone's, is I tend to give nations in a difficult starting positions strong ideas to reward the player for pulling themselves out of a tough situation.

When I designed Saluzzo ideas, I didn't find anything to support the idea that Saluzzo were intrinsically better than any of the other Italian city states, but in-game Saluzzo has to fight hard to establish itself so rewarding that seems fitting.

Not everyone takes that approach and it's fine, but I don't agree that me giving Palawa some army bonuses is really going to change the fact that any world superpower targeting Australia is going to be able to overpower them.

Thank you for explaining and standing by your design decisions. However while perfectly understandable in isolation, the extremely stacked ideas really got weird in last few patches. It used to be ideas represented an expertise in various aspects of the possible gameplay wih some historic and potential flavour. It seems however lately all the ideas are super munchkin stacking of similar bonuses accomplishing a particular thing. Look at Ottoman ideas for example, they get various bonuses to represent different things. I have a feeling if their ideas were designed today they would get artillery combat bonus, artillery fire, siege ability and artillery cost reduction in their ideas, if made by the same standards these Southeast Asian and Aborigine ideas were made.

Also yes, I feel the same way about Prussian ideas and you might pull a few strings to demolish their idea set.
 
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No. While some Australian nations were very decentralised, I wanted fighting back the Europeans to be a viable player fantasy and Stateless Society seemed way too punishing, and not accurate for all nations on the continent.
Is a fantasy and a continent-wide generalisation really the basis for that kind of decision?
 
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Thats a silly answer.

Its about two things.

1. In game balance, specifically the balance between ideas. The more native tags there are the weaker exploration and especially expansion ideas become as there is less need to even colonize countries when you can simply conquer it from natives. At least colonizers pose some form of challenge when you try to take their colony, but conquering natives is mostly just busywork.
It also devalues a entire game system and makes the game less diverse when conquest becomes the solution to everything and you do not need colonization much anymore.
And it makes "colonizing" much faster which is already ahistorically fast in EU4 which makes later settler techs useless.

2. Historical accuracy. That natives were conquered and incorporated into colonies happened a few times, mainly in central and south america by the Spanish, more often than not the natives were displaced entirely and did not become part of colonies (Australia, North America). So that you can simply conquer natives in those regions instead of having to colonize does not reflect how expansion in those regions worked.

Edit: That could be solved if, apart from the central and south american high cultures, you could not annex natives directly, but the conquered territory would turn into a colony with some initial population. Conquering would still provide a boost but dedicated colonizers would still have an advantage because of colony growth and you can't just simply conquer natives until a colonial nation forms without actually colonizing something.


These are actually very interesting and viable ideas! Should be an easy fix to incorporate too. It doesn’t affect the tags and it makes colonizing slightly more interesting! I like how you don’t just bash native tags for existing