EU4 Development Diary - 18th February 2016

[Krebsig]

Well if it makes you feel better Butua's NI set does reference these tactics so you can still have Shaka style armies No outright mention of the still unborn Zulu kingdom though.

I will manage, in any case I am excited to play an African campaign next patch!

 

[Magean]

The map changes look really great, but I must say I'm a little bit disappointed : I expected new Africa-specific mechanics. Maybe something related to the Triangle Trade, and how it affected the balance of powers in West Africa. Or something to prevent Europeans to do a XVIth century Scramble to Africa... Let's face it, most of the times, Africa ends up divided early on between Portugal, Castile/Spain (or Aragon, since 1.15 it does quite well in my games), Britain and France.

Likewise, does Fetishism have any specific mechanic ? Or is it like Totemism, a quasi-generic Pagan religion with just a few events ? The Mesoamericans and Andeans have their reformation mini-games, the Tengri have syncretic faith interactions... Africa deserves something in that vein. Syncretism was (still is) a big thing in Africa Islam, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[kvk]

The only things that will stop those countrys from being conquered are.

1-> Core cost. But even with the +50% coring cost it would still be cheap and feel too "gamey" no one likes that +50% coring cost.

2-> Force limit. Africa units too weak as they have little force limit and their units are bad as they never can keep up with in tech. Unless one country there become really gigantic 10k western troops at lv6-7 are enough to kill them. If they are very very stubborn 20k troops, and later keep 10k there to deal with rebellions and future wars.

Countrys like castille that have a 40k force limit if they expand well can easily do this. France and england too. Portugual need to give up europans wars for that but still possible.

3-> Atrittion -> Maybe giving africa atrittion levels high as winter atrittion, but instead of winter, the summer being the problem. In many levels a jungle can be as deadly as any artic region. This would at least slow down europeans as they don´t want to burn their manpower there for nothing. (They can go for mercenaries but at least here they will be paying a lot for them).

Well it's not like the ai expands much down there as it is, so maybe we will only see it very late in the game. (but yeah atrittion would make sense)

 

[Bjerregaard]

What is that devilish looking blood-bag next to the "too few rivals" alert?

 

[classicist]

Finally, a Madagascar rework! I love you, Paradox!

 

[Gustav91]

Link colonization of areas/regions to culture groups and tech.
For example Europeans need dip tech 12 to unlock Subsaharan coasts and they never get allowed to inner Africa colonization. Inner Africa conquests need to be done by either getting a protectorate diplomatically or conquest by adding a new troop type African colonial troops, an new type of mercs only recruit-able in subsaharan Africa you get one available regiment per Subsharan military development to recruit and they are from their military tech group. Just a thought.

 

[mwyeoh]

Wow, interesting changes for Africa!
It should make for some interesting colonial changes to the game

 

[B_P]

Wow. Played Kongo recently. It was rather boring. I gues, NOT ANMORE ! Ahahahaha...

 

[Mengli Giray]

Nice work! With a greater focus in Africa and the addition of Barabry raids, can we expect some new slavery mechanics?

 

[Zehir]

Will there be any modifier for Europeans colonizing middle of Africa? Up until inventing medicine for malaria European settlement beyond the coast wasn't possible. It would be perfect if Europeans could set up trade factories on the coast and would be penalized for trying to get into the mainland, so they would need to set up protectorates.

 

[Atlantians]

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for EU4. This time we take a look at Africa, and the changes there. This one of those times when pictures are worth more than 1000 words.

First of all, we have added the entirety of the Kongo region, reaching up to the Great Lakes area. Not just home to the countries of Kongo, Loango and Ndongo, this area now have multiple nations, and could be the basis of a powerful empire.

While we have added over 20 new nations to Central Africa, we have also added new idea groups and unique ideas for these mighty states, including the Great Lakes ideas for our states near the Lake Victoria. These Central Africans also have their own unique technology group, with technology costing 65% more than Westerners.

North we find the Great Lakes Area, with lots of minor nations, some that still exist today, after a brief period of colonialism.

Southeast of Kongo, is Zambia and Mozambique is now filled with provinces and several new nations as well. Magagascar has also seen a rework, with 5 nations struggling for supremacy of the island, complete with their own national ideas and Pagan/Islamic friction

The tradesetup for Africa have changed as well, Zanzibar is now the coast tradenode, with three inland nodes of Kongo, Great Lakes and Zambezi leading to the coasts either west and east. This makes the Zanzibar node a hugely important tradenode for everyone along the Indian Ocean.

Spoiler

No diary on our Africa changes would be complete without giving some attention to religion in the region. Previously we had carpeted non-specific pagan areas with Shamanism or Animism. Now many of our African provinces which have not converted to Islam are portrayed with the Fetishist Pagan religion which grants greater tolerance to heathens and a diplomatic reputation bonus along with the usual pagan decision.

Spoiler

Next week, we’ll talk about two different and new concepts, one which has its own icon in the top bar.

Johan, great changes. This is looking really good.

I have spent time in Uganda and love how you have the Buganda and Busoga.
One correction: you used the name Basoga when it is Busoga. The Kingdom is Busoga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busoga

Busoga is the name of the Kingdom; Basoga is the name of the people. A Musoga is a Basoga individual.

You correctly used Buganda (Kingdom) and not Baganda (people).

Again:
Busoga (Kingdom), Basoga (Tribe), Musoga (Tribesman).

Buganda (Kingdom), Baganda (Tribe), Muganda (Individual Tribesman).


That said, I see where you are going with the 'Fetishist' idea, but that is just a form of Shamanism.

You could just call it African Shamanism or Sub-Saharan Shamanism.

Fetishism is such an obscure term for such a specific thing that 'Sub-Saharan Shamanism' would make a lot more sense on the scale of the game.

 

[Vetgirig]

Or simply ban colonization of Africa till X tech is achieved, malaria and yellow fever outbreak event should wipe out almost whole European army just like during Haitian Revolution where Yellow Fever did most of the killing.

Yep like the Quest for the new World western world can need a Mr Livingstone I presume, to be able to enter central Africa.

Hopefully this will make the Kongo achivement more fun to go for. Kongo start now is very boring.

 

[YuriiH]

but that is just a form of Shamanism.

Well-well, Totemism, Animism, Tengri and Fetishism are all the forms of Shamanism, actually.
Even Shinto with its srines and mikos is Shamanism to a certain extent

 

[sterrius]

Link colonization of areas/regions to culture groups and tech.
For example Europeans need dip tech 12 to unlock Subsaharan coasts and they never get allowed to inner Africa colonization. Inner Africa conquests need to be done by either getting a protectorate diplomatically or conquest by adding a new troop type African colonial troops, an new type of mercs only recruit-able in subsaharan Africa you get one available regiment per Subsharan military development to recruit and they are from their military tech group. Just a thought.

While this can fix the problem its a hard cap. Most of the game works around soft caps, giving you the choice to go for it, as long you pay a steep price.

The good part of the africa rework is the opening of more acess routes to india.

One short (cape of good hope).
One not so short (conquer kongo until you reach muthapa).
One very long for late runners (from mali to ethiopia).

 

[Haldan]

A nation named Kuba? Please tell me there's an achievement called El Presidente - Become a Republican Dictatorship as Kuba.

 

[Spiritraiser]

Its a common name for traditionalist african religions. Today its a bit dated (and has come to be associated with another discipline a lot more) but it works a lot better than saying "traditional African religions" everywhere in the interface

Maybe you can go with just African if there will be any issues. Personally I don't have any problem, but just in case!

 

[yosef]

can you make semein a jewish vassal so we can play a jewish country without breaking the game or cheating

 

[zbyrne]

Will there be anything to help the African nations keep from getting conquered by the Europeans, clear across the continent? I'm pretty sure that sort of thing didn't really happen until the Scramble for Africa in the late 1800s, after all.

Well couple of things - one the Africans weren't so behind the Europeans in tech terms - they were behind, but not "we've never even seen horses or guns" behind like the new worlders. This meant that the "easy" conquests by Conquistadors weren't easy in Africa. Europeans only had an absolute military advantage by the 19th Century. Also Africans fought back and hard, even then. But the biggest reason was disease, the Old World diseases wiping out plenty (that is somewhere between 50-90% according to estimates) of the native new world populations. Africa had all these diseases so that didn't help Europeans, but Africa did have diseases which stopped Europeans, such as Malaria.

Ultimately both (Central/South) America and African colonisation are represented poorly in game. Considering Central/South America colonisation was more like a conquest using very small numbers of men (rather than establishing colonies and growing them with settlers, which happened much more in North Amercia), and African colonisation, if it could be called that, was the establishing of trade posts and forts, not entire cities. So better representation in that regard would help, as well as disease (in both cases)

 

[Guomindang]

Tech level should be something like 35-40 (!!) given that in Victoria you cannot colonize from the beginning...
Core cost is a possible solution, but it should be something like +300% , that is "you cannot core central africa! "

Seeing that max tech is 32, your suggestion is just that colonization shouldn't be possibly (in essence, make it wasteland again)

 

[aragonFTW]

I would love a gif showing the different ways you have to complete African Power in each version of EU4, this patch looks like it just hit it out the map