EU4 - Development Diary - 19th of March 2019

[Chief of Staff]

You get permanent claims on provinces all over the place which allows you to cycle wars between many diffrent fronts and contantly expand like no other power in the game. And no british naval preeminence was a post napoleonic war thing. Before that they were a naval power not the naval power. Spain portugal and the netherlands were other important naval powers (heck even France was a naval rival at one point) and they don't get nearly as much claims as Britain does, never mind that half the stuff Britain gets claims on it didn't actually have in this period. Oh and it also get easy access to a PU over france.

I never said British was naval superpower before Napoleonic Wars but even in the face of this, they have been consistently increasing their own territories with very little territories losses in actual history, driven by increasing an amount of trade that supported increasingly larger navy over the long run. That is not to say they have been always successful. They didn't succeed in taking Rio de la Plata during the Napoleonic Wars. Nor did they succeeded in taking Hispaniola during Cromwell's rule, although they did succeeded in taking Jamaica.

With respect to trade and navy, it was actually one thing reinforcing another and made the empire almost resilient in terms of whatever losses it may take. The major exception to this general rule is loss of the American colonies which was mainly due to policies of incompetent governments that left it with no major allies and their navy in a very poor state. And since navy are far more expensive than army in general and home economic base is very small compared to France and Spain at the game start, it makes sense that England / Britain need to focus on TC provinces and islands as well the colonization in order to maintain its own naval security or their home defenses will be severely compromised in the long run.

So long as navy is so expensive, Britain would be hard pressed to have a really large army when there is other additional expenses to consider such as buildings and loans. Warring on the continent is more expensive than in the overseas so that reduces the appeal of continental empire against the overseas empire. Doing both is even more expensive venture to pursue.

I agree that Netherlands and Portugal should have their permanent claims increased. Netherlands for some inexplicable reasons were not given permanent claims on Indonesia, IIRC. I could be mistaken, though. Portugal should get an event with options to either acquire Macau in China when it gained a territory in India (it was leased, not conquered, in actual history) with monthly payments to the owner of Beijing or an option to conquer it outright. France should also get permanent claims on historical holdings of France in India, too. And I wouldn't mind them getting permanent claims for Indochina, too, even if it only historically took over in post-EU4 period. I would also argue for permanent claims on most of the North Africa and Mali for France as well. True, it would place them near my English colonies in West Africa but I like having a strong France as the main colonial rival.

PU over France should at least be excised as well. I don't really care for that, either. What I am really interested in is preserving the overseas ambitions for England / Britain as reflected in the missions at expense of the alternate continental strategy. It is this that I am defending.

Nevertheless, I think path lockouts might be a good way to address this alleged imbalance without removing these permanent claims on the overseas territories. Again, as I have said, you still have to fight for these permanent claims. It is not a guaranteed outcome that you would win. Especially when you are dragged into other wars during that war which can force you to divert the resources.

 

[jrgen3]

Why should Britain get claims on Egypt and india? They held neither in this period.

You're right about Egypt, but Britain did actually hold most of India by the end of the game: Here's a map of India in 1823: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/Joppen1907India1823a.jpg

 

[Chief of Staff]

You're right about Egypt, but Britain did actually hold most of India by the end of the game: Here's a map of India in 1823: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/Joppen1907India1823a.jpg

I agree that Egypt was never held in EU4 period but there is no telling that in alternate history they would not have tried. As a matter of fact, Egypt is of crucial geo-strategic importance for Britain with respects to its line of communications to India. So much that it was an important motivation for Napoleon to invade Egypt in a way that it directly threatened the British rule in India as it could permit France to encourage the independent states, particularly that of notoriously Anglophobic Tipu Sultan, to make moves against British dominance in India. This was even before Suez Canal was built at all. For that reason, Britain intervened on Ottoman / Egyptian side through Battle of the Nile and later landed an army, after Napoleon already left for France, to force surrender of the French garrisons in Egypt. When Britain was briefly in war with Ottoman Empire due to its perceived alliance with France, it even undertook an expedition to Egypt in 1807 in order to pressure Ottomans to end its alliance with France, though this expedition failed.

However, in actual history after EU4 time-frame Britain was more than content to allow Egypt to remain under rule of an independent state, first Ottoman and then under Muhammad Ali dynasty, up to 1880s when revolt, in their perspective, jeopardized their line of communications through Suez Canal to India.

But in the alternate history, if an European power were to repeatedly threaten the line of communications to India through Egypt, then London may be compelled to act to either reinforce the independent state then in control or simply seize the control of Egypt for themselves if they do not have any confidence in independent state to sustain itself against European encroachments.

It may be possible to instead settle for forcing the independent state into a vassal as Egypt in actual history was in fact still nominally independent but actually a British puppet. In this way, mission could be restructured to simply require that a British vassal state be established over Egypt.

The main problem here is the Suez Canal. Unless you owned the required provinces, you cannot build Suez Canal and thus you have much less rationale to interfere in Egypt. If Suez Canal and Panama Canal could be restructured so that it allowed other countries to undertake a project without owning the provinces, then it might be possible to have vassal state owning the Suez Canal provinces. Otherwise, England could just own only these provinces and leave the rest of Egypt under a vassal state. That would, however, cut off a couple of provinces that are part of Egypt region, IIRC. I could be mistaken, though. An alternative is to own them until construction is completed and then cede them back to vassal state. One other issue with this is that the Egypt mission themselves only give you permanent claims over northern coastal provinces of Egypt and does not include the Suez Canal provinces. I would suggest to shift the scope of this mission to Suez Canal provinces and move it somewhere in mission tree so that it is only unlocked when canal projects are unlocked by tech.

Alexandria is nice to have but I think since India was far more valuable, I think Suez Canal would be more valuable asset to have than Alexandria once the project is unlocked. One other mission related to Egypt mission also required you to expand further to the west but these provinces scoped in this mission included what is now Libya which had never been historically under British rule and I think it should be completely excised or at least adjusted to only include what is now western Egypt. That is, if Alexandria remained as the province scope for Egypt mission.

I had to mod so many missions to avoid giving me permanent claims over provinces that had never been under British rule at any given point like the Libya and Sicily examples I gave above and in earlier posts. Permanent claims for these provinces was either removed or made into regular claims that eventually expired (usually ignored and allowed to expire).

 

[Deleted user]

i do miss the semi-random missions, if those could come back as 'granish' on top of the mission trees that would be enjoyable, or maybe have them pop up as dynamic events. something like 'maintain maximum spy network size of 100 in rival nation for x months to sabotage their morale by y% for 12 months'

small random bonuses to reward good game play and maybe balance out some of the well-groomed nations' power they get partly from semi-OP mission trees and ideas.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

The arguments you made about garbage land for Russia is simply due to its geographical proximity. It is not Russia's fault that they just happen to be near the lands of such low value. I don't know how else to make it better except to maybe add to these permanent claims the development cost reduction modifier for a set period for these provinces?

Getting this out of the way first, you made the argument that Russia's claims were rivalling GB, balance wise. This is not true, case closed. I'm not arguing for an increase in these claims.

Well, at any rate, missions for most part is generally intended to reflect the historical extent of a given country.

Again, for the most part currently this is incorrect. Sure, some permas given by misions reflect the full extension of a country or its ambitions (see Byz for instance). Some go even beyond, for instance mameluks mission tree gives them claim over Anatolia. However, MOST countries don't get that treatment and get permas that are largely below their max extension, let alone their ambitions thank god. Think about it: would you be happy if france had permas up to moscow because Napoleon? Or if japan had permas on all of China+SE Asia?

Well if you BALANCE around GB missions given permas, that's what you have to do. That's what everyone is saying. GB's tree is off BALANCE because out of all countries (maybe except Otto, idk, but Otto is a special case) GB has missions that are bonkers => it begs for a nerfs back to less permas (for instance, reduction to historical lands or less than max extension lands) OR a massive buff to everyone else to their max extension + ambitions.

Now, you see that this is a CHOICE to be made. There's no reason given those facts to go in either direction. To start that discussion again, re-read what you initially quoted:

I think a limitation of the misison system is that the missions activate as soon as you meet the prerequistites, that means you can't have the path lockouts you have in the HoI4 focus trees. Where pursuing one goal is at the expense of another. essentially you don't have choices. You can chose to not pursue a mission but it will always just be sitting there with no real drawback for pursuing it. It makes not doing a mission seem like a less meaningful choice.

Also I get you were flexing the muscles of the system with England but doing so totally blew all balance out of the water. They need to be reigned in, they get permanent claims to everything.

And then you can put forward arguments that goes in your way (I'm genuinely interested in them!! : ) ). What's right there below though isn't:

I agree that Netherlands and Portugal should have their permanent claims increased. Netherlands for some inexplicable reasons doesn't have permanent claims on Indonesia, IIRC. I could be mistaken, though. Portugal should get an event with options to either acquire Macau in China when it gained a territory in India (it was leased, not conquered, in actual history) with monthly payments to the owner of Beijing or an option to conquer it outright. France should also get permanent claims on historical holdings of France in India, too. And I wouldn't mind them getting permanent claims for Indochina, too, even if it only historically took over in post-EU4 period. I would also argue for permanent claims on most of the North Africa and Mali for France as well. True, it would place them near my English colonies in West Africa but I like having a strong France as the main colonial rival.

 

[TheDungen]

You're right about Egypt, but Britain did actually hold most of India by the end of the game: Here's a map of India in 1823: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/Joppen1907India1823a.jpg

Actually that's the east india trading company, yes they are subservient to britain but india doesn't come under direct British control until the reign of queen Victoria.

 

[Karaginskiy]

The big ones need less permaclaims not the small ones more. The game is blobby as it is. Especially early blobbing is a problem (because of snowballing), I wouldn't mind a CB late game (In the Age of revolutions) for taking entire states, and with interface to support it. The interface could be in every age, an option in the peace screen for taking all provinces in state x, or heck shift clicking on the map when in the peace screen selecting every province in that state (like how you I think it is shift click to build railroads in an entire state in vic2).

It might be better if the permanent claims of mission trees were replaced by temporary claims. Maybe accompanied by a small reduction of agressive expansion impact and/or province warscore cost, also limited in time. For instance: "for the next 25 years: claim on Brittany and -10% AE". That way, you have to consider when you'll next mark a mission as completed.
Or, remove the claims altogether and replace them with a 25 year reduction of AE, province warscore cost, fabricate claim cost and/or core creation cost. Perhaps, if possible, even limited to the area the new mission wants you to conquer.

 

[jrgen3]

Actually that's the east india trading company, yes they are subservient to britain but india doesn't come under direct British control until the reign of queen Victoria.

That's a technicality. Should we apply the same logic to the Dutch East Indies? If we do, the Dutch didn't actually have any land in Indonesia until 1799/1800.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Getting this out of the way first, you made the argument that Russia's claims were rivalling GB, balance wise. This is not true, case closed. I'm not arguing for an increase in these claims.



Again, for the most part currently this is incorrect. Sure, some permas given by misions reflect the full extension of a country or its ambitions (see Byz for instance). Some go even beyond, for instance mameluks mission tree gives them claim over Anatolia. However, MOST countries don't get that treatment and get permas that are largely below their max extension, let alone their ambitions thank god. Think about it: would you be happy if france had permas up to moscow because Napoleon? Or if japan had permas on all of China+SE Asia?

Well if you BALANCE around GB missions given permas, that's what you have to do. That's what everyone is saying. GB's tree is off BALANCE because out of all countries (maybe except Otto, idk, but Otto is a special case) GB has missions that are bonkers => it begs for a nerfs back to less permas (for instance, reduction to historical lands or less than max extension lands) OR a massive buff to everyone else to their max extension + ambitions.

Now, you see that this is a CHOICE to be made. There's no reason given those facts to go in either direction. To start that discussion again, re-read what you initially quoted:



And then you can put forward arguments that goes in your way (I'm genuinely interested in them!! : ) ). What's right there below though isn't:

I would agree that giving France permanent claims over Russia is non-starter and just plain absurd. I am actually thinking more about the overseas expansion for France, Netherlands, Britain, Portugal, Spain. What I would like to see is an increase in competition and imperial rivalry among these countries. I am of an opinion that more permanent claims overseas, not at home, is needed for these maritime powers.

And there need to be a way to make an expansion at home more expensive for these maritime powers to encourage them to expand overseas instead of at home. This doesn't mean, of course, that France should be discouraged from expanding into the maximum extent of the metropolis, specifically that of the borders of 1792 as decided on by Congress of Vienna. For these reasons, it should have permanent claims within these extent. But an expansion into, say, Italy, Germany, or Spain should be more expensive.

What we need to do is to incentivize them to give more priority to overseas expansion rather than the continental expansion. I also suggest that costs of expanding on the continent should gradually increase over the long run, although that could be temporarily interrupted somehow for a Revolutionary Republic / Empire though at the price of reducing war exhaustion being more expensive to simulate the imperial expansion on the continent only to be eventually overtaken by an exhaustion in the end after long wars. In short, holding sway across most of the Europe is simply impractical and impossible, for which EU4 should simulate. You can only construct a nation but not an empire permanently on the continent. The main thing here is a need to more accurately simulate the balance of power.

The British expansion into overseas territories that it historically have and reflected in the missions did not in fact upset the balance of power in Europe at all. It had naval superiority in post-Napoleonic era, sure, but it was not able to do much on the continent even after the end of wars and must rely on other Great Powers to help maintain the balance of power. Instead of excising these permanent claims, I think it is better to investigate why EU4 was not able to better simulate the balance of power. It could be that the overseas holding gave too much manpower because Britain historically had small standing army, smaller than its navy (Napoleonic Wars being a major exception here as more men were in British Army than in Royal Navy but even then the army remained smallest of all Great Powers, much constrained by the highest priority given to and enormous costs of maintaining the first-rate navy, not to mention the smaller manpower resources it had compared to other Great Powers; labor shortages is in fact one of the important factors behind its undergoing industrialization, greatly amplified by the wars).

The company armies in India would be more akin to mercenary units we have but there need to be a way to better simulate the impossibility of sending Company troops to Europe which mean we need logistics actually implemented. And we should make mercenary less attractive in late EU4 era to reflect the decline it took after the Thirty Years War. Mercenary should be less powerful on the continent but can still perform admirably in colonial territories and would be cheaper to employ. And manpower from overseas holdings should be even more severely nerfed to force manpower resources to be focused at home.

One radical change I may suggest here but which is unlikely to be possible to implement in EU4, so rather more aimed for EU5, is having the manpower divided into home and colonial pool, each based on total of home and overseas manpower. Regiments raised at home will use the home manpower. Regiments raised in overseas territories will draw manpower from colonial pool. But this would not make any meaningful difference until when and if logistics were to be implemented. And the attrition on troops while being transported aboard the ships should be substantially increased.

In short, instead of attacking permanent claims Britain already had in missions, we need to ask a better question which is why such holdings made them way too powerful than it would have otherwise in actual history. It does not change that in absence of permanent claims, Britain would still be over-powerful were it to take those named holdings with or without permanent claims. We are ignoring the underlying issue here.

 

[TheDungen]

That's a technicality. Should we apply the same logic to the Dutch East Indies? If we do, the Dutch didn't actually have any land in Indonesia until 1799/1800.

Actually it very much is not. And yes it should the way the game handles trading companies is very odd.

 

[jrgen3]

Actually it very much is not. And yes it should the way the game handles trading companies is very odd.

Britain absorbed the Company when it proved it couldn't handle India by itself. Had it been a "real" state, they couldn't just do that. Even if the implementation of the trade companies in the game could be considered to be a bit odd, if we use the rules of the game, the provinces were held by Britain as a trade company. Also, this:

• During the period of Company rule in India, 1757–1858, the Company gradually acquired sovereignty over large parts of India, now called "Presidencies". However, it also increasingly came under British government oversight, in effect sharing sovereignty with the Crown. At the same time it gradually lost its mercantile privileges.

 

[FedericoLachino]

I would love to see a tree for the Italian formable nation, that would be great !!!

 

[I like wars and maps]

I would love to see a tree for the Italian formable nation, that would be great !!!

The question is what mission trees can you even give Italy when in it´s short existence it did nothing but own Lybia , Ethiopia and small parts of Croatia and Greece . There is no historic basis for missions wich don´t devolve into rome larping.

 

[EasternTiger]

The question is what mission trees can you even give Italy when in it´s short existence it did nothing but own Lybia , Ethiopia and small parts of Croatia and Greece . There is no historic basis for missions wich don´t devolve into rome larping.

You can still give Italy a few unique missions by making it a mix of unique and generic missions, similar to the missions for Venice and Hisn Kayfa, instead of giving them an extensive, fully unique mission tree.

 

[TheDungen]

Britain absorbed the Company when it proved it couldn't handle India by itself. Had it been a "real" state, they couldn't just do that.

Never integrated a subject?

 

[FlyDust]

i really hope they add some missions for japan because in the old mission system you would always get a mission to conquer korea and now you always need to spy on them to create a claim

 

[Alfray Stryke]

i really hope they add some missions for japan because in the old mission system you would always get a mission to conquer korea and now you always need to spy on them to create a claim

I can't see them adding missions to Japan in a patch that has been stated to focus on Europe, unfortunately.

Maybe next year after the tech debt/Europe patch we'll get some ROTW stuff?

 

[nephilim2k]

I can't see them adding missions to Japan in a patch that has been stated to focus on Europe, unfortunately.

Maybe next year after the tech debt/Europe patch we'll get some ROTW stuff?

No....it is EUROPA universalis....should be Europe for every update

 

[TurtleShroom]

Which countries would you expect to colonize new world in alternate timeline if they invested enough? Ming? Ottomans? Morocco?

The Ottomans already colonize near the very end of the game.

As for my plan, I would make it dynamic, perhaps tied to the Personality of the Ruler. For example, that Navigator Trait could, if they reach the technology that unlocks an Idea Group, would always or usually make a ruler take Exploration. Basically, any nation with a coast on the Atlantic or Pacific and enough money, if the timing is right and certain Traits come into play, should have a chance to go colonial. For balance, countries in the Mediterranean Sea would have a lower chance, because getting out of that sea and enough Colonial Distance to reach anything is not very plausible.

Or, perhaps similarly to the Great Conqueror mechanics in CK2, a random series of nations (say, three or four) could be set to obsessively make their way to the coast or, if they have a coast, start colonizing in the same way Spain and Portugal are hard-coded to do so at the game start? That way, it's random AND you have no idea who might make the choice. "Sid Meier's Civilization" did this with their "hidden agendas".

I'm just sick of EVERYTHING being Spain, France, Portugal, England, and me if I so choose.

 

[TurtleShroom]

While I don't think the Byzantines are on the list. I do agree that there should be a bit more missions. I was thinking about reduced cost of forced conversion in peace after Reestablishing the Pentrarchy; a mission about securing the Succession (meaning upon every succession, a pretender revolt) ; rebuilding Constantinople

I think that a better reward for an Orthodox nation that restores the Pentarchy would be to allow them to install Christians on non-Christian states, like the Revolutionary Republic and Revolutionary Empire can do.