EU4 - Development Diary - 21st of April 2020

[Zerind]

Awesome news, I love the new custom unit options!

 

[klingonadmiral]

Well, it was in the past, but by the time the revolutions were firing up in the XIX century... not so much.
Spain's republican flag was red, yellow and purple.

For the Republic formed in 1931. 142 years after the French Revolution and ~221 years after the first revolutionare republic can come into existence in EU4.

 

[Fryslan0109]

It would be great if we could customize our revolutionary tricolors (i.e. pick colors, number of stripes, whether they are horizontal or vertical). A lot of the one's generated automatically honestly don't look great.

edit: I realize a tricolor would have three colors, but you get my meaning.

edit2: Some people are saying the tricolor in the screencap suggests this is possible - if so, that's great!

 

[Alidar]

Very cool!!

 

[walka151]

To all the people complaining about why other countries don't get elite units too: remember that EUIV is ultimately a strategic level game. Sure it would be cool flavour if every country has unique elite units but I suspect in most cases you're thinking about special regiments like the British black watch. These matter on a tactical level but a regiment would something like one or two 1k stacks in EUIV terms. Overall, In most nations you'd probably (admittedly guessing here) end up with a pretty small, unnoticeable or only slightly noticeable proportion of special forces. The result would be that you would just never bother because it was too pernickety, except in a multiplayer when it would be essential minmaxing which (at least in my view) would just be annoying.

The crucial difference with the revolutionary guard is that historically it became a gigantic major component of the rank and file in the same way Janissaries, rajputs and streltsy were. Citing Wikipedia: "In 1804 the Guard numbered 8,000 men. By the time of Napoleon's Invasion of Russia in 1812, it had swelled to just under 100,000 men. The Guard had its own artillery, infantry and cavalry components just like a normal Army corps.". Those sorts of numbers matter on the strategic level of EUIV in a way which makes special treatment for revolutionary nations justifiable and which makes the usage of the mechanic interesting and enjoyable for the player, rather than a chore.

edit: formatting was wierd

 

[Sete]

Finally costum unit graphics for costum nations.
I can make a proper Portugal now.

Will the unit graphics affect ships aswell?

With all these new "special" units going in game, are the marines still going with that 25% shock malus?

 

[Kantoli]

Wasn't there a comment at some point about adding CK2 converter religions to the custom nation designer? What happened to that?

 

[Pbhuh]

Instead we put Special Unit Force Limit there as we will be giving all Revolutionary nations access to a unique unit type.

The Revolutionary Guard

These are the most zealous revolutionaries in your armed forces. Formed to guard the nation against the reactionary threat of King’s and their lackeys. They can be built as Infantry, Cavalry or even Artillery.

These units can also be upgraded and made either more plentiful or be given more elite training for a higher cost.

Will modders gain access to adding in their own Custom Unit Types?

Its currently not possible to add in things like Streltsy or Banner guys.

No, there's no ability to customize your revolutionary flag. We have however defined many more tricolors for specific nations.

Could it be possible to have a horizontal Tricolor. The first Tricolor flag in history was.

(Prinsenvlag and Statenvlag)

 

[Vohen]

They are built like normal regiments but an upper cap of how many you can have.

But what is the base cap, and what determines it?

I see quite a few people have wondered about the British revolutionary flag. So we went through a lot of revolutionary flags and changed them for this update, in the case of the British one it looked very much like the French revolutionary flag (and the Russian flag) in a way that seemed very un-fitting for the UK. So we Content Designers sought a better one, and landed on the Suffragette flag. Admittedly it is not quite the right time period, but it is fitting both for the ideals it embodies and for it being different to other nearby countries that are likely to become revolutionary.

But it's so... Ugly...

 

[Mr.Grizzly]

Uckermark was integrated to Brandenburg only in 1448

Would it be possible to keep Uckermark in Brandenburg then? I mean sure in 1444 it wasn't part of Brandenburg but if it was integrated into it just 4 years into the game and stayed there the rest of the game's time frame, I don't see a reason in removing it from the Brandenburg/Mittelmark or whatever they call it, and put it in Pomerania if it barely was there.

 

[Mr.Grizzly]

Probably because thats also the Hungarian tricolour, which originates earlier and has been and is used much more than the British one.

Some flags already look very similar, both in game and in life, I don't see the issue with Hungary and Great Britain looking similar, just make sure the red and green are different shades

 

[regne_valencia]

nice idea, hope that with new patch can be more interesting arrive to late game for enjoy this feature

 

[Mr.Grizzly]

I see quite a few people have wondered about the British revolutionary flag. So we went through a lot of revolutionary flags and changed them for this update, in the case of the British one it looked very much like the French revolutionary flag (and the Russian flag) in a way that seemed very un-fitting for the UK. So we Content Designers sought a better one, and landed on the Suffragette flag. Admittedly it is not quite the right time period, but it is fitting both for the ideals it embodies and for it being different to other nearby countries that are likely to become revolutionary.

You chose a women's rights movement's flag from the 20th century to represent Revolutionary Great Britain during a game that takes ends in 1821....? Seems like an odd choice....

 

[Beagá]

+2,5% discipline for elites? That is mediocre. Almost nothing.

 

[Zhetone]

You chose a women's rights movement's flag from the 20th century to represent Revolutionary Great Britain during a game that takes ends in 1821....? Seems like an odd choice....

to me, too. And I imagine if you were to find something about the history of that flag, the colors would have a specific meaning - colors aren't usually chosen for flags arbitrarily. Applying that same flag to Britain in the 1800s is very weird.

 

[Mr.Grizzly]

+2,5% discipline for elites? That is mediocre. Almost nothing.

Yeah should be buffed up to +5%, I guess all it takes to be on par with Revolutionary Guard training is to take up beliefs in Lutheranism

 

[Mr.Grizzly]

to me, too. And I imagine if you were to find something about the history of that flag, the colors would have a specific meaning - colors aren't usually chosen for flags arbitrarily. Applying that same flag to Britain in the 1800s is very weird.

Like the flag is called "Suffragette", it's literally about women's rights to vote. This would be like giving a merchant republic a communist flag, completely out of place.

Edit: Before people start saying "But the revolution and it's ideals and blah blah", just remember that France went revolutionary and it didn't really become a democratic country, there's a reason Napoleon is mostly famous for his military conquests. Going revolutionary doesn't mean sunshine and rainbows and perfect democratic system in 1726 or whenever you go revolutionary.

 

[Pbhuh]

Would it be possible to keep Uckermark in Brandenburg then? I mean sure in 1444 it wasn't part of Brandenburg but if it was integrated into it just 4 years into the game and stayed there the rest of the game's time frame, I don't see a reason in removing it from the Brandenburg/Mittelmark or whatever they call it, and put it in Pomerania if it barely was there.

Areas are just that. Areas. They can be defined in many ways. But generally I think they should follow geographical and historical areas not countries.

Like Frisia, its nicer to have East Frisia in it together with Friesland and Groningen then to move it to a german area. The reason being that its historically part of Frisia even though only for a few years part of the Netherlands.

Brandenburg conquered Uckermark from Pomerania. Uckermark has pomeranian culture, so adding it to Vorpommern makes sense to me, though it can remain with Brandenburg tag.

 

[Kryndude]

Maintenance penalty seems a bit too harsh even for late game economy. Never played until age of revolution so not sure.

 

[Lavilledieu]

Cool DD. I personally don't pay much attention to custom unit visuals, but I know lots of other people do, and it's a nice sign from to you to implement that highly requested feature!
I want to use this opportunity to also mention a worry of me:
So revolutionary zeal gives admin efficiency, and that gets reduced if you're at peace. And it gives lots of admin efficiency. The first problem is that admin efficiency is already an incredibly power modifier, definitely one of the strongest, and giving it in that large quantities is quite game-breaking. Furthermore, it is used to stimulate people to go to war. But what's done here, is that people who war very well, will be able to snowball because they gain/keep insane amounts of admin efficiency, and will grow much faster than most nations. I don't know/no longer know if there are trade-offs to make, but I think the admin efficiency is not really the right way. Siege ability and province war score costmight be better ways. IIRC, Napoleon didn't really integrate the lands he conquered into France, but made puppet governments, right? Admin efficiency is then definitely not the way to do it.

I also see for the revolutionary guard lots of modifiers linked to drilling. I laughed at the trade-offs there. People who don't turtle up, don't have the time to drill, and if they have drilled troops, it decays incredibly fast anyway. Especially with the revolutionary mechanic, you want people to go to war. I don't see why people would then have the time to drill.