EU4 - Development Diary - 21st of July 2020

[neondt]

Then please do Malacca after Majapahit, pretty please?

I think after Majapahit we'll return to mainland SEA for the sake of variety. But we'll certainly get around to Malacca.

This looks very deserving.

Though, i wanna ask you if you have read many of the great suggestions on the forums for South East Asia.

Many are really excited this area is getting an overhaul and there are some great ideas people are throwing around.

I've been glancing over them when I've found the time. There's some good stuff there. I especially liked the mission tree suggestion thread.

Can we see the missions below Vietnam and Burma? Otherwise looks good and can't wait to see what you've done with majapahit

Those are the China missions I mentioned in the dev diary.

Is there an event for Burmese–Siamese wars?

I prefer not to railroad wars through events except when it's really neceessary (like Dutch Revolt). The Burmese-Siamese wars are exactly the kind of scenario that the game can represent without any help from content. But of course they have a place in mission trees.

Very Nice, what about Khmer ? Is there a way to restore the empire to it's former glory ?

Yes! More on that another time though.

@neondt would you consider adding some events regarding Ottoman expeditions sent to Aceh? Ottomans had on and off presence in Western India and Southeast Asia during this period and while they never established a permanent presence they had some merchant communities in few cities. They also sent some troops, firearms and artillery personnel to Muslim states which had considerable impact in development of artillery in the area and success of Aceh Sultanate in particular. It seems Acehnese also offered to be vassals of Ottomans but this can best be represented with an alliance.
Here is some basic information on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_expedition_to_Aceh

That's something I'd rather represent through missions than events. In this update Aceh will have mission/s about interacting with the Ottomans, though one day I hope we see an updated Ottoman mission tree that includes things like this.

Hi Neondt! With all those newly added provinces, will there also be more dynamic province names? It will make the game much more immersive if we have, say, Chinese province names in SEA if the nation is ruled by a Chinese monarch. For example, it's quite awkward to see the province of "Palembang" being displayed as "Palembang" when under the rule of a Chinese elite. In Ming-era Chinese literature, the place "Palembang" was widely known as "Jiugang旧港." In addition, the newly added province for the nation of Palembang, Lampung, was known as "Lanbang览邦" in the book History of Ming （明史） which was composed by historians at that time.

I'm really looking forward for them being added onto the map. Not just Chinese ones, but also Thai, Malay, Vietnamese dynamic names. If you're uncertain about some of them, I'll be glad to help you dig deep into a bunch of Chinese ancient scripts and find the most appropriate names. I'm certain it's not a difficult thing to implement, nevertheless, it would enhance the game by a lot.

Dynamic province names are cool but also very time consuming to write. I'd be happy to implement any scripted lists provided in the suggestion forums (in the game files you can find examples of these lists in common/province_names. Also, please tag me if you make anything like this). Given that I'm the only content designer right now and my to do list is very long I certainly won't have the time to research and implement this on my own, more "visible" content like the topic of this dev diary take priority.

This is all looking rather good. A couple of questions (don't know if you can answer them at this stage!):

Will Pegu be getting its own mission tree? I still need to do a Sailor Mon run.

Will there be any new achievements with the new patch?

Pegu will get a mission tree.

Ayutthayan ideas are still bad. Please give them ICA, Morale or discipline to compete militarily.

Absolutely not. I don't agree with the idea that all national idea sets need to contain a narrow range of modifiers considered optimal by the most hardcore WC or competitive MP players. These are not things I think about when I design ideas (or any other content for that matter); I care about whether they're thematic to the country, historically interesting, and fun to play with.

 

[neondt]

What about 3 tribes in Central Highland?

I'd like to do something interesting with them if I have time. After I got some recommended reading from a response to a previous dev diary I decided these people are interesting enough to get some content. No promises though, my to do list is long.

 

[neondt]

Will Siam have its own set of NIs, or will they keep Ayyuthaya's/those of whatever tag forms them?

I'd like to give them a unique set - something thematically similar to Ayutthaya but maybe a bit more about internal administration. No promises but I'll try to make time for it.

Will there any new updates for Vietnam? Becuse in the early 1800s, Vietnam was a strong rival of Siam, Vietnam controlled East of Laos, and Cambodia meanwhile Siam controlled the West. Both were fighting each other 'til France came.

Yes! Vietnam will probably get its own dev diary eventually.

 

[neondt]

So, one of the misssions gives you a unique tier 1 government reform, but another suggests becoming the EoC, and claiming the mandate locks you into the celestial empire tier 1 reform :/

You don't have to take the Mandate, it's just one of the ways you can complete that mission.

 

[neondt]

A concern that comes to mind for me is that you said that any other nation that forms Siam will gain this same set of missions, and with missions that are telling you to subjugate other nations instead of just conquering lands, that suddenly becomes an issue. Because you might be playing as one of those nations you are being instructed to Subjugate, or they might be long dead since the start of the game, resulting in a situation where you are completely locked out of an amount of your mission tree with no way to progress.

Could there be alternate requirements for those subjugation missions? Say holding the lands those nations start with at game start, as well as having no unrest or separatism in them. If you really want to discourage this path in favour of the subjugation path, even slap on an extra timelock for the missions, say own those lands for 30 years or something. I don't know. Just something that doesn't penalise the player just because they decided to try to play as Siam without starting as Ayuthaya.

As with all missions, there are fallbacks if the "standard" requirements can't be met.