• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

EU4 - Development Diary - 23rd of January 2018

Good morning all. Tuesday has arrived and as usual delivers double excitement: the next episode in the EU4 Dev Clash, and a new development diary. Last week @Trin Tragula took the wheel and showed off the map changes which will roll out with the upcoming 1.25 update. Before we start talking about the features that come with its accompanying yet currently unannounced Immersion Pack, today I will be showing off another free change with 1.25, which is the Mission System.

Missions in EU3 were a real gamble. You hoped for a good or even possible mission and without hitting up the wiki or trawling through the game files had no idea what you could even be tasked with. You got said mission without choice and would either cancel or try to complete it. EU4 improved on this by always offering you up to 3 missions, one of which you would select and either complete or cancel before getting a new batch of missions. While it was an improvement, it still had the shortcomings of you not being quite sure what all missions you would be able to get for your nations, how to unlock them and even getting missions which would be detrimental for you to do. The missions system is something new players often look to for guidance and when it tells them to simply get 50 prestige or to improve relations with their rival, well, you can see why advice for new players can often counter intuitively be to ignore missions.

All this changes in 1.25 with the new Mission System. rather than picking from a short list of missions, all missions for your nation will be available from the very start, and as you fulfill the criteria for them, you will be alerted as such and can go to the newly segregated Missions tab to claim your reward. Rewards have been accordingly made more relevant, longer lasting and often grant claims towards more missions down the line. Let's take a look at the mission chain from one of my favourite nations, Byzantium, with their Purple Phoenix missions.

byz PP.jpg

humble expansion from my casual Byzantium campaign. Art/layout not final

All Byzantine missions are visible from the start and the progression through them is shown. When the budding Byzantine player reconquers Greece, they will be given a timed reward as well as the claims to help fulfilling the next missions: Recover Albania and Conquer Bulgaria. Once these are completed, they will again be able to claim their reward and work down the mission chain. The mission paths are also split for their different directions to go in, catering towards Western expansion, Anatolian recovery and reclaiming the islands. Mission rewards must be claimed in order, although all missions can be completed throughout a campaign.

byz no pp.jpg

End of the Byzantium mission chain without Purple Phoenix


All nations with specific missions are having those transferred over to this new system. Additionally we have added generic missions for all nations as well as region specific missions so that Europeans can have different missions available to them than, say, Africans or New World Natives. We have also taken the opportunity to clean up older missions while we adapt old ones to work with this new system.

France loveley art.jpg

French Missions, complete with lovely coder art. Something seems odd about the Hebrides though...

This mission change is a free part of the 1.25 Update and our aim is to have the missions feel more relevant for nations, as well as serving as a guiding light for newer players.

I'll try to pre-emptively answer some questions:

  • How do I select a mission?
    • Unlike the previous mission system, you do not select your missions, they are all visible from the game start. All missions at the top of the mission trees will be "active" and when you fulfill an active mission you can go to claim its reward, making any missions below it connected by arrows in its chain active,
  • In the old system selecting a mission would give you the claim/CB you need for the mission, how is that handled now?
    • In most cases, preceding missions will give claims/CBs as a reward which can be used to fulfill the following missions.
  • How does mission gating work?
    • A mission can both be a prerequisite for multiple missions a well as require multiple missions to be completed before it becomes active
  • How moddable is this?
    • Extensively.

Next week we'll start talking about what's coming with the yet unannounced Immersion Pack, due to release alongside 1.25. until then, we shall admire the Ottoman missions in the new system, in all their behemothic glory.

Ottomissions.jpg
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Weird extreme example question, @Trin Tragula
Castile forms Spaina and do some spanish missions, then is completely annexed by France
Then Aragon somehoe form Spain. Are the spanish missions that Castile-turned-Spain completed already dond for Aragon-turned-Spain or does Aragan-turned-Spain need to complete them again?
 
This system has been in the game since 1.0. The only difference is presentation as well as minor rule changes, and that some missions were added/removed. But Historical and flavor missions have always been in EU4.

I know...I've been around that long. My point is that I prefer a pool of missions with two or three being drawn at a time rather than a fixed tree. Pools appear to me to allow for more dynamic games since the missions can be added or removed from the pool as conditions change. A fixed tree is, well, fixed.
 
I know...I've been around that long. My point is that I prefer a pool of missions with two or three being drawn at a time rather than a fixed tree. Pools appear to me to allow for more dynamic games since the missions can be added or removed from the pool as conditions change. A fixed tree is, well, fixed.
But isn't the tree the same as a pool if it contains all the valid missions and mission requirements are still roughly the same?
 
I tried HoI4, and while I understand the need of some direction to a game covering far less time than EUIV, I still am sceptic towards focus trees and I don't like how the developpers seem to be expanding the game by adding more focuses rather than by providing global mechanics which would help to create similar results. Seeing the national focuses ported in a different form in EUIV doesn't bring me joy.

It appears to me that PDX is trying to consolidate some themes/ideas across their stable of games. Focus trees are a clear example. This makes sense from a development and business standpoint. Basically it is a more efficient use of their resources. For customers, this should translate to more frequent new titles and DLCs. For crusty old salts, it seems that the uniqueness of the various titles is slipping away to be replaced by a core game with skins titled EU, HOI, V3 ;), etc.
 
I know...I've been around that long. My point is that I prefer a pool of missions with two or three being drawn at a time rather than a fixed tree. Pools appear to me to allow for more dynamic games since the missions can be added or removed from the pool as conditions change. A fixed tree is, well, fixed.

The pool too was fixed as it never dynamically generated anything noteworthy (and the stuff that was generated sucked, never cared about immersion or flavor or even your situation, and were chores to do). All the important stuff was static and the whole randomness never lead to anything: will you get it now or few years later after finishing a filler mission or canceling the filler missions until you get something that matters in your game.

It appears to me that PDX is trying to consolidate some themes/ideas across their stable of games. Focus trees are a clear example. This makes sense from a development and business standpoint. Basically it is a more efficient use of their resources. For customers, this should translate to more frequent new titles and DLCs. For crusty old salts, it seems that the uniqueness of the various titles is slipping away to be replaced by a core game with skins titled EU, HOI, V3 ;), etc.

Features from different PDS games have always been transfered from one to another, even in the old days. Heck, I'd argue their games now have more mutual differences to them than before.

Not to mention that not bringing in new features, and forcefully trying to come up with something new even if it doesn't fit nor is good, just because it would make it unique would make all the games much, much worse.
 
For sure u have to improve those mision in later patches, for example Ottoman's mission is really huge compared to French (34-17), i know it's more about history accuracy but for sure other countries can get more of alt history to balance especially for countries with less missions and for those getting own immersion pack.

@DDRJake can u show us more missions ? I am really curious about Austria,Russia,Sweden,Timurid and especially Poland. And if we are with Timurid Does turning to a different(mughal etc) country tag change missions?
 
@DDRJake Oh you sneaky one. I like you.

Start a dev diary talking about how great it is to be Byzantium with this new system. Your favourite nation (you were laying it on a bit thick, there, you might have given away the game).

The Byzantophiles are all reading with only one hand on the desk. They're psyched.

Then casually show the Ottoman mission tree towards the end: City of World's Desire as first mission available.

So far, nobody seems to have noticed (they tend to be a very, uhh, loud crowd when they're upset.) But when 1.25 rolls around... oh my will they be angry. It's going to be amazing.
 
This is nowhere near the focus-trees of HOI4, just a more streamlined and visual version of what we already have. (which is good)
 
But isn't the tree the same as a pool if it contains all the valid missions and mission requirements are still roughly the same?

I think Trin noted a little earlier up that missions are not repeatable and most of the generic stuff will disappear. It looks like once you complete a certain step in the tree you can't do it again. Take Portugal's expansion into North Africa as an example. You get a series of missions to take this and that province and complete them all. At some point you lose all your gains and need to start over. The tree locks you out of being able to do it via mission again, but a pool would put those provinces back in play as missions. Tech trees I can understand. I just don't like the idea of mission trees that make you follow such a rigid path. The current pooled missions allow for some randomness and considerable role-play. I see missions as a "will of the people" driving national decisions. They can be fickle and careen all over the place at times. Since I only play solo the rp route and mission pools are a perfect fit.
 
The pool too was fixed as it never dynamically generated anything noteworthy (and the stuff that was generated sucked, never cared about immersion or flavor or even your situation

Those are the improvements to missions that I was hoping for. Dynamic mission generation and immersion.
 
This updates effectively removes content for the vast majority of tags in the game and exacerbates the problems with the AI involvement in the mission system rather than resolves it.
 
Only random missions ever repeated after completion in the old system, never country specific ones.
There was exactly four different random conquest missions in that system.
 
Good changes, mission chains look nice. Now, the only thing left for rework in EUIV is estates.
I dunno, there are quite a few more things I think:

- Regional reworks since obviously not all map areas have been covered in great detail. Chief amongst them are India and Southeast Asia, both of which could do with full dedicated expansions. Iberia and Italy could do with comprehensive map updates and immersion packs of their own. HRE maybe deserves a map update as well. Also strange that there's no Sweden-themed immersion pack lol...

- The colonial game needs to be revisited as it hasn't been changed dramatically since the early days of EU4. Mechanics like the "native interaction policy" are basically relics.

- Heirs and rulers have been tweaked and re-worked throughout the history of the series but the core of the system remains the same, and there are still a lot of old problems left over from EU3. The one that comes to my mind is the system for claiming thrones, creating PUs and dynasties, which is largely unchanged since the Heir to the Throne expansion for EU3. At the moment spreading your dynasty is basically pointless even though that was a major source of international strife throughout the middle part of the timeline, perhaps just as much as religion was. PUs are primarily created by event and trying to set one up for yourself is basically a matter of luck, and as for random inheritance forget it. They might have even taken that out of the game and we wouldn't even know because it happened so rarely.

- Rebels, insurgents and low-intensity warfare are not modelled well at all. Outright armed revolts are basically hopeless and ought to not happen at all unless circumstances are ideal (ruler is distracted in a war for instance), and there are few ways to deal with rebels aside from crushing them completely or caving in completely (no option to compromise on their demands). Hostile core creation cost is the most useless national idea of all, followed shortly by increased attrition for enemies. Even in rough and unfavourable terrain it is virtually impossible for a weak army to hold off an overwhelming one, despite the fact that numerical and technological supremacy are far from a guarantee of success in a country like Afghanistan, the Arabian peninsula or the Netherlands.

It appears to me that PDX is trying to consolidate some themes/ideas across their stable of games. Focus trees are a clear example. This makes sense from a development and business standpoint. Basically it is a more efficient use of their resources. For customers, this should translate to more frequent new titles and DLCs. For crusty old salts, it seems that the uniqueness of the various titles is slipping away to be replaced by a core game with skins titled EU, HOI, V3 ;), etc.
Trust me, HoI and Victoria are nothing like EU4. Us crusty old salts are safe.
 
This is a good change in my mind. Hopefully it has the AI act more historical: hopefully they can still be flexible though. After all the player's actions should change history to some degree....but hey, if an alliance breaks apart because a new mission is unlocked, well stuff happens.

Also nice to see the EUIV dev team delivering dev diaries while a certain other dev team hasn't done one this month yet.
 
I love it!
Hoi 4 focus tree!
The many mods from this will be wonderful!

Portugal has always had Missions prioritizing the AI to Asia. Missions won't in themselves make the AI better at naval invasions. Still it should make them prioritize getting over there.

Good to know!
Trin, after the basic/T1 nation trees ironed out, would you consider a separate branch @ the bottom that repeats after a cool down for some generic missions like continuous focus trees in HOI?

For example, you could pass each mission once and if you complete the majority of your mission tree, they would reset more often.

Just to kill boredom when you are mopping up the world being the God empire/ tight late game MP.
 
I know the art is not final but I would like to say that I hope you have some very obvious way to show each one of these is completed. When I look it seems to be that perhaps gold arrows means it is completed, while silver arrows are not? And there is a small tiny bit of highlighting around ones that can currently get rewards for? That's great and all but please have something on each picture that is completed. Like a giant checkmark I don't care, just something. I don't want to look at connections to see "oh okay, this is silver, that means I need to scroll up to find the thing I can work on".