EU4 - Development Diary - 24th of July 2018

[By_Science!]

i'd like to add my two cents

something must be done about that religion thing

i'm sure the devs have noticed

 

[lolada]

Beta would be nice before going official with this update.. maybe this territory missionary thing is not that bad with new government and policy system. You could tailor your nation to hold unconverted territories maybe if you go such path of expansion.

 

[Trin Tragula]

@Trin Tragula Is that a nation called “U” I see there?

Yes. The game does not support Ü on map sadly.

 

[Martynios]

Yes. The game does not support Ü sadly.

Must be the shortest name yet! What even would be the TAG haha.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Must be the shortest name yet! What even would be the TAG haha.

Believe it or not, the tag is PHA, for Phagmodrupa (which is what we also first called the country). Ü is better and more generally applicable though (it is the U part of the old U-Tsang tag).

 

[Martynios]

Believe it or not, the tag is PHA, for Phagmodrupa (which is what we also first called the country). Ü is better and more generally applicable though (it is the U part of the old U-Tsang tag).

Ah, that explains the lonely Tsang.

 

[Greece stronk]

From what I understand, the HRE can't form Rome, but Byzantium can. This doesn't make sense. Both claim to be Rome, so none of them could change to it.

 

[Tuscany stronk]

Conversion possible only in states?
This will ruin religious countries

 

[Seiska]

"Additionally sending Missionaries and cultural conversion are not possible in Territories." This change better not be in the patch notes.

 

[Badesumofu]

From what I understand, the HRE can't form Rome, but Byzantium can. This doesn't make sense. Both claim to be Rome, so none of them could change to it.

It makes sense for Byz to form it if they can restore the empire as it was in its heyday. I can't really see any circumstance where it would make sense for the HRE to form it.

That said, I don't really see the point of the end-game tags - if people want to do crazy tag-switching shenanigans, why stop them? Just seems like an anti-fun change.

 

[Rabid]

On the other hand:
1. the Mughals, despite dominating the whole subcontinent, were never as insanely wealthy and powerful as a nation owning and state-ing all of EU4 India would be. They certainly extraced less wealth from their lands, relatively speaking, than the Dutch or English/British East India Company did from their relatively small directly ruled territories.
2. Mughal rule of India was, to a certain extent, indirect, through local princes recognizing their suzerainty. By punishing direct ownership of too much territory, 1.26 will encourage using vassals, and thus doing what the Mughals did historically.
3. It actually is possible to have all of India as state provinces as the Mughals in 1.25 by the 1700s. There will be a few more states in India in 1.26, but the increased initial state limit should compensate for that.

I'm not arguing over states, I'm arguing over TCs giving too great of a benefit for their cost. They are already extremely strong and if the changes in this dev diary go ahead then placing your capital in Europe instead of in Asia will unlock the ability to expand the size of your state massively without paying the corruption cost which is now generally associated with expansion. There is no logical reason for this.

I don't know about that. If anything, Mughal wealth had little or nothing to do with India's trade goods, and was more a result of Babur's efficient census data and the zabt taxation system. Plenty of India's riches - ivory, spices, silk, porcelain, etc. - only became as valuable as they were due to European demand, and the Mughals as a rule had no stake in commerce. That was for the merchants, and they were not highly thought of.

And I might also say that yes, TCs are necessary to make India worth fighting over. The lands of Europe are also generally rich, and if I could get as much wealth as I wanted by staying in Europe and keeping my armies close, I would do so. I don't often play multiplayer, but I imagine having to balance the threat of leaving your homeland undefended vs. losing India to another player should be a concern. As for singleplayer, one can simply choose not to go to India. I dunno. It's a sandbox game like that. If you don't like that the Ottomans can go get rich in India, then... don't go to India as the Ottomans?

EU doesn't represent the difference between state wealth and private wealth - if this was properly represented in a comprehensive trade company system then I wouldn't be complaining. "You can intentionally choose a suboptimal strategy" is not a reasonable defense in favour of leaving the game poorly balanced. It just so happens that as well as being unbalanced TCs are also restricted based on where your capital is located, so it's also one of the last few remaining unreasonably eurocentric game mechanics (though I do believe that it's purely for game balance reasons).

I have yet to hear a single reasonable argument why, for example, Ethiopia should be able to make TCs in India but Yemen can't. The restriction is utterly arbitrary.

There's a whole host of different ways you could try to balance out TCs even if you think that they absolutely must be as powerful as they are in their current state. Put a tech restriction on them. Make them cost monarch points to set up (for example a dip cost based on the province's base production). Make them require Trade ideas. Just something that doesn't make them into a completely 'free lunch'. Something that doesn't punish you for not wanting to move your capital to an arbitrary province on the other side of the Caucasus.

 

[Xetfield]

As I said in a previous post I can understand why Paradox wants to limit tag switching because it's quite powerful with the new mission system. I disagree with their approach though because I think implementing hard restrictions is a somewhat lazy solution and limits strategic diversity.

Strategic diversity should be logical on the first place. Ottomans into Byz or GB into Prussia is illogical and such transformations couldn't happen in any alternative history route. Yeah, the game is sandbox, but a historical sandbox.

 

[Mfupa]

1. I'm sure paradox knows their game well enough to ensure the (lack of) religious conversion in territories will be an enjoyable game mechanic. But sure, heck. What do they know about their game? As several other posters have mentioned above or earlier in the thread there are a variety of ways to with existing game mechanics work around this as well as small changes Paradox can make to ensure other options are opened up as well.

2. Really enjoy the changes. Changing even the meta slightly of what you're doing seems like a wonderful idea. Anything that opens up different ways of playing constructively or increases the complexity of the game I'm all for (an argument can be made about not making it too complex or adding too many features - on the other hand we're 10 expansions in, don't think that's a good argument given the player base).

3. All of this should just mean that there is a greater variety in how you need to adapt to different circumstances depending on where you start. Conquering and uniting your own cultural lands rather than just looking at high-dev provinces and as mentioned above just green-clicking in peace deals is for me a welcome change.
I don't want my experience when playing in different parts of the world to be the same. Then there's little point in playing in different parts other than the color on your map. I absolutely feel the changes here will add variety to the game which even after thousands of hours will add further longevity to the game.

4. State changes seem wonderful. If possible I'm hoping for even more edicts sooner rather than later. I feel it adds a nice vic-2 feeling to the game where you actively are fighting for certain regions and states rather than just gobbling up all the land.

5. Comment about tag-switching as well. This in practice only affects ironman games, as any gamechanging mod will automatically disqualify you for achievements. I think this is a change that is made to ensure that you can't just tag-switch as a solution to whatever achievement you are trying to get. If you want to tag-switch as a mad hatter, there's nothing stopping you starting the game up with a mod from the workshop - it literally will take 20 seconds. However, this might be a way for paradox to ensure longevity for achievements. Which at least for me is the main reason I still play the game singleplayer.



All in all, I'm all for the changes. Given the likes on jakes post I think a majority of people are, though they might not be as vocal as the critics.
I'm really looking forward to this expansion. Might be the most game-changing since art of war.

 

[Master of Times]

The lack of response from the devs to what appears to be the biggest concern (missionaries not converting outside states) is very disappointing, but it also speaks volumes.

To me personally, the fact that what counts to corruption is the number of territories and not their development, is almost as crazy. Almost. I won't be able to conquer 3 provinces of 3 dev each just because of corruption? What ?

 

[Twoflower]

I'm not arguing over states, I'm arguing over TCs giving too great of a benefit for their cost. They are already extremely strong and if the changes in this dev diary go ahead then placing your capital in Europe instead of in Asia will unlock the ability to expand the size of your state massively without paying the corruption cost which is now generally associated with expansion. There is no logical reason for this.

You were bringing up the historical Mughals as an argument against the benefits provided by Trade Companies. I was trying to argue that the Mughals are not really a fitting example because:
1. they did not exploit their lands as efficiently as European trade companies
2. they heavily relied on vassals
3. at a certain level of ADM tech (and using administrative ideas) it eventually is possible to have all of India as 0 autonomy state provinces; i.e. a Mughal Empire owning all of India does not get (significantly) less benefits from owning all of India than a European country using trade companies.
Now, an all-Indian Mughal Empire will get less income from also conquering, say, Indonesia, Thailand or East Africa than e.g. Portugal or the Netherlands. It is a valid point to consider this unfair and/or illogical, but this has nothing to do with the "historical" Mughals.

The logical reason for the way trade companies work is (I think) basically that a trade company is supposed to represent the historical European trade companies that thrived from importing goods from Asia to Europe. Trading spices or silk from Jakarta to Mumbai doesn't yield the same profit margin as importing these goods from India to Lisbon, Amsterdam or London.
It would (probably) make quite a bit of sense to also allow an Indian country to set up trade companies in Africa and Europe, however that would be weird unless it is also possible to revert the flow of trade routes (which would also be a nice change in theory, but certainly a complicated one).
That said, trade companies seem to be about to become insanely beneficial in 1.26. If you can set up a province as a trade company province, there is hardly a reason not to - and non-choices are generally a bad thing in a strategy game. Also, there is not much of a reason for a European country to give Indian or African land to a vassal rather than incorporate it into a trade company. Which is pretty much contrary to how historically the Europeans actually just directly controlled small stripes of coast or single cities/trade factories.
Perhaps there should be some kind of decreasing benefit from a trade company owning too many provinces? Or an inflation cost per trade company provinces?

 

[Colruth]

This might have been mentionned already as I haven't read all the comments, but the territory/corruption balance chance is a massive buff to Russia's ability to blob.

First as a Tsardom, it already has +10 States out of nowhere. Now that might have been changed in the new government reform mechanic, but if it hasnt been, that is 10 more states (already have that) AND 10 more territories before hitting the corruption soft cap.

And then Russia has -0.1 Monthly Corruption, which can basically be calculated as another 5 extra territories before starting to feel the extra corruption.

You could also see this as a weird buff to Espionnage, as there is loads of -Corruption under it. Either directly in the Idea group, or Policies (Again, those were changed, didnt check the numbers). But its Espionnage. Who cares. But then who knows, it might be necessary now to not go bankrupt from corruption alone while doing a WC. Cause either you pay it down (Cost going up in two ways now with size. First the cost per corruption calculated by Dev, then cause of extra territories) OR... you dont... and end up paying extra Adm for Coring.

TL;DR: Russia and Espionage Buff.

EDIT: Just to Rephrase. The Territoriy Cap is a nerf to everyone, but is a relative buff when comparing how hard the change hits nations on a case by case basis.

 

[cristofolmc]

The lack of response from the devs to what appears to be the biggest concern (missionaries not converting outside states) is very disappointing, but it also speaks volumes.

To me personally, the fact that what counts to corruption is the number of territories and not their development, is almost as crazy. Almost. I won't be able to conquer 3 provinces of 3 dev each just because of corruption? What ?

Nobody said you won't be able to. You will have to take a 0.02 corruption. Wow, what a gamebreaker.

Now youll have to consider if and when its worth takin worthless provinces. Wow, decision making, what a game breaker.

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

Strategic diversity should be logical on the first place. Ottomans into Byz or GB into Prussia is illogical and such transformations couldn't happen in any alternative history route. Yeah, the game is sandbox, but a historical sandbox.

Oh sorry I wasn't aware I'm talking to the guy who's in charge to decide what is logical and what isn't But hey, since you're here, can you have another look at that develop province button? I think it's completely illogical that you can turn a 3 dev province in a sprawling metropolis in a single day. We really should restrict province development, I haven't found a single historical record of a ruler pushing this magic button.
While we're at it, shouldn't we reduce possible amount of troops a nation can ferry to far away overseas territories. So illogical. Maybe we should even add a hard limit on how many provinces a nation can conquer because no nation in history has conquered the whole world?

This is a GRAND STRATEGY game. I would expect it to support different strategies and not completely railroad the player into "take humanist ideas, conquer TC land, gg wp" if he/she wants to play efficiently

I find it somewhat concerning how many people here cheer to what they perceive as a nerf to blobbing (even though that corruption can be offset by the additional buff to TCs and tag switching has always been more of a niche thing so I have no idea why suddenly everyone claims how it bothered him so much in SP) while Paradox has done NOTHING to make tall play more fun (unless you find it fun to put a colonist on one of your provinces and wait for him to increase development).

And previously you wrote:

That's quite awful. I had better opinion about EU IV fanbase. Like, isn't the game funnier when you have difficulties to overcome?

Then I offered a suggestion how tag switching could be made harder/ more difficult without completely removing it as an option and you go "nah that's wrong fun". You are cherrypicking things based on what your personal preferences are, and that is awful

 

[durbal]

Make it a -2% missionary strength is WAY better than disabling conversion in territory. Make it -5% if that's not enough. Otherwise people will just state-unstate stuff.
Remember this is a game, and changes shouldn't make it more tedious.

That does nothing since juggling a state to avoid the penalty is still a superior strategy.

 

[Bayes]

This is a GRAND STRATEGY game. I would expect it to support different strategies and not completely railroad the player into "take humanist ideas, conquer TC land, gg wp" if he/she wants to play efficiently

I agree, lets nerf those things too