EU4 Development Diary - 25th February 2016

[MordinSolis]

The problem i see with a sugestion that comes up very often in this forum is that people want PDX to stop making new content and instead fix whats wrong with the current features.
This in intself seems like a good idea since a good game does not need more and more features.
But people forget that PDX is a company and thus exists to make money, which in turn means they need to get that money from someone(thats us we who buy their products) somehow.
The way PDX makes its money to justify continuing to update their old games (EU4/CK2) is by releasing DLC that people buy and as a benefit even if you dont buy the DLC you still get the free patches.
So if we remove the new features we get every DLC it ends with us getting new DLC and thus no continued support after PDX sees new eu4 sales vs Cost of support as no longer economicly viable.

Edit:
What i mean by this is either we get new DLC and continued support.
Or we get no new content PDX gets no new income and thus does not continue to support EU4 with more fixes since why fix things for free ?

 

[MordinSolis]

Trade income itself is not effected my autonomy at all. Just province trade power is lessened by half of local autonomy. So if province gives 10 trade power and it has 60% LA, then it only gives 7. Otherwise completely uneffected. Trade is phenomenal because of that. Just elaborating for those that don't know that bit, I imagine you do Bbq

Nice bit of information but last time i checked 60% of 10 is 6 not 7 .

 

[perhje]

Yeah, I owe them an apology, my concern wasn't valid. The vote system is back since.
I'm just glad the situation is not as bad as I feared it was, though the main point still remains: give much more weight into constructive critiscm from the community here.
This thread could be the perfect example how feedback from DDs could lead to better DLC/patch features.

Remember that pressing a disagree isn't in any way CONSTRUCTIVE critisism. For that reason it's actually much better to agree with constructive critisism/comments rather than just disagreeing.

 

[Frogbait]

Nice bit of information but last time i checked 60% of 10 is 6 not 7 .

Good thing I'm an accountant at a fortune 100 company ;p

I'm going to blame my phone on that one, but I could totally see myself messing up math wise at some point . I really need to do my mechanic videos that I promised awhile back. Sickness, work, etc... Delayed me getting a game off the ground to learn 1.15 changes in.

 

[Kapitalisti]

Mare nostrum refers to the mediteranean sea or more generaly the concept of one nation controling one entire ocean/sea region(like sweden wanted with baltic)

An ambitious ruler will seek to make the Atlantic their Mare nostrum...

 

[zdlugasz]

Challenge accepted!

Great Britain's borders are not right for 1821; the Shetland Islands are in the Scandinavian region.

France's borders are not right for 1821; Alsace is in the South German region and Savoy is part of the French region (Savoy was not ceded to France until 1860).

The Low Countries region has provinces that were in France in 1821.

Scandinavia does not consist of Denmark and Swden-Norway as they existed in 1821; besides the aforementioned Shetlands, Schleswig-Holstein is part of North Germany, and Finland is part of the region and not part of some Russian region (yes, you can see part of Finland on the OP map - part of the south and it's the same blue as the rest of Scandanavia.)

Bohemia is is part of the North German region, and not the South German region with Austria.

The Baltic region was split between Prussia and Russia in 1821; in fact its borders don't match any period historically.

The Poland region was divided between Russia, Prussia, Austria, and the Republic of Krakow in 1821. Yes, it's borders are close to 1813, but it's still an imperfect match - and it's disingenuous to argue that borders look like 1821 borders and then use 1813 in an example.

So, no, I can safely say the regions as posted in the original post do not represent those of 1821, and in many cases, do not even come close.

Ok, you won with Shetland Islands, I tip my hat. I will even admit that I have to idea to whom Shetland Islands belong even now, without looking at wiki.

Regarding Finland - it is XIXth century border, even if it is not 1821, as I wrote above. I have generally amended my statement and in my previous post I said: they are roughly XIXth century borders, after noticing, among others, Savoy and Holstein belonging to Germany and France. Italy also had mid-second half of XIXth century borders. In my books it is even worse since it looks like regions generally follow borders from Viki timeframe, even if odd province is outside (like Alsace).
Regarding Baltics they created nonsensical region which looks like tailored for TO player and, in view of 1.16, aimed to gimp Lithuania (which covers 5 regions in 1444 if we look at 1.15.1 region map). Anyway they could not add it to Russia/Germany, as those regions are already too big and it would look extremely stupid in 1444.

But lets admit that regions roughly covers XIX/XX century borders, spheres of influence, whatever. Not that from 1444. And as I said previously: there is no Lotharingian Region, there is no region centred around any inland sea or roughly covering area of trade nodes.

EDIT: and Alasace went back to Germany in second part of XIXth century anyway

 

[War_lord]

The Italy region is the worst in my opinion. Why is Venetian cultured South Tyrol and Trentino part of South Germany? Why is Savoy part of France?

 

[MordinSolis]

The Italy region is the worst in my opinion. Why is Venetian cultured South Tyrol and Trentino part of South Germany? Why is Savoy part of France?

Savoy is part of france since it is part of france now and france even has missions for it (wouldnt want to make BBB weaker with how weak they already are )
South Tyrol is a strange choice especialy since nowadays its the opposite with Austrians living there and the region belonging to Italy.
Regions have always been strange in eu4 up to the point of ridicoulusly crazy like ST.Helena being part of africa but having as subcontinent South america and belonging to the Ivory coast Tradenode

 

[rodrigovc]

The states tied to adm tech I don't know. It looks like a hard limit of how much you can expand by age, after that you gain much less from the land you take. Also if states are fixed it will encourage people to choose land to take by the development of that state. For example you will favor taking land from larger states than smaller ones because you get more from the larger per state slot than from the smaller one. This may also encourage people switching there starting state just because it is a crappy one with few development. It would be game of I have X provinces belonging to Y arbitrary groups of which I can choose Z. You will see all sorts of hocus pocus capital moving and states placement to maximize the gain that you get from the land. Lets see how this will work in practice.

Side effect 1: This states mechanics will make playing native american even more difficult that it is already. You will have crappy tech meaning that most of your land in the americas will have 75% autonomy because you don't have enough states slots to fit them.

Side effect 2: How will accepted culture count? If counts only for non-overseas cores people will choose states with the specific intent of making cultures accepted. If not we will choose states according to the local culture (which makes change).

Side effect 3: Will non-overseas cores count for the total development that you have when it comes to having the number of forts to get that +1 tradition bonus? That is a problem right now because overseas provinces do count towards this, which makes maintaining the "correct" number of forts not worth it since they contribute so little money towards your economy (but they need the same amount of forts). I think their development should be multiplied by 1 - their low autonomy cap before accounting for your actual total development.

 

[Kapitalisti]

The states tied to adm tech I don't know. It looks like a hard limit of how much you can expand by age, after that you gain much less from the land you take.

It's probably pretty realistic that a 15th century realm can't efficiently manage a vast, sprawling empire. Especially if they're basically pre-iron age tribes.

 

[Checco]

It's probably pretty realistic that a 15th century realm can't efficiently manage a vast, sprawling empire. Especially if they're basically pre-iron age tribes.

The game is *literally* bloated with unrealistic aspects, but many of them are essential for a game to be played as such.
That's a necessary evil, imo. The game could not exist without a good degree of simplification.

What ticks me off is when I see things who are both unrealistic and useless, or just cater the devs' pets and wishes.

 

[Gorton]

The game is *literally* bloated with unrealistic aspects, but many of them are essential for a game to be played as such.
That's a necessary evil, imo. The game could not exist without a good degree of simplification.

What ticks me off is when I see things who are both unrealistic and useless, or just cater the devs' pets and wishes.

The base issue is that they've abstracted many things in order to have a game that works and is fun - and it was a good idea. I've had many disagreements on how they've done it, but the abstractions were/are necessary.

Now, they're adding features that mess with those abstractions - corruption is trying to un-abstract stuff like overextension and inflation, which leads to the next point - in the case of states, it's two different "features" meant to represent the same problem of governing a large empire, and it does not merge well, or make sense, or create fun gameplay. Same for corruption and OE/inflation.

Good luck getting them to stop, though )

 

[War_lord]

Savoy is part of france since it is part of france now and france even has missions for it (wouldnt want to make BBB weaker with how weak they already are )
South Tyrol is a strange choice especialy since nowadays its the opposite with Austrians living there and the region belonging to Italy.
Regions have always been strange in eu4 up to the point of ridicoulusly crazy like ST.Helena being part of africa but having as subcontinent South america and belonging to the Ivory coast Tradenode

Yes, but Savoy was part of the Italian state of Savoy/Sardinia-Piedmont from 1416 to 1860, when it was annexed to France along with Nice in exchange for France's support for the Unification of Italy. France never held it for the entire stretch of EU4 so why is it in their region?

 

[MordinSolis]

Yes, but Savoy was part of the Italian state of Savoy/Sardinia-Piedmont from 1416 to 1860, when it was annexed to France along with Nice in exchange for France's support for the Unification of Italy. France never held it for the entire stretch of EU4 so why is it in their region?

France had control of savoy from 1536-1559 till they had to give it back once they lost war against habsburger/english alliance.
Also in the french revolution france also annexed savoy in 1796 and even removed it from HRE.
They had to give it back on 1815 but after frogs helped sardinia-p. form italy they got savoy and nice as a gift in 1860.
So that puts savoy under french controll for at least 42 years.
An also adding to that the fact that before eu4 time frame savoy was also part of the frankish realm and thus already had a conecction with france.
So while i dont know the exact reasoning pdx had there do is some evidence for seeing savoy(the province) as part of france.

 

[Siggerad]

Why a cap for states? without cap is 1 thing more to do and feel progress in your game play. Corruption i hope you can test in single player a lot of times before lunch. Just look the conclave anti blop mechanics many of your players are very vocal, and for first time are youtube videos hating CK2 conclave new mechanics (antiblop). Steam forums and recomendation have many toxic opinions.

 

[Praetorian44]

I just watched the Mare Nostrum stream and I'm not sure how I feel about the states/territory mechanic. I don't understand how a country having no autonomy in a province on the other side of the world makes any sense. So basically as England, I can make my provinces in India, Australia, or the Americas the same as my provinces in Britain. That sounds like really poor game design, or maybe I'm not understanding how it works. But in the video they basically made their newly conquered provinces (which had a 75% minimum auntonomy) into a state, and the minimum autonomy was reduced to 0 once they cored it. And this was in provinces that previously would have been considered overseas. I'm aware that the maintenance cost of a state is based on its distance to the capital, but this still doesn't fix the issue. We're talking about the Early Modern period here. It doesn't matter how much money was spent, you could not manage a region on the other side of the globe the way that you could manage the province bordering your capital.

 

[Sabotage13]

What I find really annoying is that the entire system is basically an either/or mechanic that makes the entire autonomy system obsolete.

 

[darksx]

I don't get it, if I have a land connection between continents does everything apart from my state become a territory?
For example, owning parts of India as The Ottomans with a land connection not considering the straits crossings (ie, land in all of the Black Sea, Persia and Northwest India)

 

[Marinaliteyears]

I am rather excited for this to be implemented, As this may slow snowballing atleast a bit.

My only real issue with this feature is that the regions seem a bit arbitrary, and where some of the maluses come from, such as the tech stuff, though I will have to see it in action to judge.

 

[Frogbait]

It's probably pretty realistic that a 15th century realm can't efficiently manage a vast, sprawling empire. Especially if they're basically pre-iron age tribes.

Not exactly sure where you get "pre-iron age tribes" from. Just because they were not industrialized does not mean they were still relying on bronze tools.

That's basically the equivalent of saying modern 3rd world countries are basically early iron-age societies. The native Americans had their own civilizations that developed differently than the European societies. That does not mean they were in a technological state equivilant to over 2,000 year old (basing it on around the year 1500) near eastern and European societies. Keep in mind the Iron Age in near eastern and European societies started around 7-900 BC. I'm fairly positive it was around 900 BC, but I'm struggling to recall from memory atm.

And also keep in mind outside of the industrial revolution, human society across the planet tended to create roughly the same technologies around the same time period for most of human history.