Welcome to another development diary about Europa Universalis IV. This time we talk about something that will be in the next major patch we do.

One of the parts of the game that has not changed much since eu1 is the concept of technology groups and technological development around the world. We’ve added concepts like westernising, and tweaked that one, but in the end Europe has a huge advantage from day 1, and lots of fun gameplay options are limited the further away you are.

So this is what will happen in 1.18, when it is released this autumn..

A nation’s technology group no longer affect technology research.

There is now a concept called Institutions, which will affect your technology research. There are seven different institutions that appear over the game, and if you don’t get them to spread into your country and then get embraced by your government, your technology costs will slowly rise.

Each institution will appear in a province fullfilling certain factors, and then slowly spread around the world. The nation owning that province will gain prestige and monarch power.

Every year the penalty for not having embraced an institution will grow by 1%, so there is a gradual process.

When an institution has spread to at least 10% of your development, you can embrace it in your government, removing the penalty permanently, and also giving a bonus to your nation. The cost to embrace depends on the amount of development in your nation without the institution.

All institutions spread over borders (including 1 seazone away), if relations are positive, and the spread is based on development in the province getting it. There are also lots of other factors related to the spread.

So which are the the seven institutions then?

Feudalism
This is present from the start in almost all the world, except among the hordes, new world and sub-saharan africa. It will slowly spread into neighboring lands, but it is not quick.
Bonus: Gives 1 extra free leader.
Penalty: 50%


Renaissance
This appears in Italy after 1450, in either a capital or a 20+ development province. It will spread quickly through high development in europe, particularly through italy, but can only spread into provinces that have feudalism already.
Bonus: 5% Cheaper Development & 5% Cheaper Buildings
Penalty: 20%


Colonialism
Appears after 1500 in a port province in Europe, who’s owner has the Quest of the New World idea, and have discovered the new world. And will spread very quickly through any port in countries with colonies.
Bonus: +10% Provincial Trade Power
Penalty: 20%


Printing Press
This arrives after 1550, most likely in germany, but can happen in any protestant or reformed province. It will spread quickly in Protestant and Reformed territory, but also into capitals with dip tech 15.
Bonus: 5& Cheaper Stability
Penalty: 20%


Global Trade
This arrives after 1600, in a center of trade in the highest value trade node, and will spread quicker into provinces with trade buildings.
Bonus: +1 Merchant
Penalty: 20%

Manufactories
This arrives after 1650 in a province with 30 development and a manufactory, and will spread quicker into provinces with manufactories.
Bonus: +10% Goods Produced
Penalty: 20%

Enlightenment
Arrives after 1700 in a province that either is a seat of a parliament, or is a province in europe owned by a monarch with at least 5 in all stats. Universities & Parliament Seats spread this institution.
Bonus: 25% Cheaper Culture Conversion
Penalty: 30%
​

What does this mean?


The progress of Europe is not guaranteed, but most importantly, a nation in Asia or Africa is no longer crippled from day 1, and forced to avoid spending power on ideas and development.

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We’re constantly tweaking the spread factors, but here are some screenshots from mid 18th century in a hands-off game from this morning.

This is the institutions mapmode, where green are provinces that have all the enabled institutions, and yellow are don’t have them all.

And here is the technology mapmode, of the same game.

Some other aspects that has changed include the following
- New World Native Reforming will give you all institutions that the one you reform from has.
- Trade Companies are available to all technology groups.
- Lots and lots of triggers on western techgroups have been changed to check for specific relevant institutions.

 

[Dnote]

So according to this north africa would be at the same level of institutions and tech as Castile/France/England (through Gibraltar), and maybe more than Austria/Poland/Ottomans/Russia??

I really don't like it. The spread of Westernization was bad enough already.

That is unlikely, as it is pretty rare for the Islamic and Catholic nations of that region to not hate/rival each other.

You're more likely to see the tech spread come from Italy into Tunis.

 

[pphair]

I am really excited for this feature!
I'm now wondering how dependent India will be on Timmy collapsing or forming Mughals to keep up with institutions?

 

[eduhum]

Nice.
Institutions are yet another step forward in trying to simulate the forward progress of humanity, that darning question that social sciences are ever looking for an answer to. But the root causes of the appearance of these 7 institutions are something that it seems are still too ahead of Paradox and EU4. Not that you are to blame. It's extremely difficult to be able to specify an answer, a system, regarding this question.

For the moment, I fear that these institutions will spread to non-european places in the world where it wouldn't have made sense to appear. Technological advances and progress have always seen bad in, for example, places like India or the Buddhist world, where the worldview of its inhabitants was and is that life is an eternal and repeating cycle, and nothing changes.

The main reasons for progress in Europe have always been three: Greek Rational Philosophy, Roman Code of Laws, and Christian Moral Values, which glued the continent together and made it much more open minded and safe to live your life than anywhere in the world.

From the game, I would expect some kind of resistance to changes, penalties, rebellions, etc. to these new institutions. It has always been a natural thing.

 

[Valkenvr]

That is unlikely, as it is pretty rare for the Islamic and Catholic nations of that region to not hate/rival each other.

You're more likely to see the tech spread come from Italy into Tunis.

That would be awful too.

I agree that a good human player should be able to change history a little but I really don't like systems that evens the game to get very ahistorical results like a super teched Tunis.

 

[johnleeyx]

1) If you embrace it, it appears in all your provinces.

Is the number of your provinces proportional to the ducats you pay to embrace it?

So does the Eastern tech group decision to capture Vienna/Danzig still have any effect?

 

[Arcaian]

Is the number of your provinces proportional to the ducats you pay to embrace it?

So does the Eastern tech group decision to capture Vienna/Danzig still have any effect?

1: Yes, it is proportional to the ducats you pay - but it's the number of provinces without the institution present that affects it.

2: No clue.

 

[Dnote]

That would be awful too.

I agree that a good human player should be able to change history a little but I really don't like systems that evens the game to get very ahistorical results like a super teched Tunis.

I can't think of the default relations modifiers they might have off the top of my head, but I think Tunis is the only possible Islamic nation that could get the tech spread. The others that are 1 sea tile away or bordering the Catholics are almost always going to be hostile, preventing the spread. Those that aren't hostile are going to be too far away for the spread.

I haven't played much recently though, so maybe Tunis does rival Aragon/Naples and vice a versa these days?

I guess in theory it is also possible for it to spread from Italy to the Ottomans, if they take enough of the Balkans. The Italian nations are usually too small for the Ottomans to care about, so rivalry won't happen.

Really can't remember what enough of the relations modifiers are though to say for sure.

 

[Paweud]

@Johan Will there be any new events for institutions other than the institution "starting" ?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well this is sure to be interesting, and perhaps controversial.

Looks like there will be more agency in getting these institutions to spread than "gank the white guy colony closest to you" or "chainsaw your way to Genoese Crimea" or "beat Ottomans to Sinai then rek some random white guy in Med" (which gets a bit tiresome the 5th or 6th time you run the exact same tentacle route) so I'm cautiously optimistic here.

I feel the same way. The process of westernizing won't be missed. It'd be nice if this works well when released, but it doesn't have a high bar to beat previous mechanic in this case.

 

[mwyeoh]

How will this affect random worlds (With fully random nations?)

 

[Guthuk Gaming]

First off: Looks fantastic.

Second off: How does this interact with the Dhimmi and Cossacks?

 

[klingonadmiral]

Please add a "Revolution&Reaction" institution in the super-lategame that gives something to speed up sieges. The Revolutionary Wars in America and Europe and the following Napoleonic Wars had a massive effect on philosophy and statecraft, and forts ingame are currently far too strong in the last few decades of the game when IRL forts reached their peak in the early 18th century while cannons continued to evolve after that and made fortifications in the traditional sense more and more obsolete.

 

[Promanco]

Can Institutions appear more than once?
What I mean by that is if your provinces meet the requirements to spawn "Global Trade" but it has already spawn somewhere else, can it appear again in your provinces that meet the requirements or does it only spawn once?

 

[FleetingRain]

Some other aspects that has changed include the following
- New World Native Reforming will give you all institutions that the one you reform from has.

And what happens if you reform at 6/6/6 tech? Or are you going to remove that?

 

[Zentay]

Sounds interesting. Still very euro centric, but it will make playing outside of Europe fun regardless.

The Manufactories institution seems to be the only one that will regularly appear in India or China.

A player could also have a shot at making Global Trade appear in India or China, or maybe the middle east.

Enlightenment could happen almost anywhere but in practice I don't see any parliaments except in England. As player I prefer a different government because parliaments don't work well in larger empires. Or at least they used to.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

@Johan
There are so many institutions that provide such a big penalty (especially when stacked) that unless they spread to neighboring countries at lightning speed it is easy to see that the ROTW will yet again be in a terrible, terrible position really, really fast. This new system seems to be really harsh for everyone in Asia but it hits Sub-Saharans the most that by 1550 should have an 80% penalty to tech and it only gets worse as time passes by unless one expands really fast into... Europe. But how can one do that with a terrible unbalance research typical of ROTW starts whenever trying to expand (especially bad when combined with bad rulers). As an example how is a sub-Saharan going to reach dip tech 15 on time when it already has to face an 80% tech malus by 1550? The cherry on top of the cake is (besides death for the AI), again, even more issues with corruption due to imbalanced research. So it is no surprise to me that mostly everyone in Sub Saharan Africa is dead and one of the only surviving countries (probably as protectorates) is the only one in red in the tech map mode (besides the 100% isolated OPM dudes like the one in Siberia).
More gameplay railroading: instead of making buildings and idea groups more attractive you force players to build them/unlock them in the hopes that they may speed up the spread of the institutions to avoid huge tech maluses; the fact that some of them have a terrible ROI in most places/starts outside of Europe or are simply not profitable does not matter.
These changes may have the potential to bring more strategy into this game but it needs to be carefully balanced or else you´ll simply be making ROTW much weaker; maybe this is your goal but keep in mind that at the very least it will reduce the game replay ability.

Edit: Oh I almost forgot, the positive relations requirement promises to be really "interesting" especially when taking rivalry and AE into account. So, for example, if I play as country surrounded by rivals am I condemned to remain locked in the stone age if I don´t kill them? What happens if I do kill them and grab enough AE to piss off my new neighbors (and possibly new rivals)? So will I be back at square one? Do I need to conquer the whole world to be sure the RNG, rivalries and AE won´t keep me in the stone age?

 

[Zoston]

What am I supposed to see here, every country has the same colour?

This is the institutions mapmode, where green are provinces that have all the enabled institutions, and yellow are don’t have them all.

Oh..... thanks..... #colourblindpeoplematter

Paradox, I know it's probably too much to ask to just use black and white, and that it's difficult to account for all the variations in colour blindness, but I really wish you'd use something else than subtle shades of green that are literally invisible to me.

 

[Promanco]

What am I supposed to see here, every country has the same colour?



Oh..... thanks..... #colourblindpeoplematter

Paradox, I know it's probably too much to ask to just use black and white, and that it's difficult to account for all the variations in colour blindness, but I really wish you'd use something else than subtle shades of green that are literally invisible to me.

They are green and yellow different colors for non-colorblind people.
They'll probably change it if you post it on the Suggestion Forum, this happen before when they added the Native American religions their colors were indistinguishable for the colorblind and they requested a change so Paradox fixed it and used colors that colorblind individuals could identify.

 

[Dnote]

Okay, so I ran the game for awhile to see how relations might affect tech spread out of Europe (10 years in).

Granada - Negative with Castile, Portugal
Morocco - Negative with Castile, Portugal
Tlemcen - Positive with Castile, Aragon
Tunis - Negative with Aragon
Fezzan - Out of range
Mamluks - Negative with Venice, Positive with Cyprus
Ottomans - Negative with Byzantium, Venice, Hungary, Wallachia, Serbia, Positive with Moldavia, Naples, Cyprus

So, I guessed wrong about which Islamic nation it would spread to, because I forgot about coastal raiding, but it can clearly still spread, assuming there aren't any modifiers not mentioned in the dev diary.

Also, England shouldn't have any problems, if they lose their mainland holdings then their connections are France, Burgundy and Brittany. It is unlikely for them to have a negative relation with all three.

Scotland could lag behind though, in most games their relations with England will be negative, meaning the tech has to creep through Ireland or Norway to get to Scotland.

Muscovy and Novgorod could also fall behind a bit. As I assume the more countries it has to go through the slower it will be, rather than provinces, if all provinces in a country adopt it at the same time.

 

[Viengua]

Positive relation thing looks like it'd be broken.