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.

 

[Rip Off Productions]

I imagine that Ming/Qing would be able to reform from the Celestial Empire if they embrace the right institution(s?), maybe with different options for each, same for the hordes reforming their governments.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

On the one hand the current Westernization process is far from ideal, both from a gaming and realism perspective, on the other hand the new system (unless I've misunderstood it) seems extremely random and gives players far from Europe little or no ability to manipulate their development of institutions.

Unless they nerf bat ROTW from what's being described here, there's no question it's a ROTW buff. Yes, the potential penalties are bad. However, way too many people are underestimating the current cost of front-loaded 50-60% tech cost demerit. East Asia will probably have feudalism adoptable at the start (per his description), meaning you're looking at a gradually increasing penalty of up to 20% until 1550ish if it still works as described now.

That's on the order of 9 techs taken, and as tech costs scale up you're probably saving an average of 50%/tech relative to now as Chinese group. By 1550 with just European renaissance penalizing you you're ahead 2700 monarch points compared to this patch...per category! That's the kind of difference that would let Korea straight line core to Muscovy without losing any monarch points compared to now whatsoever .

When you compare that to having to take techs on a 60% penalty then dropping another 1000+ per category (usually more due to initial stab hit and events) to westernize I can't think of any optimized playthrough that would come out behind. Ming/Korea/Lan Na/etc start in a ~3700 monarch point hole right now if teching up on-time and westernizing in 1550.

That is more damaging to monarch points than eating a 20% penalty all game long, and the damage in this patch is front-loaded.

Edit: I expect colonialism will be re-worked on spread rules. It's hard to imagine Italy getting a 20% penalty because they don't have colonies/colonist with port being something that sticks in the game.

 

[pphair]

It takes 50 years for them to have a -50% tech penalty.

Johan said in this thread that Americans start with +50% instead of ticking up. Change the view to Dev only responses. Its his seventh one.
Still overall a buff to primitives probably.

 

[FrontLine1111]

This is an outstanding change. I've imagined similar systems to replace the arbitrary westernization mechanic but this design is better than any I had imagined. Kudos to Johan for a coming up with a compelling design.

 

[net.split]

Also; it is worth mentioning that since the penalties climb at 1% per year; New World natives should actually tech up pretty darn quickly to start. Also wonder how that will interact with 'primitives can't into boats'. It takes 50 years for them to have a -50% tech penalty. Compared to their current 150%~250%. Even assumeing Europe shows up ~1500; New World will only have a 70% penalty; less than half of what they have now. Remember; they can autoreform at 18 total tech. Or 6/6/6. Natives will have done that by the time Europe shows up.

Natives are getting an absolutely gigantic buff.

The incrementing penalty only applies for the later institutions. Regions that start without Feudalism also start with the full 50% tech penalty. Your day-one penalty as an American native is 50%, not 1% and climbing.

It's still substantially better than the current situation and makes investing in tech as a native viable rather than foolish (given the mechanics of reform).

On the one hand the current Westernization process is far from ideal, both from a gaming and realism perspective, on the other hand the new system (unless I've misunderstood it) seems extremely random and gives players far from Europe little or no ability to manipulate their development of institutions.

This isn't really true (except for Americans who still have to wait for colonizers, just as before). Let's go through the list.

Feudalism - This one spreads very quickly to neighbors, according to Johan. So, as an African, you go north just a bit (colonizing next to Morocco or over in the Ethiopia area is probably sufficient).

Renaissance - This is probably the most painful one for RotW to grab. The description is unclear on how it spreads outside of Europe; we know only that it spreads fast through Europe itself. Presumably it also spreads through non-European feudal provinces, just at a slower rate, so it'll get everywhere eventually. A 20% penalty is rather minor.

Colonialism - This spreads to any port for a nation with colonies. So, Asians colonize California and Africans colonize South America. Play it right and you'll probably get this immediately after the Europeans, before the climbing penalty really affects you. Central Asian nations are hurt the worst here, but you'll get other spreads faster than East Asia.

Printing Press - Just get to Dip 15 and wait. Probably works best if your capital is surrounded by lots of provinces, so if it's on a peninsula or island with few other ports in the sea zone, maybe move it.

Global Trade - This is probably appearing in an end node, assuming we aren't getting major trade revisions in this patch / DLC. Conquering one of those by 1600 from a RotW start might be tricky for a less advanced player. Still, you likely have a pretty substantial empire by this point, so just load up your provinces closest to Europe with trade buildings in order to collect the spread as soon as possible. Plan your first half conquest accordingly (conquer in the right direction; don't just blob in a bunch of backward provinces, you'll have trouble getting the 10% for any instututions in that case). Or just eat the 20% penalty; you've probably acquired Renaissance by now (unless it really is locked to Europe provinces), so this just resets the counter.

Manufactories - This one can appear anywhere in the world. Develop several provinces to 30 and put Manufactories in them to steal this one away from Europe (or collect the spread faster).

Enlightenment - This doesn't appear until after 1700. By this point you should be able to be wherever you need to be to nab the spread, especially with European colonizers running around.

 

[Metz]

Should colonialism grant more colonists arriving to new colonies as well as more colonial range?

 

[SignedName]

Maybe some institutions can be spread by event? For example, the Japanese Western Trade events could be retooled with Institutions in mind.

 

[ChildeR]

unittype primarily, exploration spread, and some minor flavor.

If it has so little effect, could you consider removing it from the game?

If you keep adding stuff, but it would be good to do some upkeep and remove obsolete concepts.

 

[Bouchart]

I'm intrigued by institutions. This would be a great opportunity to rework the Revolution rather than have it as some random disaster that doesn't often occur.

Maybe an 8th institution could be added? Call it Jacobinism or something. The country where it spawns first could go through a revolution event or disaster that could spread outwards from there.

Any ideas?

 

[Bouchart]

Also how will these changes affect the Overseas Expansion CB?

 

[romothecus]

Edit: I expect colonialism will be re-worked on spread rules. It's hard to imagine Italy getting a 20% penalty because they don't have colonies/colonist with port being something that sticks in the game.

That's not how it'll work. Colonialism will start in a port of a nation with Exploration ideas. But it will spread to and be adopted by anybody. Sure, Johan says colonialism "will spread very quickly through any port in countries with colonies" but I think that's supposed to be a special modifier for colonialism. The general rule, above, for institutions is that "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."

So assuming Castile/Spain starts colonialism, it will spread to Italy very quickly.

The more interesting problem would be - if Colonialism can ONLY start in the port of an Exploration-ideas nation, what if you neuter the colonizers fast enough as, say, Ottomans? Cripple world tech forever? I forget, do any southeast Asian AIs take Exploration?

 

[Susanna]

How will these changes affect the High American tech group? (I'm playing one now, so that's where my curiosity wandered.)

 

[net.split]

How will these changes affect the High American tech group? (I'm playing one now, so that's where my curiosity wandered.)

I'd assume that High American starts with Feudalism, so that means 0% tech penalty in the early game. It also means all the other Institutions would spread more quickly into your territory, so you're unlikely to have anything other than a few minor tech blips within the first few years after a new Institution is spawned (and then only three or so of them, depending on whether or not you pull off a Sunset Invasion before Global Trade fires). The worst is probably the Renaissance period, where you might reach the maximum of 20% before you can border colonizers and get the flow.

I'm actually curious what happens with natives in general under this system. If Feudalism spreads from Europeans into the New World, then everything else would spread fairly quickly afterward. That means you get the 50% penalty initially, then another 20% from Renaissance (because AI colonizes slowly), but probably not a whole lot after that. You could feasibly never see so much as a 100% tech penalty as a native American again with the system as currently laid out.

I wonder if Colonialism avoids spreading through colonies / CNs? Seems like the only way to keep a tech penalty in an area that you colonize, though even then that's only 20% max.

 

[pphair]

I would like to see embargoes affect spread of institutions in some way.

 

[Canute VII]

I remember the events in EU1 that triggered only for a particular nation at a particular time. Made it very important to time your ownership of the Netherlands if one was France, Spain, or Austria, but anyone else could plow in and grab the territory... some of these have "gamey" features like that built into them.

I know it's harder work, but... these need to kick off based upon conditions other than geography/nationality. For example, "Printing Press". The German OPMs were "tall and narrow", so they were already well-placed to go with that innovation because of that, not because they were German or Protestant. In fact, there were many Catholics that took to the presses to spread their propaganda in fighting Protestantism.

There should also be significant penalties for taking on innovations. They should be a risk - Louis XVI thought it would be a good idea to convene the Estates-General for a brief session about finances... China's path was to resist innovations that increased unemployment and unrest, but to embrace those that improved farming and mining output, as well as refinements in artisan techniques. Ottomans, Mughuls, Safavids, and Russians were the "gunpowder empires", going after military innovations and letting the arts and letters side of things take a back seat. Shah Akbar of the Mughuls *wanted* to revolutionize religion in his empire, but that went nowhere after he died. So, yes, innovate if you want to, but there could be a sharp risk of revolt, rebellion, or rollback on ones that the people or elites feel go too far. Stability hits, increased unrest, mutinies, government change - all should be risk factors. Adopting innovations should be like navigating a difficult strait.

Spain was famous for having a spurt of growth and then centuries of conservatism - that should be something for every huge empire to consider. Whereas, who's to say that Navarra, if it survives on its own, couldn't be where some of these innovations kick off? Or a very well-played small Asian state?

How about multiple "homes" for innovations, as in the case of the Reformation Centers. This time, though, the speed of dissemination within a nation is a function of how fast the ruler wants to go. A "Printing Press" idea that begins in a very conservative Austria might slowly spread to the OPMs nearby, but once it hits those locations, the rulers there may choose to adopt much faster than the Austrians and spread their innovation forth all the faster.

And for players that wish to resist, there should still be that involuntary creep - like with the Reformation. Being friendly to an innovative nation means that, yes, those innovations are on their way to your lands, like them or not. This is why there was a League of Three Emperors - they weren't having any of that Liberalism nonsense! They befriended each other and took a stand against voting and horrible things like that.

And, so help me, if this feature leads to a general consensus that optimal play is to be a Germanic OPM with trade in the North Sea until 1690, and then unleash the Kraken... then it's not the right direction. To that end, trade flows have to be reversible. If I'm running the table with Seville as my center, those merchants from Genoa need to come to my yard to drink my milkshake. Seville trade should not keep flowing to Genoa all the way to 1820. Maybe there should be no "ultimate node" centers like Genoa, Venice, and North Sea.

I've loved EU since, well, you can see when I joined the forums. I love it as an open-ended sandbox that allows me to ask questions, do a few console mods, and then let the rich game engine answer those for me. I don't want to play a game as much as I want to let history go down its own rabbit-hole. The changes that made owning the Netherlands a tricky situation for any non-Dutch monarch are part of what makes the game great. Changes that make it vital to control Nuremberg by 1550 do not make it great.

Multiple centers of change, big risks, event chains, reversible trade flows: more of those, please!

I agree, the emergence of institutions should not be tied to a specific region or country, otherwise we will essentially have the same "it must be this way, because historically this was how it came about"-effect like with fixed tech cost. Criteria that should determine the emergence of institutions imho:

• Number of capitals in same region (competition)
• Total development in region (capability)
• Number of cultures and religions in region (variety, tolerance, competition)
• Degree of political participation in region as measured as percentage of development controlled by republics/free cities/constitutional monarchies (freedom, variety, property rights)
• Some measure of income, maybe

I believe, that would favour the italian region, the german regions, BUT other regions of the world could still emerge to have the right conditions to host the "institutions". I realize how pdx tries to combine some historicsl railroading for the early institutions with a more open approach for the later institution. However, the criteria listed, would also strongly favour some european regions in the game start, while still not precluding alternative outcomes. I believe that would add some unpredictability and player agency and, hence, fun / replayability.

 

[net.split]

Very few of the Institutions are actually limited to Europe, though. Renaissance is restricted, and Printing Press is almost certain to spawn there because of the religion bit (there will be precious few non-Catholic, Christian provinces outside of Europe to serve as alternates). The rest are a bit more open; Colonialism can spawn anywhere if the player rushes CNs, Manufactories are actually reasonably likely to fire in China, Enlightenment can fire anywhere if you get a Constitutional Monarchy, and Global Trade, while weighing heavily in European favor, could potentially be manipulated to occur upstream (though this would admittedly require either tons of effort or a revamped trade system).

Putting stuff like total development and total capitals in region would probably hard-wire more of these to Europe due to starting values and HRE mechanics, even if you play with random nations and random starting development values.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

Here's my counter-proposal for Institutions:

1400 - Feudalism
1450 - Renaissance
1500 - Public Literacy
1550 - Scientific Revolution
1600 - Colonialism
1650 - Globalism
1700 - Enlightenment
1750 - Industrial Revolution
1800 - Ideological Politics

Renaming "Printing Press" to "Public Literacy" conveys the same idea while avoiding the China and Gutenberg issues. Colonialism is shifted up to 1600 because that is about when the Spanish Empire would have been going very strong; instead of going directly from the Printing Press to Colonialism, the Scientific Revolution (very important, and somewhat separate from the Renaissance) is added.

Global Trade is renamed to Globalism because that sounds better. Manufactories is renamed to "Industrial Revolution" and trades places with the Enlightenment; industrialization is more significant of a historical process than the industrious revolution (which I suppose Manufactories is supposed to represent), and the Enlightenment technically began in the late 1600s (though, like colonialism, it took a while to become significant). Finally, Ideological Politics is added to keep the new-institution-every-fifty-years theme.

It wouldn't be a terrible idea, either, to have it be possible for parallel Institutions to develop, and to make their spawning locations more generic.

Renaissance: Favors regions with high amounts of Base Production, trade value, and balkanization. Favors Italy and Greece.
Public Literacy: Favors regions with high amounts of Base Tax, educational buildings (if any exist), and a strong presence of Clergy. Favors Germany.
Scientific Revolution: Likely to develop in the same region as Public Literacy or Renaissance. Favors regions with high technology.
Colonialism: Favors regions with high trade value that are also in nations with colonies.
Globalism: Favors regions with high trade value that are also in nations with trade companies.
Enlightenment: Favors regions with high amounts of Development (in general), Innovative or Humanist ideas, and constitutional forms of government.
Industrial Revolution: Favors regions with high presences of minerals (especially late game Coal resources), Development in general, and economic buildings.
Ideological Politics: Favors regions with revolutionary or constitutional governments.

So, only the Renaissance/Public Literacy/Scientific Revolution would be very biased in favor of Europe, and it could still end up in a place like Japan or India. Colonialism/Globalism and Industrial Revolution/Ideological Politics would tend to go together as well.

 

[Canute VII]

Very few of the Institutions are actually limited to Europe, though. Renaissance is restricted, and Printing Press is almost certain to spawn there because of the religion bit (there will be precious few non-Catholic, Christian provinces outside of Europe to serve as alternates). The rest are a bit more open; Colonialism can spawn anywhere if the player rushes CNs, Manufactories are actually reasonably likely to fire in China, Enlightenment can fire anywhere if you get a Constitutional Monarchy, and Global Trade, while weighing heavily in European favor, could potentially be manipulated to occur upstream (though this would admittedly require either tons of effort or a revamped trade system).

Putting stuff like total development and total capitals in region would probably hard-wire more of these to Europe due to starting values and HRE mechanics, even if you play with random nations and random starting development values.

The 3 first institutions are restricted to europe (colonialism as well, you might have overlooked that). The 6th is almost sure to fire in europe, since where would there be a province with a parliament? That leaves 2 institutions a little more open...

 

[romothecus]

The 3 first institutions are restricted to europe (colonialism as well, you might have overlooked that). The 6th is almost sure to fire in europe, since where would there be a province with a parliament? That leaves 2 institutions a little more open...

I think he's saying that as the player you could easily switch to constitutional monarchy/republic outside of Europe and spawn Liberalism. The problem of course is that if there are other eligible countries (including every European country with a good ruler), and you're quite far away from Europe, you may just lose the RNG and be tech-delayed until Liberalism spreads to you. But your Parliaments will also speed that up.

But you're right about Colonialism; that one is hard-wired to Europe. Overall they are pretty Euro-centric but they give the player a lot of freedom.

The printing press thing is kinda dumb, though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Global Trade - This is probably appearing in an end node

I anticipate this appearing in Zanzibar in a lot of single player games.

I forget, do any southeast Asian AIs take Exploration?

It is virtually impossible for non-western AI or AI outside of Europe to take exploration right now. No guarantees for future patches.