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EU4 - Development Diary - 28th January 2016

Hello everyone, today we’ll start talking about 1.16 and what it will contain. The development team is busy working on 1.15.1 at the same time, which we hope is out ASAP.

One of the fun part of working on the Europa Universalis series over the last decade has been the constant evolvement of the map. Today we’re proud to announce some of the map changes for 1.16, with a quick look of Europe.

Ireland in Crusader Kings II is known as tutorial island, as an entire game in itself. In EU so far, ireland have not been properly represented, and more been shown as poor as it became after a long time of english rule. Now Ireland is richer in 1444, and not just a quick conquest for England within 5 years. Ireland also have 9 provinces, where it had five before, and several new interesting nations to play.


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We’ve also tweaked the map to better borders and provinces in Hungary, and I hope you’ll enjoy this setup.
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We also made a complete overhaul of how cultures work to remove the ties to language, and tie them more together to similar cultures, to create more historically plausible countries and relations.

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Now, for some community fun, try to find as many changes on the map compared to 1.15 in this screenshot and list below!

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Next week I’m back talking about a new concept that is getting in the game for 1.15, which can be seen in the topbar on these screenshoys.
 
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*All* of the western/south-western/north-western Turkish/Ottoman provinces were nearly 100% Greek up until after World War 1, even much more so in the late medieval start date of EU4, not just the Aegean islands. Greek for thousands of years. Any of the Turks or Greeks here will tell you that. Smyrna is still sometimes referred to as "infidel Izmir" even though the actual demographics violently changed in 1922.

Just sayin'. Important to get it right.
 
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As a Finn I'm naturally inclined to notice the removal of the Finno-Ugric culture group. I can see why this is done, since the group was fairly unpopular among players. However, when (or if) the change results in a situation where Finnish, Karelian and Estonian culture are all in different groups with no mutual acceptance, the result is definitely wonky. While I'm not an expert, I assume that the new split between Scottish and Highlander is similarly odd.

Perhaps the cultural acceptance mechanic has been changed to include some preset mutual acceptance over culture group borders?

The good thing about Finnish being in the Scandinavian group is that it's more likely to survive that way. The bad thing is that you can't create a true Greater Finland where all Finno-Ugrics are automatically accepted :p But that's a pretty rare case compared to the normal swedification of Finland. All in all I think it's pretty good change.
 
You might consider changing the current tags of Connacht and Munster to Clanricarde and Thomond respectively.

The Kingdom of Connacht ceased to exist when it was conquered by the Burkes in 1235, and the Burkes stopped using the successor title of the Lordship of Connacht after the Burke civil war in the 1330s. The land that is currently held by your Connacht tag was actually split between the Burke titles Mac William Íochtar and Mac William Uachtar. Mac William Uachtar was located in modern county Galway, where the current capital of Connacht in your image is, and is better known as Clanricarde.

The Kingdom of Munster ceased to exist in 1118 when the King of Connacht partitioned the territory of the Kingdom of Munster in order to secure the title of High King of Ireland. Munster thereby became the kingdoms of Thomond, Desmond, and Ormond, which are the inspiration for the three crowns of the modern flag of Munster. According to this map, the area which you have assigned to the province of Limerick was split between the Earldom of Desmond, the Kingdom of Desmond, and the Kingdom of Thomond. I assume that the tag currently holding Cork is the Earldom of Desmond, and that it is probably simply named "Desmond". Therefore, Limerick should probably be given to the Kingdom of Thomond. However, at least according to the map I linked, the Kingdom controlled only about the modern county of Clare around 1450, but it did manage to regain the lands compromising the modern county of Limerick during the War of the Roses. According to the map on this page, the kingdom did hold the lands of the province historically, just not in 1444. It is also worth mentioning that the city of Limerick was Thomond's historical capital, but they did move their capital to Clonroad/Ennis, which appears to be where you currently have the capital of the province of Limerick.

Munster and Connacht could be formable nations. If one is playing Thomond and holds both Limerick and Cork, they could take a decision to reestablish the Kingdom of Munster. Sligo could possibly have a decision to reestablish the Kingdom of Connacht if they held both Sligo and Connaught, as they were headed by a branch of the Kings of Connacht.
 
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erm....Loyal ally isn't the word... Pskov was only a vassal to Moscovy due to the power of Moscovy's sword, they were invaded and told to obey, they WERE allied to Novogrod, who did Novogrod betray?

Your knowlege about russian history is not so good as you think.

Pskov was only a vassal to Moscovy due to the power of Moscovy's sword
What a madness story? Pskov separate from Novgorod and accept Moscovian overlordship peacefully. Russia was splitted on many states, but every time when foreign forces invade in Russia they stick together and beating the enemy. Exactly because of this ALL of Russian states stand united in crusade against Novgorod, part of Novgorodian boyars wants to accept Lithuanian overlordship and betrayal all what was matter for every Russian people and states. They wants surrender to foreign enemy.

Why I called him loyal? Because Russia have many times of troubles and Pskovian, Tverian or every other russian state never wants to separate from Russia. Its one of most eloquent evidence of Russian cultural unity.
 
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The Scottish Highlanders were actually substantially different in terms of culture from the Lowlanders. Lowlanders were heavily Anglicised much much sooner then the Highlanders.
Well, I stand corrected.

The good thing about Finnish being in the Scandinavian group is that it's more likely to survive that way. The bad thing is that you can't create a true Greater Finland where all Finno-Ugrics are automatically accepted :p But that's a pretty rare case compared to the normal swedification of Finland. All in all I think it's pretty good change.
It's probably for the better, even if the result is somewhat odd. Perhaps Paradox will finally give Finland Proper and Ostrobothnia Finnish culture to offset this otherwise grave insult.
 
Slovak as not slavic but carpathian is very bothering
And how would that help gameplay and simulate the almost symbiotic link between Slovaks and Hungarians ?

Slovaks, Czechs and Polish might have been slavic but Slovaks formed a strong link with Hungarians and Czechs with Germans.
 
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Well, splitting russian culure was correct only about novgorodian culture separation (even without splitting it to pomor additionaly). North-western russians are even now have significant differences at least in their speech.
But WTF is ryazanian culture?! I heard only about neolitic "ryazanian culture". And it's completely unrelated to EU IV timeline.
Hope, results of current paradox hiring campaign will be more efficient regards well-educated people.
 
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Its 2016 and you still haven't fixed Dobrogea
The province count and shape of Romanian principalities is a joke and a spit in the face for eastern European players. You can form Romania in the game but you can never have geographically or historically accurate borders. It's not like they don't have Romanian and Hungarian modders than can help, it's not like Wikipedia is easily accessible by anyone, it's not like they already have good maps in Vic2 and CK2, they just don't give a damn. Rich Flavor for Austria, including special government form, free PU, special events for ONE female ruler? No problem. An entire DLC dedicated to Poland? No problem. Accurate borders and a few more provinces for the countries between Austria and Poland? Woah woah, slow down there son. First we make 100 provinces in China and then MAYBE we'll copy/paste the borders from CK2 and Vic2 into EUROPA Universalis 4.

tl;dr: TIL Romania is not in Europe.
 
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The province count and shape of Romanian principalities is a joke and a spit in the face for eastern European players. You can form Romania in the game but you can never have geographically or historically accurate borders. It's not like they don't have Romanian and Hungarian modders than can help, it's not like Wikipedia is easily accessible by anyone, it's not like they already have good maps in Vic2 and CK2, they just don't give a damn. Rich Flavor for Austria, including special government form, free PU, special events for ONE female ruler? No problem. An entire DLC dedicated to Poland? No problem. Accurate borders and a few more provinces for the countries between Austria and Poland? Woah woah, slow down there son. First we make 100 provinces in China and then MAYBE we'll copy/paste the borders from CK2 and Vic2 into EUROPA Universalis 4.

tl;dr: TIL Romania is not in Europe.
Base CK2 has horrible maps lol tho the hip mod is a gem.I don't understand why the devs cant make the maps as good as the modders?
 
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<snip rant>

tl;dr: TIL Romania is not in Europe.
Honestly, it's a no win situation. If they improve Europe first, they get complaints about Eurocentrism. If they improve RotW first they get complaints that <insert area> in Europe is much more important and still bad. If they improve some of those areas, they get complaints that other areas are "not in Europe".

Would you prefer they had spent two years on improving every part of the map before releasing any of it?
 
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Honestly, it's a no win situation. If they improve Europe first, they get complaints about Eurocentrism. If they improve RotW first they get complaints that <insert area> in Europe is much more important and still bad. If they improve some of those areas, they get complaints that other areas are "not in Europe".

Would you prefer they had spent two years on improving every part of the map before releasing any of it?
I would prefer they would ignore those who would cry "eurocentrism" and improve one continent every 4-6 months, STARTING with Europe. But you know, Sweden, white guilt is strong and even hints of accusations of eurocentrism is basically calling them racist and would mess up their relationship with the social justice clowns.
 
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As an Irish man - fucking yes!!

About bloody time too. Looks lovely.

Ps - any chance of Irish events? Flight of the Earls or the Ulster Plantation? Would make England play throughs much more interesting as well.

Also, is Ireland going to remain Catholic rather than always converting to Reformed due to the centre in Scotland?
 
A new number-based mechanic? How surprising!
 
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