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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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Great changes from what I can tell! While there's always going to be people complaining when changes to cultures are made, I think most of the revealed changes are quite good.

Nice to see Welsh added into the British group. Hopefully this will mean that England won't always end up culture converting their problems away, and considering that they didn't really suffer any major revolts from Wales after 1500, I'd say it's sensible. I'm still hoping for a Northumbrian culture, though. And I do hope the Highlands province has been divided a bit.

And finally a Carpathian group! I think it's the most logical solution for the region, as though it can be heavily debated linguistically it makes the most sense from a historical perspective.

I'm glad that Russian was divided, as the blob was massive, and there was indeed Novogorodian regionalism in 1444, but I'm not sure what to make of Ryazanian from a historical perspective. I like it from a gameplay perspective, and do think a distinctive regional culture there is indeed justified, but personally I think it could be renamed to something better the Ryazanian. And I do hope Lithuanian will get added to the West Slavic group if you're going for a less linguistic approach.

Also, to weigh in on the whole Turkish debate; I understand the Turko-Semetic culture from a gameplay perspective, but I can't say I like it that much. The current Oghuz group was fine in my opinion, and I think everyone was happy with it. However, an 'Anatolian' group that merges Turkish and Greek is not a good solution either, and wouldn't make much sense historically in 1444. Greeks only became culturally similar to Turks after centuries of being ruled by them; Ottoman rule over the Balkans isn't even a century old yet, and there are plenty of holdouts including Byzantium.

Culturally, in 1444, Greece was actually much closer to Italy. Between the dominance of Italian merchants, the Italian holdings across Greece that had been there for centuries, the fact that Byzantium depended on Italian states so heavily in its last days, a revived philhellenism that was sweeping the Italian Peninsula, and that the Byzantines tried to uphold the Council of Florence which superficially mended the Schism, shows that Greece was far closer to Italy culturally than the Turks (Cyprus is a prime example; whose population became so influenced by Western styles that Cypriot is deserving of being a culture of its own). Most interactions that happened with the Turks before 1453 were based off realpolitik and a desire to survive, such as strategic marriages, and not cultural closeness.

If Byzantium did survive and reconquer Greece, previous circumstances and events would have seen it gravitating towards Italy, not the Turks. And while folding the Greek Cultures into the Latin Group is out of the question, it would make more sense from a strictly historical perspective. In fact, it was actually Ottoman Policy to encourage the closer ties with the Greek Population (such as appointing the anti-Unionist Gennadius Scholarius as Ecumenical Patriarch in the aftermath of the Fall of Constantinople), or at the very least discourage ties with the west, so that they would be less inclined to turn to them for more help - as the Byzantines were so apt to do.

If EU4 started off in 1453 or 1492, then an Anatolian group would make a bit more sense, as most or all of Greece would start off under Ottoman rule and events would have taken a turn in their direction (this still fails to take into account the Italian possessions in Greece, and their populations would still gravitate towards Italy), but as long as it starts off with an independent Byzantium that had been seeking help and interacting with the Italians for quite some time, and noticeable Italian holdings across Greece, then it wouldn't make much sense.

Now, if there was a way to make cultures drift into other groups or have new ones emerge over time...

But I'm getting off-topic. Very nice changes to the map, and I can't wait to see more!
 
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Looks interesting, still...
1) I guess Muscovite and Novgorodian are OK, but Ryzanian? I guess it's not the best name given the map (No offence intended)
2) Celtic group RIP :( First the Brittany, now Wales and Cornwall...
At least Highlanders now live
3) Finno-Ugric also RIP
4) Slovaks...at last!

I don't know, I guess with 1.16 I'll take a celtic and finno-ugric run, no matter how hard Paradox try to keep'em separate :p
 
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Sigh.... I'm gonna have a lot of modding work to do for myself once this patch hits to fix some of the incredibly daft changes that are to be imposed on the cultures in this game. Seriously... Turkish together with the Arab group... You finally add the Slovaks just to group them with the Magyars... Romanians with the Magyars... And worst of all, what the hell is Ryzanian!? Novgorodian!? Muscovite!? Never has such a thing made even a sliver of sense, all of those regions were of Russian culture. I have half a mind to mod every province in Sweden to have its own culture and tag just to drive home just how ridiculous such manufactured factiousness looks :p .
 
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Woah, you changed the shape of pretty much every province. The culture map's looking pretty good.
 
I don't care much about historicity but hey, how do I convert whole world to Russian culture in 1.16? Should I be considering converting to Ruthenian because it basically translates as "Russian"? Or ByeloRussian because it has word "Russian" in it (unlike Muscovite)? At least make Russian culture appear(and auto convert that Ryazanian etc. nonsense into Russian) when Russia is formed.
Force-converting Stockholm to Russian culture was my favourite part of the game, Johan, Wiz, pls fix.
 
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afb said:
With the gap from Sligo to Hungary being only 25 or about a 10% increase, it seems like something where the base value contributes much more than the country. Maybe some kind of officer pool. Could it be a rework of how you recruit generals? Don't see a big need to shift away from using Military Points, but the Army and Navy traditions are tricky to manage, so maybe something moe simple?
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What that icon really looks like to me is one guy holding another one at swordpoint. They definitely aren't soldiers in uniform - they are wearing different coloured hats. I'm guessing the numbers are related to crime/banditry (or tax collection? :p)
 
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Florence rules the world said:
Question: Sligo was and is part of the Connacht. Tyrone didn't exist until 1600ca. with that name. The area was called Tir Conaill and extended from donegal to half of the modern ulster. wouldn't it be better to replace tyrone with Tir Conaill and connacht with, don't know, Galway? maybe Galway could have a bonus rep with england, for historical reasons. I am so happy to see changes in my country <3
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I disagree. Tyrconnell was only pre-eminent in Ulster at the beginning of the 15th century. The Cenel Eoghan, i.e. the Great O'Neill was always strongest. Tyrconnell could only undermine it when it allied with the Clandeboy O'Neills.

Connacht could be West Connacht, but it depends on who will be in charge. I think it will be the Burkes, in which case, Connacht is probably more accurate.
 
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Map changes are always good (especially for Ireland :D), but I'm not a fan of the culture rework. I know language groups and culture don't exactly match, but I think language is more appropriate.

If cultures could switch between groups (after a certain period of acceptance for example), then those culture groupings would be fine, since culture is fluid. But if the culture groupings aren't going to be dynamic, which they aren't at present, then language is more appropriate, since those don't shift 'groups'.

You're also guaranteed to be more historically accurate if you follow language boundaries, since any attempt to group cultures is always going to end up extremely arbitrary (which is fine if they're going to be dynamic, but not so good if they aren't).
 
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TheChrisD said:
@Johan - Irishman nitpick time: Sligoan isn't an adjective used around here, heck there's very few actual county/province adjectives that aren't just the straight name of the county/province. Corkonian, Galwegian, and Dubliner might be the only three, but even they're barely used in modern language.
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Sligonian, I believe, is the official name.
 
marcsimus said:
I don't care much about historicity but hey, how do I convert whole world to Russian culture in 1.16? Should I be considering converting to Ruthenian because it basically translates as "Russian"? Or ByeloRussian because it has word "Russian" in it (unlike Muscovite)? At least make Russian culture appear(and auto convert that Ryazanian etc. nonsense into Russian) when Russia is formed.
Force-converting Stockholm to Russian culture was my favourite part of the game, Johan, Wiz, pls fix.
Click to expand...

Thanks. You just made me listen Arkona with that video.
 
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Artess said:
Russian cultural breakdown seems... wrong. The division at the time was political rather than cultural, I don't think there was a "Ryazan culture", for instance.

Is it done to ensure that those countries can be released at any time? IMO, would be better to, say, grant permanent cores on capitals that last forever (unless converted to a different culture group altogether).
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Agreed. Sevryuk sub-culture would've made more sense (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Севрюки - no English translation). Ryazan sub-culture beyond the former Ryazan principality borders is absurd.
 
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Meanwhile, Albania goes to a corner and cries.

Seriously, why it still is OPM? Make it 2 provinces...
 
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