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EU4 - Development Diary - 2nd of July 2019

Hello all and welcome to today's dev diary for EUIV. Over the past eight dev diaries, our content design team @neondt , @Caligula Caesar and @Ofaloaf have been serving up a plethora of content that will be coming your way in the upcoming European Update and its accompanying expansion. There's certainly been plenty of it (and I'm told even more to come) but today I'm here to update you on the development plans for EUIV leading up to said expansion, and to tease the new mechanics to come.

As we laid out early on in the year, we intend to take our time with the upcoming European update. We have previously said that we aim to release said update late this year, but this is now being moved into 2020 for a variety of reasons, not least of all that we have many ambitions for this update, and want to give it the development time it deserves.

Unpleasant news for some, I've no doubt. I've been seeing comments along the line of wanting the expansion released as soon as possible from people excited about the content updates when we haven't even touched on the mechanical ones yet. While the expansion release is certainly a long time away, we believe that this is the best way to deliver the quality that EUIV deserves.

In the meantime, as this is an unprecedentedly long time between releases for the game, we will be releasing a free update to the game post-summer. This will be an update with the 64-bit support and bugfixes, but will not contain any of the things we've been discussing around the European Update. We'll have more details on this once the July holiday season is over.

Ah yes, July, the dreaded month where everything in Sweden shuts down, including game development studios. Devs are already entering vacation mode, so there won't be much news coming from us over the month, however I believe @neondt has threatened that he may make a few more small content Dev Diaries as he defies the Swedish Vacation Standards.

So what about after July? Well, as you've no doubt been aware, we have been focusing heavily on the content that's in our upcoming European release, but not so much the mechanics. Dev Diaries will start delving into said mechanics after the Summer Holidays and we have some meat to delve into there. In Dev Diaries of past, we have openly talked about design ambitions for Mercenaries and Estates, as well as our desires to “Make Catholicism and the Pope feel like a force to be reckoned with, rather than just another colour of Christianity and country”. We're going to dive into these and share what we've been doing to make these aspirations a reality.

Of course, I don't want to leave you for Summer with worlds alone, so here are three completely contextless screenshots from the development version of the game for all your speculative needs.

teaser 1.png


teaser 2.png


teaser 3.png


Have a wonderful Summer everyone. Regular Dev Diaries shall return on Tuesday August 6th.
 
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Despite being eager to sink my teeth into the new regions and mission trees i am always extremely supportive of pushing release dates back to give a better product. I for one won't be going anywhere!

As for the teasers i love the idea of merc companies, very CK2. Also nice from a RP perspective imo. The papal see looks funky and i can't way to buy my way into the popes good books, or whatever else the money is used for.

I feel im missing something with the third image though, new vassal? Noble estate crisis? Excited :)
 
Unpleasant news for some, I've no doubt. I've been seeing comments along the line of wanting the expansion released as soon as possible from people excited about the content updates when we haven't even touched on the mechanical ones yet.
Some people are not very bright.
 
Quote is left by dev who implemented it, it is not supposed to stay. Everything in these pictures are super work in progress and covered with coder art.
Hey you leave me some space unused on a prototype I accidentally put a French quote mocking the English. Business as usual :D
 
Interesting. :) Since you are giving more flavour to the Pope and Catholicism I was thinking that on the next loading screen could be some Pope from Eu IV time frame. I think Pius V or Inoccent XI would be the best choice. Since there isn't a pope with a loading screen yet I think it would make sense.
Pius V
Pope Saint Pius V-05.jpg

img-Pope-Pius-V.jpg

SPio-V_LBALDI-1.jpg
Innocent XI
2f9fe9d14c6933fd1a7e0176ed887610.jpg

41_00348562_giovanni-battista-gaulli_pope-innocent-xi----painting-by-gaulli.jpg
 
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Other than the missing estate button, I also spot that the [No Objective] button under military has been replaced by something that looks different. (a button with a value screen?)

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Interesting. :) Since you are giving more flavour to the pope and catholicism I was thinking that on a next loading screen could be some pope from Eu IV time frame. I think Pius V or Inoccent XI would be the best choice. Since there isn't a pope with a loading screen yet I think it would make sense.

Why not Julius II, the battle pope?
 
If you want to discuss a possible pope for the loading screen, another good one would be Alexander VI, better known as Rodrigo de Borgia. He fathered several illegitimate children, even making his own son Archbishop of Valencia at the age of 17. His election was entirely political, which was why his reign was filled with a delicate balance of diplomacy and war. He is known to be one of the most infamous popes of all time.
391E64EB-5A4A-4EAB-9523-40356C44E3BC.jpeg
 
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Interesting. :) Since you are giving more flavour to the Pope and Catholicism I was thinking that on the next loading screen could be some Pope from Eu IV time frame. I think Pius V or Inoccent XI would be the best choice. Since there isn't a pope with a loading screen yet I think it would make sense.
Pius V
Innocent XI
Team Borgia here
(Pope Alexander VI) - he was very pious pope, loving husband, comforted many anonymous women and surrounded them with love & compassion, loving father of 11?! children and obviously a true saint having numerous virtues. Never bribed anyone and became pope because of his talents, morality, many donations to poor, even the very fallen women, he despised sin and simony. Condemned every bunga-bunga party, never took part in any. A true catholic. On the other hand he was a good diplomat.
Pope_Alexander_Vi.jpg

Ps. Imagine that some popes in EU4'd have children you can marry. It could change much.
 
Why not Julius II, the battle pope?
Well, I think that loading screens are for rulers that made their country more prosperous in some way. Sure, Julius II made the Papal states greater but Pope isn't just leader of the Papal states but also a patriarch of the Catholic church so you also have to look at the morality of his life and what he gave to the church. From that point of view Julius II wasn't very good Pope. In fact papacy was in crisis during EU IV, that's why the reformation started in the first place. There were only 2 Popes in EU IV that are considered to be "saints" by catholics. Those are Pius V and Innocent XI. Pius V probably reformed church the most from popes of this era. He was both strict on himelf, cardinals and other bishops to live pious lives. He also formed the Holy league that defeated Ottomans at Lepanto. Innocent XI on other hand is responsible for forming another Holy league against Ottomans that saved Austria and reconquered Hungary.

If you want to discuss a possible pope for the loading screen, another good one would be Alexander VI, better known as Rodrigo de Borgia. He fathered several illegitimate children, even making his own son Archbishop of Valencia at the age of 17. His election was entirely political, which was why his reign was filled with a delicate balance of diplomacy and war. He is known to be one of the most infamous popes of all time.
That wouldn't really make sense. Alexander VI wasn't neither good secular ruler nor religious one. It would make more sense to use Julius II since he was atleast the "battle Pope". If you want to symbolize the huge moral crisis that were in the Catholic church of those time, I think it would make more sense to put Martin Luther on a loading screen.

Team Borgia here
(Pope Alexander VI) - he was very pious pope, loving husband, comforted many anonymous women and surrounded them with love & compassion, loving father of 11?! children and obviously a true saint having numerous virtues. Never bribed anyone and became pope because of his talents, morality, many donations to poor, even the very fallen women, he despised sin and simony. Condemned every bunga-bunga party, never took part in any. A true catholic. On the other hand he was a good diplomat.
Pope_Alexander_Vi.jpg

Ps. Imagine that some popes in EU4'd have children you can marry. It could change much.
It simply doesn't make sense to put a Pope that was hated even by catholics of his time on a loading screen. That's like putting Louis XVI on a loading screen.
 
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