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EU4 - Development Diary - 30th of June 2016

The skies are blue, the sun is shining and Sweden is very nearly shut down for Summer. I'm not kidding, this whole country just turns off in July like you pulled out its batteries. None the less, before the great productivity purge we're here for one more development diary for Europa Universalis IV.

A fair few forumites were clairvoyant enough to predict this after we added Ruler Personalities. Indeed, as part of the upcoming expansion we will have Leader Traits

Gainint trait.jpg


At the conclusion of any battle the leader involved has a chance to gain a trait. This trait will, unlike Ruler Personalities, always be a bonus. Current chance of gaining a trait is set to 2% multiplied by the Army Tradition gain from a battle (this, like most numbers during development, is subject to balance changes) which can be set in the defines.

Leaders are limited to one trait each and that trait will affect all units under their command. In battle, the trait of the commanding general (the one whose shock/fire pips are used) will affect all units on their side.

Some of the traits:
Goal Orientated:+10% Movement Speed
Hardy Warrior: -20% Attrition
Siege Specialist: +15% Siege Ability
Born to the Saddle: +50% Cavalry Flanking Range

leader trait battle.jpg


Of course, Admirals can gain traits too. Same rules as generals except the chance is based on naval tradition from battles.

Buccaneer: +25% Privateering Efficiency
Prize hunter: +5% chance of capturing enemy ships
Ironside: +5% Ship Durability
Extortioner: + 15% Light Ship Trade Power

naval trait.jpg


There are 22 traits in total, many with combat modifiers which have been added to the game for use in modding (and in National Idea changes which we will show later). It's worth noting that Heirs, Monarchs, Conquistadors and Explorers can also gain traits from combat.

Leader Traits are a paid feature in the upcoming [name removed] expansion. There are many more features and changes to come but you're going to have to hold out for 5 weeks on more news since as I mentioned, this country is going to shut down for a month. I'll be back with the next dev diary in the first week of August.

Leader death.jpg


Great generals are like Swedish Summer, never lasting quite as long as you want.
 
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Those are the biggest problems I can see on first glance - first if you don't count a few months of modding. I still have most changes needed in my head and in my mod's repo archive. I have more combat-related stuff I can suggest tomorrow, as it's pretty late in the night now.

Let's not forget about grotesque amounts of artillery, the uselessness of lategame cavalry, and the lack of depth to the supply system.

Gameplay > Realism

I don't want to see a completely historical war system - not to mention it would be near impossible to simulate some of the stranger or more dramatic episodes of history within the confines of a strategy game regardless - but EU4's war system is not exactly ideal as it is. I don't find constant sieging, repeated pitched battles resulting from incessant total war, and ZoC headaches to be that fun.
 
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I've been waiting for since EU3. Marvellous.
 
I don't want to see a completely historical war system - not to mention it would be near impossible to simulate some of the stranger or more dramatic episodes of history within the confines of a strategy game regardless - but EU4's war system is not exactly ideal as it is. I don't find constant sieging, repeated pitched battles resulting from incessant total war, and ZoC headaches to be that fun.

There are arguments to be made that the war system isn't perfect, but increased realism shouldn't be the main focus of the discussion. Better gameplay should.
 
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The skies are blue, the sun is shining and Sweden is very nearly shut down for Summer. I'm not kidding, this whole country just turns off in July like you pulled out its batteries. None the less, before the great productivity purge we're here for one more development diary for Europa Universalis IV.

What are the odds that this same feature can be applied to envoys? Its always bugged me that all envoys are a) immortal and b) totally generic.
 
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Gameplay > Realism
Often yes, depending on how much of a detailed view you have on actual history. But not universally, no.

Actually Paradox have been improving on realism with DLC features, and I don't see this affecting gameplay negatively, quite the contrary.

To each their own. I think in this case realism can serve gameplay, that's why I'm offering those changes, which by the way I've already tested. I think they lead to better war gameplay where war is
1) More of a nail-biting experience, because warscore is accumulated faster
2) More egalitarian, because with shorter wars decided by a few battles and with less of an ability to reinforce, smaller states could temporarily mobilize huge funds and fight off much larger states.
3) Less of a chore where all you need to do is calculate if your armies are close enough for you to bait the AI into attacking an army and then dump the other stacks into the battle to create an advantage in morale and numbers.

Let's not forget about grotesque amounts of artillery, the uselessness of lategame cavalry, and the lack of depth to the supply system.

I don't want to see a completely historical war system - not to mention it would be near impossible to simulate some of the stranger or more dramatic episodes of history within the confines of a strategy game regardless - but EU4's war system is not exactly ideal as it is. I don't find constant sieging, repeated pitched battles resulting from incessant total war, and ZoC headaches to be that fun.
"Completely historical" would be impossible, as too many country- and period-specific things would have to be modelled and then at least partially balanced. Historicity usually goes against the game term "balance". But some improvements can be made which would make it both more historical and more fun, IMO.

I agree the EU4 war system has fallen behind, it's one of the least revised systems remaining from EU and EUII. Other systems seem disproportionally detailed now compared to it - diplomacy and trade have gone a long way for example, and I think it's been for the better.
 
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Fifth, it would be great if a future DLC makes it possible for countries to have access to specific unit types, unique only for them. I had tried to simulate that by increasing the number of tech groups, so French could get their own French-named units, Spain would get its Hermandades infantry, etc. Separating the Western Tech groups into French/Italian/Spanish/German/English/Scandinavian/Swiss groups allowed me to add unit types for flavor and with small differences in stats.

I've seen MEIOU and Taxes has unique units in it. You might want to look into the mod's files to see how exactly they've done that.
Hope it helps.
 
I've seen MEIOU and Taxes has unique units in it. You might want to look into the mod's files to see how exactly they've done that.
Hope it helps.
I've done unique units by creating tech groups on per-country basis, but it's still not possible to have (for example) an army composed of two types of infantry at the same time, and I'd like to see something like that in a DLC.
 
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Great generals are like Swedish Summer, never lasting quite as long as you want.
Speaking of which, especially now when they will become more personable, is it, or will it be, possible to mod the average lifespan of a general? Right now their average active career is somewhat too short, both for immersion purposes, but also when compared to many IRL military leaders from the early modern era.
 
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Include a "go to" option in the pop up message that tells you that your leader died. Sometimes you have quite a few and when one of them dies is quite tiring to cicle through all your armies/navies to see which one of them is the one that has been left leaderless.
 
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Army defecting to the enemy perhaps? It's on minus and coloured green, so the equation has positive effect. If that's the case, I imagine that regular soldiers have based -1 defection chance, where mercenaries might turn against their former remployer.
More likely rebel suppression. There's about 5k in that stack. 5k = 1/4 of 20k 20k gives -5 unrest 5/4 = 1.2 The stat shows 1.20.
 
Wow, if tech now increases flanking range, then at some point, having more than 6 cavalry will actually be worth it!
Also great DD

So leaders now leave you instead of dying?
 
Wow, if tech now increases flanking range, then at some point, having more than 6 cavalry will actually be worth it!
Also great DD

So leaders now leave you instead of dying?

Tech always increased flanking range. (Always as from the release of EU4)
 
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Actually Paradox have been improving on realism with DLC features, and I don't see this affecting gameplay negatively, quite the contrary.

I would argue a lot of the DLC features that you deem 'realism-improving' either don't impact gameplay at all (development), have weird interactions with the game that can be argued as negative to the game (Elective Monarchy, trade companies), or are realistic only in name (estates). In a lot of cases, the patches accompanying these changes as well end up removing realism as well (stuff like corruption's implementation, or the constant removal of features just to sell them back to you as DLC, or the whole 'well, we're gonna change something to introduce some problem into the game that you can sidestep with DLC' thing that Paradox has been doing lately).

I would argue that time could have been better spent improving the gameplay and not really focusing on 'realism'; something that impacts exactly one nation, for example the Polish government system or the Ottoman harem feature from last week, has significantly less improvement to the game than something like fixing forts so they make sense or addressing how snooze-fest peacetime gameplay is.

I'm all for DLC including flavor, but I don't feel like flavor for exactly one nation is an improvement to the game, when I consider the time it took to code that and what that time could have been spent on instead.
 
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better instead of release of the next dlc fix bugs in the current version. Her network component is just awfully realized.
Fix OOS\MP bugs + add an opportunity to kick players from game, by vote + to add display of a ping to a lobby.
finish game that would like on s3 it was played in 90% of cases at players from the different countries.
 
I'm all for DLC including flavor, but I don't feel like flavor for exactly one nation is an improvement to the game, when I consider the time it took to code that and what that time could have been spent on instead.
Agreed, and I'd like to add that that the most annoying part is that many of those things could've easily been given as flavor to many tags (the Otto's harem should be used for many nations, like Ming and some of the muslim tags; and some african nations could get elective monarchy)
 
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Like Stellaris :D

Exactly my thoughts. I don't mind, let's have good ideas (and tested ideas) flow between the different Paradox games when they make sense. You know, not like coalitions in CKII... :D
 
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