EU4 - Development Diary - 3rd of April 2018

[Turbo215]

Only just realized, is this going to be a part of the expansion or will it be part of the free update? @DDRJake
It seems as though it will be a part of the paid DLC which seems like a bad idea (IMO) and just want to clarify.

 

[nephilim2k]

I can't tell if this is a huge troll or not. Why introduce special new government types (ottoman, mamluks, autocratic, feudal theocracy) only to effectively remove them and make them a "possible" for nations to take under certain circumstances. This feels like a huge slap in the face to those that love the government types as they are. You'd honestly be better off at adding the slider system from EU3 and implementing that than killing off all the government types. I just cannot understand the logic of adding in new features when old ones are broken, have been reported and nothing is done.

An example:

Papacy - can be broken so you can stay as the pope for the whole game, reaping the bonuses for life, even on papal ruler death and your national ruler death. With the way some nations spend papal points, it effectively ruins the catholics in the game

Reformation - It should only reform catholic nations and provinces with an CoR. Yet orthodox, coptic and anglican provinces are getting converted. Prior to anglican coming in, it still happened!

Shogunate - Helllloooooo vassal abuse. Want a way as Japan to have infinite vassals? Sure, make annex land, release as a vassal, they become a "daimyo" vassal without being a daimyo. Sure you can abuse the shogunate mechanics on them, and they can't do anything. Enjoy also having infinite vassals.

Want free money - Low jack construction cost. Even more abusable in 1.25 than ever before! Thanks to the mission system, you can drop down to -135% construction cost and build furnaces which give you money on clicking them! Want even more money? Cancel the building after a month and start again. You make 50% of the building cost each month. Tedious and time consuming yes, but it is abusable to the point you can hit the money cap pretty quickly.

Ship stealing - 33% is just a joke. Without buying any ships beyond my base navy, I ended a game as England with over 4000 ships courtesy of ship stealing. Not broken at all.

Multiple unit type bonus abuse - If you have an army composed of more than 10x streltsy, 10x jannisary, 10x cossack, and 10x banners (granted it is a pain to get them all in the same run), and have them in the same unit, they share bonuses. Don't ask me how this works, I used Remans math and did the numbers, and they effectively share bonuses. Who needs professionalism or morale or discipline, when that single unit is capable of defeating units upto 4x its size.

Personal Union abuse - still not fixed, been around for quite a while now. If you're not going to fix it, remove the limitations and keep it to religious groups only... IE Christians can only PU christians, muslims can only pu muslims etc.

Stateless abuse - the fact that you can run a game with zero states (and as such, zero estated provinces) is crazy. Especially with this patch you plan to release. 50% autonomy on your whole country is sheer lunacy. The money you will make from this is just nothing short of insanity.

Money nerf/merc nerf - Anyone that complains about having too much money in the end game is absolutely right, but the fix to this was not to add coal, or make merc maintenance more expensive as time goes on. The solution was simple, but ignored many times. Adjust the games base economy. Inflation is a factor of the game and a factor of life. Make it so that instead of dropping 2 inflation on spending 75 admin, it drops 0.2. Keep it so inflation happens every year. By the end of the game, inflation could be as high as 200 which would be about right for the time line. No inflation makes the game seriously easy, even on very hard.

Trade abuse - 22 merchants, I can push trade from start node to end node, and end up with 1 million ducats a month. Thanks to PDX Math, this is easily done and I never need to worry about money again.

Abusable diplomats - Throw in some things like traders dying, or diplomats dying etc. Spice up the game so that a person has to actually HIRE them and costs a set amount per year for a minimum amount of time. Make merchants, diplomats, colonists, and missionaries cost a lot more than they currently do. Want a diplomat to cross the world from England to Ming to improve relations? Sure thing. Big up front cost, and ongoing cost through out. The more you pay him, the faster they complete their job (to a cap obviously).

Permaclaims - In old patches, changing tags meant losing permaclaims to normal claims. Now not the case. This is so abuseable that you can flip 6 tags (obviously at the cost of 1200 dip for cost of promotion of cultures...6 tags means permaclaims across a large portion of the map. Form Spain, Germany, Russia, and Arabia, Mughals, Qing, and you have permaclaims to around 1/5th the best provinces in the game. Well developed, good trade goods, and many trade companies. It is a cash cow. That needs to be fixed.

There is more, but frankly, I cannot be bothered for now and will leave it here. In short, Fix what is in dire need of fixing first, rather than introducing more showy stuff that is effectively like using a plaster on an axe wound.

 

[Seven Sulivin]

Good morning all. It's Tuesday and that means time for another Dev Diary. As I mentioned in the last non-alcoholic dev diary, we're going to start looking at changes and features coming with the 1.26 and its accompanying, unannounced expansion.

Before that though, we are currently looking to iron out the kinks with the open beta 1.25.1 hotfix (AI allies deciding that money is more important than friendship and nations sometimes failing to explore for a long time). These fixes will be made, applied to the open beta and rolled out in due time.

Governments​

The way governments work have remained mostly unchanged for the duration of Europa Universalis IV, still being almost entirely lifted from EU3. While we have added new government types and their own mechanics such as Theocracy devotion, Steppe Nomads and American Natives, the government progression has remained quite stale, where tech sometimes unlocks a new tier within your government tier and you will switch to it at a cost of 100 ADM if you want its better effects, different election times, absolutism etc.

As a feature in 1.26's accompanying expansion this goes out the window and instead we introduce the system of Government Reforms where you will hand-craft your own government through a series of reforms as the game progresses.

The start of any great project starts with burning a few things down, so to set things straight:

All Monarchy types are merged into one
All Republic types are merged into one
All Theocracies are merged into one
All Tribals are merged into one

The differences we had between government types, for example between Administrative Republic and Oligarchic Republic, or Steppe Nomad and Tribal Despotism, will now be modeled through the reforms

Each Government has a starting reform and maximum number of reforms available. When a Reform value ticks up to a required value, a Governmental reform can be made granting a choice of modifiers and effects and advancing Government reform by 1 step. Each bonus gets incrementally more expensive to increase.

Each reform costs 100 Government Reform Progress, plus 50 for each additional reform. Each nation gains +10 Government Reform Progress towards reform per year, multiplied by 1-(its average autonomy across all provinces. As ever, the numbers we talk about today are subject to balancing and can and likely will change by release, but the net effect is that nations who crack down on autonomy are going to have a far easier time passing their government reforms.

We will cover all the different types of governments over the course of a few dev diaries, but today we will focus on the reforms for a Monarchy.

• Feudalism vs Autocracy
  • Feudalism: +25% Income from Vassals
    
    
  • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands

• • [Other Special monarchies]*
• Hereditary Nobility
  • Enforce privileges: +15% Manpower
    
    
  • Quash Noble power: +10% Tax Modifier
• Bureaucracy
  • Centralize: -0.05 Autonomy reduction
    
    
  • Decentralize: +2 Accepted Cultures
• Growth of Administration
  • Clergy in Administration: +1 [HIDDEN] , +5% base loyalty of Clergy
    
    
  • Of Noble Bearing: -10% hire leader cost, +5% base loyalty of Nobility
    
    
  • Meritocratic Focus: -10% Advisors Cost
    
    
  • Seizure of Power: [Early path for Government type change]
• Deliberative assembly
  • Parliamentary: Enables Parliaments if Common Sense DLC enabled, else -1 Unrest
    
    
  • Royal Decree: +5 max absolutism
    
    
  • Aristocratic Court: -0.5 Army Tradition Decay
    
    
  • States General: +10% Production Efficiency
• Absolute Rule v Constitutional
  • l'etat c'est moi: +5 States, -15% State Autonomy
    
    
  • Regional Representation - 25% lower autonomy in Territories
• Separation of powers
  • Political Absolutism: +5 max absolutism, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism
    
    
  • Legislative Houses: +1 Possible [HIDDEN]
    
    
  • Become a Republic
    
    
  • Install Theocratic Government

"What about unique government types?"

The game is host to various different unique government types, with their own effects or mechanics. some examples:

• Shogunate - +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy Travel Time, +2 Number of states, +5 Max Absolutism. Dynasty is fixed, Enable Shogun-Daimyo mechanics
• Daimyo - +10% Morale of Armies, 10% Infantry CA. Dynasty is fixed, enable Daimyo mechanics
• English Monarchy - +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, -1 National Unrest, 1 states, -30 absolutism, uses Parliaments
  
• Prussian Monarchy - -2 Unrest, -0.02 War exhaustion, +3 Monarch Military skill, uses Militarism.

These special tools will now be modeled by unique reforms. In most cases, it will be a special reform on the first level (Feudalism vs Autocracy) ready-unlocked for said countries. We will also be making the system more flexible in that if you fulfill the criteria for having a certain government type, but previously had no way of switching into it, you will be able to change your reform to pick it up. Changing reforms that have already been passed comes at a cost (currently 10 corruption)

This system is still Work in Progress, so expect changes along the way. Here's a screenshot of it in-game at this current time:

View attachment 354187
Return of the pink coder-art and overflowing GUI. Games are like sausages, beware of seeing them made.

Next week we will have more information about this feature as well as looking at another reform path. Which shall we look at, Republics, Theocracies or Tribals? See you next week for it!

Wow. That is big.

 

[Zingzing Jr.]

Please take your time on this. This has the potential to be one of the favorites or one of the worst things ever. Also, watch out for feature and "magic point" bloat. See how everyone dislikes innovation now.

 

[Seven Sulivin]

Good morning all. It's Tuesday and that means time for another Dev Diary. As I mentioned in the last non-alcoholic dev diary, we're going to start looking at changes and features coming with the 1.26 and its accompanying, unannounced expansion.

Before that though, we are currently looking to iron out the kinks with the open beta 1.25.1 hotfix (AI allies deciding that money is more important than friendship and nations sometimes failing to explore for a long time). These fixes will be made, applied to the open beta and rolled out in due time.

Governments​

The way governments work have remained mostly unchanged for the duration of Europa Universalis IV, still being almost entirely lifted from EU3. While we have added new government types and their own mechanics such as Theocracy devotion, Steppe Nomads and American Natives, the government progression has remained quite stale, where tech sometimes unlocks a new tier within your government tier and you will switch to it at a cost of 100 ADM if you want its better effects, different election times, absolutism etc.

As a feature in 1.26's accompanying expansion this goes out the window and instead we introduce the system of Government Reforms where you will hand-craft your own government through a series of reforms as the game progresses.

The start of any great project starts with burning a few things down, so to set things straight:

All Monarchy types are merged into one
All Republic types are merged into one
All Theocracies are merged into one
All Tribals are merged into one

The differences we had between government types, for example between Administrative Republic and Oligarchic Republic, or Steppe Nomad and Tribal Despotism, will now be modeled through the reforms

Each Government has a starting reform and maximum number of reforms available. When a Reform value ticks up to a required value, a Governmental reform can be made granting a choice of modifiers and effects and advancing Government reform by 1 step. Each bonus gets incrementally more expensive to increase.

Each reform costs 100 Government Reform Progress, plus 50 for each additional reform. Each nation gains +10 Government Reform Progress towards reform per year, multiplied by 1-(its average autonomy across all provinces. As ever, the numbers we talk about today are subject to balancing and can and likely will change by release, but the net effect is that nations who crack down on autonomy are going to have a far easier time passing their government reforms.

We will cover all the different types of governments over the course of a few dev diaries, but today we will focus on the reforms for a Monarchy.

• Feudalism vs Autocracy
  • Feudalism: +25% Income from Vassals
    
    
  • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands

• • [Other Special monarchies]*
• Hereditary Nobility
  • Enforce privileges: +15% Manpower
    
    
  • Quash Noble power: +10% Tax Modifier
• Bureaucracy
  • Centralize: -0.05 Autonomy reduction
    
    
  • Decentralize: +2 Accepted Cultures
• Growth of Administration
  • Clergy in Administration: +1 [HIDDEN] , +5% base loyalty of Clergy
    
    
  • Of Noble Bearing: -10% hire leader cost, +5% base loyalty of Nobility
    
    
  • Meritocratic Focus: -10% Advisors Cost
    
    
  • Seizure of Power: [Early path for Government type change]
• Deliberative assembly
  • Parliamentary: Enables Parliaments if Common Sense DLC enabled, else -1 Unrest
    
    
  • Royal Decree: +5 max absolutism
    
    
  • Aristocratic Court: -0.5 Army Tradition Decay
    
    
  • States General: +10% Production Efficiency
• Absolute Rule v Constitutional
  • l'etat c'est moi: +5 States, -15% State Autonomy
    
    
  • Regional Representation - 25% lower autonomy in Territories
• Separation of powers
  • Political Absolutism: +5 max absolutism, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism
    
    
  • Legislative Houses: +1 Possible [HIDDEN]
    
    
  • Become a Republic
    
    
  • Install Theocratic Government

"What about unique government types?"

The game is host to various different unique government types, with their own effects or mechanics. some examples:

• Shogunate - +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy Travel Time, +2 Number of states, +5 Max Absolutism. Dynasty is fixed, Enable Shogun-Daimyo mechanics
• Daimyo - +10% Morale of Armies, 10% Infantry CA. Dynasty is fixed, enable Daimyo mechanics
• English Monarchy - +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, -1 National Unrest, 1 states, -30 absolutism, uses Parliaments
  
• Prussian Monarchy - -2 Unrest, -0.02 War exhaustion, +3 Monarch Military skill, uses Militarism.

These special tools will now be modeled by unique reforms. In most cases, it will be a special reform on the first level (Feudalism vs Autocracy) ready-unlocked for said countries. We will also be making the system more flexible in that if you fulfill the criteria for having a certain government type, but previously had no way of switching into it, you will be able to change your reform to pick it up. Changing reforms that have already been passed comes at a cost (currently 10 corruption)

This system is still Work in Progress, so expect changes along the way. Here's a screenshot of it in-game at this current time:

View attachment 354187
Return of the pink coder-art and overflowing GUI. Games are like sausages, beware of seeing them made.

Next week we will have more information about this feature as well as looking at another reform path. Which shall we look at, Republics, Theocracies or Tribals? See you next week for it!

Why is this in a DLC? It won't get any further work if it's in a DLC, like Eastaes.

 

[Dmitrius]

I'm all for anything that adds choice to the game which this seems to.

My only concern is whether there will be an opportunity to reform governments (at great cost of course).

 

[Twoflower]

thanks for the commet

but i think this is a wrong policy.

I know this game is not extrictly "historical" and the follow marketing decisions, but in this period of game, Spain was de most important and decisive country in the world, and this treatment is not fair for spain.

is only mi opinion, i don say this like a stupid nacionalist but as lover history. Thanks again fiera

I agree - let's say about Spain being one of the most important countries in the world in that timespan, and certainly a country with a complex and fascinating history and a cultural influence second to none.
However: would you rather see Spain as subject of its own immersion pack or just as the namesake of an expansion that adds/reworks features for everybody, and therefore is bound to have less stuff specifically for Spain?

 

[Ramon Berenguer III]

I see some map chenges in Portugal in the background, it seams that we will get an iberian dlc

 

[Keyboard Warrior]

I seriously doubt it. Even without their own Immersion pack, they have one of the biggest mission trees in the game. Compare it to the missions of Muscovy or Russia - it's just laughable. Their religion also was strengthen in 1.23, while previous immersion packs dealt with religion.

no, sunni mechanics are far more worse than catholic, protestant, orthodox or reformed. why all of them have "click/get permanent bonus" while muslims don't? getting those bonusses are too hard to achieve because of that ridiculous slider.

i want to click a button and get permanent land moral or discipline bonus like the protestantism, calvinism, orthodoxy or hindu does.

i played an ottoman game recently and between 1444-1650 i could only be able to get manpower bonus from mysticism 1 or 2 times and everytime i declared war on wrong country or after my ruler dies all of points on slider got lost. so this religion is kinda joke along with the other super religions such as protestantism, calvinism, orthodoxy or hindu.

"Even without their own Immersion pack, they have one of the biggest mission trees in the game"

there are still lots of missing claims and missions in ottoman mission tree. also i don't understand why you compleining about it ottomans were one of the best countries in the world who conquered lands too rapidly. i mean all of these missions are historical they are in the game because they were in the history.

 

[cristofolmc]

I think putting it behind the DLC paywall is a mistake you keep making and like estates, one you will regret, because it will never be touched again, which is sad and feels kind of a waste of a good idea and effort when 3 years from now, the system is exactly the same, not integrating with all the new features, and all you can do about it is mod it...Just like estates. It's not worth your time nor is it the price we'd pay for it for something that's going to feel outdated and disconnected from other cool ideas you'll add to the game in the future.

I understand it is a lot of work and you need to charge for it, but seeing as how many people bought the Britannia DLC and how many people are willying to pay for anything regardless how bad it is (according to Jake's own words saying that he is happy with how well its doing rule britannia), I'd leave this out for the patch, introduce whatever new buttons-for-bonuses you can think of in the DLC and people buy them all the same, so no loss of money.

UNLESS; the big thing reserved for the free patch is the integration of the estates into vanilla. In which case you will win the unconditional love of the whole community

 

[chaserockstar]

I hope France finally gets its own unique government that it can switch into by decision. Also maybe give Scotland its own unique monarchy, as it had a system not like any other state in Europe.

 

[dongwookuk]

I see this feature is another DLC-only feature.

Unfortunately, I infer that this means the feature will not be updated post-release, and will forever remain a 'could have been' a la estates or parliaments.

 

[Grunthex]

Respectfully, as much as this looks like a cool idea, my thought is ... don't bother. You've said this is going to be a feature of the expansion, rather than the patch. As a result, after this patch, it will languish untouched, and not be updated with any future mechanics.

If on the other hand you were to reconsider, and make this a part of the base patch, so that it stands some chance of future support, I'm all for it!

(And I say this as someone who owns every expansion you release).

 

[Dakka]

before rule britannia england had its own unique government type too but this didn't prevent pdx from making a new immersion pack about great britain.

there is no immersion pack targeting ottoman empire yet and it should be in future. all of those new features added to ottomans time to time, it is because ottoman empire is kinda one of the main countries in eu4, maybe the first.

so half of ottoman heartland (greece & bulgaria) didn't get update yet. also ottoman empire itself seperately needs an immersion pack.

there are literally tens of features you can add to ottoman empire from its huge & rich history.

You’re trolling, right? This has to be a troll post

 

[Manuel6494]

I agree - let's say about Spain being one of the most important countries in the world in that timespan, and certainly a country with a complex and fascinating history and a cultural influence second to none.
However: would you rather see Spain as subject of its own immersion pack or just as the namesake of an expansion that adds/reworks features for everybody, and therefore is bound to have less stuff specifically for Spain?

I think that always with a big dlc they put more things to a country than if they do an especific "inmersion pack". for example craddle of civilization probably add more things to persia and his history than a inmmersion pack about persia, and other zones and the game in general win. I don know if i explain well.

I am not selfish, i would like a big dlc with improvement in colonial and catolic religion, and with this spain will improve. And if paradox improve this, they necesarilly need to add new things to spain because of the importance of spain in this situation.


thanks for the polite comment and sorry my bad english fiera.

 

[Halo]

Only just realized, is this going to be a part of the expansion or will it be part of the free update? @DDRJake
It seems as though it will be a part of the paid DLC which seems like a bad idea (IMO) and just want to clarify.

See the rework of westernization into Institution and the Common Sense DLC. That should give you an answer.

Reworking core game mechanics is a great chance to double-dip their customers.

 

[Atilla 'The Hun']

This Paradox ! Yes, yes and yes ! This is something I have been suggesting for such a long time and it is finally becoming a reality, I can't wait to see more of the new features in the upcoming DLC.

Great progress, you folks at Paradox never amaze me

 

[Twoflower]

UNLESS; the big thing reserved for the free patch is the integration of the estates into vanilla. In which case you will win the unconditional love of the whole community

The sad thing is that this is not true. There would be guaranteed to be some outrage from people that feel their DLC purchase is devalued by other people getting access to it now. They would rather keep a bloated game with isolated, un-integrated features that they have to themselves than a better, more streamlined game for everybody. Which I am not making up - this is basically what happened when ascension perks were integrated into the Stellaris base game.

Paradox should have the courage of either integrating estates and development (and the government rework, I guess) into the base game or designating certain DLCs as true "expansions" - i.e. that anything that comes after them requires the DLCs to work. Personally, I wouldn't mind either approach.

 

[Nikolai II]

Looks great! But would you consider replacing the old Feudalism bonus of +25% Income from vassals with +1 Diplomatic relations or -10 Liberty desire in same continent subjects? Both options would give the player a much better tool to create a feudal rule with many vassals and also give him a bigger incentive to do so. Getting 1 or 2 ducats more every month is nice, but I guess only few players would go feudal if they can't have alliances anymore or have to deal with rebellious subject all the time.

Especially since the +25% income just means your vassals become poorer and less useful, since they get less money.

 

[Battlex]

Please show us Tribals next week. They've got nothing for a long time.

BTW, there's no map change for Western Iberia in that screenshot. Either Jake cut it out specifically for this screen or it's not Iberia, as many here seem to believe.

You can see the names so it’s clearly Iberia, you would have doubted Jesus even when you felt his hands

By Royal Decree means that the King ultimately writes and enforces the law and not an assembly.
I wanted a name for where you essentially goes full dictator and felt that was most fitting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree

Please say England will have a way to get both royal decrees and acts of Parliament, as it would not be until after the Glorious Revolution that it would be parliament alone announcing policies.