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EU4 - Development Diary - 3rd of July 2018

Good day all! We have entered a historically dark month for many of you: July. The heretics of Sweden frequently take this entire month off as vacation to praise the tiny sliver of sun that deigns to bless the country with its presence. The end result means that Development Diaries often take a turn to the silent for the month.

Well fear not! I have decided to engage in the most taboo of actions and keep my butt firmly planted by my desk at work this month. We shall have dev diaries this month, and we're going to start by looking at Climate, Weather and Elephants.

To those who are of patrician enough taste to follow me on Twitter you will have noticed my latest teaser where I showed off a winter in the far south of the Americas. Previously there has been a limitation in how our game can model winters, only managing them in the northern hemisphere. Long unsatisfied with this, we took the time to ensure that in the 1.26 Update this is rectified, so that the winters of Southern Africa, South America and the furthest down under reaches of Australia and New Zealand have their winters correctly modeled. As the icy grip on Russia recedes, expect to bundle up in Chile. This can be seen in our re-purposed mapmode, Weather.

Weather.png

The Weather mapmode previously was called winters

As you can likely tell, there are more than just winters in this view. That's correct, because as part of enriching the Subcontinent in Dharma, we have added Monsoons. During the monsoon season (varies by location), the grounds will become visibly muddier and both movement speed and attrition will be impacted if you are on the military offensive. While we added these to spice up India, we decided to expand it to all Monsoon areas across the map, so across East Asia, Africa and South America.

Feeling Muddy.png

"We want the Spintires audience"

In addition to the map effect and province modifiers, there are also a handful of events for nations experiencing particularly destructive or fruitful Monsoons.

Now it's time to address the elephant in the room, so to speak. People seeing screenshots and watching the devclash have clearly noticed that a new animal has found its way into the arsenal of Indian nations. Yes, in Dharma, we have added Elephants.

Tonnes of fun.png

I'm getting Resident Evil Outbreak flashbacks already

This is something we've added purely for immersion in the Subcontinent, as well as for the South East Asians who also used these majestic creatures in warfare. The elephants are simply a new 3D model for cavalry units for these nations without gameplay impact, but we feel that the empowerment of trampling over puny infantry armies with your walking mountains is worthy as-is. Owners of Dharma will see these elephants in Indian and South East Asian nations.

To recap, all players who update to the 1.26 Mughals Update will enjoy Winters across the world, while Dharma owners will enjoy that along with Monsoons and Elephants.

Next week we'll take a gander at the less visual but highly impactful changes we have made by way of new National Ideas and Formable Nations
 
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Too bad that attrition is so meaningless because of indefinately respawning mercs and it being capped as the AI cant handle it.
So the weather will likely have only a minimal impact on the game, if at all.
 
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Too bad that attrition is so meaningless because of indefinately respawning mercs.
So the weather will likely have only a minimal impact on the game, if at all.

Are you ever positive about this game?
 
The monsoon region should perhaps reach further north in the americas. After all you have shifted the americas a bug chunk north. Isn't the hurricane season you get in the mexican gulf sort of monssons?

yes, monsoonlike weather can be experienced as far up as New Mexico, Arizona and southern parts of Utah and Colorado, with around 70% of the yearly rainfall happening between july and september.

I'm a bit sad it will be DLC exclusive, it would be cool to get a more sophisticated global weather system in the base game, like also reworking harsh winters, further negative modifiers for tropical regions for foreign powers and so on
 
Cheers for the DD DDRJake, I reckon the forecast for Dharma is looking good* :D. Will be great to have a bit more depth to the weather, and that new mapmode looks pretty good as well :). Also, mud is cool :cool: (it really is, elephants have been known to get into it to cool off in summer :)).


* Cringeworthy, but I couldn't help myself :p
 
Hi @DDRJake, loving the latest Dev clash!

Basque fan here and would love to know whether we may get some added flavor to Navarra. It would be amazing if Paradox could create an achievement or a mission for Navarra to unify the Basque culture and form the historical nation of Euskadi. Literally my dream scenario! The potential of the traditions and ideas would be awesome as history proves the area to be extremely difficult to conquer and hold as well as the Basque ability to keep long lasting traditions (such as the language Euskera, which is actually the oldest language in Europe!!!!!). Just sad to see how Catalonia can form and there isn't something similar for Euskadi (the Basque Country).

Question: Would something like this ever be possible? jw

I already have an idea for the achievement name: Basque in my Glory!
 
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Question @DDRJake , although those Elephants are great, do we have to have mainly Cavalry to see their models ? Because aside from Hordes, you always use mainly infantry and the unit sprites always default to the infantry ones. So if we cannot see those Elephants while having mostly infantry (because that is how a proper army is built unless you are a horde ) then it will be a huge waste.

We need an option to select which unit sprite we want to see on the armies. Because %90 of the time, I never see Cavalry or Artillery unit sprites in my games because that would mean my army is not properly balanced and will get destroyed.
 
Question @DDRJake , although those Elephants are great, do we have to have mainly Cavalry to see their models ? Because aside from Hordes, you always use mainly infantry and the unit sprites always default to the infantry ones. So if we cannot see those Elephants while having mostly infantry (because that is how a proper army is built unless you are a horde ) then it will be a huge waste.

We need an option to select which unit sprite we want to see on the armies. Because %90 of the time, I never see Cavalry or Artillery unit sprites in my games because that would mean my army is not properly balanced and will get destroyed.
Very often in the Dev Clash elephants were the graphic. They tweaked something there and they actually show up with less than 50% cavalry.
 
Monsum lowers Movement speed, but Harsh Winter does not.

So Rain does slow u down, but Snow does not. #Paradoxlogic

Actually winter made for some interesting campaigns since now you suddenly was not hindered by water- it froze to ice:

"The March Across the Belts was a campaign between 30 January and 8 February 1658 during the Second Northern War where King Charles X Gustav of Sweden led the Swedish army from Jutland across the ice of the Little Belt to Funen and the Great Belt to reach Zealand. The risky but vastly successful crossing was a crushing blow to Denmark, and led to the Treaty of Roskilde later that year, which handed Scania to Sweden."



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


Not only Jesus walked on water.
 
So Bangladesh has basically turned into mud
 
so that the winters of Southern Africa, South America and the furthest down under reaches of Australia and New Zealand have their winters correctly modeled. As the icy grip on Russia recedes, expect to bundle up in Chile.
During the monsoon season. In the monsoon season (varies by location), the grounds will become visibly muddier and both movement speed and attrition will be impacted if you are on the military offensive. While we added these to spice up India, we decided to expand it to all Monsoon areas across the map, so across East Asia, Africa and South America.

Will you also add these in HOI4?