Hello and Welcome to yet another Europa Universalis development diary. Today we’ll first delve into the results of the survey we sent out earlier this autumn, and also do some comparisons with the analytics we have. We’ll also talk about some minor balance changes and an interesting new feature for our future expansion.

First of all, I’d like to thank the over 10,000 people who took their time to reply to all the questions in our survey. While this is but a fraction of the entire playerbase, it gives us an indication of what the more hardcore of the audience likes, with over half of the respondents having played over 1,000 hours.

The most common play-styles, by far, as reported was role-playing and changing history. It is probably not a surprise to anyone that you viewed Victoria to have the best economy, Hearts of Iron the best military, Europa Universalis the best diplomacy and Crusader Kings the best politics.

You also overwhelmingly prefer simulation over boardgame mechanics, and you think that we should focus more on the economical buildup and flavorful content.

While the Golden Century was easily the worst expansion in your eyes, the top 5 expansions according to you were.

• Art of War
• Common Sense
• Emperor
• Rights of Man
• Mandate of Heaven

While talking about the survey, I thought it would be fun to look at the top 10 most played countries right now.

France          6.16%
Ottomans        5.08%
Austria         4.39%
Byzantium       4.39%
Custom Nation   4.23%
England         3.35%
Castile         3.29%
Brandenburg     3.11%
Ming            2.24%
Portugal        2.12%

A minor balance change for the people who play multiplayer and play with victory cards enabled, is the small little change that Estates will now become less loyal if you ally with nations which you have victory cards upon.

And for those that play as Cossacks and have the Sich Rada government enabled, as requested by the community, you now have the ability to raze cities, just like hordes does.

Finally, it's time to reveal another feature for our upcoming expansion, a new unit mission called Carpet Siege. It is similar to the hunt rebels mission, but with the difference that the army actively will avoid combat unless it is sure of winning, and primarily focusing on sieging down hostile territory. You can set it to just targeting specific areas on the map, or let it decide on its own when there are valid targets to consider.

Stay tuned, because next week Groogy will be back, talking about a major religion without unique mechanics that will get one.

 

[Pbhuh]

I feel attacked. Granted, I normally do this so the AI can actually form a hopefully strong nation (cough) Russia (cough), but sometimes I just want to jump straight into a Britain game without needing to sit on Scotland for five, six admin techs.



I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but carpet sieging is already a part of EU4. Not even as a gamey mechanic, it’s necessary to do something like invade the Ottomans or any blob in the game. Does it really add that much strategy to the game to force the player to individually click on every province and manually split and recombine stacks?

Doesnt matter if its part of the game.

The question is if it should be and if promoting it with an army command really doesnt give out the wrong message.

Plenty of things could be done about it, like making Battles Won more important or making sieging down forts more important by increasing the zone of control.

Especially since the sheer number of new provinces that have been added since the last time they changed the fort mechanics.

 

[MarkS00N]

We known that in the next update continental SEA will have 3 new animist OPMs and Oceania (or at least Australia) will have a new religion.
Current areas where animist tags can be found are:
- All native councils in South America
- Some parts of Asia (Manipur, Ainu and Ryukyu are animist tags, animism is the religion in some Ming's provinces and there are 2 releasable tag inside Ming that are animist, Miao and Yi)
- Maritime SEA (some minor tags in Philipines and some minor tags in Indonesia)
- With the new patch we will have more 3 animist OPMs in continental SEA
Maybe if they are creating new mechanics for animist they will split animist in 2-3 religions, all of them using a similar mechanic, like coptic and zoroastrian use the same holy site mechanic but with different holy sites.

Or they can do it like Fetishist, where nations have the same religion, but West, Central, and East Africa each gain different options, depending on their location.

 

[Piotrzeci]

> Stay tuned, because next week Groogy will be back, talking about a major religion without unique mechanics that will get one.

I think it's one of the three:

• Animist. A rather major religion, present mostly in updated SEA region, with no mechanics.
• Hinduism. Definitely a major religion, in SEA, but it technically has a mechanic (that we know stays due to Buddha diety), but could be interpreted as not having enough flavour.
• Judaism. A very minor religion in game, but a major irl. It could get like a Diaspora mechanic that would make it more present in the world (and one of golden bulls mentions them)

I'd say it's probably Animism, but I wouldn't be surprised with the other two. Or maybe it's a religion that's not yet in the game?

 

[klingonadmiral]

And what moderately popular nation requires about a dozen or two restarts to get right?

All of them, if you want to gor for optimization. ;P

 

[lambda x.x]

Does it really add that much strategy to the game to force the player to individually click on every province and manually split and recombine stacks?

I have nothing against more QoL changes and the army automation (I welcome them!), but it's wrong to think that carpet sieging is that simple of a concept.
First, there's the concept of "safety" -- aggressively sending 1k or 2k units to a province adjacent to FoW is a decision you have to make based on your resource availabilities since there is a risk of losing those units. A good intuition of AI behavior also helps in knowing how risky a certain area is by inferring where their armies ought to be.
Next, there's the concept of attrition -- first of all, my interpretation of this automated feature is that the stack does not get split, but ignoring that part, you can send 1k stacks to adjacent controlled provinces, but when you don't, you need 2k depending on how much attrition that province causes. If you make your units arrive on the 2nd of a month and complete the siege within the same month, you don't take any attrition, which is trading manpower at the cost of speed (have to wait until next month), and so on.
Finally, there's the concept of prioritization -- sometimes you only have a few units to carpet siege way more enemy provinces, and you have to be aware of if the enemy is recruiting units on those provinces. If they are, you have to make sure to step on that province for a day to make the AI cancel the unit building, so certain units go on dance duty over carpet sieging duty until you have the resources. Otherwise you can prolong the war since the enemy will rebuild a bit.

These concepts are things that are non-trivial to optimize since it's very situational. And of course, there are not things that make or break any non-speedrun games. But anyway, I just wanted to point out that there is a lot of strategical depth to even seemingly simple things like carpet sieging for min-maxers like me (or at least I pretend to be one).

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

All of them, if you want to gor for optimization. ;P

More than that if you really want to have "fun". Such as theory-crafting the optimal set of rivals for Oirat for the optimal England game.

But that's just silly, like the "optimal" England game would involve France getting Lancaster as their dynasty (through a third party) and immediately falling under PU with England. Just requires a few things to occur.

1. Marry a third party that has royal married France (with no heir if possible)
2. The third party's ruler dies and gets Lancaster.
3. The French ruler/heir die and they get Lancaster.
4. The new French ruler dies and England gets the PU by sharing a dynasty with them.

Fun to speculate about a French PU by November 15/16th 1444, but that'll never happen.

 

[Me_]

Or they can do it like Fetishist, where nations have the same religion, but West, Central, and East Africa each gain different options, depending on their location.

That's an interesting idea. Another one would be to see Animism split into multiple religions: one for Asia, one for Australia and/or Polynesia (although they really should be separate and one for South America, all sharing a mechanic (the way Buddhism got split), with some variations specific to each one.

 

[lambda x.x]

More than that if you really want to have "fun". Such as theory-crafting the optimal set of rivals for Oirat for the optimal England game.

But that's just silly, like the "optimal" England game would involve France getting Lancaster as their dynasty (through a third party) and immediately falling under PU with England. Just requires a few things to occur.

1. Marry a third party that has royal married France (with no heir if possible)
2. The third party's ruler dies and gets Lancaster.
3. The French ruler/heir die and they get Lancaster.
4. The new French ruler dies and England gets the PU by sharing a dynasty with them.

Fun to speculate about a French PU by November 15/16th 1444, but that'll never happen.

That's my issue w/ Euro -- in theory you can inherit/PU all christian monarchies in a year or so given insane enough RNG for ruler deaths/and HRE/Pope deaths (to advance the cycle). You can never practically get anywhere close to such an optimal setup.

 

[raikaria]

Major religion without unique ability. Oh boy prepare to get Totemist,, my guess.

It's already been confirmed previous it's not Totemist.

It's Animist in all liklihood. It's the only religion in the game that gets anywhere near relevance; and it *happens* to crop up in the area of focus for this expansion, South East Asia.

 

[Romanix90]

It was shown with a unique religion color in an overview image of SEA in a dev diary some time ago and it was clear enough there to see that there were also map changes. (Tiwi Island is a province) etc.View attachment 649127

So it is perhaps Animist rework and that ''strange collor'' near Indonesia. In any way this is welcome.

 

[wobarch]

I really hope that you consider the results of the survey for future DLC planing (the survey itself wasn't really used that good, there was a lot more potencial for better knowledge) but anyway - it clear shows, that the flavorful DLC that added a lot of events and country specific mechanics and interaction we're a lot more populare then the "rushed" Immersion Packs or newer DLC (exeption of emperor)

I really hope that you will add more flavor to the game over all -

a simple way would be to add more region specific events (esp. for SEA if the update focus there)

For Religion I hope besides a Mechanic AND more EVENTS for Animist the same for Judaism.

Judaism has almost no representation in the game, what is more then a shame if you reflect about the importance of jewish people, culture etc.
There is room for dozents of events not only for the religion itself, but for ALL countries with a jewish population that should take place and would really immerse/flavor the gameplay. There is a good mod about it on steam: "jewish estates"
I really think an effort like the Woman in History DLC would be worth looking into, when thinking about this.

 

[Shwartz99]

We known that in the next update continental SEA will have 3 new animist OPMs and Oceania (or at least Australia) will have a new religion.
Current areas where animist tags can be found are:
- All native councils in South America
- Some parts of Asia (Manipur, Ainu and Ryukyu are animist tags, animism is the religion in some Ming's provinces and there are 2 releasable tag inside Ming that are animist, Miao and Yi)
- Maritime SEA (some minor tags in Philipines and some minor tags in Indonesia)
- With the new patch we will have more 3 animist OPMs in continental SEA
Maybe if they are creating new mechanics for animist they will split animist in 2-3 religions, all of them using a similar mechanic, like coptic and zoroastrian use the same holy site mechanic but with different holy sites.

Good speculation. I'd like to add that the tribes in Northern Mexico are also animist, and the province of Tenerife (it doesn't have a country, but is the fastest way to go pagan as a European/North African tag)

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Glad to see you guys are listening to surveys and feedback. Also, I agree with @Sidolowka that Animist is likely the next candidate for a rework, as Totemist has been expicitly ruled out and Jewish AFAIK just exists for games converted from CKII.

 

[Delpheus]

Unfortunately I still don't see any news about fixing the age of revolutions....

 

[y-koron]

Finally, it's time to reveal another feature for our upcoming expansion, a new unit mission called Carpet Siege. It is similar to the hunt rebels mission, but with the difference that the army actively will avoid combat unless it is sure of winning, and primarily focusing on sieging down hostile territory. You can set it to just targeting specific areas on the map, or let it decide on its own when there are valid targets to consider.

As far as i read, we can't assign two or more units to same area same as hunt revels. Is this right?
And, will units in carpet siege mission divide their units for occupy?

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

You also overwhelmingly prefer simulation over boardgame mechanics

 

[holyvigil]

It's always been near the top when they've posted these stats. Remember, it adds +1 play every time a game is started. And what moderately popular nation requires about a dozen or two restarts to get right?

Interesting to see the "expansion" term used again. Definitely wasn't expecting another one so soon, even if it's a bit unfocused at this point. But, then, what is an EU4 DLC without 10 tangentially related features?

At least last time the survey was given they didn't count games that lasted less than 1 hour of play time.

Hello and Welcome to yet another Europa Universalis development diary. Today we’ll first delve into the results of the survey we sent out earlier this autumn, and also do some comparisons with the analytics we have. We’ll also talk about some minor balance changes and an interesting new feature for our future expansion.

First of all, I’d like to thank the over 10,000 people who took their time to reply to all the questions in our survey. While this is but a fraction of the entire playerbase, it gives us an indication of what the more hardcore of the audience likes, with over half of the respondents having played over 1,000 hours.

The most common play-styles, by far, as reported was role-playing and changing history. It is probably not a surprise to anyone that you viewed Victoria to have the best economy, Hearts of Iron the best military, Europa Universalis the best diplomacy and Crusader Kings the best politics.

You also overwhelmingly prefer simulation over boardgame mechanics, and you think that we should focus more on the economical buildup and flavorful content.

While the Golden Century was easily the worst expansion in your eyes, the top 5 expansions according to you were.

• Art of War
• Common Sense
• Emperor
• Rights of Man
• Mandate of Heaven

While talking about the survey, I thought it would be fun to look at the top 10 most played countries right now.

France          6.16%
Ottomans        5.08%
Austria         4.39%
Byzantium       4.39%
Custom Nation   4.23%
England         3.35%
Castile         3.29%
Brandenburg     3.11%
Ming            2.24%
Portugal        2.12%

A minor balance change for the people who play multiplayer and play with victory cards enabled, is the small little change that Estates will now become less loyal if you ally with nations which you have victory cards upon.

And for those that play as Cossacks and have the Sich Rada government enabled, as requested by the community, you now have the ability to raze cities, just like hordes does.

Finally, it's time to reveal another feature for our upcoming expansion, a new unit mission called Carpet Siege. It is similar to the hunt rebels mission, but with the difference that the army actively will avoid combat unless it is sure of winning, and primarily focusing on sieging down hostile territory. You can set it to just targeting specific areas on the map, or let it decide on its own when there are valid targets to consider.

View attachment 649016

Stay tuned, because next week Groogy will be back, talking about a major religion without unique mechanics that will get one.

For Byzantium are these actual games played or do these count all the times people have restarted?

 

[Dragonquack]

I’m buying this expansion just for the carpet siege shortcut alone, THANK GOD FINALLY YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Atacama]

If the main theme of the expansion turns out to be religious syncretism, I can understand why the focus seems so spread out and why it's giving mechanics to the underdog religions.
I would also be very hyped if it was the case.

And the results were expected. I see there are 10000 men of culture aswell.

Can't wait for the next DD.

 

[grotaclas]

I find it shocking, that you draw conclusions from a survey without addressing the problem which was already pointed out in the second comment to the survey post. The question about which game is best at which aspect didn't have the option to answer "I don't know". That made it impossible for me to even complete the survey. As far as I see it, it was only possible to finish the survey for people who fall into one of the following categories:

• played all the games long enough to rank them
• intentionally lied to answer the question
• didn't really think through the questions
• didn't care about giving correct answers

I think this completely invalidates the results from the ranking questions and probably skewed the result of the survey. I guess many min-max players were not able to answer the survey because they immediately see the problem with that question.

Edit: it would be nice if the people who disagree with me would explain why