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EU4 Development Diary - 4th February 2016

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. We are now working fully towards 1.16 and our next big expansion. While I’ve always been the lead designer for EU4, I’m now the project lead for this expansion, as Wiz has moved to another project.

One of the biggest changes in concept is the introduction of sailors. Sailors represent the trained seamen of a nation. Sailors differ from manpower both in what they are used for, and in how you get them. Only coastal provinces provide sailors, and the amount of sailors depend on total development in that province. Sailors are required when constructing new ships, and when ships are “repaired”. Of course not all ships require the same amount of sailors, with heavy ships needing the most and transports the least.

Docks and Drydocks now provide 50% and 100% more sailors from their provinces instead of increasing forcelimits, while Shipyards and Grand Shipyards have been redesigned to increase naval forcelimits & decrease shipbuilding times in those provinces.

Natural Harbours and Coastal Trade Centers increase the amount of sailors you get from a province, while Merchant marine now gives +50% Sailors & Press Gangs now give +20% Sailor Recovery. Some nations also have ideas giving them more Sailors from their provinces with Netherlands and Norway having the biggest boosts at +25%. There are also policies, parliament issues & norse gods boosting your sailor pool as well.

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If you have the expansion, you also gain sailors from occupying another nation’s coastal provinces, even if your maximum possible pool is not increased.

One of the most feared things in europe in this time-period was the arrival of slave raiders from the north african coast. Countless villages were razed and millions of europeans were sold in slavery in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli & Istanbul until the European nations were finally able to stop it at the middle of the 19th century by simply conquering the North African coast.

Now Barbary Nations lose their 10% cheaper ship tradition, and they gained the ability to raid for slaves. Raiding for Slaves is now something fleets can do at sea, where they gain money and sailors from coastal provinces that are not their allies or subjects. To raid a coastal province, you need be able to blockade it with that fleet, and you can only raid a province once every ten years. The efficiency of raiding is reduced by fleets on pirate hunting patrol. Raiding of course hurts your relation with the owner of provinces you raid.

The reason for why you get sailors from raids, is that plenty of them historically ended up chained to an oar at a galley.

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Next week, we’ll take a deep look at how we have redesigned the espionage system.
 
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johan back in lead for this expansion ? so its oldstyle time again ? xD

Not gonna be any major difference, as i designed 90% of the stuff before Cossacks. Designteam for eu4 still includes @Wiz and now we added @DDRJake to it.

The next expansion has some Wiz designed features that he has implemented already.
 
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Not gonna be any major difference, as i designed 90% of the stuff before Cossacks. Designteam for eu4 still includes @Wiz and now we added @DDRJake to it.

The next expansion has some Wiz designed features that he has implemented already.
Jake designing stuff instead of breaking it now?
 
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Jake designing stuff instead of breaking it now?
Designing stuff, breaking stuff, designing ways to break stuff, breaking designs of stuff etc.
 
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Quick question: does this 'slave raiding' mechanic apply to land-based nomadic nations too? It would be impressive to see the huge Tatar slave raids represented in this manner: they were after all, larger or of the same scale as these naval Barbary raids and led to around a million Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and Lithuanians being captured and sold downstream to the Ottoman slave markets. Would also give nomads with crap land some ability to gain funds at the expense of peaceful relations with their neighbours.

This is already in the game. What do you think is happening when you raze provinces and get monarch points? This represents abducting the people and selling them in in the slave markets of Constantinople in exchange for weapons. The only ahistorical bit is that this isn't happening in West Africa, or Mesoamerica, and colonial provinces in the Americas come out lily-white with European culture and no revolt risk.
 
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On that grammatical note, Fleets in a coastal seazone (sea zone?) ... "are" able to raid the surrounding coastlines. (hides from eggs)
Grammar is too dirty in that pic anyway. Dunno what I've been thinking about when I'd brought it up.
 
Wiz is now on a different project...

Vicky III?
 
Its a nice start, but I hope there is/will be more to the naval changes in this or future patches. Because the only thing sailors do, apart from being a nerf to Byzantine, is to make ship production slower.
Without a way which makes you have many naval battles in a war instead of just one decisive one a manpower system for ships hardly matters.
 
Well just a few remark as to the effect of coastal forts to be considered:

- Spain building forts in its coastal provinces (castle should suffice) should effectively block barbary nations from raiding. If you have ever been in Spain you will see those nice old watch towers all along the coast. They there actually used to guard against the north african raidors in deterring them with cannon fire and warning the local population of imminent attacks. Alternatively, of course there could be a new type of building, but castles should be just fine. So in early game it would be difficult for Spain etc. to guard against the barbaries, but later on if finances permit they could just secure their coast by building castles. Or, of course, they could smash the north africans.

- being raided should give Spain etc. a new type of CB against the barbary nations, one that lets them fight their fleets without requiring full blown invasion

- "Raiding of course hurts your relation with the owner of provinces you raid." -> it should certainly also hurt relations to the owner's allies and to all countries that have the owner's religion.
 
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