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EU4 - Development Diary - 6th of December 2016

Hi everyone and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. We’ve been working on the 1.20 patch and its accompanying unannounced expansion for a while now.

We’ve reworked some internal mechanics so looted and scorched earth are no longer just binary-statuses, but instead they affect something we call devastation.

A provinces’ devastation ranges from 0 to 100%, and it affects local autonomy, supply limits and how much goods are produced in the province. It also reduces the spread of institutions into that province, and increases the development cost of the province.

Each time a province is looted, its devastation is increased by 5%, and a scorched earth increased it by 25%.

Each year devastation is reduced by 1%, and within the zone of control of a fortification, it is reduced by 2% for each fort level each year.

Unrest is also increasing the devastation of a province by the amount of unrest each year.

devastation.png


What does this give you? Well, loot is is no longer just a strong penalty for a short period of time, but continuous conflict zones will grow far worse.


A cool feature for the expansion though is the concept of Prosperity, which is a state-level bonus. Any state that has 0 devastation in all its provinces and the country is at positive stability will have a small counter tick up each month, depending on the abilities of its government. It is a random chance, but when the counter reached 100%, then the state has reached Prosperity.

A state with prosperity gives -10% to development cost, and +25% to goods produced.

prosperity.png


Stay tuned, next week we’ll talk about something that will probably be the biggest feature added to the game since we started EU4.
 
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For me, the biggest feature would be:

a) Complete Trade rework, including dynamic trade routes, etc.

b) Introduction of pops, minority cultures and religions everywhere and how they interact with everything.

c) Complete combat revamp that makes terrain, attrition even more important, introduces army planning, combats doomstacks, etc.

I can't really think of anything bigger than that.
 
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A cool feature for the expansion though is the concept of Prosperity, which is a state-level bonus. Any state that has 0 devastation in all its provinces and the country is at positive stability will have a small counter tick up each month, depending on the abilities of its government. It is a random chance, but when the counter reached 100%, then the state has reached Prosperity

EUIV : Crusader Kings 2
 
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I like it, but what is the real life rationale behind forts helping to reduce devastation faster?

Not a real life rationale, but I assume it's because fortified provinces will definitely be looted during a winning war - you need to sit on them to siege them down and win the war after all. This will help these provinces get back on their feet faster so they aren't totally useless to you once you take them.

Edit: Phrased that a bit poorly. Forts are the primary targets in any war so they and the surrounding provinces get looted unreasonably more than other provinces (in theory anyway). This just helps those provinces out a bit.
 
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Stay tuned, next week we’ll talk about something that will probably be the biggest feature added to the game since we started EU4.
Rework of combat mechanics?

Imho this is one of the weakest features of EU4 right now, I LOVE the game, but combat is just so basic, no real strategy involved (in the battles themselfs) it's just raw stats that make units stronger/weaker... Would be awesome if there could be some actual strategy in army composition, positioning, tactics, etc.. with specific formation working beter with specific army composition and being usefull to counter other composition/tactics, etc.. Right now it's just to lines of men vs each other, where all the modifiers to it (tactics, morale, pips, discipline, combat ability etc) are just all the same: the more, the beter...
 
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I like it, but what is the real life rationale behind forts helping to reduce devastation faster?

People who feel protected are more likely to rebuild rather than when they feel that if they do, it will just be taken from them again.
 
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A new starting date incoming?
I rather doubt the timeline will be expanded, because you can't really expand past 1821, since the mechanics break down. And while you could start a little earlier, albeit the mechanics also don't fit too well the earlier you start, Johan stated years ago that the 1399 startpoint in EU3 was a mistake, so I don't see an earlier start date either.
Plus with CKII ending in 1453 EU4 starting in 1444 is fine; especially given that the time before 1444 is much better handled by CKII than EU4.
 
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Looks great, but while we are on the topic of scorched earth, can the silly little 5 monarch power cost be removed? (Same with Sally forth and attack natives) They already have disadvantages to use, reduced value of province and possible loss of fort, I don't see why it should cost MP as well.
 
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A provinces’ devastation ranges from 0 to 100%, and it affects local autonomy, supply limits and how much goods are produced in the province. It also reduces the spread of institutions into that province, and increases the development cost of the province.

Anything else that will affect devastation in a province? Events like famine and plague? Anything else that you can do to alleviate it? Policies, decisions or a whole new tab to direct ducats to rebuilding?

A cool feature for the expansion though is the concept of Prosperity, which is a state-level bonus. Any state that has 0 devastation in all its provinces and the country is at positive stability will have a small counter tick up each month, depending on the abilities of its government. It is a random chance, but when the counter reached 100%, then the state has reached Prosperity.

By abilities, do you mean mp gain of monarchs + advisors? How does a state lose prosperity? Does the state lose this status after only one province is looted?
 
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Im going on a wild guess for.......POPULATION
 
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So... what do non-Common Sense users get instead of reduced development cost in prosperous states?

On a similar note... please not population... sounds like it would be another use-CS-to-win scenario creator.
 
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So... what do non-Common Sense users get instead of reduced development cost in prosperous states?

On a similar note... please not population... sounds like it would be another use-CS-to-win scenario creator.
Im sorry, but what is cs?