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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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grandadmiralbob said:
Maybe both........ :D
As long as it's not some BS fantasy crap where the Aztecs have bombers and invade Normandy, I'm probably fine with it. Recently they have been adding bigger xpacs, i hope that trend continues.
Have they said when they are going to announce what this new feature is?
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Next week's DD.
 
grommile said:
Eh. Paradox think that the counties of Sussex and Kent are both (a) flat and (b) well-drained, so go figure :)
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Feel free to bug report any terrain you feel is incorrect (preferably with some sort of reference). Unless manual overrides are added the game autopicks grassland most of the time :)
 
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I would like if prosperity gave trade efficiency too, it would be one more reason to stay at peace. (hey this country's safe lets trade here.)
 
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Trin Tragula said:
Feel free to bug report any terrain you feel is incorrect (preferably with some sort of reference). Unless manual overrides are added the game autopicks grassland most of the time :)
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So most provinces have their terrain chosen randomly?
 
Wagonlitz said:
So most provinces have their terrain chosen randomly?
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Most but not all provinces that aren't very clear have overrides. Otherwise it's picked by the majority terrain within the provinces borders as displayed on the map. The game and the human eye can probably differ at what that might be though ;)
It's never random, it will be the same no matter how many times you restart.
 
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Trin Tragula said:
Most but not all provinces that aren't very clear have overrides. Otherwise it's picked by the majority terrain within the provinces borders as displayed on the map. The game and the human eye can probably differ at what that might be though ;)
It's never random, it will be the same no matter how many times you restart.
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So all the percentages from back when terrain wasn't the same for the entire province still exists and are used for which terrain to choose unless there's an override? If so then what happens when new provinces are made?
 
Wagonlitz said:
So all the percentages from back when terrain wasn't the same for the entire province still exists and are used for which terrain to choose unless there's an override? If so then what happens when new provinces are made?
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Those percentages were always based on the terrain map.
When we add new provinces we add new overrides as necessary generally (and if needed we also modify the displayed terrain on the map as that should match what you expect in the province).
If we don't add overrides then it's taken from the map just as before (but unlike the original system it always picks the same terrain, it's never chance based).
 
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Devastation sounds like a good malus mechanic, and the Prosperity buff mechanic is a great "counter" to it.

However, I don't like that the former is free and the latter is paywall. That's very frustrating and honestly not fair.

Frankly, you guys need to be a little more careful about "pay to win" or game-rebalancing features in the expansions. Or, more to the point, you need to be more careful about keeping expansions optional. Your fanbase is loyal; they're going to buy them.

Good fodder for expansions: leader traits and consorts, Timeline, new faiths, new government types, Condottieri, a set of 30 Years War events, a set of Harem Politics events, fleshing out naval gameplay, fleshing out subject interaction, a random new world generator, a nation designer.

Bad fodder for expansions: Great Powers buff, Prosperity buff, Promote Mercantilism button, Independence CB, Unconditional Surrender peace option, and arguably even Development (sorry, I know that was a huge feature to create, but the game practically doesn't work without it).
 
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Trin Tragula said:
Most but not all provinces that aren't very clear have overrides. Otherwise it's picked by the majority terrain within the provinces borders as displayed on the map. The game and the human eye can probably differ at what that might be though ;)
It's never random, it will be the same no matter how many times you restart.
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I did some tests in the past. I can confirm it is not random but it's not a majority rule. It depends on the terrain. Have done a square province because it was easy to cut off in pieces. Marsh was selected even below 40% of the surface (the terrain_map.bmp file), and it was dependent on the other terrain.
For example 40% "marsh" with 60% "grassland" chose "marsh" but 40% "mountain" with 60% "grassland" chose grassland. I never figured out how it exactly works.
I've done this one time to create the terrain map for the wiki and left the idea because of this unclear "majority" rule.
 
grandadmiralbob said:
Maybe both........ :D
As long as it's not some BS fantasy crap where the Aztecs have bombers and invade Normandy, I'm probably fine with it. Recently they have been adding bigger xpacs, i hope that trend continues.
Have they said when they are going to announce what this new feature is?
Click to expand...

Hey the Aztec invasion of normandy, where the french had knights and the aztecs had tanks and bombers is a real historical event. Just ask civ. :p
 
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Civ, FIVE, is the main reason why i picked up eu3........... so yeah. But i doubt that they would do that, if they do it better be free/optional, as i don't think alot of people use that sunset invasion for ck2.
 
I get the feeling I will never have prosperity. In almost every war, you will have a couple provinces get besieged down and fully looted. If you only regain one or two points of devastation per year, the only way I will ever be devastation free is during a regency council and if I ever get Rights of Man, that won't be much of an issue anymore.
 
I absolutely love this change, it would be a much needed nerf for defensive blobs. A province shouldn't completely bounce back from a devastating war (100% looted) in 16 months. Respectively, it's a buff for small, probably naval nations, that rely on almost never letting the enemy into their lands through Quality/Offensive/Naval.

EDIT: It also incentivizes trade oriented nations much more to keep relative peace around their important trade nodes, which I don't think I've seen simulated in EU yet.
 
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LokiusMaximus said:
I get the feeling I will never have prosperity. In almost every war, you will have a couple provinces get besieged down and fully looted. If you only regain one or two points of devastation per year, the only way I will ever be devastation free is during a regency council and if I ever get Rights of Man, that won't be much of an issue anymore.
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Well, if it is only a couple provinces that are getting sieged down, the rest of your country should be fine. Prosperity is on a region by region basis. Just make sure you keep your heartlands safe.
 
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Gamengervi said:
On this topic, where would I post historical inaccuracies? Bug Reports or Suggestions?
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Depends on the nature of it. If it's "Tag X should not own province Y in 1444" it's likely a bug but most other things are likely suggestions. Generally any more complicated solution would also be a suggestion as would anything where the situation isn't very clear cut so in general suggestions is the safest bet. :)
 
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Trin Tragula said:
Depends on the nature of it. If it's "Tag X should not own province Y in 1444" it's likely a bug but most other things are likely suggestions. Generally any more complicated solution would also be a suggestion so in general suggestions is the safest bet. :)
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It's regarding an incorrect capital, so I'm guessing it's a bug?
 
The whole of the east midlands is called "Derbyshire", which as you can imagine is a particularly jarring and offensive slight! :p
 
Gamengervi said:
It's regarding an incorrect capital, so I'm guessing it's a bug?
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Should be :)
By now it'd probably have been easier to say it directly though ;)
Please provide good references and we will have a look. If it's not inaccurate by design (this is rare but sometimes happen, often to compensate for when the game and reality functions too differently) it will be changed :)
 
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