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EU4 - Development Diary - 7th of April 2020

Hey everyone! Today we’ll be talking about two changes, part of the patch coming along with the Emperor expansion. You’ve probably already spotted them both if you had a keen eye on one of our streams.

First feature is part of the Governing Capacity rework and some small rework of Government Reform Progress. We’ve changed so that changing a government reform no longer causes you to gain 10 corruption, instead it costs Government Reform progress to switch on a level you’ve already picked.

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Now to the new feature that will be interacting both with Governing Capacity and the Reform Progress. The original intent with Reform Progress was that the larger your empire was, the slower you would be reforming your government and progressing through the reforms. Hence why it is affected by the autonomy of your empire as while expanding heavily your autonomy on average will be higher.

So in that spirit as well we are introducing a choice for the player to instead of reforming their government, they can expand the capabilities of their administration in order to integrate more of their conquered territories as core states. This action increases in cost every time it’s used.

This gives the player besides having to pick what land should be states, trade companies or territory, also a choice on if to advance and modernize their government or if to focus on making sure you have full control over the territory that you possess.

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Next thing is a new institution we’ve added that is to go together with several of our late game additions we’ve been doing in this patch. We felt that you could just skip by without any technological disparity in the world for the last 80 years So we added a last institution to represent the Industrial revolution. This revolution started sometime after the 1750, as coal, steam engines saw their use increase and industries grew throughout Europe.

The requirements spawning are very much focused on the wealth from nations that have industrialized. It will spawn in any province that has 30 development, a Furnace built, the owner of the province are the leading producers of either iron, cloth or coal. If it is before 1760 it also requires that the province is in the highest trade node in the world. If the player lacks Rule Britannia, then coal and furnace requirements are replaced to focus on simply iron and cloth manufacturies.

This will give a spurt of technological advancement at the end of the game giving those who have modernized their economy an advantage.



So that’s it for this development diary, short but sweet. Next one will be written by @neondt and will be about the content regarding Imperial Diet’s such as Incidents and will be fairly more substantial.
 
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@Groogy is there an alwert if my goverment capacity is over, but I have the possiblity to raise it with my reform progress?
Otherwise a lot of player will miss this new button.

Good point we'll look into it :)
 
There was in Sardinia I believe, but this is a case about game balance and what we want the game to do. We'll of course think about it but coal as a trade goods is black gold right now so adding further coal provinces is a big disruption to balance.
Perhaps it could be region tied so a furnace in England wouldn't cause an Indian farmer to idk snort the Coke (the coal people, the coal!) And increase his productivity by 10%, or it could be tied to some secondary trade goods as the evolution of the old ones that could give more local bonuses, so instead of peasants snorting Coke to increase productivity a high development grain province could start being dominated by a rations industry that increased your force limit a little bit more than the grain, or an iron province could be dominated by an arms industry that decreased by 10-20% local recruitment cost, or even perhaps allowed you to build 2 units at a time (perhaps at +50% the cost for balancing reasons
Idk just throwing some ideas I think would be funny
 
I would lock coal behind Industrialization, as it was the first push of machanized work that created the increased demand for coal, which led to the before unseen exploitation of coal deposits. Which created both more demand for machinery as well as made coal more readily available, which led to more machines which required more coal. A feedback loop was created that hasn't abated to this very day.

This process was largely restricted to England however, with the second push of Industrialization that happened in continental Europe happening due to local coal deposits (mainly in the France/Low Countries/Germany border region ... which explains the next 140 years of regional history).

Thing is though, there is a lot more coal in the world then EU4 might want you believe, as its coal provinces are largely based on historical exploitation of such deposits. For example, Iran has actually pretty decent coal deposits, yet ingame it has only a single instance of latent coal in Lahijan, which probably represents the significant coal fields under the Alborz mountains. Other significant coal field in Khorsasan, Azerbaijan and Tabas are not present, largely because Persia slept through the early Industrialization process until oil was already on its way to replace coal. And Persia has a lot of oil.

The proposed Industrialization triggers are thus a self-fulfilling prophecy in some way. Countries that showed early industrialization got coal, so they will be the countries that will spawn Industrialization.

This is a matter of interpretation.
Do you need Industrialisation to start industrialising or do you need to start industrialising to get industrialisation?
Institutions as they are seem to be the latter.

When you embrace Enlightenment, it doesn't mean you are living in the enlightenment age, it means you have fully embraced Enlightenment values and moved on. Likewise, embracing Industrialisation means that you already have an industrial method of production, not that you are developing it.

Therefore it makes sense that you unlock coal and all tools of industrialisation after enlightenment, so you start industrialising in order to spawn and spread Industrialisation.

The institution doesn't industrialise you, you need to industrialise yourself to earn the institution.

Industrialization not improving production, hilarious.
Like I said before, the imediate production benefits of Industrialisation are earned through the process of industrialising, by developing, building furnaces and manufactories.

Once you embrace industrialisation, you are not earning the benefits of Industrialisation itself, those were earned before, but the consequences of an industrialised society.

Namely a sharp increase in population and urbanisation well as the increased tax revenue on private enterprise.
 
The institution doesn't industrialise you, you need to industrialise yourself to earn the institution.

Thing is, the things that prohibited countries that weren't England and Belgium to industrialize don't really apply to EU4.

I could be 80 Innovativeness Persia unable to industrialize because the game does not let me exploit the oal literally buried beneath my country.
 
I like this addition. It gives a true choice where you can use your government progress for governing capacity. It's a small nerf to playing wide, while still giving plenty of choice.

Some questions not really related:
- When will we hear more about Jerusalem? We got "being King of Jerusalem will present some new in-game opportunities which we’ll talk about another time." from the dev diary of 11/06/19 and was hoping we'd hear more about it today.

- Also a small suggestion related to the interview I heard with Groogy. It said that EU4 is showing its years and not everything is easily codable. Can you however re-use the rebel suppression code to also make armies retake provinces occupied by enemies? Or a "shift-siege" button would work too. It would drastically decrease lategame click fatigue where the enemy occupies a ton of backwater provinces. In current form you need to send an army (fine), make it siege a province (fine) but then wait until that siege is done (not fine) to give it a new order. Either queuing orders to siege provinces or using the suppress rebel code where they take back the provinces under foreign control would both be a massive improvement.

Or any other simple solution to not have to look back at the sieged provinces every 30 days.
 
Have there been any balance changes to institution spread overall? Institutions tend to spread far more rapidly than was historical, and rapidly even compared to institutions in post-1444 bookmarks.

A moderate to large decrease in the spread of an embraced institution within a country’s borders would likely remedy most of the problem since so much of institution spread hinges on large embracers spreading it across entire continents (Poland-Lithuania and Ottomans spreading institutions from Western Europe to Western Asia, Russia and Chinese empires, especially player-controlled ones, spreading institutions across most of Asia).

Limiting institution spread within countries that have embraced them would also be somewhat historical: far-flung, rural, “backwards” territories governed from urban, European metropoles often lagged behind them technologically and didn’t adopt social or economic reforms until decades or centuries after their countries’ capitals did.
 
@Groogy

Are we gonna see some changes to how central eastern european dynastic games will look? I mean Austria, Hungary, Bohemia (and maybe some polish interference)?
Yesterday i've read a bit about history of these nations in this time period and it could be soo entertaining and unpredictable playthrough with 2 Habsburgs dynastic lines and Jagiellons desiring thrones for themselves, Matthias Corvinus and Jan z Podiebrad becoming kings, but now we have just one hungarian RNG-based event and often duplicated Ladislaus Posthumous.
For ex. on 1444 Ladislaus should rule Bohemia and Austria (thats what he inherited from his father, but not Hungary which elected Wladyslaw Jagiellon) and after his death in Varna (basically when game is starts) Hungary should have event (basically "Diet of $YEAR$" event is ok) where they elect Ladislaus and choose regent, and Ladislaus is teoretically ruling Austria-Bohemia-Hungary PU, but every country has its own regent (Janos, Jan and duke of Styria and HRE emperor Freidreich) so they are independent because Ladislaus is young kid.
Then if Ladislaus dies before he reaches aduldhood (as in IRL) (there might be some events for all three countries if they want to try to kill Ladislaus as it basically happed - he died in Bohemia possibly because of Jan z Podebrad) all three regents take power for themselves: Freidreich for himself and Habsburg dynasty, Janos for himself and his child Matthias Corvin and in Bohemia when Jan dies they should have choice: elect Jagiellons, Habsburgs or elect czech noble (historically they've chosen Jagiellon) and if Matthias dies heirless they should have the same choice (they've also chosen Jagiellon).
In the end, we could have: everyone under the Ladislaus and his descendants (habsburg empire), all three countries under their own dynasties (habsburgs, podiebrads and hunadyis) or habsburgs or jagiellons could take one or both thrones. So that we would have options for two powerful dynastic empires or independent countries ruled by their own dynasties.
This could give so much flavor to the game in this region (also with hussite faith and other changes) and we probablyy won't be seeing two duplicated Ladislauses and Podiebrad dynasty in 9/10 games (this isnt really good, as austria often allies hungary but they dont always help them and they die.
 
Is there going to have an increase in coal provinces in the world ? Cuz although I think Europe and expecifically gb should have more coal I think the rest of the world has too little of it . Since theres going to be a new institution based around coal I hope there's some reshuffling of the coal provinces I'm the world .
 
Finally you won't see changing your government as radioactive!

About Reform progress used to have states, that's an intriguing and certainly interesting idea. The fact it's not on the same base as the reforms also makes it interesting.

If I calculated correctly, it costs 1750 Reform Progress to go to the last reform. Meanwhile, you have to hammer that button 217 times to get to the point where you spent as much. At that time, you'll be able to state 4340 additionnal development, which is a very decent amount of dev, at the cost of no reforms done. I don't know how the governing capacity modifier works, though, so it might be a lot less than that.

Also, this wouldn't work if you can't store more than 150 Reform Progress to make the first reform. You would be then "limited" to push the button 33 times, for 660 dev stated, before having to take the first reform.

Of course numbers are probably not final, but I believe you could make it so more territory can be stated per time or else EUIV will devolve into a clicking game.

I am probably totally wrong.
 
I was really hoping you were going to do something like this for reform progress. Looks good. I do wish you guys would tell us whether you made the localization changes to Catholicism like changing "Call an Ecumenical Council" to something else as that doesn't make any sense since Ecumenical Councils were a monumental event. It seems like a simple change that so many people wanted yet there hasn't been a response.
 
There was in Sardinia I believe, but this is a case about game balance and what we want the game to do. We'll of course think about it but coal as a trade goods is black gold right now so adding further coal provinces is a big disruption to balance.
It would be nice to have a reason to care about Sardinia.
 
Because it's the most important mana in the game, assuming you're blobbing.
Why do theocracies miss it more than republics then? And if you're blobbing you're vassal feeding after mid game
@Groogy

Are we gonna see some changes to how central eastern european dynastic games will look? I mean Austria, Hungary, Bohemia (and maybe some polish interference)?
Yesterday i've read a bit about history of these nations in this time period and it could be soo entertaining and unpredictable playthrough with 2 Habsburgs dynastic lines and Jagiellons desiring thrones for themselves, Matthias Corvinus and Jan z Podiebrad becoming kings, but now we have just one hungarian RNG-based event and often duplicated Ladislaus Posthumous.
For ex. on 1444 Ladislaus should rule Bohemia and Austria (thats what he inherited from his father, but not Hungary which elected Wladyslaw Jagiellon) and after his death in Varna (basically when game is starts) Hungary should have event (basically "Diet of $YEAR$" event is ok) where they elect Ladislaus and choose regent, and Ladislaus is teoretically ruling Austria-Bohemia-Hungary PU, but every country has its own regent (Janos, Jan and duke of Styria and HRE emperor Freidreich) so they are independent because Ladislaus is young kid.
Then if Ladislaus dies before he reaches aduldhood (as in IRL) (there might be some events for all three countries if they want to try to kill Ladislaus as it basically happed - he died in Bohemia possibly because of Jan z Podebrad) all three regents take power for themselves: Freidreich for himself and Habsburg dynasty, Janos for himself and his child Matthias Corvin and in Bohemia when Jan dies they should have choice: elect Jagiellons, Habsburgs or elect czech noble (historically they've chosen Jagiellon) and if Matthias dies heirless they should have the same choice (they've also chosen Jagiellon).
In the end, we could have: everyone under the Ladislaus and his descendants (habsburg empire), all three countries under their own dynasties (habsburgs, podiebrads and hunadyis) or habsburgs or jagiellons could take one or both thrones. So that we would have options for two powerful dynastic empires or independent countries ruled by their own dynasties.
This could give so much flavor to the game in this region (also with hussite faith and other changes) and we probablyy won't be seeing two duplicated Ladislauses and Podiebrad dynasty in 9/10 games (this isnt really good, as austria often allies hungary but they dont always help them and they die.
Previous dev diary already said that ladislaus cloning will stop as they'll be events to kill him if he dies in the other country. As hussitism has been added and can either be integrated into the church, independent or merge with protestantism I feel Bohemia is going to have added flavour, with Austria's mission tree already being redone. Hungary should die besides royal Hungary, and then regain lands, but this is stopped by Blobhemia being Blobhemia, and Ottomans not historically declining, or making vassals of Transylvania, the change to governing capacity will hopefully change this and make them vassalise more. If Bohemia didn't get that +3 tolerance in ideas it really would be hindered for expansion, whereas every other AI HRE power wastes half a century on dealing with religious rebels
 
Noone seems to mention that a new province, Sheffield has been added to Yorkshire area.
Maybe are there any more regions touched like Great Britain and Iberia?