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EU4 - Development Diary - 7th of February 2017

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. This time we dig into the states.

First of all, we have now improved the province interface to have a separate tab for all things related to a state, as the province interface started to become really cluttered.

This tab now gives you information of the entire state at once, making it possible to determine if the state is profitable or not, what provinces belong to it, and details about them.

In the new expansion, we are introducing a new concept to states though, something we call State Edicts. Edicts can be enacted at any time, but once set they can not be revoked until at least one year has passed, and while an Edict is active, the maintenance for that state triples.

Edicts gives bonus to all provinces you own in the state, and which edicts you have active can also be seen in the ledger and in a new mapmode.

So what edicts do we have then?

  • Enforce Religious Unity : 1% Missionary Strength
  • Protect Trade : +50% Provincial Trade Power
  • Promote Military Recruitment: +25% Manpower
  • Encourage Development: -10% Development Cost
  • Advancement Effort: +33% Institution Spread
  • Centralization Effort: -0.03 Monthly Autonomy
There are also 3 edicts you can gain from taking certain abilities in different ages.
  • Feudal De Jure Law: -5 Unrest
  • Religion Enforced: 50% resistance to Religious Conversion Centers.
  • Edict of Absolutism: -0.25 Monthly Devastation

Yes, the AI will of course also use Edicts, and edicts are 100% fully scriptable, and modders can add and remove as they feel fit.

Open Spoiler to see a script example..
edict_centralization_effort = {
potential = {
always = yes #we support "potential" if modders want to have lots and just show some.
}

allow = {
always = yes
}

modifier = {
local_autonomy = -0.03
}



color = { 220 178 155 }

ai_will_do = {
factor = 10
modifier = {
factor = 0
all_province_in_state = {
NOT = {
local_autonomy_above_min = 10
}
}
}

modifier = {
factor = 3
all_province_in_state = {
local_autonomy_above_min = 10
}
}
}
}

eu4_15.png


We have also rebalanced how Trade Companies work in 1.20, and provinces that belong to a trade company, will now be counted as full state provinces when it comes to autonomy calculations.
 
I have no idea why people want to keep a mechanic that essentially forces countries to keep old provincial systems of whatever other country held the region. It seems pretty clear, at least to me, that different empires split the same region in different ways.

Actually, I think the reality was that local regions pretty much stayed static no matter under whose control they were during the EU4 time frame. Now, I'm not as huge of a history geek as some are, but I do know that essentially the local regions (or "states") had their own dynamics (where the trading posts are, where the big roads are, where the important cities are etc.) that remained very largely unchanged no matter who conquered the land. The regional dynamics were difficult and almost pointless to change.

Now, of course there are exceptions to this where a new conqueror founds a new city which in turn changes the dynamics of the whole area etc., but as a general rule I don't think it's that far-fetched that local regions or "states" are grouped together for centuries, because the same areas were indeed linked together for centuries.
 
Now, of course there are exceptions to this where a new conqueror founds a new city which in turn changes the dynamics of the whole area etc., but as a general rule I don't think it's that far-fetched that local regions or "states" are grouped together for centuries, because the same areas were indeed linked together for centuries.

Exactly the point. New administration means new routes, new cities, new rules. The best example of this is in the Americas; the states are static, but the entirety of the game is cities being born and growing on the coast, changing the flow of the continent constantly and permanently. Even if you as a native kick out the europeans, you'd be stuck using european-based states that group provinces the way europeans - and not locals - did.
 
I'm kinda surprised there isn't an edict to reduce cost of culture conversion or religious conversion instead of getting religious early on you could spend increased money on state to convert Sunni as Muscovy instead it could help the AI deal with Religious unity early in the game.
There's the edict that gives you +1% missionary strength.
 
Exactly the point. New administration means new routes, new cities, new rules. The best example of this is in the Americas; the states are static, but the entirety of the game is cities being born and growing on the coast, changing the flow of the continent constantly and permanently. Even if you as a native kick out the europeans, you'd be stuck using european-based states that group provinces the way europeans - and not locals - did.

I agree that it's problematic in the colonial areas like the Americas because that is where the old regions or "states" of natives did not correspond seamlessly with the new incoming states formed by the colonial powers. But pretty much everywhere else the local/regional dynamics remained roughly the same no matter who "owned" the land, so I think the mechanic is working well in most areas of the game.

I'm not really sure how the concept could be changed to make it better. I think states are a good idea because it adds the necessary middle step to the administrative decisions between individual provinces and the whole country/empire. I don't know how you could make them more dynamic and having the ability to create your own borders for states would probably be a) boring/redundant, b) overpowered/unbalanced, and/or c) ahistorical because new conquerors weren't really capable nor interested in changing the local dynamics between provinces that had formed organically during the past centuries.
 
As Kazan, you can have a province in La Plata be your state core, whereas Perm is not, because you whimsically decided so due to development. Nations have the option to quite literally abandon their core motherland to give it to conquered richer territories, essentially making so conquered people are more integrated than your own nation. That's an example.

Modifiers to LA and potentially unrest based on empire size and distance to capital would work out much better than making a whole new mechanic that's just as trippy and ahistorical as blobbing like a maniac.
 
As Kazan, you can have a province in La Plata be your state core, whereas Perm is not, because you whimsically decided so due to development. Nations have the option to quite literally abandon their core motherland to give it to conquered richer territories, essentially making so conquered people are more integrated than your own nation. That's an example.
Perhaps we shouldn't be able to de-state primary culture then. But with the current ludicrous ease of culture shifting, even that isn't much of a hurdle.
Modifiers to LA and potentially unrest based on empire size and distance to capital would work out much better than making a whole new mechanic that's just as trippy and ahistorical as blobbing like a maniac.
I don't disagree; however, it is my understanding that states and territories were implemented to avoid the cases where 1) you use a vassal buffer to core land non-contiguous to your capital at less cost because it's counted as "overseas" and 2) you wind up significantly richer than God due to how much land you can make contiguous to your capital, in particular after integrating said vassal.

Considering how badly distance is shown ingame (note: this is different from the implementation(s), which I have little to no beef with) for the various things that already rely on it, if base LA and unrest become dependent on distance as well, that's definitely a case where we need the game to give us more information. Doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done, but in a world without states, the continuity-to-capital-means-no-overseas rule should probably be eliminated.

That said, I do think there are some cool things being done with states (even if most of the edicts are underpowered), and I'm disinclined to just throw them away. As someone who refused to ever play the 1.16 patch because of states and territories, they've definitely grown on me.

I wonder...

Aside from exodus cases, for which I imagine we would need some sort of exception (perhaps akin to the current capital movement rules), would it be useful in terms of gameplay to limit states to those territories that have a continuity chain to your capital? Of course, there's also the case of England/Britain not being contiguous to mainland Europe, and I understand the AI can't handle a strait there. But at least India is in a trade company region, and Johan has already stated that trade company provinces are going to become like stated provinces, without being in a state, so this particular issue with the concept should not apply to at the very least that particular area.

Just a thought. Not claiming it's a good one, but maybe it's a stepping stone to one.
 
Considering the way "conversion" works (either not possible or super fast), would 1% missionary strength be enough for that damn religious center?
Using an edict should let you convert those [insert religion with protection against conversion] easily, but still necessitate inquisitor + religious ideas to change Mecca or Rome or a freshly converted zealots center.
So I would have suggested increasing the impact to 2%.
 
I would add also a "promote our culture" edict, which lowers the cost of changing the culture of the provinces of a state.

Also, in my opinion, religion enforced, enforce religion unity and centralization effort should give +1 or +2 unrest (also promote culture edict, if it will ever see the light)
 
Can I use this option multiple times, for each State separately?
Almost certainly yes; though I think you misunderstood Johan. This won't be a global 1% missionary strength boost, but a local one only affecting said state.
 
ROTW has almost no tech penalty anymore with this, Developing a Province from 16 costs around 2000 monarch points with no reduction, but now you can make burgers happy get Economic Ideas and issue this edict for an early 40% dev cost reduction oh boy Institutions will cost nothing anymore.

*Note Hyperbole developing instzitutions still costs monarch points just not as many.
This is mistaken, i was thinking the same recently but it's not.
All modifiers relatiing to dev cost of a province are additive and based on the base (50) cost to improve a provionce.

This means if a province displays a cost of 100 (all currently active modifiers already calculated in) and you make burgers happy at "high" influene (= -10% dev) means you'll have to pay 95 for the dev upgrade(10% of 50 = 5, 100-5 = 95).

That's why the dev cost reduction is not intuitive imo, because it seems straightforward on what it does, which it does but not how you expect it to.
 
This is mistaken, i was thinking the same recently but it's not.
All modifiers relatiing to dev cost of a province are additive and based on the base (50) cost to improve a provionce.

This means if a province displays a cost of 100 (all currently active modifiers already calculated in) and you make burgers happy at "high" influene (= -10% dev) means you'll have to pay 95 for the dev upgrade(10% of 50 = 5, 100-5 = 95).

That's why the dev cost reduction is not intuitive imo, because it seems straightforward on what it does, which it does but not how you expect it to.

I know exactly how it works The point still stands that ROTW has a tiny tech cost comparatively to before the last patch and it is even lowered by this new patch.

at no reduction you can get an institution developed for 1985 Monarch points in a 16 dev province. Trough out the game you have to do that 3 times so a total of a 5955 Premium on tech for not being western.

Get a 10% Dev cost reduction and an institution costs you 1875 points in a 16 dev province.

Lets go for a reasonable focus, take econ 20% first develop a farmlands 5% maybe cotton, cloth or national Ideas 10% and that's it let's not over do a reasonable player won't only focus on institutions

End Cost 1564 in a 11 dev province
add the edict 1450 cost in a 7 dev province (note the lower you can go in starting dev the better for amount of actual value in development per institution)

Now compare your decently average of extra cost for being out of europe in the next patch to previous ones
Now total reasonable cost expectancy 4350 Monarch points which also yealds around 84 development

Before the patch / Westernization cost / cost Increase per tech / Average Expected cost with 8 tech levels before westernizing
20% / 2400 / 120 / 5280 (note some DLC's made westernizing much cheaper)
40% / 2800 / 240 / 8560
50% / 3000 / 300 / 10200
60% / 3200 / 360 / 11840


If you go all out you can get all 3 institutions together for as low as 3102 Monarch points while gaining 87 Development
 
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Saw Johan's twitter post about the numbers on state reduction.

It goes way, way too far IMO. Tech 27 is pretty darn late and assuming it has the same kind of growth as currently in game to number of states, it's way too far the other direction.

26 states at that stage in the game is next to nothing. Even accounting for Empire Rank and if you're a Monarchy with the updated reduction you won't have enough to state all of Germany as a German nation at tech 27. That seems silly to me. In my current game as Hamburg I've barely expanded at all and just got tech 27 and would be like 10 over the state limit changes without having even united Germany.

Plus with the harsh restrictions on stating, which kind of defeats the purpose of the neat new policy system, it will be super hard to gain enough power to become a Kingdom as a Duchy or a Empire from a Kingdom.

Because remember as a Duchy you have 5 base states and maybe 3 from Monarchy.

That's not a lot of states. If you're playing in Germany at tech 8, which we will assume gives +2 states given the current progression, you'll be rocking about 10. To turn into a Kingdom if you were to leave the empire with 3 provinces per state and you owning each province would have to be 10 development. But that's assuming perfect expansion and only caring about being as efficient as possible with states.

Less ideal situation let's look at the same thing setting later on: You're getting ready to turn into an Empire. You've got maybe 10 states from tech at this point and 5 from government rank because you're a Kingdom. So we've got in total let's say 23 states. Sounds like a lot right? Well perfect management, only turning into states what you own with 3 provinces each you'll have to have an average development of 14.5 per province which is pretty high. If you drop down to that 10 average development per province that it took to become a Kingdom you're looking at needing ~310 development from territories. Which at 75% autonomy floor end up being worth about ~80 real development in total in additional resource gain but cost you 50% of those admin points (if you wanted to state it) up front. You'd need ~30 more provinces to your ~70 provinces and that is assuming all your states are perfect.

If you aren't playing in a region with super developed provinces everywhere this disjoint becomes even more staggering. The point is to create a sense of 'should I do this?' I get that; what having the states this low will actually do is become an effort in frustration because if you're in a poorly developed region it means that you're just going to be sitting on your states, so as to not waste even more admin points, until you get something half decent which will be even harder because any of that bad territory you conquer trying to move towards the goodies will only be giving you .25% of it's real value, that is to say basically nothing. So you aren't really increasing your power level much at all expanding unless you're using states and with a highly constricted number of states you aren't going to be using states on anything that is less than stellar but to get those good provinces you're going to have to probably beat on someone much more powerful than you and you haven't gotten any stronger in previous expanses because the land wasn't worth stating so you're just sitting here in this catch 22.

You aren't getting a 1 to 1 value for your admin points like you are when you conquer and core something you want to state you're getting a .5 to .25 of the value. That's two to one. When you're spending resources for extremely marginal power gains you aren't really gaining any relative power compared to your opposition.


I get the idea to create tension but this does a poor job of it. It's too far the other direction. You'll never be able to actually core multiple culture groups because even in the richest area of the world (Europe) You can't even core the German culture group at tech 27. I'm just ignoring tech 31 (when you get your last state tech boost because it comes so late making states isn't ever worth it. You get no return at all).

You'll never integrate even a medium sized PU if you're medium size. Why would you? You'll never be able to state their land and you get more benefit out of it while they own it. The same can be said for vassals as well. Why would I integrate that land if my state cap is so low I can't ever use it? If I can't ever state outside my culture group due to a lack of states why would I ever bother to fight France at all?

I'm honestly just a little confused by this change. Does it strike anyone else as odd if I am Spain and I inherit France when they are my PU that my real strength goes down *dramatically*?

It turns one of the strongest idea group, admin, into an absolute must take because if you have any sort of ambitions to conquer anything at all you'll be in dire need of those states. It also makes influence even better than it is because that extra relations slot is going to mean a lot. What is the point in having a promote culture button if something outside your culture group is never going to be stated?


Maybe this is some multiplayer issue that has never affected me, someone getting to state a billion trillion states and then running away or something because they can just instantly state whatever they want so long as they have the points. Is this drastic reduction due to the changes coming to Trade Companies bottoming out at zero autonomy?

Is the goal to just never integrate subjects and for everyone to have 3 of them? Is the goal to just never state any state with less than 60 development and have huge gaping territorial holes inside your own culture? I get the desire for tension but these numbers IMO won't create it. It just creates a confusion because if I get permanent claims on all of China as the Emperor what is the point if I can't ever actually state and own China and would be significantly better off with 2 vassals owning the rest of that land instead? Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion but I've only seen one number and have had to guess from there. It looks like it's going to be extremely rough on expansion though. It seems to me that the best way to go about it would just to be not allowing people to state land that isn't in their culture group or an accepted culture until Separatism has fallen off and reducing the number of states by about 30% instead of like 60%

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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If you aren't German or Chinese, then the promote culture button will remain useful.
 
Saw Johan's twitter post about the numbers on state reduction.

It goes way, way too far IMO. Tech 27 is pretty darn late and assuming it has the same kind of growth as currently in game to number of states, it's way too far the other direction.

26 states at that stage in the game is next to nothing. Even accounting for Empire Rank and if you're a Monarchy with the updated reduction you won't have enough to state all of Germany as a German nation at tech 27. That seems silly to me. In my current game as Hamburg I've barely expanded at all and just got tech 27 and would be like 10 over the state limit changes without having even united Germany.

Plus with the harsh restrictions on stating, which kind of defeats the purpose of the neat new policy system, it will be super hard to gain enough power to become a Kingdom as a Duchy or a Empire from a Kingdom.

Because remember as a Duchy you have 5 base states and maybe 3 from Monarchy.

That's not a lot of states. If you're playing in Germany at tech 8, which we will assume gives +2 states given the current progression, you'll be rocking about 10. To turn into a Kingdom if you were to leave the empire with 3 provinces per state and you owning each province would have to be 10 development. But that's assuming perfect expansion and only caring about being as efficient as possible with states.

Less ideal situation let's look at the same thing setting later on: You're getting ready to turn into an Empire. You've got maybe 10 states from tech at this point and 5 from government rank because you're a Kingdom. So we've got in total let's say 23 states. Sounds like a lot right? Well perfect management, only turning into states what you own with 3 provinces each you'll have to have an average development of 14.5 per province which is pretty high. If you drop down to that 10 average development per province that it took to become a Kingdom you're looking at needing ~310 development from territories. Which at 75% autonomy floor end up being worth about ~80 real development in total in additional resource gain but cost you 50% of those admin points (if you wanted to state it) up front. You'd need ~30 more provinces to your ~70 provinces and that is assuming all your states are perfect.

If you aren't playing in a region with super developed provinces everywhere this disjoint becomes even more staggering. The point is to create a sense of 'should I do this?' I get that; what having the states this low will actually do is become an effort in frustration because if you're in a poorly developed region it means that you're just going to be sitting on your states, so as to not waste even more admin points, until you get something half decent which will be even harder because any of that bad territory you conquer trying to move towards the goodies will only be giving you .25% of it's real value, that is to say basically nothing. So you aren't really increasing your power level much at all expanding unless you're using states and with a highly constricted number of states you aren't going to be using states on anything that is less than stellar but to get those good provinces you're going to have to probably beat on someone much more powerful than you and you haven't gotten any stronger in previous expanses because the land wasn't worth stating so you're just sitting here in this catch 22.

You aren't getting a 1 to 1 value for your admin points like you are when you conquer and core something you want to state you're getting a .5 to .25 of the value. That's two to one. When you're spending resources for extremely marginal power gains you aren't really gaining any relative power compared to your opposition.


I get the idea to create tension but this does a poor job of it. It's too far the other direction. You'll never be able to actually core multiple culture groups because even in the richest area of the world (Europe) You can't even core the German culture group at tech 27. I'm just ignoring tech 31 (when you get your last state tech boost because it comes so late making states isn't ever worth it. You get no return at all).

You'll never integrate even a medium sized PU if you're medium size. Why would you? You'll never be able to state their land and you get more benefit out of it while they own it. The same can be said for vassals as well. Why would I integrate that land if my state cap is so low I can't ever use it? If I can't ever state outside my culture group due to a lack of states why would I ever bother to fight France at all?

I'm honestly just a little confused by this change. Does it strike anyone else as odd if I am Spain and I inherit France when they are my PU that my real strength goes down *dramatically*?

It turns one of the strongest idea group, admin, into an absolute must take because if you have any sort of ambitions to conquer anything at all you'll be in dire need of those states. It also makes influence even better than it is because that extra relations slot is going to mean a lot. What is the point in having a promote culture button if something outside your culture group is never going to be stated?


Maybe this is some multiplayer issue that has never affected me, someone getting to state a billion trillion states and then running away or something because they can just instantly state whatever they want so long as they have the points. Is this drastic reduction due to the changes coming to Trade Companies bottoming out at zero autonomy?

Is the goal to just never integrate subjects and for everyone to have 3 of them? Is the goal to just never state any state with less than 60 development and have huge gaping territorial holes inside your own culture? I get the desire for tension but these numbers IMO won't create it. It just creates a confusion because if I get permanent claims on all of China as the Emperor what is the point if I can't ever actually state and own China and would be significantly better off with 2 vassals owning the rest of that land instead? Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion but I've only seen one number and have had to guess from there. It looks like it's going to be extremely rough on expansion though. It seems to me that the best way to go about it would just to be not allowing people to state land that isn't in their culture group or an accepted culture until Separatism has fallen off and reducing the number of states by about 30% instead of like 60%

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah I'd agree with a lot of that. People will still paint the map, just with some subtle changes in their strategic priorities. If you start in a poor region like Arabia or the Horn of Africa then exodus is a total no-brainer now. Trade company regions are going to be extremely coveted. You will snowball so fast if you can gobble up India quickly. You will want all of your states to reach prosperity and then keep them there. Development is incentivised and I think stacking Development Cost reduction and building up a strong base will be popular in some starts. In some cases, you'll want to keep a vassal , with good land for the length of the game. Put them on scutage so devastation won't be a problem and help them build stuff. I think having a march will be very worthwhile too...
 
I actually like the idea of reducing states, but perhaps giving nation's that historically expanded a +states add on to one of their ideas and perhaps making say, Aristocratic and expansion give more states works.