EU4 - Development Diary - 9th of February 2021

[MateuszNH]

I don't like the idea, it looks like some random stuff implemented into the game. What's good in dev diary is that bonuses aren't too big like previous fantasies and these introduced here doesnt' have military bonus (which is always worrying for me as multi player while u guys aren't very good or interested at all in balancing that stuff ).
But thing is done so hmm, maybe bind these to mana which is generating a little too much after introducing 5 lvl advisors. But on the second hand it is little harder to balance as in vanilla 20-30 dip points is worth more than manufacture, not to mention mil points, it's a lot of manpower.

 

[joaofrancisco25]

Are you guys planning on tweaking how to develop your provinces? Replacing the mana cost for something related to prosperity and ducats maybe. These monuments are heavily tied to the wealth of the country and I think it would be a great fit if development was as well, I really love tall countries and the way your provinces reflect that.

And for the Americas? Are there some natural monuments like wartefalls and bays or only works like machu picchu and such?

Great work guys!!! Very excited for next patch!

 

[wkscrombie]

@skingrado Wow! This is an awesome addition to the game, and one that I've been hoping would be added for years but never dared to ask for because I always figured it was beyond the scope of what you're going for. So cool! A couple thoughts I have right off the bat:

I love that we'll get access to upgrading historical monuments, but will we be able to build our own? Not just ones that were built later in the timeline (though those are also certainly important), like the Taj Mahal or the Red Fort or St. Basil's Cathedral or the Versailles, but ones that we design ourselves? That'd be the step that takes this from cool to spectacular. Also, as others have mentioned in this thread, canals should really be integrated into this system.

Second, it seems like this will mostly benefit the more developed parts of the world while leaving the less developed ones far behind. What about adding a feature like natural wonders-- Crater Lake, for example, or the Grand Canyon or Victoria Falls? Perhaps natural wonders couldn't be upgraded in the same way, but they'd still provide otherwise largely flavorless parts of the world with a lot of distinctiveness and a good reason for players to want to control them.

Last, I'm just gonna keep beating the drum for a Pacific Northwest rework. It seems likely that this will be the last time North America gets an update, and the PNW is the only area that has not gotten significant province/terrain improvements (not to mention new tags). It'd be a shame for it to remain barren and boring in the game's final stage, when to be represented accurately, it'd need some impassable terrain for the Cascade and Coast mountain ranges (also giving it some fun strategic depth) and more estuaries/natural harbors (of which there are many of great significance-- Coos Bay alone is the most important harbor betwen San Francisco and Seattle and was once the largest lumber-exporting port in the world, and there are many major rivers of huge significance to the region and its trade).

Anyway, thanks for your work! This is shaping up to be a sweet patch.

 

[Bibor]

I'll be sad if at least an event name doesn't mention Monuments Men

 

[wkscrombie]

Yeah, 15% admin efficiency is way too powerful compared to the other wonders. The other bonuses of the Alhambra would already make it well worth the effort.

Did you maybe intend to give it -15% admin tech cost and mixed up the modifiers?

-15% admin tech cost would be way more reasonable, not to mention a lot more helpful for tall play, which it seems monuments are especially suited for anyway.

 

[gankrock]

Maybe we can add an achievement

Castle in one night : Play as the Oda and build a Wonder in the Owari province within 8 hours of the game
maybe 1day as 1 sec, so we have 79year to build a wonder?

 

[wkscrombie]

I would suggest Hill of Tara for a holder of Meath, not to upgrade or anything but for its historical significance to any of the Irish opms should they take the province.

That'd be excellent, yeah. It could give a bonus to legitimacy/republican tradition and morale.

 

[wkscrombie]

I see a lot of people saying the Alhambra is PO, and it's definitely very strong. But every nation lost 10% admin eff from absolutism in 1.30, which kind of balances it out.
I'm more worried about monuments like the Himeji castle with weak local effects that seem totally useless

I don't think that balances it out so much as forces a meta where we have to gun for the Alhambra to have the most efficient WC. But yeah, it'd really be nice if the power levels were closer together. Considering it's on grassland, I'm not sure if Himeji Castle is worth building at all, since you won't get any bonus from defending it anyway.

 

[wkscrombie]

I'd be really interested in seeing a full list of all the Monuments being added once the update releases, especially the ones tied to crazy requirements.

On the subject of requirements. What about you are able to get the bonuses of any Monument you own, but being able to upgrade it is locked behind the special requirements. Monuments are already reset to Level 1 Whenever someone conquers them, so that would be a sort of self balancing system for most of them.

So for example, England can get the Tier 1 bonuses for Stonehenge since they have it, but Pagans can upgrade it to get the bigger bonuses.

That way I can see things like that absurd Alhambra Admin Efficiency Bonus being a bit more balanced. Well maybe balanced isn't the right term. Maybe reward for your investment. If anyone can have Alhambra at Tier 1, but you need to be Andalusian Primary Culture for Tier 3, then outside of people going on crazy Culture Conversion quests, the bonuses serves more as a reward for a player doing a successfully White Phoenix playthrough as Granada.

Another question I have. Will there be any Monuments in the new World? People are asking about Canals like the Suez and Panama, but what about El Dorado and the other Wonders of the New World spawning as Wonders/Monuments in the provinces they are discovered it? Or would that mean they would need to be fixed in certain provinces? I don't know what the coding requirements would be.

I'm wondering if the Great Temple of Cholula would qualify as a Monument for the Nahuatl. Or something for the Inti.

If it is possible to code a Monument being added to a province that doesn't have one at game start, and isn't just moving one, what about some missions that reward you with a Tier 0 Monument of some kind in a Province.

For example in the future if you gave the Aztecs a mission tree, including sections for doing a Sunset Invasion. A reward for a mission to take Rome and sacrifice the Pope to the Nahuatl Gods might reward you with a Tier 0 Nahuatl Mega Temple on Rome, that you could then level up as a huge Monument to your successful invasion.

Just a few suggestions.

I love all of this. I really hope the devs take a look.

 

[wkscrombie]

you will know soon

oh man i like the sound of that

 

[wkscrombie]

Monuments are good, considering we've played so much CK2 and CK3.

1. Don't be too geneous to give global modifiers. Cases like Alhambra with +15% adm efficiency would cause any/all nation rush to that province and update it asap. I would say chopping that 15% into 5% for three to more monuments across the world and providing different goals to nations of different region would be better. Also for each monument it should provide at least two of three types of modifiers: local, area and global. You should encourage players to persue and grab monuments' combination to stack modifiers.

2. Some nation may get mission rewards and decisions to implement new monuments in a specific province, like Forbidden city for Ming, or Kremlin for Russia. Construction by decision or any other special way would have less cost and time, but may have additional requirements.

3. Speed-up button should put at least some limits, like 5 year cooldown. Certain events could either speed-up or delay the construction, as well as clearing that cooldown flag. Some monuments should have less cost for construction in a case by case basis.

4. When seizing a monument by force, the level should be like reduce 1 instead of dropping to 0. Also peaceful actions like integrating vassals shouldn't cause this to drop. This happens with TC levels which is hilariously silly. TC is still fine as it just cost money and is upgraded instantly, but monuments are some long-term stuff and shouldn't be destroyed so easily.

5. If a vassal controls some monuments, it's good for overlord to enjoy discounted level of global modifier, which could be set separately. Like Timurids could have a small share of Buddhas of Bamiyan, and even could help construct it using their own coffer -- Afghanistan could be Timurids anyway so why not?

I agree with all of this.

 

[wkscrombie]

I have actually been excited about all the new stuff in this update but this is by far the best yet. I have thought about monuments in EU4 for a long time now and think that this has opened up a whole new side of EU4 that I think if worked on can improve the game enormously. With this I hope that you in the future think of experimenting more with the monuments and maybe add basic standard monuments you can build in any province (under the right conditions) that can give bonuses. Or maybe more events regarding monuments and historical incidents that have an effect on the monuments. It would also be cool to see you work more on unique things, an example would be unique buildings for a certain religion or culture that grant varying bonuses, kind of like the totemist buildings in the new world.

This!

 

[wkscrombie]

Also kinda curious/worried if some memes find their ways into the game with this mechanic. Like restoring parthenon gives a decision to flip helenic or some norse temple.

I'm pretty down for that, as long as you have to jump through some reasonable hoops beforehand. It shouldn't be something that can be done unless you're very specifically angling for it, but if you really want to, you should be able to.

 

[wkscrombie]

While on the one hand I like wonders in general, on the other this does seem a little outside the scope of EU.

I don't think so at all. Many of the world's most recognizable monuments were built in the EU4 timeframe.

 

[wkscrombie]

I am quite skeptical when Paradox mentioned that they could be only build on specific provinces.
Probably half of the monuments would be centered around Europe hmm

I have faith that they'll put a good number in Asia, too. I'm mostly worried about this making the Americas seem really bare (which is why I'd love to see it complimented with a natural wonders feature).

 

[wkscrombie]

Absolutely love this addition!! This expansion is really shaping up to be my dream update for eu4.

I wanna ask as I've been playing as Inca recently, I assume Machu Picchu is going to be a wonder monument now, but how about featuring the Nazca lines, I don't really see why not if things like Stonehenge are featured.

In general, I just hope there are lots of monuments to play with, including in the new world.

The Nazca Lines would be super cool. I'm hoping to see a lot of stuff for Andean and Mesoamerican cultures here, as well as maybe stuff like Chaco Canyon or Cahokia.

 

[wkscrombie]

Any plans for North American and New World great projects? The Cahokia mounds? One of the cliff dwelling sites?

I sure hope so. Glad someone else thought of these.

 

[Zaldun]

I would love to see Chichen Itza and the Great Temple of Cholula

 

[wkscrombie]

Can we please get a Theodosian Walls modifier or Monument for Constantinople?

Constantinople already has the Hagia Sophia, but Corinth (can't remember the province name off the top of my head) could really use the Hexamilion Wall.

 

[wkscrombie]

Very cool feature. Love it!

However, I think that the player should be able to build some other monuments in other provinces that are not historical, such as in CK.
Another thing is that downgrading all monuments to tier 1 after conquering the province is a bit too much in my opinion. The conqueror should get some events whilst sieging down the province linked to how much damage the monument will get and the choices the attacker will go with impact both the tier of the monument and the siege time on the province. The damage should also be applied once the province was sieged down such that it still applies even if you don't lose the province to the conqueror.

an example of that is when conquering Constantinople and you have artillery in the siege you get an event that makes you decide whether the artillery should go rampage bombing everywhere which would give a very high chance of damaging Hagia Sophia or whether you order the army to keep their bombing mainly focused towards the walls and enemy army whilst avoiding destroying the monument as much as possible which gives a lower chance of damaging the monument but also gives a negative impact on the siege tick you have.

On the other hand, if you don't have artillery you could implement something like looting down or even ordering the army to not damage or touch the monument with the same impacts.

Great ideas for better immersion.