EU4 - Development Diary - 9th of October 2018

[Franciscus123]

The only "historical" tag that comes to my mind is the Kingdom of Murcia.
Originally it was a moorish kingdom that became a Castillian protectorate until a rebellion sponsored by Granada and North African volunteers expelled the Castillians. However, their success was short-lived and a Castillian-Aragonese alliance took Murcia again.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudéjar_revolt_of_1264–1266)
This tag could have Murcia, Alacant and perhaps Albacete as cores.

I know this happened 180 years before the game starts, but I think it's a much better option than Asturias. Besides, technicaly this kingdom still existed.

Good point, was not familiar with this.

 

[mengze]

I am confused that every city in one country has the same style. For example,if a western country have a land in east Asia，then the picture of the city changes to the western style.I think it should remain the style it used to be sometime.(a new formed colony is another situation.) I hope this situation can be changed in the future update.

 

[Arbus]

I am confused that every city in one country has the same style. For example,if a western country have a land in east Asia，then the picture of the city changes to the western style.I think it should remain the style it used to be sometime.(a new formed colony is another situation.) I hope this situation can be changed in the future update.

Tie city graphics to province culture. Done.

 

[CarlVonClausewitz]

They show an update of the map in page 26 where they have fixed most names and city positions using the people's feedback.

Indeed, the updated version looks much better. Thanks for letting me know, I rarely read all the pages

 

[El Overlord]

Immersion pack, so comparable to the England- or Russia-patch.

Although it would be more expensive than these DLC, I would prefer more content even.

 

[Naranjito]

I imagine that the states would be like this:

1- Galicia

2- Asturias: Asturias, Cantabria and Palencia

3- Navarra: Navarra, Vizcaya and Rioja

4- Castilla: Burgos, Valladolid, Soria, Avila and Madrid

5- Toledo: Toledo, Cuenca, La Mancha, Albacete and Murcia

6- Leon: Leon, Zamora, Salamanca, Caceres and Badajoz

7- Seville or Andalusia

8- Granada

They make me few, and also 4 with five provinces.
This I suppose is favorable, but I do not see it well. With Segovia and / or Guadalajara, they could do 1 more states. And with Merida, there would be 2 more states.
But I imagine that that will be the division, since they are not going to include more provinces.

For me that does not appear as an extremadura state, I think it's a mistake

And England in the almost third part of land has 8 states.

 

[navaluiki]

For me that does not appear as an extremadura state, I think it's a mistake.

The absence of the land where the most famous conquistadors were born as an estate is quite sad

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

Although it would be more expensive than these DLC, I would prefer more content even.

The fear is that we are actually going to get even less than those ImmPacks. I count something like 15 added provinces in Iberia proper (counting the split of the Baleares, 16 if you count Canarias split as part of Iberia), ie. 34% more provinces, while the British Isles proper got something like 20 new provinces, a 57% increase in a smaller less populated area. But again, maybe the new mechanics will compensate, the ones in Rule Britannia were very underwhelming.

 

[Arbus]

I think our greatest enemy is map projection. The current map projection underestimates the size of everything near the equator. For comparison, Ireland has 84,421 sq km and Continental Portugal has 89,015 sq km. However, Ireland has 13 provinces while Portugal has 8 (9 with Aveiro). Of course the number of provinces doesn't have to be proportional everywhere, and we have to take development into account as well, but arguably Portugal was more populated than Ireland at the start date. I'm comparing Portugal to Ireland, but I could compare Aragon to Scotland and Castille to England and the same reasoning would hold.

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

Exactly, @Thevow showed a few posts back how much the projection is misleading. And it does make it harder to have a consistent density of provinces due to gameplay issues, provinces would become too tiny near the equator to be able to click them.

About those provinces...


View attachment 410229

And including Spain + Portugal - outlines on top of other regions...

UK:
View attachment 410230

France:

View attachment 410231

So... yeah..... "number of provinces"


These are more of an "irony" post of course, there are gameplay elements at hand (development...) along with the historic context of the game's timeframe. But, I don't think the size of Iberia is really portrayed on EU4 versus other regions.

 

[navaluiki]

I think our greatest enemy is map projection. The current map projection underestimates the size of everything near the equator. For comparison, Ireland has 84,421 sq km and Continental Portugal has 89,015 sq km. However, Ireland has 13 provinces while Portugal has 8 (9 with Aveiro). Of course the number of provinces doesn't have to be proportional everywhere, and we have to take development into account as well, but arguably Portugal was more populated than Ireland at the start date. I'm comparing Portugal to Ireland, but I could compare Aragon to Scotland and Castille to England and the same reasoning would hold.

When drawing provinces I'd consider 4 factors:

• Size (no extremely large or small provinces, unless it's necessary)
• Population
• Wealth/ Economy
• Polical reasons

Ok, if we take into consideration. Portugal should have more provinces tant Ireland, isn't it? Portugal is larger, was more populated and was way wealthier, their only drawback is that it was unified. But do you really think tribal fragmentation is more important than the other 3 factors.

Well, if you think that way, then why England and Scotland (that did not suffer any border changes other than England formed a Pu with Scotland) have a higher province density than Castille and Portugal when the later were more densely populated and wealthier in 1444, are considerably bigger and suffer the same amount of border redrawings?

 

[jrgen3]

I think our greatest enemy is map projection. The current map projection underestimates the size of everything near the equator. For comparison, Ireland has 84,421 sq km and Continental Portugal has 89,015 sq km. However, Ireland has 13 provinces while Portugal has 8 (9 with Aveiro). Of course the number of provinces doesn't have to be proportional everywhere, and we have to take development into account as well, but arguably Portugal was more populated than Ireland at the start date. I'm comparing Portugal to Ireland, but I could compare Aragon to Scotland and Castille to England and the same reasoning would hold.

Ireland has about 868 pixels (32%) more than Portugal. That difference is almost entirely from a cylindrical map projection being used, as the north-south stretching from the Miller Cylindrical Projection is not THAT significant between those latitudes. The only way to fix it is to use a globe, as any non-cylindrical map projection would look extremely weird at the ±180° longditude line because the game wraps the map around.

 

[Mingmung]

When drawing provinces I'd consider 4 factors:

• Size (no extremely large or small provinces, unless it's necessary)
• Population
• Wealth/ Economy
• Polical reasons

Ok, if we take into consideration. Portugal should have more provinces tant Ireland, isn't it? Portugal is larger, was more populated and was way wealthier, their only drawback is that it was unified. But do you really think tribal fragmentation is more important than the other 3 factors.

Well, if you think that way, then why England and Scotland (that did not suffer any border changes other than England formed a Pu with Scotland) have a higher province density than Castille and Portugal when the later were more densely populated and wealthier in 1444, are considerably bigger and suffer the same amount of border redrawings?

Ireland was more politically fractured, so that counts, too.

But I agree, density in Portugal is too low and Castille can use some more as there are plenty of important places left. We're not advocating for backwater towns, but for great towns/cities and provinces with greater historical impact.

 

[navaluiki]

Ireland was more politically fractured, so that counts, too.

But I agree, density in Portugal is too low and Castille can use some more as there are plenty of important places left. We're not advocating for backwater towns, but for great towns/cities and provinces with greater historical impact.

Exactly. And there a lot of important cities and regions that are going to be overlooked while some backwater regions like Ibiza are going to be ingame.
Portugal and Castille were very rich and populated and that is not properly shown in EU4, not even after the patch.

 

[Arbus]

Ireland has about 868 pixels (32%) more than Portugal. That difference is almost entirely from a cylindrical map projection being used, as the north-south stretching from the Miller Cylindrical Projection is not THAT significant between those latitudes. The only way to fix it is to use a globe, as any non-cylindrical map projection would look extremely weird at the ±180° longditude line because the game wraps the map around.

This is true, but I think a globe would be terrible to play in. The devs just need to have this in mind when adding provinces to keep the consistency. While from a balance prespective you can always buff development, from a tactical point Spain is easy to conquer. This leads to the underperformance of Iberian kingdoms in many playthroughs.

 

[Franciscus123]

Ireland was more politically fractured, so that counts, too.

But I agree, density in Portugal is too low and Castille can use some more as there are plenty of important places left. We're not advocating for backwater towns, but for great towns/cities and provinces with greater historical impact.

Exactly. And there a lot of important cities and regions that are going to be overlooked while some backwater regions like Ibiza are going to be ingame.
Portugal and Castille were very rich and populated and that is not properly shown in EU4, not even after the patch.

These two perfectly sum this predicament up. You have several towns can could be included for the same reasons some others already have been - Braga, Guimaraes, Setubal, Palmela, Santarem (this just in Portugal).

 

[jrgen3]

This is true, but I think a globe would be terrible to play in. The devs just need to have this in mind when adding provinces to keep the consistency. While from a balance prespective you can always buff development, from a tactical point Spain is easy to conquer. This leads to the underperformance of Iberian kingdoms in many playthroughs.

Definitely, after the last few patches and the map changes in them, I did expect more for Iberia. Particularly Castille and Portugal.
I do think a globe might have been a decent idea if done right, though. If it had north as 'up' at all times, it would work more or less like the current setup, even with the camera set quite high, but most issues with projection would be gone. It would make it impossible to see the whole map at once though (which is also impossible with the current map IIRC. I think you can only see about 80%-90% of the map at once), which is a considerable drawback. Perhaps a special "map mode" could be added that would show the map in a pre-defined projection (preferable moddable). This is something that would require a whole new game though, so perhaps EUV or EUVI?

 

[Mingmung]

A flat map is fine. We've also given all the feedback we can give (in terms of map-improvements, I think), so now we just need to wait for dev-responses.

 

[Franciscus123]

46 pages, I think we did good.

 

[navaluiki]

46 pages, I think we did good.

A flat map is fine. We've also given all the feedback we can give (in terms of map-improvements, I think), so now we just need to wait for dev-responses.

I hope we convinced the Devs to give more love and attention to Iberia. After 3 and a half years without changes (apart from Évora 2 years ago) I expected to see them do justice to Spain and Portugal, specially considering the fact that it's their DLC.