Hello EU4 fans! The team have now all returned them their vacations and resumed work, so it's time to get going with the development diaries once more. Because this week has been a busy one, today's diary will be a bit short but should address a topic that people have asked a lot of questions about:

Future Improvements to the Nation Designer

The Nation Designer is, as has been previously mentioned, probably the biggest feature added to EU4 since launch. It's proven quite popular, with custom nations consistently beating out every historical nation as the most popular choice of country to play. It's also received a number of updates, adding things such as the ability to name your own ideas and improved interface support.

However, much as how it is with EU4 itself, with a feature like the nation designer you never feel quite 'done'. There's always more you can add, things to improve and tweak, and we frequently receive requests for updates and improvements to the nation designer, as well as questions about when previously suggested improvements might surface. As such, today's DD is going to be about updates to the Nation Designer: Specifically which ones we either have already done (internally) or are planning to add in the not distant future. So without further ado, here are the planned changes coming to the Nation Designer:

Saving Custom Nation Templates
Probably the most requested feature for the Nation Designer has been the ability to save your custom nations for later use. This has now been implemented and will be available in 1.14. What it means is that while designing your nation, there are now two buttons called 'Save' and 'Load'. Save will save a copy of your Custom Nation (minus the provinces it currently holds) to your hard drive, and Load will load up that copy, replacing the current Custom Nation you are designing with the saved one (again, minus its provinces). This allows you to, for example, quickly re-use a particular setup of ideas or a flag and color combination that you enjoy.

Choosing Government Rank
This is really more of a fix than an addition, as it was something left out of 1.12/1.13 due to time constraints and will be added in 1.14. When designing a custom nation, you will be able to choose your government rank, with Duchy rank being free, Kingdom rank costing 10 points, and Empire rank costing 30 points.

Improved Color Picking
This is something that is not yet done, but we hope to have done for 1.14. In addition to picking from a list of preset colors, I want to add the ability to choose your country's color from an in-game RGB picker, allowing for true color customization.

More Patterns and Emblems
As above, this is something we hope to have done for 1.14. We want to add support for more texture files for country flag patterns and emblems, so that we can create more options for flag customization.

Better Random Setup
While not fully part of the Nation Designer, the random setup option that fills the world with randomly generated countries is nonetheless a feature that we want to improve on. Right now, it suffers a bit from being 'samey': You'll generally always end up with a couple megablobs, a number of medium sized countries, and a general feeling of lack of plausibility on behalf of the generated world. We want to add more options for controlling the size of the countries generated, as well as better country naming (being able to name countries after regions rather than capitals, for example) and better random idea generation. We're also considering adding options such as different tech group distribution and different uncolonized parts of the world.

Achievements
Though the Nation Designer supports Ironman, there are currently no achievements that are able to be unlocked while playing a Custom Nation. In the future, we plan to add some Nation Designer-specific achievements that will require particular point limits to be followed, and may as an example require you to start as a Norse Custom Nation and conquer Northern Europe.


If you have other improvements you'd like to see, feel free to bring them up in this thread and I will do my best to answer as to whether they are likely to ever happen. Note that I will not discuss ETAs on when patches containing these changes may show up.

 

[Bobby555nc]

Custom game trait I'd like to see is being able to mod or select values from a list for when the ai develops. Right not they are not very smart about it.

 

[Hrayert]

Custom game trait I'd like to see is being able to mod or select values from a list for when the ai develops. Right not they are not very smart about it.

What do you mean? Ofcource we need 43 development in a province producing grain.

Because... You can never have too much grain.

 

[Sarmatian]

If you have other improvements you'd like to see, feel free to bring them up in this thread and I will do my best to answer as to whether they are likely to ever happen. Note that I will not discuss ETAs on when patches containing these changes may show up.

A question:

Do you have plans to enhance Westernization? There are several threads about it in the Suggestions sub-forum.

 

[Adjutant Reflex]

What about adding the unit packs when selecting unit graphics? Also, a little preview window for what your units will look like would be neat

 

[Orctavius]

Thanks for the dev diary. I really wasn't expecting one this week.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

I don't understand why would anyone not want a slider defining the possibility of female rulers/leaders/whatever for their custom nation, or even better - slider for each. I know, it wasn't common for women to rule over army/nation at that time, but:
1) There were female generals and rulers in that period. For example, just a few decades before the starting date, Hedwig Anjou ruled kingdom of Poland as a king, as for female general - Jean d'Arc is probably the best known example.
2) Though fully matriarchal society was highly unlikely in that time period, this shouldn't really be a problem while creating your own imaginary nation, such as the Amazonas.
3) The slider could be used the other way around as well - there are times when female rulers just don't fit the country you're playing/creating. This reminds me - there should be a slider like that for historical nations too: elective Poland never had a female ruler, neither had pre-Habsburg Bohemia, meanwhile e.g. England had quite a few famous Queens. Of all I know the chance of female heir is already set somewhere in game files, if it is so then with the slider mechanics you could allow players to toggle the chance without playing around with the files.

 

[DominusNovus]

You can easily mod the point limits if you want unlimited points.

Where is that modded, by the way? I've never been able to find it.

 

[Promanco]

I don't understand why would anyone not want a slider defining the possibility of female rulers/leaders/whatever for their custom nation, or even better - slider for each. I know, it wasn't common for women to rule over army/nation at that time, but:
1) There were female generals and rulers in that period. For example, just a few decades before the starting date, Hedwig Anjou ruled kingdom of Poland as a king, as for female general - Jean d'Arc is probably the best known example.
2) Though fully matriarchal society was highly unlikely in that time period, this shouldn't really be a problem while creating your own imaginary nation, such as the Amazonas.
3) The slider could be used the other way around as well - there are times when female rulers just don't fit the country you're playing/creating. This reminds me - there should be a slider like that for historical nations too: elective Poland never had a female ruler, neither had pre-Habsburg Bohemia, meanwhile e.g. England had quite a few famous Queens. Of all I know the chance of female heir is already set somewhere in game files, if it is so then with the slider mechanics you could allow players to toggle the chance without playing around with the files.

I dont understand the obsession with sliders, specially for this the mechanic just doesnt fit a slider im not saying my idea of it would be the best however a slider is NOT the way to go this aint EU3

Where is that modded, by the way? I've never been able to find it.

Its on defines just ctrl+f "= 200" and it should be the very last one.

 

[Lee Saxon]

Not a feature I'll use much but it's always nice to see the game becoming more well rounded / that the devs are paying attention to a variety of suggestions.

 

[Bijeli Kamen]

I would like that you could take an existing TAG and change their NI and provinces. Your starting points would be defined by the nation you choose. Also nice would be the possibilities for making 2 ideas into one NI like many countries have them

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

I dont understand the obsession with sliders, specially for this the mechanic just doesnt fit a slider im not saying my idea of it would be the best however a slider is NOT the way to go this aint EU3

But this particular mechanic fits the sliders perfectly! What's other option to let people set the predominance of one leader gender over the other without changing the game files?

 

[ShadowCammy]

Would there be a feature to upload your own emblems in a PNG format? That seems like the best way to add true custom flags, as well as uploading your own flags.

 

[Beagá]

There are a few things that could use rebalancing as always, but nothing I'd describe as even remotely broken. Personally, I think the game is as at a high point right now.

I beg to disagree. Only other version other than this patch I really thought sucked was when combat was twice as long and battles became XVI century Verdun.

You may think the mass Westernization is fine. I don´t. It´s the same thing as having that perfect women in front of you.

Which has gonorrhea. One flaw... overrides all the other qualities.

I don´t regret buying the game and DLC. But I won´t play it again until it´s "cured".

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I beg to disagree. Only other version other than this patch I really thought sucked was when combat was twice as long and battles became XVI century Verdun.

You may think the mass Westernization is fine. I don´t. It´s the same thing as having that perfect women in front of you.

Which has gonorrhea. One flaw... overrides all the other qualities.

I don´t regret buying the game and DLC. But I won´t play it again until it´s "cured".

So when playing non-Western European countries you don't press for Westernisation as soon as you can? If you do (or if a lot of the player base does), why shouldn't the AI do the same?

 

[Beagá]

Only game I tried for real was a Ming game in 1,7 IIRC, where I quit because westernization became extremely sluggish at 3 MP/month and had rebels by the billions (It was 1650 already and I had huge parts of Asia). I prefer Europe for many reasons, one of them being that I know I won´t have to cheese to get rid of cheesy malus.

I know it´s faster now and it´s easy to control with Humanism. My issue with the mechanic isn´t how difficult it is. Quite the opposite. It´s a sum of how easy it is and how it is the norm to get it fast.

I´d rather see the game making westernization only available to me by 1750 and feeling like accomplishment than early and no-brainer. It´s a case of less (easy) being more (fulfilling).

 

[Sian]

you do know that Westernization have changed considerably since 1.7 right? ... for starters the cost is now dependent on your type of Technology, not your Tax/Development.

Calling out anything about westernization without having played it in its current setup leaves you looking quite silly.

 

[Chaos_TLW]

Only game I tried for real was a Ming game in 1,7 IIRC, where I quit because westernization became extremely sluggish at 3 MP/month and had rebels by the billions (It was 1650 already and I had huge parts of Asia). I prefer Europe for many reasons, one of them being that I know I won´t have to cheese to get rid of cheesy malus.

I know it´s faster now and it´s easy to control with Humanism. My issue with the mechanic isn´t how difficult it is. Quite the opposite. It´s a sum of how easy it is and how it is the norm to get it fast.

I´d rather see the game making westernization only available to me by 1750 and feeling like accomplishment than early and no-brainer. It´s a case of less (easy) being more (fulfilling).

In addition to what Sian already said, that would probably require a rebalance of the tech system. Historically most ROTW nations were more-or-less on pair with Europe until relatively late game. A way to simulate this late decay would make early and mid game less of a complete slaughter and more competitive. Late-game, when the Europeans truly have supremacy, then allowing you to Westernize would be fine. You'd basically be revitalizing your technological development and avoiding becoming stagnant.

That has already, however, been discussed at length in other threads.

 

[Beagá]

you do know that Westernization have changed considerably since 1.7 right? ... for starters the cost is now dependent on your type of Technology, not your Tax/Development.

Calling out anything about westernization without having played it in its current setup leaves you looking quite silly.

What I do know is that in my Austria game I have Russia, Ottomans and Ming westernized by 1679.

So talking about people not playing the game they are talking about,when they in fact did, makes you look quite silly. And arrogant.

I don´t know what it is to play non-european countries because what I saw in the beta made me feel it was going to suck. In the sense it was too easy and thus immersion breaking. And I´m not the only one who saw the same thing as I did and feel the same way.

Chaos_TLW ues I know the current setup needs an overhaul. It´s why I won´t play the game until I see it. Seeing a developer diary talking about a feature I don´t bother with doesn´t make me optimistic.

 

[Promanco]

But this particular mechanic fits the sliders perfectly! What's other option to let people set the predominance of one leader gender over the other without changing the game files?

Again I did not claim my idea was optimal
However how would a slider work? 80% Matriarchy? What does that mean what would that do? 10% Patriarchy? Again what is this suppose to mean? And more importantly how would a new player not familiar with the slider know what is this suppose to mean?

 

[Sian]

What I do know is that in my Austria game I have Russia, Ottomans and Ming westernized by 1679.

So talking about people not playing the game they are talking about,when they in fact did, makes you look quite silly. And arrogant.

Arrogant since i can't read minds ... noted

 

[Ironicus]

However how would a slider work? 80% Matriarchy? What does that mean what would that do? 10% Patriarchy? Again what is this suppose to mean? And more importantly how would a new player not familiar with the slider know what is this suppose to mean?

My idea for a slider was developed in response to this post by another user:

One feature I really like is how if you play a monarchy with a leader and heir that are both female, the game adjusts future heir probabilities such that you're more likely to get a woman as leader again. [...] Another thing that would be nice: if you have Women in History and make a custom nation with female leaders (triggering the changes to heirs), then the probability of getting women advisors would greatly increase as well (from 2% to something like 50%).

That poster was quite clearly referencing probabilities. And instead of this really obtuse round-about way of increasing the chance of a female heir if you happen to have set a female ruler or heir at the start of the game - why not make an obvious slider and give the player full control? If I want to play a Viking empire, maybe I'll set it to 100% patriarchy, because I don't want any women to show up in my awsome club of bearded raiders, not even female advisors (as they currently do occasionally). Or I can leave it at "historical" (close to what's currently in the game, probably around 90% male). Or I can set it to balanced and have equal chances of both genders. I think you get the idea. It's just an easy way to set the probability of getting a female person when hiring/rolling rulers, heirs, envoys, leaders and advisors.
There either would have to be a checkmark "allow female military leaders" or maybe auto-enable it from 50% upwards, just in case someone really dislikes the idea of having their army lead by a woman (which looking at this thread is apparently a thing).

PS: Just in case this wasn't clear - "matriarchy" and "patriarchy" are clumsy words. I'm very open to using other more descriptive words to make the function clear to new players. But I can't help but add - if new players make custom nations, how many do really know what "Trade Efficiency" or "Discipline" does when selecting ideas? I'd wager that they'd rather understand what that slider does than most of the other concepts floating around...