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.

 

[Fintilgin]

One thing I'd like to see the ability to use the name of a 'real' tag. Like to be able to make custom Ireland and call it Ireland in the random world. The AI generated nations can reuse names, for example there can be a random 'Crimea' nation, but the player can't call his/her nation 'Crimea' because 'that name is in use'.

Just warn us the 'name is in use', but let us click 'continue anyway!'

Maybe some sort of weighted algorithim for AI flags that tries to pick more complementary colors for their flags? A bit less purple on green?

Oh yeah! A 'random start' would be nice too. Like if you have a totally random world but DON'T make your own custom nation and just click 'start' is generates the world and then hands you a completely random country, so you don't even know where in the world you're going to start or what you'll wind up with.

 

[Grand Historian]

Great! And welcome back!

 

[crowdemon]

What about setting up royal marriage?

 

[Shampoocat]

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.

I would realy like to see some more (ahistorical) religions like Hellenisem, Ancient Egyptian and Celtic religions.

 

[Benjamintf1]

Is(shouldn't) raising to kingdom be "free" in terms of points if they have 300 development?

 

[Ironicus]

Something that has always bothered me is that there are historical territorial configurations you literally cannot replicate. I usually don't want to upset the landscape too much but rather replace a historical country with my custom nation.
There is no way to give Custom-Genoa their Crimean holdings.
There is no way to give Custom-Venice their Crete.
Those two can be somewhat worked around by snaking land connected to your capital towards the provinces. But of course this greatly disrupts the map (as the provinces cannot be unselected without losing the far-away holdings).
What is literally and totally impossible is to take the Azores away from Portugal. There is no way to reach the Azores from continental Europe. And if you put your capital on Madeira you can get the Azores but not all of the mainland holdings of Portugal. It's really silly.
For me what compounds the problem is that you need to start your custom nation by selecting your capital. I've made the mistake of making an awesome custom nation only to realize I cannot get all the lands I want even though the historical country I want to replace has them. With the proposed changes I could have at least saved my progress as a template...

The minimum feature I would humbly request is a very clear visual indicator of your selection range (maybe make it a red border around the provinces/sea tiles near enough to your capital). What I would ideally want to see is either a removal of distance restrictions (probably too exploitable) or an option to pay points to extend your range. If I really want to make a great colonizing nation I'd gladly pay points to secure some of the launchpad islands early. The same with a trade nation for some specific centers of trade.

A related annoyance: There seems to be no way of telling what the capital of a historical country will be if you take their historic capital province. And yes, that can make a big difference if you want to restrict them or take them over later. Sticking with Portugal: You can't really let them have the Azores and expect to take them over later, because they might put their capital there and good luck doing a navial invasion outside your supply range into a 12stack early on.

Somewhat related but less of an issue and more a would-be-awsome-to-have: I would be wonderful if we could replicate the custom perks some historic nations have, like the pre-hired explorer Portugal enjoys or maybe some really good custom general. Or as someone else has mentioned above: Pre-made claims and cores on enemy land. I can totally see those being able to be bought for points (with provinces > cores > claims in terms of price).

 

[Promanco]

So is this a no on Hellenic and other Pagan religions on the Nation Designer? D:

 

[DominusNovus]

The minimum feature I would humbly request is a very clear visual indicator of your selection range (maybe make it a red border around the provinces/sea tiles near enough to your capital). What I would ideally want to see is either a removal of distance restrictions (probably too exploitable) or an option to pay points to extend your range. If I really want to make a great colonizing nation I'd gladly pay points to secure some of the launchpad islands early. The same with a trade nation for some specific centers of trade.

I agree with the range concerns quite heartily. I'd say a fair way to balance it is for provinces beyond a certain distance to scale up in cost rather quickly.

 

[zezeb]

Anything new on the randomized new world?

 

[classicalprogressive]

I can't see images

 

[CzokletMuss]

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.

Speaking of which - are there any plans to improve CK2 -> EU4 converter?

 

[ZappyVlaams]

I would like to be able to change the culture and religion of provinces. I think the current set up, where culture remains what it was but religion is equal to the state's religion, is in many cases already a sort of buff. You can create a crusader state that already has all of its conversion work done. Instead I would like it if by default, provinces did not flip religion, but you could choose to make (any or all) provinces of yours match your culture and/or religion. As this would give you more internal stability, this would obviously come at a cost, perhaps a low cost for religion and a high cost for culture.

 

[xyloz]

Adding the unique idea modifiers (i.e. No cost for reinforcement, can explore, etc) as options in the Nation Designer would be great.

 

[Manzo_]

I would like to see the possibility to add "two things" to the same idea, like florence that has -5% to both tech cost and idea cost in the first idea. Maybe the cost in creating such an idea should be higher than just the sum of the two.

 

[Krebsig]

I'd like to have a country relationship menu where you can edit potential vassals, RMs, PUs and even Historical Friends at the cost of points.

Obviously PUs and vassals would be more expensive the bigger the vassals/partners are and would in general cost a lot more points than a simple royal marriage. I feel like this would greatly enhance the ability to create specialized setups. We could recreate custom nations that behave similar to Burgundy in terms of their setup, for example.

PS:
Additionally, one could also gain points by giving oneself a disadvantage like being a Colonial Nation or a Vassal of someone else.

 

[johnleeyx]

I would like to be able to change the culture and religion of provinces. I think the current set up, where culture remains what it was but religion is equal to the state's religion, is in many cases already a sort of buff. You can create a crusader state that already has all of its conversion work done. Instead I would like it if by default, provinces did not flip religion, but you could choose to make (any or all) provinces of yours match your culture and/or religion. As this would give you more internal stability, this would obviously come at a cost, perhaps a low cost for religion and a high cost for culture.

Province Designer please

Adding the unique idea modifiers (i.e. No cost for reinforcement, can explore, etc) as options in the Nation Designer would be great.

This too

What about giving us the possibility to modify historical nations using the designer? for example i want to play with Venice and retain all the Venetian events but i wanna change a couple of ideas or start with different provinces for *reasons*

That

PS @Wiz is Friday the new dev diary fixed day?

 

[classicalprogressive]

I can't see images

 

[Krebsig]

Speaking of Norse culture: There is no way you can turn your religion into Norse in a normal historical setting so far and I'd like it if you'd offer such an opportunity either through specific rebel tags or uncommon/rare events.

 

[Traian]

What about giving us the possibility to modify historical nations using the designer? for example i want to play with Venice and retain all the Venetian events but i wanna change a couple of ideas or start with different provinces for *reasons*

 

[Galaahd]

Speaking of Norse culture: There is no way you can turn your religion into Norse in a normal historical setting so far and I'd like it if you'd offer such an opportunity either through specific rebel tags or uncommon/rare events.

No thanks.

Norse culture emerging in normal EU IV gameplay (even if a "rare" event) is terribly ahistorical, it's more like fantasy.

 

[Sian]

I can't see images

I can't see images

yes, because saying it twice in 10 minutes are certain to fix it

 

[Krebsig]

No thanks.

Norse culture emerging in normal EU IV gameplay (even if a "rare" event) is terribly ahistorical, it's more like fantasy.

Just like colonizing the third Georgia and many other decisions Paradox made in regards to EU4. They said multiple times that sometimes gameplay trumps historical accuracy.

 

[Swenter]

Add Slovak and Slovenian culture alredy ?

 

[Nikolaj-11]

Looking forward to the improvements to random world. I always end up with gigantic blobs in China and West Africa, and sometimes in Scandinavia and Iberia/France as well.

One thing I always had a personal lust for is the "Call of our forfathers" idea that Norway gets

 

[Galaahd]

Just like colonizing the third Georgia and many other decisions Paradox made in regards to EU4. They said multiple times that sometimes gameplay trumps historical accuracy.

Except that the three Georgia is an ACHIEVEMENT, which are there just for teh lulz / to provide a different and peculiar challenge and doesn't change anything pertaining gameplay.

In the game there's literally no single culture which was dead since several centuries in 1444 that can resurface.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

I'd like to have ability to edit historical countries. You know - everything you could do with custom nations implemented to historical tags(adding, removing provinces, changing monarchs and religions, maybe even ideas(although the last one wouldn't really make too much sense)). For custom nations, as many mentioned before, I'd love to see diplomatic interface(adding vassals, allies, historical rivals etc.) and religious/cultural one. Seeing only one province of your chosen culture inside the sea of a foreign one is really weird(by the way - how about allowing custom nations to be cultural unions?). As has been pointed out in this thread already, sudden change of all the owned provinces to the state religion doesn't always make sense. Let's say I want to make diverse state such as, for example, in-game Lithuania with catholics, orthodox, maybe even some heathens - in current version it is, unfortunately, impossible.

 

[Vitoldas]

I wish we could just simply edit countries, which are already in vanilla game. I know it's not too hard to do it via overwriting files, but using a nation designer in-game would make it way easier and more comfortable. And, since I'm already there, I wish someday DEVs will think about improving sphere in population. I always liked games where you can actually see how well your population improves. I'm sure that something linking to EU3 would be good enough.

EDIT: I just noticed that the first part of my post is identical to a one above mine.

 

[couchfighter78]

Welcome back Team!

How about the option to select unit types from the custom unit packs we have purchased?

That would be epic.

 

[net.split]

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.

Other government forms that don't have listed heirs lack this feature. For instance, if I make a republic with a female starting leader, that's the only woman I'll ever have leading the republic. Is there any way you could replicate the monarchy feature here? While it's true that there were no such leaders historically, I'm already going against this with my choice of starting leader in my custom nation. No reason it can't then continue as intended, right?

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%).