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.

 

[Promanco]

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

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...

The probability of female advisors is already in define and I seriously doubt the devs want to put it anywhere else, we are exclusively talking about females becoming commanders and the possibility of this option being on the Nation Designer.
And for this a slider would make zero sense, if anyone can explain me how a Matriarchy/Patriarchy slider would work for female commanders that would be great, I'm an open minded person I'm willing to change my mind but so far no one has given details of how this could possibly work.
Not to brag but my idea for minimum MIL stat on female rules to become a commander(and to a lesser extend male rulers) on defines is great
It adds probability, a minimum MIL = 6 means only 1 out of 7 female rulers could become commanders and so on, it adds moddability as a modder can control how likely and under which circumstances any ruler can become a commander, and with a Matriarchy/Patriarchy toggle on the Nation Designer it adds quick and simple personalization for those who dont want to mod(Patriarchy is normal rules for gender and commanders, Matriarchy is inverse rules for gender and commanders)

 

[Kwami]

I'm not sure why a slider is confusing anyone. When creating a custom nation, you could determine the probability that the following characters are female: rulers, generals, advisors. Defines don't work for custom nations and anything that changes the checksum doesn't work with Ironman, so neither of those solutions is acceptable.

0% |---+---------| 100%

Get it?

As for female rulers becoming generals, a slider doesn't work. That's just a check box.

 

[Promanco]

I'm not sure why a slider is confusing anyone. When creating a custom nation, you could determine the probability that the following characters are female: rulers, generals, advisors. Defines don't work for custom nations and anything that changes the checksum doesn't work with Ironman, so neither of those solutions is acceptable.

0% |---+---------| 100%

Get it?

As for female rulers becoming generals, a slider doesn't work. That's just a check box.

This is an unacceptable response "It doesnt work on muh Ironman" is a terrible argument and has been debunked by the devs.
So you are telling me that if I set up Female Advisors to 100% on defines and I create a Custom Nation, this Custom Nation won't get 100% Female advisors? If that was the case sounds like a bug.
Lets go one at the time of the stuff you want in the slider.
Rulers % of female I have not really dabble on modding this but it is my impression that it is fairly easy to do but it is tag specific, however it is also my impression that when you create a Custom Nation with a Female ruler it increases the chances of future female heirs which makes the slider pointless.
Generals, it is my impression that generals don't have "gender" they just have names and all of those names are male names. Not really a complicated thing to change to your taste.
Advisors, is in defines mod it to your hearts content is literally a single value.
The whole damn conversation IS about female rulers becoming commander so why are you bringing up a slider system that doesnt even apply to the issue at hand?

Get it?

EDIT:For Generals I am not against assigning them a gender and putting the % of them being female on defines just like with advisors, in fact I think this would be cool.
EDIT2:I am sure my own idea has a ton of flaws I can't see because of bias, I am just pointing out the flaws with the slider idea and why it makes no sense for this particular mechanic not necessarily saying my idea is inherently superior.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

This is an unacceptable response "It doesnt work on muh Ironman" is a terrible argument and has been debunked by the devs.

Not only Ironman but multiplayer wouldn't work as well. And I myself play multiplayer almost exclusively.

 

[MWSampson]

I do think increasing the chance of getting female rulers after each female ruler is quire reasonable - not sure whether it would add to the game enough to be worth the time.

 

[Promanco]

Not only Ironman but multiplayer wouldn't work as well. And I myself play multiplayer almost exclusively.

If everyone is using the same MOD and have the same checksum the multiplayer should work, so that point is also mute.

 

[Loaf Warden]

Instead of sliders, shouldn't it just be drop-down menus? Like, you could have a separate menu for rulers, advisers, and leaders, and the options could be something like:

Male only
Mostly male
Balanced
Mostly female
Female only

The probabilities wouldn't change within the base game, but I fully support the idea of adding such a feature to the nation designer. In the videos when they were previewing the feature, somebody created a nation of Amazons, with a female ruler and a female heir. But there's currently no way to keep males from popping up once a new heir needs to be generated, and the advisers and leaders will still mostly be male. That defeats the purpose of creating an Amazon nation.

 

[Pellucid]

I hope that someday you fix the fact that the nation designer flags are all off-center.

 

[Robotx2300]

Personally, I would really like the option to change the color scheme of some of the shield emblems. I know it would be a lot of work, but I think it'd be nice.

 

[horngeek]

I know I'd like the ability to edit existing nations rather than creating new ones (to use a completely random example, expand Byzantium a bit from its historical setup in 1444).

 

[Kwami]

This is an unacceptable response "It doesnt work on muh Ironman" is a terrible argument and has been debunked by the devs.

Debunked? Mods don't work in Ironman. There's nothing to debunk. Custom nations do work in Ironman, so your solution is arbitrarily limiting.

So you are telling me that if I set up Female Advisors to 100% on defines and I create a Custom Nation, this Custom Nation won't get 100% Female advisors? If that was the case sounds like a bug.

I'm telling you that having to resort to editing text files is a poor solution when an in-game interface better fixes the problem and adds more features, besides.

Lets go one at the time of the stuff you want in the slider.
Rulers % of female I have not really dabble on modding this but it is my impression that it is fairly easy to do but it is tag specific, however it is also my impression that when you create a Custom Nation with a Female ruler it increases the chances of future female heirs which makes the slider pointless.

Increases the chance by how much? Can I get a nation with all female rulers? Can I get one in which the odds of male/female are basically the inverse of most nations in the base game? Can I get a nation with no female rulers at all?

No? Sliders it is, then.

Generals, it is my impression that generals don't have "gender" they just have names and all of those names are male names. Not really a complicated thing to change to your taste.

Except that there's no way to do it in-game, which is the problem that I'm trying to address.

Advisors, is in defines mod it to your hearts content is literally a single value.

See above about mods, Ironman, etc.

The whole damn conversation IS about female rulers becoming commander so why are you bringing up a slider system that doesnt even apply to the issue at hand?

Get it?

Sorry. I was under the impression that, on a forum, we could discuss more than one idea simultaneously. In the future, I will discuss only the ideas that you personally approve of. OK?

 

[OliverDeBra]

Can you add a color change for all countries during the game?

 

[Promanco]

Debunked? Mods don't work in Ironman. There's nothing to debunk. Custom nations do work in Ironman, so your solution is arbitrarily limiting.



I'm telling you that having to resort to editing text files is a poor solution when an in-game interface better fixes the problem and adds more features, besides.



Increases the chance by how much? Can I get a nation with all female rulers? Can I get one in which the odds of male/female are basically the inverse of most nations in the base game? Can I get a nation with no female rulers at all?

No? Sliders it is, then.



Except that there's no way to do it in-game, which is the problem that I'm trying to address.



See above about mods, Ironman, etc.



Sorry. I was under the impression that, on a forum, we could discuss more than one idea simultaneously. In the future, I will discuss only the ideas that you personally approve of. OK?

Ok Mr. condescending
1)Devs have stated that if is moddable but you don't want to mod it cuz "MUH IRONMAN" tough for you because that is not an acceptable argument for them to change anything, so your argument of MUH IRONMAN is crap and has no merit for any changes to be made, is that clear enough for you?
2)No you didn't you said that it did not work "Defines don't work for custom nations", I point out it worked and you are now changing the goal post, please be consistent. You mean opening ONE file and changing ONE value is too complicated?
3)I partially agree on this, the numbers should be more clear on this, the devs previously said that it increase the chance of female heirs but no details whatsoever, so I agree I want those numbers too and on the interface so people can readily understand them.
As for "odds for existing nations" that is a tag by tag thing, for example Spain and England have a higher chance of a female heir than Norway, and yes you can change this values but again is by tag so if you want to modify the chances for ALL countries you got a lot of work ahead of you(Personally I like it this way as oppose to being a single value on defines, it gives modders more flexibility)
4)Not in game, but you can simply add female names to the General name list for each culture, it is not optimal but it is VERY easy to do, btw I already agree with you this should be on defines along with the advisors, one value on one file that way it would be super easy for anyone to have it their way(vanilla should be 0% but I would probably put it at 10% for myself lol)
5)See above "MUH IRONMAN" is not a valid reason to make a change on the game, to be fair I think Ironman should be compatible with MODs and just block achievements from being earn(Custom Nations currently have no access to achievements so it would be the same)
6)When you want to change the direction of a conversation you have to clearly state it specially when is on text, the original argument was about Female Rulers becoming commanders and you brought up sliders how am I suppose to know that you don't want this sliders for the original topic if you don't clearly state it?

 

[Beagá]

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

Arrogant because either you don´t know how to read and pretend you do, or you deliberatedly ignore others opinions.

Your choice, friendo.

 

[rr99]

What I'd most like is an interface enhancement on the idea selection page: specifically a "move up" button and a "move down" button. (effect: selected idea "swaps places" with the one immediately above/below it)

 

[Kwami]

Promanco,

I see no reason to continue this discussion. I will leave it with just two points.

1. I didn't bring up sliders. Someone else did. We were very clearly talking about female rulers, heirs, and whatnot. It's quite possibly to discuss two things simultaneously.

2. I don't really care if you agree with me. By all means, keep editing your text files.

 

[eon47]

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".

Sorry for you then, I suppose? I agree that it's problematic, but there's always something, and it hasn't stopped me from enjoying my Jiangzhou game.

 

[net.split]

So you are telling me that if I set up Female Advisors to 100% on defines and I create a Custom Nation, this Custom Nation won't get 100% Female advisors? If that was the case sounds like a bug.

The reason this is an inadequate solution is that the percent chance for female advisors is a global value in defines. You can't set it to different values for specific nations. So if I want to make, for example, a Basque Cathar nation or a Sikh nation or what have you that has historically-appropriate gender equality for advisors, I can't do this without also having women advisors popping up often in every other nation too. And if I want to make a fantasy matriarch society that's led almost entirely by women with only the occasional male advisor, I can't do this without turning the entire world matriarchal.

It's not really a big deal in single-player (which is where I do play) since I don't see other people's advisors. But it does mean I have to edit the defines file every time there's a patch, and also watch out for & edit any defines in mods I download.

Generals is something I can't change without editing name files, however, and that's a bad hack of a solution for all kinds of reasons. Generals / admirals / etc may not have assigned genders, but their names are chosen from the male set. Doesn't seem like too much of a thing to add a value that gives a percent chance to choose the name from the female list instead (and then probably just go gender-neutralize any leader-related event pronouns so you don't have to track which it is for simple text reasons). Then that value could either be tied to the existing heir feature for custom nations or to a new option in the designer for selecting if you want female leaders & how frequently.

The latter would be great because existing nations like Dahomey could use it to have their historical female generals.

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

Something I'd really like to see is the ability to save a custom nation map setup you've made on a blank map as a bookmark. I've worked for hours on end on map set ups only to have the game crash at the very end when I'm about to play my scenario. This would also allow someone to set up a scenario in single player and have their friends play it with them once they're done making it. I love making custom set ups and my friends love playing my set ups. They tell me I'm really good at setting up unique and fun scenarios. I'll host a multiplayer game and design the map while my friends help or go do something else. We then love coming up with the history and lore behind the set up and everyone enjoys playing it. As someone else mentioned, setting up cores on counties and historical rivals and friends would be another great addition to flesh out the authenticity of the set up. Also as a side note I'd love if we were able to create more than 32 custom nations when playing on a blank map.

 

[Pedro1509]

Wonderful Ideas,can't wait,i love Alternate History,80% of my gameplays are with Custom Nations.