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.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

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.

Nations that westernize are not caught up in tech. You have repeatedly ignored counter-evidence and counter-claims to westernization being a serious problem from a gameplay standpoint. The bulk of the case against it is the "feel", any time someone tries to make a viable strict-gameplay (IE not aesthetics) argument against westernization it has been a profound failure, because the costs of not beginning western are quite high in the first place, enough that a player westernizing in 1580, much earlier than your example, still isn't completely caught up by 1680.

Direct misinformation to try to make a case where there is no case isn't a convincing approach. Subjective immersion claims are non-falsifiable, but claims of its relative "ease" (which is true) and "fast catch up" (which isn't) are falsifiable. Arguments are more convincing when using evidence.

 

[Murminki]

Would a better random setup also include redistribution of religions (As well as AI random nations with non-default religions), and perhaps a different location for the HRE (either by player or by default).

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

Would a better random setup also include redistribution of religions (As well as AI random nations with non-default religions), and perhaps a different location for the HRE (either by player or by default).

Also this! I've been waiting for such a change since the announcement of custom nations. Maybe they'll implement it together with New Random New World?

 

[Aluroon]

Mostly I'd just like the addition of some idea options that are not available in custom nation ideas right now (but are available for existing nations), particularly military leaders without upkeep. These aren't, I think, particularly complicated to add, and their exclusion is quite noticeable. I'd also like the option to scale several of these ideas more heavily, more closely matching some existing nations. Russia and it's ridiculous manpower, or the Ottoman coring costs jump out as things that just need a bit of tweaking in order to emulate. Especially since I cannot simply tweak the Ottoman or Russian ideas.

The female / male slider / tweaks is another idea I'd like, but may be too much work. Playing a line of Queens would be interesting sometimes.

Finally, addition of additional religions, and the option to change the culture of your provinces to match your national culture, are both appealing to me.

Of these ideas though, the most important to me is the ideas tweaking, and inclusion of military leaders without upkeep as an idea. With the removal of the admiralty and the military academy, it is now quite difficult to float land and naval leaders, especially if you also do any colonization. Even with power projection (which can be difficult when powerful late game) and emperor tier, I still very much miss those two buildings, I'd also love to see those buildings added once more, but that's another matter entirely....

 

[cloudwasher]

Is there any way we can get the ability to dynamically change nation colors in any game mode? I was in an Ironman game as Russia the other day, and there was an intersection of the borders of Afghanistan, Persia, and Russia.... all similar shades of green. My eyes were about to bleed from figuring out what was what every time I looked at that part of the map with all the shading ect.

 

[Forster]

I really like the custom nation designer, too. As Te. Kenzo suggested, it would be nice to be able to use historical names if you are custom creating in the original country's territory. I agree woth KenshiN that a wider variation in the patterns we can choose would also be nice. It's nice to see Paradox improving this.

 

[Ratanka]

nice would be a folder where a player can but own emblems etc into to use.
also the mod for a better nation designer is so good you should just copy 90% of it xD

 

[gnome109]

Sobieski looks like a badass!

 

[Aquae Sulis]

Has anyone mentioned the restrictions on distances between provinces in nation designer.

It's frustrating that, for example, you can include Spanish and Portuguese islands in a united Iberia or combine the Kongo with South Africa or have Iceland combined with Denmark or the Shetland with Scotland or form Genoa ad it starts the game. (Been on holiday also so apologies if this has changed).

I understand it's gamey to spam provinces across the world but I not sure the restriction should apply to same continent provinces.

 

[Wizzington]

Has anyone mentioned the restrictions on distances between provinces in nation designer.

It's frustrating that, for example, you can include Spanish and Portuguese islands in a united Iberia or combine the Kongo with South Africa or have Iceland combined with Denmark or the Shetland with Scotland or form Genoa ad it starts the game. (Been on holiday also so apologies if this has changed).

I understand it's gamey to spam provinces across the world but I not sure the restriction should apply to same continent provinces.

Here's the problem: Aleppo and Kamchatka are 'same continent provinces'. I'll see about increasing the range though.

 

[crowdemon]

What about editing HRE members, vassal, alliance and default countries (England and France)?

 

[suplanter]

i would like the option to change the name or flag of my nation in game. i think it would be rad if i could use the designer to change the nation i am already playing as things unfold, like conquest or inheritances of PUs. in a game as france i inherited spain, but i find it hard to believe that a united france/spain would still be known as just france. i always thought the game was lacking in this as political unions and the states that formed from them were fairly common during this time period. great britain, poland/lithuania, spain, two sicilies, sardinia/savoy, prussia, everything the habsburgs ever touched. it would be great to have a way to model this without an event titled "create this predetermined historical nation". ck2 doesnt allow the player to change the flag but the name is at least customizable. maybe in game the player could use mp points to add accepted culture or help facilitate the union.

 

[justin96]

I would really like to be able to modify diplomatic relations in the nation designer, including vassals, personal unions, alliances, war, cores, claims, etc.

 

[crowdemon]

How about adding more cultures like Norse and Romans.

 

[Elite_Marksman]

I'm late to the party and someone may have ninja'd it but could Development be added to the nation designer so I could say increase the starting manpower of the provinces I own or something like that? Aside from what's mentioned I can't think of much else I'd want out of the designer.

Except for adding in custom events / decisions / missions easier for RP style playthroughs

 

[zeredek]

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.

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.

YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

 

[PsysmicSound]

It may have been mentioned already, in this thread or somewhere else, but until these changes are unleashed upon the public, there's a workaround for if you want to change your custom nation to duchy level - just select the Monastic Order government type, which is locked into duchy level, then go back to whichever government type you actually want. It won't revert back to kingdom. There's no point bonus for doing this, though.

 

[One Sun Mirror]

1- Forts
Forts have been a great addition to the game, I really like them! However, when I make a custom nation (or a bunch of custom nations to set up some kind of alternate scenario), there's usually an issue with where the forts have been placed! While they make sense given the borders of the countries in the historical setup of the game, I'd really like to be able to add and remove them from the map so that I can better decide where I want forts to be. This seems like it would be better than having to make do with whatever's already in place or demolishing everything and paying for new forts in-game. One area where this is particularly annoying is in multiplayer games where a group of people may all want to play as custom nations and you all agree that you want to have one fort each (plus the capital one). But there's really no way of doing that at the moment...
I'm not sure how easy that is to implement, but it's an idea I haven't seen being discussed.

2- Cores
While you can click on territories around the map and instantly make them yours, would it be possible to also add cores in other provinces which you DON'T start off with? Obviously this would probably cost an amount of points to do.

3- Vassals
Is it at all possible to start with a vassal?

 

[Wolfyluna]

Future Improvements to the Nation Designer

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.

It would indeed be great to easily recognize which country is mine instead of the borders blurring into other's which either formed later or which your borders grew towards.

Would it be possible for the EU 4 team to "borrow" some of the tribal family crest emblems/logos to use in the nation designer? Especially when playing a pagan nation it feels more fitting to have such emblems on the national flag instead of the current set of emblems.

Kind regards,

Wolfy Luna

 

[gendalv]

Suggestions for the random nation generator:
1) An option to limit or ban completely certain ideas (maybe even an option to create a proper whitelist or blacklist).. for example: limit hostile core-creation cost idea for all generated countries to lvl 1.
2) More random religion (both state and in provinces), not limited by historic region.
3) HRE-like alliances: would be nice to see a big alliance of OPMs in Chinese region.