Welcome to the fourth development diary for Europa Universalis 4: El Dorado. Today’s topic is the mythical city of El Dorado itself, or rather the system of land exploration that may just result in your conquistadors finding one of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. We’ll also be discussing a few other things such as the addition of merchants from Colonial Nations in the expansion and the addition of a large number of DHEs (Dynamic Historical Events) in the free patch.


Hunt for the Seven Cities
In the first Development Diary for El Dorado we talked about Naval Exploration and how you could send your ships on missions to explore certain sea zones or explore a particular coastline. El Dorado has a similar system for land exploration that we call ‘Hunt for the Seven Cities’.

As the name indicates, this system is only available in the New World, and using it is as simple as sending an army led by a conquistador to the Americas and hitting the ‘Hunt for the Seven Cities’ toggle in the unit view. While this toggle is on, the conquistador will automatically explore his surroundings, uncovering terra incognita, fighting natives, and stopping to rest as needed.

While a conquistador is exploring in this manner, a large number of events can happen - your conquistador might run out of food, trade with friendly natives, or uncover a lead on where to find one of the Seven Cities of Gold, the Fountain of Youth, or other mythical places that Europeans believed could be found somewhere in the New World. If your intrepid band stumbles upon such a lead, several more events are unlocked as your conquistador follows the clues to an end that can involve failure and death, failing to locate your goal but finding something else of value instead (such as searching for El Dorado but finding Lake Guatavita), or actually locating your objective! You will also be given chances to abandon this quest, should you wish to employ your conquistador in a more traditional manner.

Of course, finding the Fountain of Youth won’t actually make you immortal, much like finding El Dorado doesn’t mean you’ll encounter the golden empire of legend. You will find something of great value that will give a permanent boost to tax income, increased trade efficiency, prestige or other such bonuses.

View attachment HuntFor7Cities.jpg

Colonial Merchants
Another addition in the El Dorado expansion is a perk for colonial empires that want to bring the riches of the New World back to their home shores. For those with the expansion, every colonial nation of more than ten provinces that an empire has as a subject will give the overlord an extra merchant.

View attachment ColonialMerchant.jpg

Inland Trading
Way back in the Wealth of Nations expansion we reworked inland trading. We've further developed that idea by introducing something called ‘Caravan Power’. Caravan Power is a simple addition on the amount of power you gain in an inland node from having a merchant placed there, and is gained from the total tax value of your country up to a maximum of 50. So, a country with 30 total base tax will have +30 power in all inland nodes.

The old bonuses to having a merchant present inland and steering towards inland are gone, and have been replaced with bonuses to Caravan Power. This means that a dozen one-province countries with five merchants each can no longer drain away most of the value of Ragusa simply through their combined trade power bonuses.

View attachment CaravanPower.jpg

Events
Also part of the free patch is a huge number of Dynamic Historical Events for South- and Mesoamericans, with over 40 events just between the Incas and Aztecs, bringing lots of life and flavor to the New World for everyone.

View attachment AztecEvent.jpg

 

[Mikalos]

As I have already said, the export of slaves from africa was only possible because they had local power structures WANTING to export slaves from their "undesirable" classes to which noone objected. What you are talking about is a total invasion and mass enslavement that would - as I have said - required power armour and las-guns not a merely westernised india with EQUAL technology.

As EU4 does not allow the power balance to shift - only equalise it is therefore impossible to turn europeans in to slaves without the entire continent - millions and millions up in arms, far in excess of the comparatively small standing armies.

you could probably convince a european nation to help you export european slaves, tbh, give them a cut of the profit and not fight them, help get rid of enemies or those people who just end up servants anyways. it isnt like europe wasnt full of people others might find undesirable.

also i really dont think the danish would care to much if a super kongo is having naples give kingo italian slaves, especially not a super! crusade to stop it

 

[EldritchBolt]

China in this period actually had TOO MUCH IRON

They had to impose production quotas the keep it DOWN because they didnt want anyone to have iron except their own military so all iron mines were owned by the government and excess forbidden to keep the peasants from being physically capable of arming which is why hand to hand martial arts were a big thing in the east as compared to the west because in europe every citizen, at least in the west part of europe, bore arms

they sure as hell wouldnt give a damn about importing it

their entire economies revolve around suppressing their own people as compared to europe where private enterprise flourished leading to economic dominance, the systems are incompatable, the chinese and indians already had to deal with suppressing their own kind, let along another continent. It worked for europe because its own people were free

 

[Mikalos]

"because its own people were free "

well thats a simplistic understanding of european history.

 

[EldritchBolt]

you could probably convince a european nation to help you export european slaves, tbh, give them a cut of the profit and not fight them, help get rid of enemies or those people who just end up servants anyways. it isnt like europe wasnt full of people others might find undesirable.

also i really dont think the danish would care to much if a super kongo is having naples give kingo italian slaves, especially not a super! crusade to stop it

well i guess im going to end the conversation now because I cant be bothered anymore, but I think you are underestimating the "racism" so to speak in that they would never deign to allow a non euro enter europe on such conditions out of principle.

If anything it would have to INSIST that the whole reformation would be put on hold to prevent such an infidel invasion

 

[Mikalos]

well i guess im going to end the conversation now because I cant be bothered anymore, but I think you are underestimating the "racism" so to speak in that they would never deign to allow a non euro enter europe on such conditions out of principle.

If anything it would have to INSIST that the whole reformation would be put on hold to prevent such an infidel invasion

"Europeans were all united and supermen who cared about eachother while africans were silly and felt others should be enslaved and didnt care so long as they got something out of it besides also enslavement"

also, do remember why the crusade of varna failed: Not just because the main leader died, but because the west just didnt give a damn, they had other things to do than unite in a great crusade to expel the infidels from europe. Hell, Byzantium falls, the roman empire is utterfly gone into the hands of the muhhamdeans, and nobody cared. at all. T

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Hell, The turks were enslaving europeans all the time on european ground, and iu dont see this great uniteed crusade that even stopped the reformation to end that.
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Also "Racism, cant allow non europeans to come on in here as equals" Sure didnt stop them from allying with them when it was convenient. Even more, rAcism developed because we gained dominance + picking the right times ot come in and establish our systems (Getting lucky and finding india in a period of weakness, China being incredibly self centered and thinking they were the best damn thing in the world, ect) + feeding the decline of areas (West africa and slaves) + the geography of areas encouraging less centralized states that didn't fuel old world style developments (North and south american tribes, minus the andes and mesoamerica), which then turned into us deciding the reason "the others" had all failed was because they just werent as good as us, , not because we always thought non whites/good europeans were untermensch we didnt wanna talk to

 

[penco]

You guys are saying that trade companies only make sense in a situation where one nation is technologically superior to the other. So how does it make sense that Europeans can build trade companies in Asian provinces even when their former owner is westernized? Face it, the way the game is modeled, trade companies are about location, not about this socio-economic theory you have going on.

And the idea that Europe has nothing to export is just bizarre. I also don't understand why dominance and superiority == not needing imports. You guys are just trying way too hard with this argument.

 

[EldritchBolt]

You guys are saying that trade companies only make sense in a situation where one nation is technologically superior to the other. So how does it make sense that Europeans can build trade companies in Asian provinces even when their former owner is westernized? Face it, the way the game is modeled, trade companies are about location, not about this socio-economic theory you have going on.

And the idea that Europe has nothing to export is just bizarre. I also don't understand why dominance and superiority == not needing imports. You guys are just trying way too hard with this argument.

All right one last post - I agree, once they westernise the trade companies should stop and that therefore it becomes de facto impossible to build them in europe while having the system be fair.

socio-economics is the whole point

 

[Mikalos]

All right one last post - I agree, once they westernise the trade companies should stop and that therefore it becomes de facto impossible to build them in europe while having the system be fair.

socio-economics is the whole point

jsyk, i edited the crap out of my posto address your incredibly wrong view of what history and society was like back in the day

 

[yls3431]

you could probably convince a european nation to help you export european slaves, tbh, give them a cut of the profit and not fight them, help get rid of enemies or those people who just end up servants anyways. it isnt like europe wasnt full of people others might find undesirable.

also i really dont think the danish would care to much if a super kongo is having naples give kingo italian slaves, especially not a super! crusade to stop it

There is indeed an actual proof for that.
Danish-Frisian-Saxon slave triangle.

 

[Te. Kenzo]

I have no problem in have trade companies also in europe for non europeans, the important thing is made in the game proper trade companies and interesting, actualy are nothing more than a modifier that do nothing.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I have no problem in have trade companies also in europe for non europeans, the important thing is made in the game proper trade companies and interesting, actualy are nothing more than a modifier that do nothing.

The problem is with the trade map. What's the point of trade power in Europe as a non-European if that's where all of the trade flows to?

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Two weeks, I can't wait!

 

[Incompetent]

The problem is with the trade map. What's the point of trade power in Europe as a non-European if that's where all of the trade flows to?

You can put your main trading port anywhere in the world, so it's perfectly viable to collect in Europe as a non-European.

No, the reason we won't see trade companies in Europe is that it would be too much of a challenge to the game's Eurocentrism

 

[Promanco]

I am not against a special "region" system in Europe for non european colonizers akin to colonial regions or trade companies. But I dont think either of them is appropriate, those are about exploiting the land and taking the riches back home and Europe really has nothing to offer besides Copper and Coal and neither of them was particularly indispensable at this time period. Perhaps something like "Control Zones" in which something similar to marches are created automatically similarly to colonial nations but instead of giving you trade power in their area they give you armies. Maybe not this but what I am trying to say is that neither colonial regions or trade companies are appropriate for a colonized Europe something different would be more appropriate.

 

[aitaituo]

So what's the new ratio on max merchants without DLC to max merchants with DLC? 5 to 1 or 6 to 1?

 

[chrnno]

So what's the new ratio on max merchants without DLC to max merchants with DLC? 5 to 1 or 6 to 1?

Without any of the expansions you can get 8 or so merchants. Trade companies add 15 and there are 13 CNs total but I don't think Guyanna has 10 provinces to get a merchant so only 12. Around 4 to 1 then.

 

[Te. Kenzo]

The problem is with the trade map. What's the point of trade power in Europe as a non-European if that's where all of the trade flows to?

maybe could be put a script in the game, with a decision to invert a trade flow if you have a trade companies in that region.

 

[grommile]

maybe could be put a script in the game, with a decision to invert a trade flow if you have a trade companies in that region.

This requires reworking the entire trade system, since the mechanics built around the trade system assume that the trade nodes and the routes between them form a directed acyclic graph which never changes during gameplay; if you allow individual trade flows to be inverted, it's very easy to accidentally create a cycle in the graph.

It could be done, of course, but whether it's a sufficiently worthwhile use of Paradox's time is a separate question which only they can answer.

 

[Mikalos]

This requires reworking the entire trade system, since the mechanics built around the trade system assume that the trade nodes and the routes between them form a directed acyclic graph which never changes during gameplay; if you allow individual trade flows to be inverted, it's very easy to accidentally create a cycle in the graph.

It could be done, of course, but whether it's a sufficiently worthwhile use of Paradox's time is a separate question which only they can answer.

what, make it so the trade network isnt deterministic crap?

If my china becomes the world power with colonies all over the pacific, i shouldnt have all the trade flowing out towards europe, it should be flowing in towards me. as is, all i get ius the chance to disrupt the trade by denying it some of the value being sent forward, thats all

 

[grommile]

what, make it so the trade network isnt deterministic crap?

Yes, any complex task can be reduced to a dismissive soundbite that makes it sound easy.