Welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. Everything is going fine with the development of Leviathan, as we are working on polishing content at the moment.

We have talked about some major improvements to playing tall in previous diaries, with possibilities of stacking manufactories and concentrating development. Today we will talk about something that synergies nicely with both these features.

Centralizing a State

The final new Playing-Tall option is the ability to Centralize a State. This action reduces the administrative cost of a state by as much as the value of 20 development points.

Centralizing States costs 100 Government Reform Progress points and takes five years to complete.

This interaction is available both through the state interface and through the macrobuilder.

Never Mothball
A small thing that might make the top 3 of some peoples requested lists, and may be completely ignored by others is a small toggle for individual forts to never mothball.

We are adding a small checkbox in the province interface that if enabled, that fort will never mothball when you mothball every fort in your country from the military screen. This is something you may want to use when you may want to save money on lots of forts, but never risk it with the important forts next to France.

Canal changes
With the new monument mechanics, we moved the old great projects system to be using the new monument code internally as well, which gives a few benefits, in that you can upgrade them as well. Each upgrade takes about 10 years further, and about 1000 gold each. We are also making the canals available from an earlier technology as well, from admin tech 26 to admin tech 22.

Previously the canals, besides opening the paths, gave a +20 trade power to the location, now instead they are giving these.

• Tier 0 +10 Trade Power to Location, and +1% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 1 +20 Trade Power to Location, and +2% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 2 +30 Trade Power to Location, and +3% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 3 +50 Trade Power to Location, and +5% Trade Power to the Controller.

Next week we’ll be back and talk about colonial nations.

 

[JCommander]

but thats not the only thing it does, it also adds a building slot to the capital of the state.

That doesn't justify the cost AT ALL

 

[Shrek1453]

but thats not the only thing it does, it also adds a building slot to the capital of the state.

Sarcasm? God, I hope it's sarcasm...

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to eventually do this to every province given the resources (like building tax collectors in EU2)?

 

[cotne22]

This.

A dramatic design change for eu4 would be insanely risky right now from both a codebase and a player perspective. If you have basically no players, like we did with Imperator after release, you can take huge gambles.

Didn't you dramatically rebalance estates and mercenaries in the last expansion?!

 

[magriboy0750]

Didn't you dramatically rebalance estates and mercenaries in the last expansion?!

These changes are relatively minor compared to institutions in 1.18 or development in 1.12 though,so there is less risk to broke the ai or create bugs for a game as old as EU4 is.

 

[Slavicist]

My design-philosophy is "believable worlds", and I much prefer making games like HoI3 and Victoria 2, which are games on top of simulation mechanics. EU4 philosophy was to have some sort of central limitation mechanic which became known as Mana, and that was just too succesful.

However, to clarify...

I did lots of the mechanic stuff changes at Imperator after release, and also approved the design plans for everything up to 2.0. I would love to do things like that for EU4, but its just not possible.

The things below are some of things I did for Imperator post release.

Stability, Warexhaustion, Legitimacy rework with increases being over time instead of a button press.
Pops changing over time, and not by direct interaction.
Removal of Mana
Logistics for armies

I sincerely hope NO mana for EUV.

 

[grommile]

I sincerely hope NO mana for EUV.

I feel entirely confident that EU5, if and when it exists, will feature arbitrary-feeling abstract resources that you expend to take certain classes of action.

 

[Paflagon]

"and I much prefer making games like HoI3 and Victoria 2"
haha

 

[Alex___228]

Thank you so much for the work you've done!
Development concentration is an interesting mechanic, but Centralise State and stacking manufactories are useless. Because:
1. Government Reform Progress is too valuable to spend on Centralise State and stacking manufactories.
2. government capacity is important only in the first hundred years of the game, the penalties are more than covered by the income from the conquered territories (penalties for exceeding must be increased at least twice).

Instead, for Playing-Tall, you could create a state infrastructure parameter from 0 to 3. With a cost of 20 Government Reform Progress increases and 10,000 / 25,000 / 50,000 gold per level.
At each level, giving 0 / -25% / - 50% / - 75% government capacity in the state, 0 / + 20% / + 40% / + 60% development efficiency in the state, and 0/0 / + 1 / + 2 additional manufactories of any type in the state, 0 / + 50% / + 100% / + 150% movement speed of the army in the state. You can also introduce a new modifier "infrastructure" that affects everything produced in the state (manpower, taxes, trade power, goods, etc.) and is applied after all other modifiers (such as goods producer, etc.), at 0 / + 30% / + 60% / + 100% for each level of state infrastructure.

 

[merulaalba]

This.

A dramatic design change for eu4 would be insanely risky right now from both a codebase and a player perspective. If you have basically no players, like we did with Imperator after release, you can take huge gambles.

Please, take that risk.

 

[cetvrtak]

Ideally I'd want to rip out lots of systems in EU4, and rework them

That's sounds like a great idea for a "EU4 - the Director's cut" version.

 

[Mr.Grizzly]

That's sounds like a great idea for a "EU4 - the Director's cut" version.

That sounds like a great idea of a "EUV" : P

 

[cetvrtak]

That sounds like a great idea of a "EUV" : P

I truly believe that EU series will never again be what the original creators referred to as "the game we wanted to play". Except in some form of an underground edition circling among the precious few who appreciate the true art within it.

 

[Rule Britannia]

ADM/DIP/MIL is an essential quality to the franchise. A game that neither accumulates mana nor rolls against a monarch stat may be a fine game, but just not an EU game.

There was no mana in EUIII