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EUIV - Development Diary - 18th of February 2020

Hello! So today we’ll be covering a fair bit of various functions, most of it is free quality of life improvements coming with the next patch. I’ll also be talking about some changes we’ve done since previous dev diaries in response to feedback from these threads and other platforms. So we’ll start with the one feature that will be accompanying the expansion.

So ever been sitting just hoping that you are going to get an heir that will safely take over your Kingdom when you pass on? You be damned if you let the Habsburgs get their hands on your titles! We’re adding a feature for monarchies where a highly esteemed King can appoint someone to be their successor who is not of their dynasty. You can Introduce an Heir to the court.

upload_2020-2-18_8-45-24.png


Requirements to use this is:
  • Not in a Regency
  • Not at War
  • Positive Prestige
  • At least 90 Legitimacy
Using it will cost you 20 Legitimacy and 20 Prestige but give you an heir with a local dynasty not of your current one with weak claim to the throne.

Next up are features who all are part of the 1.30 Patch. First one we’ll talk about you might have spotted in the previous development diary.

upload_2020-2-18_8-45-37.png


Now when you hover over a country shield it will highlight that country on the map with a red outline that pulsates. This will work with all shields, except some like the large shield representing your country in the top left corner.

Next one I teased about yesterday, a small addition but I believe will be quite loved. We’ve added a Core All button in the Stability interface

upload_2020-2-18_8-45-56.png

If you compare with last dev diary you can see as the stability interface is being reworked to get space for the new Governing Capacity mechanics and to convey all the necessary information to the player.

Not much to say here, it does what it says on the tin. It will try and core as many provinces as you can afford. I can add that the programmers have worked on a bunch of issues that start to appear in the macro builder and various other lists when you start to have more than ~3 000 provinces.

Next is you can now view the mission screen of your subjects.

upload_2020-2-18_8-46-24.png


It should help anyone that wants to optimize what they get out of their vassals and even be able to get some out of their mission trees to benefit you in the long run.

Speaking of missions, our Content Designers have been going over them trying to make their requirements and tooltips way clearer.

upload_2020-2-18_8-46-37.png


Part of that has also been to add support where it will show your progress clearer to achieve one of the requirements. For modders some of the triggers that have been improved are:
  • Num_of_owned_provinces_with
  • Num_of_provinces_owned_or_owned_by_non_sovereign_subjects_with
  • Calc_true_if
Next are some changes to generals to help you manage them a bit easier.

upload_2020-2-18_8-47-2.png


In the military interface for your country you can now detach your leaders from whatever army or navy that they are in control over. Besides this function we’ve also changed a little bit fundamentally how they work, or specifically how they die.

upload_2020-2-18_8-47-13.png


They now have an age just as if they were a monarch. This has been done for two reasons, one to give you a straightforward way to try and guess if the leader has long for this world or if you should get a younger general on that front. Second, this made it possible for us to tweak how death chance is calculated for Monarchs who are also leaders. Monarchs leading an army no longer get the double check for death based on their age, however of course being on the field is still an elevated risk to his Highness health.

Last improvement is to prove what we all already know to be true, that there are no Swedish Bias in the team ;). So I went ahead and updated the Danish ideas to be more competitive with other naval powers in Europe.

Traditions
5% Ship Durability
10% Tax Modifier

Bonus
10% Naval Engagement

Nordic Rulers Legacy
10% Shock Damage

Vornedskab
20% Global Manpower Modifier
20% Global Sailors Modifier

Old Naval Traditions
10% Naval Morale
5% Disengagement Chance

Rentekammer
-15% Build Cost

Klaedekammer
-15% Naval Maintenance Modifier

Expanded Dockyards
+50% Naval Force Limit Modifier

Den Danske Lov
-1 Global Unrest


Before ending the Development Diary for today, I want to cover some changes we’ve done since some previous development diaries and what was covered in them.

First is that we have raised the Base Disengagement Chance for ships to 10% from the previous 3% giving ships a bit more of a reasonable chance of getting out of the battle and letting your fresh ships get in and fight.

We’ve swapped out the Admin Efficiency penalty from going over Governing Capacity to +20% Core Creation and +100% Advisor Cost when at 100%. In the end we felt that Admin Efficiency had too many side effects as well besides what we wanted to achieve so we swapped it for Core Creation. We looked at potentially adding State Maintenance as the monetary burden of going over capacity but it had problems with it, you do not pay maintenance for territories and if we would add that you can very easily get into a death spiral where you have no option to get out of it, including calling for bankruptcy you could still sit at a net negative afterwards. So we felt Advisor cost was a good middle ground, representing the strain on your administration, it being a cost you have full control over and it as added bonus has an indirect effect on your mana generation.

Together with Governing Capacity we’ve also now hooked in some old government mechanics into it that previously were tied to provinces. Merchant republics and Prussian Militarization have had their width penalties redone. Merchant Republics no longer suffer the republican tradition penalty as previously from fully cored land but instead their stated land and territories have an additional 25% Governing Cost compared to other nations, while trade companies for them will be cheaper. Militarization penalty is now based on the governing capacity of your country, getting -1 Militarization for being 100% over. But Prussian Monarchy/Republic also have -50% Governing Capacity modifier in their government not letting them efficiently manage as large swaths of land as an Ottoman Empire.

upload_2020-2-18_8-48-10.png



Next week we will revisit a mechanic we talked about in a very old development diary, Mercenaries, but a lot of stuff has happened since we last mentioned them. The vision remains the same but we’ll go more into details on how they work and talk about the content around them. I will see you next Tuesday!
 
Could you please consider adding family trees to EU4 instead of a button to get a new heir? Allow monarchs to have more children and maybe have cousins, uncles, nephews who can come to the throne. Some mods in EU4 already do this, could we please add it to the game?
 
Could you please consider adding family trees to EU4 instead of a button to get a new heir? Allow monarchs to have more children and maybe have cousins, uncles, nephews who can come to the throne. Some mods in EU4 already do this, could we please add it to the game?
Probably a good idea. But I fear it would be too much for EU4. After all, this is not CK2. But I do think adding family trees will make many things (especially heir mechanics, dynasty, PU mechanics, and even elections in republic and theocratic countries) better
 
I'll add another vote for disliking the "appoint heir" idea. I guess if it's player only, you can just decide not to do it, but the cost is just ridiculously cheap. If it's a last resort to avoid a PU, it should have the kind of severe consequences that make it a true last resort option, like declaring bankruptcy:

Automatic Claim Throne CB for every country with a royal marriage for the entire time the appointed heir remains the heir.
-2 stab hit.
-30 nobles opinion.
-50 prestige and legitimacy.

And ultimately it just seems unnecessary. I can count on one hand how many times I've feared losing (or lost) a run to being stuck as someone else's junior partner with no way to get independence.
 
I'll add another vote for disliking the "appoint heir" idea. I guess if it's player only, you can just decide not to do it, but the cost is just ridiculously cheap. If it's a last resort to avoid a PU, it should have the kind of severe consequences that make it a true last resort option, like declaring bankruptcy:

Automatic Claim Throne CB for every country with a royal marriage for the entire time the appointed heir remains the heir.
-2 stab hit.
-30 nobles opinion.
-50 prestige and legitimacy.

And ultimately it just seems unnecessary. I can count on one hand how many times I've feared losing (or lost) a run to being stuck as someone else's junior partner with no way to get independence.

Something that I think the game needs is to give more power and randomness to the rebels, and that a part of your own army can rebel against you, as in the EU2, it can be good penalty to simulate not everybody is happy with the new heir
 
I'll add another vote for disliking the "appoint heir" idea. I guess if it's player only, you can just decide not to do it, but the cost is just ridiculously cheap.
Remember that the cost includes dumping several hundred MIL on restoring legitimacy after inheritance.
 
Not much to say here, it does what it says on the tin. It will try and core as many provinces as you can afford. I can add that the programmers have worked on a bunch of issues that start to appear in the macro builder and various other lists when you start to have more than ~3 000 provinces.

Any chance we can get a "build all" button? I like playing wide and colonial, clicking so many times to add buildings everywhere can be tedious.
 
...
We’ve swapped out the Admin Efficiency penalty from going over Governing Capacity to +20% Core Creation and +100% Advisor Cost when at 100%. In the end we felt that Admin Efficiency had too many side effects as well besides what we wanted to achieve so we swapped it for Core Creation....

A change to GC, so I update my former comment as well:

Discussion on the new administrative cap replacing the state limit

Concerning the new Governing Capacity (GC) and the penalties:
Maybe I overlook something, but lets consinder this.
Suppose I have 500 dev in fullcore and 1500 dev in halfcores. Everything in states. That gives a total dev and a GC of 2000. Halfcores in states give 50% of tax, manpower, FL etc., assuming I am at the local autonomy floor of 50%. Territories only give 10% of tax etc because of the new floor of 90% LA.

Now lets say I have a maxGC of 1000. So at that moment I get 100% of new penalty (+100% Stability Cost Modifier, +50% AE Impact, -50% Improve Relations, +20% Core Creation Cost).
I don't care and go to war. The moment before I sign the peace deal to grab new provinces, I unstate the 1500 dev in halfcores, so that counts as dev in territories. At that moment my GC is (500 + 1500/4) = 875. So no penalty. Even if I grab new 100 dev in states from the war I am below the maxGC.
I seal the peace deal and start to core the new provinces.
Then I make states with the old 1500 dev-halfcore stuff again. I am more than double above the maxGC now (2000 + something from the new stuff), but lets see the effects:
1) The AE for the other nations is locked in the moment of the peace deal. No penalty.
2) Later changes to CoreCreationCosts don't change coring cost and coring duration of coring in progress. So no penalty here either.
3) StabCost: Should I decide to stab up I will do the procedure again. Unstate all halfcores stuff. Additional Stab Costs from GC gone. Stab up. Restate the halfcores again.
4) Improve Relations: Bad news. At -50% Improve Relations the decay of AE in other nations is reduced to 1 per year. At -100% Improve Relations it is stalled. But ... the AE decay happens on the 1 Jan of each year. So in late December it is time for the procedure again. Unstate all halfcore stuff. Improve Relation penalty from GC gone. 01/01 AE reduced. Same day restate again. Ok, in this case I have one month of reduced tax, manpower, FL etc.

I don't see any real disadvantage in this state-unstate-state hip-hop. Worst is eventually lost prosperity.
But I can get away from the almost non-existent income from territories.
And I have a clear strategy.
Say I start as a Duchy with 50 dev. Fullcores. maxGC is 200. I conquer as much as I can, but only halfcore everything new. Make states. So at 300 dev the official GC is 300, but the "real" GC is 50 + 250/4 = 125. And with 300 dev I can upgrade to Kingdom. No need to wait 50 years for Adm Tech 8 to give me Courthouses.

Actually the former penalty to AdmEfficiency posed a (small) problem to this strategy, the new CCC-penalty does not.
 
@Groogy can you explain the rationale for why you can appoint a successor? I dont really see the need for it/not having an heir is easy to get around. Additionally, why is it a local dynasty - surely if they were appointing a successor it would be someone from a dynasty they are linked with - i.e. a neighbouring country or someone with a royal marriage?
 
In the past Prussia was able to develop land to become very powerful without hurting militarization too much, but now that militarization is based on development instead of province count, a small but highly developed Prussia is no more desirable than a wide Prussia. Was this the intention of the militarization change, or is there some other new thing that goes along with this?

also the AI almost never forms prussia, especially after 1.27 the TO just gets eaten by Poland
 
I too like the new ability to appoint an heir if you don't have one, although I do agree that the penalties for doing so should probably be higher; including some degree of stability hit would be a good idea.
 
@Groogy
I have the feeling the lower penalties on Governing Capacity are too weak to avoid Min/Maxing by having everything as a State instead of a territory.
Yes there is a (slight) monetarie burden, but usually Money is not a huge problem after acertain point in game. And manageneration has enough sources, that downgrading advisors by one level usually is not that big of a deal (especially with additive Modifiers for the costs).
20% Coringcost does not seem to much of a hurdle either in my opinion.

Whast your (the develeopment teams) opinion on those points?
 
When introducing a new heir I think it would be cool if instead/as an option of an implied local noble you could get someone actually notable from around the world.

Historically I seem to remember that the current Swedish royal dynasty was founded by a man from Napoleons military.

Wouldn't that be somewhat interesting? It could act as a sort of PU-lite were you're still independent, but under influence from the source of your new heir.

Main problem I could see is that most generals might be a bit too old to become good heirs, but if you're running out of options it's better than nothing.
 
When introducing a new heir I think it would be cool if instead/as an option of an implied local noble you could get someone actually notable from around the world.

Sounds fair to me. It would be more approppriate if this option would be changed to "appoint local noble as heir" or something, especially if there's an event, that allows you to appoint a noble from cadet branch (middle legitimacy level and different culture) become an heir to the throne, or just keep waiting for the true heir.

This option may be helpful, as desinheritance comes, but definitely should be more costly - it would be strange and outrageous for many, should the monarch decide to proclaim a person from the street his heir (remember an event, when muslim ruler wants to marry a low-born?)

Cadet branches would be nice and make game more complicated, but - for good or ill - it's not CK2 (focus on the states and armies, not on personalites, as we were told).

Still I am very looking forward to play the game on 1.30 patch.

Keep up the good work!