Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 13th of December 2022 - Roadmap to 1.35

[Humlepung]

Merge Infrastructure with Economic, merge Espionage, Diplomatic, Influence and Court into two groups (one group focusing on your realm/subjects and the other on foreign states), and move Naval to diplomatic groups (and nerf it).

 

[PDXBigBoss]

Hey everyone, just wanted to pop my head in for a sec and let you know we took serious note of all the feedback here. I would like to briefly discuss some of the changes , most of which was recommended by you!

Economic Ideas will see a boost in the following key areas:

1. National Tax Modifier increased to 15% (was 10%)
2. Interest -1 retained, despite it being a powerful modifier. Moved one slot to the left.
3. Inflation -0.1 is now on the second slot, as it's a modifier that will be more impactful in the earlier parts of the game.
4. I added a small mechanic along with the +10% Prod. Efficiency that grants you +1 Base Development depending on the Manufactory type you build (will be lost if the Manufactory is destroyed!)
5. Got rid of the Gold Inflation reduction, as it's true there's a bit of oversaturation in regards to inflation-related ideas in Economic, kept the Inflation Reduction upon Repaying a Loan = -0.05 and the Gold Depletion Chance though!

More tweaks for Economic may be necessary, tests and time will tell!

In regards to Admin and Infrastructure Ideas:

1. Core Creation Cost is now in the 3rd slot, not the second one.
2. Finisher Governing Capacity Modifier is 20%, instead of 25%
3. -10% State Governing Cost idea swapped places with Infrastructure's -0.05 Global Autonomy idea
4. Infrastructure's movement Speed nerfed to 10% BUT the envoy travel time that came with it is now -20% Upgrade Center of Trade Cost (the latter used to be part of Expansion, which is now Trade Company Investment Cost and Trade Company Governing Cost -10%)
5. Nerfed State Maintenance for Infrastructure to -33% instead of -50%

Humanist Ideas:

1. Moved max tolerance of heretics and heathens as the final idea slot as it's largely underutilized by most nations. Opening idea is now -2 National Unrest.

Religious Ideas:

1. I noticed people found the religious unity weird, so I went ahead and switched it up with +10% Manpower from True Faith Provinces. However, to compensate for this I nerfed the Martyrs Idea for Divine, which now grants +15% Manpower from TF provinces instead of 20%.
2. Currently Considering pushing Deus Vult one slot to the left, let me know what you think about this!

As for Court and Mercenary Ideas, we hear your feedback and we have some ideas which we will potentially discuss in the future!

Thank you for reading and for taking the time to make this wonderful game even better!

 

[Ternega]

I got to say I like these changes, can't speak with confidence about infra/econ, but I think it's a move in the right direction. Humanist is fine it's been fine before and it's still fine now.

Religious and Admin look better now, but I still think it's a very dubious decision to remove Stab Cost from Religious. it's biggest weakness, as an idea group, is that when compared to Inno and Admin it doesn't save you monarch points, Stab cost was just that extra bit to keep it competitive, and it was still on the weaker side. Thematically when chosing between Admin and Religious you were choosing stability vs rapid expansion, 10% manpower is decent and it may well out turn for the best but stab cost reduction allowed to more easily absorb bad events and helped monarchies to manage rulers/heirs as well making some diplomatic options more palatable w/o picking diplomatic idea group.

You start the game with a pretty serious mana "debt" you need to pay of to catch up on tech encouraging picking mana saving ideas early. With the change I feel religious will be entirely relegated to mid-late game pick, that's useful for stabilising already large empire or chasing one faith, and that is a serious blow to utility of Holy War CB and the idea that the first two eras are where religious conflict is at it's hottest. I'm not saying it was perfect before, if anything it was already on the weaker side, but I feel this is reducing options event further not expanding them.

Still 10% manpower ain't bad, just a bit underwhelming, and with religious culture it might be good enough to make religious worth picking, at least It's useful throughout not just very early game.

 

[necro84]

@PDX Big Boss 25% stab cost was good way to counter higher cost of stability increased by religious unity. Changing this bonus to religious unity has similar effect but now there will be nothing helping with stability

Maybe there is some option to make stab cost not affected by religious unity with this ideas? It will buff nations with lower religious unity that want to convert but it won't affect nations using religious ideas to expand in TC regions that already have high religious unity. That way lower unity will stilll affect unrest, absolutism etc but won't affect stab cost

 

[Pavía]

First thing, thanks a lot for all your feedback! It's been almost 250 comments, so we have now a lot of good suggestions to think about, and help us with the balancing of the changes we showed last week.

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oh wow! Really great to see new Idea groups added and shake up the existing ones. Please add lots of events - after all this years it would be very nice to see finally some new events for the existing idea group picks.
Glad you are back with the DDs!

There will be more events related to idea groups, yes, as some of them were lacking, and some others need to be adjusted, at this point.

Does lack of Infrastructure + ‎Indigenous and Court + ‎Indigenous policies mean that something terrible is going to happen to Natives in 1.35?

No, it's an overlook; we will add policies related to those specific combinations, as with the others, of course!

Sorry to burst the bubble but have you loaded the game on custom setup?

Yes, and we are aware of the issues related to the customs setup; this will be fixed in 1.35, for sure.

Still no word on colonization speed and institution spread. Baffling.

That is not one of our priorities at this moment, although we want to review some aspects of the AI for the next update, so maybe the get some tweaks (although we cannot commit on that).

This looks really great! I think that Infrastructure ideas would really well fit in my tall gameplay.

And I assume that 1.35 is a free patch. Can't wait for it!

The content we are showing these 2 weeks is part of the free update, and as such, we wanted to show it first.

Just a thought, but could we maybe get some policies/ideas that are trade-offs, rather than 100% buffs? I think it would add to the depth of the game if we had policies that were in the attitude of "+1 monarch power & -10% monarch lifespan", "+20% ICA, +20% army maintenance modifier", etc.

To be honest, this is not been part of the design philosophy of the Idea Groups since the inception and release of the game, and we're not going to change it at this point, as it would mean changing a fundamental part of the game. And pretty much this applies to policies, too.

It's great that bug-fixing will be your top priority for the next patch. Bugs drive me away from the game and it would be good to remove this part of PDX's heritage.

I do like many of the new Idea and Policy names, such as "Long Echo", "Recognized Hierarchy" "Naval Armament Act", and "Colonial Improvement Act". But as a role-player, I really dislike some of them names. Firstly, you have restricted yourselves to ending Policy names with "Act" or a few other terms such as "Rule". I think you should consider allowing yourselves to label some of them as "X Policy" or even "X Society" and others. For example "Handpicked Recruits Policy" seems more appropriate than "Handpicked Recruits Act" , because handpicking recruits would typically be an action carried out by the Crown/executive/Doge/etc., rather than a law passed by the Estates/Parliament/etc. And it is less Eurocentric: implementing policies as "Acts" is beautifully immersive in the Anglosphere, but less so if you are playing as (random examples) a Malay Sultanate or as Tungusic nomads.

In addition, many of the Policy names (quite naturally) look more at home in 21st century politics than 17th century government. Bad puns are fine for Achievements, but they are not great for those of us who enjoy immersion into the early modern period. In particular, I would suggest the following changes:

• Spy Network Act → Diplomatic Correspondence Act
• Global Trade Networks Act → Commercial Relations Act
• Sailor Efficiency Act → Naval Impressment Act OR Naval Architects' Society
• Bolstered Defence Act → Garrisons Act
• Mass Conscription Act [which makes no sense with a fully Professional army and has nothing to do with reinforcement speed] → War Service Act
• Gentle Conquest Act → Showing Quarter Policy
• Theocratic Rule Act → Missionary Society
• Toilet Paper Act [this one is just bizarre] → Royal Medical Society
• Big Government Act → Taxation Reform Act
• Centralization of Power Act [too similar to Centralization mechanic] → Inspection of Accounts Act
• Sharp Wits Act → State Essay Prizes
• Sturdy Argument Act → Anti-Sedition Act
• Special Forces Act → Guards Recruitment Policy
• Naval Competence Act → Naval Officer Examinations
• Blessed Construction Act → Consecration of Construction Act
• Peace-keeping Force Act → Iron Fist Policy[?]
• Heretic Opinion of Us → the extremely historically appropriate name would be Toleration Act, but that's already a Decision, so how about Diversity of Doctrines Act?

I am not current enough with the game to comment on the new and modified values for these ideas and policies.

Thanks a lot for these suggestions! We will take them into account.

Can we expect any additional support for modders?
There's a short thread full of requests here and probably lots more scattered throughout the EU4 forums.


Did you change any of the historical_idea_groups choices in common/countries files?


+1 global buildings makes this a must-have idea group for every country with more than a handful of provinces, which is what you said you're trying to avoid. Global movement speed doesn't fit well either because it implies you're building roads in foreign provinces.

To keep with the the construction theme, I'd replace them with any combination of the following:

• Unit recruitment time reduction
• Unit recruitment cost reduction
• Unit reinforcement speed increase in owned provinces
• Unit reinforcement cost reduction in owned provinces
• Ship construction time reduction
• Ship construction cost reduction
• Ship repair speed increase in owned provinces
• Supply depot cost reduction
• Increased supply depot duration
• Increased garrison size
• Increased garrison recovery rate

The Colonial Improvement Act sounds way too strong. I'd replace it with colonial maintenance cost reduction.

As a general note, colonization happens too quickly - most of the Americas are colonized by the end of the game, and many historical colonial latecomers are shut out - and it costs too much. Instead of making colonies more beneficial via increased development, make them less beneficial via reduced colonization speed but dramatically less costly to maintain.


I'd replace reform progress growth with that. Reform progress is already an overly abundant resource.


I think increased monarch lifespan is a little weird as a modifier. It's not like better courts led to markedly better royal healthcare. If it doesn't affect heir lifespans, it also would mitigate the main drawback of having a long-lived monarch, which is getting an old heir who can't easily produce an heir of his own.

No stability loss on monarch death is strong enough, especially if you have 2+ stability and can't afford to increase it easily.


Yes.


A better rework of professionalism loss from mercenaries would be making it a monthly reduction based on the amount of force limit taken up by hired mercenaries.
Removing that monthly reduction via the mercenary idea group would still be a good idea.


I'd hate to see client states reworked this way because I think it's a missed opportunity. (Client states also didn't have much to do with mercenaries.) Maybe give bonuses to the mercenaries of subject nations instead of unlocking client states early.


EU4 client states are meant to represent strong nations dictating the government forms of neighboring satellite nations, particularly as the First French Republic and Empire did. Unlike client states in EU4, most French client states corresponded with existing or formable EU4 tags.

Instead of only giving nations the ability to make brand new tags out thin air, I'd also make parallel formation decisions for client states: nations could form and release tags whose formation requirements they control as client states. For example, if France conquers the Rhineland and doesn't want to core it or deal with unaccepted German cultures, it could release Westphalia as a client state from the provinces required to form it.


I'd replace all national ideas that remove penalties from heretic and heathen provinces with either increased base tolerance or increased max tolerance of heathens and heretics. Colonial nations and the United States in particular are supposed to be quasi-humanist melting pots, not utopias where religious strife didn't exist.

• Replace it with the first Infrastructure idea - increased prosperity growth and decreased state maintenance
  • Both modifiers fit better with the theme of Economic Ideas, which is efficient management resulting in greater profits and lower expenses
  • Reduced gold inflation is also somewhat redundant with the existing inflation reduction in Economic Ideas.
• Instead, add a cost reduction to upgrading Centers of Trade to Infrastructure ideas, which fits better with the group's construction and development theme
  • This could replace the existing cost reduction in Expansion ideas, which could be replaced with a cost reduction in trade company investments; alternatively, the cost reductions could stack across the two idea groups
  • For people who don't own Dharma, the Infrastructure idea would increase domestic trade power and the Expansion idea would continue to increase trade power abroad

I like the humanist opinion bonus, but I'd much rather see the concept of variable heretic opinion generalized. Anglicans and Protestants shouldn't dislike each other as much as they dislike Catholics and Reformed countries, if at all. Catholics shouldn't get opinion penalties with Orthodox and Coptic countries from the Council of Trent.

As long as you're somewhat reworking heretic opinions, could you please fix the balance issues with the existing heretic opinion system?

1. We will add additional support for Modders, yes, we have a full list of "todos" and "nice to have", as some members of the team are former modders, and very sympathetic to these kinds of changes. We will talk about them in a more advanced moment of the development cycle.
2. We're reviewing the historical idea groups and AI priorities, yes.
3. Thanks for the other comments, we will be taking them into account while rebalancing again the ideas.

It's a bit of a random question, but do you plan to revisit the Age Splendor bonuses. I feel like the 4/age unique bonuses could be expanded to include bonuses for more interesting nations. Also, the UI could be remade to only have 1 "unique" slot that would show the bonus available for your tag (if any) and 3 more bonuses for anyone could be added.

It's on our radar, as other features we want to rework more or less in-depth, but it's too soon to share if/how much they would be reworked.

 

[currylambchop]

The content we are showing these 2 weeks is part of the free update, and as such, we wanted to show it first.

middle east dlc hype!

 

[Korsjan Rīkis]

The content we are showing these 2 weeks is part of the free update, and as such, we wanted to show it first.

Nice! Can't wait for the new content to be revealed!

middle east dlc hype!

It can also be about South America.

 

[brifbates]

Not sure why admin ideas are getting buffed with the removal of the merc trash and replacement with non-terrible things. It was already far and away the best group for blobbing even with 4 mostly wasted spots.

 

[Katrex]

Economic as the gold mine+inflation idea group is nifty, although it'll be very niche. Huge buff for the African tags with controlled gold mining privilege though, bringing it up to 100% depletion reduction and finally making it worth taking.

+5% all powercosts... still not worth it I dont think

 

[bad hidden mechanics]

Hi,

I know this is somewhat offtopic but can we get more achievements for the nations that have existed quite a while(not added in the last 3 years) that are kind of harder to play? I'm not asking for a unique mission tree, but more achievements is always better. I play iron man only and its usually guided by an achievement

 

[Fawr]

New idea groups as well as significant changes to existing ones will breathe new life into part of the game which had previously been solved. However my take on the details are a bit more mixed.

As written, I think the infrastructure group may well be one of the most powerful military set of ideas in the game with the 20% speed boost idea (and 10% more when combined with offensive). The economic bonuses (while powerful in their own right) would be a secondary reason to pick that idea group. Maybe 5% for the idea would be balanced, or replace it with a bonus to something else.

The count one seems underpowered, but if you can put +1 extra privileges in there then it would become very interesting without being overpowering.

Mercenaries ideas don't interest me at the moment as I've not had much reason to use mercenaries since their last big rework. How useful those ideas are depends on how useful mercenaries are in the new version.

I like the rework of economic, as that one felt odd. However the new ideas leave me feeling it might be underpowered as the gold bonus is a bit niche. Maybe move half of the goods produced bonus there for people with non-gold provinces? Certainly I'd suggest making sure a very situation idea like that one was deep into the idea group (after you are commited to it) rather than be an early one (discouraging the whole idea group).

I'm not very keen on the religious ideas group getting religious unity as that seems like a debuff. That idea group is often chosen by countries (including AI) who have very high unity already, making that likely to be an idea with little value to the country. If anything I'd be looking to boost the religious idea group slightly to put it closer to par with humanist rather than weaken it.

 

[egolend]

Given the comments so far on court a couple of extra thoughts

Name wise it makes perfect sense for monarchies but wondering if there is a more universal name that feels better for republics.

In terms of bonus that would make it an interesting pick - government reform progress, republican tradition and reduced monarch point focus cooldown time or even reduced seize crownland cooldown time could all be interesting options to give it a bit more kick.

 

[holyvigil]

By default this is a good idea, however there's an obstacle here; if we are to merge advisors and increase the number of bonuses they give by default (with which i am totally on board at least on paper) we would also need to rework the advisors UI so both bonuses are properly displayed. For example if you try to do that as the UI is adjusted now, you'd have ugly overlapping numbers. However, sadly we have already planned out most - if not all - of our UI time for the patch and therefore this is not something we can realistically do with the time we got in our hands
(I could make a mod for this though in my spare time, it's a genuinely great idea)

This is not something we can do right now, due to coding constraints however I would love to look into mechanic-like bonuses for Ideagroups, especially some that benefit tall nations (difficult to achieve but certainly worth to try)

A mechanic tied to ramparts or forts is a pretty cool idea, for the Defensive Group.

I think Advisors/rulers are a very important aspect that needs some updates. It's the first tab on the main menu and CK3/2 has shown a lot of what can be done to it. Cabinet/the royal Court/the church fathers have a lot that can be done to it.

 

[WhiskyGlen]

I like it all, except moving Merc buffs out of Admin ideas. I mean, it makes sense with a new Merc idea group, but Admin ideas is almost always my first idea group. And when are mercs used the most? Early game. Of the two buffs added, max promoted cultures will be useful and state maintenance reduction as well. Think I'd prefer AE impact reduction instead.

 

[holyvigil]

I like it all, except moving Merc buffs out of Admin ideas. I mean, it makes sense with a new Merc idea group, but Admin ideas is almost always my first idea group. And when are mercs used the most? Early game. Of the two buffs added, max promoted cultures will be useful and state maintenance reduction as well. Think I'd prefer AE impact reduction instead.

I don't think buffing administration ideas to become more powerful is the way to go.

 

[brifbates]

I don't think buffing administration ideas to become more powerful is the way to go.

Exactly. It's already one of the strongest groups around, it should be seeing nerfs not buffs.

 

[WhiskyGlen]

Exactly. It's already one of the strongest groups around, it should be seeing nerfs not buffs.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having a few superior idea groups. I usually wind up with 4 MIL groups by games end simply because that is what I usually have excess mana for.

 

[Zenmo]

Can you take the tech limit off the zulus. Trying to have any impact as a 2 province minor so late into the game is horrendous

 

[TK3600]

New admin ideas are insane. Not because new additions are OP. It is more like governing capacity and core creation is god tier and merc stuff which are garbage balance it. Now it is consistently good pick. Core creation might need to be 20% as nerf.

 

[vaLor-]

Hey everyone, just wanted to pop my head in for a sec and let you know we took serious note of all the feedback here. I would like to briefly discuss some of the changes , most of which was recommended by you!

Economic Ideas will see a boost in the following key areas:

1. National Tax Modifier increased to 15% (was 10%)
2. Interest -1 retained, despite it being a powerful modifier. Moved one slot to the left.
3. Inflation -0.1 is now on the second slot, as it's a modifier that will be more impactful in the earlier parts of the game.
4. I added a small mechanic along with the +10% Prod. Efficiency that grants you +1 Base Development depending on the Manufactory type you build (will be lost if the Manufactory is destroyed!)
5. Got rid of the Gold Inflation reduction, as it's true there's a bit of oversaturation in regards to inflation-related ideas in Economic, kept the Inflation Reduction upon Repaying a Loan = -0.05 and the Gold Depletion Chance though!

More tweaks for Economic may be necessary, tests and time will tell!

In regards to Admin and Infrastructure Ideas:

1. Core Creation Cost is now in the 3rd slot, not the second one.
2. Finisher Governing Capacity Modifier is 20%, instead of 25%
3. -10% State Governing Cost idea swapped places with Infrastructure's -0.05 Global Autonomy idea
4. Infrastructure's movement Speed nerfed to 10% BUT the envoy travel time that came with it is now -20% Upgrade Center of Trade Cost (the latter used to be part of Expansion, which is now Trade Company Investment Cost and Trade Company Governing Cost -10%)
5. Nerfed State Maintenance for Infrastructure to -33% instead of -50%

Humanist Ideas:

1. Moved max tolerance of heretics and heathens as the final idea slot as it's largely underutilized by most nations. Opening idea is now -2 National Unrest.

Religious Ideas:

1. I noticed people found the religious unity weird, so I went ahead and switched it up with +10% Manpower from True Faith Provinces. However, to compensate for this I nerfed the Martyrs Idea for Divine, which now grants +15% Manpower from TF provinces instead of 20%.
2. Currently Considering pushing Deus Vult one slot to the left, let me know what you think about this!

As for Court and Mercenary Ideas, we hear your feedback and we have some ideas which we will potentially discuss in the future!

Thank you for reading and for taking the time to make this wonderful game even better!

What about keeping religious idea's stability cost and admin idea's interest reduction rather than swapping them? As others have stated, stab cost is an important feature of religious ideas due to its being an otherwise completely one-dimensional pick for the CB. And for admin ideas, they are already strong enough as a group, they dont need another huge admin-saving idea in the set, and the interest reduction serves to balance out the group's very powerful features (CCR+GC) with a relatively weaker idea.