Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 18th of January 2022

[BoomKidneyShot]

This is not what AI Mughals should achieve: Instead of conquering India, they blob everywhere else. Also, I have noticed that even though their vassals are disloyal, the Timurids manage to integrate them, which is strange.

I've seen this happening a few times now, and I'm wondering something...


Without knowing how the code works it will be impossible to know, but I have to wonder, when AI Mughals is formed (and the culture group changes), is the AI updated so that it (for lack of a better word) knows its in a new group? The AI prefers to conquer provinces in its culture group, and I'm wondering whether the AI still thinks its Altaic and not Hindustani, and so prefers to conquer Altaic provinces.

 

[Jihem]

I don't know if this can provide a clue, but twice in a game where I disabled endgame tags, the Mughals AI prefered to become the Sultanate of Delhi.

 

[withche.07]

Please update Siberia too, Yakuts/Khanty/Mansi tags and siberian government.

 

[Trockenheit138]

I suggest that Siam be subject to more restrictions on science and technology, such as 10 administrative science and technology, because Siam will not appear very early and the idea intensity is too strong. The current eight banners are too weak. I hope they will be strengthened.

 

[Pavía]

Hi again! Sorry for the delay in answering the questions posted last week. BTW, as later today we'll have a new DD, I'll ask you to keep the issues regarding this DD here, and comment the new ones raised there.

What about unjustified demands though? Isn't that the mechanic that controls how 'cheap' taking land is? Was increasing the cost of this considered instead? And doesn't this change also devalue any unjustified demands modifiers? And has the resulting devaluing of Influence ideas been taken into consideration with this change?

Although I don't agree, I take the point regarding the Force Tributary CB, but how is Force/Restoration of Union CB or Subjugation CB a 'cheap CB'?



Surely the above is the end point of this design philosophy?

PU/Subjugation aren't cheap conquest CBs by any means, and they already had costs for throwing land in along with the primary goal, namely Unjustified Demands and full Aggressive Expansion. In the case of the Aztecs for example it's important to take some extra provinces while fighting your wars so you can acquire fresh targets, because if you only subjugate with your wars you'll quickly get truce locked. Having to choose between subjugation or conquest can seriously slow down gameplay in a region where time is of the essence, and tip it over the edge from challenging to frustrating.

Also philosophically, I just don't like hard blocks, especially when they didn't exist previously. It's the same with my objection to how Religious Zeal works, a hard block on conversion the player can do nothing about but wait for 30 years. In general I think "Yes, but..." is a better answer to "Can I do X?" than just "No." Deltarune of all games had a really good example of "Yes, but..." implementation recently. Discouraging double dipping with increased costs is perhaps something I can see.

CB's have been in decline for many patches now, years infact, with Exploration/Expansion finishers among the first victims.
The idea of "Having to choose" which cb to use is not very applicable considering you rarely have more than one CB on one nation
and on many you dont even have one.
Claim fabrication is still among the least entertaining things to do in this game and doing it every time you want to go to war
against someone is a chore at best, certainly past the first few years.
Even for nations with more extensive permaclaims that still hold true because especialy older trees expect ultra specific conquests
with zero variation allowed and no thought given to how the truce timer will work out.
The Ottoman missions are among the worst examples here. Absolutely horrendous to play out.

If you want CBs to feel special then dont just give strangling restrictions to the few that exist.
Make new ones. Many of them.
"State completion" CB.
"I want to take CoTs" CB.
"I conquer provinces in my religious group held by heathens" CB.

One example of an exiting but rare and powerful CB is "Border conflict", sometimes given to neighbors because of the Cosacks estate.


Finaly, if you decide to just go with the hardblock while adding nothing to compensate then i hope this will be modable.
I for one am close to just putting DV back at the start of Rel Ideas.

Just to confirm: if you choose a CB which forbids taking land, then you will not be able to promise land to allies for joining?

(I want to catch this bug before it spawns)

But outside if Imperalism, religious CB, and conquest a player doesnt ever use any other CBs unless the game specifically gifts them one either through missions or a special government type. We essentially turned a very niche thing into a niche thing you dont ever wanna use in the first place. I dont feel like anyone will enjoy these changes and the ones who will be affected by it will just go back to 1.32 since its not like they are missing out on a DLC or new mechanic. Very baffling change wich had better and more organic solution.

We are not touching the Unjustified Demands for the moment. Regarding the CB stuff, we don't use to like hard blocks either, but sometimes we feel that they're a bit 'abused' to just speed up conquer, without second thoughts, so because of that the idea about restricting some to their main function. It's true that the claim+conquest mechanic sometimes is a bit dull and repetitive; on the other hand creating new CB's may be interesting, but there are already plenty of them in the game, so we've got to be careful about it. We're also trying to test out things the best on advance, and in that regard the 'promise land' button wouldn't work in restricted CB's, yes; there are other tools at player's disposition for calling allies to war, as 'curry favors'.

But, in any case, we're open to continue discussing this kind of topics with you, and if we see that some of the changes are not working out the way they're supposed to do, we're open to change them, obviously.

@Pavía and @Gnivom senpais, please do see my comment on Russian NIs in this thread

We've been taking a look on it, yes. For the moment we want to address the balance issue by other means, as we think Russian NI's are already powerful enough, coupled with its government reforms and Orthodox religion, but we'll have this in mind for further balancing.

Is that ottoman italy? I know they are supposed to be blobbing but i hope they won't be expanding to this extent every time. It really makes the main objective of the run to defeat them, whatever nation in the vicinity you choose, and this îs incredibly boring and frustrating în my opinion!

Still nice to see some variability, especially GB performing so well some times

Hmmm, Otto AI seems REALLY powerful judging by those screenshots. Could they be a bit more balanced please? I don't want to spend half my Spain game trying to protect Poland and Hungary from an Otto death stack while they wipe out all of east Africa.

I understand Ming and africa and even merf castille.
But can you please nerf the ottomans? It's not possible that european countries don't form coalition against ottomans when they start to conquer all of italy, the balkans, Austria and poland.
They even let them conquer more.
If a player is near them he can destroy them, if not they blob too much everygame.
Another thing change the possibility of burgundian succession to go to Austria.

Ottoman balance is always difficult, as it's the 'final boss' at the end of many games, but we don't want it to blob as crazy in any given game. We've been working about this for 1.32, but also for 1.33, and there are always results when it doesn't perform as well:

Spoiler

They'll probably do what they did with Jurchen -> Manchu culture, namely replace an existing culture in-game with one that only existed in the code. Jurchen is called "manchu" in EU4's code, and Manchu is called "manchu_new". Neither culture ever changes culture group in the code.


Please don't make this a hard rule in further EU4 development. Making colonization function, especially for Catholic countries, will very likely require an overhaul of the Treaty of Tordesillas mechanics. Changing colonization speed won't be enough to prevent early Catholic colonizers from monopolizing entire colonial regions if later Catholic colonizers receive crippling opinion maluses with the pope for colonizing those regions.


The Ottoman AI's failure to understand that European land often won't be as useful as Middle Eastern land is another other big issue. Conquering provinces in the Kiev trade node, for instance, will gain the Ottomans very little trade revenue because Kiev's trade can't be easily steered back to Constantinople. The Ottomans could earn at least as much in tax and production income plus more trade income and probably more manpower by expanding south, or at least into Hungary (where it could then move its trade capital).

Teaching the AI to prioritize expansion into trade nodes that are either upstream from its trade capital or directly downstream from it might go a long way towards fixing colonization priorities as well.


A good way to recycle the faction system would be to make factions represent competing interests within a centralized government and estates represent competing interests within a decentralized government, as they do now. Factions could be unlocked or have their effects scaled up at higher levels of crownland.

Instead of ending abruptly in the 1600s, the gameplay loop in which players accumulate crownland at the expense of estates could lead to a new gameplay loop in which players balance factions against one another. Every country in the game could have access to both estates and factions and would effectively choose to prioritize one system over the other by centralizing or not.


Anglicanism would have been better implemented as a set of special, England/Britain-only Protestant church aspects. Being able to re-dissolve the monasteries every few years has never made sense and, independent of the worth of any other Anglican mechanics, the mutual heretic opinion Anglicans and Protestants have of each other is both ashistorical and bad for gameplay.

It's not a rule of thumb about EU4 development, as can be seen about the rebalance we are trying to do for Mandate + Confucianism. We've got plans to continue overhauling some features that are working as well as they could, so don't worry about that.

There are some interesting ideas here. The Factions system is one that we'd like to take a look upon, if having enough development time, for instance.

@Pavía if you allow me a couple last suggestions, I would change the Bandeirantes Idea for Indian Run (Carreira da India), or India Armadas: "While the India armadas were used to ferry troops, officials, missionaries and colonists between Europe and Asia, their primary objective was commercial. They were engaged in the spice trade, importing Asian spices to sell in European markets, especially the five "glorious spices" – pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and mace."

My reasoning being since cloves have a trade efficiency bonus, it makes more sense to have the India Armadas related to the idea than the Bandeirantes, if that makes sense.
Also for the Artillery Idea, if I got it correctly will it be the last one?
Originally it was founded in
1640 - Artillery and Drawing School.
The other name is from 1790. Still within the timeframe but way later.

@Pavía Just to add to my previous suggestion:
Carreira da India (Indian Run) for the 15% trade efficiency heres a description that could be used for example: "With the discovery of the Cape route to India by Vasco da Gama, the fall of the Venetian monopoly on the spice trade in Europe is inevitable and the resulting drop in prices of spices will contribute to the commercial development of the country."

So if im not mistaken the current idea setup will be:

Traditions:

+10% Infantry Combat ability+25% Colonial range

---

Legacy of the Navigator

+10% Morale +5% Ship disengagement chance

---

Afonsine Ordinance

+10% Goods produced modifier

---

Feitorias

+10% Global trade power

---

Land Before Faith

+15 Global settler increase

---

Encourage the Bandeirantes

+15% Trade efficiency

---

Royal Absolutism

−15% Construction cost+0.50 Yearly absolutism

---

Royal Academy of Fortification, Artillery and Drawing

+1 Artillery +10% Fort defense

Ambition:
+20% Global tariffs




In my opinion to make sense trade efficiency should come before colonization bonus:
Brazil colonization, which i suppose the land before faith represents, only kicked in with the discovery of gold in Brazil in 1690, almost 200 years from the discovery of the cape route.
Traditions:

+10% Infantry Combat ability+25% Colonial range

---

Legacy of the Navigator

+10% Morale +5% Ship disengagement chance

---

Afonsine Ordinance

+10% Goods produced modifier

---

Feitorias

+10% Global trade power

---

Encourage the Bandeirantes (name change for Carreira da India)

+15% Trade efficiency

---

Land Before Faith

+15 Global settler increase

---

Royal Absolutism

−15% Construction cost+0.50 Yearly absolutism

---

Royal Academy of Fortification, Artillery and Drawing

+1 Artillery +10% Fort defense

Ambition:
+20% Global tariffs

this way the ideas make sense chronologically.

Thanks again for your suggestions, Sete. However, I've got to tell you that we're not changing the NI's description for 1.33, as we'll have to change the localization, and we're already tight on deadlines for this kind of stuff. We'll se if in the future we can add some extra historical flavour to Iberia, as I'd love to do, and we can effectively change this, too.

While we're at it, and since the devs are checking out this thread, would it be possible to change the rule status of Mushasha ? This state is governed by a "duke", which is slightly ridiculous, you will agree.

On it.

I hope that the positive and negative harmany impacts are scaling in some way. Whether actually scaling 0 to 100% or scaling in a way similar to how the effects of crownland scale (changing at 25%, 50%, 75%, etc). I'd hate to fall into a tiny negative harmony and have the full -1 corruption penalty etc.

It scales up and down, yes.

I appreciate the team continuing to work and put out quality content like Origins after Leviathan's release. I can only imagine how demoralizing that would've been. If you did take a holiday to Spain I wouldn't blame you.

Now that Eastern Denominations religions harmonized unlock monuments requiring them, will the same be enabled for Tengri nations with a secondary religion? One of my favorite runs was as Manchu where I didn't form Qing. I considered playing them again after Leviathan, but the lack of available great projects took the wind out of my sails. Because the requirement for many monuments is that the province has the owner's religion, even though Tengri nations count as their secondary religion for all other intents and purposes, you still can't use your secondary religion's monuments with this requirement.

I also have a few questions/requests/suggestions about Alcheringa nations and Australia. I was really excited for Australian and New Zealand content when it was released, but as someone who studies both I felt there were some areas where it was lacking. Firstly, similar to how Fetishist nations with the Buddhadharma cult can use the Erdene Zuu Monastery, would it be possible to allow Alcheringa nations with the Islamic Dreaming cult to access Islamic great projects, those with the Dharmic Dreaming cult to access Dharmic great projects, and so on?

While both Tengri and Alcheringa nations can access pagan monuments like Stonehenge, with the exception of the Erdene Zuu Monastery, most pagan great projects aren't nearby, while closer monuments are inaccessible for the above reason. I don't know if new monuments are on the cards, but that could also ameliorate the problem. Burkhan Khaldun is an obvious choice for a Tengri monument, being both the birthplace and resting place of Genghis Khan and therefore one of the most sacred mountains in Tengrism (alongside Mount Fuji and Cerro Rico it would also mean there were three mountain great projects in the game, meaning to get the Three Mountains achievement you would need to control three mountains—not important but interesting nonetheless).
An Alcheringa monument is a little more difficult because the obvious suggestion, Uluru, is currently in a wasteland province. New provinces spanning the center of Australia by following springs such as Alice Springs could be added. This would also make migration in Australia a little more interesting than what it often ends up as, shuffling clockwise or counterclockwise from one coastal province to the next, but I don't know how much you're willing to add to the region in patches alone. There are other candidates for Alcheringa monuments, but this post is already getting kind of long.

I also wanted to suggest the addition of province modifiers to some Australian provinces, similar to the Stora Kopparberget modifier. The most deserving candidate would be a modifier called the Law of the Tongue in the province of Tharawal (4858). Tharawal encompasses Twofold Bay (called Nalluccer in the native Yuin language), where both Indigenous Australians and Europeans cooperated with several pods of killer whales under an arrangement called the law of the tongue to hunt other species of whales. Twofold Bay is also the third deepest natural harbor in the Southern Hemisphere, and today is Australia's largest fishing port, so Tharawal may also be worthy of the natural harbor modifier.

This next thing is probably the smallest suggestion I'll make. Tasmanian provinces should be able to spawn copper. Historically copper mining was a significant industry in Tasmania but to my knowledge copper is currently unable to spawn there.

My penultimate suggestion would be some formable tags for the Aboriginal and Maori nations and maybe some associated achievements. Some Maori formables could be;
-Aotearoa for a unified North Island (Aotearoa originally referred only to the North Island, but Europeans began using it to refer to New Zealand as a whole);
-Waipounamu for the South Island;
-Iwi Nui (Maori for 'Great Iwi') for the entirety of New Zealand; and
-Pāpaka-a-Māui for a Maori unified Australia (something I imagine only players will achieve).
There's too many Aboriginal languages to pick one name for a unified Australia. Maybe the name could be based on the culture or tag that unites Australia? Koomba Koordaboodjor ('Koomba' means 'big' and 'Koordaboodjor' has the fitting double meaning of 'island' and 'heartland') would be a decent candidate for a Noongar name, but I'm not familiar enough with other Indigenous languages to make suggestions for them without doing some research first.

On a tangentially related note, will Dai Viet and Korea receive Qing-style formable tags if they sinicize and take the MoH?

My final suggestion is about Alcheringa cults. Currently, Palawa is the only Alcheringa nation that starts with additional cults, however it would make sense for Noongar to start with the Wagyl cult, as Wagyl is the form of the Rainbow Serpent specific to the Noongar. Wagyl is a strange name for a Chinese/Confucian cult, being a creator deity associated with specific landforms in southwestern Australia and resembling a Chinese dragon no more than any other snake.
A better name for, and concept to be syncretized with, Confucianism (specifically the concept of yin and yang) would be gurruṯu. To simplify both massively, the concept of yin and yang is that opposite forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent. Gurruṯu is the Yolngu kinship system. It divides everything, including people, into two separate but complementary categories: Dhuwa and Yirritja. Under gurruṯu, Dhuwa can only marry Yirritja and vice versa, and Dhuwa can only paint Dhuwa things while Yirritja can only paint Yirritja things. There used to be an exhibition on display in the National Gallery of Australia of paintings by a Dhuwa artist and Yirritja artist who collaborated, with each painting things the other could not—a nice visual metaphor in my opinion for the idea of complementary opposites. There's more to gurruṯu than just that, but that's the gist. I think therefore that gurruṯu would work much better as a name for the Chinese/Confucian cult than Wagyl.
There's also a missed opportunity to have a Nahuatl cult for Alcheringia. The Adnyamathanha personification of the sun is a cannibalistic goddess called Bila, with obvious parallels to Huitzilopochtli. If Wagyl was renamed the mission tree wouldn't need to change, however if Wagyl was given new modifiers, the old modifiers were moved to gurruṯu, and Bila was also added, the layout of the mission tree could also remain basically the same, with an extra pair of cult missions added but the overall structure of several rows of two cult missions with the Rainbow Serpent cult mission alone at the bottom maintained.

If you somehow read through to the end of this post, cheers. I know I've made a lot of suggestions for Alcheringa and Australia, but I think they'll make the region a lot more flavourful and playable. Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions for me feel free to ask.

Wow, very detailed suggestions, thanks! We'll take a look on this overhaul for Alcheringa, although I think that we may work on it for the next version of the game, unfortunately.

Love these changes!

Recently made a thread asking about switching to Shun when the disaster hits Ming, so it's excellent to see that being added as a possibility. Will definitely need to do a Shun game once 1.33 releases! Great to see Confucianism getting buffed too, it sucks currently. I hope Tengri gets a buff sometime as well though, it will be even worse than Confucian now! Part of the issue is the massive lack of monuments for it. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity all have some really powerful ones, I think Tengri literally only has the 1 in Qaraqorum which loses half of its usefulness if you're not a horde too.

A suggestions for China though, perhaps a large malus to accepted tributary status (for both parties) between any nations that both hold land in the China subcontinent. Also make the Force Tributary and Unify China CBs mutually exclusive, ie. if you have the latter CB then you don't get the Force Tributary one against that nation. It would help make new Chinese countries actually unify China. You could increase the likelihood for them rivalling each other to prevent them from allying if they're a similar size too.

Interesting idea, will think about it.

Will you make it that "Detach Marines!" button works for all special units and not only for Marines? Since it would be very nice QoL change.

Good suggestions, will try to implement it!

@Pavía


Being honest myself too, that won't help AI in a significant way. I fear. Look at the screenshots you posted.
Especially with these changes on the top of that:



There are 3 obstacles in the way of the reunification of the EoC:
A - The quick and steady emergence of a strong Manchurian AI.
B - The tributarisation feature itself.
C - The way the Mandate grows or declines.

A - So what is the problem here?
- First, the diplomatic setup itself. Jianzhou is a lucky nation, which will help a lot, but its luck ends from the first months of the game when it choose to ally with Korchin (most of the time). And here is the danger: Korchin isn't Ming's tributary, meaning they very often declare war on Korchin for tribute, dragging Jianzhou into it 'till death... From there, Jianzhou, on his knees and without any alliance left, is steadily targeted by Korea. If Korea takes too much land, there are not enough Jurchen provinces left to form Manchu. If there are enough Jurchen provinces left, Haixi is the one that will eventually form Manchu, but a poor one promised to death. If Jianzhou was allied to Donghai prior to the Ming/Korchin war, they will be targeted too. Nightlies AI tests show you the result, not the path.
- From there, I see you buffed Korea (which isn't bad in itself), and gave Korchin a Jurchen vassal.. Why on Earth would it end well? The Ming threat over Korchin and his ally Jianzhou is still here (even more because you can only tributarise someone through war if the target has a subject), The Korean threat is still here and even greater, and there are less Jurchen provinces to grab easily because some of them are owned by a vassal! Your screenshots speaks for themselves: not a single Manchu AI, a big Korean blob.

B - The AI is coded to tributarise everything it finds on its way, and it does. Even if those territories are vital to its survival, defensiveness or expansion. Worst than that, they give back their new tributaries his former legitimate lands....
- May be that is the reason why you want to disable the possibility to take land with the tributarisation CB, but I fear this is not a good answer. As for the rest and the 6th new Mandate reform, please take into consideration that Mandate points are pretty rare, especially for a new owner. I actually never seen a new EoC owner pass a single reform, so having to spend nonexistent Mandate points to vassalise a tributary will only be a Ming or a player thing (besides being a slow and tedious process).

C - Mandate gain and lost is balanced, but only for Ming. It's here to contain the incredible Ming power into its borders and cripple it to a no return point, but works more or less the same for a new and weak EoC. Also, points gained or lost for owning or not the 3 capital cities hits the same way a long lived Empire and a rising one. Capital cities are far away from each other and do not reflect the reality of a new power taking hold.
- China after Mingsplosion is a devastated place, taking any land in these rubble is a big thorn in the side for the new Emperor. +12 Force Limit, -10% Land Maintenance and +15% Manpower Recovery Speed doesn't answer this issue. Mandate hit from devastation should also be added to that list if the owner change. If players are waiting until the last moment to take the EoC, their is a good reason.


You are correct when you say that EoC is a really hard mechanic to balance out, but I think you attacked the beast from the wrong side. There isn't a single good solution, but here are my suggestions:

- Korchin should start as a tributary state of Ming.
- Korchin should not have a Jurchen vassal.
- Temporarily remove the Mandate hit from devastation for a new EoC.
- The EoC should not be able to tributarise Chinese minors, or TAGs that owns a huge chunk of China, or TAGs it have a permaclaim on.
- If a country become the EoC, they could gain a vassalization CB over their tributary states if they are Chinese, and be able to declare on them without a stability hit.
- If a country become the EoC they may lose their Chinese minor tributary states after a certain period.
- The new Emperor should be able to choose his own capital cities, they must not be in the same region. An event could fire for this when a state is cored in a new region for the first time.
- Teach the AI to use the edict that reduce devastation.
- Give core on provinces which are at new EoC's borders and are in the Chinese super region.

- The special case of Korea: I think we all agree that Korea deserved a little boost, but also that it should not interfere in the early Manchu unification process (We don't want to see Korea be eaten by Manchu too). My idea is to fire an event for Korea, Ming and Manchu. Condition to trigger: Manchu TAG exists / Unguarded Nomadic Frontier disaster is ON / Manchu TAG developpement is above Korea's. The event fires for these 3 TAGs, but Korea is the only one to have to make a choice, and here is the idea (name them as you wish):
1 - Stay under Ming's protection (nothing changes).
2 - Manchu will be our new overlords (Korea become a faithful tributary state of Manchu. All the provinces owned by Korea in the Manchuria Region are transferred to Manchu TAG. All provinces owned by Manchu in Korea are transferred to Korea TAG). AI will always make this choice. *
3 - We'll make our own way (Korea become independent).
*(2-2 - If Manchu TAG is human, fires an event which allows him to refuse)

Thanks for reading, sorry for my english.

Thanks again for a very detailed post, with lots of suggestions. I think some may be of use for 1.33 patch, we'll work on them.

Can Paradox communicate the list of countries soon to be affected by the overhaul of 1.33? So that players in the next few weeks do not start a game with a country deprived of specific missions and other flavor events that will be added some time after their game.

There won't be any new missions or events into the game, as this is not a new content patch, but a fixing and balancing one. In a few weeks we'll post the changelog, so you can check the countries being affected at some degree by the patch.

 

[ArtFart]

Ottoman balance is always difficult, as it's the 'final boss' at the end of many games, but we don't want it to blob as crazy in any given game. We've been working about this for 1.32, but also for 1.33, and there are always results when it doesn't perform as well:

Glad to see you're actively looking into it, but even by those screenshots they are still pretty damn strong. I've yet to come across ANY game I've played that the Otto's explode or get beaten by Mamlucks early game, yet I see Mingsplosion every other game.

It's alright to have them as a final boss per say, but I wouldn't mind if they were balanced a bit more to keep them from interfering too much with Europe.

 

[Jihem]

Glad to see you're actively looking into it, but even by those screenshots they are still pretty damn strong. I've yet to come across ANY game I've played that the Otto's explode or get beaten by Mamlucks early game, yet I see Mingsplosion every other game.

It's alright to have them as a final boss per say, but I wouldn't mind if they were balanced a bit more to keep them from interfering too much with Europe.

I believe that at this stage of EU IV's development, an early Mamluk victory over the Ottomans would result in less interesting gameplay. Each time that happens in one of my games, the situation is frozen, the Mamluks conquering part of Anatolia but little more and sometimes attacking Tunis but never swallowing it up. And in the south Ethiopia or Adal block them. This could be fixed if the Mamluks had a real mission tree with the goal of restoring the Caliphate (and a few non-conquest based missions for the human player's sake).

 

[ArtFart]

I believe that at this stage of EU IV's development, an early Mamluk victory over the Ottomans would result in less interesting gameplay. Each time that happens in one of my games, the situation is frozen, the Mamluks conquering part of Anatolia but little more and sometimes attacking Tunis but never swallowing it up. And in the south Ethiopia or Adal block them. This could be fixed if the Mamluks had a real mission tree with the goal of restoring the Caliphate (and a few non-conquest based missions for the human player's sake).

If it was a random chance and happened maybe every 1 in 10 games it would be fun and add variation, but it never happens, so we all know the score. Either the Ottoman's gobble half of europe and middle east or they take out all of east africa and leave Europe alone.

 

[SaoMagnifico]

Hmm, it does look like on a lot of these playtests, the Timurids are back to collapsing. I've noticed in 1.32 that they often survive and grow stronger despite events being coded to undermine them in the early going. Not sure if that's an intentional adjustment, a happy accident, or just a coincidence.

 

[Jihem]

I think that to avoid a senseless Ottoblob ruining a campaign, they would not only have to face them with offensive Mamluks driven by a real project (restoring the Caliphate), but also a determined Persia with a mission tree substantial (aimed for example at restoring the Achaemenid borders and giving itself the means to do so thanks to appropriate buffs). To do this would require Ardabil, the two Turcomans or Caspian Minors, and many more to each have a nice mission tree and significantly more flavor events. The middle east could be a very exciting place to play but it's far too poor in content.

 

[IndigoRage]

I think that to avoid a senseless Ottoblob ruining a campaign, they would not only have to face them with offensive Mamluks driven by a real project (restoring the Caliphate), but also a determined Persia with a mission tree substantial (aimed for example at restoring the Achaemenid borders and giving itself the means to do so thanks to appropriate buffs). To do this would require Ardabil, the two Turcomans or Caspian Minors, and many more to each have a nice mission tree and significantly more flavor events. The middle east could be a very exciting place to play but it's far too poor in content.

Fertile Crescent definitely feels extremely outdated these days.

 

[Sete]

@Pavía No worries , thank you for reading the feedback, and communication! I'll give you guys a well deserved rest from my constant nagging

 

[SaoMagnifico]

I think that to avoid a senseless Ottoblob ruining a campaign, they would not only have to face them with offensive Mamluks driven by a real project (restoring the Caliphate), but also a determined Persia with a mission tree substantial (aimed for example at restoring the Achaemenid borders and giving itself the means to do so thanks to appropriate buffs). To do this would require Ardabil, the two Turcomans or Caspian Minors, and many more to each have a nice mission tree and significantly more flavor events. The middle east could be a very exciting place to play but it's far too poor in content.

I'm doing a Fars -> Persia run right now, and while the region is super-fun and being able to get some early permaclaims is nice, there just isn't much to the rest of the mission tree. (That's actually one of the reasons I stuck with Farsi ideas, which are great for playing tall rather than blobbing.)

 

[Kauê II]

Greetings, and Happy New Year to everyone! Today we’re coming back to EUIV DD’s, after taking a couple of months’ break from them (unfortunately not due to long Spanish holidays, as some on the forums have suggested ). What we’ve been doing in that time was already mentioned by Johan in the last DD: working on 1.32.1 and 1.32.2 patches, and then moving on to the next one, 1.33, that will be live later this quarter.

As Origins and 1.32.2 release have been mostly well praised (and we're very happy about that!), we thought that we wanted to move on 3 main points for the upcoming 1.33 patch:
1) Fixing most of the remaining bugs from 1.32/Origins.
2) Balancing some mechanics that had been on our list for a while.
3) Continue working to improve AI performance, as some issues appeared in 1.32.

Today I’ll be focusing on the game balance changes that we’ve been working on, as we still have some room for making changes before releasing the patch (although not new content, as we may be adding more in the next immersion pack we will be working on after this patch), and we want to receive some feedback on them from you, the community.

With Origins release, we’ve been able to revamp the setup and balance of Africa, and we’re pretty happy with it, in general terms. So, we thought of moving back to the Far East, as there were some balance issues that were not fully resolved by Leviathan although focusing in part on the SEA region. Regarding that, we were aware of the big discussion on Ming balance in the forums, thus it would be a good idea to tackle it for this patch.

Ming and the Emperor of China is a really hard tag and mechanics to balance out. It starts as the strongest country in the world, and MingBlob was not a desired outcome in past patches, as it hindered Eastern Asia gameplay (even affecting India super-region, as others have said). So, because of that Mingplosion being a regular outcome was useful for gameplay purposes, although Qing and other successors are not usually so successful when it comes to reuniting the EoC, being honest. For players, it's true that it's not the most challenging/rewarding tag to play with it, because it may be not too compelling to handle the disaster if you advance on Mandate of Heaven reforms, while at the same time it won't be a very challenging playtime, if you reach some snowball point early on (which is pretty doable by experienced players).

So, we’ve come with the following changes to Ming/EoC to try to balance it a bit better:



The Idea of the Harmonization Speed increase at high Harmony is to encourage alternating between harmonizing a new religion and accumulating Harmony. It should be possible for you to be just as fast with harmonizing religions as somebody who is chain harmonizing all the time.

Apart from that, we’re doing the following changes to other countries on the Far East neighborhood:



Finally, we’ve been also doing some changes regarding Portugal, Indian estates, a combat pips rework, and other stuff:



So, after most of these changes being implemented, and some still WIP, this is what we’re seeing in our nightlies AI tests:

View attachment 795415
View attachment 795416
View attachment 795417
View attachment 795419

In some games Portugal is performing really well, while in others Spain is still a top dog in the Iberian Peninsula and America. Regarding China, you can see that Ming sometimes manage to stay stable, while Mingplossion still happens regularly, and even some of the successor states are able to blob a bit after it, recovering MoH.

This is all for today. We’re open to feedback and suggestions given by you to further improve the balance for 1.33, if possible; just remember to have civil discussions about them, as there were some hot-heated ones a couple months ago (basically regarding Ming balance), and we don't want that to be repeated.

Next week my fellow colleague @Gnivom will talk about the changes made to AI in the upcoming 1.33 patch (and yes, he will be tackling the AI deleting forts issue, among others). Hope you enjoy the DD!

Since we are talking about changes in Portugal, including the idea “Encourage the Bandeirantes”. Can there be any more changes there? As when acquiring such an idea, Portugal and / or the colonial nations of this can disrespect the Treaty of Tordesilhas without suffering penalties or suffering in a mitigated way. The bandeirantes were largely responsible for the current territorial size of Brazil and the breakup of the Treaty of Tordesilhas. This should have the possibility to be replaced later by the Treaty of Madrid in game[1] and may have some different mechanics to be discussed. In fact, this should be worked out better, also considering the events of the Guarani nation.

Currently in the game, to trigger the event “Sepé Tiaraju” it is necessary that Guarani is not catholic and that has knowledge of a catholic neighbouring country that he has its capital in Europe or is the colonial subject of a European country that follows catholicism. Very strange considering that we are dealing with indigenous villages founded by Spanish Jesuits and I also believe that Sepé Tiaraju is still in the process of canonization defended by the diocese of Bagé (Brazil).

On the subject, I think it is relevant to complement [2] :
“... The Guarani's objective was to maintain the status quo in which they lived. In other words, it was not intended to defend an original system of life, but rather to maintain the usual lands, expanded with catechesis. The fight was not against the Spanish Crown, or its representatives, but against the provisions of the Treaty of Madrid and the usual enemies: the Portuguese. They had an idea of the historical moment they were going through and tried to reverse the decision based on political contributions.”

Post scriptum: I continued the subject in the next post.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Madrid_(13_January_1750)

[2] https://lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/62024/000867567.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (in portuguese)

 

[Kauê II]

Since we are talking about changes in Portugal, including the idea “Encourage the Bandeirantes”. Can there be any more changes there? As when acquiring such an idea, Portugal and / the colonial nations of this can disrespect the Treaty of Tordesilhas without suffering penalties or suffering in a mitigated way. The bandeirantes were largely responsible for the current territorial size of Brazil and the breakup of the Treaty of Tordesilhas. This should have the possibility to be replaced later by the Madrid Treaty in game[1] and may have some different mechanics to be discussed. In fact, this should be worked out better, also considering the events of the Guarani nation.

Currently in the game, to trigger the event “Sepé Tiaraju” it is necessary that Guarani is not Catholic and that he has its capital in Europe or is the colonial subject of a European country. Very strange considering that we are dealing with the game of indigenous villages founded by Spanish Jesuits and I also believe that Sepé Tiaraju is still in the process of canonization defended by the diocese of Bagé (Brazil).

On the subject, I think it is relevant to complement [2] :
“... The Guarani's objective was to maintain the status quo in which they lived. In other words, it was not intended to defend an original system of life, but rather to maintain the usual lands, expanded with catechesis. The fight was not against the Spanish Crown, or its representatives, but against the provisions of the Treaty of Madrid and the usual enemies: the Portuguese. They had an idea of the historical moment they were going through and tried to reverse the decision based on political contributions.”

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Madrid_(13_January_1750)

[2] https://lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/62024/000867567.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (in portuguese)

There is yet another snippet from the source above that I think is important to share here:

“...Lia Quarleni affirm that the indigenous people understood that there was a vassalage pact, with rights and obligations, which ended, for example, the Guarani militias. As the Spanish Crown broke this pact, armed resistance would be a natural response on the part of the Indians. In order for a vassalage pact to exist, it was necessary that a land: in the case of the Missioneiro. In their eyes, the Guarani possessed a land they had inherited from their ancestors. Their presence in the Tape region, however, would be linked to the need to garrison and patrol this border. They would be “auxiliary troops” of the Catholic king to protect the Province of Paraguay and the lands close to the Rio de la Plata. Júlio Quevedo highlights that “the cry for land implies land” in an attempt to “maintain the status quo”, that is, the territory.
This situation is perceived as is clear in the letter of the caciques of São João writing to governor Andona in the sixteenth of july 1753: “we were not conquered by any Spaniard, by reason and words of the priests we became vassals of our King””.

 

[SAmaster]

I feel it should be pointed out that changing your culture group to Roman is rather pointless so long as Roman is part of the Lost Cultures culture group. Because there are no other Lost Culture provinces in the game- meaning that Roman culture is rather useless.

I'd advise instead that Roman Culture maybe be moved to the Greek culture group instead- since an extinct latin culture would presumably have more in common with the Greeks of Byzantium which is still sorta around by the startdate of the game.

 

[Sidolowka]

Seeing how Portugal finally got a decent idea set after a long crusade by a few well-known members of the forum *cough* @Sete *cough* @Bandua_of_Gallaecia , would it be possible for you to look into Korea's idea set too? It's currently both weak and bland, and whilst Korea was never the expansionist hegemon that some other tags in game were, you could gear their idea set towards playing tall, along with buffing the Korean navy to match its incredible historical prowess.

Spoiler: Korean Ideas

Traditions:
-10% Development Cost
-10% Advisor Cost

1. The Hangul Alphabet
-10% Technology Cost

2. Geobukseon
+10% Ship Durability
+20% Galley Combat Ability

3. The Righteous Army
+10% Land Morale

4. The Gyeong’guk Daejeon
-10% Stability Cost Modifier

5. The Ginseng Trade
+10% Goods Produced

6. Gyujang’gak
-10% Idea Cost
+25% Harmonisation Speed

7. Geojung’gi
-15% Construction Cost

Ambitions
+10% Fire Damage Dealt

Notable changes include the dev cost reduction and a buff to the construction cost reduction, so that Korea has a better time 'playing tall', along with the removal of the national manpower modifier (Korea never really had that big of an army), and the addition of galley combat ability to represent the Geobukseon.

The -10% advisor cost ambition replaces the +25% domestic trade power, considering how trade was discouraged in Korea due to Confucianist teachings (and also because the Korean government was managed in a way that made it hard to tax merchants). This, coupled along with the now buffed Hangul Alphabet, should mean that Korea has an easier time keeping up on tech and ideas, providing flavour to the previously bland idea set.

The Grand Code for State Administration has been renamed to its Korean name — Gyeong'guk Daejeon — because I didn't really see why this idea in particular stands out from the others.

Spoiler: Code

korean_ideas = {
    start = {
        development_cost = -0.1
        advisor_cost = -0.1
    }
    bonus = {
        fire_damage = 0.10
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = KOR
    }
    free = yes

    hangul_alphabet = {
        technology_cost= -0.1
    }

    geobukseon = {
        ship_durability = 0.1
        galley_power = 0.2
    }

    righteous_army = {
        land_morale = 0.10
    }

    gyeongguk_daejeon = {
        stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
    }

    ginseng_trade = {
        global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.10
    }

    gyujanggak = {
        idea_cost = -0.10
        harmonization_speed = 0.25
    }

    geojunggi = {
        build_cost = -0.15
    }
}

Spoiler: Descriptions

korean_ideas: "Korean Ideas"
 korean_ideas_start: "Korean Traditions"
 korean_ideas_bonus: "Korean Ambition"
 hangul_alphabet: "The Hangul Alphabet"
 hangul_alphabet_desc: "The Korean language is so fundamentally different from Chinese, that the use of Chinese characters renders all but the most highly educated illiterate. The Hangul Alphabet, developed under the direct guidance of King Sejong, is said to be so simple to understand that a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over, while even a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."
 geobukseon_princes: "Geobukseon"
 geobukseon_desc: "While the ordinary Panokseons make up the bulk of the Korean navy, the legacy of defending against piracy and naval invasions has led to the development of the Geobukseon, an armoured ship lined with spikes that resembles a turtle, giving it its name."
 righteous_army: "The Righteous Army"
 righteous_army_desc: "As local militias that operated independently, the Righteous Armies of Korea would rise to defend their homeland when their government failed to defend them."
 gyeongguk_daejeon: "Gyeong’guk Daejeon"
 gyeongguk_daejeon_desc: "The Gyeong’guk Daejeon was a written constitution based on the previous constitutions of the Joseon Gyeong’gukjeon and the Gyeongjeyukjeon. Created to codify exactly how the government was to be run, it would serve as the basis of Korean administration for centuries."
 ginseng_trade: "The Ginseng Trade"
 ginseng_trade_desc: "Korean Ginseng was widely renowned throughout East Asia, fetching high prices in both goods and silver. We should encourage the production of Ginseng to further enrichen the country."
 gyujanggak: "Gyujang’gak"
 gyujanggak_desc: "Created by King Jeongjo as the royal library, the Gyujanggak would serve as the repository for Korea’s most important historical records and cultural documents."
 geojunggi: "Geojung’gi"
 geojunggi_desc: "The Geojung’gi was a crane designed to use pulleys, increasing the efficiency and speed of construction."

 

[Limyx826]

@Pavía , a question. Would there be new ways for Celestial Empire to establish tributaries especially the overseas tributaries in SEA? The current way of establish tributary is having a shared border in order to accept diplomatically or having waged war against them and select make tributary. Historically Qing have some tributaries in maritime SEA which included Sulu Sultanate, Lanfang Republic. So if a player claimed the Mandate of Heaven and want some tributaries to stabilize the mandate they only able to do so with neighbouring nations which severely limit the path of expansion.

Perhaps the modifier Are not neighbours can be reduced and the Distance between Borders can be increased exponentially so that maritime tributary still be able to diplomatically establish yet at the same time prevent long distance tributary.

 

[Camara]

@Pavía Just to add to my previous suggestion:
Carreira da India (Indian Run) for the 15% trade efficiency heres a description that could be used for example: "With the discovery of the Cape route to India by Vasco da Gama, the fall of the Venetian monopoly on the spice trade in Europe is inevitable and the resulting drop in prices of spices will contribute to the commercial development of the country."

So if im not mistaken the current idea setup will be:

Traditions:

+10% Infantry Combat ability+25% Colonial range

---

Legacy of the Navigator

+10% Morale +5% Ship disengagement chance

---

Afonsine Ordinance

+10% Goods produced modifier

---

Feitorias

+10% Global trade power

---

Land Before Faith

+15 Global settler increase

---

Encourage the Bandeirantes

+15% Trade efficiency

---

Royal Absolutism

−15% Construction cost+0.50 Yearly absolutism

---

Royal Academy of Fortification, Artillery and Drawing

+1 Artillery +10% Fort defense

Ambition:
+20% Global tariffs




In my opinion to make sense trade efficiency should come before colonization bonus:
Brazil colonization, which i suppose the land before faith represents, only kicked in with the discovery of gold in Brazil in 1690, almost 200 years from the discovery of the cape route.
Traditions:

+10% Infantry Combat ability+25% Colonial range

---

Legacy of the Navigator

+10% Morale +5% Ship disengagement chance

---

Afonsine Ordinance

+10% Goods produced modifier

---

Feitorias

+10% Global trade power

---

Encourage the Bandeirantes (name change for Carreira da India)

+15% Trade efficiency

---

Land Before Faith

+15 Global settler increase

---

Royal Absolutism

−15% Construction cost+0.50 Yearly absolutism

---

Royal Academy of Fortification, Artillery and Drawing

+1 Artillery +10% Fort defense

Ambition:
+20% Global tariffs

this way the ideas make sense chronologically.

I would like for Portugal to have "Can hire Conquistadores & Explorers" instead of "+25% colonial range" from the start.
Portugal was already exploring before the game start and Norway has this as their 1st unlockable national idea.
Because Portugal will lack range it will not affect the early colonisation much and it fits better thematically.

 

[Mamluksultan]

I just want to know if the tributary by the ming‘s 6th reform will be Independence Calculation Degree of Independence?Sorry about my bad English.