Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 18th of January 2022

[intelstyle]

Update to Scandinavia when? Possibly Scandinavia formable being changed to not be a nerf (gets rid of country specific events sadly).

 

[Jarvin]

- Regiments’ fire and shock pips now also count toward morale damage in their respective phases. Many of you will know that morale pips have been superior to fire and shock pips. This change will make the pips more equal in value, although morale pips may still be the better pick most of the time. To preserve the overall flow of battles, we’re thinking not to apply this to artillery protection from backrow, as it is asymmetrical.

First of all, HOLY SHIT I LOVE YOU for just being even willing to implement changes like this. I hope this continues and applies to other systems in the game too!

That said, I'm not sure how to understand this

If shock and fire were to also count towards morale damage, how would morale still be the best? Is fire/shock going to only add a small bonus to morale damage? if so, how much and what would it depend on? +1 fire/shock pip advantage would be equivalent to what bonus?

PS: might be a weird question, but what exactly led you to first realize that this is an issue, and that this could be the solution?
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE that you did, but given the history of EU4's development over past years that's also very.. new

 

[FranklyJustNess]

That's really not enough of changes to EoC. There should be a "relative strength of tributaries" that is reduced to 0% effectiveness on high Mandate and raises the lower it gets. Ming just never looses tributaries because they are scared the hell out of a 1000 development empire even though they have plenty of other allies that want the Independence just as much. Long story short Ming should lose some bigger tributaries due to them refusing to pay, if it passes a reform and isn't well prepared.

Also make EoC give flat income of tax and some force limit, so we don't have the problem that China splits in three, one of them picks Mandate, is just as strong as all the other ones and after a while just dies to low Mandate, just for another one to take the throne and do just as poorly.

 

[WindingArc]

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.

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.

Does this mean that 1.33 will be a free patch unaccompanied by DLC content?

Regarding the provinces: we will not add any new provinces in 1.33. That's all I can say so far.

Does this include wastelands? If Tinto won't add a last set of provinces or else reshuffle existing provinces to reflect the relative importance of regions in EU4's time period, it would be nice to have some wastelands representing the ridge line of the Andes and to further separate inland Africa from coastal Africa.

Yes, France did one big change which I forgot to tell @Pavía to add into the DD.
The Hundred Years War is no longer just a normal PU war but a custom war, which behaves like a normal Restoration of Union war for England like in 1.32 BUT has the benefits of a Reconquest War for France. A popular strategy was as France to declare war on England ASAP with reconquest to take your provinces in France with minimal Aggressive Expansion. Now the AI uses the same strategy, though, I have to admit, it's a little bit more railroaded.

That's a great change.
A more glaring problem with France's Hundred Years War behavior, though, is its consistent choice to grant its cores on French culture group provinces to vassals that it will annex decades later. In every EU4 game I've played since Leviathan (and I think since Emperor) France gives its cores on Bordeaux and Labourd to its vassals Armagnac and Foix, and grants cores it receives on Burgundy from the Burgundian Inheritance to its vassal Nevers.

A simple fix to this problem would be to change the AI code for the grant_core_claim subject interaction so that AI nations:

1. Never give away cores on provinces of their own culture group (except in colonial regions), and
2. Never give cores to subjects that don't share a culture group with the cored provinces

It would also help if the AI was better at deciding when to grant claims to subjects. The AI should always want to give all of its claims (and cores) in a particular colonial region to a subject colonial nation it has in that region. (It would be even better if there was a new on_action for colonial nation formation that automatically granted all of an overlord's claims and cores in a colonial region to a colonial subject when it was created in that region.)

The AI should refrain from granting claims and creating tributaries in regions that it will conquer. I've seen AI Austria give its permanent claims in Poland to its subject Hungary and then annex Hungary, thereby losing the claims. Could the AI be told to identify subjects it wants to annex (and then not grant claims to them) and identify regions it should conquer (like the China superregion for Emperors of China and the Japan region for Shoguns), and to then not make new tributaries as well as cancel existing tributaries there?

There was also some AI priority setting in their missions too, which makes France now focus more on their missions, but I don't think this was as impactful as the CB change.

Does this affect AI colonizing decisions? It's very frustrating to watch AI nations choose not to prioritize colonial regions for which they have mission rewards.

 

[klingonadmiral]

If shock and fire were to also count towards morale damage, how would morale still be the best?

Morale pips are used in every combat phase while shock/fire pips are only used during shock/fire phases.

 

[rudeb0y]

While you're on the subject of fixing Indian estate privileges, there is currently a bug for the hindu privilege to "change personal deity." Taking the privilege shows the decision to swap in the decisions list but the decision is bugged and cannot be used as intended.

 

[IndigoRage]

That third AI game's results look like one of the most historically accurate outcomes I've ever seen for this game.

 

[Sidolowka]

Korea buff AND a Confucianism buff?

Is this a dream?

I'd kiss every single one of the devs if I could, believe me.

 

[Jarvin]

Morale pips are used in every combat phase while shock/fire pips are only used during shock/fire phases.

I don't think you read my post

IF morale damage was to be influenced by fire and shock pips, why would morale pips still be the greatest was my question, as that was implied in Pavia's post.

 

[achmedino]

From what I could tell this has not been implemented yet, but I think it would be good to make AI countries that are the emperor of China not tributarize provinces in the China region. In one of my recent games Qing formed, but they didn't conquer most of China even though they had claims on it, because all of the Mingsplosion states had already been turned into their tributaries.

 

[Less2]

I don't think you read my post

IF morale damage was to be influenced by fire and shock pips, why would morale pips still be the greatest was my question, as that was implied in Pavia's post.

Presumably

1 morale pip = ~10% more morale damage in both phases (working off what +1 pip does to the combat equation)
1 fire/shock pip = ~10% more casualties and morale damage in their phase, or ~5% average if we assume both phases have the same base rate of damage inflicted.

 

[TilFolkvang]

I'm very happy with those lower two screenshots as they show large parts of South America still uncolonized. I feel strongly that colonization should be slowed down. If the player is not rushing colonization, the 1821 map should generally look similar to the real-life 1821 map. ie: Parts of South America, lots of Indonesia, most of Africa and Oceania uncolonized. There will always be some randomness to this, sure. But everything colored in should be rare. I hate that it's so unusual to see the AI create a historical-looking outcome in this regard.

 

[crismac]

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 ).

I apologize for this. I was one. It just felt like that was the case, and I was quite Jealous

Welcome back, Happy New Year to you all as well.

 

[Keksburg]

Not sure how I feel about the CE being able to vassalize and thus eventually annex tributaries, seems like a rather OP mechanic that goes against the whole tributary ethos.

If u pay Ming and you are strong inside your statr, you wanna some kind of expansion, but u r surrounded by tributaries, can't do that without kicking them off. If CE is really that strong enough to make it to 6th, it deserves it cause that's the nature of a state

 

[Hiram_Maxim]

Please consider doing something about the event where Crimea becomes an Ottoman march. Ottoman AI simply changes them to a vassal and diploannexes within a few decades. This puts them into a prime position to expand at Lithuania and Russia's expense. In two of the AI test screenshots posted, one has the Ottos blobbing hard into Central Europe, annihilating Austria and the other has them carving a path north to the Arctic Circle.

 

[Keksburg]

Yes, I think this CB can be adjusted so that once a country acquires any province in the China super-region, it will automatically get Mandate.

Or like this: the CB causes no truce between CE and invader (as prime within a war), with conditions like no land out of China super religion could be taken, just war and war and war until the formal empire falls. It needs CE strong enough and hard to be defeated in a single war, and once defeated, the Emperor changes

 

[Keksburg]

Yes, I think this CB can be adjusted so that once a country acquires any province in the China super-region, it will automatically get Mandate.

if like this, the cost may be 100% to simulate the new lord in china but may not that easy to balance

 

[Keksburg]

When Manchu attacked Ming, they just marched from Manchuria to south china sea, non-stop. So removing truce of this CB maybe good, though tough work for balancing

In the history of China, losing mandate means losing the state. The only exception is Mongolia but they still lost china super region

 

[Keksburg]

So, 1.33 will be centered around East Asia? Thought we would get either a revamped Scandinavia/Levant/South America.

I think this may only be a fix for 1.32

 

[Keksburg]

I remember a mod for this is that, during the war caused by this CB, all province in china super region, after being occupied for a while, will transfer the ownership to the occupier. Remember something? The Diadokoi war in Imperator Rome.

But as player we can talk aloud without any concern, the balancing work for developers still be hard. But if these difficulties were overcome, this would be a miracle in Barcelona