• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 20th of December 2022 - Unit Pips Rebalance

Hello and welcome to another EUIV DD!

Today we will be talking about the rebalance of the Unit Pips we're working on for the upcoming 1.35 update. This task has been led by our QA Team, which was reinforced throughout the year, and that has been key to the release of Lions of the North, as the new members that have joined the Team credit over 5,000 hours of gameplay on EUIV. But apart from testing the game, they are also involved in the game design process, a classic at Paradox, which usually relies on close cooperation between the different teams. Therefore, this is the proposal we'll be testing in the following weeks, taking also into account the feedback we receive in this DD, of course!



Hello everyone, I'm @Pintu , one of the Embedded QA’s working at Tinto.

I want to show you the rework we are doing on the Unit Pips of the different Techgroups, one of the Systems that saw very few changes since the Release of EU4. As we implemented changes to the Combat calculations in the 1.34 update, we think now it’s a good moment to address this rebalance.

First I want to quickly outline what the Unit Pips do in what parts of combat they matter, for those not as experienced in the game. In each combat phase, Strength Damage is dealt depending on the Offensive Damage Pips of the Units, while Morale Damage is dealt based on Offensive Damage and Offensive Morale Pips. Defending works the same way with the Defensive Pips of the Unit, but half of the Defensive Pips (rounded down) of the Backrow Units is added on top of that. That means that over the course of the game, the priority of pips shifts from having a strong Shock Phase to a strong Fire Phase with a focus on defensive Pips, especially for Infantry.

With this rebalance of Unit Pips we mainly want to focus on Infantry Units that are clear strong or weak outliers on their Tech level and the introduction of more choices in Artillery Units beyond the first Technologies when they become available. As always, these are by no means final numbers and will be under close observation during our Testing, apart from the feedback we are receiving in this DD, so there are good chances these will change until the release of the patch.

One of the swiftly explained changes is that related to Aboriginal and Polynesian Units: both got their total amount of pips reduced, to be in line with the American and African Unit Groups. These changes make them preserve some of their strengths, while not being an outlier over other units.

1AboriginalBefore.png
1AboriginalAfter.png
2PolynesianBefore.png
2PolynesianAfter.png

Now onwards to a change that influences other groups as well, which means they have to get adjusted together. The Anatolian group has a very big advantage with their early Units with their Offensive Moral Damage. We decided to tune that down a little in their Unit Options on technologies 5 and 9. Unfortunately, this affects Muslim Unit groups, which should not have an advantage over Anatolians at that point, which in turn affects Indian Units. That's why we had to tune them down as well.

The Anatolian Group will keep one of their big Spikes in Pips on Tech 12, which will let them be a threat to the groups around them. This is also partly because their Unit will stay around until Tech 18, significantly later than other groups get new units.

3AnatolianBefore.png
3AnatolianAfter.png
4IndianBefore.png
4IndianAfter.png

Speaking of the Muslims, let's take a look at the changes the group got independently from other groups. The Muslim Unit on Tech 23 suffered from both very poor Offensive and Defensive Fire Pips. They do have great Morale and Shock Pips to make up for it, but with the importance of Fire Phase in the later stages of the game, we decided to help them out a little by buffing their defensive Fire on the cost of their defensive Shock.

5MuslimBefore.png
5MuslimAfter.png

The Chinese Group has one outlier in their Unit selection, which is situated on Tech 19, with both 3 offensive and 3 defensive Fire Pips, in addition to 3 Offensive Morale. The one drawback with that Unit is that its successor becomes available only on Tech 25, later than most other groups. Since they have an edge with that against most of their neighboring groups, the solution for this is that they lose one offensive Morale.

6ChineseBefore.png
6ChineseAfter.png

On the same Techlevel, the Nomadic Group has a very solid, while not great, Infantry Unit, that would do with a small Nerf to fit their theme of military decline more.

7NomadBefore.png
7NomadAfter.png

The African Groups (this includes Central, East, and West African), got a small reshuffle of Pips, to make their Last Unit on Tech 30 an actual upgrade over the previous version.

8AfricanBefore.png
8AfricanAfter.png

Last but not least a small change to the High American Group, where their Unit from Tech 18 gets a small bump in Pips. Before this Unit had the same amount of total Pips as the previous unit level.

9HighAmericanBefore.png
9HighAmericanAfter.png

Let's now move on to the Changes to Artillery. These mainly focus on the Introduction of one new Alternative per Unit, which focuses more on a defensive style, where Artillery is used to push half of their defensive Pips towards the frontline while sacrificing their damage output with lower Offensive Fire and Morale Pips. There will also be a small Adjustment on Tech 13, with making one of the Options a defensive one.

10ArtyBefore.png
10ArtyAfterHalf1.png
10ArtyAfterHalf2.png

You may notice that for the new types of Artillery we've just named them the 'Defensive' version of each level. This is not definitive, as it's mainly a placeholder; so, we will accept suggestions for naming each of the unit types.

And this will conclude the Dev Diary for this week and this year. Just like the Idea Group rebalance of last week, we are very eager to read your feedback and suggestions on this topic to improve it as much as possible.

See you at the next DD, on January 10th!
 

Attachments

  • 1AboriginalAfter.png
    1AboriginalAfter.png
    236,6 KB · Views: 0
  • 2PolynesianBefore.png
    2PolynesianBefore.png
    178,6 KB · Views: 0
  • 10ArtyAfterHalf1.png
    10ArtyAfterHalf1.png
    245,3 KB · Views: 0
  • 10ArtyAfterHalf1.png
    10ArtyAfterHalf1.png
    245,3 KB · Views: 0
  • 60Like
  • 12
  • 9Love
  • 8
  • 1
Reactions:
If you play in a gimmicky way to exploit the instant stack wipes, then it shouldn't be expected to have good performance. also idk where you got the double army stackwipe idea from, but it definitely requires far more than double the enemy army to instantly stackwipe them. Otherwise my 20k hussars wouldnt be able to win against 60k french.

IIRC the rule is 10x the number of the troops to stackwipe enemy instantly but if you're really building several million men armies to exploit that, you've got bigger problems than an edge case game mechanic.

Gimmicky way? Clearly you have no idea, what are you talking about. Considering late game AI may run doomstacks around 300-400k, you may get instantly stackwiped with your '80k sieging stack". Sooo, its not about "player abusing explotis to kill AI", but also "AI killing all of your armies".

I understand that its hard to imagine such a numers for someone, who have no idea about multiplayer, but still. Doesnt mean that problem disappeared.
 
  • 5
  • 1
Reactions:
If you play in a gimmicky way to exploit the instant stack wipes, then it shouldn't be expected to have good performance. also idk where you got the double army stackwipe idea from, but it definitely requires far more than double the enemy army to instantly stackwipe them. Otherwise my 20k hussars wouldnt be able to win against 60k french.

IIRC the rule is 10x the number of the troops to stackwipe enemy instantly but if you're really building several million men armies to exploit that, you've got bigger problems than an edge case game mechanic.
It used to be, not anymore. Now if first row collapses within first 12 days (ie time where you cant retreat) as well as enemy having double the amount of troops in the battle it results in stackwipe regardless of overall amount of troops in reserves. This is especially visible in late game where full backrow of artillery completely melts the infantry. In the multiplayer campaign we play rn this resulted in battles in which 800k were stackwiped within seconds after getting engaged by a single stack with 2.5 mln troops. This behaviour is new and wasnt part of the game before recent patch
 
  • 5
  • 2
Reactions:
The nerfs to Anatolian and Muslims tek groups will severely imbalance Multiplayer games. In multiplayer scenarios, the ottomans need the extra pips as normally Ottos stand alone and outnumbered against a European alliance block of the usual suspects of PLC-Austria(HRE emporer). In addition, the morocco-castille 1v1 will be more imbalanced after the buffs Catholics got (morale from church) and now the PIP disadvantage to Muslims. It does not make sense how literally every tek group got a nerf except Europeans (western & eastern). Finally, since the Anatolian tek group units pips stagnate and fall behind the Euros starting from 1650s onwards, therefore, the nerf to Ottos is not justified because they already do get nerfed with time.

I hope you consider the multiplayer aspect of game balance. Historical accuracy is appreciated but not at the cost of game balance.
 
  • 7
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
If you play in a gimmicky way to exploit the instant stack wipes, then it shouldn't be expected to have good performance. also idk where you got the double army stackwipe idea from, but it definitely requires far more than double the enemy army to instantly stackwipe them. Otherwise my 20k hussars wouldnt be able to win against 60k french.

IIRC the rule is 10x the number of the troops to stackwipe enemy instantly but if you're really building several million men armies to exploit that, you've got bigger problems than an edge case game mechanic.

Hmmm where to start. If you have a rule about the stackwipe and you use this in mp, because, Well, You play competetive, you still expect the performance of the game to be reasonable, not 5 days lag on s1.

And about the stackwipe rule I got it from game mechanics change in 1.34 (or 1.33). And The rule state, that if there is a battle and within first 12 days (or the amount where you can't retreat) the whole first line of enemy army is killed or retreat due to morale, then if on that exact moment you have more than twice the enemy army size = instant stack wipe. So will 60k infranty do a sw 20k cav? Rather not, because the rule of first row wont be fullfiled. You need arti to do enough dmg. But will 1kk army with full cannons backrow do a stack wipe of 490k army? In most cases yes. Specially on mp game when you maximize army quality to do as much dmg as possible.

Fun fuct, before last smal update the rule with 2x army się was even more broken, because IT didn't matter which army first row would retreat. SO you could go with army of 100k on No maintanance to army 40k and 40k was stackwipe.

And you can check the youtube how it works.
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
I hope you consider the multiplayer aspect of game balance. Historical accuracy is appreciated but not at the cost of game balance.

It is not historically accurate either. Anatolian infantry is too strong early but Anatolian/Muslim/Indian pips get weak too early and their cavalry units are too weak in general from start to finish. It makes no sense how Eastern Europeans can actually get beastly cavalry enough to justify heavily cavalry armies like hordes but Anatolian/Muslim/Indian groups have weak cavalry. Game basically projects power dynamics of Victorian era all the way back to 16th century. Its foundations come from an era where Paradox was clearly not as well researched on military history, back from a time where Muslim states had an event for burning books to gain piety.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
when population numbers are put into play
This seems really unlikely when they removed population for EU4 (previous iterations only included city pop although many people misunderstood that and also pop growth mechanics had some significant issues).
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Imo a waste of developer and QA time. the imapact on the game is so unoticable compared to combat rolls taking good battles getting a slightly better general.
1 one pip better general tends to blow any unit pip differences out of the water. if unit pips we multiplicative rather than adiditive with general pips and dice rolls maybe you might feel a difference.

as it stands people feeling unit pips make a difference is primaraly the stradivarious effect plus congnitive bias due to otomans starting with 5% discipline a great general ajnd janisaries. Now if unit pips/techgroups gave your generals traits and hiring general rolls a certain bias. Eg nomagic generals have a bias towards +1 shock-1 fire and/or more likely to geain shock traits then you could say tech group would be something you could legitimately feel.

As it is i feel your development resources would be better spent in other places.
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I'm not asking for the return of old westernization or some decision like the Ottoman's "Western Focus". But all these changes make me curious. Will there be any way to change the technology group in the game? Right now only the niche ones like forming Mughal changes the technology group

These nerfs to other groups look like devs want players hungry for western technology groups.
 
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Sigh. The Ottomans already vastly underperform their historical counterparts. The last thing they need is another nerf. Quite the opposite--I'd give them their cores on the Beyliks and better CCR value back if I were in charge.

I really hope they get a great mission tree when the Middle East immersion pack is released.

Am I the only one who ends up seeing a "Ottoman's are Overpeforming/Underperforming" comment at least once every patch/set of dev diaries?

Sometimes it feels like there's only two groups, one that won't be happy until the Ottoman AI can conquer the world every game if you don't quickly put your boot down on it and one that won't be happy unless Byzantium defeats them and becomes a major power every game.
 
  • 4Haha
  • 2
Reactions:
I'm not really sure about the decision to make almost every tech group weaker except the Europeans' ones here. I understand that the general supremacy of the Ottoman tech group was a little bit overkill previously, and I definitely think they probably needed some kind of toning down, but it's a little much to then turn around and nerf the Muslim tech group and then make no corresponding nerfs to Western Europe.

Like, sure, I think the Ottomans were a bit much. Seeing this, however, I wonder if there's a better way of doing it that doesn't involve giving Spain and Portugal an easier time partitioning northern Africa between themselves than they already have.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
All in all I'd wager this is bad change to the game (besides for me liking the nerf to Anatolian because I have unreasonable hatred to the Ottomans), what this change primarily does is widen the gap between Europe and rest of world. I understand tech groups exist to emulate trends within history, that being of European military might, along other things like decline of nomadic powers.

But tech groups are imo really bad way of emulate it, it does not matter how well you are doing as Asian power for example, whether that be up to tech Mughal Empire or Japanese empire, your army will simply be worse then Europeans for no fault of your own. Even if you go military ideas, even if your nation is drilled/built for war, even if you are same if not higher tech then Europeans, if its not unit pip tech it does not matter, you will be behind for no fault of your own.

Sacrificing Muslim tech group for sake of keeping gap between Anatolian and Muslim is so bizarre to me, Morocco already has hell of journey to go on, and now their gap with Western Castile/Aragon/Portugal is even wider?

Further defensive pips for artillery are more or less always better then offensive pips, so what is the point of adding defensive artillery? It's an automatic pick. If anything this is nerf to the AI who won't automatically pick defensive, and buff to players of certain skill/knowledge who will always know to take defensive artillery from now on.

I like the idea of tinkering with tech groups/unit pips, but this to me just seems like nerf to Polynesian/Aboriginal/Anatolian/Muslim/Indian/Chinese and Nomadic, and buff to High American and artillery.
I'm really curious to see the dev team's response to this post
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Am I the only one who ends up seeing a "Ottoman's are Overpeforming/Underperforming" comment at least once every patch/set of dev diaries?

Sometimes it feels like there's only two groups, one that won't be happy until the Ottoman AI can conquer the world every game if you don't quickly put your boot down on it and one that won't be happy unless Byzantium defeats them and becomes a major power every game.
Yeah the Ottomans are kind of the most controversial figures in EU4. I think part of it is that the way in which they're set up to succeed is far more blatantly forced than their Christian counterparts in Europe; and this is 100% because they have their own unique tech group which is way stronger than everyone else's for a huge chunk of the game's timeframe.

To be honest, I don't really know if this blanket method of technological superiority is the best way of representing the Ottomans' military might compared to the late medieval Europeans'. If I had any real input in the matter, I think the best way of handling it would be to make them get access to artillery earlier and then make their era ability buff that artillery, then give them generally high discipline all throughout the game.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
1. For heaven sake, fix cavalry. It was critical part of early European warfare. It was critical part of Napoleonic warfare. It shouldn't be expensive and useless.
2. Give us actual legitimate skirmish cavalry. It's not hard, just up the fire stat of early cav, and make it grow smaller. Cavalry archers, and pistol/gun armed cavalry was always feature of warfare, it shouldn't be ignored.

3. At least for western Europe, make defensive shock infantry, that would resemble Swiss/German pikeman, that could stand up to shock cavalry, at level 5 and 9.

4. Less pathetic early western cavalry.
 
  • 6
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Hello Paradox developers
Now that you're working on the forces I think it's a good time to modify the trigger and effect of the forces and take a look at it as it needs a review.
Of course, there is no effect in them, but it can be added so that more maneuvers can be done on them
 
I've never understood why we can't have multiple units from the same tech level at the same time. Choosing unit type switches everything to the new choice, but why can't we choose to have one stack with more defensive pips and another nearby stack with more offensive pips? Let me choose which army to use without needing to switch all my troops and wait for morale to tick up for 4 months afterwards.
 
I'm not asking for the return of old westernization or some decision like the Ottoman's "Western Focus". But all these changes make me curious. Will there be any way to change the technology group in the game? Right now only the niche ones like forming Mughal changes the technology group

These nerfs to other groups look like devs want players hungry for western technology groups.
Mughals aren't the only way. You can use Tibet and form horde to get nomad group, after reforming government as a horde depending on religion you get eastern, muslim or chinese group. I agree it's still not enough
 
Just wanting to echo the sentiment that you can alter pips all you want, it wont matter if you dont fix the changes to stackwipes. It removes any meaningful consideration of combat mechanics beyond "engage with N*2 troops"
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions: