Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 26th of April 2022

[lambda x.x]

Our most basic tool is we run the game every night on number of machines (our test node play as observer) then we gather the time needed for single tick and monthly tick. Then we have data per machine and global one so we can see what is the current performance. We can gather more data when investigating certain game features of course.

I know in a previous "dev diary," there were mentions that non content focused diaries aren't received well or something of that nature, but I just want to throw in one data point/vote for a quick writeup on some of the technical sides that relates to game speed/optimization. Like comparison of month ticks across patches, etc.
I would definitely find it very cool and interesting.

 

[bokorthedust]

Sweden exclusive flagship module: sink upon construction, confirmed.

 

[Romanix90]

Slightly beyond the scope of the patch but I'd love Venice/Genoa to have something similar, I'm tired of Venice immediately converting the Greek Orthodox islands they have.

Hey not bad idea at all. Venice and Genoa could also share this. If devs decide to do something like this.

On a side note players were quite vocal about Confucianism and culture conversion when you harmonize religion(s). Now you can do that. Now i'm not saying they must implement this but it would be fun.

 

[vaLor-]

Will admit I'm a bit disappointed there are no more 1.33 patches (I think there's still some bugs left to squash), but I'm glad to see updates to Scandinavia! (Maybe some changes to russia too?)
Some suggestions:
Please consider adding a colonial subject interaction for transferring colonies, I think this is quite a frustrating situation when experienced.

And when it comes to idea groups, this is my idea to change Admin group:

My take on the administrative group:
1: +1 Possible advisor
2: −25% Core-creation cost
3: -15% state maintenance
4: -0.5 Interest per annum
5: +33% Rebel suppression effectiveness
6: +15% Reform progress growth
7: -10% Admin tech cost
Bonus : +25% Governing capacity modifier

The idea here is to shake up the admin group, narrowing the focus off of mercenaries to administration/government, while giving some QoL/nice feel-good changes(rebel suppression+reform progress). If a nerf must be done to this group, I'd suggest it be done to the CCR (25%->20%).

I also noticed while playing France that there's a distinct lack of content for the country relative to its significance, (Little/nothing for Italy, dalmatia, netherlands, rhein confederation, events for conquest of HRE, historical events in reformation era). Perhaps an event line for dismantling HRE as France and more missions for Napoleon's conquests would make the country more enticing to play. Overall France greatly lacks flavor in events (nearly all of which are just MTTH), where it is greatly surpassed by England and Castile in that regard.

 

[Ninking]

Our most basic tool is we run the game every night on number of machines (our test node play as observer) then we gather the time needed for single tick and monthly tick. Then we have data per machine and global one so we can see what is the current performance. We can gather more data when investigating certain game features of course.

Do you always run the test games until the end date, or do some stop after X centuries so you can also evaluate the state of the game mid-game?

 

[fraughtGYRE]

I really hope that with this development path you consider reworking the espionage system as a whole at some point! I think there is a lot that could be improved with it. Dedicated spies rather than diplomats, better intrigue/interference. Looking forward to seeing what else you have in store.

 

[SAmaster]

On the topic of religions, I think the native religions should take a second look. They were developed in a time prior to the institution system to keep native americans back technologically (as historically). However I think since the institution system came about, it simulates that technological advancement just fine, while now adding an extra barrier to the Aztecs, Incans and Mayans. perhaps their reforms can stay, but the limitations to embracing institutions should be removed since I don't think it adds any fun challenge to the region. Likewise, while there was a change made to defender of the faith to encourage the spread of your religion which in turn would make defender of the faith more powerful, or how Coptics and Zoroastrians get reforms simply by having certain provinces be the correct religion regardless of nation-tag, the religious reforms of the native religions are really only going to be enjoyed by the player characters, so there's no incentive to spread that religion (then again they are non-evangalizing religions, but it does mean that any native-religion allies or vassals will be weaker for their religion).

Also it may not be the focus of your update, but I'd suggest instead of the current system for 'primitive' nations in the New World and Australia, you instead just tie it to their government reforms (with institutions serving again to keep their tech levels down). Where tribes or just perhaps new world tribes get debuffs to institution speed or embracement that are removed if they reform their government (perhaps the advanced tribe reform at the end removes the debuff). I think this would make the natives a lot more flexible than they are currently, while still making sure they play by the rules the rest of the nations on the map do. I'd also suggest maybe the Incans, Mayans, and Aztecs start with feudalism, or a way to embrace it prior to the Europeans, given it'll close the disparity a little but not much, but that's probably too much to ask for.

 

[Ludwig25]

Hello and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV Development Diary! This week I will be presenting the Roadmap we have been preparing in the last weeks, giving a guide to some of the content that we are working on and will be showing you all in the coming months.

But first, you have probably noticed that I’m not @Johan , who is traditionally in charge of doing this. That’s because I’ve been recently promoted to Content Design Coordinator here in Paradox Tinto, so, as the position speaks for itself, I’ll be coordinating the new content created. Therefore, Johan thought it would be a good idea to take some boring work out from him to delegate this task to me.

On to the Roadmap. We will be sticking to the development principles we outlined in the past year. Those are:

• Paid Features should be standalone, and easy to maintain.
• No major feature reworks while we still have lots of bugs.
• Reducing the bug-count as much as possible.
• Add more content, like missions, graphics and music.
• Flesh out the parts of the map that have not gotten attention the last few years.

At the moment, we’re quite satisfied with the current state of the game and we think it’s in a much better spot than one year ago. We’ve not only addressed a lot regarding the Leviathan issues (shivers), but have fixed a lot of legacy bugs (as we discussed on previous DDs), reducing our backlog of existing issues and starting a rebalancing of some parts of the game that were required and requested.

So, what can you expect from the next update (which will be version 1.34 of the game)? We will still be working on reducing our bug-count and improving game performance as much as possible. From a gameplay perspective, @Gnivom will continue making improvements to AI, and we are already addressing the combat balance (topics that will be discussed in future DDs, so you can give us feedback about it after we’ve finished a first round of internal tests). We’re going to do some rebalancing of Idea groups (nothing groundbreaking, but trying to diversify a bit their usefulness). Also, we want to keep improving the Religion balance, making some changes to a few of them to make them attractive enough, as we have done in the last two updates.

Regarding the new content, we believe that we need to improve the state of the base game before we start introducing more major reworks. We also think that we have room to keep expanding already existing features. So, in that sense, you can expect that there will be more government reforms, more estate privileges, and a few more goodies here and there. But our main focus in this field will be to continue improving and developing mission trees and other accompanying features in regions considered a bit backwards content-wise. And, speaking of, we’ve got a clue of the area where we will be focusing from next week’s DD:

Spoiler

View attachment 832616

And that’s all for today! We’re very excited about the new upcoming content, and I promise you that my colleague @Ogele will show you more detailed content next Tuesday. Stay tuned, see you!

Finally the Scandinavian nations are going get new mission trees.

 

[Sete]

Congrats @Pavía
I wish you smooth sailing!

 

[SAmaster]

If it's time to look forward, I'd like to throw my pennies into the wishing well: I strongly believe you guys should fly to the CK team and nick their game rules screen before anyone notices that they can't turn off AI seduction.

There are so many things I miss from earlier versions! CK2 was sent off great. Everyone had their favorite way to play it, and more or less we always get the chance to do so. I realize some of what I want can be achieved through mods, but having that "do you want shattered retreat or not/ do you want medieval coalitions or not?" in CK2 makes all the difference.

Lastly, considering the decade-long effort, the features of earlier versions that are currently not at all being used makes me sad.

To give imperfect, arbitrary examples: (I'm sure most of you can come up with much more important stuff)

• I really enjoy the estate rework, but if someone didn't, I'd not blame them for wanting their 200 mana in instant clicks back.
• I do not enjoy the automatic fleet exploration for Random New Worlds, It was so neat clicking on something and not knowing what it might reveal. Why can't it work like the conquistador, having both options?
• Personally, I do not enjoy the random nature of institutions, the only one I find engaging is the Global Trade. Because I know if I tried hard enough I could get it to spawn as anyone with no luck having been necessary. A game rule screen would let me tweak that. It would take away my achievements, probably, but all I want is to be given the choice.
• While your resident wiseguy is visiting Stockholm, why not also misappropriate Stellaris' (and HOI4s) difficulty selections? Let us set the AI aggressiveness. Let us tweak the lucky nations. I'd love to buff 1.33 Ottomans to the moon and watch in abject horror.

EU4's a great game I'd feel sad if it was sent off to that good night in an imperfect state, which would be for most of us if the game stays this rigid.

Seconded, I'd also like a game rules screen. Even besides mechanics, which it would be nice to potentially turn on or off some, it could also be used for some roleplay purposes- similar to how HOI4 lets you pick certain nation paths. This might be harder to employ for EUIV, but I could see some basic ones to ensure some more historical accuracy-

-turn off colonization for non europeans so you don't get Mamlukean Australia. Alternatively turn off european colonization if you want to chill in the new world completely isolated
-ensure that the Ming don't collapse, or that they do, or that the Qing take over
-ensure either the Timurids collapse, form the Mughals, or that Persia is released
-dismantle the Ottomans at start-date

Stuff like that I think would be very popular, and you can just turn off ironman mode if any are selected if you prefer.

 

[SAmaster]

1. Bharat/Hindustan are religion and geography based tags. So forming them should make all the cultures of the Indian subcontinent acceptable instead of just 1 group (eg eastern aryans only)

I've been thinking the Mughal Diwan government reform should be available to all Indian empires, or some variant of it. Far as I've done research (which I'll grant you is not massively in depth) I don't see why the Mughals would uniquely have the government assimilation mechanic as opposed to other Indian Empires.

I've also been thinking that it would also make sense to incorporate the cultural assimilation mechanic to China, given how they've already made three cultures have the option to sinicize their culture (tibet, manchus, vietnamese), I think the cultural assimilation mechanic would better simulate this sinicization without adding a lot of one-off decisions (which can only be taken if that culture gets the mandate of Heaven to begin with). I'm not sure how you'd balance it with current mandate of heaven mechanics, but I think the mechanic makes the most sense for China than any other nation.

On a side note, it'd be fun for there to potentially be a formable buddhist indian empire nation to be added in, alongside the current muslim and hindu ones.

 

[DeadEyeTucker]

Speaking of music, the latest Guns, Drums, and Steel was fantastic! Does each game have their own composers? Id love to see their work in the other Paradox games.


On the more estates and government reforms, any chance you'll be balancing the far less picked reforms and privileges?

 

[Runite Drill]

Speaking of music, the latest Guns, Drums, and Steel was fantastic! Does each game have their own composers? Id love to see their work in the other Paradox games.

I think Audinity have done some of the recent DLC composing work for EU4, though I'm not sure they do GDnS. Their website states that they are working on Victoria 3, so you may have your wish granted

 

[Gabarius]

*sigh*, I guess no real 1.33 hotfix is coming after all

 

[Xveers]

Please revert combat changes and stop fort spam. I want to finally update to 1.33 but I can't until these are fixed.

If you want the AIs to stop spamming forts, then take their money. I've found that doing a war or two where you force war reps and soak them for cash drastically impacts their forts (IE they WILL demolish them if their finances are running poorly).

 

[Raven100]

why dont you release a playable version of 1.33 and include all these "ai and bug fixes" that you've apparently worked on instead of adding new content thatll inevitably have tons of bugs that'll add to the already growing list..

i personally think eu4 is in quite a stable bug free crash free state in a long time. Only thing that will help is improve performance late game. So just bug fixes without new content is not something most players agree with

 

[zhangjim]

I hope to see more naval doctrine.
In addition, the shogunate system was not very successful. In reality, the shogunate is more like the Holy Roman Empire.
The great projects of Moscow are also terrible. I think Saint Basil's Cathedral is better than the Kremlin.

 

[Blizzrd33]

Sweden is not overpowered (apparently, but it is pretty strong IMO), but it well might be if it gets a mission tree update!

 

[Gabarius]

i personally think eu4 is in quite a stable bug free crash free state in a long time. Only thing that will help is improve performance late game. So just bug fixes without new content is not something most players agree with

…have you played 1.33? It’s utterly unplayable, it’s like the devs never did more than five minutes of testing before release

 

[Skyfus]

Will admit I'm a bit disappointed there are no more 1.33 patches (I think there's still some bugs left to squash), but I'm glad to see updates to Scandinavia! (Maybe some changes to russia too?)
Some suggestions:
Please consider adding a colonial subject interaction for transferring colonies, I think this is quite a frustrating situation when experienced.

And when it comes to idea groups, this is my idea to change Admin group:

My take on the administrative group:
1: +1 Possible advisor
2: −25% Core-creation cost
3: -15% state maintenance
4: -0.5 Interest per annum
5: +33% Rebel suppression effectiveness
6: +15% Reform progress growth
7: -10% Admin tech cost
Bonus : +25% Governing capacity modifier

The idea here is to shake up the admin group, narrowing the focus off of mercenaries to administration/government, while giving some QoL/nice feel-good changes(rebel suppression+reform progress). If a nerf must be done to this group, I'd suggest it be done to the CCR (25%->20%).

I also noticed while playing France that there's a distinct lack of content for the country relative to its significance, (Little/nothing for Italy, dalmatia, netherlands, rhein confederation, events for conquest of HRE, historical events in reformation era). Perhaps an event line for dismantling HRE as France and more missions for Napoleon's conquests would make the country more enticing to play. Overall France greatly lacks flavor in events (nearly all of which are just MTTH), where it is greatly surpassed by England and Castile in that regard.

This, I always feel weird about taking admin because if I'm serious about trying to blob out then I'm also trying to build professionalism for that combat edge. Merc changes really made things seem counter-intuitive.