“This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror”

Welcome to the 7th development diary for Europa Universalis IV,
where we talk about the dominant power by the end of the Europa Universalis time frame, the country formerly known as England.
England can be considered both as one of the easier nations to play, but also one of the more challenging nations. That´s a paradox, you say?
Well, it all depends on what you wish to accomplish and what kind of empire you want to create

The unique possibilities of England
What truly makes England unique to play is that the country has natural borders protecting it and that you can strengthen those borders dramatically with rather cheap investments. You can decide to let England get involved in the continent, from a safe position, or choose to isolate England and go overseas. The country also sits on a bloody nice position to control the trade from the Baltic and from North America. So the options are huge for you to take England in plenty of directions when creating your empire.

England’s Dynamic Historical Events
England is has one of the richest and best known histories. That may sound lovely for you guys, but it also means that we have had to work hard when it comes to decisions about historical events to include in Europa Universalis IV. The important countries in EU4 have a lot of events going on, so some of those major historical events have been turned into the starting points of large event chains that we call Dynamic Historical Events.

War of the Roses is an excellent example of Dynamic Historical Events. If England in the 15th century has a ruler without an heir, that means that there is a likelihood of a large event chain beginning. The player has to select who to back for the throne, York or Lancaster. This decision will throw the country into turmoil with various parts declaring for either the red or white rose, and you have to make sure to eliminate the very strong, rather resilient pretenders. What makes this interesting is that this event chain is not an event series that is guaranteed to come every time you play as England. It only occurs if all the necessary underlying factors are fulfilled. When it happens, you won't have planned for it to arrive on schedule, like many people did when they played Europa Universalis II, the last game in the series with a serious focus on historical events. We hope that this variation will gives you rather unique experiences when you play major powers.

The English Civil War will be another major event series that might encounter when you play as England, but we will not spoil it for you here yet.
England also has many smaller DHE, like The War of Captain Jenkin's Ear: if they are rivals with Spain, after 1700, then you can get a casus belli on Spain. Or an event like The Muscovy Trade Company, where if you discover the sea route to Archangelsk, and its owned by the Muscovites, then there is a likelihood of this historical event happening.

England’s Missions & Decisions
We have kept the historical missions that existed in Europa Universalis III and we are expanding them for Europa Universalis IV, so you'll still see missions to conquer Scotland and colonize North America. When it comes to decisions, England still manually have to rely on the Wooden Wall, and make Calais into a Staple Port.

England’s National Ideas
The traditions that England starts with is a small boost in naval morale and a 5% boost to their trading efficiency.
The trading efficiency boost is due to the fact that the economy of England to fund their participation in the Hundred Years War was their taxation of the very profitable wool trade.

The 7 National Ideas for England are:

2. Royal Navy : 25% higher naval force limit, and +10% more combat power for big ships.
3. Eltham Ordinance : +15% higher tax.
4. Secretaries of State : +1 diplomat
5. Navigation Acts : +10% trade income, and +10% more combat power for light ships.
6. Bill of Rights : -1 revolt risk.
7. Reform of Commission Buying : +10% discipline
8. Sick and Hurt Board : -50% Naval Attrition.

Reward: English Ambition
When England has gotten all seven of their National Ideas, they get the bonus of 'English Ambitions' which gives them a +100% on their embargo efficiency.

Here's a screenshot where I've cheated to show a little bit of the idea progress..



Welcome back next week, where we'll talk in detail about the enhancements we've done to the religious aspect of the game!

 

[Talq]

So why would my English empire have all those naval bonuses when Infact this england won the 100 years war and england is now a land-based continental superpower?

1444 game start. England are 10 (really 5) years away from losing the 100 years war, and the preconditions for that happening are already in place (particularly Henry VI as monarch, domestic nobility that are no longer interested in the war, and Burgundy reconciled with France). Even if England manages to recover from that start, are they really going to ignore the riches that Spain and Portugal are earning from the new world and the cape trade route for the whole game (adding that if even one of the the PUs Spain was involved in goes through, they then become one of England's great rivals)?

It also ignores inertia. One of the reasons for England's ultimate loss was a domestic compromise that revenue/expenditure of king's kingdom in France be separate, meaning that the war needed to be paid for out of the revenues of the French territories (which was unworkable, especially as they started losing territory) so and finance the English gave was intermittent and inadequate. England's nobility & merchant class (the people closest to the king, and providing the troops and cash) are still on an island.

To be blunt, England the continental (and continent focussed) superpower is in the same boat as 'england losing all its coastline' (hint: look at an atlas on that one), a very, very long way from a typical England. So people are basicly arguing that any unique mindset needs to be ignored on the basis that things have a 5% chance (or less) of being very different. In fact, its not worth caring about.

 

[Revshawn]

To those that whine about England being OP, remember how Johan started this Developer Diary:

“This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror”

The intent is for England to be overpowered until you get to shore. We're talking about a nation which, at it's zenith, owned an Empire that surrounded the globe. They are a natural fortress with a powerful navy and that is to be represented in history. To not do so would be a disservice to Paradox and to their gamers.

 

[Talq]

Ok I stand corrected, indeed it's a weird design decision, it would make more sense in my opinion if the national ideas were an idea group themselves like Plutocracy or Diplomacy.

Except the number of NI groups you have is also gated by tech. (and the number of NI's is gated by monarch points but thats by the by). The national NIs will give some bonuses that can be in diverse areas without having to give people 4-5 idea groups early in the game.

There are also balancing issues. How do you balance all the national idea groups (even the 'generic minor' idea group) against the basic 16? (with great difficulty)

 

[unmerged(63836)]

Not really, but that's kind the thing I support. It seems ridiculous for the player to take a country in a completely different direction than the one it is headed towards.

Sure, but it's 350 years we are talking about. In Victoria2 you can end up communist, fascist, democratic, etc. after 100 years of gameplay. You are not limited by historical script. Mechanics ensure that player can't do ridiculous, unrealistic things.

Sure, you can argue that if you did that, your country would collapse. But rather than such a complex feature, they went with a more simplistic way; you can't really steer your country in an unnatural direction, idea-wise. I am certainly you can still make bad decisions.

Hence disappointment. Especially since paradox proved to be able to make great gaming experience without scripted historicity (CK2), and complex mechanics simulating changing society (Victoria 2).

And, well as far as I understand, you can for example take Religion, Espionage, Offensive, Defensive, Diplomatic, Economic, Aristocracy, Quality groups as England, and concentrate solely on finishing of 100YW. Even though player ignores naval dominance (why bother if Britain and French coast are controled), exploration, colonisation, and focuses solely on land army - he still gets these naval NIs. Even long after British Isles are peripheral province of Franco-English empire dominating in Western Europe...

 

[Chamboozer]

The intent is for England to be overpowered until you get to shore. We're talking about a nation which, at it's zenith, owned an Empire that surrounded the globe. They are a natural fortress with a powerful navy and that is to be represented in history. To not do so would be a disservice to Paradox and to their gamers.

I don't think anyone wants to see England fail to live up to its historical power. But I personally have a problem with the stereotype of "England and her Powerful Navy" being anachronistically projected backwards to the 15th Century.

 

[Dafool]

And, well as far as I understand, you can for example take Religion, Espionage, Offensive, Defensive, Diplomatic, Economic, Aristocracy, Quality groups as England, and concentrate solely on finishing of 100YW. Even though player ignores naval dominance (why bother if Britain and French coast are controled), exploration, colonisation, and focuses solely on land army - he still gets these naval NIs. Even long after British Isles are peripheral province of Franco-English empire dominating in Western Europe...

Here's where I see a big problem though. You're pretending like getting a bonus is actually a negative. Getting the "Royal Navy" bonus is not going to hurt you. You're not losing anything. Sure maybe it's not all that useful, but it's the same kind of arbitrary bonus that that many aspects of the game provide without your consent. By the logic you're using here, one should be offended because your ruler has a high diplomatic skill when you really imagine him to be a little bit on the asocial side. Just like you, I wish EU4 would be capable of reading my imagination and transforming the world to match any possible alternate reality, but sadly we live in actual reality, where such a thing is simply not feasible.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

Here's where I see a big problem though. You're pretending like getting a bonus is actually a negative. Getting the "Royal Navy" bonus is not going to hurt you. You're not losing anything. Sure maybe it's not all that useful, but it's the same kind of arbitrary bonus that that many aspects of the game provide without your consent. By the logic you're using here, one should be offended because your ruler has a high diplomatic skill when you really imagine him to be a little bit on the asocial side. Just like you, I wish EU4 would be capable of reading my imagination and transforming the world to match any possible alternate reality, but sadly we live in actual reality, where such a thing is simply not feasible.

It has nothing to do with reading imagination. Game should read player's actions, not making them up for him in nonsensical way because of inflexible script. You're trying to make false impression that this new system is pinnacle of design achievement, and changing it even in slightest would be impossible. If you introduce triggers, game would 'read' players action and give such NI only if triggers are met. You are a modder - clearly you know what I mean, and you're just fooling around.

Yes, I know that bonus would not 'hurt' the player, though we don't know how decisive these bonuses would be. It destroys immersion though when you get such context insensitive, scripted NI when it makes no sense. So why introduce such inflexible, simplistic system into the game?

I would not mind basic idea of country specific NIs (much) - if they would require some triggers, not being received automatically.

 

[Chamboozer]

Here's where I see a big problem though. You're pretending like getting a bonus is actually a negative. Getting the "Royal Navy" bonus is not going to hurt you.

Well, he is actually talking about opportunity cost. By getting one bonus we're forfeiting another which, when done without giving the player any choice, can be percieved as a bad thing.

 

[Dafool]

It has nothing to do with reading imagination. Game should read player's actions, not making them up for him in nonsensical way because of inflexible script.

Actions are hard to read as well. If you've not engaged in any hardcore modding, then you might not appreciate the difficulty in trying to make things super-dynamic.

If for example, England took a province not on the British Isles, how should the game respond? That depends on where it is. Is it in North Africa and should we punish England for expanding into a nonsensical area? Is it in North America and should we reward them for colonizing? Is it in South America and should we punish them for colonizing the wrong area? Is it in France and should we reward them for fighting a historical opponent? Is it in central Scandinavia and should we punish them for expanding into an area they can't defend?

It's very hard to make a system that understands exactly what's going on. I'm not saying there's no reason to build on what we do have, but asking for a dynamic world that builds and evolves in a completely logical way is just not going to happen. MMtG tried to do this and not only received a lot of criticism, but also suffered from severe feature bloat. It's simply not feasible to have a purely dynamic world. There has to be some basic determinism to build upon.

You're trying to make false impression that this new system is pinnacle of design achievement, and changing it even in slightest would be impossible. If you introduce triggers, game would 'read' players action and give such NI only if triggers are met. You are a modder - clearly you know what I mean, and you're just fooling around.

I did not say that nor did I imply it. What I did say is that it's a lot easier to give England access to a naval bonus they may or may not need instead of trying to calculate their "navalness" and "coastalness" and "ship-buildingsness" and "future-navalness" and "future-coastalness" and so on. Could there be some improvements to how things could be done? Certainly, but we shouldn't assume the developers are just too lazy to invent this super dynamic AI. It may be an overused acronym, but KISS can be quite useful as a modder and I'm absolutely sure it's the same when actually building the game too.

Yes, I know that bonus would not 'hurt' the player, though we don't know how decisive these bonuses would be. It destroys immersion though when you get such context insensitive, scripted NI when it makes no sense. So why introduce such inflexible, simplistic system into the game?

They're probably like any other idea. A bonus. Probably a useful but not overly decisive bonus. The actual direction of the nation is still in your hands. You simply get some historical bonuses as the game moves along. It's certainly not like they simplified anything. They just added a new type of free NI with some historical flavor. As for "context" and "flexibility", see what I wrote above.

I would not mind basic idea of country specific NIs (much) - if they would require some triggers, not being received automatically.

Well, they're already tied to the development of your nation. It's not as if England from day one is the naval power of the world because of these ideas. They have to research the idea lines and unlock those slots. Which gives them a bit more naval potential in the long run. I would probably support them being selectable out of order, but you must also understand this actually makes it much harder to make a context for them, since "Prussian Discipline" doesn't make much sense in 1500 and "Portuguese Navigation" doesn't really fit in the 18th century.

Well, he is actually talking about opportunity cost. By getting one bonus we're forfeiting another which, when done without giving
the player any choice, can be percieved as a bad thing.

A more valid observation, but that assumes that every other nation will have a better option. I highly doubt that these ideas are going to be so unbalanced that some nations have nothing but purely useful ideas while others have completely useless ideas. England's NI's are fairly well rounded and I'm guessing we can expect roughly the same from other nations overall. Remember too that what looks like a lost opportunity in one scenario is gold in another, so opportunity cost is very subjective, and in this case is mainly a loss when you veer off the beaten path, which is something we shouldn't deny the player or AI, but we shouldn't encourage it either.

 

[Chamboozer]

I suppose we should go through this step by step. First, do you agree that no single country should be guaranteed by the game to have a powerful navy?

 

[Dafool]

I suppose we should go through this step by step. First, do you agree that no single country should be guaranteed by the game to have a powerful navy?

I guess that requires clarification. What is a "powerful" navy? What does "guarantee" mean?

 

[Chamboozer]

I'll phrase it a different way; should England have the capability to build a navy that is superior to the navies of other great powers, either in quality or quantity, regardless of how England actually develops during the timeframe? (I'm not saying this is what the EUIV system does, just trying to understand your views on determinism)

 

[Dafool]

I'll phrase it a different way; should England have the capability to build a navy that is superior to the navies of other great powers, either in quality or quantity, regardless of how England actually develops during the timeframe? (I'm not saying this is what the EUIV system does, just trying to understand your views on determinism)

Before I discuss it, I want to simply the question a bit: Should a nation get a bonus that doesn't actually reflect its position in the game? Is that a reasonable way to phrase it?

 

[Chamboozer]

I'm looking at it from more of a historical perspective, to simplify it even more it would be: Was England destined to become a develop a powerful navy, regardless of the domestic and foreign policy decisions made by its people?

Or was England's development of a strong navy a reaction to the political situation around it, e.g. a hostile Catholic Spain?

 

[Norpheus]

Ok I stand corrected, indeed it's a weird design decision, it would make more sense in my opinion if the national ideas were an idea group themselves like Plutocracy or Diplomacy.

Yupp, it really would.

Theres no escape from the net difference between unique NI's now, since every nation with a certainty will get its own unique ones sooner or later - so they will always be accounted for. "Remember if you fight Russia their NIs will give their armies x bonux that and y bonus that, so you better make up for it with bla bla" or "if you are to compete with england in that trade area, their unique NI give this and this so take that for account".

My point being, this will be a very streamlined system, for the good or the bad. I like flavour and prejudices in my nations though.

 

[Dafool]

I'm looking at it from more of a historical perspective, to simplify it even more it would be: Was England destined to become a develop a powerful navy, regardless of the domestic and foreign policy decisions made by its people?

Or was England's development of a strong navy a reaction to the political situation around it, e.g. a hostile Catholic Spain?

The problem with using specific examples in place of looking at a broader concept is that certain contexts are... contextual, while others are not. Geography doesn't change. England will always start out as an island nation. Politics and culture do change. Sweden might get stuck in that union for an indefinite amount of time.

So, what I'm getting at is that having a broader question to use as basis of understanding is probably more useful than trying to take a specific example and use it as the benchmark for all other examples regardless of how similar or different they are. So is "Should a nation get a bonus that doesn't actually reflect its position in the game?" an acceptable construct to work within, or would you prefer to phrase it differently?

 

[Chamboozer]

So is "Should a nation get a bonus that doesn't actually reflect its position in the game?" an acceptable construct to work within, or would you prefer to phrase it differently?

It sort of takes it in a direction I wasn't going to go in, as it's basically impossible for Paradox to model what 'accurately reflect is position' is supposed to mean (e.g. is it accurate for England to have high forcelimits in 1444? Since forcelimits don't exist in real life, the question can't be answered).

Rather, I was going to question the logic of modeling such an important historical development as England's rise to power through an unchangeable National Idea. I think even deterministic people can agree that any country's ability to maintain a powerful fleet was not a result of the properties of geography itself, but rather was the result of the advantages given to a country based on that geography. For example, one could say "England had a strong navy because it was an island country", and while that is a true statement, it wasn't the island itself that led to a strong navy, but rather the conditions that come with living on an island. For instance, a large fishing industry which gave England a pool of skilled seamen to recruit from. This is something that applies equally to many other countries, such as Portugal, the Netherlands, and Aquitaine.

I use that last example to show that it's not always a country that has the capacity to build a strong navy, but that it can also be a region of a country - something that NI bonuses will entirely miss. England gets a NI to (presumably) represent how it historically was able to harness the advantages of its society and geography to make a stronger navy than the other European countries. Other countries historically had some of those same advantages, but by limiting the factors that determine our naval strength to mere tradition, advisors, technology, and NIs, Paradox is simplifying the elements that went into making historical navies powerful. Worse than that, all of the things that affect our navy appear to be country-wide bonuses that don't take into account the areas we rule. And I thought players were begging for more ways to interact with their provinces?

A great way to add more variety to the system would be to give each coastal province a "Seamen" value which is quadrupled in provinces producing fish, doubled for naval supplies. England, with her long coasts, will be naturally endowed with a large supply of seamen, thus satisfying the determinists. Running out of seamen wouldn't mean you couldn't build ships, but that your ships would have lower morale. People recruited from the inland regions of your country have probably never even seen the sea before - this was a huge problem for France during the Napoleonic Wars. But at least now the system is flexible - If England loses too many battles, her supply of naval manpower could run out, unlike the EUIV system where it simply costs money and is tied to your land manpowerconfused.

It would also be good to tie it to trade, so countries which establish large trading networks will be able to field vast fleets and have large reserves of naval manpower, maybe this bonus could be a National Naval Manpower Modifier of +X% based on how wide-ranging your merchant connections are. The point is, Paradox seems to be making the system very linear. If you want to improve your navy, go to the naval national idea group, or hire an advisor. This makes bonuses given to any single nation unfair because it's that much harder to overcome. Any change, such as the ones listed above, would make the system more gradient such that every country in the game could have navies of varying quality. Want a better navy? Take over provinces that produce fish to get manpower, or increase the size of your trading network. These are things you could potentially do faster than England, whereas we can assume that most countries will stay on par with each other in terms of the amount of NIs they have at any given time.

Ultimately what I want to see is naval strength tied to some value that is independent of the overall country, be it either provinces or trade. As it is, your naval strength is determined almost entirely by your number of coastal provinces (forcelimits), and your naval idea group (everything else). And that's just profoundly disappointing. Once naval strength is more flexible, I'll be willing to accept giving some countries small bonuses from unique National Ideas.

 

[Dafool]

Rather, I was going to question the logic of modeling such an important historical development as England's rise to power through an unchangeable National Idea.

I think this is where your argument really starts, so that's where I'll start.

For me, I like to think of the new NI's as being similar to sliders, religion, missions, CB's, decisions, and other such forms of soft determinism (I like to call it nudging). These nudges act like reminders. They tell us what we should probably be doing and usually provide us with a small incentive to follow through, yet they rarely punish us if we take the road less traveled. I do agree however that these should be changeable if we really want to move in a different direction. I like sliders in EU3 for this reason. It makes everyone a little unique. At the same time, we get some control over them so that in the long run we can move off the beaten path. I'm not all that thrilled with Idea Groups being permanent. I feel like that was bad design because these are our tools for molding the nation. I do however see the progression through NI's being a necessary step because some bonuses might simply be too strong and too unique to give from the start. So in all, I would say your complaints about things being somewhat predetermined before they actually develop in the game could easily be turned against EU3 as well, where NI's were preset for the AI and sliders were predetermined at the start. These types of things are necessary in order to make nations feel different and special and also so their gameplay functioned properly. EU4's NI's seem to follow in this legacy, albeit in a somewhat less controllable fashion. How this plays out will be something we'll only know once we get our hands on the game.

 

[Chamboozer]

While I do dislike the determinism of forcing countries to embrace their unique NIs, it's not a huge issue for me since my #1 desire for EUIV is to see the map actually make sense 30 years into the game. It only becomes an issue for me when it creates imbalances. EUIII was, of course, vastly worse at this than I expect EUIV to be. I certainly don't hold it up as any sort of golden standard. The navy was one of the less well-developed systems of EUIII, but at least there you had options on how to improve it. The options were limited, but they existed. In EUIII, you could choose between naval ideas 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, whereas in EUIV you can choose naval idea 1 and have to progress along a straight path to 5. My problem with this is that England gets what is essentially a free naval idea. Since the main thing controlling the strength of your navy is national idea, it essentially means that if you have naval ideas through 2, England can have naval ideas through 2+1. Or, since their opportunity cost is less, they can afford to take ideas other than naval while you're stuck trying to catch up with them to overcome their free idea.

I hope that adequately explains why this worries me.

 

[Dafool]

While I do dislike the determinism of forcing countries to embrace their unique NIs, it's not a huge issue for me since my #1 desire for EUIV is to see the map actually make sense 30 years into the game. It only becomes an issue for me when it creates imbalances. EUIII was, of course, vastly worse at this than I expect EUIV to be. I certainly don't hold it up as any sort of golden standard. The navy was one of the less well-developed systems of EUIII, but at least there you had options on how to improve it. The options were limited, but they existed. In EUIII, you could choose between naval ideas 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, whereas in EUIV you can choose naval idea 1 and have to progress along a straight path to 5. My problem with this is that England gets what is essentially a free naval idea. Since the main thing controlling the strength of your navy is national idea, it essentially means that if you have naval ideas through 2, England can have naval ideas through 2+1. Or, since their opportunity cost is less, they can afford to take ideas other than naval while you're stuck trying to catch up with them to overcome their free idea.

I hope that adequately explains why this worries me.

I agree somewhat that it's no fun trying to play catch up, especially if your rival has a noticeable bonus. However, you should remember that NI's are unlocked by investing in Idea Groups, so in reality it's a 3+1 game for both sides. England almost certainly isn't all naval ideas, so it might turn out that England invests 1 in Naval, 1 in Economic, and 1 in Administrative and gets Royal Navy as their bonus. You might choose to invest 1 in Expansion and 2 in Naval and then you get a Quality bonus. Ultimately you're no better off than England on the seas at that point. At the same time, you've got your own bonuses that may or may not help you to beat them in other ways. Nobody comes out ahead, but everyone is a little different. I think it adds a charming mix of flavor and strategy into how you play the game.