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So what have we done lately? Well, plenty of stuff that will go into 1.14 and the next expansion. Lots of stuff we are not ready to talk about yet, but this week we'll give you information about some new systems.

The first one is the new areas system, which will be a part of the patch.

Areas are a new type of region, usually consisting of between 3-6 provinces, and with no province being in more than one area. A new areas mapmode will show you which provincs are in what areas. This will be used for various mechanics we will explain more next week.

And then we have a feature which will be part of the as of yet unnanounced expansion.. The Victory Cards system. This is a feature that is primarily designed for multiplayer games, as it is introduced to reduce hugboxes and permanent allianceblocks.

At the end of a campaign, the top countries end up with 15-20K in score, so our goal was to create a system that could provide 30-50% more score for those that are willing to go for it.

And thus, we introduce the Victory Cards.

Starting in 1450, and every 100 years after you will be able to get a Victory Card if you have at least 300 development. Of course if you don't qualify for 1 at a given date, you will get 1 as soon as you qualify for it.

A victory card grows in score value every month if you own, control & core every province in its area, and it takes 20 years to grow to its maximum, and 20 years to drop to zero from its maximum.

The area selected is slightly randomised, but average development matter & it must be adjacent or within 1 seazone of any part of your nation or its subjects. Only provinces belonging to potential or current rivals are take into consideration, and you are far more likely to get ones on nations ahead of you in score or belonging to other players.

The first card is worth 1000, second 2000, third 3000 and the final 4000 points.

Here I've loaded up a savegame from 1.13 in our office MP campaign, and in the first 2 months I've gotten 2 victory cards to basically fight my game-long-hugbox-friend France.

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- A Victory Card system for MP-only? Interesting. I don't play MP nor do i intend to. Sounds like the devs are using a board game mechanic to further promote conflict between players.

- As others have said: This has no effect on SP, only in MP. Calm down...

- I wonder what will this "Area" system provide. Especially when it comes to names around the map!
 
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Tell you guys what, starting with the next dev diary I'm going to institute a new rule that goes 'stop complaining that the week's dev diary isn't about the precise thing you wanted a dev diary about'. You're of course free to critique the actual contents of the dev diary, but the flurry of 'why isn't the dev diary about X' posts is getting very old.
It's the expectations of fans of paradox...not complains...it's a discussion forum by which we discuss with each other and other fans what would have been the better...if it's annoying to devs then i think ''dictatorship is coming instead of republican traditions within paradoxians''
 
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I haven't shrugged in apathy this hard at any prior EU4 diary. I guess it's an interesting addition for MP games, but I can't think of anyone I've played with in MP that cares about score outside of novelty.

The area system has potential, though, so I'm hoping to hear it's used for systems with actual gameplay impact in the coming weeks.
 
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Multiplayer-only or as an option it may make sense. Maybe some guys want to play 'who gets more score' game. Doesn't make much sense in single player, as some people, me among them, mostly play to try out a new nation/try to get an achievement.
 
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think this feature is a great idea. I really love the mentality that the EU4 team has of "this thing isn't important to players, but rather than cut it, let's make it more important and fun". I think this feature has great potential to make MP much more competitive. I look forward to all the future dev diaries, keep up the great work!
 
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Does anyone who plays multiplayer actually base their decisions on what gets the most score? If you played that way, it seems like you'd just be making otherwise foolish decisions to game the bizarre formulas. Need more diplomatic score? Hire a bunch of admirals you don't need, you get points for every pip! Or give a worthless province to your equally-sized ally, you get a full point for "strong ally" if they're bigger than you, and nothing otherwise! Got a little war exhaustion that doesn't materially impact your country? Better throw diplo mana at it anyway, you're losing .2 military points for each war exhaustion!

You also need to be careful about not conquering your rivals too much - you get a huge score boost from having a full suite of rivals, and even more if they're just a little stronger than you. But if you expand too much and reach the point where you lack potential rivals, you're missing out on huge amounts of potential points.
 
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Despite the hate, this feature sounds awesome. It doesn't affect anything that isn't a player, probably took 0.005% of the time away from this patch even though people are complaining like they've just lost a raid tier in World of Warcraft, and adds some serious flavor to multiplayer games that I felt was needed.

Keep up the great work Wiz, you guys really don't get the recognition that you deserve, and you certainly don't deserve all this hate.
 
I have to admit, it is somewhat impressive how Paradox manages to avoid fan demands sometimes. They've had calls to fix Buddhism, espionage, naval mechanics, peacetime gameplay, multidirectional trade, blob stability, etc., and we get a Dev Diary on... the score.

Buddhism seems pretty fixed to me in 1.13. Even if there's still a few kinks you can't say that they've ignored the issue.
 
Does anyone who plays multiplayer actually base their decisions on what gets the most score? If you played that way, it seems like you'd just be making otherwise foolish decisions to game the bizarre formulas. Need more diplomatic score? Hire a bunch of admirals you don't need, you get points for every pip! Or give a worthless province to your equally-sized ally, you get a full point for "strong ally" if they're bigger than you, and nothing otherwise! Got a little war exhaustion that doesn't materially impact your country? Better throw diplo mana at it anyway, you're losing .2 military points for each war exhaustion!

You also need to be careful about not conquering your rivals too much - you get a huge score boost from having a full suite of rivals, and even more if they're just a little stronger than you. But if you expand too much and reach the point where you lack potential rivals, you're missing out on huge amounts of potential points.
Unlike gaming those mechanics for the equally pointless goal of WC?
 
This victory cards thing sounds kind of bad...

If you want to add victory conditions for multiplayer, why not add conditions like in HoI3? Where you can choose certain locations you have to control or something like that, of course it would be diferent from HoI3, but stuff like:

- Having 5 colonial nations of at least 10 provinces each
- Controlling cities X, Y, Z (big cities, like London/Paris/Constantinople/etc)
- Have at least X income from trade
- etc

Of course you would select multiple of those, up to a certain amount of 'victory points' (so for example some easier objectives would give less victory points)...

Anyway, that would imho make multiplayer A LOT more competitive, as these objectives could stay hidden, so you could be forced to go to war with your long time allies because they want the same stuff that you want... (or they might even want part of your country).
 
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Score has been in game since release. And yes it is the number in the top right.

...thats the joke. Score means nothing.

Last time I checked that score thing it seemed to be heavily focused on tech which made no sense to me since tech is based on monarch points, and monarch points I based on luck of the ruler.
 
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I do hope these "areas" are put to good use and not just frittered away on MP only score aspects. I mean I like gloating about my score as much as the next guy in MP, but in no way is it really a measure of the nation.
 
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Well, I don't play multiplayer so I don't really have any thoughts on Victory cards. What I really want to see done in EU4 is Espionage fixed and expanded.
 
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The Area System could be a solution to the unrealistic eventualities that happen when a geographically based country is conquered or otherwise broken. For example, if Scotland conquers England and England has a province in Ireland, it still continues to be called England. It is my hope that PDS is looking into this matter by introducing this system.
 
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