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EU4 - Development Diary - 28th January 2016

Hello everyone, today we’ll start talking about 1.16 and what it will contain. The development team is busy working on 1.15.1 at the same time, which we hope is out ASAP.

One of the fun part of working on the Europa Universalis series over the last decade has been the constant evolvement of the map. Today we’re proud to announce some of the map changes for 1.16, with a quick look of Europe.

Ireland in Crusader Kings II is known as tutorial island, as an entire game in itself. In EU so far, ireland have not been properly represented, and more been shown as poor as it became after a long time of english rule. Now Ireland is richer in 1444, and not just a quick conquest for England within 5 years. Ireland also have 9 provinces, where it had five before, and several new interesting nations to play.


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We’ve also tweaked the map to better borders and provinces in Hungary, and I hope you’ll enjoy this setup.
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We also made a complete overhaul of how cultures work to remove the ties to language, and tie them more together to similar cultures, to create more historically plausible countries and relations.

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Now, for some community fun, try to find as many changes on the map compared to 1.15 in this screenshot and list below!

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Next week I’m back talking about a new concept that is getting in the game for 1.15, which can be seen in the topbar on these screenshoys.
 
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I wish Novgorod could get some quality-based military NIs buff, so that in MP players could choose between quantity-loaded Muscovy and quality-related Novgorod.

Did Novgorod perform well during EU timeframe to justify the buff? Nope. As for MP... pfff on that, spare us (SP gamers) that argument, it has as much value as the one above (bolded for your convenience).
 
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Any chance to see a 5 province Moldavia/Wallachia?
Ireland has around 100.000 square km same as Moldavia/Wallachia and it has now 9 provinces and the other 2 remain at 3 provinces..... same old missrepresentation
Hopeing that maybe in EU V ther will be a proper representation of all european provinces on a scale, something like 20.000 square km = 1 province.
Nice adition the carpathian grup tho.
This! We need Bukovina and and some province north to the Bender. Of what I know a region with Bender was historically Ottoman from late XV/early XVI centrury(not sure which one, I don't know much about Romanian history).
I like it from a gameplay perspective, and do think a distinctive regional culture there is indeed justified, but personally I think it could be renamed to something better the Ryazanian.
Maybe Smolenskian? Smolensk was a major city back then, a lot of wars fought between Russia and Lithuania/PLC were over Smolensk.
 
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I did quick run and culture converted provinces to see what charts shows. If there is no development tweaking Hungarian will be 37.9 Transylvanian 16.5 and Slovakian 25.1 Croatian 20.5 so there is no need to worry for culture removal due to non accepted culture.
Well regardless it sits safer as the same culture group.
 
All the good work that has gone into into this patch has been spoiled for me by the cultural change made to Wales lumping it in with England. There have been previous requests on these forums not to do this and I'm sad to see they were ignored/missed.

Paradox has done a great job increasing the accuracy of the game in so many areas I find it perverse that the brythonic peoples cultural distinctiveness has been deleted from existence while other cultures are being more accurately represented. There are ways you could keep Welsh Cornish and Breton separate while making them compliant within England/France without lumping them in the wrong culture group. I know you've claimed culture is no longer tied to language but this is a ridiculous change that goes in the opposite direction to many of your other changes. Even for French/English playing players I think these changes have made the game less interesting and certainly less accurate.

Proposed changes:

Add Brythonic culture group

Welsh
Breton
Cornish

Change name of British group to Anglo Saxon... the English didn't start calling themselves British through most of EUIV's time frame. It also satisfies lowland Scots and Americans (United Statesians) more than British does.

You could also make the British Empire accepting of Welsh/Cornish and France accepting of Breton to create/retain "more historically plausible countries" or add some other modifier if you feel it's needed.
 
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Yay for new Hungary and good riddence to that silly Magyar culture group (though I would've preferred a Polish-Hungarian Slovak or Croatian-Hungarian-Slovak culture union) this is great news not to mention the map changes. Great going, Paradox! Love it.
 
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After years of pleading... The Lithuanian border gore is getting fixed! + I am ecstatic about the Slovakian culture and therefore the new tag. The area REALLY needed some tag in there.

Unexpected, but also VERY welcome are the map changes around Russia and Hungary, Eastern Europe is my favourite playground. I am super hyped for this patch and curious about the new mechanic... Could it have something to do with army? Population perhaps?

The only thing I would still love to see is overhaul of Culture Acceptance. Nevertheless...
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Re: Ryazanian. This basically a culture that more or less coincides with people that speak southern Russian dialects.
Just as in other parts of the world the biggest (according to geography) dialect has given name to the entire culture. It's also the dialect that most ended up with in the conquered lands to the south and east which makes it more relevant than Smolenskian dialect in this era.
 
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Re: Ryazanian. This basically a culture that more or less coincides with people that speak southern Russian dialects.
Just as in other parts of the world the biggest (according to geography) dialect has given name to the entire culture.
From historical standpoint russian culture is very monolithic, so this is somewhat strange. But if you feel that splitting it for gameplay purposes is warranted maybe simply go with East ruthenian/West Ruthenian ? For MOS and NOV it's not entirely strange to have identities form around them, if say neither one conquered the other, but ruthenian region to the best of my knowledge had no such inclinations.
 
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I don't care much about historicity but hey, how do I convert whole world to Russian culture in 1.16? Should I be considering converting to Ruthenian because it basically translates as "Russian"? Or ByeloRussian because it has word "Russian" in it (unlike Muscovite)? At least make Russian culture appear(and auto convert that Ryazanian etc. nonsense into Russian) when Russia is formed.
Force-converting Stockholm to Russian culture was my favourite part of the game, Johan, Wiz, pls fix.

From a role-playing perspective, yes, and one more time yes. I like Russian much better than Muscowite. Keep Novgorodian, add what have you instead of Ryazan', but let the main Russian culture be just that - Russian.
 
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Re: Ryazanian. This basically a culture that more or less coincides with people that speak southern Russian dialects.
Just as in other parts of the world the biggest (according to geography) dialect has given name to the entire culture. It's also the dialect that most ended up with in the conquered lands to the south and east which makes it more relevant than Smolenskian dialect in this era.

Southern Russian dialects refer to the regions found south of Rostov-na-Donu (in today's Russia). Southern Rus refers to today's Ukraine. Ryazan' in southern Rus? Even during Rus time, the word 'eastern' would have been better (North-East Russia).
 
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From a role-playing perspective, yes, and one more time yes. I like Russian much better than Muscowite. Keep Novgorodian, add what have you instead of Ryazan', but let the main Russian culture be just that - Russian.
Problem with that - it means that Muscovite(also a phyllosilicate mineral of aluminium and potassium) is more Russian than Novgorodian (Clearly based on Novgorodian dialect which has been preserved on birch bark writings from 1125-1400) or Ryazanian (A stage in the British Lower Cretaceous (~140 million years ago). It is roughly of Berriasian age and contains the uppermost Purbeck Beds. Clearly this is an ancient people.)

P.S. Research stolen from this post.
 
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I just kinda noticed something, all the screenshots are of dates in 1444, but Greenland is visible on the map.
Was this always the case? I feel like this is new, does Norway-Denmark have a starting colony there?
 
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The only thing I would still love to see is overhaul of Culture Acceptance...

To devs: culture acceptance is key here. You break Russian culture in three to prevent situations where TO rules over entire Russia and has no problems since Russian becomes easily accepted in any realm due to its size... you should have considered fixing the mechanic itself, which clearly fails to accurately represent culture acceptance.
 
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Did Novgorod perform well during EU timeframe to justify the buff? Nope. As for MP... pfff on that, spare us (SP gamers) that argument, it has as much value as the one above (bolded for your convenience).

It's quite possible to add quality-based NIs to Novgorod somewhere in the middle. Fr example +5% discipline and +10% Land Morale will make it an extremely fun nation to play.
 
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Re: Ryazanian. This basically a culture that more or less coincides with people that speak southern Russian dialects.
Just as in other parts of the world the biggest (according to geography) dialect has given name to the entire culture. It's also the dialect that most ended up with in the conquered lands to the south and east which makes it more relevant than Smolenskian dialect in this era.
- hm... so when it comes to russian culture you play linguistic card even thou previously you claimed that culture != language... i see...:rolleyes:

From a role-playing perspective, yes, and one more time yes. I like Russian much better than Muscowite. Keep Novgorodian, add what have you instead of Ryazan', but let the main Russian culture be just that - Russian.
- they could go with american culture approach i.e. make russian culture automatically appear after creation of Russia.
 
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It's quite possible to add quality-based NIs to Novgorod somewhere in the middle. Fr example +5% discipline and +10% Land Morale will make it an extremely fun nation to play.

One NI would be a better sell :) An even better argument would be to mention Nevsky and try to update Novgorod traditions.

The problem with Novgorod is not a mid-game anyway. When it conquers Muscowy it's an easy road ahead. Thus, adding mid-game NIs wouldn't be of much benefit. When I play it, it's surviving Moscow's onslaught that is the challenge (and, at times, fun killer). Later on, you could always concentrate more on military ideas and neglect some other group (like Religious, since City of Churches).
 
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As a hungarian i can say that what you did is a huge improvement. But to nitpick a bit: it seems that the provinces got hungarian names except for Spis which should be Szepes and Turda which should be Torda.
 
Holy shit wait, am I seeing right? Are the province borders in Finland finally cleaned up and good looking? Wow I thought I would never live to see the day.

Edit: What I'm talking about
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