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EU4 Development Diary - 4th February 2016

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. We are now working fully towards 1.16 and our next big expansion. While I’ve always been the lead designer for EU4, I’m now the project lead for this expansion, as Wiz has moved to another project.

One of the biggest changes in concept is the introduction of sailors. Sailors represent the trained seamen of a nation. Sailors differ from manpower both in what they are used for, and in how you get them. Only coastal provinces provide sailors, and the amount of sailors depend on total development in that province. Sailors are required when constructing new ships, and when ships are “repaired”. Of course not all ships require the same amount of sailors, with heavy ships needing the most and transports the least.

Docks and Drydocks now provide 50% and 100% more sailors from their provinces instead of increasing forcelimits, while Shipyards and Grand Shipyards have been redesigned to increase naval forcelimits & decrease shipbuilding times in those provinces.

Natural Harbours and Coastal Trade Centers increase the amount of sailors you get from a province, while Merchant marine now gives +50% Sailors & Press Gangs now give +20% Sailor Recovery. Some nations also have ideas giving them more Sailors from their provinces with Netherlands and Norway having the biggest boosts at +25%. There are also policies, parliament issues & norse gods boosting your sailor pool as well.

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If you have the expansion, you also gain sailors from occupying another nation’s coastal provinces, even if your maximum possible pool is not increased.

One of the most feared things in europe in this time-period was the arrival of slave raiders from the north african coast. Countless villages were razed and millions of europeans were sold in slavery in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli & Istanbul until the European nations were finally able to stop it at the middle of the 19th century by simply conquering the North African coast.

Now Barbary Nations lose their 10% cheaper ship tradition, and they gained the ability to raid for slaves. Raiding for Slaves is now something fleets can do at sea, where they gain money and sailors from coastal provinces that are not their allies or subjects. To raid a coastal province, you need be able to blockade it with that fleet, and you can only raid a province once every ten years. The efficiency of raiding is reduced by fleets on pirate hunting patrol. Raiding of course hurts your relation with the owner of provinces you raid.

The reason for why you get sailors from raids, is that plenty of them historically ended up chained to an oar at a galley.

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Next week, we’ll take a deep look at how we have redesigned the espionage system.
 
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So it really is a naval expansion? Awesome!

Please do away with the treating fleets like they were armies that go on water entierly. Have ships work fully with such commands as explore, patroll, hunt for pirates raid and so on. Use the sea areas and sea regions instead of the individual sea provinces.
 
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I like it. It’s going to make navies less of a fire-and-forget missile.
 
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Holy shit, custom horde raiding and razing Europe is the first thing I'll play in 1.16.
 
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I hope there will be range limits on slave raiding, Moroccans raiding Ireland and England is not historical.
 
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FIX THE MP!! pls
MP? You mean multiplayer or monarch points?
If the former, then I have to say that multiplayer works much better than it used to, before they introduced restart at going back to menu(no matter how annoying this is, and I hope they'll eventually find a way to fix it). No need to wait 30 seconds before and after starting a session anymore!
If the latter, then I'm afraid mana is integral part of the game and Paradox is unable to remove it without changing almost everything in the game.
 
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Wiz isn't working on the HoI AI now by any chance, is he? ;)

The introduction of sailors is good if they are properly limited and give an real advantage to those nations who should benefit from it. And if you need sailors for repairs as well, that resource might be drained up fast, which is a good thing. Otherwise it wouldn't change anything.

If the map redesign includes a Norway buff and a Lithuania nerf I'm happy.

And I think you will have plenty of faithful readers waiting for the espionage rework now.
 
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I'm glad to see that the naval game is getting some love. So is 1.16 coming with the next expansion, or will 1.16 be before the expansion?
 
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I wonder if Knights (Malta) and Cyprus are also given the ability to raid through their NI as well. While it is notorious that raiders from the Barbary coast raided the coastal towns in Europe, Christians did the same to their southern neighbors as well. Malta was known best as a raiding base against the Barbary coast.
 
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What other interesting things can we see in the screenshots?

I see some new bleeding coin purse next to monarch points. An envelope in fleet actions and redrawn Scandinavian borders. There’s also a new mapmode.
 
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Does this mean the game is getting some much needed naval reworks at last? Some properly provided naval changes are something we have needed for a long time! They look so dated compared to the other mechanics
 
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