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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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ok so the new sailor mana represents the number of experienced sailors in your nation. But couldn't anyone who could be recruited as a soldier work on a ship. The only people that really need experience would be the captain and navigator. In fact wouldn't most people on board a military ship back then be soldiers too?
 
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ok so the new sailor mana represents the number of experienced sailors in your nation. But couldn't anyone who could be recruited as a soldier work on a ship. The only people that really need experience would be the captain and navigator. In fact wouldn't most people on board a military ship back then be soldiers too?

sometimes not even ducat mana would make people not seasick

it's all abstractions anyway so it it needs to be "experienced sailors" then okay
 
Damn it, Europa Universalis making people! This is beyond magnificent!
You have my attention.
 

Johan, as per the tooltip, whomever wants the ability to raid needs the "proper" NIs. How moddable will that be? Also, will we be able to mod the possible targets (e.g. forbiding a pious Barbary State from raiding fellow Muslims)?
 
If an enemy ship is captured in a naval battle, you should be given the choice to take their sailors, for a relations drop with the enemy.

The other option would be to let the sailors free, and gain a minor prestige boost.
 
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*coughs* Influence of Sea Power upon History mod *cough*

*looks to signature*
 
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Can we hire mercenary sailors at 20+ 33% of forcelimit so that we can effectively ignore the sailor mechanic like we can with land mercs and manpower?
 
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I both like and dislike the seaman manpower pool. On the one hand, during the peace time it makes rather little sense as you can always train more seaman and thus abstract that into the training time of the ship, since it's not as if seamen are magical people who can't just be taken off the streets and trained to do their jobs. On the other hand, I think it makes sense during the war time where manpower needs are more immediate and pressing and you simply can't wait a year or two to train someone on how to do their shiply duties.

I'd be far more in favor of if it was a war-time feature rather than a peace time feature as well.

Do I dare to dream that it's Victoria 3?

It's Stellaris.
 
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Only the Barbary states? It's not like slave raiding was limited to them, at a bare minimum this should also be extended to the Knights, and probably also to any Cossack state with access to the sea. :)

Perhaps normal piracy should also create sailors now, to represent impressment and captives taken at sea.

The Knights were different in their raiding in that they usually restricted it to the crews of captured ships and not the actual coastline, so I think your second suggestion would work better for them.
 
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There are 4 ship types and 3 ship speeds. How did you get to "same speed"?
Strategic speed is used for sea zones movement.
Tactical speed is used when ship engage in battles.
I'd like to have one of them used for the percentage of "engaging" enemy units. I mean: at sea if I've a faster ship and don't want to be caught, the other ship simply doesn't caught me: I fly away. This should increase the importante of admirals and naval traditon and not just "I've more heavy ship: I will smash its commercial fleets"
 
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You can tell there are a lot of Europeans here when going to work at 6:30am results in a "whoah." I'm jealous!
That's not too peculiar. I go to school at 7:20. Then again, I live quite far away and the bus doesn't go that often.