EU4 Development Diary - 18th February 2016

[Dakka]

Pdox, add an achievement:

I Bless the Rains: Convert all of Africa to Fetishism

Alternate: Own all of Africa as Mutapa, Own all of Africa as Kongo, or whatever can be thought up.

I was actually listening to that on the way to work this morning lol.

 

[GC13]

Only if you considered the maxim machine gun and steam boats a medical advance.

That falls under the first bit: the ability to completely crush them.

Why are some people pretending here Eu4 is some hard core strategy historical representation? Just play one game and look at the ridiculousness. It's not. It's a sandbox where user should be not limited.

Sandbox doesn't mean "let the player do what they want", it means "interact with the simulation". Why set your game in a historical setting if you're going to give the player ahistorical rules to play by? We might as well be leading our dwarf armies into the elven forests.

 

[FleetingRain]

There could be some nasty events for non Africans conquering/colonizing Africa....
Colonization disease events killing of the colonies.
If you conquer areas an event for killing of your administration in diseases and hand it over to it's native owner can happen.
Killing of non-African soldiers by events full regiments can get disbanded en masse.
Allow special African mercs to be hired that are unaffected by diseases but restricted by your subsaharan military development or something.

...you know, the Native Americans (at least the Andean ones) already get events related to disease. They start when an European sets colony in America and only ever stop when you westernize.

Like. There's no special mechanic. It's purely dealt with by event chains. So why can't we have that for Africa? It's incredibly easy to do, we just need somebody to sit for a day and code the events (and have Johan approving it).

 

[TheDungen]

That falls under the first bit: the ability to completely crush them.

Haha yes I know I was just being snarky.

Sandbox doesn't mean "let the player do what they want", it means "interact with the simulation". Why set your game in a historical setting if you're going to give the player ahistorical rules to play by? We might as well be leading our dwarf armies into the elven forests.

Well put.

 

[Juggernaught]

Thanks for the feedback. While you are at it please make a connection through Kongo area to south africa through angra pequena. This could be made if you colonized spaces near the wasteland while painting them in your color in result allowing armies to cross. Or simply allow native armies to cross through.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

I can't wait to play in central Africa now, or chuck a special custom nation there

 

[fcpureza]

I'm a little disappointed with this dev diary. When I read the last one, I was very excited. Slave raids and Africa revamp? Finally more complexity in some issues for the game.

Now, my problems with the new African setting.

1) Fetishism is a rather dull concept. Someone already said it before, but it should be figured out a difference between 'yoruba' and 'bantu' fetishism. They're not the same. Different deities, different cults, different rituals and different celebrations. Islam and Christianism are not 'all the same' in this period, so why should fetishism be every a like? There is, however, a way of conceptualizing 'fetishism' which is syncretism. Yoruba and bantu religions became very close with Atlantic slavery, mixing its elements with Christianism. But how this would be adapted in gameplay? I suppose that 'fetishism' simplifies things...but I don't like the idea that all sub-saharian African religions became simplified.

2) New nations can be very interesting. However, and I'm not the only one saying it, I'm afraid that in the 16th century gameplay an European power conquers all the sub-saharian Africa. There should be limits for this and an important one would be trying to create a mechanism in game for Europeans power receive more bonus with coastal territories - avoiding them to go inland to establish Nova Lisboa in the middle of Kinshasa.

3) Slavery concept should be more refined. ASAP. African development was heavily attached to slavery and Triangle Trade. In Benin, a Brazilian elite of merchants and slaveholders were the main social force in 17th century. Igbos and yorubas were hunted down by merchants. Slavery should become a decision for the African nations and which would bring enourmous consequences. Events asking to 'open the slave market' and the refusal could make European (or 'westernized' nations hava a CB against Africa, showing the brutality of slavery in Africa.

I do hope that this new Africa receive more flavor, more events, unit pack, advisors pack and so on. But I still feel kinda frustrated with the result.

 

[Blindbohemian]

There could be some nasty events for non Africans conquering/colonizing Africa....
Colonization disease events killing of the colonies.
If you conquer areas an event for killing of your administration in diseases and hand it over to it's native owner can happen.
Killing of non-African soldiers by events full regiments can get disbanded en masse.
Allow special African mercs to be hired that are unaffected by diseases but restricted by your subsaharan military development or something.

That's the thing, though. It shouldn't be a random event, it should be a given. Take land in Africa? Three to six months later you get an event saying 'oh, all your people are dead and the province is back in native hands'. No exceptions. Special African mercenaries are a cute idea but what are they going to do? Conquer territory that you can't set up an administration over, communicate with or even visit? So you're basically giving them money to conquer themselves a little kingdom? Central Africa in EUIV just makes no sense. It should be the realm of mods, not the base game.

 

[FleetingRain]

3) Slavery concept should be more refined. ASAP. African development was heavily attached to slavery and Triangle Trade. In Benin, a Brazilian elite of merchants and slaveholders were the main social force in 17th century. Igbos and yorubas were hunted down by merchants. Slavery should become a decision for the African nations and which would bring enourmous consequences. Events asking to 'open the slave market' and the refusal could make European (or 'westernized' nations hava a CB against Africa, showing the brutality of slavery in Africa.

I'm mulling over that too, over the past weeks. I feel slaves should have a more strategic value, kinda like Gold is pretty much the best trade good in the game.

As an example, we could make Slaves not appear in any african colony anymore. Then, if you have a CN in America and a trade company in Africa bordering an african nation with which you have +0 opinion and non-hostile attitude, both sides would get decisions+events to setup a slave trade. Then the nation would get 1-2 provinces' trade goods turned to Slaves and a trade efficiency modifier, while the Trade Company's trade good would be also changed to Slaves and the CN's provinces would get an increase in Goods Produced, with the overlord getting a global tariff/tariff efficiency increase. This could maybe be allowed to happen more than once to the african nation, and/or we could let the company owner to do that with more than one african nation (but using different companies).

Starting in 1650 (instead of this terrible 1700 landmark we have, I mean no one bothers playing until then wtf Paradox), one could decide to abolish slavery, which would bring down the price of Slaves, screwing up those african nations and any other rivals, while choosing what to do with their own slaves (integration to get dev/goods produced, banishment to god knows where which would then cause revolt risk and maybe even Slave Rebellions, a small loan of a million dollars to colonize inner provinces by resettlement to get African-cultured provinces in the CN, whatever). Then the Slave provinces get changed to whatever else, the CNs lose at least part of the goods produced bonuses, rivals have to deal with slave revolts, the nations that abolished slavery could insta-embargo the not-yet-abolished ones etc.

And then, of course, this could be replicated in other continents. Say, instead of Africa, the first slave trade deal could be dealt in Asia by an westernized Ethiopia. Or maybe somebody sets up a trade company in India and decides to enslave Dravidians instead of Africans. Maybe something could even be done to allow Asians to enslave Europeans/Middle Easterners.

 

[mcmanusaur]

I completely agree that ROTW/colonization mechanics could really be improved. But that's not a reason for sub-Saharan Africa to be represented so inadequately. In fact, keeping it all as wasteland is just an excuse to never improve those mechanics, whereas now- if there actually are substantial issues like some people are predicting- Paradox will have some real incentive to revisit the systems in question. That's why I don't understand the vocal minority's objections to these changes- methinks they protest too strongly to any particular attention to Africa.

 

[GC13]

I can't speak for everyone, but for my part I'm happy about the map changes—I just don't want to see Paradox forget to add mechanics to keep things realistic.

 

[Demetrios]

Again, where are all these games with Europeans conquering West Africa? I've been looking at maps in various threads on the forum, especially the "post your empire" thread, and, unless it's the player intervening, European powers going beyond the coast looks to be a fairly rare occurence - on almost all the maps I've seen African powers blob through Africa, not European. I'm beginning to feel the whole "Europeans will conquer all of Africa!!!" may be overstating the case, a matter of being what may happen and not what will likely happen.

 

[Moarice]

I wonder if Oceania is also going to get some improvements?

 

[Blindbohemian]

Again, where are all these games with Europeans conquering West Africa? I've been looking at maps in various threads on the forum, especially the "post your empire" thread, and, unless it's the player intervening, European powers going beyond the coast looks to be a fairly rare occurence - on almost all the maps I've seen African powers blob through Africa, not European. I'm beginning to feel the whole "Europeans will conquer all of Africa!!!" may be overstating the case, a matter of being what may happen and not what will likely happen.

I'm afraid I've uninstalled EUIV on this computer (my poor little MacBook's hard drive is getting full) but in my last three games I've seen an Iberian power pressing into West Africa. In fairness it's generally Portugal that does so (jumping from Cape Verde to I think Gold Coast [the province with the cot, which the AI obviously values highly] and then expanding around it because the AI is designed to like filling up whole trade zones). By the 1600s in all of those games I've seen a big chunk of Portuguese territory around Benin-Guinea and as far north as Songhai. Admittedly this isn't a huge issue, but the thing is it shouldn't be possible at all (and, it seems, if the AI starts on Africa it tends to focus there instead of colonising Brazil or whatever). Adding more easily conquerable territory in Africa is only going to exacerbate the problem.

Of course, the other irritating side-effect of this tendency is that in all three games I've had at least three West African countries fully westernised by 1650, which is ridiculous.

If the game's mechanics were designed so that:

• Africa was, as in history, impossibly difficult to conquer and govern,
• European interactions with Africa were represented in a way that actually approaches realism, i.e. Europeans couldn't control provinces in Africa but could set up tiny coastal enclaves, and;
• The AI was smart enough to treat Africa (as it was treated historically) as a big lump of annoyingness to get around rather than something to wander into and take over

Then I would be happy to see Central African countries wandering around being Central African. But at that point Paradox might as well just create a new game called Central Africa Universalis because no one outside Central Africa will interact with Central Africans, and no one inside will interact with outsiders.

I just don't really see the point of what they're doing, here. They're adding a portion of the map that is largely irrelevant to the game world as a whole and has absolutely no bearing on developments around the globe. Worse, the representation of said Central African polities will inevitably be inadequate and disappointing, just like the existing East and West Africans. It's a waste of dev resources, it will cause (probably minimal) slowdown, it will cause random retarded scenarios and it adds nothing to the game.

I also don't understand what the purpose is of "wasteland" as a mechanic if we're opening up Central Africa. Like, if possibly the harshest and most impossibly difficult to conquer and govern part of the world in this period is being made open to conquest and government, why the hell can't we conquer and govern the Great Basin, or the Amazon, or the Sahara, or the Rub Al-Kali, or central Borneo? None of them are any harsher to outsiders than the Congo.

 

[TheDungen]

Again, where are all these games with Europeans conquering West Africa? I've been looking at maps in various threads on the forum, especially the "post your empire" thread, and, unless it's the player intervening, European powers going beyond the coast looks to be a fairly rare occurence - on almost all the maps I've seen African powers blob through Africa, not European. I'm beginning to feel the whole "Europeans will conquer all of Africa!!!" may be overstating the case, a matter of being what may happen and not what will likely happen.

They already take way more than they did historically. Flip through the years in the menus and look how much they historically were considered to have colonised.

 

[sterrius]

The most problem i see is that if we start setting specific rules stopping conquest in africa we have to do the same in asia and a lot of middle east. They also never faced conquest by europe before 1700´s.

Japan only got 3 trade outposts, china only lost territory to europe with the opium wars and india fell only after the decline of the mughal empire.

Also it would affect north africa. (Historically it was never profitable to conquer morroco, tunis etc).

Also i don´t see how its a good design rules and ideas that completely let europe out of africa. Like making totally impossible.

By all means, i like a challenge. Facing events, rebels, atrittion etc. Bring it on, it would be fun to do it like its always fun to face a strong muscovy and that winter hell.
But its not fun when you face a "Lol you can´t do it because of reasons!"

Also nothing stops a african nation of going into europe/asia. Unless people want to also block the whole exploration idea for african nation and also makig systems to lock them there....


PS: i agree the protectorade mechanic could have improvements, i also agree we can improve a little the difficulty of europeans conquering africa (and why not asia too) easily.

but lets not go crazy on the ideas. The changes must be subtle and work more on soft caps instead of a brick wall, with spikes filled with poison.

 

[somanite]

I'm afraid I've uninstalled EUIV on this computer (my poor little MacBook's hard drive is getting full) but in my last three games I've seen an Iberian power pressing into West Africa. In fairness it's generally Portugal that does so (jumping from Cape Verde to I think Gold Coast [the province with the cot, which the AI obviously values highly] and then expanding around it because the AI is designed to like filling up whole trade zones). By the 1600s in all of those games I've seen a big chunk of Portuguese territory around Benin-Guinea and as far north as Songhai. Admittedly this isn't a huge issue, but the thing is it shouldn't be possible at all (and, it seems, if the AI starts on Africa it tends to focus there instead of colonising Brazil or whatever). Adding more easily conquerable territory in Africa is only going to exacerbate the problem.

While I agree that the possibility for aggressive expansion by European powers into Africa's interior should be much more difficult, your last statement is entirely unfounded considering our limited knowledge of the upcoming content.

Of course, the other irritating side-effect of this tendency is that in all three games I've had at least three West African countries fully westernised by 1650, which is ridiculous.

Westernized but so terribly behind in tech and ideas that they'd still be a complete stomp for even the AI colonizers (if they learned to use their boats correctly), so this doesn't effect game play at all AFAIK.

If the game's mechanics were designed so that:

• Africa was, as in history, impossibly difficult to conquer and govern,
• European interactions with Africa were represented in a way that actually approaches realism, i.e. Europeans couldn't control provinces in Africa but could set up tiny coastal enclaves, and;
• The AI was smart enough to treat Africa (as it was treated historically) as a big lump of annoyingness to get around rather than something to wander into and take over

Then I would be happy to see Central African countries wandering around being Central African. But at that point Paradox might as well just create a new game called Central Africa Universalis because no one outside Central Africa will interact with Central Africans, and no one inside will interact with outsiders.

I seriously doubt, given the volume of concern on the forums over the issue, that Paradox has any intention of leaving the mechanics you listed as they currently are.

I just don't really see the point of what they're doing, here. They're adding a portion of the map that is largely irrelevant to the game world as a whole and has absolutely no bearing on developments around the globe. Worse, the representation of said Central African polities will inevitably be inadequate and disappointing, just like the existing East and West Africans. It's a waste of dev resources, it will cause (probably minimal) slowdown, it will cause random retarded scenarios and it adds nothing to the game.

I also don't understand what the purpose is of "wasteland" as a mechanic if we're opening up Central Africa. Like, if possibly the harshest and most impossibly difficult to conquer and govern part of the world in this period is being made open to conquest and government, why the hell can't we conquer and govern the Great Basin, or the Amazon, or the Sahara, or the Rub Al-Kali, or central Borneo? None of them are any harsher to outsiders than the Congo.

None of what is being added is irrelevant, not to the game world. Plenty of political units across the globe have had short lives or simply never realized a potential global impact. And you know what? That's fine, because those states, kingdoms and tribes were still real historical entities that impacted the lives of the people that lived in them. Why should a variety of valid and fulfilling cultures, religions and nations simply be excluded just because they don't meet your grossly exclusionary standards of "impact"? How does adding more countries for the player to enjoy new possibilities with subtract anything from the game at all? We have no idea if changes will be made to the West African region to bring it to a greater state of accuracy. Your latter point on wastelands is nonsense, but it clarifies that you only care about accurate representation of the capabilities of colonizers, not the indigenous inhabitants of those so-called wastelands.

Edit: English is hard.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

I think, for the first time in my life, I just read a whole dev diary and thought it was not a step forward for EUIV.

Africa needs more wasteland, less provinces, not vice versa. The devs should be focused on making outside interaction with Africa more realistic, not less so. We need trade outpost and fort-enclave mechanics to represent that Europeans did not control territory within the African continent during the timeframe of the game, not whole provinces that will undoubtedly result in European conquests of all Central Africa by 1700. We need less absurdness, not more.

Heck, you would have gotten a dozen upvotes if you were in the CK2 forums, arguing against China. Which has a lot more to do with that game than Africa does EU4.

I would like to see a fully-playable map, but Paradox just won't make mechanics that are needed to properly simulate Africa... and I'd rather have it not be in there (and not be a factor) than to be in there in an unrealistic way.

 

[Sol717]

Paradox should also improve the Darfur/Wadai region (modern eastern Chad/western Sudan) and add the kingdoms that existed there in the timeframe (they only have Darfur now, and it is poorly done), as well as adding the kingdom of Tagali. It would only require adding 5-10 more provinces and 2-4 more tags, and this region, while not being particularly important and rich, was nevertheless home to organised states and was a source of salt, which was considered quite valuable in the early part of the game's time period.

 

[Sol717]

Heck, you would have gotten a dozen upvotes if you were in the CK2 forums, arguing against China. Which has a lot more to do with that game than Africa does EU4.

I would like to see a fully-playable map, but Paradox just won't make mechanics that are needed to properly simulate Africa... and I'd rather have it not be in there (and not be a factor) than to be in there in an unrealistic way.

Crucially, EU4 already includes the areas on its map, but they are represented as uninhabitable wasteland with no organised states. China is outside of the boundaries that CK2 has set for its map, and any reasonable representation will require proportionally more provinces than EU4's Africa additions have. A better analogy would be adding Tibet or Central Africa (Kanem-Bornu etc.) to CK2.