EU4 - Development Diary - 10th March 2016

[zdlugasz]

Makes sense - esp in the early game. By the 1600's military tactics had evolved to the extent that a well trained 'heavies' crew could easily outdo even a well manned galeas - but not in 1444!

My point is: if I have 5 times more ships then you I will be able to effectively use more than 20 (even in 19th century) - thus 20 ships cap is nonsensical
My second point is: in coastal waters, if I have 5-10 times more heavy galleys they you have heavies I will be able to use them more effectively, and you can not get full effectiveness of heavies (because of different constraints in inland coastal waters) - even after 1600 thus 20 ships cap is stupid (if galeases were useless nobody would build them)
My third point is: if we consider XVth century naval engagement then numbers DID matter, and 20 ships cap is absurd

 

[earlofbrigand]

My point is: if I have 5 times more ships then you I will be able to effectively use more than 20 (even in 19th century) - thus 20 ships cap is nonsensical
My second point is: in coastal waters, if I have 5-10 times more heavy galleys they you have heavies I will be able to use them more effectively, and you can not get full effectiveness of heavies (because of different constraints in inland coastal waters) - even after 1600 thus 20 ships cap is stupid (if galeases were useless nobody would build them)
My third point is: if we consider XVth century naval engagement then numbers DID matter, and 20 ships cap is absurd

I'm not so sure. If you think about it, a fleet of 20 large ships is pretty big. 100 odd galleys wouldn't be able to get close to them given equal leadership qualities. I'm talking here about the logistics of ships in the water, the space around them, firing distance, ability to board etc.
On the other hand, a fleet of 20 odd big ships needs guidance and could be split and defeated if in the hands of a dud admiral. So for me, the quality of leadership should make a much bigger difference when dealing with the heavies.

 

[Canute VII]

If you have Mare Nostrum, you’ll now also able to reassign naval leaders while fleets are at sea, as long as they are within supply range.

Isnt' this moving into the wrong direction? I mean, so rassigning naval leaders from a sea tile in the middle of the pacific ocean doesn't make a terrible lot of sense, I guess. Given, that this is embedded into an even more terrible >teleporting< mechanic for leaders, naval and land, I fear its for the worse.

 

[zdlugasz]

I'm not so sure. If you think about it, a fleet of 20 large ships is pretty big. 100 odd galleys wouldn't be able to get close to them given equal leadership qualities. I'm talking here about the logistics of ships in the water, the space around them, firing distance, ability to board etc.
On the other hand, a fleet of 20 odd big ships needs guidance and could be split and defeated if in the hands of a dud admiral. So for me, the quality of leadership should make a much bigger difference when dealing with the heavies.

If we were talking about battle at full sea I would agree, but if we are talking about battle on coastal waters they galleys have actually an advantage: they can row in whichever direction they wish.
Sure if one leader is incompetent then that side might lose, but heavies would need lucky wind to perform "perfect" approach which would minimize their losses and maximize their damage, and of course heavies can simply avoid battle if the wind is right.

Of course Lepanto is example of galley vs galley engagement, but say that you have 20 heavies and you HAVE to engage such enemy galley fleet (otherwise they follow coast and sack your cities). I do not see how the heavies would have advantage

 

[zdlugasz]

Isnt' this moving into the wrong direction? I mean, so rassigning naval leaders from a sea tile in the middle of the pacific ocean doesn't make a terrible lot of sense, I guess. Given, that this is embedded into an even more terrible >teleporting< mechanic for leaders, naval and land, I fear its for the worse.

I agree.
IIRC they removed teleporting at sea some time ago. Now they put it back as paid feature, yay ... I am at loss what to say

 

[Panzerschiffe]

I agree.
IIRC they removed teleporting at sea some time ago. Now they put it back as paid feature, yay ... I am at loss what to say

Pay to win? In a singleplayer game?

 

[Quaade]

and we were a really large naval power.

Naval power yes, large... Not that much... Compared to size we were yes, but our strength lied more in our ability to use our navies and know when to have the fight and when to back off, also we managed to destroy ships that out-classed us... It was enough for England to down our fleet, those bastards ;-)

So much this. Bornholm had a similar importance as whoever controlled it could dominate the southern baltics; it is no coincidence that Russia tried to take Bornholm after WWII and kept it occupied for a year after the war.

Naval bases could be a cool addition, goes along with my plan to have coastal forts having a significant, remember both Sweden and Denmark having a couple of those which were vital to trade and protecting the city... But wasn´t Bornholm released just a month or two after the war as far as I recall?... Always takes bornholm, since it´s bear my personal strategic importance, but gamewise it´s crap since you have to unload troops to it and it´s a drag when they get rebels too...

True. But they tended to prey on stragglers and their main impact on overall development was to push the 'convoy' system - whereby trade ships were protected by heavies - adding a lot of expense to the process. But I agree that a brilliant pirate general could quite easily outfox a powerful fleet led by an idiot - not one on one, but by attrition.

Yes, but they did take a swing at larger fleets too, the treasure fleets were well protected and they got harrassed numerous times... They were rightly feared, but not impossible... The pirates had the advantage of choosing when and how to engage... This tactical approach could be neat, can´t wait to see how HOI will be in reality...

All of that happened during the switch from EU3 to EU4 though; no provinces have been added to Denmark since EU4 was launched. And actually hadn't it been for a forum uproar Denmark wouldn't have gained any provinces. Around half a year before release a dev diary told about how Sweden had got Åland due to its strategic importance and usefulness for the Swedish navy. That sparked a large thread where we gave examples for why Bornholm should be in, if Åland was, since Bornholm was much more important strategically and as a naval bas than Åland. At some point PI caved and added Bornholm; they then also added Lolland and split Nørrejylland into MIdtjylland and Nordjylland.

I´m sure there was a few provinces gained in EU4 at some patch, but could be wrong about that not since I´m really not sure... Remember Vicky having both Århus, østkylland, a part of vestjylland and midtjylland and it worked well...

As mentioned I don't particularly like splitting Fyn either. Though it could make sense if you include some of the islands, since as mentioned you could argue for there being two provinces around Lolland and not just one.

It´s one of the plausible way to make Denmark get more provinces without getting too small areas, having them include the smaller islands to the south...

That might actually be an idea. Have the really poor, fish producing Vestjylland, the Viborg centered Midtjylland, Østjylland, and then Århus (Hads, Ning, Hasle, Framlev, Sabro, Vester Lisbjerg, Øster Lisbjerg, and Mols shires compusing the province of Århus would make quite a bit of sense; perhaps add Djurs Sønder too to make it a little bigger).
Would also show how Jutland was a really important and rich province.

Will you check when you boot up next time, how well the provinces could fit in those provinces we talk about? actually curios about it and I´m afraid of falling into the game if I first boot it ;-) but would guess that two provinces could be added to Jylland and one to Fyn, that might fit, even making some interesting strategies for moving armies and blocking by forts... But I guess you are right about the other provinces, they might not be that well to split... And don´t know if you could split Småland and add that province to Denmark, my history to that area and that specific is kinda vague, so it´s more from a gamey-point-of-view...

 

[LS22]

Because now you would need to actually invest in infrastructure to be a major Naval powerinstead of conquerin more coastland.

Except that wasn't a thing at the time. That would make sense in games of other timelines (Vic 2, and HOI4).

 

[net.split]

The point of the heavy vs galley problem is that making the galleys useless reduces strategic depth and creates false choice scenarios that will only trap beginners.

The new fleet-wide max width system effectively makes galleys useless in the game once you can support a fleet of 20+ ships. If you ever have a galley firing at an enemy instead of a heavy, you are messing up. You have reduced your overall offensive output, which means fewer sunk enemy ships and less morale damage. Furthermore, if it's one of your galleys that's taking hits instead of a heavy, now you're going to lose additional morale from the galley sinking, which will happen substantially faster than if it was a heavy.

"But history / realism!" is not a meaningful argument. Even if we wanted it to be, the solution is to stop giving new galley units after 1600 (probably sooner) and lock them out from being built after another heavy tech update or two, since if the AI does it they're just hurting themselves, and letting the player do it is just trapping beginners who don't yet understand that they're making a decision that is always wrong. If a decision is always wrong, it is a trap and should not be in the game in the first place.

The only possible way this can be salvaged with the current design is to make both the Sailor and ducat cost of heavies to be egregiously high so that only the mightiest naval empires can reasonably afford to have them. Of course that just creates a different problem -- once a naval state reaches those heights, they're absolutely unstoppable. That would be an even worse problem, except that it's already been the problem since EU4 was first released.

This is just a mess. I can't find anything about these naval updates that improves the situation.

 

[WSnova]

Except that wasn't a thing at the time. That would make sense in games of other timelines (Vic 2, and HOI4).

The game covers a lot of time, so you´d need to narrow it down.

And gameplay triumps accuracy. Its not like the game is anything but a game when it comes to history

 

[Politic Revolutionnaire]

Hello everyone, and welcome to another development diary for Europa Univeralis IV. Today, we focus on many of the core aspects of Mare Nostrum, our next expansion.

First, we have completely changed how naval missions work, introducing a unified system that includes settings for when your ships should return to port for repairs and how aggressive the fleets should be.

Naval Missions are selected from the new mission interface, and each mission targets either a sea/coastal region or a trade node. The old missions to Protect Trade, privateer, Hunt Pirates and Explore are available (depending on which expansions you currently own), just as before, but Mare Nostrum adds three new naval missions.

• Hunt Enemy Fleets - Your ships will automatically try to hunt down weaker enemy fleets in the region to sink them.
• Blockade Enemy Ports - This divides your fleet, and attempts to blockade as many ports as possible in the region.
• Intercept Transports - Your ships will protect coastlines in region and prioritize attacks on any transport fleet.

The Detach Damaged feature for Ships has gotten a huge boost in Mare Nostrum. Now, ships that are detached from a fleet will a automatically rejoin their original fleet when they have been repaired.

In 1.16, naval leaders will also get siege pips. Each of those pips will increase blockade efficiency by 10%. If you have Mare Nostrum, you’ll now also able to reassign naval leaders while fleets are at sea, as long as they are within supply range.

Some people have complained about how blockades are not really visible. Now there is also a thick red line on the coastlines where you are blockaded, and a purple one is shown where you blockade.

Naval Combat has gotten a complete overhaul as well. First of all, we removed the positioning mechanic, as it was not terribly useful, and players couldn’t really affect it anyway.

Now, there is a restriction in how many ships can fire at a single time in a naval combat. 20 ships is the baseline, 10% more ships can fire in coastline, and there is a variation of 10% more or less based on the differences between the maneuver ability of each fleet’s commander..

Also, Morale Damage is inflicted on all ships still floating whenever a ship is sunk, with up to 2% damage.

A ship being sunk has a chance of being captured instead of sunk, which depends on the enemy commanders maneuver value. If a fleet retreats, all its captured ships are immediately scuttled.

Stay tuned, because next week, we’ll tell you all about condottieri !

So we are putting our glorious fleet in the AI's control?? That does not sound very good

 

[Quaade]

The point of the heavy vs galley problem is that making the galleys useless reduces strategic depth and creates false choice scenarios that will only trap beginners.

The new fleet-wide max width system effectively makes galleys useless in the game once you can support a fleet of 20+ ships. If you ever have a galley firing at an enemy instead of a heavy, you are messing up. You have reduced your overall offensive output, which means fewer sunk enemy ships and less morale damage. Furthermore, if it's one of your galleys that's taking hits instead of a heavy, now you're going to lose additional morale from the galley sinking, which will happen substantially faster than if it was a heavy.

"But history / realism!" is not a meaningful argument. Even if we wanted it to be, the solution is to stop giving new galley units after 1600 (probably sooner) and lock them out from being built after another heavy tech update or two, since if the AI does it they're just hurting themselves, and letting the player do it is just trapping beginners who don't yet understand that they're making a decision that is always wrong. If a decision is always wrong, it is a trap and should not be in the game in the first place.

The only possible way this can be salvaged with the current design is to make both the Sailor and ducat cost of heavies to be egregiously high so that only the mightiest naval empires can reasonably afford to have them. Of course that just creates a different problem -- once a naval state reaches those heights, they're absolutely unstoppable. That would be an even worse problem, except that it's already been the problem since EU4 was first released.

This is just a mess. I can't find anything about these naval updates that improves the situation.

When you could afford 20 heavies you could easily outmatch 60 galleys anyways... That´s the calculations I used and only rarely lost a battle when I put some light ships into match their light and cogs... So it´s the same strategical choice you have, you just get better output from it by not spamming the enemies with the "who has largest fleet", which is so much less historical since Denmark did very well with a smaller naval and were among the naval powers of the period...

 

[net.split]

When you could afford 20 heavies you could easily outmatch 60 galleys anyways... That´s the calculations I used and only rarely lost a battle when I put some light ships into match their light and cogs... So it´s the same strategical choice you have, you just get better output from it by not spamming the enemies with the "who has largest fleet", which is so much less historical since Denmark did very well with a smaller naval and were among the naval powers of the period...

No, the largest fleet still wins. You just have to split your fleets and only fight with parts of them at a time.

Previously, if you had galleys, they could still add some value to your combats if you sent them in alongside your heavies. Now, they will only make you more likely to lose individual battles. I suppose if you're rotating they could still have some use (since you don't care as much about winning individual battles so much as eventually forcing the enemy fleet to run), but I suspect you only need two fleet rotations to win anyway, in which case you should always rotate two heavy fleets.

 

[LS22]

The game covers a lot of time, so you´d need to narrow it down.

And gameplay triumps accuracy. Its not like the game is anything but a game when it comes to history

I don't see a gameplay plus with that feature. What is it suppose to bring in terms of gameplay? As you describe it, it'll only make it more difficult for small nations to build heavies, because they can't muster the ducats for that facility, as it wasn't already a problem the heavies cost for those nations. So, in terms of gameplay, i think it'll make it worst.

 

[Lee Saxon]

I'm interested in which features exactly are for the expansion and which for the patch. It'd be pretty easy to have the "missions" (strategy) options be expansion-only, but I don't know how the combat mechanics overhaul could be, for example.

 

[Thrake]

So we are putting our glorious fleet in the AI's control?? That does not sound very good

To be fait, fleets are really hard for me to track down. Land warfare is very straightforward; unless being really hudge you can keep most of the action on one screen and even then the outliner let me know of where there are sieges and battles so I can almost manage it all in real time. Navy is much harder because sea zones are much bigger and I don't know where the ennemy will comes from; there's nothing such as a border and if I fight say GB as France, ships can come from North sea down to Bordeau and a CN might even come and sneak in ships in the Mediterranean.

So my strategy to work around that is... well, to just have one big fleet, either at port that I use to engage smaller fleets that come around if I'm clearly outnumbered, otherwise I'm a bit more agressive but still my fleet will stay around France so that it stays on screen pretty much anytime (but still blocades a few provinces). Even then I regulalry find out that my fleet is being attacked without me noticing before the battle appears on the outliner.

So, unless you have some magic tip to share, I personnaly wouldn't mind a bit of help, even if it means keeping a close eye just in case as I already do.

 

[seriousgigi]

any progress for trash auto-transport feature?

 

[Wagonlitz]

Naval power yes, large... Not that much... Compared to size we were yes, but our strength lied more in our ability to use our navies and know when to have the fight and when to back off, also we managed to destroy ships that out-classed us... It was enough for England to down our fleet, those bastards ;-)

Well we had the second biggest navy in the late 1700s/early 1800s (don't know when we gained that title) and the Brits were actually scared of it (not many navies can boast that feat), which was why they decided to take it.

And whether we like it or not we also were one of the biggest slave traders with 2% of the Atlantic slaves crossing on our ships---despite not really having much colonies.
We were a naval force to be reckoned with back in the day. (And what do we have left today? Something like 3 frigates plus a retired 150 years old frigate.)

But wasn´t Bornholm released just a month or two after the war as far as I recall?

Nope; the Russians didn't leave until April 5th 1946 meaning that Bornholm was under occupation almost a year more than the rest of Denmark.
https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornholms_besættelse

I´m sure there was a few provinces gained in EU4 at some patch, but could be wrong about that not since I´m really not sure... Remember Vicky having both Århus, østkylland, a part of vestjylland and midtjylland and it worked well...

Nope; Denmark hasn't got any provinces in patches. Development has been added, but no provinces.

 

[WSnova]

I don´t mind

I don't see a gameplay plus with that feature. What is it suppose to bring in terms of gameplay? As you describe it, it'll only make it more difficult for small nations to build heavies, because they can't muster the ducats for that facility, as it wasn't already a problem the heavies cost for those nations. So, in terms of gameplay, i think it'll make it worst.

But small nations already have a problem building up Navies because they have less provinces to recruit from.

A small rich Tag like Netherlands could invest in top of the line facilities to build up a big fleet, while poor but large nations will struggle to keep up.

Right now, big nations with a big coastline are already favoured because they can build #ofcoastalprovinces X Current money of ships at a time.

You can also get blindsided with ships built in far off colonies. So you can´t really keep track of their ships.

 

[Wagonlitz]

It´s one of the plausible way to make Denmark get more provinces without getting too small areas, having them include the smaller islands to the south...

Separating Lolland and Falster actually wouldn't be too bad, since they wouldn't be smaller than Bornholm. Though being close together and close to both Sjælland and Fyn it could easily give clutter.
And splitting Fyn makes more sense; both due to them being richer there and also due to administrative reasons where Lolland and Falster often have been administered together, whereas Fyn for most of the time has been in at least two pieces.

Will you check when you boot up next time, how well the provinces could fit in those provinces we talk about? actually curios about it and I´m afraid of falling into the game if I first boot it ;-) but would guess that two provinces could be added to Jylland and one to Fyn, that might fit, even making some interesting strategies for moving armies and blocking by forts... But I guess you are right about the other provinces, they might not be that well to split... And don´t know if you could split Småland and add that province to Denmark, my history to that area and that specific is kinda vague, so it´s more from a gamey-point-of-view...

While Denmark might have held part of Småland back when it was many petty kingdoms, Sweden consolidated it something like 200 years before game start. None of Småland should be Danish in 1444.

I have looked at development. In 1444 both Denmark and Sweden has 102 dev. Denmark's includes Gotland though, which is 10 and shouldn't really be considered, since it didn't really play much role in us being stronger than Sweden initially, but given the way development works I guess it should be considered after all.
Denmark has 10 provinces including Gotland; Sweden has 18, though we know that in 1.16 they will have 21.
Norway has 69 dev and 15 provinces, though 6 dev are on Shetland and Orkney which were lost in the 1470s and hence shouldn't really be considered.
I would think it wrong to not consider Slesvig Holsten part of Denmark when measuring 1444 strength against Sweden. So Denmark is at 124 vs Sweden at 102. That seems reasonable.
The three provinces of Skåneland are 34 dev which seems reasonable and also means that Sweden taking those + Gotland will make her considerably stronger than Denmark, since Sweden will be at 146, whereas Denmark wil be at 80. That seems reasonable too.

Add in Norway. Denmark + Norway will be at 134 after Shetland and Orkney are lost and Sweden has taken Jemtland (3 dev) and Båhuslen (6 dev); Sweden will be at 155. Also that is excluding the Baltic possessions of Sweden which should be considered in a comparison like this, but I will exclude them for now.

Now Denmark and Norway were able to draw Sweden after the loss of Skåneland, so development of those two clusters should be around the same. Sweden is at 155, so if we say they should have equal dev that leaves 21 dev.

That could actually be added as 4 feasible and realistic provinces. As seen on the map you split Fyn into two. The crossing to Sjælland should be on the northern one naturally; the crossing to Slesvig probably should be on the southern one, but that is debatable given all the crossing possibilities.
Add 8 dev to Fyn. It already has 11, so it gets to 19 in total. Now whether the southern one should be 8 and the northern 11 or it should be 9 for the southern and 10 for the northern is debatable.
A good name for the northern one would be Odense and Svendborg for the southern one.

Then we have Jutland. Nordjylland should have its border moved a bit to the north both to make room and for historical reasons. Then you have the west coast for the isolated, poor Vestjylland. That should be 3 dev and produce fish.
Then you have Midtjylland centered around Viborg. It shouldn't touch Slesvig. It probably shouldn't have a port either, since due to Limfjorden closing in the 10th century you didn't really have fleets there anymore. But Limfjorden is part of Helgoland Bight in game so giving a port to Midtjylland can't really be avoided and is a lesser evil.
Then you have the rich Østjylland. The crossing to Odense should go to Østjylland.
Now you are left with Århus. I drew it to only include the shires which it mainly dominated. Though that is a rather small province. You could give it the entirety of Djursland (the nose of Jutland) to make it bigger. It shouldn't really touch Nordjylland.

Now of the 21 dev there is 13 left. I would give 3 to Sjælland to not make it too weak compared to Jutland; Sjælland would then have 24. Midtjylland already has 11 in game, so the four provinces Midtjylland becomes would have 21. 3 goes to Vestjylland leaving 18 for the rest. I would split that as 7 for Østjylland, 6 for Århus, and 5 for Midtjylland.
Now you have Nørrejylland (Nordjylland + the 4 new provinces in Midtjylland) having a total dev of 29. Which actually seems quite reasonable compared to the 24 in Sjælland, 19 in the two provinces on Fyn, and 34 in Skåneland. Skåneland remains the most powerful and rich area as it should be, while Jylland and Fyn gets the power it should have.

Besides making sure that Denmark Norway is comparable to Sweden after the loss of Skåneland, Gotland, Båhuslen, and Jemtland I also think adding those 4 provinces will give Denmark the strategic depth and wealth to not get flattened by HRE minors too easily.
Also historically Sweden would have had Baltic provinces, so she would actually be stronger yet, but that doesn't seem like a problem. I would be really happy with the addition of those 4 provinces and adding that extra 21 dev to Denmark.

It would also mean that in 1444 Denmark would be 145 dev and 16 provinces (including Slesvig and Holsten), whereas Sweden would be 102 dev and 21 provinces. (Perhaps a bit more dev depending on how the new provinces gets their dev.)
Now Sweden taking Skåneland and Gotland from Denmark would make her 146 dev, whereas Denmark would be 101 dev including Slesvig and Holsten. That seems reasonable.