EU4 - Development Diary - 28th of April 2016

[winddy]

"As you can see from this screen, you gain espionage abilities at about every 3rd level, with Agitate for Liberty being late, and stealing maps early in the game."

Will it still tie with the expansions like, what if I don't have Mare Nostrum...will something replace Shady recruitment?

"We have completely changed the Espionage Ideas, removing the unlocks and adding some new more interesting abilities, to create an ideagroup focused on internal strength.

1. Efficient Spies: +50% Spy Network Construction & -10% Advisor Costs
2. Agent Training: +1 Diplomat
3. Vetting: +33 Foreign Spy Detection, +10% Provincial Trade Power
4. Additional Loyalist Recruitment: -10 Liberty Desire in Subjects.
5. Claim Fabrication: 25% Fabricate Claim Cost
6. Privateers: +25% Embargo Efficiency & +33% Privateer Efficiency
7. Audit Checks: -0.1 Yearly Corruption

Ambition: +50% Rebel Support Efficiency."

I think this is not juicy enough. 2,4,6,7, and ambition are pretty weak in my opinion. They should have one more effects for them. #4 should be 15-20 percents.


"We moved the claim fabrication idea from Influence to Espionage. And what did Influence get, well.. They get an idea which increases prestige and heir chance, because monarchies are cool.."

What if a republic choose it? Will it has any alternate effects similar to Devoutness' separate effects to all Catholic's sub religion (Papal influence, Reformation's, and Church power)?


"There have been some changes to how Claim Fabrication works. First of all, the cost of fabricating a claim is now 30 off your spy network, before other modifiers. If you already have claims on a nation, you cost increases by 10% per claim you have on that nation."


With the threshold of discovery being above 25 in Spy Network, there are now risks with building up a spy network to fabricate claims, unless you have invested into Espionage Ideas, which reduce the cost.

Claims are there to save you from major stability hits when you declare war, and to make it possible to fight wars inside the HRE without the emperor stomping down on you. There is no longer a small reduction in AE when using claim war goals, but it will still be cheaper to take it in dip power."

Wow. Those are brilliant ideas.

"If you are not eager to directly gain territory yourself, we are working on adding a casus belli which is valid against all your rivals at all time, where you humiliate them, or force them to release nations or return cores."
Just three actions right? And why just against rivals only?

 

[Threshold]

Aww, man! I couldn't play the game yesterday after work because I know these changes are coming.

I guess I should get working on those trees I need cut down in the back yard before they bloom...

In other news, I love the changes you are making for 1.17, especially the increase cost of fabricate claims. Hopefully that will force me to use some other CB once in awhile. I don't even know what that trade CB thing does though.

That trade CB got updated so you can no longer take land with it...

The removal of AE reduction from claim fabrication attempts to address the fact that claim fabrication is overused, both as a CB, and on a provincial level. The reason it is overused as a CB though, is because it's one of the few early things left that lets you take land, since the better CBs are unlocked much later. The reason it's overused on a provincial level is because it's too easy to stack them-but a 10% increase per claim doesn't fix that, either, even with a higher base cost.

If they were harder to stack, the AE reduction needn't be removed.

 

[Rusiak]

Like I said I want AE to scale to development. That way it poses less of a threat early game (unless you start big) and more late game. Also I don't mind the game beign a bit slower, EU4 right now has a inverse learnign curve it's difficult in the beginign of the game and easier later. That if anything is bad game design, the game should push back harder the more you push it, become harder the better youäre doing. Instead it has ahistorical snowballing.

And I don't want the player to do nothing I am a big fna of CBs that does not allow you to take land, like the trade war CB and the promised rivalry CB. That's intresting since it's complex decision not just more land = good. Well it would be without access to the conquest CB, because as long as thta is in the game no one is going to use these intresting CBs and make actual decisions of realpolitik. Instead it's going to be a game of Risk, a map painter.
I felt Paradox has lost a lot since Svea Rike, those games used to be so great, becuase they felt like you were actually in history, whilst EU4 has what 5 unique events and 5 unique decisions for the nations that have the most stuff?

Well I basically never see coalitions so...

"...because of me not using AE-inducing CBs i want everyone else to have a harder time whilst doing it."

is that what you want to say? i get that people want to do historical stuff. i get that people want to play how they want. i haven't seen anyone telling tall players or roleplaying ones to be hit with say nerfs to development or nerfs to fabricating trade CBs. instead in relation to development quite often i have seen people argueing for development to be buffed in order to make it as viable as expanding.

also: this is a GAME... who of us started up a session of HOI in order to win as germany? same things apply to all historic oriented games: CHANGE HISTORY is a strong part of them being played in the first place. and i think people shouldn't be railroaded in any way shape or form. let tall players play tall, but buff it to rival wide play. make historical gameplay better by having more historical events for many many nations, if there are none known invent some, and make historical descisions for the AI more likely. for the last 5 games i've played and allied austria they don't get the PU and lose emperor status in ~50 years. but please don't just nerf one group because buffing more others would mean more work.

you see, the "descision" is already there. CBs already exist in a wide span, but the reward highly differs. i think i am not alone by stating that bug squishing, improving AI and working on stuff already here in order to balance would be hugely appreciated. anstead of adding stuff that... well does nothing but hurt a single group of players, be it the majority or minority.

 

[Mauer]

Good changes all around, very very good changes IMO, some of which had been asked by the community for long, like the all or nothing spying dependent on taking the idea group.

 

[Chief of Staff]

I still feel a "spy" agent type would be better, instead of multi-role diplomats

In the game's timeframe, typically, it's diplomats that handles more direct interactions with spies. While nations in these days has been known to have spymasters (e.g. Francis Walsingham as the England's Secretary of State), those officials typically interacted with diplomats who in turn interacted with the spies. Mind you, there were no dedicated intelligence agencies, at least in the modern sense as we know it, whose its officials interacted directly with spies. That being said, it's more plausible to see diplomats in the game to do espionage actions. And since spies are usually executed if caught in this era yet your diplomats are typically expelled, that also further implies that diplomats did not do those spy actions directly but supervises those who did the dirty work.

The concept of Nationalism did not exist in the game's timeframe. Or anyway, not in the form which would allow going to war over it.

Nationalism is rather an inconsistent concept. It's been said that England and France started out as the kingdoms fighting dynastic wars in the Hundred Years' Wars and at the end came out as nations, this being long before 19th century where it's been said the modern nationalism emerged. However, I think the realpolitik applies more than any genuine nationalism in the early modern era. France may sympathize with French Canadians under the British rule at the end of Seven Years' War but they were more interested in humiliating the British as a revenge for their defeat and to redress the balance of power by helping Americans break free of British rule. They never seem to be interested in 'liberating' French subjects of British Canada and had wrote the land off anyway as not worth it. And while France has been a constant menace to Germany for two centuries before the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, no one in Germany seem to be even remotely interested in uniting their lands as a single state to oppose French aggression until then.

So that being said, while Nationalism seem like a nice CB, I'm not sure how plausible it is to have in the game until after the French-style revolution occurred.

 

[EccentricJoe]

for spy actions why not have "local sabotage: +20% siege ability" would make spy idea group good instead of just viable. also helps combat the rediculous amount of fort defence and shorten length of war, while being a shadow nerf to one of the best idea groups in the game - offensive, since the siege ability can be attained somewhere else. still a wicked good idea group tho, also adding/moving AE reduction to spy makes more sense as propoganda and such is historically done by spies/spy agencies. other than that good tweaks and ideas in this DD. corruption is still dumb but at least its a little better now.

 

[TheDungen]

In the game's timeframe, typically, it's diplomats that handles more direct interactions with spies. While nations in these days has been known to have spymasters (e.g. Francis Walsingham as the England's Secretary of State), those officials typically interacted with diplomats who in turn interacted with the spies. Mind you, there were no dedicated intelligence agencies, at least in the modern sense as we know it, whose its officials interacted directly with spies. That being said, it's more plausible to see diplomats in the game to do espionage actions. And since spies are usually executed if caught in this era yet your diplomats are typically expelled, that also further implies that diplomats did not do those spy actions directly but supervises those who did the dirty work.



Nationalism is rather an inconsistent concept. It's been said that England and France started out as the kingdoms fighting dynastic wars in the Hundred Years' Wars and at the end came out as nations, this being long before 19th century where it's been said the modern nationalism emerged. However, I think the realpolitik applies more than any genuine nationalism in the early modern era. France may sympathize with French Canadians under the British rule at the end of Seven Years' War but they were more interested in humiliating the British as a revenge for their defeat and to redress the balance of power by helping Americans break free of British rule. They never seem to be interested in 'liberating' French subjects of British Canada and had wrote the land off anyway as not worth it. And while France has been a constant menace to Germany for two centuries before the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, no one in Germany seem to be even remotely interested in uniting their lands as a single state to oppose French aggression until then.

So that being said, while Nationalism seem like a nice CB, I'm not sure how plausible it is to have in the game until after the French-style revolution occurred.

Regionalism though. "I have a part of region (or area) x I should rule the rest of it" is a perfectly EU4 era thing of thinking.

 

[Threshold]

Regionalism though. "I have a part of region (or area) x I should rule the rest of it" is a perfectly EU4 era thing of thinking.

Indeed, this is what the claim missions were based off of, or so I imagined. And the other thing that concerns me about claims no longer granting AE reduction is just that-missions and permanent claims (which can only be gotten via nation formations, right?); why on earth wouldn't I get an AE reduction in those two cases?

 

[nNagato]

Although I would like the espionage actions to be more available to the countries, moving it from the idea group to tech is not that good. The new espionage idea group is even weaker, and some really good actions that were available in the original espionage idea are now only available very late. I would say non-Western tech might never be able to use infiltrate administration. This is more limiting than before, where all tech groups can get espionage and perform these actions, now the later ones are pretty much Western-tech exclusive. They need to think of another way to let people to be able to use espionage actions, but not overly available, which will be difficult, but hey that's what they should do, try improve the game.

The cost to fabricate claims should be higher, but 30 is a bit too much, and no AE reduction is just too hindering. Unless the new rival CB allows a AE reduction and reduced cost for provinces (and other CBs too such as Deus Vult), I think this is not a brilliant change either.

 

[Teutonic Wine]

There are some anachronisms related to Finland:
-The capital of Åland is Mariehamn (established in 1861); should be Kasteholm
-Rovaniemi province and capital of that province; Nordbotten (Swedish) /Peräpohjola (Finnish) for Province & Torneå (Swedish) / Tornio (Finnish) for provincial capital would be better historical names although Torneå was part of Västerbotten before 1809. Kajanaland (Swedish) / Kainuu (Finnish) should also be separated from Nordbotten.

 

[nasuhdede]

When lt will be released?

 

[Valderath]

One of the developers mentioned it would be released the second week of May as long as no issues arise.

 

[SeventyFive75]

Not sure I got it right:

1) If you don't take espionage ideas it's 20 months claim land, with failure risks, so maybe 2 years
2) if you take espionage it's 5 months guaranteed

So espionage ideas are attempted to be made desirable by making the game more cumbersome than ever if you don't take it?

3) With 3 months timeout, it's half immunity to discovery by lack of punishment, so again, you must take better spy defense because the game will just be weird and unpredictable if you don't take it.

Please understand that every time you make something like that, it adds work for those that have to rebalance the game for themselves in the files and remerge it to every patch afterwards.

 

[atwix]

I miss Wiz. At least he answered stuff in DD past page 2

 

[FleetingRain]

for spy actions why not have "local sabotage: +20% siege ability" would make spy idea group good instead of just viable.

Because the siege bonus is already given by having a spy network in the nation and is a Mare Nostrum feature. They won't want to change it now that they sold the DLC with it as an exclusive feature.

I miss Wiz. At least he answered stuff in DD past page 2

At least we'll always have Trin Tragula chiming in future dev diaries that ever mention India.

 

[Trin Tragula]

I miss Wiz. At least he answered stuff in DD past page 2

At least we'll always have Trin Tragula chiming in future dev diaries that ever mention India.

I try to reply to a broader range of topics than that
A content designer will always be a bit more limited than a project lead in what he or she can have a meaningful opinion on though, both because the areas of competence differ and because there's a value in not making promises you're not sure you can keep

I believe for instance @Chaingun and @DDRJake contributes along the same lines.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I try to reply to a broader range of topics than that
A content designer will always be a bit more limited than a project lead in what he or she can have a meaningful opinion on though, both because the areas of competence differ and because there's a value in not making promises you're not sure you can keep

I believe for instance @Chaingun and @DDRJake contributes along the same lines.

We love you Trin. You might be my favorite dev.

 

[OBRkenobi]

Thank f***n god. These are the best changes I've seen in a long time.

 

[DanubianCossak]

We love you Trin. You might be my favorite dev.

There can be only One Johan(bbhn);

But i agree with the general sentiment.

 

[Mr. Dr. Prof. L]

Hmm, I have an idea. Maybe take the idea from Victoria II of taking whole states and putting it in EUIV? But you can only get the CB if you control at least two provinces, it is a state (not a territory), and if the autonomy is below 75%. AE is very minimal, maybe 1-3, while there is no OE. If you take states other than the one you're going for, AE for each state is at least 10 while taking minimal OE.