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EU4 - Development Diary - 27th of September 2016

Hello everyone and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. This time we’ll take a look at the most important balance changes for 1.18, with a quick explanation on why we did them..

Setup
  • Lucky nations are now down to 8, sorry Poland, Brandenburg & Sweden.
The balance of having 10 lucky nations made the likelihood of a strong Russia too uncommon for us, and especially having those 3 as likely lucky nations was too much for Muscowy.

  • Lots of National Ideas have been changed, but most importantly Knights lost their tolerance for heretics, but can instead do slave raids.
As usual, we keep changing the ideas as we add new functionality, and giving people new abilities. There was a rather large following for giving the Knights access to Slave Raiding, as they were rather fearsome pirates, so they gained that ability.


Navies
  • If you have a port, now you get at least 5 sailors per month.
This was also requested, as some nations with 1 port just could never get any sailors at all.

  • Ships now engage in a priority order from heavy, galley, light to transport, up to a maximum of the engagement width (for which heavies count as 3 rather than 1).
This creates a more interesting naval combat experience, as you’ll all notice on October 11th.


Espionage
  • Reworked foreign spy detection & counter espionage. Counter espionage have less impact on discovery, but both now impact the spy network buildup of the target in your nation.
Basically, being able to defend against spy activities is now possible, even if stopping them entirely might be impossible.

  • Reduced unrest and Republican Tradition impact from Sowing discontent spy action
And many tears have been shed over this ….

  • Spy network bonuses will now apply to the target's subjects.
No more micromanagement and extra hassle! Rejoice!


Subjects
  • Breaking vassalage with a vassal that has over 50% in liberty desire no longer gives a relation penalty.
In the “duh?” category right?

  • Increased Liberty Desire from tariffs, up to 50% LD at 100% tariffs
Tariffs are no longer no-brainers to increase..

  • Colonial nations only lose half the money the overlord is getting in tariffs.
But this makes it so you can’t cripple your colonial nations..

  • Large colonial nations now gives you +5 land force limit each
And now you also want LARGE colonial nations :) ie, buffing Portugal..

  • There is now a scaled penalty to Liberty Desire up to +25% at max Mercantilism.
Aka, the longer the game goes, the more likely subjects get rebellious.

  • Vassals fighting each others (i.e. in Japan) now always accept Enforce Peace requests of overlord, but all vassals except the defending peace target get +10 Liberty Desire.
More power to the Emperor! or.. The Shogun!

  • All subjects now get reduced AE from your actions, not just vassals & marches.
No longer will your union-partners hate you for conquering their cores!

  • Subjects now have land and naval access to other subjects of the same overlord.
No longer will your subjects units get stuck!


Religion
  • Patriarch Authority no longer reduces tax income.
It all belongs to Mother Russia!. Sorry, I meant all orthodox nations..

  • Sanction Commercial Monopoly now costs 50 PI, instead of 100.
And we boost Catholics!

  • Defender of Faith now gives you +10 opinion of all with that religion.
Clearly this was our most important tweak in 1.18.

  • Theocracies, especially the Papal State, have an increased alliance acceptance penalty towards different religions now.
  • When you change religion as a Monastic order, Devotion is now decreased to the resulting Religious unity
These above are in the “this will improve immersion while improving the balance”-category.



Forts
  • If you are enter battle while in an enemy province with a fort, you will be treated as the attacker in battle and incur that province's terrain penalties.
Building forts is now a strategic decision. Where can you stop your enemies the best?

  • Penalty for not occupying forts in an area will no longer apply if the enemy does not control any forts in the area.
This will make it possible to sign a peace that you as a player likes far easier.


Misc
  • There is now an increase in efficiency of embargoes for a nation scaled by its Mercantilism up to +50%.
This is also another change that makes Mercantilism more powerful, while at the same time improving immersion.

  • Trade Companies is now open to all technology groups.
With the new technology changes, this just makes sense. However, you can not have trade-companies on the same continent as your capital.

  • All countries should now have access to at least one skill 2 advisor at start.
Just for you to have a choice!

  • You can no longer move capital to a continent that has less than a third of your total provinces, unless your capital is the last province you own on its continent.
There were a few exploits where you could swap continents back and forth a few times, that this solves.


Technology

We already talked about the changes to technology in a previous development diary, but here is a quick recap!

  • In 1444, all non-tribal nations start without tech penalties.
  • Primitive Status is now tied to starting techgroups.
  • Institutions will appear in certain provinces at key dates and spread from province to province.
  • Once 10% of your development has this Institution present, you can embrace that Institution for a monetary cost scaled on how much that institution has spread throughout your nation
  • If you have not embraced an Institution, you will have a tech penalty. This penalty grows by 1% each year up to a maximum of 50% penalty per non-embraced institution.
  • American Natives reforming their religion gain all the institutions from their advanced neighbour
  • Many existing ideas have been altered to give faster Institution spread and cheaper embracement costs.
  • Increasing development in provinces will also boost institution presence in that province

Culture

Cultures were also mentioned in a previous development diary, but here is a quick recap.
  • Cultures are now promoted manually, and any culture of at least 20 development can be promoted for 100 DIP.
  • All nations can promote 2 cultures in addition to their primary culture, and additional cultures can be promoted from ideas and Diplomatic technology
  • Old modifiers to Accepted culture Threshold now affect number of promoted cultures
  • Promoted cultures can be Demoted. This will give +5 unrest in all provinces of that culture

Stay tuned, next week we’ll show off new achievements and national ideas..
 
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New World Nations 3 Questions

So what removes primitive status?

Can primitives gain institutions through the process of development BEFORE they reform their religion?

What are the conditions to reform your religion? (Western nation adjacent or any nation with institutions adjacent? Ottomans valid?)
 
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Looks like good stuff. Should be one of the past patches to date, and I am glad to see Japan getting some attention, regardless of it is ahistorical Ashikaga power or not.

Asked earlier and I would like to know as well, when do we get content pack info?
 
Johan said:
In 1444, all non-tribal nations start without tech penalties.
Click to expand...
This isn't really a very accurate way to describe the setup, since there are non-tribal governments represented among the primitives in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Not that anyone would be misled to believe those somehow start with institutions, but hey.
 
MaXimillion said:
Arbitrary continent restrictions are a bad mechanic resulting in ridiculous edge cases due to the size of continents. Moving away from these was a good thing, please don't go backwards. Either stick with the requirement for territories, or use some other mechanic, like distance to capital, which is already used for state maintenance (although it could be displayed to players better, possibly with a mapmode?). If you feel that Africans or Asians getting early trade companies is too strong, tie the ability to form them to Institutions. Colonialism seems like a good fit.

Will this apply to nations without the income to qualify for level 2 advisors? If so, I don't understand why you would make this change. Also, is this one advisor in every category or only one total?

Other than that, good changes all around.
Click to expand...

This idea makes sense

Zhadum101 said:
New World Nations 3 Questions

So what removes primitive status?

Can primitives gain institutions through the process of development BEFORE they reform their religion?

What are the conditions to reform your religion? (Western nation adjacent or any nation with institutions adjacent? Ottomans valid?)
Click to expand...

This. It would be nice if primitives got at least some form of sea travel if they are technologically advanced (assuming they can gain institutions).
 
Lubba4Life said:
Agreed. If you get rid of westernization you should get rid of this reform religion too right? Isn't it basically the same thing? And isn't it also historically inaccurate?
Click to expand...
There are three reformable religions in EU4. All of them relate to societies that, in our timeline, were conquered by and - to varying extents - assimilated into the Spanish colonial empire.

Thus, questions of historical accuracy are moot.
 
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DDRJake said:
I'd say over half of my 1.18 hands-off runs (of which there have comfortably been over 100) have had Prussia forming. Many of them have been very successful.
Click to expand...
I've been playing since launch and have never seen the AI form the Mughals. Any word if that has become more likely in your tests?
 
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Johan said:
  • Ships now engage in a priority order from heavy, galley, light to transport, up to a maximum of the engagement width (for which heavies count as 3 rather than 1).
This creates a more interesting naval combat experience, as you’ll all notice on October 11th.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. Priority is good / common sense. Frontage-weighting is very good - so Atlantic sea powers get much more pain trying to interfere in the Med, as galleys in inland seas again become competitive in numbers?
 
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Lubba4Life said:
Agreed. If you get rid of westernization you should get rid of this reform religion too right? Isn't it basically the same thing? And isn't it also historically inaccurate?
Click to expand...

Getting rid of the religious reform mechanic for the Aztecs/Incans/Mayans would severely weaken them by robbing them of their religious bonuses and remove a key feature of the El Dorado expansion pack. Reworking paid features from DLC is fine; removing them entirely without replacing them is a terrible idea.

The other thing is that historical inaccuracy is half-irrelevant in the case of the New World nations. It is already possible to play, say, the Pueblo, reform your government, westernize, drive the Europeans out of North America, invade Spain, colonize Africa, and found colonies in Kamchatka. We left strict historical accuracy behind a long time ago.
 
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Jia Xu said:
I've been playing since launch and have never seen the AI form the Mughals. Any word if that has become more likely in your tests?
Click to expand...
The AI Timurids were one province away from it in today's dev MP: even from a sample of one game that seems an improvement from "never". (IIRC there's a player now controlling Malwa, so probably the Timmies will be stopped by the player)
 
Johan said:
If you are enter battle while in an enemy province with a fort
Click to expand...

where were you when burgundy was kill?

In all seriousness though I liked a lot of the changes, but I need to ask about player fort costs. I've never bought more than 1 or 2 level 8 forts in a game, are rarely buy forts in general. They're really expensive for a small benefit, especially as the game drags on.

I'm fairly certain most players don't get them either unless they're playing a tall country with development instead of expansion.

My point is that I think it would make sense to lower maintenance and maybe purchase price of forts by half. They're currently WAY too expensive. One level 8 fort costs as much as a 23 Infantry.

How should I be expected to spend 4 gold in maintenance per 50 development, or 40,000 gold adding forts to my currently 2.5k dev blobbed empire.

Nerf forts defensive stats if you need to, but right now players just don't use them. That's neither historical or balanced.
 
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Johan said:
Forts
  • If you are enter battle while in an enemy province with a fort, you will be treated as the attacker in battle and incur that province's terrain penalties.
Building forts is now a strategic decision. Where can you stop your enemies the best?
Click to expand...

I fear that this will make combat between players a WW1 style trench warfare where the one who attacks first loses. Especially in the Alps and northern Italy.
 
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