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EU4 - Development Diary - 13th of December 2016

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll talk about the biggest feature of our next expansion. A system we called “Ages of Europa Universalis”.

The game is now divided into 4 separate ages, where different rules apply in each age. Each age also have objectives you can fulfill, and abilities you can use use.

  • Age of Discovery => 1400 -1530
  • Age of Reformation => 1530 - 1620
  • Age of Absolutism => 1620 - 1710
  • Age of Revolutions => 1710-1821

Each age have seven objectives that can be fulfilled, and if they are fulfilled, you gain +3 power-projection as well as 3 splendor each month.

Now you may ask? What is splendor then? Well.. Splendor is the age specific currency you use to purchase abilities. There are seven abilities in each age that each country can purchase, and there is also four unique abilities in each age, where countries that historically were powerful in that age can unlock a special ability.

Whenever a new Age arrives, you power projection from objectives start decaying, and you now lose all the abilities you purchased in the previous age.

Today we’ll take a look at the Age of Discovery, which is the first Age.

eu4_140.png


Rules
Religious Rules are valid. (Previously before 1650)
Peasants War, Castilian Civil War, War of the Roses can only happen in this Age.

Objectives
  1. Capital in old world, discover Americas
  2. Own Territory on two continents
  3. Embrace Renaissance and keep it in all state provinces.
  4. Own a 30+ development city
  5. Own 5 Centers of Trade
  6. Have at least 2 personal unions.
  7. Humiliate a Rival
Abilities
  • Allow Edict “Feudal De Jure Law”
  • Transfer vassal wargoal
  • Create a claim bordering claims
  • 50% longer lasting claims.
  • Explorers & Conquistadors do not cost maintenance while on missions.
  • Finished colonies gets +1 random development.
  • Gain +1 attack bonus in your capital's terrain type
  • Ottomans : +33% Siege Ability
  • Portugal : +50 colonial growth
  • Denmark : 30 less liberty desire in subjects.
  • Venice : +50% Trade Power from Ships

Another cool concept we have related to the Age mechanics is the Golden Era. A golden era can be started once per game for a country, as soon as you have fulfilled 3 objectives in an Age, and lasts for 50 years.

A golden age gives you 10% cheaper costs for anything you spend monarch power on, your land and naval morale increase by 10%, and you produce 10% more goods.


The free patch keeps track of which age the game is in, and uses it for triggers for disasters and events.
 
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:(
 
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(EDIT)
I dun F-ed up, ignore this post :) My bad

Abilities

  • Create a claim bordering claims

Does this mean we wont be able to create claims at the beginning of the game? One of the ways of getting a CB against a country. If this is true didn't the community overwhelmingly reject the removal of this a while back?
 
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@Johan Just a small and tiny and basically inconsequential thing, but... Would it be possible for each Age to change the UI graphics a bit? (Like it does in CK2 for different cultures?) This would allow for a more "haptic" (for lack of a better word...) response when you progress in ages. (It would then also perhaps allow for modders to include custom graphic sets which might be used to give an even more individual experience playing a country. Say, giving the UI some militaristic 'flair' when one changes to Prussian Monarchy, for example.)
 
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More flavour for Europe! That Ottoman buff was desperately needed. I'm glad that the developers are really fleshing out the European majors, they really were lacking in DHE's and flavour. Can we get some more European unit packs too? The game is Europa Universalis after all, it would be senseless to put any effort into the rest of the world (unless it is colonisable by Europeans of course).
 
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After thinking on it for a moment, it would also be nice if there were some thematic objectives specifically for the non-european countries, who can't get PUs. Establishing friendly relations with the colonizers for example.
 
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Are Ages global? Or would it be possible to, for example, tie age advencement to country events, and thus allow for different nations to be in different ages?

Is there anything that would prevent making different religions/cultures/regions have different objectives and abilities? I guess a more direct way would be to ask if you can add potentials and allows to objectives and abilities?

Does every fulfilled objective give 3 Splendor?

Does this mean we wont be able to create claims at the beginning of the game? One of the ways of getting a CB against a country. If this is true didn't the community overwhelmingly reject the removal of this a while back?
I think that this just means that you're able to fabricate a claim on a province you don't actually border, if one of your claims do.
 
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More flavour for Europe! That Ottoman buff was desperately needed. I'm glad that the developers are really fleshing out the European majors, they really were lacking in DHE's and flavour. Can we get some more European unit packs too? The game is Europa Universalis after all, it would be senseless to put any effort into the rest of the world (unless it is colonisable by Europeans of course).
I actually cant tell if you are being sarcastic....at least for this decade.
 
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I am pretty disappointed. This doesn't look any close to being bigger than any change you ever made for this game in the past. I hope my opinion can change in the future.

Actually it may be bigger than it looks, if they pull it off well it could mean that the game becomes radically different every century, giving incentive to play all the way to the end date.
 
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The Ottomans didn't decline, that theory has been rejected by academics for some time. They stopped expanding militarily but that hardly equals a decline.

They had internal problems anyway. Maybe there is another name to this atm, sorry.

Ottomans are too OP anyway. During timeline of EU4 from 8 wars between Ottomans and Russia only 1 was won by turks and two was draws. Ottomans relied on quantity and huge armies with good supply trains, but in the game they are top quality army. Russia didn't have huge population during timeline and couldn't rely on zerg-rush.
 
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I need to ask, for the sake of my gimmick runs. Is this bonus just in that one capital province, or does it apply universally to all provinces with that terrain type? I need to know.
I think it's supposed to be all provinces with the same terrain as your capital. If we say your Capital is in steppes then it applies to all Steppe provinces in your country for that Age.
 
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