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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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one of my friend guessed those countries for other ages

Reformation : Ottomans, Castile/Spain, Austria, ?
Absolutism
: France, Netherlands, PLC, Sweden
Revolutions : France, England, Russia, Prussia
I have a hard enough time guessing the reasoning behind Denmark being one of the only four countries in the planet to get a slot in the Age of Discovery, let alone guess who will get them in the other ages :p
 
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one of my friend guessed those countries for other ages

Reformation : Ottomans, Castile/Spain, Austria, ?
Absolutism
: France, Netherlands, PLC, Sweden
Revolutions : France, England, Russia, Prussia

what do you think?


Perhaps a country can only get a special ability only once. @Johan can you tell us if a country can have two special habilities?
 
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I have a hard enough time guessing the reasoning behind Denmark being one of the only four countries in the planet to get a slot in the Age of Discovery, let alone guess who will get them in the other ages :p
We actually were a major power in the first half of the game; after which Sweden took our place in the Sun. Heck as late as the 1850s (in the Slesvig Wars) the Germans actually saw us as the big bad boogieman.
You can't diminish the importance of the Sound Toll. It made the king one of the richest monarchs in Europe and allowed him to build really extensively and at the same time go on military adventures abroad despite the nobility having given him shackles on at his coronation. (Until 1660 every new king had to sign an agreement with the nobility which stated what the king could and could not do without the consent of the nobility.)
Hamlet was not set in Denmark by coincidence; and neither was it set at Kronborg by coincidence.
 
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Do not like it - another mechanic on top of an allready mechanic loaded game that could use some overhauls and integration of older mechanics.
Also it seems like a massive railroading system to me -> not a fan of.
Especially the now even more prevalent "hard" dates were stuff swtiches instead of more dynamic approach sets me off. (additionally those ages are extremely europe focused again).

Over all not a huge fan.

Could be the first DLC for EU4 i opt out from completly.
 
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We actually were a major power in the first half of the game; after which Sweden took our place in the Sun. Heck as late as the 1850s (in the Slesvig Wars) the Germans actually saw us as the big bad boogieman.
You can't diminish the importance of the Sound Toll. It made the king one of the richest monarchs in Europe and allowed him to build really extensively and at the same time go on military adventures abroad despite the nobility having given him shackles on at his coronation. (Until 1660 every new king had to sign an agreement with the nobility which stated what the king could and could not do without the consent of the nobility.)
Hamlet was not set in Denmark by coincidence; and neither was it set at Kronborg by coincidence.
Certainly, Denmark was the major regional power up to this period, but wasn't France a major power then too? And Spain? What about Muscovy? Poland? And the Papacy? The accomplishments of any of which in this Age could be argued to have been as impactful if not more than those of Denmark.

And more importantly, what about the RotW? What about Vijayanagar? Ming? Malacca? Kilwa? Aztec? There are plenty of countries that achieved their zenith during this time period in a way that influenced more people than Denmark.

I am not against Denmark and the Kalmar Union getting more flavour, I just find the choice of putting it in this particular mechanic puzzling.

Ultimately it is sort of a timed National Idea that is available for a tiny subset of countries to the detriment of all others, so it is always going to be hard to justify I guess...
 
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So Ages are free so you can link DLC to them(Art of War). While also allowing them to make events for different ages. With the DLC, will lucky nations be removed and nations like ottomans nerfed?
 
It would be cool if, instead of having 4 countries per age, each country got one unique buff activate at one ages. It would be like a unique thing, like national ideas. Not everyone would have one but the final goal would be to give one to everyone one.

That way e.g. Ming/Aztecs and Inca could get some unique in the first age. Most Colonial formables would have their in the last and so on.
 
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Anyway, I see the Ages system not as a new feature just for now but the introduction of a scaffolding/framework that will allow much more flavour in the future. One of the problems that always seems to come up is stuff like the Ottomans for example - how is it possible to show a rise and then relative fall organically rather than having a super event called "Fall of the Ottomans" where everything sucks?

People aren't really thinking about the possibilities that such a feature is going to have on the future direction of the game and the community in general - I think Johan was correct when he referred to it as possibly the biggest feature ever added post-launch certainly in terms of how it will change the way the game is played.

We could be witnessing a far reaching replacement for things like Lucky Nations, random event chains and the rest of those things. Obviously not straight away in patch 1.20 but this change will significantly alter where the game is going to be in 1.25.
No, we are not witnessing a far-reaching replacement for these things, because it's a paid feature only. Every single one of those "replaced" features has to be fully supported in versions of the game that don't have this DLC enabled.

You can expect some tweaks to the sets of rules, event chains, objectives, and rewards, sure. But probably not many (because old DLC features only get minor tweaks as time moves forward, RNW excepted).

This is not an overhaul of the game.

This is a set of new bonuses and abilities that have an extraordinarily minimalist impact on the game. I can't think of a time where claims chaining or ignoring explorer upkeep would have mattered at all, for instance*. And for that reason, the objectives themselves are things you were either already going to get anyway because they're useful things to do on their own, or they're things you'll continue to not bother with because the rewards are lackluster (which they have to be because paid feature).

I do give this system some credit for at least having some unique new benefits instead of the old pattern of just stacking more of the same modifiers in different ways. It's just that the benefits provided for this age at least are irrelevant (except for the unique nation ones, but I'll never play those countries anyway, they're too easy already).

If I ever do pick up this DLC (either at 75% off or because they manage to include some Confucian and Shinto mechanics in it or something), my Age of Discovery strategies aren't going to change from the norm. I'm going to get the Humiliate, Large City, and Renaissance objectives, because I already would have, and pick probably the same bonus every time (have to wait and see what Edicts do, but otherwise the +1 random dev for colonizers and +1 attack bonus otherwise).

For something advertised as being a huge change, it's looking like it's going to affect my game less than the average set of balance tweaks offered in free patches :\


* Assuming claims chaining allows you to fabricate on nations you otherwise couldn't, it might have a use for that benefit alone. That's still pretty rare though since usually you can just plow through whoever's in your way to get to your target. The occasional odd start might benefit from this, but then there's the problem of unlocking it early enough to be useful (before you're a regional power that can enforce your will anyway).
 
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I was expecting a huge trade overhaul with trade routes changing through influence and over time. Combined with a better way to raise production, I don't know what other big overhaul this game would need. But I guess I was expecting too much. It must be a big amount of work into it, but for me it doesn't feel like it.
 
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Who is the artist of this beautiful image for the age of discovery? I really really like it!

I'm very happy to hear that you like the image. I hope to have some time to make it even better.

Regarding the UI, I feel it's a little strange that in the ages window the first age is on the bottom and the last is on the top and I hope future ages will be 'greyed out' and cannot be viewed before they're unlocked. Besides that, I really like this new feature and am looking forward to trying it out. And I got to say, I'm really liking the artwork. Kudos on the artist.

You are quite right. That is actually something that we have discussed here earlier and I intend to flip the order of the age icons when my schedule permits. Well spotted.
 
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Certainly, Denmark was the major regional power up to this period, but wasn't France a major power then too? And Spain? What about Muscovy? Poland? And the Papacy? The accomplishments of any of which in this Age could be argued to have been as impactful if not more than those of Denmark.

And more importantly, what about the RotW? What about Vijayanagar? Ming? Malacca? Kilwa? Aztec? There are plenty of countries that achieved their zenith during this time period in a way that influenced more people than Denmark.

I am not against Denmark and the Kalmar Union getting more flavour, I just find the choice of putting it in this particular mechanic puzzling.

Ultimately it is sort of a timed National Idea that is available for a tiny subset of countries to the detriment of all others, so it is always going to be hard to justify I guess...
And the bonuses are arbitrary at best. Extra colonial growth for Portugal? On what grounds? Portugal wasn't making much settling in the XV and XVI centuries. It makes no sense.
 
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Seems like a $9.99 luxurious pack of DHEs,missions and positive modifiers,while some of them will be available in free features.
I bet this DLC will cost more than 10 bucks.

None of them is rotw, so it's highly plausible.
Dude, we get it. This is your 10th (or so) post in this thread where you complain about railroading and lack of love for ROTW. Other people manage to voice this opinion with only one post.
 
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Instead of fixing terrible army and navy combat, getting rid of combat width and no improvements to Asia, we get some new micro achievements? How creative and mind blowing.....
 
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This really looks huge. That Otto siege ability though o_0

Also how much PP would you gain when you complete one of those objects?

(Does this mean, finally full moddable PP, inventing new modifiers there, influencing those in events etc? - cause that would be great).
 
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one of my friend guessed those countries for other ages

Reformation : Ottomans, Castile/Spain, Austria, ?
Absolutism
: France, Netherlands, PLC, Sweden
Revolutions : France, England, Russia, Prussia

what do you think?

I think you mean:

Reformation : Ottomans, Castile/Spain, Austria, ?
Absolutism
: Ottomans, France, Netherlands, PLC, Sweden
Revolutions : Ottomans, France, England, Russia, Prussia
 
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I think you mean:

Reformation : Ottomans, Castile/Spain, Austria, ?
Absolutism
: Ottomans, France, Netherlands, PLC, Sweden
Revolutions : Ottomans, France, England, Russia, Prussia
Im not sure if you are tring to be funny
 
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