• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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.
 
  • 298
  • 155
  • 40
Reactions:
If a country can only get a special ability only once, I guess:

Reformation: Castile/Spain, PLC, Mughal, Persia
Absolutism: France, Sweden, Netherlands, Manchu
Revolutions: England, Austria, Russia, Prussia

Correctly guessed.
 
  • 42
  • 11
Reactions:
It seems very easy for ottomans to get an 'Ability' as Ottomans. If they simply conquer Constantinople and develop it 7 times they already have a monthly growth of 7 splendor: 1 Base + 3 "Present on Two Continents" + 3 "A Large City". An ability costs 800 splendor, so Ottos will get to buy one every 10 years almost from the start just for holding on to their provinces and developing Constantinople a little. This alone is enough to buy all abilities over time.

Actually.. anatolia is europe in eu4
 
  • 23
  • 11
Reactions:
It's not THAT euro centric
ROTW countries can get all the objectives except the PU one (and there are maybe 2 or 3 countries even in Europe which are able to do that)
But some unique bonuses are quite unlogical (Denmark SHOULD lose its PUs, Ottomans dont need another bonus, their blobbing is quite historically relevant)
These only apply if they've done at least three of the goals, and are powerful as they could have been historically, so a non-player Denmark will likely not get such a thing.
 
Just poking a bit of fun here, but I question PDX's marketing goals by advertising a paid-only feature that makes the Ottomans even stronger. Who would want to buy that? ;)
 
  • 5
Reactions:
Do you think it's a good idea to let players have some control over when the ages end? For instance you could force switch to Absolutism with the above suggestion by changing to Absolute Monarchy yourself, even at huge MP cost, in order to deny a rival bonuses they've earned.

That seems really awkward and even more game-y IMO.

But how far in advance can you really take the relevant admin tech that allows the change in government? Something like 7 years because the tech time penalty and monarch point cap limits it to that? If you really want to spend those extra points on advancing the age by 7 years, I don't see it being that big of a problem.
 
Euro-centric isn't a bad thing. If we wanted to make the game properly global, there would have to be a really in-depth system replicating the political structure of China, which would be an entire game of its own - as it is, it has to play second fiddle to ensure the game works properly.

What would really have to happen would be to be able to play an entirely 'Asian' game - with trade nodes that don't all lead to Europe unless something happens to make them do so. It's impossible to say whether or not European supremacy was inevitable, but it did happen and that may be just fluke or very likely given the circumstances.

There is enough noise about adding more none-European flavour so this will probably filter into the development cycle at some point... but from what I've seen, it's going to be competing strongly with improved naval gameplay for the next big overhaul.
 
  • 6
  • 3
Reactions:
At least based on the two dev diaries, it seems this DLC is more to do with (steal the name of a mechanic) "Prosperity' and Glory and adding more, hopefully dynamic, benefits and changes.
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
ROTW has always been hard mode. American nations were always super hard mode. Have you even played EU3? Back then, we (and the Ming) had to westernise FIVE times over. Oh, and after that, we had to modernise - which was another huge stab hit. And our units outright sucked in comparison to Europeans. Now THAT was a hardcore challenge. And now you're asking for ROTW to be as easy as Europe in this time scale? Look, there are these countries out there to be a challenge. I want them to be challenging. They SHOULD be challenging. That's where the true hard mode lies. It would be an offense to every competent gamer if they'd completely equalise all countries. And it just so happens that during this time period, Europeans come to dominate. (Well, they actually do so super heavily in Vicky 2 era, but I've heard tumbl crybabies complain about the european domination there as well.) Sure, it's not fair. Yes, it is Eurocentric. Why? Because history happened to be Eurocentric in this time period.

Even though, China deserves a mention - they only got screwed by never drinking much wine, thus not using glass, thus not coming up with glasses, which lead to an increase of productive life span for learned men in Europe - you could work for 10 - 15 years longer than previously, which in turn, lead to faster scientific advancement, which lead to China falling behind, really.

So, you know, Americans should get mechanics that make them interesting to play - of which they have plenty - but shouldn't get mechanics that make them easy. They've gotten INSANE buffs, when compared to EU3 already. And I played them quite a lot back then. And succeeded.

The best thing to do would be to add more of the goals (i.e. like the "embrace the Renaissance", discover the new world, etc. goals) unique to countries in other continents that do involve successfully going against the historical path that those regions took, but have challenging requirements. Basically, replicate the factors that kept those parts of the world from keeping up, but also reward players who can successfully play against the tide of history.
 
  • 7
Reactions:
It seems very easy for ottomans to get an 'Ability' as Ottomans. If they simply conquer Constantinople and develop it 7 times they already have a monthly growth of 7 splendor: 1 Base + 3 "Present on Two Continents" + 3 "A Large City". An ability costs 800 splendor, so Ottos will get to buy one every 10 years almost from the start just for holding on to their provinces and developing Constantinople a little. This alone is enough to buy all abilities over time.

Even more easy, as Otto's you can set byz as rival and pick Costantinople, humiliate Byz, develop Costantinople and get the asian province of AQ. +10 splendor in less than 10 years from start.
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
What are the stats regarding how often people play in the later stages of the game? It looks like this DLC is part of a move to make the later stages more interesting - which can only be a good thing. Oftentimes, but 1600 or so there are a few big blobs and it's all about managing the inevitable.

Random events (which might really infuriate!) could work - or the necessity to take a very strict set of administrative ideas in order to manage a big empire. There is just no way that a France or a Poland could hold together a vast empire for more than a few years before it fell apart at the seams - destroyed from within.

So 'empire mechanics' could be an introduction.... meaning that as you get bigger, you have to focus more on internal management
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
ROTW has always been hard mode. American nations were always super hard mode. Have you even played EU3? Back then, we (and the Ming) had to westernise FIVE times over. Oh, and after that, we had to modernise - which was another huge stab hit. And our units outright sucked in comparison to Europeans. Now THAT was a hardcore challenge. And now you're asking for ROTW to be as easy as Europe in this time scale? Look, there are these countries out there to be a challenge. I want them to be challenging. They SHOULD be challenging. That's where the true hard mode lies. It would be an offense to every competent gamer if they'd completely equalise all countries. And it just so happens that during this time period, Europeans come to dominate. (Well, they actually do so super heavily in Vicky 2 era, but I've heard tumbl crybabies complain about the european domination there as well.) Sure, it's not fair. Yes, it is Eurocentric. Why? Because history happened to be Eurocentric in this time period.

Even though, China deserves a mention - they only got screwed by never drinking much wine, thus not using glass, thus not coming up with glasses, which lead to an increase of productive life span for learned men in Europe - you could work for 10 - 15 years longer than previously, which in turn, lead to faster scientific advancement, which lead to China falling behind, really.

So, you know, Americans should get mechanics that make them interesting to play - of which they have plenty - but shouldn't get mechanics that make them easy. They've gotten INSANE buffs, when compared to EU3 already. And I played them quite a lot back then. And succeeded.
You answered out of context. I just stated that it's not only one objective that it's out of reach for rotw nations.
My complaint is not about difficulty. Most rotw nations should be hard or extremely hard. My complaint is that mechanics are developed leaving out rotw nations entirely.
 
  • 5
  • 2
Reactions:
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.
As people had guessed, and which now has been confirmed by Johan, a nation can only feature once. So France, Spain, Russia, Poland, Sweden, etc. come later. And if the papacy were to be in it should be for the reformation and not age of discovery; in my opinion at least.

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.
What did Kilwa and the Aztecs do which really influenced the era and the times? Possibly Malacca too. Don't know enough about Vija to say how much it influenced the times, though the Mughals are in according to Johan. And Ming isolated itself---that's not really being influential. And Manchu is in.
And Denmark did significantly impact Central Europe. Now we were no France or Austria, but we also weren't unimportant. And if you want impact then you also need to look at things like culture and science and we were influential there too influencing our neighbours and thereby the whole World due to the dominance of Europe. For instance Thyco Brahe was Danish; and so was Ole Rømer (among other things proved that light doesn't have an infinite speed; also invented the modern thermometer). To just name a few.

Not sure about all versions of eu3 but definitely all of eu4
I think it was in all versions of EU3, since I don't remember getting distant overseas when taking the byzzies back to glory; though granted they didn't exist until IN.
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions: