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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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Hm. Maybe I'm thinking of something else. Didn't it use to be called 'Asia Minor' in-game? Or is that CKII?
You're confusing the terms. Before areas there were regions, which were overlapping in many places. There were low level regions (can't remember what they were called); Asia Minor or the Indian Trade Port (or whatever it was called) area were examples of this; then you had regions like e.g. Germany, Spain, or France. Think there was a third one too doing parts of continents. I.e. Central Europe, Western Europe, India, etc. And then at the top there were continents.
 
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Considering they never reach their historical size I don't see the problem.
Practically no one reaches their historical size. That's really not a good metric to describe things.
 
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I don't mind mechanics favoring Europeans.
My problem: "These mechanics are too much win more"

There should be return mechanics for rest of the world at least, to balance that powerful buffs.
I dont mean perfect zero sum balance. I mean realistic balance which strongly favours eu against american natives but not VERY STRONGLY against chinese, korea, japan, otto, mamluk or persia.
 
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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.

Kind of a digression, but scientifically speaking the speed of light is really just an issue of a different model of physics which was built upon and ultimately unified with relativity theory. Rømer's contribution was that light wasn't instantaneous and that it did have a measurable speed, but that speed itself was only measurable because of the referencing frame and physics model he was defining it in. Of course, he didn't know this at the time but his contribution was nonetheless significant for further advancements.

Ok, back to EU4.
 
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I like this feature. I like many others find myself not playing EUIV for weeks on end not becaue I'm burned out or anything but because I lack any objective or goal to play a non dynamic nation. This helps bridge that gap giving some form of motivation that is immediate and than I can get into a "vanilla" nation campaign that is something other than the generic "play to expand" . This too of course enhances major nation's as well I'm just currently bored from all those plays and have gotten into this weird habit where I randomly open the game .browse around the bookmark waiting for something to pop out me. Than closing the game because nothing interesting popped into mind.I think this will help that.
 
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Usually love the features, but this seems to just railroad players into specific play types or they're disadvantaged, unless they're just a specific country in which case take a powerful modifier for arbitrary reasons.

These nations succeeded in this era for a specific reason, be it size or location. A timed modifier seems counter to the overall aim of the game (for the same reason I disable lucky nations. annoyed this is forced on us for ahievements)
 
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This can actually be really nice, but first I'd have to see it ingame
 
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Practically no one reaches their historical size. That's really not a good metric to describe things.
Not true plenty reach their historical size. Aragon, Scotland, Provence, Brittany, Naples, Byzantium, Ming, Mamluks, Timurids, Novgorod, Aztecs, Inca to give a small part of the many examples that frequently happens. They all vanish and thus reach it properly.

Jokes aside out of those who actually expanded significantly Ottomans is basically the only one who ever manages to measure up since for some reason where every other country doing great inexplicably stops the Ottomans just keep going as long as they can.
 
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To people telling it's NOT eurocentric : stop it please.
It obviously is. The fact that ROTW can fulfill most of the objectives doesn't mean that it's not eurocentric.
It has been designed to be accurate to European history whereas it's not and it doesn't make any sense for ROTW.
The era's dates are eurocentric.
The objectives are eurocentric.
The era's names are eurocentric.
Sorry Paradox but if this is not only the "european part" of that system, it's going to be awful.
 
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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

What if nations like the Mughals, PLC, Netherlands, Manchu, Prussia and Russia don't EVER form in one game?

Would allowing other nations to take their bonuses make sense?
 
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The concept of game mechanics changing as the game goes on is a good idea in my opinion, especially as EU4 stretches across four centuries, during which a lot changed dramatically. Therefore I'm positively inclined towards the concept of ages, but the way it is described in this development diary seems a bit unecessarily rigid.

First of all, the date at which a certain age starts and ends seems to be set in stone as a pre-defined year. A better alternative would rather, in my opinion, be to tie it to certain things happening ingame which correspond with historical happenings that lead up to large changes of society. Secondly, from what I understand, once you get a certain amount of splendour as a specific country and is in a certain era you get a bonus which you keep throughout that age, with it suddenly disappearing the day it ends. Personally I think having a more smooth and progressive transition towards different structures and possibilities in the game would be better and allow for a better experience. Thirdly some modifiers are associated to certain countries, which is not something bad, but I think other countries who end up in the same spot as them should be able to get similar bonuses too. Finally the golden era mechanic is a good idea to represent countries like Spain or France at a certain points of time, but 50 years and it ending all of a sudden seems a bit abrupt, so there again I would make it a slower transition and tie it to certain conditions rather than time.

Good to hear that we are not getting a new start-date and hopefully the eras will tie into other aspects and thus improve features for countries across the map and not only in specific regions.
 
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With the last two ages being the age of absolutism and the age of revolutions, does that mean that France gets two unique bonuses? After all, France is the historical posterboy for both the absolute monarchy and the revolution.
 
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This reminds me so much of when prosperity got released for ck2, I love the idea of the mechanic itself but I'm also a bit wary of the mechanics creep, no not that they become stronger but that there simply are too many mechanics. Especially since the mechanics are gamey rather than intuitive.
 
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personally id rather that the different bonuses were just up for sale on first come first served bases so if your going colonial you wanna screw over outer colonial powers to stop them getting the 50 colonist for insistence
 
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SO.... If let's say I'm France, and i don't wanna spent my "splendor" can i save it till the next "age"? or does it go to 0 after an age ends?
Also, do i get +3 power projection and + 3 "splendor" PER OBJECTIVE OR IF ALL OBJECTIVES ARE MET? (if it's the latter, do i get 3/7 power projection for 1 objective???)
 
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