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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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But there's always a solution for all of this backlash, if Paradox REALLY wants this mechanic in and building their next DLC around it they should just put it in closed beta let people test it and for the community to judge it, because for the rise of backlash on every new mechanic that EU4 has while ignoring the old problems (Like several Multiplayer problems and glitches that's still yet to be fixed) and neglect for certain regions of the game *Cough*Asia*Cough* the number of players will be in decline and it's only these irrational adding of new mechanics to blame
 
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@Autoclave;
So instead there should just not be any Opportunity Costs? This would be a mostly slow-burn system. Hell it wouldn't actually need any actual input from the AI. Not anymore than Events already do.

It's also ridiculous because Paradox has a system where they can Override an AI with an Event Chosen AI. They use this in Stellaris to give specific behaviors to the various Leviathans. A similar system could be in use here. If a country is doing well and has a number of Age-Specific Bonuses that are appropriate for its situation, you trigger an AI Policy which tries to continue that.

@grommile;
I'm sure running a check to evaluate the situation of the world and pick from a set of different Ages would just melt any computer built before 1995.

There's no greater CPU Overhead in making a Non-Linear Age System than there is for any other Country Event. Just track Global/Regional Values and fire the correct event off in a correctly suited country when necessary. Y'know, like the Protestant Reformation or Institutions. Systems that ALREADY EXIST.

@white army;
1: I've seen majors change to republics plenty of times. And even if they hadn't, Republics Already Exist. Even if that isn't the case, I've seen France and Spain and basically every other Monarchy turn into Constitutional Monarchies plenty of times. Truly an Age of """Absolutism"""!

2: Victoria 2 was better than Victoria 1. Despite that, tying Party Formation/Dissolution to specific Years and not the situation in the country was Stupid, remains Stupid, and will always be Stupid, and given that it wasn't tied to years in Victoria 1 and you could have events activate and deactivate Parties dynamically, it is completely unnecessary. It's possible for a game to be overall better than its predecessor while still having parts that were worse, and this is one of those parts.

3: I've seen games where Protestantism was completely wiped out without my intervention. I've watched a Catholic Austria Force-Convert the entire HRE while a Catholic Sweden eats Denmark-Norway. In the end, Protestantism was restricted to a handful of Provinces and had no countries with it as their state religion, and you expect there would still be an "Age of Protestantism" in this situation?

How would there have been an Age of Revolutions in a situation without an Absolutist France that's in a state of semi-Decline? I mean, who is there to launch a Revolution Against? The simple fact is that the French Revolution and the Age it triggered was caused by very specific circumstances, and without those circumstances, it wouldn't happen the same way. If there is no true Age of Absolutism because there aren't any Absolute Monarchies, what is there to launch a Revolution Against? Alternatively, if all of the Absolute Monarchies are Rich and Stable, then what's causing trouble for the Peasantry to push them to Revolt?

4: We can't know, but we can make some educated guesses and at least TRY to think of them. The ultimate reality is that Every Game of EUIV is Fantasy. Even if the AI Did manage to recreate History, what's the point in playing if you just want to do exactly what happened? Having Linear Ages Also hampers the Player's ability to have fun. If You're playing as the British Commonwealth and successfully force your control over the other powers, turning them into republics or breaking them up amongst existing republics, I'm sure it'll be an Awful lot of Fun to still have "Age of Absolutism" pop up at its pre-ordained time.

There are no Excuses for this being the only way they could implement this system.

It is a Design Choice.

And it's a Design Choice I find Stupid and Unnecessary.
 
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I'm just worried about that moment of change between eras, when a bunch of countries suddenly lose a big chunk of their power. If it happens to all of them together, and on a pre-determined day, that's just weird.
 
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I dont know where you get your sources, maybe British?
But his Empire didnt start to decline on his reign, dont know where you get your bs...
Actually his empire pretty much screwed itself up by him getting elected. Or rather forcing his way on to the imperial throne scattering any semblance of loyalty the nobility had to the system.
 
dude wtf is this :D :eek:
It's called a spoiler tag. You get it be pressing the small text icon on the dashboard.

I`d say look HOI4 and all the trouble with complex tech tree, layered upon complex military layered upon complex diplomacy!
And it works resonably well if you ask me. Like i said I would love to see a focus tree instead of national ideas and idea groups in future installments of EU, after all the ideagroups fail to show the differences in the situation of the involved countries.

So let me get this straight. Portugal which is already a Colonial Powerhouse gets a +50 bonus. Is there anyway to get this bonus being another Colonizer like England? Because that seems like a big boost to give only to one nation in particular.


It just seems to rigid. Hopefully there will be some bonuses specifically for England but I'd rather have a choice of what bonuses to get.
No England does not need more colonial stuff, they weren't that much of a colonial power in this era. Inf act most of their colonial greatness either came after it, or by stealing french colonies during the napoleonic wars.

Why would you cheat just because there is a powerful nation? There's nothing wrong or incorrect about strong Ottomans. It seems people just don't like strong nations, France got nerfed into oblivion because people moaned about them I really hope the same doesn't happen with the Ottomans. People need to learn to adapt and use all the tools at their disposal rather than cry and ask for nerfs because they can't beat (insert strong nation here).
France isn't suposed to be as powerful as they were in 1444. In 1444 they had just passed their darkest hour, and were slowly trying to climb upwards. France is in no need of a buff, butt several of it's neighbours could do with a nerf, England and Burgundy most of all. Though in my last observe games the ones who seem to conquer France the most often is spain.
 
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And it works resonably well if you ask me. Like i said I would love to see a focus tree instead of national ideas and idea groups in future installments of EU, after all the ideagroups fail to show the differences in the situation of the involved countries.

The NFs in HOI4 are IMO the game's biggest detriment. I was hoping they'd scrap them for something else, because they're going to be a huge problem with the game down the road. They're absolutely static and make no sense and cause the AI to misperform horribly. Ever defeat Germany and release it as the German Republic (democratic) only to have them research the same German Reich ideas and declare war on Norway? Or have a Communist UK that can't research nukes because the USA is in a different faction? Or countless other things that totally break the game simply because the game played out slightly different from history?
 
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Holy sh*t.
 
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I'm sure running a check to evaluate the situation of the world and pick from a set of different Ages would just melt any computer built before 1995.
Your comment is an entirely reasonable response... to something I didn't say.
 
While I'm not against this feature in theory, I thought we had Europe in a good place was hoping this expansion might focus on ROTW in particular Asia. So far sounds like it reinforces playing the core nations and makes playing ROTW even less attractive.
 
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The Ottomans still blob less than they did historically.
Again, because of the AI and the game mechanics, not because they can't. As I have said elsewhere, no the Ottomans are not historically powerful in game, they are way over powered compared to what they were in real life (again perhaps due to the AI and game mechanics) and more importantly they're a bad and annoying part of the gameplay, especially in recent patches where they always seem to ally Russia.

Why would you cheat just because there is a powerful nation? There's nothing wrong or incorrect about strong Ottomans. It seems people just don't like strong nations, France got nerfed into oblivion because people moaned about them I really hope the same doesn't happen with the Ottomans. People need to learn to adapt and use all the tools at their disposal rather than cry and ask for nerfs because they can't beat (insert strong nation here).
France is hardly nerfed "into oblivion", although frankly if France got a buff again then maybe when allied with the entirety of the rest of europe they might be able to stand up to the Ottomans and I would consider that good. There is absolutely something incorrect about how inexplicably strong the ottomans are ingame now, even way before they hit their peak, even if they're confined to constantinople and half of anatolia. It's utter nonsense.

And yeah sure, it's the player's fault that the Ottomans ally Russia and can crush literally any feasible coalition of nations on the planet. Stupid player shouldn't actually expect a game that feels historical and should only play the game to minmax everything and then still get beaten (unless they're playing Poland) because the AI allies won't fight properly.
 
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Actually his empire pretty much screwed itself up by him getting elected. Or rather forcing his way on to the imperial throne scattering any semblance of loyalty the nobility had to the system.
If that is your perspective, then I have to disagree...
 
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Again, because of the AI and the game mechanics, not because they can't. As I have said elsewhere, no the Ottomans are not historically powerful in game, they are way over powered compared to what they were in real life (again perhaps due to the AI and game mechanics) and more importantly they're a bad and annoying part of the gameplay, especially in recent patches where they always seem to ally Russia.


France is hardly nerfed "into oblivion", although frankly if France got a buff again then maybe when allied with the entirety of the rest of europe they might be able to stand up to the Ottomans and I would consider that good. There is absolutely something incorrect about how inexplicably strong the ottomans are ingame now, even way before they hit their peak, even if they're confined to constantinople and half of anatolia. It's utter nonsense.

And yeah sure, it's the player's fault that the Ottomans ally Russia and can crush literally any feasible coalition of nations on the planet. Stupid player shouldn't actually expect a game that feels historical and should only play the game to minmax everything and then still get beaten (unless they're playing Poland) because the AI allies won't fight properly.
Complete overexageration really doesn't help your case, I was beating an Ottoman/Russia allince with a Venice that stayed MR and didn't go over 20 provinces.

Edit: you are correct, literally no coalition on Earth :rolleyes:
QC7QouM.png
 
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