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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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Is this another 20 € patch for some nonsense mechanic?

Here is a total of the game and DLC cost that i have so far:
The game EU4 - 40 €
Mare Nostrum - 15 €
Cossacks - 20 €
Common Sense - 15 €
El Dorado - 15 €
Art of War - 20 €
Conquest of Paradise - 15 €
Wealth of Nations - 10 €
Res Publica - 5 €
American Dream - 5 €
Digital Extream Edition - 8 €
Rights of man - 20 €

The total is 188 € + some other units dlc (The overall DLC cost is 250 €) and sometime you can have a surprise with a missing localisation, a bug or a crash. Do you know any game that cost this much? For just a game is a little insane, that might be the minimum monthly wage in some countries!

Now, you guys just released the Denmark patch and you are announcing another patch ?! But we didn't have time to finish a campaign and we just didn't ask for an update.
Or why don't you do a poll on what nations we like you to improve or what mechanic (Orthodox religion or maybe the trade that haven't got improved since the release or add more goods)

I hope you will think about this to fast patches or just think about EU5!
Is some really paying full prices for dlcs? In times of black fridays, steam sales etc when u can buy it at 25%-30% of orignal price? U can buy whole pack at price of some shitty Ubisoft game, when PDX games provide entertainment for hundres of hours, not for 20 like AC or something like that.
 
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Horrible, disgusting, atrocious, retarded, stupid, arcadish, nullifying, ridiculous, worrying and wasteful are all words I would use to describe this absolutely absurd development diary.

I have bought every single expansion, registered over 1500 hours on EU4 and countless more on EU3 and supported you, Paradox, every step of the way. HOWEVER EU has always been a strategy game, NOT an arcade game, not a bonus filled garbage game. A game where history mixed with the ability to manipulate created a masterpiece. Implementing features such as these which gives players a specific goal will only ruin the experience of creating the world as you see fit. I will not be buying this expansion in this state, and neither will my 75+ friends.

I will encourage them all to contact their own personal friend groups and refrain from the purchase themselves which I hope could equate to hundreds if not thousands of players after networking takes full effect, of course this means that number times ten $ out of your bottom line which we all know is all you care about as of late as much as I still love your products...Regardless maybe the prospect of a bankrupt expansion will persuade you from pursuing this disaster and instead force you to create a masterpiece as you have done so well in the past.

Very, very VERY disappointment Paradox this is a HORRENDOUS idea.
Completely agree. Unless the next diary reveals some massive changes, I think I'll skip this atrocious-looking DLC.
 
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Completely agree. Unless the next diary reveals some massive changes, I think I'll skip this atrocious-looking DLC.
Do we know if Devastation is a free feature or DLC only? I actually like the concept of Devastation, right now it looks a lot more likely to change my play-style than Ages (which look like they simply reward players for doing what they'd normally do anyway).
 
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3-4 week's ago Johans wrote, that they don't have new ideas for this game for now... and we have "age of discovery". I just can't wait for start the new game by one of thiny german countries...
What for is that age feature? Can't You just try to rework missions and make them more interesting?
 
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3-4 week's ago Johans wrote, that they don't have new ideas for this game for now... and we have "age of discovery". I just can't wait for start the new game by one of thiny german countries...
What for is that age feature? Can't You just try to rework missions and make them more interesting?

And how would you sell missions and old mechanics reworks as shiny 20 euro DLC? Some new DLC with another modifiers and bonuses will generate more hype in casual players "hey I can reach 1500 development as Ottos before 1500 now! Amazing DLC!".
 
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I've slept on it and here are my thoughts:

•Like the eras idea.
I truly hope its not too hardcoded and it is very modable.
I like the institution interaction w/era idea
and culture group bonus idea (any Turkish culture nation can take the siege bonus if they beat TUR or TUR is vaska'ed like byz aka fake rome bruple is supposed to be.)

•i can see this as another CN.
CN'S (colonal nations )
Started as pretty meh, but over time became decent and not half bad.


•Again, concerned,but cautiously optimistic.
Like what im seeing but have it very, very modable.
Loing forward to next week
 
Horrible, disgusting, atrocious, retarded, stupid, arcadish, nullifying, ridiculous, worrying and wasteful are all words I would use to describe this absolutely absurd development diary.

I have bought every single expansion, registered over 1500 hours on EU4 and countless more on EU3 and supported you, Paradox, every step of the way. HOWEVER EU has always been a strategy game, NOT an arcade game, not a bonus filled garbage game. A game where history mixed with the ability to manipulate created a masterpiece. Implementing features such as these which gives players a specific goal will only ruin the experience of creating the world as you see fit. I will not be buying this expansion in this state, and neither will my 75+ friends.

I will encourage them all to contact their own personal friend groups and refrain from the purchase themselves which I hope could equate to hundreds if not thousands of players after networking takes full effect, of course this means that number times ten $ out of your bottom line which we all know is all you care about as of late as much as I still love your products...Regardless maybe the prospect of a bankrupt expansion will persuade you from pursuing this disaster and instead force you to create a masterpiece as you have done so well in the past.

Very, very VERY disappointment Paradox this is a HORRENDOUS idea.

Dude, what the fuck? 1500 hours of autism?
Sad..
 
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Horrible, disgusting, atrocious, retarded, stupid, arcadish, nullifying, ridiculous, worrying and wasteful are all words I would use to describe this absolutely absurd development diary.

I have bought every single expansion, registered over 1500 hours on EU4 and countless more on EU3 and supported you, Paradox, every step of the way. HOWEVER EU has always been a strategy game, NOT an arcade game, not a bonus filled garbage game. A game where history mixed with the ability to manipulate created a masterpiece. Implementing features such as these which gives players a specific goal will only ruin the experience of creating the world as you see fit. I will not be buying this expansion in this state, and neither will my 75+ friends.

I will encourage them all to contact their own personal friend groups and refrain from the purchase themselves which I hope could equate to hundreds if not thousands of players after networking takes full effect, of course this means that number times ten $ out of your bottom line which we all know is all you care about as of late as much as I still love your products...Regardless maybe the prospect of a bankrupt expansion will persuade you from pursuing this disaster and instead force you to create a masterpiece as you have done so well in the past.

Very, very VERY disappointment Paradox this is a HORRENDOUS idea.

The ship sailed on EU being a history series with EU3 -- only modders kept it so. And now it's sailing on being even a sandbox strategy game. It's evident even from something as superficial as the cutesy artistic direction that their marketing has been sliding inexorably further and further towards the casual/arcade crowd.

On the bright side, it's a gradual and managed sort of decay. Compared to (e.g.) Bioware's ignominious nosedive into industrial console trash, it's not so bad. It's a good reason to waste less of my life on these (still horribly addictive) pastimes.
 
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Horrible, disgusting, atrocious, retarded, stupid, arcadish, nullifying, ridiculous, worrying and wasteful are all words I would use to describe this absolutely absurd development diary.

I have bought every single expansion, registered over 1500 hours on EU4 and countless more on EU3 and supported you, Paradox, every step of the way. HOWEVER EU has always been a strategy game, NOT an arcade game, not a bonus filled garbage game. A game where history mixed with the ability to manipulate created a masterpiece. Implementing features such as these which gives players a specific goal will only ruin the experience of creating the world as you see fit. I will not be buying this expansion in this state, and neither will my 75+ friends.

I will encourage them all to contact their own personal friend groups and refrain from the purchase themselves which I hope could equate to hundreds if not thousands of players after networking takes full effect, of course this means that number times ten $ out of your bottom line which we all know is all you care about as of late as much as I still love your products...Regardless maybe the prospect of a bankrupt expansion will persuade you from pursuing this disaster and instead force you to create a masterpiece as you have done so well in the past.

Very, very VERY disappointment Paradox this is a HORRENDOUS idea.

It isn't very mature threatening a studio you appertently love (?) while you don't have all the information yet of the expansion at all. Neither do I think that you can even decide for others what they can or can't do.
 
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Is this another 20 € patch for some nonsense mechanic?

Here is a total of the game and DLC cost that i have so far:
The game EU4 - 40 €
Mare Nostrum - 15 €
Cossacks - 20 €
Common Sense - 15 €
El Dorado - 15 €
Art of War - 20 €
Conquest of Paradise - 15 €
Wealth of Nations - 10 €
Res Publica - 5 €
American Dream - 5 €
Digital Extream Edition - 8 €
Rights of man - 20 €

The total is 188 € + some other units dlc (The overall DLC cost is 250 €) and sometime you can have a surprise with a missing localisation, a bug or a crash. Do you know any game that cost this much? For just a game is a little insane, that might be the minimum monthly wage in some countries!

Now, you guys just released the Denmark patch and you are announcing another patch ?! But we didn't have time to finish a campaign and we just didn't ask for an update.
Or why don't you do a poll on what nations we like you to improve or what mechanic (Orthodox religion or maybe the trade that haven't got improved since the release or add more goods)

I hope you will think about this to fast patches or just think about EU5!


Should be time to include some of the first DLCs in the core game for free, especially some of the first skin packs.
 
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I have to agree. I think some of the early add-ons should be part of the base pack now. I have all of them, but newcomers can get terrified by the sheer number of stuff and their cost.
Anyway, as far as this expansion goes, i just realized there will be no new start date and got very depressed. I really hoped for a 1400 start, just to avoid the obligatory Ottoman and French behemoths. I guess they will expand the timeline eventually, but it will be the main selling point of a future expansion. We have a way to go yet.
Back to my Byzantium suicide runs with me :)
 
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Well, since i played 3153 hours of EU4 and i bought almost all the DLC, i care how the game is developing and i hope my opinion cares for the developers. Also, the amount of patches stoped me making mods and others as well. If you think like "who the hell cares" about my point it's obvious that you don't know how to respect a client that is buying a product.

Umm you really missed the point. I said who the hell cares because you were asking the developers to stop releasing patches and expansions so quickly because you personally didn't have time to finish your game before a new patch came out. And I said who the hell cares because there is an extremely obvious solution to your problem - don't buy the expansion and/or don't patch the game until you're ready. What's so hard about that? You can even enjoy the older versions of your mods that are compatible with your version of the game. Just because you don't feel like making mods because the development schedule is too fast for you is a pretty weak reason for anybody to stop anything that they're doing.

Of course people are entitled to their opinions, that's never the issue. But people equate "I'm entitled to my opinion" with "they should do exactly what I want just because I want it and screw everyone else's perspectives". It's cool that you have spent hundreds of hours playing the game. So have many others. And I'm sure the devs like that and they should care about your opinion like they should care about all their loyal customer's opinions. But what you're asking is not "respect", it's silliness - again, you don't need to buy the expansion and/or patch the game before you want to! Don't you see that you're expecting that your particular preference will dictate their development schedule? And don't you see that can come across as entitled?
 
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What you're saying is essentially that if something earns money, it is good. We're entitled and our opinions don't matter because the direction of the game is objectively good due to the game getting more money.

Yeah, just, no. I don't agree with the direction of the game and I won't like it just because it makes money.

Why do I care about the DLC? I have bought everything thus far, because I love the game and want to support it, but also because not buying DLC is mostly seen upon as the unfinished game; what the game isn't. Playing with all current DLC that affect the game is the "real" "current version", so asking someone like me with like 2000 hours in the game to skip out on one is out of the question.

I am invested, and want the game to go in a direction I enjoy, because I don't want to quit playing it. EU4 is turning into a game I'm less and less interested in playing, now whyever would I not speak up against that is beyond me.

Well, that's not really what I was saying. The earning money aspect is an incentive that explains a lot of their motivation. But it doesn't obviously always mean the game is "objectively good" (whatever that means) if it makes money. Who would determine that anyway?

But it does tell you that if people keep buying the product, they like it. It's an indicator of consumer preferences. So in that sense the market is a very good indicator of how well the consumers of the product overall are liking something. You say you buy the DLCs because "you love the game and want to support it" and also because you feel playing with all the DLCs is "the real" version. That's a choice you make though - plenty of people are happy to skip a DLC and if you buy them all, that says something about you being happy enough with the product that it's worth your money.

Of course people are entitled to their opinions and you can buy a product without thinking it is 100% correct way to move the game forward. That's not the issue. My response was to this guy who was complaining how the development schedule was too fast because he didn't have time to finish a game and he insisted the company listen to his unique concerns instead of realizing that he is more than capable of just not buying the DLC and not updating the game until he's ready. My point was that the market obviously wants more DLCs because they sell well, so why the hell would any rational company listen to some random dude with a fairly weird request?

Let's discuss the game and the direction it is going and all those things. That's totally fair and should be encouraged. I just find some people's attitudes hilarious in a sad way because they are incapable of seeing beyond their own unique concern and putting themselves in the developer's position.
 
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Dude, what the ****? 1500 hours of autism?
Sad..

You jest, but these games really are like crack to a certain (indeed probably autism spectrum) personality type. I place them in an entirely different class than other computer games and electronic media when it comes to threats to time management, productivity and engagement with the real world. I find them far more addictive than alcohol or anything else. I seriously wonder what exactly it is they do to my brain chemistry sometimes.
 
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Hello again!

So, after receiving such support for my earlier suggestion, I've thought about the ages system more and have some additional suggestions.

For anyone interested, here is my earlier post about adding ages to the game in a way that ties them to institutions: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...of-december-2016.988299/page-22#post-22203679

OK, so I revisited my earlier thoughts on how ages could be tied dynamically into institutions because, as was noted by others, there is no 7th institution, and adding one at 1750 is kind of beyond the scope of a discussion on ages. So, instead of that I thought further about how a fourth age could arise.

In all my games of EU4, I have seen a country become the target of the revolution once when it wasn't me doing it myself. I've been Revolutionary Teutonic Order and Revolutionary Athens, and I've seen the AI become Revolutionary Mexico. So, given that the final age is the "Age of Revolutions", and the game currently has 1750 as the date at which the revolutions disaster can begin ticking up, I thought about ways to encourage revolutions rather than adding a new institution.

So, I think that it might make sense for there to be a trigger in 1750 that pushes everyone into the final age. Unlike the earlier three ages, which under my suggested system would be tied to institutions, this is a global event that encourages conflict as the game is nearing its end. When this age starts, every nation that meets the criteria starts to gain progress towards a revolution. My initial thoughts on criteria would be 0 stability or less with less than 70 legitimacy/republican tradition/unity, or being a disloyal vassal/colonial nation (to reflect situations like the American Revolutionary War). Progress can be sped up by having high national unrest, high war exhaustion, having x loans/being bankrupt, having negative prestige.

If the revolution progress reaches 100, that nation has large rebellions fire which will act as the normal revolutionary rebels do with the current disaster.

If a nation puts down the rebels in their own country, they will gain a significant amount of Slendour to use towards abilities in this final age. If they don't, they will change government type and become a revolutionary republic.

During this age, a global revolution can fire if multiple nations fall to the revolution disaster. When this happens, a new "league war" style option will become available which will have the first/highest Great Power "Target of the Revolution" at the head of one side and the highest non-revolutionary Great Power at the head of the other. The intent of one side of this league is to quash the revolution and force all revolutionary governments to revert to their previous government types (be that theocracies, republics, monarchies etc) and the intent of the other side is to force nations to recognise the legitimacy of their governments and allow for countries to freely convert to a revolutionary republic via decision.

The number of objectives for this age that are available for gaining splendour would be reduced, but you can gain splendour by being part of either "the revolutionary/liberation league" or "the anti-revolution/conservative league", or by attacking or defending the revolutionary target.

The Abilities that can be gained in this age will have one or more abilities that are limited by which side of the revolutionary conflict you choose to side with, so instead of (or as well as) individual nations getting abilities, there will be abilities for the liberal/conservative sides of the league.

An idea for a potential ability given during this era could be a special CB that allows the winner to force a government change on the loser to Revolutionary Republic.

For me, this really would be the "biggest thing ever added to EU4" and it would go some way towards adding an in-game representation of what Napoloen brought to Europe, and in some ways really justify the end date being the year he died.
 
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You jest, but these games really are like crack to a certain (indeed probably autism spectrum) personality type. I place them in an entirely different class than other computer games and electronic media when it comes to threats to time management, productivity and engagement with the real world. I find them far more addictive than alcohol or anything else. I seriously wonder what exactly it is they do to my brain chemistry sometimes.
I played far more than 1500 hours, for real.
Not a good reason to encourage my neighborhood's gang not to buy a DLC because of ONE single Dev Diary, it's just a childish rant. Besides, I'm sure we'll all buy it, preferably on sale.
 
I like system itself but I dislike that there's "hard" border between eras. Ok, it has to apply for events/crisises that are specific for an era (although these could simply have smaller and smaller chance to fire with time), but "powers" bought with splendor should wane slowly (maybe leaving some tiny bonus as a monument to nation's accomplishments?), being strongest during era's "peak". After all, why should it work as described with bonuses disappearing in a day?

All in all- I really like an idea itself!
 
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I get the sense from the Agree/Disagree ticks throughout this thread that a clear majority of the player base has serious reservations about the direction this patch is heading, especially regarding overbuffing Europe and leaving the ROTW hanging out to dry. Even in Europe there are potential issues. Florence and Venice, for example, clearly had their golden ages during the first age, but the 2 PU requirement doesn't leave much of a chance for history to repeat itself (the golden age mini-perk perhaps, but not the whole 7 achievement package deal). How about Aztec, Mayan, and Incan? Not much chance of a golden age for them either. Anyway, it looks like Paradox just trying to shoehorn nations into following their historical paths more rigidly rather than the looser sandbox most of us seem to prefer. The one thing people do seem to want though is an earlier start date. Based on the details released so far this may be the first patch I pass over.
 
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