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EU4 - Development Diary - 5th of September 2017

Good morning world! Tuesday rolls around and while I must spend many hours stirring up the dev multiplayer contestants to start a word war, it is also time for another Developer Diary. As mentioned in last week's diary on Army Professionalism, today we're giving attention to a part of the game which hasn't seen much development in EU4's life with Trade Policies

For owners of the upcoming expansion accompanying Update 1.23, you will be able to set a trade policy in any node where your nation has a merchant present. There is no cost to setting your policy, and they can be changed with a 12 month cooldown. Policies available to all nations are:

  • Maximize Profits: +5% trade power
  • Hostile Trading: +25% Spy network speed in nations with present merchant or home node.

  • Establish Communities: +15% Improve relations with all other nations with their home node or a merchant present located here.
  • Improve Inland Routes: +1 combat terrain bonus in trade node provinces. Only possible with 33% of Trade Power in a node
The default policy selected for any merchant is Maximize Profits. For unknown reasons, the Inland Routes policy has proven very popular in the office.

trade policies 1.jpg


I said these were the policies available for everyone, but as some may have gathered from screenshots and dev diaries, we are taking quite the shining to the Islamic world in 1.23. As such, there is a specific Trade Policy available to Muslims: Propagate Religion.

When a Muslim nation controls more than 33% of the Trade Power in a Trade Company Region's node, they are able to activate the Propagate Religion Trade Policy, which will establish a Religious Centre in the node, spreading this religion within the node, as can be seen in my totally legit Omani screenshot

trade policies 2.jpg


There are events associated with the Trade Policies, including specific flavour events should Religion be propagated through Indonesia.

While we're talking about the South East, let's take a look at the trade goods setup here.

trade goods SEA.jpg


A few changes to be seen here, particularly with gems and incense in the region, which should be noted are both added to the possible goods that colonies here can produce.

Cheers for checking out today's Dev diary, but I must now go around the office antagonizing our Dev Clash players. Next week we'll continue on the theme of Islam and look directly at the changes coming to the Muslim World.
 
Except Australia is a colonial region, where this doesn't work. Spanish Philippines being converted to Islam by traders, on the other hand is hardly absurd, but in fact quite close to history (actually, the Islamisation of Mindanao by Muslim traders happened mostly before the arrival of the Spaniards...).

I was going to go with the Philippines but of course Australia has to be a colonial region or it wouldn't form a colony.

Regardless wouldn't t be more accurate to only effect pagans
 
How did the +1 terrain bonus even made it through reunions and into the coding? Really, I wonder how oO
The rest is "cool looking" but there's basically no reason to bother switching away from the +1.
 
Something to consider since merchants are now able to be a bit more offensive against other countries is some way to tackle enemy merchants. Maybe there could be a " hinder rivals " policy that would make your merchant limit trade power of rivals. Maybe even a way to straight up send rivals merchants packing if certain criteria are met. This could lead to some proper trade wars.
 
I was sort of hoping the devs would've made more comprehensive overhauls to trade, because the system needs them... but instead we get some new buttons to click for some boring numerical modifiers. I'm disappointed how EU4's development seems to be firmly set on adding more and more and more and more of these shallow modifiers. More, but not better...
 
As an Indonesian this is a DLC that I can support. I've always been annoyed that you have to conquer Majapahit as Pasai/Malacca/Brunei to convert the Javanese to Islam, even though Propagate Religion by Pasai was how it was done for the most part. The propagators are held as saints today by Javanese Muslims, called "Wali Sanga" (the Nine Guardians).

Gameplay wise, this mechanic also plays well with the Malayan Sultanate national idea, and will make forming Malaya somewhat less painful.
 
To give an example, early spread of Islam in far southeastern Asia was purely caused by the muslim merchants in the region. Impressed by muslim traders' honesty, and merchantile capabilities, native people of malacca, sumatra, and indonesia started to convert to Islam in a steady manner. So, the former pagans of the region were neither colonies nor protectorates of muslim states close to that region. What the devs call "propagate religion" was genuinely unique to the muslims by historical approach. Historically speaking, assimilation of natives is a much more suitable mechanic for the colonizers of western christian world as currently exists in the game.

You're right that the Islamization of southeast Asia wasn't a colonial process. But I think it's not quite as simple as 'admiration of honest Muslim merchants'. I'm not an expert, but I understand that that the merchants were followed by significant numbers of missionaries. Their strategy seems to have focused on converting rulers, who then pushed their peoples to convert. You could compare the process to the Christianization of northern Europe in the early Middle Ages: it wasn't colonial, but a lot of it was about power too. It's also worth noting that there wasn't always a clear-cut distinction between 'merchant' and 'ruler' amongst the Malays: local rulers were often the major investors in trading voyages, so their natural inclination to propagate Islam from the trading ports into neighbouring island and hinterland was in part an exercise of state power. And the Bruneian conquest of the southern Philippines seems at first glance to be an instance of Islamization by the sword.

None of these details calls into question the game mechanic, which is a good enough abstraction of what happened.

Except Australia is a colonial region, where this doesn't work. Spanish Philippines being converted to Islam by traders, on the other hand is hardly absurd, but in fact quite close to history (actually, the Islamisation of Mindanao by Muslim traders happened mostly before the arrival of the Spaniards...).

Whether it's absurd depends upon who has colonized Australia. If Australia is colonized by a powerful Malay Muslim area, then it's perfectly plausible that it would be Muslim. However, I agree that it seems totally implausible for English or French settlers in Australia to be converted to Islam by Malay traders. But it's not to do with geography, it's to do with the fact that it's relatively rare for people to convert from one monotheistic faith to another. Maybe the Islamic conversion mechanic should exclude Christian and Jewish provinces?

I suppose there's also a gameplay issue: is there enough time for newly-Islamized states in South East Asia to themselves put a merchant into the Australia node? That might solve the problem.

So the trade system doesn't really changes... At least let us have more trade routes.

Please, don't do this! When I play major trading powers, I already have to draw maps of nodes to try and keep track of what's going where. The last thing we need is more nodes and routes. It would make the game even more intimidating for newcomers, too, because the extra nodes would have to be in the base game.
 
This has been brought up thousands of times. The devs have said that it is impossible to implement this in the current game engine. We just have to wait for eu5 and hope they make a new engine.

Cheers for the info :). I've only got the time/capacity to keep up with one game at a time outside of DDs, so I only pick up on the dev posts in DD threads over in EU4-land, so sorry for the oft-repeated message :oops:.
 
How did the +1 terrain bonus even made it through reunions and into the coding? Really, I wonder how oO
The rest is "cool looking" but there's basically no reason to bother switching away from the +1.

15% improve relations to deal with AE is pretty nice too.
You'll probally switch to +1 terrain when fighting in that zone, and then get back to the improve relations.
Trade power is meh, maybe trade efficiency in the node would be interesting. And spy network, well I guess it would just tell me faster that my forgotten spy got discovered.
 
When a Muslim nation controls more than 33% of the Trade Power in a Trade Company Region's node, they are able to activate the Propagate Religion Trade Policy, which will establish a Religious Centre in the node, spreading this religion within the node, as can be seen in my totally legit Omani screenshot

I like the sound of this, but I think it can do more harm than good. Unless of course certain areas are forced to be less likely to use it. One example would be in India. Europeans never conquer India. This means India would regularly be all Sunni/Shia due to the usual 3 blobs having all the trade power. Right now the AI sometimes converts their land in India, but with the policy doing it for them their land will usually be all Muslim.
 
Why isn't propagate religion available to Cristian faith? It is arguably the.way it did spread in colonies, Africa and Japan! Please reconsider!
It spread through Portugal missionaries in Japan. Similar with missions to Africa. While Somalia and Horn of Africa has converted into Islam without so mentioned missionaries but with support of wealthy traders.
 
I feel like this 5% as a Trade Policy, is really underwhelming, and it seems like many would agree with it.
How about it scales through as time passes? Starts as 1% but ticks up every two years by 1% up to 20% (or x% changing every x years up to max x%).

That would represent a stable & dominated by a particular country Trade Node. It's no dispute that +1 combat rolls are very powerful, and will be taken every time there is a chance of war in the area, but maybe if there is a big hard earned 20% boost to Trade Income, we might think twice before changing it to +1 roll.
 
To give an example, early spread of Islam in far southeastern Asia was purely caused by the muslim merchants in the region. Impressed by muslim traders' honesty, and merchantile capabilities, native people of malacca, sumatra, and indonesia started to convert to Islam in a steady manner. So, the former pagans of the region were neither colonies nor protectorates of muslim states close to that region. What the devs call "propagate religion" was genuinely unique to the muslims by historical approach. Historically speaking, assimilation of natives is a much more suitable mechanic for the colonizers of western christian world as currently exists in the game.
Japan was neither colony nor protectorate either, but Cristianity spread anyway. In Africa, colonies were very small, but faith spread far beyond them.

I like the feature, just don't agree it should be specific to muslims.
It spread through Portugal missionaries in Japan. Similar with missions to Africa. While Somalia and Horn of Africa has converted into Islam without so mentioned missionaries but with support of wealthy traders.
What is the difference between a missionary and a wealthy trader that supports conversion to his faith?
 
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Historicaly, Islamic traders only spread islam to pagan areas like West Africa, The East African Coast, India, and Indonesia. It would be unhistorical and unrealistic if Islam could spread to christian areas throught trade.
It is unhistorical only because Islamic traders never had proper foothold in Europe. if they were dominant in let say Venice, that would be different (hi)story.
 
The +1 combat bonus seems way to good, especially in your home node where you are basically guaranteed to get 33% unless you are a minor (France in Champange, Ottomans in Constantinople, etc.).
Also instead of a flat bonus I would have rather seen a scaling bonus to secondary combat stats like manpower regeneration and marching speed.
 
Those two seem, well, weak.
I'll not say useless, but compared to the other two (three for muslims) these two seem pretty damn weak.
I can see almost no reason to micro all my trade nodes for these bonuses.

Spy network construction is not weak, it's situational. I actually recently while playing in Asia I use a lot of spy networks just to get maps or sow discontent. Extra 25% would be awesome as I am pushing for every single bonus that can help me overcome counterespionage.
 
Hostile Trading: +25% Spy network speed in nations with present merchant or home node.
Is that stackable?
Establish Communities: +15% Improve relations with all other nations with their home node or a merchant present located here.
Is that stackable?

Why isn't propagate religion available to Cristian faith? It is arguably the.way it did spread in colonies, Africa and Japan! Please reconsider!
Indeed. Though as somebody said then the Christening of Africa is more something for Vicky.

t's worth re-itterating that Religious Propagation will be limited to Trade Company Regions. That is to say, Ivory coast, Cape, Zanzibar, India, South East Asia, Canton, Hangzhou and Beijing. This religious propogation will not be possible in, say, France or Russia or Brazil.
What about the African interior. That converted to Islam too (especialy the West African interior) and I'm pretty sure that was through trade and not conquest. Though granted there's already some Muslim powers there/close by.

It is unhistorical only because Islamic traders never had proper foothold in Europe. if they were dominant in let say Venice, that would be different (hi)story.
It's far from certain though that they'd have been able to have the same success in areas already having an organised religion though.