EU4 - Development Diary - 5th of September 2017

[SeekTruthFromFx]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge the European approach was largely colonial; they commonly set up factories which grew into/acted as entities that in the context of the game would be considered colonies. Christianity was spread from these European bases; a process that, as far as I'm aware, differed to preceding religious expansion.

That's a good description of how the Portuguese colonies spread Catholicism, which is one reason why Roman Catholics are an overwhelmingly majority in East Timor.

However, it's worth noting that British & Dutch colonialism followed a different model, which is one reason why Protestants are a small minority in Java, Malaya, and Singapore. During their early centuries, the (English/British) East India Company and the VOC were generally hostile to missionary work amongst local people (by Catholics, Muslims & Protestants alike) because they thought missionaries were bad for business. In addition, the Malay rulers retained authority over their peoples' religion in most of Malaya, so the British administration severely restricted Christian preaching to Malays.

When Protestant missionaries to the indigenous populations of South East Asia were permitted, they were disproportionately drawn from the colonizing powers, largely because of a colonialist mentality. But they were also there as part of the same global phenomenon that saw non-government Protestant missionaries go to China, Latin America, Ottoman Palestine, and many other places that don't fit EUIV's simplistic model of colonialism. There are common factors between the growth of (for example) evangelicalism in postcolonial Sumatra and Pentecostalism in post-Cold War Brazil.

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

(sorry if this has already been mentioned I only bothered reading the first few pages!)

Will embargo protect nation from hostile trade actions. It seems odd to me that a nation can gain combat bonuses or religious conversions via their merchants if their merchants are banned from the country.

It's a good question, but usually trade nodes cover more than one country. If the Ottoman Empire is embargoing Russian merchants, that doesn't stop the Russians gaining local knowledge from their trading posts in Egypt or Moldavia.

 

[SolSys]

Suggestion:

Instead of +5% trade power for Maximise Profits, make it +50% merchant steering bonus (3.7 rounded down from 3.75 to 1 dp).

That table is for increasing trade value in a chain of trade nodes. They do not represent increased trade power so the suggestion is bit off**.


**BTW, it was reduced down to those numbers because - before toning down the trade value increase - it made money a non-issue.

 

[Zalmoxis]

So does this mean my fetishist provinces in my African trade company regions will convert to Islam, does the conversion resistance from trade companies apply to these as well or is it just for regular missionary conversion?

I was just thinking about how odd it was that trade company regions in west Africa stay fetishist when the rest of Africa usually go for Islam or Christianity.

 

[ecrurudesby]

That table is for increasing trade value in a chain of trade nodes. They do not represent increased trade power so the suggestion is bit off**.

I know that. Not sure what makes it a bit off. The only slight issue I foresee would be a merchant in your home node (or collecting elsewhere) getting no benefit from this. Therefore it could be specified that collecting gives an efficiancy bonus instead.

**BTW, it was reduced down to those numbers because [before] it made money a non-issue.

I did not know that.

I've just checked the old versions of the Trade page on the Wiki and it seems the current values were adopted on 4 October 2013. I'm guessing this was a late update to the Wiki for the first patch of 1.2 on 24 September 2013. This is the original table:

You're right that is much too high. But my suggestion is far closer to the current values than those original ones.

So does this mean my fetishist provinces in my African trade company regions will convert to Islam, does the conversion resistance from trade companies apply to these as well or is it just for regular missionary conversion?

I was just thinking about how odd it was that trade company regions in west Africa stay fetishist when the rest of Africa usually go for Islam or Christianity.

Jake answered this. Trade Company provinces will be eligible for conversion by this mechanic.

 

[Dominion]

T**BTW, it was reduced down to those numbers because [before] it made money a non-issue.

Implying money is an issue after 1500

 

[Casko]

I do must say that +1 rolls on Trade nodes seems way too strong.
I wonder if it would be better if it'd be +33% Movement speed or some such instead.
as being able to move your troops far faster would make more sense and be still strategically more advantageous as well as not quite broken like +1 combat rolls.

 

[creativitypersonified]

Implying money is an issue after 1500

Usually takes a bit more than that though I guess it depend s on the country

 

[Dominion]

Maybe if you're running 3 level 3 advisors. Those costs increase exponentially and can make a difference of 40 ducats a month.

Aside from that you're solid after taking a bit of trade cash or goldmines.
Pirating is also something people massively underestimate. I was able to sustain 3 heavies and 30 transports and my income from pirating with light ships was still higher than my total fleet expenses.

 

[SolSys]

I know that. Not sure what makes it a bit off.

Well, you suggested turning the effect into a trade steering modifier and presented a before/after table of increased trade value.

The exemplary data does not support the suggested change thereby making it a "bit off".

Implying money is an issue after 1500

There seems to be a misunderstanding - I was referring to generating a huge sum of ducts a month [+thousands] before the numbers were toned down.
I'll modify the original post to make it a bit clearer.

 

[ecrurudesby]

Well, you suggested turning the effect into a trade steering modifier and presented a before/after table of increased trade value.

The exemplary data does not support the suggested change thereby making it a "bit off".

Ahhh I see know how my original post is confusing. I should've used the Wiki description of Multiple Merchant Bonus because that is what my suggestion is but I don't really like it as I feel it's a misnomer (not the only one in the trade system). I will now edit my original post to be clearer.

 

[SolSys]

... I should've used the Wiki description of Multiple Merchant Bonus because that is what my suggestion is but I don't really like it as I feel it's a misnomer (not the only one in the trade system) ...

It was worded for new-comers back then. Why not use "outgoing trade value increase" as it is referred to in patch notes?

Though I'm worried about the monetary implications it can have -- considering the current values ended up being a 1/4 of the original values.

 

[creativitypersonified]

Ehm I just saw that the in-game advertisement for this Devs diary says that this will be part of the free patch but ddr jake says it will only be available to owners of the upcoming expansion. Who made a mistake?

 

[Denkt]

This is one of the better changes as it increase the value of trade power and make trade power into something more than just trade. I don't think it is fair to say that large nations are the ones to win the most on this change, the obvious winners here are naval and trade focused nations.

The combat bonus while powerful is also the one with a limitation and you may be encouraged to use stuff such as embargos and moving light ship to the node you plan to use the combat bonus in. I think people overrate it a bit, it is only +1 which is like an extra ghost 1-1-0-0 general in each army you have in that node.

On the other hand nations who have low force limit which tend to be the smallest and weakest nations do have better chance to get pipes from drilling.

 

[gia257]

1 is huge dude

 

[Wagonlitz]

Yes, it will spread to all provinces in a trade node, with some exceptions, such as recently converted provinces with Religious Zeal.

What will prevent India from slowly getting converted then?

It will be visible in the trade node interface which nations have taken which policy and very visible if someone has started propagating their religion. As for the AI, they will be interested in Indonesia, but we won't be seeing the AI Islamify India anytime soon. Also: Ages. Nope, this will be available 1444 - 1821

It would be nice to have an alert or possibly a pop up when somebody starts this policy in nodes where you own provinces. After all it's something you'll want to stop ASAP to not have your provinces converted with all the bad things coming with that. Especially since you can't just immediately go back due to religious zeal.

Edit : This new Dev Diary is watched atleast 100.000 times !!!

Bear in mind that that number also includes repeat viewers. I.e. whenever people open the thread again to read up on what has happened. Pretty sure that it actually counts every time somebody changes page too, but not 100% on that.

Besides, I don't think people realize how hard it can be to maintain a 33% share. France starts with only 22% of the trade in Champagne because of how Caravan power works, they would only get the bonus in Bordeaux. Austria doesn't have it in Wien either. Castile would lose it in Sevilla if they get a couple provinces occupied.

You don't need to maintain 33%. You need to maintain 20%. So you just have to bump up to 33% once and then you can scale back things as long as you remain over 20. So it could be worth it to short term build light ships to go over the 33% and then scrap the ships when over it.

By reducing their trade share below 20% (current value, as ever, pending balance testing) will disable the action and default their policy back to Maximize Profits.

I think Danish, English, Swedish, etc. people would be very surprised to hear they had been colonized from Rome and assimilated many centuries after the end of the western Roman Empire! They were not colonized, but converted, and just as in southeast Asia, the conversion of rulers was a deliberate missionary strategy.

Indeed. We most certainly weren't converted by the sword here in Scandinavia, but slowly by missionary work which already started around 800 (if not earlier). And for instance here in Denmark it's no longer believed that the story of the Jelling stones is true (i.e.that Harald Bluetooth) christened the population, but rather that large parts of the lower classes already had converted by that point. I.e. Harald rather converted due to the population largely having converted (and the HRE was starting to look scarier and scarier which was a good reason too). Before Harald there had been disputes/wars with the christians to the south, but Denmark had never been invaded. Albeit Charlemagne did assemble an invading force in the latter parts of his reign, but the invasion never came to be since the Danish king who had offended Charlemagne found himself assassinated by people wanting to prevent the invasion.
In fact many parts of Norse mythology actually remained at least until around the 1800s in the rural areas, where the uneducated peasants kept being afraid of the various evil spirits/beings from Norse mythology, albeit some were replaced with the devil, but otherwise essentially the same.

 

[Y. D. Dandy]

So with regards to making propagation of Islam only work through trade company regions, trade companies still seem problematic for non-pagans. While Islam did spread via trade to China (though more in the areas that aren't trade company regions in game), and Southern India via trade, Muslims only ever attained local majorities in China, and India—where Islam spread most quickly under Islamic Sultanates—already tends to have more Muslim-majority areas in games I play (by the time I get there) than it did historically. On the other hand, Islam did supplant Hinduism in Java during the EU4 timeframe so maybe the solution is to have Islam spread a lot slower in non-pagan areas than pagan ones. I assume you've been testing; does India become mostly (or entirely) Muslim most games?

On another note, I'm really glad the next diary will finally stop teasing us about the changes to Islam with the hidden religion map modes and Qizilbash hat icon!

 

[$ilent_$trider]

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.

Couldn't we then have something like Vic2? Where there's a global market to buy the goods?
Granted, in EU4 the goods are never actually sold or bought, they just give an income based on their production value, but perhaps this could be an opportunity to change the way trade and production relate to each other?
There could be some kind of distance to who can buy some goods (and diplomacy tech could increase that range) but I always found silly how it's impossible to create an Asian Empire that have goods imported from Europe than the other way around.

 

[Sir Tornado]

The propogate religion policy is too powerful. Especially while playing in a region like India.

 

[Canute VII]

Couldn't the Establish Communities Policy also give something like +10 settlers increase in colonies within the trade node? That would make it more interesting to take for colonizers. Oh, and Russia would love it, too!