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EU4 - Development Diary - 05 of June 2018

Hello! Today we’ll talk about yet another system reworked in Dharma and another feature to make European presence in the rest of the world more interesting. Let’s start with the new feature.

So when we talked about the Charter Trade Company feature, a bunch of you wondered why in the name of Shiva would an Indian ever surrender a province to the Westerners even for a big pile of gold? So I am here to answer that.

We’ve had since Wealth of Nations that you could create Trade Companies in special Charter Regions of the world. It was always a pet peeve for me how they worked out and always wanted more out of it. Company provinces never really covered the interaction you had between the various companies and the local rulers of the area. The initial interaction between the Europeans and India was one of trade, except one… staring at you Portugal. Either way we wanted a way for Europeans and Indians to benefit from each others presence… at first at least :)

So now when a European have established their Trade Company they can further their investments in them by building them up. You’ll have 10 investments you can build up per area you have a company present in, and 5 special ones you can build per charter. They are not the cheapest, the lowest going for 300 ducats, it’s upgrade 600 and the special ones goes for a 1000 ducats. So someone wanting to exploit the full riches of the Far East is going to heavily invest their resources into it.

eu4_13.png


The effects of these investments in their benefits given to you are fairly powerful but most of them also gives bonii to the immediate area or even the larger area for some of them. A little note though they do not stack with modifiers from other nations investments. Here’s an ambitious attempt to list them in full, in case not specified otherwise, the effect is only on the area they are built in.
  • Local Quarter - 300 Ducats
    • +15% Defensiveness, 25% Supply Limit for your TC Provinces
  • Permanent Quarters - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Local Quarters
    • 30% Defensiveness, 50% Supply Limit to your TC Provinces
  • Officers’ Mess - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • +5 Land Force Limit for TC Owner
  • Company Warehouse - 300 Ducats
    • +2 Local Trade Power to your TC Provinces
    • 25% Production Efficiency in entire Area
  • Company Depot - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Company Warehouse
    • +4 Local Trade Power to your TC Provinces
    • 50% Production Efficiency in entire Area
  • Admiralty - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • +5 Naval Force Limit for TC Owner
  • Brokers Office - 300 Ducats
    • +25% Production Efficiency to your TC Provinces
    • 0.15 Goods Produced in entire Area
  • Brokers Exchange - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Brokers Office
    • 50% Production Efficiency to your TC Provinces
    • 0.30 Goods Produced in entire Area
  • Property Appraiser - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • 50% Trade Steering in Trade Node of Charter for TC Owner.
  • <Adjective> Settlements - 300 Ducats
    • 25% Tax Modifier in your TC Provinces
    • -7.5 Development Cost in Area
  • <Adjective> District - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Settlements
    • 50% Tax Modifier in your TC Provinces
    • -15 Development Cost in Area
  • <Adjective> Township - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • 10% Trade Value on entire Trade Company Charter.
  • Company Administration - 300 Ducats
    • +25% Local Manpower, +25% Local Sailors in your TC Provinces.
  • Military Administration - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Company Administration
    • +50% Local Manpower, +50% Local Sailors in your TC Provinces
  • Governor General’s Mansion - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • -2% Ship Cost for TC Owner.
Note that this is till work in progress and numbers are subject to change as we test for balance.

That’s it for Trade Company Investments, next up is the system rework that we’ve been so cruel to hint around about on the Dev Clash stream.

There are 120 different policies but there are a very few select that stand out as favorites making pretty much most of it obsolete. Never cared for that and wanted to see a lot more interesting builds be available we’ve reworked the entire thing to change how you interact with it, but also rebalanced a big bunch of them. No longer is Quality Standard policy giving you 5% discipline an Administration policy and the 50% Transport Combat Ability policy is gone. But we’ll get to that later.

First let’s dive into the mechanical changes we’ve done. You can no longer activate 5 policies anymore but you enact 3 per category of monarch power. This means you can at max have 3 policies activated in each category. You also get 1 policy for free per category in order to promote long-term usage. These numbers are however not fixed, some government reforms will let you tweak these, national ideas can also be a source like the Deccan ideas who get an extra administrative policy for free. However this requires Dharma.

eu4_12.png


So for how we went through and balanced these, removed old bad policies, added new interesting ones, I’m not even going to attempt to list 120 policies in this diary. But instead I’ll share an image of the document I used to view everything at once so I knew sort of how it was looking.

capture(194).png

Yet again I can not stress enough, all of these numbers are work in progress!



Hope you’ve enjoyed this dev diary and that it has been meaty enough for you. Next one will be covered by your favorite scotsman, Jake, who will go through some much requested quality of life features.
 
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Yeah! Another pay 2 win expansion with zero drawbacks and new bonuses for already broken TCs! Pimp your overpowered colonial blob even more! For only 20$ we will make your game even easier than before!

This is just disgusting. Estates will be even more "grab boni without penalty" than before, and now this.

Just stop developing this game and leave it to modders.
 
Then they are skipping the 20% Combat ability, the 10% Artillery Combat Ability, which I personally find more valuable than 15% morale.
You could also go for the 66% manpower(and get 10% morale anyway from that pick) and just drown the enemy in corpses.

Point is, picking the favored 5 mil policies is not possible anymore and you have more maneuverability to pick non military policies.
I'd favor 15% morale over 20% inf ca and 10% art ca tbh. Either way though I'd personally like it if you'd tone down the prevalent military policies, being mainly 5% disc, 20% inf ca and 10% morale (10% art ca, the leader pips ones and 5% morale are also a notch above the rest) to enable more valid options. While both 33% manpower and 50% available mercs are good options, and might see use (at least if diplomatic/espionage get better) you still have a large number of military ideas that'd be redundant and see essentially no use (almost all the ones I didn't mention). While buffing these to match the stronger military policies is one valid path to take the vast number of (currently) subpar military policies seems to make it easier to nerf the existing top dogs.

Another, and probably more important point, I'd like to mention is the monekymaking (mostly trade) policies. I'm very happy that you've tuned down the excess money somewhat in the mid to later stages of the game, and without the trade group I think most nations are in a pretty good spot right now. However with the trade policies granting goods produced and trade efficiency active the income can still easily get out of hand late game, and this issue will be further amplified by the new policy system (before you had to deactive most/all money policies during war in favor of military ones, in Dharma you'll be able to have 3 dip and 3 admin running throughout the war) which very well may give us even more late game money excess than before the recent tweaks.

I realise that all these numbers still are subject to change, I just figured I'd give my input on the current numbers, and also worth mentioning that my feedback is purely from a pvp/mp perspective.

With all that said I do think the new system as a whole is way better designed than the previous one, just figured constructive criticism beats blatant flattery ;)
 
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@Groogy you mention in the dev diary that certain government reforms allow you to tweak the number of possible policies per mana type. Is this related to the "+1 [HIDDEN]" effects listed for certain government reforms in previous dev diaries?
 
How moddable is the Trade Company overhaul? While I love the policy rework, that's what really got me excited this DD.
 
I really like the new policies interface, it looks waaaay better than the old one, more accessible.
 
How can DLC for a single player game be pay to win lol
And if it's played Multiplayer everyone uses the DLC of the host regardless if they own it.
Anyway, once they rework Parliaments to not be crap(which they should had done last expansion...) the game will be perfect for me and all mechanics will be satisfactory to me.
I guess Naval power could still use some work but it has improved a TON lol
 
I have been looking at the list and a few questions for clarity sake came up. I am going to say what I think it is and may complain about one or two. @Groogy

Here goes nothing.

Espionage and Economic: 50% rebel efficiency; Espionage and Humanist: 25% rebel efficiency?! I was kind of hoping to not see more of that modifier. Especially since nobody in their right mind would use it at all. I really tried and it just don't make any impact whatsoever at all. Unless you are also planning an overhaul to rebels (extremely unlikely).

I keep seeing "+1 legitimacy and other" across a few spots. I assume that "other" is for non-legitimacy equivalent for other govt like theocracy and devotion right? If so I may have something planned for that!

Offensive + Expansion: Auto-discovery adjacency. Is this the same bonus that Russia get in their idea only without the 10 Diplomat colonies bit? What is the reasoning behind this? I meant I may see some fringe use like revealing nations in Africa right away to start war-dec them. CN provinces aren't your so you can't use them like Russia does in Siberia. If true you may want to consider revising this one to something else.

Maritime and Humanist: 33% Ship Lost "M H". Manpower? Shouldn't that be sailor? What does M and H stand for?

Naval and Exploration: "20% Engagement". Is it safe to assume that is for naval engagement width? How are non-colonizer supposed to fight against colonizer who has this policy naval-wise?


Will we still be able to click on a nation and view their policies?
 
How can DLC for a single player game be pay to win lol

So you can paint the map with your favourite colors even faster and easier than before. They are completely allergic to any kind of balancing drawbacks, because kids between 10 and 15 wouldn't get money from their moms for another DLC (at least that's what they are thinking apparently). It's not Grand Strategy anymore, it's Grand "Strategy" for kids aka "world map painting simulator". This game is already too easy and too arcade. You never feel the consequences of your decisions and even if you fell them - the drawbacks are cosmetic "bohoo you crazy tyrant, have this +1 National Unrest as punishment for evil things you do!". After years of stacking bonuses this game is starting to look like caricature of it's former self and other Grand Strategy games.

Let's not even pretend that game even TRIES to be historical. It's becoming something like Team Fortress while it was more like Battlefield. And with every patch it's worse. Soon we will have cartoon tooltips in comic-like balloons where some frog with crown on it's head asks us if we don't need extra monarch points, because looks like our stability is at -1, and that's too punishing for this fairytale.
 
Just to be clear, you don't have to conqueror anywhere in India to get access to trading companies, right? It would always kill my games when it became time to expand trade into India because it was such a pain in the ass to haul troops there.
 
So does this mean trade company provinces are still directly owned by you, rather than owned by a trade company vassal? That's kind of disappointing. Trade companies were separate entities from the nation they were located in, you shouldn't control them yourself.

As to policies, have you considered having some policies that have stronger benefits but include drawbacks, while other policies are weaker but offer no downside? I think a few policies like that might be really interesting to include, forcing you to make a strategic choice. I like the idea that some policies are free though, that's good. Still doesn't resolve the whole bit where administrative policies are inherently weaker since you need that mana more than say military points, but that's tied to the inherent weakness of the monarch power system I suppose - not the policies.
 
Yeah I just noticed this. I'm literally using it right now. Could we find room for a policy for Heathen Tolerance please?

This plus the old policy for + 1 missionary would be very helpful. Right now Islam + Christianity are runaway dominant options and removing heathen tolerance policy tosses most of the others out in the cold, excepting Hindu/Fetish/Tengri/Confucian (noting that Confucian is junk regardless).

These values are not final.
With the 20% Dip annexation, we want to promote more keeping around of Vassals. Though might add back the 20% dip annexation, since that is a playstyle to play by as well.

I doubt you'll see much use case for subjects as anything but annexation unless/until control of subject armies is tighter.

Right now, even the DLC interactions objectively don't work. "Loyal" subjects on supportive won't consistently attach, attached armies don't arrive at the same time so you can lose troops to a 10:1 stack wipe, and no matter what you do with micromanaging armies with "attach allowed" vs not you wind up with subjects in enemy territory in front of your troops, war score fodder.

-dip annex is/was also one of the only policies that helps non-RCC tags bring in land faster, and as bbq pointed out this is already a weaker way of territory acquisition compared to territorial core + trade company given the large number of restrictions on subjects.

I do like the concept of the new policy implementation, I doubt you'll actually have a different outcome than a top ~10-20 policies then mostly ignored ones but more will still see use like this, especially ADM/DIP in freebie slot.
 
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Regarding all this bonus talk.

"bonus", "bona" and "bonum" are the masculine, feminine and neutral forms of a Latin adjective that means "good". Their plural forms are "boni", "bonae" and "bona", respectively.

"bonus" is also a Latin noun that means "a respectable man". Its plural form is "boni".

The English word "bonus" has its etymological roots in the above adjective, but it is not the same word and has a different meaning, namely "something extra that is good". The plural of the English word "bonus" is "bonuses". Not "boni", "bonii" or anything else.
 
Nope, it's fine if you are threatened by immediate death and you need that +20% morale ASAP (+1 AT is roughly +5% morale), but in the long run quality and offensive give you much more benefits.
"in long run" sure, but in long run if u didn't take def in Europe u are dead anyway. Asia is different but here u have to probably waste idea slot for admin to blob or maritime if indonesia.
 
@DDRJake nother +5% Discipline with a Policy
These 3 idea groups are mandatory for any MP game, and there are literally no other viable options ATM. You could pick Defensive if you are threatened by immediate partitioning, but the lack of viable policies kills it's long-term viability.

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Always the same discussion for MP, People push up Quality as God - Tier but getting crushed by an defensive pick in the early game.
you can Always Railroad and say " this is the best Combo stats wise " but still the early game is what matters, because you cant exploit the late game , with this usual pick when you getting roflstomp in early game by Defensive/Quantiy picks. Your Statement than is only semi correct. Quality and Offensive may pay off Long term, due they stacking and late game meta but you have no early Punch at all and this matters 9out10 times in big scale MP games.