EU4 - Development Diary - 8th of September 2020

[Ishmael_Dandalo]

How you mitigate a smallpox outbreak in a population without immunity in 1500?
I am not saying that the idea is bad but I just cant think in nothing.

What if the disaster wasn't the outbreak itself but the collapse of social and political systems associated with the disease? The triggered modifier that simulates this now is already called "Rapid Collapse of Society." In this way, successfully navigating the disaster wouldn't be a matter of fighting the disease itself, but mitigating the secondary effects of the disease like spending mana or cash to prevent people from losing faith in political and religious institutions so that when the disease has passed, you'll have some semblance of your pre-epidemic society left over.

Such a disaster could also include non-disease related events, like one about the ecological devastation brought on by Spanish hogs.

 

[nextLVL]

Would be nice to see some mechanic where colonial nations can rival other colonial nations on their continent and put some kind of controlable setting to adjust how colonial nations interact with the tribes. Maybe such an option could be integrated with the current native assimilation policy, so if you are friendly the colonial nation will respect the territorial claims of friendly and neutral tribes and forge maybe independent alliances with some of them. The aggressive assimilation option will make colonial nations disregard any tribal claims and be less prone to forge aliances. This is mostly inspired by the different colonial policies of the British and French in North America. Could be realy fun to see a web of aliances and local wars with different tribes aligned with different powers or even oportunistically switching alegiances.

 

[Ishmael_Dandalo]

Would be nice to see some mechanic where colonial nations can rival other colonial nations on their continent and put some kind of controlable setting to adjust how colonial nations interact with the tribes. Maybe such an option could be integrated with the current native assimilation policy, so if you are friendly the colonial nation will respect the territorial claims of friendly and neutral tribes and forge maybe independent alliances with some of them. The aggressive assimilation option will make colonial nations disregard any tribal claims and be less prone to forge aliances. This is mostly inspired by the different colonial policies of the British and French in North America. Could be realy fun to see a web of aliances and local wars with different tribes aligned with different powers or even oportunistically switching alegiances.

Colonial nations should be able to ally with tribal nations too.

 

[nextLVL]

Colonial nations should be able to ally with tribal nations too.

Exactly!

 

[BuchiTaton]

Really love to finally see a rework of American Natives and their mechanics!

I appreciate the effort to give them a more interesting and rewarding migration system. But I do not see natives depleting the land as the best idea to justify that, at least not for the agrarian peoples.

We know now that both the Mississipian and the Amazonian regions had sustained huge populations on plenty of chiefdoms, something attested by the earliest spanish expeditions and the recent archeological evidence. Seems to be that the fast spread of eurasian diseases was the key of their demographic tragedy at 16th and 17th centuries. On the other hand previous events like the collapse of classic Mayans and Andine cultures, the ancestral Puebloans and Mississippians were linked to extreme climatic conditions pressing even bigger populations. So which is the justification for this mechanic, the "Little Ice Age"?
I see this new "depleting" migration system more proppriate for the peoples from the Prairies and the Pampas.

This could be the perfect time to work my suggestions for the Americas but sadly I had not much free time lately. Is the time for me to try harder and make some space!

 

[MechatronicJazz]

How you mitigate a smallpox outbreak in a population without immunity in 1500?
I am not saying that the idea is bad but I just cant think in nothing.

Honestly, I don't know if it would have actually been possible. However, I don't think some of the other disasters in the game could have been realistically averted either. The player can only do it with foresight. I get that for the sake of immersion there would have to be some vaguely plausible flavour text, but I don't think it would be the least realistic thing in the game. Players are able to do a lot of ridiculous things already.

 

[Aragtago]

Finally! As someone that lives a stone throw from Cahokia it's my turn to have a ranting geocentrist post about all my opinions and demands!
....and, it really doesn't matter. That was easy.

 

[Dragonquack]

Insane. Are there gonna be Mission trees too? Also, is this going to be one of those "patches to end the EU4 cycle"? Eu4 came out like a year later after Ck2. Well... Ck3 is out...

With all due respect to CK2, EU4 has a much larger scope as a game than it. There are still regions that desperately need more flavor, namely Africa, Central Asia, and an immersion pack for the Nordic Countries (the last remaining region in Europe to not have much flavor) would be great. Then going back and reworking older mechanics like the native Americans seem to be getting in this patch.

I would say EU4 has at least two years left, if not three

 

[Dragonquack]

What exactly is the scope of this patch? The first dev diaries were about SEA, making me assume it was something like Dharma but for SEA, but it seems to be all over the place… or is the stuff for SEA going to be released as an expansion while the other changes being worked into existing DLCs?

 

[Metz]

Any plans for adding the Andes as impassable terrain? It would be colonization more realistic in the southern cone.

 

[Canute VII]

What exactly is the scope of this patch? The first dev diaries were about SEA, making me assume it was something like Dharma but for SEA, but it seems to be all over the place… or is the stuff for SEA going to be released as an expansion while the other changes being worked into existing DLCs?

Yeah, me too, I wonder what the scope is. Is there any other dev ready to pull out a white rabbitt? Oceania maybe? South America? Even Africa? Given that we just went from SEA to North America, everything seems possible.

 

[Vinje]

Yeah, me too, I wonder what the scope is. Is there any other dev ready to pull out a white rabbitt? Oceania maybe? South America? Even Africa? Given that we just went from SEA to North America, everything seems possible.

Groogy mentioned NA being a project of personal preference, same as SEA was for neondt. Maybe think of it as the last huzzah of the old dev team before PDXtinto takes over development of eu4?

 

[Canute VII]

Groogy mentioned NA being a project of personal preference, same as SEA was for neondt. Maybe think of it as the last huzzah of the old dev team before PDXtinto takes over development of eu4?

Yeah, maybe.

 

[Arthrodira]

Finally! This is the update I’ve been waiting ages for! The Mississippi needs the most work, but please remember the Great Lakes region too. This was the center of a vibrant pre-Columbian copper industry!

 

[Wagonlitz]

What if it was implemented as a disaster that a skilled player could mitigate?

It'd be impossible to really mitigate it. The diseases are gonna ravage your lands no matter what.

There are already other playable nations that historically were conquered or collapsed soon after the 1444 start and so start with disasters that can only be averted with some difficulty

Those weren't certainties, though. This one was a certainty the moment large scale contact was established.

What if the disaster wasn't the outbreak itself but the collapse of social and political systems associated with the disease? The triggered modifier that simulates this now is already called "Rapid Collapse of Society." In this way, successfully navigating the disaster wouldn't be a matter of fighting the disease itself, but mitigating the secondary effects of the disease like spending mana or cash to prevent people from losing faith in political and religious institutions so that when the disease has passed, you'll have some semblance of your pre-epidemic society left over.

Such a disaster could also include non-disease related events, like one about the ecological devastation brought on by Spanish hogs.

The disaster would need to include massive loss of development, and in a way where you can't avoid it. Just a popup telling you that province x lost 60% of its dev, and that happening over and over, hitting your highest dev provinces most often.
Popups telling you that some of your provinces got decolonised due to massive dying off.
Popups telling you that some of your provinces broke off due to a loss of communication between your capital and them.

Neither of that you'd be able to mitigate. The latter perhaps a little if you spend dev points from your capital, to simulate sending people to reestablish the connections, but you should expect to lose them again later as the new people die off too. And it should be dev you spend since dev is what represents population and the loss of communication/control was because of people dying off, not because of them rebelling, so you'd need to send new people.

Honestly, I don't know if it would have actually been possible. However, I don't think some of the other disasters in the game could have been realistically averted either. The player can only do it with foresight. I get that for the sake of immersion there would have to be some vaguely plausible flavour text, but I don't think it would be the least realistic thing in the game. Players are able to do a lot of ridiculous things already.

Justy because there's other unrealistic things doesn't mean we should add more.
Also, there's a huge difference between something which requires foresight to avoid and something which literally is impossible to avoid due to biology and 20k years of separation.

 

[Maver1ck]

Considering the historic purpose/maintenance of large swathes of land by the communities in the New World that this is meant to represent, it would be cool to see the recovery and "ready to use" territories be represented by a natural prosperity development in those territories. That would create a dynamic where larger tribes that need to ensure they control more land to REALLY push its limits. Plus the whole "devastation" aspect seems to contradict what we now understand about Native American land management. Like, a big part of the nomadic aspect of Native American life was that the land was essentially sculpted to fit their purposes, and then they left. Devastation seems weird compared to prosperity IMO.

 

[DizzyWaddleDoo]

Is migration going to work like this for the Siberian tribes as well, or are there going to be any differences for them?

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

Why, though? Why should the AI be railroaded instead of being able to adapt to the changing realities of the world

But i literally said they should adapt and NOT follow the Historical path when the global context made such path unviable or oppened better one.
I don't want them to be hard railroaded, but should the player not interfere in the slightest in that area of the world, or should the player stick to Historical actions only, the overall situation should follow very similar to Historical events

I'm one of those who prefer as realistic a game as possible, not a railroaded one. By realistic I mean realistic mechanics which produce plausible results. Lots of mechanics aren't too realistic atm, though that doesn't change that i want things realistic if possibl.

I agree with the realistic mechanics part of course, but claiming you only want a "realistic game" is too vague and debatable and you will immediately contradict yourself by explaining that real life is implausible as well.

As such then an England who isn't bugged down by continental dealings and internal struggles should have the possibility of going colonial very early, because why not? Is there any plausible reasons for her not to aside form that she didn't do it IRL? For all we know then her not doing it IRL might have been really unlikely.

Here is the thing though.
England is never bogged down by continental dealings and internal affairs. This game simply doesn't have such mechanics. Yes you have the war of the Roses disaster, but player breezes through it in less than a year and the AI often does as well unless caught with their pants down. Then they just quickly gobble up the rest of the British Islands and form Great Britain (which again, didn't happen untill the 18th century) and are set to focus fully on colonization by the early 1500's.

Honestly everything about England happens too easily and too fast. They conquer Scotland too easily and too fast, they colonize too fast, they dominate the naval game too fast, they rise to great power status too fast, their reformation is simply pressing a button and skips the whole internal affairs hell that entails, and they just start the game very overpowered overall (stronger than Castile and almost on pair with France). They just don't snowball more often because their safe Isolated position also isolates everyone else from them.

Also, if you limit the AI, but allow the player to do what she wants, then the AI will be even easier to beat since the player will be able to do all kinds of effective things, and e.g. go to the New World for colonial nations early, whereas her opponents will be limited by railroading and hence gain a disadvantage compared to her which will make her even faster be able to utterly stomp them underfoot

Like I said before, the AI should try to follow historical paths but it should also be reactive to changes in the world and not let iself be cornerd by the player.

Maybe if the player as France takes exploration early on, England will feel compelled to take it earlier too to not fall behind.

And if the player as France is bullying Spain into submission, then Spain should neglect its colonial expansion and focus on their continental affairs.

If England somehow wins the 100 years war and subjugates France, then they should start focusing far more in the military and diplomacy instead of navy and trade.

I'm not against the Ai being flexible and adaptable, I am simply against the AI acting ahistorical for the sake of it. Like when I'm playing Castile and Portugal insists on trying to colonize everything except what they actually did.

 

[Kapitalisti]

So, living in Constantinople or Paris area will bring prosperity, but peaceful existence in harmony with nature in NA will bring devastation?

1. That's just regurgitating the Noble Savage trope.

2. The "devastation" in this case is clearly portraying a different sort of thing compared to 30 Years War or Mongol conquest style destruction. It looks like it's meant to represent stuff like letting local resources recover after exploitation;

3. Which actually IS closer to "living in harmony with nature" than just staying in one place for too long. You know, letting wild game repopulate, giving farming land time to recover since they probably don't have stuff like crop rotation and fertilizers.

Sure, they COULD come up with a totally new mechanic but using devastation with large recovery modifiers for tribal controlled land seems a lot easier.

 

[Ishmael_Dandalo]

Did I understand it correctly that Native American tags will passively gain development so long as their lands don't reach 100 devastation? And that they carry this development with them as they migrate?