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Full patchnotes will be released with the patch...

Germany prepares her final ultimatum to Poland..Danzig or War. With a British guarantee to stiffen their resolve the Poles are likely to fight rather than endure the humiliation of a surrender. If general war breaks out it is only a matter of time before it spreads to engulf the whole world. The lights are going out across Europe and we may not see them lit again in our lifetime.

Live today at 14:30 CET @ Twitch

Greetings!

I know last year featured a lot of dev diaries with very little information about new features of the game. The reason for this was the lack of an announcement of the expansion and we had decided not to talk about the expansion before the announcement. All that has changed now and last week @Doomdark gave you an overview of the features we’ve added and the aim of the expansion.

This week we’re going to go a bit deeper into the new council mechanics.

Good news everyone!

This week we will talk about the Ship Designer. Last week we said that this week would be about “War, Peace, Influence and Claims”, but due to some really good (and secret) reasons we have decided to postpone that Dev Diary for a later date. Now let's continue with how you customize your ships in Stellaris...

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Customizing your ships is vital for making sure that your ships are equipped for any challenges that awaits them in the galaxy. Your ships have a build cost, build time and maintenance cost that is calculated from the different sections and components that your ship consists of. The ships also receive a wide range of different values; all these are affected by what sections and components you use on your ship. These values can be modified by, among other things, researching technologies and the traits of your leader.

Welcome to another development diary for Hearts of Iron IV. This week we look at some of the changes that has been done to the game lately.

In december, we completely revised how you get factory slots in the game, as the previous system of three different caps, depending on hidden formulas for manpower & infrastructure was too obtuse for players, and impossible to balance.

“Here Be Dragons” Be Here Now with New Class, New Areas, and New Loot

STOCKHOLM — Jan. 14, 2016 — Paradox Interactive, a Level 18 Publisher of Chaotic Good games, today released the newest expansion for Knights of Pen & Paper 2, the meta-RPG where players play as players and game-masters simultaneously. The expansion, “Here Be Dragons,” is available today for Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs, and iOS and Android devices. Included are new features such as a new story and quests, an added character class, and more monsters, loot, and humor than you’ll find on a d100 table. Developed by KYY Games, “Here Be Dragons” finally enables players of Knights of Pen & Paper 2 to play as the in-game Knight class while they slay every entry in the new in-game bestiary.

Glimpse the epic adventure that awaits you in this new trailer:


Knights of Pen & Paper 2 offers players the chance to organize a party of virtual friends and play a pen & paper RPG that requires neither pen nor paper. The new expansion, “Here Be Dragons,” follows the party as they undertake a classic RPG quest for high-level characters. Players’ in-game players will finally go pixel-to-pixel against honest-to-goodness dragons and prove themselves the finest adventurers in all of Paperos.

New features/contents:

Free:

• New class: Knight (unlocked via quests).
• New roleplayer: Bookworm (unlocked via Modern Dungeons magazine).
• New feature: Bestiary.

DLC:

• All-new high-level campaign!
• Dragon fights!
• New locations!
• 1 new dungeon!
• New Items and Furniture!
• New crafting recipes!
• Increased skill cap!
• Mad Kings!
• Did we mention dragons?

Changes

• Red Eyed Skull and Blue Eyed Skull trinkets have had their effect doubled.
• Wound condition received a recovery roll (balance issue due to most monsters not having healing)
• Player’s Handbook now mentions the skill cap of 15 and that each expansion increases it by 3
• Touch of Blight and Bombs (incl. Giant Bomb) randomize conditions a bit differently. Instead of always generating a new condition the target doesn’t yet have, they can now increase existing condition stacks (Burn, Wound and Poison), as well. This is a minor balance change.
• TV Set furniture affects attack consumables (bombs) as well.
• Health/Energy recovery during resting has been simplified while it also scales better at higher levels. The new mechanic is explained in the Player’s Handbook as well:
• Anyone rolling a success recovers 100%.
• Anyone rolling a fail recovers 50%.
• If everyone fails, the party will be ambushed (same as before).
• All basic weapons have been enabled in expansion area shops (incl. Orienting Village).
• Cleric’s Purge energy cost was increased by 3, because mass condition removal is simply that good.
• Poison’s energy damage now converts to health damage correctly. Previously it only happened when energy was already at 0.
• Enchanted bow/shuriken with a charm now fits all stats into item info.
• Warlock’s Summon Demon skill no longer fills up the first enemy’s health bar (only visually) for 1 turn.
• Memory optimization.

If you wish to start your quest, “Here Be Dragons” be here: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/knights-of-pen-and-paper-2-here-be-dragons

For more information about Knights of Pen & Paper 2, visit https://www.paradoxplaza.com/knights-of-pen-paper-2

Hello everyone and welcome back to yet another development diary for Europa Universalis 4. TodayAn's dev diary is the second in our two-parter about patch 1.15, which is a bugfixing and balancing patch that is planned to come out before the end of January.

In the west corner, we have Johan Andersson as Great Britain. and in the east we have Jakob Munthe sporting the German side.

Today, Part III - We are at September 1938, the Rheinland has been re-militarised. The anschluss of Austria has occurred and now the Czechs are awaiting their fate. Will anyone stand with them?

Tune in at 14:45 CET - http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Hi folks, I hope you have all had a nice and relaxing holiday! However, just in case you didn’t, let me take the edge off your existential angst with some soothing talk about the next expansion for Crusader Kings II; a little thing we eventually decided to call Conclave...

As you know, most of CK2’s expansions have “widened” the gameplay by unlocking new regions of the map and making various religions playable. You can now start the game in widely different cultural spheres for a great variety of different experiences; “Fifty Shades of Dark”, if you will. Meanwhile, we have gradually improved the core gameplay in patches (e.g. the technology system), but rarely in any radical way. Whenever we did try to “deepen” the core gameplay in an expansion, it often turned out to be a mistake: The Retinue mechanic of Legacy of Rome should, for example, have been a part of the base game so we could have kept building upon it.

Even so, it is high time that we addressed some of the major shortcomings of the strategy game that underpins the RPG experience. In particular, CK2 suffers from a kind of inverse difficulty progression; it is hard in the beginning and easy in the mid-to-late game. This is a great shame, because one of the main points of the whole feudal hierarchy mechanic - the need to rely on vassals - was to make it hard to maintain stable large Realms. So, my first and foremost intention with Conclave was to increase the challenge of the mid-to-late game. This was the general plan of action:

• Reduce the “positive opinion inflation” of vassals vs their liege. (We ended up cutting many important positive opinion modifiers in half.)
• Highlight the most powerful vassals by making them strongly desire a Council seat.
• Give the Council more power without reducing player agency. (You are free to disregard the Council’s suggestions, but this will have ramifications on Factions. More on this later...)
• Introduce Infamy and Coalitions against aggressively expanding Realms.
• Improve the alliance mechanic to make it a more intentional choice. (A royal marriage is now simply a non-aggression pact. Alliance is the second step, but still requires a marriage.)
• Improve the diplomatic AI in order to contain “blobs” (with the help of the above Alliance and Coalition systems.)
• Bring the military AI to a whole new level.
• Make it harder to quickly win wars through one or two major engagements. (Hence, we reduced the bloodiness of battles overall, introduced “shattered retreats” and made armies reinforce in friendly territory.)

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Thus, the features of Conclave and the accompanying patch are a combination of internal and external measures to make blobbing harder. This intention had ripple effects on other mechanics. For example, malcontents now tend to gang up into fewer but more powerful Factions, and we reworked the Law Screen while we were adding the new Council Power laws.

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We also took this opportunity to address an unrelated weakness in the game, namely the education of children. If you have the expansion, that whole experience should now be more interesting…

That’s all for now, stay tuned for the details!

Events in Stellaris will not be limited to the Anomalies you find in space. Another event category that you will encounter as you play the game are colony events. Fairly self-explanatory, colony events are events that can trigger on your colonies. Our goal with these events is to provide a bit of identity to the planets you colonize, and set them further apart.

Welcome to another development diary on Hearts of Iron IV.


Today we’ll talk about one of the most important gadgets of WW2, the radio. The radio was used for communication and for propaganda. It was used on the battlefield, and in people’s homes.


In our game, we have a technology called “Radio” which simulates adopting the inventions of amateur radio operators and extending the use of FM radio to reduce radio interference and allow us to find new uses for radio technology. This later on leads to the construction of Radar Stations. Looking closely at this technology tells us it gives +10% chance to reinforce.

The new year will bring new goodies from Paradox Development Studio and the team behind Crusader Kings II, Paradox’s best-selling and critically beloved medieval grand strategy game.

Conclave, the newest expansion for the game, will give your vassals some bite to go along with your bark, as the council that governs your realm will now demand some say in how you rule. Powerful dukes, regardless of competence, will require a seat at the table, and those left on the outside will be more likely to plot against you.

Happy new 2016, everyone! With the holidays over, we now return to our regularly scheudeled Thursday dev diaries. Today we'll be talking about some changes coming in the upcoming 1.15 bugfixing and balancing patch, which is scheudled to be released sometime before the end of January.

The galaxy is vast, old and unknown. New species constantly flare into existence and some are even able to take their first cautious steps towards other stars. Of those that do some are arrogant enough to assume that they are the first and only chosen. They fail to realize that others may have taken those same steps before them, others who have found amazing wonders and unraveled their secrets, others who reached the furthest edges of knowledge only to crumble away. Those others are called Fallen Empires.

As some of you might have noticed there have been rumors of a new patch for Victoria 2 (the best paradox game). This started during summer when I was bored and reading forums but I only managed to get a few things done before vacation was over, then recently Wiz and Groogy got super pumped about spending their Christmas vacation on fixing stuff in Victoria and things started up again (we even guilt-tripped Sideburnout into make some event images). So Merry Christmas everyone!

Excerpt from lecture on Uplifting and Genetic Self-Improvement by Professor Xirg Ta’Nolek
Royal Science Academy, Nishga VI
Galactic Stardate 394.48 (Post-Upheaval Reckoning)
3 hours before unconditional surrender of planetary authorities

<recording starts>

Excellent. I’m glad so many of you could make it, given the present conditions. Especially you, Mr. Zeq-Zeq! Please, don’t let the sound of the orbital bombardment distract you.

Now then, let us begin! First I will be talking about the uplifting and genetic manipulation of pre-sentients.

Hi everyone, its Friday which means its time for another development diary. This one is all about our underwater friends: The Submarines!

The role of the submarine in Hearts of Iron IV is the same as it was historically: To hunt down enemy shipping and not have to challenge a superior enemy fleet directly to hurt them. Its a particularly attractive choice as Germany who will likely be facing Britain and the massive Royal Navy.

​

Magicka 2 Receives Deadly Furious Ice in New
"Ice, Death, and Fury" DLC
New Boss Fights, Game Modes, Robes, Weapons, and Friendly-fire Incidents Included

STOCKHOLM — Dec. 15, 2015 — Paradox Interactive, a publisher of games for chill people, today released “Ice, Death, and Fury” for Magicka 2, a new DLC set which adds all new ways to play with your combustible companions. The DLC, which contains ice, death, and fury in a broad variety of styles and combinations, is available today for Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs, and the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system. Magicka 2, the critically exclaimed game that lets you spell “success” using electrified healing steam, can be played in brand-new game modes using the new DLC, and also challenges players to new boss fights and new questionable fashion advice with a new set of robes and weapons. To get “Ice, Death, and Fury,” visit https://www.paradoxplaza.com/magicka-2-ice-death-and-fury.

Excerpt from lecture on Pre-Space Sentients by Professor Xirg Ta’Nolek
Royal Science Academy, Nishga VI
Galactic Stardate 394.41 (Post-Upheaval Reckoning)

<recording starts>

Settle down, class. Ah, as I look around the lecture hall and gaze upon your youthful visages, I am reminded of a younger, larval-stage me. Let’s hope you lot have more brains than I did back then!

Hey! So today we will talk about some mechanics we’ve added to make other rulers react to what happens in the world. We want to slow down the snowball and prolong the time it takes to conquer the world, so it shouldn’t be as easy to do. Snowballs are pretty evil, just like medieval rulers.

Just as with the shattered retreat mechanic we took inspiration from Europa Universalis 4 in our decision to add Coalitions. Our coalitions however are based on an Infamy value instead of Aggressive Expansion. You might recognize the name Infamy from our old games, but even though it shares the name it will work quite differently.