Europa Universalis IV: Developer diary 5: The Return of the Kings

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Hey, Paradox is a growing company and is becoming more and more professional with each release. Compared to the in-game text of Victoria or EU2, we've seen huge leaps and bounds in the use of proper English. I think it would be a good idea to keep this ball rolling, and not say "Good enough." I agree it's pretty clear, and not a huge deal. But it was my first impression, which is not the impression I'd imagine Paradox wants to cultivate.

I'm not really sure why Johan felt the need to reply to my first impression (in a trite way), but not my second, which was obviously of more significance. A decentralized state can depend on local/indirect leadership during the time of a poor monarch, but can be hindered by this same class during the time of a powerful monarch. So, is there anything to represent this in the game?
If they keep improving their grammar and spelling they'll be forced to switch to British English, it's already better than many Americans' English.
 
Uhm, I'm not completely sure about this system... The idea of ruler points and of a tradeoff among the different strategies you can adopt is really good, but I don't feel like the randomness of the system is a great thing. The player may feel like his success in the game depends too much on chance and not on her own ability.
It is like playing cards. You have a random deck that you get, and you use your skill to get the best of what you got.
Having the heirs predictable/selectable greatly decreases varriance, since you do not get into situations you do not want to be in, not having to alter your play to take advantage of monarch`s abilities n different field, and interest in playing, what is better than get a crappy heir, but nevertheless, save country from going bananaz, and get the nomal/good ruler eventually(or hit the timeline of end game, struggling with bad one).



Also, every country has an equal shot at ruler skills, so it is fair, in principle.
 
Something that springs to my mind: will we have to spend the 400 points on a tech at once, or can we accumulate them? I do not foresee myself having 400 points accumulated most of the time.

One possibility: we could allocate a certain amount to be automatically added to the current totals of techs each time we get more.

suppose we would have to wait to see how the interaction is handled until the DD about technology.
 
If they keep improving their grammar and spelling they'll be forced to switch to British English, it's already better than many Americans' English.

And speaking as a Briton, most Europeans speak better English than many Britons!
 
A larger/greater/richer power can for instance afford the cost of greater advisors. And as someone already mentioned here, you can reduce the cost in points of things like stability and tech.
This is great, now, after this DD, my concerns about the uncontrollability of the monarch points resource is completely gone. :)
At the least, DIP&ADM points->money->advisors->points is there.

2) I'd really like to see some options - including NIs, decisions, and buildings - that, for a cost in ADM points, money, magistrate activity and ADM/DIP/MIL points would establish a constant source of ADM/DIP/MIL points. Examples include, but are not limited to: military academies and equivalents, low-level schooling (from Volkschule to Ratio Educationis), establish Sunday schools edict (church-run education), etc.

Just as a rough example, say 100 ADM + 100 MIL monarch points, 200 ducats, 6 months of magistrate activity, and a prerequisite tech level and NI, I could be able to establish a Military Academy which would, from now on, provide me with an extra +1 MIL point each month.

This would be a costly (both in money and ADM points) way to expand the monarch points pool, but would allow a gradual progression of a bureaucratic transition to take place during the game. This way, by the 1700s an incompetent (to say the least) ruler would be a nuisance, but not something threatening with immediate collapse.

3) In EU3, one of the most immersion-breaking things was the way I could make an unlimited number of royal marriages - sometimes when I found little other use for diplomats, but needed an improvement in general opinion by the neighbours, I did make well over a dozen royal marriages.

Thus I propose that a source of 'ring resources' as someone (Merrick chance, IIRC) put it, i.e. an available number of male and female close royal relatives be included. They need not have a face, perhaps not even a name, but I should be limited by my king only having 2 daughters, 3 sons and a sister. Obviously, royal marriages should be buffed - not only a substantial relation increase, but also a trigger for many more diplomatic options. (No characters, no dynasty system beyond the current EU4ß, just a pair of 0-N counters for each state.)

This would also mean that in some cases I have the required 'ring resource', but the other side doesn't. Or it does - just it would be an opposite-direction marriage, which is strategically a bad choice. Or flavorful events, like the Hapsburg-Jagiellion crossmarriage, e.g. a marriage each way, with the consequence that if one dynasty dies out, the other inherits its holdings. Bohemia, Hungary and Silesia, in this case. Hapsburgs... :cool:

Obviously, some more information on eligible heirs would help a lot - just to know whether this idiot bastard is my only heir, or somehow hidden behind him in line there is a legitimate and genius child (sometimes the EU3 engine basically did this). Or that my firstborn is 20 y.o., so my old king kicking the bucket won't cause problems - however, the second son is only 5, thus in case the first heir dies, a long regency is unavoidable.
 
If they keep improving their grammar and spelling they'll be forced to switch to British English, it's already better than many Americans' English.

In my experience, it annoys the people in charge when a British English vs. American English argument breaks out.
 
Looks interesting, but please, MORE complexity. Don't simplify things too much.

Also, is there any hope for distinct, dynamic parliaments, such as the senate system in Rome? That would add so much to the game and really spruce up republics.
 
The more I ponder this dev diary the more I like it. Between this dev diary and the smooth release of CKII, I think I'll be buying this game the first day.

The cores thing will probably prompt howls of rage upon release from both those who think it's too expensive and too cheap. I hope this aspect will be fairly modable.
 
Sounds interesting. By the way, one minor thing. The portraits of the advisors are the very same of eu iii. I take for granted this is just an alpha version and you will change them?

I love those adviser pictures and there's nothing wrong with them. I strongly oppose replacing them, and if that were done I guarantee that one of the first mods out would be replacing the new portraits with the old eu3 ones.
 
And speaking as a Briton, most Europeans speak better English than many Britons!
Oh+hell+no+_5527b4e6f027652e9e51c6ab696e0025.jpg

In my experience, it annoys the people in charge when a British English vs. American English argument breaks out.
I am in a community college in American and the sentence structure and grammar is truly horrendous. It is so bad I would take water boarding over reading another classmate's paper. , I can appreciate a good periodic sentence and such, but oh god, the sentences that ran half a page with terrible grammar. People using punctuation wrong, so wrong, I have seen commas being used for apostrophes...
 
I love those adviser pictures and there's nothing wrong with them. I strongly oppose replacing them, and if that were done I guarantee that one of the first mods out would be replacing the new portraits with the old eu3 ones.

I've gotta agree with this, those portraits are symbolic of Europa Universalis. :)
 
2. Regarding tech progress -- now it seems to depend mostly (exclusively??) on the monarchs' and advisors' skills. Compare this to the traditional EU system in which tech progress largely depended on the national economy. In short: rich nations advanced quicker, poor nations advanced slower. This quite honestly makes more sense to me. Do I have this right?

I think this is an important question. I was a little put off by the idea of buying tech with monarch points. I hope they will expand on the system in a later dev diary, for example multiplying the "base" tech cost by #-of-provinces/production-and-trade-output, then subject to other modifiers, and this is the monarch point cost that must be paid. I wouldn't want the Aztecs, for example, teching up real fast just because they had great leaders while England is stuck in the middle ages all thanks to some idiot.
 
Will there be any way to improve your heirs' stats, or if your newborn heir has 1/1/1 are they destined to be horrible? It would make sense if you could foster them in order to improve their stats marginally. It would synergise with the envoy system well; you can foster your child with a missionary or colonist to improve his administrative abilities, with a merchant or diplomat to improve his diplomatic abilities, or with a general or admiral to improve his military abilities; of course, the latter two aren't envoys but I believe it still fits.
 
Personally I'd have liked to see more advanced government types giving a bonus to points. So a Constitutional Republic or late-game monarchy gives a noticeable bonus to represent the increase in bureaucratic and administrative ability. After all, by the late game not everything depended solely on the monarch and advisors like earlier in history.
George III was hardly the best ruler in the history of mankind...yet under him Great Britain won the Napoleonic Wars and became the overall victor of this time period.

I'm not really sure why Johan felt the need to reply to my first impression (in a trite way), but not my second, which was obviously of more significance. A decentralized state can depend on local/indirect leadership during the time of a poor monarch, but can be hindered by this same class during the time of a powerful monarch. So, is there anything to represent this in the game?

This. Goverment types that limit monarch's power should have a positive influence when the monarch is bad, and a negative influence when the monarch is good. Maybe every such government should have a threshold of monarch's abilities (and maybe separate threshold for every ability), over which it should give negative bonuses to the monarchs power, and under which it should give positive bonuses. Different types of government would have a different threshold representing their different efficiency.
 
In EU3, one of the most immersion-breaking things was the way I could make an unlimited number of royal marriages - sometimes when I found little other use for diplomats, but needed an improvement in general opinion by the neighbours, I did make well over a dozen royal marriages.

Thus I propose that a source of 'ring resources' as someone (Merrick chance, IIRC) put it, i.e. an available number of male and female close royal relatives be included. They need not have a face, perhaps not even a name, but I should be limited by my king only having 2 daughters, 3 sons and a sister.
Infertile king that one! John the First (Portugal) had 9 legitimate children and two bastards. D. Manuel had 13 legitimate children from three different marriages (9 of them with Mary of Aragon). John the Third had 9 legitimate children and one bastard.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in EU 3 the effects of ruler stats neither increased with the growth of a nation. The effects of the ruler stats were mainly on the tech-investment and didn't scale with the growth of a nation. A ruler would always give +X to a tech per month, regardless of the size of the nation. Whereas the technology costs were scaling. So its basicly the same mechanismen in EUIV.
 
Right, but that is what seems so counterintuitive; spending more on building up your country should make tech progression go faster and not slower.
In the EU3 paradigm you would be right, in the EU4 paradigm... we lack details to be sure how it works.

The good thing is that we get an additional resource we'll need to manage not only money (and since 5.2 manpower).