Europa Universalis IV and the Mod-Forum

I'd like to know if any support for Steam Workshop is being considered. Sub forums aside, many users may find mods hard to reach, but the workshop actually (with some mixed results) bring one of the best features of the PI series of games more accessible. I don't know if its the developer, publisher or steam themselves that have to manage it or take the initiative for it, but I enjoy it immensely for Civ V at least.

I think the problem with the sub-forums is that you might end up with more than half of them being dead mods.

I've recently had a look at EU3 mods for the first time in years, and finding one which works with the latest version (and would be interesting for other reasons) is hard.

DLC are only going to make that harder than what expansions did, so there needs to be some better way to find current mods.

The biggest question when it comes to mods is how Paradox will decide to handle the sub forum. For example, in different games they handled it differently. In some cases you can access the mods sub forum (but you cant post there) regardless of having that game registered or not (EU3) and in some other games you cant even browse the mod sub section unless you have game registered. The problem with more restrictive approach is that it limits the amount of people that are allowed to play your mods (which is important to all of us who make mods) and fewer people you get playing your thing less and less feedback you get, which means less and less things get done, leading to much shorter life time for mods, or even alternative forums (which would be a big shame IMO). So i hope they will take some less restrictive approach this time (at least EU3 like, if free for all is not possible), it would make things much easier for modders (thus make your experience with EU4 last much, much longer).

Fawr said:

I've recently had a look at EU3 mods for the first time in years, and finding one which works with the latest version (and would be interesting for other reasons) is hard.

DLC are only going to make that harder than what expansions did, so there needs to be some better way to find current mods.

Click to expand...

This is incorrect.
DLCs cannot, in terms of mods or multiplayer, be compared to the expansions of former games.
If you take a look at how it works in CK2, the patches of CK2 can be compared to expansions of EU3. Obviously, more patches compared to the old expansions, and more rapidly than the old expansions, will mean less compatibility in the end, but that is not because of DLCs (Although you could argue that the DLCs enable them to produce patches more rapidly...).
I was suspicious at first when they announced it, but if it works as well for EU4 as for CK2, I have no objections.


As for mod subforums, I haven't seen many mods be given subforums in EU3, and for me the Master Mod list of CK2 works just as well - but I can imagine a subforum would have perks for the team doing the mod. I am not sure, never been there never done that, but I think that if something enables more modders to share their work then is good - question is then whether the subforum is the most efficient way for PDX to help.

GreatSlayer said:

I'd like to know if any support for Steam Workshop is being considered. Sub forums aside, many users may find mods hard to reach, but the workshop actually (with some mixed results) bring one of the best features of the PI series of games more accessible. I don't know if its the developer, publisher or steam themselves that have to manage it or take the initiative for it, but I enjoy it immensely for Civ V at least.

Click to expand...

The biggest impediment with further Steam integration (noting mods will stick work as usual for non-steam users), is that Paradox patching procedures do not work well with Steam. Adding in mods that only work on some patches, and some that need year-old beta patches (see: EU3, I think 5.2 betas are 9 months old now) makes this tricky.

That given, if Paradox can get their act together with patches (have they will CK2? I haven't followed), I think Steam Workshop would be a great idea.