Europa Universalis IV: Developer diary 34 - Unit Interface and more

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Welcome to the 34th development diary. Today we'll talk about our changes to the unit interface, and also give you two small bonus snippets. This is a rather shot development diary, due to the fact of the holidays this week, and I got a lot off things to do today on Eu4.

Changes to Unitview
First of all, we've taken a hard look at how to make the interface more streamlined and userfriendly.

The top part of the unitview, that is shown when you got multiple units selected, or while you are sieging or in combat, allows for instant interactability. You can easily see where your army is moving, its morale, leader and amount of troops. Here you can instantly split the unit in two, detach a force large enough to siege the current hostile fort, or load an army into a ship.

We have also added some quick shortcuts, if you click on the unittype icons and you can detach all subunits of that type into a new units.

In the detailed unitinformation part, you have the following options.
- Create Unit : Lets you reorganise regiments between two units.
- Detach all Mercenaries: Creates a new unit containing all mercenaries only. (Only for armies)
- Attach/Detach Unit: Allows you to have coalition armies & navies moving together.
- Consolidate Regiments: Merges understrength regiments of the same type. (Only for armies)
- Patrol: Lets Navies move the current path back and forth repeatedly. (only for navies)
- Protect Trade: Makes the fleet steer trade in a tradenode (only for navies)
- For armies, there are also the orders for Force March, Attack Natives, Scorch Earth, Burn Colony, Seize Colony & Hunt Rebels.


Abilities now requiring Power
Some abilities related to units now require military power to be used.
- Assault requires 2 MP.
- Scorch Earth also requires 2 MP.
- Seize a Colony costs 25MP and can not be used on non-colonies, so natives are safer.
- Burn Colony costs 5 MP.
- Attack Natives cost 5 MP, and is the only way to possibliy eliminate them, as defeating them in a normal uprising does not work anymore.


attachment.php

As some of you recognise on this screen.. Navies have flags and Armies have shields, as requested here

Bonus #1 - Force March
This is a new concept we added for EUIV. When you get all the ideas in the offensive ideagroup, the finisher gives you the ability to force march. When you toggle that on a unit, it will move 50% faster, but every province it moves will cost you 2 MP. If the army is forced to retreat, it will automatically be toggled off.

This together with the fact that each point of manuever moves an army 5% faster, can make a player that focus on it, able to get some really fast moving armies.

Bonus #2 - Berber Ideas
Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, Fez & Tripoli all share an ideagroup in EU4, which we call the Berber National Ideas...

They start with +200% cost of core creation on their territory and -10% ship costs.
  1. Barbarary Pirates : +33% Naval Force Limits
  2. Desert Warfare: -33% Land Attrition
  3. Trans-Saharan Trade: +10% Trade Income
  4. Corsairs: +1 Navy Tradition
  5. Tuareg Cavalry: +10% Cavalry Power
  6. Dual Diplomacy: +2 Diplomatic Upkeep
  7. Brothers Barbaross: +20% Galley Power
When they have all their ideas they get +10% trade power. This creates an interesting mechanic where they can be good naval nation, with a deterrent for all who wish to attack them.


Europa Universalis IV will release on August 13th,
PREORDER IT NOW!
http://www.europauniversalis4.com/buy

[video=youtube;fz7e4sDl4Rk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz7e4sDl4Rk[/video]
 

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Split in half has gone? Although it's similar to creating a new unit, it's a neat option to reduces micro.
 
You had me at improved network code, old boy. The rest is just gravey. Or bun sprinkling. :ninja:

Spiced buns? Cinnamon for extra 0.50sek? :p
 
Is there any reason not to use forced march to race a stack you've defeated to the province its retreating to so you can wipe it out? This makes it seem like taking the offensive idea group is going to be mandatory for survival in multiplayer.
 
Is there any reason not to use forced march to race a stack you've defeated to the province its retreating to so you can wipe it out? This makes it seem like taking the offensive idea group is going to be mandatory for survival in multiplayer.

Quite a few reasons.
One of them is the stack that is retreating could retreat quite deep into it's own territory, and you don't normally have vision there, if you get there a month before it even arrives other stacks of armies could have already wiped you out with the assistance of attrition on their side, before you even get to fire on that retreating army.