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

[Johan]

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.

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]

 

[DDRJake]

Every ounce of reasoning inside me shouts "do not preorder a Paradox game!"

Yet my mind demands that I have it! These dev diaries are dangerous.

 

[Johan]

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?

 

[Johan]

what is that star shield under the date?

score

 

[Johan]

Um... have you ever played EU3? This is not how this ends in EU3. In EU3, you beat the enemy stack to the province they're retreating to and then the enemy stack is automatically obliterated when it arrives because it has to fight a battle at 0 morale. In EU3, and especially multiplayer. big, decisive battles are typically fought with what we call "doomstacks." If your main stack was routed by a doomstack, then nothing else you have nearby is going to be of any help. Attrition was an annoyance at best. It never stopped anyone from dropping a 40K stack onto the front lines, even in the 5.2 beta with the new manpower changes.

Read the combat and units dev diaries again.

 

[Johan]

I completely agree.

Will you also sign my petition to separate the so-called "Swedish" culture into at the very least Suioni, Geats and Gutes. This over-simplification is outrageous. :angry:

at a bare minimum.

 

[Johan]

Johan, since you mention Seize Colony here, I'm assuming anyone can seize colonies without a prereq? The reason I ask is when Castile's NI were detailed, one of them was the ability to Seize colonies. Has their idea changed (maybe its free colony seizing)?

Edit: Ok so I was a little off. Spain's NI is "Inter Caetera: Allows claiming of colonies". Still that sounds very similar to seizing.

Castille can fabricate claims anywhere overseas....

 

[Wizzington]

I'm wondering this as well. Does the ai take into account the higher cost to core the provinces before taking them, or do they just take them as per usual and then sit on them un-cored due to their high cost?

AI will take it into account.