Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations – Dev diary 5: Religion

[Besuchov]

Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations – Dev diary 5: Religion

The theme for this weeks dev diary will deal with the wholly uncontroversial topic of religions, and in particular which one is right and which one is wrong.

Just kidding The dev diary will however cover what we are adding in the area of religions in Wealth of Nations. Note that all of these changes are part of the Wealth of Nations paid expansion; they will not be in the large free update that traditionally comes with our expansions.

Reformed
First up is the Reformed Religion, the Calvinist faith that was particularly embraced by the Dutch in this time frame. We figured that doing something for the Dutch would be an appropriate thing for our trade themed expansion. It is a distinct religion in EU4 and has an increasing chance of spawning in a European province that has been Protestant for a long time. It also has an increased chance of appearing in nations that have selected more innovative ideas.

For Wealth of Nations Reformed nations can direct the industriousness of their people via a new concept called Fervor. The player will get a base value of 2 Fervor points per month if the nation is at peace and 1 per month if it is at war. Like most things in EU, this rate is also infuenced by things like prestige and stability. If its not used it’s stored. So how do you use it? Reformed nations have 3 place to focus their Fervor: Trade (Global Trade Power and Trade Steering bonus), War (Morale of Armies and Morale of Navies) and Stability (National Revolt Risk and Diplomatic Reputation). The player can activate one or more of these but each will cost 5 Fervor each month, which means that your nations needs to be fairly stable and at peace the be able to run one permanently - but you can also save up so run several at once for a power boost in times of crisis or expansion. We have also changed one of the Reformed religions regular modifiers from +10% trade efficiency to +2 tolerance for heretics, instead.

Hindus
Since we are adding East India Companies to Asia and Africa, we wanted to see if we could add something more to make it more interesting to play in India as a local and not just as a European conqueror. For one thing, we have added about 50 new events for Hindu rulers that deal with the Hindu religion (and we’ve added some nice new art for ambience). We have also added a personal deity system.

If you have the WoN expansion, Hinduism will lose its regular modifiers. Instead you get to pick a deity to follow. You can choose from Shiva, Ganesha, Surya, Ganga, Shakti and Vishnu. Each god has its own bonuses (and also specific interesting events as mentioned earlier). The ruler picks a deity for life, but when the ruler dies you get to pick a new one (though there is also a rare event that lets you change while the monarch lives). This is going to add an interesting new dimension as you build your Hindu empire in an interesting part of the world that we might revisit in the future in another expansion or add-on.

Papacy
And finally, as a little extra to those who buy Wealth of Nations, you will now be able to automate cardinal influence, by using a checkbox next to each cardinal. With that checked the game will automatically assign enough influence to selected cardinals to keep your guy ahead in the competition. This is mostly to avoid the busy work of fighting to add +5 here and there to keep France out of the Throne of Peter.

That’s it for this week. Next week, we will talk a bit about the diplomatic additions that come with Wealth of Nations.

 

[Besuchov]

Dammit man!

Also, the new hindu mechanics look great- can other religions be modded to add similar things in?

Yes, as long as it doesnt collide with any other religion specific mechanic. You cant have fervor and dieties at the same time.

 

[Besuchov]

It's Dev Diary 5! You guys doubled the 3rd! :O

Thanks, changed.

 

[Besuchov]

To me the Cardinal thing is an excelent dlc feature. The game was designed without it and you can have the same amount of fun as you could before the DLC was released, and its not something that affects gamebalance for the people that doesnt have the DLC. But if you buy the DLC you get a little bit of extra value, as you should.

 

[Meneth]

To me the Cardinal thing is an excelent dlc feature. The game was designed without it and you can have the same amount of fun as you could before the DLC was released, and its not something that affects gamebalance for the people that doesnt have the DLC. But if you buy the DLC you get a little bit of extra value, as you should.

It's a quality of life change that was only needed because the original implementation of papal influence was a bit bad.
It seems very silly to me to charge for something that pretty much should've been there in the first place, as the current implementation of papal influence is a tedious mess.

 

[Meneth]

That's quite the incentive to pick up WoN... Rather cruel to leave it out of the basic UI!

Meanwhile, for me it's an incentive to wait for a sale instead of buying it on release.
I bought CoP on release, and I've barely even played it. If this papacy thing is a paid feature though, I'll wait for a sale instead as a statement that I can't support this kind of DLC policy.

 

[Meneth]

If you're going to buy the expansion anyway [...] then it doesn't matter if this feature is free or not.

That's a terrible way to look at things. Taking that argument to its logical conclusion, the entire patch might as well be part of the expansion.

 

[Meneth]

Ok? Versus the terrible way of looking at things where the forums are flooded with outrage over the travesty of a company trying to profit from their work?

I appreciate that Paradox continues to support their games as long as they do. They do this by charging for some of the content they add, there is nothing wrong with this.

The issue isn't that they're charging for something. The issue is what they're choosing to charge for.
In this case, a fix for their poor UI design decision.
You'll notice how no one's had any complaints about the Hindu stuff being DLC, since that's actually the sort of thing that's appropriate to put in an expansion rather than the patch.

And as I've said, the logical conclusion of your argument is that they could put literally the entire patch as paid content, since you aren't making any sort of distinction between what is and isn't fit for being DLC.

 

[Meneth]

No matter what we do, its always some people upset.

'Too many features for free' or 'Too few feature for free'.

As usual, we have ended up with way too much for free, as you'll see in the next few weeks..

I can't remember anyone seriously complaining about too much being free.

But as I've mentioned earlier in this thread, it is obvious that people's impressions depend on what's being made DLC.
Note how everyone who's complaining is complaining specifically about the Papacy automation. No one's complaining about any of the other things that've just been announced to be part of the DLC itself.
No one reasonable minds the idea of DLC, but it is all a matter of degree. The Papacy automation is clearly in the realm of nickel and diming, as it is a fix for a poor UI design decision. While the Hindu stuff for example most people don't mind, since that's an actual new idea with obvious work put into it.

 

[Meneth]

For the record, i counted 7 other major interface improvements that are free, just from the first page of changes.

See, the issue is the very idea that interface improvements should possibly be something that's paid for.
Though it doesn't help that the original papacy was a great lesson on how not ​to do micromanagement.

 

[Rufo]

I'm disappointed at the continued absense of Sikhism (in the Indian themed expansion, no less). It wasn't just a fringe religion. There was a Sikh Empire and everything. That part of history shouldn't just be erased.

Keep an eye out for the next dev diary.

 

[neondt]

Sikhism would be awesome, it'd either make my Sikh mod obsolete or vastly decrease the effort of doing so (I have too many mods to update )
Hindu stuff looks great, always nice to have more flavour, particularly in neglected regions.
Have to agree with others that the Papacy thing should be free.

 

[Meneth]

People are overreacting as usual , EUIV was perfectly playable and polished at start...

The Papacy is micromanagement hell; pretty much the opposite of polished.

 

[Meneth]

Uh, Meneth? The CK2 forums basically exploded with complaints about India from pretty much the moment Rajas was announced, flipped out about OP Pagans ruining their games for the Old Gods, whined at how republics actually had an effect with The Republic...

That's not "complaining about too much being free", it is complaining about bad balancing, and in the case of India, the game literally being unplayable for a decent number of people due to memory issues.

The same for EU4, there were tons of complaints about Colonial Nations, westernization, etc. "Why couldnt you include that in the DLC, I didn't want it in my game!" was a common theme.

Again not something I'd class as complaining about too much being free, only complaining about the implementation details. Though more debatable than your CKII examples, since the complaints you mention are a lot more subjective.

 

[Meneth]

It´s their product and they do what they want with it.

Of course. But that in no way protects them from criticism.

Don´t agree, don´t buy it. It´s that simple. They aren´t forced to do what you want.

Don´t like it? Then destroy free Market with a stupid regulation that makes forum whine force people to change their products.

And part of the free market is that people are free to voice their opinion on the matter.