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EU4 - Development Diary - 05 of June 2018

Hello! Today we’ll talk about yet another system reworked in Dharma and another feature to make European presence in the rest of the world more interesting. Let’s start with the new feature.

So when we talked about the Charter Trade Company feature, a bunch of you wondered why in the name of Shiva would an Indian ever surrender a province to the Westerners even for a big pile of gold? So I am here to answer that.

We’ve had since Wealth of Nations that you could create Trade Companies in special Charter Regions of the world. It was always a pet peeve for me how they worked out and always wanted more out of it. Company provinces never really covered the interaction you had between the various companies and the local rulers of the area. The initial interaction between the Europeans and India was one of trade, except one… staring at you Portugal. Either way we wanted a way for Europeans and Indians to benefit from each others presence… at first at least :)

So now when a European have established their Trade Company they can further their investments in them by building them up. You’ll have 10 investments you can build up per area you have a company present in, and 5 special ones you can build per charter. They are not the cheapest, the lowest going for 300 ducats, it’s upgrade 600 and the special ones goes for a 1000 ducats. So someone wanting to exploit the full riches of the Far East is going to heavily invest their resources into it.

eu4_13.png


The effects of these investments in their benefits given to you are fairly powerful but most of them also gives bonii to the immediate area or even the larger area for some of them. A little note though they do not stack with modifiers from other nations investments. Here’s an ambitious attempt to list them in full, in case not specified otherwise, the effect is only on the area they are built in.
  • Local Quarter - 300 Ducats
    • +15% Defensiveness, 25% Supply Limit for your TC Provinces
  • Permanent Quarters - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Local Quarters
    • 30% Defensiveness, 50% Supply Limit to your TC Provinces
  • Officers’ Mess - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • +5 Land Force Limit for TC Owner
  • Company Warehouse - 300 Ducats
    • +2 Local Trade Power to your TC Provinces
    • 25% Production Efficiency in entire Area
  • Company Depot - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Company Warehouse
    • +4 Local Trade Power to your TC Provinces
    • 50% Production Efficiency in entire Area
  • Admiralty - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • +5 Naval Force Limit for TC Owner
  • Brokers Office - 300 Ducats
    • +25% Production Efficiency to your TC Provinces
    • 0.15 Goods Produced in entire Area
  • Brokers Exchange - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Brokers Office
    • 50% Production Efficiency to your TC Provinces
    • 0.30 Goods Produced in entire Area
  • Property Appraiser - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • 50% Trade Steering in Trade Node of Charter for TC Owner.
  • <Adjective> Settlements - 300 Ducats
    • 25% Tax Modifier in your TC Provinces
    • -7.5 Development Cost in Area
  • <Adjective> District - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Settlements
    • 50% Tax Modifier in your TC Provinces
    • -15 Development Cost in Area
  • <Adjective> Township - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • 10% Trade Value on entire Trade Company Charter.
  • Company Administration - 300 Ducats
    • +25% Local Manpower, +25% Local Sailors in your TC Provinces.
  • Military Administration - 600 Ducats
    • Upgrades from Company Administration
    • +50% Local Manpower, +50% Local Sailors in your TC Provinces
  • Governor General’s Mansion - 1000 Ducats
    • 1 Per Trade Company Charter
    • -2% Ship Cost for TC Owner.
Note that this is till work in progress and numbers are subject to change as we test for balance.

That’s it for Trade Company Investments, next up is the system rework that we’ve been so cruel to hint around about on the Dev Clash stream.

There are 120 different policies but there are a very few select that stand out as favorites making pretty much most of it obsolete. Never cared for that and wanted to see a lot more interesting builds be available we’ve reworked the entire thing to change how you interact with it, but also rebalanced a big bunch of them. No longer is Quality Standard policy giving you 5% discipline an Administration policy and the 50% Transport Combat Ability policy is gone. But we’ll get to that later.

First let’s dive into the mechanical changes we’ve done. You can no longer activate 5 policies anymore but you enact 3 per category of monarch power. This means you can at max have 3 policies activated in each category. You also get 1 policy for free per category in order to promote long-term usage. These numbers are however not fixed, some government reforms will let you tweak these, national ideas can also be a source like the Deccan ideas who get an extra administrative policy for free. However this requires Dharma.

eu4_12.png


So for how we went through and balanced these, removed old bad policies, added new interesting ones, I’m not even going to attempt to list 120 policies in this diary. But instead I’ll share an image of the document I used to view everything at once so I knew sort of how it was looking.

capture(194).png

Yet again I can not stress enough, all of these numbers are work in progress!



Hope you’ve enjoyed this dev diary and that it has been meaty enough for you. Next one will be covered by your favorite scotsman, Jake, who will go through some much requested quality of life features.
 
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I only pray and hope, for the love of God, that they rework the policies themselves too. I'm tired of seeing EVERY country in every single MP game pick the standard Quality -> Economic -> Quantity -> Innovative ideas (Order may vary).

It should be stressed that Quality is the main offender here, being arguably the best military idea group in itself and having amazing policies with Economic, Innovative, Religious, Maritime and Trade.
 
Then they are skipping the 20% Combat ability, the 10% Artillery Combat Ability, which I personally find more valuable than 15% morale.
You could also go for the 66% manpower(and get 10% morale anyway from that pick) and just drown the enemy in corpses.

Point is, picking the favored 5 mil policies is not possible anymore and you have more maneuverability to pick non military policies.

I'd consider the 10% artillery combat ability, but I don't think I'd ever take the 20% CA for cavalry. I indeed think most people take quantity anyway for both force limit and manpower buffs. Don't think I'd need the extra manpower from the policy due to slackening the standards and the possibility of mercs.
 
1. I don't think trade companies need to be buffed.

2. What's the logic behind some of these investments? Ones like trade value vs. trade steering is just extra math work.

3. Have you thought these bonuses through? 600 ducats for 50% manpower + 50% sailors is completely insane, it could very well be the biggest buff of any type since absolutism.

4. Have you considered introducing maintenance cost or an autonomy floor for trade companies?

5. How do these changes help Europeans land in India more often aside from being able to purchase TC land? How do these changes help the AI at all as opposed to incentivizing the player to no-cb India asap every run?
 
You're still going to see Quality>Econ>Offensive>Innovative every competitive game. 5% Disc is overpowered in an MP setting, it's not up for argument. 20% Infantry combat is overpowered in an MP setting, it's not up for argument. These two policies will ALWAYS be taken because Disc stacking is still the optimum way to build an army from pretty much tech 15 onward. 10% Artillery combat is extremely effective going into the late game, so it's not like you're losing out there either. With Mercs being as available and easy to spam as they are, manpower builds are meaningless because there just isn't anything resembling a war of attrition in this game. If you were to savagely nerf mercenaries and remove the attrition cap, then maybe a manpower build might work. Until then though, this changes nothing
 
1. I don't think trade companies need to be buffed.

2. What's the logic behind some of these investments? Ones like trade value vs. trade steering is just extra math work.

3. Have you thought these bonuses through? 600 ducats for 50% manpower + 50% sailors is completely insane, it could very well be the biggest buff of any type since absolutism.

4. Have you considered introducing maintenance cost or an autonomy floor for trade companies?

5. How do these changes help Europeans land in India more often aside from being able to purchase TC land? How do these changes help the AI at all as opposed to incentivizing the player to no-cb India asap every run?

1. Agree - but this should be change to better system, not necessarily buff - numbers are not final yet.. pending balance
2. Good point
3. I understood that as area based - bonus in that area, not global? Meaning you get manpower from those x provinces in area. Which is maybe a bit better than spamming Barracks all over the place - if you control whole area. Like who cares about 5 FL... when you can just spam few conscription centers or go over the limit. Might build it if you have Influence.
Some clarifications would be welcome.

4/5. My questions also.
 
Does this mean ideas will be improved or left alone?
 
@DDRJake I'm really sorry to say that, but your policies are quite... weird to say the least. You haven't changed the army quality stacking meta at all, and this hurts MP by a lot.

Detailed insight:
  • First of all, we have Quality: the god-tier of all ideagroups. It gives you literally everything you need for the early game: Infantry CA, Discipline, Naval Morale. And what's more important, it pairs with Economic, Religious, and Innovative for even better policies.
  • The second obvious pick is Economics: it gives a very neat boost to your income and allows you to get another +5% Discipline with a policy.
  • The third most obvious pick is Offensive: genearl pips, Land FL, and another +5% discipline!
These 3 idea groups are mandatory for any MP game, and there are literally no other viable options ATM. You could pick Defensive if you are threatened by immediate partitioning, but the lack of viable policies kills it's long-term viability. Ofc there are exceptions from any rules, and sometimes players pick Trade, Administrative or Religious among their first 3 groups, but it's quite a rare occasion and may still backfire heavily later. And we have Aristocratic, and Plutocratic groups that are considered to be trash-tier and are picked mostly due to bonus to available mercenaries.

Second big problem is that you've added lots of very interesting modifiers like shock_damage\shock_damage_received, fire_damage\fire_damage received, but you are not using them in ideas, policies and there are so many old and outdated NIs that are bloated with discipline and\or morale combos

Another problem lies with fleet policies: Naval and Maritime ideas have very strong policies (like +20% naval morale, Heavy ships CA and so on). Once Naval and\or Maritime are unlocked by any seafaring nation, it opens a naval arms race for any player who wants to be relevant on the seas. It would be fine, but taking these idea groups hits land capabilities of these nations, so their armies become much less relevant.


I'm toying with a new policies system ATM:



Disclaimer: this is still a draft and it's related to a mod i'm working at ATM.

MPR_policies_4.jpg


These are the combinations for military policies only: you can pair military + administrative or military + diplomatic for a military policy, but administrative + diplomatic will give something different (not listed in this scheme). And most importantly: every single policy is unique, so for +5% discipline you have 4 combos.
  • Quality + Economic
  • Quality + Administrative
  • Offensive + Economic
  • Offensive + Administrative
You won't be able +5% Discipline bonus twice:

allow = {
OR = {
full_idea_group = quality_ideas
full_idea_group = economic_ideas
}
OR = {
full_idea_group = quality_ideas
full_idea_group = administrative_ideas
}
OR = {
full_idea_group = offensive_ideas
full_idea_group = economic_ideas
}
OR = {
full_idea_group = offensive_ideas
full_idea_group = administrative_ideas
}
}

c859f167-c369-4790-9975-327978bf1312
 
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Looks interesting, the new policy system seems like a really nice improvement. Though the decisions box just below looks archaic now :p
The initial interaction between the Europeans and India was one of trade, except one… staring at you Portugal.
Not quite sure what that means, the very first thing the Portuguese attempted to do when they first arrived in India was precisely to trade. That was the main point of the voyages. The first real conquest in India came over a decade later with Goa, and ironically it's the one province the game gives for free to Portugal.
 
This has to have been my favorite DD so far for the expansion. it will be interesting to see the new minmax will be with the new policy rework. Hopefully there will be a few incentives to play to historical strengths of nations involved with its interaction with the government/state as with the dharma extra policy.
 
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1. Agree - but this should be change to better system, not necessarily buff - numbers are not final yet.. pending balance
2. Good point
3. I understood that as area based - bonus in that area, not global? Meaning you get manpower from those x provinces in area. Which is maybe a bit better than spamming Barracks all over the place - if you control whole area. Like who cares about 5 FL... when you can just spam few conscription centers or go over the limit. Might build it if you have Influence.
Some clarifications would be welcome.

4/5. My questions also.


3. It means barrack + dock without taking up a building slot, and for anywhere from half to 10-20% of the cost. Lack of manpower and sailors was the primary drawback of trade companies which needed buildings to remedy the problem. Now TCs will actually become by far the best source of manpower/sailors in the game, far beyond what states can offer.

The overall changes simply reinforce what players have already done since the introduction of TCs which is to rush India and never have to worry about money for the rest of the game, now they don't have to worry about manpower either.
 
@DDRJake I'm really sorry to say that, but your policies are quite... weird to say the least. You haven't changed the army quality stacking meta at all, and this hurts MP by a lot.

Detailed insight:
  • First of all, we have Quality: the god-tier of all ideagroups. It gives you literally everything you need for the early game: Infantry CA, Discipline, Naval Morale. And what's more important, it pairs with Economic, Religious, and Innovative for even better policies.
  • The second obvious pick is Economics: it gives a very neat boost to your income and allows you to get another +5% Discipline with a policy.
  • The third most obvious pick is Offensive: genearl pips, Land FL, and another +5% discipline!
These 3 idea groups are mandatory for any MP game, and there are literally no other viable options ATM. You could pick Defensive if you are threatened by immediate partitioning, but the lack of viable policies kills it's long-term viability. Ofc there are exceptions from any rules, and sometimes players pick Trade, Administrative or Religious among their first 3 groups, but it's quite a rare occasion and may still backfire heavily later. And we have Aristocratic, and Plutocratic groups that are considered to be trash-tier and are picked mostly due to bonus to available mercenaries.

Second big problem is that you've added lots of very interesting modifiers like shock_damage\shock_damage_received, fire_damage\fire_damage received, but you are not using them in ideas, policies and there are so many old and outdated NIs that are bloated with discipline and\or morale combos

Another problem lies with fleet policies: Naval and Maritime ideas have very strong policies (like +20% naval morale, Heavy ships CA and so on). Once Naval and\or Maritime are unlocked by any seafaring nation, it opens a naval arms race for any player who wants to be relevant on the seas. It would be fine, but taking these idea groups hits land capabilities of these nations, so their armies become much less relevant.


I'm toying with a new policies system ATM:



These are the combinations for military policies only: you can pair military + administrative or military + diplomatic for a military policy, but administrative + diplomatic will give something different (not listed in this scheme). And most importantly: every single policy is unique, so for +5% discipline you have 4 combos.
  • Quality + Economic
  • Quality + Administrative
  • Offensive + Economic
  • Offensive + Administrative
You won't be able +5% Discipline bonus twice:

allow = {
OR = {
full_idea_group = quality_ideas
full_idea_group = economic_ideas
}
OR = {
full_idea_group = quality_ideas
full_idea_group = administrative_ideas
}
OR = {
full_idea_group = offensive_ideas
full_idea_group = economic_ideas
}
OR = {
full_idea_group = offensive_ideas
full_idea_group = administrative_ideas
}
}
View attachment 376845
c859f167-c369-4790-9975-327978bf1312
actually the god tier is defensive, atleast in first 100 years, and lack of policies change nothing, u can always sell the idea and pick better one later.
 
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-7.5 gets upgraded to -15
The question is if it is a flat value (-7.5 monarch points) or a percentage one (-7.5% of base cost i.e. -3.75 monarch points).
 
New policy system looks very promising, however the policies themselves seem to be largely unchanged - I hope you are working on a more thorough overhaul. On the same note, I'd say we're in desperate need of some idea group rebalancing, even in SP the "meta" has grown terribly stale.
 
Aragon has a new map-color?
Looks better than the sloppy red it has now. :)

Great changes to both systems. Looking forward to try out both ends of the new TC mechanics!