Hello everyone, and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll focus a bit on Mare Nostrum, and what was the goal of the features in that expansion and the accompanying patch.
Improve the Naval aspect of the game
The Naval game is something that has received quite a few complaints over the year, so we really wanted to make an expansion on the naval theme.
Some of the features like Sailors and the Combat Tweaks were just too much of a rework of core concepts that they had to go into the free patch.
We’re rather happy with how the naval combat now works, now that quality actually matters, and it is no longer just about who has the most money to maintain the most heavy-ships.
The Naval Missions, and the Repair mechanics was based on our experiences of the Hearts of Iron IV development, and how much more fun it made the naval game, to avoid constant micromanagement. It was one of the main features we built the exoansion around.
The changes to making blockades more visible, and having Admirals that could be good at blockading was a few free features that have proved to be a success as well.
More Peacetime Activities
After Art of War there has been a constant barrage of requests for more peace-time activities. Pretty much every expansion since then have had a large focus on adding more things to do at peace time. El Dorado had exploration related mechanics, Common Sense added Development, Interaction with Subjects & Parliaments, while Cossacks had Estates and Diplomatic Feedback, not to mention all minor actions added for the all.
Mare Nostrum is no exception there, with two major systems to enhance gameplay outside of war. First of all, we reworked how espionage works for the free patch, to make it more of an interactive mechanic, and far more transparent than before. We also made Support Rebels more of a valid option, and added lots of new spy actions.
Secondly, the feature that was the biggest to develop for Mare Nostrum. The Condottieri. We designed and added this because at the end of the day fighting in eu4 is fun. It was also heavily influenced of the fact that HoI4 testing showed us it was great fun helping out in the Spanish Civil War while still building up your own nation. Of course, Eu4 was not really designed to have units checking two sets of allegiances, so the amount of work to get it to the state we have now was enormous.
It is also the only feature that has made the AI able to crush all QA within a few decades, so we had to scale it back a bit when balancing.
Regional Specific Enhacements
Every expansion we try to add unique mechanics to some part of the world, to make for more variation in gameplay.
Besides implementing a detailed map for central and east africa, with lots of new nations and ideas, we added two cool features to make some less popular countries played, while keeping to the naval theme.
There is not much to say about the Slave Raids and Trade Leagues, except that they work, they are fun, and they create diversity.
Community Requested
We also try to add in things that the community requests in each patch, and Mare Nostrum contains two such features..
Unconditional Surrender - This was requested by both SP & MP proponents, and was added to make it possible to get out wars when you have truly lost, without the opponent totally ruining your nation forever.
Timeline Mapmode - I think this feature has been requested since eu1. One of the most
Balance Related
Obviously, these are the features that tend to be not so popular.
Corruption - This solves quite a lot of balance problems, and makes for a more challenging game longterm.
States and Territories - This solves the problems of overseas mechanics which you had to work around and exploit to benefit from. It also gives greater flexibility to the player.
The teams favorites
So, what did the development team like the most from Mare Nostrum?
Condottieri won in a landslide!
Improve the Naval aspect of the game
The Naval game is something that has received quite a few complaints over the year, so we really wanted to make an expansion on the naval theme.
Some of the features like Sailors and the Combat Tweaks were just too much of a rework of core concepts that they had to go into the free patch.
We’re rather happy with how the naval combat now works, now that quality actually matters, and it is no longer just about who has the most money to maintain the most heavy-ships.
The Naval Missions, and the Repair mechanics was based on our experiences of the Hearts of Iron IV development, and how much more fun it made the naval game, to avoid constant micromanagement. It was one of the main features we built the exoansion around.
The changes to making blockades more visible, and having Admirals that could be good at blockading was a few free features that have proved to be a success as well.
More Peacetime Activities
After Art of War there has been a constant barrage of requests for more peace-time activities. Pretty much every expansion since then have had a large focus on adding more things to do at peace time. El Dorado had exploration related mechanics, Common Sense added Development, Interaction with Subjects & Parliaments, while Cossacks had Estates and Diplomatic Feedback, not to mention all minor actions added for the all.
Mare Nostrum is no exception there, with two major systems to enhance gameplay outside of war. First of all, we reworked how espionage works for the free patch, to make it more of an interactive mechanic, and far more transparent than before. We also made Support Rebels more of a valid option, and added lots of new spy actions.
Secondly, the feature that was the biggest to develop for Mare Nostrum. The Condottieri. We designed and added this because at the end of the day fighting in eu4 is fun. It was also heavily influenced of the fact that HoI4 testing showed us it was great fun helping out in the Spanish Civil War while still building up your own nation. Of course, Eu4 was not really designed to have units checking two sets of allegiances, so the amount of work to get it to the state we have now was enormous.
It is also the only feature that has made the AI able to crush all QA within a few decades, so we had to scale it back a bit when balancing.
Regional Specific Enhacements
Every expansion we try to add unique mechanics to some part of the world, to make for more variation in gameplay.
Besides implementing a detailed map for central and east africa, with lots of new nations and ideas, we added two cool features to make some less popular countries played, while keeping to the naval theme.
There is not much to say about the Slave Raids and Trade Leagues, except that they work, they are fun, and they create diversity.
Community Requested
We also try to add in things that the community requests in each patch, and Mare Nostrum contains two such features..
Unconditional Surrender - This was requested by both SP & MP proponents, and was added to make it possible to get out wars when you have truly lost, without the opponent totally ruining your nation forever.
Timeline Mapmode - I think this feature has been requested since eu1. One of the most
Balance Related
Obviously, these are the features that tend to be not so popular.
Corruption - This solves quite a lot of balance problems, and makes for a more challenging game longterm.
States and Territories - This solves the problems of overseas mechanics which you had to work around and exploit to benefit from. It also gives greater flexibility to the player.
The teams favorites
So, what did the development team like the most from Mare Nostrum?
Condottieri won in a landslide!
