Hello all.

Sadly we can't yet talk about the big feature of Common Sense, Subject Interaction.. As we are completely redoing the interface for it, so it has to wait until next week.

Instead, we'll talk about a major change to the Holy Roman Empire, and give you the new achievements for 1.12.

Imperial Authority and Reforms

Imperial Authority has had a significant rework in 1.12. The old system tended to advance or retreat authority in big lurches and was very open to exploits. It also did not take into account how well the Empire was doing overall, and there was little benefit for the Emperor to maintain a large number of member states.

This has been changed in 1.12, as many of the events that gave Imperial Authority have been replaced with ticking values. The monthly change to Imperial Authority is now displayed in the interface, and will depend on factors such as:
- Whether there is peace in the Empire
- Total number of member states
- The amount of HRE territory held by outside powers
- The amount of HRE territory held by heretics & heathens
- The number of electors and free cities

An Emperor who is doing a good job will see their Imperial Authority naturally grow without having to resort to methods such as annexing states when authority is at 0 only to release them again later, while an Emperor that allows outside powers and heretics to dominate the Empire will find themselves unable to pass reforms entirely.

As part of this change, we've also revised the old 'Imperial Integrity' modifier for having more than 25 princes. We felt this modifier was both too strong and too arbitrary, so it has been removed. Instead, the HRE reforms were buffed to provide more of an incentive for members to vote for reform.

Achievements

Baltic Crusader - As Teutonic Order or Livonian Order conquer all of the Russia Region and make it Catholic.
Neither Holy, Nor German - Get 7 free cities in the HRE that are not of German Culture, as Emperor
Colonial Management - Have 3 colonial governors directly appointed by you at the same time.
Voting Streak - Get through 11 Issues in a row in Parliament
An Industrial Revolution - As GBR, all in english region, with 25 development.

City of Cities - Create a City with 60 development.
One Family to Rule them All - Have your dynasty on 8 thrones at the same time.
This is My Faith - Become Protestant and get maximum amount of traits.
Bleed them dry - Have 10 different War Reparations being paid to you at the same time.
Subsidize my Love - Subsidize 3 different allies at least 50% of their monthly income without running a deficit.

Take that Habsburgs! - As Hungary, Conquer all of Austria.
The White Elephant - As Ayutthaya conquers all provinces in Indochina region
The Buddhists strike back - As Ceylon conquer all of India and convert it to Theravada.
Better than Napoleon - As France, conquer Vienna, Berlin & Moscow.
Big Blue Blob - As France, hold 100 european core provinces before 1500.

A Full House - Have 3 Vassals & 2 Marches at the Same time.
Black Jack - Maintain 21 different overseas Subjects with more than 5 provinces each, without anyone having more than 50% Liberty Desire - Trade Companies does not count.
A Decent Reserve - Gain at least 1M Manpower.
The Six Nations - Form a federation of at least 6 nations as the Iroqious.
The Bohemians - Conquer and core Dublin as Bohemia.

Komenoi Empire - Make Trebizond into an Empire.
Lucky Lucca - As Lucca, own Lucknow!
A Fine Goosestep - Form Prussia and get 125% Discipline.
Meissner Porcelain - As Saxony own all chinaware provinces.
All Your Trade are Belong to Us! - Have highest tradepower in Genoa, Venice, & English Channel, while gaining 300 income per month.

 

[sermaciej]

can the development descrease due to wars, sieges, low stability, rebels, events, etc.?

 

[AKronblad]

Eagerly looking forward to the Subject Interaction mechanics! Is that some form of vassal politics, interfering with vassals, etc.?

EDIT: Will Subject Interaction be part of the free patch or the DLC?

 

[loup99]

EDIT: Will Subject Interaction be part of the free patch or the DLC?

DLC, as the announcement and this diary mentioned.

 

[AKronblad]

Thanks, loup! I may be blind, but cannot seem to find it in this DD. Where? First post?

Also, which announcement? The general for the Common Sense DLC?

EDIT: Found the announcement, so all in good order. Thanks.

 

[zenisar]

Hey, Johan, these changes look awesome, especially the new imperial authority mechanics. I will have reason to unite HRE once more because after IA has been nerfed in last patches, I stopped playing emperor seriously and rather destroyed the HRE altogether.

Regarding the new achievements, I am glad there will be one for Bohemia, finally, just that it does not make any sense - what do have Bohemia and Dublin in common? Since I played Bohemia in every flavor there is, it looks like generated by RNG. Would you please make that new Bohemian achievement with some historical flavour instead? For example, "Jan Hus was right" = force protestant religion upon HRE. Or perhaps "Turn the table" = force PU upon Austria. Or, if you want something bold, you could do "Bohemia into space" = colonize/ own South America. Since Bohemia starts in the center of Europe and landlocked, it would be difficult enough to turn Bohemia into naval / colonization power ...

 

[grommile]

Regarding the new achievements, I am glad there will be one for Bohemia, finally, just that it does not make any sense - what do have Bohemia and Dublin in common?

The oldest surviving association football team in Ireland is called Bohemians F.C., and is based in Dublin.

 

[TheDungen]

Hey, Johan, these changes look awesome, especially the new imperial authority mechanics. I will have reason to unite HRE once more because after IA has been nerfed in last patches, I stopped playing emperor seriously and rather destroyed the HRE altogether.

Regarding the new achievements, I am glad there will be one for Bohemia, finally, just that it does not make any sense - what do have Bohemia and Dublin in common? Since I played Bohemia in every flavor there is, it looks like generated by RNG. Would you please make that new Bohemian achievement with some historical flavour instead? For example, "Jan Hus was right" = force protestant religion upon HRE. Or perhaps "Turn the table" = force PU upon Austria. Or, if you want something bold, you could do "Bohemia into space" = colonize/ own South America. Since Bohemia starts in the center of Europe and landlocked ...

I disagree that the one they added is bad but some of those are really nice too. Gief more achievments.

 

[amisttad]

I don't read all 17 pages, but I must ask.
Old saves will works with new version of game?

Paradox please consider achievements like this:
"Change twice country name"
for example form prussia/germany/italy and after form HRE
"Change three time name"
form prussia -> form germany -> HRE
Maybe some achievements for Burgundy? France have few own achievements but burgundy is poor in this case.

 

[grommile]

I don't read all 17 pages, but I must ask.
Old saves will works with new version of game?

I think it's safe to say that pre-1.12 saves will absolutely not work with 1.12, and that this has been perfectly obvious from the content of the dev diaries (not the comments/responses, the diaries themselves) for some time now. Save compatibility across a map-level change is never smooth even if it "theoretically" works, and with the new buildings and development mechanics, there really is no reasonable way to expect saves to be compatible.

 

[L_naut]

I don't read all 17 pages, but I must ask.
Old saves will works with new version of game?

Paradox please consider achievements like this:
"Change twice country name"
for example form prussia/germany/italy and after form HRE
"Change three time name"
form prussia -> form germany -> HRE
Maybe some achievements for Burgundy? France have few own achievements but burgundy is poor in this case.

I don't think so, they are changing base tax, base production, and base manpower of provinces and adding more pronvinces. Heavy changes on the map usually break the save.

 

[RMcD94]

Since when can you obtain achievements with cheats? As far as I'm concerned to get them you need to be playing ironman and that prevents you from using any cheats. And you shouldn't be able to get achievements in MP since that would allow people to cheat. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of MP myself and I've played o lot of games but achievements should be ironman exclusive.

Not cheats as in console commands, cheats as in cheat engine, etc. I thought this was obvious but apparently not. It's very easy to do, but I have no intention of linking to sites that will help on this website. Then you can consider how many people have used bugs and glitches to devalue achievements (it used to be you opened EU4 for the first time and you'd get a handful of achievements.)

There's no reason multiplayer couldn't be ironman as well.

I am not going to disagree that you could use multiplayer to make it easier to achieve certain achievements, just as people can use glitches or bugs or outside game cheats to abuse the system (like that bug with custom nations which made all achievements easy), however I cannot comprehend how you could possibly justify the fact that things that literally only appear on a profile and have next to no value except in the idea of goal setting and take away that feature from players who play with friends.

How can you say that it's okay to make multiplayer worse for all of those people who wouldn't abuse this ability, and is abusing this ability to get achievements even worth punishing players? If you really want super special achievements there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't but the best and hardest of the achievements as "In ironman and singleplayer, conquer the world as Ryukyu".

If people HAVE FUN getting achievements with save scumming outside of ironman or spending time with the friends helping each other out HOW IS THAT A BAD THING?

How can you say that "Oh no my achievements would be dis-valued by an entirely insignificant amount (a reminder that no one outside of yourself cares about what achievements you have)" so much so that OTHER PEOPLE MUST BE ALLOWED TO HAVE FUN GETTING THEM RARAWRWARAWR!?

It's just such a selfish attitude and I think more than appreciating the importance of achievements devalues both the community of the game (as you cannot die that people care about achievements and so would avoid playing multiplayer) and the total amount of fun possible.

The achievements were conceived of with the set-up of a single player game in mind. In a multiplayer game, you could conceivable turn that set-up on its head -- e.g. you and your friend playing an always-allied Austria/France or an allied Ottomans and Ethiopia. In the degenerate case, you, as the Ottomans, could immediately surrender to your friend Ethiopia for a quick Prester John run.

As I explained above I don't think this is an issue. No one cares about what achievements other people have, if two people want to spend time farming achievements that's two people enjoying themselves playing EU4 when they otherwise might have sat alone in single player or used something like cheat engine.

To speak from personal opinion, when I've already done something in multiplayer (like formed Malaya or Hindustan or whatever) and I look at the achievement unlocked I have no incentive to go into single player and play pretty much the exact same game just because some people might abuse the system. Don't punish the many because of the few.

All this aside, I just don't feel like multiplayer NEEDS achievements. It has its own driving competition and goals. Not that single player really needs them all that much either, but they do offer a bit of structure to people who want it or goal ideas to others.

Since in multiplayer you very much tend to play the game just like singleplayer except being more careful with war I really don't agree with that. It might not need achievements in the sense that people clearly play multiplayer with or without, but the inclusion of achievements would not harm the multiplayer community and the increase in achievement hunting players would make it better.

Also outside of ironman.

He said cheat engine. I assume he meant one of those programs that logs into your Steam account and just activates whatever achievements you wanted.

That's right, there's a lot out there, they are pretty easy to use.

As an example look at Civilization V versus Endless Legend, the achievements in Civ V, bar a select few, are single player only, whereas all Endless Legend achievements are available in multiplayer.

There's no ironman to stop save scumming or abuse in either of those games, but is anyone hurting because they feel their achievements are less meaningful in EL? Of course not. The only thing that is hurting is the Civ V community as people are like "Oh well I could play multiplayer but then I wouldn't get any achievements for my time spent", and we already know people are like that from how F2P games are set up.

Also what is the point in this disagree option? If you press the disagree button but don't actually bring up an argument what value are you contributing?

 

[wingzero890]

How can you say that "Oh no my achievements would be dis-valued by an entirely insignificant amount (a reminder that no one outside of yourself cares about what achievements you have)" so much so that OTHER PEOPLE MUST BE ALLOWED TO HAVE FUN GETTING THEM RARAWRWARAWR!?

All dem disagrees. Foreveralone EU4 single player comp-stomp blobbing champions take issue with your post apparently.

Getting achievements with friends in other games like Civ 5 or FPS on console is a fun way to spend time with mates as far as I'm concerned.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

All dem disagrees. Foreveralone EU4 single player comp-stomp blobbing champions take issue with your post apparently.

Getting achievements with friends in other games like Civ 5 or FPS on console is a fun way to spend time with mates as far as I'm concerned.

I hit disagree because I disagreed with his idea of making multiplayer achievements a thing, given how easy it would be the cheese so many of them. However, almost all of my EU4 games over the last two months have been multiplayer with friends.

Also, I've gotten a great many Civ 5 achievements in multiplayer, so the idea that you can't get them in multiplayer is just false. One example would be the achievement for putting Petra and Colossus in the same city. I got that in a multiplayer game.

 

[wingzero890]

I hit disagree because I disagreed with his idea of making multiplayer achievements a thing, given how easy it would be the cheese so many of them. However, almost all of my EU4 games over the last two months have been multiplayer with friends.

Also, I've gotten a great many Civ 5 achievements in multiplayer, so the idea that you can't get them in multiplayer is just false. One example would be the achievement for putting Petra and Colossus in the same city. I got that in a multiplayer game.

You can't get victory achievements in Civ5 anymore, they changed that at some point to placate the whining comp stomp crowd that puts achievements on a pedestal as if they actually had any meaning. Some miscellaneous achievements are still obtainable in multiplayer though.

 

[TheDungen]

I don't read all 17 pages, but I must ask.
Old saves will works with new version of game?

Paradox please consider achievements like this:
"Change twice country name"
for example form prussia/germany/italy and after form HRE
"Change three time name"
form prussia -> form germany -> HRE
Maybe some achievements for Burgundy? France have few own achievements but burgundy is poor in this case.

As Burgundy lead personal unions with both austria and spain?

 

[TheDungen]

I hit disagree because I disagreed with his idea of making multiplayer achievements a thing, given how easy it would be the cheese so many of them. However, almost all of my EU4 games over the last two months have been multiplayer with friends.

Also, I've gotten a great many Civ 5 achievements in multiplayer, so the idea that you can't get them in multiplayer is just false. One example would be the achievement for putting Petra and Colossus in the same city. I got that in a multiplayer game.

Who cares if someone cheese them? The achievments are there to inspire you to do specific playthroughs. All that restricting them does is make some people inclined to play the engine and find expolits. So make cheating to get them easy and you won't have people picking apart the engine to cheat their way to achievments.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Who cares if someone cheese them? The achievments are there to inspire you to do specific playthroughs. All that restricting them does is make some people inclined to play the engine and find expolits. So make cheating to get them easy and you won't have people picking apart the engine to cheat their way to achievments.

Where do you get the idea that everyone just has access to cheat engines and is willing to use them? That seems kind of far-fetched to me. Even such a relatively simple achievement such as The Rising Sun is held by less than 1% of people who own the game, so I just don't see where you get the idea that there's this rampant cheating all around.

 

[wingzero890]

Where do you get the idea that everyone just has access to cheat engines and is willing to use them? That seems kind of far-fetched to me. Even such a relatively simple achievement such as The Rising Sun is held by less than 1% of people who own the game, so I just don't see where you get the idea that there's this rampant cheating all around.

He is referring to players like DDRJake finding every little exploit and cheesing it to the max to get certain achievements easily, then Paradox balances the game around these players.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

He is referring to players like DDRJake finding every little exploit and cheesing it to the max to get certain achievements easily, then Paradox balances the game around these players.

I'm not sure where you get that idea. He's not talking about cheese, he's talking about literal cheat engines to fool Steam into thinking you have the achievement. And I just don't see the evidence behind widespread use of such cheat engines.

 

[chrnno]

Anyone who wants to cheat achievements wouldn't be using cheat engine as that still requires you to play the game for a while. Much better to use something like SAM that just instantly gives you achievement no effort required.