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EU4 - Development Diary - 16th of June 2016

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Hello and welcome to today's development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Let's take a good look at our King/Khan/Doge/Emperor/Prince.

The ruler of your state is of prime importance to your nation but when you see your new heir birthed or khan taking the throne, it's often a quick look at their 3 monarch point stats followed by either a face palm or a fist pump. As a feature in the upcoming expansion we will be giving a touch more identity to these walking point generators with Ruler Personalities.

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When a ruler comes of age they will develop a personality important to the function of the state. They will develop another trait after ruling for 10 years and a further personality after ruling for a total of 25 years. These personalities will grant a modifier for your nation as well as bonus options in event and changes to the AI's actions. For Duke Francois do Dreux here, he has become a careful individual who will enjoy lower AE in expansion.

Most personalities are a boon for your nation but not all are so positive. While it would be lovely if all your rulers were Just, Incorruptible and Charismatic, you may well find that your ruler is too greedy for their own good like Vilhelm Skram of Denmark.

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King Vilhelm is a tight-fisted greedy guts and will hoover up 10% of your tax income, but there is a silver lining to his greed. Many events have unlockable options now depending on your monarch's personality which will almost always be a superior option. Obscurantism will normally cost a nation in unrest or prestige, but greedy desires drive Vilhelm to seek out a more...lucrative path.

All personalities will unlock such options in some events, as well as have events of their own. Who knows what your Scholarly King or Malevolent Khan will get up to?

Ruler Personalities will be a paid feature in the upcoming expansion, which will be sold alongside the free 1.18 patch.

While on the subject of monarchs, we will be paying special attention to a very influential dynasty of the time period next week, but for now I must take leave. Vilhelm has shaken me down for every ducat I own and I must take care of this.

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adlerchen said:
Can you expound more on this? How many traits will each ruler get on average? And how many of the historical starts will you be doing the scripting for? I ask because I enjoy some of the later start dates as mini scenarios.
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Pretty hard to give a comprehensive answer on this :) The ambition is for all important monarchs to have it but given the scope and size of EU4 I'm sure we'll miss a bunch. Once released you can always post in suggestions if there's a particular ruler you feel has been forgotten that should have a trait.
As for the number of traits that will work just as in the normal game, it'll depend on how long they have ruled when you start :) (with the exception of 12 year old Mehmet Fatih who has always been treated like a special case and will start with one trait in the game).
 
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Seeing the "Court" screen, did you guys consider the option of having alternative claimants to the throne? Like family members / ambitious brothers?
This will open the option for rebellions, civil wars, and foreign nations supporting such claimants the way rebels are supported.
 
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First glance at the srennshots got me exited. I thought that we are finally going to have some dnyastic system in EU (royal family, no random heirs, no random succesion wars etc). But then I realised that it's just some personality changes for monarch. It's nice addition but Im still disappointed.
 
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Oh yes!
Now please, flesh the entire Ruler aspect out a bit. As you said, they are currently just MP generators, you don't really care about them. Don't have to make it a CK3, but it's so extremely flat as it is right now.
- Add the possibility to affect what traits they gain (improve % by "school", "tutoring" etc).
- Dynasty trees. It's so annoying having no idea who will become the new heir if my "beloved" son dies (would it be a disaster or would it actually serve my purposes?)... Let us see the current tree for our dynasty.
 
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And what of event-spawned rulers? Will those have pre-determined traits and if not will it be possible to mod them to have them?
 
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Last DD you added some of the best features from Victoria, now you are adding some of the best features from CK, good job EU team stealing from your coworkers :p
 
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Now that features from other PI games are being added, how about adding something from the HoI series?

Partition plans where you agree upon them with your allies/vassals/friendlies what territories you want to grab and what you will allow them to grab. We already have strategic interest provinces but those are passive. We need a more active way of encouraging partitions.

Or better yet, after a certain date, the imperialism cb becomes partition cb when you negotiate with someone else on what you both or you three or more can take. This would avoid frustrating situations where one side peaces out before the war is over and takes your provinces or the wrong provinces.
 
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TheDarkMaster said:
You might be able to choose whether or not you start with feudalism already embraced, but probably not anything else.
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Choice of tech group (they are still around for things like map spread) will likely unlock starting feudalism for RNW and the nation designer.
After that spread will work like normal.
 
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This sounds like a great new feature, thank you for that!

While you're on the topic, so to speak, will you update the heir mechanics anything? I really hope that you will, since the currently don't really make sense. If I can elaborate a bit, heirs seem to be randomly generated upon one heirs ascencion to the throne/be randomly born during rulers' reigns. Sometimes they are only a few years apart, leaving me to conclude that the heir must be a brother or cousin or something of the current ruler. So far so good, but here's the weird bit. That heir then stays heir until he/she either dies or ascends to the throne. This is weird and very ahistorical, as in practice it means that a ruler cant have a kid/new heir if there is one already. In reality, there were pretty much always an heir, whose position in the line of succession changed as other potential heirs were born or died off.

You've really captured this well in Crusader Kings II, and I hope that you can implement some similar mechanics in EUIV. It would open up a whole world of possible and interesting changes to the dynamics of pretender rebels, royal marriages, legitimacy, personal unions and so forth. I do hope that you are not hesitant to make such changes out of fear that it would make EUIV and CKII to similar. Personally, I think that the scope and focus of the two games are too different for such fears to be motivated. The goal in EUIV is to create a glorious state, not a glorious dynasty. If a terrific pretender rebels in EUIV I'll gladly surrender to him, whereas I would fight him with everything in CKII.

I think a change like this would have a major impact on gameplay. At the moment I am hesitant to make even crappy heirs generals for example, as I don't know whether the country is at risk of entering a personal union in the case of his death in battle.
 
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DDRJake said:
When a ruler comes of age they will develop a personality important to the function of the state. They will develop another trait after ruling for 10 years and a further personality after ruling for a total of 25 years. These personalities will grant a modifier for your nation as well as bonus options in event and changes to the AI's actions.
Click to expand...

So there will be a chance even for immortal 0/0/0 now? Oh yeah!

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@DDRJake Would that be effecting AI's battle actions aswell? For example; Aggressive leaders will have increased range of following defeated armies to wipe them? Or cautious ones wont try to engage too much?
 
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Andrzej2 said:
First glance at the srennshots got me exited. I thought that we are finally going to have some dnyastic system in EU (royal family, no random heirs, no random succesion wars etc). But then I realised that it's just some personality changes for monarch. It's nice addition but Im still disappointed.
Click to expand...
Don't rule things out entirely yet. There is a second banner under heir, some button with heir's crown next to ruler and the next DD is about a dynasty.
 
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