EU4 Development Diary - 18th February 2016

[Dodanodo]

Now, Kuba colonizing Cuba is obviously going to be an achievement, right?!

 

[Lemont Elwood]

Crucially, EU4 already includes the areas on its map, but they are represented as uninhabitable wasteland with no organised states. China is outside of the boundaries that CK2 has set for its map, and any reasonable representation will require proportionally more provinces than EU4's Africa additions have. A better analogy would be adding Tibet or Central Africa (Kanem-Bornu etc.) to CK2.

My point there was that people argue against regions like China and India being in CK2, which actually tied into the global diplomatic and trade networks, while the Great Lakes kingdoms pretty much did their own thing. Is it worth adding such isolated regions? I feel like even West Africa in CK2 is handled very poorly.

 

[TheDungen]

My point there was that people argue against regions like China and India being in CK2, which actually tied into the global diplomatic and trade networks, while the Great Lakes kingdoms pretty much did their own thing. Is it worth adding such isolated regions? I feel like even West Africa in CK2 is handled very poorly.

The diffrence is CK2 is staggering under the burden of the number of characters in it. While EU4 can easily manage the number of provinces and tags that's in the game.

 

[RedBstrd]

Now, my problems with the new African setting.

1) Fetishism is a rather dull concept. Someone already said it before, but it should be figured out a difference between 'yoruba' and 'bantu' fetishism. They're not the same. Different deities, different cults, different rituals and different celebrations. Islam and Christianism are not 'all the same' in this period, so why should fetishism be every a like? There is, however, a way of conceptualizing 'fetishism' which is syncretism. Yoruba and bantu religions became very close with Atlantic slavery, mixing its elements with Christianism. But how this would be adapted in gameplay? I suppose that 'fetishism' simplifies things...but I don't like the idea that all sub-saharian African religions became simplified.

I do hope that this new Africa receive more flavor, more events, unit pack, advisors pack and so on. But I still feel kinda frustrated with the result.

I agree that what limited information we have on Fetishism does present it as one of the less exciting religions in the game. Hopefully they'll make up for it by giving interesting decisions or some sort of customization mechanic similar to a limited national church option for Protestants. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that it directly parallel Protestant mechanics; I would just like to see some depth added by allowing regional/national differences.

That said, the changes overall look great.

 

[RedBstrd]

Today its a bit dated (and has come to be associated with another discipline a lot more)...

Commodity fetishism?




... Yeah, I know the joke is going to fall flat, but in the 1970s among economists or something, that joke would have been killer...

 

[GC13]

The most problem i see is that if we start setting specific rules stopping conquest in africa we have to do the same in asia and a lot of middle east. They also never faced conquest by europe before 1700´s.

That's a whole different set of ridiculous mechanics: the absurd ease with which you can put tens of thousands of soldiers on boats, drop them on the other side of the world, and watch them do their work just as easily as they could on the nation next door.

I'll give you that operating overseas should be much harder than it is right now, but that doesn't make conquest of inner Africa any less ridiculous.

 

[DC123456789]

Conquering Central Africa should be possible, but so ridiculously expensive and draining that there would be no reason for you to ever do it besides map painting. High attrition and a severe nerf of overseas reinforcement should do the trick.

 

[OnvreOrrivle]

Wait, Paradox listened to feedback?

I'm impressed. Very well done Paradox, I might have to purchase the next DLC when Cossacks goes on sale for 5-7 dollars. Making Africa... Africa... is worth at least 10 dollars in my opinion.

I was hoping they release the new regions for free

 

[FleetingRain]

Actually, I'd love to know from the devs what goes in the AI's minds to decide to conquer inland provinces in West Africa. Fine, Mali has Gold and everybody loves it, but every province there has 75% autonomy, can't be added to a Trade Company and aren't even in the Ivory Coast node. They're utter trash to Europe. That alone should be enough to mirror the OTL refusal of European powers to conquer anywhere but the coast. Why bother, then? Is it because it's easier to go after the Africans than attacking fellow Europeans?

 

[Lee Saxon]

This feels like it's a bigger expansion than Cossacks!

 

[DC123456789]

I was hoping they release the new regions for free

I'm almost completely certain that it'll be part of the patch.

 

[wingren013]

Actually, I'd love to know from the devs what goes in the AI's minds to decide to conquer inland provinces in West Africa. Fine, Mali has Gold and everybody loves it, but every province there has 75% autonomy, can't be added to a Trade Company and aren't even in the Ivory Coast node. They're utter trash to Europe. That alone should be enough to mirror the OTL refusal of European powers to conquer anywhere but the coast. Why bother, then? Is it because it's easier to go after the Africans than attacking fellow Europeans?

gotta get that sweet .01 ducats per month.

 

[Ispil]

On a note unrelated to the current discussion; devs, what are the chances that you might throw in some modifiers for blockade efficiency that are at a provincial (province being blockaded) scope instead of just an ideas one?

 

[Lemont Elwood]

I had another idea for Fetishism. If not a Cultural tolerance mechanic, maybe there could be the ability to implement local gods/practices for local effects.

Protestantism, in game, gives you custom bonuses, but it does so at the national level. So does Hinduism and all the Ruler Designer pagan religions.

What Fetishism (and Totemism!) could do instead is offer customization at the regional level, like accruing "Favor" (with the gods) that you specific (exclusive) province bonuses. You may appeal to the god of war, for example, for a 20% manpower boost in a province, or to the god of fertility for cheaper Development costs, and so on.

 

[Kyoumen]

The problem with all the suggestions about making European armies disintegrate in Africa is that the Ottoman army is also a European army and their army did not exactly disintegrate when invading Egypt (which is, as it turns out, part of Africa). Alt-historically, many non-African powers could have invaded into Africa (pretty much anything in the Levant or Middle East, notably). It is pretty tricky to do hard and fast rules about who can and can't invade where.

Plus, making huge maluses to European armies like that would likely allow any player-driven African country to exploit them (either the AI ignores you no matter what you do, or you can bait any AI army in and watch it melt, allowing you to easily defeat far more powerful opponents, easily take any European coastal beachheads and Westernise from them, etc.).

It's probably also worth noting that this kind of experience isn't limited to Europeans in Africa anyway - the Ottoman experience trying to invade Yemen is pretty similar.

Also, not all of Africa is equally inhospitable - South Africa was colonised by the Dutch prior to the game ending, as well as Portuguese Angola (and a country with more reason and resources than Portugal could have established more inroads from Angola than they did).

 

[zdlugasz]

I'm almost completely certain that it'll be part of the patch.

yeap, me too. That is map will be free, but any fetishism-related mechanics and possible new africa-related things will be in DLC.

 

[wergy]

I was just complaining about the lack of tribes n Africa to a friend 2 minutes ago

 

[TheDungen]

The problem with all the suggestions about making European armies disintegrate in Africa is that the Ottoman army is also a European army and their army did not exactly disintegrate when invading Egypt (which is, as it turns out, part of Africa). Alt-historically, many non-African powers could have invaded into Africa (pretty much anything in the Levant or Middle East, notably). It is pretty tricky to do hard and fast rules about who can and can't invade where.

Plus, making huge maluses to European armies like that would likely allow any player-driven African country to exploit them (either the AI ignores you no matter what you do, or you can bait any AI army in and watch it melt, allowing you to easily defeat far more powerful opponents, easily take any European coastal beachheads and Westernise from them, etc.).

It's probably also worth noting that this kind of experience isn't limited to Europeans in Africa anyway - the Ottoman experience trying to invade Yemen is pretty similar.

Also, not all of Africa is equally inhospitable - South Africa was colonised by the Dutch prior to the game ending, as well as Portuguese Angola (and a country with more reason and resources than Portugal could have established more inroads from Angola than they did).

We are of course talking of africa between the sahara and the kallahari.

 

[loup99]

Again, where are all these games with Europeans conquering West Africa? I've been looking at maps in various threads on the forum, especially the "post your empire" thread, and, unless it's the player intervening, European powers going beyond the coast looks to be a fairly rare occurence - on almost all the maps I've seen African powers blob through Africa, not European. I'm beginning to feel the whole "Europeans will conquer all of Africa!!!" may be overstating the case, a matter of being what may happen and not what will likely happen.

Although you are completely right, the player shouldn't really be able to conquer Central Africa either, or at least at a heavy cost of attrition and incredible autonomy/control problems.

 

[fetusthebard]

I was hoping they release the new regions for free

Oh, I agree. I vehemently disagree with the decisions Paradox has made in Cossacks, trapping mechanics that were already in game (namely culture conversion and vassal interactions) behind a pay wall. And generally Paradox is good with releasing new regions for free. I'm simply stating that this change is a 10 dollar change, like if they released a new game that was pretty similar and only had this area for 10 dollars, I'd probably buy it. The region is one that is incredibly interesting, and the population and culture of the region at the time rivaled a lot of centers heavily represented in the game already.