EU4 Development Diary - 18th February 2016

[TheDungen]

From what I've read, the new worlders, especially in central America, would have still been miles ahead of the African civilisations in terms of administrative technology due to their understanding of mathematics and astronomy so it's a bit unfair to put the Mesoamericans so far behind the Africans. Also, I think one of the big issues with the African tech group (now groups) is how close they are to the Indians and Chinese (only 10 points lower than the Indians and equal to the Chinese).

Except the americans had no written language the africans often did, also the americans were all wrecked by diseases that wiped out 90% of their populations, while africa had the diseases on their side.

That said yes it's a bit unfair on the chinese, they were after all europe's technical superior during most of this period. Only the resources that europe got from the new world allowed europe to catch up and eventually eclipse china. But one could argue that the actual eclipsing is outside of the games era.

Dunno but I think if we complete humanism ideas then we should be able to conscript all citizens under our direct control into our armies, which would include people who are racially different to the population in Europe.

I don't even like the idea of the scramble for africa being possible in the eu4 era. Much less this stuff.

 

[MiniaAr]

I hope trade companies are limited to the coast (Zanzibar, Ivory coast & South Africa). This is not at all what trade companies did (they stayed around the coast), and inland trade companies would encourage countries to go on a massive conquest spree (to get that merchant) and also remove penalties from intolerance of local religion.

 

[MrParadux]

Pretty amazing what Paradox is putting in the regular patches lately

 

[TheDungen]

I hope trade companies are limited to the coast (Zanzibar, Ivory coast & South Africa). This is not at all what trade companies did (they stayed around the coast), and inland trade companies would encourage countries to go on a massive conquest spree (to get that merchant) and also remove penalties from intolerance of local religion.

More than that. Not only were they only on the coasts they didn't even controll all of the coasts, just a few outposts/towns/forts each.

 

[Sir Iain]

Very nice map changes.

In the current patch,. the AI is even ore able than before tho consolidate fractured regions into stable large empires. Both India and Africa are dominated by a few regional powers that divide the region between them only 100 years into the game. I hope the next patch will help preserve diversity in these regions a bit longer.

 

[azope]

i just think you have to change the color of trade note : ethipia blue same zanzibar blue and i dont know where is end and 3 lake a others blue ...

 

[zbyrne]

From what I've read, the new worlders, especially in central America, would have still been miles ahead of the African civilisations in terms of administrative technology due to their understanding of mathematics and astronomy so it's a bit unfair to put the Mesoamericans so far behind the Africans. Also, I think one of the big issues with the African tech group (now groups) is how close they are to the Indians and Chinese (only 10 points lower than the Indians and equal to the Chinese).

Yes you could make that argument. After all generally this part of Africa, as opposed the Muslim states in North Africa, or the Cities along the eastern coast, was heavily tribal. Whereas the New World consisted of well run and administrated empires.

However, in terms of warfare, the new world had nothing which could compare to the Europeans. Africa, however, which had been trading away, would have been comparable. Comparable enough anyway that it would be 19th Century Maxum Machine Gun which was their undoing. Now I suppose the question is, how do you represent this? Besides completely separating out the three tech groups, I cannot think of a way.

 

[ChildeR]

A player will still go for it just to paint the map,

If the player wants to do something suboptimal but ahistorical, they should be allowed to.

and the AI simply doesn't know when to stop once they get into a war.

The AI can be "taught" not to do something, but should only be taught to avoid things that are no good. Anyway, the AI doesn't seem to conquer much inland in South or East Africa even now, so I don't think that would be a problem.

 

[Aries666]

I should think about doing african Power before 1.16.. More countries sounds like more problems
Nevertheless great changes!

This will make African power easier as Kongo will be able to build up a power base in central Africa first as opposed to rushing exploration and going into west Africa then hoping that the Iberians don't decide to kill you.

 

[Vaximillian]

Pretty amazing what Paradox is putting in the regular patches lately

This isn't a „regular“ patch actually. It's a preview of 1.16, which will come along a new DLC.

 

[Pomeranian]

Except the americans had no written language the africans often did, also the americans were all wrecked by diseases that wiped out 90% of their populations, while africa had the diseases on their side.

Some Mesoamerican civilisations did have a written language, such as the Maya. They also had a superior knowledge of some sciences compared to the sub-Saharan Africans.

Not quite sure how being affected by diseases that you've never come in contact with makes you technologically backward.

 

[zsImmortal]

I love it. Are we getting a Sub-Saharan skin pack to go along with it?

 

[Tufto]

Surely distilling all native African religions under a single "fetishist" tag is a rather large oversimplification? Are you planning to add further complexity and variation somewhere down the line?

Either way, great work .

 

[ChildeR]

Hope performance is not adversely affected. The current patch is already slower than earlier ones.

 

[Pomeranian]

Yes you could make that argument. After all generally this part of Africa, as opposed the Muslim states in North Africa, or the Cities along the eastern coast, was heavily tribal. Whereas the New World consisted of well run and administrated empires.

However, in terms of warfare, the new world had nothing which could compare to the Europeans. Africa, however, which had been trading away, would have been comparable. Comparable enough anyway that it would be 19th Century Maxum Machine Gun which was their undoing. Now I suppose the question is, how do you represent this? Besides completely separating out the three tech groups, I cannot think of a way.

Well, I think the tech penalty should take into account a civilisations achievements in all three categories. So, while the mesoamericans were supposedly militarily less advanced than the Africans they were ahead in terms of administration tech. I'm not saying that both groups should be equal but I think the Africans should be knocked down a few points (in order to be more fair on the Chinese and Indians, more than anything else) and the Mesoamericans should gain a few points. A 90 point (or 85, in the central African case) difference seems grossly unfair on the Mesoamericans.

 

[Valer1us]

Looks super promising! Can't wait to see this going live.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

Seems interesting. Madagascar sounds like it would make things more difficult for colonizers.

Hoping that central region stays balanced though and we don't get super powers coming out of there all the time.

 

[Evie HJ]

I checked wikipedia and some of these nations seem to appear much earlier than they should. For example Luba was founded around 1585, while Lunda was founded in 1665 and Yaka was founded 1620. Did you use later kingdoms because you couldn't find enough information on Central Africa in trhe 15th century?

Essentially, yes. In many cases there is no information on what came before those states, or the information is so rare (a single mention in a book) that it doesn't make much sense to use up a distinct tag on a precursor just so it can have a formation decision. In those cases, we used the name of the later, better known (well, relatively better known) kingdom to stand for its predecessors.

 

[SchwarzerKaiser]

 

[zbyrne]

That said yes it's a bit unfair on the chinese, they were after all europe's technical superior during most of this period. Only the resources that europe got from the new world allowed europe to catch up and eventually eclipse china. But one could argue that the actual eclipsing is outside of the games era.

I would probably argue it. Also, difficult to determine what constitutes "superior technology" - for instance, is a crossbow better than a longbow? One shoots further, but takes much longer to reload, the other requires years of training. So in the China issue, was the (let's pick a random example) Confutation education model better, worse or the same as the European University model? Are they even comparable?

China was certainly the source of many technological advances, but I'd suggest the majority came before the game's period. My history professor made the argument that the reason the most advanced civilization (China) didn't go on to dominate the world was because it was a self-suffice economic superpower, which restricted itself with tradition, whereas the competition between states in Europe, as well as the financial support in the guise of wealth from the new world (although not always a good thing - see Spanish inflation for example) made all the European advancements possible.

So the point in this long ramble is that China's superiority was its economy - it produced everything it thought it needed and thus didn't feel the need to expand or explore - hence it fell behind, on the global stage. It wasn't however, a technological superpower, leading the charge throughout the centuries.

In game perhaps the Chinese tech model could be something along the lines of, no penalty for the first few levels, and then an increasing penalty for higher levels (so start off at zero, and then 10% higher per level afterwards, something along those lines.) China wouldn't fall behind immediately, but over the course of the game would.