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EU4 Development Diary - 18th February 2016

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for EU4. This time we take a look at Africa, and the changes there. This one of those times when pictures are worth more than 1000 words.

First of all, we have added the entirety of the Kongo region, reaching up to the Great Lakes area. Not just home to the countries of Kongo, Loango and Ndongo, this area now have multiple nations, and could be the basis of a powerful empire.

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While we have added over 20 new nations to Central Africa, we have also added new idea groups and unique ideas for these mighty states, including the Great Lakes ideas for our states near the Lake Victoria. These Central Africans also have their own unique technology group, with technology costing 65% more than Westerners.

North we find the Great Lakes Area, with lots of minor nations, some that still exist today, after a brief period of colonialism.

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Southeast of Kongo, is Zambia and Mozambique is now filled with provinces and several new nations as well. Magagascar has also seen a rework, with 5 nations struggling for supremacy of the island, complete with their own national ideas and Pagan/Islamic friction

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The tradesetup for Africa have changed as well, Zanzibar is now the coast tradenode, with three inland nodes of Kongo, Great Lakes and Zambezi leading to the coasts either west and east. This makes the Zanzibar node a hugely important tradenode for everyone along the Indian Ocean.

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No diary on our Africa changes would be complete without giving some attention to religion in the region. Previously we had carpeted non-specific pagan areas with Shamanism or Animism. Now many of our African provinces which have not converted to Islam are portrayed with the Fetishist Pagan religion which grants greater tolerance to heathens and a diplomatic reputation bonus along with the usual pagan decision.

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Next week, we’ll talk about two different and new concepts, one which has its own icon in the top bar.
 
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I love map updates. Everything always looks so much more beautiful than before. You outdo yourselves every time. EUIV is my shameless fetish, I won't spare any lies to the developers I love. <3
 
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The only things that will stop those countrys from being conquered are.

1-> Core cost. But even with the +50% coring cost it would still be cheap and feel too "gamey" no one likes that +50% coring cost.

2-> Force limit. Africa units too weak as they have little force limit and their units are bad as they never can keep up with in tech. Unless one country there become really gigantic 10k western troops at lv6-7 are enough to kill them. If they are very very stubborn 20k troops, and later keep 10k there to deal with rebellions and future wars.

Countrys like castille that have a 40k force limit if they expand well can easily do this. France and england too. Portugual need to give up europans wars for that but still possible.

3-> Atrittion -> Maybe giving africa atrittion levels high as winter atrittion, but instead of winter, the summer being the problem. In many levels a jungle can be as deadly as any artic region. This would at least slow down europeans as they don´t want to burn their manpower there for nothing. (They can go for mercenaries but at least here they will be paying a lot for them).
Or simply ban colonization of Africa till X tech is achieved, malaria and yellow fever outbreak event should wipe out almost whole European army just like during Haitian Revolution where Yellow Fever did most of the killing.
 
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Great idea no one cared about madagascar until now,and keep the entire central africa as a wasteland is a waste of potential anschluss!
 
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Ah yes the great Congolese Empire of "1/1/1 Jungle Provinces" that was annexed wholly by Castille in 1583. In 1645 the Spaniards reached the shores of Lake Victoria and found the Source of the Nile.
 
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Or simply ban colonization of Africa till X tech is achieved, malaria and yellow fever outbreak event should wipe out almost whole European army just like during Haitian Revolution where Yellow Fever did most of the killing.

Actually, linking certain regions to dip tech would be a pretty smart idea. It seems worth a try at least. But what happens when Kongo decides to colonize? I mean, we could tie it to tech groups as well, but then Westernizing states would be at a disadvantage.
 
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In a bit of a hurry here (and not at work) so I'm sorry if the post could be structured a bit better:

I'd love to know what source material the team used here because my knowledge of this region is so weak, do you have any pointers? :)

I'm also struggling to think what the third nation, in eastern Madagascar is... I'm certain the western malagasy country are the sakalava, and merina are merina, but the third seems to have its capital comewhere near Toamasina.

As in many other places in Africa we started with the Unesco history of Africa. It's not very fresh but it is thorough. For the extended Congo river area @Guillaume HJ has been of great help (just as he was with West Africa if you recall the West African dev diary back during art of war). UNESCO isn't the only source but it is probably the most useful due to its ambitious scope. Obviously real historical sources don't lend them to an exact map of the world in 1444 so some liberties has been taken such. Here are a few examples:

In some regions information is pretty spotty for our start date and in these cases we've extrapolated backwards a bit, named a state after another more famous entity that would absorb it soon enough or united tags prematurely (this is the case for most tags on Madagascar, many of them where really broken into chiefdoms of smaller size than an EU4 province). Such disunited areas are referenced in their idea sets and some provinces have heightened starting autonomy to account for it a bit as well.
The eastern Malagasy tag you see is Betsimisaraka and is an example of such a prematurely united tag.

For much Central Africa none can be sure of exact dates (among other things as we have no real literate direct sources for the 1444 period). That's always a tricky situation but given what we do know having the states there rather than leaving the area as a vacuum is more realistic (and more fun). For instance the Congo kingdom should be interacting with other states deeper into Africa rather than trying to "colonize" them and later on the Lunda Empire should be spreading via conquest and not colonization in game terms. From traditions and archaeology we know a bit about what was going on and who was doing it and from written sources how things turned out later which is what we've used (again much as in South America, where written sources are available only after the arrival of the Spanish, even if they are based on local recollections). We can be reasonably sure what entities where around but perhaps not exactly what they where up to in 1444. The guesswork is in the details more than in the overall picture and mostly adopted from the thoughts of greater (and more specialized minds). As always some considerations also have to be taken for gameplay.

So to summarize:
Any game has to be abstract by nature and even more so for regions where we don't have as good sources as we do for Europe, India, China and the Middle East. Undoubtedly there are some errors that have slipped in either by design or because we missed something (in case of the later I'll be expecting bug reports so we can fix them ;)). Still I dare say the new setup should do the region a lot more justice than the old wasteland covered approach. :)
 
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No diary on our Africa changes would be complete without giving some attention to religion in the region. Previously we had carpeted non-specific pagan areas with Shamanism or Animism. Now many of our African provinces which have not converted to Islam are portrayed with the Fetishist Pagan religion which grants greater tolerance to heathens and a diplomatic reputation bonus along with the usual pagan decision.

You could just split them to three main groups to make it more.. adequate. Yoruba, Bantu, Maasai.
 
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Actually, linking certain regions to dip tech would be a pretty smart idea. It seems worth a try at least. But what happens when Kongo decides to colonize? I mean, we could tie it to tech groups as well, but then Westernizing states would be at a disadvantage.
Those who live in malaric zone could colonize this places with usual penalties while other techs could set up trade posts just like merchant republics with difference they could put in other nation territory and maybe but just maybe they could buy province. I saw sth like this in MEIOU in EU3 and it was great concept at least for me.
 
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Nice DD! I'm really excited to learn what the new icon on the top bar is for!
 
Having played an Ethiopia game recently, I was very much thinking about how east Africa could very much afford to have more inland provinces and I am extremely happy to see that happen!

I want to ask though, about the Urgoma wasteland (see in this screenshot) - couldn't that have been colonisable instead? It makes for really messy borders/troop movements if you've colonised and filled in the interior of that part of Africa.
 
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Oh, o-okay :(
I was hoping it would be an event spawn or a formable, but I guess that's fine. Maybe in a later patch.

Well if it makes you feel better Butua's NI set does reference these tactics so you can still have Shaka style armies ;) No outright mention of the still unborn Zulu kingdom though.
 
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Or simply ban colonization of Africa till X tech is achieved, malaria and yellow fever outbreak event should wipe out almost whole European army just like during Haitian Revolution where Yellow Fever did most of the killing.

Tech level should be something like 35-40 (!!) given that in Victoria you cannot colonize from the beginning...
Core cost is a possible solution, but it should be something like +300% , that is "you cannot core central africa! "
 
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Ban troops other than African from going into the tropical parts of the continent more than 1-2 provinces away from the coast (with maybe very late Military and Diplo tech allowing exploration). If the practical outcome of European and Subsaarian african peoples was that the former couldn't manage to trek deep into Africa due to factors that the game currently models as attrition, but with attrition being in practice unable to put a stop to it, I think it's better to take the shortcut (even while aknowledging its inelegance).
 
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*sigh* I shall be backing up map and history/provinces to write a map mod, then.
 
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Next week, we’ll talk about two different and new concepts, one which has its own icon in the top bar.

The "Bloody money mistery" explained at least.... ( My best guess is corruption or crime activities )
 
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Sorry, no zulu state. The rozwi who took over Butua and later most of whats Mutapa in 1444 are considered by some to have pioneered the same type pf tactics and training though.

Hopefully they have some unique national ideas then. Something like increased infantry flanking range seems like it would fit and be very unique. Not sure it would actually be of benefit without being OP.