Hello everyone, and welcome to this weeks development diary for EU4.

This week I want to talk about the loadingscreens of EU4. Our goal is to add to the pool of loadingscreens every time we do a major update, so that you have a large variety of cool pictures to view while the harddrive is booting up the game.

Each picture represents one country in the game, and we do not plan to have more than 1 loading screen for each nation. There is also one of the most iconic leaders of that nation on the picture, as well as a location which represents that nation.

And when making expansions, it is very much important that the country picked fits the theme for it.

Original Game
We shipped with 5 different loading screens, representing about half of the major powers of the era.
Sweden - Gustavus II Adolphus & Stockholm Archipelago
Spain - Isabella & Carribean Islands
England - Elizabeth I & Cliffs of Dover
France - Louis XIV France & French Farmlands
Ottomans - Suleiman the Magnificent & Haga Sophia

Conquest of Paradise
Iroqouis - Hiawatha & Niagara Falls

Wealth of Nations
Venice - Andrea Gritti & City of Venice

Res Publica
Netherlands - Maurice of Nassau & Windmills at Canals

Art of War
Russia - Catherine the Great & Siberia

El Dorado
Aztecs - Montezuma & Tenochtitlan

Common Sense
Austrai - Charles V & The Alps

And for our new 1.13 patch, we are adding a loading screen for Poland, with Jan Sobieski and the Jasna Gora Monastery!

We still aim to have pictures for Portugal, Denmark & Prussia of the europeans majors, but it needs to fit thematically for the expansions. Not that I can think of any important Danish ruler through history.. pokes @Groogy

 

[Haldan]

What about Christian II of Denmark with the Old Town of Stockholm as background?

You've just made countless Swedish nationalists cry.

 

[DC123456789]

Apologies for asking this, but can you please remove or remake that native American (possibly Hiawatha) loading screen? Or at least give that man more clothes or a big, visible mustache?

He looks like a woman. It is worse when he looks like a topless woman hiding her...chest...by long hair locks. You have to look closely to realize he is a man.

And this is where the problem lies. It causes people to wonder what I am looking at. I am forced to turn of my monitor every time there are loading screens, because it can randomly appear at any moment and causes much questioning and raised eyebrows in my family as to the content I am looking at on my PC. This screen haunts me every time I start or play EU4 and that is becoming very annoying.

Is it possible to remove this loading screen entirely? Or do you guys have any plans to give him some clothing so that he doesn't look like a big naked topless woman, and doesn't make my family members give me disappointed looks?

Also, I would love to buy a DLC that has loading screens about renowned eastern, non-European rulers as well. Akbar, Baji Rao I, Kangxi/Qianlong, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Ieyasu etc. for example.

You do realize that the picture is a very typical representation of an Aboriginal, right?

 

[grommile]

Apologies for asking this, but can you please remove or remake that native American (possibly Hiawatha) loading screen? Or at least give that man more clothes or a big, visible mustache?

He looks like a woman.

What? If he was any more manly he could sell protein supplements or aftershave.

 

[Will Steel]

And yet he looks like a woman, especially to people who have zero knowledge of Native Americans. And that is where the problem is.

 

[Tom013]

This sounds like a very personal problem...

 

[DC123456789]

The solution to ignorance is education, not trying to hide it.

 

[ChildeR]

Oh noes, a digital nipple is showing.

What would happen if there was a picture of e.g. the Venus of Urbino or some other nude painting in game? I bet someone's mind would blow.

 

[Will Steel]

Oh noes, a digital nipple is showing.

It is not showing and that is the issue. If it was, anyone would realise in one look that he is a man.

But no, they have to hide it with hairlocks. Now he looks like a woman from playboy with standing in front of a fancy waterfall.

 

[DC123456789]

They don't actually look like breasts though, they're too high up and muscular-looking.

 

[Will Steel]

Still, is there a way to remove just that one screen? Through modding, possibly without having to replace it by something else?

 

[DC123456789]

It's load_6.dds in gfx\loadingscreens, so just replace it with a copy of one of the other loading screens if it bothers you so much.

 

[Will Steel]

It's load_6.dds in gfx\loadingscreens, so just replace it with a copy of one of the other loading screens if it bothers you so much.

I'll try this. Thanks.

 

[Time Emperor]

blasphemy!

loadinscreens are cool!

we need purge the heretic.