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EU4 - Development Diary - 22nd of January 2019

Good day and welcome to another EUIV Dev Diary. As mentioned last week, we are working towards our 1.28.3 bugfix patch as well as planning out our big European expansion for the year, and as such, won't be having meaty, feature-rich dev diaries for a while. Instead today, I'll dig a bit more into the 1.28.3 Patch, and some thoughts on suggestions towards our upcoming expansion.

While there are some very important issues that we're fixing in 1.28.3, including the Trade Company Stuttering and Save File issues, we are taking the opportunity to pack a lot more fixes into this release than we traditionally would in a hotfix. Since it'll likely be quite some time until the next big release for the game, we wanted to get cracking on outstanding issues while we could, which is why this bugfix patch is taking longer than normal too. At last check, it is over 100 bug-crushing entries long, so hopefully it proves worth the wait. We expect it'll see the light of day in the coming weeks, once we finish up the fixes, test it and have it ready to ship out.

To clarify, 1.28.3 is a purely bugfix patch. It won't have new content, map changes or any of the like. It is the result of the past weeks' efforts, with particular attention to script and content fixes. Some specifics pulled from the changelog include:

- Updated British missions for India map changes
- Texas' leader names and ship names have been made more Texan.
- Streltsy events will no longer attempt to change Streltsy Progress if you have Streltsy units but no longer use the Russian government reforms.
- Fixed AI refusing Royal Marriage because of too many diplomatic relations, despite already having Alliance.
- Spain's Golden Century mission "Claim Hispaniola" now shows the correct number of provinces needed to complete the mission.
- Spain's "Found Havana" mission can also be completed by building a counting house
- Ryukyu's tributary status with Ming ends in 1609.

With a pinch of luck we'll have the full patchnotes next week, and the release of the patch the week after. This is, of course, subject to testing going well and the patch being ready for release.

As I did last week, I'd also like to give a nod and some thoughts on suggestions which have been coming in. Again, these do not come with a promise of things to come, just thoughts on matters.

Balkan Suggestions

Too many Balkan suggestion threads to single one out, so cheers to @Sanguine Caesar who put together this compilation. I saw some conjecture about the target regions of the large European expansion and, in particular, if it would include the Balkans. If I remember my initial words well, I had originally said we'll be focusing on the map from Brest to Istanbul. To put that conjecture to rest (maybe) , I'll clarify that our ambition is to target France, Low Countries, Germany, Italy and the Balkans. This ambition may grow or shrink as the year goes on and we get to work, but this is what we're setting out to do. And by this, we don't exclusively mean map content, there's content planned for these target areas even if the map isn't in need of much work. The Low Countries provinces for example saw a good deal of love in the England update but who doesn't dream of a Dutch Revolt that doesn't just mechanically result in 250,000 angry Dutch rebels standing in Antwerp forevermore?


1440p/2160p support

@zersetzung brings this suggestion, and is far from the first to do so. A personal pet peeve of mine is when I want to fire up an old game, and it is void of graphical options to make it somewhat playable on a modern machine. I can hardly blame the 90's for not seeing over twenty years into the future, but the frustration is still there.

In the far flung future there will certainly be those who maintain that Europa Universalis IV is the best EU experience, superior to EU8 because the haptic battle feedback and conquistador hat supply chain system aren't the true map painting experience. For the enlightened supercitizens of the future, it would at least be nice to leave EUIV in a state where it can handle the ever growing resolutions of monitors with some level of UI scaling. I can't promise this is something we'll manage for this year, as it's far from a trivial undertaking, but consider it an ambition to someday have this in EU4.


Christmas Trees

I had to bring this one up because as I was going through the suggestion pages over the festives, it brought a smile to my face. A cute idea, and shows that not all suggestions have to be enormous and complex. I know some people see the scale of large suggestion threads and get intimidated away from making their own, but often wee suggestions have just as much merit, such as..

plz also change the swiss idea of -15% merc upkeep to increased condottieri. as switzerland was not hiring mercs for themselves but hired swiss soldiers to others

A simple, concise and sensible suggestion, one that is likely to happen too, but given that Switzerland is right in the middle (quite possibly literally in the middle) of the focus region, and that we want to address the mercenary system, I wouldn't be surprised if we give the Swiss some more special treatment in this regard.


As I said, next week we'll be hoping to finalize and share the patchnotes for 1.28.3. Once we have that done and released to the world, it'll be time to set our sights on our end of year expansion. Dev Diaries will likely remain sparse for a while, as the locomotive heats up and sets out on the long journey that is our 2019 Expansion.
 
I've had some early thoughts on Bavaria. I may have gone too far.
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An updated Bavaria for you! More details will come soon in a big thread.

Oh and give a holler when you're going to look at the Bulgarian coastline, I already made a case for Byzantine Mesembria (with the towns of Pomorie, Ahtopol, Sozopol, Mesembria, the ruins of Burgaz and the town Bizye) in my own thread (the Balkans-one in my signature), but I'd be happy to make another again! ;)
 

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Thanx for addressing higher resolutions. I`m currently on wqhd and will be on 4k in one year time. It would be great to read how big a unit stack is on your screen without using the mods on steam workshop.
 
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An updated Bavaria for you! More details will come soon in a big thread.

Oh and give a holler when you're going to look at the Bulgarian coastline, I already made a case for Byzantine Mesembria (with the towns of Pomorie, Ahtopol, Sozopol, Mesembria, the ruins of Burgaz and the town Bizye) in my own thread (the Balkans-one in my signature), but I'd be happy to make another again! ;)

Well, I'm not dev but if that matters I like your Bavaria and I draw the same, except Rosenheim :D


Also I hope the Balkans update will rework those trade regions in southeastern Europe.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ope-and-minor-trade-node-corrections.1145452/

I would also like to see some love for Hungary in this Europe patch,as it has been updated recently, but would need one more time as all of it's neighbours get/got an update.
 
It would be nice if instead of only talking about minor or silly suggestions you could talk about the big suggestions tackling the major problems of EU4. Those are of real interest to many players.

The guy has a point. I want to believe they are still not ready to talk about solutions for bigger problems.

Like we expect to see solution for mercenary/manpower - so devs would need to come out with better system. And get some feedback before implementing it fully. Hopefully.
 
The guy has a point. I want to believe they are still not ready to talk about solutions for bigger problems.

Like we expect to see solution for mercenary/manpower - so devs would need to come out with better system. And get some feedback before implementing it fully. Hopefully.
At least so that we know if we should actually bother to make big suggestions or not.
So far the only suggestions that seem to get attention are the no brainer technical ones (UI, resolution), map changes, the minor and the silly ones.
 
@DDRJake will you consider give more flavour to the Age of Absolutism and Age of Revolution which are pretty unrealistic with monolithic stable huge empires and flavorless (compared with all the work which you put in the early ages), I know the time-frame target on all the previous DLCs was until ~1600 but it would be nice to start handling the game dev not only in a geographical scope but also in its time-frame, late game is tedious and boring unless you go hunt for some achievement.
 
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At least so that we know if we should actually bother to make big suggestions or not.
So far the only suggestions that seem to get attention are the no brainer technical ones (UI, resolution), map changes, the minor and the silly ones.
I'm also curious about this, the only suggestion threads with Dev replies are the map suggestion threads
 
UI scaling would be awesome ! - the big issue for me is that I can't easily click outside on my other monitor if I can't play in my monitors native resolution, it would be nice to be able to chat / browse while i play.
 
@DDRJake any eta (or a specific month) on when to expect the work on the map? Still busy compiling and creating suggestions for you guys, but it's hurrying up.

There's a long time indeed before we get into that. Earlier is better of course, since we're already pouring over suggestions, but even a suggestion months from now would be in good time. This expansion is slated for a release towards the end of the year, so there is plenty of time indeed. I appreciate that such detailed suggestions do not appear overnight.

Sound good so far! I’m also very excited to see plans for some love for Switzerland :)

After playing Switzerland in The Grandest Lan event, we were left full of inspiration for them.

awsome, finaly some mouch needed bug fixes

Indeed, and there will be more fixes to come.

Thanks you're fixing bugs:)

By the way, are Poland, Iberia and Maghreb going to be reworked? Some provinces and cities are misplaced and some areas in those regions still need more provinces IMO.

There may be some minor touch-ups and particularly corrections done in surrounding areas, but in terms of a full rework, we (currently) intend to stick to the aforementioned regions.

please reteach the AI to prio upgrading its forts and build forts on key provinces, i dont want to have an expansion where i can bring down france in 1700 by sending a stack on paris and click break walls then assault

Do you have a save where the AI is not upgrading forts where they should? A report with such a save would be very helpful in tracking down the issue, likely the AI just failing in priorities somewhere.

An updated Bavaria for you! More details will come soon in a big thread.

Bavaria will, naturally, be a point of interest in such an expansion. Thank you.

The guy has a point. I want to believe they are still not ready to talk about solutions for bigger problems.
Like we expect to see solution for mercenary/manpower - so devs would need to come out with better system. And get some feedback before implementing it fully. Hopefully.

Bigger issues for the game will require bigger solutions, and will no doubt be the focus of entire dev diaries down the line this year. Manpower and Mercs, being a bugbear for many, is a posterchild of such issues.
 
At least so that we know if we should actually bother to make big suggestions or not.
So far the only suggestions that seem to get attention are the no brainer technical ones (UI, resolution), map changes, the minor and the silly ones.

Well chances are they won't accept any bigger suggestions unless you really hit the jackpot since game/mechanics are so complicated. Many good ideas come into unpredictable problems and eve nif you come up with something that good, thhn DDRJake needs to really like your idea to make an effort to include it in game. Unlikely imo.

Now if you can make your suggestion in independant modules - they might take some of that. Or at least they could take your idea and modify it... That would look reasonable.

I am against making full-blown suggestions anyway, why would you do their designer work for them? It takes lots of time and effort - and you will probably not get tapped on your back. Likely you'll be ignored :). If you enjoy go for it sure. Imo better to give them few concise ideas and suggestions and go on your merry way and play the game.

edit: there i got my response - likely to see later dev diaries on bigger issues ^^ now to finish my work and i can continue my Mali game conquering south america -_-
 
Do you have a save where the AI is not upgrading forts where they should? A report with such a save would be very helpful in tracking down the issue, likely the AI just failing in priorities somewhere.

I think i have a save somewhere where Ottos refuse to upgrade forts in 1800y when even Timurids did. Need to post that one... this occurs quite often i think. AI have no idea when and what forts to upgrade. They will also bankrupt themselves paying for forts without good reason. They also pay off corruption even if they go into minus balance and pick up more loans - and bankrupt themselves again. Priorities are bad.

Also have a save where perfectly blobbed Ottos have 6000 in debt without reason.. never got sieged and they spiral down somehow, probably from attrition while fighting Najd and
alike... Why they can't get into positives i am not sure. Gonna post that one too.
 
The last few DDs are so vastly different compared to what we had in similar periods. Can't say it's really bad, because you are discussing concepts and game mechanics with players (which is really awesome). This may indicate two somewhat mutually (but not necessarily) exclusive options:
  • 1. EU4 is on a verge of a decent overhaul of some it's core mechanics (not only mercs)
  • 2. EU4 is nearing it's EOL cycle and priorities are given to other projects.

@DDRJake Could we talk about "tall" gameplay, please? Not about ridiculously small trading cities or even a 20-province merchant republic, but rather of medium-sized nations with ~50 provinces. For example, Japan/GB on their islands. Right now if you are a medium-sized nation and you don't want to paint map, there is literally nothing you can do for yourself:
  • Since you don't conquer, you don't have many rebels
  • The extra gold you get from cutting military expenses allows you to build up faster and hire better advisors. However all you can do is to continuously spend your mana on province development.
  • At some point you fix all your estates issues and you simply enjoy loyal estates and benefits they grant.
  • Trade system is static, goods have fixed prices, so there little to no room for economic speculations or machinations.
  • Colonizing might be a good option, but it's not available for everyone.
As a result, a medium-small sized nation can be a GP, it's still a valid playstyle (far from optimal though), but the main problem is that there are little to no meaningful occupations in EU4 except warfare.

I really don't know how to fix this without accidentally building EU5, but this problem should be discussed (unless it's WAD) and someone may come up with an elegant solution.
 
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There's still plenty of time to make suggestions.
Do you have any Bugzilla system to add them?

I do have a couple of links in my signature but if there was any specific site where I knew suggestions would be reviewed, I'd probably update and polish them (among others)
 
Do you have a save where the AI is not upgrading forts where they should? A report with such a save would be very helpful in tracking down the issue, likely the AI just failing in priorities somewhere.

all of them, i guess i can upload them, but i thought this is a well known thing, maybe not an issue because many players dislike fort warfare, yes sometimes it upgrades it but building a fort on capital seems to be unknown, i suspect the main issue is AIs rolling debts but i do remember versions where you met up to date forts always
 
By the way, it may have already been corrected, but I found an exploit for unions. If you start a succession war and the target was vassalized, the new overload takes the lead and become the war focus, so a victory will give you a union over the wrong country.

It was easy to declare a success war as Muscovy against Riazan and just wait until the golden horde vassalize them. So, I got the horde as personal union instead of Riazan (which becomes my junior partner vassal).
 
@Zak Preston
I'd advocate against trying hard or focusing on making EU4 into "tall" game more. I am not against tall game, but EU4 is, and always was, good blobbing map-painting game that allows you to play reasonably tall. Internal country mechanics are something that EU4 lacks and devs were... before at least... against adding much to that aspect. For example they want intentionally development and stability to be instant clicks and not immersive inner mechanics. For that there are Vicky/CK/ImperatorRome now.
Even if they would add option to change trade flow - you'd change it and what then.. Speed 5 again.

Now if we can augment current "wide" systems to support tall game better... why not, i am for it. Here is interesting discussions on vassals and diplo slots - where you could spin it to make vassals actually extension of tall play. Make them important/good to have in numbers while you as overlord build tall and strong. Even for this significant reworks are needed.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...sals-and-marches-not-use-diplo-slots.1147301/

Classic tall play - zero expand in EU4 is no go in my opinion. It actually works great currently (since wide before absolutism was nerfed so much) - you can make France into almost unbeatable force. But ultimately its boring experience after you played it once or twice.