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EU4 - Development Diary - 22nd of November 2016

Good day all. Over the weekend, the team and indeed, the entire company was away conquering Malta. Great times were had and I'm sure there will be many pictures and tales of the occasion making the rounds but now Tuesday is upon us and I want to talk about feedback on our updates.

While we have our in-house QA team and a closed group of Betas who provide valuable feedback, sometimes we want to get a wider playerbase to try out our game builds by way of an Open Beta. A prime reason for this is to try out a large core change to the game where we want to get a lot of feedback from the community. In this case, we wanted to get feedback on a new area-based fort system.

For reference, we are fairly happy with how the 1.18 fort system works. It blocks movement, forces some sieges without requiring carpet sieging and, especially with the terrain bonuses, adds a good amount of strategic mid-long term planning for your nation. However there were some undeniable issues with the system in lack of clarity and overlapping Zones of Control. We wanted to try a new system out and hear what you had to think

It didn't take long for the feedback to mount up. The new system was unclear, forts blocked nothing on their own, small and mid sized nations struggled to offer much movement blocking, Military access rules became messy. The following week we decided as a team to revert to the 1.18 fort system.

Of course, there were some who liked and even loved the beta version's area-based fort system, and reverting was a disappointment to them. You're never going to make everyone happy, no matter what you change but I would like to thank everyone who played and continues to play with the 1.19 beta, as your contributions help make it a better update.

Of course, forts were not the only things on the cards for 1.19. There were plenty of changes to the Scandinavian experience, map changes and such which were well received. Nothing warmed my cockles quite like seeing screenshots on various platforms of beautiful resurgent Golden Hordes though!

Soon™ 1.19 will be out of beta and released for all to play, with additional fixes for bugs found during the beta period. This is another great part of the Open Beta process. Your bug reports have been appreciated, as well as the crash reports that get sent in, leading to dozens of additional bugfixes for 1.19, including the particularly nasty subject integration bug.

Since we've shown off most of 1.19 and we've been talking about forts anyway, how about seeing the Paradox Fort in Malta, complete with Garrison:

IMG-20161117-WA0009.jpg


Inside which the army draws up plans to occupy the rest of the island

20161117_160253.jpg


See you again next week where we will talk about how we see EU4 moving forward and our goals for what we want to do with the game.

If that's simply too long for you, be sure to tune in for the EU4 Developer Multiplayer, where the world shall be lit in flames at 1500 CET www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive
 
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1.18 version is opaque (especially wrt military access exceptions and prior province rules) and bugged :(.
I don't agree that it was "opaque", but it does seem to have been somewhat bugged, and that, I fully agree, needs to be fixed. Apart from anything else, bugs will make it seem to be far more opaque than it should be!
 
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Good day all. Over the weekend, the team and indeed, the entire company was away conquering Malta. Great times were had and I'm sure there will be many pictures and tales of the occasion making the rounds but now Tuesday is upon us and I want to talk about feedback on our updates.

While we have our in-house QA team and a closed group of Betas who provide valuable feedback, sometimes we want to get a wider playerbase to try out our game builds by way of an Open Beta. A prime reason for this is to try out a large core change to the game where we want to get a lot of feedback from the community. In this case, we wanted to get feedback on a new area-based fort system.

For reference, we are fairly happy with how the 1.18 fort system works. It blocks movement, forces some sieges without requiring carpet sieging and, especially with the terrain bonuses, adds a good amount of strategic mid-long term planning for your nation. However there were some undeniable issues with the system in lack of clarity and overlapping Zones of Control. We wanted to try a new system out and hear what you had to think

It didn't take long for the feedback to mount up. The new system was unclear, forts blocked nothing on their own, small and mid sized nations struggled to offer much movement blocking, Military access rules became messy. The following week we decided as a team to revert to the 1.18 fort system.

Of course, there were some who liked and even loved the beta version's area-based fort system, and reverting was a disappointment to them. You're never going to make everyone happy, no matter what you change but I would like to thank everyone who played and continues to play with the 1.19 beta, as your contributions help make it a better update.

Of course, forts were not the only things on the cards for 1.19. There were plenty of changes to the Scandinavian experience, map changes and such which were well received. Nothing warmed my cockles quite like seeing screenshots on various platforms of beautiful resurgent Golden Hordes though!

Soon™ 1.19 will be out of beta and released for all to play, with additional fixes for bugs found during the beta period. This is another great part of the Open Beta process. Your bug reports have been appreciated, as well as the crash reports that get sent in, leading to dozens of additional bugfixes for 1.19, including the particularly nasty subject integration bug.

Since we've shown off most of 1.19 and we've been talking about forts anyway, how about seeing the Paradox Fort in Malta, complete with Garrison:

View attachment 220158

Inside which the army draws up plans to occupy the rest of the island

View attachment 220157

See you again next week where we will talk about how we see EU4 moving forward and our goals for what we want to do with the game.

If that's simply too long for you, be sure to tune in for the EU4 Developer Multiplayer, where the world shall be lit in flames at 1500 CET www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive
It's nice to see the team having fun and all. I don't oppose that. But it'd be great to have at least some insight or initiating discussion about what you want to further change. I don't think it'd take too long to speak about that in the dev diary, I don't doubt that you have stuff planned.
 
I don't agree that it was "opaque", but it does seem to have been somewhat bugged, and that, I fully agree, needs to be fixed. Apart from anything else, bugs will make it seem to be far more opaque than it should be!

If it weren't opaque, the origin-province rules wouldn't change when occupying a fort, and random military access with countries unrelated to the war wouldn't change movement rules drastically.

The game-breaking "same province retreat" bug when there are no forts because the game thinks there is one is a separate but not entirely unrelated issue.
 
The problem with actual ZoC system is that your army is sieging a fort the way used to arrive there is not recorded, so someone who does not remember or does not know this way can not predict where the sieging army can move.

There is an easy way to record the way to reach a fort across the ZoC that is capturing the province, and only after capturing the adjacent province you can reach the fort. This simple rule can improve the actual ZoC system without big changes.

I suggested an alternative system in the suggestions forums, but only 30 people read it:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/fort-zoc-alternative-system.983332/

I'm pretty sure there's an icon on the province you came from that shows you can always return here. (i believe it's a fort icon with a green arrow)
True, the icon should be made a little more obvious, but it IS there.

But you have to select the army, if the army is not yours you do not know where they can move if you do not know the previous movements.

The big problem is that is stupid and unintuitive that 2 armies in the same province can not make the same movements just because they come from different places.

With the system I propose you can see if you can reach a province looking who controls the provinces in the way and the forts situation, and the rules of movement only depend of current status, but with the forts basically working as always, changing the minimum.

Also I like the idea that you can not reach a fort at least after occupy the previous province in the fort ZoC because adds realism, fort example if Castile suddenly DoW to Portugal immediately can reach any Portuguese province and stack wipe the Portuguese army in Lisboa fort, with my propose if your army is in a fort inland your country you have a few reaction time, which is one of the things that are supposed to serve the forts. In the actual system if you are not big enough to have unreachable provinces your army can be immediately deleted.
 
Forts that block movement are seemingly always going to have to many problems to solve IMO. Why not make it so that forts ZoC makes hostile units move much slower (such as 50% or what ever) and also give hostile units increased attrition when within the ZoC.

These numbers could scale with era/tech and building level and could work with either adjacency or area setup.

Still offers help to small/med nations by making it easier to outmanoeuvre the enemy on the defensive and large nations can get time to move units from one end of the nation to the other while the enemy are slowed by the forts ZoC.
This is a fantastic idea IMO. Having forts slow down the attackers gives the defender more time, which was one of the intentions of the fort system in the first place. However, as that is hilariously broken, I see this as the only way of making a design decision that makes sense to boot.
 
But was whole new system really needed to fix those issues? It just seems like pointless change for change's sake, which a bad thing for a game.
Change for changes sake is not a bad thing for a game, unless you keep changing and keep trying new stuff you'll never do better. "The most dangerous phrase in the language is 'We've always done it this way'".
 
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Change for changes sake is not a bad thing for a game, unless you keep changing and keep trying new stuff you'll never do better. "The most dangerous phrase in the language is 'We've always done it this way'".
Whoever said that had no idea what they were talking about. Change for change's sake is typically a bad idea, especially in something like a game.
 
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IMO armies in a fortified province should get a defensive bonus. Wat do ya all say?
They get those, depending on the terrain. If you add Another defensive bonus, then attacking would be almost fruitless.

Does make me think of something: river crossing and strait crossing should not be transferred to the hostile sieging army. I have no words to describe the weird moment when you siege a fort on your continent, and suddenly someone comes out of the strait to attack you, and You would get the strait penalty, even if you have never crossed the strait. My friend had this in a recent mp game.
 
What's all the fuss about "AI cheating on border forts"? Lol so they get extra 1-3 ducats early game, big deal egh, what do we do now.... 99% of the players wouldn't even ever even notice without devs telling them. To the player this doesn't matter in the game anyway.

Depending on what the AI builds or conquers, the fort cost adds up. Late game, the cost savings become a bit ridiculous along with how difficult/long sieges become.

I fixed this for you. Now it's a perfect summary of how forts work currently.

You're the real MVP

If it weren't opaque, the origin-province rules wouldn't change when occupying a fort, and random military access with countries unrelated to the war wouldn't change movement rules drastically.

The game-breaking "same province retreat" bug when there are no forts because the game thinks there is one is a separate but not entirely unrelated issue.

Forts... Forts have issues man. Wonderful explanation about general ZOC issues.
 
Whoever said that had no idea what they were talking about. Change for change's sake is typically a bad idea, especially in something like a game.
That'd be rear admiral Grace Hopper. And no it's not. sticking to the same old just for sticking to the same old's sake is a much worse idea, there's no such thing as staying the same, either you become better or you decline. Because everything always changes, clinging to the past is like trying to float on an anchor when shipwrecked.
 
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If it weren't opaque, the origin-province rules wouldn't change when occupying a fort, and random military access with countries unrelated to the war wouldn't change movement rules drastically.
If by "occupying a fort" you mean capturing it, of course all the rules change! It's now your fort! If you mean having a covering/besieging force, then that is a way of neutralising a fort that has been used since time immemorial - it works as if the fort was not there just as long as you keep the covering force in place.

The game-breaking "same province retreat" bug when there are no forts because the game thinks there is one is a separate but not entirely unrelated issue.
As I already said, bugs are a different matter entirely to the game system, and they need to be fixed.

That'd be rear admiral Grace Hopper. And no it's not. sticking to the same old just for sticking to the same old's sake is a much worse idea, there's no such thing as staying the same, either you become better or you decline. Because everything always changes, clinging to the past is like trying to float on an anchor when shipwrecked.
I have worked for most of my career in supply chain planning and operations. Things there change all the time - but you don't change something that works, you change what doesn't work. Forts with ZoCs works well and certainly knocks the socks off of the previous system (which was essentially the same, but had a fort in every province that affected only that province).
 
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If by "occupying a fort" you mean capturing it, of course all the rules change! It's now your fort!
And because it has an enemy fort adjacent, you can't march into it any more.
 
I have worked for most of my career in supply chain planning and operations. Things there change all the time - but you don't change something that works, you change what doesn't work. Forts with ZoCs works well and certainly knocks the socks off of the previous system (which was essentially the same, but had a fort in every province that affected only that province).
Just because something works doesn't mean that something else couldn't work better.
 
no reverting of the expansion/exploration cb along with the forts?I feel like it is sneaking through because of the immediate huge impact of the fort change :(

There's nothing wrong with the new final ability of the exploration group. It's actually useful all game now, instead of only being useful in the first month after establishing your first New World colony.
 
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If by "occupying a fort" you mean capturing it, of course all the rules change! It's now your fort! If you mean having a covering/besieging force, then that is a way of neutralising a fort that has been used since time immemorial - it works as if the fort was not there just as long as you keep the covering force in place.

Okay, then explain why capturing a fort can cause you to have fewer movement options than when it had enemies in it.

Because that can happen in 1.18 rules.

Bugs are a problem either way, but in addition to the above you can have drastic changes to movement options in the game with no apparent change to the state of the board. That's not an intuitive design, at all.