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EU4 - Development Diary - 22nd of September 2016

Hello everyone, and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This time we take a deep look at something different we’re doing for 1.18. This time we are adding and improving features to four different older expansions.


First our is a new feature for Mare Nostrum, called Create Trading City! Now the Merchant Republics that has a Trade League will be able to create a new one-province-minor out of one of their provinces. This new nation will become independent, but part of their Trade League, and they will never leave that Trade League on their own. A Trading City is created from the province view like Client States are. You can decide upon name, shield and color just like creating them.


An AI Trading City will not expand, and there can only be one Trading City in each Trade Node for a Trade League. The government form of a Trading City is a republic with +33% Caravan Power & +10% Trade Efficiency.

eu4_115.png




The second feature is for El Dorado, where we have improved the Nation Designer. In 1.18, if you own both Rights of Man and El Dorado, you will now be able to define which personalities your ruler and heir has from the start.

eu4_113.png




The third feature is for Common Sense where we replace a feature that was obsolete, the Pause Westernisation option. Instead, owners of Common Sense will be able to have a better control of their institution spread when they increase development in a province. Increasing a 30 development city by 1, gives +5 to Institution Progress of the oldest institution not present in the province. It scales to +10 at 60 development, and down to +0.5 in a 3 development rural backwater.

eu4_114.png



And our fourth feature mentioned today Random New World from Conquest of Paradise. In 1.18 we’re adding lots of new tiles, increasing the total by over 37%. There are some tiles that are big enough to be a double-continent, like this familiar and fun territory. This tile was created by community member @Elzephor !

definitely not The Falklands.png


Of course, we’ve done quite a bit of bug-fixing, balancing and AI improvement to previous features. Next week, On TUESDAY, we’ll talk about launcher and multiplayer improvements.
 
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An AI Trading City will not expand, and there can only be one Trading City in each Trade Node for a Trade League. The government form of a Trading City is a republic with +33% Caravan Power & +10% Trade Efficiency.

One per node sounds difficult to work with, given that the good money from trade comes from having lots of power along a coherent route, rather than a bit of power scattered everywhere. If we could tell Trading Cities where to put their merchants though, I can see how this would make a difference.

Maybe when we grant independence to 'natural OPMs' (that is, countries with only one core), there should be the option to put them in our trade league? It's bad that OPMs that owe their entire existence to the player won't join his/her league due to 'too many members'.
 
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The second feature is for El Dorado, where we have improved the Nation Designer. In 1.18, if you own both Rights of Man and El Dorado, you will now be able to define which personalities your ruler and heir has from the start.
...

Next week, On TUESDAY, we’ll talk about launcher and multiplayer improvements.

Any chance of adding "up-down" arrow buttons to the national idea choices in Nation Designer? Resequencing is sooo very tedious...

And why Tuesday?
 
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maybe I'm missing something but what's the big advantage to create a Trading City instead of keeping the province for yourself?
Merchant republics can only have 20 provinces without getting penalties. After that point, they lose -0.1 yearly republican tradition for every province over 20. Plus, every country has base force limit and base income. Since the trade cities will be in your trade league, it adds a little more teeth to the alliance than if you had the city directly.
 
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maybe I'm missing something but what's the big advantage to create a Trading City instead of keeping the province for yourself?
Don't Merchant Republics have a limited amount of State provinces? An "independent" trading city will allow you to still get a lot of trade power from a province (as it's in your league) without using up one of those slots as well as contributing troops in defensive wars.

Not to mention the additional troops you get for defensive wars, Imagine having yur trade league expand to 10 opm cities giving you 100'000k troops oon your side
 
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What happens when a Merchant Republic changes government and becomes something else?
And also, will those Trading city vassals take a relationship slot?
1. Someone else who is eligible to become head of the trade league will replace the old head [if that's what you meant].
2. Trading cities will belong to your trade league which takes only one relationship slot.
 
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One per node sounds difficult to work with, given that the good money from trade comes from having lots of power along a coherent route, rather than a bit of power scattered everywhere. If we could tell Trading Cities where to put their merchants though, I can see how this would make a difference.
That would've been true only if you planned on giving them an otherwise useless province [not suitable for their existence]. Most of the trade power in the nodes comes from a few trade provinces [those with the trade modifiers - estuary, ICT, CoT, etc]. Also, you don't need to tell them where to put merchants since you can use their power in their home trade node yourself - since they belong to your trade league you get a big chunk of their trade power.
 
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Hmm, interesting changes

I regards to the ruler personalities, I noticed that all of the cost points. Are there any which will be free or is there an option randomise it so you don't have to spend points (Just thinking about V.Hard nations where points would be extremely valuable)

Bad traits will grant you points to spend elsewhere and yes, there is a "random" trait which can be chosen for free. Do you feel lucky?
 
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The tile looks way better when you're using elzephor's RNW improvements mod (or at least wetter & warmer.

But yeah have you fixed the thing where RNW natives get names like Rat Cove_name or Arumbia_name in random nations mode?
 
Cheers for the DD Johan, am a big fan of some more love for older DLCs, and deepening existing features :).

Bad traits will grant you points to spend elsewhere and yes, there is a "random" trait which can be chosen for free. Do you feel lucky?

lol, awesome :D. I really like stuff like this - gives you parameters you have to adjust to.
 
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I just had a thought - will ruler traits come with more appropriate filler bios in the nation history? Like the ones that currently say things like 'the rule of [name] is only remembered for his flatulence', will they get something more specific to the traits they had? Like, '[name] was rumoured to dream of grand conquests, but his reign ended before he could see his plans put in motion'.
 
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The third feature is for Common Sense where we replace a feature that was obsolete, the Pause Westernisation option. Instead, owners of Common Sense will be able to have a better control of their institution spread when they increase development in a province. Increasing a 30 development city by 1, gives +5 to Institution Progress of the oldest institution not present in the province. It scales to +10 at 60 development, and down to +0.5 in a 3 development rural backwater.

Will this include, for instance, the ablity to independently develop feudalism/renaissance in the new world without reforming from a western neighbor?

Seems a bit weird as it's worded. It would be pretty cool if you could do that though by building up a 60 dev city in the new world.
 
That would've been true only if you planned on giving them an otherwise useless province [not suitable for their existence]. Most of the trade power in the nodes comes from a few trade provinces [those with the trade modifiers - estuary, ICT, CoT, etc]. Also, you don't need to tell them where to put merchants since you can use their power in their home trade node yourself - since they belong to your trade league you get a big chunk of their trade power.

Merchants can be more significant than raw TP, because of the steering effects they have. I suppose you can roughly anticipate where they will put merchants based on their location, which will work well enough if they are on your main pipeline.

As for putting them on important COTs and whatnot, presumably you're going to want to own a fair number of those provinces yourself, even with the 20 provinces in states limit. If you've run out of state provinces, it's debatable whether it's better to own all the trade bonus provinces as territories (62.5% trade power, but at least nobody else has what's left) or to let a trade league member own one of them (you get 50% but they also get 50%).

I'd rather put them on provinces with very high production of a valuable good, for that sweet goods produced bonus.
 
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