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EU4 - Development Diary - 23rd of January 2018

Good morning all. Tuesday has arrived and as usual delivers double excitement: the next episode in the EU4 Dev Clash, and a new development diary. Last week @Trin Tragula took the wheel and showed off the map changes which will roll out with the upcoming 1.25 update. Before we start talking about the features that come with its accompanying yet currently unannounced Immersion Pack, today I will be showing off another free change with 1.25, which is the Mission System.

Missions in EU3 were a real gamble. You hoped for a good or even possible mission and without hitting up the wiki or trawling through the game files had no idea what you could even be tasked with. You got said mission without choice and would either cancel or try to complete it. EU4 improved on this by always offering you up to 3 missions, one of which you would select and either complete or cancel before getting a new batch of missions. While it was an improvement, it still had the shortcomings of you not being quite sure what all missions you would be able to get for your nations, how to unlock them and even getting missions which would be detrimental for you to do. The missions system is something new players often look to for guidance and when it tells them to simply get 50 prestige or to improve relations with their rival, well, you can see why advice for new players can often counter intuitively be to ignore missions.

All this changes in 1.25 with the new Mission System. rather than picking from a short list of missions, all missions for your nation will be available from the very start, and as you fulfill the criteria for them, you will be alerted as such and can go to the newly segregated Missions tab to claim your reward. Rewards have been accordingly made more relevant, longer lasting and often grant claims towards more missions down the line. Let's take a look at the mission chain from one of my favourite nations, Byzantium, with their Purple Phoenix missions.

byz PP.jpg

humble expansion from my casual Byzantium campaign. Art/layout not final

All Byzantine missions are visible from the start and the progression through them is shown. When the budding Byzantine player reconquers Greece, they will be given a timed reward as well as the claims to help fulfilling the next missions: Recover Albania and Conquer Bulgaria. Once these are completed, they will again be able to claim their reward and work down the mission chain. The mission paths are also split for their different directions to go in, catering towards Western expansion, Anatolian recovery and reclaiming the islands. Mission rewards must be claimed in order, although all missions can be completed throughout a campaign.

byz no pp.jpg

End of the Byzantium mission chain without Purple Phoenix


All nations with specific missions are having those transferred over to this new system. Additionally we have added generic missions for all nations as well as region specific missions so that Europeans can have different missions available to them than, say, Africans or New World Natives. We have also taken the opportunity to clean up older missions while we adapt old ones to work with this new system.

France loveley art.jpg

French Missions, complete with lovely coder art. Something seems odd about the Hebrides though...

This mission change is a free part of the 1.25 Update and our aim is to have the missions feel more relevant for nations, as well as serving as a guiding light for newer players.

I'll try to pre-emptively answer some questions:

  • How do I select a mission?
    • Unlike the previous mission system, you do not select your missions, they are all visible from the game start. All missions at the top of the mission trees will be "active" and when you fulfill an active mission you can go to claim its reward, making any missions below it connected by arrows in its chain active,
  • In the old system selecting a mission would give you the claim/CB you need for the mission, how is that handled now?
    • In most cases, preceding missions will give claims/CBs as a reward which can be used to fulfill the following missions.
  • How does mission gating work?
    • A mission can both be a prerequisite for multiple missions a well as require multiple missions to be completed before it becomes active
  • How moddable is this?
    • Extensively.

Next week we'll start talking about what's coming with the yet unannounced Immersion Pack, due to release alongside 1.25. until then, we shall admire the Ottoman missions in the new system, in all their behemothic glory.

Ottomissions.jpg
 
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Reactions:
Wow ! this is awesome !
M6mQhZX.gif
 
Very nice, I always wished that EU4 and CK2 had something like this :D

Would I be right to assume that nations that receive an immersion pack will have their mission tree greatly expanded with lots of flavor missions as well as both historical and alt-historical missions to do? And if so will east slavic nations get a better mission tree in this update since they already got the Third Rome immersion pack?

Also, will it be fully moddable? Could I create a super historical and super railroaded tree for a certain country if I so wished?

  • How do I select a mission?
    • Unlike the previous mission system, you do not select your missions, they are all visible from the game start. All missions at the top of the mission trees will be "active" and when you fulfill an active mission you can go to claim its reward, making any missions below it connected by arrows in its chain active,
  • In the old system selecting a mission would give you the claim/CB you need for the mission, how is that handled now?
    • In most cases, preceding missions will give claims/CBs as a reward which can be used to fulfill the following missions.
  • How does mission gating work?
    • A mission can both be a prerequisite for multiple missions a well as require multiple missions to be completed before it becomes active
  • How moddable is this?
    • Extensively.

View attachment 329436
 
Thing is, Wallachia does get vassalized a lot right now, but it looks like that might change next patch as the mission says "Conquer Wallachia", which is indeed unrealistic.

Speaking of that, Transylvania needs to be released (and eventually vassalized) more, and the same goes for Poland losing Moldavia. The obvious danger of railroading nations too much cannot be ignored, but it literally never happens right now.
Exactly. Maybe for a player it would be annoying , but that doesn't mean there can't be an event for AI only,just like the burgundian inheritance if Burgundy is AI.
I'd like to see a dev response on this matter. @Trin Tragula ? :)
 
Judging by gigau's reaction, I can safely say that MEIOU&TAXES will be supporting this feature... :D
 
Question: If I tag-switch, and that tag has tag-specific missions, will they replace my old set of missions? What happens to mission-related permanent effects (like permanent claims) in that case?
 
The mission tree reminds me of Hearts of Iron 4. Not only I love it, the mission tree is moddable.
Any plans to change the buildings?
 
This looks awesome. I hope it’ll become dynamic and that the missions bah will adapt to the country in a time. Also, that IA will get foothold in India.

Also, what about ideas missions ? What happens if Eire exists and they take exploration ? Same for ottos or Mamluks...
 
@DDRJake I can see a major problem here with alliances and the trust system that prevented AIs and players from getting certain missions. For example, what if Byzantium is allied to Hungary (and is at 100 mutual trust)? Hungary holds lands that Byzantium has missions for, Byzantium holds lands Hungary has missions for. With the old system, the mission simply would not pop up. Another current example, Ottomans allied to Tunis, not getting the subjugate tunis mission.
Simply by looking at France's missions, it's quite clear that Savoy et al. can forget an alliance with France, which is... well... railroading. Or, in other words, once France decides it wants Naples, it has to conquer Savoy etc. to reach the required mission. Or at least that's the way new players will think it works.