EU4 - Development Diary - 24th of July 2018

[petertju]

I'm spanish, screw that, the only right the Dutch have is the right to be inherited by all the all mighty Spanish Empire.

Looks like someone is still salty about 1648. Let it go mate!

 

[Natz]

Looks like someone is still salty about 1648. Let it go mate!

Anyone else hearing heretic in the wind?
Better call the inquisition!

 

[Bayes]

Of course I do. Unless those changes add an interesting alternative play.

Out of the top of my head:

Wide:
- A revamp to revolts and wrong culture: Make wrong culture an interactive modifier, so that there is a interesting way to assimilate the cultures you expand to. Then make rebellions more harsh if you fail to do it properly by making the entire culture revolt and spawn a new nation you are at war with. Give us decision such s treatment of the wrong culture population, rights of the wrong culture populations etc (think stellaris policies) that affect how we deal with different cultures. And give modifiers to the cultures that fit what those cultures exceled at. Wrong culture territory should provide more maluses when conquered, but should it be well managed and integrated, those maluses should turn into bonuses.
- A straight nerf to the modifiers of TCs is granted at this point. They are overly powerfull and railroad the game.
- A rework to the missionary system: I'm fine with unstated provinces being harder to convert, not impossible. On top of it, make interactions with the clergy, and high loyalty, circumvent that negative modifier.
- A nerf to mercenary availability, while buffing manpower availability, could be tied to the wrong cultures thing by having a decision to forcefully recruit from wrong cultures, making them less loyal.

Tall:

- A rework of trade: The fact that trade flows one way, and the way merchants work is too simplistic to involve any kind of strategy in tall play. Merchants could be sent to nations instead of nodes, adding a layer of strategy and replayability by evolving changing you merchants as other nations become more powerfull. Affected by relations and trust.
- A rework of buildings: I would personally make trees out of the buildings, such as how it is done in total war. Add buildings that give modifiers to units recruited there higher up in the tree for example. (Obviously would be unbalanced right now since units are recruited too easily. It's just an example).
- The new government system coming out is a good change for example, one I agree adds an interesting layer to the game.
- A rework of vassals and client states: Things such as prussias militarisation that give an incentive to keep vassals around, such as iqta government as well. Lowring the LD over time is a good first step (as they are doing according to this dev diary). Could be tied to the wrong culture thing by allowing more interactions with your vassals, giving them specific rights that provide bonuses and maluses.

I like alot of these suggestions. And I think that something to do with internal stability of a nation is something we are going to see in the future. Atleast I hope so.

Put Corruption slider on max. So intricate, such immersion, just wow

On a more serious note I think you mentioned a very important point here. I would not mind changes to make blobbing more challenging if those changes were interesting and gave me something to actually do. Corruption does not do this. Neither does arbitrarily restricting options (End Game Tags) nor adding more tediousness to missionaries without changing the outcome.

Make culture shifts harder to accomplish, give players choices by introducing religious policies, put more stuff connected with missionaries into the Religious idea group, put some TC related stuff in Trade idea group or whatever, make manufactories require a certain amount of development in a province before they can be build, give us more peace time mechanics, give bonuses to culturally and religiously homogeneous countries, introduce more incentives to actually use states (like better balancing of edicts), introduce infrastructure building like roads which increase army movement speed but cost money to maintain, ...

All those are suggestions which have been mentioned here and while I don't necessarily agree with all of them they would still be better than what Paradox has decided to do

Important, IN THE FUTURE, I dont think increasing corruption is a intricate mechanic.
I was not really discussing these changes but I think limiting tag switching is a good thing. Im a optimization slave, having all the options will lead me to pick the best one every time. The game limiting what I can do is great for me. Idk about the missionary changes, still waiting for the final patch notes and implimentation, but they could shake things up a bit. Unless you can just have a couple of free states and juggle them around.

To both of you. I like the first part of the game, often as a opm on vh. Trying to survive and build up your powerbase, preferebly almost feeling like its going nowhere, uncertain of the future threats that loom on the horizon. Thats when the game truly shines for me. Reaching critical mass and thriving in best possible manner is profoundly boring I think. Whatever they do to extend this period is good in my book. While the actual changes being introduced might not be it, it is in the right direction to accomplish that.

 

[iceberg265]

"Expansion:

An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.

Your maximum number of States is now far more important: If you hold more territories than your state limit, you will face a yearly corruption penalty, currently +0.02 per territory (not per province). For example, if you have a State Limit of 15, you can have up to 15 States AND up to 15 Territories without penalty. Overseas Colonial Regions and Trade Charter Companies are exempt from this calculation. This corruption hit is halved in Easy mode, and entirely absent in Very Easy. Additionally sending Missionaries and cultural conversion are not possible in Territories. You must make them a state to do these."

This is garbage, imo. Conquest is probably what most people play this game for, and this makes conquest less fun. You're literally making the game less fun.

 

[Bayes]

"Expansion:

An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.

Your maximum number of States is now far more important: If you hold more territories than your state limit, you will face a yearly corruption penalty, currently +0.02 per territory (not per province). For example, if you have a State Limit of 15, you can have up to 15 States AND up to 15 Territories without penalty. Overseas Colonial Regions and Trade Charter Companies are exempt from this calculation. This corruption hit is halved in Easy mode, and entirely absent in Very Easy. Additionally sending Missionaries and cultural conversion are not possible in Territories. You must make them a state to do these."

This is garbage, imo. Conquest is probably what most people play this game for, and this makes conquest less fun. You're literally making the game less fun.

This doesnt make conquest less fun, not for everyone. Some people like the additional challenge changes like these provide.

 

[Kamraar]

This doesnt make conquest less fun, not for everyone. Some people like the additional challenge changes like these provide.

It will only mean that rushing towards trade company land will be even more urgent than before and an annoyance if you don't.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

This doesnt make conquest less fun, not for everyone. Some people like the additional challenge changes like these provide.

I wonder what challenge you are referring to? I am honestly at a loss here.

 

[Badesumofu]

This doesnt make conquest less fun, not for everyone. Some people like the additional challenge changes like these provide.

People like unmitigatable corruption because it's a challenge? 0.8 from the territory cap plus 0.5 from 100 OE is 1.3 corruption. If you pay it down at max rate and stay ahead of time on tech you can manage -1.1 corruption per month. Where is the fun and challenge in that?

 

[Bayes]

It will only mean that rushing towards trade company land will be even more urgent than before and an annoyance if you don't.

It will mean more than that, but I agree that trade companies need some looking at atm.

I wonder what challenge you are referring to? I am honestly at a loss here.

Its a hinderance, something you have to deal with, it makes it more difficult. Maybe challenge is the wrong word.

People like unmitigatable corruption because it's a challenge? 0.8 from the territory cap plus 0.5 from 100 OE is 1.3 corruption. If you pay it down at max rate and stay ahead of time on tech you can manage -1.1 corruption per month. Where is the fun and challenge in that?

You have to put things like corruption from ideas and policies in mind, you will have less money to play around with, its definitly a hinderance, its going to make the game harder. And you need to find a way to deal with it, or swim in corruption.

Maybe Im just a masochist, but I like this sort of stuff.

 

[DarkBlue]

This is garbage, imo. Conquest is probably what most people play this game for, and this makes conquest less fun. You're literally making the game less fun.

You might think of EU IV as a Risk with skin, but you don't represent all players' expectations.

Not saying that this patch is perfect, imo the real way to evolve the game is to make peace time fun with empire management like having to curb your nobles.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

It will mean more than that, but I agree that trade companies need some looking at atm.

Its a hinderance, something you have to deal with, it makes it more difficult. Maybe challenge is the wrong word.

You have to put things like corruption from ideas and policies in mind, you will have less money to play around with, its definitly a hinderance, its going to make the game harder. And you need to find a way to deal with it, or swim in corruption.

Maybe Im just a masochist, but I like this sort of stuff.

They are just sending a clear message that it is bad to conquer provinces outside of colonial and trade company regions in a game where basically there isn´t anything else interesting to do (unless waiting for points to push a dev button qualifies as something interesting). It is not the 1st time they do this but IMO these are the worst changes in a very long time that do nothing but to reduce the game replay ability and test the player patience.

 

[Natz]

It will mean more than that, but I agree that trade companies need some looking at atm.

Its a hinderance, something you have to deal with, it makes it more difficult. Maybe challenge is the wrong word.

You have to put things like corruption from ideas and policies in mind, you will have less money to play around with, its definitly a hinderance, its going to make the game harder. And you need to find a way to deal with it, or swim in corruption.

Maybe Im just a masochist, but I like this sort of stuff.

Don't think it will be hard to deal with, IF and only IF you expand towards TCs first. The extra state limit will be more than enough to keep things in check until you can properly conquer and set up trade companies. After that we're looking at 1.3 with 100 OE, if you only add the -2 from sunni every 5 years that's that. I do believe that between the missionaries nerf and the corruption Sunni is now meta, either that or stacking policies which would make espionage and defensive meta. But I think switching to sunni is just easier.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wide play does not need more nerfs. The AI needs to stop being brain-dead; when the AI stops being brain-dead WC will be much more difficult if not impossible. Ever seen a WC in a MP with competent players on all teams? Ofc the AI won´t improve to such standards because everything leads me to believe that it is just an afterthought for the ppl in charge. So they will continue to come up workarounds that hurt the game in one way or another to restrict the ability of players to do the only thing that is actually fun/rewarding in-game. Talk about shooting oneself in the foot.

To be fair I don't think it's within developer ability (even other developers) to make an AI in a game like this that would be a serious long term barrier to a player at your level, unless it was explicitly designed to simply target screwing the player over optimizing own position.

The snag in rationale for the changes here seems to be that no matter what you do, you can't squeeze blood out of stone. When someone is runaway and you won't (or more likely can't) make the AI perform at a level approaching good human play, the game is effectively over. Nothing you can do to extend the slog when the game is already over will change the reality that it's over.

The end game in SP is a race against the clock, not a legit competition with remaining nations in the game. Absent changing what EU 4 is, that won't change. I don't see the utility in narrowing skill gaps in this context, but it's something we've seen the devs attempt consistently over the years in patches and for some reason tends to be celebrated by players who don't even interact with the mechanics at the margins. The whole thing is silly, and we don't have a better game for it.

 

[SamuraiLordofWii]

So, from your previous examples, you believe the Portuguese King wanted to state India and that Spain stated the Philippines?

They both put a lot administraiv energy into ruling there areas there. Goa wasnta trade company for portugal but a vice kingdom philipines was ruled centralised from mexico spain put a lot energy together with the church in there to convert the people and supress the muslim sultans there. So for ingame standarts yes both would stated there land in there instead using a tc.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

One thing to note is that this also disadvantages snaking. Snaking covers multiple territories "inefficiently" (owning 1/2 provinces instead of the entire thing), so you might run into this much earlier in game if you expand that way. Which will make hordes...fun.

 

[Emperor Thacon]

Gaining corruption for having 'too many' territories, not being able to send missionaries to territories, and making trade companies OP seem like very unpopular changes.

It would be a lot better to revert those two territory changes and do the following:
1. Make embracing an institution twice as expensive for autonomous land (5 ducats instead of 2.5 per autonomous development), and make institution spread speed slowed by autonomy on a sliding scale where 100% autonomy gives -50% institution spread speed, 50% autonomy gives -25% institution spread, etc.
2. Make autonomy hinder religious conversion speed on a sliding scale where 100% autonomy gives -2% conversion speed, 50% autonomy gives -1%, etc.
3. Make each trade company take up to 2 state slots, and make pirating trade nodes with trade companies more impactful.

These changes would be a more realistic and popular way to nerf blobbing while also better balancing institutions and trade companies.

 

[Martynios]

Colonise and gain trade income, like the Dutch did!

Highly impractical in EU4.

 

[brifbates]

As you know, all modifiers stack and get you there little by little. I don't know how the colonist will work but in principle it is something that encourages development and actually promotes NOT to expand as you won't be using him to colonise. Of course, it's more intended to give colonists something to do when done expanding, but that really doesn't matter.

Coal is mentioned because you need dev >20 to reveal it, most provinces with coal in them won't have that starting up.

No, you don't. You need 20 dev in the province OR 20 innovativeness. Anyone reasonably skilled at blobbing like mad will easily hit the innovativeness number by buying high rank advisors with the mad money you generate (not to mention all the age traits that reward blobbing for the easy golden age trigger).

 

[master_kong]

Game was all about if you want to conquer or not. Oh that's a nice land you have there, now give me that! With these changes to expansion on 1.26, at least you should think before annex everything in sight if you can afford it.

I hope making defensive war a thing is up next. Plus, giving AI the mindset of the defensive war. It should think twice before wandering around in the enemy land and leaving their homeland defenseless.

I've never played tall. Even though I am a roleplayer, it's just not my style. But with the state of easy blobbing I'm not playing wide either, in vanilla that is. And I don't understand how people enjoy despite it's being that easy. Don't you think while playing, well why these dudes didn't even think to conquer those regions in history? You might not care about historical aspect of this game even though this is a historical game. Assuming with all of this you guys are just enjoying map painting no matter what and want the devs not to make it difficult. If this is the case, I suggest trying "easy" or "very easy" setting after 1.26 patch.

This corruption hit is halved in Easy mode, and entirely absent in Very Easy.

After 1.26, maybe I'll do a ironman run. Thank you devs.

 

[Rabid]

Gaining corruption for having 'too many' territories, not being able to send missionaries to territories, and making trade companies OP seem like very unpopular changes.

It would be a lot better to revert those two territory changes and do the following:
1. Make embracing an institution twice as expensive for autonomous land (5 ducats instead of 2.5 per autonomous development), and make institution spread speed slowed by autonomy on a sliding scale where 100% autonomy gives -50% institution spread speed, 50% autonomy gives -25% institution spread, etc.
2. Make autonomy hinder religious conversion speed on a sliding scale where 100% autonomy gives -2% conversion speed, 50% autonomy gives -1%, etc.
3. Make each trade company take up to 2 state slots, and make pirating trade nodes with trade companies more impactful.

These changes would be a more realistic and popular way to nerf blobbing while also better balancing institutions and trade companies.

Making you 'spend' a number of state slots in order to set up a trade company is an excellent idea. The countries which historically had a lot of what would be TC provinces in game (England / GB, Portugal, Netherlands as immediate examples I can think of) tended to have small 'core' territories compared to other powers of the time, so using TCs in a 'historical' way would work very effectively while also preventing states such as Russia / OE etc from using TCs simply as a way to squeeze more cash out of their far flung territories in Asia and Africa in addition to the rest of their huge land empires.

You would still use up fewer states than making all those provinces into regular states, and also pay only 50% of the cost to core those provinces, so this sounds like a good way of allowing TCs to be a powerful tool while also putting some limits on how they are used.

The only issue is that it does make it costly (in terms of state limit) to have a number of small concessions scattered around (as was common for Portugal for example). But perhaps this isn't necessarily a problem.