EU4 Development Diary - 25th February 2016

[IceTytanFang]

Looking forward to Corruption (another hit to the great empires!), underwhelmed by States and Territories though. Hopefully they can be implemented well, and knowing Paradox, they will (at least eventually)

 

[Nuklearius]

I've #

 

[zbyrne]

Haven't read all 22 pages of comments, so should this have already been suggested, apologies, but perhaps a possible solution to the issue here is to allow some sort of de-jure drift using areas. So If I conquer an entire area (as defined in the map-mode), then it can shift to another (neighbouring) region. It remains arbitrary, but at least would allow for expansion in any direction.

That said, I'm not particularly excited about this change, albeit I would like to see less blobbing (or at least blobbing along historical lines).

 

[zbyrne]

What might be interesting, or completely untenable, would be multiple overlapping region maps used to represent multiple cutlures. Andalusia, for instance, could be a region limited to the Andalusian culture that represent a region that included the lower half of Spain and North Western Africa, while Spain proper would be the Iberian peninsula.

It might be the solution, certainly to the likes of Prussia/Savoy. However, you'd have to have this for every single country in the world, which I can only imagine would be a huge bit of work for the devs, probably too much.

Also, surely it would be even more limiting than it would be using the regions (presumably these cultural territories would be exactly whatever the state in particular looked like in 1820 or whatever date is chosen). Which wouldn't necessarily account for whatever changes occurred over the centuries. Furthermore, it would presumably doom many smaller nations who would inevitably be targeted by bigger powerful neighbours, who would aim to expand in these cultural regions almost exclusively.

I mean I'm slightly tore - I would like to see the game look and feel a little more historical - some developments which I see over and over, like Ireland converting to Reformed, or Portugal always nabbing the Caribbean, kind of irritate me, because of how far off they are from the history. So encouraging the game to flow somewhat more along history lines, for immersions sake is something I'd broadly support, but the sheer arbitrary nature of the regions map is simply too much railroading for me. And while I like your idea in theory, it would probably be even more deterministic.

 

[Demetrios]

This is a massive blow to small nations on regional borders. If I'm not kingdom level yet, my only meaningful expansion opportunities are inside the same region I already belong to; but if you are e.g. Savoy that means invading France.

Just do what Savoy historically did: Move your capital to Turin and start expanding into Italy!

Not that it matters all that much, as Savoy, as a non-tribal nation, will start out with 2 states.

 

[Frogbait]

They also triple tap nerfed them, including an undocumented change to their CBs. The monarch point thing probably needed to happen. Did the wonky massive nerf to terrain combat need to accompany that though?

Fewer monarch points, especially to struggling players and/or at random, is *conceptually* flawed. You can't QA that out unless you change your mind about it.

Focus on the point of what I said rather than focusing on the horde part. The very last sentence is what I meant by that context. They announced a change in a dev diary that looked absolutely terrible, QA tested it and in practice it was in fact as terrible as we thought it was in theory so they removed it.

I was one of the people who wanted no horde nerf TMIT. I think it was an overblown reaction from the community that had no serious impact on the game outside of providing an alternative and fun way to compete without westernizing. Then there was a huge reaction of people crying about something that was only strong in the player's hand in single player and non-competitive MP games. Paradox went overboard with the nerfs, however the combat change via terrain I think was interesting. Still think the penalty needs to go away completely, but it still imo provides an interesting combat concept for hordes.

 

[Johan]

A lot of people are complaining about the corruption received from being behind in technology, but do we actually know how big the penalty is per tech? It might be more easily manageable than some of you are assuming.

Its a minor growth for being more than 2 techs behind in 1 category.

 

[Jaapje]

Im a bit confused on the state/territory mechanic. Does a state with cores degrade to 0% autonomy regardless of the continent?

So if for instance Britain would create a regional state in africa it would get full benefit of all provinces in that region? The only downside being the upkeep?

Wouldnt that make Africa/S-E Asia so much better than the America's? Or are CN's out to?

To be honest this is the first DD that has me wonder how well thought out this idea is. Regions seem to detract from the sandbox fantasy and do as much damage to realism as the current overseas system does.

A change to transports and subsequent autonomy changes primarily based on: distance to capitol, nearby soldiers and strength of local garrisons would be much more realistic and open up a lot more strategy.

 

[Demetrios]

If I am a 2 province nation that just so happens to be on the border of these regions, with 1 province each right next to each other in 2 different regions, but a government that only allows one 'state', does this mean my 2nd province is going to be considered 'overseas' or a 'territory' now?

If this is the case, it seems like its a major kick in the nuts to minor nations since it'll limit directions of effective expansion early game.

That will only happen if you are a tribal nation though. All non-tribal nations can start with 2 states (1 for free and 1 for being non-tribal).

 

[Zelius]

More? MORE? Why in the hell did they do that, why is that so difficult to properly document and why do they prefer to waste dev diaries talking about the newest buff to Elective Monarchy instead of properly telling us this kind of thing. Sigh.

Horde CB now has the same AE modifier as Claim / Religious CB (75%), which they have against all neighbours... I don't think changing a single number is worth a dev diary. I guess someone made the change in 2 minutes, spent <5 minutes making sure it didn't break anything and forgot to put it into patch notes.

 

[Demetrios]

Having now read through all 22 pages of this thread, may I please highlight what appear to be the most overlooked few words in Paradox history:

Secondly, there is a limit on how many states your empire can control. Everyone can have at least 1 state in their realm, with a Kingdom being able to add 1 more state, and an Empire 2 more states. All non-tribal states can also add another state, and the Celestial Empire can have 2. Administrative technologies can add up to 7 more states to your realm, and if you get the administrative ideagroup fully filled out, you get another state as well.e.

There are a lot of posts on here that apparently missed those words and are worried that many small nations will only have 1 state. Only very small tribal nations will start out with 1 state. Everyone else will start out with at least 2.

Really, looking at it, only Savoy will seem to be hurt early on, but given that seven ADM levels will grant further states, I imagine if it can hold out with its (presumably) Swiss provinces being autonomous for a bit (provinces which they lost early on IRL in any case), they will be able to add that third state not too far into the game once the first necessary ADM tech is gained. By the time you would be able to form Prussia, if you don't have enough ADM tech (or be Kingdom level) to have gained that single extra state, you're doing it way wrong...

Honestly, other than a few rare exceptions, I imagine most Western tech nations will have more states available than they will actually need to use (until they reach otherwise unstoppable blob level)...

 

[Me_]

Its a minor growth for being more than 2 techs behind in 1 category.

I am surprised by the circular design here. Being behind in tech gives you a tech cost bonus (lowered tech cost), which means you have more MP to spend on other stuff. Meanwhile corruption will make it so that being behind in tech will make everything cost MP. A simple nerf to the strength of the tech cost reduction would accomplish the same desired effect, without complicating the issue by having it rely on two variables.

I can already picture patch 1.16 increasing the effect and/or speed of increase of corruption to combat player strategies for low corruption, followed by a cry to increase tech cost reduction from being behind, followed by other changes to both in a spiral that will continue until another added variable complicates the issue.

 

[Ternega]

Honestly, other than a few rare exceptions, I imagine most Western tech nations will have more states available than they will actually need to use (until they reach otherwise unstoppable blob level)...

I really don't think a nation small enough to be a single state should be affected by hurdles of such concepts as regions, don't get me wrong this isn't a world ending affair, but from my understanding states serve to limit empires from becoming nonsensically rich, not to force small nations to expand in an arbitrary direction for no reason other than geographical constructs as this is nonsensical in it's own right. Tribal nations already get a major bunch of problems to deal with, why add to that?

That all being said I think all nations should simply have access to 3 states, but gain no bonus states for kingdom rank or non-tribal status. This are just my 2 cents on the matter.

 

[durbal]

I've been reading people complaining over and over that blobbing is the best way to play and it's easy to be so big by mid game that nothing is a challenge. So they add corruption and States to add drawbacks to explosive growth. It's actually fewer points to expand but you get less back. And now people are complaining.

I just don't get it.

Because when you get that huge you have infinite cash and can do whatever you want ergo corruption isn't an issue at all. At most it forces you to pause before you begin rampaging over whole territories again, meanwhile those around you actually have to deal with corruption and some take additional penalties due to having inferior tech.

 

[krushka5]

States and Territories:
Although I like the idea of this concept it does not seem to be implemented in an fashion that is befitting the period as well as the degree of agency players expect. Perhaps have a States and Territories tab that the player can assign provinces to (with a maximum province count for States and territories), can allot a name (for example a Brandenburg-Prussian player may wish to assign Poland to a South Prussia territory and the Baltic to an East Prussia state or a Savoy player may wish to have a predominantly Italian based state that crosses slightly into France) and perhaps establish laws to certain territories (such as to lower revolt risk or to gain tax income despite the raised autonomy floor).

I would argue that such a system would be much more engaging, entertaining and historically accurate over of the arbitrary pre-established region locked system. This being established I do like the region system I just don't believe it should be used in the planned state system as different players will have different historical perspectives and preferences as they expand.

Corruption:
Sounds entertaining although I would question the accuracy of mercantilism (excluding absolute or extremely high mercantilism) being connected to corruption, more then often it was free traders that fell into this category. A good example of which would be the Potato Famine of Ireland where in the name of preserving the growing shift towards free agency in the economy the Monarchy refused to distribute relief supplies (although contributed a small token relief which largely made the situation worse as most "relief" funds where used to build exportation infrastructure) and opted for market based responses, of which did not help largely because greed for cheap wheat (albeit expensive by Irish terms largely because none of it circulated across the domestic markets as it was almost entirely exported for profit) on the mainland prevailed over the starving Irish so much of the limited food supplies where shipped to mainland Britain.

This being established however as their are no truly laissez-faire economies (either today or in the past) it should be assumed that if represented protestant peasants where effected there would of been a mercantilist redistribution of resources instead of hands off approach.

If a counterbalance against Mercantilism is required why not create a double-sided mercantilism vs laissez-faire bar that is increased and decreased through the usual means (events etc) with both affecting corruption in their respective extremes.

 

[itsuart]

Its a minor growth for being more than 2 techs behind in 1 category.

If it is minor as in 'you will hardly register it', why bother introducing it?
if it is minor as in 'you will still notice it' then:
1. Small (poor) countries will suffer more than big and rich (because advisers)
2. It is downward spiral.
3. You get punished twice by the same RNG (rulers stats)

And as aside: what is historical basis of this? Were there any nation that suffered increased corruption because of lagging behind in tech?

 

[Gamengervi]

Its a minor growth for being more than 2 techs behind in 1 category.

I'm sorry if this has already been answered, but does being more than one technology behind a neighbor also result in just a flat growth increase or does it stack?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Having now read through all 22 pages of this thread, may I please highlight what appear to be the most overlooked few words in Paradox history:



There are a lot of posts on here that apparently missed those words and are worried that many small nations will only have 1 state. Only very small tribal nations will start out with 1 state. Everyone else will start out with at least 2.

Really, looking at it, only Savoy will seem to be hurt early on, but given that seven ADM levels will grant further states, I imagine if it can hold out with its (presumably) Swiss provinces being autonomous for a bit (provinces which they lost early on IRL in any case), they will be able to add that third state not too far into the game once the first necessary ADM tech is gained. By the time you would be able to form Prussia, if you don't have enough ADM tech (or be Kingdom level) to have gained that single extra state, you're doing it way wrong...

Honestly, other than a few rare exceptions, I imagine most Western tech nations will have more states available than they will actually need to use (until they reach otherwise unstoppable blob level)...

The concern is not western tech nations.

That said, I don't anticipate the "state vs territory" mechanic having the same potential for damage as corruption unless the surrounding mechanics change significantly.

Focus on the point of what I said rather than focusing on the horde part. The very last sentence is what I meant by that context. They announced a change in a dev diary that looked absolutely terrible, QA tested it and in practice it was in fact as terrible as we thought it was in theory so they removed it.

That one was really obvious though, and we still got some *major* over-tuning. QA for exact balance tuning isn't easy, but if it were just a matter of that rather than its general concept I wouldn't have made the points the way I did. As others pointed out, if it's too small to matter, why put development time on it? On the flip side, if it isn't then it's going to cause a lot of unstable equilibrium damage, just by the nature of the factors. Maybe they will just change the factors, but it's still somewhat alarming because the nations that get hit by these kinds of changes tend to be left alone long periods.

 

[Standstill]

Sounds like you guys are trying your best to not let big blobs snowball anymore, but I'm worried about how the sates / territory interact with estates.

And corruption, dunno. It be nice to add a way to destroy a state "diplomatically" with spies, but right now it awfully sounds like Inflation 2.0.

 

[yls3431]

Corruption, states and territories looks promising.