EU4 Development Diary - 25th February 2016

[highsis]

Contradiction or hypocrisy?

Misdefinition on your end, I'm afraid. Casuals calling someone a hardcore gamer doesn't mean the hardcore gamer is 'wrong' and vice versa. If a conservative calls another a progressive because they have different views, does that make the other person wrong? They simply have a different stance, as I said in the sentence you quoted.

 

[Freudia]

Why would you expect it to work the exact opposite of what is said in the OP?

Because this is the same man who has said one thing and then implemented something entirely contrary to what he's said multiple times in the past. Remember truce timer changes?

I want to give him benefit of the doubt, but I've been around long enough to know not to trust things like this at face value, especially before we even get our hands on it.

 

[Vaximillian]

Misdefinition on your end, I'm afraid. Casuals calling someone a hardcore gamer doesn't mean the hardcore gamer is 'wrong' and vice versa. If a conservative calls another a progressive because they have different views, does that make the other person wrong? They simply have a different stance, as I said in the sentence you quoted.

Nah, we both know what „hardcore“ and „casual“ labels mean nowadays. «„Casuals“ want everything on a silver platter and ruin enjoyment for „hardcore“.»
It wasn't me to use „casual“ in derogatory sense in my original post, it was you. And now you're backpedaling, hiding behind definitions and smart sentences.
Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

 

[Jaapje]

After a good nights sleep; I woke up finding the whole territory/state thing to be kind of wasteful.

Which problem exactly is being solved by this new system? Doesnt feel a lot more historic to me to have to look at regions defined in the modern age to determine optimal roads of expansion during late medieval/renaissance times.

Gameplay wise it uses the same system; instead of continents it's pre-defined regions. Using the same method differently will just produce the same problems differently.

I feel armies, forts and their ZoC should have a larger impact on autonomy. Afterall "political power rolls from the barrel of a gun". Garrisons and armies enforce state controll, not some line on a map or a dude in a suit saying x province is now "a core province of an empire 6000 miles away". For historic accuracy autonomy should be based on the presence of local law enforcement (either payed by the state 0% autonomy floor or estates 25%?? autonomy floor).

Coring should be achieved by changing or accepting a culture. Either should be achieved gradually over time. So if France would capture milan they would work to make them French. But if they'd conquer all of italy they'd strive to make that culture group accepted instead.

The ease of culture swapping/accepting would be based on distance from home region and diplo tech.

Just some ideas that would to me feel more historic than "regions"

 

[Lord Sauron]

I believe it would just impact and in some sort of way balance your income. Espacially between nations like netherlands and russia. (related to the state/territory mechanic which weirdly was posted the same day as corruption, and you forgot that making you an empire gives you access to one more state and with the points you spent on coring territories instead of state you can't actually compare your tech level with the one you will be in 1.16)

i don't know
the fact is that you are going to get either the same or less returns/mana ratio

if you are conquering inside one of your states you are going to get a ratio of 1 (cause LA floor is 0 and coring cost is full)
if you are conquering outside one you are getting a ratio of 0.5 (cause LA floor is 75 and coring cost is halved, so you are getting a quarter of the land for half the cost)

so only if you are conquering only inside states you are going to get the same expansion benefits than before the patch, if you are expanding where there are possibilities, and thus sometimes in territories, you'll get less for the same mana.


But this applies to everyone, so everyone will be roughly at the same relative strength as everyone else.
So since you will be making the roughly the same relative money to you neighbors the only thing that will affect tech advancement will be your tech group.
So less advanced nation bordering more advanced nation will lag behind in tech as they do now, but after the patch they are going to have to pay to fight corruption on top of that meaning they are going to be able to generate even less mp (less money equals worse advisors) locking them behind more firmly.

Now that I think about it if your advanced neighbor is western (or even eastern I think) the thing may get worse.
He is able to create trade companies in some territories and, since most western nations are in or near end-nodes, get more money from them (or steal more money from you, the effect is the same).
Extra money means extra good advisors thus extra mana etc.. leaving you behind.

its either westernize or remain behind.


On a side note
the states territories mechanic, fixed borders are meh but I dont think they are much of a problem.

They wont really affect "AI-style" blobbing (no vassal wall to get oversea coring that gets later integrated, AI doesn't do that)
since we are going to see
1) same blobs as before that makes the same money but inside predefined borders (expansion only inside states)
2) blobs twice as big as before that make half the money (expansion only inside territories)
3)everything in between (mixed expansion)

so yeah all hail the BBB



edit: state/territories will clearly fix the current oversea mechanic giving more choices to the player, which is good, and will eliminate the vassal wall strategy (exploit might be more appropriate), which is also good.

 

[Canute VII]

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll talk about features that will be part of the next patch, and will enhance the historical feeling of the game.

The first of these major paradigm shifting concepts is what we refer to as States and Territories. A large part of the game has been related to what you can do with a province depending on if it is overseas or not. With the overseas concept, there have been very many limitations that have reduced immersion.

What we have now, is that every region you own and control is represented as a Territory. Provinces in a Territory, unless the Territory is upgraded to a State, is considered overseas for almost all previous rules when it comes to things like coring, autonomy, trade companies etc. So why would you not just make everything into a state then you ask?

Well.. First of all, each state that is not your capital has a maintenance cost in gold, which is dependent on its development, the distance to the capital and if it is on another continent or not.

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.

You can at any time abandon a state to become a territory, but then it’s autonomy will grow to 75% immediately, while it takes time for it to decay down after making a territory to a state.

Your capitals region is always a state, and can not be downgraded to a territory. Another benefit from this is the rule change when it comes to capitals. You can now move capital to any province in a state that is your core.

Coring in a Territory is 50% cheaper, but the cores created are “colonial cores”, which require an instant upgrade cost when it becomes a state. If a province is still a colonial core and not upgraded when a state, the autonomy will not go below 50%.

While doing this we have revised the setup of regions on the map, so they are more similar in the amount of provinces they contain.

Our second large feature from today is Corruption. Corruption is a state in your country, easily seen in the topbar. The higher corruption you have the worse off your country becomes. Corruption affects all power costs in a country by up to 100%, and it also increases minimum autonomy by up to 50%. Corruption also affects your defence against hostile spies and your capacity to build up spynetworks in another nations.

Corruption increases include the following.

• Mercantilism
• Being an Empire
• Hostile Spy Action
• Having one tech being more than 2 techs behind another.
• Being more than 1 tech behind a neighbour.

Corruption is reduced by the following.

• Investing money, you now have a slider indicating how much money you want to spend on combating corruption. This cost is scaled like advisor costs are scaled through time.
• Being ahead of time in administrative or diplomatic technology.
• Being a Duchy

The actual numbers are still in the balance phase here, so won't mention them just yet..

There are alerts indicating if corruption is growing or not, and there are plenty of events triggering and/or affecting corruption. Having no corruption, and not having corruption growing can even trigger some really beneficial events.

Finally, one of the remaining espionage actions we mentioned in an earlier development diary is related to corruption. You can for a very high cost of your network place down a spy to increase corruption in the target country for five years. Of course, only one can do it in the target at a time.

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

Johann, while I agree with this one (since it refers to internal imbalances), your diary also says, corruption is increased for being more than 1 tech behind a neighbor.

This I do not quite understand the motivation for. How does being behind in tech relative to a neighbor influence my country's corruption? I think there simply is no causal link. In what you plan, it would either mean that I have to spent more money keeping corruption down or, given a fixed budget, increasing corruption. The first option means I will have to spend more money, but what is the relation here to being behind in tech? Increasing corruption then would mean higher tech cost to my country. So, clearly, being behind in tech makes me become even more behind in tech (since tech costs increase). It doesn't really make sense to me.

I wonder why you do not use a different mechanic like development to determine the amount of corruption. This way, you could model a "mezzogiorno" effect. Countries with very heterogeneous provinces in development terms, then would have higher corruption, since these internal differences would lead to mutual abuse comparable to Italy's contemporary North-South divide. A metric you could use would be e.g. the variance of all cored provinces development. Why is development not part of the calculation?

 

[ChildeR]

Which problem exactly is being solved by this new system?

The much complained-about overseas system is replaced by one that even gives choice to the player. There is no longer a capital connection that can be broken and reformed in a gamey way or by accidental occupations.

 

[Melabranche]

Territory/state/corruption
Whot about achievement like - "First Come, First Serve"?
I must make new colony fast, spend a lot of AP and money, but more important, I need spend a lot of DP for Exploration Idea fast (which slow me in Dip Tech -> corruption), take (if lucky) every costal province (5 regions in S America - > more state / less money), and, if lucky, quick upgrade duchy to kingdom, so I can have more states (more money, but ... duchy is only gov type, which reduce corruption -> more corruption), and don't forget about army (3-6k on colony) to protect colony, which need money, and now, fighting corruption (even less money). And that is only start.
But, there is always a Golden Rule: - IA don't care -

 

[durbal]

Well, by comparison an unlimited connection would be something like "pay X ducats to gain Y MP, and pay W MP to gain Z ducats."

Advisers are limited to a modifier range of +0 to +3, and the costs are drastic enough that they're typically used in different game periods.

That's totally beside the point. A nation that's able to run +3s when others are running +1s or +2s can get ahead in tech, causing neighbors to have increased corruption, and yadda yadda we know the rest. The fact that there's no unlimited and direct way to exchange ducats for MP doesn't change the fact that money and mana are two interrelated currencies with different exchange rates between them. A corruption slider just adds another exchange medium. Might as well also increase inflation for neighbors having higher income.

I don't believe there's a 'sweet spot' for balancing increased corruption for being behind in tech compared to neighbors. It's random, arbitrary, and serves little or no real purpose. Defending it because it's a dev design decision seems to be the only reason people are defending it at all.

 

[Frogbait]

Every statement you make is under the belt...... But pardon me for using analogies

And every statement you make is rather idiotic. I'm not even the one you directed this post at. You have been going on at length in this thread repeatedly making extremely wordy posts with no actual point or concept behind them. Frankly either shut up or actually respond in a constructive way rather than trying to back your point up by providing very vague and loose metaphors that don't even address the post you're replying to trying to refute. You're right that people aren't taking your posts seriously because it's pretty near impossible to take them seriously.

casuals downvoting lol

I love the direction the game is going. This is an implementation of an administrative efficiency I've been longed for since EU4 launch. This is fantastic since a nation's strength won't be 100% proportional with its size with the change as it was before. That means less snowballing, and longer time frame in which playing your nation stays interesting before it becomes a chore. This change might help me play full 400 years without losing interest.

Corruption reminds me of Magna Mundi the Game. Adding features like this can make people who grew tired of the game return again. Yet another helpful and interesting internal management mechanics.

This DD made me stop the current playthrough. Keep up the good work, Johan.

The whole casuals thing is not used correctly in this context imo. Especially when you consider that a lot of the "hardcore" players have come into this thread or posted on Reddit saying how this is a terrible implementation rather decent ideas as defined in this DD.

Making it harder to keep an empire together is great when it provides actual challenge. Making mechanics with little-no interaction that arbitrarily restricts your growth is just tedium and anti-fun.

Are corruption and states/territories a great idea for challenging your empire to stay together when you decide to expand? Of course. Why people are upset about this change is because the implementation of it is terrible. These mechanics as stated is just taking a lot away from player choices in exchange for a very un-interactive system that results in less then what we had before.

 

[net.split]

Are corruption and states/territories a great idea for challenging your empire to stay together when you decide to expand? Of course. Why people are upset about this change is because the implementation of it is terrible. These mechanics as stated is just taking a lot away from player choices in exchange for a very un-interactive system that results in less then what we had before.

Do you mind explaining exactly what you mean by this part? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious precisely what you mean. For example, I see that we're getting a new slider to tweak (though admittedly it's mostly a false choice -- you never let it low enough to grow corruption unless it will literally cause bankruptcy otherwise), and the choice of which regions to turn into states is a new one. Mercantilism-boosting options are less of a false choice and more of an interesting dilemma now.

Prior strategies like lapsing Dip Tech are perhaps less effective than they used to be, but they aren't strictly removed as an option; they just have a ducat upkeep cost now. If it's prohibitively expensive then yeah that's a false choice, but screenshots and comments from Johan suggest that's not the case.

Which player choices have we lost?

 

[The Akkadian]

Add a "Governor" type Leader alongside Generals and Admirals that can be assigned to States. Each Governor will have four stats; Tax, Trade, Manpower, Construction, rated from 0-6 like Generals and Admirals, which provide boosts to that particular area.

This might be the best idea on this thread.

 

[Ternega]

This might be the best idea on this thread.

Because what this grand strategy game really needs is more rng. /s

 

[Ilightmaster]

Why people are upset about this change is because the implementation of it is terrible.

How do you know ?

I'm done from now on... but this message really piece me off

 

[Milith]

Which player choices have we lost?

This change penalizes specialization. Why is it a good thing?

 

[atwix]

I read the first part three times, and i still don't get it.

Bad sign.

This is eu4 dev diary right?

Not crusader king 2?

If I do read this right, then you just penalised all nations on a 'border' between many regions, like Savoy.

Guess I'll be stubborn and read through the thread a bit.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

What's the point of this feature? Penalizing border states? I don't get it.

 

[Ternega]

I read the first part three times, and i still don't get it.

Bad sign.

This is eu4 dev diary right?

Not crusader king 2?

In essence for every region on the map you get a choice treat provinces in it as overseas aka "territory" (50% RCC, 75 LA floor) or as a "state" (no special rules). Region containing your capital is always a state, you can designate additional region as a state for any of the following: Non-tribal gov type (+1), Kingdom rank(+1), Empire rank (+1 on top of kingdom to a total of +2), Full admin idea group (+1), Admin Tech (up to +7 when maxed). If you designate former "territory" as a state LA all cheap (aka colonial) cores will still be limited to 50 LA floor, but can be upgaded by paying the rest (50%) of the price for a normal core instantly.

 

[Frogbait]

Do you mind explaining exactly what you mean by this part? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious precisely what you mean. For example, I see that we're getting a new slider to tweak (though admittedly it's mostly a false choice -- you never let it low enough to grow corruption unless it will literally cause bankruptcy otherwise), and the choice of which regions to turn into states is a new one. Mercantilism-boosting options are less of a false choice and more of an interesting dilemma now.

Prior strategies like lapsing Dip Tech are perhaps less effective than they used to be, but they aren't strictly removed as an option; they just have a ducat upkeep cost now. If it's prohibitively expensive then yeah that's a false choice, but screenshots and comments from Johan suggest that's not the case.

Which player choices have we lost?

First I just wanted to thank you for conveying this response in a rather polite way. Not often to see that on the Internet.

Anyways, to your question:
We've essentially been restricted arbitrarily by this change into certain paths of expansion. if we choose to deviate or or expand at a pace faster than the states allow, we are punished for it by having a guaranteed floor of 75% LA in any territory not considered a state. At some point, yes we may have enough states to fully own all of the land we currently have and reap the benefits, but the majority of it gets unlocked gradually. To be able to build up a sizable powerbase, we are forced to select a few pre-defined regions and focus our expansion solely on those areas. You can no longer own parts of several areas since you'll be restricted early on to a limit of at best 4 states if my memory is not failing me. So pick 4 of any regions and you are forced to wage war for those territories regardless of what you would rather do due to getting severely punished for going outside of what the areas railroad us into. If you defy the states and manage to build a solid empire, well, unlike before, you will not be nearly as strong as you would be under current rules.

I'm focusing mostly on expansion and power bases since those are the things that allow you to make more and more choices. The choices you're getting forced into due to corruption and states is to expand into areas limited choice wise by states and at the rate that state unlocking and keeping up technologically allows since if you ignore corruption you'll get slammed by bad events and by losing more money which results in a weaker country which results in less and less options available to you.

If you want to have anything close to the same powerbase that you had previously, well you'll have to have some megavassals that you control with a smaller country than before. So realistically speaking, your megavassals will be forced to remain under a certain size until you're able to unlock more states.

Corruption is completely slider based. It sounds about as interactive as army maintence modifier is now. Sure there are maybe a few things you can do to lower it, however really your only interactions with it are adjusting the slider depending on if you need to pay the cost now or not. Don't pay the cost and get slammed by bad events that will destroy your country. Pay the cost and get slammed with good events that make running your country fine. If you decide corruption is not something you should be worried about, well you're likely going to have a huge realm issue regardless if your realm is at 0 war exhaustion, 0% OE, 3 stability, a great monarch, no revolt risk chance at all, caught up on techs, etc... It'll just completely negate the effects of everything that you choose to keep your country stable.

I have no idea how much I repeated myself, if I addressed your question sufficiently, or just rambled on incoherently. If I'm not making sense or if I need to elaborate a bit more on these points or clarify myself more, please let me know and I'll respond when I'm not at work

 

[atwix]

In essence for every region on the map you get a choice treat provinces in it as overseas aka "territory" (50% RCC, 75 LA floor) or as a "state" (no special rules). Region containing your capital is always a state, you can designate additional region as a state for any of the following: Non-tribal gov type (+1), Kingdom rank(+1), Empire rank (+1 on top of kingdom to a total of +2), Full admin idea group (+1), Admin Tech (up to +7 when maxed). If you designate former "territory" as a state LA all cheap (aka colonial) cores will still be limited to 50 LA floor, but can be upgaded by paying the rest (50%) of the price for a normal core instantly.

ok. That just started my theorycrafting mind.

If I cored high tax and development areas in trade company region as overseas territory (north india or China coast), and then make them regular cores and a state, what happens to trade companies?

What if I sell all my cores around my capital to a vassal or make a client state? Can I move capital to these overseas former trade companies, and core entire europe as overseas now? Oh wait, I can core my entire continent as territory now, right? D'oh... It 'll just be... territory.. not state? Sorry, I still don't get it.. Whatever happened to coring whatever you wanted in your own continent??

How does 'accepted culture' combine with this change? Savoy conquering entire occitan culture... Occitan accepted... But its not a state so bugger off? What exactly is this range from capital to expand outside the regions and still be part of the state? Or is this range nonexistant?

Does rcc from admin efficiency and idea groups and national diea groups affect the cost of making territory provinces into state provinces?

.........


Think i could conjure up a thousand more questions if I put my mind to it..