Welcome to another development diary about Europa Universalis IV. This time we talk about something that will be in the next major patch we do.

One of the parts of the game that has not changed much since eu1 is the concept of technology groups and technological development around the world. We’ve added concepts like westernising, and tweaked that one, but in the end Europe has a huge advantage from day 1, and lots of fun gameplay options are limited the further away you are.

So this is what will happen in 1.18, when it is released this autumn..

A nation’s technology group no longer affect technology research.

There is now a concept called Institutions, which will affect your technology research. There are seven different institutions that appear over the game, and if you don’t get them to spread into your country and then get embraced by your government, your technology costs will slowly rise.

Each institution will appear in a province fullfilling certain factors, and then slowly spread around the world. The nation owning that province will gain prestige and monarch power.

Every year the penalty for not having embraced an institution will grow by 1%, so there is a gradual process.

When an institution has spread to at least 10% of your development, you can embrace it in your government, removing the penalty permanently, and also giving a bonus to your nation. The cost to embrace depends on the amount of development in your nation without the institution.

All institutions spread over borders (including 1 seazone away), if relations are positive, and the spread is based on development in the province getting it. There are also lots of other factors related to the spread.

So which are the the seven institutions then?

Feudalism
This is present from the start in almost all the world, except among the hordes, new world and sub-saharan africa. It will slowly spread into neighboring lands, but it is not quick.
Bonus: Gives 1 extra free leader.
Penalty: 50%


Renaissance
This appears in Italy after 1450, in either a capital or a 20+ development province. It will spread quickly through high development in europe, particularly through italy, but can only spread into provinces that have feudalism already.
Bonus: 5% Cheaper Development & 5% Cheaper Buildings
Penalty: 20%


Colonialism
Appears after 1500 in a port province in Europe, who’s owner has the Quest of the New World idea, and have discovered the new world. And will spread very quickly through any port in countries with colonies.
Bonus: +10% Provincial Trade Power
Penalty: 20%


Printing Press
This arrives after 1550, most likely in germany, but can happen in any protestant or reformed province. It will spread quickly in Protestant and Reformed territory, but also into capitals with dip tech 15.
Bonus: 5& Cheaper Stability
Penalty: 20%


Global Trade
This arrives after 1600, in a center of trade in the highest value trade node, and will spread quicker into provinces with trade buildings.
Bonus: +1 Merchant
Penalty: 20%

Manufactories
This arrives after 1650 in a province with 30 development and a manufactory, and will spread quicker into provinces with manufactories.
Bonus: +10% Goods Produced
Penalty: 20%

Enlightenment
Arrives after 1700 in a province that either is a seat of a parliament, or is a province in europe owned by a monarch with at least 5 in all stats. Universities & Parliament Seats spread this institution.
Bonus: 25% Cheaper Culture Conversion
Penalty: 30%
​

What does this mean?


The progress of Europe is not guaranteed, but most importantly, a nation in Asia or Africa is no longer crippled from day 1, and forced to avoid spending power on ideas and development.

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We’re constantly tweaking the spread factors, but here are some screenshots from mid 18th century in a hands-off game from this morning.

This is the institutions mapmode, where green are provinces that have all the enabled institutions, and yellow are don’t have them all.

And here is the technology mapmode, of the same game.

Some other aspects that has changed include the following
- New World Native Reforming will give you all institutions that the one you reform from has.
- Trade Companies are available to all technology groups.
- Lots and lots of triggers on western techgroups have been changed to check for specific relevant institutions.

 

[rayyuri]

This may be a good alternative to the current tech group system, but fine tuning will be extremely important for a good game.

Also, may we ask for an option so that these institutions can randomly appear in any province of the old world?

 

[WeissRaben]

I never said that EU IV was ever devotedly dedicated to accurately simulating history. What I said is that it continues to move away from history and more towards sandbox gameplay with features like the nation designer, random new world, this new tech system, as well as all the other many features that have been added that really don't have any historical context.


Ah no....I wasn't saying that it should be available in 1440, what I said was that it was a very important factor in both the Renaissance and the Reformation, both of which happened well before 1550. So how does that fit with the Johan remark that you quoted? If it is about how it changes things, then why does it happen well after these two events that drastically changed things and were considerably influenced by the printing press?

This new tech system is arguably more historical than "and you all are gimped for reasons". For one, it can actually depict situations like Japan (world leader in firearms production in 1600, needing modernization and fast in the 19th century).

 

[Lemont Elwood]

BTW, if technology group is not going to matter for technology itself, are there plans for an Institutions-per-Country mapmode? It would specifically color the countries by how many Institutions they lack relative to the current amount.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

Also, I'd suggest that Dutch Republics be able to develop the Enlightenment, and have a bonus to receiving it. The Netherlands was a major center of the historical Enlightenment.

 

[Praetorian44]

This new tech system is arguably more historical than "and you all are gimped for reasons". For one, it can actually depict situations like Japan (world leader in firearms production in 1600, needing modernization and fast in the 19th century).

Once again, I will repeat what I said in my original post. I agree, and have stated on multiple occasions, that EU IV's tech system is unhistorical, unbalanced, and not very good, thus it needed to be revamped. I'm not disagreeing with that, and nowhere in my post did I say that. What I'm disagreeing with is how Paradox is doing it. I would prefer a system where things generally follow history, and will only rarely go a different direction without player involvement. Europe should usually always lead in tech, with alternative scenarios happening rarely (and thus being kind of fun when they do). However, I expect (and the screen shots confirm) that this will not be the case. This is what I'm disagreeing with, and it is this part that I think is worse than the old tech system when it comes to being historical, not the actual mechanics of them.

 

[JosephConrad]

I like this idea. I'd prefer their to be more "institutions" and for them to be less linear, but still this is a fantastic thing.

 

[deanwebb]

I remember the events in EU1 that triggered only for a particular nation at a particular time. Made it very important to time your ownership of the Netherlands if one was France, Spain, or Austria, but anyone else could plow in and grab the territory... some of these have "gamey" features like that built into them.

I know it's harder work, but... these need to kick off based upon conditions other than geography/nationality. For example, "Printing Press". The German OPMs were "tall and narrow", so they were already well-placed to go with that innovation because of that, not because they were German or Protestant. In fact, there were many Catholics that took to the presses to spread their propaganda in fighting Protestantism.

There should also be significant penalties for taking on innovations. They should be a risk - Louis XVI thought it would be a good idea to convene the Estates-General for a brief session about finances... China's path was to resist innovations that increased unemployment and unrest, but to embrace those that improved farming and mining output, as well as refinements in artisan techniques. Ottomans, Mughuls, Safavids, and Russians were the "gunpowder empires", going after military innovations and letting the arts and letters side of things take a back seat. Shah Akbar of the Mughuls *wanted* to revolutionize religion in his empire, but that went nowhere after he died. So, yes, innovate if you want to, but there could be a sharp risk of revolt, rebellion, or rollback on ones that the people or elites feel go too far. Stability hits, increased unrest, mutinies, government change - all should be risk factors. Adopting innovations should be like navigating a difficult strait.

Spain was famous for having a spurt of growth and then centuries of conservatism - that should be something for every huge empire to consider. Whereas, who's to say that Navarra, if it survives on its own, couldn't be where some of these innovations kick off? Or a very well-played small Asian state?

How about multiple "homes" for innovations, as in the case of the Reformation Centers. This time, though, the speed of dissemination within a nation is a function of how fast the ruler wants to go. A "Printing Press" idea that begins in a very conservative Austria might slowly spread to the OPMs nearby, but once it hits those locations, the rulers there may choose to adopt much faster than the Austrians and spread their innovation forth all the faster.

And for players that wish to resist, there should still be that involuntary creep - like with the Reformation. Being friendly to an innovative nation means that, yes, those innovations are on their way to your lands, like them or not. This is why there was a League of Three Emperors - they weren't having any of that Liberalism nonsense! They befriended each other and took a stand against voting and horrible things like that.

And, so help me, if this feature leads to a general consensus that optimal play is to be a Germanic OPM with trade in the North Sea until 1690, and then unleash the Kraken... then it's not the right direction. To that end, trade flows have to be reversible. If I'm running the table with Seville as my center, those merchants from Genoa need to come to my yard to drink my milkshake. Seville trade should not keep flowing to Genoa all the way to 1820. Maybe there should be no "ultimate node" centers like Genoa, Venice, and North Sea.

I've loved EU since, well, you can see when I joined the forums. I love it as an open-ended sandbox that allows me to ask questions, do a few console mods, and then let the rich game engine answer those for me. I don't want to play a game as much as I want to let history go down its own rabbit-hole. The changes that made owning the Netherlands a tricky situation for any non-Dutch monarch are part of what makes the game great. Changes that make it vital to control Nuremberg by 1550 do not make it great.

Multiple centers of change, big risks, event chains, reversible trade flows: more of those, please!

 

[bbqftw]

There's usually plenty of reasons not to do so though. Not wanting to be a pariah state with the large and powerful catholic countries like Austria, Castile, France, and Poland is a strong reason to keep your head down. The moment the leagues form there's no way to know who will sever their alliance with you.

given nerf to conquest CB pretty much the only guys who should remain catholic are the emperor and hordes

Once again, I will repeat what I said in my original post. I agree, and have stated on multiple occasions, that EU IV's tech system is unhistorical, unbalanced, and not very good, thus it needed to be revamped. I'm not disagreeing with that, and nowhere in my post did I say that. What I'm disagreeing with is how Paradox is doing it. I would prefer a system where things generally follow history, and will only rarely go a different direction without player involvement. Europe should usually always lead in tech, with alternative scenarios happening rarely (and thus being kind of fun when they do). However, I expect (and the screen shots confirm) that this will not be the case. This is what I'm disagreeing with, and it is this part that I think is worse than the old tech system when it comes to being historical, not the actual mechanics of them.

are we looking at the same picture?

 

[Demetrios]

Might I suggest renaming the Printing Press innovation? Johan has even posted again on here and explained the historical situation it actually represents, but there are still dozens of posters who seem to believe it means "invention of the printing press" and not "the spread of literacy and the exchange of ideas that the mass production of books created some decades after the printing press was invented". I'm not sure what would be the best thing to rename it, but it definitely needs to be renamed if the confusion here is anything to go by...

 

[Linkigi]

Could we have the option to turn off "historical innovations" the way we turn off historical lucky nations? E.g. Renaissance appears in a random high-development center of trade, and colonialism can appear in any country with colonies?

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I think that it would be best to change this from a date system to a tech level system for tech rate increases. Otherwise you have certain parts of the world getting slower and slower in tech rate regardless of how advanced they are as the game goes on. I'd rather see it like, level 10 techs cost 5% or 10% more if you don't have renaissance, further increasing by 5% or 10% each level after that up to the max penalty for that institution. Then you're not in a hurry to try and get one more tech or two as primitives or trying to time your tech increases just before another institution kicks in. That could even be used to replace ahead of time penalties.

How does this change affect your max stored monarch points?

 

[Vishaing]

Yeah the "Printing Press" Institution could instead be renamed something to do with Mass Literacy and it would clear up a lot of confusion and be a better representation of what was such a big shift in society.

Actually, a better idea might be "Emerging Middle Class" as that was another rather big change that happened.

 

[adlerchen]

given nerf to conquest CB pretty much the only guys who should remain catholic are the emperor and hordes

I suppose that's true, but religious still feels like a weak early game idea group for central and western europe. Exploration, diplomatic, and economic are probably still gonna be the typical gotos depending on the country.

 

[Prince Ire]

There's usually plenty of reasons not to do so though. Not wanting to be a pariah state with the large and powerful catholic countries like Austria, Castile, France, and Poland is a strong reason to keep your head down. The moment the leagues form there's no way to know who will sever their alliance with you.

And yet in multiplayer, almost everyone goes Protestant or Reformed because they're stronger unless you are a country like Spain that directly benefits from national ideas for staying Catholic or your RPing.

 

[axyarthur]

Shouldn't China / Ming have printing press? They were the ones who invented them...several hundred years before the Europeans.

 

[Prince Ire]

Shouldn't China / Ming have printing press? They were the ones who invented them...several hundred years before the Europeans.

But they're not Protestant, so clearly they never bothered printing anything.

 

[adlerchen]

And yet in multiplayer, almost everyone goes Protestant or Reformed because they're stronger unless you are a country like Spain that directly benefits from national ideas for staying Catholic or your RPing.

Of course. MP requires a totally different strategy because the players don't play like the AIs and they can choose to make and keep alliances no matter what.

 

[The_Irish_Lion]

This is pretty intriguing... I always hated it how, if I played as the Chinese, I was forced to spend every waking minute and resource to outfit the empire to present even a slight resistance chance against the Europeans who came around the horn in 40 years... This sounds like a great game balancer now! I only hope that it doesn't incur too much penalties like how the estates did in Cossacks. Other than that small complaint...Keep up the great stuff!

 

[Gwayne]

This is absolutely ridiculous from a historical point of view.

The printing press came before the Reform.

In fact the biggest printing center in Europe was Venice, which wasn't exactly a protestant center of reformation...

I wonder why everyone is nagging about the printing press in itself. I do assume that it is related to the Gutenberg bible.

This does not actually refer to the invention of the printing press but how it was used. That was a big change in how people started to think about printing.

It became a mass media. The connection to Protestantism is that they shifted from using latin to local languages for bibles, something that was opposed by the Catholic church.

So suddenly people could get easier access to books, what changed the world as they knew it. And moved books and bibles out of the exclusivity of the church.

Thats what I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible

 

[Grand Historian]

I really like the changes, but I hope they won't be too easy to just complete as Indian or Chinese nations - I would rather not have all of East Asia, India and Persia adopting manufactories and the like before Iberia and the Ottomans. At best, I would just hope that some of the internal hurdles such nations would have to overcome before they can begin adopting radically new ideas (stifling caste systems, overbearing Confucian bureaucracies, etc.) would be somewhat represented.