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.

------

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.

 

[OldmansHQ]

THIS IS AMAZING! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OGMOGMG GOGMOMGOGMOGOMGOGM

Ok, ok. I'm god now...

HYYYYYYYYYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HPYW HPYWPHG YPEPHPYPE

I do wonder what is that new MapMode... Charity Mapmode ^_^? And what's that new tab, between political and diplomatic tabs. The icon makes me think of 'institutions', but they are already situated in the technology tab, so... Could institutions be more interactive, influencing more than tech?

 

[Tufto]

Oh, excellent! I've been wanting a more naturalistic tech development for a long time- this is fantastic news. Best thing to happen to EU4 in a long while.

 

[Liquidstuff]

I am so hyped. Well done Eu4 team.

 

[Ninaran]

So.. no way for Ming to get rid of the terrible Celestial Empire anymore? Seems like a harsh nerf.

 

[Metallord]

yes

Cool, so for big empires, how long would it take to spread?

For example France having a penalty a bit longer than the surrounding little ones might just curb their overexpansion a bit (hopefully)

This could potentially make wars with big empires more interesting too, can the smaller technologically more advanced troops win from the pile off Less advanced Soldiers big nations can throw at them?

Anyway does the spread follow trade routes? And can it jump to the next trade node if eg a big country is taking forever to embrace it due to being massively huge?

Oh and maybe Some nations could get Some event making the spread treshold bigger or smaller or something to reflect how willing the People where to embrace a certain institution at the time?

Also for hordes of you manage to surround yourself with feudals and when you finally settle down cause Razing doesnt give u enough monarch points anymore.. Than i'm guessing the spread would be rather fast ?

 

[Metallord]

I suspect that England rivalled France, as it usually does. England doesn't have many neighbors.

Perhaps the "friendly" requirement can be removed? I don't really know why it's a thing, anyway.

It could potentially still spread from from a dutch minor or Portugal or something. Also there's Also the thing with crappy english kings making tech up harder off course.

 

[Arcaian]

Cool, so for big empires, how long would it take to spread?

For example France having a penalty a bit longer than the surrounding little ones might just curb their overexpansion a bit (hopefully)

This could potentially make wars with big empires more interesting too, can the smaller technologically more advanced troops win from the pile off Less advanced Soldiers big nations can throw at them?

Anyway does the spread follow trade routes? And can it jump to the next trade node if eg a big country is taking forever to embrace it due to being massively huge?

Oh and maybe Some nations could get Some event making the spread treshold bigger or smaller or something to reflect how willing the People where to embrace a certain institution at the time?

Also for hordes of you manage to surround yourself with feudals and when you finally settle down cause Razing doesnt give u enough monarch points anymore.. Than i'm guessing the spread would be rather fast ?

They stated that once you have accepted it into your empire, it becomes present in all your provinces (maybe not territories? they didn't make a distinction). So it takes however long for the empire to accept it once they've gotten it to 10% of development, if they wanted to. They might choose not to - it's more expensive.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

This is good to keep in mind. Especially for those worrying about the Printing Press. Yes Europe had plenty of printers before 1500

The number of active printers a hundred years later is _a lot_ higher than the one for the late 1400's.

They're also game mechanics and as such need names, they should not be taken too literally

maybe another name for this institution could clarify what it is supposed to represent? something like "The Printing Revolution" or "Free Printing Press".

all in all, this is a fantastic mechanic, and i'm overhoyed with the coming end of the awkward concept of westernization. great job, guys.

a few questions and remarks:

1) will Japan be scripted as to oppose Global Trade?

2) Printing Press does seem to come late, especially so that Colonialism, which comes before it, only took hold in real history after the printing revolution had already taken place. (massive colonial fevers were rather the matter of the latter half of the 16th century rather than 1500 on the dot.) it could be argued that these two instutions should be switched around--except then it wouldn't be feasible to have Printing Press tie in with the Reformation, which is a really nice historical touch. so overall, i'm glad that the press comes after Colonialism.

3) however, having Printing Press prefer Protestant and Reformed provinces, will there be also a simulation of how Catholicism opposed free print (things like the Index Librorum Prohibitorum)?

4) it would be really nice to have an Industrial Revolution going on since 1750. i suppose you too have thought about it, and considered such a late institution unlikely to significantly affect the game in just under 70 years of game time, right?

 

[Dnote]

I actually like that positive opinion is required, but would like the distance it can spread increased (over sea tiles).

If England has rivaled France, then it should still be able to get the spread from the Dutch lowlands, German/Danish provinces or Iberia. They were all very connected through trade and diplomacy in that time.

For example, Gunpowder was invented in China, but it didn't spread to Europe through the nations across land, it came back along the trade routes to the nations that saw the potential of it. And then filtered back to the rest of the world with those European nations, through conquest.

 

[vfmikey]

- Trade Companies are available to all technology groups.

Jaaaaaas!

Finally, the world will know the might of Moldavian slave traders.

 

[Oceanflex]

One step closer to making the whole Europe is OP thing generic. Now you just need to make trade flow realign and reverse to new end nodes depending on whoever's capital has a massive colonial network or hegemony.

 

[Wagonlitz]

1) If you embrace it, it appears in all your provinces.

Can you have more than one institution embraced at a time?

 

[Viengua]

(How) Does Ming now switch gov't type?

 

[Metallord]

They stated that once you have accepted it into your empire, it becomes present in all your provinces (maybe not territories? they didn't make a distinction). So it takes however long for the empire to accept it once they've gotten it to 10% of development, if they wanted to. They might choose not to - it's more expensive.

Fair point Also they might have another tech bonus from ideas and thus maybe be able to wait a while before embracing it

 

[SolSys]

Can you have more than one institution embraced at a time?

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

The emphasize added by me.

 

[FieldMedic]

Some thoughts and questions about this dev diary:

- If the first institution is Feudalism and the penalty is 1% a year, does that mean that some North American tribe is going to have the same research speed as France in 1444?
- Is there any way to slow the spread of institutions to other countries?
- Why is Britain so backward compared to the rest of western Europe? Especially when I see southern India has better tech?
- Why haven't you fixed the Russia AI yet? Muscovy hasn't formed Russia by the 18th Century and is still mostly confined to their starting borders doesn't seem right.

 

[Wagonlitz]

The emphasize added by me.

That is on a province level; I am talking about on the government level where you can imbrace institutions.

 

[Shadowstrike]

I'm excited to see the end of tech groups which were one of the last vestiges of Eurocentrism. However the tech spread from Europe out is still pretty western-focused - as I'm sure others have pointed out already, the printing press was widespread in China before this period, as were manufactories (the porcelain works at Jingdezhen were already acclaimed in Ming China for instance).

I'd like to see tech modifiers be driven 1) by circumstances rather than by railroading, and 2) for there to be a tension between stability/estate loyalty/unrest and tech advancement.

I think the strongest factors affecting tech advancement should be neighbor bonuses (more states means more competition) There should be modifiers for tech based on what is happening to your nation. So if you have high army tradition then mil tech should get cheaper. When you combine these two then places with many competing states (like western europe) really take off as tech bonuses diffuse.

The other side to this is that tech should be juxtaposed with stability/estate loyalty/revolt risk, and those should be harder and more costly to maintain in large states (one might argue that large states should also have a larger tech cost as it is tougher to implement reform in more places).

This creates a dynamic where places with single giant empires focus more on stability eventually dragging them behind in tech (like China, the ottomans and russia), where places with lots of little competing states race ahead. Large European states would be advantaged by being close to innovative smaller ones, like how England/France/Spain piggybacked on advancements in the Netherlands, Germany or Portugal.

 

[Valkenvr]

So according to this north africa would be at the same level of institutions and tech as Castile/France/England (through Gibraltar), and maybe more than Austria/Poland/Ottomans/Russia??

I really don't like it. The spread of Westernization was bad enough already.

 

[Arcaian]

Some thoughts and questions about this dev diary:

- If the first institution is Feudalism and the penalty is 1% a year, does that mean that some North American tribe is going to have the same research speed as France in 1444?
- Is there any way to slow the spread of institutions to other countries?
- Why is Britain so backward compared to the rest of western Europe? Especially when I see southern India has better tech?
- Why haven't you fixed the Russia AI yet? Muscovy hasn't formed Russia by the 18th Century and is still mostly confined to their starting borders doesn't seem right.

1: Stated that the NA tribes start with the full 50% penalty from Feudalism, I believe.
2: It only spreads when there are positive relations between the nations.
3: Speculated that it's because of a French-English rivalry, and their bad leaders.