Hello, and welcome to a new era of EU4 development, where we’ll have development diaries talking about what we are doing almost every week.

One of the criticism we’ve had regarding EU4, have been that the game has always premiered conquest, and if you didn’t expand, you fell behind. In the next major update, you’ll be able to make an empire that is more focused on tall than on wide. After all, it is just common sense of us to listen to what the community is requesting.

Most of you are familiar with the concept of base tax. This permeates the game at so many fundamental levels, with everything from forcelimits to coring costs being coupled to this. We also had a value in a province that was called manpower. Trade-Goods produced was arcanely connected to the basetax, and there is not a single human being that could calculate how much manpower in a province actually

Now we have 3 separate values in a province called Base Tax, Base Production & Base Manpower.

Base Tax affects your monthly tax income as before, and also increases your defence against hostile spies.

Base Production impacts the amount of trade-goods produced in the province, and how quickly ships gets build in the province.

Each level of base manpower increased your nations maximum manpower by 250, and also impacts the garrison growth in the province, and how quickly regiments is recruited in that province.

All of them together is called “Development”, which describes how heavily populated and built up the province is. Each level of development increases the supply limit, forcelimits for your armies and navies and makes it harder to converts its religion.

Finally, the development level also allows you to be able to build more buildings in that province.

Wait?

What am I talking about here? Well, first of all, we have reduced the amount of possible buildings, as a large part were fillers. Secondly, we removed the power-cost for building buildings. And finally, not every province can have the same amount of buildings. Currently, a province can have 1 building as default, with some terrains like desert or mountains reducing it by 1, and some increasing it, like farmlands. And, every 10 development allows another building slot in a province. So Paris may be able to have 6 buildings in 1444, while Figuig can not support a single building.




Now you say that we haven’t really talked that much about wide versus tall, but bear with me.

You will be able to spend adm, dip or mil power to increase base tax, production and manpower respectively in a province, where of course the cost keep increasing, but if you dream about a 20 base tax Dublin, then you can do that Doing this in deserts or arctic climate is far more expensive than doing it in better climates. The ideas that affected build power costs, now affects the cost of improving your province. There is also technologies that decrease the cost of improving development in the later half of the game.

Here’s the example of a few buildings in the game.

Marketplace - Dip4 - +2 Trade Power - 50 gold
Barracks - Mil 6 - +25% Manpower - 50 gold
Cathedral - Adm 19 - +3% Missionary Strength & +40% Tax Income - 200 gold
Stock Exchange - Dip 22 - +100% Trade Power - 400 gold
Town Hall -Adm 22 -5 Local Unrest - 400 g

Next week, we’ll talk a little about something that fits England very well..

 

[puggle999]

Is this a DLC? or is it a free patch? Can we also have some kind of timeline for it?

 

[A-150]

Even if from a theorycraft point of view buildings are better, if going tall is as boring it is now, nobody is going to do it. I've done it with Ragusa. Half of the time I was waiting for cash/monarch points to build stuff and half of the time I was afraid to start too serious of a war otherwise foreign occupation might cancel my construction process.

Buildings themselves, unless they are spiced up, can't compensate for the lack of stuff to do during peace time and for the brittleness of the construction/conversion process.

This is why i got a faster computer to speed through peace times, 5-9 seconds per month beats +22 plus seconds. This game is more about war than anything else, besides what else is there to do during this era?

 

[WeissRaben]

This is why i got a faster computer to speed through peace times, 5-9 seconds per month beats +22 plus seconds. This game is more about war than anything else, besides what else is there to do during this era?

Honestly? A damn lot. One could argue that war was, all in all, a pretty minor factor in the course of the Early Modern Era in Europe, a notable exception being the Thirty Years War - balance of power seldom shifted by means of conquest before Napoleon. France conquered what, five provinces or so after the end of the HYW; Austria's backbone was inheritance, as it was for Castile; elsewhere, borders moved back and forth a lot with little changes overall.

But out of conquest...ooooh, boy. The Renaissance spread from Italy to the rest of Europe, mecenatism becoming a very real factor again in the prestige of nations. Technology moved from almost exclusively technical to theoretical, with obvious consequence on the technical too; and from private initiative to state-sponsored research. Power centralized, vassals lost their power or had to strengthen it exclusively in the context of central government, like in England; Absolutism as an ideology was born, grew and by the end of the timeframe had started dying.

If you gave a man of 1444 a political map of Europe in 1820, he might have been surprised at some aspects but on the whole he would recognize what he saw; if you gave him a treaty on the internal workings of France or the United States, instead, he would probably fail to understand most of it. It's the literal opposite of what you say: war in Europe was a mean, a mere reflection of the truly important stuff happening inside the nations.

 

[Dnote]

Conquest is always going to be a major factor, but maybe if they balance this right then people will divert time (monarch points), between conquest and development. I can't imagine anyone but the most obsessive going full development.

My concern is though, that the cost in monarch points, regardless of the fun of it, of conquest will be significantly less than the cost of developing your land. As we've seen with the nation designer, more provinces can overcome any bonuses you gain from the National Ideas.

 

[Weltschmerz]

Any word on which day of the week a fresh set of new development diaries will go out?

 

[RickMP80]

Interesting!

 

[loup99]

Honestly? A damn lot. One could argue that war was, all in all, a pretty minor factor in the course of the Early Modern Era in Europe, a notable exception being the Thirty Years War - balance of power seldom shifted by means of conquest before Napoleon. France conquered what, five provinces or so after the end of the HYW; Austria's backbone was inheritance, as it was for Castile; elsewhere, borders moved back and forth a lot with little changes overall.

But out of conquest...ooooh, boy. The Renaissance spread from Italy to the rest of Europe, mecenatism becoming a very real factor again in the prestige of nations. Technology moved from almost exclusively technical to theoretical, with obvious consequence on the technical too; and from private initiative to state-sponsored research. Power centralized, vassals lost their power or had to strengthen it exclusively in the context of central government, like in England; Absolutism as an ideology was born, grew and by the end of the timeframe had started dying.

If you gave a man of 1444 a political map of Europe in 1820, he might have been surprised at some aspects but on the whole he would recognize what he saw; if you gave him a treaty on the internal workings of France or the United States, instead, he would probably fail to understand most of it. It's the literal opposite of what you say: war in Europe was a mean, a mere reflection of the truly important stuff happening inside the nations.

Diplomacy and internal politics (and with that I include economics, production, administration and etc too) were the main concerns of a ruler during the EU4 period.

 

[Katsue]

Honestly? A damn lot. One could argue that war was, all in all, a pretty minor factor in the course of the Early Modern Era in Europe, a notable exception being the Thirty Years War - balance of power seldom shifted by means of conquest before Napoleon. France conquered what, five provinces or so after the end of the HYW; Austria's backbone was inheritance, as it was for Castile; elsewhere, borders moved back and forth a lot with little changes overall.

It's been argued that the 17th Century was either the most violent or the second most violent century in world history (the other candidate being the 20th Century). A typical 17th Century ruler could expect to have to deal with external war, internal rebellion, and climate change-induced crop failure, with the consequent famine and plague, all at the same time.

 

[WeissRaben]

It's been argued that the 17th Century was either the most violent or the second most violent century in world history (the other candidate being the 20th Century). A typical 17th Century ruler could expect to have to deal with external war, internal rebellion, and climate change-induced crop failure, with the consequent famine and plague, all at the same time.

Hence why I noted that the 30YW was a notable exception - and even there, the effects were mostly internal. Borders changed little; in EU4 terms, it had almost no effects, while it should be - as you say - a terrifying experience.

 

[illapa]

Finally I can pick a country and consolidate and build up. At the moment the ONLY nations that could stay small(ish) and relevant were merchant republics, also maybe a Holy Roman Emperor.

 

[net.split]

What really excites me about this is that it means I can play more nations in the same little area of the world but have the games evolve more differently.

For example, consider Portugal, Castile, and Aragon. Your starting moves are a bit different, but after the first 50-100 years they'll all be pretty similar (you'll own at least one of the other two countries, if not both, and be doing lots of colonizing and trading). National Ideas are the main factors differentiating them. See also: Burgundy vs France, British Isles nations, German minors, Italian minors, Muscovy vs Novgorod, Indian states. Each of these have distinct starts, but if you're successful, the mid and late games are very samey.

Province development gives you a viable alternative to just eating all your neighbors. Aragon can choose to invest the MP into its starting territory instead of incorporating Castilian provinces. Done properly, it's a reasonable alternative to forming Spain and will create a very different sort of game from a rapid-expansion colonization-focused Castile choice.

You could always play Aragon as a Mediterranean trade power, intentionally avoiding taking over Castile, but doing so was mostly for roleplay and challenge purposes. Now the choice should be much more interesting (and validating).

 

[Ak1995]

This hypes me so bad. GIVE PLS fastah D:

 

[Brador]

Now I can finally hope the HRE minors will stop trying to blob on each other and start to focus on internal development, providing for a more accurate and believable simulation of what the HRE was by the time.

 

[Ephafn]

I'm pretty interested by this new development system. But I have one concern: the difference between the 3 different kind of development (base tax, manpower, and production).

The problem is that both base tax and production pretty serve the exact same purpose: getting more money. Sometime one is better than the other (if you have a good handle on the trade), but that's pretty minor compared to the difference between them and manpower. So I hope that Paradox is going to implement some mechanics that make them more different. For example, countries could sell trade rights in exchange for the other party to pay to increase their production development. Or something of the kind.

 

[Denkt]

I'm pretty interested by this new development system. But I have one concern: the difference between the 3 different kind of development (base tax, manpower, and production).

The problem is that both base tax and production pretty serve the exact same purpose: getting more money. Sometime one is better than the other (if you have a good handle on the trade), but that's pretty minor compared to the difference between them and manpower. So I hope that Paradox is going to implement some mechanics that make them more different. For example, countries could sell trade rights in exchange for the other party to pay to increase their production development. Or something of the kind.

Money can be used to create manpower, known as mercenaries.

 

[Ephafn]

Yes, but manpower cannot be used to create money. And mercenaries have enough mechanical difference to normal troops that they feel different. Money from base tax and money from production only differs in the current game in that base tax gives force limit (will also be the case for production after the change) and production can give variable return through trade.

 

[3ishop]

Yes, but manpower cannot be used to create money. And mercenaries have enough mechanical difference to normal troops that they feel different. Money from base tax and money from production only differs in the current game in that base tax gives force limit (will also be the case for production after the change) and production can give variable return through trade.

It says the development level will increase the forcelimit, base tax might not be linked to it now. Main difference would be that production helps with ship building and controlling trade resources which can be rather useful.

I'd also hope we can use some sway to get friendly/loyal colonies to invest in specific resource regions, also what does this mean for late game gold producing provinces?

 

[Vishaing]

"Yes, but manpower cannot be used to create money" It can with Looting and various Peace Options.

Y'know, one thing that would be cool. Historically when Horde's conquered rich cities they tended to abduct skilled tradesmen and send them back to whatever capital they had decided on. Samarkand was an example of this and good old Temujin did this with his capital as well.

What if... Hordes could not invest MP in Development directly, or did so at a vastly increased cost, however instead when they raided/looted a province, some Development Progress would be added to their capital automatically, with more being added the richer the Province, or perhaps this only happens if the province's Development is higher than the Horde's Capital's Development. At the same time, the Province being raided would experience a proportional decrease in development.

That could give Horde's a nice bit of unique flavor, its pretty historical, and could lead to some really interesting shifts in Base Tax in Central Asia.

ADDENDUM: I am still curious if we can make buildings which don't take up a Building Slot.

 

[keynes2.0]

Isn't it like 200 years anachronistic by game start?

 

[Vishaing]

Temujin is a bit out of the time period but Timur isn't, he died in 1405.