So what have we done lately? Well, plenty of stuff that will go into 1.14 and the next expansion. Lots of stuff we are not ready to talk about yet, but this week we'll give you information about some new systems.

The first one is the new areas system, which will be a part of the patch.

Areas are a new type of region, usually consisting of between 3-6 provinces, and with no province being in more than one area. A new areas mapmode will show you which provincs are in what areas. This will be used for various mechanics we will explain more next week.

And then we have a feature which will be part of the as of yet unnanounced expansion.. The Victory Cards system. This is a feature that is primarily designed for multiplayer games, as it is introduced to reduce hugboxes and permanent allianceblocks.

At the end of a campaign, the top countries end up with 15-20K in score, so our goal was to create a system that could provide 30-50% more score for those that are willing to go for it.

And thus, we introduce the Victory Cards.

Starting in 1450, and every 100 years after you will be able to get a Victory Card if you have at least 300 development. Of course if you don't qualify for 1 at a given date, you will get 1 as soon as you qualify for it.

A victory card grows in score value every month if you own, control & core every province in its area, and it takes 20 years to grow to its maximum, and 20 years to drop to zero from its maximum.

The area selected is slightly randomised, but average development matter & it must be adjacent or within 1 seazone of any part of your nation or its subjects. Only provinces belonging to potential or current rivals are take into consideration, and you are far more likely to get ones on nations ahead of you in score or belonging to other players.

The first card is worth 1000, second 2000, third 3000 and the final 4000 points.

Here I've loaded up a savegame from 1.13 in our office MP campaign, and in the first 2 months I've gotten 2 victory cards to basically fight my game-long-hugbox-friend France.

 

[Mann42]

I haven't shrugged in apathy this hard at any prior EU4 diary. I guess it's an interesting addition for MP games, but I can't think of anyone I've played with in MP that cares about score outside of novelty.

The area system has potential, though, so I'm hoping to hear it's used for systems with actual gameplay impact in the coming weeks.

 

[zorkman]

Because people seem to hate that PDX is making the game PDX wants instead of the game they want. And forget that they said areas would be used for more stuff and this is just the part they have "ready" enough to talk about.

Paradox can make whatever game they want, but they cannot complain if their fans don't like the features they are showing.

 

[lolada]

New areas could be used in many ways, for example changing how fabricate claims work would be nice. Claiming these new areas instead of claiming single provinces would be quite the improvement. If war is declared with a CB to claim the area then talking these provinces should be preferred (or allowed), taking anything else - if not disallowed - should bring significant penalties.

Also one of the ugly things about alliances in EU4 in general is how these large countries are strong and extremely stable and alliances are mostly permanent. That France for example is pretty much invincible in EU4, only player (and he needs to be at least decent, if not well skilled) with large empire can bring it down and that takes aaaa lot of effort. Country wide revolts, instability and revolution/independance mechanism should play a huge role - something more like CK2 revolt system would go a long way in EU4 to make the game more dynamic and interesting.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Tell you guys what, starting with the next dev diary I'm going to institute a new rule that goes 'stop complaining that the week's dev diary isn't about the precise thing you wanted a dev diary about'. You're of course free to critique the actual contents of the dev diary, but the flurry of 'why isn't the dev diary about X' posts is getting very old.

Doesn't have to be a precise thing. Being about any thing that more than three people care about would be a nice start.

 

[Lamahorse]

It would be great if at an arbitrary date (c. 1750) that all possible national cores for each culture would appear in each province. This is historical as the American Revolution and the France Revolution was a big factor in the development of Nationalism right across Europe.

 

[Tiax]

Does anyone who plays multiplayer actually base their decisions on what gets the most score? If you played that way, it seems like you'd just be making otherwise foolish decisions to game the bizarre formulas. Need more diplomatic score? Hire a bunch of admirals you don't need, you get points for every pip! Or give a worthless province to your equally-sized ally, you get a full point for "strong ally" if they're bigger than you, and nothing otherwise! Got a little war exhaustion that doesn't materially impact your country? Better throw diplo mana at it anyway, you're losing .2 military points for each war exhaustion!

You also need to be careful about not conquering your rivals too much - you get a huge score boost from having a full suite of rivals, and even more if they're just a little stronger than you. But if you expand too much and reach the point where you lack potential rivals, you're missing out on huge amounts of potential points.

 

[LikeNothing]

Yet another game mechanic with no historical basis that encourages blobbing.

There is relatively little to do in the game besides blobbing and by the looks of it that is not going to change.

 

[Victory5]

I really don't know how I feel about this, the main reason I love EUIV is that there is no victory conditions, and that I can make my own goals.

Can the victory cards be modded out?

 

[DC123456789]

Coloured wastelands in Ironman and regional naming back (and improved)? Excellent, definitely looking forward to that.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Supply Line confirmed?

Now that would be really good.

 

[ellivxonk]

also why do we need 300 development? did you guys forget non common sense buyers dont have control over it?

 

[huyderman]

I don't think people get what these dev diaries are about. They are often just a highlight on some random feature they are working on/thinking about. Just because something gets a dev diary, doesn't mean it's a high priority thing or the only thing they're working on; it's just something they felt was interesting to talk about, and are ready to talk about. Since they try to push these out once a week, sometimes minor features or fluff will be the focus (especially between DLC announcements).

 

[Golladan]

I mean, I named 6 different issues there. I could probably think of at least 20 different issues more important than score, because nobody cares about score in SP and I'm willing to bet good money less than 1 in 10 MP groups do, which means score changes effect something like 1.28% of EU4 games. Even if they have 10 more dev diaries, I find it really unlikely that they'll have covered all of the material that is more important than score (i.e., basically all of it).

Again. Maybe they are working on it and it's not in a state to talk about it yet. Things change greatly during development. Compare the fort sytem talked about in the development diary with the one with ended up getting. If the beta testers could talk freely they would probably tell you about how drastically features changed from introduction to release. They would probably tell you about all the features that they got to play around with that never actually made it into release.

Things take time. Not everything is simple to do. And not everything that some players find as issues are considered issues by the developers.

 

[User4035]

Score has been in game since release. And yes it is the number in the top right.

...thats the joke. Score means nothing.

Last time I checked that score thing it seemed to be heavily focused on tech which made no sense to me since tech is based on monarch points, and monarch points I based on luck of the ruler.

 

[ikkiks]

There is one.. its on the screen at all times.. You score and your rank.

Then you must completely rework it. The way you get regular points is absurd. If you start as a small nation in the ROTW, it doesn't matter if by 1700 you already own more than half of the world, the Europeans will be the ones with most points and that won't change at all until the endgame, unless you completely annex the Europeans.

 

[net.split]

A very minor thing... perhaps they could be modded to be "missions on steroids" for single player, with some permanent benefits. Like, fulfilling the age-long russian ambition to a a mediterranean port could grant a bonus to trade and navy....

I am really hoping we see something akin to the Campaigns system. The Areas are pretty small, so if we do see something along those lines it'll be a more minor, less intrusive feature.

 

[keynes2.0]

And thus, we introduce the Victory Cards.

I loved EUIII. I've been growing increasingly disenchanted with EUIV. It just feels like map vomiting. "Historical" mechanics like the 30 years war are just more map vomiting. National ideas are just about min-maxing your map vomiting.

And it looks like p'dox thinks that this is a trend they wish to continue. Whelp, good luck with that. The game is boring an ahistoric and rather then introduce anything like the concert of europe or the fact that annexing random territories wasn't a good way to build a powerbase, you are adding yet another incentive to vomit on the map.

 

[Standstill]

Love how everyone is trying to make it sound like nobody at all cares about the score.

I do. It gives me an objective to go after when I got too big. If I'm second, I'll try my best to improve my economy, military & diplomatic relations to get first. Even on multiplayer games, which I play for many hours every week.
Honestly, I really wish my friend in MP games would stop treating player controlled countries as special. Everyone is often too afraid to attack another player because they fear they're gonna make him mad., while player vs player wars, imho, are some of the funniest part of the game. You're gonna lose? No problem, losing is fun. You probably won't get annexed in a single war anyway. But even if you can get fully annexed, you could ask to become the vassal of the winning player.

Anyway, if this new system is gonna make players go to war against each other more often, I totally welcome it.

 

[Lakedaimon]

I kinda liked being able to make MP just about anything you wanted it to be. On the other hand I don't really give a crap about score anyway so it's not like it will affect me much.

The region idea could be interesting in terms of administrative centers and policies etc to be able to macromanage your development more (alot budgets to the development of certain areas and pick a focus, at which point the area will start improving steadily on its own). Although I doubt this will be added since it is incompattible mostly with the new feature of development. It would require a more continuous improvement instead of a bumped improvement with a set amount of monarch points. Instead adding monarch point budget that will result in a steady increase in the stats of the area.

 

[QDI]

I don't understand the negative response this DD is getting. I think it's a fun little challenge if you're not sure where to go next with your country, and I hope its available for both SP and MP. And even if you don't want to play with them, surely you can just disable the popups once they fire.

It's only multiplayer. I think most people don't really care. Personally, I "disagreed" because I don't consider score to be meaningful, especially since starts are asymmetrical. I also don't like the idea of being pushed into one direction: I generally have a specific gameplan in mind.

So I'll just end up ignoring victory cards which is a bit sad for a feature that has taken time to develop