Good day. Tuesday has rolled around once more and that means it is time for our weekly Developer Diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today, we continue on from last week where we discussed Army Drilling to elaborate on how it can make an impact on having a better, more professional Army.

As part of the yet-unannounced expansion accompanying the 1.23 update, Your nation's army will have a Professionalism level, indicated both on the Unit view and the Military tab.

Your Army's Professionalism is a national value measuring how closely your army models a “modern” standing army versus heavy reliance on mercenaries. It is increased by:

• Drilling your armies (+1 per year if 100% forcelimit drills, to scale)
• Constructing military buildings: Barracks/regimental camps (+0.5 per tier)
• Recruiting Generals (+1 per general)

Conversely, Professionalism is decreased by

• Destroying military buildings: Barracks/regimental camps (-1 per tier)
• Recruiting Mercenaries (-0.25 per unit)

Professionalism has the following effect, scaling up from 0 to 100:

• Shock Damage +10%
• Fire damage +10%
• Movement Speed +20%

Additionally, low professionalism grants bonuses for the recruitment of mercenaries, starting from 0 and scaling down to nothing at 50 Professionalism.

• Mercenary cost -15%
• Available mercenaries +15%

All nations start the game with low to no Professionalism. Events, decisions and modifiers can affect these values positively and negatively, from standardizing your uniforms to deciding how extensively to loot fallen cities.

The value of your Army Professionalism unlocks a new interface look and new abilities for your armies at every 20 points. Starting at 0-19 professionalism, you'll have a more tattered look to your Unit view...

And as your army gains more Professionalism, the view grows more elegant

So what abilities are gained for each 20 Professionalism?

• 20 - Supply Depot Ability unlocked for army.

• 40 - Refill Garrison Ability unlocked for army

• 60 - Disbanded Units are returned to the manpower pool

• 80 - Military Generals cost half-price to recruit

• 100 - Your reserves take 50% less morale damage.

Supply Depot is an ability accessible in the revisited Unit view which, for a small MIL cost, established a depot in a province. Friendly supply in that entire area is increased by 50%. If the province is then occupied by a hostile force, the Depot will be destroyed, otherwise it lasts for 2 years.

Refill Garrison allows an army to take some of its manpower to restore the garrison of a fort instantly so you can proceed without having your new occupation snatched away.

Disbanded units are normally lost forever, however at 60 Professionalism you ensure that they return to the manpower pool

Half Price Generals cost is fairly self explanatory, they will cost 25MIL rather than the standard 50

Reserves, who normally take passive morale damage in large ongoing battles, will now take far less and can really turn the tide in a battle.

Caveat: All values/bonuses given in the dev diaries are subject to change pending testing and balance as development continues. Also as a note for modders, these abilities are all scripted in as modifiers and so can be used as you see fit.

That should cover the Drilling and Professionalism nicely. Next week we will take a look at a system which, overall, hasn't changed a whole lot in EU4's life, and how it had its influence on the Islamic world. Until then I....hold on, I have a feeling that people are wanting to see some other trade goods across the world, following the addition of 5 new goods. very well, let's look to the ....East!

And additionally, we felt that some local modifiers were in order:

That's it from us this week, see you next Tuesday!

 

[myrsl0ken]

I will never lose the hope for a dynamic trade flow.
So, let's hope.

A proper update to the trade system would have me reinstall EU4 instantly. It's one of the few mechanics in the game that actively ruin my immersion.

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

So my biggest complaint here is that England with their professional army actually... won't have a professional army in game. England's tendency to merc-spam (due to their ideas having low quality but high money) means they'll sit at 0 professionalism which is absolutely silly and ahistorical.

Seems like a valid complaint. But maybe they'll get a change in their national ideas or an event for some yearly Professionalism increase

 

[Liquidstuff]

It doesn't. Province development differs quite markedly between these two. That said in 1444 the majority of the worlds cloth was not produced in Europe but in Asia (especially India).
This is just not nearly true. The low countries have the smallest provinces in the game and have had since release. If you compare what those Persian provinces cover with what the ones in the low country ones do it's not even close. Europe is also larger than it ought to be to give space for more provinces.
Describing Fars as a "Persian mountain range" is also quite misleading
First of all development differs. Second proximity surely is and was a factor After all this is the era when several great powers tried to get land in India (a subcontinent that at that time had as much population as all of Europe combined and that for most of the game period also produced more manufactured goods).

Thanks for the reply !

Well, one could argue that it's pretty close in terms of size province between the Low Countries and a sparse populated area like Persia.

We're all fine about adding new provinces, but this upset balances. More provinces means more buildings slots. Now, if buildings' bonuses scaled with development it would be fine but there are buildings that gives flat amount of X. Manufactories and Force limit buildings being the main problem.

So yes, within a few years in the game, you've got region like Anatolia that produces more Cloth than Italy because there are more provinces, easier to develop, and more manufactories available.

 

[Spaninq]

@DDRJake My play group's reaction to professionalism is that since mercs are necessary in multiplayer, you will never want greater than 0 professionalism, for the larger merc pool and cheaper mercs. It will also be rewarding players for ignoring the whole mechanic that you're proposing

I've had a thought. At 0 professionalism, merc should cost more, not less. From a logical standpoint, countries with no experience in training troops wouldn't know better about negotiating better prices from mercs. What if the bonus for 0 professionalism were +15% merc pool, but +15% cost?

It would also make a more interesting dynamic, you have a larger merc pool, but they cost more.

 

[theJalden]

@DDRJake My play group's reaction to professionalism is that since mercs are necessary in multiplayer, you will never want greater than 0 professionalism, for the larger merc pool and cheaper mercs. It will also be rewarding players for ignoring the whole mechanic that you're proposing

I've had a thought. At 0 professionalism, merc should cost more, not less. From a logical standpoint, countries with no experience in training troops wouldn't know better about negotiating better prices from mercs. What if the bonus for 0 professionalism were +15% merc pool, but +15% cost?

It would also make a more interesting dynamic, you have a larger merc pool, but they cost more.

More experience using Mercenaries as an army instead of a professional standing army,

 

[Cal585]

Sweden starts at 0 actually
But in some later start dates they do have an edge.

Ooh, a mention of later start dates. I always wanted to try a few of the later ones but the impression I had was that they were buggy and unpolished because the majority of attention from players and devs went to 1444. Would I be recommended to revise that opinion?

 

[DominusNovus]

The abilities are purely tied to your Professionalism.

Related question: Any country ideas/traditions/ambitions or national ideas going to impact professionalism or drill?

 

[Zohtun]

Finally a reason for not using mercs besides nerfing them! Thank you!

 

[Homusubi]

I'm not going to lie, my heart sank when I saw that there's going to be another variable ending in -ism...

 

[DNA Maniac]

with the supply depot option, maybe we can get rid of the %5 attrition cap, so scorhed earth might be a thing again!

 

[Benghi Bon]

Looks very interesting. I wonder if reserve taking 50% less damage might become an extremely large nuisence, it does seem to make massive stacks more powerful.

 

[Siu-King**]

So what now, I am gonna get Penalized if I destroy the stupid AI's FL building spam?!

 

[Nirn]

Does anyone know whether the army professionalism and the drill system come on top of the current discipline mechanism or whether they will replace discipline? With the ever increasing number of boni I feel like the warfare (and the game as a whole to be honest) loses some kind of "well definedness": instead of the boni being abstractions of certain well-defined elements of warfare (or other aspects of country management) providing immersion, they start to look more like "just numbers" you try to optimize without any real role-playing in mind. What will the game concept of discipline correspond to with the new systems added?

Maybe rebrand it to something else. Maybe make discipline -> officer education and drill -> combined arms training? For generic competence, we already have combat ability.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Awesome. Love those announced features. Should really make military administration more interesting.

Caveat: All values/bonuses given in the dev diaries are subject to change pending testing and balance as development continues. Also as a note for modders, these abilities are all scripted in as modifiers and so can be used as you see fit.

While we're on topic of modding, seeing as this is going to be military-focused expansion, can we also get ability to mod in new unit categories? I would LOVE to have heavy/light version for infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Right now, it's a bit boring as it is, being simplistic and all. Also would love to have guard units or something.

 

[Grand Historian]

How much professionalism do the Orders (Knights, Teutons, Livonians) start with?

 

[mursolini]

By 1800, in Europe, I would expect that most of the mercenary armies have closed or effectively merged into standing armies at the national level, which are now capable of high professionalism and experience. There will still be a raised army when needed, with a better quality, but that need was gradually dying.

Considering introduction of conscription in 18 century and continuation into 19 and 20th century, the need for raised armies only grew.

The entire merc system is completely ahistorical and backwards. People start with professional, standing armies and switch to mercenaries once they grow larger and become more wealthy.

What exactly is backwards? EU period starts with feudal levies and knights, which are profecional troops(at least mostly), then followed a period of 15-16 century of religious wars and mercenary armies. Merks also fought a lot in 100 years war and similar. Mercenaries were mostly employed by large empires and wealthy small states, because small poor state has no way to accumulate cash to pay merks.

It is not exactly unhistorical, it is abstraction, which works badly for edge cases.

Thete has to be downsides for using mercs which makes people want to use standing armies instead. Obviously Paradox tried to do something like that with this DLC but are falling way short. Imo Mercs should not benefit at all from combat ideas, national or otherwise, so that as time progresses they become less and less effective compared to standing armies.

Cost and ability to rewolt are the only real downsides of using mercenaries.

Should Merks benefit from combat ideas is highly debatable, because you have to establish who are your "regular" troops and how they differ from mercenaries in terms of training and such. If your regular troops are just conscripts from local villages and they then get trained at expence of the state, then mercenaries serving for long enought tenure would be indistinguishable from local troops.

Merks didn`t become less effective, they have seen action for most of the time period, they just became economically unsustainable in Europe, where there became only a dosen of large states, that waged war on relativly rare ocasions, so one couldn`t just switch employers constantly, expirienced people became profecional parts of European armies.

 

[Spaninq]

@DDRJake Here's some more food for thought: how to do you justify Professionalism (currently) being unrelated to Army Tradition?

 

[Nyrael]

@DDRJake Here's some more food for thought: how to do you justify Professionalism (currently) being unrelated to Army Tradition?

I agree, they represent two very and tightly related similar things. IMO, they should remove AT now.

 

[mwyeoh]

The professionalism is definitely an interesting mechanic. Some players may now hesitate to hire mercs for the longterm impact
I know I'm rethinking my majority merc infantry build

 

[peleliu]

From a 1444 start, roughly what date will armies drilled to 100 become standard? Late 1500s? Earlier? With wars and other distractions I was thinking we might not really see a lot of fully drilled armies until the mid 1600s.