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!

 

[TheFuego]

• 60 - Disbanded Units are returned to the manpower pool
  Hallelujah

 

[TheDungen]

Because an endless supply of people hired from who knows where who magically jump up to the standards of your own nation's soldiers trained and drilled by your own country not only makes little sense but also is inaccurate and causes gameplay issues [Biggest wallet wins; attrition strats are worthless]. Why should a random mercenary hired by Prussia suddenly inherit all of Prussia's NI's and Prussia's Militarization bonuses? Why is a guy hired by aFrance more likly to stand and fight for longer than someone hired by GB? It would literally be the same guy in both cases. It makes no sense.

Also; EU4 reflects the time period when people were moving from 'warfare' being mostly hireing mercenary groups to fight each other with some serfs drummed up; to professional; paid armies of your own countrymen.

It's not even a strict nerf to Mercenaries anyway. If you rely heavily on Mercs; you get cheaper and more mercs. Yes; their quality would not be a high as a professional army; but your professional army is limited by your manpower.

You can literally opt into Mercspam. Who cares if your quality is lower if you can win by... well... spamming mercs until they run out of men; their drilling expires and so on.

There were loads of mercs in this era, they were generally soldiers from the last war who chose to keep fighting instead of going home. The problem this game has is that it has no levies.
Professional soldiers were simply small countries telling their veterans/mercenaries "Hey if you don't wander of we'll keep paying you". Originally often for manpower reasons. Hence why small countries were the first to do this.

I agree -- there seems to be a reluctance to just reform existing mechanics (Military Tradition) in order to sell a new mechanic (Professionalims). The end result is just a cluttered game.

Power projection, prestige, legitimacy, military tradition professionalism, absolutism* -- they all have unique elements but seem to be elaborations on one another, not truly distinct mechanics.

I realize there are other expansion ideas out there that would be great but the choice here seems to be to focus on Military with no way to really expand Military unless the core war mechanics are changed. If we're still just rolling dice with modifiers then this particular set of changes just adds more ways to get the same modifiers.

When Johan took a poll on twitter about what this expansion should focus on I was really hoping there was something cool in the works (trade, naval overhaul). Maybe there still is but drilling/professionalism seems an odd addition treating a specific issue. (I.e. A balance adjustment to reduce merc-spam could've worked as part of the patch.)

Also: I know I don't have to buy the DLC. I will decide when the features are completely listed. For now I'm just befuddled and hopeful that the other features are some new ideas.

*(I'm only listing them all together--I realize that they don't all overlap one another).

They need to return back to the root reality and ask themselves, "We don't get the outcome we want why? What's the difference between our mechanics and reality? How can we fix that?" They should reach for more realistic solutions when they need to fix something not just slap another mechanic on top of the old ones. The fort system is a great example instead of a supply system (they just made one for HOI after all) they decided to go for super abstracted fort that are impossible to bypass.

I understand your points but the game is really unbalanced right now and adding more stuff without balancing the old stuff they've artificially glued into their game for years doesn't make the system better. Instead what they're doing is adding more bloat, micromanagement, useless stats, etc. I think a redesign would be in order rather than bloating the game beyond recognition of what the original design was. If you play multiplayer you literally have to balance hundreds of things to make the game worth playing competetively.
What I see here and in the previous diaries is adding stuff trying to make combat better when they should really just start again from the ground up and avoid the mistakes they made.

Yeah that is a very good way to put it, they chose to slap another mechanic on top of tings rather than just rebalancing the ones they have. Or redoing the system from the ground up. Half these issues derive from keeping on using old systems from previous games.

• 60 - Disbanded Units are returned to the manpower pool
  Hallelujah

Why don't they always?

 

[Nikoleis]

Ok, so, I decided to see what kind of changes it would bring, and the problems / possibilities it can potentially raise:

1) Passive attrition suffered by large countries going full stack when they actually cannot. Ming is a classic example of "I park a full stack and let it die in mountains while at peace" now, either they are below the 20 threshold and will get to 0 manpower, making sure they never rise from there and merc up forever, or they are above that. And then... it will be a constant MIL drain, and if unlucky, STILL cause the same problem as before and ruin its abilities to ignore part of that attrition. Ming being at peace for long period of time, it can be even worse in the end, with still no manpower and merc-ing up, on top of losing maybe 50-100 MIL points going to a tech that would maybe solve their problem!

2) 100 is likely the maximum you can have of professionalism, and gives a neat bonus allowing doomstacks to advance on and on. Build one single mercenary unit, however, and your entire morale plummet in large battle, which can only be gained back by rolling a new general (since waiting three months bare minimum at full drilling won't happen in the middle of a war, and adding a new military building will also take time). So the optimal play would be to build mercenaries by group of 4 mid-war to make general cycling efficient... if the AI doesn't know this, it might lose a neat bonus on a compulsive unit addition that could cost much more men in the end than fighting with a slightly smaller doomstack.

3) Condottieri units are smaller when you have a professional army, and so it can be preferable to not get the bonus if you want to rent more soldiers, so it is a matter of quantity versus quality there.

4) Armies that doesn't rely on a professional army can still mercspam all day long, a professional army... not so much as it would lose an edge replacing troops, making an initial loss into a self feeding catastrophe destroying said professionalisation effort, the damage bonus lowering where trying to compensate for losses you cannot replace normally due to no more manpower, in turn weakening your troops leading to buying more mercenaries... But still at full cost, compared to your opponent, until losing at least half your bonus.

5) The 60 Professionalisation bonus seems nice, but is actually a trap. Yes, you can disband your army at peace with less repercussions but then, you lose the bonus from drilling troops keeping these around would give. Also, it is quite counter-intuitive in a sense, as you should want to keep your professional standing army around and disband mercenaries, but this mechanics motivates to do the opposite! It also might be possible to cheat additional maximum manpower, this way, by emptying your pool of soldiers buying as much as you can of regular troops, wait for manpower to replenish fully, then disband to go above the limit!

6) Keeping a small stack of mercenaries infantry around can be useful for the fort replenish action, as it could avoid paying manpower and instead use much more plentiful money. unless it consumes the unit instead of emptying it, where it wouldn't work. This is not that clear there what it does.

7) I never tried, but can one disband an unit mid-fight or mid-retreat? If so, it could allow highly professional armies to sacrifice the entire stack when it is about to be massacred, and rebuild it with full morale, where you need it instead of having it retreat who know where, for the monetary cost of purchasing new regiment, when hitting that 60 threshold. Used well, it could even eliminate the need for transports if you have a solid line of defense, rebuilding your entire army from scratch in your trade company, allowing it to almost teleport in roundabout three months for larger stacks without fearing naval retaliation

8) Are conquistadores considered generals? It could make New world exploration a little cheaper in MIL points if one get to 80 fast. Just a little bonus here, really, but still possible that it makes a difference

 

[Dakka]

Looks good. This should help nerf the mercenary spam that Ming and Ottomans are so fond of. Looking forward to crushing larger forces with smaller, better trained ones

 

[SPAMbuca]

@TheDungen

Edward III conscripted longbowmen. Basically he had to pay his troops as their feudal duties did not include fighting for a longer period abroard.

 

[Atilla 'The Hun']

This will make warfare soooo much more interesting. And by the way a professionalism mechanic is something I always wanted in this game, lovely dev diary Paradox !

 

[TheDungen]

@TheDungen

Edward III conscripted longbowmen. Basically he had to pay his troops as their feudal duties did not include fighting for a longer period abroard.

Conscription isn't the same thing as having a professional army. In fact it is the opposite. Conscription is levies, well trained levies but levies none the less.

The knights are professional soldiers, full time fighters who only ever fight or train to be fighting.

 

[X-Factor]

Really like the UI changes here. Could you please also normalize Province modifiers so they are same Size. Thank you

 

[Anthedon]

Really like the UI changes here. Could you please also normalize Province modifiers so they are same Size. Thank you

Can't believe I never noticed the size discrepancy before. This needs to be priority #1.

 

[holyvigil]

hmmm. I wish you would stop your dev diaries and just release what you've detailed so far. This army professionalism is going to switch up a lot of things and I'd like time for everyone to take a balance pass at it.
It does seem like quantity which is already arguably the best or one of the best military idea groups will be even better with this professionalism update. Which is ironic.

 

[Metroidkirby]

Basically he had to pay his troops as their feudal duties did not include fighting for a longer period abroard.

This was the case in all of western Europe, this is exactly how the ost is supposed to work: a man have to fight X days for his lord, if he fights more than what he's supposed to, then his lord has to indemnify him.


On the other hand, @Trin Tragula , do France starts with some professionalism? I believe the professionalization of Charles VII's army was the main reason of his victory in the hundred years war.

 

[El_Cid_]

I recall someone having crunched the numbers on morale vs discipline (maybe using Monte Carlo simulation?).

Has anyone seen anything similar done for the new damage modifiers?

 

[pikaemperor]

Looks good. This should help nerf the mercenary spam that Ming and Ottomans are so fond of. Looking forward to crushing larger forces with smaller, better trained ones

It does the opposite by increasing the potential spam from being at 0 professionalism and gaining +15% increase to the max. Being at 0 professionalism is superior to being at 100. Just as a example reserves taking 50% less morale damage is one of those useless things as with simple micro you don't have reserves on a battle until you need them which is 0% morale damage to reinforcements. It would be better if they improved auto rebel hunt as it makes optimal high absolutism a pain to progress because of rebelspam from the game making it take too long to finish a playthrough because of having to pause the game to give armies orders to kill a million rebel stacks every 10 seconds.

 

[Mr. Fowl]

Will Professionalism be a paid feature along with Drilling?

Because I do not want it. I like the new trade goods and I'm always up for redrawing the map a little so I would rather just be able to not buy the expansion than have to throw out the whole thing.

 

[SPAMbuca]

This was the case in all of western Europe, this is exactly how the ost is supposed to work: a man have to fight X days for his lord, if he fights more than what he's supposed to, then his lord has to indemnify him.


On the other hand, @Trin Tragula , do France starts with some professionalism? I believe the professionalization of Charles VII's army was the main reason of his victory in the hundred years war.

It's about definition I suppose. As far as I know, it was a good step towards having a standing army/professional army. Especially in the 100 year war example, these guys were considered the modern version of an army.

 

[ERS92]

That bonuses. And now add this to full militarism in Prussia and Streltsy in Russia...

 

[TheDungen]

This was the case in all of western Europe, this is exactly how the ost is supposed to work: a man have to fight X days for his lord, if he fights more than what he's supposed to, then his lord has to indemnify him.


On the other hand, @Trin Tragula , do France starts with some professionalism? I believe the professionalization of Charles VII's army was the main reason of his victory in the hundred years war.

Is it linked to serfdom? Or well lack thereof.

It's about definition I suppose. As far as I know, it was a good step towards having a standing army/professional army. Especially in the 100 year war example, these guys were considered the modern version of an army.

Perhaps the British want it to be that, they'd claim they invented fire, the wheel, and writing if no one called them out on it.

 

[Metroidkirby]

Is it linked to serfdom?

It's one of the duties of a vassal to his lord. I'm not well-known about english history, but I know the normands were'nt fond of the frankish society where all men have to be a vassal, they certainly adapt the frankish ost to something more rational and usefull.

 

[Koskenbleu]

That looks like a Qizilbash mechanic. The Qizilbash were Shite(twelver sect) military group that were instrumental in the rise of the Safavid Dynasty in Iran. Similar to Janissaries they were known by their red taj spire crown-turban as you can see in image.

not twelver shia tho, at least originally ;P But yes, mostly azeri turkmen tribes following safavi milleniaristic sufi tendencies.

 

[Robotx2300]

I love the idea of the supply depot, however I feel like it would make more sense for it to be a building that cost money rather than an army action. Where did the army get the spare supplies to make a depot on the spot? Also, I think it would make more sense to have it not destroyed in occupation but rather transferred. Scorched earth could also be a way to destroy depots under your control.