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!

 

[holyvigil]

I don't like the deleting of buildings affecting professionalization. The AI sucks at buildings. Every time I delete a regimental camp to build a manufactury on a cloth province, I'll be impacting my hard-earned modifiers. The player shouldn't be penalized for correcting the AI's failures.

Also, Mercs shouldn't benefit from national ideas and modifiers; that'll make them less attractive as the game progresses.

They could make it so that professionalism would only be affected by buildings in core provinces. Then you would have a window to shape the province to your whims.

 

[Hichel]

Will the AI still spam mercs to avoid losing the war even at the cost of great part of it's professionalism?

 

[Lemont Elwood]

Yeah, it is a bit weird for professionalism to only have any impact on the army and none on the navy, given that professionalisation applied to both military arms over the time period.

Professionalism is mostly reflecting the decision of standing armies vs mercenaries, though, in-game, and there are no naval mercenaries.

Of course, one could argue that naval mercenaries SHOULD be in the game...

 

[TheDungen]

This game isn't meant for Balance like other games, it's an asymmetrical game.

Yes but it's arleady more assymeterical than reality. Withc blobs being able to use their power to blob in a way they never could in reality because in reality people banded toghether to contain anyone who they perceived to be a threat.

I feel like Professionalism should be -shock and -fire damage received instead, as drilling already increases shock and fire.

Would also make it a natural replacement for discipline.

Professionalism is mostly reflecting the decision of standing armies vs mercenaries, though, in-game, and there are no naval mercenaries.

Of course, one could argue that naval mercenaries SHOULD be in the game...

Nah naval mercs are more like naval condottieri. The change in naval professionalism is between random people to make up huge bulk crews and keeping trained sailors on hand. Again professionalism should be levies versus standing forces not levies against mercs.

 

[Old Tercio]

In respect with Navies, I think they should get it too, my reason is that Charles V created the first official Marines for the Spanish Navies and they became permanent soldiers of the sea, which in my opinion makes sense to make navies have drills too.

 

[Old Tercio]

Yes but it's arleady more assymeterical than reality. Withc blobs being able to use their power to blob in a way they never could in reality because in reality people banded toghether to contain anyone who they perceived to be a threat.

I agree blobs need more danger, but this game shouldn't be giving small kingdoms buff, just because for the sake of it.

 

[Ostovar Hossein]

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

acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor. If I remember correctly they are ismailist 6th imam was their last. Might be same as sufi. If I remember correctly hashashin also believed in 6th imam and had same faith.

 

[Vetgirig]

So 0.5 for 1 Barrack or 100 gold. So 200 barracks costing 20K ducats will give you the max 100.

300 barracks will cost 30K ducats and give 100 and but also 400 regiments of mercs.


So this will be a gold sink for single player playthroughs. Which adds some combat bonuses for gold.

 

[PsychoLold]

I like this patch but well quantity seem a little too much powerful right now with all these bonus if you do not use merc...

This makes the Quantity idea more interesting. Not sure how much of an effect Professionalism will have if manpower remains unchanged though. You run out of bodies fairly quickly with most small/medium nations.

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.

To me, the finisher of Quantity Ideas suddenly seems like a debuff and you probably don't want to finish this idea group with the new expansion unless you really need the additional force limit. The +50% FL makes it more expensive to keep your professionalism high.

Also, @DDRJake You get 1 professionalism per year if you drill your FL's worth of armies. But does the value grow with daily, monthly or yearly ticks? Or in other words: Do you have to drill your troops all year or only at the 31st of December?

 

[Moac]

This is a great addition as I rarely use Mercenaries and its great to be rewarded for doing so.
When can we expect this expansion?

 

[creativitypersonified]

This is a great addition as I rarely use Mercenaries and its great to be rewarded for doing so.
When can we expect this expansion?

Probably going to take a while.

 

[Chaingun]

Will the AI still spam mercs to avoid losing the war even at the cost of great part of it's professionalism?

Good question and @Gnivom can perhaps answer this one, noting this is a typical case where it might be necessary to rebalance the AI logic for AI to be competent with the new rules (if at all possible, new rules can be more difficult for AI than old ones ).

 

[DDRJake]

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.

This was actually the case in EU3, and it worked out terribly.

Nice, these changes look interesting. It might change the current mercenary spam meta.

Do we have an estimated time for the release of this expansion?

There is no announced release date yet. When there is, we'll be shouting it.

Is the +1 a hrad cap or can you get more than 1 a year if you're above your forcelimit?

If you train 10 units with a forcelimit of 5, you'll get +2 Professionalism per year.

Will Professionalism be a paid feature along with Drilling?.

They are both paid features of the expansion which will accompany 1.23. The map revamp and new trade goods are yours even if you don't pay a penny.

Also, @DDRJake You get 1 professionalism per year if you drill your FL's worth of armies. But does the value grow with daily, monthly or yearly ticks? Or in other words: Do you have to drill your troops all year or only at the 31st of December?

It's a monthly tick. As you say, yearly would be highly abusable.

 

[ratkus]

@Trin Tragula on last dev diary i gave some suggestions about prussia, ill give some other suggestions here too.
Jagoldai and Trubetsk. 2 countries inside grand duchy of lithuania that you missed

Jagoldai was one of the leaders Ulugh Mehmed , Khan backed by Vytautas during the internal struggles in the disintegrating actually the Golden Horde
simply translate the page to english (dont switch it to english wiki, it has nothing about it) https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahołdajewszczyzna

Trubetsk (now called Trubchevsk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trubchevsk ) 1462–1503
Jagoldai has this map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Ziemie_Czernihowsko-Siewierskie_w_XV_wieku.jpg
but its hard to see these countries so instead ill outline them in red:

Spoiler: map

 

[ratkus]

Spoiler: wish you guys would rework baltic someday

 

[Rip Off Productions]

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!

except if you're going for high professionalism your can't use mercs to beef up your army, so maybe the mechanic for returning manpower is so you can go over your forcelimit during war and then cut back after it's done.

 

[theJalden]

So does Drill effect individual units and Professionalism effect the whole Army? Like others have said this seems to overlap a bit with the concept of Army Tradition.

We now have a lot of modifiers that effect how well the Army fights, Discipline, Combat ability, unit pips, Tactics, now we also have Drill and Professionalism, near as I can tell they all do roughtly the same thing.

Are there any plans to simplify this? Maybe just have flat Shock - Fire - Morale pips with modifiers that change with technology and events. This modifier could probably take the place of the Tactics modifier too. Discipline and Drill seem pretty similar too. Anyways, sorry for backseat developing.

 

[otaats]

This game isn't meant for Balance like other games, it's an asymmetrical game.

Doesn't mean that the large nations need to always have better troops, too.

 

[QDI]

So does Drill effect individual units and Professionalism effect the whole Army? Like others have said this seems to overlap a bit with the concept of Army Tradition.

We now have a lot of modifiers that effect how well the Army fights, Discipline, Combat ability, unit pips, Tactics, now we also have Drill and Professionalism, near as I can tell they all do roughtly the same thing.

Are there any plans to simplify this? Maybe just have flat Shock - Fire - Morale pips with modifiers that change with technology and events. This modifier could probably take the place of the Tactics modifier too. Discipline and Drill seem pretty similar too. Anyways, sorry for backseat developing.

I agree that Drill could just increase discipline, modifiers are similar enough.

However, I don't think Professionalism and Army Tradition overlap:

• They represent different concepts: how close your troops are to an organized, modern army vs how much the culture and experience of fighting have penetrated your society
• They behave differently: professionalism only changes as a direct result of your actions (drilling, building) while army tradition slowly rises with each battles and you can only slow its decay

You can have high army tradition - low professionalism armies and vice-versa. Think the classic opposition between nomad and sedentary people.

 

[Wagonlitz]

While I agree with you that more realistic borders always are preferable (no idea whether more provinces in the Baltic are warranted; probably, I'd say, but I'm no expect) then be aware that for game optimisation and for gameplay reasons several of the provinces you drew are non starters---i.e. they have no chance of getting included.

I learned that lessen back when I suggested ideas for the Denmark rework.