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EU4 - Development Diary - 30th of June 2016

The skies are blue, the sun is shining and Sweden is very nearly shut down for Summer. I'm not kidding, this whole country just turns off in July like you pulled out its batteries. None the less, before the great productivity purge we're here for one more development diary for Europa Universalis IV.

A fair few forumites were clairvoyant enough to predict this after we added Ruler Personalities. Indeed, as part of the upcoming expansion we will have Leader Traits

Gainint trait.jpg


At the conclusion of any battle the leader involved has a chance to gain a trait. This trait will, unlike Ruler Personalities, always be a bonus. Current chance of gaining a trait is set to 2% multiplied by the Army Tradition gain from a battle (this, like most numbers during development, is subject to balance changes) which can be set in the defines.

Leaders are limited to one trait each and that trait will affect all units under their command. In battle, the trait of the commanding general (the one whose shock/fire pips are used) will affect all units on their side.

Some of the traits:
Goal Orientated:+10% Movement Speed
Hardy Warrior: -20% Attrition
Siege Specialist: +15% Siege Ability
Born to the Saddle: +50% Cavalry Flanking Range

leader trait battle.jpg


Of course, Admirals can gain traits too. Same rules as generals except the chance is based on naval tradition from battles.

Buccaneer: +25% Privateering Efficiency
Prize hunter: +5% chance of capturing enemy ships
Ironside: +5% Ship Durability
Extortioner: + 15% Light Ship Trade Power

naval trait.jpg


There are 22 traits in total, many with combat modifiers which have been added to the game for use in modding (and in National Idea changes which we will show later). It's worth noting that Heirs, Monarchs, Conquistadors and Explorers can also gain traits from combat.

Leader Traits are a paid feature in the upcoming [name removed] expansion. There are many more features and changes to come but you're going to have to hold out for 5 weeks on more news since as I mentioned, this country is going to shut down for a month. I'll be back with the next dev diary in the first week of August.

Leader death.jpg


Great generals are like Swedish Summer, never lasting quite as long as you want.
 
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I am gonna sound stupid asking this. It was a few patches ago when I last played EU4 where the losing side always gain more tradition than the winning side. Did they fix that somewhere down the line?
 
I am gonna sound stupid asking this. It was a few patches ago when I last played EU4 where the losing side always gain more tradition than the winning side. Did they fix that somewhere down the line?

No.
 
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it is wad no need to be fixed according to pdx.

Messenger: Sire, our entire army has been wiped out!

King: Is there anyone left alive?

Messenger: No sire, not a single person has returned alive. We've lost an upwards of a thousand of our best officers and generals, and the reputation our army has for invincibility has just been shattered. On the bright side, we have gained far more army tradition from losing everyone than our opponent has from killing them.
 
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Messenger: Sire, our entire army has been wiped out!

King: Is there anyone left alive?

Messenger: No sire, not a single person has returned alive. We've lost an upwards of a thousand of our best officers and generals, and the reputation our army has for invincibility has just been shattered. On the bright side, we have gained far more army tradition from losing everyone than our opponent has from killing them.

And surely that wouldn't spark need for innovation, and some changes to avoid such a disaster in the future, represented by increased morale, better generals, faster sieges etc. :p
 
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I am gonna sound stupid asking this. It was a few patches ago when I last played EU4 where the losing side always gain more tradition than the winning side. Did they fix that somewhere down the line?
it does make sence, you learn on your mistakes actually.
 
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Messenger: Sire, our entire army has been wiped out!

King: Is there anyone left alive?

Messenger: No sire, not a single person has returned alive. We've lost an upwards of a thousand of our best officers and generals, and the reputation our army has for invincibility has just been shattered. On the bright side, we have gained far more army tradition from losing everyone than our opponent has from killing them.

Tradition gain is supposed to reflect lessons learned. You wouldn't learn very much from winning an embarassingly one sided victory but your foe would be able to study that battle and see what happened.

And stackwipes don't mean everybody died, usually just mean that the survivors all deserted.
 
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it does make sence, you learn on your mistakes actually.

You guys didn't take into account that with RoM that means the losing side always have a bigger chance to gain a leader trait than the winning side. Since leader traits are always positive that means a general that lost a battle always has a bigger chance of becoming a better general than a general that won a battle which makes zero sense.
 
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Tradition gain is supposed to reflect lessons learned. You wouldn't learn very much from winning an embarassingly one sided victory but your foe would be able to study that battle and see what happened.

And stackwipes don't mean everybody died, usually just mean that the survivors all deserted.

yeah half of your men who got stackwiped, returns to your manpower pool.
 
You guys didn't take into account that with RoM that means the losing side always have a bigger chance to gain a leader trait than the winning side. Since leader traits are always positive that means a general that lost a battle always has a bigger chance of becoming a better general than a general that won a battle which makes zero sense.
you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes
 
you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes

Usually someone has to still be around to tell you what your mistakes are.

For that matter, Military Tradition doesn't make much sense, as that would imply you have a strong tradition of losing.