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EU4 - Development Diary - 31st of July 2018

Good day and welcome to another Dev Diary for Europa Universalis IV. As July rolls to a close, Paradox HQ slowly sees its manpower trickle back in from Summer merriment and return to creating games. At this rate, who knows, we may be able to announce Dharma's release date in the not-too-distant future, as I have been not so subtly asked about many a time.

But what are we looking at today? We've covered almost all of the new mechanics for Dharma already, we'll finish it off today by talking about what we've done to make Centers of Trade more interesting.

Ever since EU4's release, Centers of Trade have been a constant flat bonus to a province. They can make otherwise uninviting land fairly desirable for conquest to drive up your trade power in a node for as long as you can hold the land. It works fairly well, but has lacked a depth to it that we're looking to change.

BNG COT.png


Firstly, and this goes for everyone who updates to the 1.26 Mughals version, Centers of Trade, both inland and coastal, will have 3 different levels, allowing them to affect their province, the owner and the lands around them. These are:

(coastal)
  • Staple Port:
    • + 5 trade power,
  • Entrepot:
    • +10 trade power, -5% dev cost, +10% institution spread
  • World Port:
    • +25 trade power, +0.25 Naval Tradition, +30% institution spread
    • For whole Area: -10% dev cost, +100% Sailors, +1 Building Slot
(inland)
  • Emporium:
    • +5 Trade Power
  • Market Town:
    • +10 Trade Power, -5% dev cost
  • World Trade Center:
    • +25 trade power, +30% institution spread
    • For Whole Area: -10% Dev Cost, +33% Manpower, +1 Building Slot
Our goal here is to bring a lot more variance to the Centers of Trade around the world, such that Genoa brings a bit more to the table than Barcelona, or Gujarati Khambhat feels far more of a thriving and tantalising target than Thana. Staple ports and Emporiums will bring only modest trade power bonuses. Entrepots and Market Towns are similar to how all old Centers of Trade used to be, while World Ports and World Trade Centers not only bring benefit the provinces dearly, but also benefit the area around them and offer the owner a way to gain Naval Tradition. Note that Centers of Trade do not consume buildings slots.

With this, the Trade Center levels across the world have been crafted to model the world's situation and, with the scaling of their effects, has allowed us to add considerably more Centers of Trade than we have been at liberty to do before.

Europe:
Euro COT.png


India:

Indian COT.png



In addition to this, Dharma owners will see the levels of Centers of Trade fluctuate both through their own actions, and those of the nations around them. Centers of Trade in either States or Trade Companies can be upgraded for a cost of 200 Ducats to level 2, and 1000 ducats to level 3. The number of Level 3 Centers of Trade a nation can have is capped by the number of available Merchants that nation has, so a globe-spanning trade nation will be able to hold many of them if they so desire, while a less trade focused conqueror will have to be more picky.

Be wary however, since a Center of Trade will be downgraded by 1 level, either from 3 to 2 or 2 to 1 upon a change of owner, even through peaceful methods like diplomatic integration. Trade and traders will thrive in peaceful lands of certainty. You are also able to downgrade your own Centers of Trade if you are at peace, at a cost of 10 prestige.

That's our lot for today, we'll be back next week, rounding up on the National Ideas that we have not yet covered.

CLARIFICATION: if you don't own Dharma it gets locked to it's level. You do not lose any level when province owner switches. - Groogy
 
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If there is more than one CoT in an area, can they all be lvl 3 and provide +1 building each?
 
I suppose this should nerf Hollands piece of the pie in the English channel trade node. I think this is logical, as the 4 province nation of holland beats half of England. In my current conquest of England as France. As much as i love to play with Holland. This balance should be justified as Hollands immense wealth should come from world wide trade instead of just North and South Holland and some mediocre provinces. Like Utrecht and Friesland.
 
Each merchant gives a small bonus to the amount of trade value on that trade link. It's not linear, but pretend it was 5% for this example, and the nodes go A==>B==>C==>A (so, a small circle), with merchants on each one.

A: value = 1
B: value = 1.05
C: value = 1.1025
A (again, continuing the circle): value = 1.158
B (still circling): value = 1.22
etc., going infinitely high

Now, another nation puts a merchant on node B to collect: how much money do they get?


I didnt know it works that way? :eek:
I thought merchants use their extra-influence to skim or to "transport" it to the next center.
 
@DDRJake or @Groogy, this is not directly related to this dev diary, but could we see the list of government reforms with finialized numbers? I’m especially interested in republics.

Also, can countries with special governments now choose whether to lock themselves in to those governments at game start? For example, can Venice decide to not be an MR? Can England turn down the English Monarchy?
 
No. Why? A ruler spent a lot of money creating dock and trade infrastructure and push all this trade through this port. I doesn't matter how many people lived there before - they would start living there because trade, not the way around.
But I'd add maintenance for 2 and 3 levels of Trade Centers, maybe state maintenance modifier, or province income penalty, like +10% for 2nd level, and +25% for 3rd level (for Dharma owners only, because only they can upgrade and downgrade TCs). Roads and docks aren't cheap, you know. That would make interesting situations, like it can be useful for small nation just to hand out Trade Center province to big and powerful nation as trade company - they wouldn't pay all this upkeep, enjoy bonuses from trade company and still enjoy bonuses for area when (if) rich nation would upgrade TC for lvl3.


Wasnt dock a diplomatic mana building and infrastructure also dip or production development? So to foster trade, the province should have the capacity for a dock and trade house, no?
 
hmm so they are locked , but you can boost them if you own the DLC? neat
and if you conquer them they won't derank? even better
i'm eager getting these new changes


edit : seeing the map , does that mean there will be lvl 0 trade estuaries and such?
 
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Wasnt dock a diplomatic mana building and infrastructure also dip or production development? So to foster trade, the province should have the capacity for a dock and trade house, no?
Dock is just a building (I believe buildings itself aren't linked with mana currently, right?), and in-game docks are military infrastructure, it's combat naval bases (giving more sailors). To foster trade you'll need, well, to foster trade. It's quite reasonable to build TCs in high-development areas (because being able to build Marketplace would make 2nd lvl TC +15 TP, not just +5, for example).
I do believe that raising development should be a money sink, and expensive as hell though. As far I recall an answer I got when development raising first arrived, "it would break system through making Orkney into megapolis through just sinking money into Orkney". I didn't understand then how mana spends is better in this sense (even worse, because nation mana flow isn't exactly depends a lot from economy except advisers), and I don't understand now; and also I don't understand a problem, because megapolises created this way exactly. But devs at least created some development upgrade through money, and I'm happy.
 
can be upgraded for a cost of 200 Ducats to level 2, and 1000 ducats to level 3

This feels like goldsink. I'm not sure that this is really good, because it makes richer nations even more richer and doesn't offer any interesting interactions. Why can't this be tied to how much merchants and what percent they forward to your main node? And other CoTs would also benefit from this - improving with time. And if conditions are not met - after some time post will downgrade. It will feel more realistic.

Also, please, can you show Eastern Europe CoTs?
 
Can't wait for every trade node to quickly turn into level 1 trade nodes and stay there until the 1600's

Not a chance, I mean, what are the odds of anyone ever conquoring the constantinople tradenode? So that's one tradenode that'll stay level 3 ( I assume) to start with) ;)
 
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Tuscany has 3 Centers of Trade now and if you have enough merchants you can upgrade all of them.

Looks like Tuscany has two centers of trade to me. The base amount of merchants should be enough to allow them to be upgraded if you get the ducats.


That alleviates some of my balance concerns.


Anyways, looks like buff to colonizers and, indirectly, Exploration ideas. Maybe Expansion ideas too. Hopefully it helps with dealing with the tedium of that aspect of the game.
 
I feel like this is an unnecessary feature similar to the naval doctrine mechanic of this patch. The upgrades are a money sink for late game and not a good investment otherwise. Increasing CoTs and spreading out trade power does make it harder to control rich nodes with one or two provinces. But the CoT manpower and sailor buffs become ridiculous when stacked with the trade company investments.