EU4 Development Diary - 3rd March 2016

[Ratanka]

Trade Leagues are a great idea but very badly executed. How many one province minors are there in game that are relevant to the Trade League system? Novgorod wont have anyone to join their League, Venice and Genoa can maybe muster up 2 at most. Lübeck is situated in a nice spot and should be able to get 7-8 or so. Ragusa? 0! And thats virtually all merchant republics there are in the game. You should greatly increase the max amount of provinces allowed (maybe to 3) or just scrap this feature altogether otherwise it will be yet another useless fluff which only serves as a means for you to crank up DLC price.

this is exactly what i think
i bet the "trade league" then are a "major feature" with the price to it, and then used never barely or so ingame cause after 1500 i usualy dont have opm's left

sounds like an amazing idea is getting rushed, i think time betwen add ons is to short ... give them 3 more months

 

[SignedName]

Looks great I was wondering when and how The Hansa would be returning. A little bit more motivation to remain an OPM.

I'm also glad that "Mercantilism" has some drawbacks now in EU4, in the form of "corruption", as it does in real life. Mercantilism did ruin the Spainish Empire. It's too bad Donald and his Trumpkins don't understand this.

More like the constant wars caused by inheriting the HRE, plus inflation from their silver mines.

 

[MCBC6]

Nations that are at threshold of upgrading to second tier of government are still pretty weak.

A 200-300 development nation is pretty strong. That's more than double the amount France, England, Austria and various other strong nations have at game start.

 

[Mr Tex]

Wow a "major" expansion feature only affecting .1% of the nations in EU4 which will drive the price of this DLC up to $20. Amazing, I wonder what they'll think of next.
Don't get me wrong this is a good feature but no one outside of a OPM European western tech will use it, and it is then decreased even further by the added limitations of being a merchant republic. Which is also crap for the other members of the league if you aren't the leader.

Overall this expansion and patch seem like one to miss for me. Between the corruption, and state system this doesn't seem like the game is getting more fun but instead more tedious and obnoxious, for example the Estate system being totally hyped to bring internal politics to being just a tedious button clicker that added(s) no real value to the game.

 

[Atlantians]

There should be two categories for membership in Trade Leagues.

Full member and Kontores.

Full members would function as they do now, while Kontores would be larger nations like Novgorod who only receive large benefits to their provinces with COTs and Estuaries, but transfer trade power to the League Leader, while not being part of the defensive alliance.

If in another trade-zone, the Kontore with the province with the highest trade would also be able to construct a trade post like Merchant Republics can build.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League#Kontore

 

[Kapi96]

Sounds pretty good, especially the new way to increase mercantilism. Seems a bit expensive, but at least it's better than relying on luck/pope only.

Next weeks naval one sounds interesting though!

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

What is this mean I could not understand.

what I got. if one nation controls the node pmuch pirates will siphon a ton of money if multiple nations are there they wont siphon as much.

oh I see thanks

Actually, what it means is that privateers have power in a node, and take up a portion of the trade power. So if the leading nation in the trade node originally had 100% power (which in theory boosts privateer efficiency by 100%), then adding privateers to the node reduces that number. Say privateers have 16% of the power in the node, then the country which originally had 100% now only has 84%, so the privateer efficiency is only increased by that amount.

 

[Darkath]

Can you make it a bit easier to become a Merchant republic ?

Filling out 2 whole idea groups make it not really worth it IMO

 

[net.split]

Suggestion: remove province limit for merchant republics. Any MR, no matter the size, can join a lesgue. May want to add a mechanic for large subordinate members to usurp the leader in that case.

This won't help. Merchant Republics are supposed to be leaders of the leagues, and there aren't very many of them to start with.

The one-province limit should be replaced with something else, like a 50-100 development limit or something, anything. Limiting members to 1 province is such an astonishingly terrible idea that I can't understand how it made it all the way to a dev diary. That seems like one of those things that would get worked out in a discussion meeting.

A player would have to jump through tons of hoops to make one of these work, and I can't really grasp why you would want to do that instead of just taking the provinces. Especially since most of these potential OPM member states are coastal! With the new Sailor mechanic, merchant republics need to conquer coastal territory.

 

[Balesir]

Greater control of Mercantilism seems silly when you have no way to lower mercantilism without events. Given that mercantilism adds corruption now, I can see good reason to get rid of it, but no way for the player to do so.

Also, 200 diplo points for 1% of Mercantilism seems extremely overpriced to the point where it won't be used. Keep in mind that lagging behind in tech for a few points of mercantilism isn't desired because lagging behind in tech raises corruption now for some silly reason.

Trade leagues sound like they'd be okay on paper, but then you factor in that the whole union takes just a single diplo slot, so trying to invade an OPM inside a union would bring you to war with the entire union and the other allies the OPM would have. This could potentially result in Denmark declaring on Lubeck and suddenly fighting 9 OPMs and 3 other allies of Lubeck, not counting the ones that'd get pulled in via declaring war on the empire from outside. This doesn't sound sane.

Hehe - it may be just me, but all three of these sound like thoroughly positive developments, not downsides!

Mercantilism is easy to boost up, but becomes a bad thing and is harder to put down - hooray! Think before you go all gung-ho boosting it!

It's easy and profitable to boost Mercantilism rather than boost tech, but you end up with shedloads of corruption? Well, yeah - the road to hell is easy and broad! Discipline may be a harder road, but it brings rewards.

Being in a trade league is better than being in an alliance, albeit limiting? Good - that is exacly what it should be, since that was always the basic idea (band together to be worthwhile the big boys allying with).

Finally, I'll say I.m really pleased that Mercantilism is getting a downside. Grabbing all you can of it is too much of a no-brainer right now (and, with a parliamentary democracy, you can grab quite a bit).

 

[Chiro]

I think the OPM-limit is fine. Adding bigger powers to an already big alliance would make leagues OP (while they were actually on their way out, historically speaking).

But the leader of a League should have the possibilty to make a bunch of important cities independent in the Baltic and the Med. I'm aware of some already releasable OPM's, but I think that getting important trade cities independent is something that (reviving and growing) Merchant Republics would do if they had the chance. Creating cores for these releasable cities would (imo) damage the position of the current country holding it too much, so I think that giving MR's the unique possibility to ask for the release of important cities (ofc only possible when a country actually controls said city, like Malmo, Barcelona, Aalborg, Amsterdam, London etc.) during a war should do the trick.

 

[Zwirbaum]

Looks great I was wondering when and how The Hansa would be returning. A little bit more motivation to remain an OPM.

I'm also glad that "Mercantilism" has some drawbacks now in EU4, in the form of "corruption", as it does in real life. Mercantilism did ruin the Spainish Empire. It's too bad Donald and his Trumpkins don't understand this.



I'm all for this being intelligible to as many people as possible, but I thought this was an English forum. Is there a more appropriate place for you to post your Polish translation, other than immediately below the main post?

You're right. Until I'll figure the place to post them, I'll don't post them in DD threads. Sorry for that.

 

[Vourtigaunt]

Venice/Genoa usually end up leading Trade Leagues (only non-leaders are required to be OPMs).

But apart from maybe Ragusa, The Knights and Cyprus there are no real OPMs surrounding the mediterranean, are there? Maybe I'm forgetting some (I exclude the vassalized OPMs of Venice). Seems like a very tiny trade league. Especially if it is divided between Genoa and Venice.

 

[CoolSquid]

But apart from maybe Ragusa, The Knights and Cyprus there are no real OPMs surrounding the mediterranean, are there? Maybe I'm forgetting some (I exclude the vassalized OPMs of Venice). Seems like a very tiny trade league. Especially if it is divided between Genoa and Venice.

In addition to the ones you mentioned: Mantua, Siena, Lucca, Corsica and Modena if released, Athens if the Ottomans decide to let them be, Albania, Theodoro

 

[mursolini]

or maybe have the limit at two or three provinces so that countries like Mecklenburg can join. And maybe have an addition where all countries with centers of trade and in trade range to the capital of the league may "rent away" part of the trade power from that province to the leader for extra goods produced.

Or maybe we shouldn`t breed arbitrary limits.

The problem is that if member nations of a trade league are allowed to grow too strong then you're just making big nations more powerful.

Nations that are at threshold of upgrading to second tier of government are still pretty weak.

 

[FieldMedic]

Oh man the hype is real for next week. I cannot wait to see the changes to the naval combat system!

 

[BarskiPatzow]

Oh Slavonia has been split into 2 parts, Srem is probably the new teritory. Torontal is also split.

 

[Grand Historian]

I have to say I like many of the changes and upcoming features, though I do agree with many posters that the changes could use some balancing. Increasing Mercantilism seems like a particularly important one; as two hundred per a single point is pretty steep, and falling behind in Dip Tech only further increases corruption. So, would it be reasonable to reduce the price of increasing Mercantilism to 100/50 Dip and possibly add in a button to let you decrease it for 50/25 Dip? Or maybe also have mercantilism increase Spy Defense?

Likewise, I feel that Trade Leagues are also a bit too restrictive; perhaps letting all Merchant Republics, regardless of size, join one, and increasing the province threshold to 4/5 for everyone else would be good? Also, is there any way to change the leader of the Trade Leagues from within like how NA Indian Federations change leaders? I think that would make for some interesting mechanics and keep members from being permanently stuck with a static -50% Trade Power malus.

 

[Caius Cato]

Don't know why so many people says there is not enough OPM in mediterranea
OPM fro 1444 start : Lucca, Siena, Mantua, Urbino, Ragusa, Albania, Athens, Theodoro, the Knights, Cyprus, Trebizond, Ramazan (+ Corfu and Naxos)
Releasable OPM : Parma, Pisa, Modena (and that likely make Ferrarra an OP too) Corsica, Achea, Morea, Epirus
Releasable easily as OPM : Lebanon, Sicily, Algier, Kabylia, Catalonia, Tripoli, all the tiny anatolian state.
So you can have 2 leagues with 10 to 15 OPM in each one in Med area. Sure you have to adapt your gameplay for that, but it seems correct for me.

 

[aqvamare]

If you are limited over the manpool, it is still better to put this 200dip points into development