• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

EU4 - Development Diary - 5th of March 2019

Good morning. As was foretold, I am back to talk about our thoughts on overhauling the map of the Balkans for the big end-of-year European update. Once again I’ll begin with a disclaimer that everything here is very much subject to change as we continue to listen to feedback and iterate on our own ideas throughout the year.

balkans_old.jpg


Behold: the Balkans in patch 1.4. And for reference, here are the Balkans as they are now, in patch 1.28:

balkans_new.jpg


The big change here is simply “more provinces”. Albania has been split up substantially, we have more Aegean Islands, and provinces density in Bulgaria is higher.

There is still, in my opinion, plenty of room for new provinces in Greece and Bulgaria. For the mainland we want to achieve a similar level of density as we see in Anatolia. One of the most obvious things we can do is split the Yanya province by adding Arta, one of the last Epirote cities to fall to the Ottomans. The return of the Epirus tag in 1444 heralds another change: the removal of the Corfu tag, at least in 1444. In the game right now, Corfu is a vassal of Venice and ruled by monarchs who were in fact the independent rulers of the Despotate of Epirus. This will change.

Other possibilities include a province that would more accurately reflect the Ottoman-Moldavian border in Silistria/Basarabia, a further split in the Aegean between Scio and Lesbos, and a separate province centered on the city of Tarnovo in Bulgaria.

greece_suggestion.jpg


This suggestion by Mingmung, and others very much like it, show a step in the right direction. Beyond what I’ve already mentioned, I like the idea of splitting Cephalonia from the Corfu province to add a little tactical depth to Epirus, as well as the addition of Corinth in the south. We are however unlikely to add extra provinces on Cyprus or Crete: outside of very large islands like Sardinia and Sicily we prefer to keep such places restrained to single provinces.

Moving north-west, there’s a lot that could be done in Serbia, Bosnia, and the Dalmatian coast. There’s room for a few more provinces of course, though not quite so many as we might need further south.

balkans_suggestion.jpg


This very aesthetically pleasing suggestion by ootats has a lot going for it. Representing Herzegovina/the Duchy of Saint Sava as a Bosnian vassal in 1444 is an interesting possibility. It also puts the province density on a level similar to that of Hungary, which I feel is a good target to aim for in the region. It is however unlikely that we’ll be adding both the Venetian provinces of Scutari and Cataro.

We’ve been reading your comments on the previous dev diary, and they’ve provoked a lot of discussion on Team Content Design. One of the results of these discussions is that we’re more open to a Como province that would split away from the northern part of what is now Milan. When the time comes for implementation it's certainly something we're willing to try out.

And that's all for today! Next week I invite you to join me on a wild ride through the confusing nightmarish mess that was Early Modern Germany. Until then, I look forward to more of your comments and suggestions.
 
Slightly disappointed that once again it's splitting current provinces into infinite smaller ones. I personally thought that in Poland update it went too far, giving whole 4-province states to regions as small as "Kuyavia"... now literally everything else on the map looks "ugly" and outdated.
That said indeed Balkans need slight redrawal, especially in Bulgaria - Silistre and Dobrogea need to be two provinces!

I'm not very sure which group Hungarian should be in, but at least Slovak needs to be moved to West Slavic - group currently quite underpowered compared to its actual presence in 1444 anyway...

If Korean can have it's own Culturegroup surely Hungarian can too.

Put Slovak in West Slavic, move Romanian to a renamed "Balkan" group and split the imaginary "Transylvanian" group between them.

I guess Paradox will never change this, but the whole cultures mechanic is a travesty as is. Either do it accurately or do over the whole mechanic. I guess the worst offender is Finnish, Karelian, Sapmi and Estonian being put into separate groups, though there are numerous others.
 
If Korean can have it's own Culturegroup surely Hungarian can too.

Put Slovak in West Slavic, move Romanian to a renamed "Balkan" group and split the imaginary "Transylvanian" group between them.
Sure, Hungarian could potentially be its own group, but I think the suggestion of having it in a group with West Slavic makes at least as much sense as having it by itself.
How exactly would you split the Transylvanian group? I imagine that any way you do it, you'd get a dozen threads on the forum complaining about it.

I guess Paradox will never change this, but the whole cultures mechanic is a travesty as is. Either do it accurately or do over the whole mechanic. I guess the worst offender is Finnish, Karelian, Sapmi and Estonian being put into separate groups, though there are numerous others.
I don't see why Sámi (the people and languages are called Sámi, the area they live in is called Sápmi) should be in the same group as Finnish, as they are very different.
If any culture should be its own group, it would be Sámi, as they were definitely not an accepted culture in any of the countries they're present in. I don't have any details for the other countries, but at least in Norway, they were not exactly treated as equals. There were huge Norwegianification (not a word I think, but you know what I mean) processes taking place, suppressing both Sámi language and religion. While that's a while ago, only about half of the Sámi population in Norway can actually speak one of the Sámi languages today. And in game terms, I'm pretty sure Norway had culture converted all its in-game provinces to Norwegian by 1820. I'm pretty sure Russia and Sweden also didn't have any in-game provinces with a Sámi majority by the end of the game. The Norwegian (active) "Culture Conversion" of its Sámi provinces might have began after the game ends (I don't remember exactly when it took place), but there was considerable colonisation of the (coastal part of the) area in the game's time frame. Likely enough to make those provinces majority Norwegian by the end date. The point is that at most one province would be Sámi at the end of the game in real life, which doesn't sound like a culture that is in the same group as the countries occupying it.
Finnish, on the other hand, was treated MUCH better by the Swedes. I see no reason to move Finnish out of the Nordic group. If you want Karelian and Estonian in the same group as Finnish, I think it would be better to move them into the Nordic group than moving Finnish out of the Nordic group.
 
Last edited:
Sure, Hungarian could potentially be its one group, but I think the suggestion of having it in a group with West Slavic makes at least as much sense as having it by itself.
How exactly would you split the Transylvanian group? I imagine that any way you do it, you'd get a dozen threads on the forum complaining about it
even for the too big slovakian culture and for the ahistorically small hungarian culture would be lot of complainings if more hungarians would play the game... but since changing culture of the provinces in the game is relatively cheap...
 
Let's stop posting in previous DD nearly every week about the time at which the new DD is supposed to arrive or not.

DD arrives when it's good and ready.
 
To break the ice, does anyone have an idea on any unique features for the Balkan minors, or states in that sphere of influence? Any flavor events? Unit models?

I know it might be asking too much, but considering how many units RB added, i'd love to see folk at the studio go crazy with some unique Balkan models. They can really fill in the gap nicely between Ottoman and Christian units, potentially emulating both for some specific tags.

I personally like the idea of some culture changes to happen, such as the creation of a Bosnian culture based on whom owns a certain region and if they force the population/nobility to change their religion.
 
What about Slovenian culture? Will it be added?

(Minor sugestion: Change name of 'South Slavic' culture group to 'Balkan')

No.
 
Add the Bosnian culture already, I mean there is Transilvanyan culture why not Bosnian? That annoys me a lot... Also if possible add some sort of heresy flavour to Bosnia, in form of events if you already don't want to add the heresy itself. And if you are so much against adding a Bosnian culture, I have no idea why though, but if you are then atleast add the possibility of a Bosnian culture appearing via an event or something. Thank you...
I'm also for this. Not having Bosnian culture is weird and does not fit historically.
 
Modern day politics have nothing to do in the forum of a historical game.
 
Apologies for breaking the rules and for my reaction. @DanubianCossak , I applaud you for actually having a very good insight in some of the Albanian ideas in EU4 in the historical context (especially the tolerance and ambush ones) even though i dont agree with some other perspectives of yours in history about other topics not the Albanian ideas in game.

Can anyone guide me where to be a part of propositions for the upcoming games and ideas?
 
Last edited: