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EU4 - Development Diary - 5th of September 2017

Good morning world! Tuesday rolls around and while I must spend many hours stirring up the dev multiplayer contestants to start a word war, it is also time for another Developer Diary. As mentioned in last week's diary on Army Professionalism, today we're giving attention to a part of the game which hasn't seen much development in EU4's life with Trade Policies

For owners of the upcoming expansion accompanying Update 1.23, you will be able to set a trade policy in any node where your nation has a merchant present. There is no cost to setting your policy, and they can be changed with a 12 month cooldown. Policies available to all nations are:

  • Maximize Profits: +5% trade power
  • Hostile Trading: +25% Spy network speed in nations with present merchant or home node.

  • Establish Communities: +15% Improve relations with all other nations with their home node or a merchant present located here.
  • Improve Inland Routes: +1 combat terrain bonus in trade node provinces. Only possible with 33% of Trade Power in a node
The default policy selected for any merchant is Maximize Profits. For unknown reasons, the Inland Routes policy has proven very popular in the office.

trade policies 1.jpg


I said these were the policies available for everyone, but as some may have gathered from screenshots and dev diaries, we are taking quite the shining to the Islamic world in 1.23. As such, there is a specific Trade Policy available to Muslims: Propagate Religion.

When a Muslim nation controls more than 33% of the Trade Power in a Trade Company Region's node, they are able to activate the Propagate Religion Trade Policy, which will establish a Religious Centre in the node, spreading this religion within the node, as can be seen in my totally legit Omani screenshot

trade policies 2.jpg


There are events associated with the Trade Policies, including specific flavour events should Religion be propagated through Indonesia.

While we're talking about the South East, let's take a look at the trade goods setup here.

trade goods SEA.jpg


A few changes to be seen here, particularly with gems and incense in the region, which should be noted are both added to the possible goods that colonies here can produce.

Cheers for checking out today's Dev diary, but I must now go around the office antagonizing our Dev Clash players. Next week we'll continue on the theme of Islam and look directly at the changes coming to the Muslim World.
 
If only muslims can spread the word of Allah through trade policies and Christianity can't even get a word in about Jesus or the Jews about Jehovah then there is no way i'm buying this dlc. Actually a lot more religions would/should be able to spread through domination of trade, just historically the muslims dominated trade in that region, there is no reason to think the hindus wouldn't take full advantage and spread their ideas if they had domination of trade.

To be fair Hinduism is far more passive due to its tolerant nature, However the Spread in Trade company areas should be usable by Jews, Christians(maybe limited to Catholics to represent the Jesuit missions of the time?) and Buddhism by very least. as Buddhism was spread in the Indochinese area by trade originally similarly how Islam spread to Indochina in similar manner.
as for Christians, we must remember that with every colonial adventure they brought with them missionaries. be it to Japan and China or India. As for example Sikh heavy parts of India have also quite a large protestants from days of the Raj and I do believe a mix of Catholics and Nestorians live in harmony in Goa areas of India.
in total these 3 main sects of Christians make it the 3rd largest faith in India after Hinduism and Islam.
 
To be fair Hinduism is far more passive due to its tolerant nature, However the Spread in Trade company areas should be usable by Jews, Christians(maybe limited to Catholics to represent the Jesuit missions of the time?) and Buddhism by very least. as Buddhism was spread in the Indochinese area by trade originally similarly how Islam spread to Indochina in similar manner.
as for Christians, we must remember that with every colonial adventure they brought with them missionaries. be it to Japan and China or India. As for example Sikh heavy parts of India have also quite a large protestants from days of the Raj and I do believe a mix of Catholics and Nestorians live in harmony in Goa areas of India.
in total these 3 main sects of Christians make it the 3rd largest faith in India after Hinduism and Islam.

^ This. Any religion that should be able to do it for balance sake.
You can find the reasoning anywhere you want to.
Give non-proselytizing religions a different bonus like unrest reduction considering tolerance. (or base it on your tolerance to begin with?).

Turk players need not fear their ottoblob actually losing... it will persist and conquer most of europe most of the time anyway.

King of Crystals said:
Sir they can only do it in a trade company region
That's still terrible. the ottomans already get easy christian super power alliances very early in the game (catholic france and ottomans vs catholic poland). Most of my games have them either absorb hungry or even more.
My last game had them reaching the baltics.

So now they'll able to blob into africa and the americas. (which can happen at times anyway)
This is overkill that we're asked to pay for.

No sir.
 
- You can't fight Austria as an opener and you don't have to. Neither as an Italian minor, nor as a minor in the HRE
- You can't fight France as an opener and you don't have to. Neither as... there are no minors around France
- Denmark is still weaker than Sweden and there are still no minors there except for a Holstein opening, which takes a ton of time anyways
- There isn't a single minor around Ming that would open by declaring on them since you can become a tributary

Yes, it's an Ottoman specific problem.

You can add Muscovy / Russia on top of it, since they will control 2 Nodes rather faster, Kazan and Novgorod and they can push to three (Kiev) rather fast. Persia aswell, it will control it's home node with mountains.

Plus for the person who said "Hungary / Venice in Ragusa", they cant, Ottoman does have naval supremacy early game, which means no light ship available to steer for Venice and Ragusa itself is protected by Ottomans. If the node was a land one, Hungary would be able to steer and "maybe" grab 33% of it, but actually they can't. So Ottomans will have a buff on his woods right west of Constantinople and EVEN if Hungary holds, they'll never get the +1 on their border since it's either Ragusa or Constantinople node. A Human Hungary might get Ragusa, but an AI one won't and in MP Venice will never let Hungary grab 33% of Ragusa.

I think we cannot stress enough How powerful a +1 is..they even said in the Diary "it was really popular". Well, if you add numerous possibilites but you have ONE which is overpicked all the time...Maybe, just maybe, you did it wrong? :)
(Really, given how "weak" the other bonus are, I'd just give a bonus to Reinforce Speed)
 
"Dude", your premise is just incorrect.
1. The only trade node where the Ottomans start out with more than 33 % trade power is Constantinople. They are quite far from it in all other neighboring nodes.
2. If they want to get the bonus in Constantinople, they have to use a merchant there - whom they could otherwise use to transfer trade power from another node.
3. Unless you are an Anatolian minor, you do not, and I cannot stress this enough, have to fight your decisive battles against them in the provinces covered by the Constantinople node. Yes, you shouldn't pick a fight in the Constantinople province because you might get wiped there, but lure them just a bit west (or, as the Mameluks/Trebizond/Georgia/the Sheep, a bit west) and, whoosh, no bonus.
4. Several potential Ottoman opponents are in a decent position to gain the bonus in other nodes - the Mameluks in Aleppo and Alexandria, Lithuania in Crimea, Venice and Hungary in Ragusa. This will make it harder for the Ottomans to invade these territories. If that is too hard to understand, I certainly do not know what to tell you (btw, for the mentioned countries, the respective nodes are not their home node, i.e. they, unlike the Ottomans, do not have to "waste" their merchant to get the buff).
5. Trade-focused player countries (Venice, Genoa, Ragusa...) should be able to both get the Ottomans below 33 % in Constantinople and get the bonus in most nodes where they might happen to require it. The change is a massive buff for trading countries against the Ottomans (and thus effectively a debuff for the Ottos).

I'd respond to this post, but I'm too busy trying to figure out how I will ever work up the will to sacrifice a merchant to receive a +1 buff to combat in almost my entire nation. I mean, I only put a merchant in that node at the start of every single game anyway so...
 
I'd respond to this post, but I'm too busy trying to figure out how I will ever work up the will to sacrifice a merchant to receive a +1 buff to combat in almost my entire nation. I mean, I only put a merchant in that node at the start of every single game anyway so...
well then you are trading wrong
 
Oh look, even more features, buffs and flavour for Islam :rolleyes:

Islam is already objectively the most powerful religion in the game, how about giving some other religions something to play with instead of just amassing flat buffs for one?
This. Muslim AI never collapses or suffers religious setbacks where as Orthodox Christianity tends to go flat out extinct if Russia doesn't form.
Is there a really big Muslim player base i'm unaware of or just PDX fetish? either way if i were the former i'd want a challenging game.
 
This. Muslim AI never collapses or suffers religious setbacks where as Orthodox Christianity tends to go flat out extinct if Russia doesn't form.
Is there a really big Muslim player base i'm unaware of or just PDX fetish? either way if i were the former i'd want a challenging game.
Because Russia was the last real Orthodox country, and the game allows for rapid conversions because players don't want to ever get annoyed. So you end up with PLC mass converting their land, Ottomans mass converting their land, and Orthodox goes extinct under them.

Plus the strongest religion in the game right now is Orthodox soooo wtf? You can make the argument for Coptic for SP WC.
 
Because Russia was the last real Orthodox country, and the game allows for rapid conversions because players don't want to ever get annoyed. So you end up with PLC mass converting their land, Ottomans mass converting their land, and Orthodox goes extinct under them.

Plus the strongest religion in the game right now is Orthodox soooo wtf? You can make the argument for Coptic for SP WC.
Orthodox strongest? eh. If you play with a russian governments yes their abilities are overpowered and siberian frontier is plain silly cheap. The AI still fails to get russia going some times just not most of the time.

Muslim nations are already insanely powerful early game. so much in particular the ottomans that save player intervention can and will blob in all directions. If trade companies are improved and religious sects are added make it for all religions/cultures.

> Christian sects (reformed is broader than what it is in game. same for protestant , orthodox under ottomans and orthodox in russia differed i believe)
> Jesuits in spanish trade posts.
> Could also improve the italian city states while they're at it considering 1444 is their peak.
 
Because Russia was the last real Orthodox country, and the game allows for rapid conversions because players don't want to ever get annoyed. So you end up with PLC mass converting their land, Ottomans mass converting their land, and Orthodox goes extinct under them.

Plus the strongest religion in the game right now is Orthodox soooo wtf? You can make the argument for Coptic for SP WC.

IIRC Ottoman has huge tolerance and will not convert their orthodox provinces.

So where are you getting that idea that Ottoman is convert-happy? PLC is definitely covert-happy as a comparison.
 
I propose that the auto religion thing has a defense that if an empire rank nation has the religion that is being converted in the trade node and is also in the trade node, that it can be stopped.