EU4 - Development Diary - 6th of December 2016

[CharlesII]

I think this is a really good step towards a more dynamic and realistic game. Not only that, but the game punishes you for having high war exhaustion or cheesing the system with the "Friendly Troops" modifier once every few years. I do hope that blockades will also raise devastation and maybe even loot provinces, as not only is that realistic, but Britain will not only have to deal with this, but it may even be a nerf to them since they were never forced to deal with province looting.

 

[chaotikchris]

Yes, now just make long-term prosperity add development and long-term devastation to lower development.

 

[grommile]

I do hope that blockades will also raise devastation and maybe even loot provinces, as not only is that realistic, but Britain will not only have to deal with this, but it may even be a nerf to them since they were never forced to deal with province looting.

If GBR is getting blockaded with any effectiveness at all, it damn well should be getting its provinces looted, since being able to blockade GBR with any effectiveness implies you have naval superiority in the theatre and could perfectly well land troops if you wanted to.

 

[Enriador]

A new tab for States? Demographics? The biggest addition ever?

Brace yourselves, POPs are coming!

 

[Celtic Emporer]

...Might we get a new supply sytem?

 

[Bella Gerant]

A new tab for States? Demographics? The biggest addition ever?

Brace yourselves, POPs are coming!

...Might we get a new supply sytem?

Crusader Universalis 3: A Heart Divided

 

[Threshold]

Each time a province is looted, its devastation is increased by 5%, and a scorched earth increased it by 25%.

Wait, every time a province is looted? So, I can loot with a 1 cav stack, move it out of the province, back in, and loot again for another 5% devastation next month? Please tell me you've at least kept a little of looting's binary state, and simply meant "when a province becomes looted".

Each year devastation is reduced by 1%, and within the zone of control of a fortification, it is reduced by 2% for each fort level each year.

We definitely need clarification on whether this is 1 per month or 1 per year. The screenshot shows 1 per year, which appears to be too little, given the current information on the implementation, but on the other hand, 1 per month is probably too much regardless of implementation.

Unrest is also increasing the devastation of a province by the amount of unrest each year.

Yo dawg, we herd u liek unrest, so we put sum unrest n ur unrest so u can unrest while u unrest wif ur unrest.
This raises a question: Does devastation decrease from negative unrest?

This design choice troubles me a bit. It sounds like lowering autonomy is now a non-choice, because a huge 20-year unrest increase will now cripple the province beyond any gains you get from -25% autonomy.

The only way it'd remain worthwhile would be if you could immediately bait the rebels into rising up (for the -100 recent revolt modifier). Will such a mechanic be added (say, pay Mil points to provoke 'em rather than stall them)?

That's definitely a concern.

Why?

Forts will block that dramatically.

Exactly how many forts are you expecting the player to have? Are we just playing Fortis Universalis now?

A cool feature for the expansion though is the concept of Prosperity, which is a state-level bonus. Any state that has 0 devastation in all its provinces and the country is at positive stability will have a small counter tick up each month, depending on the abilities of its government. It is a random chance, but when the counter reached 100%, then the state has reached Prosperity.

And once you gain any unrest in that state, you lose prosperity? Or what?

A state with prosperity gives -10% to development cost, and +25% to goods produced.

The entire development system needs a rework (like maybe a cap, but that's too simple to be an attractive solution) before -10% actually matters (no, really)-and then on the other end of the scale, +25% goods produced is probably too good.
I'm just gonna go ahead and agree with @samin:

Why make prosperity binary when you explicitly make another similar feature non-binary in the same breath?

It's not like it makes particular sense for prosperity to be binary either. Should be a scaling modifier.

Stay tuned, next week we’ll talk about something that will probably be the biggest feature added to the game since we started EU4.

We're going to hold you to that, you know. It better be big.

With unrest increasing devastation... Doesn't that mean that rebels taking lands and then gaining independence will usually rule over some devastated states? Will it weaken them significantly compared to 1.19?

Good catch.

this is totally why they post this stuff in dev diaries. So that the forum can figure out the balance issues. We've already spotted massive issues with tying devastation to unrest and the ability to carpet loot/devastate the AI and do a white peace so they keep full war exhaustion on top of that.

Which reminds me, Devastation pretty much replaces what War Exhaustion is.

I would have more faith in that if it was evident that they listened to the complaints about all of the various unpopular 1.19 changes, but unfortunately the fort change caused such massive upheaval (which isn't to say it was all bad, either) that voices on other topics may have had difficulty being heard through the fray.
Seriously though, even without reversion or bug fixes that aren't band-aids, acknowledgement goes a long way, when a significant amount of players agree that there's a problem.

I'm devastated.

Here, have an internet.

WOOOHOOO! First Jake appropriates my Player Slayer and now there's a mechanic called Devastation where provinces in war zones get damaged, and forts are directly tied into it, which is basically what I suggested ages ago.


Since I'm pretty much already one of the devs... when do I get my salary? ^_^

Note to self: Send @OldmansHQ all bugs related to devastation

If GBR is getting blockaded with any effectiveness at all, it damn well should be getting its provinces looted, since being able to blockade GBR with any effectiveness implies you have naval superiority in the theatre and could perfectly well land troops if you wanted to.

Agreed.

Crusader Universalis 3: A Heart Divided

Crusader Universalis: Iron Hearts Divided

 

[granmememaestro]

Does seizing the means of production with Dithmarschen increase prosperity?
Also, I found very interesting how EU4 is getting more and more like a "modern" CK2, the mechanics that made CK2 so 'human', that are now being applied to EU4 are making the game more and more interesting, keep it up!

 

[shivan]

Interesting since it gives forts an economic use too.

 

[ham14]

I hope they are planning to rework the Barbary pirates being able to instantly loot multiple coastal provinces. At least with the armies looting they have to leave them sitting in the provinces and you have the chance to attack them.

 

[indika_tates]

It appears to be a troublesome feature if it doesn't come with an improvement of old mechanics:

1) Forts are very expensive.
2) The HRE is not a house of peace, and provinces are looted constantly during the game. This will cause massive devastation to every prince inside the HRE.
3) If unrest causes devastation when centers of reformation appear it's going inevitably to cause massive devastation inside the HRE (plus the previous devastation caused by point 2). Enabling decisions that increases missionary strength for negative heretic tolerance (required to have enough missionary strength anyways) is asking for trouble.
4) Have you think seriously about the consequences of unrest -> devastation? An example. Playing with a colonial GB (No french holdings), wait until France starts a war with the HRE. Full blockade France for 20 years. If you keep them on 10-20WE you could devastate a great power in a single war because they are not going to recover easily.
5) Late game, add "Sow dissent". Now, the problem is bigger.
6) Attrition wars of devastation. So if you want to cripple an enemy, maintain on their provinces high WE over time which is easy with certain nations. Your intention is not to win a war, just to maintain high WE on your enemy. Capture one or two forts and blockade ports until "Call for peace" appears.
7) Hordes economy are in a pretty bad situation. If looting and razing (their way of life) hurt them, they are more than ever Muscovy food.
8) Some disasters add massive unrest. So you do not only have a "War of the roses" + Lollards, you are going to have a devastated nation after.
9) Forts only soften devastation issues.

I mean, I like the prosperity bonus. But if it's implemented as Dev's said the devastation will be inside EU4 forums.

 

[Tvarog]

1) Forts are very expensive.

And now they become economically profitable, somehow.
In the rest points i can see that now there are more interesting ways of defeating big and powerful countries, and also HRE, heart of Europe is nerfed that way?
Isn't that players want ROTW and minors being easily playable?

 

[Sopbucket]

Cool, I always thought that war and occupation should have some effect on a region's development over the course of the game. Since raising development is locked behind a DLC we can't have provinces losing it outright, but this system seems like a pretty good compromise.

 

[User4035]

With all the holes being pointed out in this new mechanic it's looking like its going to be a feature we just don't care about or bother to try and get the bonus from.
So this will just add more calculations and thus lag the game for pretty much no affect on game play.

You want to make forts useful? Have forts reduce revolt risk by 2% in province and 1% in zone of control. And the older forts get less reduction.


.....i'm gonna go post this in suggestion forum.

 

[theJalden]

With all the holes being pointed out in this new mechanic it's looking like its going to be a feature we just don't care about or bother to try and get the bonus from.
So this will just add more calculations and thus lag the game for pretty much no affect on game play.

It's the paradox way

 

[Sopbucket]

By the way, how does devastation affect local autonomy? Does it increase it over time, or act as a floor for it?

 

[sbalani]

Devastation mechanic makes sense, better late than never i suppose.

Prosperity? Like Ck2? First we had a Victoria 2-like mechanic (Great Powers), now it's a CK2-like one? Interesting...

And Smart! its so great to see the EU4 team not be afraid to grab what works from other games, and adjust it for the title. So far it seems to be working fantabulously. i wish Stellaris & HOI4 would follow suit, as there are certain components that would do well accross all games, such as giving "characters" more personality (not nescesarilly to the CK2 level, but certainly with more impact that what they have now).

In EU4 now your ruler & nobles matters much more than ever, but its not to the micro level that they did in EU4. But its nice to see some of that carry over.

 

[Ziggy187]

All the MP drains of 1.18, 1.19 & now we get this one? No brainier to roll back to 1.17 & stay there until they balance all of this.

 

[OBRkenobi]

I'm so excited!

 

[NorthernXY]

All the MP drains of 1.18, 1.19 & now we get this one? No brainier to roll back to 1.17 & stay there until they balance all of this.

Unfortunately I'm losing faith that they look back. They implemented sailors, but didn't bother to make them relevant. The only time I or anybody else has needed to wait for them to generate has been when going from landlocked to not landlocked and you have to start from 0 with provinces with high autonomy after you core them.

What percentage of people here build docks to increase their number of sailors?

Stay tuned, next week we’ll talk about something that will probably be the biggest feature added to the game since we started EU4.

Um...???

One of the biggest changes in concept is the introduction of sailors.