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EU4 - Development Diary - 9th of June 2016

Hello and welcome to today's development diary for Europa Universalis IV. After much plotting and espionage, I have assumed direct control over these diaries, at least for the upcoming months while Johan enjoys some paternity leave.

The feeling of power this gives is immense. EU4 will allow you a similar feeling with a new feature in the upcoming expansion: Great Powers

In 1.18's accompanying expansion, which has yet to be name-dropped, we will grant the 8 most powerful countries in the world a "Great Power" status, granting them bonuses, new diplomatic options and, perhaps most importantly, a glow around your shield to show that you are the superior nation.

Before we address the shiny options and bonuses available to you, let's tackle the question of how to become a Great Power. As we had mentioned in a previous diary, the technology system is getting an overhaul and the Great Power mechanic will make use of this too. Your ranking as a Great Power depends on your Total Development plus half of your Subject Development, then divided by your tech cost. This ensures that early game, large powers such as Ming and Timurids will enjoy Great Power status but as Other powers rise and they lag behind with embracing new institutions, this status will be lost. Of course, If Ming, for example, stays united and forward thinking, they may not lose this status at all. Subject Nations cannot be Great Powers

As a great power you will enjoy a Power Projection bonus. One commonly raised issue is that if you are a huge power without equal your Power Projection is oddly low, since you cannot have any meaningful rivals. The greatest of the Great Powers will enjoy a +25 Power Projection bonus, with the other 7 gaining an increasingly smaller amount with rank 8 getting +10PP. Additionally, great powers will receive a prestige decay reduction. Other modifiers will likely be added before release as we continue to balance the system.

eu4_19.png


Bonuses are all very well and good, but where's the fun in being great if you can't enforce your will on lesser beings? Four new diplomatic options are opened up uniquely for Great Powers:

Take on Foreign Debt – Pay off all the loans of the target independent non-GP country. Gives +10 relations bonus for every standard size loan of the target you clear, capped at +200, decaying 2/year Also grants +1 trust for every loan cleared, or +2 favours if you have The Cossacks. Requires enough money to pay off target’s loans.

Influence Nation – Pay 1 year of target income to increase relations and grant +1 monarch points in their weakest category for 10 years in a target independent non-GP nation. This raises their opinion of you by 25 for the 10 years, also gives +5 trust. Going to war with them cancels this bonus.

Intervene in War– If there is an ongoing war between great powers but an imbalance in the number of GPs involved, you can make it your business to intervene. For example, if GP Britain is singlehandedly fighting GP France and GP Spain, you as a Great Power Commonwealth can intervene on Great Britain's side to balance out the number of great powers involved.

Break Alliance – This will force a nation to break its alliance with another. They will accept if the target nation is sufficiently afraid of you and you will gain a truce with the nation you force this upon. Useful for stripping your war target of pesky roadblocks.

eu4_12.png


Finally, you will want to hold on to your status as a great power. If you are pushed out of the top 8 nations, you will be given a 5 year grace period to regain your Great Power Score. During this time you will still have access to Great Power options but if you cannot regain your standing then you will lose them until you rise again or topple those who would claim to be greater than you.

Current 1444 Great Powers:

eu4_13.png



As usual, the nitty-gritty numbers are very much subject to change as we refine the features.

Great Powers will be available as a paid feature in the upcoming expansion, which will be released alongside the 1.18 patch.

Next week we'll be in the presence of our King/Khan/Chief/Sultan/Emperor/Malik, so I hope you're on your best behavior.
 
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I wonder how the Great Power changes and tech rebalance are going to affect the ability of small colonial countries like Portugal to colonize Africa and Asia. They already have difficult times with expanding east and end up defaulting into an exodus to North America strategy. It is going to be very weird if the most viable strategy for Portugal remains running away to North America and avoiding any conflicts with Africa and Asia. Also these smaller nations like The Netherlands and Portugal already had some issues with handling the big countries of Europe. I wonder how they will handle them when they get free power projection, prestige, and can strip away your allies.
 
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I'd like to hear more about changes regarding King/Sultan/etc status. Very exciting, I have big hopes for the next week!

Honestly, I hope that at least to catholic duchies it will be harder to declare itself as a kingdom. I mean, I know that in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to become a King (thus, Kingdom), the ruler's and the country's official religion had to be catholic. Plus, it had to have good relations with the Pope. Is it possible to add requirement that to form Kingdom you have to have 50 prestige and +150 relations with the Papal State? Just a thought. :)
 
OldmansHQ said:
If I'm not mistaken, currently there are twelve countries holding the status of Great Power, so it will be decreased to eight?

Interesting. Something like this was definitely missing, but what's still missing from the diplomatic options GPs get is... diplomatic options that are directly beneficial to them instead of some other nations. Besides, I wonder if it would be possible to intervene in a war where say the Commonwealth, Austria and Spain wage war against just the Ottoman Empire, and join on the former side if the latter is stronger even though they are single. Or even if they weren't stronger. What happens if there are two GPs fighting on each side? Does their rank as GPs has any bearing here? Break Alliance is very cool.

Though I wish not every diplomatic action gave you truce with the target. I know it's for balancing, but it slows the pace of the game. Perhaps there's some other way to do this? In my opinion, now that this system exists, one GP should ALWAYS be able to rival another GP. If anything, besides PP bonus, GPs should definitely receive bonus Diplomatic Reputation.

I also see some unfamiliar - new perhaps - icons on the second screenshot.


Indeed. That's one example where the power is not based on development. Though these are rare in the game, they should definitely be accounted for.


I cringed a bit upon seeing your post >_<. Should have actually been Poland, not Muscovy. But it seems Poland, like Austria, suffers from the fact that the system solely relies on development.


Well... From the looks of it there won't be any more snowballing than there is now. The Power Projection bonus is as it should have been. The Prestige bonus is irrelevant at this point. Lastly, all the diplomatic abilities GPs get directly benefit others, not them.
Click to expand...

First thing, instead of giving a peace timer it should use up diplo power or spy network points.
Second thing, instead of just thinking about dev it should also add up force limit and pp.
 
Vitoldas said:
I'd like to hear more about changes regarding King/Sultan/etc status. Very exciting, I have big hopes for the next week!

Honestly, I hope that at least to catholic duchies it will be harder to declare itself as a kingdom. I mean, I know that in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to become a King (thus, Kingdom), the ruler's and the country's official religion had to be catholic. Plus, it had to have good relations with the Pope. Is it possible to add requirement that to form Kingdom you have to have 50 prestige and +150 relations with the Papal State? Just a thought. :)
Click to expand...
there are already enough incentives in the game to switch out of Catholic
 
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itsuart said:
Great Powers is very rich concept, but I'm worried about execution. Like France intervening in Ming business, Ming intervening in war of religion, etc.
By looks of it, GP diplomacy actions are mostly beneficial to minor powers why is that? Shouldn't there be spheres of influence, where sphered nation will provide some bonuses to "overlord" (trade power, military and fleet access without taking diplo slots maybe?). Taking over sphered vassals from other nations diplomatically? Supporting/staging a coup in sphered nations would also be nice.
And what about New World? Before Old World powers arrive and gain meaningful presence, shouldn't Inca Empire be the one even if they suck compared to the former?
There is a lot of nuances need to be worked out.

Also the very concept of Global Great Powers in kind of out of time. In Victoria timeframe GP had means to project their power globally due to ability to quickly deploy considerable force anywhere on the Globe (with railroads, steamers and rifles/machine guns). In EU4 there were no such things, horse and (later) sail was dominant. You can't do much with those on global scale. So, maybe Local Great Powers would be more correct? Like different GPs in Europe, Africa, Asia, India and Americas? List could (should) intersect of course.
As time goes by and better and better means to project power developed, spheres could be merged one by one until there is only one, Global.
I just can't see how Timmies would be of any concern for say GB at least for two centuries. And vice versa.
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I was thinking the same thing earlier on in the thread. Having local great powers would also allow things like a local power Aztec empire early on in the game or a central Africa one. After thinking about it for awhile, I think the colonial and global trade institutions would be good thresholds for this. If a nation has colonialism, they can project their nation's power into colonial regions. After global trade kicks in, local powers are replaced with global powers.
 
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Soulburger said:
So does this mean there will also be a Great Responsibility mechanic too? Cause everyone knows with great power comes great responsibility. ;)
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E.g. GP loosing prestige/DipRep if there are pirates in trade nodes where the GP also has trade power. For the percentage of trade power of the GP has there could be a prestige penalty scaling with pirate power/efficiency/... and for the percentage of trade power other nations have in the node (where the GP is present) the GP could get a DipRep penalty scaling again with pirate efficiency. So GPs would be penalized for letting pirates disrupt trade and rewarded for doing the policing.
 
I personally see this as a prepartion for a upcoming EU IV to Victoria 3 Converter. Either from PDS themselfes, or as a helpful gestures for modders.
Victoria 3 will come, even if it means only in the next 3 years.
 
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The suggestion to have regional powers transitioning to global powers is a good one, I think. It doesn't really make sense that Ming could join a war between France, Spain and Ottomans in 1444 when they haven't even discovered France, Spain or Ottomans. A more complex system would give some bonuses for being the biggest power in your region, with further bonuses for being a global power only available once you have discovered a significant portion of the globe.

Also, balancing can make sense in some contexts, but just using "how many GPs are in this war" is way too simplistic. It should be measuring the total dev of GPs on each side (their GPness, if you will), with a requirement that getting involved must bring the balance of power in the war closer to balanced rather than farther away. So if a 300 GP and 200 GP are fighting a 500 GP, there's no reason for anyone else to get involved. If they're fighting a 400 GP, then you can get involved as long as your GPness is less than 200. There should also be some requirement that the nation intervening be a rival of at least one of the GPs on the other side, or threatened by them in some way, since an abstract concept of maintaining the balance of power didn't really exist until the 19th century.
 
I'd like to make suggestions on how regional powers could be figured before shifting to great powers.
Basically first divide the world into power sections or whatever. So, let's say east Europe, Central Europe, Mediterranean, West Europe, and North Europe(Britain, Scandinavia or such) IJ Europe. Now, for each area have a number of regional power possible or just have one. If a nations Capitol is in that region and they are both highest in the GP list of all nations in that region, and in the top something(let's say 30), then they will be a regional power. This will both allow weaker nations in td world but stronger in the area to get powers, while still letting there be multiple in a continent without a lot in there(due to the top 30 limit)
 
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The MP game I used to run with used a different system to calculate great powers for house rules.

It was based on income first, followed by land and then naval force limits, in order of importance.

Development can be misleading. It ignores autonomy, and it ignores trade income. What really matters for power is the size (and in MP, quality) of the armies you can field. Money and force limits represent this far better than development.
 
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Shock360 said:
I'd like to make suggestions on how regional powers could be figured before shifting to great powers.
Basically first divide the world into power sections or whatever. So, let's say east Europe, Central Europe, Mediterranean, West Europe, and North Europe(Britain, Scandinavia or such) IJ Europe. Now, for each area have a number of regional power possible or just have one. If a nations Capitol is in that region and they are both highest in the GP list of all nations in that region, and in the top something(let's say 30), then they will be a regional power. This will both allow weaker nations in td world but stronger in the area to get powers, while still letting there be multiple in a continent without a lot in there(due to the top 30 limit)
Click to expand...
I like the idea(even wanted to write something similar here), but I think the "regions" for these regional Powers should be bigger, to simulate such great rivalries as France-England or triple rivalry of the Commonwealth, Russia and Sweden. It would also require change in alliance/rivalry system so that two of these countries could gang up on one just to fight their former ally with help of a the country they attacked a few years later, as it happened in real life. Man, vicious cycles of pointless wars and balance of powers is something this game really lacks, and this new GP system seems to be a step in this very direction!
 
Homusubi said:
That last screenshot... no Japan setup changes again!
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No changes on the map at all as for now. There surely will be, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the last thing Johan told the staff before leaving for paternity was something in lines of "I want two thousand new provinces in Eurasia by the time I come back". 1.18 will be huge, maybe even bigger than the Art of War, there's no way they won't add any new provinces, they just haven't shown them yet. Be patient, lad.
 
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