Hello EU4 fans! The team have now all returned them their vacations and resumed work, so it's time to get going with the development diaries once more. Because this week has been a busy one, today's diary will be a bit short but should address a topic that people have asked a lot of questions about:

Future Improvements to the Nation Designer

The Nation Designer is, as has been previously mentioned, probably the biggest feature added to EU4 since launch. It's proven quite popular, with custom nations consistently beating out every historical nation as the most popular choice of country to play. It's also received a number of updates, adding things such as the ability to name your own ideas and improved interface support.

However, much as how it is with EU4 itself, with a feature like the nation designer you never feel quite 'done'. There's always more you can add, things to improve and tweak, and we frequently receive requests for updates and improvements to the nation designer, as well as questions about when previously suggested improvements might surface. As such, today's DD is going to be about updates to the Nation Designer: Specifically which ones we either have already done (internally) or are planning to add in the not distant future. So without further ado, here are the planned changes coming to the Nation Designer:

Saving Custom Nation Templates
Probably the most requested feature for the Nation Designer has been the ability to save your custom nations for later use. This has now been implemented and will be available in 1.14. What it means is that while designing your nation, there are now two buttons called 'Save' and 'Load'. Save will save a copy of your Custom Nation (minus the provinces it currently holds) to your hard drive, and Load will load up that copy, replacing the current Custom Nation you are designing with the saved one (again, minus its provinces). This allows you to, for example, quickly re-use a particular setup of ideas or a flag and color combination that you enjoy.

Choosing Government Rank
This is really more of a fix than an addition, as it was something left out of 1.12/1.13 due to time constraints and will be added in 1.14. When designing a custom nation, you will be able to choose your government rank, with Duchy rank being free, Kingdom rank costing 10 points, and Empire rank costing 30 points.

Improved Color Picking
This is something that is not yet done, but we hope to have done for 1.14. In addition to picking from a list of preset colors, I want to add the ability to choose your country's color from an in-game RGB picker, allowing for true color customization.

More Patterns and Emblems
As above, this is something we hope to have done for 1.14. We want to add support for more texture files for country flag patterns and emblems, so that we can create more options for flag customization.

Better Random Setup
While not fully part of the Nation Designer, the random setup option that fills the world with randomly generated countries is nonetheless a feature that we want to improve on. Right now, it suffers a bit from being 'samey': You'll generally always end up with a couple megablobs, a number of medium sized countries, and a general feeling of lack of plausibility on behalf of the generated world. We want to add more options for controlling the size of the countries generated, as well as better country naming (being able to name countries after regions rather than capitals, for example) and better random idea generation. We're also considering adding options such as different tech group distribution and different uncolonized parts of the world.

Achievements
Though the Nation Designer supports Ironman, there are currently no achievements that are able to be unlocked while playing a Custom Nation. In the future, we plan to add some Nation Designer-specific achievements that will require particular point limits to be followed, and may as an example require you to start as a Norse Custom Nation and conquer Northern Europe.


If you have other improvements you'd like to see, feel free to bring them up in this thread and I will do my best to answer as to whether they are likely to ever happen. Note that I will not discuss ETAs on when patches containing these changes may show up.

 

[Promanco]

Debunked? Mods don't work in Ironman. There's nothing to debunk. Custom nations do work in Ironman, so your solution is arbitrarily limiting.



I'm telling you that having to resort to editing text files is a poor solution when an in-game interface better fixes the problem and adds more features, besides.



Increases the chance by how much? Can I get a nation with all female rulers? Can I get one in which the odds of male/female are basically the inverse of most nations in the base game? Can I get a nation with no female rulers at all?

No? Sliders it is, then.



Except that there's no way to do it in-game, which is the problem that I'm trying to address.



See above about mods, Ironman, etc.



Sorry. I was under the impression that, on a forum, we could discuss more than one idea simultaneously. In the future, I will discuss only the ideas that you personally approve of. OK?

Ok Mr. condescending
1)Devs have stated that if is moddable but you don't want to mod it cuz "MUH IRONMAN" tough for you because that is not an acceptable argument for them to change anything, so your argument of MUH IRONMAN is crap and has no merit for any changes to be made, is that clear enough for you?
2)No you didn't you said that it did not work "Defines don't work for custom nations", I point out it worked and you are now changing the goal post, please be consistent. You mean opening ONE file and changing ONE value is too complicated?
3)I partially agree on this, the numbers should be more clear on this, the devs previously said that it increase the chance of female heirs but no details whatsoever, so I agree I want those numbers too and on the interface so people can readily understand them.
As for "odds for existing nations" that is a tag by tag thing, for example Spain and England have a higher chance of a female heir than Norway, and yes you can change this values but again is by tag so if you want to modify the chances for ALL countries you got a lot of work ahead of you(Personally I like it this way as oppose to being a single value on defines, it gives modders more flexibility)
4)Not in game, but you can simply add female names to the General name list for each culture, it is not optimal but it is VERY easy to do, btw I already agree with you this should be on defines along with the advisors, one value on one file that way it would be super easy for anyone to have it their way(vanilla should be 0% but I would probably put it at 10% for myself lol)
5)See above "MUH IRONMAN" is not a valid reason to make a change on the game, to be fair I think Ironman should be compatible with MODs and just block achievements from being earn(Custom Nations currently have no access to achievements so it would be the same)
6)When you want to change the direction of a conversation you have to clearly state it specially when is on text, the original argument was about Female Rulers becoming commanders and you brought up sliders how am I suppose to know that you don't want this sliders for the original topic if you don't clearly state it?

 

[Beagá]

Arrogant since i can't read minds ... noted

Arrogant because either you don´t know how to read and pretend you do, or you deliberatedly ignore others opinions.

Your choice, friendo.

 

[rr99]

What I'd most like is an interface enhancement on the idea selection page: specifically a "move up" button and a "move down" button. (effect: selected idea "swaps places" with the one immediately above/below it)

 

[Kwami]

Promanco,

I see no reason to continue this discussion. I will leave it with just two points.

1. I didn't bring up sliders. Someone else did. We were very clearly talking about female rulers, heirs, and whatnot. It's quite possibly to discuss two things simultaneously.

2. I don't really care if you agree with me. By all means, keep editing your text files.

 

[eon47]

I beg to disagree. Only other version other than this patch I really thought sucked was when combat was twice as long and battles became XVI century Verdun.

You may think the mass Westernization is fine. I don´t. It´s the same thing as having that perfect women in front of you.

Which has gonorrhea. One flaw... overrides all the other qualities.

I don´t regret buying the game and DLC. But I won´t play it again until it´s "cured".

Sorry for you then, I suppose? I agree that it's problematic, but there's always something, and it hasn't stopped me from enjoying my Jiangzhou game.

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

Something I'd really like to see is the ability to save a custom nation map setup you've made on a blank map as a bookmark. I've worked for hours on end on map set ups only to have the game crash at the very end when I'm about to play my scenario. This would also allow someone to set up a scenario in single player and have their friends play it with them once they're done making it. I love making custom set ups and my friends love playing my set ups. They tell me I'm really good at setting up unique and fun scenarios. I'll host a multiplayer game and design the map while my friends help or go do something else. We then love coming up with the history and lore behind the set up and everyone enjoys playing it. As someone else mentioned, setting up cores on counties and historical rivals and friends would be another great addition to flesh out the authenticity of the set up. Also as a side note I'd love if we were able to create more than 32 custom nations when playing on a blank map.

 

[Pedro1509]

Wonderful Ideas,can't wait,i love Alternate History,80% of my gameplays are with Custom Nations.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

Would a better random setup also include redistribution of religions (As well as AI random nations with non-default religions), and perhaps a different location for the HRE (either by player or by default).

Also this! I've been waiting for such a change since the announcement of custom nations. Maybe they'll implement it together with New Random New World?

 

[Aluroon]

Mostly I'd just like the addition of some idea options that are not available in custom nation ideas right now (but are available for existing nations), particularly military leaders without upkeep. These aren't, I think, particularly complicated to add, and their exclusion is quite noticeable. I'd also like the option to scale several of these ideas more heavily, more closely matching some existing nations. Russia and it's ridiculous manpower, or the Ottoman coring costs jump out as things that just need a bit of tweaking in order to emulate. Especially since I cannot simply tweak the Ottoman or Russian ideas.

The female / male slider / tweaks is another idea I'd like, but may be too much work. Playing a line of Queens would be interesting sometimes.

Finally, addition of additional religions, and the option to change the culture of your provinces to match your national culture, are both appealing to me.

Of these ideas though, the most important to me is the ideas tweaking, and inclusion of military leaders without upkeep as an idea. With the removal of the admiralty and the military academy, it is now quite difficult to float land and naval leaders, especially if you also do any colonization. Even with power projection (which can be difficult when powerful late game) and emperor tier, I still very much miss those two buildings, I'd also love to see those buildings added once more, but that's another matter entirely....

 

[cloudwasher]

Is there any way we can get the ability to dynamically change nation colors in any game mode? I was in an Ironman game as Russia the other day, and there was an intersection of the borders of Afghanistan, Persia, and Russia.... all similar shades of green. My eyes were about to bleed from figuring out what was what every time I looked at that part of the map with all the shading ect.

 

[Forster]

I really like the custom nation designer, too. As Te. Kenzo suggested, it would be nice to be able to use historical names if you are custom creating in the original country's territory. I agree woth KenshiN that a wider variation in the patterns we can choose would also be nice. It's nice to see Paradox improving this.

 

[Ratanka]

nice would be a folder where a player can but own emblems etc into to use.
also the mod for a better nation designer is so good you should just copy 90% of it xD

 

[gnome109]

Sobieski looks like a badass!

 

[suplanter]

i would like the option to change the name or flag of my nation in game. i think it would be rad if i could use the designer to change the nation i am already playing as things unfold, like conquest or inheritances of PUs. in a game as france i inherited spain, but i find it hard to believe that a united france/spain would still be known as just france. i always thought the game was lacking in this as political unions and the states that formed from them were fairly common during this time period. great britain, poland/lithuania, spain, two sicilies, sardinia/savoy, prussia, everything the habsburgs ever touched. it would be great to have a way to model this without an event titled "create this predetermined historical nation". ck2 doesnt allow the player to change the flag but the name is at least customizable. maybe in game the player could use mp points to add accepted culture or help facilitate the union.

 

[justin96]

I would really like to be able to modify diplomatic relations in the nation designer, including vassals, personal unions, alliances, war, cores, claims, etc.

 

[crowdemon]

How about adding more cultures like Norse and Romans.

 

[Elite_Marksman]

I'm late to the party and someone may have ninja'd it but could Development be added to the nation designer so I could say increase the starting manpower of the provinces I own or something like that? Aside from what's mentioned I can't think of much else I'd want out of the designer.

Except for adding in custom events / decisions / missions easier for RP style playthroughs

 

[zeredek]

Saving Custom Nation Templates
Probably the most requested feature for the Nation Designer has been the ability to save your custom nations for later use. This has now been implemented and will be available in 1.14. What it means is that while designing your nation, there are now two buttons called 'Save' and 'Load'. Save will save a copy of your Custom Nation (minus the provinces it currently holds) to your hard drive, and Load will load up that copy, replacing the current Custom Nation you are designing with the saved one (again, minus its provinces). This allows you to, for example, quickly re-use a particular setup of ideas or a flag and color combination that you enjoy.

Improved Color Picking
This is something that is not yet done, but we hope to have done for 1.14. In addition to picking from a list of preset colors, I want to add the ability to choose your country's color from an in-game RGB picker, allowing for true color customization.

YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

 

[PsysmicSound]

It may have been mentioned already, in this thread or somewhere else, but until these changes are unleashed upon the public, there's a workaround for if you want to change your custom nation to duchy level - just select the Monastic Order government type, which is locked into duchy level, then go back to whichever government type you actually want. It won't revert back to kingdom. There's no point bonus for doing this, though.

 

[Wolfyluna]

Future Improvements to the Nation Designer

Improved Color Picking
This is something that is not yet done, but we hope to have done for 1.14. In addition to picking from a list of preset colors, I want to add the ability to choose your country's color from an in-game RGB picker, allowing for true color customization.

More Patterns and Emblems
As above, this is something we hope to have done for 1.14. We want to add support for more texture files for country flag patterns and emblems, so that we can create more options for flag customization.

It would indeed be great to easily recognize which country is mine instead of the borders blurring into other's which either formed later or which your borders grew towards.

Would it be possible for the EU 4 team to "borrow" some of the tribal family crest emblems/logos to use in the nation designer? Especially when playing a pagan nation it feels more fitting to have such emblems on the national flag instead of the current set of emblems.

Kind regards,

Wolfy Luna