Welcome to the fifth and last development diary for Europa Universalis 4: El Dorado. Today we’ll be talking about the gold and silver mines of the new world and how to best secure that wealth for your colonial empire.

Treasure Fleets
It’s no secret that the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Central and South America was primarily driven by a desire for gold and silver. The Spanish crown had sole rights to mine these precious metals in their colonies, which were then loaded onto well-guarded ships and sent back to Spain. Unsurprisingly, this floating wealth drew the attention of pirates and privateers, leading to the Golden Age of Piracy and the Pirates of the Caribbean that we all know and love.

In the El Dorado expansion, we represent this through a mechanic we call ‘Treasure Fleets’. For those that have the expansion, Colonial Nations with gold provinces will no longer gain the income of that gold for themselves, but instead will store it in a ‘Treasure Fleet Counter’ that counts up towards a certain sum depending on the size of the colony’s gold mines. Once the counter is full (usually about twice a year), the colony will send a Treasure Fleet. The Treasure Fleet travels downstream along the trade routes, passing each node between the Colonial Nation and its mother nation’s trade capital. If there are privateers present in these nodes, they will steal a share of the gold relative to their power in the node - so if privateers hold 50% of the power in the Caribbean, they will take half the value out of any treasure fleet that passes through there. At the end of the journey, any money that remains is given to the mother nation, who suffer some inflation depending on the amount of money relative to the size of their economy.

Nations who do not have their trade capital downstream of their colonies’ trade nodes will be unable to receive treasure fleets. In these cases, the colonial nation will simply keep the gold for themselves, paying just the usual amount in tariffs.

Pirate Hunting
If you see a lot of your treasure going into the pockets of filthy buccaneers, we have given you a new way to stop them. To repel the privateers that are stealing your trade or seizing your gold fleets, we’ve added the option for your navies to go Pirate Hunting in the El Dorado expansion. Heavy Ships and Light Ships can be sent pirate hunting in a particular node, and will reduce the efficiency of all pirates in that node based on the amount of guns that the pirate hunting fleet can bring to bear. This gives you an way to combat piracy without having to go to war and gives Heavy Ships some use at peacetime besides sitting mothballed in port.

Terrain Rework
As a bonus feature in the free patch, we’ve majorly reworked province terrains and the terrain mapmode. Many parts of the world have had their terrain updated to better reflect reality. For example, Spain is no longer mostly desert, and Eastern Europe is no longer one big swamp. The map has also been tweaked so that it is much easier to tell the terrain of a province simply from looking at said province.

As part of this reworking, we’ve added four new terrain types:
Highlands: Hilled but deforested regions (such as the Scottish Highlands). The old Hills terrain has been modified to represent forested, more inaccessible hilled regions.
Drylands: Arid regions that can still support agriculture, such as southern Spain.
Farmlands: Densely populated and cultivated areas with rich soils, such as you’d find in northern Italy.
Savanna: Largely open regions with alternating dry and wet seasons, such as the African Savannas.

That’s it for the El Dorado dev diaries! Over the next week, we’ll be posting excerpts from the 1.10 patch notes, and Thursday the 26th of February the El Dorado expansion and corresponding patch will be released.

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Europa Universalis: El Dorado Live Stream from PDXCon 2015
[video=youtube;zM7q2CjikLE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM7q2CjikLE[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM7q2CjikLE

 

[Saintlukas]

Hope you've nerfed the PP gain from it.

I hope not, 10 PP max per privateer'd rival is still only 30 PP, they nerfed once already

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I rather despise PP in its current form. It's hard to even have 3 rivals, and even when you do they like to become ineligible and the compensation you get for that does not last long enough (considering also relying on pirates etc) to keep PP over 50. Once you can only set 2 or fewer rivals it's just a screw job. "Too few rivals" even though you can't set more because you're too strong and that's not projecting power :/.

 

[net.split]

I rather despise PP in its current form. It's hard to even have 3 rivals, and even when you do they like to become ineligible and the compensation you get for that does not last long enough (considering also relying on pirates etc) to keep PP over 50. Once you can only set 2 or fewer rivals it's just a screw job. "Too few rivals" even though you can't set more because you're too strong and that's not projecting power :/.

It's annoying that this is even a thing. It's a trivial fix (design-wise) -- if fewer than 3 rivals are available, then make the next 1-3 (as needed) most applicable nations automatically able to be rivaled regardless of not meeting the usual minimum quota to be a rival (and those nations can in turn rival you even if they normally could not).

 

[wingzero890]

Why don't trade companies generate treasure fleets? Yearly trade convoys were a big thing in the spice trade, the Portuguese carreira da india is a great example.

 

[ChildeR]

I hope not, 10 PP max per privateer'd rival is still only 30 PP, they nerfed once already

It makes 50 PP relatively easy when you are a colonial/trade power with matching rivals (and have the DLC), while it's very hard otherwise. IMO it's too swingy. I'd halve the privateer effect and buff some others to compensate, especially the gain from rival losing land, which I'd scale to the size of the nation.

 

[grommile]

I rather despise PP in its current form. It's hard to even have 3 rivals,

It... very much depends on your situation.

I still had three rivals at the moment I collected "Over A Thousand".

 

[chrnno]

It makes 50 PP relatively easy when you are a colonial power with matching rivals (and have the DLC), while it's very hard otherwise. IMO it's too swingy. I'd halve the privateer effect and buff some others to compensate, especially the gain from rival losing land, which I'd scale to the size of the nation.

Indeed. Without WoN here and with all sourcers nerfed(some of them should have been but went too far) I often don't even manage to keep it at 25. 50 is only obtained when I am at war with multiple rivals since giving all CNs, vassals and allies the smallest subsidy still nets you 1 for each country and rival anyway.

It is also pretty damn hard to keep 3 rivals for most of the game. Don't mind it so much later on when I am far bigger than anyone else(which only allows me to rival who rivals me) but it is silly as hell when you can't rival anyone because your neighbours are either too big or too small. If I wanted to rival Ottomans/Russia/Austria/Commonwealth/France/Spain/Whatever when I am a tenth of their size then I should be capable of doing it.

I remember in my Great Khan game as Golden Horde(back in 1.7 where having rivals among other things gave more PP) where I kept one province Kazan alive since they were basically my only rival for most of the game and I could at least get some PP from doing things to them. It was only by late game that Ayuyatha(which had basically all of SE Asia) and Japan rivalled me after I conquered China/India and turned my eyes on them bringing the number to 3.

 

[Axe99]

New features sound great - treasure fleets sound interesting, as does pirate-hunting, and refinements to terrain are also a good thing .

 

[josh127]

It's annoying that this is even a thing. It's a trivial fix (design-wise) -- if fewer than 3 rivals are available, then make the next 1-3 (as needed) most applicable nations automatically able to be rivaled regardless of not meeting the usual minimum quota to be a rival (and those nations can in turn rival you even if they normally could not).

It seems like such a simple solution if they're going to tie things like PP to rivals.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It... very much depends on your situation.

I still had three rivals at the moment I collected "Over A Thousand".

I might not get that achievement because of Jagannath forcing me to go into South America which equates to buggy CNs. Otherwise I'd get it with Orissa --> Mughals (continent block coring with Mughals + admin is nasty ).

Prior to westernizing, having 3 rivals was completely impossible. Now that I have in the early 1700's, I'm only ~400 provinces and yet Oirat repeatedly loses eligibility, as do Ottomans and Portugal. Spain is the only rival I can keep, but when it keeps dumping you and you lose gobs of PP it gets annoying.

I guess this is just a casualty of being ROTW though.

 

[Mauer]

PP is too tied to war and conquest IMO. Trade embargo should give more PP and easier, but make it not free to embargo rivals as it currently is since it's a no brainer to do so.

 

[grommile]

PP is too tied to war and conquest IMO. Trade embargo should give more PP and easier, but make it not free to embargo rivals as it currently is since it's a no brainer to do so.

The last time I embargoed someone who wasn't a rival, I was playing EU3 and trying to make an enemy's CoT stagnate out of existence.

 

[chrnno]

The last time I embargoed someone who wasn't a rival, I was playing EU3 and trying to make an enemy's CoT stagnate out of existence.

Well I have clicked on it by accident and without WoN trying to make them embargo me back so I could cancel and declare war using the CB.

Only other situation to use it I can think of is out of pettiness.

 

[Krajzen]

Will 1.9 saves be compatible with 1.10?

 

[a0grain]

The last time I embargoed someone who wasn't a rival, I was playing EU3 and trying to make an enemy's CoT stagnate out of existence.

There are cases where it's worth it, like when you're making so much money that you don't mind losing some to weaken your rival. And there are also times where just because it's a costly embargo, doesn't mean you won't make a profit by doing it. Arumba and Shenryyr2 did it with a profit recently in their Scotland co-op, although I can't be bothered to find the specific video (somewhere in the 30s of https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH-huzMEgGWBFsXZ4jFPbwRKJQ28363MY).

Edit: Also, if you're competing closely in a trade node, it can cause them to embargo you. You can then cancel your embargo, and their embargo on you without you embargoing them should give you the Trade War CB on them. In other words, it's an exploit that can give you an instant CB, without necessarily having a neighboring province. I've never tried it, but it's another thing Arumba mentioned once.

 

[MarkS00N]

Why don't trade companies generate treasure fleets? Yearly trade convoys were a big thing in the spice trade, the Portuguese carreira da india is a great example.

I was thinking to make suggestion about this, but I would like to see first how the mechanic works so we know whether the mechanic can be used as is to Trade Company or it needs to be tweak, after all Treasure Fleet seems to only work with gold while Trade Company has more variation in term of resources (also, there is less gold in Trade Company region than America if I am not mistaken)...

 

[User4035]

I have to ask about Colonial Nations giving a merchant for being 10 provinces.

Will there be a change to Trade Companies in Africa and Asia? Because it can be quite difficult to get 50% trade power in certain areas and the only benefit is an extra merchant. Now you just have the option to just make a 10 province colonial nation.
It kinda takes away all incentive for trying to invade India to get those provinces.

You might want to change the Colonial nation give a merchant. Make it so it has to be the biggest colonial nation in that region. This would create more competition.

 

[spinoza013]

PP is just a bonus surely? Its got all the min/maxers in an OCD meltdown it seems.

 

[BritNavFan]

Pirate Hunting
If you see a lot of your treasure going into the pockets of filthy buccaneers, we have given you a new way to stop them. To repel the privateers that are stealing your trade or seizing your gold fleets, we’ve added the option for your navies to go Pirate Hunting in the El Dorado expansion. Heavy Ships and Light Ships can be sent pirate hunting in a particular node, and will reduce the efficiency of all pirates in that node based on the amount of guns that the pirate hunting fleet can bring to bear. This gives you an way to combat piracy without having to go to war and gives Heavy Ships some use at peacetime besides sitting mothballed in port.

This is cool. Any chance that galleys could be used for privateering/pirate hunting, particularly when you're dealing with trade nodes in shallow seas (for people playing in the Med and Baltic)?

 

[Incompetent]

The last time I embargoed someone who wasn't a rival, I was playing EU3 and trying to make an enemy's CoT stagnate out of existence.

Back when England had +100% embargo efficiency in EU4, you could pull some pretty funny tricks with them. Otherwise though I agree, embargoing isn't worth taking a hit to trade efficiency in single player because no one AI country has enough trade presence for it to pay off. In MP it might be different though, with the possibility of serious, large-scale trade rivalries.

Why don't trade companies generate treasure fleets? Yearly trade convoys were a big thing in the spice trade, the Portuguese carreira da india is a great example.

For some goods this would make sense, but a lot of the money made by trade companies was on buying goods from Asians and selling them on to other Asians. The Portuguese became the world's middlemen.