Welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. Everything is going fine with the development of Leviathan, as we are working on polishing content at the moment.

We have talked about some major improvements to playing tall in previous diaries, with possibilities of stacking manufactories and concentrating development. Today we will talk about something that synergies nicely with both these features.

Centralizing a State

The final new Playing-Tall option is the ability to Centralize a State. This action reduces the administrative cost of a state by as much as the value of 20 development points.

Centralizing States costs 100 Government Reform Progress points and takes five years to complete.

This interaction is available both through the state interface and through the macrobuilder.

Never Mothball
A small thing that might make the top 3 of some peoples requested lists, and may be completely ignored by others is a small toggle for individual forts to never mothball.

We are adding a small checkbox in the province interface that if enabled, that fort will never mothball when you mothball every fort in your country from the military screen. This is something you may want to use when you may want to save money on lots of forts, but never risk it with the important forts next to France.

Canal changes
With the new monument mechanics, we moved the old great projects system to be using the new monument code internally as well, which gives a few benefits, in that you can upgrade them as well. Each upgrade takes about 10 years further, and about 1000 gold each. We are also making the canals available from an earlier technology as well, from admin tech 26 to admin tech 22.

Previously the canals, besides opening the paths, gave a +20 trade power to the location, now instead they are giving these.

• Tier 0 +10 Trade Power to Location, and +1% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 1 +20 Trade Power to Location, and +2% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 2 +30 Trade Power to Location, and +3% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 3 +50 Trade Power to Location, and +5% Trade Power to the Controller.

Next week we’ll be back and talk about colonial nations.

 

[Piotrzeci]

Looking forward to colonial nation changes. Today's DD isn't large but I don't quite have any problem with anything in it, though maybe the centralization should work on percentage, so it's the stronger the more developed the state is.

Or should I say tomorrow's DD... it's the 2nd of March today.

 

[Twoflower]

I must say, I am very much unimpressed by the promised "playing tall" mechanics.
Concentrate development which was presented last week generally seems an interesting option and something that meshes somewhat with the changes to SE Asia, however I fail to see what it has to do with "playing tall" since it is actually something which will benefit wide play at least as much.
Centralize state does not seem to do anything in particular for tall play - lowering governing cost is something which is actually more important to wide play. It is just a relatively boring button to click that is redundant with existing buildings. I really fail to see the rationale how this makes for more interesting gameplay.

I am sorry, but I have a slight suspicion that the whole "new mechanisms for playing tall" thing in Leviathan is just an elaborate troll from a game director who, in his own words, considers the Paradox games pure map painters, has hence by his own admission no interest in playing tall and therefore understandably has a hard time imagining ways to make a playstyle he either doesn't care for or doesn't understand more fun. It's like asking a vegan to redesign a butcher shop.
(and I should add that I respect the hell out of this game director, considering that he designed my favourite games of all time!)

 

[Kabian]

mmmh, me put 100 reform progress cost for 20 governing capacity and it takes 5 years, totally better than expand administration, 20 reform progres for 20 governing capacity and being instant

 

[Entrone]

Maybe there could be a link to centralizing a state and overall crown land ownership.

That Land ownership is another mechanic that we barely care about. If you start with too few crownlands then take some and forget the stuff for the rest of the campaign.

I think this Centralize State is useless and pointless, it would even be a better idea if you could have a chance to place a Governor on states for some bonuses in exchange for money.


These "tall-play" mechanics of Concentrate Development and Centralizing State both feels like completely boring, they doesen't improve the game experience at all. Neither actual tall-play.

 

[Xetfield]

The worst and the most useless DD in a while, actually, and the previous one wasn't great either. My hype for 1.31 and Leviathan is dying out at this point

 

[wkscrombie]

Welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. Everything is going fine with the development of Leviathan, as we are working on polishing content at the moment.

We have talked about some major improvements to playing tall in previous diaries, with possibilities of stacking manufactories and concentrating development. Today we will talk about something that synergies nicely with both these features.

Centralizing a State

The final new Playing-Tall option is the ability to Centralize a State. This action reduces the administrative cost of a state by as much as the value of 20 development points.

Centralizing States costs 100 Government Reform Progress points and takes five years to complete.

This interaction is available both through the state interface and through the macrobuilder.
View attachment 687779

Never Mothball
A small thing that might make the top 3 of some peoples requested lists, and may be completely ignored by others is a small toggle for individual forts to never mothball.

We are adding a small checkbox in the province interface that if enabled, that fort will never mothball when you mothball every fort in your country from the military screen. This is something you may want to use when you may want to save money on lots of forts, but never risk it with the important forts next to France.
View attachment 687778

Canal changes
With the new monument mechanics, we moved the old great projects system to be using the new monument code internally as well, which gives a few benefits, in that you can upgrade them as well. Each upgrade takes about 10 years further, and about 1000 gold each. We are also making the canals available from an earlier technology as well, from admin tech 26 to admin tech 22.

Previously the canals, besides opening the paths, gave a +20 trade power to the location, now instead they are giving these.

• Tier 0 +10 Trade Power to Location, and +1% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 1 +20 Trade Power to Location, and +2% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 2 +30 Trade Power to Location, and +3% Trade Power to the Controller.
• Tier 3 +50 Trade Power to Location, and +5% Trade Power to the Controller.

Next week we’ll be back and talk about colonial nations.

I love to see the new fort interaction! It's something I've been wanting for a long time, but never thought to ask for. It'll be a great help. The canal update is super cool, too. One thing I'm still wondering: will we get any control over who is able to use the canals? Not being able to limit specific nations' passage though them has always kinda bugged me, though I'd understand if programming it would just be too finnicky.

Also, while I'm here, I'm going to continue with my weekly Cato-style request for you guys to take another look at the Pacific Northwest. I'm worried that if it isn't improved in the North American update, it never will be, which would be a great shame. As things stand, it's one of the few parts of the map that have remained untouched (and if and when we get updates to Africa/South America/Scandinavia, it might be the only region that remains largely untouched in the game's final state).

A little work here would go a long way: some impassable terrain to represent the Coast and Cascade ranges (the latter of which dwarfs the Appalachians, who already got impassable terrain) and give the region some strategic depth, a couple estuaries/natural harbors (of which the region has many of great significance-- Coos Bay, for example, is the largest Pacific port between San Francisco and Seattle and was once the largest timber-exporting port in the world), a handful of new provinces to put them in, and one or two new tags to represent the high population density and rich history of the peoples of the Pacific coast would make it finally feel on par with the rest of the continent and a truly fun and worthwhile part of the game.

Anyway, thanks for all your good work! I look forward to the next diary.

 

[Viktor Hark]

Finally an option to state my states.

 

[Shogun96]

I feel like at this point you are just adding random stuff to the game in order to make more money for EU5 development

 

[EarlKonrad]

I have a few questions:


1. What's the point of centralizing a state?

I feel like this mechanic is very meh, doesen't give anything to the game, just the usual "some more x and less y if you click on this button"

2. What does different levels of canals represent?

I can't imagine what the levels are meaning for canals. How would you describe the difference between a lvl1 and a lvl2 canal?

And is also a bit redundant because you can already exchange Government points into more GC capacity instantly.

 

[wkscrombie]

Centralizing doesn’t have effect on absolutism?

Yeah, it'd be cool to at least connect it to crown land so the game's systems feel more connected.

 

[Fireshark]

I wonder if centralizing a state would reduce gov cost of each province in that state by 20 and not only by 20 in total, that way it would actually be an alternative to expand administration.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

The final new Playing-Tall option is the ability to Centralize a State. This action reduces the administrative cost of a state by as much as the value of 20 development points.

Centralizing States costs 100 Government Reform Progress points and takes five years to complete.

I also don't understand what this mechanic does, does it lower governing cost?
If so I fail to see how is that benefitial to tall play whatsoever, since all reductions to governing capacity are inherently a wide feature.
And don't we already have a button to trade goverment reform progress to gain governing capacity in the reform tab? Seems like an addition of a feature we already have (but incredibly weaker).

I would be closer to understanding if this state-based reduction lowered the cost percentually, like -20%, then it would indeed benefit the Tall play who would reduce a far more significant chunk of the cost by clicking this button on the few high development provinces it has (expecially the insanely expensive ones with infrastructure), while the tall player would have to waste far more goverment progress to use the same button and dozens more provinces for the same outcome.
But if it's a flat -20 cost, then its undoubtedly a wide mechanic.
Not only that but centralising a state not interecting with Autonomy, Crownland and Absolutism just feels incredibly barebones. This mechanic would be a far more interesting way of stacking absolutism than pressing the "strenghten goverment" mana button.

And finally, the reason why the trading Reform Progress for Governing Capacity never felt like a good mechanic in the first place is because Reform Progress is a useless currency. You can easily take all reforms early on and then there is nothing else to do spend the surplus on, so you don't lose anything with this trade.
Wide player can trade excesss Reform Progress for governing cost, Tall players can't trade it for anything else. This mechanic doubles down on that sink instead of adding a different sink for Reform Surplus.

 

[alexaaaar]

just did some maths on this. The centralising of a state would only be more cost efficient than expanding administration after you've already expanded 20 times. As well as this, assuming you've built a town hall and state house the bonus is only fully used in states with over 67 dev (less with a state with paper, glass or gems) . Could you not just make the governing cost the minimum 1%? It would be a bit more balanced

 

[Entrone]

Reform Progress is a useless currency. You can easily take all reforms early on and then there is nothing else to do with the surplus, so you don't lose anything with this trade.
Wide player can trade excesss Reform Progress for governing cost, Tall players can't trade it for anything else.

True.

Imo the whole reform progress thing should be removed. I mean its just ticking, without actually influencing anything or be influenced by anything. Boring.
Instead of this reform progress that you are WAITING for, there could be requirements for each individual reform, tied to the age, so players couldn't finish them by 1600.

 

[MrSnert]

Why not just have the cost of Expanding Government Capacity cap out at 100 reform cost?

 

[ItsJustMyShadow]

Playing tall equals pressing buttoms every 5 years for you Mr @Johan? As others asked - do you play your own game? Another question from me - do you ENJOY playing your game?
Looking at past (Imperator + Emperor) I highly doubt it. You've tried giving us "fun" in Imperator with magic buttons to press every now and then and now you are returing to EU4 to do the same thing and this time you'll tell everyone - we've made DLC for playing tall! You can press additional 5 buttoms if you pay!
I thought that after Imperator you said that you learned from your mistakes. Clearly - nothing has changed.
Really disappointing.
I miss good ol Rights of Man time, when it was clear that devs wanted to make a great game, had fun doing it and had fun playing it.

 

[Skagzill]

I kinda don't see difference between adding Gov. Capacity via Reform progress and Centralization. Like I guess Centralization is better costed when adding Gov.Capacity is costing above 100 RP but I never personally got to that stage.

 

[SandroHOMM]

This is a step in the right direction in comparison to the previous proposed playing tall mechanics offered, where it does actually majorly benefit tall nations over wide ones, but it still isn't really on track to being good.

Firstly, the elephant in the room, as pointed out by others in this thread already, is that this ability already exists in the game in the form of expand administration, and is a whole lot cheaper to boot. 20 Reform Progress for 20 Governing Capacity, with the cost slowly climbing after that. You will need to expand your administration a lot of times for that to begin to be a trade off that this new centralise state feature will win, and expanding Administration isn't really something you use often anyway in my experience unless you are going for a WC.

The base premise is decent enough. Reform Progress comes at a basis of +10 per year, and then average autonomy decreases that, so a nation with low autonomy provinces will benefit most, and you'll achieve that easier if you have less provinces. It is okay in principle. But in the execution it just falls flat on its face.

If I was going to propose a rework of this feature, first cut the cost down to 50 Governing Reform Progress, and make the reduction in Governing Capacity be instant. What you do then, is for those 5 years after you press the button, the province gets large buffs to Culture Conversion Cost, Development cost reduction, Autonomy reduction and building time.

Basically what I would suggest would be to make it an EU4 equivalent to the Crown Focus system from CK2. You decide that this state is going to be the focus of your entire nation's efforts for a period of 5 years. You have a high cost on reform progress, but the buffs given to that state, and that state alone for that short period will be amazing. And it relies on the player to exploit those buffs to their fullest before they go away. This would help with the playing tall because players who are tall will be able to use it more often, and it actively helps them get taller, creating a positively reinforcing loop.

I'd specifically not have tax modifier or production or anything like that. This shouldn't be about temporarily buffing a state so it is good, and then it gets worse again when things expire. This should be about giving the player the ability to set themselves a timer, I have 5 years to make this state as good as I can manage.

For Wide Players, this would probably be used to help them develop institutions if they are outside of Europe, but with a prohibitive cost that will probably be all they use it for. Tall players would be able to use it much more, and hopefully you would see regions like Japan being as rich as Italy or The Lowlands as players use this feature to majorly improve their local region without the need to expand beyond it.

Just a suggestion, take it or leave it. I just think it would be better this way because player investment is involved. They don't just press a button and things work on their own. The player presses a button, and then they need to put in the effort to take advantage. Got lots of Mana, but not tech or ideas to take? Don't just use it to casually dev, use this feature, massively improve one state, and then make some buildings or something as well? It's up to you how you use it.

 

[IndigoRage]

Am I missing something? Couldn't you improve governing capacity with expand administration to get more for less?

 

[MatthieuG7]

Unfortunately it appears to me more and more that you don’t understand
-why people like to play tall
-how people like to play tall
-and what’s missing in eu4 to make playing tall more fun.