• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary – Number 23 in fact. We have already done three more development diaries than we’d done for Europa Universalis III, and we still have about 30 more possible diaries to write.* There is still a lot to talk about when it comes to diplomacy, naval combat, westernization, economy, the Reformation and more.* And yes, we also need to make country guides for Poland and Norway.

Today, however, we’re talking a little more about diplomacy, where we introduce a new concept, and talk about how a few others have changed.

Coalitions
Sometimes you simply do not want to ally with someone because they are likely to drag you into a bunch of wars that you have no interest in, but, at the same time you think they would make a great ally for the war you do want to wage.

EUIV addresses this problem with the coalition system, a mutual alliance that is directed against a single country. You have an alliance leader, say the Papacy, who organizes an alliance say directed against Venice. Then they sign up countries like France, Milan and Austria. The alliance only fires in the event of war with Venice but if war does erupt all countries in the Coalition will be called in.

Initially, this power is only open to Catholic countries and can only be organized by the Papal Controller, reinforcing the idea that the Pope is still quite important in the early centuries of the game. Later on though, advances in diplomatic technology will allow any country to organize its own coalition against a common rival. Some Dynamic Historical Events can form some historic coalitions if the stars are aligned properly, as well.

Coalitions become, then, a great way to contain a growing threat or hated neighbor since everyone signs on to fight before the war starts. It can be challenging to get a coalition moving, since you need your potential allies to see the strategic threats in the same way you do. But it is a valuable tool that reinforces common interests.

Relations
We talked earlier about the change from bilateral relations to a system where you can hate me, but I don't hate you. (I don’t hate anybody!) This means we had to devise ways to change the asymmetrical love-hate relationship.

- Improve Relations
To improve relations, you send a diplomat to their capital, and he will slowly increase their opinion of your country. There is a cap though, currently at +200 approval, on how much a diplomat can affect what a country think of you, so you may need to address or wait out the other reasons why they dislike you as well if you want to get perfect relations.* Your diplomat stays in the foreign capital until he is recalled, so this does limit your diplomatic freedom a little. If you recall your diplomat, the 'improved relations' opinion will slowly decay by about 3 points each year.

- Insults
If you want to make some not like you, and maybe poke them into a war, say something mean. Insulting someone, reduces their opinion of you by -25 for ten years, and will also give them a casus belli on you for a year.

Overextension
In dev diary #13, we talked about how overextension worked.*This has now changed after lots of testing and tweaking, as the original design punished early expansion, while ignoring the problem of mid and late-game landgrabs.

Now, your overextension is now a value directly related to the amount of basetax you earning from non-core provinces. So a basetax 6 province gives you 6% overextension, no matter how big you are. So, even a normal conquest in a major war, say taking 2 or 3 rich provinces, can net you a significant overextension penalty which calls for a period of consolidation.

Coring Provinces
Since overextension changed, so has how you add provinces to your core. First of all, the price in administrative power points scales depending, again, on the basetax of the province. There are several ideas that decrease it for you, and increase it for your enemies. Secondly, coring is no longer instant. It takes 3 years, not counting any modifiers, to core it. All the while you still have the overextension penalties to cost of stability and to your revolt risk. Larger countries core province much more slowly, as each non-overseas province you own will increase coring times by 5%.

An overseas province of your own culture (such as a colony) is still instant to core, and costs 10% of the normal cost to core. We don’t want to discourage you from settling the New World because of delays in adding them to your core list.

For those of you who can read our script files, this what you pay for being overextended, with each factor mulitplied with the overextension percentage.
Code:
over_extension = {
	foreign_merchant_compete_chance = -4.0
	stability_cost_modifier = 2.0			
	papal_influence = -10
	mercenary_cost = 2.0
	diplomatic_reputation = -10
	global_revolt_risk = 20
}

Hope you'll enjoy a quick World Conquest now that you know how easy it will be.. And here is a completely unrelated screenshot.. just cause you know..

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • eu4_12.png
    eu4_12.png
    2,5 MB · Views: 30.329
When coalition war starts, are coalition members forced to join the war, or have they a right to refuse?
 
Wow this was an early DD, didnt expect this till noon at least.

Anyway good stuff, me like.

Specially the coalitions, one thing from a very short list of things i absolutely hate about EU3, were the infamous cascading alliances. Coalitions look like they will change that, finally.
 
Is the -25 relationship from insult static, as I would take from "-25 for ten years" and suddenly disappear or does it also decay over time? Furthermore, is it stackable or are we going to have to get a little creative if we want low relationships with country X (I.E. no more spamming a weakened 200 relationship country we want some land from)
 
Last edited:
Take my $$$$$$$$ now!
 
Been reading up the EU4 DDs a bit and it's great to see PI is again taking a huge step up the ladder with this title. So much possibilities, so much content.
 
Sounds really nice, wish there was some way to make colonies work without ever becoming cores like in Eu2...Seems wierd from both a realistic/historical perspective and from a game one that you would consider colonies part of your "core" nation and be able to recruit armies overthere etc...
 
Specially the coalitions, one thing from a very short list of things i absolutely hate about EU3, were the infamous cascading alliances. Coalitions look like they will change that, finally.

Also we changed chaining of alliances in a war. Warleader now only change during the first 2 months of a war.
 
the coalitions sound very good - those are the kinda changes we wanna see!

are there any other ways to reduce relationship with a country other than insults?
 
Is the -25 relationship from insult static, as I would take from "-25 for ten years" and suddenly disappear or does it also decay over time? Furthermore, is it stackable or are we going to have to get a little creative if we want low relationships with country X (I.E. no more spamming a weakened 200 relationship country we want some land from)

it decays... and its not stackable.
 
I take it the Deccan sultunates (Muslim) will be able to form a coalition against the powerful Vijayanagara Empire (Hindu), but the same sultunates will probably be more splintered in wars against the Mughals (Muslim).
 
are there any other ways to reduce relationship with a country other than insults?

fight wars, get cb's, break alliances, be different religion, etc.
 
Coalitions are great!

Will peace terms (aka "gimme this, this and that!") be handled to reflect the own country importance or, even better, the contribution to the war? Another reason that makes me avoid alliances with AI (apart from being pulled into random wars) is that when it leads a war, tends to settle for its goals (ok, I'd do the same thing in its place) and the others get just a big thank you and a christmas postcard.
It's ok when you just need to "cut down to size" a pesky neighbour, but sometimes you'd like to say "ok, i'm in only if you grant me this core region, otherwise go die alone". Even sharing prestige or obtaining some extra diplomatic power/diplo relations with other members would be good.
 
Another great diary. Good job, EU4 team! Out of curiosity, in your own opinion, is a world conquest in EU4 even possible? If you played a game perfectly would it be possible at all to do a world conquest, or is there simply not enough time to do one and keep the realm from being thrown into chaos by overextension?
 
Well, I don't completely get how the Netherlands seizing Malacca and Ceylon would make the Dutch people rebellious, so maybe I'm missing something here; does overextension depend purely on base tax, or also on effective base tax (i.e. not tariffs)?
 
Well, I don't completely get how the Netherlands seizing Malacca and Ceylon would make the Dutch people rebellious, so maybe I'm missing something here; does overextension depend purely on base tax, or also on effective base tax (i.e. not tariffs)?

considering its overseas, they don't care at all.