Welcome to another developer diary for EU4. This time its about country customization - our efforts to make each country truly unique.

We added National Ideas as a feature to the series in EU3. It was a great concept, because of how it added visible differentiation to countries, and we were really happy with the results. In EU4, we have revitalized the idea system to more properly represent the differences between countries. Our new design for ideas is something that should be satisfactory to the historical crowd and to those who prefer more of an open-ended game.

Idea Groups
Instead of choosing national ideas when various techs are gained, you now have slots for idea groups. Idea groups consist of seven ideas and have a bonus for getting all of the ideas in a group. Picking ideas within a group has to be done sequentially – you can't leapfrog from an early idea in a group to a later one, but you can choose from any available group at any time. You are not forced to buy all ideas in one group before getting ideas from another group.

You have eight possible slots for ideagroups, which is given from various technlogy levels. What makes the game more interesting though, is that when you have selected an ideagroup, you are basically stuck with it. You have chosen the path for your nation. Investing into a full idea group takes quite a while, and can cost several decades worth of power.

There are sixteen possible idea groups you can choose from in EU4, each with seven different ideas in them, and a bonus. They are Plutocracy, Aristocracy, Innovativeness, Religion, Espionage, Diplomatic, Offensive, Defensive, Trade, Economic, Exploration, Naval, Quality, Quantity, Expansion & Administrative. Remember – you can only have a maximum of eight of these, so half of the idea groups will never come into play for your country. You veteran players may notice how many of these idea groups parallel the tracks that used to be domestic policy sliders.

Each of these idea groups use one specific monarch power for buying ideas., To increase in offensive ideas you will be using military power and exploration uses diplomatic power, for example.

National ideas
Every country also has something we call National Ideas, with the most important countries having a set of unique national ideas. Major countries including the Mamelukes and England have seven unique ideas granting them specific abilities. These ideas are not something you spend power on to buy, but, instead, you gain one of these ideas for free for every third idea you buy normally from an idea group.

Every nation also starts with a national tradition: two abilities which define the history and heritage of the country. As we see here, Sweden starts with 5% better infantry and 25% cheaper mercenaries. Countries also have what we call “national ambition”, which is a bonus given when you have gained all seven of your national ideas. This bonus is also unique for each country.

Interface
To make the game more comprehensible and transparent, ideas are represented by icons that correspond to their effects.
Every time this effect is active or needed for display purposes (like in describing country modifiers or religious bonuses) you will see this icon. That way you can tell at a glance the impact your ideas are having on your national evolution.


Next week, we'll be back to talk more about .. lets see… something on the isles..

 

[unmerged(63836)]

I don't understand how national traditions force anything. Cheaper mercenaries don't force you to buy them, better infantry doesn't mean you can't build a navy. It doesn't force you to play two games the same way, it doesn't mean the AI is going to act the same way every time (or at least, any more repetitively than it usually does) and doesn't mean the game will play out the same way every game.

But it gives you bonus and naturally you are tempted to use it, since other countries also have those silly bonuses. Add to that country specific National Ideas that would pop up along the way, nation specific decisions, and nation specific DHEs - all these things added seems to be the 'guts' of EU4. If you choose to play ahistorically you will miss all that content. Sure you can do that, but you'll miss content for more bland gaming experience in comparison. Thus, such determinism returning to EU4 would limit replayability since historical path would be always more attractive and preferable.

 

[Alerias]

I have to disagree on that it increase replay value. I would actually rather say it decrease replay value substantially. By forcing a historical outcome you are essentially destroying the ability of the game to flow immersively and realistically. Not only that but when you play Sweden you will always get the same sorry experience instead of a new one. If you give unique bonuses to specific tags in a game with over 200 tags, you are going to have a bad time.

I mean it makes the experience of each country sufficiently different to make you want to play with other countries. Sure, if you thing was to play always the same country, you might see it that way. But the point is to experiment with many different civilizations, and without a system like this one, they all end up mirrors of each other because you end up stuck in the same strategic pattern you repeat everywhere with slight variations. Power national ideas force you to build around them. Like Civs in Civ.

Furthermore this will improve the historical character of the game quite a bit. Without solid paths, AI nations all feel like they're the same. I want them to have flavor.

 

[Palfouri]

But it gives you bonus and naturally you are tempted to use it, since other countries also have those silly bonuses. Add to that country specific National Ideas that would pop up along the way, nation specific decisions, and nation specific DHEs - all these things added seems to be the 'guts' of EU4. If you choose to play ahistorically you will miss all that content. Sure you can do that, but you'll miss content for more bland gaming experience in comparison. Thus, such determinism returning to EU4 would limit replayability since historical path would be always more attractive and preferable.

How is that any different than playing EU3 without enacting country-specific decisions and complaining that the game is boring? You're essentially saying that having added flavor is bad because if you don't want to use it then the game is more boring than if you did, and so in the name of fairness the game has to be equally boring any way you play it.

It only worked for CK2 because CK2 is based around characters and roleplay, meaning it's ok if all the events are bland and boring and repetitive because it's assumed you'll be role-playing enough that sometimes you'll pick the bad choices instead of the obviously better ones.

 

[DominusNovus]

I like that exploration is an idea group, its pretty shrewd. Forces hell of a choice on a would-be colonizer; either you sacrifice an idea group to a notion that will be absolutely useless in the last century of the game, or you wait till you learn about the rest of the world from other explorers, but then you're way behind in the colonization race and have to use military might to create your overseas empire.

I don't think that the exploration group will necessarily be useless at the end of the game; there's probably going to be several ideas within it that are useful beyond exploring terra incognita. Further, perhaps they will balance exploration enough that it will be difficult to explore the entire world within the timeframe of the game. That would, after all, be quite accurate.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

How is that any different than playing EU3 without enacting country-specific decisions and complaining that the game is boring? You're essentially saying that having added flavor is bad because if you don't want to use it then the game is more boring than if you did, and so in the name of fairness the game has to be equally boring any way you play it.

Point is that I'm disappointed that instead of improving/enriching sandbox model to make it more entertaining, devs chose to leave it bland and mask this blandness with country specific stuff. Not saying that EU4 would be as bland as EU3 - it would surely be good, we don't know yet, but it could have been even better if devs went with route of their mates working on CK2 rather than returning to failed idea of lots of historical events, and country specific stuff.

It only worked for CK2 because CK2 is based around characters and roleplay, meaning it's ok if all the events are bland and boring and repetitive because it's assumed you'll be role-playing enough that sometimes you'll pick the bad choices instead of the obviously better ones

.

You can also role-play in EU3 nothing is 'assumed', and game could be entertaining or not. CK2 clearly is, for a lot of players. No one demands historical events, dynasty specific buffs/bonuses and other ridiculous, immersion breaking stuff like that.

 

[Closet Skeleton]

Ideas having negatives really makes no sense. You pick these things up as you advance in tech. That means that the more ideas you have, the more penalties you have. In some cases that might mean its better to have no ideas at all and that's terrible game design.

That would be a balance between the two. However, if one faction would be granted immense power it would always be at the expense of others right? In PLC nobles/magnates had tremendous power - now imagine maintaining that and giving same degree of power to peasants. That's impossible - you would have to take away privileges of nobility to grant them to peasants. In EU4 it would be possible it seems. Even worse - you could not roll-back 'aristocracy idea tree' you would be stuck with it.

Except you can have free subjects (no serfdom) and aristocracy both maxed out in EU3.

I appreciate that Johan says that the military ideas aren't always the first choices. But I can't imagine -- if you groups all the military ideas into only two categories -- every player won't eventually have to take both. You're going to have to go to war. You don't want your armies gimped. Why aren't they spread among all the ideas, so each power no matter what path it takes has some military ideas, but different ones? Some are stronger but paired with weaker bonuses to other things, and some are weaker but paired with better bonuses to other things. That's interesting choices.

Its not an interesting choice because you're not sure what you chose. I don't want to pick a religious idea and then half way through it find a military power that I have to buy to get the next religious idea i really want.

Or think colonization. If you put them all into one group, the only choice is -- do I want colonies? If you do, you have to take it. Your choice is made pretty much as soon as you load the game, because you know from the start whether you're playing a colonizing power. Every colonizing power will then also have access to all the same bonuses. Why aren't they spread out among different ideas? Then maybe England has colonies that grow faster, while France has colonies that are cheaper. Spain take faster but not cheaper, plus it takes anther idea that makes its colonies more profitable. Plus these are all paired with other benefits to combat and efficiency, some that are better and some that are worse. Real choices. Real differences in gameplay.

That kind of difference always ends up artificial.

None of those examples work in EU3's colony system where colonies only cost money when they're small, so getting them self sustaining as fast as possible is the cheapest option even if it takes more money up front and colony profitability is based on size, which means you need high growth. Might have nothing to do with EU3 though.

The one thing I really don't like about this mechanic is that you have to take all those things in order. It seems arbitrary. I'd rather have a choice of two good options than have to take a rubbish option as a tax for a good option I want later.

My guess would be innovative/religion. While it's not entirely right, and religious countries were often technologically/culturally advanced, player would have to chose between policy of accepting religious diversity/tolerance, and policy of persecution and conversion efforts - you can't have both.

Poland-Lithuania had both religious freedom and a strong counter reformation that created a strongly catholic country. It had the largest Jewish population (80% if the world's total at one point) but despite initial success the reformation just petered out rather quickly.

Though taking ideas that give you a bonus to tolerance and then taking ones that let you make your country homogeneous seems like a waste of resources.

We also don't know what 'innovative' and 'religion' actually mean. I'd guess that the 'religion' thing is actually based of the religious ideas from EU3, not the narrow-minded slider. Though seriously, who would choose a national idea called 'narrow-minded' if it was there.

 

[Kiithis]

I hate nation specific stuff, but at least they have triggers and prerequisites and do not appear out of blue. Huge difference with these new, always active, national traits.

I love nation specific stuff. I can't wait to see what the unique ideas are for the top tier countries. I always thought that EU3 was missing unique traits for various countries. You wanted EU4 to go more sandbox than EU3. I will say wait and see the whole movie before you put forth final judgement.

I simply don't find your whole argument that nations should be free-flowing, evolving, and what not while sacrificing any type of unique characteristic that separates one country from the next very appealing. What would you do to make one nation set apart from it's neighbors, something that no other nation could have? How would you make them unique when any one can be anything in your ideal?

 

[unmerged(63836)]

I love nation specific stuff. I can't wait to see what the unique ideas are for the top tier countries. I always thought that EU3 was missing unique traits for various countries. You wanted EU4 to go more sandbox than EU3. I will say wait and see the whole movie before you put forth final judgement.

I simply don't find your whole argument that nations should be free-flowing, evolving, and what not while sacrificing any type of unique characteristic that separates one country from the next very appealing. What would you do to make one nation set apart from it's neighbors, something that no other nation could have? How would you make them unique when any one can be anything in your ideal?

Like I said - complex enough generic system. Let's say that we have those 100+ distinct National Ideas. If they would be very complex, with whole associated random event chains, and we'll make each country start with combination of 7 of them - very few countries would feel the same. You would get unique combination with unique event chains. However, unlike in EU4s system you would get tons of events and content even if you play ahistorically or you play some forgotten minor (they are tied to ideas, or combination of ideas, not specific tag).

 

[Ephafn]

Like I said - complex enough generic system. Let's say that we have those 100+ distinct National Ideas. If they would be very complex, with whole associated random event chains, and we'll make each country start with combination of 7 of them - very few countries would feel the same. You would get unique combination with unique event chains. However, unlike in EU4s system you would get tons of events and content even if you play ahistorically or you play some forgotten minor (they are tied to ideas, or combination of ideas, not specific tag).

The problem here is the unpredictability: if I want to play a game as Austria, I don't want to have a random event chain decide that, due to my early Italian conquests, I should get naval National Ideas, instead of Land/Diplomatic/Royal Marriage based ones. If I chose Austria, that's probably because I wanted to play a Land/Diplomatic/Royal Marriage game. Of course I could have wanted to play it ahistorically, but that's what the Idea Groups are there for.

 

[Alerias]

I don't think that the exploration group will necessarily be useless at the end of the game; there's probably going to be several ideas within it that are useful beyond exploring terra incognita. Further, perhaps they will balance exploration enough that it will be difficult to explore the entire world within the timeframe of the game. That would, after all, be quite accurate.

Eh, by 1700 was there really any terra incognita left?

 

[unmerged(63836)]

The problem here is the unpredictability: if I want to play a game as Austria, I don't want to have a random event chain decide that, due to my early Italian conquests, I should get naval National Ideas, instead of Land/Diplomatic/Royal Marriage based ones. If I chose Austria, that's probably because I wanted to play a Land/Diplomatic/Royal Marriage game. Of course I could have wanted to play it ahistorically, but that's what the Idea Groups are there for.

What? You misunderstood me. No event chain would force any ideas on you. What I mean is that you'll get events for aristocratic country, events for HRE member, events for dynastic politics/marriages, events for being patron of arts, events for diplomatic corps, etc. instead of events for Austria (tag AUS). Predefined starting ideas would ensure that Austria feels like Austria and you would get associated events, and you'll be free do develop country as you please still getting content and events. They just won't be historical events written specifically for Austria, but generic heavily contextualised events that would launch for country like Austria.

 

[Chamboozer]

What? You misunderstood me. No event chain would force any ideas on you. What I mean is that you'll get events for aristocratic country, events for HRE member, events for dynastic politics/marriages, events for being patron of arts, events for diplomatic corps, etc. instead of events for Austria (tag AUS). Predefined starting ideas would ensure that Austria feels like Austria and you would get associated events, and you'll be free do develop country as you please still getting content and events. They just won't be historical events written specifically for Austria, but generic heavily contextualised events that would launch for country like Austria.

This is, of course, the superior system, but it really is something the game must be designed around in order to get it to work, not the other way around.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

This is, of course, the superior system, but it really is something the game must be designed around in order to get it to work, not the other way around.

Yeah, my whole point is that it's disappointing that devs did not chose this model, and went with more safe, less ambitious one.

 

[1alexey]

Reading over this thread and giving this more thought, this is the first information about EUIV that legitimately concerns me.

I know this will all turn on how it's implemented, but from what is presented this feels like a feature that's implemented for the wrong reasons. The thought process seems to have been -- how do we evolve the sliders? It wasn't -- how do we make national ideas and country customization as compelling as possible? So while what was developed is perhaps better than sliders in the abstract, in the context of the game this isn't really a good way to go about using ideas and making countries distinctive.

If I may, this seems like the same sort of thought process that led to CIV V. The developers there were so interested in creating "better" and "more streamlined" features that they lost sense of the game. They focused on how to make each feature better, isolated from how it worked, and without asking whether it was the best implementation for the game. Each feature was maybe better than what came before, but the game wasn't.

I appreciate that Johan says that the military ideas aren't always the first choices. But I can't imagine -- if you groups all the military ideas into only two categories -- every player won't eventually have to take both. You're going to have to go to war. You don't want your armies gimped. Why aren't they spread among all the ideas, so each power no matter what path it takes has some military ideas, but different ones? Some are stronger but paired with weaker bonuses to other things, and some are weaker but paired with better bonuses to other things. That's interesting choices.

Or think colonization. If you put them all into one group, the only choice is -- do I want colonies? If you do, you have to take it. Your choice is made pretty much as soon as you load the game, because you know from the start whether you're playing a colonizing power. Every colonizing power will then also have access to all the same bonuses. Why aren't they spread out among different ideas? Then maybe England has colonies that grow faster, while France has colonies that are cheaper. Spain take faster but not cheaper, plus it takes anther idea that makes its colonies more profitable. Plus these are all paired with other benefits to combat and efficiency, some that are better and some that are worse. Real choices. Real differences in gameplay.

Plus, "ideas" that affect everything are what give nations a certain feel. England made different decisions in every aspect of it's nation because of it's values -- English ideas of liberty, a commercial bent, a protestant religious tradition. France made different decisions because of it's values -- high value on aesthetetics, powerful feudal nobility, catholic religious tradition. What makes a country "feel" a certain way aren't easily dividable into functional areas -- it's ways of going about everything.

My two cents. This feels like a possible mistake, and a definite lost opportunity. It's the first thing I've heard about this game that doesn't have me really looking forward to a masterpiece. Now I'm a little worried about a CIV V backwards step.

The CIV5 NIs or whatever they were called exactly suffered from what you describe, apart from Rationalism, they all gave you a number of crappy things you really do not need, with a few importaint things to consider in each tree.

The grouping design is way better, since you can make a choice, that will at every investment advance the things you need, rather than having some needless stuff that is just a speed bump to get to usefull stuff.

This is Civilization style 'Russian Hordes', 'German Discipline', 'American Love for Freedom' all over again. They were good in those very abstract games. They are out of place in more serious paradox title IMO, since they are not based on logic - they're based on stereotypes, belief on destiny (Russians would always have massive armies, Germans would always have disciplined amies, Americans would be always freedom loving), and very crude and simplistic interpretation of history (should we give low population countries in 17th century ability to get bazzilion mercs with very talented king bent on conquest/huge religious war? No - we just give it to Swedes, because Gustavus Adolphus).

Exept, in EU3, countries already have thousand years of history behind them, and some things are formed.

If you like sandbox so much, why not to play fantasy games, that have no conection to reality.

Green state, blue state, red state,.. inside they are absolutely similar.

Like galactic civilisations 2, space empires 5, ex,..

 

[Chamboozer]

Exept, in EU3, countries already have thousand years of history behind them, and some things are formed.

This is true, but I don't think things are formed to such a degree that they shouldn't be contextual. To take one of those examples, 'German discipline' arose in Brandenburg because that country has no natural geographic defenses. There's no reason to think that a Prussian state formed without Brandenburg at its core would develop along the same path.

Other things, such as Portugese naval experience and Ottoman tolerance were indeed well-established by the start date and should be represented in the way Paradox has shown, though.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

Exept, in EU3, countries already have thousand years of history behind them, and some things are formed.

Except, as proven with Swedish example, they are based on future events (1444 bonus based on events of 17th century).

EDIT

Regarding sandbox. What is more realistic - game when effect occurs with cause, or a game when effect just occurs?

 

[WeissRaben]

Ok, let's put it like this. Is going a "Anglo-French Union" England going to sing Britannia Rule the Waves? If yes, it makes no sense whatsoever to defend the backwater, poor part of the Union. Is Milan going to lose his Ideas when it forms Italy? If yes, then it makes no sense whatsoever to form Italy. Is an Austria that's going to rule with warfare and an iron fist going to be said "Tu, Felix Austria, nubet"? If yes, then its current situation has no influence on its ideas. And so on.

 

[Medicine Man]

I'll join the chorus and say that I like the overall direction that EUIV is going so far. There is a lot of meat to this particular diary.

First, kudos to Paradox for creating a little bit more distinction between individual nations in EUIV. I know that some people are not pleased with any design decisions that move the EU series away from a pure sandbox game model, but the truth is that allowing every country to be 100% customizable is not compatible with the goal of having distinct nations. Geography, culture, and traditions all should matter.

Second, like Holistic God points out earlier in this thread, much will depend on how well balanced these Ideas are vis a vis one another. In particular, I am worried about the Exploration tree and all of the Land warfare trees (quality, quantity, offense, defense).

Exploration and Colonization tends to get done earlier and quicker in EU than it did in real life. If the Exploration ideas are not designed with this in mind, I fear that a tendency to under invest in this tree or invest and then dump (if the ability to dump Ideas is implemented) will become commonplace. Hopefully good bonuses for the profitability and administration of colonies will be placed in the later idea slots for Exploration to make the Idea tree useful for nations that have established a colonial empire but are no longer growing.

For the Land Warfare ideas, I am not worries about the ideas themselves so much as all the ideas that have to compete with them. Armies are so essential for the survival of a nation and the defense of its possessions that I hope appropriate "muscle" is put into other the other ideas to make sure that loading up on land warfare ideas isn't a no-brainer for almost any nation.

Third, I agree that having no way to "drop" ideas is bad. While I'm not particularly sympathetic to the notion that DP-sliders and National Ideas should be manipulated like a gear-shift or the pegs on a mixing board, nevertheless these ideas as they are presented here did change over time for some nations during the EUIV time period — sometimes violently, sometimes gradually. Losing all previous investment is a good (intrinsic) penalty but adding some other malus is probably a good idea as well; perhaps something derived from the slider-DP change events in EUIII. For example, dropping a fully developed Aristocracy Idea triggers a big revolution or civil war. Ideally, if a player's chosen strategy is to hop from idea to idea for the first half of the game, he should be bloodying his own foot constantly doing so. Along the same lines, Paradox should be careful not to make too many juicy decisions dependent on having the first or second idea in an idea tree, or else cherry picking those decisions and then dumping the entire idea will become commonplace (ala. Gilded Iconography in EUIII); there is no lost investment if you drop a virtually undeveloped idea.

Anyhow, very interesting where EUIV is going. I have so many more questions about how EUIV is going to work (ie. province development, cores, colonization, decisions and events, cultural unifications, etc.). I can't wait for more diaries to come out.

 

[1alexey]

This is true, but I don't think things are formed to such a degree that they shouldn't be contextual. To take one of those examples, 'German discipline' arose in Brandenburg because that country has no natural geographic defenses. There's no reason to think that a Prussian state formed without Brandenburg at its core would develop along the same path.

Other things, such as Portugese naval experience and Ottoman tolerance were indeed well-established by the start date and should be represented in the way Paradox has shown, though.

Exactly. Which is why "German disciplie" should be a military idea, while the Ottomans&Portugise can have natioanal traditions.

Ok, let's put it like this. Is going a "Anglo-French Union" England going to sing Britannia Rule the Waves? If yes, it makes no sense whatsoever to defend the backwater, poor part of the Union. Is Milan going to lose his Ideas when it forms Italy? If yes, then it makes no sense whatsoever to form Italy. Is an Austria that's going to rule with warfare and an iron fist going to be said "Tu, Felix Austria, nubet"? If yes, then its current situation has no influence on its ideas. And so on.

You make a lot of baseless assumptions there, so how am i suposed to argue those?

Regarding sandbox. What is more realistic - game when effect occurs with cause, or a game when effect just occurs?

There are things that game has to simplify, to be a game, you know?

Ofcourse floating somewhere in high sky and dreaming about the "ideal system that simulates everything" is fund and all, but at some poit the game becomes arbitrary anyway, since the "realistic rules" are based on history, that happened only once, and cause is not always well studied.

Then the real world is not balanced, so if you make a simulator, there should most of the time be the most efficent way, and if you game doesn`t have one, it is a sim in labal only.

Third, I agree that having no way to "drop" ideas is bad. While I'm not particularly sympathetic to the notion that DP-sliders and National Ideas should be manipulated like a gear-shift or the pegs on a mixing board, nevertheless these ideas as they are presented here did change over time for some nations during the EUIV time period — sometimes violently, sometimes gradually. Losing all previous investment is a good (intrinsic) penalty but adding some other malus is probably a good idea as well; perhaps something derived from the slider-DP change events in EUIII. For example, dropping a fully developed Aristocracy Idea triggers a big revolution or civil war. Ideally, if a player's chosen strategy is to hop from idea to idea for the first half of the game, he should be bloodying his own foot constantly doing so. Along the same lines, Paradox should be careful not to make too many juicy decisions dependent on having the first or second idea in an idea tree, or else cherry picking those decisions and then dumping the entire idea will become commonplace (ala. Gilded Iconography in EUIII); there is no lost investment if you drop a virtually undeveloped idea.

You have to understand, that more often than not it makes no sence to drop the idea, ever.
Since you use your monarch power points to buy ideas, that are also used for infrastructure and techs, and have a lot of idea group solts, and ideas are positive-only,
dropping an idea group only makes sence after you reached the maximum eight slots, and there is no guarantee that you`re always better having a lot of ideas, at all, having a lot of buildings and techs can be more importaint than ideas.

Unless there is a points refund, which there should not be, droping ideas is extreemly poor decision, right untill the game end.

 

[Chamboozer]

Exactly. Which is why "German disciplie" should be a military idea, while the Ottomans&Portugise can have natioanal traditions.

It's not, though. We have already seen that Sweden gets a bonus to their infantry because they are Sweden - the same will be true of Prussia no doubt. :/

I am happy to see though that combat ability for different unit types is now split up. I guess this means we don't have one big 'discipline' modifier for every unit anymore?