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)]

Thrashing Mad, I guess it depends on how you pick a country. Your style seems to be: "I want to make Sweden into a tradepower", while my style generally is "I want to play a tradepower, what country would it be fun to play as." From this point of view, this idea system is great as it gears countries in certain directions.

That's true. It makes playing 'Swedish' Sweden from start to finish more fun, or historical trade nations more fun. It is also very limiting at the same time - there's one way that you are supposed to play, with others not being optimal. It also makes AI behave historically, which is good while makes sense in context, but is also predictable, and thus less challenging.

And yeah - my style is mostly to explore various 'what ifs' that could have happened, rather than replaying history with minor variations only. Same with AI - it is cool to sometimes see Burgundy as a power in 1700s, innovative Russian republic, or unsuccessful Habsburgs still confined to Austria. I don't like crazy stuff like Bohemian-Siberian snake, or Spanish/English Anatolia, of course.

 

[1alexey]

Let's say a colonising nation loses all it's coastlines - then should it lose the idea?

Russia into Siberia happened way before Russia had a port.

Dinamicity is cool but i don't want playing watching various percentage to don't lose a lot of my bonuses.

Indeed, it would not be fun to constantly watch for it.

No, you're overlooking a few things.

You do not get access to all eight idea slots at the start of the game. Waiting for another slot to open is sacrificing time. If there is another idea that is crucial in the meantime, then there is room for idea swapping to be a valid strategy. If your current idea is only lightly, or even undeveloped, then you are sacrificing very little for dropping it. If there are no other penalties for dropping ideas then there are circumstances where shuffling ideas around is strategically profitable, especially early in the game. If there are also going to be decisions in EUIV with national ideas as prerequisites, like Guilded Iconography for example, then this becomes a larger possibility still.

You also overlook a simple thing, is that when you pick a NI group, you`re suposed to use it for quite some time, otherwise you would not pick it.

Picking NI group with a plan to use it for 10 years and then swith makes no sence.

Now the math is that you get 8 slots in 1444-1760 or around that, so an estimate of 310-350 years, and 8 slots, means you get a new slot about every 40 years.

Now, you spend a decades developing a single NI group to get the substaintial bonus. So, all in all, swaping NIs will not really help you short term, since the initial bonus of lightly developed NI is probably not all that good, and by the time you will develop those to a reasonable level, you should be not that far ahead of picking another NI slot.

Besides the idea that NI swap shoul be free, is wrong, it certainly should cost you, and quite a lot, since you will have to go thrugh the suppresing of people that will oppose changes, and implementing what was there before you took a NI, and that proces is costly.

Then, the Glider iconography exploit is quite obvious oversight by PI, and I`m sure that decisions that rely on NIs, will be canseled if NIs are no more.

 

[Wallain]

Since the ideas are linear, how can you have triggers on the individual ideas? Either you can pick the group - and then you must be able to take all ideas in it - or you can't take the group.

Well, don't you buy ideas with ruler currency?

 

[Captain Gars]

That's true. It makes playing 'Swedish' Sweden from start to finish more fun, or historical trade nations more fun. It is also very limiting at the same time - there's one way that you are supposed to play, with others not being optimal. It also makes AI behave historically, which is good while makes sense in context, but is also predictable, and thus less challenging.

And yeah - my style is mostly to explore various 'what ifs' that could have happened, rather than replaying history with minor variations only.

You tend to magnify these things. I don't think anyone will have the least problem in playing Sweden completely ahistorical, and the small bonuses Sweden get will not make an AI Sweden predictable.

 

[Captain Gars]

Well, don't you buy ideas with ruler currency?

You do, but I'm not sure I understand what that has to do with it?

 

[unmerged(63836)]

You tend to magnify these things. I don't think anyone will have the least problem in playing Sweden completely ahistorical, and the small bonuses Sweden get will not make an AI Sweden predictable.

Perhaps. This is how it looks in theory, based on information from you and Johan. We don't have other points of reference.

 

[Jaol]

Since the ideas are linear, how can you have triggers on the individual ideas? Either you can pick the group - and then you must be able to take all ideas in it - or you can't take the group.

Right, what I'm saying is I think a system where there were triggers on individual ideas instead of a hardocded linear order.

I.e., instead of a trigger on the group, and then a hardcoded linear order, you'd have a trigger on the group, and triggers on the individual ideas in the group. You could use triggers to give the individual ideas a linear order, but it wouldn't be hardcoded.

In other words, if the current setup looks something like this:

idea_group = {
	limit = { whatever triggers you want }
	idea_1 = { 
		effects 
	}
	idea_2 = { 
		effects 
	}
	idea_3 = { 
		effects 
	}
	etc.
}

I'm suggesting something like this:

idea_group = {
	limit = { whatever triggers you want }
	idea_1 = { 
		limit = { none in vanilla }
		effects 
	}
	idea_2 = { 
		limit = { in vanilla requires idea_1 }
		effects 
	}
	idea_3 = { 
		limit = { in vanilla requires idea_2 }
		effects 
	}
	etc.
}

 

[Johan]

Right, what I'm saying is I think a system where there were triggers on individual ideas instead of a hardocded linear order.

I.e., instead of a trigger on the group, and then a hardcoded linear order, you'd have a trigger on the group, and triggers on the individual ideas in the group. You could use triggers to give the individual ideas a linear order, but it wouldn't be hardcoded.

In other words, if the current setup looks something like this:

idea_group = {
	limit = { whatever triggers you want }
	idea_1 = { 
		effects 
	}
	idea_2 = { 
		effects 
	}
	idea_3 = { 
		effects 
	}
	etc.
}

I'm suggesting something like this:

idea_group = {
	limit = { whatever triggers you want }
	idea_1 = { 
		limit = { none in vanilla }
		effects 
	}
	idea_2 = { 
		limit = { in vanilla requires idea_1 }
		effects 
	}
	idea_3 = { 
		limit = { in vanilla requires idea_2 }
		effects 
	}
	etc.
}

won't happen.

make's for a bad player experience, and costs alot of development time.

 

[Jaol]

won't happen.

make's for a bad player experience, and costs alot of development time.

Ok. Thanks for answering. Makes sense.

I'm curious about what you mean by bad player experience, though. Is it because you'd have tooltips (showing the limits) cluttering up the Ideas screen? Or is it just because it's unnecessarily confusing to have trigger conditions on individual ideas, if these triggers end up being functionally identical to a fixed linear order?

I.e. when you think about what makes for a good player experience, do you mainly think about the UI, or do you think about making the underlying rules as simple as possible, or are these roughly equal considerations?

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Russia into Siberia happened way before Russia had a port.

Arkhangelsk?

 

[StephenT]

Will the national traits and ideas have descriptive text attached, giving the historical background to them?

If the idea is to give countries more individual historical flavour, I think it would help if we were told about the great Swedish mercenary tradition in a pop-up or tooltip, rather than just seeing them get the bonus to hiring cost with no explanation why.

 

[Styrbiorn]

Arkhangelsk?

Make having a land connection to uncolonized provinces generate colonists (and make it impossible to send them overseas, unless you have a port)?

 

[Wallain]

You do, but I'm not sure I understand what that has to do with it?

Well if you do, then you could possibly have triggers on the ideas within the idea groups, no? I mean, if you do not meet the requirements for that you cannot spend those diplomacy points. In theory of course.

 

[twinxor]

Are there good examples of countries that really changed their basic social ideas during this time period? I can't think of many good examples before 1789.

 

[Jaol]

Are there good examples of countries that really changed their basic social ideas during this time period? I can't think of many good examples before 1789.

Excellent point. While I can think of lots of big social changes, they all seem more like adding a new idea (for example, the English adding the Exploration or Expansion Idea Groups) than losing a previous one.

The closest I can think of is if you wanted to argue that the OE initially would have had innovativeness and lost it later on. But that seems like a stretch anyway.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

Are there good examples of countries that really changed their basic social ideas during this time period? I can't think of many good examples before 1789.

Russia after Peter the Great transformed from medieval steppe influenced state, into modern European model of the time.

Polish-Lithuanian reforms prior to partitions.

Initial tolerance of protestants in Austria switching to counter-reformation in late 16th century.

Livonian Order transformed from landed monastic order of Catholic warrior-monks, to protestant trading/colonial/naval state (Kurland-Semigalia).

Castille transformed from warlike, land concentrated, reconquista nation, to colonial/naval/trade nation.


Just a few from the top of my head, surely there's more.

 

[StephenT]

I think you could argue that England was Aristocratic and Land in 1444, and Plutocratic and Naval in 1744.

 

[Jaol]

Russia after Peter the Great transformed from medieval steppe influenced state, into modern European model of the time.

Polish-Lithuanian reforms prior to partitions.

Initial tolerance of protestants in Austria switching to counter-reformation in late 16th century.

Livonian Order transformed from monastic order of Catholic warrior-monks, to protestant trading/colonial state (Kurland-Semigalia).

Castille transformed from warlike, land concentrated, reconquista nation, to colonial/naval/trade nation.


Just a few from the top of my head, surely there's more.

And which of these do you think would be modeled by changing an Idea Group as opposed to adding a new one (or switching TAGs completely like the Teutonic Order -> Prussia)?

 

[unmerged(63836)]

And which of these do you think would be modeled by changing an Idea Group as opposed to adding a new one (or switching TAGs completely like the Teutonic Order -> Prussia)?

Peter the Great - innovativeness, administrative and quality group replacing 3 pre-existing groups (including quantity - simulates transition from levied/streltsy based armies to western model)

Poland-Lithuania - administrative, and innovativeness replacing aristocracy and some other group

Austria - religion replacing some other group (as long as tolerance/persecution is something dependent on ideas, we don't know)

Livonian Order - trade, economic, exploration, naval, innovative, plutocracy replacing religion, land, and others

Castille - maybe not good example after all, since early in the game there might not be need to replace group. If there is need, then exploration, naval, trade in place of other groups

 

[Jaol]

See, I'd say all of those (except for the Livonian Order, which like Prussia will probably be handled by a TAG-change) could be represented as well, if not better, by adding new Idea Groups:

Peter the Great - innovativeness, administrative and quality group replacing 3 pre-existing groups (including quantity - simulates transition from levied/streltsy based armies to western model)

Russia would already have the Expansion & Administrative group by then, and I don't see Russia ever having Quality, so that's just adding Innovativeness.

Poland-Lithuania - administrative, and innovativeness replacing aristocracy and some other group

The Commonwealth was very aristocratic, and it never did much expansion, so I'd say that's another example of adding Innovativeness.

Austria - religion replacing some other group (as long as tolerance/persecution is something dependent on ideas, we don't know)

Why replacing another group? Seems like just adding Religion, IMO.

Castille - maybe not good example after all, since early in the game there might not be need to replace group. If there is need, then exploration, naval, trade in place of other groups

Again, this just seems like addition of new Groups. (And, on a side point, I don't think Castile should have the Trade Idea Group--taking that Idea Group would represent a more Portuguese/Dutch/English colonization strategy).