EU4 - Dev Diary - June 18th

[balmung60]

Nice.

I'll say that the main reason I don't use the random new world any more is because it occasionally breaks, and then I get a vanilla new world without trade nodes.

 

[Strager]

Thank you for acknowledging the RNG issues.

FYI - I personally have no issue waiting 30 minutes to generate a map that I am going to spend 30 hours playing on. One suggestion would be to allow us to pre-generate multiple maps at a time if you have the disk-space for it - people could start the process, go to work, and by the end of the day have enough new RNGs to last a lifetime.

 

[grommile]

I think the way to think of Byzantium is that it is a country that everyone who puts some time in EU4 will inevitably play.

That is an incorrect way to think of it.

I've never tried it, and I never will.

 

[Knut Skallagrim]

Best DD ever, i'm serious.

 

[PrinceOfPluto]

Seeing as custom nations are the most popular country option, any chance they will get some extra love in the form of a flag update or idea update to the nation designer? It would be awesome to have some new flag options to choose from like the USA flag and then the unique national ideas like France's Native Trading Principles or USA's Freedom of Religion.

 

[Thrake]

Thank you for acknowledging the RNG issues.

FYI - I personally have no issue waiting 30 minutes to generate a map that I am going to spend 30 hours playing on. One suggestion would be to allow us to pre-generate multiple maps at a time if you have the disk-space for it - people could start the process, go to work, and by the end of the day have enough new RNGs to last a lifetime.

I don't really mind either when it takes time. I commonly let my PC runnig when I know it'll take time (I go cooking,...). I can understand why developers might want to avoid that though.

 

[comp]

Most of the custom nations I made were republics.
I like republics and it's such a pain to switch over to one.

Nice DD and thanks for the 1.12.2 hotfix Wiz.

 

[siamsee people]

That is what do france think about high attidude lake only france not native.

 

[Haldan]

Ah, finally the Andeas don't look like a fire-belching sinkhole paving the way to the home rig of Belzebub. Something I've looked forward to. And I'll be looking forward to what happens to the Random New World!

Edit; I've a question: I've edited around with the Unit Packs a bit. A consequential bug of this is that all nations with a pre-defined set of revolutionary colors will have their unit models color defined by the specific Revolutionary colors. For example, Russia's pre-set revolutionary color (white, blue, red) make their troops in-game White coats with blue brim. Papal States is black and white, etc. Any ideas on how to fix this?

 

[Dnote]

I would assume that most players aren't looking for a challenge, which is why they play as the powerful nations and most players also aren't engaged enough to bother coming on the forums, so we think what is written here is more popular than it really is. I really enjoy playing with custom nations, I like being able to select my NI to suit my goals, but also I've played so much since launch that it is nice to play in the same places, but with a different structure. My current game has me in south of France and northern Italy, I could've got there from one of the smaller nations, but because of the provinces my nation started with, France was a little weaker and the whole area was in a lot of turmoil for the first 200 years, which made playing in western Europe very different to how it normally goes.

As for the RNW, would gladly wait 10-15 minutes to get a more natural continent to explore. I love the idea of it, making exploration actually worth something, but as it currently is, just isn't really that fun to play with.

 

[highsis]

Fun Fact of the Day!
Did you know that the most popular player nation (measured by number of campaigns started) in EU4 is to play a Custom Nation? It is closely followed by England, France and Castile. Of the top 10 played nations, the only (non-custom) one that isn't in the 'Interesting Nations' in 1444 is Brandenburg. It appears that our Byzantine fans have nothing on the lovers of Prussia.

Yep, and most likely the same for custom rulers in CK2.

Personal attachment is very important and what can have more personal attachment to you than a nation/character you created?

You should add more of such elements! (ex. ruler personality/RP choices)

 

[Xinkc]

I hope the eventual rework of the RNW will have more provinces in it. They always seem so sparse...

 

[Maria Theresa]

and what can have more personal attachment to you than a nation/character you created?

Someone about whom you know a lot from history and you're really excited to play as?

 

[Pyske]

@Wiz : Re Random New World workarounds: is there any chance that you could expose the random numbers generated, and allow them to be imported or seeded?

The idea would be to have users find you a nice subset of "pretty" RNW maps, which could then be shared and loaded. Just as a workaround until you get around to re-building / enhancing the feature.

 

[highsis]

The claims about 'people prefer historical' has never been backed up in our data. Your personal preferences are not automatically those of the majority.

I want entirely random earth with arctic glacier stuck in the middle of a continent and 1000km long narrow lands and such, and not just in the new world.. Half random and half historical is blend. Why not go fully random?

 

[Homusubi]

@Wiz What is the least popular nation in EU4, and how many people have ever started a campaign as them? Thanks for the lakes by the way, and there's nothing wrong with not immediately fixing random new world!

Re Brandenburg, it's probably because people want to play as "Germany", find it doesn't exist, and go for either the strongest looking minor or the one which has Berlin in it.

 

[pommiebastard]

I must admit that, after a few experiments when I first got CoP, I almost never use the RNW - it was just frustrating how "unreal" it looked. Though I did occasionally turn it on if I was planning a non-colonial game, in an attempt to screw things up for the colonisers...

I then heard, after 1.8/AoW, that it didn't take into account all the new provinces that had been added to the Americas - I can't remember seeing that that ever got "fixed". Has anyone played it recently, and does it now include the same number of provinces as the Real New World?

I'd be interested in an update to it, particularly if you can either "pre-generate" maps with detail, or (even better) edit and load up custom maps - I can imagine the community coming up with particular themed ones (Westeros, anybody? Atlantis? Maztica...?)

 

[Reinou]

Hi Wiz, could you make one of your future dev diaries about creating / improving the AI? There's often a lot of complains about how the AI performs, especially after a major DLC like this. I think it would be interesting to know more about the process of improving the AI, why there are often problems after DLC releases and if there is something the players can do to help.

 

[SAS]

Whats that you say? A Prussian-Byzantine empire? Deal.

 

[Wizzington]

Hi Wiz, could you make one of your future dev diaries about creating / improving the AI? There's often a lot of complains about how the AI performs, especially after a major DLC like this. I think it would be interesting to know more about the process of improving the AI, why there are often problems after DLC releases and if there is something the players can do to help.

The fact that people complain about the AI is far from always an actual indicator of a problem. People always complain about the AI, and imagine it to be and do all sorts of things it isn't/doesn't.

That said, yes, a DD on AI is not a bad idea.