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EU4 Development Diary - 18th February 2016

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for EU4. This time we take a look at Africa, and the changes there. This one of those times when pictures are worth more than 1000 words.

First of all, we have added the entirety of the Kongo region, reaching up to the Great Lakes area. Not just home to the countries of Kongo, Loango and Ndongo, this area now have multiple nations, and could be the basis of a powerful empire.

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While we have added over 20 new nations to Central Africa, we have also added new idea groups and unique ideas for these mighty states, including the Great Lakes ideas for our states near the Lake Victoria. These Central Africans also have their own unique technology group, with technology costing 65% more than Westerners.

North we find the Great Lakes Area, with lots of minor nations, some that still exist today, after a brief period of colonialism.

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Southeast of Kongo, is Zambia and Mozambique is now filled with provinces and several new nations as well. Magagascar has also seen a rework, with 5 nations struggling for supremacy of the island, complete with their own national ideas and Pagan/Islamic friction

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The tradesetup for Africa have changed as well, Zanzibar is now the coast tradenode, with three inland nodes of Kongo, Great Lakes and Zambezi leading to the coasts either west and east. This makes the Zanzibar node a hugely important tradenode for everyone along the Indian Ocean.

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No diary on our Africa changes would be complete without giving some attention to religion in the region. Previously we had carpeted non-specific pagan areas with Shamanism or Animism. Now many of our African provinces which have not converted to Islam are portrayed with the Fetishist Pagan religion which grants greater tolerance to heathens and a diplomatic reputation bonus along with the usual pagan decision.

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Next week, we’ll talk about two different and new concepts, one which has its own icon in the top bar.
 
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Nice to see almost all the additions people imagined for africa made it in.
The great lakes kingdoms open up a whole new route to get to india, which is very welcome change.
But i'malmost even more excited to finally learn what the ellusive "bleeding money" actually means ;)
 
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Sorry, no zulu state. The rozwi who took over Butua and later most of whats Mutapa in 1444 are considered by some to have pioneered the same type pf tactics and training though.

Oh, o-okay :(
I was hoping it would be an event spawn or a formable, but I guess that's fine. Maybe in a later patch.
 
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I am honestly very happy with this. I really am, I had stopped playing EUIV for a while, I'm going to catch up on the two expansions I've missed and start playing again. I love Africa, its history, and I look forward to what the modders do with these new regions. Thank you PDX
 
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Only 65% tech penalty? That's only 5% more than Subsaharans, who had earlier trade and cultural contacts with Maghreb and Europe.
I though it would be closer to Mesoamerican/Andean techgroups, but they get less than half of their penalties. Were Congolese that more advanced than Aztecs or Incas?
 
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This looks awesome.

I'm going to take a punt in the dark and guess one of the new concepts is indicated by the bleeding money bag. Some kind of income loss mechanic due to corruption/inefficient taxing/other stuff?
 
Only 65% tech penalty? That's only 5% more than Subsaharans, who had earlier trade and cultural contacts with Maghreb and Europe.
I though it would be closer to Mesoamerican/Andean techgroups, but they get less than half of their penalties. Were Congolese that more advanced than Aztecs or Incas?
They might start at tech 1 compared to subsaharans tech 2
 
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Will there be anything to help the African nations keep from getting conquered by the Europeans, clear across the continent? I'm pretty sure that sort of thing didn't really happen until the Scramble for Africa in the late 1800s, after all.

I'd like to second this question. As far as I'm aware, until the invention of railroads etc. the African interior was mostly safe from European colonisation. Assuming that's true, are there mechanics that will stop non-Africans from running in and conquering interior Africa willy-nilly with no regard to horrific disease?
 
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Sorry, no zulu state. The rozwi who took over Butua and later most of whats Mutapa in 1444 are considered by some to have pioneered the same type pf tactics and training though.
I'd love to know what source material the team used here because my knowledge of this region is so weak, do you have any pointers? :)

I'm also struggling to think what the third nation, in eastern madagascar is... I'm certain the western malagasy country are the sakalava, and merina are merina, but the third seems to have its capital comewhere near Toamasina.
 
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Hugely happy with the Madagascar and Great Lakes improvements, as they have been long overdue. Adding the central Congo region was just an extra bonus!
 
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I'd also think about, how to stop too early european colonisation in this area.

Maybe the easiest way would be simply rise the agresivness and quantity of natives to numbers such: 15-20 k in some areas? Not every colonial power would be able to send bigger stacks to the Africa in early game, even more, it'd be pointless if in the same time, America can be much easier colonised.
 
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I'd love to know what source material the team used here because my knowledge of this region is so weak, do you have any pointers? :)

I'm also struggling to think what the third nation, in eastern madagascar is... I'm certain the western malagasy country are the sakalava, and merina are merina, but the third seems to have its capital comewhere near Toamasina.

I'm curious about that too. The Congo/Great Lakes maps are zoomed out enough that we can see the names of (most of) the nations, but we can only see the province names in the Mozambique/Madagascar maps. I can guess some of them, but others could be several choices.
 
I'd also think about, how to stop too early european colonisation in this area.

Maybe the easiest way would be simply rise the agresivness and quantity of natives to numbers such: 15-20 k in some areas? Not every colonial power would be able to send bigger stacks to the Africa in early game, even more, it'd be pointless if in the same time, America can be much easier colonised.

Continuing down this line of thought, the peaceful native colonization policy's settler growth reduction should be tied to the amount of natives in the region. For example: Colonizing peaceful in a region with 15k natives should lead to a higher reduction than colonizing peacefully in a region where only 500 natives live. Maybe -5/10 settlers per 3k or so?
 
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