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EU4 - Development Diary - 27th of September 2016

Hello everyone and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. This time we’ll take a look at the most important balance changes for 1.18, with a quick explanation on why we did them..

Setup
  • Lucky nations are now down to 8, sorry Poland, Brandenburg & Sweden.
The balance of having 10 lucky nations made the likelihood of a strong Russia too uncommon for us, and especially having those 3 as likely lucky nations was too much for Muscowy.

  • Lots of National Ideas have been changed, but most importantly Knights lost their tolerance for heretics, but can instead do slave raids.
As usual, we keep changing the ideas as we add new functionality, and giving people new abilities. There was a rather large following for giving the Knights access to Slave Raiding, as they were rather fearsome pirates, so they gained that ability.


Navies
  • If you have a port, now you get at least 5 sailors per month.
This was also requested, as some nations with 1 port just could never get any sailors at all.

  • Ships now engage in a priority order from heavy, galley, light to transport, up to a maximum of the engagement width (for which heavies count as 3 rather than 1).
This creates a more interesting naval combat experience, as you’ll all notice on October 11th.


Espionage
  • Reworked foreign spy detection & counter espionage. Counter espionage have less impact on discovery, but both now impact the spy network buildup of the target in your nation.
Basically, being able to defend against spy activities is now possible, even if stopping them entirely might be impossible.

  • Reduced unrest and Republican Tradition impact from Sowing discontent spy action
And many tears have been shed over this ….

  • Spy network bonuses will now apply to the target's subjects.
No more micromanagement and extra hassle! Rejoice!


Subjects
  • Breaking vassalage with a vassal that has over 50% in liberty desire no longer gives a relation penalty.
In the “duh?” category right?

  • Increased Liberty Desire from tariffs, up to 50% LD at 100% tariffs
Tariffs are no longer no-brainers to increase..

  • Colonial nations only lose half the money the overlord is getting in tariffs.
But this makes it so you can’t cripple your colonial nations..

  • Large colonial nations now gives you +5 land force limit each
And now you also want LARGE colonial nations :) ie, buffing Portugal..

  • There is now a scaled penalty to Liberty Desire up to +25% at max Mercantilism.
Aka, the longer the game goes, the more likely subjects get rebellious.

  • Vassals fighting each others (i.e. in Japan) now always accept Enforce Peace requests of overlord, but all vassals except the defending peace target get +10 Liberty Desire.
More power to the Emperor! or.. The Shogun!

  • All subjects now get reduced AE from your actions, not just vassals & marches.
No longer will your union-partners hate you for conquering their cores!

  • Subjects now have land and naval access to other subjects of the same overlord.
No longer will your subjects units get stuck!


Religion
  • Patriarch Authority no longer reduces tax income.
It all belongs to Mother Russia!. Sorry, I meant all orthodox nations..

  • Sanction Commercial Monopoly now costs 50 PI, instead of 100.
And we boost Catholics!

  • Defender of Faith now gives you +10 opinion of all with that religion.
Clearly this was our most important tweak in 1.18.

  • Theocracies, especially the Papal State, have an increased alliance acceptance penalty towards different religions now.
  • When you change religion as a Monastic order, Devotion is now decreased to the resulting Religious unity
These above are in the “this will improve immersion while improving the balance”-category.



Forts
  • If you are enter battle while in an enemy province with a fort, you will be treated as the attacker in battle and incur that province's terrain penalties.
Building forts is now a strategic decision. Where can you stop your enemies the best?

  • Penalty for not occupying forts in an area will no longer apply if the enemy does not control any forts in the area.
This will make it possible to sign a peace that you as a player likes far easier.


Misc
  • There is now an increase in efficiency of embargoes for a nation scaled by its Mercantilism up to +50%.
This is also another change that makes Mercantilism more powerful, while at the same time improving immersion.

  • Trade Companies is now open to all technology groups.
With the new technology changes, this just makes sense. However, you can not have trade-companies on the same continent as your capital.

  • All countries should now have access to at least one skill 2 advisor at start.
Just for you to have a choice!

  • You can no longer move capital to a continent that has less than a third of your total provinces, unless your capital is the last province you own on its continent.
There were a few exploits where you could swap continents back and forth a few times, that this solves.


Technology

We already talked about the changes to technology in a previous development diary, but here is a quick recap!

  • In 1444, all non-tribal nations start without tech penalties.
  • Primitive Status is now tied to starting techgroups.
  • Institutions will appear in certain provinces at key dates and spread from province to province.
  • Once 10% of your development has this Institution present, you can embrace that Institution for a monetary cost scaled on how much that institution has spread throughout your nation
  • If you have not embraced an Institution, you will have a tech penalty. This penalty grows by 1% each year up to a maximum of 50% penalty per non-embraced institution.
  • American Natives reforming their religion gain all the institutions from their advanced neighbour
  • Many existing ideas have been altered to give faster Institution spread and cheaper embracement costs.
  • Increasing development in provinces will also boost institution presence in that province

Culture

Cultures were also mentioned in a previous development diary, but here is a quick recap.
  • Cultures are now promoted manually, and any culture of at least 20 development can be promoted for 100 DIP.
  • All nations can promote 2 cultures in addition to their primary culture, and additional cultures can be promoted from ideas and Diplomatic technology
  • Old modifiers to Accepted culture Threshold now affect number of promoted cultures
  • Promoted cultures can be Demoted. This will give +5 unrest in all provinces of that culture

Stay tuned, next week we’ll show off new achievements and national ideas..
 
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Metz said:
Brandenburg and the Teutonic Order. Where the Margrave of Brandenburg is elected Hochmeister of the TO and he chooses to secularize the TO therefore creating a PU.
Click to expand...

That isn't what happened. It was a member of a cadet line of the House of Hohenzollern, Albert, the son of the Margrave of Ansbach, who secularized the TO and founded the Duchy of Prussia in 1525. After that, the Duchy of Prussia and the Elecrorate of Brandenburg continued as two different states for nearly a century, until 1618, when the Margrave of Brandenburg inherited the Duchy of Prussia and formed the personal union.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Prussia
 
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Sexual Velociraptor said:
Level 8 forts already cost 4 maintenance, which is why they're never used. This change would encourage spamming outdated forts, rather than having up to date forts.
Click to expand...

Yes; Level 4 forts will still be as prohibitive and rare as before, as they should - this is Napoleonic warfare we're talking about. As for Fort Spamming, the solution there is to just have Mil Tech give increments of siege ability to make outdated forts even more useless.
 
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I'm really confused as to why BBurg is losing lucky while gaining events relating to Prussia's formation. That seems to be completely backwards - if there's one nation you would call lucky in the time period covered by the game, it would be Brandenburg, while the events that lead to them becoming Prussia were so remarkable that any in game implementation would either be so rare as to be not worth the time programming, or coded to happen for utterly ahistorical reasons, which would result in them making no sense.
 
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Grand Historian said:
As for Fort Spamming, the solution there is to just have Mil Tech give increments of siege ability to make outdated forts even more useless.
Click to expand...
Another solution that I've seen proposed (by Incompetent) is to introduce a soft cap for forts similar to force limit, with forts above the limit sharply increasing maintenance costs.
 
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JustMormegil said:
Surely... but if these changes would be done, they were considered as 'Major' as they were asked so many times...
ok, lets wait and hope. Hope level - 10%. :)
Click to expand...
Considering most would be tweaking the numbers, it might only be viewed as minor ;-) But I wouldn´t count my money on it being changed this time around... Though I too would like it to be changed a little :)
PhroX said:
I'm really confused as to why BBurg is losing lucky while gaining events relating to Prussia's formation. That seems to be completely backwards - if there's one nation you would call lucky in the time period covered by the game, it would be Brandenburg, while the events that lead to them becoming Prussia were so remarkable that any in game implementation would either be so rare as to be not worth the time programming, or coded to happen for utterly ahistorical reasons, which would result in them making no sense.
Click to expand...
It doesn´t really matter if BB are losing the lucky status, as long as they are still able to perform Prussian... The test-runs has been stated have Prussia being created enough, which given the whole argument of it being lucky might be too many times... However, once they gain the prussian monarchy, they should have less trouble anyway...
Topias said:
Another solution that I've seen proposed (by Incompetent) is to introduce a soft cap for forts similar to force limit, with forts above the limit sharply increasing maintenance costs.
Click to expand...
Dislike the caps like that... Really wanted army size to pulled from manpower instead too (have it a total value)... But in reality, if it will work better with forts it just might be better than currently... I do enjoy forts though, they buy me time in wars to recover if my army loses...
 
PhroX said:
I'm really confused as to why BBurg is losing lucky while gaining events relating to Prussia's formation. That seems to be completely backwards - if there's one nation you would call lucky in the time period covered by the game, it would be Brandenburg, while the events that lead to them becoming Prussia were so remarkable that any in game implementation would either be so rare as to be not worth the time programming, or coded to happen for utterly ahistorical reasons, which would result in them making no sense.
Click to expand...

Brandenburg gets events to give them more flavor, not specifically to make them form Prussia. Most of those test runs Jake refers to are from before the events were added.
They are mostly pretty nice events so they won't hurt but they won't hardware the union with Prussia.
 
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Trin Tragula said:
Brandenburg gets events to give them more flavor, not specifically to make them form Prussia. Most of those test runs Jake refers to are from before the events were added.
They are mostly pretty nice events so they won't hurt but they won't hardware the union with Prussia.
Click to expand...

If you don't mind me asking, if the events aren't what caused Brandenburg to be so successful in your test runs, then what was changed to help it?
 
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Grand Historian said:
If you don't mind me asking, if the events aren't what caused Brandenburg to be so successful in your test runs, then what was changed to help it?
Click to expand...
Good point... Since the lucky status were put in and justified by Brandenburg was not surviving in many runs?
 
With the change to accepted culture, will all nations be able to cultural shift?

***This is totally not because I formed France as the Aztecs and realized I can't form any other nation.
 
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Johan said:
Forts
  • If you are enter battle while in an enemy province with a fort, you will be treated as the attacker in battle and incur that province's terrain penalties.
Building forts is now a strategic decision. Where can you stop your enemies the best?
Click to expand...

Forts or the capital fort and whatever else you had was already a no brainer decision. Coastal mountain. Like say the province of Navarra. That's an ideal capital or 'fort' location if you insist on having them. Sure the development cost was high but you didn't have to develop the capital, even though there's a bonus. Losing slightly more efficient development in exchange for a much harder fort to siege... is not much of a strategic choice.

The risk however was that it was pretty hard to contest the fort if it was under attack because you would get the mountain penalty but if you scorched earth, on top of mountain siege penalty and no blockade penalty (if applicable) a siege there would take an eternity meaning you could get a lot of things done in that time with a good portion of your opponents forces commit to sieging your mountain fort.

Now with this change that risk is completely gone, it's even more of a no brainer. You didn't add a strategic decision. You just turned a no brainer into a bigger no brainer. This has always sort of annoyed me, I don't want my capital to be some mountain stronghold. I want my capital to be a beautiful vibrant city. For the sake of immersion AND strategy, please rethink this.

On a positive note, the rest of the changes look very good. I had concerns on how primitives would be handled, but instantly getting all their institutions on reform is a huge buff. No westernization and basically only a reforms jump behind? That's... interesting to say the least. Unless by gain you mean, have access to embracing which means costs still have to be paid. Either way, it's... interesting.
 
Johan said:
Hello everyone and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. This time we’ll take a look at the most important balance changes for 1.18, with a quick explanation on why we did them..

Setup
  • Lucky nations are now down to 8, sorry Poland, Brandenburg & Sweden. The balance of having 10 lucky nations made the likelihood of a strong Russia too uncommon for us, and especially having those 3 as likely lucky nations was too much for Muscowy.
Click to expand...

Probably a lot of guys posted it here, but this change is just irrational imo. Rusia is very strong in 1.17 and and I see them almost every game as a monster. PLC is the only threat really. Hordes are roflstomped by them even whole scandinavia is raped by them even early on.
Russia have literally free path to expand to the west and a lot of free development from novgorod. The only thing that can weaken them in new patch is institutions but I think its overall nerf most of the eastern/nothern europe nations not only muscovy. Also only Muscovy/Russia acquired strong buff from Orthodox religion(+33% tax is huge boost to the economy).

Brandenburg have strong ideas and is surrounded by a lot of (relatively) easy to conquer minors, but stil cause of HRE I dont even remember when I saw prussia/brandenburg(not to mention strong prussia which have never happened to me without my intervention). I guess brandenburg will get some events which will boost them somehow so its fine.

Sweden nation is strong and if they win Independence war(which they win sooner or later) they blob into whole scandinavia, but I dont see them anywhere else most of the time and certainly not in russialand(actually I usually see the other thing around with Russian Stockholm). So nerfing lucky nation wouldnt make them that weak since they dont have neighbouring rivals that wants their lands besides scandinavia and Russia.

On the other hand right now PLC is even struggling to conquer teutons, and when TO ally ANY other nation that is stronger than mecklemburg(not only Bohemia, Hungary or Denmark/Sweden but even some guys from hanseatic league and pomerania could do for example) they are losing hard to them.. Additionaly even if Poland conquer TO the Commonwealth is still surrounded by strong agresive neighbours like ottomans, hungary, muscovy etc. which are just waiting to conquer juicy Polish provinces in moment of weakness. Just out of the blue westernization or some revolt problems means danger for them. Poland is also hurting the most from the trio from institutions especially later on when they form Commonwealth imo. Making them unlucky is just making them meat to anyone.


And yet there are hordes, which are going to be shitty to say at least right now. I mean what hordes have to embrace any institution. Development? nope. Friendly eastern friends? nope. Good position to get any institution? nope. I mean it hurts to be horde right now but with institution change they are even hurting after switching government because they are razing provinces to the ground and they are surrounded by enemies most of the time(I dont see any developing provinces from hordes either so they are screwed). I know that Golden Horde was succesfull in multi dev stream, but with Muscovy/PLC war betwen themselfs and also being lucky noone could stop them from growing. Without being lucky or PLC/Russia occupied with themselfs it would never happened.

I assume that Sweeden/brandenburg could loose lucky nation status but they dont rival with Russia right on the start and they would make some(but not much) problems in the late game maybe. But Poland need that lucky status. For example I just finished my Great Perm run and I had to restart more than 20 of times just to see Poland not loosing to TO and being able to fight as equals with the Muscovy.
Hope u will reverse(or partially reverse) this change which is just bad imo. Why wouldnt you just buff Russia ideas or religion or something if they are loosing in AI games. Nerfing half of the central-eastern Europe just to see more common Russiablob is stupid in my opinion.
 
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gasior said:
Probably a lot of guys posted it here, but this change is just irrational imo. Rusia is very strong in 1.17 and and I see them almost every game as a monster.

Sweden nation is strong and if they win Independence war(which they win sooner or later) they blob into whole scandinavia, but I dont see them anywhere else most of the time and certainly not in russialand(actually I usually see the other thing around with Russian Stockholm).

On the other hand right now PLC is even struggling to conquer teutons, and when TO ally ANY other nation that is stronger than mecklemburg(not only Bohemia, Hungary or Denmark/Sweden but even some guys from hanseatic league and pomerania could do for example) they are losing hard to them
Click to expand...

What the heck mods / rules / settings are you playing with? It sure isn't vanilla ironman where the Commonblob stomps all over Russia...
 
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Quaade said:
It doesn´t really matter if BB are losing the lucky status, as long as they are still able to perform Prussian... The test-runs has been stated have Prussia being created enough, which given the whole argument of it being lucky might be too many times... However, once they gain the prussian monarchy, they should have less trouble anyway...
Click to expand...

Prussia being created "enough" is probably my biggest worry. It took a sequence of pretty unlikely events to lead to its formation historically, very few of which are likely to occur once you've unpaused the game at the start. As such, havinging Prussia (or at the very least least, the specific militaristic Prussia we saw in history and is modelled in game) forming often is nonsensical. Seeing it crop up every now and then is fun. Seeing it crop up regularly is immersion breaking.

Trin Tragula said:
Brandenburg gets events to give them more flavor, not specifically to make them form Prussia. Most of those test runs Jake refers to are from before the events were added.
They are mostly pretty nice events so they won't hurt but they won't hardware the union with Prussia.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, I misunderstood how things were.

That said, how are "lucky" nations decided? Is it purely a gameplay thing? Cos I can't really think of a nation in the historic EUIV time frame that got luckier than BBurg.
 
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brifbates said:
What the heck mods / rules / settings are you playing with? It sure isn't vanilla ironman where the Commonblob stomps all over Russia...
Click to expand...
normal ironman with all big DLC's

Zrzut ekranu (19).png
3rd attempt on observe mode. First was local noble on polish throne and at second attempt TO+LO+Riga destroyed all polish army and part of lithuanian but denmark and novgorod attacked LO.
Ofcourse it could be some series of unfortunate events for PLC but still, its not first time in this week even.



Didnt tried VH on ironman so cant say anything about that
 
PhroX said:
That said, how are "lucky" nations decided? Is it purely a gameplay thing? Cos I can't really think of a nation in the historic EUIV time frame that got luckier than BBurg.
Click to expand...

I dunno the Spanish inheriting the Austrian throne seems pretty close if not closer.
 
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Grand Historian said:
Yes; Level 4 forts will still be as prohibitive and rare as before, as they should - this is Napoleonic warfare we're talking about. As for Fort Spamming, the solution there is to just have Mil Tech give increments of siege ability to make outdated forts even more useless.
Click to expand...
So you want to make old forts useless, but new ones prohibitively expensive? Smart.
 
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PhroX said:
That said, how are "lucky" nations decided? Is it purely a gameplay thing? Cos I can't really think of a nation in the historic EUIV time frame that got luckier than BBurg.
Click to expand...

I guess it's decided by how the nations performed historically to try and make historical power balances somewhat more likely.

I can say for certain though that there are nations luckier than BBurg.

Manchu is the obvious example. What's luckier than having the military of the most powerful nation in the world support you as their Emperor and conquer everything for you? That's like Austria France Ottomans decided Brandenburg should be the Emperor of Europe, and sent their armies to beat up everyone who disagreed.

Castille/Spain with their dynasty and even the conquest of the new world.
 
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