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EU4 - Development Diary - 25th of October 2016

Hello everyone and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. This time we’ll go into the main flavor of the 1.19 patch, which we call Denmark.

Well, why do we call it Denmark? Well.. First of all, we’ve added lots and lots of Dynamic Historical Event to Denmark, bringing them up to par with other european majors. Skåne also starts with the Skånemarket, a large bonus to the fish produced in the province. We have also added a few new provinces in Jylland, while also increasing the development of Denmark as a whole.
eu4_52.png

And as you can see here, the Danes get a nice new unit in 1.19 as well..

eu4_51.png

Norway also got an improvement, getting their map revised to include a fair amount of new provinces, and a wasteland in the center of the mountain range, to make the country more easily defended against the vile swedes. We also gave them a huge chunk of new Dynamic Historical Events, making playing them a fair bit more interesting.
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We also improved the political mapmode, as so many had requested, so we now show the terrain map where there has been no colonisation yet, so you’ll have some more informative eye-candy while playing
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One other thing to mention today is the fact that we added a fair bit more instructions to the AI for your nation if you crash or are forced to stop playing for a while in a campaign. The following options now exists for your convenience.

  • Ignore Decisions -Yes/No
  • Embrace Institutions - Yes/No
  • Develop Provinces - Yes/No
  • Disband Units - Yes/No
  • Change Fleet Missions - Yes/No
  • Send Missionaries - Yes/No
  • Convert Culture - Yes/No
  • Add/Remove Cultures - Yes/No
Stay tuned.. Next week we’ll talk more about forts, peace options and tradegoods, amongst other things.
 
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Cheers for the DD Johan and the extra info Trin Tragula :D. More detail for Denmark sounds good. I have to admit, I've never played as the Danes (nothing personal, there's just quite a few countries to play as in EU4, and they haven't got up yet). This patch may just change that :).
 
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Now that your doing a Denmark themed patch I think it be prime time to right a wrong that has existed within the game for far to long. The culture of Iceland! It is well know that Icelanders are not Norwegian, and at the time period they spoke a different(ish) language, had different customs and well a different culture. I believe Icelandic has a right to be its own culture just like other smaller cultures like Albanian and Sami.

Disagree. I've argued the point earlier on this forum, so here:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...flipping-vassal-culture.857232/#post-19349206

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...rmable-countries.880917/page-10#post-19920639
 
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I really appreciate the new changes, and though I feel like a spoiled brat for saying this, I still think that there could be one or two provinces more - most importantly on the isles.
Denmark indeed could need a few more provinces---and so could Sweden. Possibly Norway too, but not too knowledgeable on that.
But this change is really great.

I said in another thread earlier today that were I in charge of making Scandinavia and had I free hands I'd add 4 or 5 provinces each to Denmark and Sweden (on top of the ones added in this patch) and possibly a couple to Norway, but again not too knowledgeable on what possibly still is missing there. I'd also have most of the Swedish Norwegian border be wasteland to simulate how armies only could cross in very few places which became choke points.

Anyway for Denmark I'd split the Nordjylland we get in 1.19 in two. One province below Limfjorden, which naturally would be called Midtjylland, and one above Limfjorden. Its name would be harder, but Vendsyssel probably would be the best despite it incorporating Thy too. I'd also but a very thin strip of wasteland on Agger Tange (or make it breached despite it not being so historically) to prevent the unrealistic movement of armies from Vestjylland directly into Vendsyssel.
Then I'd consider Jylland finished to the degree of detail we have in game. I wouldn't do anything to Slesvig, since that historically was one single unit to a large degree.
The remaining 3 or 4 provinces I'd put on the islands. You could argue for splitting Skåne, but historically that was a really important province and it was a unit too, so I'd rather up development considerably for it. The only problem there is that it then would seem to be comparable to places like London and Paris which it wasn't. On the other hand Skåneland and especially Skåne arguably was the most important part of Scandinavia and was the thing pretty singlehandedly deciding who of Denmark and Sweden had the upper hand---the one holding it would be strongest barring some God king.

The way I'd do the islands would be to split Fyn in two; and to separate Hillerød and Copenhagen into separate provinces, like you also did, to show the importance of Sjælland. Then there possibly would be a last province added to the southern isles. Possibly splitting Falster off into its own province so that you had Lolland and Falster both being a province. The reason for that mainly would be to have the islands be more important and stress how you needed to take out the navy or have the seas freeze to really be able to roll over Denmark.

For Sweden I'd add Dalsland (might already be added; can't remember.); I'd also split Stockholm in two and thereby add Upsala (again can't remember if that has happened already). Then I'd add Ångermanland, and split Småland into two or three provinces. The reason for the Småland split was that most Danish Swedish wars centered around the border lands and having those more finely represented would allow for small gains without having Denmark stand in Gøtaland and hence next to Stockholm really fast. If Dalsland is in already I'd probably add a province to Finland; either on the coast or splitting one of the inland eastern ones. If Upsala is in too I'd probably add Øland for more Småland action---or just add one province less.

As mentioned I'd probably add a few to Norway. I'm mainly looking at Trøndelag which possibly should be split due to its significance. Don't know if the northern lands warrants an extra province there. Otherwise possibly splitting Akershus into a northern and a southern province, but I don't know how historical that is. Splitting Jemtland into Jemtland and Herjedalen would be rather straight forward too, so also a possibility. Don't know if Oplandene warrants being split.

As mentioned that's about how I'd do it were I given free reigns on redesigning Scandinavia. With those additions I'd consider Scandinavia pretty much perfect and finished for the level of detail used in game. Sure one could always add 200 provinces and it wouldn't be too hard to find historical basis for that, but that'd make the area way too detailed compared to the rest of the World.

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I've suggested this before, but never really explained why I thought it would be a good idea.

The province of Helsingør/Hillerød, whatever you want to call it, would have the the crossing between Skåne and Sjælland and the Sound Toll. This might allow for another trading modifier to be added to Copenhagen, and a more realistic Sound Toll to be implemented, as has been suggested before. It would also add another fort, Kronborg, to siege down and defend Sjælland.
How would it make the Sound Toll more likely to be realistic to add Hillerød? Also what would the Copenhagen trade modifier represent?
Though I do agree that in a perfect World Hillerød should be added. And having Kronborg indeed would be immersive; though not sure how it would fare game play wise with how ZOCs work, so perhaps you can expand on that?

Copenhagen should be extremely hard to take, and always the very last province to fall, as it was a city within a fortress - no buildings, markets, etc. were allowed to be built outside the city walls. This would also mean that if the Swedes, or any other power for that matter, should manage to cross the Belts to Sjælland, they would be forced to dispatch some troops to keep Fyn, Lolland-Falster and Southern Sjælland occupied, which might go some way to represent partisans, snaphaner, friskytter, etc.
How would you make sure Copenhagen is the last to fall? I agree that it should be the very last to fall realistically, but I just don't see how you can ensure that gameplay wise. And how would it force attackers to dispatch troops for partisan quelling? That's something I don't get. Plus that's probably apply to the entire World or at least most of it and you don't have to leave behind occupation troops there, so not sure how it can be justified adding some snaphane modifier to Denmark---plus even if that's added what's then to prevent the attacker from just having a stack standing to move on revolts or just use harsh treatment?

With regard to size then it's not really a good argument that a mod does it, since mods can do many things which aren't feasible in the main game. Hillerød and Copenhagen would be around the size of Bornholm (although Copenhagen could be enlarged on adding Roskilde county) and the main arguments used against Bornholm back when we campaigned for that was its small size. And it was primarily added due to the strategic importance of Bornholm naval wise.
There's also the issue of troops in Copenhagen partially shielding Hillerød making it even harder to click. Now I'm in no way opposed to small provinces; just look at the Århus province (which was pretty much just the current Århus municipality (possibly Ning shire too; can't remember) the coast until Mols, and then Mols until Ebeltoft) I initially proposed in my thread on more Danish provinces. That'd have been a strong contender for hardest in game province to click. But where mods can use provinces which are really hard to click vanilla needs to run a balance between clickability and relevance, which also was why I later changed my proposal to have a larger Østjylland province, since that was much more feasibly clickability wise.
Hence why I don't see Hillerød and Copenhagen being feasible (though perhaps one of them) despite thinking that they are really warranted to have.
 
I was kinda hoping for more trade goods too, and manufactured goods rather than raw materials.

Would be interesting if they had a unique system for slavery as well, especially considering the Triangle Trade.

Sadly too many people would be triggered.

Well, unless everyone could be enslaved and not painted @ anyone directly.

Then it would be equality and able to be put into the game!

Colonal ottomans could use enslaved Slavic people's, Japan could use south Asians, or Ethiopia/Congo could enslave the English lol

...but for gameplay or slight railroad, you could have Por/spa/fra/eng using west/CenteralAfricans if Africa is too slow.

I could see a funny achievement:

•Britons shall always,always be slaves!
As a sub Sahara African nation, enslave all of England.



Topic:
Nice dev diary,looking forward to next week!
 
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Please change the colonisation and expansion CBs so you actually can attack primitives in the new world. Taking their land is important but not at -2stab because they get all my institutions once I arrive.
 
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Colonal ottomans could use enslaved Slavic people's, Japan could use south Asians, or Ethiopia/Congo could enslave the English lol
The Ottos actually were big players in white slavery. They got their slaves primarily from the Berber raids which enslaved people from all over Europe. Not even Iceland was too remote to prevent enslavement raids. So having mechanics to simulate the historical enslavement of coastal Europeans could work.

...but for gameplay or slight railroad, you could have Por/spa/fra/eng using west/CenteralAfricans if Africa is too slow.
Did you miswrite? Because you wrote that they can use Africans if Africa is too slow. That doesn't really make sense.
 
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Nitpick: In the early part of EU4's time period, I think the number of slaves from Crimeans "harvesting the steppes" was significantly larger.
Good point. The point still stands that white slavery was a big thing in the Arab World and hence I don't see why adding slavery would be inherently controversial given that you'd both have Africans and Europeans getting enslaved. And probably Asians too, but not really knowledgeable on whether there were big slave traders in East/South Asia.
 
Muscovy, terrible ideas?

Pls, they have some of the best ideas out there.

No, they have one extremely good to overpowered idea and a bunch of crap. Take away the reduced coring cost idea and give them most anything else and tell me their ideas are "some of the best ideas out there".
 
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This new "political" map is ***** horrible, please don't do this to us.

Nobody I know uses terrain map, you already forced it upon us by adding terrain elements into political map (mountains), and now this? Political map was already bad enough, don't make it even worse.

This has serious chance to win prize for the worst change made in eu4 so far.
 
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Looks awesome! As a Dane, I am shamed that I have only played DK once, and that was in EU3. I think I might need a new Danish domination game.

For the love of sweet baby Jesus, can we update DK's NI's? Like, seriously. "Light ship combat ability" ... nuff said.
 
We also improved the political mapmode, as so many had requested, so we now show the terrain map where there has been no colonisation yet, so you’ll have some more informative eye-candy while playing
This is gonna make colonisation much more immersive!
 
I'd say that it probably isn't worth including, since Icelandic never was important and the administrators on Iceland spoke Danish in this period (possibly Norwegian in the early part of it). But there is an Iceland nation in game and that to some degree tilts it to making Icelandic worth it (as part of the Scandinavian culture group of course). But I'd still slant towards not worth inclusion. Though compared to other, historically insignificant, cultures included in game, Icelandic probably is warranted. E.g. when having Sami as a separate culture then you probably should have Icelandic too. Either way I can live with it not being there or it being there. Flavour and immersion wise it would be best that it's there, but gameplay wise it doesn't really matter at all---and in fact could possibly be detrimental in that it could lead to Icelandic revolts for independence, which isn't really plausible at all.


There's a pretty big difference between Sami and Icelandic though. Sami is the province majority in a much larger part of the map than Icelandic would be.
It's also a lot more different from its surrounding cultures than Icelandic would be from Norwegian.
I won't say it will never happen but 2 province cultures are not on the top of the list of things to add.
 
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  • Ignore Decisions -Yes/No
  • Embrace Institutions - Yes/No
  • Develop Provinces - Yes/No
  • Disband Units - Yes/No
  • Change Fleet Missions - Yes/No
  • Send Missionaries - Yes/No
  • Convert Culture - Yes/No
  • Add/Remove Cultures - Yes/No
Could there be one added for AI not modifying your unit stacks?
Nothing irritates me more than crashing and coming back seconds later to my army/navy stacks being screwed with because the AI doesn't like the way I lay my units out and tries to build a tonne more or less (situation dependent) units.
 
Could there be one added for AI not modifying your unit stacks?
Nothing irritates me more than crashing and coming back seconds later to my army/navy stacks being screwed with because the AI doesn't like the way I lay my units out and tries to build a tonne more or less (situation dependent) units.

Not that easily, as it would cripple the military ai.
 
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There's a pretty big difference between Sami and Icelandic though. Sami is the province majority in a much larger part of the map than Icelandic would be.
It's also a lot more different from its surrounding cultures than Icelandic would be from Norwegian.
I won't say it will never happen but 2 province cultures are not on the top of the list of things to add.
Somebody made a good argument, after I posted that, about how Icelandic and Norwegian wasn't too different back in 1444 and that it essentially was Norwegian and not Icelandic changing. And I agree with him on that. So now I don't really want Icelandic after all. And you are correct that Sami has much more provinces. What I meant was that both weren't primary cultures of existing nations. Though as menitoned I have since veered away from liking Icelandic in game, since that person did have a really good point about there not being much of a difference in 1444 and that much of the difference came from Norwegian getting more similar to Danish.


Also I take it that the reason I haven't got an answer on the Danish trade goods setup is that it's secret. Though can you at least tell me whether or not the Jutlandic iron production is represented in some way? I've now been speculating about whether it's in or not for 24 hours and really hope I don't have to wait until next week or possibly longer.