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EU4 - Development Diary - 31st of July 2018

Good day and welcome to another Dev Diary for Europa Universalis IV. As July rolls to a close, Paradox HQ slowly sees its manpower trickle back in from Summer merriment and return to creating games. At this rate, who knows, we may be able to announce Dharma's release date in the not-too-distant future, as I have been not so subtly asked about many a time.

But what are we looking at today? We've covered almost all of the new mechanics for Dharma already, we'll finish it off today by talking about what we've done to make Centers of Trade more interesting.

Ever since EU4's release, Centers of Trade have been a constant flat bonus to a province. They can make otherwise uninviting land fairly desirable for conquest to drive up your trade power in a node for as long as you can hold the land. It works fairly well, but has lacked a depth to it that we're looking to change.

BNG COT.png


Firstly, and this goes for everyone who updates to the 1.26 Mughals version, Centers of Trade, both inland and coastal, will have 3 different levels, allowing them to affect their province, the owner and the lands around them. These are:

(coastal)
  • Staple Port:
    • + 5 trade power,
  • Entrepot:
    • +10 trade power, -5% dev cost, +10% institution spread
  • World Port:
    • +25 trade power, +0.25 Naval Tradition, +30% institution spread
    • For whole Area: -10% dev cost, +100% Sailors, +1 Building Slot
(inland)
  • Emporium:
    • +5 Trade Power
  • Market Town:
    • +10 Trade Power, -5% dev cost
  • World Trade Center:
    • +25 trade power, +30% institution spread
    • For Whole Area: -10% Dev Cost, +33% Manpower, +1 Building Slot
Our goal here is to bring a lot more variance to the Centers of Trade around the world, such that Genoa brings a bit more to the table than Barcelona, or Gujarati Khambhat feels far more of a thriving and tantalising target than Thana. Staple ports and Emporiums will bring only modest trade power bonuses. Entrepots and Market Towns are similar to how all old Centers of Trade used to be, while World Ports and World Trade Centers not only bring benefit the provinces dearly, but also benefit the area around them and offer the owner a way to gain Naval Tradition. Note that Centers of Trade do not consume buildings slots.

With this, the Trade Center levels across the world have been crafted to model the world's situation and, with the scaling of their effects, has allowed us to add considerably more Centers of Trade than we have been at liberty to do before.

Europe:
Euro COT.png


India:

Indian COT.png



In addition to this, Dharma owners will see the levels of Centers of Trade fluctuate both through their own actions, and those of the nations around them. Centers of Trade in either States or Trade Companies can be upgraded for a cost of 200 Ducats to level 2, and 1000 ducats to level 3. The number of Level 3 Centers of Trade a nation can have is capped by the number of available Merchants that nation has, so a globe-spanning trade nation will be able to hold many of them if they so desire, while a less trade focused conqueror will have to be more picky.

Be wary however, since a Center of Trade will be downgraded by 1 level, either from 3 to 2 or 2 to 1 upon a change of owner, even through peaceful methods like diplomatic integration. Trade and traders will thrive in peaceful lands of certainty. You are also able to downgrade your own Centers of Trade if you are at peace, at a cost of 10 prestige.

That's our lot for today, we'll be back next week, rounding up on the National Ideas that we have not yet covered.

CLARIFICATION: if you don't own Dharma it gets locked to it's level. You do not lose any level when province owner switches. - Groogy
 
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Great feature!

Are the bonuses provided by the centres of trade stackable? For example, would Tuscany have a -30% development cost (as well as the other modifiers) if it were to upgrade all three CoT's to level three, since all are in the same state/area?

I really hope that's the case. It gives those who want to play a tall play-through a nice little perk, and also makes some regions pretty viable when compared to a wide focused run.
He already said no, it won't stack :)
 
Can we build new trade center?
Would be nice if we could create a new level 1 trade centre for 400 diplo and 400 admin MP, with the precondition being that the province must have a certain development (at least 10?), and/or belong to the burghers estate (or equivalent), and have a river. Maybe you'd need a merchant to create a trade centre similar to how a colonist will be able to develop. Or there could be events of course...

Then also level 1 trade centres could maybe be wiped from the map upon conquest? Maybe after the fact give the nation having conquered the province a national decision "rebuild centre of trade in [province name]" for 100 ducats, the decision being available for 5 years after conquest (and maybe also depending on ruler diplo skill?)?
 
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Can port levels be decreased via multiple embargoes? Realistically this would force trade to slow down and port warehouses and distributors to go broke. There should be some sort of trade level/power that allows you to upgrade your ports as well not just pay. There is potential for a lot to be tied to the success of ports.
 
Also:

Byzantium should start level 1. And the decision to rebuild it should make it a tier 3. That would properly represent the area being that at game start the Italians were just stealing all the trade, and once the Turks got set up they got locked out.
 
Seems a bit OP that levels can be bought. Nations with a tonne of merchants from colonial nations are just going to have world ports/trade centres everywhere.
Well, that is the benefit of being a colonial empire...
 
I'd have made a fourth type of port. A colonial port. By removing exploration ideas from the game, owning a colonial port allows the nation access to 1 colonist (2 maximum from colonial ports). Owning 1 colonial port would also give +10 settler growth, up to however many colonial ports are in game.

Idea behind this is exploration is an awful idea set IMO. Very un-fun, linear and removes the power capability from nations that explored and still had home power (such as France, Spain and G.B).

Curious what the devs think of that?
True, but they don't seem to see it as a problem.
 
I suppose this should nerf Hollands piece of the pie in the English channel trade node. I think this is logical, as the 4 province nation of holland beats half of England. In my current conquest of England as France. As much as i love to play with Holland. This balance should be justified as Hollands immense wealth should come from world wide trade instead of just North and South Holland and some mediocre provinces. Like Utrecht and Friesland.
The problem is not Holland itself but that the English node is just too good, heck it overpowers England so much that its old ideas were a counterbalance...
 
I think "Global Port" and "Global Trade Center" would sound nicer.
 
I think this is a massive uncalled for boost to england. The AI already can manage to get most of the trade by itself, and as the player you can easily get to 75% on the channel node. Now you're gonna be able to easily get to 85-90% which is absurd. Especially consider that you can place burghers in each one now that everyone gets them.
 
Seems a bit OP that levels can be bought. Nations with a tonne of merchants from colonial nations are just going to have world ports/trade centres everywhere.
Seconded, the merchant from colonial nations should be changed so that it's a thing where you can steal a merchant from your colonial nation as the cost of liberty desire.

I suppose this should nerf Hollands piece of the pie in the English channel trade node. I think this is logical, as the 4 province nation of holland beats half of England. In my current conquest of England as France. As much as i love to play with Holland. This balance should be justified as Hollands immense wealth should come from world wide trade instead of just North and South Holland and some mediocre provinces. Like Utrecht and Friesland.
Ah but most of England is pretty poor too, far poorer than the low countries. And England too should only become rich because of global trade.
 
I like it, but if you are doing this just take the extra step and make it entirely dynamic.

That means, have the world start with the centers of trade shown, but make it possible to let them fall to 0/nonexistant while every province could become a center of trade theoretically given sufficient development, while the pre-scripted ones can easier be resurrected if destroyed and are just likely locations, not guaranteed. Put a punishing soft cap (always better than hard caps in my opinion) on every level, not just the third.

If I put an insane amount of ressources into making Madagascar an insane trade hub, why not?

On another note, I would love to be able to change the terrain of provinces over time, at least from Woods to Grassland (and, but that would need new sub-terrain types to distinguish places where this is feasible, forests and jungles as well).
 
Devs, The idea of giving some variety to centers of trade is great, I like the changes. However, I think that Centers of Trade should improve IF they get enought resoucess ( value) over them, for exaple a level 2 center of trade needs at least 20 gold worth of goods passing through it, a level 3 at least 50.

First It has no sense that just plain investment will make a center of trade more efficient in the time period, it needs goods passing through, location, movment.
Example it has no sense a World Trade Center (lvl 3 LCoT) in the middle of a center of trade that provides 3 ducats, same for a world port in a remote island... until it develops or get trade value.

Also the Ports will require that value to be sustainted over time, taking the genoa example, if it is a 3level port but all the goods will move away from it to say Constantinople or sevilla, it will downgrade after X time ( let say 20 years).

Why this? because with this features the CoT will not only provide Trade Power but powerfull bonuses. Thats why there should be permitted a limited upgrade to these ports per center of trade according to the money it gets, for Example I am playing Emgland, so I upgrade my 4 CoT to level 3 ( 4 World Ports in the Island )... its quite unhistoricall exept if the English Channel Trade Node moves a lot of wealth not if only generates 24g

I think the idea is to make CoT differ one of another and to represent differences and power of each one, the more historical possible without hampering the game.

I think Trade is a mayor feature and one that I really love in this game, one of the only ones that combines Grand Stategy with an important and complex trade mechanic.

Also, in many nodes, the direction of the trade should be hable to move the opposite direction ( not only the steer upward efect) and the end nodes need rework, or put some of them in china and america.
 
Seems a bit OP that levels can be bought. Nations with a tonne of merchants from colonial nations are just going to have world ports/trade centres everywhere.

That happened in RL.