Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 28th September 2021

[lordboy54]

Hello everyone and welcome to a rather meaty development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This week we’ll release 1.31.6, which is a compatibility patch for the launch on Epic Store, where EU4 will be freely available for a short period of time.

This patch does not contain any bug fixes, improvements or balance changes, as we had to make sure we had a stable version for this release. Some of our programmers and qa have been working diligently to create this new version for a long while now.

Meanwhile the core-team have been working on the major 1.32 patch which we aim to have out later this year. While the other development diaries will focus mostly on what content we will add to the immersion pack, today we will talk about a lot of balance changes!

Concentrate Development

As we all know, the Concentrate Development feature, while technically working as designed, has a few drawbacks, as it can become very unbalanced and immersion breaking. For 1.32 we have been reworking this.

Now when you pillage or concentrate a set of provinces, the horde “raze” function is called, but with 20% reduction of the development. This is then converted into monarch points in the source province(s), using the cost it would improve development in each of these provinces.

These “monarch points” are then taken to the capital of your country, with a loss of 20% of points when applicable, as some countries have free concentrate development. What is left is then used to “buy” development in your capital province. Any “monarch points” left over are then lost.

A shout out to the post who inspired this new design!

Concentrate development is not for a tall play - addressing elephant in the room

Hello guys, A bit provocative title but true at the same time. Basically, the one and only strategy is that if you do not concentrate development in your game you are doing something wrong. In the first post-patch run I managed to get Wien to...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

We also fixed the way you could concentrate development twice, by first owning it, and then from the released vassal. Liberty desire now also increases for the subjects when you concentrate their development.

Misc Balance Changes

The catholic curia powers are gaining some improvements in 1.32 as well, with all getting another bonus and here are some examples.

• Bless Ruler - Now also gives +10% Land Morale
• Indulgence for Sin - Now gives +10% Improve Relations
• Send Papal Legate- Also adds 10% cheaper annexation costs.

We made some tweaks to curry favors, so that it now relies far more on relative military power, so it's harder to gain for a smaller, weaker nation.


When it comes to natives, we added a new reform to slow down the path to becoming a duchy for settled tribes, as well as adding feudalism as a requirement.

We also added in cooldowns for migration into non-owned lands, made costs for adding tribal land that scales with owned provinces and development. There are also penalties for migration into winter territory. Also added a relation penalty that increases each month that a tribe is inside tribal land of another country.

And of course we are rebalancing, i.e. nerfing, the native development growth for 1.32, as it is completely unrealistic and does not work with the rest of the game.

We also changed when the AI released vassals for being over the governing capacity to be a much higher threshold, and also giving lucky nations a nice little boost to their governing capacity.


Now I hand over the keys to @Gnivom who will talk about some changes to Institutions and the AI for 1.32

Institution Changes


We’ve decided to change how Institutions affect tech cost.

So what was the problem?

We all know how Institutions work:

View attachment 760490

Hard to take seriously indeed

Countries outside of Europe, and especially in the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa, have to pay more for a technology the longer they wait. This means they’re in a hectic struggle against time, as those who fall behind their neighbors will struggle to catch up.

The New System

From 1.32, every technology has a fixed set of required institutions. If you haven’t yet embraced one or more required institutions, that technology costs you 50% more for each.
This updated Technology View should hopefully be self explanatory:

View attachment 760491
These are some nice properties of the new system over the old:

1. Institutions now cause a rubber-band effect on tech instead of a snowball effect
2. Some movement in Florence doesn’t magically affect the Aztecs (until it actually spreads there)
3. An institution spawning is now a good thing

Asian nations will find themselves getting hit by a +50% tech cost from Renaissance earlier than they would in 1.31, but as they get further behind, their tech cost will stabilize even if they don’t develop for institutions.
European nations won’t be affected as much, but those on the forefront of technology will notice the increased tech cost, making institutions more relevant in this region than previously.

When changing the code for this, it turned out we based a lot of seemingly unrelated things on countries’ “tech cost from institutions”, most of which were simply translated from the pre-Rights of Man “technology group” system. For example, joining a Trade League requires having at most +200% tech cost from institutions. Who would have known? You’ll find a lot of these addressed in 1.32’s changelog.

AI Improvements

Every version of EU4 has had its own AI issues, and it’s no secret that it has been getting worse for a while. For 1.32 some of the most debilitating issues have been fixed, and hopefully without causing too many new ones.

EU4’s AI is the product of years of incremental development, by a large number of developers. Most of the code is written after EU4’s release, but a few lines date back as far as the late 90’s. Writing AI is hard, so many of the systems are complex. And given the number of different developers, they don’t all work in harmony. Essentially, for any given choice the AI has to make in army, navy or budgeting; it often has a dozen or so voices in its head telling it what to do. It’s supposed to take all of them into account, but often the loudest voice drowns out all the rest.

View attachment 760488
(yes, lower numbers are better)

Here, the Ottoman army has made good progress on the Mamluk fort of Tabuk. But a voice intended for a completely different situation screams one order of magnitude louder than all other voices, that it should kill the rebels in Qahirah.

Issues like this hinder the systems that *are* made for the given situation from doing their job. A lot of what has been done for 1.32’s AI is to find and fix cases where systems interfere with each other.

Major Fixes

Army

This is really the result of a bunch of small fixes, but essentially the AI will generally be more competent at achieving stuff with its armies, although individual moves can still be erratic. They will also keep a more significant army in peacetime

Naval Invasions

The AI can now decently perform naval invasions again, without too much shenanigans. This has a huge impact on the European AIs’ colonization efforts.
View attachment 760489

An almost fully colonized New World from one of our observer runs

Economy

Lots of small fixes mean the AI’s economy should now be more solid. Budgeting has been improved and the choice of buildings to construct puts more emphasis on expected financial return.

A special shoutout to @Tempscire, whose reverse engineering of AI army behavior is somehow easier to understand than the code itself. We implemented his suggestion for terrain evaluation as-is, and changed how combat width is considered, albeit not as he suggested for technical reasons. Unfortunately he has many other good suggestions that will not be implemented at this point.

I agree that concentrate development needs rebalancing, but this change would make it useless for playing small and tall, as your few provinces will soon be at 999 development cost and pillaging development from a still highly developed province with maybe 100 dev cost would mean that at most 10 dev would give 1 dev. For many provinces with lower dev would basically give nothing.

Maybe add limits too it so you'd at the very least get 1 dev for each 5 taken, and after that it wont worsen. Even though concentrate development is imbalanced as it is, changing it this way would remove many playstyles which made it such an interesting mechanic.

 

[Silian Rail]

Nooo, dont change concentration! How I will make my hometown a new Babylon?

 

[Kuantum]

Ah yes... no bugs at all will be introduced by changing everything... hopefully..." *laughs nervously*

 

[_Bachus_]

Eu4 Players are schizophrenic.

Some EU4 Patch:
"We're introducing Concentrate Development" Nooooooooooooooooooo. It breaks the game. Stop this nonsense at once.
The next EU4 patch:
"We're scrapping Concentrate Development" Noooooooooooooooooo. It will break the game completly. Now we can't play anymore.

 

[iClipse]

I agree that concentrate development needs rebalancing, but this change would make it useless for playing small and tall, as your few provinces will soon be at 999 development cost and pillaging development from a still highly developed province with maybe 100 dev cost would mean that at most 10 dev would give 1 dev. For many provinces with lower dev would basically give nothing.

Maybe add limits too it so you'd at the very least get 1 dev for each 5 taken, and after that it wont worsen. Even though concentrate development is imbalanced as it is, changing it this way would remove many playstyles which made it such an interesting mechanic.

At that point it's just a mechanic to lower your coring costs, akin to razing. Good for playing wide, but without resulting in mega cities.

I'd like it more if the development you gained would have been more spread out, where if it can't increase in your capital, it goes to a province next to it, and so forth, but this change is already better than what we currently have at least.

 

[vvakavvaka]

There is no bugs in new patch, at least i seen none cuz my game just crashes after i launch it : )

 

[EarlKonrad]

"And of course we are rebalancing, i.e. nerfing, the native development growth for 1.32, as it is completely unrealistic and does not work with the rest of the game."

What, natives having cities with 300 development points and coalitions with 100k armies in 1550 is unrealistic? The more you know...

Let's not forget how IRL Natives were super OP with El Dorado, Seven Cities of Gold, etc. Shame that everyone living in them died of boredom after waiting for the Europeans to make first contact so the natives could reform and unleash their absolute powerhouse into ROTW.

There is no bugs in new patch, at least i seen none cuz my game just crashes after i launch it : )

Can't complain about bugs if ya can't play the game. That is, like, the best case scenario for a Dev

 

[blackkatemoss]

While something is better than nothing regarding addressing concentrate development (and pillage) I can't help but think the situation is very unfortunate.

They can't be removed because the DLC was marketed with them but they desperately just need to be removed for the integrity of the game.

Only palatable solution I can think of given the above conflict of interests is to allow users to toggle the features off (while preserving ironman) and in terms of development simply pretend they are not part of the game going forwards - never intertwine them with any other aspect of the game. Paradox has abandoned plenty of mechanics in eu4 that are good so I suggest they use the tactic of neglect/abandonment on these objectively poor additions and compensate the users by revitalizing previously abandoned mechanics/features that are far superior and deserve further development.

A few examples of old mechanics that need brushing up:
-Protestant/Coptic/Jewish Faiths
-Republic factions
-Piracy Mechanics
-Holy Orders
-Curia Treasury
-Spy Actions
-Subject Management
-Protectorates
-Edicts
-Great Power Diplomatic Actions
-Conquistadors!

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

"When it comes to natives, we added a new reform to slow down the path to becoming a duchy for settled tribes, as well as adding feudalism as a requirement."

Thank goodness. So finally not all of the tribes suddenly turn into duchies when I arrive in the new world and cause nationalism when I conquer them.
On that note: can we get some kind of CB for natives in the new world back? It's really atrocious having to justify a claim on everything, especially since the native's provinces are more scattered around than the historical HRE was.

I think the "Exploration" Idea first item should add in this CB for any province within a "Colonial Region" in the world, anywhere, regardless if a Colonial Nation is formable or not, and especially if the Nation taking the Idea is on a different continent than said Colonial Regions.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

As for the institutions tech cost thing: I read all the posts here and we are considering putting off the penalty one extra tech ahead (e.g. requiring Renaissance only for techs 6 and up). Having it required early is the only way to benefit the first embracers (e.g. Italy) over their neighbors, but can feel to others like a penalty they can't do anything about.

As for the game theory behind the whole change:
You will still have an interesting choice to make in whether to tech up. But instead of the trade-off being between a small penalty now vs the risk of a big penalty later, it will be between staying behind in technology for a while or paying a premium price for it.
The way I think about it is like a dynamic "ahead of time" penalty, that is based on your institutions instead of time.

@Gnivom there is a missing link and underwhelmed factor for European tech from 1700-onward (to game end at 1820) that is a much more macro/meta factor that could/should be considered for the way Technical Advances in Europe diverge away from the rest of the world in an accelerated manner --

- Steam Power in 1700, which is a key contributor to the Industrial Revolution period 1760-1810.

Here's why: It's not just about Railroads (what most people tend to isolate Steam Power toward in their analysis of this period). The earliest of Steam Engines had zero impact on Transportation, and instead were primarily to benefit the Mining Industry to more effectively pump out water from deep mine shafts, thus creating new mine shaft opportunities and exponentially greater extraction, and also resulted in the "Closed Mines" being reopened across Europe. Additionally, Steam Power began to boost the power of existing mills (extra water) and then gradually replaced the mills themselves for more productivity.

So, a mine in Europe was more effective in both efficiency and extraction rate than elsewhere, and over time the European methods were exported where they had interests. Mining and Metallurgy accelerated due to such an extreme increase in available materials (also driving prices down for their use and experimentation).

This simply isn't replicated in a meaningful way in EU4. Technical gaps increased over time for Europe over the rest of the world. "Power" was being made by machinery, and the Metals protected that power along the way - literally.

Others have stated it as well, but the gap in Tech needs to widen as the game progresses from 1700 until end-of-game, and there doesn't appear to be an effective way to hit the accelerator on European Tech advancement in the current game, as you only have "Industrial Revolution" as just-another-Institution (Industrialism) instead of the World-Changing event that it was. I'm not arguing for EU4 to go "Steampunk" from 1700-1820, but there should be a more serious look at how that period is portrayed Tech-wise. And please table this thought should Paradox move on Design/Development of EU5, because this needs to get a better look in the EU Game Series' next iteration.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

And as you can read on the Wikipedia article for the Great Divergence, whether this divergence happened in 1700 or in the last 10-20 years of EU4's timeframe is a hotly debated topic, with some stating mere chance and accessibility of exposed coal veins in England lucking them into the industrial revolution.

This is not completely accurate, and it isn't that hotly debated in real History departments in major Universities in Europe and the USA/Canada.
Just above this post is a related post - 1700 was the onset of Steam Engines to power the European Mining Industry into the Industrial Revolution 1760-1810. Steam Power was the seed that grew into the Industrial Revolution, but the Means was through increased Mining efficiencies and output, along with entirely new mining methods for deeper mines, and reopening closed mines (that were water inundated). Steam Power increased mining, manufacturing, and especially metallurgy - simply because the increased supply drove prices of metals down and made available a plentiful supply to experiment with. Industry could "try and fail" over and over, just like you see Space-X doing with rockets now, and Elon Musk wasn't the first executive to embrace failure to figure out what worked better. Far too often, Steam Power and the mythos of "Steampunk" points at Railroad Engines and Steam-powered Ships, when a much simpler first-generation of Steam Power was playing Minecraft all over Europe from 1700 onward, indirectly and exponentially improving Metallurgy tech in Europe.

EDIT: And "Process Heat" which I almost failed to mention, the availability of which is a key factor in making Metallurgy more effective, derives from improved Mining that extracts Coal, and then Coal-fired industry has much greater process heat to work metals. There is a tremendous synergy with Steam Power and Coal Mining that first occurs during the 18th Century and onward.

 

[LAF1994]

Naval Invasions

The AI can now decently perform naval invasions again, without too much shenanigans. This has a huge impact on the European AIs’ colonization efforts.
View attachment 760489

An almost fully colonized New World from one of our observer runs

What year was this? The colonization of the Americas shouldn't realistically be as rapid as it often is.

 

[heliostellar]

View attachment 760489

An almost fully colonized New World from one of our observer runs

It's nice to see that after 8 long years of EU4, Portugal STILL does not colonize Brazil... the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[oida]

Glad to read this. Seems like its time to finally update from 1.30 for me.
One thing thats still bothering me is the army AI going for siege races instead of fighting, even if the numbers are the same in many cases. The AI often does quite a good job in stacking up the armies of allies. But they still prefer to siege some forts far away over seeking decisive battles. This leeds to many wars becoming just goofy ring around the rosie siege races, which is nothing but annoying. Irl battles decided wars, in EU4 vs AI its often only siege rolls.
Targeting armies should have a much higher priority than sieges imo. Id love if you do something here.

 

[Dsingis]

I think the "Exploration" Idea first item should add in this CB for any province within a "Colonial Region" in the world, anywhere, regardless if a Colonial Nation is formable or not, and especially if the Nation taking the Idea is on a different continent than said Colonial Regions.

Nope it does not. It used to be the case that the exploration finisher gave a CB on colonial regions, but now it only allows you to generate a claim in colonial regions, so you have to claim every single minor former-tribe on there manuall with your diplomats, who take 2 months to travel there.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

Nope it does not. It used to be the case that the exploration finisher gave a CB on colonial regions, but now it only allows you to generate a claim in colonial regions, so you have to claim every single minor former-tribe on there manuall with your diplomats, who take 2 months to travel there.

Well, maybe my initial recommendation was "too early" but that prior game version with CB after completion seems "too late" -- but maybe the best placement would be granted at the same time the first Colonist is gained(?), which would make sense thematically that a player receives a Colonist and "colonial authority" (in CB terms) simultaneously.

 

[bokorthedust]

You get permaclaims on a colonial region if you are Catholic and are the first to establish a colonial nation. If you wish so, it's totally fine in my view that you should somewhat work for it (the whole opportunity cost or what not), it's not like you get automatic CBs at the game start on every single known country to you, just because, well, they exist.

 

[QuinnMallory]

I'm really not sure about the institutions change - so now you have a 50% tech penalty but you can still only store 999 points?

You're going from a somewhat dynamic system where ROTW countries can strategise when to develop and embrace an institution to: Oh colonialism has spawned, now i have 50% tech cost on every tech, I guess I'm forced to spend thousands of monarch points right now or fall behind because of some arbitrary rule. I'm not sure how this makes the game better at all.

Can you please explain why an institution spawning is a good thing?

This really is a step backwards in player utility..


Regarding AI changes, is this anything other than define modding? Almost all this can be achieved currently through a number of AI define changes.

You're not understanding how it works. Each tech level has a set of institutions that you have to have embraced to avoid the penalties, regardless of whether the institution exists yet or not. The first few techs won't require any institutions; the end-game techs will require all of them.

 

[Oporto]

Oh my, look at the time!

Where are the complaints about "where's the new dev diary"?

 

[iClipse]

A dev diary is never late. Nor is it early. It arrives precisely when it means to.