EU4 - Dev Diary - September 17th

[aQuilaSwe]

Hi guys, here is my suggestion on how to improve development.

As I see it, the problem with development right now is that there are no caps that prevents a country from developing provinces in unrealistic locations how much- and whenever they want to. How much a province can be developed is, right now, only limited by how many MP a country is willing to spend and of course on the various “development cost” modifiers. So the question is: how do we link high development to realistic locations, both geographical as well as point in time, and make the development more immersive and engaging for the player?

First, we introduce development “softcaps”. It should be relatively cheap to develop up to this “softcap”, while trying to develop higher is very costly. The softcap of a province will depend on multiple factors, both static and dynamic.

Static:
Climate: Provinces with extreme climates should have significantly lower softcaps.
Terrain: Provinces with farmlands should have higher soft caps than mountainous provinces. Also coastal provinces and/or provinces with major rivers flowing through them should have higher softcaps.
Capital/Estuaries/Important centers of trade: Should have higher softcaps.

Dynamic:
Technology: The softcap should slowly increase with technology.
Trade: The softcap should dynamically depend on how much trade flows through or is collected in the trade node that the province belongs to. This will simulate how important trade is for development as well as how the colonizers, merchant republics, and other global empires could build great cities in their home provinces.

Second, we modify the cost of developing.

Local Autonomy: The local autonomy of a provinces is an abstraction of centralization. It should therefore have a direct impact on how much effort the government has to put into developing a province. I would suggest a 1:1 ratio between development cost and LA, but maybe that is too harsh. I would also suggest that the LA floor is increases the further away from the capital you are.
Culture: Provinces within the primary culture group should have normal cost. Accepted but non culture group provinces should have increased cost. Non accepted culture provinces should be even more costly.
Separatism, Revolt Risk and War Exhaustion: The separatism and revolt risk of a province and the counties WE should have a direct impact on development cost.

Introducing such improvements will make the game overall much more immersive and as many people want: realistic. By introducing softcaps we give the player a goal and incentive to develop their core provinces up that point, instead of develop haphazardly. An inward focused player will focus on reducing LA and keep the revolt risk low. Conquering and also culture converting good provinces because they know that they will be awarded with high softcaps and cheaper development later. Blobbing nations will have a hard time developing all their conquered land, but it will still be very ideal to develop their home provinces and Capital to the softcaps.

EDIT: follow link in signature to see thread in the suggestion forum.

 

[josh127]

I still see exploit potentional of Revanchism. Imagine you are the Ottomans and are at war with Austria because they want the Balkans. Why not simply give them the Balkans (except the gold mine) and some random stuff to get to 100% warscore, and then smash through India with your now effectively doubly infinite manpower. Once India is done, you come back down on the Habsburgs and take your stuff back.

Only warscore from taking core provinces counts. Wiz already stated that. I don't care if someone else wants to exploit this in some way as it doesn't hurt my game, but since this is a recovery mechanic, it probably should go away immediately if the person with it declares an offensive war against anyone other than the country who took their land.

 

[Stormbringer]

We're also looking at ways to address the situation where for example, Scotland ends up exiled on the Shetland Isles and turns them into an implausible sprawling metropolis, so stay tuned.

This is great to hear. I think in 99% of cases development works great now, it's just the oddball case like this (or Wallachia being most developed place in the World) that throw it off.

I have a random idea that may be good: tie development in a province to the average development in the new regions that you are implementing. Something like 5 times the regional average or something. So in the HRE where there are a lot of OPMs and everyone is developing the provinces can get very rich, while in the Shetlands, which are tied to Scotland, which is likely to not be very developed, an OPM won't have the ability to build a paradise.

 

[Drage]

Have you considered an option of significant increase of developement cost in a province that has become a new capital? Showing the time and effort needed to establish entire central administration in a new place and make it run smoothly - this could last for a 10 or 20 years and render future discount useless if you move capital again quickly. Also an increase in local unrest in the province that lost its capital status would be nice - population would probably not be very happy about that

Also I like the idea of revanchism but I do indeed see some exploit possibilities here and it could end up in being sort of yoyo mechanic for AI countries - two similar in size neighbours taking back and forth some land over centuries... I know the numbers are subject to change but I believe 50% manpower recovery speed boost is a bit extreme, even as max value.

 

[falcorosso]

It's not too early for Revachism? I understand it in Victoria II, but in Europa Universalis... National identity born after 1789 in people's daily lives.

 

[huyderman]

Completely agree, when talking about a game like EU4 that you play over an over. With a story-based game I'd be extremely unsatisfied if for the first playthrough I had an unfinished product.

Yeah, I was assuming a game like EU where you keep playing multiple campaigns or play-throughs. A story-focused game is more similar to a movie or novel where you play to experience the story, and since most people would only do so once it should be as polished as possible. An iterative approach wouldn't be as fitting for these kinds of games.

And also can mess it up more frequently.

When I said "thoughtful approach", I didn't mean moving into a waterfall process, but spending one or two days to carefully thing about a change before rushing it like with truce timers and increased expansion costs. Some changes were like if the leader designer walked up a day and unitarily took the decision. Rushing a change without a careful analysis is the opposite extreme of waterfall and is not healthy at all either.

Revanchism looks like one of the few changes that rather than artificially curbing the player, will bring dynamism into the game. I want more changes like that, and less like truce timers and increased expansion costs.

Yeah, it's the risk with a more iterative approach since the dev-cycles are shorter. But with shorter dev-cycles, problems can ideally also be fixed quicker. If an old-school expansion breaks the game, it might stay that way much longer...

A game like EU sufficiently complex that it's hard to properly estimate all the possible effects and side-effects. I prefer Paradox trying out possible solutions that might not all work out, than having to wait a year for a major expansion that might solve a problem.

Of course I'm making the assumption that the designers at Paradox actually spend some time thinking about changes before implementing them, and that design-meetings are not just Wiz or Johan marching in and saying "Make this change! YOLO! Now let's go get beers!".

 

[LumberKing]

Apologise for not reading the whole thread, but will some achievements decoupled from the 1444 start dates? I ask just because I think it would be fun to try other start dates and still gain some of the achievements for shiggles.

 

[Torugu]

Because if administration of a country was as simple as spending more money on whatever you need to improve, we'd all be living in perfect utopias by now.

But, but, but... Keynes promised me that's how it works!



(Okay, I realise that is an unfair simplification, but how often do you get to make an economics joke?)

 

[Wagonlitz]

I agree with you about the change of colture (in fact I cited it only as a side effect). My point was only about the revanchism mechanics, I like it already but i think that maybe could be more interesting if its effect are largest is the state central province than a periferical one. IMHO

Ah. And yes revanchism being stronger for central provinces would make sense. But remember that culture didn't really matter back then---and especially not with regard to which provinces were central. So you would need something else than culture to specify which provinces are central.

They moved because they knew Lisbon would be occupied?

I might be misremembering, but as far as I remember they bailed Lisbon when Napoleon was approaching---not after he had arrived.

 

[ringhloth]

I might be misremembering, but as far as I remember they bailed Lisbon when Napoleon was approaching---not after he had arrived.

I wouldn't wait for any enemy army to surround my city before I fled it

 

[Balesir]

I'd rather we do away with the mana system alltogether and instead do everything we currently do with mana with gold, and the monarch stats of the monarch (and his advisors) increase the effects of the gold spent.

Some difficulties in life can be fixed by throwing money at them, for sure - but some can't. Now, you could, in theory, have a system where any state can try any particular action multiple times (with a suitable cooldown, representing time spent actually trying to do whatever it is), having a chance to succeed determined by the ruler's and advisors' stats. And you'd end up with a clickbonanza borefest just as tedious as the original "send a merchant to XXX market" or more so.

Instead, EU4 represents the administration's competence and focus over time by a resource called (perhaps somewhat misleadingly) "Monarch Points". The player can now make interesting and useful decisions about which specific actions the government is going to focus on steadfastly until they are accomplished. Less competent administrations get less successful actions completed - just as they would with the "click for a chance to win" system - but the player is not burdened with constant clicking and gets to make the interesting, strategic decisions. I would call that fine strategy game design; abstract away the boring process and let the player concentrate on the interesting decisions.

 

[alpaca]

Some difficulties in life can be fixed by throwing money at them, for sure - but some can't. Now, you could, in theory, have a system where any state can try any particular action multiple times (with a suitable cooldown, representing time spent actually trying to do whatever it is), having a chance to succeed determined by the ruler's and advisors' stats. And you'd end up with a clickbonanza borefest just as tedious as the original "send a merchant to XXX market" or more so.

Instead, EU4 represents the administration's competence and focus over time by a resource cleed (perhaps somewhat misleadingly) "Monarch Points". The player can now make interesting and useful decisions about which specific actions the government is going to focus on steadfastly until they are accomplished. Less competent administrations get less successful actions completed - just as they would with the "click for a chance to win" system - but the player is not burdened with constant clicking and gets to make the interesting, strategic decisions. I would call that fine strategy game design; abstract away the boring process and let the player concentrate on the interesting decisions.

Except that it's not focus over time, but accumulation of an abstract resource that you can then spend without investment of any effort or time on different things. It's pretty much the opposite of focus over time. In addition to that, the things you buy with that resource are just derivatives of primary game mechanics: you invest an accumulated resource to get a lot of small things that add up over time. That is, your ruler's skills affect only how quickly your country can grow, but not in any very significant way how well it does right now. This runs counter to the initially stated design paradigm for monarch points that the skill of your rulers should affect how well your country does.

 

[Soranya]

Regarding the whole Oversea territory thing - i think the introduction of the new region System offers the great oppurtunity to overhaul the Oversea/Continen System.
E.g. Make it AdminEfficency + distantce in region-jump dependend if you can administrate a specific region at 0% or at 75% (and steps in between, like 25% and 50%) independent or almost independent wether you have a land bridge to the province or not.

Lets say everything within 3 Region of your capital is 0% - everything till 6 Region 25% and 50% last until 10 Regions. After that it is 75% no matter what.
If there is no landbridge every sea province counts as a "region" step

 

[harvesarmy]

Perhaps we could have the ability to designate a regional capital that gains a development cost decrease by the amount of provinces you own in that region and their development?
Or perhaps we could have a multiplier which reduces development costs for surrounding provinces - a sort of regional development spread,which would be good for nations like the Netherlands.

 

[FrigidSoul]

I was betrayed!

Should have hired Chuck Norris.

 

[EldritchBolt]

Are there any plans for Revanchism to be diminished in anyway if the country engages in an offensive war? It's one thing to more quickly recover and be able to defend yourself after a decisive loss to avoid a "death spiral", but would seem odd to use such a bonus to actual reclaim or even claim new territory, etc.

you are aware that taking back lost land is litterally the point of revanchism right?

the whole point is that people are angry their land has been stolen, patriotism increases, so you are getting more volenteers

 

[Wagonlitz]

you are aware that taking back lost land is litterally the point of revanchism right?

the whole point is that people are angry their land has been stolen, patriotism increases, so you are getting more volenteers

And land might end up swapping back and forth as seen with regard to Elsaß Lothringen and all the wars/hate that area spawned.

 

[TheDungen]

Some difficulties in life can be fixed by throwing money at them, for sure - but some can't. Now, you could, in theory, have a system where any state can try any particular action multiple times (with a suitable cooldown, representing time spent actually trying to do whatever it is), having a chance to succeed determined by the ruler's and advisors' stats. And you'd end up with a clickbonanza borefest just as tedious as the original "send a merchant to XXX market" or more so.

Instead, EU4 represents the administration's competence and focus over time by a resource cleed (perhaps somewhat misleadingly) "Monarch Points". The player can now make interesting and useful decisions about which specific actions the government is going to focus on steadfastly until they are accomplished. Less competent administrations get less successful actions completed - just as they would with the "click for a chance to win" system - but the player is not burdened with constant clicking and gets to make the interesting, strategic decisions. I would call that fine strategy game design; abstract away the boring process and let the player concentrate on the interesting decisions.

You can solve most problems if you're willing to spend enough money but true solving actual problems with any realiable and efficient use of money takes time and effort but again EU4 doesn't show that improving infrastructure or technology costs any money at all. nada zip it's all magic that happens because the ruler somehow has pregenerated potential towards something happening (and that makes it even more ridicolous).

I've already said how I'd like it done, tehcnology by depending on development (through events, mtth and triggers), and development by the government actually doing the stuff a rela government does to effect change laws and policies. Sort of a cross between the debate system from the constitutional systems (which could've been a really fun mechanic if you got to use it more than once every ten years) and the mechanics of democracy3.

Now I', not talkign about that it needs to change tomorrow or even that it needs to change at all. I'm just sayign the game could be much more realistic and instresting if they moved it in this direction long term. I think they should open up for alternate solutions to monarch points if not before then at least when they start on eu5.
Monarch points isn't a bad system, that's not what I'm saying I'm just saying that I think there are better solutions.

 

[Metz]

Anyone else feel development should take time just like when you build things? You can practically quadruple a country's tax income, production, and manpower overnight. Shouls take months for a development level to be done. We also need an advisor that can make development cheaper and maybe boost development speed as well if development recieves a timer to be finished (which it should).

Perhaps during the time the province is developing it uses up part if the local tax money to pay for it? The more it makes the faster it develops (with a limit in place of course). Developing 1 thing consumes 33% percent of the income with the others being added it would be 66% and 100% until development is done. Or the other route is add a fixed small cost for development levels where the province pays for it until done unless you decide to subsidize the development with treasury money.

 

[Metz]

Regarding revanchism, I don't think the value should be flat across the board regarding cores only. The values of revanchism should be higher if the lost provinces are of the same core, primary culture, and state religion. With accepted cultures giving less revanchism and different religion as well taking away revanchism value, finally with lack of core rendering revanchism value close to insignificance.

I believe as well that core needs to be split. Uncored, cored, and patrimonial. With patrimonial status being achieved once the province has been a core, given the same culture and religion for a total of 50 years. This then would have much higher war score to take and giving way more revanchism. This will contribute to growing tall and to players and the AI working to internally unify their countries.