EU4 - Dev Diary - September 17th

[DC123456789]

From a developer point of view, providing options is a losing battle if you want to keep everything balanced. Even the very limited monolithic options for EU4 (DLC on or off) are very hard to keep track of.

Exhibit A: Retinues in CK2.

 

[Will Steel]

Does anyone know when this patch is coming out?

Hopefully it won't sit dead for months like a previous patch.

 

[hashinshin]

Does anyone know when this patch is coming out?

Hopefully it won't sit dead for months like a previous patch.

I'm hoping soon. These changes are REALLY up my alley. EU4 has long needed a comeback mechanic, ESPECIALLY for multiplayer.

 

[Will Steel]

I'm hoping soon. These changes are REALLY up my alley. EU4 has long needed a comeback mechanic, ESPECIALLY for multiplayer.

Completely agreed.

 

[grommile]

Does anyone know when this patch is coming out?

Hopefully it won't sit dead for months like a previous patch.

Given the size of the changes, it seems likely to me that there's an unannounced DLC in the pipe and we will have to wait for the announcement of that to get a date for this patch.

 

[ChildeR]

Given the size of the changes, it seems likely to me that there's an unannounced DLC in the pipe and we will have to wait for the announcement of that to get a date for this patch.

Yeah, and major DLCs have so far usually been announced without a date. So we could see an announcement of a DLC and still no date for months...

 

[alpaca]

Does anyone know when this patch is coming out?

Hopefully it won't sit dead for months like a previous patch.

Wiz replied somewhere that we'll probably have time to finish our campaign, so I wouldn't count on soon.

 

[Druplesnubb]

I really don't like the sound of having a popup every time I start a new game. What was wrong with having Ironman activated at the starting screen?

 

[Philadelphus]

Given the general timing of a few months between DLCs, we might expect one fairly soon. I'd say November but given it's almost October now I'd expect it to have been announced already if that were the case, so I'm going to guess sometime in January or February for the next one.

 

[Rome mos revert]

Exciting! Also, do you guys have any plans to fix the broken autonomous rebel suppression that does nothing?

 

[CrisisCauser]

I fear revanchism creates more pyrrhic victories that shouldn't be so. Say two nations were equal in manpower before a war. They fight to a 0 manpower war and the Winner takes provinces. Depending on the size of the countries, it is very possible for the Loser with revanchism to gain more manpower quicker than the Winner even though the Winner has more provinces.

I'd rather see this situation play out due to scenarios like the Winner fighting rebels in their newly conquered territory, not a magic revanchism bonus to the Loser. Now the Winner still could lose manpower to the rebels, but also relatively loses manpower due to their enemy getting revanchism.

I also agree with some posters that another solution to this is to stop the AI from always fighting to the last man and throwing away gold on 1 mercenary stacks even when they are utterly overran by insurmountable odds.

 

[ChildeR]

Depending on the size of the countries, it is very possible for the Loser with revanchism to gain more manpower quicker than the Winner even though the Winner has more provinces.

For significant revanchism you need enough losses to cause > 10 years of truce. So when the truce is over both will be at maximum manpower (which revanchism does not affect in OP) unless they fight other wars in the meantime (in which case anything could happen, with or without revanchism). And the loser will have at most a +12.5% manpower recovery bonus remaining (100% revanchism and 15 year truce).

If the loser has between 70% and 100% of the winner's manpower cap, then revanchism could give them a temporary advantage in manpower recovery, but presumably the winner still has armies, so the loser would need to build some too. It would be a very specific situation where the loser would get a net benefit just from revanchism.

 

[Ignatich]

I think revanchism should be per-province and affect only accepted cultures, while unaccepted cultures may still seek a chance to revolt against their masters. Loosing accepted culture provinces should give more revanchism than random provinces. But frankly, I don't think the mechanic really fits the era, I'd rather see an ability to lower income to enjoy faster manpower recover/less revolts.

 

[Andredie45]

Can you play ironman without achievements offline now? I don't often have internet access and it would be really nice to play ironman regardless.

 

[ChildeR]

Can you play ironman without achievements offline now? I don't often have internet access and it would be really nice to play ironman regardless.

Or even with achievements? Many games allow that.

 

[chrnno]

Can you play ironman without achievements offline now? I don't often have internet access and it would be really nice to play ironman regardless.

As long as you start the game when you are connected you can freely play ironman and get achievements so you can workaround lack of internet access even if you only have a few continuous minutes per week.

 

[ChildeR]

As long as you start the game when you are connected you can freely play ironman and get achievements so you can workaround lack of internet access even if you only have a few continuous minutes per week.

When you start a new game or when you start EU4? I confess I've just assumed it doesn't work because the ironman tooltip says so when it's grayed out.

 

[chrnno]

When you start a new game or when you start EU4? I confess I've just assumed it doesn't work because the ironman tooltip says so when it's grayed out.

Start EU4. Not sure when is the exact cutoff but I know for sure once you load or start a new ironman game you no longer need an internet connection for it to work properly.

Would never have gotten into playing ironman if it wasn't like this since back then my internet barely managed to work for more than few minutes in a row before going out for longer. Once I kept the game open for four days(I hibernated instead of shutting down computer) because I was without internet for that long and ironman worked perfectly well.

Don't forget to make sure it is local not cloud though.

 

[Elite_Marksman]

Could development costs also increase in the short term, with a tick down so that you can't spam. So the over development penalty could be 5mp per increase, but this ticks down over the years to no penalty, so you can't just spam development. Wouldn't it also make sense for all provinces to slowly but surely develop themselves, not all Province development was carried out by the state after all. Shouldn't an important centre of trade develop over time anyway, due to the actions of the merchants and patricians that inhabit it.

That's why I love MEIOU's new system, that works based on background MTTH events (Which can be revealed by decision) that give small percentage based chances based on things like war exhaustion the development of provinces in relation toothed regions of your empire and so on and they can be increased through policies and idea groups rather than one time MP spending sprees.

 

[Elite_Marksman]

Honestly I felt development was fine for the most part. If a change was needed IMO there should be events that occur (like the fall of the Byzantine Empire) that actually just straight up increases development such as the one for Venice but more of these for a lot more countries. I think history might be overlooked in how immigrants greatly shaped the development of many Western cities. I feel the need is more flavor to the game such as decisions countries can make or events for added development where the focus is higher amounts of immigration and that effect on development. Such a mechanic would be similar to the events that give/take away MP. Also, if "historically accurate" is the goal for capital development then should Rome have constant increases in development cost considering the city declined for a millennium and was maybe 50k by the time it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy in the mid/late 1800s. Presumably, other great cities weren't that great until the industrial revolution for most nations especially western but at least Rome only ever shrunk (lost development). If "historic accuracy" is not desired then why change the mechanic?

Revanchism sounds like it's not completely finished but I have a few questions/thoughts on it. If a country is defeated in an offensive war they started does the defender get some added bonus just as the offender (loser) would in this case? How would this mechanic apply to offensive and defensive wars or would it be treated the same if you lost either? If it's the same then for me it feels like more work would need to be done to balance such a mechanic.

Is the prevention of dogpiling a country in multiple offensive wars the object that revanchism would fix? Should there also be opinion/AE modifiers for countries attacking the same nation? Personally, if in defensive war(s) I think a better mechanic would be decreased army/navy/fort maintenance cost, increased manpower recovery speed, slight boost to morale etc. as in a wave of patriotism. Would this be historical or is that considered ahistorical by those who know history better than I? All of the wars I've read about generally showed that a wave of patriotism followed most countries who got involved in defensive wars. Revanchism as it stands now does not seem to achieve the balance wanted which is preventing a nation being in multiple defensive wars and preventing losing all of those wars.

Last paragraph is literally the defensive idea group.

Edit: for those who will down vote claiming I'm wrong. Military drill +15% Morale, Regimental System -10% Land matinence, Defensive Mentality +20% Fort Defense and -10% Fort matinence