EU4 - Dev Diary - September 17th

[grommile]

Wiz, I would really like to know if you are planning to keep development a paid feature (requiring Common Sense). I have personally bought all expansion packs, and almost all of the flavour packs (music, portraits, units etc), but I know for a fact that a lot of people don't have the money to buy a €20 expansion.

I wouldn't buy CS even if I did have the money to do so, since the complaints about German megalopolises are leading me to regard "pay monarch power for development" as something very close to an antifeature.

 

[Xinkc]

We're also planning to add an achievements browser in-game that lets you see which achievements you qualify for in the particular game you are playing, and what trigger conditions you need to satisfy to unlock them. No more wiki-browsing and guesswork required!

How would this work with cross-patch games?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

While I like the idea of Revanchism, two things worry me greatly about it.

1) It's scaled to warscore instead of to size of a country. Suppose the Netherlands loses 40% warscore territory. That's a big chunk of their country. Suppose France loses 40% warscore. That's not a lot for France. Yet another EUIV mechanic that makes the blobs blob blobbier.
2) It will be the most use to blobs. Big Blue Blob conquers Sarai. Big Blue Blob cores Sarai. Big Blue Blob loses Sarai. Big Blue Blob now has a bonus.

But I guess the devs dont want this to be for filthy casuals like me because they have a better audience with the world conquest and multiplayer crowds.

A lot of people asked if development would lead to OPM development spam and those questions were ignored...

WC crowd is not benefitted by revanchism, it will be a (pretty minor) nerf to attempting WC unless it has an abuse loophole. How often do you think WC players lose land ?

I wouldn't buy CS even if I did have the money to do so, since the complaints about German megalopolises are leading me to regard "pay monarch power for development" as something very close to an antifeature.

Development is something of a push compared to 1.11 buildings, though you do pay for what effectively amounts to old functionality.

The antifeature is Buddhism.

 

[tcrane]

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.

 

[keynes2.0]

WC crowd is not benefitted by revanchism, it will be a (pretty minor) nerf to attempting WC unless it has an abuse loophole. How often do you think WC players lose land ?

Seems like an obvious use to me. You intentionally lose cored territory, no MP cost. You recapture the territory 15 years later, no MP cost. Yay free money and lowered revolt risk. And then you go and intentionally lose a different territory.

 

[Umega]

Aren't countries way too stable as it is? I don't know whether I like the Revanchism thing.

Indeed, but I think countries are only too stable when it comes to rebels rarely collapsing a country. After loosing a nasty war, AI countries don't seem to collapse, but only thier economy and armies get completely shot.
An example of countries being too stable even after a nasty war would be the Indian region, I always see india coalesce into 3 rival powers, but I never see them collapse from rebels and collapse into smaller indian states.

 

[DavidRoyman]

So how would you fix the problem of the capital development discount being abusable?

I wouldn't let the capital be moved if the target province development is too low.
For example, you can't move it to provinces with less than 50% of the development of your current capital.

Or the new capital must have 0% autonomy, and the old capital will get a buff "old seat of power" which keep at a certain min autonomy for several years.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Revanchism *is* yet another large nation buff by the way. I'm not sure why they need more buffs TBH but I don't think this one is going to be too enormous, it'll certainly be less egregious than having to work around the 15 year truce rule unless they make the modifiers ridiculous.

If the buffs are too big we can even see a nation like France, Ottomans, Commonwealth, etc. not only recover from a 100% WS province loss but be stronger 15-20 years later at the expense of weaker neighbours. I´ve seen that before and they did not have "Revanchism" so it should at least make it more common.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Seems like an obvious use to me. You intentionally lose cored territory, no MP cost. You recapture the territory 15 years later, no MP cost. Yay free money and lowered revolt risk. And then you go and intentionally lose a different territory.

Morale is not worth having more long truces. In the same war you're giving up land, you could just be taking more . If losing 100% is supposedly a drop in the bucket, that same nation probably has the military chops to be steamrolling on multiple fronts. All giving up land does is create a time sink. That isn't WC play. There are some tricks with rebels and reconquest but even that's fringe stuff for earlygame.

 

[keynes2.0]

Morale is not worth having more long truces. In the same war you're giving up land, you could just be taking more . If losing 100% is supposedly a drop in the bucket, that same nation probably has the military chops to be steamrolling on multiple fronts. All giving up land does is create a time sink. That isn't WC play. There are some tricks with rebels and reconquest but even that's fringe stuff for earlygame.

Who was talking about morale? I was talking about money and RR.

And you dont lose land to the big nations, you intentionally lose land to small nations. Probably leave some nations as OPM so you can occupy them and force them to take their cores back. Do it as a separate peace from a larger war.

I fully look forward to the devs, rather then fixing revanchism, putting a bunch of restrictions on peacedeals.

 

[Knut Skallagrim]

Maybe these 3 new features will need some balancing as other people are saying, but i'm loving all of them, nice additions

 

[Chlodio]

Why would losing core provinces lose unrest? When England lost their land in France is caused the War of the Roses.

 

[Me_]

What's the yellow notifier with a hand for?

 

[Willem IV]

To prevent this from resulting in players moving their capital around to each province they're developing in turn, we've also made it so that the cost for moving your capital increases the more total development your country has, up to a maximum cost of 700 admin points.

Shouldn't the cost of moving your capital increase based on the development of your current capital. Moving your German capital from East Frisa to Frankfurt should cost less, then moving your German capital from Wien to Frankfurt. (Of course in both cases all german terroities are united under your banner)

 

[LordPavel]

If I lost 2 wars, I will have only one ''Revanchism'' ? The biggest ? 2 bonus (2*+50% recovery ? ) ?

 

[alpaca]

WC crowd is not benefitted by revanchism, it will be a (pretty minor) nerf to attempting WC unless it has an abuse loophole. How often do you think WC players lose land ?

Might make going down to 20 provinces for republic more powerful, at least.

 

[AKronblad]

@Wiz:

Revanschism works for surviving losers. Thus, annexing a country will become relatively attractive, eliminating any Revanschism effects.

How about increasing unrest levels for all annexed provinces with the same culture as the annexed country, and increasing Separatist Rebel likelihood in said countries?

Then Revanschism of sorts would work also in annexations, as the defeated people and their informal leaders would seek revenge.

 

[Tufto]

That's all for today. Next week we'll be talking about the Steppes and the Nomads that inhabit them.

Ah, excellent! I'll be delighted to see how much more you can grind them into the dust. I love a good challenge.

 

[grommile]

Why would losing core provinces lose unrest? When England lost their land in France is caused the War of the Roses.

Henry VI was the incompetent grandson of a usurper. Under those conditions, an armed dynastic dispute could plausibly have arisen even in the absence of military defeats by an external power.

 

[nalivayko]

My suggestion for preventing changing small provinces (i.e Shetlands) into gigantic metropolises is to place a time-based limit on development, for example limit a province to 5 development upgrades in 50 years. London and Paris weren't built in a day, after all.

An easier way to put it: 1 development upgrade in 10 years In essence, a cooldown period for each upgrade with, perhaps, an Economic idea or related policy that decreases that period.