Good day and welcome to this week's Development Diary for EU4. Last week, programming maestro and wine connoisseur @MatRopert gave some insight into the technical debt that we have been and continue to be working on for EU4. Today, I'm going to continue probing at some quality of life suggestions.
Quality of Life will be a large focus of our expansion and update this year. In a couple of previous dev diaries, I talked about some of the QoL suggestions from the forums here. Today, I want to share some that have come up internally. Many people here at PDX HQ play EU4 regularly, and as you've surely seen, many compete in our in-house dev clash. As such, when it was heard that the EU4 team were going to be tackling QoL issues in a big way, many came forward with their own suggestions.
As has been said before, issues being listed here is not a guarantee that that they will be in the upcoming release.
"Take-as-much-money-as-possible-without-exceeding-warscore"
It fills my heart with glee that one of the first things we got internally was a demand to make taking all of someone's money easier. I think we've all been there when you've defeated your opponent, draw up the land you wish to take, then ask for a generous amount of their money, but the money you ask is too much, so begins the dainty process of clicking the - button on money. It doesn't help that the tooltip covers the acceptance chance.
We could well add a button for "as much as possible" where it takes money up to the point where it will still be accepted, or add a ctrl-click function for this. Either way, the frustration here is clear to see and remove, and since it's about taking money, it speaks dearly to me.
"Fully annex country option in peacedeals"
Another peace deal suggestion internally, and I'm sure it's been mentioned on the forums as well. Back in the day, the full annex option was the only way to annex a nation. Since then, the rules for taking land in a peace deal have been eased up, but it means that if you wish to annex a 20 province nation in the late game, that's a lot of clicking. Restoring the ability to 1-click select all provinces would be a welcome break to many mice.
"Core all button"
Speaks for itself. Much as the action of slamming that coring button for every province is empowering, a core-all button in the stability tab would be a welcome addition.
"Fix the Truce Timers not following their tooltips. Truces frequently end months before advertised, or claim they are over when you still get a stab hit for DOWing"
This strays into the realm of a bug, but none the less it lowers the quality of one's life. There's likely a bit of elbow grease needed in making the truces more robust so that you can have confidence in the tooltipped date for when they end, but it's high on the priority list to look into.
"Make age visible on Generals/Admirals"
EUIV is a game about nations rather than individuals, leading to the focus being on instruments of state over fleshing out people. To that end, generals themselves are purposely void in humanizing properties. With that said, it is very easy to forget which general and admiral was hired when, as their potential imminent death is definitely of importance to the player. Some general indicate of age, length of service or even death likelihood as advisors have is a reasonable addition.
"Click on core of a country in a province -> highlight all their cores"
Figuring out which nation to subjugate and which lands to take can often come down to who still stakes a firm core on them, including annexed nations. The highlighting feature on provinces was introduced alongside Rule Britannia, and this is a prime candidate for where we can add such a thing.
These QoL features (and many more) stand alongside those that we have been receiving from the forums, and remain a strong focus of this year's expansion and accompanying update. once our lengthy period of tech debt work is done and dusted, we look forward to sharing with you what we develop, as it comes. I know many are disappointed that we aren't showing off new features, map work and the like for the upcoming expansion and update, but the tech debt that we take care of today, paves the way for said development.
Quality of Life will be a large focus of our expansion and update this year. In a couple of previous dev diaries, I talked about some of the QoL suggestions from the forums here. Today, I want to share some that have come up internally. Many people here at PDX HQ play EU4 regularly, and as you've surely seen, many compete in our in-house dev clash. As such, when it was heard that the EU4 team were going to be tackling QoL issues in a big way, many came forward with their own suggestions.
As has been said before, issues being listed here is not a guarantee that that they will be in the upcoming release.
"Take-as-much-money-as-possible-without-exceeding-warscore"
It fills my heart with glee that one of the first things we got internally was a demand to make taking all of someone's money easier. I think we've all been there when you've defeated your opponent, draw up the land you wish to take, then ask for a generous amount of their money, but the money you ask is too much, so begins the dainty process of clicking the - button on money. It doesn't help that the tooltip covers the acceptance chance.
We could well add a button for "as much as possible" where it takes money up to the point where it will still be accepted, or add a ctrl-click function for this. Either way, the frustration here is clear to see and remove, and since it's about taking money, it speaks dearly to me.
"Fully annex country option in peacedeals"
Another peace deal suggestion internally, and I'm sure it's been mentioned on the forums as well. Back in the day, the full annex option was the only way to annex a nation. Since then, the rules for taking land in a peace deal have been eased up, but it means that if you wish to annex a 20 province nation in the late game, that's a lot of clicking. Restoring the ability to 1-click select all provinces would be a welcome break to many mice.
"Core all button"
Speaks for itself. Much as the action of slamming that coring button for every province is empowering, a core-all button in the stability tab would be a welcome addition.
"Fix the Truce Timers not following their tooltips. Truces frequently end months before advertised, or claim they are over when you still get a stab hit for DOWing"
This strays into the realm of a bug, but none the less it lowers the quality of one's life. There's likely a bit of elbow grease needed in making the truces more robust so that you can have confidence in the tooltipped date for when they end, but it's high on the priority list to look into.
"Make age visible on Generals/Admirals"
EUIV is a game about nations rather than individuals, leading to the focus being on instruments of state over fleshing out people. To that end, generals themselves are purposely void in humanizing properties. With that said, it is very easy to forget which general and admiral was hired when, as their potential imminent death is definitely of importance to the player. Some general indicate of age, length of service or even death likelihood as advisors have is a reasonable addition.
"Click on core of a country in a province -> highlight all their cores"
Figuring out which nation to subjugate and which lands to take can often come down to who still stakes a firm core on them, including annexed nations. The highlighting feature on provinces was introduced alongside Rule Britannia, and this is a prime candidate for where we can add such a thing.
These QoL features (and many more) stand alongside those that we have been receiving from the forums, and remain a strong focus of this year's expansion and accompanying update. once our lengthy period of tech debt work is done and dusted, we look forward to sharing with you what we develop, as it comes. I know many are disappointed that we aren't showing off new features, map work and the like for the upcoming expansion and update, but the tech debt that we take care of today, paves the way for said development.
