EU4 - Development Diary - 16th of June 2016

[DominusNovus]

Crown button under ruler age?

 

[Riekopo]

Will our rulers have portraits finally? Advisors get them so it's really weird that the much more important rulers do not.

 

[Krebsig]

Special comet options for insane rulers: They actually sacrifice their heir to appease the comet!

 

[eclaudius]

Very nice this touch of CK.
Is there any way the player can influence which traits are obtained?
And are traits inherited from previous rulers?

 

[ruzen]

@DDRJake Would that be effecting AI's battle actions aswell? For example; Aggressive leaders will have increased range of following defeated armies to wipe them? Or cautious ones wont try to engage too much?

 

[Cymsdale]

Nice. In Crusader Kings II, the unlockable options are normally indicated as such when you hover over an icon on the left side of such options. But it look like in screenshots it won't tell you if the options are available because of your ruler's personality traits when hovering over them / no such icons. Is there plans to change that?

I hope so. It's bad design to hide it from the player.

 

[penguinjon]

I hope so. It's bad design to hide it from the player.

I think that the option unlocked from the trait was green in the screenshot, maybe that's what tells you it's a special option.

 

[Anthedon]

Personalities are already in the game. Do they actually affect AI behaviour and will these changes impact that in any way?

 

[Cymsdale]

This is pretty cool, but I'm going to be that guy who asks for more and say that advisers should be given personality traits as well.

 

[I'm gaming]

There is a space under current heir at the first screenshot. Will we be able to have 2 heirs simultaneously and choose one from them?

 

[Professor Spitfire]

This sounds like a great new feature, thank you for that!

While you're on the topic, so to speak, will you update the heir mechanics anything? I really hope that you will, since the currently don't really make sense. If I can elaborate a bit, heirs seem to be randomly generated upon one heirs ascencion to the throne/be randomly born during rulers' reigns. Sometimes they are only a few years apart, leaving me to conclude that the heir must be a brother or cousin or something of the current ruler. So far so good, but here's the weird bit. That heir then stays heir until he/she either dies or ascends to the throne. This is weird and very ahistorical, as in practice it means that a ruler cant have a kid/new heir if there is one already. In reality, there were pretty much always an heir, whose position in the line of succession changed as other potential heirs were born or died off.

You've really captured this well in Crusader Kings II, and I hope that you can implement some similar mechanics in EUIV. It would open up a whole world of possible and interesting changes to the dynamics of pretender rebels, royal marriages, legitimacy, personal unions and so forth. I do hope that you are not hesitant to make such changes out of fear that it would make EUIV and CKII to similar. Personally, I think that the scope and focus of the two games are too different for such fears to be motivated. The goal in EUIV is to create a glorious state, not a glorious dynasty. If a terrific pretender rebels in EUIV I'll gladly surrender to him, whereas I would fight him with everything in CKII.

I think a change like this would have a major impact on gameplay. At the moment I am hesitant to make even crappy heirs generals for example, as I don't know whether the country is at risk of entering a personal union in the case of his death in battle.

 

[Chaingun]

Personalities are already in the game. Do they actually affect AI behaviour and will these changes impact that in any way?

We're doing to make some distinctions, the challenge is mainly how to make the player aware of the personality having an effect rather than being random or buggy behavior.

As for the old AI personalities, they will remain as it would be too much of a risk to rebalance game by replacing them (not to mention it would cause issues for people without DLC).

 

[loup99]

Interesting and good to finally see this added!

Looks like our rulers won't be getting any portraits though. Although that should open up for some additional space in the interface, so dynasty mechanics could be expanded upon and more family and court members than just the ruler, the heir and advisers could be shown. Furthermore, that would be an occasion to add depth to the royal marriages, legitimacy and personal unions. And a regency council could be designed differently and either be composed of multiple nobles, or maybe a member of the royal family?

At the same time, I hope leaders and advisers will also be getting traits, to add additional flavour for them. In all other PDS games leaders have traits and portraits, so I don't see why EU4 should be the exception anymore.

 

[Me_]

How will this work for Theocracies and Republics?

 

[DDRJake]

Nice. In Crusader Kings II, the unlockable options are normally indicated as such when you hover over an icon on the left side of such options. But it look like in screenshots it won't tell you if the options are available because of your ruler's personality traits when hovering over them / no such icons. Is there plans to change that?

There will be.

Wait... Is that a second green banner for another heir?!

I have no idea what you're talking about probably.

What about 4-year elections in Republics?

Republican rulers develop traits following the same rules as monarchs. It will be rare to get a tri-personality Republican, but they will all start ruling with 1 trait and you can swiftly kick them out of office if they're not up to snuff.

And, of course, will the rulers have any anti-comet, anti-decadence, anti-sword_stronger_than_book, et al. traits?

Well...

This is pretty cool, but I'm going to be that guy who asks for more and say that advisers should be given personality traits as well.

All my advisors seem to have the greedy trait.

 

[SignedName]

Is there a list of which historical figures will get scripted traits? Napoleon should obviously get some, but who else?

 

[Trin Tragula]

I hope so. It's bad design to hide it from the player.

This will be in

EDIT: To clarify beyond the color of the button that you can see in the screenshot there will be a text indicating what trait got you the new option.

 

[seriousgigi]

pls add some renassaince traits to mehmed II. also pls don't use png.

 

[Sawik2003]

What happens with traits if we have theocracy, papacy or monastic order when ruler is very unlikely to rule for long time? And what modifires will be given to rulers through traits?

 

[Me_]

And what of event-spawned rulers? Will those have pre-determined traits and if not will it be possible to mod them to have them?