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EU4 - Development Diary - 16th of June 2016

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Hello and welcome to today's development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Let's take a good look at our King/Khan/Doge/Emperor/Prince.

The ruler of your state is of prime importance to your nation but when you see your new heir birthed or khan taking the throne, it's often a quick look at their 3 monarch point stats followed by either a face palm or a fist pump. As a feature in the upcoming expansion we will be giving a touch more identity to these walking point generators with Ruler Personalities.

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When a ruler comes of age they will develop a personality important to the function of the state. They will develop another trait after ruling for 10 years and a further personality after ruling for a total of 25 years. These personalities will grant a modifier for your nation as well as bonus options in event and changes to the AI's actions. For Duke Francois do Dreux here, he has become a careful individual who will enjoy lower AE in expansion.

Most personalities are a boon for your nation but not all are so positive. While it would be lovely if all your rulers were Just, Incorruptible and Charismatic, you may well find that your ruler is too greedy for their own good like Vilhelm Skram of Denmark.

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King Vilhelm is a tight-fisted greedy guts and will hoover up 10% of your tax income, but there is a silver lining to his greed. Many events have unlockable options now depending on your monarch's personality which will almost always be a superior option. Obscurantism will normally cost a nation in unrest or prestige, but greedy desires drive Vilhelm to seek out a more...lucrative path.

All personalities will unlock such options in some events, as well as have events of their own. Who knows what your Scholarly King or Malevolent Khan will get up to?

Ruler Personalities will be a paid feature in the upcoming expansion, which will be sold alongside the free 1.18 patch.

While on the subject of monarchs, we will be paying special attention to a very influential dynasty of the time period next week, but for now I must take leave. Vilhelm has shaken me down for every ducat I own and I must take care of this.

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Crown button under ruler age?
 
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@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?
 
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Chief of Staff said:
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?
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I hope so. It's bad design to hide it from the player.
 
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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.
 
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Anthedon said:
Personalities are already in the game. Do they actually affect AI behaviour and will these changes impact that in any way?
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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).
 
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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.
 
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How will this work for Theocracies and Republics?
 
Chief of Staff said:
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?
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There will be.

boilpoil said:
Wait... Is that a second green banner for another heir?!
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I have no idea what you're talking about probably.

YuriiH said:
What about 4-year elections in Republics?
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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.

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

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Cymsdale said:
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. :D
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All my advisors seem to have the greedy trait.
 
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Cymsdale said:
I hope so. It's bad design to hide it from the player.
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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.
 
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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?
 
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?
 
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