EU4 - Development Diary - 28th of August 2018

[Badesumofu]

Honestly, what really breaks them is the 0% autonomy floor. If they kept the 75% autonomy from territories they'd still be worth it and also relatively balanced, even with the new buildings. Then they could have -50% Sailor/Tax/Manpower additive multipliers and let the new buildings make up for them. I mean, they'd clearly be still stronger than non-TC territories (+100% Production Efficiency, +30% Goods Produced and +100% Trade Power lmao), but we would not be in this mess.

Worth pointing out here, there is a government reform that reduces the autonomy floor to 10% in all territories. So the 0 LA floor for TCs is less important in most ways than the fact that they don't contribute to your territory corruption. Of course, beyond a certain point in a WC game, you're just going to have to live with being capped on that and so the marginal cost of adding more territories vanishes anyway. At that point a new territory with a 10 LA floor is actually going to significantly contribute to your economy, and that's to say nothing of all the manpower this opens up.

I'm thinking the way it will play out is that the reduced LA floor for territories will (more than) pay for the cost of having rooting out corruption permanently maxed and so the net of the changes will be a limit to how much OE you can run without accumulating corruption. Territory corruption maxes at 0.8, rooting gives a max of -1. If you add in ahead of time on admin/dip, 3 stab, and admin/defensive policy you can mitigate 1.26 corruption per year while accumulating 0.8 from territories. That would allow you to have an average of 92 OE and remain at 0 corruption. Adding in the Espionage ideas and policies increases that substantially.

Point is, we've all mostly been looking at these various changes one by one without enough consideration of how the combination will change the game. The manual's reveal that the relevant reform now reduces the LA floor to 10 rather than 50 is actually very significant.

 

[Vulkandrache]

there is a government reform that reduces the autonomy floor to 10% in all territories

Yeah, right. As if thats not a typo.
If its not supposed to be a 10% decrease in Max-LA this would be the biggest change in the history of this game.

At that point we might aswell go back to before states were introduced.

 

[balmung60]

Worth pointing out here, there is a government reform that reduces the autonomy floor to 10% in all territories. So the 0 LA floor for TCs is less important in most ways than the fact that they don't contribute to your territory corruption. Of course, beyond a certain point in a WC game, you're just going to have to live with being capped on that and so the marginal cost of adding more territories vanishes anyway. At that point a new territory with a 10 LA floor is actually going to significantly contribute to your economy, and that's to say nothing of all the manpower this opens up.

I'm thinking the way it will play out is that the reduced LA floor for territories will (more than) pay for the cost of having rooting out corruption permanently maxed and so the net of the changes will be a limit to how much OE you can run without accumulating corruption. Territory corruption maxes at 0.8, rooting gives a max of -1. If you add in ahead of time on admin/dip, 3 stab, and admin/defensive policy you can mitigate 1.26 corruption per year while accumulating 0.8 from territories. That would allow you to have an average of 92 OE and remain at 0 corruption. Adding in the Espionage ideas and policies increases that substantially.

Point is, we've all mostly been looking at these various changes one by one without enough consideration of how the combination will change the game. The manual's reveal that the relevant reform now reduces the LA floor to 10 rather than 50 is actually very significant.

If it's actually a reduction *to* 10% max LA instead of *by* 10% max LA, that's an insane game changer. All of a sudden, territories are basically as valuable as full states. It would increase the value of territories by 260%. Even a reduction *by* 10% increases the value of territories by 40% of their current value, which is pretty huge.

 

[Badesumofu]

Having a look at the manual again it's ambiguous. It's most likely reduce by 10% rather than to 10%.

6. ABSOLUTISM & CONSTITUTIONALISM
•
L’etat c’est moi Reform
(+5 maximum states)
•
Regional Representation Reform
(Minimum autonomy in
territories reduced 10%)

 

[Golladan]

"At this point"?
The big changes everyone is arguing about were announced 6 weeks ago.
Thats how long there has been no real comunication about this.

There was further communication about it two weeks ago. Right here.

 

[Vulkandrache]

There was further communication about it two weeks ago

The only thing we got was: "We expected this to be unpopular."

 

[Golladan]

And the reasoning behind it. What else do you want?

 

[balmung60]

And the reasoning behind it. What else do you want?

I dunno, pretty much anything other than doubling down and shrugging off the criticism.

Also, I'm looking forward to the bordergore map of optimized expansion from someone only taking states cap * 2 of the most valuable non-TC areas (plus all TC areas) as their own and foisting the rest upon vassals or just ignoring it entirely.

 

[Lex_555]

Sounds exciting...can't wait to get my hand on this DLC

 

[Atalvyr]

Over the past few years, we have gained a certain expectation of communication, but now it stops all of a sudden when there is a negative change, thats the problem. If you want to communicate and tell us about popular changes, than you should also be ready to talk when you want to do a negative change.

There have been plenty of outrage and pitchforks before - usually whenever a change would make WC significantly more difficult (introduction of states, local autonomy). This is the first time I can recall the devs going silent, but then again it is also the first time I can recall forumites actively calling for the heads of those responsible.

I dunno, pretty much anything other than doubling down and shrugging off the criticism.

And what does not doubling down look like? Reverting the proposed changes and firing those who came up with them in the first place? This close to release my guess would be that they are keeping their heads buried in coding/testing and will check in on how the changes are play out when they have actually gone live.

 

[Guilherme Moreira]

!!

 

[DDRJake]

It's not normal for a dev diary to go two whole days without response to questions, which I normally do either between tasks at work or in my own free time from home. Both those timeslots were gobbled up by meetings and sleep over the past 2 days. Still, here we go.

Question: Will we have the option to reject the initial reform? For example could I refuse English monarchy as England or Merchant republic as Venice and pick something else or is that first reform locked in?

Special reforms, such as English Monarchy are locked in as the first reform and cannot be switched out of, however for non-special starting reforms, they can be switched out of at a penalty of 10 corruption.

That does not mean England have their English Monarchy forever though. This can be removed through event, or through total change of Government (Tier 7 Monarchy reform)

@DDRJake does taking a policy still has the 10 year cooldown before you can swap it out?

Yes it does.

will dharma or the free update not break ironman saves? i'm on vacations and i have an ongoing poland run

While we never give a 100% guarantee on continuing old saves on new builds, you should be able to continue your 1.25 save on 1.26, although some oddities may be encountered. If you wish to continue your 1.25 save, especially an Ironman save, I recommend either finishing it on 1.25, or making a backup save before playing it on 1.26.

To gain achievements with Dharma, you will need to start a new game. Old 1.25 saves will no longer be able to get achievements when updating to Dharma. We've added an in-game warning for this too.

What does "number of available policies" mean? Do you no longer always have all policies you unlocked through ideas available? I don't understand this modifier in the new policy system. Can you have more than 9 or can you not have 9 by default after all?

9 is the defaily number of available policies. It is possible to increase this, such as with Swedish Ideas and the Tier 7 Republic reforms:

Of course, you can mod this value to infinity and beyond:

OF VITAL IMPORTANCE! PRE ORDER MAY BE CANCELLED! Why change the naming convention of the DLC's? Dharma is the first to break the pattern of two word titles or three word titles with "of" in the middle, my money had been on "Riches of India"
Is the new loading screen historical figure the Tipu Sultan? I fear not, it's probably Akbar the Great or Babur, are you moving away from having historical figures as the art for future DLC's?

1: Since I took over the naming convention of our expansions, I started trimming them down a bit. I like it short and snappy.

2: It is indeed Akbar.

@Groogy or @DDRJake could we get a picture about the government changing without Dharma?

Without Dharma it looks much like what you see in the current 1.25 version.

Does Revolutionary Republic and Merchant Republic still have their factions instead of estates ?

They do, Factions replace estates.

Are the State limit and missionary changes remaining?

Yes. I elaborated on them here

So basically unless you intend to switch to a different government type you will have finalized your government within 40 years.

I don't think the numbers there add up.

Thanks for all the informations!

I still have one question unanswered though. Will I be able to establish a parliament in any country? Prussia for example could not get one before Dharma.

The Tier 5 Monarch Reform will enable Parliament for Common Sense owners.

How exactly do government reforms work for country tag with unique reforms when you don't start as said country, such as forming Qing as Manchu or Japan as a Daimyo? Are the unique reforms automatically set on when forming the new tag or do you still have to pay progress points to reform into these unique governments in the normal way?

In such cases, you get switched to a new Tier 1 reform which gives you those mechanics, such as Shogunate or Emperor of China. This does not come with the 10 corruption cost.

 

[Bayes]

@DDRJake Thx for responding. What is your plan for future additions to goverments? Will you add more reforms like the "Khalsa Reform (Must be Sikh, +1 to tolerance of heathens and heretics, +5% land forces morale)" to other cultures/religions and if so, will it only be available to dharma owners?

 

[Vohen]

Without Dharma it looks much like what you see in the current 1.25 version.

So you decided to go with two parallel mechanics after all, I think this is very worriesome.
What if in the future you guys want to develop further that system (like putting unique reforms for HRE members, or Iberian nations, or pretty much any singular group you choose to focus on for a DLC), you won't be able to because that would require people to have Dharma.
Wouldn't a middle ground be more interesting for that? Like having non Dharma owners be locked to a linear path with a single reform per tier, depending on what their tier 1 reform is (basically depending on their government type).
The reform system is pretty amazing on its own already, but I can't help but feel like it's potential for the future has just been stopped dead on its track.

 

[Atalvyr]

They could just make a new special government for those countries with fixed bonuses that incorporate the Reform ones. Sure it is more work, but it is certainly doable.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Having a look at the manual again it's ambiguous. It's most likely reduce by 10% rather than to 10%.

6. ABSOLUTISM & CONSTITUTIONALISM
•
L’etat c’est moi Reform
(+5 maximum states)
•
Regional Representation Reform
(Minimum autonomy in
territories reduced 10%)

My money would be on it being 10% lowering and not a 10% floor, since why else would anybody ever pick the state one. And why would the French Paradox pick the state one in the Dev Clash.

It is possible to increase this, such as with Swedish Ideas and the Tier 7 Republic reforms:

Any word on the justification for why Sweden as the only country in the game, according to a previous statement by you or another dev, gets 12 policies. That's a massive boost and I don't think Sweden be be considered the most successful country of this era and hence warrant such a boost.

 

[BrokenSky]

Any word on the justification for why Sweden as the only country in the game, according to a previous statement by you or another dev, gets 12 policies. That's a massive boost and I don't think Sweden be be considered the most successful country of this era and hence warrant such a boost.

Because Sweden was critically underpowered and needed buffing

 

[Atalvyr]

Its not really that much of a buff, as you still need to spend 9 monarch power per month to keep all those policies running. I'm not even sure I could come up with a 4 policies in a group I would want bad enough to spend the monarch points on all 4 of them. At least not without completely designing my picks of idea groups around getting those exact policies.

I mean, sure I could have 4 good military policies, but if it requires me to take both Religious AND Humanist AND Innovative AND pay 3 military points per month, the opportunity cost is just too great.

 

[Wagonlitz]

as you still need to spend 9 monarch power per month to keep all those policies running

Not necessarily.
There's ideas and other things which allows you to have more than one free policy in each group and then it's only 6 monarch points, or the same as other countries without the extra free policy thing. And it might even be able to stack a third free one, albeit that's probably gonna take quite the opportunity cost and not really worth it.

 

[Atalvyr]

How are you getting to 3 free policies? I can only see 1 free admin policy from reforms and some national ideas that give 1 free reform.

You can always use more military policies, but as they cost 1 mil/month each and you have to keep them for 10 years I don't know if I would want to run 4 of them. It could make you a military powerhouse here-and-now for the cost of slowing your military tech to a crawl for 10 years, so I could see it used as a "panic button" or to enter a phase of continued warfare once you have established a mil.tech advantage. You also could stack naval policies this way I guess, but that seems a bit marginal. Good admin policies are rare - most are just more income/manpower, not something I want to spend a ton of admin points on.

All in all it is not a useless ability for Sweden to have, but I would hardly call it OP.