Hello and Welcome to yet another Europa Universalis development diary. Today we’ll first delve into the results of the survey we sent out earlier this autumn, and also do some comparisons with the analytics we have. We’ll also talk about some minor balance changes and an interesting new feature for our future expansion.

First of all, I’d like to thank the over 10,000 people who took their time to reply to all the questions in our survey. While this is but a fraction of the entire playerbase, it gives us an indication of what the more hardcore of the audience likes, with over half of the respondents having played over 1,000 hours.

The most common play-styles, by far, as reported was role-playing and changing history. It is probably not a surprise to anyone that you viewed Victoria to have the best economy, Hearts of Iron the best military, Europa Universalis the best diplomacy and Crusader Kings the best politics.

You also overwhelmingly prefer simulation over boardgame mechanics, and you think that we should focus more on the economical buildup and flavorful content.

While the Golden Century was easily the worst expansion in your eyes, the top 5 expansions according to you were.

• Art of War
• Common Sense
• Emperor
• Rights of Man
• Mandate of Heaven

While talking about the survey, I thought it would be fun to look at the top 10 most played countries right now.

France          6.16%
Ottomans        5.08%
Austria         4.39%
Byzantium       4.39%
Custom Nation   4.23%
England         3.35%
Castile         3.29%
Brandenburg     3.11%
Ming            2.24%
Portugal        2.12%

A minor balance change for the people who play multiplayer and play with victory cards enabled, is the small little change that Estates will now become less loyal if you ally with nations which you have victory cards upon.

And for those that play as Cossacks and have the Sich Rada government enabled, as requested by the community, you now have the ability to raze cities, just like hordes does.

Finally, it's time to reveal another feature for our upcoming expansion, a new unit mission called Carpet Siege. It is similar to the hunt rebels mission, but with the difference that the army actively will avoid combat unless it is sure of winning, and primarily focusing on sieging down hostile territory. You can set it to just targeting specific areas on the map, or let it decide on its own when there are valid targets to consider.

Stay tuned, because next week Groogy will be back, talking about a major religion without unique mechanics that will get one.

 

[IndigoRage]

Even in multiplayer, where there is some competitive action, I do roleplaying. But, I am also in an environment where there is heavy minmaxing and abuse of certain mechanics. It's not really fun to become a non-factor in these games just because I didn't abuse stuff enough. Point is, even if everyone does roleplaying, they also all want to achieve their goals, and players will be in the way. To overcome these, the easiest way is to minmax, forcing everyone else to lose or to do the same.
Admitted, I was last time in the HRE, which is also an incredibly boring region to start in due to the much slower conquest speed (cf more AE gain and higher claim cost).

No, I understand why multiplayer people are into minmaxing. For a competitive advantage. I'm just surprised for how much people talk about minmax setups that roleplay is still the most popular.

 

[Me_]

I once suggested that Ming and Ming revolters should have "Chinese generic missions". Ming is a very powerful nation at the beginning, in the hands of experienced players it can overcome Mingplosion. Granting them unique mission tree would overpower them.

Not really.

For one, what would that even mean. In single player starting in the player hands Ming is already OP, what difference does it make if it has unique missions? In multiplayer, if one player starts as Ming all the other players know that they will be OP, what difference does it make if it has unique missions?

Not to mention that we got used to thinking of missions as giving hundreds of hundreds of permanent claims, but that is tunnel vision. There is no reason to assume it has to be the case for every future mission tree. They can be way more creative. Unique Ming missions may very well not feature even a single permanent claim.

No, I understand why multiplayer people are into minmaxing. For a competitive advantage. I'm just surprised for how much people talk about minmax setups that roleplay is still the most popular.

People do not discuss roleplaying on the forum, unless in AARs, they just roleplay. The main forum is barely a small fraction of the playerbase.

 

[iClipse]

Oh man, carpet siege is something I've wanted for so long! Thanks for adding that.

New mechanics for a religion with no mechanics? I can only think about animism.

Also, I'm happy you see economic buildup as a working point. Outside of the buildup don't forget that there have to be ways to spend all that money too.

Currently, early game build up feels fine. Early game, you unlock new buildings more quickly than you can build them, especially manufacturies. You don't have enough money for great advisors, you don't have money for your force limit in a full row of whatever is best, so you have to make choices on where to allocate your funds.
But then after a while, you've built up, there is nothing to spend it on anymore, other than lvl 5 advisors, army and courthouse spam (and more buildings in newly built provinces).

Related: I recently read the book sapiens. There is a huge part about the middle ages there, and how it was mostly because of money that the nations that became big actually became big. Money was used for technologic advancements, but it also was used to fund stuff like the independence of Greece. Great Britain also conquered India with about 70.000 men. A continent of millions. For a big part due to their use of money (technology also played a part of course).

Anyway, if you're looking for inspiration, it's a fantastic place to start.

 

[Jimmyfeellucky]

I really wish Buddhism could get a rework. One of the big Three modern religions, but has a stupid Karma balancing mechanic.

Also Ottomans and Ming should get mission trees too.
The Ottomans tree should not just only permanent claims. While the Ming tree should be survival gameplay flavor-heavy, since the Ming explosion no longer be avoided.

 

[Shogun96]

So people like role-playing and simulation, yet you add another (paid) feature which doesn't add anything to the role-playing or simulation game. Alright lol

 

[love sweden]

Finally the devs know for a fact that players hated Golden Century. But the person responsible for it is gone for good thankfully so what this information will do I dont know.

 

[IVM.Firefly]

I must have missed the poll, but I must say I am SO happy with the results. Roleplaying and realistic gameplay are what I would really like to see more of from the EU franchise. As for carpet siege, it is a god-sent feature. I would like to have the possibility of automating my armies as much as possible so I can focus on other parts of the game as well.

 

[Romanix90]

Not really.

For one, what would that even mean. In single player starting in the player hands Ming is already OP, what difference does it make if it has unique missions? In multiplayer, if one player starts as Ming all the other players know that they will be OP, what difference does it make if it has unique missions?

Not to mention that we got used to thinking of missions as giving hundreds of hundreds of permanent claims, but that is tunnel vision. There is no reason to assume it has to be the case for every future mission tree. They can be way more creative. Unique Ming missions may very well not feature even a single permanent claim.

In my opinion Chinese generic would be more suited for Ming and its revolters. Chinese generic missions would replace generic missions used by Mongols and Manchurians. My idea is that Chinese generic play into EoC, Confucianism (religion route), building Forbiden City (economy route) and Repair Great Wall (militar route). Perhaps something more can be added.

 

[promant]

The feature sounds nice and all... but really? YET ANOTHER QOL improvement locked behind paywall? Things like army and navy missions, diplo manager, supporting independence, army templates, army auto-transport, ally objectives etc. should be part of the base game.

Paradox, this needs to stop.

 

[Vaximillian]

Always nice to find out you're not playing the popular nations.

Is there such a thing to be an EU4 hipster?

 

[MarkS00N]

Hm...
There are only two major religion left without mechanic, Totemist and Animist. With Groogy mentioned that Totemist won't get new mechanic and animist is widespread in game Southeast Asia, I think animist is the most likely candidate.

We know Australia (and probably Oceania) will get new religion, but I don't think Johan will say "major religion without unique mechanic" if it is about them, because this line imply the major religion already exist. Although I am pretty sure the new Australian (and probably Oceanian) religion will get new mechanic (because the Oceania Expanded mod give them new mechanics, and we know the developer of that mod is now developing at least Australia part of EU4).

I was thinking to make suggestion about animist mechanic because I thought this expansion won't give them one, so I am really interested if animist is indeed going to get a new mechanic.

 

[Canute VII]

mission called Carpet Siege

Is that even a known military tactic of the time or is it just "gamer slang"? If it is the ladder, I would rather see another naming for it, e.g. "ressource denial operation" or something in this line... (PS: I don'T even know how to tarnslate "carpet siege" into my mother tongue )

 

[Sapa Inca]

Hm...
There are only two major religion left without mechanic, Totemist and Animist. With Groogy mentioned that Totemist won't get new mechanic and animist is widespread in game Southeast Asia, I think animist is the most likely candidate.

We know Australia (and probably Oceania) will get new religion, but I don't think Johan will say "major religion without unique mechanic" if it is about them, because this line imply the major religion already exist. Although I am pretty sure the new Australian (and probably Oceanian) religion will get new mechanic (because the Oceania Expanded mod give them new mechanics, and we know the developer of that mod is now developing at least Australia part of EU4).

I was thinking to make suggestion about animist mechanic because I thought this expansion won't give them one, so I am really interested if animist is indeed going to get a new mechanic.

We known that in the next update continental SEA will have 3 new animist OPMs and Oceania (or at least Australia) will have a new religion.
Current areas where animist tags can be found are:
- All native councils in South America
- Some parts of Asia (Manipur, Ainu and Ryukyu are animist tags, animism is the religion in some Ming's provinces and there are 2 releasable tag inside Ming that are animist, Miao and Yi)
- Maritime SEA (some minor tags in Philipines and some minor tags in Indonesia)
- With the new patch we will have more 3 animist OPMs in continental SEA
Maybe if they are creating new mechanics for animist they will split animist in 2-3 religions, all of them using a similar mechanic, like coptic and zoroastrian use the same holy site mechanic but with different holy sites.

 

[Anarches]

We known that in the next update continental SEA will have 3 new animist OPMs and Oceania (or at least Australia) will have a new religion.

I must have missed this somehow, but where did we learn that Australia was getting a new religion?

 

[Sete]

Finally the devs know for a fact that players hated Golden Century. But the person responsible for it is gone for good thankfully so what this information will do I dont know.

Yep, I'm glad we can overwhelmingly agree that Golden Century was crap.

Will wait for some proper content for Iberia.
Hopefully with a colonization and trade company rework.

 

[IndigoRage]

I must have missed this somehow, but where did we learn that Australia was getting a new religion?

It was shown with a unique religion color in an overview image of SEA in a dev diary some time ago and it was clear enough there to see that there were also map changes. (Tiwi Island is a province) etc.

 

[FleetingRain]

Yeah I think it's going to be Animism, Groogy and neondt (RIP) probably thought together of something that could cover the SEA and SA (and maybe Pacific) animists.

 

[achmedino]

Maybe if they are creating new mechanics for animist they will split animist in 2-3 religions, all of them using a similar mechanic, like coptic and zoroastrian use the same holy site mechanic but with different holy sites.

Seeing as these societies are spread all over the world, and thus had very different belief systems, I think it is pretty likely that something like this will be the case. It would be kind of sad to have just one all-encompassing animist religion that unites completely different societies.

 

[svalan_i_dalen]

Carpet siege is an unfun micro heavy concept that should not be in the game.

Now you top it up by adding a paid QoL feature that makes the AI play the game for you since the game design is so broken an boring that the players want to automate it.

It is like selling pooped pants and then offer perfume as an addon.

 

[Roland Traveler]

No. The 5th place goes to the nation that forms a nation with mission tree, just better than the genuine nation, on November 11, 1444.

I feel attacked. Granted, I normally do this so the AI can actually form a hopefully strong nation (cough) Russia (cough), but sometimes I just want to jump straight into a Britain game without needing to sit on Scotland for five, six admin techs.

Not really sure you should add an Army Mission to a mechanic which should hardly be a thing.

Carpet Sieging? Is that really a thing we should look for in Eu4?

I dunno, seems like we are now promoting things that are not really healthy to overall gameplay.

I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but carpet sieging is already a part of EU4. Not even as a gamey mechanic, it’s necessary to do something like invade the Ottomans or any blob in the game. Does it really add that much strategy to the game to force the player to individually click on every province and manually split and recombine stacks?