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EU4 - Development Diary - 6th of October 2020

Welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. Today we’ll talk about some major game-balance changes that we are doing regarding the naval game in 1.31.

I’m not really all that great at writing long detailed development diaries, but as this one is filled with gamebalance changes, I hope you can bear with me.

First of all, we have changed the amount of Sailors you get from each development from 30 sailors to 60. This will make the amount of sailors you get scale better through the ages.

Secondly we also change the amount of sailors each ship requires, and to make them require more sailors for more advanced models. Galleys now go from 60 sailors to 180 sailors for an Archipelago Frigate, while a Three Decker will require 900 sailors.

We also made galleys more powerful in combat, by reducing their default engagement width to 0.5 instead of 1.

Speaking of naval engagement width, it now starts at 5-25 depending on tech at start, and goes all the way up to 75 at the end of the game, scaling more like land combat does. At the same time, we reduced the naval engagement width by 20% in coastal sea zones.

Two other aspects that changes by technology as well for the naval game is maintenance, which will increase over time just like it does for amies as you advance through technology, and most importantly that more advanced ships will become far faster, with the most advanced ships being 50% faster than the earliest model of the same type. Galleys however, only increase speed by 25%.

All of these fixes are there to make the naval game have more of a natural progress in quality and cost that is not just more guns on a new ship.


One other thing that will make you happy is that we changed the support mechanics for leaders, so now there is one pool for naval leaders and one for land leaders. If you have more than you can support in naval leaders it will now cost you diplomatic power and if you have more than you can support in land leaders, then it will cost you military power as all leaders did before. This will give you more leaders overall, and make it possible for you to have naval leaders as well.

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Another change we are doing is making your naval power matter as much as your army power when it comes to the Liberty Desire of your overseas subjects. So if you don’t have a strong fleet your colonial nations will definitely start considering independence.

We introduced marines with 1.30, but they were a bit too weak and situational, so they are getting one major change in that their penalty has been changed from +25% shock damage taken to only +10% shock damage taken. We also increased the amount you get from naval ideas from +5% to 10%.

Finally, we also made it impossible for nations to slave raid on any territory that they have a truce with, so now you can actually protect yourself efficiently against the raiders.


Next week Groogy will take you through why hedgehogs are holy.
 
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And why should I bother with navies now that they are more expensive both in terms of sailors and ducats?
 
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This doesn't fix anything. The only good change here is the raiding change, but raiding shouldn't even be a mechanic past 1500 anyways
Why wouldn't it be a mechanic past 1500?
Constant slave raids of Christian coastal territories by the Barbary Pirates actually started around 1500 and went on until the first half of the 19th century. It was a constant threat and scourge for all small fishing villages along the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Atlantic coast - they went as far as Iceland in 1627.
If you've ever been to southern Spain, the Balearic islands, the Canary islands, Sardinia or Sicily, you may have seen the many rather picturesque watchtowers spread along the coastline. These were part of a network designed to protect against corsair raids from North Africa that was started under Charles V (or actually Carlos I in Spain). The last of those towers were built in the late 18th century and the network was very much actively maintained until the 19th century.
Even the USA's Barbary Wars and the Anglo-Dutch raid of Algiers in 1816 did not fully stop this - only French occupation of Algeria and Tunisia really did.

My point being: slave raids were very much a thing throughout the whole EU4 timespan.
 
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Thats actually the amount of crew the fully staffed HMS Victory had.

And are we going to see GBs in eu4 with over 100k sailors? Yes its very possible if you build for it, but the X happened in real life argument is so stupid. Why can't I full annex Mamluks in one war? It happened in real life..
 
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Coastal defenses:
When coastal defenses were anounced I suggested that they should block or diminish the impact of coastal raiding. I still think that this should be the case when balancing raiding. Even more because that building has become very disliked, at least give it more utility.

Aside from that, raiding should provide a causus belli to all affected countries immediately so that they can stop the raiding and recover the wealth. Maybe a way of getting a modifier that last longer than a truce to prevent raiding instead of reacting to it?

Naval hegemonies:
Speaking of heavy ships and balancing... Currently to become a naval hegemony you need to have at least 250 heavies. It was an unrealistic number and now with that balancing naval nations are expected to have even less. I hope this balancing doesn't forget numbers like this one (and well, maybe 1.31 could rethink hegemonies in general and make them a more engaging mechanic that really helps the endgame to feel different :) ).
 
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And are we going to see GBs in eu4 with over 100k sailors?

Considering that GB was hard pressed for sailors, so much that they had the press and could basically force anyone to server on their ships, and the navy did often steal sailors from the merchant marine while also having far fewer heavy ships than what you can have in EU4 I doubt that your 100k number is anywhere near historical.


Next week Groogy will take you through why hedgehogs are holy

So an updated CK2 converter which can accurately portrait Animal World/Kingdom games?
 
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Considering that GB was hard pressed for sailors, so much that they had the press and could basically force anyone to server on their ships, and the navy did often steal sailors from the merchant marine while also having far fewer heavy ships than what you can have in EU4 I doubt that your 100k number is anywhere near historical.




So an updated CK2 converter which can accurately portrait Animal World/Kingdom games?

Look at the British Navy casualties in the Seven Years War.
 
Really loving the split up of naval and army leaders! This means I can finally hire explorers without constantly being over the leader limit!

Will the +1 leader slots from maritime and innovative only apply to navy and army leaders, respectively? Or will they add a slot to both (which would make that idea really good). Someone else already asked about the effect of power projection, but that's in a similar vein so I might as well ask it again.
 
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Nice-looking balance changes.
 
I agree with the person who earlier said that coastal defenses should protect against coastal raids; playing as France right now and I would definitely build them on my mediteranean coasts if they made them invulnerable to raids so I could use my navy against England without that big devastation hit.
 
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Why can't I full annex Mamluks in one war? It happened in real life..

Because player Mamluks would have an instant game over after they lose one war to the Ottomans. It wouldn't be fun. However, the mechanic would have to limited to where either you are the Ottomans, or they're both AI.
 
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Yes! Seperate Leader pools! Love the changes coming to the naval game. Intrigued about the upcoming DD. This DLC seems to have a... global focus.
 
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Finally, we also made it impossible for nations to slave raid on any territory that they have a truce with, so now you can actually protect yourself efficiently against the raiders.

While this is a good change, it would be great to have a way to establish a truce without having to do a no-CB war! How about a CB that lets you win battles and blockade cities if you're getting your coasts raided, in order to establish a truce?

On the same subject, it would sure be nice if my anti-pirate fleet getting distracted for 1 month didn't cause every province in a trade node to get raided at once. Please give players better tools for deterring pirate raids, as they're rather annoying now but hard to stop without a ton of effort.
 
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This doesn't fix anything. The only good change here is the raiding change, but raiding shouldn't even be a mechanic past 1500 anyways

What? Why? Barbary pirates continued raiding into the 1800s
 
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View attachment 637913
So if things are getting improved from Pacific to Atlantic then how about adding an improved notification with number showing the amount of alerts (on pic). It would be very helpful for missions if you want to complete one mission later to avoid wasting reward i.e. in that moment when having 100 prestige. So if you'd complete 2 or more missions this improved notification panel'd show how many. Anyone else wants this?

... everyone liked that.

@Groogy I consider having a counter on notifciations like the HRE one and missions really a must-have.
Otherwise you are forced to check them out manually every few month ticks to not miss out on anything.
Truces on the other hand can easily be accessed via own diplomatic overview and you already get a notification on default when they run out.
 
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and most importantly that more advanced ships will become far faster, with the most advanced ships being 50% faster than the earliest model of the same type. Galleys however, only increase speed by 25%.

Could we also subdivide some of the larger naval regions into smaller ones? Speed makes much more of a difference on a map with many small provinces than a few large ones.
 
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Mixed feelings, mostly relief that naval got looked at to further the changes that had already been occuring with the move over to the sailor system and them moving in and out of combat with a better UI (old history as far as features go) but the repair rather than recruit costs of ships seems so enormous that im probably going to by end-game not know what to do with managing the resources of my sailors as repairing them will leave me in immense costing issues that could last till game-end to refill any subsequently large navy.
  • It being played off as significant speed engagement boosts which i am in favor of and understand the benefits especially with a good admiral making them more often than not probably functionally immortal if given enough time to tactically retreat, but im terrified to actually let loose my top of the line 30-decker because it'll break my economic purse strings, not that i can build boats seperate to the technology pattern template.

If anybody would like to chalk out the maths, it takes 2 years to fill a heavy ship with as many sailors as it has now upon construction, and a significant drain going at full naval maintenance to rebuild them at the pace set by locally provincial shipyards, so where is the tail-end of the nessecary late game sustainability through sailor economy? Sorry to typecast but it seems like a playtest oversight.

  • The player probably also needs a significant prompt UI wise to tell them about downgrading their ships to run more efficiently and to resist the lure of the ("upgrade ship") button to avoid a mindless punishment as the boat is prepared from 0% health to be sea-worthy.
 
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