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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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These changes look great! Thanks for all the hard work!

I don’t understand why marines need a penalty, at all. There’s a huge opportunity cost to getting marines for most nations in the first place. Why would they be inherently worse at absorbing shock damage?
I agree.
If Marines were a "regular" unit type that every nation could build at will, then a penalty to "normal combat" would be justified to diferentiate it from regular infantry.

But as it stands, Marines are very limited, and require a significant investment to be fielded in significant numbers (Taking Naval Ideas means you will have to give up on some other land military group), so it only makes sense for them to be an elite infantry type, like a unit such as Janissaries, Banners or Revolutionary Guards. I wouldn't give them any penalties, instead I would give them a combat power modifier in coastal provinces. The sailor cost of using them as normal infantry should already serve as deterrent enough to not use them for regular land combat in place of normal infantry.
Its not like this would be a big buff to any country that doesn't already need a military buff. England/G.B, Netherlands, Portugal and Venice (who get Marines "for free") have sub-par land combat ideas anyway, really only Castile has decent military ideas among "Free-Marine nations".
 
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Since navies now affect the liberty desire of your colonial subject, I wonder if it's a good idea to have them also affect the profitability of your Trade Companies (unless you have a land connection between your capital and the TC region?). It always seemed strange to me that you don't really need a standing navy in order to have colonies and overseas trade outposts, so now the first issue is fixed by the announced changes, it might be the time to fix the second issue too. In Empire: Total War they did a pretty decent job in representing that: if you have no navy to protect your trade ships from pirates, no African and Asian trade for you.
 
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This makes people who build a navy and those that don't light years apart. Naval combat should be addressed by making it more accessible not less so.

Historically it took years or even decades to build and train a dominant navy. Around the end of eu4s time period only 3 or 4 world powers could claim to have a proper blue water navy.

Right now you can not have a navy at all for 300 years and in a year build one strong enough to beat the royal navy. In real life this would have taken decades of planning at huge expense with no guarantee of success.
 
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Historically it took years or even decades to build and train a dominant navy. Around the end of eu4s time period only 3 or 4 world powers could claim to have a proper blue water navy.

Right now you can not have a navy at all for 300 years and in a year build one strong enough to beat the royal navy. In real life this would have taken decades of planning at huge expense with no guarantee of success.

You can also go from 0 regiments to infinity if you have enough gold and manpower. A 1K infantry regiment is built in 35 days. Ships by comparison take anywhere between 365 and 750 days which, in practice, means that you either have a fleet before the war started and can compete or you don't in which case you might as well not bother to build one. This can be realistically, but is it good for the game? Hell no.

The realism argument is missing the point that naval warfare in EU 4 is situationally important in part because there aren't enough historical compromises like there are on land.
 
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Historically it took years or even decades to build and train a dominant navy. Around the end of eu4s time period only 3 or 4 world powers could claim to have a proper blue water navy.

Right now you can not have a navy at all for 300 years and in a year build one strong enough to beat the royal navy. In real life this would have taken decades of planning at huge expense with no guarantee of success.

This could be somewhat reflected by imposing restrictions on shipbuilding.

E.g. you need a dockyard of certain size to build a ship. This would work especially well if ships were fitted into "ratings", so that 1st and 2nd rates required Tier 2 naval building, 3rd and 4th rates required Tier 1 naval buildings, and 5th and 6th rates didn't require them at all.

This would limit how many ships can be built at once and require sizable investments to upgrade to one.

In addition to this you could rebalance Docks and Shipyards. Move naval force limit and repair to the docks line (maintenance related stuff).
 
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This could be somewhat reflected by imposing restrictions on shipbuilding.

E.g. you need a dockyard of certain size to build a ship. This would work especially well if ships were fitted into "ratings", so that 1st and 2nd rates required Tier 2 naval building, 3rd and 4th rates required Tier 1 naval buildings, and 5th and 6th rates didn't require them at all.

This would limit how many ships can be built at once and require sizable investments to upgrade to one.

In addition to this you could rebalance Docks and Shipyards. Move naval force limit and repair to the docks line (maintenance related stuff).

This is the system in Victoria 2 and I do agree it could work well.
 
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You can also go from 0 regiments to infinity if you have enough gold and manpower. A 1K infantry regiment is built in 35 days. Ships by comparison take anywhere between 365 and 750 days which, in practice, means that you either have a fleet before the war started and can compete or you don't in which case you might as well not bother to build one. This can be realistically, but is it good for the game? Hell no.

The realism argument is missing the point that naval warfare in EU 4 is situationally important in part because there aren't enough historical compromises like there are on land.

But it's also ridiculous that you can just end up in a war and then decide you'll build 50 heavies at once and then go from having no navy to the largest navy in the world overnight.

Navies should be something that the player is actively have to maintain and build over time, not something that they ignore until the very moment they need it and then just flash-build. It also completely and utterly destroys the very idea of a decisive naval conflict when you can rebuild your entire navy basically overnight (waiting a few years for your navy to rebuild is basically nothing).
 
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A strong limitation on navies in this time period was also having enough sailors, so developers' change here on sailor costs should be a good limitation on building large navies if you haven't invested in docks and the naval offices. I also think that galleys should cost more sailors in early to mid-game compared to heavies but heavies should surpass them mid-game onward.

A strict problem is usefulness of navies however and as long as you can train troops overseas easily once you get a foothold that won't be solved. There needs to be incentive to build navies to be able to transport your armies and keep your trade lines, right now there is no incentive except to block straits and blockade coasts.
 
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Sailors make it harder to build and fight sustained naval wars. Also, naval tradition and idea groups impact your navy's capabilities in-game already. The situation is more applicable to multiplayer than singleplayer, but it affects both.
 
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The Venetian military relied heavily on the Fanti da Mar/Schiavoni depending on the period in game but typically speaking the regiment was not only the first modern understanding of marine as amphibious infantry but also the first permanent standing army regiment in Europe since the ancient era. They also tended to make up around 40-60% of the total military force at the Venetians had at their disposal both at peace and wartime, not the pitiful handful of units the game mechanics allow for, they were also typically far better fighters than the janissary troops they most often faced, making the whole 10% shock damage taken a bit weird considering they were for the most part powerful shock troops armed with a arquebus/musket, 2 pistols, a basket hilt sword and a yagatan long knife.


Heavy galley use in the Mediterranean wasn't about standing up to "heavies" They were just far more useful in the heavily coastal area thanks to the variable wind conditions. The idea that a galley is stronger than a heavy until 17th century is just kind of weird, especially considering that galleys were lightly built with a few guns running down the middle of the ship and only fired once or twice per engagement while the majority of the fighting was done in boarding action. The much lower hull form of the galley also made it quite vulnerable to the much higher built heavy style round ships. Not forgetting the original heavy warships of the era were originally designed by Genoa and Venice to enhance fleet abilities of their largely galley based navies. Large ships were then organised into composite navies and the galleys would help maneuver the heavier warships into the most favourable winds and positioning, enhacing their firepower. Galleys were also considerably useful in peacetime patrolling against pirates and corsairs which were common in the Mediterranean basin, it was far more the need to deal with these outlaw threats that elongated the lifespan of galley use than their wartime fighting abilities against what is obviously a superior fighting ship in the "heavy".


Royal navy isn't the entire use of sailors though, as I posted above the larger ships and fleet sizes of the Napoleonic era boosted Britain to having roughly 400-500 serving ships, most of which much larger than the 7 years period, while also supporting a massive merchant navy who themselves would require sailors, of which the Royal Navy dipped into frequently during wartime. Even considering the maritime fleet alone during the Napoleonic period of 19,000-22,000 ships this more than easily meets the whole 100k sailors on its own, while the Royal Navy would be manned and staffed by a strong 40,000 just to man half of their 3rd rates (roughly the number that would be active at any one time) Let alone the huge frigate fleet and larger battle ships.

I think there is only so much they can change .

Maybe a more accurate set up would be for Galleys to be faster in in land seas and at the start more sailor efficient but weaker. But as tech improves they lose that efficiency and they dont scale nearly as well.

I think its silly to not want to build heavies its should be more that you cant build that many heavies at least not in meaningful numbers until later.

And I do think Marines should be more like other elite regiments and come from manpower and have a cap effected by ideas etc.
 
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A strong limitation on navies in this time period was also having enough sailors, so developers' change here on sailor costs should be a good limitation on building large navies if you haven't invested in docks and the naval offices. I also think that galleys should cost more sailors in early to mid-game compared to heavies but heavies should surpass them mid-game onward.

A strict problem is usefulness of navies however and as long as you can train troops overseas easily once you get a foothold that won't be solved. There needs to be incentive to build navies to be able to transport your armies and keep your trade lines, right now there is no except to block straits and blockade coasts.

In SP sailors are already a big bottleneck for anyone that wants to have a navy. Try and start with a nation that has only a few coastal provinces or whose provinces don't have high development. You will be lucky if you can field 20 galleys without taking sailor attrition, let alone afford the sailors to build the damned things to begin with.

The only nations that don't hurt for sailors are the big boys that own a lot, a LOT of coastal provinces at 0% LA with good development. Everyone else already have a hard time competing.

The sailor increase is good but it is immediately countered by the sailor usage increase and, worse, the naval maintenance increase.
 
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We also made galleys more powerful in combat, by reducing their default engagement width to 0.5 instead of 1

i am worry about this change perhaps you are making galleys to strong. heavy ships use 3 combat width, so now 1 havy ship is ecual to 6 galleys (use to be 1 to 3)

i will use the current stats of the ships in an open sea battle

In early game a Early Carrack (heavy ship) has 40 cannons and 20 ship hull, when a Galley has 12 cannons and 8 ship hull. Adjusted to the combat width, cannons: 12x6=72(before 36) vs 40
Ship hull: 48 (before 24) vs 20.

In late game a Threedecker has 120 cannons and 60 ship hull, when Archipelago Frigate (Galley) has 36 cannons and 24 ship hull. Adjusted to the combat width, cannons: 36x6=216(before 108) vs 120
Ship hull: 144 (before 72) vs 60.

In general you can stack more galley combat ability than havy ship combat ability and galleys are sustancialy cheeper than havy ships so you can go over force limit with littel penalty.

So why galleys sees to be so good but they aren't? Moral, when a ship is sunk all the fleet recives a moral damage. so in big battles galleys use to sunk 1.5-2 per 1 heavy at the start but when the battle contineu the recerves of the side with galleys join the battlel with the double of moral hits surrending before so the ratio start to become 2,3,4,5,6... per heavy ship. this change in emperator when it was intruduce the disengache mecanic, and you can still avoid the moral recerve damage as simple as reinforcing the battle slowly.

So in recap. I am worry about change the combat beacause essencialy you double the galleys stats. The havy ships will became useless even in open sea battles.
I imagin this will happen seeing only the numbers but perhapps in your test for some reason that i am not considering don't happen. i hoppe i am wrong or you are planing to introduce more changes?
 
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In SP sailors are already a big bottleneck for anyone that wants to have a navy. Try and start with a nation that has only a few coastal provinces or whose provinces don't have high development. You will be lucky if you can field 20 galleys without taking sailor attrition, let alone afford the sailors to build the damned things to begin with.

The only nations that don't hurt for sailors are the big boys that own a lot, a LOT of coastal provinces at 0% LA with good development. Everyone else already have a hard time competing.

The sailor increase is good but it is immediately countered by the sailor usage increase and, worse, the naval maintenance increase.

Wishful thinking that heavies will become extremely powerful so its possible to only field a few but still wield a lot of power
 
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Can you change the transport ship pathing to avoid the open sea while tranporting troops? always quite a horror to land an army in the new world to find its at half strength. Otherwise looks good! I'm looking forward to playing around with this
 
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This could be somewhat reflected by imposing restrictions on shipbuilding.

E.g. you need a dockyard of certain size to build a ship. This would work especially well if ships were fitted into "ratings", so that 1st and 2nd rates required Tier 2 naval building, 3rd and 4th rates required Tier 1 naval buildings, and 5th and 6th rates didn't require them at all.

This would limit how many ships can be built at once and require sizable investments to upgrade to one.

In addition to this you could rebalance Docks and Shipyards. Move naval force limit and repair to the docks line (maintenance related stuff).
I like you r idea in general the only problem is that you only get the higher tier naval buildings at higher levels of tech, so how would you construct heavies in early game?
 
Speaking marines, can you give Spain access to these naturally? It is strange that Castile has them but not Spain, especially when the latter was the one that had the overseas empire.
 

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