EU4 - Development Diary - 8th of September 2020

[Mister X]

Very nice.

Another thing would be to limit how big a state can be - their lack of horses is truly a problem for empire building. There should be a modifier. When horses appear in a province they function similarly to an institution but spread fast, exponentially. They'll stay in one province for a while, then spread to another...

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

Currently my main aim is to get Mississippi in, but if I have more time I can try.


I've changed to Natives can adopt institutions, they can just not dev for them. Americans were not dumb when they saw horses and guns they knew "dat shit be good yo" so I felt it was wrong locking them out like that. How they will reform off Europeans or not reform of them at all is something I'll cover in a later dev diary

What about boats? Getting the ability to build transports through a reform or something would be kinda nice...

 

[Big Kahuna Burger]

While I'm no expert on every single Native American culture and the history of every tribe, I do know that the "one-size fits all" approach to tribes is historically inaccurate. While yes, for the most part, nearly all tribes in the Great Plains area migrated along with the bison for food and resources, that's simply not the case for tribes along the Eastern seaboard and tribes along the Appalachian Mountains. Some had seasonal hunting grounds they would move into, while others stayed in large swaths of territory and fought other tribes for hunting rights in that territory (a good example being the Catawba and Cherokee tribes fighting for hunting rights for decades in the North Carolina and South Carolina border area). Not every tribe had the same concept of land ownership and not every tribe had the same hunting system. What I'm getting at is that in the new update the game should try to emulate this as much as possible. Maybe limiting tribal migration by culture? And, as others have pointed out, the planned devastation system isn't true to life. While it would be a Herculean task for EU4 to truly emulate real life in every aspect, maybe a new modifier could be added? Something along the lines of giving you rewards via province modifiers or event when you migrate to that province? And say every year or so, the modifier moves to an adjacent province in a specific colonial region, and over time if you don't migrate you could receive negative province modifiers or events? This way the migration of bison, and the tribes fallowing those bison, could be more accurately simulated. Hopefully this wasn't a godawful idea and I didn't waste your or my time. Thanks anyways to anyone who reads this, and regardless I would like to say I'm excited for the new update

 

[PikaPilot]

Will there be a redrawing of the map of the East Coast in the next update? Currently, it is far too easy for colonizers to cross the Appalachian mountains and raid midwestern tribes than it was historically. It needs a hard terrain border like the Carpathian mountains in Hungary.

 

[Big Kahuna Burger]

Will there be a redrawing of the map of the East Coast in the next update? Currently, it is far too easy for colonizers to cross the Appalachian mountains and raid midwestern tribes than it was historically. It needs a hard terrain border like the Carpathian mountains in Hungary.

Maybe some impassible terrain, but it shouldn't be wholly impassible. In real life the primary thing preventing American/British colonization west of the Appalachians wasn't the mountain chain itself (although it did play a role, especially very early on in the colonization of the Americas) but the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which essentially outlawed settlement past the Appalachians.

 

[IndigoRage]

I don't know if this really makes sense for the Iroquois since their provinces all represent different member tribes in the larger confederation. IE: Having only one of the provinces be 'occupied' at any given time when the Iroquois were made up of multiple different groups' territories doesn't make any sense.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Unexpected, but welcome. Looks like nice way to make Native American tribes a tad more historically accurate.
By the way, have the devs given any thought to extending the "Stateless Society" reform to North American Native tribes? It seems like it would be a good for for both realism and for gameplay (make it harder for Europeans to roll them).

 

[Red Death]

If you completely annex a tribe, what happens to their tribal development?

I would be amazing if they just moved to another one of their semi-controlled provinces rather than being completely annexed.

 

[Canute VII]

How you gain reform progress is going to be different and something we are currently working on. We won’t be relying on the average autonomy as that won’t make sense and right now we have it mainly comes from buildings (that migrate with you mind you) but as always I am keen to listen to community suggestions

Well, it's a bit hard to come forward with a suggestion since I don't really see the big picture of your vision, yet. Anyway, I will just try to present an idea, it's to you how sensible and fitting this may be.

The central idea is based on the recognition that native tribes in your screenshots (still) do not have a "legitimacy"-like value. How about changing this?

• let's call this "legitimacy"-like value for native tribes "hierarchy" (is there's a better name?) to represent the stratification and organisation of your tribe
• "hierarchy" over 50% gives +1 monthly government reform progess (scaling), "hierarchy" below 50% gives -1 reform progress (scaling)
• the natives government types start with -50% governing capacity and then "hierarchy" over 50% gives +50% government capacity (scaling), "hierarchy" below 50% gives -50% capacity (scaling) (someone in this thread mentioned the "stateless societies" that's why I thought this might be cool!?)
• "hierarchy" is effected by prestige just like legitimacy is
• you can raise "hierarchy" by "strengten government"
• being a member of a federation gives +1 monthly/yearly "hierarchy", maybe the federation leader gets sth extra (maybe depending on "federal authority")?
• recruiting a leader gives a flat amount of hierarchy (e.g. +5?)
• having "hunting grounds" gives a monthly increase of hierarchy per province (e.g. +0.1?)
• migrating gives a flat reduction of hierarchy (maybe -5 like for royal marriages in monarchies?) - thus you don't need the monarch point cost anymore
• maybe the migration cooldown in national traditions etc. could then be transferred into a reduction on the effects on hierarchy?
• (but why would we migrate then anyway other than evade the devastation? Maybe we don't need the devastation, but migrating could be tied into "reforming the religion" and we need to migrate in order to "reform religion" - similar to how I have suggested in this thread )
• random though: maybe "federal authority" could be transitioned somehow into what I have described as "hierarchy"?

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

But that is railroading if you don't allow the AI to use the mechanics to the best of its ability.
If too undesirable results then occur then it's because the mechanics aren't realistic enough.
Why should things go like in history just because the player does things like in history (also, the player won't be able to do that. Way too many things are abstracted, plus even disregarding that it's gonna be super hard to hit the exact time schedules, not to mention the rulers not being as they were in history and hence it never being historical anyway), despite how much of history is the result of flukes.

How does it lead to contraditcions?

Then the problem is the war of the roses not being punishing enough. And internal mechanics not enough/there not being enouhg to do on the continent.

Also, Scotland inherited England already in 1603. Just because the two countries didn't formally merge until 1707 doesn't change that the PU happened in 1603. And what prevents it from happening earlier? If your ruler only gets girls then what prevents England from getting PUd by Scotland a century earlier?
And if you e.g. avoid the war of the roses then the rulers are gonna be completely up, so it well could be that your ruler can't sire an heir.

Why should the AI try to follow historical paths? Often those paths were not realistic at all, but rather the result of flukes and very unlikely. Many historical events would be considered outlandish if they hadn't happned IRL.
For instance Sweden marching an entire army across frozen seas to invade Denmark. That's something which would be considered outragous and unrealistic if it hadn't happened.

Also, there's many examples fo things which happened in history, but which in 1444 weren't at all destined to happen. For instance in 1444 Denmark was the big dog in the North and Sweden only overtook us by the mid 1600s. Why should the AI strive for that to happen, despite how it was a result of a serious of luck based events? Change some key events and it wouldn't have happened.

Heck, have Christian II be a bit less antagonistic against the nobility, or alternatively have him have full support of Charles V (whose sister he was married to), and the Kalmar Union probably wouldn't ahve broke. Espceailly not if Gustav Vasa hadn't been able to escape from Kalø. Christian II actually was a good king and far from a tyrant (the Swedes just know him as that as the only way to depose a king back then was to denounce him as a tyrant). He was a king of the people so to say. For instance his 1520 base laws among other things made life easier for the peasantry and the bourgeisie/merchants. Which was part of why the nobility disliked him and later deposed him. He was ahead of his time and even had protection of women in that base law. For instance he made it illegal to be violent against whores at the whorehouse.

Why should the AI strive to have the union break and Sweden overtake Denmark whenever you don't play in the region?
To just take one example of a historical event which was far from being predestined.

What you're suggestion would be railroading. Not ironclad railroading, but railroading none the less.

Most certainly. That would be her getting more inolved on the continent and is something she probably also would ahve done in case she'd won it IRL.

How is Portugal colonising different places necessarily bad? And as we already talked about earlier in thread then Portugal can't really go to the Far East as she's too weak for that .

The Cherokee were to a large degree Europeanised, though, so that would count as a reformed native, I'd say.

That could work, but what carrot would be big enough to prevent the player from just disregarding it? I don't think prosperity is good enough.


Yep. Though it shuld be possible to keep colonies in reigns. For instance had Spain and Portugal not been ravaged by Napoleon then it's questionable if their colonies had broken away, or at least as fast as they did. For instance Peru were quite loyal and Spain actually being able to send proper support could have changed things drastically.

Similarly the US might very wll have remained loyal if England had given her representation. And without French aid she'd have lost the indy war.

Never had a colonial indy war, so don't know how it works warscore wise, but it should be possible for the motherland to force the entire colonial nation back into the fold, even if she holds over 100% warscore value in provinces.

Because I play these games for the historical element.
100% historical accuracy is obviously impossible and not even desirable, some divergence is innevitable and desirable, but there comes a point where it just completely breaks all immersion and i lose interest.
Call it railroading, I don't care, I strongly belive the AI should be weightened towards their historical routes and achievements. If I wanted to play a sandbox map paiting game with some historical flavour I'd play Civ games.

 

[IndigoRage]

1. That's just regurgitating the Noble Savage trope.

2. The "devastation" in this case is clearly portraying a different sort of thing compared to 30 Years War or Mongol conquest style destruction. It looks like it's meant to represent stuff like letting local resources recover after exploitation;

3. Which actually IS closer to "living in harmony with nature" than just staying in one place for too long. You know, letting wild game repopulate, giving farming land time to recover since they probably don't have stuff like crop rotation and fertilizers.

Sure, they COULD come up with a totally new mechanic but using devastation with large recovery modifiers for tribal controlled land seems a lot easier.

If anything, depicting patterns of necessary migration and shifting cultivation is more respectful to indigenous groups than just depicting them as some kind of Tolkien Elves. I suppose it would be possible to attach another word to it than "devastation", but one of the biggest complaints EU4 players have is one-off new mechanics and systems. No reason not to use a framework we already have.

 

[Groogy]

I would be amazing if they just moved to another one of their semi-controlled provinces rather than being completely annexed.

This is the general idea

 

[Groogy]

I don't know if this really makes sense for the Iroquois since their provinces all represent different member tribes in the larger confederation. IE: Having only one of the provinces be 'occupied' at any given time when the Iroquois were made up of multiple different groups' territories doesn't make any sense.

Having said so both in DD and in the thread, the Iroquois will look nothing like this when done as they'll be represented using new federation mechanics.

If anything, depicting patterns of necessary migration and shifting cultivation is more respectful to indigenous groups than just depicting them as some kind of Tolkien Elves. I suppose it would be possible to attach another word to it than "devastation", but one of the biggest complaints EU4 players have is one-off new mechanics and systems. No reason not to use a framework we already have.

This is the general idea, yes. I didn't consider how people would react to the name devastation but in general it is to represent the depletion of resources and a need to move on. If it is a settled tribe then it's not something they need to worry about.

 

[IndigoRage]

Having said so both in DD and in the thread, the Iroquois will look nothing like this when done as they'll be represented using new federation mechanics.



This is the general idea, yes. I didn't consider how people would react to the name devastation but in general it is to represent the depletion of resources and a need to move on. If it is a settled tribe then it's not something they need to worry about.

I see. I'm happy about that. I was confused because we don't often see map images that are this WIP/proof of concept in dev diaries and I kind of skimmed.

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

As someone who owns Conquest of Paradise, amazing! Gör om gör rätt as we say in swedish.

Speaking of which, could we get a northern Sweden/Scandinavia rework, pretty please? The area I live in wasn't under swedish (or danish, if you count the union) control in 1444, and despite being born and raised swedish I despice having to be bundled with the rest of Sweden throughout most of history.

I'd also like to chime in and say that I would play as the North American natives if the spread of disease was added as a terrible event/disaster. I know very little about history over there, but from a gameplay standpoint I think it sounds really interesting to start out highly developed, only to be struck by the greatest of catastrophes. Could make for fun strategies too, like retreating west to regain strength while the europeans use the opportunity to expand closer to the coast. But as I said, I don't know much about history there, I'm just saying I would play as them if that was made the case. Also, it could always be tied to difficulty or some game-rule. That way it might just be possible to please everyone.

Finally I'd like to make a really crazy suggestion, could we get a random old world too? Would make playing as native Americans much less predictable and thus IMO more historical.

 

[Sappho of Lesbos]

If you want to be that specific then Portugal should already start with a colonist because they began colonizing Madeira in 1419.
But i'll give you this argument, even if England started colonising in 1588 that alone would already be a massive improvement on making colonization more realistic, hell i would even be happy if they started in 1520-30 even. But as it stands they usually start in 1480-90 which is too early imo.

And in before you argue about John Cabot, he is gained via Event, so England could still get the event and gain an explore early on, but not a colonist.


They clearly should, if you play as them and choose to do so ofc.
Any country in the hands of the player should be able to take exploration at the first idea and dominate the colonial game if they focus on doing as much.
But in my opinion, at the hands of the A.I, the countries should try to stick to their historical routes unless the global context makes that route impossible, unrealistic, or opens a much more profitable opportunity.
So an A.I England in a game that remains fairly historical in Western Europe should only take Exploration the 16th century (I'd say about their 4th idea).


Below average at best. It took them 300 years to colonize the same area as Spain did in 50 and England and France did in 100.


Because it only had a population of 1.5 Milion people.
You can't settle if you don't have the settlers to do so, colonization speed should be somehow influenced by your "population" (abstracted by core development or core province number or smth)


There is a very specific gameplay reason they don't. They can't. They are too weak to do it. Even as the player it requires some insane exploitation and experience to be able to pull off an Historical Portuguese run in the Far East.

Honestly, I don't think colonization can be properly implemented without some sort of pop mechanic. Imperator has a good system.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Because I play these games for the historical element.
100% historical accuracy is obviously impossible and not even desirable, some divergence is innevitable and desirable, but there comes a point where it just completely breaks all immersion and i lose interest.
Call it railroading, I don't care, I strongly belive the AI should be weightened towards their historical routes and achievements. If I wanted to play a sandbox map paiting game with some historical flavour I'd play Civ games.

I play them for the historical element too.
Just seems we value different parts of it/have different ideas about it.

I think it's immersion breaking to have the AI do things which make no sense in the situation just because those thigns happened IRL. As mentioned lots of events happened due to flukes or other types of events which were really unlikely.
And any person easily could not have been born. E.g. say that Hitler's parents went to a bar that night in 1888. Then he never would have been born.
Whenever you play the few characters, mostly rulers, which after all are in game won't be the same as in history and even if named the same won't be born at the same times. As such you can't xpect them to do the same things.

Unless it's a simulation you want as opposed to be game then things will deviate. And personally then I don't have any immersion problems as long as the mechanics guiding this deviation make sense and are historically plausible.

 

[Ishmael_Dandalo]

This is the general idea, yes. I didn't consider how people would react to the name devastation but in general it is to represent the depletion of resources and a need to move on. If it is a settled tribe then it's not something they need to worry about.

The fact that Native Americans passively gain development does make it better. I didn't fully appreciate how all of the mechanics fit together when I first read the diary. I'm really interested in the history of Early America and from what I've read of the historiography of American history and from what I've experienced firsthand, there are two competing forces stereotyping indigenous people as either Edenic stewards of the land or primitive over-consumers as seen in the "overkill hypothesis" of megafaunal extinction (a hypothesis that is increasingly questionable). Neither stereotype is true of course and I think it can be hard to strike an appropriate balance, but the passive increase to development goes a long ways to strike that.

I'm excited to see the changes to Federations!

Edit: I say that the devastation/passive development strikes a better balance because it seems to represent indigenous peoples leaving an impact on the land (devastation) but also getting way more out of it than other people (passive development).

 

[IndigoRage]

The fact that Native Americans passively gain development does make it better. I didn't fully appreciate how all of the mechanics fit together when I first read the diary. I'm really interested in the history of Early America and from what I've read of the historiography of American history and from what I've experienced firsthand, there are two competing forces stereotyping indigenous people as either Edenic stewards of the land or primitive over-consumers as seen in the "overkill hypothesis" of megafaunal extinction (a hypothesis that is increasingly questionable). Neither stereotype is true of course and I think it can be hard to strike an appropriate balance, but the passive increase to development goes a long ways to strike that.

I'm excited to see the changes to Federations!

Knowing about terms and concepts like Shifting Cultivation makes it a lot easier to understand certain peoples without seeing them as either Tolkien Elves or vicious unstoppable barbarians who destroy everything in their path, tbh.

 

[Ishmael_Dandalo]

Knowing about terms and concepts like Shifting Cultivation makes it a lot easier to understand certain peoples without seeing them as either Tolkien Elves or vicious unstoppable barbarians who destroy everything in their path, tbh.

Agreed. There's so much cultural baggage tied up in ideas about how civilizations "are supposed to develop" that it can be difficult to talk about indigenous North Americans as they actually were. Of course it doesn't help that they were genuine ideological and practical differences between early modern Americans and Eurasians.