EUIV - Development Diary - 14th of January 2020

[tip001]

I just scanned the new DD and got thru the first 6 pages of comments (I am too lazy to go into detail), saw some peculiar stuff. Although it is certainly showing ambition it seems certain parts are not fleshed out and come across as a bit on the wild side. Apart from the already communicated merc nerf which will hurt the game immensely imo we now learn about a new TC setup where we (after scanning) cant form it if you have same religion, for completely unknown reasons. You talk about making the game more fun by making it more simple and yet introduce a game breaker for many tags.
As I am a little disorganized I also saw some comments on what to do with cav to make it more useful as was historical. As I am used to delete cav from game start I gave it a thought just to challenge comfort level. Cav was not only used for battle but more so as supply train. So just in minutes I figured out you can make cav increase your movement speed and supply liit. It was that easy. We used cav in WW2 in huge numbers for god sake.
Could seem a rant but still hope we can play the game for more than a month again with 1.30. Just hope for the best.

 

[YordleButtLover]

Not sure if anyone brought this up but, the development change seems to be rather problematic for the Mughals

 

[Darius Gillingham]

What I want to see next is having the old mission system along with the mission trees

 

[Will Steel]

Talking about government reforms, I hope you guys have fixed the "Political Dynasties" reform in republics. It was broken and was generating random characters instead of intended family members. It has been awaiting a fix for a long time.

This is a meaty dev diary, really excited to try out new builds now.

 

[Uradel]

How will the Archduchy of Austria factor into the new government system? It seems that they should receive some kind of bonus that allows them to maintain considerable amounts of territory especially if they are the emperor and also factoring the large acquisition of land from the Burgundian inheritance? The current government reform for Austrian Archduchy does not seem very appealing, the only benefit being the decreased liberty desire. Perhaps some administrative benefit for the new government system would fit nicely such as increased capability for states and possibly decreased autonomy for lands acquisitioned by marriage instead of conquest (Low Countries, Bohemia, Hungary, or any other unfortunate victim of a Habsburg marriage)?

 

[mGarb]

I don’t see why you are going to instantly have a “mega coalition” by hitting your cap. You still have all the mechanisms to reduce the impact of AE you will just get more. At twice your governing capacity you are the same as taking land in the HRE, impactful but not an immediate “you can’t conquer anything”.

And you also have some ability to manage your Governing Capacity by deciding what to state and not.

The devil is absolutely in the details and how the numbers work out, but the basic concept doesn’t seem unsound time me.

imagine taking land in the HRE for every where in the world that also scales, 2 or 3 10-15 dev provinces will have everyone in Germany and around you ready to stick their foot in your ass and remove you from the game. Compound this with the fact coalitions are not religion locked, so these sunnis you've been beating up in india suddenly band together with a bunch of europeans you havent touched because of this change? Kinda stupid isnt it?

Honestly, if youre going to have to build courthouses in every province why not just leave territory corruption in? It's basically the same thing afterall, with believe it or not, way less dumb penalties than this. I'd even argue for giving more incentives to playing tall and still remove corruption from territories/this state limit thing out of the game period.

As for people saying WC shouldnt be easy I've got news for you, they havent been difficult and probably never will be, anyone who h as a decent bit of multi tasking, or played any sort of competitive rts(warcraft/starcraft etc) WC in this game is a walk in the park compared to playing those at any sort of not terrible level. The quicker one gets over this being a huge strategy game and begins thinking of it as more of an RTS with some extra features/a pause button the more you realize how easy the game can actually be if you have a grasp on the basic concepts. I enjoy eu4 quite a bit, but you don't see arbitrary limitations put on you for taking over the entire world in say Hoi4 or something, and its vastly easier and just as tedious to do it there too.

 

[Ash7ling]

A great patch, so excited about the trade company change. Finally, I don't need mods if I play in China and India. Just a piece of advice, maybe consider making India a stand-alone continent as historically the Himalayas separated the Indian sub-continent from China. Or the other way around makes china, Japan and Korea 'East Asia'. This way the Japanese and Chinese can make trade companies in India and vice versa.

 

[Major Malfunction]

• Province religion must be of a different religious group than the owning nation

• Province must be considered overseas both from nation and any subjects of nation, not including tributaries.

• Province must not be part of the HRE

Why? Why? That was the only reason to make colnizing Siberia worthwhile. Turning this worthless land into a trade company could at least have some benefit for +goods produced and other TC stuff. And now Russia gameplay will remain the seam - go to Persia and India to get TC, instead of making Siberia, with all dozens of dozens of arctic 1-1-1 provinces worth colonizing.

 

[Atalvyr]

Why? Why? That was the only reason to make colnizing Siberia worthwhile. Turning this worthless land into a trade company could at least have some benefit for +goods produced and other TC stuff. And now Russia gameplay will remain the seam - go to Persia and India to get TC, instead of making Siberia, with all dozens of dozens of arctic 1-1-1 provinces worth colonizing.

I would certainly be in favor of treating "almost-wasteland" areas as special cases in this regards. Even today large parts of Siberia is more "wild west" than integrated parts of Russia. I could see the high-autonomy trade company solution as a good way to simulate this.

One could also make the case that places like Greenland was similarly never really a part of the colonizers territory as such. Though in this specific case, perhaps making them a colonial region is more appropriate.

 

[nasuhdede]

When will the new patch be ready to play, is that any time? I want to start a new 1444 game wondering.

 

[raikaria]

As someone who has been a long-time fan of Theocracies; I'm honestly kind of torn on the changes.

I liked being able to fill out the Theocratic reforms quickly; as it gives you the option to secularize if you want quickly; and the Theocratic reforms are quite powerful. [Especially combined with Devotion, which is also strong].

On the other hand, the reforms themselves are nice, and it makes Theocracies scale even better. I think it could be akin to Common Sense where Theocracies are quite powerful.

Also; I can see Tibet being really; really strong. [Tibet gets a free event to go Theocratic; and starts Tribal anyway so can just reform]

- Vajrayana gives 5% Morale; and can give 5% Discipline as well

- Tibetian Ideas give +1 Shock and +5% Discipline

- The existing Tier 3 Reforms gives +10% morale

- At Tier 4 you can get Intergration as an Eastern Religion; for 10% Infantry Combat and another 5% discipline

- Both Tier 2 and Tier 8 seem capable of giving you Warscore cost v Other Religions, allowing you to invade India and China at an extreme rate. [The latter can also be combined with claim Mandate CB]

And you can go Monastic Order and take A Dynastic Order; for cheap forts in those Tibetian mountains and another +1 Shock.

That's +15% Discipline; +10% Morale; +10% Infantry Combat; +2 Shock...

 

[Alfray Stryke]

As someone who has been a long-time fan of Theocracies; I'm honestly kind of torn on the changes.

I liked being able to fill out the Theocratic reforms quickly; as it gives you the option to secularize if you want quickly; and the Theocratic reforms are quite powerful. [Especially combined with Devotion, which is also strong].

On the other hand, the reforms themselves are nice, and it makes Theocracies scale even better. I think it could be akin to Common Sense where Theocracies are quite powerful.

Also; I can see Tibet being really; really strong. [Tibet gets a free event to go Theocratic; and starts Tribal anyway so can just reform]

- Vajrayana gives 5% Morale; and can give 5% Discipline as well

- Tibetian Ideas give +1 Shock and +5% Discipline

- The existing Tier 3 Reforms gives +10% morale

- At Tier 4 you can get Intergration as an Eastern Religion; for 10% Infantry Combat and another 5% discipline

- Both Tier 2 and Tier 8 seem capable of giving you Warscore cost v Other Religions, allowing you to invade India and China at an extreme rate. [The latter can also be combined with claim Mandate CB]

And you can go Monastic Order and take A Dynastic Order; for cheap forts in those Tibetian mountains and another +1 Shock.

That's +15% Discipline; +10% Morale; +10% Infantry Combat; +2 Shock...

It was clarified that that External Mission no longer gives the Warscore bonus against Other Religions.

Something I would like to clarify as quite a lot of questions regarding the Theocracy reforms revolve around it. External Mission no longer gives -20% warscore cost against foreign religions.

 

[LeandroB]

I'm starting to get tired of these short DDs, make longer ones next time.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

I'm starting to get tired of these short DDs, make longer ones next time.

To be honest, i prefer one short DD every week (like before) than waiting a month (or more, like in this case) for a larger DD.

 

[brifbates]

As for people saying WC shouldnt be easy I've got news for you, they havent been difficult and probably never will be, anyone who h as a decent bit of multi tasking, or played any sort of competitive rts(warcraft/starcraft etc) WC in this game is a walk in the park compared to playing those at any sort of not terrible level. The quicker one gets over this being a huge strategy game and begins thinking of it as more of an RTS with some extra features/a pause button the more you realize how easy the game can actually be if you have a grasp on the basic concepts. I enjoy eu4 quite a bit, but you don't see arbitrary limitations put on you for taking over the entire world in say Hoi4 or something, and its vastly easier and just as tedious to do it there too.

Just because they aren't hard, and really haven't been all that difficult even as far back as release doesn't mean they need to be made easier in just about every patch, which is what we've seen. Absolutism, administrative efficiency, easier subject control through interactions, the original change to states/teritories, and on and on the list goes of things that make wc even easier. And then the very few times there is any pushback in the other direction people lose their minds about it. In EU 2/early EU 3 wc actually took a lot of skill to do, now the only skill involved is staying awake and having the perseverance to play it out to the end.

 

[Groogy]

Hey! So me and @Johan have diligently been reading peoples feedback and ideas. I believe Johan as well mentioned on the Trade Company suggestions that he liked the super region idea in this thread. We are very well aware that the religious limitation conflicts with colonization and Propagate Religion. We will be changing the requirements as they are currently listed.

I want to also dig a bit deeper into some things. The modifier from the Courthouse building is additive with the modifier that Territories/TC's apply. Some speculated these limitations were done for a Historicity at expense of Gameplay, which I want to debunk. Why original limitations were written, and why we won't go so far with a distance based solution, is that I am trying to prevent where TC's are "offensively" used. This can be something like a Wall to slow down Institution spread to your immediate neighboring rivals. So let's say Castille moving their capital and then making the Pyrenees into TC's after adopting Colonialism in order to slow it down.

 

[LakeWobegon]

Hey! So me and @Johan
I want to also dig a bit deeper into some things. The modifier from the Courthouse building is additive with the modifier that Territories/TC's apply. Some speculated these limitations were done for a Historicity at expense of Gameplay, which I want to debunk. Why original limitations were written, and why we won't go so far with a distance based solution, is that I am trying to prevent where TC's are "offensively" used. This can be something like a Wall to slow down Institution spread to your immediate neighboring rivals. So let's say Castille moving their capital and then making the Pyrenees into TC's after adopting Colonialism in order to slow it down.

Why go to the trouble of creating a mechanic that forces players to make thousands of extra clicks (to build courthouses and exploit dev) if making the modifier additive makes the whole thing moot (for territories and TCs)? With this in mind why introduce something that is no more than a click tax to then be able to proceed as one did back in 1.24? It just does not make any sense unless this was also a last minute change but even then why not just ditch the whole thing as it does not bring anything good or meaningful into the game (just busy work IMHO)? Why not make trade companies, states and territories work like in 1.24 but up the TC LA to 75%?

 

[Soulburger]

Thanks Groogs for the updates. Appreciate y'all are listening to the feedback and trying to apply it. Agreed with many others that some of TC restrictions by religion or location didnt make much sense. Most of the other changes are very intriguing, just unclear as of now on how it will apply to game balance.

 

[Reman]

I want to also dig a bit deeper into some things. The modifier from the Courthouse building is additive with the modifier that Territories/TC's apply. Some speculated these limitations were done for a Historicity at expense of Gameplay, which I want to debunk. Why original limitations were written, and why we won't go so far with a distance based solution, is that I am trying to prevent where TC's are "offensively" used. This can be something like a Wall to slow down Institution spread to your immediate neighboring rivals. So let's say Castille moving their capital and then making the Pyrenees into TC's after adopting Colonialism in order to slow it down.

You're concerned about the wrong things. Hamstringing yourself to weaken opponents has never been a particularly useful strat in most single player EU4 campaigns. For example, the current meta for dev-pushing institutions in Asia isn't to hoard them, but to sell them to the highest bidder via knowledge sharing (typically Ming) because power in the player's hand is worth 10x more than an equivalent reduction of power in the AI's hands. I highly doubt building a Wall to cordon off institution spread would be anything more than a niche option compared to simply designating territories as TCs, full-cores, or territories based on what makes the most sense from the player's perspective alone.

As a general principle, game systems should be designed around what's the most engaging for the player. Designing systems around punishing the player for playing in an unapproved way is what led to things like terrcorr in the first place.

 

[Xdevo]

Just because they aren't hard, and really haven't been all that difficult even as far back as release doesn't mean they need to be made easier in just about every patch, which is what we've seen. Absolutism, administrative efficiency, easier subject control through interactions, the original change to states/teritories, and on and on the list goes of things that make wc even easier. And then the very few times there is any pushback in the other direction people lose their minds about it. In EU 2/early EU 3 wc actually took a lot of skill to do, now the only skill involved is staying awake and having the perseverance to play it out to the end.

Less than 0.1% of players have accomplished a WC. There's loads of players that cannot do it and go to here or reddit asking for advice. Just because there's a larger segment of active people that can WC, doesn't mean its become more or less skill-based, just that the game is literally 10-100x more popular than EU2 or early EU3 and naturally that's going to statistical consequences on the forums and reddit. EU4's also been the game in vogue for a much longer time, so its naturally going to have many more people mastering it.

Heck, the states and territories thing didn't even make WC easier, it made it less linear (no more wall of Syria) and slightly easier to play around with, but definitely not easier since you couldn't get thousands of half price 0 autonomy land anymore. Subject control was offset by making the subjects into zombie rebel factories and incapable of reasonable MP management. None of the WC people cried out the patch when they made the AI considerably better with finances (something that actually does make the game harder), but that was reverted anyway. I have seen a lot of WC people asking for better wartime AI because it makes the game incredibly easy when the AI runs to Siberia, which would also make the game harder to play.

The only thing the "WC Illuminati" complains about with these "Conquering is too powerful" threads is that they're going to make the game more tedious. Tedium is not the same thing as difficulty. I don't know why this concept is such a difficult one to understand for people.