EUIV - Development Diary - 14th of January 2020

[spook9840]

I don't suppose we have any idea when this is coming out? I don't want to sound impatient but every dev diary makes me want this more and more.

 

[ramrom]

Espionage (both the idea group and the spy mechanics) needs an overhaul. Is espionage under consideration?

 

[holyvigil]

Espionage (both the idea group and the spy mechanics) needs an overhaul. Is espionage under consideration?

Nothing yet. Idea groups will remain largely unaffected except for republic tradition, absolutism, max # of states, naval ideas, and mercenary modifier.

I expect to hear more about corruption's role in one of these dev diaries though. And espionage is affected by that.

 

[Groogy]

Espionage (both the idea group and the spy mechanics) needs an overhaul. Is espionage under consideration?

Waiting to see what HOI4 does ;D
I'd love to do some espionage stuff but for 1.30 no.

 

[GalleyFox]

This all looks quite interesting! Has there been any consideration to slowing down the tech spread outside of Europe?

 

[brifbates]

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.

Less than 1/3 of owners have the most brain-dead achievement the game has to offer (get a royal marriage).

Also, according to Steam, 1.3% have the wc achievement, or ~4.5% of the people who have the achievement for winning a war. That doesn't exactly scream excessive difficulty (1 of every 22 people that managed to win a war also managed a world conquest). In fact, there is no achievement the game offers with less than .2% completion with "Where am I" being the current poster child for most rare. Next time don't try and paint a picture with numbers pulled from thin air.

World conquest in EU IV has always been much more about putting up with the tedium than a real test of skill. This is borne out by the fact that there are dozens of achievements with a notably lower completion rate than WC (so presumably more difficult although some other factors certainly apply to many of them). Or that 1 in 7 who have completed a campaign to the end date (1.3% vs 9%) have conquered the world, or more than 1 in 4 that discovered the world (5%) have "conquered" it.

 

[nasuhdede]

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.

Can we learn around when new patch will be aviable? I want to start a new series in game, as a streamer l need an info please.

 

[Sete]

Waiting to see what HOI4 does ;D
I'd love to do some espionage stuff but for 1.30 no.

I personally would love to see Portugal last idea switching place with the second one.

After all it was during the reign of Joao II that Portugal started equipping the navy with the best gear and men available.
Throughout the 15th century, naval artillery was the single greatest advantage the Portuguese held over their rivals in the Indian Ocean, and the Portuguese crown spared no expense in procuring and producing the best naval guns European technology permitted.[ Being a crown industry, cost considerations did not curb the pursuit of the best quality, best innovations and best training.The crown paid wage premiums and bonuses to lure the best European artisans and gunners to advance the industry in Portugal. Every cutting-edge innovation introduced elsewhere was immediately appropriated into Portuguese naval artillery – that includes bronze cannon (Flemish/German), breech-loading swivel-guns, truck carriages (possibly English), and the idea (originally French, c. 1501) of cutting square gunports (portinhola in Portuguese – also already created and tested in the Portuguese ships since 1490) in the hull to allow heavy cannon to be mounted below deck.

In this respect, the Portuguese spearheaded the evolution of modern naval warfare, moving away from the medieval warship, a carrier of armed men, aiming for the grapple, towards the modern idea of a floating artillery piece dedicated to resolving battles by gunnery alone.

Also one of the persistent military achievements of Portugal was the defense of its territory, in Europe or Overseas. Even in Asia the neglected portuguese forts hold out long sieges against superior enemies for long periods of time, like in the Dutch-Portuguese War. In Europe, Portugal was often very difficult to invade due to the attrition it caused in enemy armies, this would be highlighted in the late XVIIIth and early XIXth centuries.

 

[Badesumofu]

Less than 1/3 of owners have the most brain-dead achievement the game has to offer (get a royal marriage).

Reflecting the fact that most people don't play ironman. Of course there will be some who bought the game on a discount but never really made any attempt to play it as well.

Also, according to Steam, 1.3% have the wc achievement, or ~4.5% of the people who have the achievement for winning a war. That doesn't exactly scream excessive difficulty (1 of every 22 people that managed to win a war also managed a world conquest). In fact, there is no achievement the game offers with less than .2% completion with "Where am I" being the current poster child for most rare. Next time don't try and paint a picture with numbers pulled from thin air.

I would think those numbers actually do suggest that WC is very difficult. Even if we just go with 4.5% of players who make some kind of attempt to play the game seriously making it, that still means that WC-level play is restricted to elite players only. But I don't think that number is right. I think we can assume that only a vanishingly small number of non-ironman players will have ever completed a WC, and we know that the majority of players to not play ironman. So that 1 in 22 is really more like 1 in 50.

World conquest in EU IV has always been much more about putting up with the tedium than a real test of skill. This is borne out by the fact that there are dozens of achievements with a notably lower completion rate than WC (so presumably more difficult although some other factors certainly apply to many of them). Or that 1 in 7 who have completed a campaign to the end date (1.3% vs 9%) have conquered the world, or more than 1 in 4 that discovered the world (5%) have "conquered" it.

Certainly it is to an extent about putting up with tedium during that final WC sweep (this is a big part of why people object so strongly to terrcorr - it mostly just makes that sweep take longer along with skill equalising by punishing people who are able to expand faster than others) but it does also require a very high level of knowing what you are doing. This is borne out by all the threads asking for help with WC here and on Reddit. Not just the existence of those threads, but the sorts of questions they tend to ask reflect a playerbase that largely doesn't understand how to achieve a WC.

Comparing the achievement rate to more niche achievements isn't so helpful. Conquering the world is a very natural objective and is the one that sticks out to people as the thing they really want to do. Sun Never Sets on the Indian Empire is something, for example, that you're only ever going to achieve if you decide to dedicate a run to getting that achieve. You would find it hard to argue that that achieve is harder than a WC given that it can be attained by conquering much less than the entire world from a relatively easy starting position. Only 0.9% of players have that, and it's both easier than a WC and omits all the tedium as once you're strong enough you can just pop out and conquer the required provinces without the need to sweep the entire world.

It's also not correct to say that 1 in 7 people who have played a campaign to the end date have conquered the world. I've done the latter but not the former and I don't think I'm anywhere close to alone in that.

In general people who do a WC don't even consider attempting it until they have a few hundred hours under the belt. It's a level of expertise that most players never even approach. It seems easy enough once you know how to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that the very vast majority of players do not know how to do it.

 

[Xdevo]

Less than 1/3 of owners have the most brain-dead achievement the game has to offer (get a royal marriage).

Also, according to Steam, 1.3% have the wc achievement, or ~4.5% of the people who have the achievement for winning a war. That doesn't exactly scream excessive difficulty (1 of every 22 people that managed to win a war also managed a world conquest). In fact, there is no achievement the game offers with less than .2% completion with "Where am I" being the current poster child for most rare. Next time don't try and paint a picture with numbers pulled from thin air.

World conquest in EU IV has always been much more about putting up with the tedium than a real test of skill. This is borne out by the fact that there are dozens of achievements with a notably lower completion rate than WC (so presumably more difficult although some other factors certainly apply to many of them). Or that 1 in 7 who have completed a campaign to the end date (1.3% vs 9%) have conquered the world, or more than 1 in 4 that discovered the world (5%) have "conquered" it.

Steam achievements are notoriously easy to game. Between unlocking software and the hundreds of glitches that allowed for easy achevos (looking at you save editing exploits) the numbers are not accurate at such small values. Fraudulent unlocking is always going to be a big factor when your unlock rate is in the 1% range. In a 7 year old game (and a 7 year old achievement), 1.3% is an incredibly tiny number for most steam games that see continuous play. Yes, my number was arbitrary, because the actual number didn't matter. Its obviously not that common.

Repeatedly stating your opinion "World conquest in EU IV has always been much more about putting up with the tedium than a real test of skill" as a fact does not make it true. Especially if you want to compare it to EU3 or EU2 which were far buggier and had far fewer people willing to actually obtain the skills required to WC. Heck, WC being less common in a game doesn't even make it more skillful. EU1 didn't allow WCs because you couldn't take capital states, but I don't think anyone reasonable would say that made it more skillful. The older paradox games were full of hard caps that didn't increase the skill threshold (Vic2's Jingoism has ways to game it, but is one of the harshest examples). You're conflating two very different things with skill and rarity. Complaining about tedium in WCs to people that are actively trying to decrease the tedium in WC is also pretty silly.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

Spanish trade companies can be called in different ways, you have an ASIENTO, which is a monopoly grant of a product to a trading partnership, and then the famous CASA DE CONTRATACIÓN or CASA DE INDIAS, the House of Trade with the Indies. You can also go for AUDIENCIA, the hearing hall for trade appeals, or PERMISO, the royal charter which allowed ships to trade certain state monopoly goods, or CONCEJO, like the HONRADO CONCEJO DE LA MESTA, a partnership of royal-approved wool producers and traders.

As for Catalan, CONSOLAT (Consulate) is the obvious choice. The SEA CONSULATES were the main driving forces of trade, some sort of trade companies, halls of appeal and embassies, all rolled up in one. TAULA (as in TAULA DE CANVI, a Barcelona-based Medieval bank) is also a good choice, as is BORSA (both have financial goals), as is PRIVILEGI, SOCIETAT, COMANDA. There's also ESCARCELLA (a mix between mercantile partnership, VIP couriers and brokers/information traders), although those were usually smaller, regardless of how important of powerful they could have become. Also, LLOTJA (Lodge).

 

[Athel404]

@Meka66 Groogy said to @ you for this:

When the knights form Jerusalem, they lose monastic order reform and get Crusader State. But by doing this they will also lose the t5 reforms that are exclusive to monastic orders like lord of the sea. Is it possible to change it so forming jerusalem as the knights lets you keep these reforms? it feels like theocratic jerusalem is intended to still be a monastic order, so it shouldnt lose it logically, and from a playing prospective it would feel terrible to lose out the unique gov mechanics just by forming the intended target formation of your country

 

[Camara]

I like the more dynamic trade companies, this will make much more interesting for europeans and rotw.

On the portuguese ideas I like that they are getting some attention, and I would to comment on them as I think they can still be improved to be more in check with history (and still be fun).

Start
range = 0.25
trade_efficiency = 0.15

It seems both trade and colonial ranges are now merged, which is good (trade range is mostly useless for Portugal as Portugal will get there by colonisation anyway).
Trade effciency combined to 15% right off the bat is also great - for me the problem with Portugal at start is that it is way too poor. Trade efficiency is a bit weird because Portugal was getting the money not by being awesome traders but by getting to the sources directly and with naval impunity. I'm ok with trade efficiency to gear Portugal to a more trade focus and get the necessary money at start.

When I imagine what an historical Portugal would actually have as (2) starting ideas at 1444 would be:

1) Can recruit explorers and conquistadors
Norway gets this as their first idea so it isn't unheard of and Portugal was the only country in the world at this time really actively seeking undiscovered land. It even starts with an explorer, but I think it deserves to get explorers on the go. It will be awkward to have a useless first idea on exploration but that's ok I guess.

2) Increased range or trade efficiency. Portugal was going far flung due to the impetus on exploration so extra range makes sense. Trade efficiency could be scrapped from this start if the portuguese economy is good enough. It is about this time that the discoveries start to pay off by themselves so I would be fine with trade efficency coming in the next idea.

legacy_of_the_navigator = {
sunk_ship_morale_hit_recieved = -0.33
disengagement_chance = 0.05
}

Honestly seems too weak for what Portugal was. Portugal needs a strong direct offensive naval power and it shouldn't be small. The game starts with England as the master of the seas (heavy ship combat ability + naval tradition as first idea) but until the 1600s the undisputed atlantic naval power was Portugal. In 1444 Portugal is taking steps to that supremacy that will achieve in the 1470s and continue to grow stronger.
Portugal should relativeily quickly in the game to become a key naval power. Right now Portugal has too little ships, is too poor and has no bonuses to reflect this.
So honestly although this is a step in the right direction, is it too little.
Let Portugal have a +20% naval morale like GB has or something to get a real dramatic bonus to highlight the quality of the navies.

afonsine_ordinances = {
global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.1
}

I don't like the justification of this idea and it being here so soon.
Portugal as never good at producing stuff (outside the colonies) and I don't see the Afonsine ordinances being this good to justify such a fantastic bonus.
I would suggest either to put this idea later with a different name or have a different approach, to tackle another problem Portugal has: diplomacy or lack thereof.

Portugal in the game is generally too far away for european countries to bother to marry Portugal.
This is historically absurd as in real life Portugal was married to Burgundy (it should at start!) but would also marry a princess to the HRE (Austria) in 1452. Portugal was surely not far away to get strong dynastic ties.
Also Portugal was very sucessful diplomatically, resolving several conflicts without war (Tordesillas/Zaragoza with Spain for example) and maneuvering through several wars by picking the right fights (almost everything after 1640).
I think Portugal should have something to be less isolated in Europe, something like diplomatic reputation or less distance penalties for diplomatic actions or something.

case_de_india = {
global_trade_power = 0.1
}

Simulates feitorias, works very well. A discount on trade company buildings would be fine as well.

land_before_faith = {
global_colonial_growth = 15
}

This is ok, Portugal wasn't the most massive coloniser but Portugal did indeed flood Brazil quite quickly for such a small country.

the_bandeirantes = {
merchants = 1
}

Like some people have said, the bandeirantes were more like explorers than traders. Maybe put his name on the previous idea or something. In any case the bandeirantes did indeed open more goods for trade, so it ended up kinda trade related. Maybe the goods produced could be here? I dunno.

royal_absolutism = {
build_cost = -0.15
yearly_absolutism = 0.5
}

It's okish, I mean, the building reduction is great but the absolutist buildings were more show and art than exactly infrastructure building spree. It would be more fitting to be like +1 yearly prestige or legitimacy but building cost helps with trade stuff so it's ok too.

por_royal_military_academy = {
defensiveness = 0.1
artillery_power = 0.1
}
}

Finally a land miliary bonuses and I think defensiveness really fits well with Portugal, both at the asian empire fortifications and at the defence of Portugal proper.
Portugal was fantastic and innovative with artillery during the empire era (1450-1600), especially in ships where it spearheaded then entire modern naval warfare, but in later centuries Portugal pretty much went afk in land warfare so it's weird that it is present here "so late".
In land warfare, during the asian empire era, Portugal was good for 2 reasons: fantastic artillery and big morale, but it lacked in discipline. They were basically crazy suicidal people with good cannons. So artillery power is fine, raw morale would be fine too, but no discipline bonus for Portugal.

bonus = {
global_tariffs = 0.20
}

Works well as last "idea" as at mid/late game Portugal was all about Brazil (aka tariffs). Just make tariffs a little better in general.

***********

Now I want to talk about another things: please please rework the Castilian Civil War event chain.
It's absurd that Spain gets missions to PU the entire western Europe, including Portugal because of a sucession in 1580, and not treat the Castilian Civil War in the same way.
And the iberian wedding could be wrapped up in this too.

Basically for those that don't know when Henrique IV of Castile died he had a daughter, Joana, but the court split in support of her or of her aunt, Isabella of Castile.
In order to defend her claim she was married to king Afonso V of Portugal while Isabella married Ferdinand II of Aragon.
This was the war, basically a dance where Castile would fall to PU with Portugal or with Aragon.
Historically the portuguese army was stopped to a stalamate against the castilian-aragonese army at Toro and a peace treaty was forced, basically Portugal would allow Isabella to be queen of castile while Portugal would keep exclusive navigation rights south of the Canaries (the castilian armada during the war tried to trade in Guinea but the portuguese armada obliterated them), this was the Treaty of Alcáçovas and one of the reasons later the treaty of Tordesillas would be needed.

So ingame the castilian civil war event chain is just useless as Portugal has nothing to gain from it, when historically it could acquire the castilian crown, a massive game changer in Iberia.

Even after the war, the iberian kings keep marrying and in 2 more times in the XVth century Portugal had a prince/king married to a spanish princess that would eventually get the throne as Juan's sickly health was dubious at best. A child, heir to all 3 kingdoms, was even born (Miguel da Paz), but he lived only 2 years. So the iberian kingdoms were indeed not afraid of joining their crowns, and the Iberian Wedding event could be represented in a new chain of iberian wedding events.

I would even suggest to create a new tag (Hispania), with the coat of Spain + portugal at the center, to represent a full "Spain" and not the one that we historically did (ingame Portugal can form Spain but the flag of Spain lacks the portuguese coa, like the Habsburgs did when they got Portugal).

 

[Tricerion]

Any plans to make all religions playable, allowing people to play as some of the religions only playable in CK2 conversions? For me the main on would be Hellenism, but I'm sure others would appreciate some of the other religions being playable without converting a CK2 save.

Also ading some more substance to these religions, particularly the more colorful pagan ones, also wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

[wkscrombie]

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.

Thanks for listening to our feedback! You're the best.

 

[LSF]

Sounds like a lot of good changes to me.

Although the governing capacity numbers seem too low, especially early game. And while they definitely needed a nerf, increasing the minimum autonomy of trade companies to 80% seems too much of a nerf. Same with territories, they were borderline useless at 75% anyway, now at 90% they're just completely useless. Can only hope the -min autonomy in territories reform has been increased to -40% or something rather than the paltry -10%

Quite the opposite. The minimun autonomy in territories should go now to -5%. From 90% to 85% the territories become 50% "better". From 90% to 50% territories would become 400% better, which is crazy.

Right now, from 75% to 65%, the reform makes territories 40% better.

 

[LSF]

So does that mean that colonizing the African coast, you may no longer make those provinces TC?

Why not? Colonies in TC regions retain cuture and religion. You change religion and culture through colonization only in CN regions (or in empty provinces, usually islands).

 

[LSF]

Im affraid that not only fort province will have rampart but others as well. Imagine there will be no more carpet siege!

Why the fear? Ramparts will be more expensive than a Level-2 Fort, so why do you think some tag would spam ramparts like crazy if it is not spamming forts right now?

 

[Kapi96]

Quite the opposite. The minimun autonomy in territories should go now to -5%. From 90% to 85% the territories become 50% "better". From 90% to 50% territories would become 400% better, which is crazy.

Right now, from 75% to 65%, the reform makes territories 40% better.

Well it was a bad government reform before as it was. I mean, who actually took that rather than the increased state limit?

But now? A 5% decrease would be pathetic. So what if it's 50% "better"? 50% more than 0.01 income a month is still worthless. Goind down to 65% autonomy wasn't really worth it as it was, to make it worth actually choosing it would need to end up lower than that and that hasn't changed despite the change.

 

[Kayno]

@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.

From a gameplay perspective i see problems with this system:
1. spam courthouses in every territory (or state --> if thats the case will the macrobuilder recognize that it alreay has been built in that state?)
2. search every territory for buildings to scrap to make room for the courthouses

This WILL result in much more tedium and unnecessary spamming of courthouses in wide campaigns.

My solution:
1. Make territories not count towards Governing Capacity (They are at 90% autonomy floor now, which will be enough to make them less usefull)
2. Balance the new cap around building courthouses in you´re states only.

--> This would incentivize the player to build their states appropriate and govern them well.
--> This will result in much less clicks for the players, but will keep the intention of the development team

In my opinion this would be a win-win for the community and the development team.