Europa Universalis IV - 30th of March 2021

[nexmaxx]

hi @Johan , glad to have you back, I was looking for this! Also, I would like to know what happened to Centralizing A State, since it was quite disappointing and I have not heard any update for it since then. Anyway, thanks for the DD!

 

[Cosmonaut15]

@Johan Can my PU, colonial nation, or other type of subjects use the new favor action on their own? Can AI use the action on my subjects?

 

[Van Guérinecht]

Stability loss in case of refusal sounds really out of place. Why not some relations hit or diplomatic points loss ?

 

[Jordedude1234]

Hello everyone and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This is another rather short one, and it will go into detail about what you can use favors for.

Back in October 2020, we first talked about the changes to favor, and one new additional way to get favors, and if you have not read it already, I recommend that you go there now to read it.

EU4 - Development Diary - 13th of October 2020

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Sadly Groogy is sick so we have to shuffle around our planning a bit and give you something that was not originally planned for today. Today we’ll talk a little bit about...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

This in itself was already interesting, in that favors were the primary way to get your allies to support you in your offensive wars, but we also felt that it would be a richer game, if you could use favors for more activities, so we added a fair amount of diplomatic actions that require favors with the target nation.

Each of them require a relation above +50 with the target country, and you can not use favors on a nation you have a truce with. The AI will usually accept, if the conditions are right, but as a player you can decline them, at a cost of 1 stability.


So what can you then use the favors on? Well, we’ve added 7 new diplomatic actions that uses favors, and changed 2 old favor mechanics to become proper diplomatic actions to work the same way as the new favor mechanics.

• Trade Favors for Ducats, you will spend 10 favors for 6 months of their income.
• Trade Favors for Soldiers, you will spend 10 favors for 6 months of their manpower.
• Trade Favors for Sailors, you will spend 10 favors for 6 months of their sailors.
• Reduce Opinion, for 10 favors, you will reduce their opinion of a third party by 100.
• Ask to Return Core, for 50 favors you can get the return of any of the provinces of yours that you have a core on.
• Break Alliance with X, For 50 favors, you can have them break an alliance with a third party, and block them for being allied for a full decade. You need to be allied with the nation you are using it on though.
• Request Relative as Heir, for 90 favors, if you both are monarchies, and they do not have an heir, you will give them an heir of your dynasty.

The old ones were

• Trade Favors for Trust, this will give you 5 trust with them for 10 favors.
• Ask to Prepare for War, for 10 favors, this will stop them starting their own wars for 12 months, and increase the likelihood of them accepting your call to arms.

View attachment 699165


All in all, our goal with this has been to give more power to the diplomatic game, so avoid every conflict just being about who got the most and best guns. Having diplomatic reputation to get favors faster and more diplomats to target more nations should be more powerful in 1.31.

Next week, we’ll be back, with a far more graphical diary, including something some of you have suspected.

I don't know if I enjoy the idea of being occasionally forced to give money or manpower to an ally or I lose a stability. This might become fairly common with 4 allies.

 

[IndigoRage]

I don't know if I enjoy the idea of being occasionally forced to give money or manpower to an ally or I lose a stability. This might become fairly common with 4 allies.

Yes, as someone who diplo sims and RPs a bit, this could get annoying fast. I understand that diplomacy is supposed to be give and take, but my country losing stability rather than a diplo hit really doesn't make sense.

 

[BlazeKnight_]

Is it possible for adding favors to be introduced as a command so that modders can use them?

 

[wkscrombie]

All in all, our goal with this has been to give more power to the diplomatic game, so avoid every conflict just being about who got the most and best guns. Having diplomatic reputation to get favors faster and more diplomats to target more nations should be more powerful in 1.31.

Ooohh, I love this. This is going to make alliances so much more useful and enjoyable! Thanks so much for making this spectacular addition to the game.

While I'm here, I'm going to continue my Cato-style weekly request that you guys take another look at the Pacific Northwest before 1.31 comes out. The rest of North America looks great, but with the new update, the PNW will remain one of the few near-untouched parts of the world. A little improvement would go a long way-- if some impassable terrain was added to represent the Coast and Cascade ranges (the latter of which dwarfs the Appalachians), a couple estuaries and natural harbors (of which there are many of great significance along the PNW coast) were sprinkled among a few new provinces, and we got a couple more tags to represent how densely populated the region actually was, it would be on par with the rest of the continent and I would finally be able to rest easy. As things stand, though, I worry that if it isn't improved in 1.31, it never will be.

 

[The Goldfinch]

Favors are deeply problematic mechanic that makes nations act unreasonably which completely breaks immersion

Because of favors France is willing to butcher 300k manpower because hey, Ulm earned some abstract currency and now they want heavily allied Augsburg, how can we refuse??

While I agree using diplomatic influence/favors should sometimes be allowed, nations should mostly play opportunistic, aggressively caring for primarily own good. Now I see allies willing to fight till the last man because someone who had favors started some ridiculous war and is too stupid to white peace.

 

[IndigoRage]

While I'm here, I'm going to continue my Cato-style weekly request that you guys take another look at the Pacific Northwest before 1.31 comes out. The rest of North America looks great, but with the new update, the PNW will remain one of the few near-untouched parts of the world. A little improvement would go a long way-- if some impassable terrain was added to represent the Coast and Cascade ranges (the latter of which dwarfs the Appalachians), a couple estuaries and natural harbors (of which there are many of great significance along the PNW coast) were sprinkled among a few new provinces, and we got a couple more tags to represent how densely populated the region actually was, it would be on par with the rest of the continent and I would finally be able to rest easy.

I'm fairly confident this won't be happening in 1.31 as content design seems pretty set in stone aside from details at this point. I doubt this is going to be the last patch though.

The situation in Texas is really odd as well, with the Lipan too far southeast. (they start in San Antonio which was not occupied by them until much later.)

All I want is another look over NA focusing on the west and central parts as opposed to the East as we are getting in 1.31, a look over South America (has the Andes, but somehow has literally no strategic variation on the map whatsoever and is generally very under-detailed by most other continents' standards), Africa, and the Baltics.

 

[wkscrombie]

I'm fairly confident this won't be happening in 1.31 as content design seems pretty set in stone aside from details at this point. I doubt this is going to be the last patch though.

The situation in Texas is really odd as well, with the Lipan too far southeast. (they start in San Antonio which was not occupied by them until much later.)

All I want is another look over NA focusing on the west and central parts as opposed to the East as we are getting in 1.31, a look over South America (has the Andes, but somehow has literally no strategic variation on the map whatsoever and is generally very under-detailed by most other continents' standards), Africa, and the Baltics.

I'm sure this isn't going to be the last patch, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last one focusing on North American natives. I'm just worried that they'll forget about the Pacific Northwest (or more accurately, they'll look at the tiny amount of detail they've added and think the region doesn't need any more). It'd be a shame for such a vibrant and diverse region with so much culture and history to be neglected. If they decide to take another look at North America after 1.31, I'd be content for them to update the PNW then, but I'm not at all confident that they will.

 

[rus-chel]

our long awaited meeting has come at last(c)

 

[riadach]

If you acceed to these requests will it boost their trust?

 

[Thaif]

The AI will usually accept, if the conditions are right, but as a player you can decline them, at a cost of 1 stability.

Stability is a bit of a rope pulling exercise due to it being a 6 point scale. I'd love for penalties like this, diplomacy and geopolitical issues, to branch out into Legitimacy, Prestige or as other suggested a diplomatic reputation hit for declining to honor your favors.
Legitimacy and Prestige would fit better than Stability; The former two are much more descriptive of a high society/political perceptions and realities where Stability is more the overall societal unrest, cohesion and order metric.
As such it feels odd that the whole fabric of a nation would fray from declining a favor, but it sure as hell would lower your vaunted and illustrious reputation, not to mention your image as a noble and just monarch.

Legitimacy is in general a bit under utilized as a stat, at least in my experience. Having a more involved relationship with legitimacy and it's counterparts(Republican tradition is an example of a more involved legitimacy interaction) would add much needed dimension to legitimacy.

 

[noldorin]

I do not think anything negatively about the content. But I'm tired of seeing the words starting with next week. Don't have a clear calendar? As far as I understand, the expansion pack and the 1.31 patch will be released in the summer. Sorry it's hard to think of spending the summer heat playing games on the computer.

 

[Shrek1453]

Even if you make 1000 manpower / month its still only 6k manpower.

He was talking about MP. People in MP will regularly get up to 20k + manpower a month with "generic" nations (nations like Ruthenia, Russia, etc. can get up to 40-50k manpower a month).

Is 120k manpower a lot? No, not really. Does it help? Absolutely. It's 1/4 of a slacken. So that's 2.5 extra slackens PER ALLY! (It's their slacken, not yours, but they will have a lot of manpower since it's MP so it's basically yors - if not better with allies such as Russia and Ruthenia).

 

[wobarch]

It would be very helpful, if the option to transfer a coreprovince would also include permanent claims, (such as required or given by missions), as otherwise this blocks often everything, esp. good KI alliances. (i do not mean normal claims!)

 

[Twoflower]

Obviously to stop the communist rivals influence. Thats the reasonable motivation.

Lots of wars with little gain? I agree. In how many wars a great power supported its tiny allies aggressive ambitions with thousands of soldiers, having absolutely nothing to gain?

This is basically the story of Russia in World War I

The thing is: yes, it would be awesome if the AI was able to opportunistically enter wars, support other countries etc. based on its enlightened self-interest. The EU4 AI, and probably artificial intelligence in general, still is not capable of that.
The favours system is something of a crutch used to represent a quid-pro-quo between countries.

I really, really love these additions - using diplomatic influence to get things from the AI will make diplomatic and peaceful play much more viable and interesting. How many times have a wished for a way to diplomatically get my long-term ally and friend to turn over the one province I needed from him or to end the one problematic alliance, and how many times did I end up having to fight that long-time ally?

 

[IndigoRage]

(or more accurately, they'll look at the tiny amount of detail they've added and think the region doesn't need any more)

That's certainly my fear for North America as well. I know they added missions for the west, but they didn't change anything else like they did with the East. I could easily see it being forgotten.

 

[Borgratz]

Can you (or the AI?) say no to favor requests? Otherwise I see some ... very unfun situations happening a lot soon.


"Break Alliance with X, For 50 favors, you can have them break an alliance with a third party, and block them for being allied for a full decade. You need to be allied with the nation you are using it on though."

that sounds like some machiavellian option to me

 

[Xaelyn]

Lots of wars with little gain? I agree. In how many wars a great power supported its tiny allies aggressive ambitions with thousands of soldiers, having absolutely nothing to gain?

None? Using a minor country/ally as a casus belli sure, but no great power ever went to war for anything other than their own perceived interests. Sometimes they were obviously wrong about their interests (many a religiously motivated war comes to mind), but no country ever went to war with the deliberate intent to come out worse off in the grand scheme than if they avoided it.