Europa Universalis IV - 6 April 2021 - War Canoes & Unit Renders

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That's all for now - but the high achievers among you will be sure to tune into next week's dev diary.
I guess we don't need to wait anymore :p
 
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Nice. btw while you are working on unit models since 2013, have u fixed austrian models? They would glitch on retreat animation, I guess.
Speaking of bugs related to models, Korean Geobukseons have their top flag upside down. Oh right, they are also models for Galleys while Panokseons are Lights for whatever reason.
 
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I protest against the lack of Red in Ayutthaya's models. Also they wear too much (hats, full-body clothes) for foot soldiers, those are usually for aristocrats and generals. I suggest shorter pants and sleeveless, simpler topwear (should be able to find in Thai depictions of them, in contrast to aristocrats).
 
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Would this allow tribal nations to capture real ships and keep them before reforming? And would this also unlock maritime/naval ideas from tribal nations going forward? Don't think canoe spam would/should ever be a viable strategy, but I do think it would be interesting.
 
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Gosh, they look gorgeous! It's going to be hard choosing who to play as. A couple of quick questions though.

1) Are these all the unit models that will be included in the dlc? Not because I think there are too few, far from it, it's just that the eu4 facebook page said that this dev diary showcased "some of the new unit art", which would imply not all of them are here.

2) If these are all of them, will they be applied to other nations in the region who aren't named here? Like for example majapahit units for Sunda? And if that is the case, will the philippines get them too? After all it'd be a shame for them to be the only ones in the area stuck with the vanilla models.
 
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Nice! I love the canoes, hope those are available throughout the continent, I would've liked to see more Native American models but I do find it weird that there are no models for Dai Viet though.
 
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These unit models looks fantastic! I adore them. Has there been any given reason as to why we have received fewer unit packs with each dlc? I love that we get two here, but the standard for some time was four unit packs or equivalent. Is this because of the additional quality given to each model? If so, I’d like to suggest that I think we’d be happier with a little bit less quality for each model if it meant more countries could get unique models.
 
If you have ever modded in a new historicsl tag you will realise that that VAST amount of work on the content designers side is research. Go through dozens or hundreds of sources to check out what is worth an event, what are fitting NI etc. Implementing those takes almost no time, you could do dozens of tags a day but researching what to implement and actually finding proper sources takes ages.
Lmao, I seriously doubt they make the same effort between some tags.
 
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Is great to finally have war canoes to allow these nations to interact on the sea. Clearly Polynesians are the more benefited with this but the Pacific North West and Caribbean natives would also gain a lot from canoes. After all the word canoa itself comes from an antillean native language.

Hope a future update/DLC would add native nations on the Antilles, Florida and some more on the "Spanish Main" region.
 
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Is great to finally have war canoes to allow these nations to interact on the sea. Clearly Polynesians are the more benefited with this but the Pacific North West and Caribbean natives would also gain a lot from canoes. After all the word canoa itself comes from an antillean native language.

Hope a future update/DLC would add native nations on the Antilles, Florida and some more on the "Spanish Main" region.
Ah spanish main. Sorry mate, not part of the anglo saxonic sphere.
 
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Europa Universalis IV - 6 April 2021 - War Canoes & Unit Renders​


Hello! First off I want to introduce myself. My name is David Horler, and I’m the Art Lead at Paradox Tinto here in Barcelona.

I started working on EU4 unit packs way back in 2013, and since then I’ve been working with environment art and tech art at PDS for games like Imperator: Rome and Crusader Kings III. Now I have come full circle back to EU4 expansions.

In case you missed it, we just announced that the Leviathan expansion and its accompanying free patch will be released on 27 April, so let's take a look at some of the features you will be able to enjoy!

War Canoes
Many cultures around the world developed simple watercraft to ferry warriors and materiel over coastlines and even oceans. Sometimes, opposing vessels engaged each other in combat, serving as platforms for missile weapons and boarding troops.

With our reworks in America and Oceania it felt like a good opportunity to revisit the seafaring mobility of tribal nations. So, included in the free patch is the War Canoe, a basic transport unit that is available to every country that hasn’t researched the Cog yet. It allows low technology countries to engage in naval combat and to move regiments across sea provinces.

View attachment 699185

Being able to travel over water opens up lots of exciting early-game opportunities if you are playing as a coastal tribe in the Americas or Australia. However, since War Canoes have a measly combat ability around ⅓ that of a Cog, they cannot be relied upon to hold the line when more advanced sailing ships come knocking.


Unit Renders
Included with Leviathan is an absolutely bumper unit pack, with lots of visual goodies for South East Asia and beyond!

Australian Aboriginal and Polynesian:
View attachment 699725
Luang Prabang:
View attachment 699731
Pagarruyung:
View attachment 699734

That's all for now - but the high achievers among you will be sure to tune into next week's dev diary.

Have a good week, and we'll see you all at PDXCON Remixed next month!

/Dave
I love it, thank you.

@SaintDaveUK , any chance of getting catamarans instead of canoes for Polynesians ? :p
 
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It was mentioned in an earlier dev diary that Cloves would become their own trade resource to stress the importance of them in global trade. Is this still the case? Will it impact the generic spice resource?
 
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Good job on the unit models, but I must be honest, tier 1-2 Maritime SEA (Malay group) ones, are by far among my least liked ones (along with that shirtless North African t3-t4 unit). As someone who is familiar with Maritime SEA you may say that I am biased, but I can say the same to the one who designed the models. The lack of armor is the thing I dislike the most. To me, these models only further the narrative spread by the colonizers that the natives they encountered were primitives who didn't know how to make armors (or gunpowder weapons). This narrative was so engrained even now if someone found an ancient armor or gunpowder-based weapons, they'll probably think that it is a foreign armor/weapon. I know that not everyone back then could afford armor, but they are mostly the poor unpaid commoner levy, more fortunate warriors could afford an armor or at least a shield, and salaried soldiers wore armors and uniforms provided by the ruler. The soldier portrayed in the models should be, imo, the salaried soldiers, not the levy. The Indochinese units don't look like levy soldiers, so why the Indonesian units look like one? The armor mainly used by various Malay group were chainmails (baju rantai) and plated mails (baju lamina), aside from organic material (rattan, fiber, leather, etc) vest-shaped armors. Here are some points I want to criticize (I'll mostly talk about armor).

Majapahit
The half naked soldiers were present at that time, but those were the (forced) levies. The salaried soldier wore waju rante (chainmail), karambalangan (a layer of metal worn in front of the body) and kawaca (tube-shaped breastplate). Also what is that t1 headgear? Chronicle of Banjar noted the use of chainmail and red kopiah (skull cap/helmet, not to be confused with the modern meaning of the word). There is no known surviving example of the helmet, but we can speculate about the form by looking at wayang drawings, such as these:
T2 model could wear a Javan version of baju lamina:

Malacca
That "pauldrons" on t1 models honestly made the guy look more like a 19th-century Balinese warrior. Imo you should just make them wear a long sleeved shirt with a baju lamina such as these:
The T2 headgear could be modeled after the Malay copy of the Portuguese burgonet

Brunei

Pagaruyung
While I failed to find armor specifically from the area, the Minang people who inhabited this kingdom is very close to the Melayu people, so they could be wearing the same type of armor on top of their clothes.
Edit: I've found example of Sumatran armor, even though it didn't come exactly from Pagaruyung but Southern Sumatra:

Sulawesi, Philipines, and Moluccas
Imo there should be at least one tag for representation of each of these cultures.

Sulawesi
The Bugis and Makassar people were known as chainmail-wearing mercenaries throughout the Indonesian archipelago. While the tribal kingdoms in North Sulawesi wore armor vest made of organic materials. Also interesting to note that the helmet of several ethnic groups of Sulawesi is also called kopiah/kopeah. T1 Sulawesi unit could wear the more primitive armor:
T2 could wear Bugis lamina armor:

Moluccas
The Moluccans were using their distinctive shield since time immemorial, and also quick to copy western armor and helmet when the Spanish and Portuguese came.

Philippines
Southern Philippines were in Brunei's sphere of influence, and created armors like the Bruneians did. T1 model could look like the natives drawn in the Boxer Codex. T2 could wear Moro armor:

Weapons
What kinds of spears are used by the maritime SEA and mainland SEA nation exactly? The wavy blade spear is more identic with Indonesian culture than Indochinese. Indochina could use this kind of spear:
While Indonesia could use one these:
The T2 musket could use an Istinggar:

Shields
If you don't want to give the Malays armor, at least give them shields.
The Javanese and Sundanese were using tall shield alongside their long spear:
The Acehnese and Melayu's shield were rounded with star-shaped decorations:
The Dayak and other ethnic groups of Borneo used hexagonal shield:
Sulawesi peoples used tall shield too:
The Moro of Philippines had large rounded shield:
Moluccans have their typical shield called salawaku:

Sorry for the long post. Even if this post can't change anything, I had to let all this out. No offense to everyone involved in the art and modeling @SaintDaveUK, but I think the Indonesian t1 and t2 units could be a lot better.
 
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Good job on the unit models, but I must be honest, tier 1-2 Maritime SEA (Malay group) ones, are by far among my least liked ones (along with that shirtless North African t3-t4 unit). As someone who is familiar with Maritime SEA you may say that I am biased, but I can say the same to the one who designed the models. The lack of armor is the thing I dislike the most. To me, these models only further the narrative spread by the colonizers that the natives they encountered were primitive who didn't know how to make armors (or gunpowder weapons). This narrative was so engrained even now if someone found an ancient armor or gunpowder-based weapons, they'll probably think that it is a foreign armor/weapon. I know that not everyone back then could afford armor, but they are mostly the poor unpaid commoner levy, more fortunate warriors could afford an armor or at least a shield, and salaried soldiers wore armors and uniforms provided by the ruler. The soldier portrayed in the models should be, imo, the salaried soldiers, not the levy. The Indochinese units don't look like levy soldiers, so why the Indonesian units look like one? The armor mainly used by various Malay group were chainmails (baju rantai) and plated mails (baju lamina), aside from organic material (rattan, fiber, leather, etc) vest-shaped armors. Here are some points I want to criticize (I'll mostly talk about armor).

Majapahit
The half naked soldiers were present at that time, but those were the (forced) levies. The salaried soldier wore waju rante (chainmail), karambalangan (a layer of metal worn in front of the body) and kawaca (tube-shaped breastplate). Also what is that t1 headgear? Chronicle of Banjar noted the use of chainmail and red kopiah (skull cap/helmet, not to be confused with the modern meaning of the word). There are no surviving example of the helmet, but we can speculate the form by looking at wayang drawings, such as these:
T2 model could wear a Javan version of baju lamina:

Malacca
That "pauldrons" on t1 models honestly made the guy look more like a 19th-century Balinese warrior. Imo you should just make them wear a long sleeved shirt with a baju lamina such as these:
The T2 headgear could be modeled after the Malay copy of the Portuguese burgonet

Brunei

Pagaruyung
While I failed to find armor specifically from the area, the Minang people who inhabited this kingdom is very close to the Melayu people, so they could be wearing the same type of armor on top of their clothes.

Sulawesi, Philipines, and Moluccas
Imo there should be at least one tag for representation of each of these cultures.

Sulawesi
The Bugis and Makassar people were known as chainmail-wearing mercenaries throughout the Indonesian archipelago. While the tribal kingdoms in North Sulawesi wore armor vest made of organic materials. T1 Sulawesi unit could wear the more primitive armor:
T2 could wear Bugis lamina armor:

Moluccas
The Moluccans were using their distinctive shield since time immemorial, and also quick to copy western armor and helmet when the Spanish and Portuguese came.

Philippines
Southern Philippines were in Brunei's sphere of influence, and created armors like the Bruneians did. T1 model could look like the natives drawn in the Boxer Codex. T2 could wear Moro armor:

Weapons
What kinds of spears are used by the maritime SEA and mainland SEA nation exactly? The wavy blade spear is more identic with Indonesian culture than Indochinese. Indochina could use this kind of spear:
While Indonesia could use one these:
The T2 musket could use an Istinggar:

Shields
If you don't want to give the Malays armor, at least give them shields.
The Javanese and Sundanese were using tall shield alongside their long spear:
The Acehnese and Melayu's shield were rounded with star-shaped decorations:
The Dayak and other ethnic groups of Borneo used hexagonal shield:
Sulawesi peoples used tall shield too:
The Moro of Philippines had large rounded shield:
Moluccans have their typical shield called salawaku:

Sorry for the long post. Even if this post can't change anything, I had to let all this out. No offense to everyone involved in the art and modeling, but I think the Indonesian t1 and t2 units could be a lot better.
I encounter this a lot. Portuguese chronicles never mention technological superiority except on naval artillery. And yet people think that nations that were richer than europe, and culturally advanced were shirtless indigenous people.
The area was not bereft of conflict or lacked weapon technology.
Excellent post.
 
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