Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise Developer Diary – Liberty!

[grisamentum]

Dear Lord kid, the QA Team is the one that does the official testing as well as the betas.
Not to mention they didn't even say MP is good for hunting bugs but for hunting exploits (which is design flaws that players can use to get unintended features). At least learn the terminology before talking about how one should do their QA -_-;

The "QA team" is like 2 people.

And I was talking about exploits. For example, in CK2, the ability to simply play with no vassals by mass banishing and imprisoning people. Or in EU4, the ability to change governments at will by forcing OPMs to "accept tribute" of government changes, or to nuke your AE at will by forcing them to "accept tribute" of another OPM's release. Or any of the thousand things DDRJake used in his Ryukyu WC, unless they're going to say they never played MP before the game was released.

There's plenty of others - like building 100 temples before westernizing, then immediately canceling them all. The kind of stuff you'd never discover in MP.

 

[Contiguous]

There's plenty of others - like building 100 temples before westernizing, then immediately canceling them all. The kind of stuff you'd never discover in MP.

What does this accomplish?

 

[Comes Imperii]

I sort of agree with grisamentum that exploits are easier to discover in SP than in MP, simply because in SP one can pause the game and take all the time he likes to explore and find weak points.
In MP you don't have that luxury, you have to play fast and time elapses making, for example, banking points before westernising not viable.

What does this accomplish?

You save points which would have been lost clicking 'Westernise'. It is like you were investing them in a 'bank' to take them back after your points are reset to -100 with westernisation.

 

[Targor]

When colony decides to break free, this triggers a liberation war. The colony will be practically independent and, of course, at war with you. To win, they need to force you to recognize their independence.

So I can't just let them go? (When they are about to start a war instead of fighting this war?

 

[FunkyGroovyGuy]

Probably the "protectorate" that has been hinted at, but we know nothing, for now.

Ah, thanks everyone, I must have missed these hints. Looks interesting!

 

[InnocentIII]

It sounds as though there never comes a point where any part of the New World is truly integrated into the mother country, unless you keep it below 5 provinces. What if I conquer or vassalize/integrate a New World nation? What if it's a broken-away part of my rival that I then conquer? I don't have a huge problem with it, but after a few iterations it's gonna be mighty weird to have perpetually invulnerable countries all over the New World.

FWIW, I'm still hoping for a few rudimentary settings to choose from for randomizing the New World, or at least a variety of setups (continents, larger islands, amount of land from say 1/3 to 2/3, NW or SW passages, or not). And what if any info do you get if you choose to play a New World nation on a random map? Size only? I suppose if nations remained at or near their historical size, picking Aztecs or Pawnee (where meat was discovered) tells you all you need to know.

 

[Orctavius]

One of the new features for all countries is a diplomatic option called support independence. This is basically a contingent alliance that lets the colony (or vassal or other subject for that matter) call on the supporter when the liberation war begins. This allows nations to conspire with other nation’s subjects to aid them in breaking free.

Cool, I was really looking for way to dismantle colonial empires in recent game. I've tried supporting rebels few times, but they were pretty ineffective. This sounds more like what I was looking for.

 

[Vedinu]

If I play as a native american nation and colonize into another region, will there be a colonial nation?

 

[ZZMitch]

If I play as a native american nation and colonize into another region, will there be a colonial nation?

I doubt it since it will probably be touching your main nation's land borders. If you go and colonize Cuba or something then maybe? Good question.

 

[Novacat]

Paradox has one of the absolute worst track records of releasing buggy games full of exploits. If this is how you think you find flaws in your product, sorry, but no. It isn't working.

PDS's track record is golden compared to, say, Egosoft or Kerberos.

If I play as a native american nation and colonize into another region, will there be a colonial nation?

Probably not unless its on a different continent.

 

[grisamentum]

PDS's track record is golden compared to, say, Egosoft or Kerberos.

well sure, not saying they're the worst in the world. just pretty bad.

 

[Novacat]

well sure, not saying they're the worst in the world. just pretty bad.

Not even close. They are no blizzard, but their games are at least playable on release date.

 

[TheBloke]

It sounds as though there never comes a point where any part of the New World is truly integrated into the mother country, unless you keep it below 5 provinces. What if I conquer or vassalize/integrate a New World nation? What if it's a broken-away part of my rival that I then conquer? I don't have a huge problem with it, but after a few iterations it's gonna be mighty weird to have perpetually invulnerable countries all over the New World.
.

Yeah. It's unclear exactly what happens when you DOW and beat a now-free Colonial nation. seems likely that if you then annex it, it just becomes another Colonial nation as before. You can never really own that territory. How that plays out will remain to be seen.

I do hope there e techniques for merging nations. Eg. Taking territory from anothercColonial to feed my own.

 

[grisamentum]

Not even close. They are no blizzard, but their games are at least playable on release date.

Didn't say they're not playable, just not remotely balanced.

 

[Novacat]

Again, though, other than Blizzard, what games are balanced on release date?

 

[blaidd]

Not even close. They are no blizzard, but their games are at least playable on release date.

You obviously missed the Diablo III fiasco.

 

[LiberiusX]

Turn that frown upside down! If we get mod interfaces to these features, I'm sure you or someone can make the Absolutely 100% Like History mode that you so desperately crave

I'm sad because I have to wait until 4 days before release for another dev diary. CoP should be pretty amazing.

Merry Christmas

 

[Mixxer5]

As liberty desire increases your hold over your colony becomes more uncertain. When liberty desire tops 50% your colony may declare war on you. The higher liberty desire gets, the more the colony manpower increases and its maintenance costs decreases. So, the longer the game runs, and the more you squeeze the colonials the stronger they get. They will get better at spreading your empire across their own continent but that power might be turned against you.

Is this somehow manageable? I mean- are we going to have surprise wars coming out of nowhere (after reaching 50%), or colonies can make demands, and granting them (or not) decrease liberty desire?

 

[grisamentum]

Again, though, other than Blizzard, what games are balanced on release date?

Just strategy games or all sorts of games? There are plenty of games that are inherently balanced, or difficult to unbalance, simply because of the nature of the game. Like Counter-strike is more of a map-to-map balance question, not a question of the game itself. And naturally some games are never really balanced but in constant flux, like dota.

As far as strategy games alone, I mean, Firaxis typically does a decent job with initial balance, or at least the exploits are deep enough that they aren't immediately visible. XCOM:EU had some graphic bugs but was basically balanced when it came out. Civ 5 had some obvious flaws but nothing really affecting the core game; exploitative strategies had to be executed well to work (like various tech slingshots) while Civ 4 was comparatively well balanced at release, IIRC. In Civ 5 they really introduced the new issue of balancing civs, although it's not that different than EU4's unique NIs and starting positions.

 

[Frederick III]

Is this somehow manageable? I mean- are we going to have surprise wars coming out of nowhere (after reaching 50%), or colonies can make demands, and granting them (or not) decrease liberty desire?

This is my question too. Colonial rebellion shouldn't be inevitable, you should be able to manage the liberty desire by being a good overlord.