Europa Universalis IV – Developer Diary 1 – The world is at your feet

[Evie HJ]

Bollocks about "destiny". Until the 1819 rearrangement, even the Canada-US border wasn't a straight line (it followed the basin lines of the Hudson Bay and Gulf of Mexico). There are a number of non-straight-line borders in the region. There is absolutely no reason to assume that it was unavoidable that straight lines would be used. People were perfectly capable of drawing borders along mountain ridges (Montana-Idaho) along river basins (original HBC/US border, current BC-Alberta one for its entire southern stretch,), along rivers themselves (the Missouri, the Mississippi, the Wabash, the Sioux river, the Red River). The fact that they sometime went the easy way and do straight lines in no way should be an obligation on the Europa design, given that these straight lines borders are completely irrelevant to anything that happened on the Europa era.

Moreover, even if they were destined to happen, they're still not relevant to what was actually going on in the era. French, Spanish and suchlike settlers did not give a flying rat's rear end about the future borders of non-existent states. Even the English settlers barely did, except maybe the Kentucky-Tennessee area. French settlement (or trading post, or forts, whatever you want to call them) went straight from northern Illinois (around modern Peoria) to south-western Michigan . They didn't establish a colony or outpost in-between at random. Should the French be able to magically create forts in the middle of nowhere, away from any settlements?

Trying to fit their history on non-existent borders out of a sense that these borders were destined to eventually form is nonsense.

Fundamentally: straight line borders should be where they are relevant to the era. Not where they are out of place in the era, whhich is pretty much everything west of the Appalaches and certainly everything west of the Mississippii. In those regions, the borders should be based on allowing gameplay to play along roughly historical lines (eg, the Peoria-region province beign adjacent to the southwestern Michigan province).

 

[dukeofmunster]

Is that a South Georgia Island Province

 

[takedown47]

And this one

Oh, so Sicily was lower than Tunis in that times too It ends in EU4, it seems.

it burns it burns! EU has come along way from making your eyes bleed to a work of artisitic beauty.

 

[vasziljevics]

it burns it burns! EU has come along way from making your eyes bleed to a work of artisitic beauty.

EU1 was my favourite game at the time - along with Age of Empires 1, Heroes of Might&Magic 3 and the rest... and them graphics were beautiful. I miss them a lot (and I replay them occasionally) but I understand that a lot of time has passed since. though you simply cannot say that this picture makes your eyes bleed. that Sir, is heresy!

 

[unmerged(402817)]

I just wanted to join in and say that I also like the technical and graphical changes to the map!

I have a question too: Will there be other new dynamic features on the map (since, as I understood it, the size of cities on the map are related to its tax value)?

/Blue Window

 

[metalinvader665]

Will there still be that awkward-looking Bering Sea/Strait region? I liked MEIOU's take on it. Gotta let China colonise America, you know!

 

[Raph]

EU1 was my favourite game at the time - along with Age of Empires 1, Heroes of Might&Magic 3 and the rest... and them graphics were beautiful. I miss them a lot (and I replay them occasionally) but I understand that a lot of time has passed since. though you simply cannot say that this picture makes your eyes bleed. that Sir, is heresy!

Agreed! EU2 was beutiful. Clear and colorful. The interface wasn't very good but I really liked the boardgame style of the map. It really shouldn't be judged by today's standards.

 

[Arcvalons]

How do you explain the non straight-line bordes south of Rio Grande then? I think the straight lines were something about anglo-saxon obsession with order.

 

[Comrade Chaos]

Currently, city size is directly connected to the tax value of that province.

I see an economic overhaul DD in our future.

 

[ANO1453]

Straight borders in North America and Africa exist because they are easier to draw on a map. You can just cut a straight line and be done with it, who cares if some village or town is cut in half?

 

[DanubianCossak]

Currently, city size is directly connected to the tax value of that province.

Can we have a screenshot showing provincial income panel? Pretty please? I really wonder in what way you tied population to the tax value, is it via tax_income, local_tax_modifier or direct_tax etc. Also if base_tax is gone, i wonder how force limits are calculated.

Sorry if thats too many questions XD

 

[Evie HJ]

I think he means "city size" as in "The size of the city on the map".

 

[tormos]

winter is coming

I see what you did there...
also this map looks AMAZING

 

[Comrade Chaos]

I think he means "city size" as in "The size of the city on the map".

I want to believe.

 

[Misha Brianski]

And again! Where is Arctic ocean?
East Siberia was colonized from North, not from West. How can you do this if you haven't got access to North seas?

And yes... In my opinion there's too much "We made this like in Victoria", "We made that like in CK2"... Stop copy/pasting yourself! Do something like in EUIV and not in any other game. Then i'll believe you that this is EUIV and not Europa Universalis 3.5

 

[Blaze86420]

Looks great, but why is Alexandria no where near the coast?

 

[Pooned]

I would pay like 300 bucks to get this game right now.

 

[unmerged(431840)]

Straight borders in North America and Africa exist because they are easier to draw on a map. You can just cut a straight line and be done with it, who cares if some village or town is cut in half?

What village or town? From a European perspective these lands were "empty". Obviously there were people living there but they didn't count from the European/American view. Ultimately every border in North America was drawn by Europeans or people of European descent, the Europeans and Americans took what they wanted and did what they wanted. This is historical fact and would also be historical fact in any plausible alternate history starting in the 15th century.

A game focusing on pre-contact North America would be lots of fun, and I would buy it. However EUIV is set during a time when Europeans came and swept away the previous civilizations. Using pre-European borders would result in a fantasy map that breaks historical immersion. It would be like dividing Europe according to Roman provinces.

This problem also appeared in another form in EU3. Europeans could conquer the Iroquois and Cherokee to quickly get a bunch of provinces. In reality it didn't and couldn't work like that. Their societies were too different from Europeans to be incorporated directly through conquest and 50 years coring. Thus the "empty" concept. Sure people existed there, but not in a way that could be added to your empire directly. Instead they were replaced.

 

[Jackpot15]

Is that a South Georgia Island Province

Islands! Wonderful islands! Shetland! Faroe!

Now are the Channel Islands and/or Mann their own province(s) yet?

 

[Evie HJ]

A game focusing on pre-contact North America would be lots of fun, and I would buy it. However EUIV is set during a time when Europeans came and swept away the previous civilizations. Using pre-European borders would result in a fantasy map that breaks historical immersion. It would be like dividing Europe according to Roman provinces.

For the vast majority of the United States and Canada, that's just not true. Especially if the end date of the game is brought back a little closer to the EU3 vanilla end date (1792) - by that point, there were no European borders, and no swept aside natives north of the Ohio, or south of the cumberland. There were a handful of European outposts, the overhwelming majority of them still in large part inhabited by French people and metis, and that was it.

Your analogy with Roman provinces is completely off base. The correct analogy would be "This would be the equivalent of using feudal duchies and counties instread of revolutionary departments in france.

Which is 1)Perfectly sensible and 2)Exactly what the game does.

The straight-line border are an anachronistic set of border that do not reflect any of the European people who actually DID settle west of the Ohio/Mississippi at any point in the EU period. If you want to have European-based provinces west of the Appalachians (which is not altogether unreasonable), base them on actual settlement patterns and regions. Not on anachronistic borders.