Welcome to another developer diary for EU4. This time its about country customization - our efforts to make each country truly unique.

We added National Ideas as a feature to the series in EU3. It was a great concept, because of how it added visible differentiation to countries, and we were really happy with the results. In EU4, we have revitalized the idea system to more properly represent the differences between countries. Our new design for ideas is something that should be satisfactory to the historical crowd and to those who prefer more of an open-ended game.

Idea Groups
Instead of choosing national ideas when various techs are gained, you now have slots for idea groups. Idea groups consist of seven ideas and have a bonus for getting all of the ideas in a group. Picking ideas within a group has to be done sequentially – you can't leapfrog from an early idea in a group to a later one, but you can choose from any available group at any time. You are not forced to buy all ideas in one group before getting ideas from another group.

You have eight possible slots for ideagroups, which is given from various technlogy levels. What makes the game more interesting though, is that when you have selected an ideagroup, you are basically stuck with it. You have chosen the path for your nation. Investing into a full idea group takes quite a while, and can cost several decades worth of power.

There are sixteen possible idea groups you can choose from in EU4, each with seven different ideas in them, and a bonus. They are Plutocracy, Aristocracy, Innovativeness, Religion, Espionage, Diplomatic, Offensive, Defensive, Trade, Economic, Exploration, Naval, Quality, Quantity, Expansion & Administrative. Remember – you can only have a maximum of eight of these, so half of the idea groups will never come into play for your country. You veteran players may notice how many of these idea groups parallel the tracks that used to be domestic policy sliders.

Each of these idea groups use one specific monarch power for buying ideas., To increase in offensive ideas you will be using military power and exploration uses diplomatic power, for example.

National ideas
Every country also has something we call National Ideas, with the most important countries having a set of unique national ideas. Major countries including the Mamelukes and England have seven unique ideas granting them specific abilities. These ideas are not something you spend power on to buy, but, instead, you gain one of these ideas for free for every third idea you buy normally from an idea group.

Every nation also starts with a national tradition: two abilities which define the history and heritage of the country. As we see here, Sweden starts with 5% better infantry and 25% cheaper mercenaries. Countries also have what we call “national ambition”, which is a bonus given when you have gained all seven of your national ideas. This bonus is also unique for each country.

Interface
To make the game more comprehensible and transparent, ideas are represented by icons that correspond to their effects.
Every time this effect is active or needed for display purposes (like in describing country modifiers or religious bonuses) you will see this icon. That way you can tell at a glance the impact your ideas are having on your national evolution.


Next week, we'll be back to talk more about .. lets see… something on the isles..

 

[Johan]

Am I right in thinking that in other words, you could say that each country has 8 slots for ideas, with a new slot unlocking every which technology level, and can choose from among 16 ideas, with each idea having 7 levels with different effects to it? And an extra bonus once you reach the maximum level? That makes it easier to understand in my head.

yes.

Do you gain national ideas when you buy every third idea at all, or only on ideas 3 and 6 in each idea group?

every 3rd at all.

 

[Wallienator]

Shouldn't there be a set of, negative buffs for certain ideas? like with innovativeness that you have less papal influence and things like that?

 

[Johan]

My guess is that you unlock the groups but aren't forced to unlock all of the ideas within before unlocking another group. You can spend your points on whatever available group you fancy.
But you can't take idea 6 of any group if you only have 1 and 2 already. So you're forced to take them in order, but not in a single group at a time.
If I make sense.

yep, thats correct.

 

[Checco]

I like the idea of not being able to switch NI (and their equivalents), it should remove lots of old EU3 exploits and at the same time help immersion, I'm happy to see the game development going that direction.

National tradition is a nice addition, too.

I must confess I'm quite skeptic about the "unique national ideas", and above all the fact you get them for free; I'm afraid in MP it could cause several troubles. Nothing that could not be properly competitiveness-wise balanced however, I trust the devs have time and will to pull it off if they decided to insert that feature .

 

[unmerged(63836)]

I like the look of this. No doubt nation-specific ideas are going to cause untold grief on the forum but who cares.

This is not Diablo or Torchlight where you are choosing your class, and are stuck with it's bonuses. It's supposed to be strategy game spanning hundreds of years where you shape your country as you please, not be stuck with a Paladin or a Mage.

Terrible design decision to be honest. At least for me it's destroying immersion, since such design is based around the idea of fate and destiny, not logic.

 

[Johan]

You can see Sweden with offensive and defensive idea groups. So I would guess that quality/quantity will not be exclusive as well.

yeah, as you could argue that France in Napoleonic era was both quality AND quantity.

 

[Necazian]

This is not Diablo or Torchlight where you are choosing your class, and are stuck with it's bonuses. It's supposed to be strategy game spanning hundreds of years where you shape your country as you please, not be stuck with a Paladin or a Mage.

Terrible design decision to be honest. At least for me it's destroying immersion, since such design is based around the idea of fate and destiny, not logic.

We can probably mod it away.

 

[nestorius]

Still a little confused

If lets say there are 8 ideas in each group can you end with 64 ideas? 8*8 or is the maximum 8?

Also national ideas sound great, but tbh would be great to have also national ideas in the case that a country a historically becomes powerful. Becomes lets say a secondary or Greater power something like that.

So if Aragon (provided it doesnt have national ideas) doesnt get swallowed by Castille and instead maintains its place as a Catalan/Sicilian power going on to colonise the new world it should be able to get some national ideas also.

I realise its to make these countries in some ways "lucky" but would be good to have the possibility that other countries could also reach these levels.

Or am I reading it wrong and is the English national idea not an extra slot independent of the 8?

 

[Grubnessul]

Interesting, but still very scarce information. Not a big fan of country specific ideas - that's pretty deterministic, and silly to be honest. Do Swedes for example had it in their genes or was it written in stars that they would always get cheaper mercs? Shouldn't it depend on how country developed throughout the game instead? That's quite disappointing and simplistic mean to simulate history.

Also, would player be really stuck with once selected idea group? How about reforms, sudden changes of policies, or revolutions?

Plus, 17th century Musketeer would look much, much better without bayonet. I know that technically they were used in latter part of the century, but they became widespread in 18th century. Date is 1579 - that just looks wrong.

I agree with the bayonet. The hat is really awesome, though.

You do seem to confuse the cheaper mercenaries for the Swedish national idea, it's a national tradition. I'm interested if these traditions can change or are set in stone.

I reckon the national ideas are there just for flavour. While it does sound a bit deterministic, in the end, the strategy of countries is determined by it's geographic 'genes'.

 

[ben_mit_b]

if some more important countries get more country-specific ideas than less important ones it bothers me if the lesser ones actually stay competitive...

 

[StephenT]

What makes the game more interesting though, is that when you have selected an ideagroup, you are basically stuck with it. You have chosen the path for your nation. Investing into a full idea group takes quite a while, and can cost several decades worth of power.

When you say you're basically stuck with it, do you mean it's completely impossible to change an idea group, or just very, very difficult?

I imagine that if you've spent 30 years investing political power points into buying all seven ideas in an idea group, if you then cancel that idea group and pick another one for that slot, all your investment would be wasted and you'd have to start again from the beginning at idea level 1. That would be a much bigger penalty than EU3's -3 stability loss, but still give you some flexibility to guide your nation down a different path.

 

[Chilango2]

I don't see any contradiction. What he means is likely that you can develop several idea groups simultaneously if you want, but you can't rid yourself of an idea group to free up the "slot", should you run out of slots.

I didn't mean to say it was contradictory, I could imagine any number of ways it could have worked out. The explanation you and other osters have given has made it clearer to me however, thanks.

 

[kaspar42]

Each of these idea groups use one specific monarch power for buying ideas., To increase in offensive ideas you will be using military power and exploration uses diplomatic power, for example.

I take it that buying ideas use the same points as buying technology?

So basically the player has to balance getting a new idea with getting a new tech level?

 

[Kensai7]

Swedish Traditions... köttbullar bonus +10!

 

[StephenT]

If lets say there are 8 ideas in each group can you end with 64 ideas? 8*8 or is the maximum 8?

Also national ideas sound great, but tbh would be great to have also national ideas in the case that a country a historically becomes powerful. Becomes lets say a secondary or Greater power something like that.

There are 16 Idea Groups available in total, and you can choose a maximum of 8 of these for your nation. (New slots unlock as tech increases.) Within each idea group, there are 7 ideas that you buy with the power points your monarch gives you. By the end of the game, that's a total of 8 * 7 = 56 ideas you can purchase, out of a total of 16 * 7 = 112 ideas available. In addition, you get up to 7 bonus national ideas for free, so your grand total is 63 ideas.

Every country gets national ideas. it sounds like there will be generic ones open to every country, plus nation-specific ideas for selected countries.

Question: will there just be a single set of generic national ideas, or will it vary by culture group/religion etc?

 

[Dankysh]

When you say you're basically stuck with it, do you mean it's completely impossible to change an idea group, or just very, very difficult?

I imagine that if you've spent 30 years investing political power points into buying all seven ideas in an idea group, if you then cancel that idea group and pick another one for that slot, all your investment would be wasted and you'd have to start again from the beginning at idea level 1. That would be a much bigger penalty than EU3's -3 stability loss, but still give you some flexibility to guide your nation down a different path.

I like that you are. A naval power investing in a modern large navy can't suddenly just ignore navy and get a nice big army. In EU3 it cost so little to change. The only time it was a *slightly* high cost was ones empire was big/intolerant. BUt for small stable empires swapping between NI's made sense.

On being stuck, I think he means to change you have to lose all the progress you have made and go back to having a basic idea. So you have lost decades of power from investing in the old idea, and you will lose more for investing in the new one. Which makes it, in the long run, changing ideagroup a bad idea in most cases.

 

[Johan]

I take it that buying ideas use the same points as buying technology?

So basically the player has to balance getting a new idea with getting a new tech level?

Yes, thats true.

If lets say there are 8 ideas in each group can you end with 64 ideas? 8*8 or is the maximum 8?

7 ideas in each group, 8 groups you can have maximum.. so 56 ideas + any national ideas you may get.

So if Aragon (provided it doesnt have national ideas) doesnt get swallowed by Castille and instead maintains its place as a Catalan/Sicilian power going on to colonise the new world it should be able to get some national ideas also.

Aragon has their own unique set of national traditions and ideas.

 

[JakopDalunde]

IMHO, there should be a possibility to back-track and change an idea group - but it should take both time and effort.

 

[Captain Gars]

It's supposed to be strategy game spanning hundreds of years where you shape your country as you please, not be stuck with a Paladin or a Mage.

That's exactly what you can do - shape your country. As England you can choose to completely avoid any idea groups connected with trade, exploration and naval warfare. What you can't do however is go down the historical path for England for 300 years and then suddenly throw all that away and decide your country has no tradition in trade, exploration or naval warfare.

 

[Johan]

When you say you're basically stuck with it, do you mean it's completely impossible to change an idea group, or just very, very difficult?

I imagine that if you've spent 30 years investing political power points into buying all seven ideas in an idea group, if you then cancel that idea group and pick another one for that slot, all your investment would be wasted and you'd have to start again from the beginning at idea level 1. That would be a much bigger penalty than EU3's -3 stability loss, but still give you some flexibility to guide your nation down a different path.

Currently in testing we don't have the option for it as its basically something you want a huge confirm dialog on.

"Are you 100% SURE you want to throw away 35 years of progress?"