Just the facts, ma'am : collected information from the devs - READ BEFORE POSTING!

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Evie HJ

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Well, since I maintained the collected information for EU III (although someone else had started the thread), time to return to the frontlines :). Hopefully I'll be able to stick to it the whole way.

Disclaimer: while all these is from quotes by the Devs, I may have misunderstood this or that statement, and all of this is subject to change. Don't take any of the content here as a promise from the Devs.

(I was originally sourcing the information, but I stopped midway through adding stuff from the Strategy Informer article)

If you see anything missing, point me to the relevant quote and I'll add it

Updates
From developer posts:
-The game will only be available in a Steam version
-The game should be released for Mac, PC and Linux on Day 1


From DD 16 :
-You can use your monarch's military power to reduce the revolt risk by 5, at a cost of 5 power per base tax
-Morale recovers much more slowly than in previous game.

From DD 17 :
-Key information about diplomatic relation (war score, truce duration) will be displayed in the diplomatic interface.
-Similar diplomatic interactions have been grouped together in the list of interactions, in sub-menus.
-The interface will display directly the likelihood of the AI accepting an offer by mean of an arrow.
-Your in-game opinion of a country will influence your actions against that country.
-Some relations values modifiers are fixed, others decay over time.
-Naming a country as your rival will improve your relation with their other rivals.

MEGA-UPDATE of 12/29/12

GENERAL INFORMATION
-The ten countries pre-selected for the grand campaign are the eight tier-one countries, plus Poland and Venice.
-There are four tiers of nations getting differeing level of focus from Paradox designers, from the most critical ones to no-special-attention
-The eight tier one (most critical) nations are France, Ottoman, Spain, Russia, England, Portugal, Austria and Sweden
-Netherland would have are tier 2 because of how relatively unlikely to appear they are.
-There are nine tier 2 and nineteen tier 3 nations, detailed here : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?636355-The-3-tiers...
-There is a high likelihood of steam achievements for EU IV

TECHNOLOGY
-Technology is now split in three categories, instead of the old five, matching the three monarch values (administrative, diplomatic, and military)
-Naval and trade are now part of diplomatic tech, and government and production part of administrative technology.
-There are 33 technologies in each of the three groupes, all of them named and all of them with a clear impact.
-There will not be a chance of failure when researching technology
-The base cost of technology is 400 points. It can be modified by many things, including tech group, but will never be higher than 999 points.
-However, the multiplier for researching a tech ahead of time can increase the cost above 999.
-There will be a tooltip on the cost bar for new technologies informing you of the modifier to each tech's cost, including the expected research date.

ECONOMY
-Trade nodes are not located in specific provinces, so you can't control them by just controling one province.
-Merchants enable you to quickly increase power in a trade node, or to build an office that gives you money from that node.
-Light ships can be sent on a trade mission to redirect trade your way, but only if you have fleet basing rights or a province in that region.
-Trade routes will not be of different color and will be subtle outside trade map mode.
-Resources distribution for already-settled provinces will not be randomized, but colonizable territory will work like in Divine Wind.
-There will only be one resource per province

MILITARY
-Having large portions of your fleet out on trade missions increase naval tradition.
-High tradition gives you bonus, like higher morale and quicker manpower recovery
-Recruiting a leader no longer cost military tradition, but maintaining tradition during peace time is now harder
-Tradition changes occur each month, not only at the end of the year.
-The game will still only have the three basic unit types, infantry, cavalry, artillery.
-Force limits calculations have been changed. Merchants now increase naval force limits

GOVERNMENTS AND REBELLIONS
-Republican Tradition is a value that represent how strongly attached to republican ways your country is. You start with 1% and gain 1% per year.
-Reelecting the same person loses you 10% tradition, and if you do it with your tradition too low (or otherwise hit 0%) you become a despotic monarchy.
-Uncontested rebellions will spread to neighboring provinces
-Rebel factions will exist even when there's no active rebellion, and you will be able to take steps to manage them
-Revolt risk will not reduce manpower by an equal amount
-A monarchy will only convert to a republic if forced to by a revolution
-Upgrading government will cost 50 administrative points
-Blockades, casualties, war taxes and attrition cause war exhaustion to increase
-War exhaustion weaken the moral of your troops and your manpower as well as your reinforcement speed in addition to increasing revolt risk
-Overextension is a new feature based on having too much tax income coming in from non-core provinces
-Overextension increase revolt risk and stability cost and lower trade income, among other things

RULERS
-Stability will be increased by spending administrative points.
-Changing culture of a province is done with monarch power, in a province that doesn't have an accepted culture.
-It costs 50 administrative points to make a province a core.

RELIGION
-Religions have highly changed effect. No more free colonists for the christians.
-Countries will play differently depending on which religion they are. Some religions have unique features and abilities.
-Catholics will use the papacy, vying to get a cardinal they support into the curia (cardinals in the curia are locked on who they support)
-Orthodox will have to cope with patriarch authority, which range from 0 to 100%, and grant bonus to manpower and revolt risk and penalties to tax.
-Muslims will have piety, which is earned by fighting non-muslims, and affect revolt risk, defensiveness, morale, research, manpower and tax income.
-Religious unity, based on the percentage of your base tax that come from right-religion provinces, affect stability cost and revolt risk.
-Protestant and reformed have no final decision as of yet on whether or not they will get a special mechanic
-The new relation code will avoid nations with different religion becoming arch-enemies within a few years.
-A fully impious Ottoman nation could come close to keeping up with westerners in technology
-Muslim nations will suffer bad things if they have a regency council.
-The reformation will look very similar to EU3

MAP
-The number of mapmodes should be about the same

HISTORICITY
-The old Time of Troubles event has now gotten a new generic name, so that Time of Trouble can now be a Russia-specific event
-Formed nations have different sets of national ideas depending on what the forming nation picked before formation.

CHARACTERS
-Generals should live about 7-8 years on average.

10/14/12

New countries
-East Frisia is in the game as a new country. Its capital is Emden.
-There are currently 10 countries for the grand campaign.

FROM DD IV

Economy
-All income is now monthly. There is no yearly tax.
-There is no longer any possibility of investing in technology or stability, or minting. All money goes straight to budget.
-Inflation will now result from loans and gold mines only.
-It will be possible to repay loans.

Technology
-Technology is no longer connected to the economy.

From DD V
Monarch points
-The three old monarch stats (Adm/Mil/Dip) are still in, but now ranked from 0 to 6. This is how many ability points of that type you gain each month.
-Each advisor contribute between 1 and 3 points to one specific monarch stat, but you cannot have more than one advisor per stat.

Monarch Abilities
-Monarch points allow you to perform a variety of actions, which are variable in cost.
-Capital Movement, Technological Advance and Idea selection are high-cost monarch abilities.
-Core Creation, Stability Increase and Inflation Reduction are medium-cost monarch abilities.
-Assaulting, Constructing Building and the upkeep cost for diplomatic deals and military leaders are low-cost monarch abilities.

Advisors
-Advisors are divided in three groups representing the three monarch stats, which they increase between 1 and 3. You cannot have two advisor of one group.
-Each group has five different advisor, each with a specific bonus. That bonus is the same regardless of advisor skill (which affect the monarch stat bonus).
-They are now far more expansive than they used to be.

From DDVI

National IDeas
-Domestic policies (the sliders) are gone, replaced by the Ideas
-National ideas are now broken down in sixteen Idea Groups of seven ideas which must be picked in order. Each idea slot allow you to pick an idea group.
-You do not have to pick all seven ideas in a group before starting on another group, but you get a bonus when you have all seven.
-Some national idea group will prevent each other, such as aristocracy and plutocracy (but not quality/quantity or offensive/defensive)
-Many of the idea groups correspond to old slider positions (quality/quantity, offensive/defensive, aristocracy/plutocracy, etc).

National Ideas
-Each nation has a set of seven ideas: for minor nations, a generic set. For major nation, they instead have their own unique set.
-For each three ideas (not idea groups) you implement, you get a bonus idea from this set of seven.
-Milan, Genoa and Aragon are all confirmed to have unique national idea sets. It will be possible to add more.

National Tradition and Ambition
-Each nation has a national tradition, which is a bonus unique to them that they have from the start of the game.
-Each nation also has an ambition, which is a special bonus they get upon unlocking their entire set of seven ideas.
-Sweden's Tradition gives -25% Mercenary Cost, +5% Infantry Combat Ability, and its ambition gives +1 leader shock value

9/22/12 update (DD2, DD3, various quotes)
-Naples has a few additional provinces
-Istria is where it belongs
-The military system will still largely be the military system of Europa Universalis.
-Only four envoy types remain in the game: Merchant, Colonist, Missionary, Diplomat
-They are characters with namesm, not a simple expendable and renewable resource
-When an agent is sent on a mission you have to wait until the mission is over to recover that agent
-The number of each agents you get is determined by modifiers, governments, ideas, etc.
-Each individual envoy is the same as other envoys of that category; they don't have distinct skills.
-The Diplomats are no longer used as a resource to recruit generals/admirals
-Some diplomats actions will now be instant, but many will take some time to achieve.
-They will absorb some of the old abilities of spies
-Missionaries will work as in EU3, except that you are now hard-limited in the number of them you have.
-Religious ideas that aid conversion rate or increase missionary count will be interesting because of this.
-The colonists are no longer used as a resource to recruit explorers/conquistadors
-They're otherwise similar to what they were in Europa III.
-Merchants are somewhat similar to what they were in Europa III, but upgraded to the new system.
-(Spies) are gone
-(Magistrates) are gone.
-Sliders were removed. New systems will represent the function of domestic policies
-Administrative efficiency was also removed.
-Cores are no longer automatically gained after fifty years
-(Cores) appear to be purchased using your king's powers.
-(Cultural Tradition) is gone.
-The EU3 shogunate system will not be in EU IV.
-This does not necessarily mean Japan will be united.
-The Hordes will be back, but heavily modified.
-The Faction system was not included in the list of EU3 features to be removed.
-The advisor creation system is drastically different from EU3, and no longer involves cultural tradition.
-Naming and generation of leaders and is 99% random.
-Controling the estuaries of navigable rivers will have an effect on your income

9/10/12 update
-Westernization will be different in EU IV
-Thirty three nations will receive extra attention: eight primary nations, nine secondary ones, and sixteen tertiary ones.

DD I
-Provinces will be designed for gameplay reason before historical ones.
-Provinces should be large enough to convey information, convex to make movement intuitive, and with a reasonalbe number of connections
-The aim is for the borders to feel smooth and adapted to the terrain
-The aim is for the province count to increase by about 10%
-The colored borders from Crusader Kings will be used on terrain map
-The projection is now that of Victoria.
-The game will project important information directly on the map
-Japan will have fewer provinces
-There will be significant provincecount change in Eastern Europe and India.

8/31/12 update

JEUXVIDEO.FR article
-The game should include cooperative multiplayer where multiple players control a country.
-You will be able to exert diplomatic threats and pressure, and to support rebels.

GAMEGRIN article
-The diplomatic rating of your ruler limit the number of alliances you may have.
-Advisors will be able to balance out your monarch's shortfalls.

Diary #0
-The designers do not want to dramatically increase the complexity level.
-All regular EU3 events are still in, except those that worked with a mechanism that is not in EU4.
-Many new generic events will be added.
-There are dynamic historical events. These are specific historical events.
-They are tied to specific countries: the War of the Rose will only happen to England
-They have much more specific conditions than in EU2 : the War of the Rose require you to have no heirs before 1500.

8/20/12 update (All about Game interview)
-The possibility for a king to have multiple sons will play a role in the game, but without a full dynastic system.
(This is now questionable information)

8/16/12 update (Gamespot video).
-The game is in version 0.01 as of the Gamespot video of August 16.
-There is an in-game store button on the main interface
-As of the Gamespot video of 8/16, the start date is November 11, 1444, just after the battle of Varna
-And the game ends in the late 18th century.
-Agents are actual named characters who are sent on specific missions, not a simple expendable resource
-The game is planned to have multi-core support.
-Advisors are confirmed to be making their return.
-They appear to work mainly as in EU3.
-The diplomatic display, rather than text based, now display the COA of all nations you are at war with, then those you are at Truce with, and so on.
-Acquiring provinces in a region improves your trade power in that region (and your ability to direct trade your way)
-You can use your ships to control trade with a "Protect trade route" command that increase your trade power.
-As of now, sharing a common enemy improves relations by 50 points, and being the same religion improves relation by 25 points.
-Pirate patrols and naval range still appear to be in.
-Use of spies will be reduced.
-Diplomacy will be more important than in EU3
-As the game progress, trade will shift from being centered on the Mediteranean toward being centered on the Atlantic..

BASIC INFORMATION

Development Status
-The game is expected to be released Q3 2013

Engine, Performance and System Requirements
-The game run on the Clausewitz 2.5 engine, an upgrade of the Clausewitz 2 engine of Crusader Kings II.
-The System Requirements will be the same as with CK2.
-The game is planned to have multi-core support.
-There are no plans to make the game take advantage of 64 bits system at present (it will run on them, in 32 bits mode)

On DRM, Steam, DLCs, and DVDs
-The game will only be available in a Steam version
-Paradox doesn't like to have DRM on their own titles when they can avoid it.
-It's doubtftul that there will be a physical release of Paradox games from 2013 onward.
-Every country will always be playable, there won't be DLC locking away countries
-There appears to be from videos an in-game store of some variety.

Other Versions
-The game should be released for Mac, PC and Linux on Day 1

Achievements
-There is a high likelihood of steam achievements for EU IV

GENERAL GAMEPLAY STUFF

General Game Philosophy
-While rulers have a much greater importance, you still play as the country, not its ruler nor its dynasty.
-Europa Universalis 4 is based on Europa Universalis 3 with all expansions; most features from Divine Wind 5.2 are still used in some form.
-The designers do not want to dramatically increase the complexity level. The game should be as accessible as possible (while still complex).
-The game span over 300 years, starting on November 11, 1444 (after the battle of Varna) into the late 18th century.
-The ten countries pre-selected for the grand campaign are the eight tier-one countries, Poland and Venice.

The Tiers
-There are four tiers of nations getting differeing level of focus from Paradox designers, from the most critical ones to no-special-attention
-The eight tier one (most critical) nations are France, Ottoman, Spain, Russia, England, Portugal, Austria and Sweden
-Netherland would have are tier 2 because of how relatively unlikely to appear they are.
-There are nine tier 2 and nineteen tier 3 nations, detailed here : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?636355-The-3-tiers...
-Most of the works on the tier-1/2/3 countries is already done

THE MAP

Map graphics and information
-Winter will have effects, and parts of the ocean may freeze
-Borders will be the colored borders from Crusader King II. The aim will be for them to feel smooth and adapted to the terrain.
-An aim is to have important information directly on the map.
-The number of mapmodes should be about the same

Actual Map/Province Design
-The map is now based on the Victoria II projection.
-The province count will be about 10% higher than EU3. Eastern Europe and India especially will gain new provinces. Japan will lose some.
-There have been major map improvement, especially outside Western Europe

ON ARMIES AND NAVIES

On the military
-The military system will get somewhat of an overhaul, but will still be very largely the standard Europa Universalis system.
-The game will still only have the three basic unit types, infantry, cavalry, artillery.
-Morale recovers much more slowly than in previous game.

On Navies
-Pirate patrols and naval range still appear to be in.
-Fleets can be assigned to protect trade routes, which improve your trade power in that region.
-Force limits calculations have been changed. Merchants now increase naval force limits

On Tradition
-Having large portions of your fleet out on trade missions increase naval tradition.
-High tradition gives you bonus, like higher morale and quicker manpower recovery
-Maintaining tradition during peace time is now harder
-Tradition changes occur each month, not only at the end of the year.

CHARACTERS (Leaders, Advisors, Envoys)

General Characters Information
-Characters are still, in general, randomly generated ("in 99% of cases").
-Historical characters exist for the "start at any date" feature.

On Leaders
-Leaders will work primarily as in EU3, but envoys (Colonists, Diplomats) are no longer used to recruit leaders.
-Recruiting a leader no longer cost military tradition
-Generals should live about 7-8 years on average.

On Advisors
-Advisors are divided in three groups representing the three monarch stats, which they increase between 1 and 3. You cannot have two advisor of one group.
-Each group has five different advisor, each with a specific bonus. That bonus is the same regardless of advisor skill (which affect the monarch stat bonus).
-They are now far more expansive than they used to be.
-The advisor creation system is drastically different from EU3, and no longer involves cultural tradition (which no longer exists).

On Envoys
-Envoys are now named characters, not an expendabe resource. When you send one on a mission, you won't regain them until the mission is over.
-They are divided in four envoy types: Merchant, Colonist, Missionary, Diplomat. The Spies and Magistrates have been removed.
-Each agent is identical; how many of them you get depend on ideas, tech, government type, etc. Sending them on mission does not cost money.
-Diplomats will take over some spy abilities from EU3. Some of their actions will have instantaneous effects, but not all.
-Missionaries will work largely as in EU3, although the hard limit on how many you can have may make converstion chance increase valuable.

DIPLOMACY
General Diplomacy
-Diplomacy will be more important than in EU3. You will be able to exert diplomatic threats and pressure, and to support rebels.
-Infamny will be removed and replaced by new methods for the AI to keep track of expansionist nations, if the designers can make them work.
-Naming a country as your rival will improve your relation with their other rivals.

Diplomatic Interface
-Key information about diplomatic relation (war score, truce duration) will be displayed in the diplomatic interface.
-Similar diplomatic interactions have been grouped together in the list of interactions, in sub-menus.
-The interface will display directly the likelihood of the AI accepting an offer by mean of an arrow.

New Treaties
-Military access and the right to base fleets in a country are now separate agreements.
-There will be coalitions, which are targeted alliances against a specific country (offensively or defensively).

On relations
-Relation value will be unilateral: each country will have its individual opinion of other countries, instead of a single value for both countries.
-As in Crusader Kings 2, you will be able to see specific information as to why your relation with a country are as they are (for example, +25 for shared religion).<
-Some relations values modifiers are fixed, others decay over time.
-Your in-game opinion of a country will influence your actions against that country, for example your ability to declare war.

ECONOMY

On Trade Routes
-There will be actual trade routes on the map, which will be static. You will send merchants along these trade routes to bring the trade your way.
-As the game progress, trade will shift from being centered on the Mediteranean toward being centered on the Atlantic.
-Controling the estuaries of navigable rivers will have an effect on your income
-Trade nodes are not located in specific provinces, so you can't control them by just controling one province.
-Trade routes will not be of different color and will be subtle outside trade map mode.

On redirecting trade
-Merchants enable you to quickly increase power in a trade node, or to build an office that gives you money from that node.
-Light ships can be sent on a trade mission to redirect trade your way, but only if you have fleet basing rights or a province in that region.

On the Budget
-All income is now monthly. There is no yearly tax.
-All money goes straight to budget; it can no longer be invested in tech or stability. Inflation will now result from loans and gold mines only.
-It will be possible to repay loans before they are due.

On Resources
-Resources distribution for already-settled provinces will not be randomized, but colonizable territory will work like in Divine Wind.
-There will only be one resource per province

RELIGION

-Religions have highly changed effect. No more free colonists for the christians.
-Countries will play differently depending on which religion they are. Some religions have unique features and abilities.
-Religious unity, based on the percentage of your base tax that come from right-religion provinces, affect stability cost and revolt risk.
-The new relation code will avoid nations with different religion becoming arch-enemies within a few years.
-The reformation will look very similar to EU3

On Christians
-Christians no longer get free colonists.
-Catholics will use the papacy, vying to get a cardinal they support into the curia (cardinals in the curia are locked on who they support)
-Orthodox will have to cope with patriarch authority, which range from 0 to 100%, and grant bonus to manpower and revolt risk and penalties to tax.
-Protestant and reformed have no final decision as of yet on whether or not they will get a special mechanic

On Muslims
-Muslims will have piety, which is earned by fighting non-muslims, and affect revolt risk, defensiveness, morale, research, manpower and tax income.
-A fully impious Ottoman nation could come close to keeping up with westerners in technology
-Muslim nations will suffer bad things if they have a regency council.

RULERS

On Dynasties, Rulers and Heirs
-The game will not be using full-fledged dynastic systems, like Crusader Kings II.
-The information about the heir will still be displayed (if any); it will now be possible to appoint your heir as a military leader.
-There is a mechanism involving random rulers after your starting one, but it's a bit more interesting than that (Johan)
-There are no plans for in-game ruler portraits of any sort.

Ruler Stats and Points
-The three old monarch stats (Adm/Mil/Dip) are still in, but now ranked from 0 to 6. This is how many ability points of that type you gain each month.
-Advisor contribute between 1 and 3 points (dependign on skill) to one specific monarch stat, but you cannot have more than one advisor per stat.
-These monarch points accumulate, allowing you to use different abilities, to a cap of 999. They do not vanish when your ruler dies.
-Getting a bad monarch will thus actually limit your options.

Monarch Abilities
-Monarch points allow you to perform a variety of actions, which are variable in cost.
-Capital Movement, Technological Advance and Idea selection are high-cost monarch abilities.
-Core Creation, Stability Increase and Inflation Reduction are medium-cost monarch abilities.
-Assaulting, Constructing Building and the upkeep cost for diplomatic deals and military leaders are low-cost monarch abilities.
-Other abilities include forced march and creating a leader.

Administrative Abilities
-Stability will be increased by spending administrative points.
-Changing culture of a province is done with monarch power, in a province that doesn't have an accepted culture.
-It costs 50 administrative points to make a province a core.

ON GOVERNMENT AND REBELLIONS

On changing governments
-A monarchy will only convert to a republic if forced to by a revolution
-Upgrading government will cost 50 administrative points

On Republics
-Republican Tradition is a value that represent how strongly attached to republican ways your country is. You start with 1% and gain 1% per year.
-Reelecting the same person loses you 10% tradition, and if you do it with your tradition too low (or otherwise hit 0%) you become a despotic monarchy.

On Rebellions
-Uncontested rebellions will spread to neighboring provinces
-Rebel factions will exist even when there's no active rebellion, and you will be able to take steps to manage them, including negociation
-Revolt risk will not reduce manpower by an equal amount

War Exhaustion
-Blockades, casualties, war taxes and attrition cause war exhaustion to increase
-War exhaustion weaken the moral of your troops and your manpower as well as your reinforcement speed in addition to increasing revolt risk

Overextension
-Overextension is a new feature based on having too much tax income coming in from non-core provinces
-Overextension increase revolt risk and stability cost and lower trade income, among other things

On Stability
-Stability cost is affected by religious disunity and overextension, but no longer by number and type of provinces.

ON NATIONAL IDEAS (& Domestic policy)

On National Ideas and Domestic Policy
-Domestic policies (the sliders) are gone, replaced by the Ideas. Ideas are divided in sixteen groups of seven ideas.
-There are up to eight idea group slots (so you can have eight at most), unlocked by tech. Ideas are bought with monarch points.
-When buying ideas, you can either get the next idea of a group you have, or if a slot is free, the first of a new group.
-When you have all seven ideas in a group, you gain an additional bonus. In addition, each three idea you purchase unlock a national idea.

On Idea Groups
-The Groups are:
-Quality, Quantity, Offensive, Defensive, Aristocracy, Plutocracy, Innovative, Religion,
-Espionage, Diplomatic, Trade, Economic, Exploration, Naval, Expansion, Administrative.
-Some idea groups are mutually exclusive: you cannot have both plutocracy and aristocracy (but you can have both quality/quantity).

Nation-Specific Ideas
-Each nation has a set of seven ideas: for minor nations, a generic set. For major nation, they instead have their own unique set.
-For each three ideas (not idea groups) you implement, you get a bonus idea from this set of seven.

National Tradition and Ambition
-Each nation has a national tradition, which is a bonus unique to them that they have from the start of the game.
-Each nation also has an ambition, which is a special bonus they get upon unlocking their entire set of seven ideas.
-Sweden's Tradition gives -25% Mercenary Cost, +5% Infantry Combat Ability, and its ambition gives +1 leader shock value


ON RESEARCH

Research
-Westernization will be different in EU IV
-Research is bought with monarch powers, and no longer the result of investing your monthly income.
-Technology is now split in three categories, instead of the old five, matching the three monarch values (administrative, diplomatic, and military)
-Naval and trade are now part of diplomatic tech, and government and production part of administrative technology.
-There are 33 technologies in each of the three groupes, all of them named and all of them with a clear impact.
-There will not be a chance of failure when researching technology

Technology Costs
-The base cost of technology is 400 points. It can be modified by many things, including tech group, but will never be higher than 999 points.
-However, the multiplier for researching a tech ahead of time can increase the cost above 999.
-There will be a tooltip on the cost bar for new technologies informing you of the modifier to each tech's cost, including the expected research date.


SPECIFIC COUNTRIES/GROUPS FEATURES

Japan
-The EU3 shogunate system will not be in EU IV.
-This does not necessarily mean Japan will be united.

Hordes
-The Hordes will be back, but heavily modified.

China
-The Faction system was not included in the list of EU3 features to be removed.

HISTORICITY

Countries and History Files
-There are over 250 playable countries in the span of the game. (Announcement)
-There are over 1000 leaders and 4000 monarchs. (Announcement)

Historical Events
-There will be thousand of historical events to guide you and provide flavor. (Announcement)
-the aim is to make each country feel different without railroading them.
-These historical events will pop up when they're supposed to, but you will be free to make your own history.
-There will be many more events unique to countries and years.
-All regular EU3 events are still in, except those that worked with a mechanism that is not in EU4.
-Many new generic events will be added.
-Thirty three nations will receive extra attention: eight primary nations, nine secondary ones, and sixteen tertiary ones.

Dynamic Historical Events
-There are dynamic historical events. These are specific historical events.
-They are tied to specific countries: the War of the Roses has will only happen to England
-They have much more specific conditions than in EU2 : the War of the Roses require you to have no heirs before 1500.
-On average, these events will be focused on European nations.
-The Protestant Reformation is NOT a DHE: it will happen much like in EU3.

Specific Event Chains
-The Protestant Reformation is handled as it was in EU3.
-The War of the Rose is a DHE chain unique to England.
-The old Time of Troubles event has now gotten a new generic name, so that Time of Trouble can now be a Russia-specific event

On history and determinism
-The game is not going back to the determinism of EU II (Captain Gars)
-History will play a larger part (Captain Gars)
-Burgundy continuing to exist after 1477 is not seen as a problem by Paradox. They want plausible, not determined (Johan)
-EU 4 will have the same open outcomes as EU3 (Johan)

Forming Nations
-Formed nations have different sets of national ideas depending on what the forming nation picked before formation.

ON MODDING

Modding in general
-The game will be very moddable (Announcement)
-The modding language is based on EU3, but expanded, more constant and more flexible (Captain Gars)

Adding stuff
-Adding many provinces and tags to the game will always cause lag (Johan)
-The game will be optimised for how many tags they need, expecting about a 10-20% increase in tags. (Johan)

Map Mods
-The map will be very moddable (Besuchov)
-The game will not be compatible with old (EU3) map mods due to a few changes made.

ON OTHER GAMES

Compared to EU3
-There will be some things in EU IV very similar to EU III; these are the parts the developers felt worked and were popular. 4

Features Removed from EU3
-Features not included in this list are probably still in the game (though they could be modified)
-Spies
-The daimyo/Shogunate system
-Centers of Trades, Trade Rights, Trade Leagues, Trade Agreements, Open Markets
-Magistrates
-Cultural Traditions
-Automated core gains
-Sliders

Features from other games
-There will not be a Victoria-style pop system in EU4. (King)
-There will not be a Rome-style pop system in EU4 (King)
-It's too late to change this (King)
-There will not be multiple settlements inside one province ala CK II (Johan)

Converters
-There are no plans to do an official CK2-EU4 converter at present. They're hard to create (Zoft)
-But Johan would very much hope to have one.

Magna Mundi
-The game will not integrate features from Magna Mundi (Strategy Gamer interview)
-The game was well advanced in planning before the MM cancellation decision was made. There is no connection whatsoever between MM and EU4.

MULTIPLAYER

General mutiplayer stuff
-The multiplayer will include hotjoin (Announcement)
-The game should include cooperative multiplayer where multiple players control a country.
-The multiplayer will include support for stand-alone servers (Announcement)
-Improved match-making
-A chat feature that's not from the eighties.
-"A new matchmaking server will also be created, where you'll be able to see on-going games and possibly join them on the fly (with hotjoin!), and we will also have support for "stand alone servers", which allows a computer to run, let’s say up to 5-10 games continuously, and letting the metaserver know it exists so people can join them as well." (Johan - Interview)
 
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Good work! Hopefully this will also prevent double or triple threads. :)
 
Yeah, this is nice.
 
If you see anything missing, point me to the relevant quote, and I'll add it.
 
Nicely done, let's hope for a sticky!
 
I'll update it when I see new info, and I'll see new info all the sooner if people point it to me :D
 
Thanks AndrewT for the stickification :)
 
Was it already six years ago that we were doing this for EU3? How time does fly.
 
Was it already six years ago that we were doing this for EU3? How time does fly.

It doesn't fly. Six years is a long time. I hadn't even discovered this site yet even though I played original EU all those years ago. :p
 
MichaelM - it has indeed been a while!

Somewhat major update from the Destructoid Article added. See especially sections about trade routes and monarch powers.
 
Excellent initative! If possible, maybe you could add a link to the source post/website and a date, at least on future additions? It would be another good way to avoid multiple threads/posts asking the same thing.
 
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