Europa Universalis IV

[JarlFrank]

Never played eu3 but its sliders sound like a much better mechanic than mana.

They were awesome. Money was EVERYTHING and everything mattered because of it. You didn't have a manapool ready to magically wipe your inflation or advance your tech levels. I still remember the fun I've had with it, couldn't have been older than 15, maybe less, and since there was little in the way of tutorial or tooltips, I had to discover everything on my own. I still remember that legendary game where I formed HRE and seemed to be on a good run... but unfortunately relied on minting money to make up for my deficits. I didn't even know inflation was a mechanic, it was just a tiny number stashed somewhere down in the UI, I thought the only adverse effect would be having less to spend on research. Well, obviously, I was wrong – at some point, in a completely non-scripted, simulationist way, my empire entered an inflation spiral and the prices of everything started growing at an insane rate. I couldn't do any research because the price of that also skyrocketed, so my funding made next to no progress. I did still have a massive army whose military ability was unaffected, but it was rapidly becoming obsolete. I recall entering massive, genocidal warfare with Kanem Bornu, a literal subsaharan nigger state that blobbed to be the main power holder in central Africa and attacked me relentlessly. My army was so backwater that we were actually even – massive massacres of massive stacks, peace deals usually only gaining one province at a time, or were even white peaces. All the while my sick empire looked with mounting dread at its european neighbours with their up to date armies. That session really taught me to stop using the minting slider, no matter how alluring it seems.

It was incredibly fun and had many situations that just cannot happen in EU4 – seriously, is it even possible to get struck down by inflation, for example? Just spend some mana to wave it away (while in EU3, after a certain point, you were simply FUCKED and rebounding from a runoff inflation was a truly herculean task). The AI also seemed better. Not in combat tactics, but it sensed when you're weak and loved to dogpile. That shitholestan you beat up and swallowed half of? It cannot dream to beat you on its own, but the moment you enter war with France, you can bet your ass it's going to declare war and try bumrushing you. Along with the other shitholestans you border. Clearly, it was actually programmed to try pouncing on you when you're weak and have something it wants (such as its cores) even when massively outnumbered, but that's not the case in EU4 anymore.

It aged rather poorly, it's true, and the barrier of entry is much higher than in EU4, but if you can get past that, it's definitely worth a playthrough. There is a lot less content and polish, but the mechanics are great, and it is a great shame that EU4 threw them out the window.

Thanks to the mana mechanics, stability is almost never an issue in EU4, just spend some mana on increasing your stability level and POOF!

 

[Average Manatee]

To be fair, stability was basically never an issue in EU3. Whenever you lost it you just maxed your slider for stability and got it back within a year or so.

Also, in regards to inflation, if you went bankrupt you lost 50% of your current inflation. It was actually a pretty viable strategy to completely abuse minting for a hundred years or so, both expanding and building lots of infrastructure, then intentionally bankrupt in a moment of relative safety. Generally you should be minting pretty hard in the early game since otherwise all those bureaucrats went to waste. And since the % penalty of inflation per year was itself based on the % of income you were minting, expanding your income early means that minting the same amount caused less inflation later.

 

[KazikluBey]

To be fair, stability was basically never an issue in EU3. Whenever you lost it you just maxed your slider for stability and got it back within a year or so.

laughs in Magna Mundi

But yeah, I think stability felt like a bigger issue in EU2 than 3, though that recollection may be colored by AGC-EEP.

 

[Zariusz]

I was looking at my EU4 mod folders and i rembered that once i also tried to make a mod for EU4, alt his submod for MEIOU to be precise, it was... interesting time. Actually i would still work on it if MEIOU 3.0 was released, sadly when 3.0 will be released probably im not going to have time for modding because of studies.
It was full of weird (and almost fantastical) alternative history ideas, stolen flags from HIP and over developed provinces, i even planned to add lost and mythical lands when my modding skills would grown enough.
Latest images of political and cultural maps of my mod that i found

Spoiler

I even created this unholy map of balanced balkans

 

[Higher Game]

No more debt spirals now means AI Ming can become UberMing.

 

[Theodora]

No more debt spirals now means AI Ming can become UberMing.

I heard mixed opinions on just how fixed stuff was but ... dare I hope it's actually playable now?

 

[Theodora]

Moar NA updates, tl;dr:

• "with fifty-six new tags, we’re adding more North American tags in this one overhaul than we have in the entire history of the Europa Universalis franchise"
• several tags broken up, instead contained through federations (which have been expanded upon)
  
• "fifty-three new provinces, not counting wastelands"
• Appalachian wasteland provinces added
• "We also tried to adopt a somewhat consistent standard in the naming of provinces, and revise province names accordingly. The new standard prefers the self-given names of a Native group (tribe, nation, band…) who lived in the region where we can find one."

I love this; on top of the previous diaries (1, 2), they're finally giving the indigenous Americans some depth instead of being a mere placeholders for you to conquer.

Spoiler

Hey everyone! Today is the last day of us talking about the native americans and the rework they are getting. We’ll be talking about the changes to the Federations and the new world setup. As you’ll see on the pictures for the map, a lot of tags have been split up in order to represent federations properly. A prime example is the Iroquois who will now be several tags and start in a federation at game start.



So let’s start with how to form them. Since we are splitting up the federal tags like the Huron and Iroquois I still wanted to retain some kind of identity for them. As such when you invite the first member to form a federation with you, you get the opportunity to also name the Federation. There are some default options scripted that can be based on Tags and Cultures which it will suggest for you, but you can of course just write whatever you want here.

We’ve also redone how leadership of the federation is decided. It is no longer decided on the death of the monarch of the leader in the tribe, instead we measure a cohesion value of the Federation. This value changes each month depending on the composition of the Federation but also some external factors. Keep in mind that any numbers & values are work in progress!

If cohesion hits 0% then it will trigger a change in leadership. In order to keep the cohesion high you want to keep similar cultures within your federation, however having one or two of a separate culture group won’t really be problematic. Another source of loss of cohesion is also if there are members that are stronger than the leader. For later in the game to help you keep a large federation together, if you have any colonizers on your border it will help you keep it together by having an external threat increasing your cohesion.



If a leadership change is triggered it will try to pick the strongest member to be the new leader, if the leader is the strongest then the federation will be disbanded. This entire process is 100% done in script, from calculation of members strength to what happens during leadership change. Currently for testing the strength is calculated from the max manpower of members and is done as a scripted function with an effect and looks like this:

calculate_federation_member_strength = {

    effect = {

        export_to_variable = { which = our_manpower value = max_manpower who = THIS }

        set_variable = { which = federation_strength which = our_manpower }



    }

}

Here’s the current list of values that affect your cohesion

• -1 For every member not of leaders culture group
• +1 For every member of leaders culture group
• -1 For every member stronger than the leader
• +1 for neighboring hostile Europeans

The aim here is to make Federations more something you can count on, instead of having to try and keep your prestige high or stack diplomatic reputation at all times just in case your leader at some random point dies, you can now count on it instead and try to plan around what you need to do in order to keep the leadership position.





Now I’m going to hand it over to a member of our beta program. @Evie HJ who have done the excellent work of reforming North America’s setup making it a much more vibrant and interesting place.



It's a whole (new) New World we live in



The setup for North America hasn’t really changed much at all since the release of Art of War, almost ix years ago – and, as far as the list of playable countries is concerned, since Conquest of Paradise even earlier. The new changes to the Native game mechanics in this patch provided a perfect opportunity to take a new look at a region that has remained largely untouched for a long time.



In some ways, this overhaul is our most ambitious review of the North American setup to date. The province count does fall short of Art of War (though fifty-three new provinces, not counting wastelands, is nothing to sneeze at), but the list of new tags is more than we ever added to North America at any single time. In fact, with fifty-six new tags, we’re adding more North American tags in this one overhaul than we have in the entire history of the Europa Universalis franchise.



Those tags are not evenly spread out across the continent. Two regions (the South-East United States and the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence) get the lion’s share of the tags. Others like the Great Plains or Hudson Bay, get a handful of provinces or tags. The West Coast, for its part, where we know almost nothing of Indigenous people before the last century or so of the game, was entirely outside the scope of this overhaul. This applies to the provinces as well as the tags: in broad terms, we tried to add provinces in the same general region we were adding tags, to keep the amount of empty (or tribal land) provinces roughly similar.



With twenty-one new tags, it is the South-East United States that receive the most work in this new overhaul. The reason is simple: up until now, the 1444 setup in the game represented the historical situation around 1600-1650. The first 150 years of the game – a time when the last great cities of the Mississippian civilizations flourished in the region (the more northern city, like Cahokia, were likely abandoned by 1444)– were left out entirely. This was the first thing we set out to fix, and the new setup, as a result, emphasize the situation that early European explorers and archaeologists tell us about – not English colonists two centuries later. By and large, most of those new tags are settled nations, and (except the Cherokee) all belong to the Muskogean culture group. This is a compromise for some of them: while they spoke Siouan languages like Catawba, they were heavily influenced by the Southern Appalachian Mississippian culture, and it’s those cultural ties we chose to emphasize.

In the new setup, the Creek Confederacy is no longer available at game start, and the Cherokee are reduced to a one-province statelet in the mountains. In their stead, the Coosa Paramount Chiefdom is now the major power of the region. Though a one-province nation in itself, it rules through a network of subject states (Satapo, an area stretching from the Kentucky border to Alabama along the spine of the Appalachians. Surrounding it are a number of smaller, independent chiefdoms, including both sites visited by the De Soto expedition (Altamaha, Cofitachequi, Joara, Ichisi, Chisca, as well as Atahachi, the future home of Chief Tuscaloosa) and of Muskogean towns that would eventually form the seeds of the future Creek Confederacy, like Coweta and Kasihta. Further west, in the valleys of the Mississippi, they are joined not only by more of the chiefdoms documented by De Soto, (Quizquiz, Anilco, Pacaha and Casqui, the last three corresponding to the Menard-Hodges, Nodena and Parkin Mound archaeological sites), but also by the Natchez people, who would, in later century, become the last tribe to embrace Mississippian culture.



Further north, our other focus region was the Great Lakes of North America. Here, the main concern was nothing to do with our setup representing the wrong date (except along the Saint Lawrence, where the Iroquoians of the sixteenth century were mysteriously missing), and everything to do with the fact that the two most famous (con)federations of natives, the Hurons and Iroquois, were represented as monolithic nations with no use for the in-game Federation mechanism. Once it was decided to represent each of the nations making up those two confederations independently, adding in the other relevant nations in the region was an obvious choice. As with the United States South-East, these are largely settled nations of Iroquoian cultures, although a handful of them are migratory instead.

This gives us a sizeable five new nations where the one Iroquois tag used to be: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca (plus, starting much further south at game start but not forgotten, the Tuscarora). Opposing them are the less well-known member nations of the Huron Confederacy: Tahontaenrat, Arendaronon, Attignawantan and Attigneenongnahac. In addition to them, we have a selection of minor Iroquoian nations that can struggle to strike the right balance to remain neutral between these two powerful Confederacies. This notably include the aptly named Neutral Nation (Attiwandaron), as well as the Tionontate (or Tobacco Indians), the Wenro of far western New York, and the Erie of Northwest Pennsylvania (plus the already existing Susquehannock). As the last two (Erie, Susquehannock) represent nations that claimed large territory but with very little united government, they are represented as migratory nations. You can think of the migration as representing shifting balance of power among the different villages and groups of their respective nations, rather than actual physical relocation. Also represented as migratory are the first two Iroquoian nations ever encountered by European: Stadacona, on the site of present day Quebec City, and Osheaga (Hochelaga), in present Montreal. In their case, leaving them migratory was the simplest way to enable them to potentially vanish from the Saint Lawrence lowlands, as they did in the late sixteenth century.



Our changes didn’t stop at those new areas, though they received the bulk of the changes. Existing tags that represented larger confederations or culture group were split into (some of) their constituent parts: the Illinois are now represented by the Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Peoria, the Shawnee by Chalahgawtha, Kispoko and Hathawekela, and the Puebloan people expanded from Keres and Pueblo to Acoma, Zia, Ohkay Owingeh and Sandiat. In a similar vein, some particularly large groups that used to be represented by a single tag now have additional tags to represent them: this is the case of the Cree, with the addition of the Nehiyaw (Plains Cree) nation, the Ojibwe, who are now additionally represented by the Mississage for their easternmost group and the Nakawe (or Saulteaux) for their western bands, and the Sioux, now expanded to include the Wichiyena (Western Dakota) and Lakota nations. Historical confederations that were lacking some of their members or needing a boost also gained it: the Iron Confederacy gained the Nehiyaw and Nakawe, described above; the Three Fires now add the Mississage to their alliance, and the Wabanaki Confederacy of North-East North America can now count on the help of the Maliseet and Penobscot as well as the pre-existing Abenaki. Finally, three more tags are added on sheer account of their historical importance in the Colonial era, two as allies of New France, one as ally-turned-enemy of New England: the Algonquin of the Ottawa valley, the Innu of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the Wampanoag of Massachusetts Bay.

Along with all these changes, we finally introduced Wasteland mountain ranges to North America. Not in the Rockies (where the handful of connections already represent major passes through the mountains), but rather, in the East, along the Appalachian mountains. While they may not seem like much today, they were formidable obstacle to westward expansion in colonial time, when it was said that there were only five paths from the East Coast westward that could be taken by large groups of people: around the mountains to the south in the Piedmont of Georgia, through the Cumberland gap on the border of Virginia and Tennessee, through the Cumberland Narrows of western Maryland, the Allegheny gaps of Pennsylvania, and finally through the valley of the Mohawk river, in New York. In addition, through it didn’t allow for east-west travel per se, the Great Valley of the Appalachians was another significant route through the region, running from Alabama to Pennsylvania. All of them are now represented in the game, along with the mountains that bordered them.



We also tried to adopt a somewhat consistent standard in the naming of provinces, and revise province names accordingly. The new standard prefers the self-given names of a Native group (tribe, nation, band…) who lived in the region where we can find one. If none can be found, other options include a name given to a local people by a neighboring tribe (provided it’s not derogatory), or a geographic name in a local Native language. In all cases, we now tend to favor native spelling where we are able to find it, though symbols that are particularly unusual in the standard Latin Alphabet may be set aside or approximated for our players’ benefit.





That’s it for today, as usual I’ll answer questions in the thread however there’s one I want to address yet again as it keeps getting asked and I can’t answer every single time it gets asked. People have asked if these features will be applied to South America or the Siberian Natives etc. It all depends on time, the main focus is to rework the North Americans and if I have time I will make sure it plays nice with others that can also benefit but it is not a priority. Next week will have it’s development diary written by Johan.

 

[thesecret1]

"with fifty-six new tags, we’re adding more North American tags in this one overhaul than we have in the entire history of the Europa Universalis franchise"

 

[Mortmal]

No more debt spirals now means AI Ming can become UberMing.

I heard mixed opinions on just how fixed stuff was but ... dare I hope it's actually playable now?

Not seeing people on the forums threatening to immolate themselves if a fix is not released now, so i guess its playable.

 

[Axioms]

Adding "wastelands" in Appalachia is not legitimate lol.

 

[Theodora]

I wonder if they will do the same with south american tribes as well? I believe it would fit well, most brazilian tribes were nomads.

They seem to be updating all the areas that were later subject to colonialism. SEA and North America down, I'd be surprised if Africa and South America didn't see similar treatment. There's no details yet, but we have it all but confirmed that Australia has a new religion, so presumably they're adding more to the continent than 'just' a religion to be erased by colonial elements.

And this is pretty much the direction people were asking them to go on the forums, so they are apparently listening for once (at least to those wanting to experience the game outside Europea and the Middle East.

Adding "wastelands" in Appalachia is not legitimate lol.

I mean, if you'd read the post,

Along with all these changes, we finally introduced Wasteland mountain ranges to North America. Not in the Rockies (where the handful of connections already represent major passes through the mountains), but rather, in the East, along the Appalachian mountains. While they may not seem like much today, they were formidable obstacle to westward expansion in colonial time, when it was said that there were only five paths from the East Coast westward that could be taken by large groups of people: around the mountains to the south in the Piedmont of Georgia, through the Cumberland gap on the border of Virginia and Tennessee, through the Cumberland Narrows of western Maryland, the Allegheny gaps of Pennsylvania, and finally through the valley of the Mohawk river, in New York. In addition, through it didn’t allow for east-west travel per se, the Great Valley of the Appalachians was another significant route through the region, running from Alabama to Pennsylvania. All of them are now represented in the game, along with the mountains that bordered them.

 

[Delterius]

Just add like 15 tribes to brazil ffs

 

[Axioms]

I wonder if they will do the same with south american tribes as well? I believe it would fit well, most brazilian tribes were nomads.

They seem to be updating all the areas that were later subject to colonialism. SEA and North America down, I'd be surprised if Africa and South America didn't see similar treatment. There's no details yet, but we have it all but confirmed that Australia has a new religion, so presumably they're adding more to the continent than 'just' a religion to be erased by colonial elements.

And this is pretty much the direction people were asking them to go on the forums, so they are apparently listening for once (at least to those wanting to experience the game outside Europea and the Middle East.

Adding "wastelands" in Appalachia is not legitimate lol.

I mean, if you'd read the post,

Along with all these changes, we finally introduced Wasteland mountain ranges to North America. Not in the Rockies (where the handful of connections already represent major passes through the mountains), but rather, in the East, along the Appalachian mountains. While they may not seem like much today, they were formidable obstacle to westward expansion in colonial time, when it was said that there were only five paths from the East Coast westward that could be taken by large groups of people: around the mountains to the south in the Piedmont of Georgia, through the Cumberland gap on the border of Virginia and Tennessee, through the Cumberland Narrows of western Maryland, the Allegheny gaps of Pennsylvania, and finally through the valley of the Mohawk river, in New York. In addition, through it didn’t allow for east-west travel per se, the Great Valley of the Appalachians was another significant route through the region, running from Alabama to Pennsylvania. All of them are now represented in the game, along with the mountains that bordered them.

I did read it, I was just being pedantic about the "wasteland" name.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Codex Europa tournament when?

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've been meaning to propose playing EU4 multi with the codex, but I find I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I just can't get immersed in the early modern period by playing this game, they've turned it into a souless mana-fueled husk. And if there is no convincing roleplaying of my country, why play.

All the metagaming that starts about what to colonize and how to hack the mana flows is turning me off. I'd only play if all players historically roleplay their countries.

 

[Theodora]

All the metagaming that starts about what to colonize and how to hack the mana flows is turning me off. I'd only play if all players historically roleplay their countries.

Anyone who plays grand strategy games as anything other than a kinda RPG is weird tbh. Minmaxing outside achievements is af.

 

[Zariusz]

Who cares about meta, mana and minmaxing. When i play Eu4 i set some goals for myself and when i achieve them i start to play tall or start another campaign, like obligatory stronk Byzantium, restoring zoroastrian Eranshahr, reconquering Holy Land, giga Poland from Lubeck to Terebovl, turning Caucasus into high developed area under rule of Georgia, turning some small opm into local equivalent of rich italian city state etc. Though CK2 and MEIOU are better for larping and developing your lands.
Many plays EU4 only to turn their homelands into rich powerful countries that would survive as important world powers through history.

Spoiler

Or just to remove kebab

 

[thesecret1]

I've been meaning to propose playing EU4 multi with the codex, but I find I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I just can't get immersed in the early modern period by playing this game, they've turned it into a souless mana-fueled husk. And if there is no convincing roleplaying of my country, why play.

You should try playing with MEIOU mod.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've been meaning to propose playing EU4 multi with the codex, but I find I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I just can't get immersed in the early modern period by playing this game, they've turned it into a souless mana-fueled husk. And if there is no convincing roleplaying of my country, why play.

You should try playing with MEIOU mod.

I have, although it was a couple of years ago.

 

[Zariusz]

I've been meaning to propose playing EU4 multi with the codex, but I find I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I just can't get immersed in the early modern period by playing this game, they've turned it into a souless mana-fueled husk. And if there is no convincing roleplaying of my country, why play.

You should try playing with MEIOU mod.

I have, although it was a couple of years ago.

Sadly they didnt update MEIOU for current version of eu4.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Are they not working on it any more? I remember MEIOU for EUIV with one of the craziest modder stories - one guy explained in a developer diary that he has hired a babysitter for his kid for the time while he is working on the mod.

 

[fantadomat]

Are they not working on it any more? I remember MEIOU for EUIV with one of the craziest modder stories - one guy explained in a developer diary that he has hired a babysitter for his kid for the time while he is working on the mod.

Most likely too many mods and they got bitchy over stupid shit. Also they saw that paracucks don't care about their shit and ignores them because they are petty little swedish cunts. I have noticed that most of the good mods hate paradox with passion,because they constantly try to fuck over the modders with constant updates and small changes to files and shit lol.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Most likely too many mods and they got bitchy over stupid shit. Also they saw that paracucks don't care about their shit and ignores them because they are petty little swedish cunts. I have noticed that most of the good mods hate paradox with passion,because they constantly try to fuck over the modders with constant updates and small changes to files and shit lol.

Paradox' so called "DLC strategy" was what dissuaded me from modding EUIV. I may go for it, once they stop supporting it, because I'm already getting paid to sync changes to code, I'm not going to do it as a hobby too.

 

[fantadomat]

Most likely too many mods and they got bitchy over stupid shit. Also they saw that paracucks don't care about their shit and ignores them because they are petty little swedish cunts. I have noticed that most of the good mods hate paradox with passion,because they constantly try to fuck over the modders with constant updates and small changes to files and shit lol.

Paradox' so called "DLC strategy" was what dissuaded me from modding EUIV. I may go for it, once they stop supporting it, because I'm already getting paid to sync changes to code, I'm not going to do it as a hobby too.

Your "citizen of the world" mask is slipping of my Slavic friend .

 

[Theodora]

Paradox' so called "DLC strategy" was what dissuaded me from modding EUIV. I may go for it, once they stop supporting it, because I'm already getting paid to sync changes to code, I'm not going to do it as a hobby too.

Yeah, it was kinda sad that it took CK2's 3.3 patch for most of the total conversion mods to be anywhere near up to date.