Europa Universalis IV

[NJClaw]

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. As it is another one written by me, it might be a bit shorter than you’d like, but I hope the information is interesting enough.

One of the things we wanted to focus on with Leviathan was to strengthen the ability to play “tall”,or in other words, how to become more powerful without necessarily expanding all the time. We talked in an earlier diary about the first of three new features regarding playing tall, Expand Infrastructure, which allowed you to stack multiple manufactories in the same province.

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Today we’ll be talking about the second of the ‘play tall’ features for Leviathan, as we delve into Concentrate Development.

Concentrate Development is an interaction that is done to either one of your territories or to one of your subjects states or territories.

This will reduce the development in that area by an amount comparable to a horde razing it, and then that development will be distributed to your country.

Fifty percent of that development will be going directly to your capital, while thirty percent will be distributed randomly among stated provinces, while the final twenty percent is lost.

There is a cooldown of 50 years for how often you can do this in an area.

Doing this to one of your subjects will upset them and also increase their liberty desire, so be careful.

There are also two government reforms that makes this loss less painful, as it removes the twenty percent lost, and instead adds that development to the capital.

• The Mandala Reform, available to the chinese techgroup and either dharmic, eastern or muslim religions.
• Siamese Absolutism - which is given from some missions.

Speaking of the Mandala Reform, it's a first tier reform, that besides giving you free development concentration also grants the following.

• +15% Vassal Income
• +1 Vassal Force Limit Bonus
• -33% Governing Capacity

Connected to this, is a new peace treaty called Pillage Capital!
As sometimes you want to grow your power, and weaken your enemy, but you do not want to take on more territory. In that case, just use the new “Pillage Capital”(™) peace treaty, which will concentrate development on their capital state, benefiting you!


Stay tuned for next week, when we will talk more about playing tall, and maybe something about canals.

The new pillage capital thing sounds interesting, but it really depends on what the cost will be. If it's something around 20-30% then I will probably try getting back into the game to see how it plays out, but it will probably be higher than that.

 

[fantadomat]

It sounds retarded. It should have been an option that you could do once a war for every enemy,not a peace deal lol. Imagen having 20 year war and decide to make peace with the enemy and he is all "lol let me raze your capital and take your women in it" and you are all "lol sure you have 50% warscore,surely our ancestral home and the core of our culture and nation is not worth as losing 5 useless provinces!"

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it should have worked like the steal colony with -4 or -5 global diplomacy rating or whatever it's called.

 

[trais]

Concentrate Development as peace deal... meh, but I guess there are times, when you're at war with someone who is allied to couple of HRE minors and you just want to ignore them, because they're not a threat, but your vassal occupies them anyway and then they start spamming you with "we'll pay you 15 ducats and some loose change in war reparations" peace deals for the rest of the war. So I guess stealing some development instead might be a good alternative to either accepting worthless peace treaty or enduring the spam for warscore.

But why on bloody earth you'd want to do that to any of the territories that you actually own, I have no idea.

 

[NJClaw]

But why on bloody earth you'd want to do that to any of the territories that you actually own, I have no idea.

Maybe it counts as an active development of the provinces that receive the boost, so it can help you develop an institution in your capital state.

You could also use it to suck away some development from newly conquered territories with very high local autonomy in order to move that development points where they actually do something for your economy and military. But it sounds like a very meager short-term boost with terrible long-term consequences.

 

[fantadomat]

But why on bloody earth you'd want to do that to any of the territories that you actually own, I have no idea.

Maybe it counts as an active development of the provinces that receive the boost, so it can help you develop an institution in your capital state.

You could also use it to suck away some development from newly conquered territories with very high local autonomy in order to move that development points where they actually do something for your economy and military. But it sounds like a very meager short-term boost with terrible long-term consequences.

Outside of institutions development is pretty non factor at this point. It seems a legit way to get instant institutions. Just wage war to a bunch of hre minors that have a lot of allies a year before the institution spawn,and you get it fast.

 

[trais]

NJClaw Ok, institution stuff might be actually legit.

But that other thing you mentioned is definitely not worth it. Governing Capacity is never a problem so you can make it a state, click the "reduce Local Autonomy" button and it will be at ~25% instantly, then slap autonomy reducing edict on top and you'll have 0% in a decade or so. Losing 20% of province development to avoid that isn't weighing short term vs long term gains, it's just being dumb.

Edit:

Lolz.

 

[NJClaw]

NJClaw Ok, institution stuff might be actually legit.

And that's why it probably won't work.

But that other thing you mentioned is definitely not worth it. Governing Capacity is never a problem so you can make it a state, click the "reduce Local Autonomy" button and it will be at ~25% instantly, then slap autonomy reducing edict on top and you'll have 0% in a decade or so. Losing 20% of province development to avoid that isn't weighing short term vs long term gains, it's just being dumb.

I don't know, maybe it can make sense if the territory you just conquered is of a different culture/religion and you can't deal with that at the moment? It doesn't sound right to me, but I'm really trying to play devil's advocate here.

Another scenario (very farfetched in single-player) is when you know you are going to lose a war soon against a country that only wants a specific chunk of your territories (due to geographic reasons or to the casus belli they are going to use). For example, maybe with England you can sack your French land knowing you're going to lose that soon.

 

[trais]

It doesn't sound right to me, but I'm really trying to play devil's advocate here.

I understand and respect you for the effort, but I think you've taken on an impossible task.

Another scenario (very farfetched in single-player) is when you know you are going to lose a war soon against a country that only wants a specific chunk of your territories (due to geographic reasons or to the casus belli they are going to use). For example, maybe with England you can sack your French land knowing you're going to lose that soon.

This is so specific to England, and only due to historical starting position, that you might as well make it English decision, rather than a mechanic. Otherwise, you simply don't expand in places you don't intend to keep, because initial coring cost/overextension penalty makes it not worth the effort.

I guess... if you really don't want to keep the land, but want to weaken your neighbor without giving him reconquest CB, you can do this:
1) get some provinces in a peace treaty that are releasable as vassal (or use client state when later in game)
2) release them as vassal/client state
3) leech the vassal/client for as much dev as you can
4) wash your hands off by granting it its independence

Only there are two problems with that: this is some horrible gamey shit that detracts from the game rather than adds to it and with missions being what they are, your neighbor probably has a permanent claim on half of your country anyway, so he can DoW you anytime regardless.

 

[Average Manatee]

Concentrate development will be insanely OP if implemented as indicated, just only state your capital and then suck up all the development to the capital. Never need to build anything again. Get -75% coring cost on everything (assuming you can first drain away 50% of dev before coring and then keep it as a territory). If you can drain away dev before coring it also means being able to take much more dev at once in a war and lower the OE immediately after.

Keep in mind that dev at the capital is worth ~2-3x the value of dev in newly conquered land that suffers some combination of wrong culture/wrong religion/no buildings/high autonomy. And if you actually focus on playing "tall" then you can just re-dev provinces from 3->10 at insanely cheap costs and then teleport it back to the capital. Expect to see capital states with literally thousands of dev and every building built.

The two governments that make it 100% efficient rather than only 80% will of course just be even better at this and there is absolutely no reason not to spam that with them at all.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

So this is a thing:

I'm guessing that it got added in Emperor?

 

[Lady Error]

Does anyone know which DLC completely fucked up the estates screen? It was possible to recruit generals and admirals there, but now everything costs crown land - of which you do not have enough to begin with.

As to trade, the length of the trade route seems to play a role. So if you can steer trade from Indonesia or India to your node in Europe, you are golden.

 

[NJClaw]

Does anyone know which DLC completely fucked up the estates screen? It was possible to recruit generals and admirals there, but now everything costs crown land - of which you do not have enough to begin with.

Unless I'm brainfarting, the crown land mechanic was introduced with the free update that came with the Emperor DLC.

As to trade, the length of the trade route seems to play a role.

Yeah, trade value gets multiplied at each node.

 

[Lady Error]

Is the Emperor DLC worth it otherwise?

 

[Stavrophore]

i never managed to get enough money from trade, not even at the end of the 1001 provinces achievement. fleets of fleets, steering everywhere, collecting only at dead end nodes, owning all the caribbeans, central and south america, it provided just peanuts, barely enough to keep 100% army and navy.

You need longest trade route possible plus lots of trade steering which creates trade value out of thin air. You can have huge trade income like 2k ducats per month with minimal effort of snagging some key provinces and owning lots of manufacturing in places like india.

 

[Mikeal]

Dev Diary: Colonial NationsClick here to discuss on the Forums

Hello everyone and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll be talking a little bit about how colonial nations are evolving with Leviathan.

When a colony nation is formed you can pick what kind of colony this will be. This type of colony can then be upgraded for a cost for the overlord and a change of liberty desire for the subject. You can always change a colony to become another type of colony, but that will increase their liberty desire.

Crown Colony

This type of colony is for areas you want to have most control over, where liberty desire should be lowest.

• global_autonomy = -0.05
  
• recover_army_morale_speed = 0.02
  
• embracement_cost = -0.1
  
• governing_capacity = 100
  
• global_autonomy = -0.05
  
• global_colonial_growth = 10

Increase Draft from Colony
(+10 Liberty Desire)
+5 Land Forcelimit for Overlord & -5 Land Forcelimit for Subject
Enlarge the Gold Fleet
(+10 Liberty Desire)
+20% Treasure Fleet Income for overlord
Increase Religious Control
(+10 Liberty Desire)
+1% Missionary Strength & -1 Heathen Tolerance for Subject
Increase Integration
(-10 Liberty Desire)
-10 Liberty Desire for Subject & TBD for Overlord

Private Enterprise

This is the colony type you want to have when you want to maximize profits, where you want the colony to providea strong navy and control trade.

• global_ship_trade_power = 0.2
  
• embracement_cost = -0.1
  
• merchants = 1
  
• production_efficiency = 0.05
  
• global_ship_trade_power = 0.2
  
• global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.2
  
• naval_tradition_from_trade = 0.1
  
• ship_power_propagation = 0.1
  
• 5% less Tariffs for Overlord

Increase Trade Power Transfer
(+10 Liberty Desire)
+2% Trade Power for Overlord, and -10% Trade Power for Subject
Encourage Cash Crops
(+10 Liberty Desire)
Increases likelihood of cash-crop goods to appear for subjects new colonies.
Increase Navies from Colony
(+10 Liberty Desire)
+5 Naval Forcelimit for Overlord & -5 Naval Forcelimit for Subject
Increase the Gold Tax
(+10 Liberty Desire)
Effects TBD

Self-Governing Colony

This is the colony type that will expand and develop fastest, but they will have the highest liberty desire, and the perks you can give them are not beneficial directly to you.

• global_ship_trade_power = 0.2
  
• embracement_cost = -0.1
  
• merchants = 1
  
• production_efficiency = 0.05
  
• colonists = 1
  
• development_cost = -0.15
  
• liberty_desire = 25
  
• 10% less Tariffs for Overlord

Allow Autonomous Trade
(-5 Liberty Desire)
+5% more trade power for subject.
Allow Autonomous Taxing
(-5 Liberty Desire)
+5% more tax for subject
Allow Autonomous Militias
(-5 Liberty Desire)
+5% more manpower for subject
Allow Autonomous Navy
(-5 Liberty Desire)
+10% more Sailors for Subject

There are also different events happening depending on which colonial type your colony is.

We are not just adding new features and polishing them, for 1.31 there is also currently over 500 different older bugs that has been fixed so far, and we have been busy tweaking and improving the interface as well.

Some of the UI improvements include.

- Alert for Inactive Merchants
- Alert for when one of your coasts are being invaded by an army.
- When you view rebels in the stability view, the locations will revolt risk for that rebel will highlight on then map.

Now we are taking a small hiatus from development diaries, until we are back to talk about diplomacy by the end of March.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

what the hell, prussia is a living cheat. any enemy up to 150% of my numbers gets annihilated on contact, double of my numbers gets humiliated with 4 times my losses, best part of this is that ai only sees numbers and it's more than happy to throw its 75-100k troops on my 50k and lose everything, i don't even have to chase and go pop moles.

 

[Lady Error]

Playing Portugal right now with a random New World. Focused on monopolizing trade from South-East Asia, while Spain gobbled up most of the New World.

Had luck with England becoming a Junior Partner of mine. Integrating them will probably not be possible, as it would go way past my governing capacity.

Will probably use the money I am now swimming in to hire several mercenary companies to beat Spain and his colonies again. This time I will focus on giving his colonies independence.

 

[Theodora]

Is the Emperor DLC worth it otherwise?

If you're planning to play anything to do with central Europe (HRE, Catholicism, Bohemians/Hussites) then you probably should have it installed. (Also, a ton of missions.)

 

[Higher Game]

Emperor is a glorious trainwreck, which is historically accurate, but I'm more hyped for Leviathan as far as overall game balance and fine tuning goes.

 

[Riddler]

Finally got the Mare Nostrum Achievement, more tedious than anything else. I have no idea how people who do world conquests manage to make it all the way to the end...

 

[fantadomat]

Finally

You are improving mate,keep at it

You should get the extended mission mod. It has pretty fun roman empire missions.

Also play with mongolia,it is the most fun nation at the moment.

 

[Riddler]

Finally

Also play with mongolia,it is the most fun nation at the moment.

I might just do that but I have no idea how hordes or Ming work. I assume there is some mechanic for getting Ming to implode.

 

[fantadomat]

Finally

Also play with mongolia,it is the most fun nation at the moment.

I might just do that but I have no idea how hordes or Ming work. I assume there is some mechanic for getting Ming to implode.

No need,just be pure tengri and get aristocracy to get that 100% horse ratio, and have pure horse armies with cannons. Just fallow the missions and you will have a good time. You could always just edit the tengri in the docs to give you 2-3 missionaries so you could convert at a reasonable pace.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i tried mongolia once, but years ago. not enough time to score a decent ally before china declares war and annexes you in a single war.