Hello and Welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll talk about features that will be part of the next patch, and will enhance the historical feeling of the game.

The first of these major paradigm shifting concepts is what we refer to as States and Territories. A large part of the game has been related to what you can do with a province depending on if it is overseas or not. With the overseas concept, there have been very many limitations that have reduced immersion.

What we have now, is that every region you own and control is represented as a Territory. Provinces in a Territory, unless the Territory is upgraded to a State, is considered overseas for almost all previous rules when it comes to things like coring, autonomy, trade companies etc. So why would you not just make everything into a state then you ask?

Well.. First of all, each state that is not your capital has a maintenance cost in gold, which is dependent on its development, the distance to the capital and if it is on another continent or not.

Secondly, there is a limit on how many states your empire can control. Everyone can have at least 1 state in their realm, with a Kingdom being able to add 1 more state, and an Empire 2 more states. All non-tribal states can also add another state, and the Celestial Empire can have 2. Administrative technologies can add up to 7 more states to your realm, and if you get the administrative ideagroup fully filled out, you get another state as well.

You can at any time abandon a state to become a territory, but then it’s autonomy will grow to 75% immediately, while it takes time for it to decay down after making a territory to a state.

Your capitals region is always a state, and can not be downgraded to a territory. Another benefit from this is the rule change when it comes to capitals. You can now move capital to any province in a state that is your core.

Coring in a Territory is 50% cheaper, but the cores created are “colonial cores”, which require an instant upgrade cost when it becomes a state. If a province is still a colonial core and not upgraded when a state, the autonomy will not go below 50%.

While doing this we have revised the setup of regions on the map, so they are more similar in the amount of provinces they contain.




Our second large feature from today is Corruption. Corruption is a state in your country, easily seen in the topbar. The higher corruption you have the worse off your country becomes. Corruption affects all power costs in a country by up to 100%, and it also increases minimum autonomy by up to 50%. Corruption also affects your defence against hostile spies and your capacity to build up spynetworks in another nations.

Corruption increases include the following.

• Mercantilism
  
• Being an Empire
  
• Hostile Spy Action
  
• Having one tech being more than 2 techs behind another.
  
• Being more than 1 tech behind a neighbour.

Corruption is reduced by the following.

• Investing money, you now have a slider indicating how much money you want to spend on combating corruption. This cost is scaled like advisor costs are scaled through time.
  
• Being ahead of time in administrative or diplomatic technology.
  
• Being a Duchy

The actual numbers are still in the balance phase here, so won't mention them just yet..

There are alerts indicating if corruption is growing or not, and there are plenty of events triggering and/or affecting corruption. Having no corruption, and not having corruption growing can even trigger some really beneficial events.

Finally, one of the remaining espionage actions we mentioned in an earlier development diary is related to corruption. You can for a very high cost of your network place down a spy to increase corruption in the target country for five years. Of course, only one can do it in the target at a time.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Developer Diary Archives

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll talk about features that will be part of the next patch, and will enhance the historical feeling of the game.

The first of these major paradigm shifting concepts is what we refer to as States and Territories. A large part of the game has been related to what you can do with a province depending on if it is overseas or not. With the overseas concept, there have been very many limitations that have reduced immersion.

What we have now, is that every region you own and control is represented as a Territory. Provinces in a Territory, unless the Territory is upgraded to a State, is considered overseas for almost all previous rules when it comes to things like coring, autonomy, trade companies etc. So why would you not just make everything into a state then you ask?

Well.. First of all, each state that is not your capital has a maintenance cost in gold, which is dependent on its development, the distance to the capital and if it is on another continent or not.

Secondly, there is a limit on how many states your empire can control. Everyone can have at least 1 state in their realm, with a Kingdom being able to add 1 more state, and an Empire 2 more states. All non-tribal states can also add another state, and the Celestial Empire can have 2. Administrative technologies can add up to 7 more states to your realm, and if you get the administrative ideagroup fully filled out, you get another state as well.

You can at any time abandon a state to become a territory, but then it’s autonomy will grow to 75% immediately, while it takes time for it to decay down after making a territory to a state.

Your capitals region is always a state, and can not be downgraded to a territory. Another benefit from this is the rule change when it comes to capitals. You can now move capital to any province in a state that is your core.

Coring in a Territory is 50% cheaper, but the cores created are “colonial cores”, which require an instant upgrade cost when it becomes a state. If a province is still a colonial core and not upgraded when a state, the autonomy will not go below 50%.

While doing this we have revised the setup of regions on the map, so they are more similar in the amount of provinces they contain.




Our second large feature from today is Corruption. Corruption is a state in your country, easily seen in the topbar. The higher corruption you have the worse off your country becomes. Corruption affects all power costs in a country by up to 100%, and it also increases minimum autonomy by up to 50%. Corruption also affects your defence against hostile spies and your capacity to build up spynetworks in another nations.

Corruption increases include the following.

• Mercantilism
  
• Being an Empire
  
• Hostile Spy Action
  
• Having one tech being more than 2 techs behind another.
  
• Being more than 1 tech behind a neighbour.

Corruption is reduced by the following.

• Investing money, you now have a slider indicating how much money you want to spend on combating corruption. This cost is scaled like advisor costs are scaled through time.
  
• Being ahead of time in administrative or diplomatic technology.
  
• Being a Duchy

The actual numbers are still in the balance phase here, so won't mention them just yet..

There are alerts indicating if corruption is growing or not, and there are plenty of events triggering and/or affecting corruption. Having no corruption, and not having corruption growing can even trigger some really beneficial events.

Finally, one of the remaining espionage actions we mentioned in an earlier development diary is related to corruption. You can for a very high cost of your network place down a spy to increase corruption in the target country for five years. Of course, only one can do it in the target at a time.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Developer Diary Archives

Important information!
We will not be collecting bug reports or feedback from Steam. If you want to report problems with this patch or feedback on it you need to do so on our official forums.

Go to official post containing patch notes

How to opt in to the open beta:
To enable it, go to Steam, right click Crusader Kings II in your library -> Properties -> Betas -> Choose beta from the dropdown list. Make sure Steam updates the game correctly (sometimes you need to verify game cache or restart Steam when switching between branches). The launcher will say 2.5.2 if properly updated.

Thank you for your patience while we worked on this patch. We hope you will enjoy it.

Important information!
We will not be collecting bug reports or feedback from Steam. If you want to report problems with this patch or feedback on it you need to do so on our official forums.

Go to official post containing patch notes

How to opt in to the open beta:
To enable it, go to Steam, right click Crusader Kings II in your library -> Properties -> Betas -> Choose beta from the dropdown list. Make sure Steam updates the game correctly (sometimes you need to verify game cache or restart Steam when switching between branches). The launcher will say 2.5.2 if properly updated.

Thank you for your patience while we worked on this patch. We hope you will enjoy it.

Hello all! I'm afraid I don't have much to talk about today as we're still working on the 2.5.2 patch I mentioned last week. We were hoping to have it out by now, but ran into some unexpected issues. However, on the plus side as soon as we have things working as we want, we'll be releasing it as a public beta for everyone to try out.

However, here are the current patchnotes to keep you interested.

Useful links
Official Website
Crusader Kings II Wiki
Developer Diary Archives

Hello all! I'm afraid I don't have much to talk about today as we're still working on the 2.5.2 patch I mentioned last week. We were hoping to have it out by now, but ran into some unexpected issues. However, on the plus side as soon as we have things working as we want, we'll be releasing it as a public beta for everyone to try out.

However, here are the current patchnotes to keep you interested.

Useful links
Official Website
Crusader Kings II Wiki
Developer Diary Archives

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for EU4. This time we take a look at Africa, and the changes there. This one of those times when pictures are worth more than 1000 words.

First of all, we have added the entirety of the Kongo region, reaching up to the Great Lakes area. Not just home to the countries of Kongo, Loango and Ndongo, this area now have multiple nations, and could be the basis of a powerful empire.



While we have added over 20 new nations to Central Africa, we have also added new idea groups and unique ideas for these mighty states, including the Great Lakes ideas for our states near the Lake Victoria. These Central Africans also have their own unique technology group, with technology costing 65% more than Westerners.

North we find the Great Lakes Area, with lots of minor nations, some that still exist today, after a brief period of colonialism.



Southeast of Kongo, is Zambia and Mozambique is now filled with provinces and several new nations as well. Magagascar has also seen a rework, with 5 nations struggling for supremacy of the island, complete with their own national ideas and Pagan/Islamic friction




The tradesetup for Africa have changed as well, Zanzibar is now the coast tradenode, with three inland nodes of Kongo, Great Lakes and Zambezi leading to the coasts either west and east. This makes the Zanzibar node a hugely important tradenode for everyone along the Indian Ocean.




No diary on our Africa changes would be complete without giving some attention to religion in the region. Previously we had carpeted non-specific pagan areas with Shamanism or Animism. Now many of our African provinces which have not converted to Islam are portrayed with the Fetishist Pagan religion which grants greater tolerance to heathens and a diplomatic reputation bonus along with the usual pagan decision.






Next week, we’ll talk about two different and new concepts, one which has its own icon in the top bar.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Developer Diary Archives

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for EU4. This time we take a look at Africa, and the changes there. This one of those times when pictures are worth more than 1000 words.

First of all, we have added the entirety of the Kongo region, reaching up to the Great Lakes area. Not just home to the countries of Kongo, Loango and Ndongo, this area now have multiple nations, and could be the basis of a powerful empire.



While we have added over 20 new nations to Central Africa, we have also added new idea groups and unique ideas for these mighty states, including the Great Lakes ideas for our states near the Lake Victoria. These Central Africans also have their own unique technology group, with technology costing 65% more than Westerners.

North we find the Great Lakes Area, with lots of minor nations, some that still exist today, after a brief period of colonialism.



Southeast of Kongo, is Zambia and Mozambique is now filled with provinces and several new nations as well. Magagascar has also seen a rework, with 5 nations struggling for supremacy of the island, complete with their own national ideas and Pagan/Islamic friction




The tradesetup for Africa have changed as well, Zanzibar is now the coast tradenode, with three inland nodes of Kongo, Great Lakes and Zambezi leading to the coasts either west and east. This makes the Zanzibar node a hugely important tradenode for everyone along the Indian Ocean.




No diary on our Africa changes would be complete without giving some attention to religion in the region. Previously we had carpeted non-specific pagan areas with Shamanism or Animism. Now many of our African provinces which have not converted to Islam are portrayed with the Fetishist Pagan religion which grants greater tolerance to heathens and a diplomatic reputation bonus along with the usual pagan decision.






Next week, we’ll talk about two different and new concepts, one which has its own icon in the top bar.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Developer Diary Archives

Hello all, welcome to another CK2 DD. First up, please note that I am NOT Doomdark, people confuse us sometimes. With that key point covered, let’s move onto the meat of this diary: The upcoming 2.5.2 patch! We have made several changes to some key areas that we’ve gotten a lot of feedback on recently, the most important of which is of course Seduction!

Characters who have someone trying to seduce them now have the option to let the seducer know they are not interested (based on things like their traits and their opinion of their spouse) which will block all further seduction attempts for some time, both by the original seducer and anyone else.

We have also acted decisively on the issue of Infamy and Coalitions. Sparing no effort, we have renamed these features to Threat and Defensive Pacts, which we feel should resolve all known problems with them.

Oh ok, that isn’t all we did. Coalitions received such an extensive rework that we felt a new name was required. Perhaps the most important change is that Defensive Pacts are now separated by religious groups, so for example if the Byzantines act in a Threatening fashion they might a face a Christian Pact in Europe and a Muslim Pact in the Middle East, and at first the two Pacts won’t care if one attacks the other and only defend members of their own Pact. At higher levels of Threat, however, Pacts of other religious groups will band together when any one of them is attacked. At the highest levels even your co-religionists may feel the need to join forces against you.

Threat also affects both the size of Realms which can join a Pact against you, and the how far away from you they can be. Finally, AI nations will never join a Defensive Pact against a Realm whom they have equal or greater troop strength than.

As the new name might suggest, Defensive Pacts are entirely defensive in nature, members of a Pact can never call each other into an offensive war against the target (unless they are allies, as normal). These changes, we hope, will bring the Feature Formally Known As Coalition more in line with its intended purpose of countering huge, rapid growth without feeling as unfair or arbitrary.

2.5.2 also contains some other improvements and some new content and features. The patch notes will reveal full details, but a few more highlights include:

• Improvements to Shattered Retreats.
  
• Increased Warscore from battles slightly in general and majorly against hosts.
  
• Capped total possible Warscore from battles for Attackers at 75%
  
• Raiders who are defeated in battle will not return to raid you for some time.
  
• Added a Next Song button, and a setting to disable the context restrictions on music.
  
• Added faction to force abdication of kings and emperors.
  
• Added new events for skilled educators to give traits to their wards.

Useful links
Official Website
Crusader Kings II Wiki
Developer Diary Archives

Hello all, welcome to another CK2 DD. First up, please note that I am NOT Doomdark, people confuse us sometimes. With that key point covered, let’s move onto the meat of this diary: The upcoming 2.5.2 patch! We have made several changes to some key areas that we’ve gotten a lot of feedback on recently, the most important of which is of course Seduction!

Characters who have someone trying to seduce them now have the option to let the seducer know they are not interested (based on things like their traits and their opinion of their spouse) which will block all further seduction attempts for some time, both by the original seducer and anyone else.

We have also acted decisively on the issue of Infamy and Coalitions. Sparing no effort, we have renamed these features to Threat and Defensive Pacts, which we feel should resolve all known problems with them.

Oh ok, that isn’t all we did. Coalitions received such an extensive rework that we felt a new name was required. Perhaps the most important change is that Defensive Pacts are now separated by religious groups, so for example if the Byzantines act in a Threatening fashion they might a face a Christian Pact in Europe and a Muslim Pact in the Middle East, and at first the two Pacts won’t care if one attacks the other and only defend members of their own Pact. At higher levels of Threat, however, Pacts of other religious groups will band together when any one of them is attacked. At the highest levels even your co-religionists may feel the need to join forces against you.

Threat also affects both the size of Realms which can join a Pact against you, and the how far away from you they can be. Finally, AI nations will never join a Defensive Pact against a Realm whom they have equal or greater troop strength than.

As the new name might suggest, Defensive Pacts are entirely defensive in nature, members of a Pact can never call each other into an offensive war against the target (unless they are allies, as normal). These changes, we hope, will bring the Feature Formally Known As Coalition more in line with its intended purpose of countering huge, rapid growth without feeling as unfair or arbitrary.

2.5.2 also contains some other improvements and some new content and features. The patch notes will reveal full details, but a few more highlights include:

• Improvements to Shattered Retreats.
  
• Increased Warscore from battles slightly in general and majorly against hosts.
  
• Capped total possible Warscore from battles for Attackers at 75%
  
• Raiders who are defeated in battle will not return to raid you for some time.
  
• Added a Next Song button, and a setting to disable the context restrictions on music.
  
• Added faction to force abdication of kings and emperors.
  
• Added new events for skilled educators to give traits to their wards.

Useful links
Official Website
Crusader Kings II Wiki
Developer Diary Archives