Hello, and welcome to another week, and another Europa Universalis development diary. This week we’re focusing on the interface improvements of our ‘Denmark’(1.19) update.

First of all, we’ve added more options to the player. You can now specify the ledger to be limited in multiplayer games, where detail data about other nations are hidden, but you can still use the ledger to keep track of your own nation.

Another cool new option is the ability to disable the rule that you can not stack ideagroups. Now it is possible for those that want, to go all military ideas in their games.

The Custom-Nation-Designer have gotten two new addition in 1.19. First of all, you can now choose to start without an heir, and secondly, for those that also have the Rights of Man expansion, it is now possible to define your consort.



We also added two new things to the province view. Besides the possibility to fabricate claims on that province directly from the province interface, there is now an icon for hostile attrition that is shown whenever a province provides it.

The religious UI have also been upgraded, and you can now see missionary strength in the interface, so you can plan better for the future. Another important aspect is the addition of another column in list of provinces to convert, detailing of how much that particular province impacts the religious unity.



A previous patch added a “skip to next song” button. This has now been replaced with a button that opens up a full interface to select which songs are allowed to play, and to select a song to play with.



There is now also an alert for high naval attrition that triggers for fleets that are taking more than 5% attrition and have a ship with hull strength less than 50%.

And for those of you playing with Rights of Man & Common Sense, and with lots of subjects and vast colonial empires, we added a checkbox to hide subjects in the development macrobuilder.

Some important information for those of you that mod EU4.

Republican Tradition refactored to be 0-100 like Legitimacy, Horde Unity and Devotion, so remember to go through your scripts when you update to support 1.19.

We also merged the 'relations_decay_of_me' modifier into 'improve_relation_modifier'. They were basically the same functionality, and this makes the game easier to understand.



Next week, we’ll let the artists take to the podium to talk about the new graphics in 1.19!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello, and welcome to another week, and another Europa Universalis development diary. This week we’re focusing on the interface improvements of our ‘Denmark’(1.19) update.

First of all, we’ve added more options to the player. You can now specify the ledger to be limited in multiplayer games, where detail data about other nations are hidden, but you can still use the ledger to keep track of your own nation.

Another cool new option is the ability to disable the rule that you can not stack ideagroups. Now it is possible for those that want, to go all military ideas in their games.

The Custom-Nation-Designer have gotten two new addition in 1.19. First of all, you can now choose to start without an heir, and secondly, for those that also have the Rights of Man expansion, it is now possible to define your consort.



We also added two new things to the province view. Besides the possibility to fabricate claims on that province directly from the province interface, there is now an icon for hostile attrition that is shown whenever a province provides it.

The religious UI have also been upgraded, and you can now see missionary strength in the interface, so you can plan better for the future. Another important aspect is the addition of another column in list of provinces to convert, detailing of how much that particular province impacts the religious unity.



A previous patch added a “skip to next song” button. This has now been replaced with a button that opens up a full interface to select which songs are allowed to play, and to select a song to play with.



There is now also an alert for high naval attrition that triggers for fleets that are taking more than 5% attrition and have a ship with hull strength less than 50%.

And for those of you playing with Rights of Man & Common Sense, and with lots of subjects and vast colonial empires, we added a checkbox to hide subjects in the development macrobuilder.

Some important information for those of you that mod EU4.

Republican Tradition refactored to be 0-100 like Legitimacy, Horde Unity and Devotion, so remember to go through your scripts when you update to support 1.19.

We also merged the 'relations_decay_of_me' modifier into 'improve_relation_modifier'. They were basically the same functionality, and this makes the game easier to understand.



Next week, we’ll let the artists take to the podium to talk about the new graphics in 1.19!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone, and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This time its rather meaty and is about major gameplay changes for the 1.19 patch.

While we were reasonably happy with how Fort and Zone of Control has played out since introduced over a year ago, it has had one major drawback. The rules have so many cases to keep track of that it was practically impossible to make all cases clear to the player. This causes much confusion amongst players, who also had an experience that was not as great as they had hoped while playing.

So now Zone of Control have changed completely. Instead of affecting a province and sometimes blocking passage in adjacent provinces, Zone of Control rules are now area based.

Areas = The same map division that States/Territories are organsied around. And which 1.19 will show thicker borders around.


A Fort is:

• hostile if it is controlled by someone you are at war with.
  
• friendly if it is controlled by you, or by someone on your side in any war, unless you are at war with them (should not happen).
  
• neutral otherwise.

An area is:

• friendly if it has at least one friendly fort and no hostile fort.
  
• hostile if it has at least one hostile fort and no friendly fort.
  
• contested if it has at least one hostile fort and at least one friendly fort.
  
• neutral otherwise.

Zone of Control blocks an army to move between two adjacent provinces if they belong to different areas, one of which is hostile and the other being either hostile or contested.

(Note that movement within areas is never blocked by Zone of Control)

An occupied province without a fort will flip back to its owner's control if there is in the area at least one non-besieged fort controlled by him but no hostile forts.

To ensure an army can always reach the fort that is blocking it from moving and then come back after sieging it down, all armies can ignore Military Access in all non-neutral areas

Rebels never impact hostile rules, and yes, Capital Forts now work like all other forts.

In order to stop the enemy from reaching the interior of your country, you will often need to have one fort in every area.. Even without that though, forts can force the enemy to make detours unless they first siege down some forts.

While doing this, an average country ends up with more forts than before, so maintenance have been halved.

While doing these changes, we have tweaked the map dramatically, adding in lots of wastelands to give natural borders, and also made a big revision to the area setup, so now areas are pretty much all between 3-5 provinces, giving a more even balance.



We have added a new peace treaty as well in 1.19, called “End Rivalry”. This peace option force the enemy to remove one of their Rivals. The removed Rival cannot be added again until 15 years after removed.


We play the game quite a lot every week, and read far more on what issues you as players have. So we keep balancing and changing things to make for a greater player experience. In 1.19 we have some rather important changes to how you play the game.

Combat has been changed a bit as well in this patch, as we removed the combat width penalties from terrain, as it made battles last way too long, and was a double defensive bonus combined with diceroll penalties.

Sieging units will no longer get a rivercrossing penalty if a relieving force engages them, even if they did cross a river a few days, months or years earlier.

We have changed the chance to increase colonysize from colonist being placed to instead being a lower the bigger the colony becomes. Previously it was pretty much a no-brainer to keep it as long as possible, as it became better the bigger the colony is. Now íts more of a choice..

Another complaint was the fixed levels of liberty desire that got applied to vassals and marches as they grew past certain arbitrary limits. Now it is scaling by development of the subject so you can always judge impact of their growth.

For those of you that care about score, Great Powers are now likelier to be getting score each month, as they have a default +5 rating in each category. Also maintaining enough forts is now an impact on your military score gain.

Corruption is now not entirely 100% bad, as a country with 100 corruption will now get -20 unrest in their realm.

Courthouse & Town Halls no longer affect unrest but instead reduce state maintainance by 25% and 50% respectively, while their building costs have been halved.

The Casus Belli from Expansion and Exploration Ideagroups did not really work as great as before with the new technology system, so in 1.19 they are getting changed. The Casus Belli themselves are gone..

Exploration Finisher now allows you to fabricate claim on another continent that is in your capital in a colonial region. (Colonial Subjects can do it everywhere in a colonial region.)

Expansion Finisher now allows you to fabricate claims inside any trade company region that is on another continent than your capital. (Without Wealth of Nations, it is any overseas port not in a colonial region, and not in europe.)

At the same time, distance impact on building spy networks have been dropped to 1/10th of before.

For those of you that have Rights of Man, we are now adding even more things. In 1.19, Trade Goods will have a local impact. A Grain Province gives +0.5 Land Force Limit, Iron gives 20% Faster Building Construction & Ivory gives 20% cheaper state maintenance.

We have also improved the “trading in good” - bonus, where some are almost twice as powerful as before, and some have changed completely.

Next week we'll be back talking about all interface improvements for 1.19.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone, and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This time its rather meaty and is about major gameplay changes for the 1.19 patch.

While we were reasonably happy with how Fort and Zone of Control has played out since introduced over a year ago, it has had one major drawback. The rules have so many cases to keep track of that it was practically impossible to make all cases clear to the player. This causes much confusion amongst players, who also had an experience that was not as great as they had hoped while playing.

So now Zone of Control have changed completely. Instead of affecting a province and sometimes blocking passage in adjacent provinces, Zone of Control rules are now area based.

Areas = The same map division that States/Territories are organsied around. And which 1.19 will show thicker borders around.


A Fort is:

• hostile if it is controlled by someone you are at war with.
  
• friendly if it is controlled by you, or by someone on your side in any war, unless you are at war with them (should not happen).
  
• neutral otherwise.

An area is:

• friendly if it has at least one friendly fort and no hostile fort.
  
• hostile if it has at least one hostile fort and no friendly fort.
  
• contested if it has at least one hostile fort and at least one friendly fort.
  
• neutral otherwise.

Zone of Control blocks an army to move between two adjacent provinces if they belong to different areas, one of which is hostile and the other being either hostile or contested.

(Note that movement within areas is never blocked by Zone of Control)

An occupied province without a fort will flip back to its owner's control if there is in the area at least one non-besieged fort controlled by him but no hostile forts.

To ensure an army can always reach the fort that is blocking it from moving and then come back after sieging it down, all armies can ignore Military Access in all non-neutral areas

Rebels never impact hostile rules, and yes, Capital Forts now work like all other forts.

In order to stop the enemy from reaching the interior of your country, you will often need to have one fort in every area.. Even without that though, forts can force the enemy to make detours unless they first siege down some forts.

While doing this, an average country ends up with more forts than before, so maintenance have been halved.

While doing these changes, we have tweaked the map dramatically, adding in lots of wastelands to give natural borders, and also made a big revision to the area setup, so now areas are pretty much all between 3-5 provinces, giving a more even balance.



We have added a new peace treaty as well in 1.19, called “End Rivalry”. This peace option force the enemy to remove one of their Rivals. The removed Rival cannot be added again until 15 years after removed.


We play the game quite a lot every week, and read far more on what issues you as players have. So we keep balancing and changing things to make for a greater player experience. In 1.19 we have some rather important changes to how you play the game.

Combat has been changed a bit as well in this patch, as we removed the combat width penalties from terrain, as it made battles last way too long, and was a double defensive bonus combined with diceroll penalties.

Sieging units will no longer get a rivercrossing penalty if a relieving force engages them, even if they did cross a river a few days, months or years earlier.

We have changed the chance to increase colonysize from colonist being placed to instead being a lower the bigger the colony becomes. Previously it was pretty much a no-brainer to keep it as long as possible, as it became better the bigger the colony is. Now íts more of a choice..

Another complaint was the fixed levels of liberty desire that got applied to vassals and marches as they grew past certain arbitrary limits. Now it is scaling by development of the subject so you can always judge impact of their growth.

For those of you that care about score, Great Powers are now likelier to be getting score each month, as they have a default +5 rating in each category. Also maintaining enough forts is now an impact on your military score gain.

Corruption is now not entirely 100% bad, as a country with 100 corruption will now get -20 unrest in their realm.

Courthouse & Town Halls no longer affect unrest but instead reduce state maintainance by 25% and 50% respectively, while their building costs have been halved.

The Casus Belli from Expansion and Exploration Ideagroups did not really work as great as before with the new technology system, so in 1.19 they are getting changed. The Casus Belli themselves are gone..

Exploration Finisher now allows you to fabricate claim on another continent that is in your capital in a colonial region. (Colonial Subjects can do it everywhere in a colonial region.)

Expansion Finisher now allows you to fabricate claims inside any trade company region that is on another continent than your capital. (Without Wealth of Nations, it is any overseas port not in a colonial region, and not in europe.)

At the same time, distance impact on building spy networks have been dropped to 1/10th of before.

For those of you that have Rights of Man, we are now adding even more things. In 1.19, Trade Goods will have a local impact. A Grain Province gives +0.5 Land Force Limit, Iron gives 20% Faster Building Construction & Ivory gives 20% cheaper state maintenance.

We have also improved the “trading in good” - bonus, where some are almost twice as powerful as before, and some have changed completely.

Next week we'll be back talking about all interface improvements for 1.19.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. This time we’ll go into the main flavor of the 1.19 patch, which we call Denmark.

Well, why do we call it Denmark? Well.. First of all, we’ve added lots and lots of Dynamic Historical Event to Denmark, bringing them up to par with other european majors. Skåne also starts with the Skånemarket, a large bonus to the fish produced in the province. We have also added a few new provinces in Jylland, while also increasing the development of Denmark as a whole.


And as you can see here, the Danes get a nice new unit in 1.19 as well..



Norway also got an improvement, getting their map revised to include a fair amount of new provinces, and a wasteland in the center of the mountain range, to make the country more easily defended against the vile swedes. We also gave them a huge chunk of new Dynamic Historical Events, making playing them a fair bit more interesting.



We also improved the political mapmode, as so many had requested, so we now show the terrain map where there has been no colonisation yet, so you’ll have some more informative eye-candy while playing



One other thing to mention today is the fact that we added a fair bit more instructions to the AI for your nation if you crash or are forced to stop playing for a while in a campaign. The following options now exists for your convenience.

• Ignore Decisions -Yes/No
  
• Embrace Institutions - Yes/No
  
• Develop Provinces - Yes/No
  
• Disband Units - Yes/No
  
• Change Fleet Missions - Yes/No
  
• Send Missionaries - Yes/No
  
• Convert Culture - Yes/No
  
• Add/Remove Cultures - Yes/No

Stay tuned.. Next week we’ll talk more about forts, peace options and tradegoods, amongst other things.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. This time we’ll go into the main flavor of the 1.19 patch, which we call Denmark.

Well, why do we call it Denmark? Well.. First of all, we’ve added lots and lots of Dynamic Historical Event to Denmark, bringing them up to par with other european majors. Skåne also starts with the Skånemarket, a large bonus to the fish produced in the province. We have also added a few new provinces in Jylland, while also increasing the development of Denmark as a whole.


And as you can see here, the Danes get a nice new unit in 1.19 as well..



Norway also got an improvement, getting their map revised to include a fair amount of new provinces, and a wasteland in the center of the mountain range, to make the country more easily defended against the vile swedes. We also gave them a huge chunk of new Dynamic Historical Events, making playing them a fair bit more interesting.



We also improved the political mapmode, as so many had requested, so we now show the terrain map where there has been no colonisation yet, so you’ll have some more informative eye-candy while playing



One other thing to mention today is the fact that we added a fair bit more instructions to the AI for your nation if you crash or are forced to stop playing for a while in a campaign. The following options now exists for your convenience.

• Ignore Decisions -Yes/No
  
• Embrace Institutions - Yes/No
  
• Develop Provinces - Yes/No
  
• Disband Units - Yes/No
  
• Change Fleet Missions - Yes/No
  
• Send Missionaries - Yes/No
  
• Convert Culture - Yes/No
  
• Add/Remove Cultures - Yes/No

Stay tuned.. Next week we’ll talk more about forts, peace options and tradegoods, amongst other things.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone and welcome to the first development diary after Rights of Man. We have been extremely happy with the enormous popularity of this release, and aim to improve on this level of quality.

We did a survey of the community on Rights of Man, and the features you seemed to love the most was the ruler personalities, leader traits and the consort mechanic.

Here is a quick list of what some of the team’s personal #1 favorite feature is!

• Johan - Disinherit Heir
  
• LittleFido - Ruler Personalities
  
• Starnan - Ruler Personalities
  
• Trin Tragula - Ruler Personalities
  
• BjornB - Consort Mechanics
  
• Forzaa - Great Powers
  
• Anona - Ruler Personalities
  
• DDRJake - Ruler Personalities
  
• MrNibbles - Ruler Personalities
  
• Imse Vimse - Ruler Personalities

We are aware of the problems some people have with multiplayer and aim to release as soon as we have solved the problems. Meanwhile we are working on a 1.19 patch that we aim to have in public beta in the second week of November, with a final release before the end of the month.

So what is 1.19 then? Well… It’s a really meaty and big patch with new cool and free features. We’re adding some new options to the game, enhancing mechanics for different expansions, improving AI, changing zoc, tweaking game balance, and much more.

1.19 will obviously have a name, and a focus.. Try to guess the name from this new loading screen..



Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone and welcome to the first development diary after Rights of Man. We have been extremely happy with the enormous popularity of this release, and aim to improve on this level of quality.

We did a survey of the community on Rights of Man, and the features you seemed to love the most was the ruler personalities, leader traits and the consort mechanic.

Here is a quick list of what some of the team’s personal #1 favorite feature is!

• Johan - Disinherit Heir
  
• LittleFido - Ruler Personalities
  
• Starnan - Ruler Personalities
  
• Trin Tragula - Ruler Personalities
  
• BjornB - Consort Mechanics
  
• Forzaa - Great Powers
  
• Anona - Ruler Personalities
  
• DDRJake - Ruler Personalities
  
• MrNibbles - Ruler Personalities
  
• Imse Vimse - Ruler Personalities

We are aware of the problems some people have with multiplayer and aim to release as soon as we have solved the problems. Meanwhile we are working on a 1.19 patch that we aim to have in public beta in the second week of November, with a final release before the end of the month.

So what is 1.19 then? Well… It’s a really meaty and big patch with new cool and free features. We’re adding some new options to the game, enhancing mechanics for different expansions, improving AI, changing zoc, tweaking game balance, and much more.

1.19 will obviously have a name, and a focus.. Try to guess the name from this new loading screen..



Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hi all!

Releasing the second hotfix now including the following changes.

Enjoy!

- Fixed issue where Brandenburg could form a Personal Union with a ghost Ansbach.
- Subjects can no longer abdicate and disinherit their overlord's rulers and heirs.
- Re-added code to define_heir effect since it broke certain events.
- Fixed rebels changing own capital when breaking another nation (with weird side effects).
- Fixed cultures getting set to have wrong indices when there is more than one culture database file.
- Aggressive Expansion changes from 1.18 reverted.
- Institutions fix for effects in spawn event.
- Fixed bug that overextended countries released vassals like crazy
- Distance between border fails should now be fixed automatically within at most a year.
- Fix for: Forming a new nation with a custom nation removes cores