Sep 20, 2024

Europa Universalis IV - PDXRyagi

Hello again! Ryagi here to bring you yet another overhaul for EUIV. Overhaul mods are by definition some of the most ambitious projects to undertake for any mod team. And Atlas Novum is no exception, broadly touching almost every major game mechanic in EUIV, provinces, government reforms, techs, institutions, units and more! Taking inspiration from some of Grandfathers of EUIV modding such as Beyond Typus, MEIOU & Taxes and more.

So, lets sink our teeth into this huge project with the help of lead Dev Amyzonis, presenting Atlas Novum!

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Howdy! My name is Amyzonis and I am the lead developer of the mod Atlas Novum, a project that has been in development for the past six years.

What is Atlas Novum?

Described by some as EU4.5, Atlas Novum is a total overhaul of the game. Our development process has been to focus on reworks in three distinct phases: mapwork, mechanics, and content. Thus far only the mapwork has been completed in its entirety, though mechanics are rapidly approaching completion as well. Once those two aspects are done, we will consider the mod to be in a feature-complete state, and focus our efforts entirely on content.

Mapwork

Originally based on the Typus projection from our partners at the eponymous Beyond Typus mod, Atlas Novum has gone on to vastly outstrip its older brother in terms of provincial detail. As the main endeavor over the past six years, our massive overhaul of the map stretches the entire breadth of the world, adding in thousands of new provinces. Moreover, this includes new sea tiles for all of the world's oceans and historically navigable rivers (Rhine, Danube, Don, Volga, Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Yangtze, Columbia, Mississippi, Laurent, Hudson, Amazon and the Paraná). Some rivers can only be fully accessed and navigated with the completion of expensive and laborious canalization projects.

Our process for mapwork has involved extensive research into the early modern world with reliance on scholarly sources, and we’ve sought to represent reality as best we can. Following this, we’ve reflected many landforms as they once were, from the yet unsunken Uthlande and the unbroken landbridge of Rama Setu, to the historical coastline and basin of the Yangtze river. While we don’t achieve the density and border gore of our friends over at Voltaire’s Nightmare, many areas are still delightfully complex in both provinces and the nations that own them.

For length reasons we couldn't share the mapwork examples in this post, however you can find a full list of examples on the forum version of this mod spotlight here!

Mechanics

Terrain and Climate

As mentioned earlier, we’ve reorganized terrain into twenty-two distinct types, based on biome and topology. Each terrain is classified by a type: Fertile, Productive, Rugged, Alpine, and Barren. Europe, East Asia, and North America easily have the largest supply of fertile and productive lands, but marginal types can still support a modest population or serve as effective defensive barriers to invading armies. Each terrain type serves as a source of both Carrying Capacity and Infrastructure Limit to the province in question. Carrying Capacity represents the maximum population a province can support, whereas Infrastructure Limit represents the maximum level of infrastructure that can be built there.

We’ve also introduced twenty-five Climates, which are roughly based on 1900 Koppen-Geiger readings. These climates are categorized along two axes — one for heat, the other for humidity. Their nomenclature was developed to reflect this while ensuring easy readability and player understanding. (Yes, Tinto, I have a simplified 9 and 16 climate setup for Project Caesar if you happen to be interested).

Each climate type provides a certain amount of carrying capacity to a province, and this amount can vary based on climate change. Major historical volcanic events and the Little Ice Age can cause dramatic shifts in fortune for your population as the carrying capacity and productivity of the land changes beneath their feet…

Finally, you will find forest modifiers present in many provinces. These can range between three sizes: Sparse, Abundant, and Dense. Forests belong to one of six types that can be grown or cleared as needed: Broadleaf, Needleleaf, Coniferous, Bane, Rainforest, and Laurel. Be careful though, as fully deforesting a terrain type which is defined by the presence of trees — Woodlands, Taiga, or Jungle, for example — will result in a nasty deforestation modifier. However, this modifier will disappear in time, so it can be worth enduring it if some trees are getting in the way of your plans.

Population and Development

While development was a solid addition to EU4, its abstractness and “clicky” gameplay always bothered me. To that end, we reworked development into Wealth, Infrastructure, and Population. Wealth and Population will grow organically, based on local factors such as trade good price, level of infrastructure, carrying capacity, logistics cost, and civilization level. Development growth is checked at the end of every year. The formulae for growth of these two values can be found below, and you will notice that they are rather complex affairs. To increase Infrastructure, you must invest two Wealth and wait for it to be constructed, with the opportunity cost that no other buildings can be constructed during that time. While development doesn’t need to be micromanaged, it may serve you well to pay special attention to a few of your most precious provinces and manage them according to your desired outcomes.

Cultures and Religions

Atlas Novum adds nearly two thousand new cultures (2,299 in total currently) and a dozen new religions, including a minority system.

Cultures have largely been designed around historical linguistics; after all, it's difficult to share a culture with someone that doesn’t speak the same language. There are notable exceptions to this rule, however.

While religions have not been a priority up until now, we have still added a number of new faiths. Moreover, we have recolored existing religions to correspond with colors for which they are historically associated.

Minorities come in three sizes: small, significant, and large, and can be either cultural or religious. The cultural and religious acceptance of a given minority will affect their impact on your provinces, just as unaccepted cultures and religions do in vanilla. Cultural statuses can range from integrated to enslaved or expelled, with consequential effects. There can also be secondary minorities present, which can only be one size: small, but are there to represent notable independent cultures or religions. Moreover, minorities can grow and shrink, as well as migrate and resettle throughout your lands. Whether it be Turkish settlers entering Rumelia, Moriscos leaving Iberia or Romani migrants shuffling around throughout Europe, every game ought to have something interesting happen culturally.

Another critical aspect to cultures are “assimilated” or “settler” cultures. Should the province in question meet certain conditions, it will begin to transition to a new culture within your culture group, most of which aren’t present at game start. For example, long-term Venetian control of Crete will spawn the Italian culture of Candian. This system likewise functions in the context of colonialism. Iberian cultures are liable to transition into Brazilian, Platinean, Mexican, Colombian and more. Not every culture group has unique cultures for colonialism and assimilation, but it is an area we are eager to expand as time goes on.

Finally, while it does not currently affect gameplay, every culture group and religion group now belongs to a “family”. For example, the French, Occitanic, Iberian, Arpetan, Italian, and Romanian groups all belong to a broader “Romance” family. While purely aesthetic at this time, this serves to better inform the player of their peoples’ relation to the broader world.

Government and Estates

We’ve also overhauled government reforms and estates. Countries begin with all of their tiers of reforms preselected, with progression occurring within each tier. Natives have 6 tiers, tribes 8, and theocracies, monarchies, and republics 10. Moreover, we have a ‘corporate’ type planned at some point in the future.

Estates have also been entirely reworked, in large part inspired by our partners over at MEIOU & Taxes. To start, we added 3 new estates to all theocracies, monarchies, and republics, those being: the Court/Council, the Bureaucracy, and the Military. We’ve further reworked the way that estate privileges work. Now, they are divided into two types: Rights and Privileges. Every nation starts with their privileges preselected, like government reforms, and upgrading them can often be an involved and complicated endeavor. At this time, we’ve reworked the Nobility, Clergy, and Burghers into this new design, but more region specific estates are still yet to be done.

Technology and Institutions

Atlas Novum includes a complete overhaul of technologies and institutions. Technology has now been broken up into 46 different levels, separated by fifteen-year increments. There are now sixteen different institutions, with the first seven already present at game start.

Indented technologies are there to differentiate various different technological starts among our myriad of technology groups.

Institutions will not necessarily spawn in the prescribed start location, though they are likely to emerge in a place with similar conditions.

52 Technology Groups

Golden Gears: Western, Latin, German, Nordic, Han
Blue Gears: Eastern, Greek, Russian, Balkan, Caucasian, Anatolian, Mashriqi, Maghrebi, Persian, Indian, Tibetan, Japanese, Indochinese, Malesian
Silver Gears: Sahelian, Guinean, Cushitic, Zanji, Nyanzan, Congolese, Nomadic, Uralic, Kanata, Mississipian, Mesoamerican, Andean
Bronze Gears: Bantu, Khoisan, Siberian, Papuan, Aboriginal, Oceanic, Eskaleut, Athabaskan, Cascadian, Californian, Great Basin, Great Plains, Aridoamerican, Caribbean, Isthmoamerican, Amazonian, Chacoan, Brasilian, Patagonian
Easter eggs: High American, Chthonic

Units
Since we overhauled technology, it only made sense to likewise redo units. Land units now belong to one of eight types: Offensive Infantry, Defensive Infantry, Ranged Infantry, Offensive Cavalry, Defensive Cavalry, Ranged Cavalry, Light Artillery, and Heavy Artillery. As technology progresses and gunpowder becomes ubiquitous, ranged infantry and cavalry merge with their offensive and defensive counterparts. It must be noted that many technology groups do not have innate access to horses or gunpowder, and will be locked out of units requiring them — regardless of technology level. In order to gain access, a nation must either control a province producing the trade good in question, or control at least 5% of the global trade in that good.

Naval units have been similarly redone. To better reflect their role, Galleys have been renamed to Littoral Ships. Now, everything from the simple Canoe to globe-spanning Battleship are part of our roster.

Subjects

There are several new subject types to contend with - fiefs, domains, confederates and paramountcies. Fiefdoms represent the various feudal relationships existing at game start. While they aren’t particularly useful, they can be easily integrated after the Age of Discovery has passed. Domains represent a multitude of different overlord-subject relationships that center on a common ruler. Domains function as “unbreakable” personal unions, and while their bonuses aren’t particularly powerful, they can expand the influence of their liege significantly. Confederates represent states in an equal partnership with their ‘overlord’. Groups of confederates can be a force to be reckoned with in their own right. Finally, paramountcies — though temporarily disabled — are a unique vassal type for native and tribal governments.

Trade Goods

Atlas Novum adds over one hundred new trade goods, each with dynamic prices determined on supply and demand — a system which is adapted from the Stock Market Mod. Many vanilla trade goods have new art, either custom made for our project or adapted with permission from the Trade Goods Expanded Mod.

Each trade goods price is determined by its supply and demand, which in turn can be affected by the Economic Access modifier. China, for example, has a unique modifier that greatly limits its effect on trade good prices, reflecting its burgeoning internal market. Though this is a global market, supply and demand for goods from the Old World will not affect the New — and vice versa — until the Columbian Exchange has happened.

Trade goods in Atlas Novum belong to one of four types: Immature Unrefined, Mature Unrefined, Immature Refined, and Mature Refined. Take note, most of the Mature Refined goods do not exist at game start. Luckily for you, with the requisite technology and trade good inputs, you may change a province’s trade good as needed. In particular, gunpowder is sure to be a highly sought-after good for strategic purposes, though making a new source of gunpowder production requires owning provinces that produce Niter and Sulfur.

Content

Missions

Six years ago, this mod was originally focused on mission reworks for the colonizing powers. While we felt that we had done excellent work at creating in-depth mission trees, there was a problem: they were simply too long. Portugal alone had a mission tree of over 300 missions, and this greatly lagged an already slow gameplay experience. So, we took some inspiration from the modular system of Imperator Rome, with a twist: you can have two ‘modules’ selected at any one time. Now, our new mission modules are a standard 4x5 in size and you are no longer limited to just “one” general objective. Want to focus on developing your homeland while colonizing Brazil? With this system, that is now a distinct possibility.

Green missions are required to complete the module, whereas teal missions unlock optional modules. I must further note that while these missions are playable, they are still not complete, as indicated by their placeholder icons.

When you finish the necessary missions in a module, you will complete it, and be able to select a new module to follow. Some modules are optional, others can only be unlocked via certain ahistorical missions, while still others directly follow those which you have just completed. It should be noted that content has not been our immediate priority up until now, and currently only the initial Portuguese mission modules are available for general consumption. However, now that we are entering a feature complete state, content development will become our primary objective, with mission modules being our main vehicle of delivery.

Wonders and Great Projects

Called “Monuments” in vanilla, we’ve added over a hundred new Wonders & Great Projects representing significant monuments and geological features, as well as a dozen new canal projects. Additionally, many of these have been reworked to nerf some of the most excessive national modifiers, such that their impact is not out of proportion with their importance.

These Wonders fall into three categories: Historical, Legendary, and Mythological. The existence of each of these categories will be customizable at game start. While historical Wonders will be present in every game you play, the location and occurrence of legendary and mythological wonders is left up to the player. Legendary wonders are poorly-attested, if not outright fictitious locations, such as the Seven Cities of Gold or Atlantis. Mythological wonders are fantastical in their conception, such as the everlasting Fountain of Youth or eldritch R'lyeh.
Starts
Atlas Novum has a myriad of initial options as well as multiple starts to fine-tune your game experience.

Reparata Varna or “Revenge for Varna” is our standard start.
Satus Latius or “Expanded Start” is an expanded start with additional tags.
Plus Ultra or “Further Beyond” is the start for those of you looking for maximum border gore and PC temperature.
Maiora Imperia or “Major Empires” is a reduced tag start intended for lower power computers and multiplayer games, though it is a little under-maintained at the moment.

We also feature a number of options available upon initialization of the game to further customize your experience. They are currently divided into two main categories, to be expanded further at a later date:

Custom Rulesets, which is currently a placeholder, but will allow you to select between things like climate type (Historical, Hothouse, Ice Age, &c), disease virility and mortality, and Great Project & Wonder types.
Alternative Histories, which are functional (though presently lacking content) and are split between region removals and custom setups.
- Region removals include:
  - Tabula Rasa - No Afro-Eurasia tags
  - Seiuncta Beringia - No Americas tags
  - Anahuac Inhospitalis - No Central or South American tags
  - Invia Darien - No South American tags
  - Nul Insulae - No Oceania tags
  - Exculto Populo - No native or tribal tags
- Custom setups imagine alternative scenarios for the New World based on apocryphal evidence or theorized settings including:
  - Absit Rome - Rome located in Mesoamerica
  - New Zion - Mormons located in Mesoamerica
  - Hawaii Nui - Polynesian colonists along the Andes
  - Vinlandic Perseverance - Vikings still residing in Newfoundland
  - Ard Majhulah - Arabic explorers in Brazil
  - Zheng He’s Eighth Voyage - Chinese colonies in South California
  - Third Odyssey - Byzantine refugees in the Chesapeake *cough Elysia cough*
  - Sunset Invasion - A massive High American technology Mesoamerica
  - Chthonic Awakening - currently a placeholder for some… unnatural cultists worshiping long-slumbering eldritch Gods
  - We have some further ideas for Mali, Irish/Welsh, Ancient Egyptian, and Phoenician starts, but implementation is low priority compared to historical content…

Conclusion

Though Atlas Novum has been in development for over half a decade, I must warn that it is still in beta. Occasionally, icons may be placeholders, mechanics in need of revision, or content missing. Updates to the Github Mirror on Steam can be hot code and subject to bugs or balance issues. This is a necessary consequence of active development, and we can only improve the project with your input. Thus I highly encourage your participation on our Discord server. Anyone wishing to contribute is welcome, and we’re always looking for new members of any experience level.

Also, while EU4’s optimization and performance has improved significantly in the past few years, it must be said that this is a sizable mod. It will inevitably run more slowly than vanilla, though perhaps not as slowly as some other overhaul mods that exist on the workshop. The startup and first few years of the game are likely to be a crawl, but speed should pick up considerably as you play. Moreover, with the expanded internal mechanics at your disposal, you may wish to use this slower pace to better explore, customize, and develop your nation.

Thank you for your attention, and thank you to Ryagi and Paradox Interactive as a whole for providing this space to share our labor of love with you all! I very much hope you enjoy what we have put together thus far, and look forward to continuing to develop the project with your input in the future!

Please check out Atlas Novum over on the Steam Workshop, or follow its development on the Atlas Novum Discord Server. We are a very active and close-knit community that welcomes your feedback!

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Thanks for joining us for this spotlight, we hope you enjoyed the look into Atlas Novum presented here :) Atlas Novum is still in constant and active development, and we believe it will stand the test of time for EUIV mods! Be sure to check it out.

For our next spotlight we'll be hosting Aveum Lupi Bicipitis (Or just "ALB" if you prefer not to summon a demon) for some more alt history mod fun. As usual if you have any suggestions for spotlights do let us know! See you next time.