Europa Universalis IV News

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Dates of Importance
Oct 25: Registration Start 17:00 CEST
Nov 15: Registration Close
Dec 11-12: Party!

[previewyoutube][MEDIA]BLRSTtpKBxs[/MEDIA][/previewyoutube]

A beloved concept returns! Together with TurboLarp and Parsec we host the Grandest Virtual Party where 60 players split over 20 teams engage in 2 intense days of real life diplomacy and in-game warfare. As we are still in a pandemic, our usual event in a castle is not an option yet - so we return once more to the appreciated online version while we wait for things to return to normal. By using Parsec we ensure that connectivity issues are kept at a minimum and that teams of several people can share control of the same country even though they might not be in the same physical location. Communication will be facilitated through Discord armed with special custom functionality to enhance the experience.

If you can't partake, or simply just want to spectate, the entire ordeal will be livestreamed on our twitch channel.

So save the date (Oct 25th) to not miss out on your chance to be a part of the Grandest Virtual Party!

Our website will be updated and have all the information you need which is available at any given time - https://www.eu4lan.com/

Hello and welcome to the 4th Dev Diary for the upcoming Africa update. For this Dev Diary we return to the new content for 1.32; to be more precise, we will delve into the tropical Congo Basin. Afterwards we shall take a look at the Horn of Africa again to give you a status update of the region. Without any further ado, let’s get started!

We begin with a rather compact mission tree for Kongo.

The mission tree is split into three parts, which lead into two endgame missions with strong rewards. The first three missions from the right are classic conquest missions to unify the Kongolese culture group. Highlights of these missions are the expansion into the Zambia area, a colony in Lega, and permanent claims on the East Africa region.

The second column from the left deals with the establishment into a proper kingdom and its relations with the Europeans, as they try to colonize Africa. The highlights here are +75 support for Feudalism in your capital from the mission “Loango and Ndongo’s Fate”, and permanent claims on all provinces in Africa, held by a country with its capital in Europe.

The first column handles the religious concerns of Kongo and is very orientated on Fetishism. Every single mission reward is designed around the Fetishist faith. Should you switch your country's religion, you will lose the modifiers from this column. Additionally, the column allows you to gain a little bit more out of the Fetishist faith.
The mission “Meet the other Cults” allows your heir to follow a weaker version of your unlocked cults.
The cult for an heir has however only 50% of the effect. As an example: Cwezi as your cult for your ruler would give you +20% Improve Relations. For your heir it would be only +10% Improve Relations, which is still considerable.
You will lose the cult modifier for your heir should they ascend to the throne or should they die.

The mission “Shamanistic Alliances” fires the following event for you:

Your shaman can visit on your command a different cult and unlock them for your country. Hovering over any of the options will show a small tooltip telling you what the cult’s modifier is so you don’t have to look every single one of them up on the Wiki.
Cults from other religions are only available if you know of any country following this religion. Because of that you have the last option, which enables a decision to activate this decision later on again.
Also important to note: I think this is the first time we have a vanilla event with more than 6 options. You can scroll through the options using the scrollbar on the right side.

Speaking of religions for Kongo: The event for Christian missionaries reaching Kongo has received a facelift!

The event “Foreigners arrive in Kongo!” gets triggered as soon any European country discovers Kongo. Because it is not limited to Portugal only, it has four different descriptions for the cases that the Kongolese get visited by either the Iberians, the Pope, another Catholic country or, in fringe cases, by a non Catholic country.

What makes the event special however is that it affects your mission tree. By inviting the missionaries, you replace the first column of missions with Catholic missions at the cost of 1 stability and 20 Prestige. Also a random owned province becomes Catholic too.

The first mission requires you to convert your whole country to the Catholic faith. Because one of your provinces is already Catholic you could use rebels to do the job for you. Alternatively you can let the visiting missionaries do the job instead. After the event “Foreigners arrive in Kongo!” you will periodically get the following event if any Catholic country knows you, you are not Catholic, and you have not finished the mission “Repel the Christians”:


The event is a little bit special as the two options have a negative effect attached to them depending if you have chosen to become Catholic or to stay Fetishist.
Eventually your king will convert to Catholicism too if the dominant religion in your country is Catholic.

Both choices give you one last time to reconsider your religious decision you picked earlier. Both options can replace the missions again, but if you choose to do so you will lose 3 stability, so it is recommended that you pick the playstyle you want early on.

Highlights of the Catholic missions is the purchase of a cardinal from a European ally or from the Pope himself by completing the mission “Cardinal for Kongo”. Of course you will have to bribe the pope with 1000 Ducats, but the reward sure is worth the effort:

Also, while we are on the topic of Catholicism: there is another balance change for them, which is more fitting to the Catholics than -1 Tolerance to Heretics.

Finally a quick word regarding the final two missions and their rewards. “Protector of Africa” is quite simple as it “just” asks you to banish all the Europeans from Africa as well as having a really stable empire, giving you +10% Morale of Armies and Navies permanently.
The mission “Africa’s Hegemony”, which requires you to conquer great parts of Southern Africa, has a more unique mission reward.


Before we finish the Dev Diary, let’s take a quick look back at the Horn of Africa as there are some new changes.
First thing: Adal has its own specific missions, though not as many as its neighbor Ethiopia. They should help AI Adal survive against Ethiopia better and expand into its Somalian neighbors.

Highlights of the missions are an early army modifier which decreases Land Maintenance by 5%, gives 0.5 Yearly Army Tradition and, if Adal is at war with Ethiopia, increases Morale by 5% and Manpower Recovery Speed by 10%.

Adal also received some ideas unique to them too. Though it is debatable whether they would help AI Adal survive as we want to avoid giving a strong military bonus right at the beginning. Still, Adal deserves its an own set of ideas:

ADA_ideas = {
    start = {
        land_maintenance_modifier = -0.1
        trade_efficiency = 0.1
    }
 
    bonus = {
        diplomatic_reputation = 1
    }
 
    trigger = {
        tag = ADA
    }
    free = yes
 
    ada_our_infinite_struggle = {
        manpower_recovery_speed = 0.1
    }
 
    ada_a_monarchial_imamate = {
        legitimacy = 1
    }
 
    ada_zeila_and_harar = {
        global_trade_power = 0.15
    }
 
    ada_mujahiduir_cavalry = {
        cavalry_power = 0.05
        cavalry_cost = -0.1
    }
 
    ada_unite_the_clans = {
        years_of_nationalism = -5
    }
 
    ada_yahu_yahu = {
        land_morale = 0.1
    }
 
    ada_embrace_the_cannons = {
        artillery_power = 0.1
    }
}

Next is the addition of a generic Horn of Africa idea set, which gives the five tags finally something better than +2.5% discipline:

horn_of_african_ideas = {
    start = {
        stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
        global_tax_modifier = 0.1
    }
 
    bonus = {
        prestige = 0.5
    }
 
    trigger = {
        culture_group = cushitic
        NOT = { primary_culture = somali }
        NOT = { primary_culture = tigray }
        NOT = { tag = ETH }
    }
    free = yes
 
    horn_of_african_punt_legend = {
        trade_range_modifier = 0.2
    }
    horn_of_african_aksumite_legacy = {
        global_unrest = -1
    }
    horn_of_african_highland_cultivation = {
        development_cost = -0.05
    }
    horn_of_african_oromon_warriors = {
        infantry_power = 0.1
    }
    horn_of_african_religious_melting_pot = {
        tolerance_heathen = 1
    }
    horn_of_african_cushitic_language = {
        improve_relation_modifier = 0.15
    }
    horn_of_african_religious_defensive_nature = {
        defensiveness = 0.2
    }
}

Of course our formable Somalia has also gained some unique ideas too!

SOM_ideas = {
    start = {
        may_perform_slave_raid_on_same_religion = yes
        cavalry_power = 0.1
    }
    bonus = {
        capture_ship_chance = 0.33
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = SOM
    }
    free = yes
    SOM_land_of_punt = {
        stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
    }
    SOM_african_silk_road = {
        caravan_power = 0.2
        trade_steering = 0.1
    }
    SOM_african_minting = {
        inflation_reduction = 0.15
    }
    SOM_zeila_and_berbera = {
        center_of_trade_upgrade_cost = -0.1
    }
    SOM_blue_nile = {
        global_supply_limit_modifier = 0.33
    }
    SOM_indian_merchants = {
        merchants = 1
        mercantilism_cost = -0.25
    }
    SOM_faithful_to_allah = {
        missionary_maintenance_cost = -0.2
    }
}

Shoutout to verinityvoid and nephilim2k for helping out with the ideas!

Another change we made is addressing some setup issues. First we have changed the terrain in the Mogadishu and the Northern Swahili Coast area, changing four provinces from steppes and savannas to farmlands.

We also adjusted the climate of the region too.

Finally a quick update regarding the Ç̌äwa unit:

Additionally Ethiopia has access to two estate privileges, which modify the role of the Ç̌äwa even further:

• Cawa Peacekeeper:
  
  • Land Maintenance Modifier: -15.0%
    
  • Rebel Suppression Efficiency: +25.0%
    
  • Movement Speed: -10.0%
    
• Cawa Conquerors:
  
  • Discipline: 2.5%
    
  • Recover Army Morale Speed: +10.0%
    
  • Reinforce Cost: +25.0%
    

Alright, that’s it for today! Next week Pavía will cover new monuments for 1.32. Have a nice week!

Hello everyone and welcome to a rather meaty development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This week we’ll release 1.31.6, which is a compatibility patch for the launch on Epic Store, where EU4 will be freely available for a short period of time.

This patch does not contain any bug fixes, improvements or balance changes, as we had to make sure we had a stable version for this release. Some of our programmers and qa have been working diligently to create this new version for a long while now.

Meanwhile the core-team have been working on the major 1.32 patch which we aim to have out later this year. While the other development diaries will focus mostly on what content we will add to the immersion pack, today we will talk about a lot of balance changes!

Concentrate Development

As we all know, the Concentrate Development feature, while technically working as designed, has a few drawbacks, as it can become very unbalanced and immersion breaking. For 1.32 we have been reworking this.

Now when you pillage or concentrate a set of provinces, the horde “raze” function is called, but with 20% reduction of the development. This is then converted into monarch points in the source province(s), using the cost it would improve development in each of these provinces.

These “monarch points” are then taken to the capital of your country, with a loss of 20% of points when applicable, as some countries have free concentrate development. What is left is then used to “buy” development in your capital province. Any “monarch points” left over are then lost.

A shout out to the post who inspired this new design!

We also fixed the way you could concentrate development twice, by first owning it, and then from the released vassal. Liberty desire now also increases for the subjects when you concentrate their development.

Misc Balance Changes

The catholic curia powers are gaining some improvements in 1.32 as well, with all getting another bonus and here are some examples.

• Bless Ruler - Now also gives +10% Land Morale
  
• Indulgence for Sin - Now gives +10% Improve Relations
  
• Send Papal Legate- Also adds 10% cheaper annexation costs.
  

We made some tweaks to curry favors, so that it now relies far more on relative military power, so it's harder to gain for a smaller, weaker nation.


When it comes to natives, we added a new reform to slow down the path to becoming a duchy for settled tribes, as well as adding feudalism as a requirement.

We also added in cooldowns for migration into non-owned lands, made costs for adding tribal land that scales with owned provinces and development. There are also penalties for migration into winter territory. Also added a relation penalty that increases each month that a tribe is inside tribal land of another country.

And of course we are rebalancing, i.e. nerfing, the native development growth for 1.32, as it is completely unrealistic and does not work with the rest of the game.

We also changed when the AI released vassals for being over the governing capacity to be a much higher threshold, and also giving lucky nations a nice little boost to their governing capacity.


Now I hand over the keys to Gnivom who will talk about some changes to Institutions and the AI for 1.32

Institution Changes


We’ve decided to change how Institutions affect tech cost.

So what was the problem?

We all know how Institutions work:



Hard to take seriously indeed

Countries outside of Europe, and especially in the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa, have to pay more for a technology the longer they wait. This means they’re in a hectic struggle against time, as those who fall behind their neighbors will struggle to catch up.

The New System

From 1.32, every technology has a fixed set of required institutions. If you haven’t yet embraced one or more required institutions, that technology costs you 50% more for each.
This updated Technology View should hopefully be self explanatory:


These are some nice properties of the new system over the old:

• Institutions now cause a rubber-band effect on tech instead of a snowball effect
  
• Some movement in Florence doesn’t magically affect the Aztecs (until it actually spreads there)
  
• An institution spawning is now a good thing
  

Asian nations will find themselves getting hit by a +50% tech cost from Renaissance earlier than they would in 1.31, but as they get further behind, their tech cost will stabilize even if they don’t develop for institutions.
European nations won’t be affected as much, but those on the forefront of technology will notice the increased tech cost, making institutions more relevant in this region than previously.

When changing the code for this, it turned out we based a lot of seemingly unrelated things on countries’ “tech cost from institutions”, most of which were simply translated from the pre-Rights of Man “technology group” system. For example, joining a Trade League requires having at most +200% tech cost from institutions. Who would have known? You’ll find a lot of these addressed in 1.32’s changelog.

AI Improvements

Every version of EU4 has had its own AI issues, and it’s no secret that it has been getting worse for a while. For 1.32 some of the most debilitating issues have been fixed, and hopefully without causing too many new ones.

EU4’s AI is the product of years of incremental development, by a large number of developers. Most of the code is written after EU4’s release, but a few lines date back as far as the late 90’s. Writing AI is hard, so many of the systems are complex. And given the number of different developers, they don’t all work in harmony. Essentially, for any given choice the AI has to make in army, navy or budgeting; it often has a dozen or so voices in its head telling it what to do. It’s supposed to take all of them into account, but often the loudest voice drowns out all the rest.


(yes, lower numbers are better)

Here, the Ottoman army has made good progress on the Mamluk fort of Tabuk. But a voice intended for a completely different situation screams one order of magnitude louder than all other voices, that it should kill the rebels in Qahirah.

Issues like this hinder the systems that *are* made for the given situation from doing their job. A lot of what has been done for 1.32’s AI is to find and fix cases where systems interfere with each other.

Major Fixes

Army

This is really the result of a bunch of small fixes, but essentially the AI will generally be more competent at achieving stuff with its armies, although individual moves can still be erratic. They will also keep a more significant army in peacetime

Naval Invasions

The AI can now decently perform naval invasions again, without too much shenanigans. This has a huge impact on the European AIs’ colonization efforts.


An almost fully colonized New World from one of our observer runs

Economy

Lots of small fixes mean the AI’s economy should now be more solid. Budgeting has been improved and the choice of buildings to construct puts more emphasis on expected financial return.

A special shoutout to [USER]@Tempscire[/USER], whose reverse engineering of AI army behavior is somehow easier to understand than the code itself. We implemented his suggestion for terrain evaluation as-is, and changed how combat width is considered, albeit not as he suggested for technical reasons. Unfortunately he has many other good suggestions that will not be implemented at this point.

Hello and welcome to the 3rd Dev Diary for the content of the Sub-Saharan region. Today we shall take a look at the Horn of Africa - at Ajuuraan and Ethiopia to be more precise.

We start off with Ajuuraan as they have the smaller mission tree. Ajuuraan is one of the Somali clans in the Horn and is known for its impressive irrigation system, for its unique position as a theocratic clan state, as a trading nation, which had its merchants active in India and Asia, and even as a winner against Portuguese aggression. The mission tree for Ajuuraan reflects these traits, focusing on both the military strength and the trade power it possessed.



The most left row focuses on the trade aspect of Ajuuraan. A theme of this row is the importance of Mogadishu as a center of trade and its minted currency. After annexing Mogadishu you get access to the "Gain Gold Access" mission. The requirements of it seem easy enough: just have a gold province. However, the mission can also be completed diplomatically by allying and having 100 opinion with a country which happens to have a gold province. If you finish the mission diplomatically, your ally will receive an event, which will ask them to supply Ajuuraan with their precious metal. They either can choose to refuse, giving mercantilism for the ally, or accept the deal, reduce their own Global Trade Power by 5%, but increase Goods Produced by 5% and reduce the inflation by 0.05 for 25 years.
In exchange, Ajuuraan will receive an acceptance or refusal event. In case of acceptance you get 0.25 years worth of income, increased Global Trade Power by 10%, increased Trade Power Abroad by 25% and increased inflation of 0.05 for 25 years.

The Trade Power Abroad might seem a little bit off, but it will come in handy for the next mission "Trade with India", where you need to have 5% Trade Power in any of the Indian trade nodes. Achieving this mission will trigger the "The Merchants of Ajuuraan" event for all countries which have their capital in India:



Note: The AI will always expel your merchants if their attitude is either outraged, hostile or rival to you.
Additionally, Ajuuraan gains in every Indian Trade Node, where they had at least 5% Trade Power, +10 Trade Power for 25 years too.

Afterwards your trade row branches into three directions, where you need to have an active merchant in Beijing, good relations with Dong Kinh and have 5% trade power in Moluccas. My personal favorite is the event for the Emperor of China when you finish the mission "Trade with the Dragon":



Note: a proper event picture is currently work in progress by our great artists. The picture you see right now is just a placeholder.
All the trade missions interact with the countries in their respective trade nodes while the rewards for Ajuuraan itself are more moderate like cash, mercantilism and monarch power.

The right side of the mission tree is more focused about the military and the conquest with the end goal of consolidating your region. They are quite self explanatory, so I will show you how the end result of all the conquest missions should look like if you only take the claims from the mission tree.

While I am at it: we did not forget to use this opportunity to showcase one of the formables we will add with the patch:



Note: Final color might change later as Somalia's blue clashes too much with Ethiopia's blue.

Finally one last thing: Ajuuraan is well known for its hydraulic constructions, which they used to enforce their power in their provinces. To represent the importance of these wells and the Ajuuraan efficiency in creating them, the mission "Hydraulic Expertise" grants Ajuuraan the estate privilege "Hydraulic Rights":


With that said, let's move on to Ethiopia, the empire of the legendary Solomonid dynasty.

The mission tree of Ethiopia has basically 3 major parts: the Liberation of the Copts in the Middle East, the legacy of the Aksumite Empire and the contact with the Europeans.
Let's start with the most basic one: the rightmost missions, which are about the Aksumite Empire and surpassing its old territory. These missions are quite conservative as they give you permanent claims over the whole Horn of Africa eventually and even some permanent claims on Arabian provinces, which are part of the Gulf of Aden trade node. The "Centralize the State" mission is more interesting though, as it requires that you reach the 6th tier of the government reforms or that you abandon your starting government reform.



And well, I have to give credit where credit's due. The Itinerant Capital mechanic and the Ç̌äwa regiment (the game doesn't like the Ç̌, so we had to settle with "Cawa") are heavily inspired by ajsieg (from the Forums).
Around the start of the game, Ethiopia will receive the following event, explaining the starting situation and the drawbacks of their moving capital system:



To combat the issues caused by this modifier, the Itinerant Capital has a special mechanic attached to it: provinces of the capital area always have the following modifier.



It should also be mentioned that for 5 years after moving your capital you get +1000% Move Capital cost modifier, so make sure you make the best out of it.

To get rid of this nasty modifier you have to complete the mission "Centralize the State", which fires the following event:


Of course you can choose to keep your current government reform. Both cases will remove the modifier and you can later choose to switch to the Solomonic Empire.

Ethiopia history has a lot to offer, and as such we couldn't forget the legendary war between Adal and Ethiopia, which almost brought doom upon Ethiopia if it wasn't for the Portuguese. As such we tried to recapture it with a few flavor events for both Ethiopia and Adal.
Now, here is the deal though: The Ottomans, the ally of Adal during this war, look usually like this in the test runs

Meanwhile, the Ethiopian ally...

Because of this limitation + the usual tendency that the Iberians won't reach Africa we have decided to recapture the spirit of this war through military aid in the form of mercenaries.
For Adal that means they get the following events should they be at war with Ethiopia while the Ottomans exist


Around 2 - 5 years later, Ethiopia receives the help of the Portuguese - if they are still alive that is

The Janissaries have -10% Shock and Fire damage received, while the Portuguese have +5% Discipline and +10% Infantry Combat Ability. Both merc companies are a little bit cheaper than the usual mercenaries, so it is advised to use them.

Speaking of units: the second mechanic Ethiopia receives are the Ç̌äwa regiments. Right now you recruit them in your states like Janissaries, but without the requirement of being limited to heathen provinces. The amount of Ç̌äwa you can have is dependent on the development of your provinces, which is about 0.125 regiments per development (+ some other modifiers).
Recruiting one regiment costs 10 Mil Power right now (value might change later on).



Figures for the Ç̌äwa and their privilege are not final, we're still waiting on some more modifiers which will give me more options to fine-tune them. Also, we are not entirely sure what color we want to give them just yet, so they are blank for now (I personally considered yellow for their color as it is part of the Ethiopian flag + it is free to take). I am open for suggestions though.

Other highlights of Ethiopia:

• A small event chain triggered by "Create the Ethiopian Navy", where a small fleet sails along the Nile and reaches the Pope
  
• "Modernize the Army" allows you to switch your unit type to "Western Units"
  
• "Train the Cawa" unlocks Noble privileges, which reduce the amount of available Ç̌äwas in exchange for global modifiers. Right now, there are two mutually exclusive privileges, which reduce the allowed Ç̌äwa by 50%, but either reduce global unrest by 1 or increase Siege Ability by 5%
  
• "A Blessed Empire" is the only permanent modifier, giving -15% Stability Cost and +3 Tolerance of Faith
  

Before finishing the Dev Diary for good, let's look back at West Africa for a moment: After doing some research, we took some suggestions from the forums done after the last DD, so we have been working on a rework of starting setup (although with no new provinces, as you already know).

The Mossi Kingdom has been split into 3 realms now: Yatenga, Fada N'gourma (also known as Gurma) and Wagadugu. Additionally, the ahistorical state of Macina has been annexed by Mali, although we're working on a better balancing of this area, as Mali may be a bit overpowered with this extra provinces. Also, on every Bambara province there is now a Segu core. The event "Emergence of the Fulani" allows you now to switch your country to Fulo and the event "The Ashanti" allows you to switch your country to Ashanti.
Also, Songhai's decision "Focus on a Professional Army" now costs 75 mil power instead of 200 per ruler and the Songhai mission tree has seen some QoL changes:



By hovering over the triggers and effects you can read what the eventual branches would request of you if you select any of the two paths.

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the Dev Diary.