Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy
Europa Universalis IV
10 years of EUIV
Today, August 13th of 2023, Marks the 10th Anniversary day of Europa Universalis IV. To look back on how we got here, we invite you to join long time GSG Developer and Studio Manager of Paradox Tinto Johan Andersson as he reflects on the last 10 years.
Please enjoy this retrospective from him below:
Today it is 10 years ago since we released EU4, back on August 13th of 2023. I guess it's a sign that you are getting old that you can write posts like this.
Back in the early autumn of 2011, PDS was much smaller, I was still the studio manager, and we had 1 full team led by Henrik ‘Doomdark’ Fåhraeus working on CK2, while a smaller team with Dan ‘podcat’ Lind and 2 other people was doing expansions for HoI3 and V2. Paradox France, which was a small subsidiary with 2 employees, was working on “March of the Eagles” with support from Olof ‘Birken’ Björk.
I remember this as a time when we had lots of experience, with some of us doing these games for a decade or more, and the studio was growing every year.
We had just wrapped up Sengoku with another small (4-5 people) team, and we needed to decide what to do now. Thomas ‘Besuchov’ Johansson, by then a ten year veteran, who had been away on parental leave was coming back, and the two together with Chris ‘King’ King started to define what project we want to do.
It was quickly obvious that it should be a sequel to Europa Universalis III, but how we should go ahead was a bit harder. After a few days of talks, we settled on a simple vision of
25% on better UI
25% on multiplayer
25% on better graphics
25% on new features
We started building the game in late 2011, with Thomas taking the new engine version of CK2, with better map graphics, multiplayer code and support for the new DLC model, and ported in so that EU3 was running on it. After that we could start with the true development of the project.
When it came to the better UI, this was the first time we had a dedicated UI designer. Daniel Moregård who later worked on Stellaris, and is now a Game Director at PDS did a great job, making sense of the mechanics. While the macro builder he designed was a great boon we all appreciate since then, one thing he made that is not as obvious was the naming consistency on all modifiers and values in the game.
The creation of EU4 was not just about making a good UI, we also had to make new features. Some of the EU3 features were reworked, like how we went from the policy sliders to the new Ideas system, which included unique National Ideas for quite a few countries. We also reworked the trade system from the Centre of Trade system of previous iterations to the new system where you had a flow of trade and had to control ports and manage light fleets.
There were countless other features added to the game, but the biggest and most noticeable one was the introduction of the monarch power system. During all the previous iterations of EU we had had problems with balancing the game between various size of countries, and this was an attempt both to stop the snowballing that is so common in strategy games, while also creating ebbs and flows in a countries progress, tying it heavily to the monarchs themselves.
The map, graphical looks and the core features were all in and working by the summer of 2012, and we could announce the game on Gamescom in august that year.
this is one of the first screnshots we had in an early development diary for EU4.
As we had a playable game early on, we could constantly playtest the game. By the autumn of 2012 we had grown the studio to include 4 internal QA. We divided the EU4 team into two, where Thomas Johansson led people developing additional features, fixing bugs and improving UI, while I led the other half that just focused on playtesting, balancing and feature changes.
Several days each week for quite a while we started the new nightly version in multiplayer, with about 6 players playing one of France, Castille, Portugal, England, Burgundy or Austria. After about 100-150 years, or about 5-6 hours into the session we gathered for feedback, fixed what we could fix, or made jira’s for the other team on what did not work.
All in all, we spent about 18 months on the project before release, and by the time we reached the release, it was the biggest project PDS had ever done.
I guess you could describe the release as a roaring success. By then it was our best selling GSG, while also having a 87 score on Metacritic.
We had experience of how good the new DLC model was for our studio with Crusader Kings 2, so we planned for up to 3 years of regular DLC. The key thing was to do realistic things that could be released on a regular basis, which would be good for the player. Most of the time this succeeded. So let's now see how this decade panned out, and if I have any anecdotes.
The first dlc was the minor American Dream, which was basically an event pack that was released not too long after the release. I really don’t have any memories from it, and suspect it is not on anyone’s list of our top 5 dlc’s.
The first big expansion for EU4 came about half a year after release, with Conquest of Paradise. Back during the original design talks for EU3, I had envisioned a random new world. This was beyond our skill back then, and it was beyond what we could add to Eu4 at release, so we thought it would be a good idea to add to the first expansion. In hindsight it was not. Besides the fact that it was insanely expensive to do, it also did not work properly in multiplayer nor did it create good maps.
The next two expansions, Wealth of Nations and Res Publica, that we released during the first half of 2014 were smaller in scope, and mostly focused around trade and politics. During this time period we played lots of both single player games and dev clashes, so a lot of feature design came from, let's make this better.
Speaking of the dev clashes. Most of the features we made for Art of War, which came out in late autumn of 2014, were designed and created directly based on our experience there. First of all, we added in the Zone of Control system that has been used ever since, removing the tedious need to siege every single province. Most importantly, we spent a lot of time revising the map outside of Europe to make density more evenly distributed, so warfare outside of Europe was as fun as inside it. Moving armies on a detailed map is about half the fun of a PDS game, and especially in a multiplayer game. I really must give a huge shout out to Henrik ‘Trin Tragula’ Lohmander, who was doing a lot of that map overhaul!
We had some map upgrades to India for Art of War.
During the summer of 2014 we did some severe reorganizations at Paradox and I got cursed with the position being an executive in charge of all of our studios, so after Art of War I basically had to leave the EU4 development, which I handed over to Martin ‘Wiz’ Anward, who had been working with AI and design on EU4 for a while. Of course, I could not keep my hands away and did design and code systems like the Nahuatl religion and the development system.
During Martin’s reign, we first released El Dorado, which included fun mechanics for the new world, while also adding the custom nation feature, which is among the most popular starts. The accompanying patch had the big reworking of the random new world feature, making it actually fun to use.
The next expansion was Common Sense, which made the political and diplomatic game deeper, and after that, in December of 2015 it was time for The Cossacks, which added so much to the center of the eurasia. This was also when estates were first introduced into EU4.
Now,in the beginning of 2016, PDS had grown a fair bit, and we had two games about to be released in HoI4 and Stellaris, and other games in the early phases, like CK3 and V3, so the team got reduced in size, and Martin left for the V3 team. I came back to be a dedicated Game Director for EU4 for a while. Being an executive is not fun, and it's far more fun to be a game developer.
As we started on Mare Nostrum we had a dilemma, as we would be releasing in the middle of Stellaris and HoI4 which was not something Paradox could handle then. So we scoped down and reduced the price of it to reflect what it contained, and released it earlier than originally planned. It was not a great expansion, but it was not bad either..
Now Jake Leiper-Ritchie joined the team as a designer, and we designed Rights of Man together. This is one of the expansions I am most proud of. We added the great powers system, personalities and traits to rulers & leaders, consorts for rulers and ways to give military objectives to your subjects. In the accompanying patch we reworked technology groups to the new Institutions system. During this development, we also added in ideas for what we then viewed as the final four expansions, which we had already named, and set the theme for. Mandate of Heaven, Cradle of Civilization, Dharma and Emperor.
Mandate of Heaven, this was the April 2017 expansion, where the focus was on East Asia with mechanics for China, Japan and Manchu. Together with a patch that added the Age System this was greatly appreciated by the players.
During the spring, I had the idea that we should make smaller immersion packs, focused on a single country, or a smaller region. I wrote the design and coded Third Rome, basically myself, with Art and QA support, for a release in June 2017. Ironically, the timing was pretty shit, as at the same time we released it, a dlc with focus on Russia, our sales team did a huge regional price adjustment which was a bit less than popular to say the least.
Now I felt that Jake was experienced enough to handle EU4, and he took over as Game Director.
The second of the “final” expansions was Cradle of Civilization which was released in late 2017, with a focus on the Middle East. In retrospective it's interesting how much we released during the first four years of EU4.
Spring of 2018 saw the release of the immersion pack Rule Britannia, which was a pretty release, but it's overshadowed by the patch which introduced the new mission system. This new mission system has managed to prolong the life cycle of the game several years beyond what we had deemed possible.
At the end of the Summer of 2018 we saw the release of what we had envisioned as the “penultimate” expansion of Eu4, named Dharma. It was not all that positively received, and the most popular feature, the government reforms were baked into the base game soon after.
A third immersion pack ‘Golden Century’ was released at the end of the 2018, also to extremely bad reviews. A decision was made to make a big free patch fixing bugs and improving the game, but the patch got severely delayed, and was also tied together with the new launcher which was not popular either. At this point, we had to bake in features like transfer occupation, government reforms and improve development to the base game, to improve the community perception.
Meanwhile, work was ongoing on what we had we originally thought of as the final expansion, in Emperor. It was getting delayed, and then Jake resigned during the autumn of 2019, to focus more on his career as an influencer. At this point “Emperor” was in a mess, and we had no idea if it could be finished. PDS had other projects with major needs, so we decided to move most people to projects like CK3 and Stellaris, and focus with a small old-school team Daniel ‘Starnan’ Olsson as producer/qa-coordinator, Henrik ‘Groogy’ Hansson as designer/programmer, Daniel ‘neondt’ Tolman as content designer and me as game director/programmer. We had some UX, Art and QA support as well, but the team was really small. A lot of features was revamped, redesigned, and made more streamlined, and I must say that those 3 people did a marvelous job, an absolutely stunning performance there. What made it even more challenging was the little thing called “Covid” which happened half-way through “Emperor”'s development. We eventually launched at huge success, being the best selling eu4 expansion ever. It was definitely a good way and a good end to what we originally had planned for EU4.
It was during Emperor, and reflecting over the impact of the pandemic, that we started the decision to create a studio, Paradox Tinto, in Barcelona. Some of us had houses there, so it felt like a good place for somewhere new. Of course, the studio needed to do something, so starting with making content for EU4 sounded like a good idea.
Yeah.. We released leviathan. Good ideas, and pretty fun now, but the launch was an unmitigated disaster. Too buggy, and missing art etc.
Anyway, we moved forward, recruited more people, and continued on. What does not kill you etc,..
One of the fun things with recruiting to Tinto has been recruiting people with more hours than me actually playing the game. I’m a noob outside of work, with only about 1400 hours in my spare time playing the game. Being able to hire modders with more experience making mission trees for eu4 than any internal staff, or QA with 5,000+ hours is such a boon. I can’t name drop everyone at Tinto, but they are all awesome to work with!
While we had focused a fair bit on fixing old bugs before the release of Leviathan, now it was our goal with all releases. We should be the team with the least amount of open and known bugs at Paradox, which we have successfully been able to uphold ever since then, averaging between a third or a half of the 2nd best teams bug count. We also made the decision to not add new major systems, nor do major map overhauls to keep risks down, and make sure that the player experience was the main focus of our job.
The first release we did as a full team on our own here at Tinto was Origins, which was the African focus Immersion pack. It was a good learning experience for the team, and we like to think it was well received. We tried out new ways with missions, which so far has been a success for us.
The year after Origins, we released Lions of the North, an immersion pack focused on the Baltics. Here the team went absolutely ballistic with content, and diverging mission trees, new government reforms, and most importantly overpowering Sweden.
I guess this was a bit more popular.
After this, the team went even more ambitious with Domination, creating enormous mission trees, unique units and much more for the major powers, those that are the most played ones.
It's been a fun ride for over a dozen years, actually, let's face it, it's been 25 and half years since we started with the first EU1. Most of the time I’ve been involved on a daily basis, and sometimes I’ve merely been a supervisor, but EU has always been the franchise closest to my heart
What does the future hold from here? Well, we have promised some more releases….
EUIV: Official Displate store & giveaway!
Europa Universalis IV is turning 10 this month, and we’re celebrating with some small community activities! Please note that there will be no major gameplay updates, but you can expect some giveaways and other exciting things.
Today for instance, we want to announce that we now have an official EU IV Displate store! For those inclined towards some classy merch, these high quality metal posters featuring iconic EUIV art can now finally be yours. (is it truly a battle station without paintings of history’s most famous leaders?)
We are also giving away 9 free EUIV Displate posts across our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram channels, so be sure to check that out too (entries strictly limited to one per person). Winners will be chosen & announced on August 9th.
Community Mod Spotlight - Ages Reformed
Hey all! Today's Mod Spotlight features pretty art and pretty numbers.
Ages Reformed adds a plethora of well-thought-out age objectives and abilities. And, it conveniently plays nice with other popular mods too! we're excited to have MDoulos share it with you.
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Hello Everyone,
I am MDoulos, the creator of Ages Reformed, a mod that completely overhauls and improves the age mechanic that was introduced in Mandate of Heaven. Welcome to the mod spotlight for the mod that adds several small but very meaningful mechanics to the ages feature. If you aren't already using Ages Reformed, I appreciate that you're giving me the opportunity to convince you to try. :)
In this mod spotlight, I’d like to talk about the important features which help improve your gameplay experience. I’ll also briefly mention some of the unimportant features which were created with love, just because they’re cool. So let’s go!
Painting: Ferdinand Pauwels, "Luther Posts His 95 Theses"
Let’s start with an outline of the things touched in Ages Reformed:
Selectable Abilities
Nation Specific Abilities
Age Objectives
UI and Artwork
Age Painting and Tooltip
Mod Compatibility
Selectable Abilities
When I first started playing EU4, I was drawn to and inspired by Ages and Splendor Expanded. In my opinion, the default Ages feature was lacking in depth and I wanted to find a mod that improved it asap. It felt unfinished. I loved ASE, but had my own ideas about improvements that could be made to the age mechanics. So as a new modder (with prior experience in another game/genre), I am deeply appreciative of the blessing I received to use ASE as a base from Melvasul and LimonenZitrone. LZ was extremely helpful in answering my questions early on, and without the expanded mod team’s help, Ages Reformed wouldn’t exist.
One thing ASE did well was expand the number of selectable abilities. This is an obvious improvement over the default which features 7 or 8 broadly available abilities along with 3 or 4 nation-specific abilities. A crucial difference though is my strong distaste for nation-locking abilities and for scroll bars. So I fit as many abilities onto the UI as possible without a scroll bar, and removed the nation-specific element from all abilities.
This resulted in 18 selectable abilities per age. More than double the amount previously available to all nations. And without a scroll bar!
I will talk more about nation-specific abilities in the next section, but basically I made them on by default and reworked selectable abilities to be useful for all nations.
Permanent and Stacking Bonus Pathways
I added two brand new mechanics to Ages: permanent bonuses and stacking bonuses (from age to age).
Many of the abilities you can choose for each age now offer a small permanent bonus that is relevant to the bonus you chose. For example, if you choose the ability called “Hardened Soldiers”, you will receive the primary buff of -25% Land Attrition until the end of the age, but you will also receive a permanent buff called “Endurance” which gives your nation +5% Fort Defense until the end of the game.
Not only does your nation receive a permanent buff, in subsequent ages, choosing a similar ability offers you the chance to improve the previously acquired permanent buff. For example, choosing “Hardened Soldiers” again in a later age, will give your nation +10% Fort Defense until the end of the game.
These stacking bonuses come in groups of three and cover a number of different ability and bonus types including: economy, espionage, religion, military, navy, diplomacy, and more. Choosing the third buff in a stack of three in the third or fourth age will give your nation a “History of “ bonus that drastically improves the nature of the buff. Therefore it can be said that the decisions your people make in the Age of Discovery have a lasting impact on their descendants in the Age of Revolutions!
Nation Specific Abilities
The default age mechanic locks three or four selectable abilities to certain nations only. In Ages Reformed, these ability slots are freed up for all nations and the removed abilities that must have been chosen as the specific nation before are now granted to those nations by default. Example, the Ottomans no longer need to choose the Guns of Orban. They now start the game with the bonus.
In addition, some new nation specific abilities have been added. To see a list of the nation specific abilities present in the game, hover over the icon in the bottom right of the age painting. This list will show all nation specific abilities active from the start of the age. They expire at the end of the age.
Age Objectives
One thing that I set out to “fix” with the objectives feature, was the idea that some of the objectives were not at all able to be accomplished by many nations. For example, in the Age of Discovery, the default mechanic gives landlocked mid-Asian countries the objective to “Discover America”, something severely out of reach for such nations. I looked for opportunities like this to create objectives which were more broadly accomplishable and took it a step further by introducing the concept of region specific objectives. Now it doesn’t matter where you play, you’re almost always guaranteed to see eight objectives per age that your nation can accomplish.
To build on top of this accessibility, some objectives which require getting or building x of thing, now define x differently for different nations. For example, while the objective “Build a Fleet” may require Ming or other large powers to have 10 Light Ships and at least 5 Heavy Ships or 20 Galleys, the same objective only requires 2 Light Ships and at least 1 Heavy Ships or 4 Galleys from tribal nations.
Build a Fleet - Larger fleet required to complete the objective for larger nations.
Build a Fleet - Smaller fleet required to complete the objective for smaller nations (Ex: Sub-Saharan Africa).
Age Objectives - Fulfilled
When fulfilling age objectives, splendor is no longer the only reward. Now each objective fulfilled provides a buff to your country until the end of the age. This information is visible by hovering over the ribbon icon in the bottom right of the age painting. This provides new motivation to achieve certain objectives!
UI and Artwork
As a professional graphic designer, I really put a lot of love into designing the UI for Ages Reformed and I think this is one area where the mod really shines.
Let’s start with the age frame itself. As mentioned previously, I really did not want to use scroll bars, and so my focus was zoomed in on presenting 18 age abilities, 8 age objectives, and 4 age icons (more for compatible mods) in a concise and compelling way.
I mimicked the art style used by Paradox and really strove to make sure the frame and background fit into the game and looked as if what I imagined the default would look like if they had created the same mechanics that I had.
This had me swapping the placement of the age icons, making the age abilities go vertical and increasing the size of the overall frame to accommodate the extra objective per age.
Region or Religion Specific Artwork
One of the most defining characteristics of Ages Reformed is the region, religion, and culture specific objectives, highlighted by the unique artwork for each. Why use a picture of a Catholic cardinal for “Convert Provinces” when playing as an Islamic nation, when a picture of an Imam would add so much visual flavor?
These images were sourced from both historical painting, icons I found or made myself, and other images in the creative commons. To get the right look and to create images that have never existed before in the correct postures and art style, I also used Stable Diffusion (ai) to create or edit the foreground or background of many objective icons. Overall, half of the time developing Ages Reformed was invested in image sourcing online, in SD, and tons of editing and original work in Photoshop.
I spent a lot of time working on this particular feature of Ages Reformed, because removing the one image fits all default and seeing unique and relevant images for the nation you’re playing as adds a ton of flavor and visual interest in my opinion. It really helps immersion!
Take a look at how these age objective icons differ by region, religion, or culture. These examples don’t necessarily include all of the images shown in game for that objective.
Humiliate Rival - In this example, you’ll see this icon if your rival is likely to be (in order): Native, European, Muslim, African, Indian, Steppe (Mongol), Asian, and Aboriginal (Australian Native).
Regional Market Supply - Unique pictures for different cultures and regions.
Build a Fleet - Unique pictures for different cultures and regions.
Great Leader - Unique pictures for different cultures and regions.
Competent Court - Unique pictures for different cultures and regions.
Religious Unity - Unique pictures for each religious group and some individual religions in the game.
Convert Provinces - A unique picture of a missionary for each religion in the game.
And so much more not shown here! The screenshots above don’t necessarily include all icons for the objective.
Age Paintings and Tooltips
I really endeavored to make sure the age paintings stood out. Each painting highlights something significant from each of the four ages. The realistic paintings have been touched up in Photoshop to highlight certain details.
Age of Discovery - Columbus Landing at Guanahani, John Vanderlyn, 1837
Age of Reformation - Luther at the Diet of Worms, by Anton von Werner, 1877
Age of Absolutism - Charles II, by John Michael Wright, 1676
Age of Revolutions - Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze, 1851
You can hover over the question mark icon in the bottom right of the painting to reveal a tooltip that provides details about each painting. [IMG]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/QsdM1YTnBXxI3QbO6n8-hSxbhUxWRmpFWNGUpqPo0aQMF-DfOuaMUqQTN_iMpOd6OOBuSv3ma2pDmstyO9Ad8FyxYcY_T82EiYX0Ri-Z6eHkHHcbu6Gb-w2vejwYXV962nMghT1CPTmnpcdi1gdjx9Q[/IMG]
Each of these three hover buttons provides useful information.
Nation Bonuses Listed
Objective Rewards Listed
Information about the Age Painting
Mod Compatibility
Six compatibility patches were made to make Ages Reformed compatible with other popular mods like Ante Bellum, Anbennar, Victorum Universalis, Albert (AIM), 1356, and Lords of Universalis. In addition, Ages Reformed is confirmed to work with the Expanded Mod Family (it replaces ASE) and over a dozen other widely used mods.
When I made the compatibility patches, I was sure to add custom content that was relevant to the mods themselves. Check out the following screens and images from a few of the mods.
Great Leader (Anbennar) - Unique pictures for different popularly chosen mod-specific races: Elves, Humans, Orcs, Dwarves, Goblins, and Harimari.
Humiliate Rival (Anbennar) - Unique pictures for different mod-specific races: Elves, Humans, Orcs, Dwarves, Centaur, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Harimari.
Competent Court (Anbennar) - Unique pictures for different cultures and regions: Elves (Aelantir), Humans (Cannor), Elves (Cannor), Orcs, Dwarves, Harimari, Humans (Haless), Other.
Age of Feudalism (1356) - The Archoros City, Merl1ncz, 2007
Age of Industrialization (Ante Bellum, Victorum Universalis, Albert AIM) - BASF Werk
Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to read the mod spotlight, and I hope you enjoy Ages Reformed!
Ages Reformed has been reviewed on youtube. (English) (Spanish)
Thank you MDoulos for this detailed spotlight on ages reformed!
This will be our last Mod Spotlight for a little while... that is until we return for [I]Europa Universalis IV[/I]’s 10th Anniversary in August. For such a special occasion we'll be covering a mod long requested. Take your bets on what that is :p
Until then, we'll see you later!
Developer Diary - 1.35 Retrospective
Greetings, and welcome everyone to the last Dev Diary of the Domination cycle! We’ve been active in the forums and receiving your feedback about this expansion and the 1.35 ‘Ottomans’ update for almost 7 months, and now it is time to retire for a well-deserved Summer break. But before we do that, let’s have a retrospective of the past months.
First is first, on June 20th we released the 1.35.4 patch, and on June 27th and July 4th the 1.35.5 and 1.35.6 hotfixes. We think that the most important and urgent reported issues have been addressed, making this the final and stable version of the 1.35 update. Releasing them has been demanding for us, especially 1.35.6, as the Summer Break has already started in other regions, making releases more difficult; but we thought that fixing most of the reported CTDs would make for the better stability we were looking for, and therefore worth it.
Generally speaking, we’re very thankful for the reception of Domination. This expansion was an ambitious project, as we were working on and creating content for most of the Great Powers of the Modern Age at the same time, something never done before in Europa Universalis IV. This was challenging, as the polishing and balancing of the game were set to be the most difficult tackled by Paradox Tinto since our tenure of EUIV started. In this regard, our QA Team did an amazing job, and they deserve to be praised for it; for every bug that slipped through and was reported in the release version, at least 5 had already been internally reported and fixed. Unfortunately, sometimes things will still slip through the cracks - yes, the Chinese floods will haunt us for a while! This is just a sign that even as we we're confident with our QA processes, there's still room for improvement with every new release.
Speaking of the content, we also put a great effort into making the most possible for this expansion. There was also a great challenge regarding this, as most of the countries had already received content in previous DLCs. What we tried to do is to integrate as much as possible the previous systems, mechanics, and features with the new content, which was designed to expand the possibilities and gameplay options of some of the most-played countries of the game. That is, to create new experiences in a 10-year-old game. For some countries, we achieved this better than with others, I think; but we’ll keep working on improving their balance and polish, in order to make Domination a truly must-have DLC. Also, following this line of thought, we have increased the depth of the game, by adding the new, scriptable government system, more reforms and privileges, the new idea groups, etc., for an even deeper experience.
This is something that will make for some of our future plans: keep working on improving the base game and older DLCs as we work on new content. This is the design philosophy of PDX Tinto regarding EUIV’s development, and we’ll continue to work this way in the following months, going through the reports made in the Bug Reports subforum, and gathering the feedback we receive from the community. Coupled with this, we had the release of a new type of DLC, the History Lessons, which albeit not being a massive one, it’s a nice companion to Domination, already having generated interest in players desiring to know more about the History of China and Japan while they play.
Before I finish, I want to note that next month we will be celebrating something that I already mentioned: Europa Universalis IV’s 10th Anniversary! This is really great for Paradox as a whole, as this is the longest-lasting title ever published by the company, and it also makes our Team, led by the original Game Director Johan, to be quite proud of this achievement. Our Marketing Team is also working hard to celebrate with you the history of EUIV throughout the entire month of August, as well!
With nothing more to say to you than thank you for your support with Domination and during these 10 years, I say goodbye until Autumn, when we will talk again about new content for the game. Goodbye!
Patch 1.35.6 is Now Live!
Greetings one and all!
Today we released a hotfix patch to address some crashes that's been annoying us all for a while.
There shouldn't be any issues with 1.35.5 save files although we can never guarantee it.
Please report any bugs in our official bug report forum as we won't be able to collect bug reports from Steam. Thank you for understanding!
################### # Bugfixes ################### - Fixed CTD related to region effect filtering out all provinces due to triggers. - Fixed CTD related to having trade centers as tributaries. - Fixed CTD fix related to the zone of control tooltips. - Fixed CTD related to tool tipping a subunit that doesn't belong to a unit. - Fixed CTD when missing to specify a modifier for opinion effect. - Fixed CTD related to removing countries from the war which would invalidate paths due to forts blocking. - Fixed CTD related to declaring war and subjects not having a subject type.
Community Mod Spotlight - Land of the Free
Greetings everyone! And to anyone in the United States celebrating we wish you a happy 4th of July! (Shoutout to Canada day as well) For this USA themed spotlight we will be joined by the well-known Chewy/Chewyshoot who in addition to his content creation, has also dabbled in modding. With no further ado, we'll let Chewy take it away!
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Hey y’all, Chewy here. Today I am happy to share my labor of love for the modding community, Land of the Free, a mod that completely overhauls the USA. Ryagi was kind enough to reach out and ask me to tell you a bit about my beloved mod on the Independence Day of my beloved country! So, to all my fellow Americans, happy 4th!
The mod adds a massive amount of content in North America, and a bit to England. The “new world” content includes (but is not limited to):
⦁ The USA with brand new national ideas, government reform, and unique mission tree including content up to and following a Civil War disaster. ⦁ The aforementioned American Civil War disaster, complete with Confederate separation and war. ⦁ A playable Confederate States with their own unique mission tree that addresses their history, culture, as well as the controversial topic of slavery within the nation. Of course, it’s hard to depict a nation such as this without addressing slavery, and I feel that it is presented in the most respectful, yet historically accurate way possible. ⦁ Alternate history paths for the USA as well as the CSA, allowing for post secession abolition and subsequent industrialization of post-bellum south. ⦁ Brand new religions that are mostly unique to North America including Methodism, Southern Baptist, and Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as Mormons. ⦁ New cultures as a part of a new culture group that covers the entirety of the continental USA. ⦁ Multiple bookmarks that allow you to start as early as 1444 to form the USA as England, or later starts in the game that allow you to play as a “newly independent USA” or an even later bookmark that allows you to play as the USA or CSA right as the Civil War has kicked off.
The mod requires the Domination DLC, and tweaks the English colonial mission tree a bit to allow for a natural formation of the Thirteen Colonies while following the flow of the mission tree. The goal is for someone playing to not know it was modded content unless they previously had played England and knew what to expect. The final mission of the branch, “Reorganize the Colonies” is the mission that transfers you to play as your colony on the American East Coast.
“something something no taxation without representation”
And upon finishing a small mission tree designated for the Thirteen Colonies, it’s time to go to war! As it happened historically, various European nations will offer their help in the form of military leaders, ships, and manpower.
Once independent from the British there is plenty of flavorful events and missions that will lead you through the historical expansion and rise of the United States of America.
Of course, the institution of slavery that existed in the USA up until the 1860’s must be addressed, and this is what will lead to the inevitable Civil War.
However, upon finishing the disaster, the USA will unlock a VERY powerful portion of their mission tree. Without spoiling too much, you will be able to choose to make some major reformations within your government.
And the USA also has a government mechanic that was added alongside it’s 1.35 update to patch it for the Domination DLC. The mechanic is called “Government Trust” and just seems to fit.
There’s MUCH more content but I don’t want to spoil too much for you, and I encourage you to check out the mod yourself and give it a try. A lot of time and effort went into this project over about a year’s time, so I hope you enjoy!
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We hope you enjoyed this quick look into Land of the Free. If you are feeling extra enthused to start spilling some tea into Boston the harbor, we encourage you to check out the mod on the steam workshop. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2677462796
In addition, if you want to hear more from Chewy you can check him out on youtube at both Chewyshoot and Chewbert
Until next time!
1.35.5 Hotfix is now LIVE!
Greetings!
Today we released a minor hotfix to address one critical bug!
Save games should hopefully be unaffected - but if you have the possibility to start a new game that is always recommended.
Developer Diary - 1.35.4 Release & History Lessons DLC
Greetings, and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV Dev Diary!
Today patch 1.35.4 was released, and with it we’re fixing most of the issues reported by the community after the launch of EUIV: Domination, including the most pressing ones that were already covered in the Roadmap DD, making more than 170 fixes. We hope that it improves the overall state of the game as per the feedback that we’ve received during the past week. For any further issues that are found while playing, please use the Bug Reports subforum to report bugs and the Changelog post for any questions or comments regarding the patch.
Let me explain a bit about what this is about, and why we are releasing this DLC now.
This project started around one year ago, its objective being to add some more immersion to EUIV while playing it, in the format of a podcast. After some design discussions and planning, the Team decided to create a new type of Music DLC - but instead of listening to new songs in the in-game audio player, the tracks will be composed of lessons about the history of a certain country, similar to podcasts’ episodes. To prepare for this release, we made changes in the Audio player that were already released with the 1.35 update - so, these new DLCs work pretty much the same as any other Music Pack, so they shouldn’t impact the stability of the 1.35.4 patch. And why did we decide to release the DLCs now, and not with 1.35? Basically, to dedicate most of our resources to the release of 1.35 and Domination, and to make sure that the release of the History Lessons was also done with the quality we wanted for them, so problems in one of the releases wouldn’t impact much on the other.
Taking into account the new content that we were aiming to create for EUIV: Domination, we decided to start with two of the countries in East Asia most attractive for our players, China and Japan, which also have a rich and engaging History in the time frame of 1444-1820. We were lucky enough to count for the project with two experienced podcasters, Laszlo Montgomery from ‘The China History Podcast’, and Isaac Meyer from ‘The History of Japan Podcast’. Along with the Team, they prepared and recorded the episodes, 26 for Europa Universalis IV: History Lessons - China, and 35 for Europa Universalis IV: History Lessons - Japan.
In the case of China, you will find out a lot of interesting contextual information about the Ming and Qing dynasties, how the Mandate of Heaven was handled, and the relationships between China and its neighbors. Meanwhile, the context for Japan is more focused on the different Daimyos that are present in EUIV in 1444, and the start, development and ending of the Sengoku Jidai, the civil wars that spread out in the country during the 15th and 16th centuries, and that finished with the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
We hope that you enjoy this new type of content as much as we’ve done while preparing it, specifically, those who love History as much as the members of the Team and I do. And speaking of me, I was also invited to record two special episodes of Laszlo’s and Isaac’s podcasts which will go live this week, in which we discuss how we worked on the project, and why is so interesting for us the historical context of Europa Universalis IV, and thus this project itself!
I also hope that you all have fun with the 1.35.4 patch of EUIV as well! Next week we will have the last DD before the summer break, in which I’ll make a retrospective of Domination, and talk a bit about the roadmap for the following months. Cheers, bye!
Patch 1.35.4 is now live!
Greetings all!
Patch 1.35.4 is now live, containing fixes for many of the issues outlined in the earlier roadmap. You can also read the accompanying Dev Diary here.
Though we can't fully guarantee it, it should be safe to continue earlier save games with this patch - but if you have the possibility to start a new game that is always recommended.
# Governments - The Ordenanças government reform now properly grants Army Tradition. - The English Monarchy T1 is now available for Great Britain which has been formed by a different tag than England. - Tweaked the likelihood of the AI investing in Prussian militarization if they don't have an abundance of military monarch power. - Added a fallback modifier for the Separate the Boyars from Court government reform.
# Icons/Art - Re-exported and added .dds files for achievement_chop_chop and achievement_kinslayer in the corresponding folder. # Other - Fixed several issues with localization. - The parliament of Denmark will now be called "Folketing". - Added a lot of missing description localization. # Tooltips - The Fleeing Serfs Cossack interaction now scopes to a random province, instead of a wrong province. - Fixed the tooltip for Flood events in China. - Improved tooltips for granting and revoking privileges. - Updated the Expel Minorities tooltip.
# Decisions - The decision to form Siam no longer requires ADM tech 20. # Events - The Chinese flood events now check for appropriate provinces to apply to in all circumstances. - There is now a 25% chance that the development does not get reduced by the flood. - The Chinese flood events can no longer fire for the AI. - The event "The Karma Kagyu School and the [Root.Monarch.Dynasty.GetName] Dynasty" now properly grants a subjugation CB. - The Iberian Wedding now requires that Aragon and Castile are monarchies. - The Castilian Civil War option that grants the Aragonese candidate, will now grant Isabel as it should, if possible. - The event "End of the Castilian Civil War" now correctly takes away stability based on its outcome. - The French event 'Treaty of the Lily Flower' now grants the option to refuse the treaty, but the AI will never pick it. - Fixed an error that incorrectly attributed Crimea as a Tributary State to the Ottomans for players who do not own the Mandate of Heaven. - Nurhaci is now spawned with his historical dynasty preset from the Manchu flavor events. - The Urban event for the Ottomans won't fire until you have the money necessary to hire him in your treasury. - Advisors granted via English flavor events will now spawn with the Angevin culture in mind if you are Anglois. - The event Commercial Expansion in Alexandria will no longer fire continuously. - The event "The Baronial Revolt" will not fire for Naples while they are at war. - Nahuatl event Pochteca Spies now grants the Trade War CB for 10 years, instead of 152 years. # Missions - The French minor mission "Capture Paris" now properly grants claims on the French region. - Chinese EoC missions will now not be available to Japan, since the latter already has its version of EoC missions in their file. - The Angevin mission "Eliminate Burgundy" now takes into account land held by subjects of subjects. - The Brandenburg Prussia mission that grants access to the Polish Age Ability now only takes into account development you own directly in the Polish region. - The modifier "Tatar Vanguard" will not be removed for the Ottomans if Crimea is promoted to an Eyalet. - The Ottoman mission "End the Persian Threat" now requires 20 provinces owned by you or a non-tributary subject, instead of 20 provinces directly owned by you. - The Ottoman mission Collect the Siyasah now requires reform level 6 Government reforms while the Ottoman mission Expand the Devshirme requires reform tier 5. - Removed an excess claim from the Portuguese mission "Settle Indonesia". - The mission "End the Eyalet Rebellions" will now check for only eyalets and core eyalets instead of all subject types. - The Korean mission "Defeat the Shogun" will now properly display its Harmonization reward when applicable. - Fixed an error for Chinese warlord missions that did not grant the mil tech bonus. - Improved the tooltip of the Mutual Trade System mission for the EoC for better readability. - The mission to handle the Eyalet Revolts will no longer require you to have provinces in the Egypt and Persia regions. - The mission to handle the Harem will no longer ask for ruler stats to be complete. - Reorganized the requirements of the Russian mission "Most Holy Synod" for better readability. - Emperor of China missions should no longer disappear if you already have access to them upon forming Manchu. - The general for the Russian mission Dissolve the Streltsy has been lowered from 20 pips to 15 pips as a requirement. # Setup - Every level of the Brandenburg Gate monument now grants the same amount of militarization. - The Prussian militarization tiers are now available to Germany as well as other countries that may gain access to it (modding). - Fixed an issue with the trigger conditions for The Times of Trouble for Muscovy / Russia. - Perm can now be annexed at the same date as other subjects under the starting setup of Muscovy. - The Great Council of Mechelen will now properly disable the Dutch Revolt from ticking. - The Unify China CB now targets all provinces in China, not just neighboring ones. - The "Expand into X" Agenda for Noble/Cossack/Maratha etc estates will now request provinces to be held by you or any type of subject, including Tributaries and Colonies. # Modifiers - The modifier "Empowered Junkers" now correctly grants militarization for Prussia. # Other - The Slavic culture group has now dynamic names for the provinces. - The Sisterhood of Jeanne d'Arc" government reform is now limited to theocracies only. - The AI is now aware to pick the Yearly Mandate decree over other decrees to maintain the Mandate a bit easier. - Celestial Reforms now cost 70 Mandate instead of 80. The minimum amount of Mandate to take a Celestial Reform remains 80 for the sake of the AI. - The Potosi reward for Ming will now apply if the mine is controlled by a subject of the Ming. - Álvaro de Luna now joins the Royalists during the Infantes of Aragon disaster. - Flavor Events for new Rulers no longer fire when Junior Partner in a Personal Union.
################### # Bugfixes ################### - The Ottoman Siyasah Tax System government reform now properly changes between manpower and tax based on province religion compared to your religion. - The Bektashi Order local organization no longer grants global Production Efficiency. - The Decentralized Reform reward for the EoC mission Examination System now correctly grants Development Cost country-wide. - Spawning Coal, while Smithian Economics is active, should now subtract 1 Base Production as the Manufactory of the old trade good is removed. - The Duchy of Finland, when released by Russia as part of the latter's event Reward will now have proper borders. - Japan now has proper access to the Port of Dejima mission. - The modifier "Parliamentarian Authority" attributed to provinces, will now grant the proper amount of Monthly Devastation reduction. - The mission "Protect the South Slavs" will no longer remove the "Hegemony over the Carpathians" modifier. The mission "Partition Poland" now also gives you Slovak as an accepted culture and will no longer have +10% Manpower in accepted culture provinces. - The Russian decision "Proclaim the Emperor Title" will now properly request to have 90 Modernization. - The event Fate of the Peasantry for Russia will not fire if Russia has no nobility. - The Russian mission "Fate of the Peasantry" will now give 100 points for each category in case you complete it with no privilege active. - The event "Fate of the Peasantry" will no longer add the respective estate privilege if you have already picked one before. - Appease the Patriarchate now applies in every province that is part of a state with a Patriarchate. - Completing the Ottoman Struggle for Power disaster now gives the Modernized Ottoman Government if you did not weaken the Harem. This means you have the Harem when you finish the disasters again. - Fixed an issue where the Gascon Musket Company and the Order of Saint Joan didn't have the new unit models from the Domination DLC. - Fixed a bug that prevented the Sisterhood of Jeanne d'Arc to have the proper government and ruler names if the modifier is missing. - The government reform "Bureaucratic Rule" now increases the Harmonization Speed instead of decreasing it. - "Reclaim Neumark” effect for Domination when the player is the Emperor is changed. Now, you gain 1 Imperial Authority for every 25+ Dev province you conquer. - The EoC mission "Grand Coordinators" now has a non-DLC alternative reward. - The tooltip information about gaining a PU CB on Portugal for Castile is now displayed better. - The Catholic reward for the French mission regarding the French Wars of Religion is now granted for the properly displayed duration. - The Spanish Armada mission now properly displays the conditions for getting the Restoration of Union CB on ENG/GBR. - The event "A new Imperial Capital?" for the Ottomans will no longer grant you territorial cores outside of Italy when you decide to move your capital to Rome. - The estate agenda "Befriend 's Rivals" will not be available if you are at war with the rival's rival country. - The Anglican Aspect unlocked by the English mission Piety of the State for the Protestant Faith is now correctly granted and unlocked. - Zimbabwe will no longer magically create production development by building and demolishing farm estates. - The Tribe's estate privilege "Autonomy to the Tribes" will no longer prevent the Tribes from losing estate loyalty when you seize land. - The event "The Subjugation of Austria" will no longer cause Austria to be inherited by another Christian country in very rare situations. - Fixed a bug that prevented advisors outside of your culture group to grant monthly modernization. - Land of the Christian Sun T1 is now properly logged as a T1 for Republic / Theocratic Japan. - The system of Councils for Spain will only allow one bonus at a time. - France has access to Strong Duchies after integrating all their Appanages. - The reform "Representatives of the Crown" will now work with Appanages. - The Sino-Altaic culture now has proper access to Subutai's Strategies gov. Reform. - Fixed an issue of the "Protectors of Eastern Christianity" modifier being removed too soon for Japan. - Estate privilege "Noble Contracts" will now properly not subtract loyalty from nobles getting their land seized for Brandenburg and Prussia. - The Teuton AI will no longer kill itself by attacking other HRE members while inside the Empire under regulations by the Emperor. - Fixed issues regarding canals in savegames. - Reactivated base-game missions for Ming and East Asian countries in the absence of the Domination DLC. - Tibetan Horses will only be granted and permanent if a subject owns Lhasa. - Completing Mission Crisis of the Ming Dynasty no longer unlocks Government Reforms up to Tier 10. - Fixed AI not raiding Coast. - Fixed the overlap of the name and parliament button in the province view. - Support for conditional scaled modifiers for government mechanics. - Open Store Page will now use Steam Overlay Browser before opening an external browser. - Disinheriting your heir as Aragon will no longer create a personal union between Navarra and Castile. - Banner cavalry now has a static cost of 0.1 Corruption. The discount they get has been reduced from -0.1 to -0.04. - Banner cavalry cost can't be brought down below 0 to remove corruption for free. - Dismantle HRE tooltip shows electors' names again. - Prestige gain in Dismantle HRE tooltip is no longer visible if it's 0. - Effects are now shown in the Dismantle HRE button tooltip. - Vassals no longer have a merchant icon next to them in the subject's view. - Vassals now have a vassal-type icon in the subject view that shows what modifiers they get and give their overlord. - Added a missing new line in requirements to maintain a personal union tooltip. - Added missing localization for the history log about incidents starting in the HRE. - Fixed peace treaty terms changing after reopening the peace treaty interface with a province ceded in a state that is pillaged. - When two vassals that are allied to each other are being annexed, one declaring an independence war no longer results in the other being instantly annexed. - Fixed issue where forts un-mothballing cause movement to be recalculated. - Eyalet subjects are no longer displayed as automatically joining Overlords war. - Fixes so you can call on senior allies when going to war against a vassal. - Taking land in war no longer occasionally loses all crownland. - fixed AI over-prioritizing militarization. - Fixed state view interactions going out of the screen on smaller resolutions. - After accepting a Request to Share Maps from another nation, the popup that appears shows correctly who is the receiver. - Naval doctrine icon now shows the correct icon and the "No doctrine" icon is back instead of showing the first Naval doctrine. - Added an alert for Slacken Recruiting Standards. - can_use_peace_treaty now doesn't check if both countries are at war. - Fixed Expand Empire Casus Belli not showing up. - Fixed fleets not being able to merge after repairing. - Fixed mine depletion resulting in decimal development. - Form Coalition action is now available at 50 Aggressive Expansion, not 51. - Fixed incorrect number for sailors increase in macro builder tooltips. - Added information about government power being frozen in the tooltip. - Galley flagships can now be built. - The “Wants your provinces” modifier can no longer overflow into positive values. - Reinforcement cost is now capped at 10%. - Fixed occupation priority to match that from the siege screen. - Ideas taken within 1 year of the first country now correctly give innovativeness. - Fixed fleet speed modifier applying two times for flagships. - Fixed heir not being removed as a military leader in define_heir effect. - Fixed special units not being able to be hired when below 0 Absolutism. - Fixed colonial range map mode showing incorrect effective distance. - Fixed provinces are colored green in the macro builder when trying to build special units even if the limit has been reached. - Mercenary companies no longer use the origin province owner's land maintenance for their maximum morale. - Destroy and add building effects now update the building window properly if they are used together. - Added overflow checks to variable effects. - Sich Rada government ability now spawns Cossack cavalry and infantry in a 3-1 ratio. - Mercenary condottieri are now allowed to use the mercenary drilling modifier of the original country. - Random Candidate Bonus ability is now distributed in all categories instead of one. - CAT tag can be used again in the script. - Added a development cap for development-based growth of government power. - Tribal allegiance now can't go down by more than 0.25 monthly from development. - Define ruler now changes the original dynasty. - Fixed Cavalry to Infantry ratio from Born to the Saddle leader trait not working. - Fervor will no longer decrease the upper limit when a Focus is selected. - Condottieri can't loot provinces of countries that the renting country isn't at war with. - Changed the text of unoccupied forts requirement in peace deals. - Enemy Zone of Control no longer extends to tributary land. - Special naval units no longer show the cost and build button on provinces with the inland sea. - Fixed outliner tooltip for why integration can't progress. - The mandate Growth tooltip now includes the multiplier. - Fixed the wrong government name mentioned in the debate failed message. - Effects text in monument tooltips won't be shown if there are no effects applicable. - Added information about overextension in Grant Province Screen when it would go above 100% for subjects. - Fixed overlapping text in the naval macro builder. - Added a missing line break in the Current Trade Power tooltip. - Cleaned the Found Indian Company decision reward. - Added a missing line break to the monument upgrade effect. - Fixed sorting by diplomatic cost in the peace treaty screen. - AI will ignore truces with enemy subjects in the war declaration screen as they do with manual call-ins via diplomatic action. - Add a finish date to the tooltip for vassal cores. - Declare war screen now shows HRE emperor allies and counts them into force summary. Setting them as co-belligerents is now allowed. - Fixed trade protectorates not being able to be canceled. - Expand Infrastructure Cost Modifier will be replaced for players without Leviathan DLC. - AI shouldn't be able to call Players to war when they are already at war with a nation AI declared on. - Updated the Expel Minorities tooltip.
Community Mod Spotlight - Plati's Visuals
We're excited to bring you a more graphical-oriented Mod Spotlight. This time, to illustrate some of the points, we're covering a small collection of Mods made by experienced modder, Plati. Enjoy!
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Hello dear community!
Plati with you today, going to take a moment of your time to talk about my ‘visual input’ in Europa Universalis IV modding ecosystem.
I’ll focus almost exclusively on a select few of my visual mods (part of Plati’s Visuals workshop collection) with minor mentions of my input in Paradox Converter teams work. I'll delve into the technical aspect of visuals and explain the thought process of mine when making these visual alterations - might be helpful to my fellow modders.
Before we move on to individual cases, let me name the main principle I am trying to follow in altering EU4’s look and visual feel: ‘Aesthetic Unity’ or ‘Visual Truthfulness’. In the simplest sense, if you alter or add graphics, it's best that your input fits into the game seamlessly, ergo you need to keep saturation, color palette, size and feel as close to the original visual direction as possible. I will demonstrate it as we go on.
A player spends a sizable percentage of his playtime looking at the interface. Apart from the numbers and map borders the UI can often seem ‘too static’. This mod attempts not only to merely add something to stare at but also to set visual milestones for the player to actually see the history progress as his game progresses. 'Oh wow, so we are having muskets now? Sweet!’ ‘Oh wow, we learned to eat citrus to avoid scurvy? Sweet!’
A technology icon in this sense represents scientific or cultural advancement. While it may be easy with inventions or tools, ‘social innovations’ tend to be problematic to portray:
1. Vitruvian man, often used as a symbol for Renaissance (thought). This one is a no-brainer. 2. Galileo Galilei, believed to be one of the ‘fathers of scientific method’. Historical date of the technology he represents takes place during his lifetime (Scientific Experimentation 1583). 3. While it may be seemingly more appropriate and recognizable to use the famous ‘We the People’, the technology this image represents (The Constitution) is set historically in 1687 - the same year the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was adopted - the document you see in the picture. 4. Frontispiece of Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes). A no-brainer here. If you hear the word ‘Sovereignty’ anywhere, chances are you are gonna see this image attached. Though, instead of a black and white pencil sketch, I took the liberty to add color. 5. Montesquieu, considered to be one of the fathers of modern interpretation of separation of powers. While this idea is in no way exclusive to him, the historical date of technology he represents is set during his lifetime and academic work (Separation of Powers 1745).
Now the pictures themselves include a mix of historical paintings, mash-up-photoshops and ai made images. Using an existing painting may be problematic:
Another tricky part was depicting advancement in Firearms: If you want to show a difference between a Matchlock musket and a Flintlock musket, you need to demonstrate the firing mechanism, zoomed in. There are plenty of images online available to take historical weaponry and depict them. However, simply pasting an image into a frame won't do:
1. Saturated, bland red background and image of pistol just slapped on top. This is as low effort as possible. 2. An overlay added on top. Looks better, but still terrible. 3. A black outline was added around the pistol. It's good to distinguish something you want to highlight, but on its own - lackluster. Also, no shadow around the frame. 4. The color is less saturated to fit into the EU4 overall feel, but the pistol still looks bland and uninspiring. The blurry shadow makes the pistol harder to recognize. More edits are required. As we often see in video games, small icons have focus on contrast, simpler backgrounds, gradients, outlines/shadows and other methods to highlight an object in a very small picture. Even if its something simple like a knife or healing potion, make it shine! Make it play!
A much smaller mod - Plati’s Shield Frames - also was made with Aesthetic unity in mind: Now, interface modding in EU4 is not merely spawning something pretty. There is some coding to do and values to be adjusted for your changes to take effect. For this reason, Mod-compatibility might be problematic, causing counter-intuitive errors and mish-mashes: if two mods alter the same .gfx file, for example, then either of them (or both) will be busted and dysfunctional. This is one of the reasons why mods are itchy and scratchy and you often need to create a separate 'compatibility mod'. I try to make mods as compatible and non-intrusive as possible, but one can go only so far.
And newly added images must be 'defined' separately as well.
Needless to say, this is the least enjoyable part of the entire process. However, if you are not attentive and pedantic and misinput code, you may completely mess up the textures/ui: As we can see here (Atlas Aesthetic mod), a minute thing like incorrectly defining map resolution may result in Water texture becoming completely invisible. I did not like the 5632x2048 resolution limit and wanted to enlarge the picture (otherwise the sea monsters get fuzzy on zoom-in). Trying to bypass this limit either crashed the game or made the map blank. Just to let you know there are engine/code limitations on what you can draw as well.
All in all, if one wants to edit game graphics without doing the complete overhaul, it's healthy to follow the principle of Aesthetic unity. Games have their feel, mood and tones meticulously set by developers. If someone drops an ENB, it may look cool at first glance, but may also erase artistic expression carefully installed by an artist. And EU4 is one of the brightest examples of stylish, yet functioning and unintrusive user interfaces I've seen. I try to compliment it whenever I make changes. In my input in CK3-EU4 converter mod, I added a number of flavor events and prepared event pictures for them. While I used a number of existing art as reference, instead of merely putting them through the 'Pencil Sketch' filter, I aimed to draw them in a manner they would be indistinguishable from vanilla event art.
And this is where I conclude. I hope I did not bore you with technicalities - thought it would be exciting to bring you more of a 'behind the scenes' and 'inside authors mind' showcase. As a final goodbye, here’s pictures of some creatures that served as reference for Atlas Aesthetic:
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Community Ambassador Ryagi back, hope you enjoyed this spotlight as much as I did! If you're like me and sometimes scroll all the way to the bottom first before deciding if a post is worth reading in full, then hello! I fully endorse scrolling back up :p Personally I think Plati did an astounding job at both articulating and visually representing their points.
Here you can find a link to Plati's visual workshop collection featuring their work shown here. If you have any suggestions for future coverage let us know. Perhaps we could even bring Plati back to have a look at their more gameplay-oriented mods!
In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed this spotlight. Hope to see you next time!
