Hello everyone and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. This time we’ll take a look at the most important balance changes for 1.18, with a quick explanation on why we did them.. Setup

• Lucky nations are now down to 8, sorry Poland, Brandenburg & Sweden.

The balance of having 10 lucky nations made the likelihood of a strong Russia too uncommon for us, and especially having those 3 as likely lucky nations was too much for Muscowy.

• Lots of National Ideas have been changed, but most importantly Knights lost their tolerance for heretics, but can instead do slave raids.

As usual, we keep changing the ideas as we add new functionality, and giving people new abilities. There was a rather large following for giving the Knights access to Slave Raiding, as they were rather fearsome pirates, so they gained that ability. Navies

• If you have a port, now you get at least 5 sailors per month.

This was also requested, as some nations with 1 port just could never get any sailors at all.

• Ships now engage in a priority order from heavy, galley, light to transport, up to a maximum of the engagement width (for which heavies count as 3 rather than 1).

This creates a more interesting naval combat experience, as you’ll all notice on October 11th. Espionage

• Reworked foreign spy detection & counter espionage. Counter espionage have less impact on discovery, but both now impact the spy network buildup of the target in your nation.

Basically, being able to defend against spy activities is now possible, even if stopping them entirely might be impossible.

• Reduced unrest and Republican Tradition impact from Sowing discontent spy action

And many tears have been shed over this ….

• Spy network bonuses will now apply to the target's subjects.

No more micromanagement and extra hassle! Rejoice! Subjects

• Breaking vassalage with a vassal that has over 50% in liberty desire no longer gives a relation penalty.

In the “duh?” category right?

• Increased Liberty Desire from tariffs, up to 50% LD at 100% tariffs

Tariffs are no longer no-brainers to increase..

• Colonial nations only lose half the money the overlord is getting in tariffs.

But this makes it so you can’t cripple your colonial nations..

• Large colonial nations now gives you +5 land force limit each

And now you also want LARGE colonial nations :) ie, buffing Portugal..

• There is now a scaled penalty to Liberty Desire up to +25% at max Mercantilism.

Aka, the longer the game goes, the more likely subjects get rebellious.

• Vassals fighting each others (i.e. in Japan) now always accept Enforce Peace requests of overlord, but all vassals except the defending peace target get +10 Liberty Desire.

More power to the Emperor! or.. The Shogun!

• All subjects now get reduced AE from your actions, not just vassals & marches.

No longer will your union-partners hate you for conquering their cores!

• Subjects now have land and naval access to other subjects of the same overlord.

No longer will your subjects units get stuck! Religion

• Patriarch Authority no longer reduces tax income.

It all belongs to Mother Russia!. Sorry, I meant all orthodox nations..

• Sanction Commercial Monopoly now costs 50 PI, instead of 100.

And we boost Catholics!

• Defender of Faith now gives you +10 opinion of all with that religion.

Clearly this was our most important tweak in 1.18.

• Theocracies, especially the Papal State, have an increased alliance acceptance penalty towards different religions now.
• When you change religion as a Monastic order, Devotion is now decreased to the resulting Religious unity

These above are in the “this will improve immersion while improving the balance”-category. Forts

• If you are enter battle while in an enemy province with a fort, you will be treated as the attacker in battle and incur that province's terrain penalties.

Building forts is now a strategic decision. Where can you stop your enemies the best?

• Penalty for not occupying forts in an area will no longer apply if the enemy does not control any forts in the area.

This will make it possible to sign a peace that you as a player likes far easier. Misc

• There is now an increase in efficiency of embargoes for a nation scaled by its Mercantilism up to +50%.

This is also another change that makes Mercantilism more powerful, while at the same time improving immersion.

• Trade Companies is now open to all technology groups.

With the new technology changes, this just makes sense. However, you can not have trade-companies on the same continent as your capital.

• All countries should now have access to at least one skill 2 advisor at start.

Just for you to have a choice!

• You can no longer move capital to a continent that has less than a third of your total provinces, unless your capital is the last province you own on its continent.

There were a few exploits where you could swap continents back and forth a few times, that this solves. Technology We already talked about the changes to technology in a previous development diary, but here is a quick recap!

• In 1444, all non-tribal nations start without tech penalties.
• Primitive Status is now tied to starting techgroups.
• Institutions will appear in certain provinces at key dates and spread from province to province.
• Once 10% of your development has this Institution present, you can embrace that Institution for a monetary cost scaled on how much that institution has spread throughout your nation
• If you have not embraced an Institution, you will have a tech penalty. This penalty grows by 1% each year up to a maximum of 50% penalty per non-embraced institution.
• American Natives reforming their religion gain all the institutions from their advanced neighbour
• Many existing ideas have been altered to give faster Institution spread and cheaper embracement costs.
• Increasing development in provinces will also boost institution presence in that province

Culture Cultures were also mentioned in a previous development diary, but here is a quick recap.

• Cultures are now promoted manually, and any culture of at least 20 development can be promoted for 100 DIP.
• All nations can promote 2 cultures in addition to their primary culture, and additional cultures can be promoted from ideas and Diplomatic technology
• Old modifiers to Accepted culture Threshold now affect number of promoted cultures
• Promoted cultures can be Demoted. This will give +5 unrest in all provinces of that culture

Stay tuned, next week we’ll show off new achievements and national ideas.. Read the original post [quote]Useful links Official Website Europa Universalis IV Wiki Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive