National Ideas

Life of the Steppe Warrior: -33% Land Attrition – a nomadic tradition means that the armies of the horde are more easily able to live off the land. Traditions of the Great Khan: 20% Cavalry Power – the horde nations were renowned horsemen, and the cavalry was the backbone of the Mongol conquerors. Horse Supplies: -20% land maintenance costs. – Horses tire and wear out as easily as men, so keeping fresh horses at the ready is essential for a horde army. Steppe Leaders: +1 leader shock – A good horde general leads from the front and know where best to strike fear into his enemies. Tradition of Conquest: 25% cheaper cores. – The empire of Genghis Khan was the largest the world had seen up to this point, and his legacy lives on through the successor hordes. Logistics of the Khan: 25% faster manpower recovery. – The hordes are a warrior people, always ready for battle. Glory of Conquest: +25% manpower. – The call to war will echo throughout the steppes and bring even more men to your banner.

Welcome to the 29th Developer’s Diary for Europa Universalis IV, and this week we talk about the province interface and the changes we made to everybody’s favorite group of nations – the hordes.One of the goals we set for ourselves in EU4 was to make the interface more sensible and the information easier to find. The Provincial interface is a good example of what we are trying to do throughout the game to make the experience smoother for both veterans of the series and rookies.The main province tab has five different areas.The first area is the economic overview, where your tax, tariff, production and total income is shown - as expected. What is new here is that we are showing the actual base-tax value of the province. This is a key statistic and it affects so many mechanics for a province, but, in previous versions of EU, this was hidden in tooltips. Next to those are the buttons showing the province’s religion (which, if necessary, you can click to send a missionary) and its status within the Holy Roman Empire (which, if allowed, you can click to have the province join or leave the Empire).Second, we have the demographics area, where you can see which countries have a core or claim on this province, the province’s culture and the type of rebels it will generate if the province revolts. In this area you see the possibility to make the province into a core, to change its culture, or suppress the embers of revolt though harsh treatment. If you are taking an action in a province such as changing its religion, culture or core status, you will also see a progress bar below it, with the option to cancel it.Third, there is the Queue area, where you can raise new regiments, recruit mercenaries and build ships. You can, of course, cancel the top constructions here, without going into the actual build screens for it. There is a nice progress bar here, showing when the next unit will be ready.The fourth area is the Military area, where you see the manpower, supply limit and attrition of the province.* There is also information about the fort and its garrison and defensive strength.Finally, we have the trade area, where you see a provinces trade power, trade value and the amount of goods it produces. You also see what resource the province produces, and some information about its trade node, including which country has the most power in that node. Clicking the node name gives you access to detailed information on what is going on there.As you may have noticed, city population is gone, and so are provincial decisions. Neither of these concepts worked very well and they only confused players, without having any significant value in how the game was played.The buildings in a province are now on a separate tab, since the information there needs to be viewed in detail, but it’s not something you want to view every time you click on a province. Here you see relevant economic values, and any factors that affect your build cost. You can also see how the buildings in the provinces of other nations.We tried to differentiate the Central Asian horde nations in Europa Universalis III, but many of the mechanics we introduced were cumbersome and ended up being very unpopular.*Now, the hordes are more similar to other countries, but different enough to make playing them a separate.A horde is defined as a nation with the government type Steppe Nomad. They are the inheritors of the Mongol legacy. They also belong to a separate technology group which advances more slowly than their neighbours in Europe and Asia, and they also have a penalty on accruing power points.A horde nation will always have a casus belli against other hordes to take their land, and they also have a casus belli versus any neighbouring country. This gives them a major advantage in starting wars or not.The armies of horde nations are more effective on the plains and grasslands of their own territory, with a 50% modifier to the damage they do.They also get double the amount of money from looting, and will earn a small amount of army tradition, every time they loot.*The Timurids are the only horde nation to get their own special Idea Group, but the other hordes share an Idea Group that is unique for them.Horde nations start out with a lower maximum war exhaustion, and pay no costs to reinforce their armies.When they have all their national ideas, hordes get a 20% reduction to the cost of increasing stability.*The horde idea group is designed to make hordes very strong military nations with lower costs and easily accessible manpower.Strategy Gamers - Hear our Call to Arms: