Developer Diary 18

This developer diary was first posted in the M&T forum here, and team members answered some questions in the thread. It was further posted on the M&T subreddit here, and team members also commented there.

Dev Diary #18 - National Ideas
Hello everyone, this is a dev diary covering National Ideas, and what's changed design-wise since 2.52.

In 2.52, NI sets had several issues. First, they were intended to be based on the history of a nation prior to game start, but they tended to use events from substantially further in the game’s period. Second, they tended to be tag-based but still extremely generic in effects and description, Finally, their effects were often very similar and very minor, leading to very little gameplay divergence between tags barring geographical differences.

In 3.0, we’ve taken an entirely different approach.

First, new sets are strictly based on events or cultural practices before 1356. National ideas now represent the fundamental roots of a nation or culture.

Where 2.52’s NIs were primarily tag-based, national ideas in 3.0 are primarily culture-based, except in cases where a tag is sufficiently divergent from the culture around it to necessitate a separate set. New national ideas additionally focus more on what a culture or state is “about”, so to speak, and should give a player some degree of background.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, national ideas in 3.0 are much stronger than they were in 2.52. In 2.52, national ideas were sufficiently weak that they rarely mattered, and there was very little gameplay divergence between tags barring geographical or population differences. In 3.0, we’ve aimed to make national ideas sufficiently different and powerful enough that different tags will play somewhat differently, even within the same region. The best way to showcase this is to simply show a variety of sets, and a variety of sets you will get to see.

All values are subject to change, with many due for a major balancing pass..


 * Legacy of the Arya, or the set for Persian culture.




 * Legacy of the Bangla, or the Bengali set.




 * Next up is the Legacy of the Han, for the Han Chinese.




 * Legacy of the Malagasy, or the native people of Madagascar.




 * Legacy of the Malay people, though there's a much longer name that my western brain is incapable of comprehending and has thus been omitted.




 * The Legacy of the Napoletani, or the set for Naples specifically. Sicily will have its own.



One thing that was probably immediately noticeable was effects such as "Knowledge Output" or "Topography Impact on CE". These are API effects created specifically to allow for easily created unique modifiers utilizing M&T's effects. Adding similar effects in 2.52 could be very difficult, but it is both very easy and largely copy-pasting in 3.0.