Synthetic Intelligence

by on June 21, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the fourth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Stellaris. See the previous reviews here:
Stellaris: Paradox Among the Stars
Leviathans: There Be Dragons Here!
Utopia: No Place Among the Stars

The third Stellaris expansion was a second story pack, this time focusing on the role of robots and AI within the game. Synthetic Dawn was announced on August 3, 2017, and released, alongside patch 1.8 on September 21. My initial review was about a patch after this one, so I’m mostly concentrating on the actual expansion features.

Tinkering

One of the patch features was reworking species so that you could modify a species’ traits and the game would understand they were still related (this has been the system ever since). There are technologies to research to allow it at all, and to allow a species to have more traits than is allowed at start. You can establish a new template, and then apply it to the population of one planet as a special project which requires biology research points to complete.

This can be done to get rid of negative traits, add new positive traits, or change a population’s planet preference for colonization purposes. These can also happen on their own. Either way, as long as you have some population of the new template, they are eligible for being used with colony ships.

Machines also use the same system (swapping engineering research for biology when applying a new template, and with separate technologies to be able to modify them). Robots can be constructed as soon as the Robotic Workers technology is gained, though they’re limited to the lowest-level jobs. Further technologies let them go up the scale of society (depending on the empire’s policies), and also allow further trait points, opening them up to modification into more advanced models.

Networked Intelligence

Machine intelligence is a new authority type allowed by the expansion. Like hive minds in Utopia, it will always use the central gestalt consciousness ethic, with an immortal ruler, and has its own set of fifteen civics (plus a few more available in combination with other expansions). They technically use machines instead of robots as population, but that is a difference in origin and possible policy rules on them; mechanically they’re the same, including traits and how to apply new templates.

Machines and robots have their own species traits, separate from the normal ones, and can inhabit any kind of world that has a habitability rating. Machine intelligences also start with an extra pop in their colonies, so they can expand very fast, as long as they can get to inhabitable worlds at all. However, their drones are incompatible with normal species, so expect a number of empty worlds after territory changes hands in a war and species get purged.

One exception to this is the rogue servitor civic, where the machines have taken over from an organic species that they still pamper and care for, letting them build unique buildings for taking care of them (these replace all the normal unity-generating buildings), though this comes with a higher upkeep.

Less friendly versions of rouge servitors are driven assimilators (to emulate the Borg), and determined exterminators (terminators, Berserkers, and numerous other SF examples), which are in the ‘galactic threat’ category of governments that don’t use the usual diplomacy rules. The exterminators are the machine version of fanatical purifiers, but will actually get along with other synthetic civilizations.

Three new default empires are made available with the expansion, showing off the new machine traits and features. The Tebrid Homolog are driven assimilators with extra research and a strong secondary species. XT-489 Eliminator is a determined exterminator with combat-oriented traits. And the Earth Custodianship is a third alternate ‘human’ start, with the machines pampering the human race in an organic sanctuary on Earth.

New Features

When origins were introduced in patch 2.6, Synthetic Dawn got one available with it: Resource Consolidation. It is only available to machine empires without the rogue servitor or organic reprocessing civics, and the homeworld will be a machine world (which can otherwise be gotten by an ascension perk), a special habitable world type, which are only habitable by machine species, with this one guaranteed a few nice planetary features, as well as a +10 deposit for the home star, but the rest of the system will have no resources.

A new mid-game crisis was added (there’s a few now, but I think Paradox should look into adding more). The game steers you to having servant synthetic populations; if you build robots for extra population/workers, early on they’re not capable of being sentient/free, and freeing them later leads to unrest and high maintenance costs.

Sentient Combat Simulations is a dangerous technology upgrade to ships computers. It gives an extra level of bonuses to ships equipped with them. But there is a chance that the ship AIs will rebel, causing a powerful civil war to erupt. This isn’t a “true” crisis, as it isn’t a galaxy-wide event, but it can be one of the more dangerous things to happen to an empire.

And it may not even be your fault. I’ve had to deal with an AI rebellion caused by conquering systems from an empire that was in the early stages of this event. It certainly made that game much more dramatic!

Conclusion

I’ve never gone hard down the robot/synthetic path, so this is an expansion that has meant much less to me. However, I certainly appreciate having the machine empires around as more exotic contenders for galactic power, and has been worth the price on that level.

And as mentioned, the AI rebellion can disrupt things even when not going down that path. While annoying, and dangerous, it was nicely dramatic as I struggled with ongoing wars and the rebellion. It is a bit forced as it will spawn powerful fleets as well as taking over some of yours, but it works as a major challenge, even to a well-developed industrial empire. Overall, I consider this a lesser expansion, though still well done, and well worth picking up if you do want see robots grow from simple menial machines to citizens equal to everyone else.

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Heart of Eastern Europe

by on May 28, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the third in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Hearts of Iron IV. See the previous reviews here:
Hearts of Iron IV: Heart of Production
Together For Victory: Commonwealth of Iron

After Together for Victory, the HoI IV team moved on to a second country pack, this time concentrating on Eastern Europe. Death or Dishonor was announced on April 26, 2017, and released alongside patch 1.4 on June 14. As of May 2024, it has been integrated into the base game, and is no longer a separate expansion, but this review discusses what it and the patch did for the game.

Air War

The interface and controls for air wings had been immediately tagged as a place that needed work in the game, and the results of the initial changes finally showed up in this patch. It didn’t really change how things worked, but did help with understanding it.

The most important change was displaying ranges on the map. Selecting an air wing generates a fuzzy yellow/green circle on the map to show the range of the aircraft in the wing. This helps with understanding just where they can reach and what zones are possible to cover from the base. Radar got the same treatment, making the intelligent placement of stations a lot easier. Also, a lot of air zones were split up into smaller sections (meaning new ones were split off), making localized air superiority easier to achieve.

And the air wing interface itself was massively changed. It was cut down to essentials and is easier to manage, though I think there are still problems, with over-fiddly controls to assign a number of planes to a particular unit.

Focus Trees

As a country pack, the main element of the expansion is detailing, with new focus trees, events, and national spirits, four more nations. Surprisingly, two of them were countries whose history was cut short in this period: Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The other two were the main “Axis minors” of WWII: Hungary and Romania. Seeing it in the light of filling out the Axis countries, it is surprising that Bulgaria and Finland don’t get included in the set. (Bulgaria would get detailed in Battle for the Bosporus, while Finland wouldn’t get its turn until the recent Arms Against Tyranny expansion).

Romania starts with twelve technologies, including motorized units, lots of oil, but hardly any other resources. With thirteen civilian, plus seven military factories, and two dockyards, there’s enough to supply an already large army (33 divisions, many of which have decent pre-war templates), but not much past that. The two starting national spirits keep Romania neutral, and fire off a number of bad events representing Carol II’s dissipated lifestyle. However, there’s also a lot of political flexibility to be found, with a focus tree where working with one major faction is not mutually exclusive with the others.

Hungary starts with the Treaty of Triannon national spirit which severely curtails the military. Sixteen divisions isn’t a bad army for Hungary’s size, but there’s only 52 men left to recruit at the start, so it literally cannot be expanded any further until something is done about that, and taking any casualties would empty the pool immediately. Ten civilian and six military factories will help with equipment deficits, but industrializing further will be a challenge, though there is plenty of aluminum to trade. Sadly, any resource bonuses are somewhat deep in the industrialization tree and there’s barely anything other than aluminum to start, though extra buildings and the first research slot (of three) are easier to access. There are some routes to expansion, but they are difficult at best.

Czechoslovakia has Divided Nation which lowers unity and available recruits, but also has Skoda Works for extra factory output. There are 16 civilian and 9 military factories, with 11 slots available. 22 divisions are a pretty good military, though they’re a bit basic (no artillery or other support other than recon companies for the cavalry), and there’s only 184 men to recruit at start (with about as many becoming available each month). The country has a little of everything except aluminum and rubber, but will need a lot more as the industry ramps up. It seems a perfect candidate for the arms sales allowed with the later Arms Against Tyranny expansion (in fact, the excellent for its day LT vz. 38—Panzer 38(t)—was originally designed for export).

Yugoslavia starts with five national spirits, which mostly outline the internal stresses of a country that seems to be trying to be a ‘greater Serbia’, and decrease unity to 30%, increase most political power costs, slow down production, and increase the cost of new leaders. However, planning gets a boost, and other countries trying to align it to their ideology have a tougher time (this last is there even without the expansion). Manpower is low, but not at the absurd levels of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, while 22 active divisions make the start of a decent army. The starting infantry template is good, but the existing armor template is merely one light tank battalion with a leg infantry regiment (“penny packets” comes to mind). However, fourteen civilian factories, plus three military, and one dockyard mean the military will struggle to equip itself, much less expand. There is lots of aluminum and chromium available at start, and the industrialization tree will add oil, tungsten, and steel, along with expanding industry and research slots.

Equipment

It has been possible to send equipment (lend-lease) or units (“volunteers”) to other countries. Now, the expansion allows you to license the production of equipment to another country. This was a fairly common thing in the period (the famous Bofors AA gun was used extensively, but developed by Sweden, which didn’t participate in WWII). This generally requires good relations, but the fascist puppets (below) generally have an easy time requesting licenses, and some focus trees (Romania’s especially) will provide licenses.

The cost of not developing the equivalent equipment yourself is that production will not be as efficient, particularly if it is a very recent technology. Also, the license itself costs civilian factories (which go to the licensing nation, just like resource trading), and creating your own variants is twice as expensive in experience. However, the license also grants a boost to researching the technology yourself so you can get off the licensed version.

Another help to production is that the expansion lets you convert equipment. This can be upgrading equipment to newer variants, or to related separate types, like converting tanks to tank destroyers or self-propelled artillery of the same general type. This can’t be done ‘in the field’, but only works on equipment sitting in storage, but will run faster, and consume fewer resources than building from scratch. This provides a great way to use older equipment; develop a new tank type, start building them, and then develop the TD and SPA versions of the old tank, and start converting them as the new tanks take over front-line duty.

To go along with this, the expansion also featured two new technology nodes on the industry screen, which branch off of the 1937 Improved Machine Tools (efficiency cap bonus), and grant a bonus to the speed of converting equipment.

Overall, these are really nice bonuses to equipment production, and is the central reason to look at this expansion. Sadly, conversion isn’t quite as friendly as this in real life, and there should probably be a reliability hit to the results of many of the cross-type conversions. However, it could be seen as just consuming spare parts and re-using tooling for the old types too, and the build up of older equipment types is a problem that needed addressing.

Reichskommisariat

The puppet system was re-done again for this expansion. The British states still use the system from TFV (assuming you have it) and so will other powers, but now fascist puppets use their own variation. The general idea is that it is harder to get from under the thumb of your master as a fascist satellite, but you do get free equipment licenses from the master country, which can be a big help.

There’s only three levels of (non-)independence for Axis puppet regimes, but each one needs more autonomy, so going up and down the scale takes longer. Unlike the Commonwealth version, these will mostly only come about in play. Japan is considered fascist, so Manchuko and Mengkukuo will be reichskommisariats (the lowest level of independence in this system) if you have this expansion, and Slovakia also starts the 1939 scenario as a reichskommisariat of Germany.

Since the actual names of any puppet states will be determined by who actually holds them, those will still be appropriate and the naming is not a big deal, but it still appears in the relationships and the solidly Germanic names can be a sore thumb there.

Conclusion

The central question of any country pack is ‘am I interested enough in the countries involved to get this?’ In general, I think central Europe is an essential area to detail, and it gets the two most prominent Axis minors in the process. On the other hand, I think Finland deserved attention sooner rather than later, and I consider it a missed opportunity here.

The new puppet types aren’t nearly as interesting the second time around, though making fascist puppets work differently than democratic ones makes sense. The various miscellaneous improvements for the patch don’t look like much, but the AI certainly got better, and the air war is easier to manage.

Outside of wanting to try out Czechoslovakia or the like, the new equipment abilities are a good draw. They’re not needed, but made this a good package and I’m glad to see everyone has access to that now.

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First Moscow

by on April 14, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the eleventh in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Europa Universalis IV. See the previous reviews here:
Europa Universalis IV: A Fantastic Point of View
Wealth of Nations: National Trade
Res Publica: A Tradition of the People
Art of War: Reform-Minded Patch
El Dorado: Expansion of Gold
Common Sense: Uncommon Changes
The Cossacks: Cossack Estate
Mare Nostrum: Paradox’s Sea
Rights of Man: Institutions of Man
Mandate of Heaven: Mandated Ages

After a full expansion with a regional focus, Europa Universalis IV development focused on a number of small “immersion packs” that focus on flavor elements for certain regions. These tend to be priced at $10 instead of the usual $15 to $20 for a full expansion. Third Rome, the first of these, was announced on May 12, 2017, and came out with patch 1.22 on June 14.

Governments

Three new unique government types came with the patch. The first is the Russian principality, which seven states start with (most notably Muscovy), which get tax and unrest bonuses.

Meanwhile, Novgorod and Pskov are veche republics, which are variant merchant republics. They get an extra merchant, and if Res Publica is in use, they get to build trade posts and have a faction system like a merchant republic. Instead of getting caravan power (inland trade power), they cause extra production in provinces they don’t own, but have a lot of trade power in (which directly increases revenue for the other countries, but indirectly increases it for the veche as they’ll get the increased trade value caused by the production).

Any of these that manage to form Russia automatically switch to a tsardom, which has a strong number of bonuses, including increased manpower, absolutism, and decreased autonomy (this caused complaints, and great veche republic was created as the republic version of tsardom later), and with the expansion it gets the ability to claim an entire area. It costs more from a spy network, but generally less than claiming the provinces separately, so Russia is uniquely able to spread claims faster than anyone else. The former two are locked as duchies, while tsardom is automatically an empire. That kind of goes against the idea of how the ranks should work in Common Sense, but it does help if you don’t have that expansion.

Of course, like just about all other unique government forms, you can’t voluntarily change from these, though the veche can fall to a despotic monarchy/republican dictatorship like a merchant republic.

Additionally, with the expansion, three special abilities are granted to all of these countries (one per type of monarch point). A special form of power is collected for each, based on the current ruler’s abilities, and when it reaches 100, the appropriate ability can be activated. Admin reduces autonomy in all provinces, diplomatic reduces the progress of all rebellions (that can be handy…), and the military recruits streltsy units.

These are a new unit category that costs no money, manpower, or time to recruit, but afterward they act the same as anything else, so they cost the normal maintenance and manpower to refresh. However, recruiting them grants a temporary combat bonus that only applies to them, and can be refreshed by recruiting more in the future (streltsy units have a gray background). However, using them also increases stability costs.

The government types are nice, but I think the abilities are mechanically weak. There’s no variation in the growth of their meters, and there’s only one choice with each of them: hit the button or don’t hit the button (to save it for a more opportune moment). It doesn’t really cost anything else, so the stability cost of streltsy is the only trade-off in the entire set.

Orthodoxy

Naturally, Orthodox Christianity got new mechanics for the expansion. Orthodox countries have a new state-level ability, consecrate metropolitan. This adds to the maintenance cost of the state, but causes it to recover from devastation faster, and adds to patriarch authority.

Patriarch authority is another religious 0-100 meter, and grants missionary strength, manpower, and reduces unrest as it goes up. This actually already existed, but outside of creating new metropolitan seats, it tends to be fairly static (there are events to affect it, which is all there was previously, and still without the expansion), and consecrating a new metropolitan only boosts it by 5. So it takes a bit of work, and a large amount of territory to get it very high.

Also, authority can be used to commission icons. This is like the temporary bonuses in other religions, but of course consumes a currency that is generally in short supply. The bonuses last two decades, and each icon provides two (related) bonuses, so they tend to be fairly strong.

Both the icons and the metropolitans have events that are possible while those are active. The vast bulk of icon events are positive, so that’s another benefit.

Ideas

All the culturally-Russian countries had either a unique idea and tradition set, or used a general set just for them already. But the Russian set itself was changed so the second idea is Siberian frontier.

Normally, it just auto-discovers empty terra incognita provinces in the area, but with the expansion you can also establish a form of colony that will settle an empty Siberian province. Unlike a normal colony, it costs no maintenance, and won’t be attacked by the locals. They have good base rate of growth, but since there’s no colonist to help them along (without going for colonist ideas), they will be a bit slow to grow into cities, and they get no help from the usual diplomatic tech bonuses to colonies. This lets Russia colonize out to the Pacific at a cost of 20 diplomatic power per province without having to take Expansion or Exploration ideas just to get an actual colonist to do it that way, which is a big improvement.

Formerly, Muscovy and Russia shared the same idea set, but now Muskovy’s are separate (with an option to keep or change when forming Russia), mostly concentrating on small military bonuses, though one of the initial traditions is +10% shock damage, which is not small at the start of the game.

Conclusion

Naturally, all this came with a map rework of the area, which allowed a couple of one-province minors to become two or three provinces. Additionally, Rostov and Beloozero were split off into vassals of Muskovy at game start (giving them the maximum number of relations already in vassals; be careful).

That part is certainly well done and always appreciated, and the new government types are nice; I certainly like the idea of a variant merchant republic. The expansion bonuses are a bit of a mix for me, as I feel too much of it (which would be any part at all) is too static and devoid of interesting decisions. That said, the new Orthodox mechanics are nice, and the ability of Russia to automatically colonize Siberia is something the game actually needed. It’s certainly an overall benefit, and if you like playing as Muskovy or Novgorod (or the smaller states in the area), it’s worth getting, which is the entire idea.

It does occur to me that they don’t play around that much with Russia’s self-image of being the successor of Rome and Byzantium (referenced in the title Third Rome). Ambitions in that direction are, I believe, already in the missions that can come up, but an event that triggers on the taking of Constantinople by the Ottomans (very likely in most games) would have been a good flavor addition, even if it didn’t do much mechanically.

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No Place Among the Stars

by on March 17, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the third in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Stellaris. See the previous reviews here:
Stellaris: Paradox Among the Stars
Leviathans: There Be Dragons Here!

After Leviathans, Stellaris got its first (large) expansion. Utopia focused on large engineering projects (“megastructures”), and introduced a new major mechanic in patch 1.5, which was released on April 6, 2017 (the same day as EU IV: Mandate of Heaven). Since my initial review was about a later patch, this is mostly about the expansion, but a new feature neglected in my review was introduced at this point.

Tradition

As a larger expansion, Utopia introduced an all-new mechanic to the game, traditions. They were originally an expansion-only feature, but were added to the base game in patch 2.0, though you still get an expanded list of options with the expansion.

A new currency, unity, was added to purchase traditions. It has a few other uses now, but at the time was purely for this mechanic, and it is still the main thing it gets used for. Each tradition purchase costs more, so that the addition of extra buildings to generate unity will not race an empire through all the possibilities in a hurry. Purchases are selecting a tradition, and then unlocking the five bonuses within it. Each tradition grants a bonus when it selected, and a second one when the last bonus of the set is purchased.

This is basically the idea groups from March of the Eagles and Europa Universalis IV. Like EU IV you select which groups you take, and in what order. Unlike Paradox’s other games, there’s no fixed order you have to purchase the individual bonuses in, though there are mini-trees in each set restricting you to two or three choices at a time. Also, the overall tradition is a purchase in itself, instead of being unlocked by technology, so you could buy seven traditions (the maximum number you get to use, and until patch 3.1 all there are) straight off for the starting bonuses, and then go back and get the internal and finishing bonuses in each later (I doubt it is often done, but it is possible).

The reason there are seven traditions is the eighth slot in the panel for them is taken up by ascension perks. These are an extra bonus you get to pick every time a tradition is finished.

Some perks were part of an ascension path, which are only accessible with the expansion. These are generally more powerful, and can change how an empire fundamentally works, but require going through several perks to get at. As of patch 3.6, these were changed to just needing one perk, but then opened up a new tradition (this accompanied an overall increase to the number of traditions available) with its own tree.

To a very real extent, traditions aren’t needed for the game, so they wouldn’t have been a bad expansion-only feature. But, they’re still a good a good set of bonuses, and Paradox has liked the ideas mechanic ever since their introduction in EU III. With them being part of the base game, they fall under Paradox’s current model of getting the essentials of a mechanic for free and a fuller version with the expansion. Also, several other expansions have featured their own new ascension bonuses since, and this way it only takes one expansion purchase to get access to them.

Government

In the patch, one of the ethics pair names were changed (from collectivist/individualist to authoritarian/egalitarian), as much to get names that fit the mechanics better as anything else. At the same time, the central gestalt consciousness ethic was introduced in the expansion for use with hive minds.

Hive minds are an alternate authority type with some good bonuses (faster population growth and decreased effect of empire size), and never worry about population ethics or other related mechanics. This makes them a bit less adaptable (since they can’t change ethics and the bonuses from them), and any population not part of the hive mind will get killed, driven out, or assimilated. Generally the first two, leaving the hive mind with a non-diverse population, also inhibiting the ability to colonize non-native types of planets. Authority itself was added in the patch to help better define how governments work, and when/how the leader changes.

Hive-mind populations outside of the hive can be subject to purging. Actually, nearly anyone can be, but even otherwise very accepting governments can get rid of people who are now mindless drones. New government policies dictate when you can declare this and slavery to be legal, with more detailed management happening at the species level. I haven’t really done much with either, which have extra options with the expansion, but you can play as the more brutal forms of empires with these policies.

Two new civics are available with the expansion: Ascensionists are restricted to spiritualist governments, and get greater benefits from planetary ascension buffs (added in patch 3.6 with that mechanic). Fanatic purifiers get bonuses to space combat, but can never lose the trait, must be either spiritualist or militarist, and fanatic xenophobe, and cannot engage in normal diplomacy with anyone else.

Three new origins are available with the expansion (two of them were civics until origins were invented with patch 2.6). Mechanists start with robots available, though they’re not as good as the ones available if the technology is gotten during the game. Syncretic evolution starts you with a population of a second species that evolved with the main one on your home planet, though they get the “servile” trait. And tree of life gives the homeworld agriculture at the expense of mining; colonies can also get their own, and are severely hampered without one.

Finally, three new pre-built empires are available with the expansion, to show off the new features. The Xanid Suzerainty are arid-dwelling arthopods with a population of strong, industrious servile species from syncretic evolution. The Lokken Mechanists are democratic mechanists, giving them early robots to make up for being slow breeders. And the Ix’ldar Star Collective is an arctic hive mind in the usual SF insectoid tradition. Their civics allow extra research from unemployed pops, and an extra leader.

Megastructures

The “big” feature of the expansion is the ability to construct some of the largest projects ever imagined. Ringworlds and Dyson spheres are the hallmarks of this feature, though there’s plenty of lesser projects as well.

Habitats are large orbital facilities meant to house large populations. They operate as small planets, with improvements available to increase the size as your empire gets experience with them. Originally, they were size-12 planets with their own set of buildings that did well for energy and research, but poorly for minerals and food. After the change to districts in patch 2.2, they went to size-4 (with improvements to ‑8; and are size-6 as of patch 3.9) with their own district types, replacing agriculture and mining with research and amenity-producing ones. In all, they’re a bit limited, but a good help for an empire forced to “grow tall” by close borders and a lack of habitable planets.

Gateways are effectively artificial wormholes, capable of instant transport across the galaxy, but with some real improvements. First, they are a one-to-many network; travel can be between any two active gateways. Second, both ends must be friendly controlled. So having one next to your home system will not allow a hostile empire to instantly move to the center of your empire, but they can allow you to shift forces to a distant frontier quickly, as long as you can hold on to the far end. Gateways are constructed in two steps: first a construction ship must prepare a site (expensive and time-consuming), and then it can be activated without the ship (also expensive and time-consuming). Ancient gateways will be randomly scattered about, which effectively have already gone through the first step. The proper tech will allow them to be re-activated… even if you don’t have the expansion, though you can’t build new ones without it.

The real megastructures all have multiple steps and require rare advanced technologies to get to. Occasionally, ruined versions of these can be found in the galaxy, while new ones can only be built with purchase of Utopia, ruined ringworlds can exist and be repaired without it. The two “regular” ones are the science nexus, which has four stages, consumes a lot of energy, and generates a lot of research as well as a boost to research speed, and the sentry array, which is similar to build, but gives a scan distance of the entire galaxy. The Dyson sphere generates insane amounts of energy (and costs a lot of unity), while the ringworld is counted as four very large planets with their own unique set of districts.

While habitats have had development problems, the rework in patch 3.9 has helped a lot, and they do their main job quite well. They are also the only representation of largely residential space colonies I can think of in a space 4X game. The bigger ones are only limited by the high requirements to be able to build them and then actually do so (this is perfectly fine). Gateways can be very handy, especially if you like playing in the larger galaxy sizes. The ability to always repair an existing ringworld and gateways is another good example of letting players get a taste of new content without any purchase, and the (occasional) existence of ruined megastructures helps with Stellaris’ goal of having a ‘lived in’ galaxy.

Conclusion

Stellaris’ first big expansion is a solid one that has gotten better over time, and I certainly recommend it. There’s no pressing need to get it though, and is recommended for players with at least a couple games under their belt. The base game went through some evolution, and (at the time) two new major features were included.

Since traditions are part of the base game now, this isn’t as essential a package as at launch, but what is here is still very nice. The expanded ascension perks are ones I generally don’t go for (other than chasing down megastructures…), but they are good, and I should spend more time with them. The megastructures themselves are the big star, and well worth it, though they are naturally a late-game item.

Of more general use are the extra civics and origins made available with Utopia, and that is also a good reason to get it. I haven’t done a lot with the particular ones in this package, but they’re good, and hive-minds are staple of SF.

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Mandated Ages

by on January 21, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the tenth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Europa Universalis IV. See the previous reviews here:
Europa Universalis IV: A Fantastic Point of View
Wealth of Nations: National Trade
Res Publica: A Tradition of the People
Art of War: Reform-Minded Patch
El Dorado: Expansion of Gold
Common Sense: Uncommon Changes
The Cossacks: Cossack Estate
Mare Nostrum: Paradox’s Sea
Rights of Man: Institutions of Man

After Rights of Man, the Europa Universalis team started a series of expansions largely focused on specific regions. Mandate of Heaven was announced on March 6, 2017, and released, along with patch 1.20 on April 6 (the same day as Stellaris: Utopia). The follow-up 1.21 patch came out on April 25, with a rework of the map and events for Hungary.

The Four Ages of the World

The headline new feature was not regional, however. The game was divided up into four ages, which drive certain rules and disasters. In the first two ages, religious rules are active, which means that various abilities of the Papal controller work. In the last two, absolutism rules become active. Some disasters and events that had been bound to certain years are now limited by the current age.

And that’s the general version of the mechanics. With the expansion, there’s a new currency, splendor, which you always get some of, but achieving certain age-related goals gains splendor faster, and it can then be used to gain age-related bonuses, which go away at the start of the next age.

The game starts in the Age of Exploration which headlines with the objective to discover America, but has various goals for strong governments, and special abilities for the Ottomans, Portuguese, Danish, and Venice. The general peasants’ war disaster is bound to this age, along with Castilian Civil War and the War of the Roses.

Ten years after the first Center of Reformation appears, the game goes to the Age of Reformation. Naturally, joining the Reformation is one of the goals, along with general religious conversion goals, and special abilities for Spain, Mughals, Poland, and Persia. The general disaster is religious turmoil, with the French Wars of Religion, the Count’s Feud (Denmark), and Time of Troubles (Muscovy) also possible.

Ten years after the institution Global Trade appears, the Age of Absolutism starts. This turns off of the religious rules for the Pope, and ends the Centers of Reformation, and turns on absolutism. Goals include having a large force limit, having universities, and being multicultural, while the special abilities are for France, Sweden, Manchu and the Dutch. The general disaster is court and country, with the English Civil War also possible.

And ten years after the Enlightenment institution appears, the Age of Revolutions starts. Goals include having a parliament (which requires Common Sense), having large subjects, and being the Holy Roman Emperor, but surprisingly enough nothing about actually getting involved in the revolutions of the era. Special abilities are present for England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. General disasters are aspiration for liberty (a general revolt after gaining Enlightenment), revolution, and its specialized version, the French Revolution.

Additionally, achieving three of the goals in an era allows a nation to declare a golden era. This can only be done once per game, but gives morale bonuses, reduces costs of anything requiring monarch points, and increases goods produced. So for fifty years, the armies will be tougher, income will be greater, and it will be easier to get many things done. It’s not quite the level of bonuses you might expect, but it will certainly help a lot.

To a large extent, a second mechanic dividing the game up into periods right after the introduction of institutions divided progress into periods seems a bit much to me, and adding to the too-tall stack of mechanics even more so. But, it doesn’t do more than define when certain things happen without the expansion, so that helps. Unfortunately, while making time-bound event dates more flexible through the ages is a good thing, outside of that, the base version really only divides the game into two instead of four ages because the rules don’t change. As far the full version with the expansion, it works, and doesn’t need a lot of interaction. It doesn’t do a lot for me, though for some the goals could add some useful direction.

Absolute Devastation

Base mechanics were changed again in the patch, with looted and scorched earth province statuses being replaced with a unified devastation modifier that ranges from 0 to 100. It of course trends towards 0 in peaceful times, and goes up when occupied by an enemy or while under siege or there is unrest (and starting in patch 1.22, from blockades). It of course reduces goods production, supply limits, and movement speed in proportion to the current level.

On the other side, prosperity was added at the state level with the expansion. It goes up randomly, and only when every province in the state is at 0 devastation, and stability is positive. Unlike devastation, it is an on/off proposition. While progress towards prosperity is 0-100, the bonuses to production, development, and autonomy only kick in at 100.

At the government level, Absolute Monarchy was removed as a government type in the patch, and all governments get an absolutism meter (hidden away on the government screen). This starts around 1610 (with the Age of Absolutism), compared to the roughly 1661 date of tech 20 to get access to the old government form (it does of course take time to get any absolutism once its available).

It’s kind of an administrative form of the mercantilism mechanic that has been in place since the release of the game. It has a scale of 0-100, and gives some bonuses as it goes up. Mercantilism mostly helps trade power while absolutism increases administrative efficiency (which previously was only available through higher administrative technology; it might be worth noting that the mechanic comes in shortly after that starts going up). However, there is also a maximum absolutism for the government that starts at 65, and can be increased (or more rarely, decreased, notably by republics) by being a great power, empire rank, a golden era, legitimacy, religious unity, and a host of less-common modifiers.

One of the Age of Absolutism powers is a yearly +1 increase to current absolutism, which should max it out on its own if taken early in the age. The “strengthen government” action introduced in patch 1.18 also adds to absolutism, along with increasing stability, decreasing autonomy, and other measures to improve governance. On the other hand, lowering war exhaustion, increasing stability, and debasing currency will all lower it.

Celestial Empire

Without the expansion, China doesn’t change much, but with MoH, the Ming dynasty goes from using factions (which were tweaked in the patch) to a whole new mandate of heaven system. Other oriental countries can claim the mandate to become the emperor of China, switch to the unique Celestial Empire government, and take over the mechanics.

The mechanics come in three major parts. Meritocracy is another legitimacy replacement, though a few places in the interface still reference legitimacy (which would suddenly become important if you lose the mandate). It natively goes down each year, and the third part of this can make it go down faster. However, the bonuses from advisors push it up. To have a positive total, you generally need the more expensive +2 and +3 advisors, but generally China can afford this, and high meritocracy makes advisors cheaper. Every decade a decree can be enacted for a fairly large national bonus and dropping meritocracy by 20 points.

The empire itself acts like a minor version of the Holy Roman Empire, with mandate replacing imperial authority. It doesn’t have most of the HRE mechanics, but can have a new type of subject, the tributary. Higher mandate reduces unrest and war exhaustion, while it decreases army damage, meritocracy, and goods produced while under 50. There are also five reforms, which act a bit like the HRE’s, though there’s no reward for getting them all passed. They cause a steep hit in mandate, and so care needs to be taken in passing them.

Tributaries are a very loosely-held subject; they still get all their normal diplomatic actions, but if a non-tributary attacks one, it brings the overlord (China) into the war. And instead of a constant percentage of taxes going to the Chinese budget, a smaller sum is granted at the start of every year, and can be taken as monarch points instead of money.

The third part is the new Confucian religion mechanic. Confucianism has harmony, which affects meritocracy (or legitimacy or devotion, depending on government), corruption, and religious tolerance. It can also get cross-religion bonuses (like Tengri or Fetishist) by harmonizing with them. Unlike other similar mechanics, Confucianism can harmonize with everything, instead of just one religion at a time, and get a bonus for each one. However, the process takes over three decades each time, and harmony drops as this goes on, so it can’t be done easily. Once harmonized, that religion counts as the same as Confucian for all purposes within the country, while the usual conversion process also lowers harmony, so there’s a real push towards harmonizing instead.

The three mechanics all have events which may grant or reduce one or the other, or often present a trade off. This makes the Chinese empire a balancing act, as letting any of mandate, meritocracy, or harmony get low can put a fair amount of strain on everything else, and letting all three get low is survivable, but asking for trouble, especially after the early game when the nearby countries have probably consolidated a bit.

Originally, it was fairly easy to get into trouble with the mandate, as non-tributary neighbors decrease mandate, and as the game goes on and development and knowledge of the world increases, this drag can become very serious. So, in patch 1.29 that was removed, making Emperor of China a much more stable title with no real downsides, just competition with countries that may want to take the mandate from you.

Shogun

Japan was re-worked for the patch, similarly to how Paradox had for EU III: Divine Wind. The map of Japan had actually been simplified a bit in EU IV from that version, but the number of separate countries had gone from four to twelve, and they used the normal monarchical government types with an overlord Shogun, instead of the Emperor handling all external relations.

With the patch, Japan was expanded back to roughly forty provinces, with twenty-five daimyos (plus the Ashikaga Shogunate). They all have the unique government types of daimyo or shogun, which they can’t be voluntarily changed from. In addition to their unique (modest) bonuses, the shogun gets several actions with the expansion to keep the daimyos in line. This does a good job of getting the feel of the warring states period, which starts a little way into the game.

The general idea is that any of the daimyos can become shogun by taking the capital province of Kyoto. The islands can be unified as the country Japan once enough of them are under one shogun. The easy way involves just declaring the unification after taking about half the provinces, which releases all the remaining daimyo from their subject status, while the more historical approach requires absorbing them all beforehand, and getting a hefty bonus of monarch points. Either way does away with the unique government types.

At the same time, the shinto religion gets extra mechanics in the expansion centered around isolationism, which has five levels. Up to eight incidents will fire for a shinto country throughout the game, only one of which is possible at the very start, and will move the country towards open or closed doors (countries generally start at “adaptive”, one level away from open doors) depending on the choices made in the events fired by the incident. Isolation actually only has positive effects (no diplomatic or technology penalties or other trade-offs), though the effects of each level do vary quite a bit.

Meanwhile, in Mongolia, the countries in that region/culture can get a special unit category with the expansion: banner. Ordinarily, a country recruits regular units, but they can also get mercenary units, which show up with a green color in unit listings and don’t cost manpower, and are quick to hire. But they are more expensive to hire or replace men in. Banners have more of a magenta background with no recruitment time nor cost, but do cause corruption. They’re an extra way to get some cheap manpower for the Mongolian/Manchu countries, but they reinforce very slowly, and have been toned down a bunch since their introduction here.

Hungary

While 1.20 was about the Far East, patch 1.21 was about central Europe. As it turns out, the start date for EU IV is the day after the Battle of Varna, where the Ottomans defeated a major coalition including Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Lithuania. Both Poland and Hungary start the game with 0/0/0 interregnums because of this battle (see my review of Res Publica). In the patch, parts of the map in the area were reworked, and new events were added for the various Christian nations involved, especially Hungary.

Various subjects include the rise of the Hunyadi dynasty, special mercenaries (the Black Army), dealing with the reformation, and a choice between the Austrian and eastern Hungary branches of the royal line.

In Bohemia events were added to show lingering support for the Hussites, who had only been defeated a decade earlier. Austria’s events were modified to tie into all the other changes in regional events.

These features are all in line with the usual Paradox approach to injecting a bit of history outside the bare mechanics of the game, and the attention to Eastern Europe here is very nice to see. And I need to find a good book or game on the Battle of Varna.

Conclusion

This is an all-around large expansion. The new mechanics around China alone make it worth considering, while Japan also becomes a more interesting place.

If you’re not interested in that region, then the only big feature are the full age mechanics. This is a fairly nice addition, since the big powers can get a lot of use from it, but small powers should still be able to get a bonus or two from it. For a new player, it’s just an extra thing to pay attention to, so it’s more for an experienced player (which is what expansions should be) though a new player may want it just because they’re interested in the regional parts.

The new absolutism mechanic is the main patch feature (other than tying several time-bound events to the new ages). It’s neat enough, but plays similarly to another mechanic I don’t pay a lot of attention to, though this one is a lot easier to understand. I also don’t think the new devastation and prosperity mechanics are all that great, though unifying a couple of one-off modifiers into this system is a plus. I think prosperity should have been in the patch, and be a true mirror-image of devastation; either both should work on the province level, or both should work on the state level. That said, trying to tie mechanics other than the state/territory choice to the states is a good idea, but not one I think has been followed up on much.

Still, it’s all an overall benefit to the game, and the expansion is a good package. I look at it more as large “immersion pack” like the next few EU IV expansions, and still worth the higher price point than those thanks to the variety of material here. People for whatever reason against playing in the Far East at all probably won’t find the ages worth the price.

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