Patch 1.1 file

Europa Universalis III v. 1.1

This is a listing of things in EU3 v1.1 that have resulted in a change to the way that the game is played. Information provided here supersedes what you may have read in the manual, manual errata, strategy guide, forums, or have experienced with the game's demo version.

System Specifications/Hardware/Game Launch

- The game will now allow you to launch even if your graphics card does not report as having 128MB of video RAM (however Pixelshader 2.0 support is still a requirement). You will receive a warning to this effect and can then proceed to launch the game; however, we can offer no assurances as to the overall performance of the game on such systems. Older, sub-spec cards are likely to have serious issues, while integrated chipsets that are designed to share system resources may be able to run with little or no performance deterioration. We offer this change on an "as is" basis and do not make any assurances that the game will work perfectly on any individual system.
- A special feature has been added to the launcher to help players manage and launch games with user-modifications. Details of how to use this are provided in the Scenarios & Modifications subforum of the main Paradox forum. In particular this should make it considerably easier for people who participate in multiplayer games to use mods.

Game Play & Interfaces

- A human-controlled country that is an elector in the Holy Roman Empire is now unable to vote for itself (this means that the player is restricted in the same way that AI-controlled countries are restricted). The player will automatically vote for the country that it would vote for if it were controlled by the AI (reputation being the primary determining factor, with ties being broken by other considerations such as prestige, size, strength, reputation, etc.).
- Being the Papal Controller now also helps to improve your country's reputation.
- The rate that maps will spread to other countries has undergone a large adjustment. A newly-discovered province will not become known to other countries for at least 50 years (unless they discover it independently).
- The cost of new technologies is now scaled to country size. Larger countries must now invest somewhat more than a smaller country to achieve the same technological advance.
- Having a positive national stability now gives an additional bonus to tax income.
- Having a negative national stability now results in a higher revolt risk than was previously the case.
- The "Deus Vult" national idea will now give you a casus belli on any country that does not share exactly the same religion as your own (previously you did not receive the casus belli against a country that had a religion in the same religious group as your own).
- Some of the allowed government conversion possibilities have been altered (so do not rely on the manual's appendix to determine a valid path).
- The likelihood of a ruler dying is now less linear and increases significantly with time; making very long reigns even rarer than before.
- A country that is ruled by a regency council can no longer be the target of a succession war.
- The effects of advisors have been tweaked to increase the differences between each skill level.
- The monthly salary cost of a newly-hired advisor is now immediately reflected in the domestic budget (previously it would not be applied until month end). The same is also true if you fire an advisor.
- The Outliner now has a separate section to show provinces that are colonies (but not yet full-fledged colonial cities). This makes it very easy to quickly select a province that you wish to further develop through sending a colonist.

Diplomacy & Espionage

- You may only diplomatically annex a country when it is at peace. The option will remain greyed out if this condition is not satisfied (in addition to the other conditions associated with diplomatic annexation).
- It is no longer possible to break an alliance if the alliance is at war.
- Voluntarily releasing a vassal will now improve your country's reputation.
- The relationship between countries (and changes in those relationships) has been further tweaked and balanced -- particularly within the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor (if controlled by the AI) is now much more supportive and protective of member states.
- The cost, effects, and penalties for detection for most espionage actions of your spies have been changed to make them somewhat more appealing to use.

War & Peace

- You can no longer recruit mercenary regiments of any type in any of your colonies.
- The cost of hiring a mercenary will now increase slightly for each additional mercenary in your national army.
- Naval attrition has been changed to increase the attrition rates when you are in open ocean waters, and to eliminate it completely when you are in a sea zone that is adjacent to your own territory. This means that a fleet may safely remain at sea in its home waters, but will find exploration and ocean voyages more hazardous.
- Naval attrition will be less severe once you have achieved level 20 in naval technology.
- The details displayed when you select a fleet now show the transport capacity of that fleet (the number of regiments that it can carry) at the bottom of the fleet interface.
- It is now possible to declare war on a country without first cancelling your military access treaty; however, there is a severe stability penalty for doing so.
- The penalty for declaring war on a co-religionist now only applies to an enemy that is exactly the same religion as your country, rather than for countries with a religion in the same religious group. (Example: a Protestant country will no longer receive the stability hit for declaring war on a Catholic country.)
- If one of your vassals is attacked, you will automatically be given the option protect it (via a "call to allies" message). This means that you will always be able to assist a vassal, even if you have not arranged an alliance with it.
- An army will not receive any reinforcements if it is retreating. This only applies to retreating after losing or withdrawing from a battle, and does not affect an army that is moving due to a normal movement order.
- If all possible locations that an army may retreat each contain an enemy army that exceeds it in size, the army will be disbanded. Note that every army in every province must be larger, otherwise the defeated army will retreat towards a province that has an enemy army that is smaller than it is.
- You may now only initiate an assault in a siege if you are the leader of that siege.
- Any alliances a country has will be automatically broken if it accepts an enemy's demand to become its vassal.
- You cannot refuse a peace offer from an AI-controlled country if it currently controls all of your provinces. You can refuse an offer from a human-controlled country but will pay a stability penalty for doing so if the offer is reasonable (100% or less).
- It is no longer possible to demand that a country convert religion if it has a religious form of government (theocracies, etc.)
- A country that has been forced to convert religions as a result of a peace demand will now be unable to convert religions again (voluntarily) until the ruler who agreed to the peace term has died.

Other

This is by no means a complete listing of changes from 1.0 to 1.1. In addition to the items above, there are a large number of minor alterations, tweaks, bug-fixes, AI tweaks and optimisations, and an assortment of other things that would be far too lengthy to detail. This includes...

- Many events have been tweaked for triggers, modifiers and effects; and a variety of events have been added.
- Many provinces have been tweaked (trade goods, tax values, etc.)
- Some province improvements have been tweaked in cost and/or effect.
- Many tweaks to in-game variables in the static_modifiers.txt and defines.txt files; and tweaks to the effects in static_modifers.txt
- Tweaked many interfaces to improve their display or information
- Tweaked or expanded the information in many tooltips
- Made corrections or clarifications to much of the in-game text.
- Many history files have been further expanded, tweaked, corrected, or otherwise improved.
- A variety of new event conditions and effects have been added.
- Most AI routines have been further expanded, improved, and/or optimised. The AI's ability to manage all aspects of its country and military has been enhanced, as has its diplomatic policies and behaviours. In particular, inter-relationships within the Holy Roman Empire and decisions made by all countries (worldwide) regarding national ideas and colonisation should be more appropriate than before.
- Multiplayer stability and functionality has been made considerably more robust to address occasional synchronisation issues experienced in games played over the internet.
- And a variety of miscellaneous bug fixes, tweaks, code optimisations, and other fun stuff.