Double Happy Thursday! As is customary after each major update, today we’ll be returning to the future update plans, which we last went over in Dev Diary #124. Just like the previous times, we’ll be going over what changes and improvements we have planned for the game in future free updates such as 1.9, 1.10 and beyond.

Once again we will be talking about the same key four improvement areas of Military, Historical Immersion, Diplomacy, Internal Politics as well as Other for anything that falls outside those four categories.

Just as before, I’ll also be aiming to give you an updated overview of where we stand and where we’re heading by going through each of these four categories and marking on each one with one of the below statuses:

• Done: This is a part of the game that we now consider to be in good shape. Something being Done of course doesn’t mean we’re never going to expand or improve on it in the future, just that it’s no longer a high priority for us. Any points that were already marked as Done in previous updates will be removed from the list, to avoid it growing unmanageably long, but you can look at the older dev diaries (#79, #89, #102 and #124) if you’re interested in what was done previously.
• Updated: This is a part of the game where we have made some of the improvements and changes that we want to make, but aren’t yet satisfied with where it stands and plan to make further improvements to it in future updates.
• Not Updated: This is a part of the game where we haven’t yet released any of our planned changes/improvements in any currently released updates but still plan to do so for future updates.
• New: This is a planned change or improvement that is newly added, i.e. wasn’t present on the list last time we went over it
• Reconsidered: This is a previously planned change or improvement that we have reconsidered our approach to how to tackle from previous updates. For these points we will explain what our new plans are, and change the list appropriately in future updates.

For the final bit of repetition: Just as before we will still only be talking about improvements, changes and new features that are part of planned free updates in this dev diary. I will also remind you that this is not an exhaustive list of the things we are going to do, and that something being ‘Done’ doesn’t mean we’re not going to bugfix, balance or make UX improvements to it afterwards. Alright then, onto the dev diary proper.

Military

New:

• Make sure that supply is an important and meaningful part of the military system that can win or lose you wars.
• Tweaking and improving the frontline system to eliminate excessive front splitting and troop teleportation once and for all

Not Updated:

• Making navies more important for projecting global power and securing control of coasts.
• Adding a proper system of military access and finding solutions for the other remaining rough edges in the frontline system.
• Turning individual ships into proper pieces of military hardware that can be built, sunk and repaired rather than just being manpower packages.
• Adding a system for limited wars to reduce the number of early-game global wars between Great Powers

Historical Immersion

Done:

• Tweaking content such as the Meiji Restoration, Alaska purchase and so on in a way that they can more frequently be successfully performed by the AI, through a mix of AI improvements and content tweaks

Updated:

• Going through the base game Journal Entries and events and making improvements and additions to ensure that they feel meaningful and impactful for players to interact with
• As always, we’ve updated some of our older Journal Entries for 1.8 and will continue to do so in future updates.
• Adding more country, state and region-specific content to enhance historical flavor of different countries
• Also as always, this is something we continue to do each update and which I will keep on this list as it remains an important priority.

Diplomacy

New:

• Improve on the Treaty Port mechanic and create more ways for countries to cooperate, compete with and exploit others using trade
• Improving the war support system to be much clearer UX-wise about what is needed to contest wargoals, and less all-or-nothing in terms of when countries are on track to capitulate

Not Updated:

• Make declaring and holding onto diplomatic Interests a more rewarding and challenging aspect of global empire-building
• Allowing peace deals to be negotiated during a Diplomatic Play instead of only having the option to give in

Internal Politics

Done:

• Find a better solution for the ways ideologies appear, attract followers and create support for reforms than the current RNG-heavy leader ideology system.
• Have discrimination not be a purely binary status and reflect forms of discrimination aside from what’s written in the law, as well as making assimilation into a more meaningful mechanic in the process.

Updated:

• Adding laws that expand on diversity of countries and introduce new ways to play the game
• In 1.8 we added Caste System/Social Hierarchy laws to make India more accurate and flavorful.

Not Updated:

• Turn legitimacy into a more interesting mechanic, where the strength of a government depends on their successes and failures, and highly legitimate governments can’t simply be ousted at a whim but have to be undermined first.
• Introduce a concept of national pride which can increase or decrease depending on a country’s actions and which ties directly into legitimacy.

Other

Not Updated:

• Find a way to deal with the excessive fiddliness of the trade system in large economies, possibly by allowing for autonomous trade based on your laws in a similar way to the autonomous investment system.

Updated:

• Improve on Companies by turning them into actual actors in your country that can own/expand buildings and interact with characters/politics.
• In update 1.8 we made Companies into more distinct entities with headquarters and ownership of specific buildings. We plan to continue to develop these entities in the future and tie them into more systems.

As per usual I’m not able to make specific promises about when all these improvements will come out, but I can say that the next update (1.9) is going to be quite a large update that should tackle several points on this list, and that two particular focuses for it will be Trade and Improvements to the Frontline system. For a bit more detail on the latter point, I refer you to last week’s dev diary where I went over what I consider to be the most pressing issues with the frontline system, all of which we’re aiming to fix or at least improve for 1.9.

Right then, that’s it for today, and in fact, a wrap for 2024. I’ll be back on January 16th to give you a retrospective on the entire year, what we think went well, what we could do better in the future, and see if I can’t find some fun dev moments from the year to share with you as well. See you then!