Europa Universalis IV is soon set to receive a fairly game changing update in the form of the new 1.19 patch. One of the major changes to the game will be how the Fort and Zone of Control mechanics work and there are some very interesting changes coming to those mechanics in particular.
Fort and Zone of Control have been somewhat of a bugbear for players for some time. The sheer amount of rules surrounding these mechanics which change depending on the situation and terrain have led to widespread confusion among players. Johan Anderson admits “it was practically impossible to make all cases clear to the player. This causes much confusion amongst players, who also had an experience that was not as great as they had hoped while playing.”
Zone of Control have changed completely. Instead of affecting a province and sometimes blocking passage in adjacent provinces, Zone of Control rules are now area based. This means that forts are now vital in almost every area on your borders and countries will now have need of a lot more forts, which in turn the developers are reducing the cost of said forts. Here are the way the area changes affect both forts and areas:
A Forts is:
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hostile if it is controlled by someone you are at war with.
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friendly if it is controlled by you, or by someone on your side in any war, unless you are at war with them (should not happen).
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neutral otherwise.
An area is:
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friendly if it has at least one friendly fort and no hostile fort.
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hostile if it has at least one hostile fort and no friendly fort.
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contested if it has at least one hostile fort and at least one friendly fort.
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neutral otherwise.</b>
Other changes to fort’s include the fact that capital forts now act like other forts, all armies can ignore Military Access in all non-neutral areas, which means armies can move freely after sieging. Another interesting change is that an occupied province without a fort will return to its owner’s control if there is at least one non-besieged fort controlled by him, but no hostile forts in the area.
In line with these changes the developers have had to make big changes to the map. Borders are now larger and areas now make between 3 to 5 provinces, giving a more even balance overall. More wasteland has been added to make the borders larger and players will see a noticeable difference on the map.
Combat has also had some pretty drastic changes including the removal of the dreaded width penalties rule from terrain. Sieging units will also no longer get a river crossing penalty if a force engages them, even if they did cross a river. The removal of the width penalty may mean that mountain bonuses from choke points may no longer be of use to players.
There have been a multitude of other changes made and more are coming including UI improvements, changes to claims, trading, and corruption. It will be interesting to see what other changes 1.19 has in store as so far we have seen some fairly drastic changes discussed.
