Tinto Talk #108 - 1.2 Retrospective and What's Next

Hello Everyone, and welcome to another Happy Wednesday, the day of the week where we at Tinto talk about Europa Universalis V

Today's post is a little different from our usual format. Rather than previewing upcoming design work, we want to take stock of where Europa Universalis V is right now, what 1.2 delivered, what 1.2.2 addresses, and where we're headed next.

Where we are

It has been exactly one week since 1.2 'Echinades' was released, and today we’re shipping a follow-up patch. That pace is deliberate. The feedback you've been posting on the forums, in bug reports, in the Byzantine campaign threads, has been coming in fast, and we want to turn it around fast.

While we are at rather negative reviews on Fate of the Phoenix, the reception to 1.2 itself has been encouraging. The HRE overhaul, AI Personalities, Orthodoxy rework, Event Viewer, the 300+ Balkan and Greek advances, the consensus is that the direction is right, and that means a lot to the team.

We hear clearly that performance remains the number one frustration. We want to be straightforward about this: 1.2.2 does not contain performance work. We know that's not what some of you were hoping to read. But read on, because 1.3 is closer than you might expect.

What's in 1.2.2

What 1.2.2 does contain is a substantial round of fixes that came directly from your bug reports, forum threads, and the general chaos of playing as Byzantium.

The Byzantine and Fate of the Phoenix content in particular has received a lot of attention. John Kantakouzenos now actually shows up to cause problems the way history intended, we fixed the event chain that was preventing him from becoming leader of the Byzantine Succession Crisis. His health boost is also tweaked down so he no longer lives to be over 110. The 'A Hand for Peace' chain, the Kantakouzenos co-emperor events, the Crown Jewels loan, the Gemistos Plethon trigger, all received fixes. If your Byzantine campaign was hitting dead ends in places it shouldn't have been, 1.2.2 should clear most of them.

We have also made sure that when the Rome tag is formed by Byzantium, it keeps getting the Byzantine DHEs, instead of suddenly disappearing. You will also no longer revert to the default Turkish location names in Anatolia upon adopting the new Latin culture. And, in that line, the achievements “Belisar’s Legacy” and “There Can Only Be One” are now also available not only if you’re currently Byzantium, but also if you started playing as Byzantium, and later formed another country - such as Rome. For 1.3 we plan to make a generic system for DHE so that you can get them

For those playing the Fate of the Phoenix disaster, the Roman Borders CB has been updated to more accurately reflect the stable 2nd century AD frontier, Scotland removed, Rhine and Danube borders filled in properly, Mesopotamia removed. A small thing, but one that was bothering people who knew their Roman geography. We’ve also fixed a couple of annoying bugs that were not making the CB working 100% as designed, and we’re also in the process of gathering feedback regarding its balance - although we aren’t making any outright changes to that yet, as first we want to make sure that we have a more clear picture from the players on the divide between “fun” and “broken”.

Trebizond now has a proper reduced-requirements path to reform Byzantium, reflecting its Komnenian dynastic claim. And if you take them all the way to Constantinople, a new event unlocks additional Bureaucracies for them. And on the topic of bureaucracies, they have received a general rebalance to make the weaker ones a bit juicier.

On the AI side: a significant number of military AI fixes have gone in, armies getting stuck in foreign territory, transports pursuing dead units, over-hiring of mercenaries, siege objective pathing, morale recovery logic. None of these are individually headline-grabbing, but collectively they add up to an AI that behaves more coherently in prolonged wars. We've also made the AI and the Trade Automation more aggressive so it uses more of the capacity, while making the AI better at prioritising manpower buildings as economies grow.

Before the 1.3 beta opens we also plan to ship a smaller 1.2.4 patch, targeting any urgent issues that surface over the coming days. Think of it as a safety net, if something critical comes up in 1.2.2 that needs addressing before we move into beta territory, we want to be able to act on it quickly rather than leaving it unresolved for weeks. We'll communicate what's in scope for 1.2.4 as it takes shape.

1.3 ‘Pavia’ Open Beta by end of May

Here's the news we know many of you have been waiting for. Our plan is to release 1.3 as an feature complete open beta before the end of this month. I

We want to do 1.3 ‘Pavia’ differently. Rather than developing it behind closed doors and shipping a finished patch, we're going to work on it together with the community, as we did with the 1.1 ‘Rossbach’ update. The open beta will let you get in early, test the changes, and give us direct feedback while we can still act on it. Our target is to take that feedback, iterate, and bring 1.3 to a full release within four to six weeks of the beta opening. This way, we’ll also ensure that the 1.2 ‘Echinades’ patch remains stable for a longer time, giving the players two options to follow in the coming weeks - either playing on the more stable 1.2, or playing in the more experimental 1.3.

While 1.3 contains a lot of content, quality of life and game-mechanics, we are also investigating memory leaks, rendering performance and the late-game performance as well.

We'll share more details about the beta and what else is in scope for 1.3 in next week's Tinto Talks.

A small new tooltip for 1.3...

Thank you for the continued reports, the bug threads, and the patience. It matters, and it's directly shaping what we build next.

/Johan