Hello everyone. Tuesday has crept up on us once again which means it's time to armour up, grab my sword and jump back into the Thunderdome that is the Developer multiplayer, but before that, we've got a new Dev Diary!

Today we'll take a closer look at the much speculated Tributary States mechanic from the upcoming expansion. It's been fun reading the comments of this thread and see what the community has been suspecting we've put in the game. I'll be tackling that here

Getting straight to the meat of it, Tributary is a new subject type in Europa Universalis IV available for Nations in the Eastern Religion Group. Tributaries can be established both through warfare and through diplomacy and, while large nations are certainly not going to want to become your tributary willingly, through winning war you can force a nation of any size to bend the knee and pay up.

When you have established a nation as your Tributary, you will receive and annual tribute from them. You as their overlord are able to instruct them what to send, from Money, Administrative Power, Diplo Power, Military Power and Manpower. each year of successful tribute mutually raises trust between the nations. If you are the benevolent type of player, you can even tell them that no tribute is necessary. I am not a benevolent Overlord.




Here is Ming with their mighty collection of Tributaries. Along with demanding annual tribute, there are some new interactions available exclusively for nations with tributaries (artwork for them not yet in, so don't mind the placeholders):

• Bestow Gifts: send subject 0.5 of target’s yearly income,
  
• Send additional troops: sent 2 years of subject’s manpower,
  
• Demand artifacts: Take 5 prestige from subject,
  
• Demand additional tribute: take 0.25 years of target’s income from target

these interactions will also affect the subjects' liberty desire, which brings us to an important point, what does it mean to be a tributary. For what purpose does a nation bend their knee to the tax collector?

Although Tributaries are subjects, they are the most free of any type of subject. They may make their own allies, subjects and foreign policy. They will not follow their overlord into wars or any of the usual subject behavior. Instead, they will be given protection. If another nation who is not also a tributary to the same overlord attacks them, their Tributary will be called to arms. The Overlord may accept or decline although, depending on the relationship and trust between the Overlord and Tributary. Declining will have ill effects on their relationship with their tributaries.

The main cause of relations going south is due to the subject refusing to give tribute. If liberty desire grows too high, caused by the usual modifiers from relative strength, relations etc, Tributaries may start thinking they would be better off keeping their hard-earned manpower, money or Power, and so refuse to give tribute. Eventually, this can lead to the Tributary relationship breaking down, so keep and eye on your subjects and don't demand too much additional Tribute.

Speaking of milking nations dry, it seemed only natural to give Hordes the ability to have tributaries. I've been having an absolute ball with my favourite nation keeping the Horde economy turning through my horseback tributary collectors.




Tributary States are a paid feature in the upcoming yet-unnamed expansion, and are available for Hordes and for nations in the Eastern Religion Group (Shinto, Confucian, Three Buddhists) and are additionally available for any nation who is the Emperor of China.

What is the Emperor of China, you ask?

We'll find that out next week.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

And don't miss the Developer Multiplayer Clash starting at 15:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Hello everyone. Tuesday has crept up on us once again which means it's time to armour up, grab my sword and jump back into the Thunderdome that is the Developer multiplayer, but before that, we've got a new Dev Diary!

Today we'll take a closer look at the much speculated Tributary States mechanic from the upcoming expansion. It's been fun reading the comments of this thread and see what the community has been suspecting we've put in the game. I'll be tackling that here

Getting straight to the meat of it, Tributary is a new subject type in Europa Universalis IV available for Nations in the Eastern Religion Group. Tributaries can be established both through warfare and through diplomacy and, while large nations are certainly not going to want to become your tributary willingly, through winning war you can force a nation of any size to bend the knee and pay up.

When you have established a nation as your Tributary, you will receive and annual tribute from them. You as their overlord are able to instruct them what to send, from Money, Administrative Power, Diplo Power, Military Power and Manpower. each year of successful tribute mutually raises trust between the nations. If you are the benevolent type of player, you can even tell them that no tribute is necessary. I am not a benevolent Overlord.




Here is Ming with their mighty collection of Tributaries. Along with demanding annual tribute, there are some new interactions available exclusively for nations with tributaries (artwork for them not yet in, so don't mind the placeholders):

• Bestow Gifts: send subject 0.5 of target’s yearly income,
  
• Send additional troops: sent 2 years of subject’s manpower,
  
• Demand artifacts: Take 5 prestige from subject,
  
• Demand additional tribute: take 0.25 years of target’s income from target

these interactions will also affect the subjects' liberty desire, which brings us to an important point, what does it mean to be a tributary. For what purpose does a nation bend their knee to the tax collector?

Although Tributaries are subjects, they are the most free of any type of subject. They may make their own allies, subjects and foreign policy. They will not follow their overlord into wars or any of the usual subject behavior. Instead, they will be given protection. If another nation who is not also a tributary to the same overlord attacks them, their Tributary will be called to arms. The Overlord may accept or decline although, depending on the relationship and trust between the Overlord and Tributary. Declining will have ill effects on their relationship with their tributaries.

The main cause of relations going south is due to the subject refusing to give tribute. If liberty desire grows too high, caused by the usual modifiers from relative strength, relations etc, Tributaries may start thinking they would be better off keeping their hard-earned manpower, money or Power, and so refuse to give tribute. Eventually, this can lead to the Tributary relationship breaking down, so keep and eye on your subjects and don't demand too much additional Tribute.

Speaking of milking nations dry, it seemed only natural to give Hordes the ability to have tributaries. I've been having an absolute ball with my favourite nation keeping the Horde economy turning through my horseback tributary collectors.




Tributary States are a paid feature in the upcoming yet-unnamed expansion, and are available for Hordes and for nations in the Eastern Religion Group (Shinto, Confucian, Three Buddhists) and are additionally available for any nation who is the Emperor of China.

What is the Emperor of China, you ask?

We'll find that out next week.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

And don't miss the Developer Multiplayer Clash starting at 15:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. This time we dig into the states.

First of all, we have now improved the province interface to have a separate tab for all things related to a state, as the province interface started to become really cluttered.

This tab now gives you information of the entire state at once, making it possible to determine if the state is profitable or not, what provinces belong to it, and details about them.

In the new expansion, we are introducing a new concept to states though, something we call State Edicts. Edicts can be enacted at any time, but once set they can not be revoked until at least one year has passed, and while an Edict is active, the maintenance for that state triples.

Edicts gives bonus to all provinces you own in the state, and which edicts you have active can also be seen in the ledger and in a new mapmode.

So what edicts do we have then?

• Enforce Religious Unity : 1% Missionary Strength
  
• Protect Trade : +50% Provincial Trade Power
  
• Promote Military Recruitment: +25% Manpower
  
• Encourage Development: -10% Development Cost
  
• Advancement Effort: +33% Institution Spread
  
• Centralization Effort: -0.03 Monthly Autonomy

There are also 3 edicts you can gain from taking certain abilities in different ages.

• Feudal De Jure Law: -5 Unrest
  
• Religion Enforced: 50% resistance to Religious Conversion Centers.
  
• Edict of Absolutism: -0.25 Monthly Devastation

Yes, the AI will of course also use Edicts, and edicts are 100% fully scriptable, and modders can add and remove as they feel fit.

Script example..



We have also rebalanced how Trade Companies work in 1.20, and provinces that belong to a trade company, will now be counted as full state provinces when it comes to autonomy calculations.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. This time we dig into the states.

First of all, we have now improved the province interface to have a separate tab for all things related to a state, as the province interface started to become really cluttered.

This tab now gives you information of the entire state at once, making it possible to determine if the state is profitable or not, what provinces belong to it, and details about them.

In the new expansion, we are introducing a new concept to states though, something we call State Edicts. Edicts can be enacted at any time, but once set they can not be revoked until at least one year has passed, and while an Edict is active, the maintenance for that state triples.

Edicts gives bonus to all provinces you own in the state, and which edicts you have active can also be seen in the ledger and in a new mapmode.

So what edicts do we have then?

• Enforce Religious Unity : 1% Missionary Strength
  
• Protect Trade : +50% Provincial Trade Power
  
• Promote Military Recruitment: +25% Manpower
  
• Encourage Development: -10% Development Cost
  
• Advancement Effort: +33% Institution Spread
  
• Centralization Effort: -0.03 Monthly Autonomy

There are also 3 edicts you can gain from taking certain abilities in different ages.

• Feudal De Jure Law: -5 Unrest
  
• Religion Enforced: 50% resistance to Religious Conversion Centers.
  
• Edict of Absolutism: -0.25 Monthly Devastation

Yes, the AI will of course also use Edicts, and edicts are 100% fully scriptable, and modders can add and remove as they feel fit.

Script example..



We have also rebalanced how Trade Companies work in 1.20, and provinces that belong to a trade company, will now be counted as full state provinces when it comes to autonomy calculations.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. Today we’ll take a deep look at the Manchu tribes.

As we added support for country & province modifiers for culture and culture-groups, we have tied the new unique paid mechanic for Manchu to the manchu culture itself.

If you are primary culture Manchu, in our next expansion, you will be able to raise Banners from states that have manchu cultures provinces. Each manchu province provides 1 banner for each 10 development it has, but it is all calculated on a state level, so several low development provinces together can add enough support for some banners, even if they individually can not support a banner.

Banners are required from the State Interface, and and the cost for a banner to be raised, is purely corruption. For each banner you gain 1 divided by your force limit.

Banners do not use manpower at all, but reinforce at normal monetary cost. If they reach 0 strength, the regiment is disbanded, just like mercenaries.

Banners are raised instantly at 100 men strength, so it will take a while for them to reinforce fully.

Banners are raised so that you get enough cavalry for your cavalry to infantry ratio, and the rest is raised as infantry.

If a state can no longer support enough banners, it will convert banners to regular troops at the start of a new month.

During the Absolutism Age, if you are Manchu or Qing, you can unlock the ability to increase the amount of banners you can raise by 50%, if you gain enough Splendor.

So what makes banners cool, except for having a nice purple background and not costing manpower to raise or reinforce? Well, each banner also have a +10% discipline while fighting.

The Eight Banners idea for Manchu increases the amount of banners you can raise by 25%, but if you don’t get the expansion, it will be 5% discipline still.

Another thing that’s cool with us adding banners is that we now have a nice flexible category system in the code, with normal, mercenary and banners as unit categories, and can expand upon that in the future.

If you compare the map of Manchuria compared to 1.19, you’ll notice a fair




Next week, we’ll be back to talk about State Edicts and the new State Interface..

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. Today we’ll take a deep look at the Manchu tribes.

As we added support for country & province modifiers for culture and culture-groups, we have tied the new unique paid mechanic for Manchu to the manchu culture itself.

If you are primary culture Manchu, in our next expansion, you will be able to raise Banners from states that have manchu cultures provinces. Each manchu province provides 1 banner for each 10 development it has, but it is all calculated on a state level, so several low development provinces together can add enough support for some banners, even if they individually can not support a banner.

Banners are required from the State Interface, and and the cost for a banner to be raised, is purely corruption. For each banner you gain 1 divided by your force limit.

Banners do not use manpower at all, but reinforce at normal monetary cost. If they reach 0 strength, the regiment is disbanded, just like mercenaries.

Banners are raised instantly at 100 men strength, so it will take a while for them to reinforce fully.

Banners are raised so that you get enough cavalry for your cavalry to infantry ratio, and the rest is raised as infantry.

If a state can no longer support enough banners, it will convert banners to regular troops at the start of a new month.

During the Absolutism Age, if you are Manchu or Qing, you can unlock the ability to increase the amount of banners you can raise by 50%, if you gain enough Splendor.

So what makes banners cool, except for having a nice purple background and not costing manpower to raise or reinforce? Well, each banner also have a +10% discipline while fighting.

The Eight Banners idea for Manchu increases the amount of banners you can raise by 25%, but if you don’t get the expansion, it will be 5% discipline still.

Another thing that’s cool with us adding banners is that we now have a nice flexible category system in the code, with normal, mercenary and banners as unit categories, and can expand upon that in the future.

If you compare the map of Manchuria compared to 1.19, you’ll notice a fair




Next week, we’ll be back to talk about State Edicts and the new State Interface..

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another Europa Universalis IV development diary. Today we’ll take a deep look into the Age of Revolutions.

This Age starts 10 years after the Enlightenment have been established, which is usually in the first decade of the 18th century.

Rules
Absolutism mechanics are enabled.
French Revolution, Revolution and Liberalism Disasters, can only happen in this Age.

Objectives

• Have Parliaments
  
• Be an Empire Rank Nation, Emperor of HRE or Emperor of China
  
• Have a 250 development subject.
  
• 125% discipline
  
• 50 development capital
  
• Own and control 2 institution origins
  
• Have a general with 15+ pips.

Abilities

• +3 Artillery Bonus vs Fort
  
• Force March does not cost MIL
  
• 20% more ships can fight in combat.
  
• Remove distance check for coring.
  
• Artillery does 20% more damage from backrow.
  
• -25 liberty desire to subjects on same continent
  
• Liberty_desire_from_subject_development -33%
  
• Prussia: 20% less fire-damage taken
  
• Great Britain: 25% cheaper naval maintenance
  
• Russia: +20 States
  
• Austria: +5 diplomatic reputation

To clarify:
Artillery Bonus usually goes up to a maximum of +5 when sieging, this can be increased by this ability to +8 in this age.

Backrow artillery does 50% damage normally, this allows them to do 60% damage.



Next week, we’ll look into why the Manchu are so awesome..

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another Europa Universalis IV development diary. Today we’ll take a deep look into the Age of Revolutions.

This Age starts 10 years after the Enlightenment have been established, which is usually in the first decade of the 18th century.

Rules
Absolutism mechanics are enabled.
French Revolution, Revolution and Liberalism Disasters, can only happen in this Age.

Objectives

• Have Parliaments
  
• Be an Empire Rank Nation, Emperor of HRE or Emperor of China
  
• Have a 250 development subject.
  
• 125% discipline
  
• 50 development capital
  
• Own and control 2 institution origins
  
• Have a general with 15+ pips.

Abilities

• +3 Artillery Bonus vs Fort
  
• Force March does not cost MIL
  
• 20% more ships can fight in combat.
  
• Remove distance check for coring.
  
• Artillery does 20% more damage from backrow.
  
• -25 liberty desire to subjects on same continent
  
• Liberty_desire_from_subject_development -33%
  
• Prussia: 20% less fire-damage taken
  
• Great Britain: 25% cheaper naval maintenance
  
• Russia: +20 States
  
• Austria: +5 diplomatic reputation

To clarify:
Artillery Bonus usually goes up to a maximum of +5 when sieging, this can be increased by this ability to +8 in this age.

Backrow artillery does 50% damage normally, this allows them to do 60% damage.



Next week, we’ll look into why the Manchu are so awesome..

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone, in today's development diary we’ll go into details about the Age of Absolutism and the Absolutism mechanic. The absolutism mechanic is part of the free patch, while the Age abilities and objectives are part of the expansion.

So, how does the absolutism mechanic now work?

First of all, we’ve removed the Absolute Monarchy government form.

Secondly, administrative efficiency from technology is now 10% from each tech giving it.

Governments now have an “Absolutism” value, which ranges from 0 to 100, and this increases your administrative efficiency with up to 40% and your discipline with up to 5%, and makes foreign cores on you decay 3 times as quick at maximum absolutism.

There is also a maximum value to absolutism a nation can have, which defaults to 65, with legitimacy increasing it up to +20, republics decreasing it by 30, religious unity increasing it by 5, great power by 5, being empire by 5, and several other factors.

Several events and ideas talking about absolutism now affect absolutism either by directly increasing it, or having a yearly increase.

Absolutism is not just a number that ticks up or down like so many others, this is tied into the actions you do as a player.

Doing harsh treatment on rebels, increasing stability and decreasing autonomy in a province each increase absolutism by +1.

Increasing autonomy reduce it by 2, debase currency reduce it by 1, accepting rebel demands reduce it by 10, assigning a seat in parliament by 3 and reducing war exhaustion reduce it by 1.

These numbers will be tweaked during the development, and actions impacting absolutism may be added or removed from this list.

Whats cool for modders is that you can script absolutism impact individually for your age.



Here is the special things regarding the Age of Absolutism, which lasts from 1620 until 1710.

Rules

Absolutism mechanics are enabled.
English Civil War & Court & Country Disaster, can only happen in this Age.

Objectives

• Have 3 Trade Companies
  
• Own and Control at least 3 Universities.
  
• Have 90%+ Absolutism
  
• At least 5 different cultures promoted.
  
• Be Emperor of China
  
• Reach a force-limit of 200 regiments.
  
• Be on victorious side of the religious war.

Abilities

• 50% shorter unrest impact from changing autonomy (shorter cooldown)
  
• +1 Yearly Absolutism
  
• 50% cheaper and quicker to change rivals
  
• Forts bordering rivals are free to maintain
  
• +5% Administrative efficiency
  
• Allow Edict “Edict of Abolutism” 10 years less separatism in state.
  
• Harsh Treatment 50% cheaper
  
• France - 20% extra firedamage
  
• Netherlands - 0.2 corruption reduction
  
• Sweden - +35% manpower recovery
  
• Manchu - +50% Larger Banners

Next week, we’ll look into the Age of Revolutions.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone, in today's development diary we’ll go into details about the Age of Absolutism and the Absolutism mechanic. The absolutism mechanic is part of the free patch, while the Age abilities and objectives are part of the expansion.

So, how does the absolutism mechanic now work?

First of all, we’ve removed the Absolute Monarchy government form.

Secondly, administrative efficiency from technology is now 10% from each tech giving it.

Governments now have an “Absolutism” value, which ranges from 0 to 100, and this increases your administrative efficiency with up to 40% and your discipline with up to 5%, and makes foreign cores on you decay 3 times as quick at maximum absolutism.

There is also a maximum value to absolutism a nation can have, which defaults to 65, with legitimacy increasing it up to +20, republics decreasing it by 30, religious unity increasing it by 5, great power by 5, being empire by 5, and several other factors.

Several events and ideas talking about absolutism now affect absolutism either by directly increasing it, or having a yearly increase.

Absolutism is not just a number that ticks up or down like so many others, this is tied into the actions you do as a player.

Doing harsh treatment on rebels, increasing stability and decreasing autonomy in a province each increase absolutism by +1.

Increasing autonomy reduce it by 2, debase currency reduce it by 1, accepting rebel demands reduce it by 10, assigning a seat in parliament by 3 and reducing war exhaustion reduce it by 1.

These numbers will be tweaked during the development, and actions impacting absolutism may be added or removed from this list.

Whats cool for modders is that you can script absolutism impact individually for your age.



Here is the special things regarding the Age of Absolutism, which lasts from 1620 until 1710.

Rules

Absolutism mechanics are enabled.
English Civil War & Court & Country Disaster, can only happen in this Age.

Objectives

• Have 3 Trade Companies
  
• Own and Control at least 3 Universities.
  
• Have 90%+ Absolutism
  
• At least 5 different cultures promoted.
  
• Be Emperor of China
  
• Reach a force-limit of 200 regiments.
  
• Be on victorious side of the religious war.

Abilities

• 50% shorter unrest impact from changing autonomy (shorter cooldown)
  
• +1 Yearly Absolutism
  
• 50% cheaper and quicker to change rivals
  
• Forts bordering rivals are free to maintain
  
• +5% Administrative efficiency
  
• Allow Edict “Edict of Abolutism” 10 years less separatism in state.
  
• Harsh Treatment 50% cheaper
  
• France - 20% extra firedamage
  
• Netherlands - 0.2 corruption reduction
  
• Sweden - +35% manpower recovery
  
• Manchu - +50% Larger Banners

Next week, we’ll look into the Age of Revolutions.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Europa Universalis IV Wiki
Europa Universalis IV Development Diary Archive