Europa Universalis IV - MagnusPDX
Click here to read the latest Dev Diary by Groogy

Hello everyone! We’re getting close to release and there’s not much left to cover in our Development Diaries. So today's diary will be about things I think we’ve missed in previous ones. Even though we have had 57 development diaries, not including this one, there’s still been things that have slipped. So it will be sort of a leftover scraps Dev Diary. First up, shortcut/hotkeys.

So how it used to work in order to set up your own shortcut keys in the interface of EU4 you had to mod the interface files, or download a mod from the Steam Workshop. But we’ve now implemented a way for you to configure these settings inside the game instead. EU4 is a game with a lot of interfaces and buttons so we can’t really have a settings screen listing every single possible shortcut. So instead we added this button in the game.

Clicking on that will let you then click on any button in the interface that has a shortcut and assign it a new one. Clicking on let’s say the Split in Half button for armies will prompt you with this.

Letting you pick whatever key shortcut you want for that button.

Next is a pet peeve of many, your subjects using their colonist for settlement growth where or when you don’t want it. So we’ve added a simple little Subject interaction where you can allow or forbid this to specific subjects.

So not much to say there, so let’s move on to something I’ve seen discussed from time to time within the community, which is the French Vassal Swarm. I thought I had already covered this before but no harm in being extra clear. France starts with a very powerful nobility estate and a special privilege specifically for them.

Besides being in control of a lot of land from the start, this privilege also gives them +10% Influence making it a hard one to get rid of. There is an equivalent that exists for any other nation that is not French as well, the requirement to pick it requires that you have at least 2 vassals. I hope this clears up any potential misunderstandings from our previous talks about the French Vassal Swarm.

Minority Expulsions have gotten changes to try and make Europe not too homogenous in culture. IT no longer costs diplo power but it also does not convert the home province of the culture/religion. The modifiers that affect its costs are now focused on the money cost instead of the diplo cost. The development that you get in the new world province now also reduces the amount of development that “stays” in the home province to represent the movement of people, and through that sort of making it cheaper for you to culture convert at home. We’ve also made the AI very reluctant to do it overall.

We’ve done some smaller balance changes. First we’ve changed so you can’t overrun an army that can fill out it’s combat width. Overrun being the mechanic where you insta wipe on day 1 if you have 10x the size of the enemy. Going forward we are also looking into redoing some policies values like the 20% Infantry Combat Ability, try and lower the sources of Army Tradition as a whole as we don’t want it to be this easy to get a floor of 100% Army Tradition. We are also looking at reviewing the Hussite modifiers.

I want to end this Development Diary by retracting one of our previous promises, we said at the start of working on this patch that we would solve so you could restart back to the menu. However we have to admit defeat here as we’ve put a lot of resources in trying to fix it but EU4’s architecture simply can’t support resetting it’s game state properly. So even though we thought we had an early victory in getting this to work, after intensive testing it’s shown that we are basically still at square 1. I am very sorry that we have to backtrack on this, especially if it was something you were looking forward to.

Next Dev Diary will be the patch notes for the 1.30 Update.
Europa Universalis IV - MagnusPDX
Today at 1500 CEST the Europa Universalis 4: Emperor Dev Clash continues! Tune in on Twitch to watch the chaos unfold live. Or you can catch up over on YouTube if you missed some of the previous steams.
Europa Universalis IV - MagnusPDX
Good morning! It’s time for the achievements dev diary. Typically we write this one the week before the patch notes dev diary (don’t worry, that’s coming soon too), but we’re uploading these achievements to the Steam backend very soon and we want to get ahead of that.

Without further ado, here are the achievements coming with the 1.30 update:

Mary of Lotharingia - Starting as Burgundy, form Lotharingia and have a female ruler named Marie.

On the Rhodes Again - Starting as The Knights, conquer and core Constantinople, Jerusalem and Antioch.

Spaghetti Western - Starting as Bologna, become Mexico or Texas.

Stern des Südens - Form Bavaria starting as München and have your Subject Bremen own Werder.
Shoutout to @mikesc for this one!

Stiff Upper Lippe - As Lippe, own all of the British Isles.

Czechs and Balances - Starting as Bohemia, grant at least two privileges to each estate while having at least 50% Crown Land.

Don’t be Cilli - Starting as Cilli, form another nation.

Holiest Roman Empire - As either the Papal States or the Emperor, have the Papal States as an Elector while the HRE is officially Catholic.

Inner Turmoil - Starting as The Isles, own 20 provinces by 1500, none of which are on Islands.

Kingdom of God - Starting as the Papal State, become the Kingdom of God.
Shoutout to our very own @Duplo who posed for this image. Certainly a dashing figure.

The following achievements are exclusive to owners of the Emperor DLC:

Everything's Coming Up Mulhouse - Starting as Mulhouse, become Emperor of the HRE and completely decentralize the Empire.

God Tier - Become a Tier 5 Defender of the Faith as a nation that is neither Catholic nor Sunni.

Napoleon’s Ambition - As Revolutionary France, spread the Revolution to 10 countries.

AEIOU - Complete the Austrian mission tree.

Global Hegemony - Reach 100% Strength as any type of Hegemon.

This brings our total number of achievements to a massive 310. As always we’ve tried to include a mix of difficulty levels and a variety of goals. Personally I think I’ll start with Kingdom of God to get the most out of the new Catholic features, and of course to see “Kingdom of God” printed across the map.

That’s all for today! Join me next week for the final content-focused dev diary that was promised last week. As I’m sure you’ve heard, the Emperor expansion and the free 1.30 update will release on June the 9th. You can pre-purchase Emperor on Steam, or even right here on Paradoxplaza.
Europa Universalis IV - BjornB
Emperor is the newest expansion to Paradox Development Studio’s epic grand strategy game about the rise and fall of empires from the fall of Constantinople to the rise of Napoleon. This expansion opens up three central game systems, offering new gameplay opportunities for the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire and Revolutionary movements, as well as a host of other changes.



Features in Europa Universalis IV: Emperor include:
  • A Powerful Pope: Appoint cardinals, publish Papal Bulls and gather tithes. The Vatican and Papal Controller now have new abilities to sway the souls of Christendom.
  • New Holy Roman Empire Systems: Imperial Incidents provide new challenges to the Emperor's power and authority. Will your empire follow a course to a centralized monarchy or decentralized federation?
  • Revolutions Revamped: The spirit of Revolution is a contagion that must be either embraced or vigorously opposed. Use the zeal of revolutionary guard units to fight reactionaries at home and abroad.
  • The Hussite Faith: Bohemia has an early game chance to embrace heresy and stand alone against the Pope until The Reformation.
  • Hegemonies: Seize the mantle of global leadership if you accumulate great wealth and armies, but be prepared to face great opposition from those who question your right to rule.
  • New Missions: Over 20 new unique mission trees for a variety of European nations
  • Defender of Faith: With great responsibility comes great power. Defending a major religion should be different from defending an insignificant one. Now it is!
  • The Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation: Join other Catholic rulers to slow down the spread of the Reformation by making concessions to the unruly mob or harshly imposing the will of God.
  • Provoke Rebellions: Risk a larger rebellion now while you think you can manage it instead of waiting for discontent to take its course

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1259360/Expansion__Europa_Universalis_IV_Emperor/
Europa Universalis IV - Addaway
Good afternoon! I’m back again with another content-driven dev diary. Today we’ll be taking a look at two of the new mission trees coming with the Emperor expansion: Germany and Lübeck.



The German mission tree takes a lot of inspiration, as you might expect, from Imperial Germany and the accomplishments of Bismarck. Although very much outside of the period, we felt that it was an appropriate way to go given the ahistorical nature of a united Germany within our timeframe.

The conquest branch of the mission tree begins with Blood and Iron, which requires you to own at least 50 provinces across the North Germany or South Germany regions, essentially completing your early German unification. This mission rewards perhaps the most extensive set of permanent claims of any single mission in the game: the Low Countries, Italy, France, and Poland will all simultaneously become your next targets. This is pretty extreme for a single mission, but given the requirements not only of the mission but also of forming Germany in the first place, the player is likely already in a very dominant position by the time that they unlock this mission tree. Completing the Annex Poland mission gives even further permanent claims, this time on the Baltic, Scandinavia, and Carpathia regions.

Next we have an economic branch of the mission tree. You are charged with building manufactories to Industrialize the Rhineland, permanently improving local goods produced in applicable provinces by 15%. You must also Promote Urbanization by reaching at least 30 development in 10 German provinces, and achieve Protected Markets by reaching 75% trade share in all German trade nodes. Completing these missions unlocks the Dominant Economy mission, which requires you to have the highest income of any European nation as well as 10,000 ducats with no loans.

Next up, Germany has a branch of its mission tree dedicated to overseas expansion, beginning of course with the construction of an Imperial Navy. After building 30 heavy ships, you must Burn the Wooden Wall by ensuring that no British country has more than 5 heavy ships. Achieving this will grant you +10% naval morale for the rest of the game, as well as a permanent claim on London. Scramble for Africa and Overseas Empire see you building an empire in Africa and Asia respectively.

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire share a large portion of their missions trees, but each of them have a unique branch available only to them. The German unique branch focuses on state-building, for instance hiring skilled advisors, gaining Crown Land, constructing universities, and gaining absolutism.



This is the Holy Roman Empire’s unique branch of the mission tree. It has been said that the HRE was neither Holy, Roman, nor an empire, but you have the chance to change that. You must become Defender of the Faith (giving you an opportunity to launch a final crusade for Jerusalem), become Papal Controller (if Catholic), and finally centralize the disparate states of Germany into a single nation. Completing the Roman Resolution mission as a Catholic nation fires the following event, representing victory of the Emperor in the dispute between Church and Emperor:



Hi I’m Alfray Stryke , a new addition on the EUIV team. Currently working as QA, although I have assisted with the design and implementation of Lübeck’s mission tree in the Emperor expansion.



The four paths for their missions are:
  • End the Sound Toll, By forcing or convincing Denmark to end the toll and increasing your trade in the Lübeck trade node, you continue to increase your trade in the Baltic. This leads to gaining claims on the Jutland peninsula and then Norway (subjugation if Norway is independent, permanent claims if they are not).
  • Ties with England requires either strengthening relations with England or Lübeckian merchants or privateers having at least 25% of the trade power in the English Channel. Completing this will strengthen Lübeckian traders in the British Isles, granting claims in order to form trading cities in London, Edinburgh and Ayr. Setting up trade cities in Edinburgh and Ayr will lead to dominating the North Sea trade and recruiting an explorer to settle Newfoundland (giving a Center of Trade there) and founding the American colony of Neulübeck.
  • The London Steelyard was historically the main trading base of the Hanseatic League during the 15th and 16th centuries, thus either owning London directly or indirectly via a member of your trade league will grant you a substantial boost to trade.
  • Defend the City, although Lübeck starts as a relatively wealthy but militarily lacking nation, their first goal should be to ensure they have a standing army capable of holding their own against any neighbours inside the HRE. Complete this via your own soldier or recruiting mercenary companies and you will gain claims on the rest of the Mecklenburg area. After building up your own strength, it is time to return the cities of Visby and Novgorod to the Hanseatic League by either owning them directly or indirectly.
  • The Merchant Navy, by building up your merchant navy and increasing your coffers, you are then led to formalising bookkeeping and building the Lübeck Krantor (replacing the old decision). After increasing your ship building industry, commissioning the Adler von Lübeck (for owners of Golden Century, the decision now requires a flagship), and asserting naval dominance over the North and Baltic Seas Lübeck can be declared the Queen of the Hanseatic League. This rewards you with increased diplomatic reputation and decreased advisor cost.

The culmination of their mission tree after increasing the reach of the Hanseatic League is to unite the league into a solidified political entity - making any members of the trade league that own historically important trade cities into vassals, with a boost to their diplomatic relations in order to compensate for this. Then using the same system for the Kingdom of God and the Caliphate renaming you are rightfully termed the Hanseatic League!





And that’s all for today! Join us next week for the last in our series of content-focused dev diaries.
May 6, 2020
Europa Universalis IV - MagnusPDX
It is Dev Clash day! Tune in at 1500 CEST on Twitch to see if the proposed Charter of Prague will lead to generations of peace in Europe.

Treaty of Prague

Watch of Twitch
May 5, 2020
Europa Universalis IV - MagnusPDX
Click here for the latest Dev Diary

Hello! Welcome to another dev diary for Europa Universalis IV: Emperor. Today we’ll be revealing new content for Burgundy, famous in this era for its immensely confusing succession crisis that forever altered the balance of power in Europe and laid the foundations for Dutch independence.

We’ll begin with the new Burgundian mission tree. Wedged between France and the Holy Roman Empire, Burgundy has a challenging but rewarding path to follow.

The leftmost branch contains some familiar missions, involving the conquests of Savoy and Provence. We’ve also included a couple of additional missions in this chain: Invade Lombardy and Kingdom of Italy push you to continue your southward expansion. Completing the final Kingdom of Italy mission rewards you with the Rex Italiae modifier, granting -5% Idea Cost and +10% Institution Spread for the rest of the game.

Burgundy begins as a divided realm, with its wealthy holdings in the Low Countries owned by Personal Union subjects. Burgundy must placate these subjects to begin the next branch of the mission tree. After Burgundy finds a way to Unite the Realm, ruling over a united nation and directly owning the Lowlands, you are tasked with securing the region for the long term. You must either continue to hold the Low Countries through the Dutch Revolt or find some way to avoid it (and there will be opportunities to do so). With the Dutch provinces finally secured, you’ll be tasked with Dominating Channel Trade, which rewards you with a permanent bonus to your Trade Efficiency and Trade Steering.

EUIV begins in the midst of the Hundred Years War, with England and France constantly at each other's throats. Burgundy has played a crucial role in this conflict in the past, and can continue to do so from the start of the game. You are tasked with establishing an English Alliance, which unlocks the mission League of the Public Weal. This requires you to achieve very good relations with at least 3 of the French vassal Duchies. As a result, all of these Duchies gain +50% Liberty Desire, depriving France of their vassals support at a critical moment. This will aid you in becoming King of the Franks; owning Paris and 17 other provinces in the France region, as well as being physically and militarily greater than France, will give you permanent claims on all of France, and all of their remaining vassals will immediately be transferred to you.

After improving Papal Relations, Burgundy can organize a new Crusade against the Ottomans at the Feast of Pheasants. To achieve this you must either have 2 allies who have set the Ottomans as a rival, or else 1 ally that has the Ottomans as a rival that is also a great power. When you complete the mission, all Catholic countries with a positive opinion of Burgundy and a negative opinion of the Ottomans will gain a Holy War CB against the Ottomans for 5 years.

You’ve likely noticed that the flag used in the mission tree screenshot above is not the Burgundian flag we know and love. That’d be because Burgundy gets an expanded mission tree upon forming Lotharingia - the medieval realm of Lothair, descendant of Charlemagne. With the Emperor expansion this is handled through completing the Crown of Lothair mission, but without Emperor there will be a decision. Besides expanding your mission tree, you’ll have the option to switch your national ideas to Lotharingian ideas.

I’ll now hand you over to @Meka66, who implemented the redesigned Burgundian Inheritance content.

The Burgundian Inheritance event chain has been completely reworked for Emperor, with the entirety of the old system gutted out and replaced with something much more dynamic and directly involving for the Emperor and France.
The previous incarnation of the Burgundian Inheritance was something that only AI Burgundy would have to contend with, and without diving into the game’s arcane scripted event files, players would be unable to be directly involved in the inheritance and would be limited in how they interact with it.

In the new system however, the Burgundy player takes direct control of Charles’ historical successor; Marie de Bourgogne, and is able to make a direct choice as to which nation they are “inherited” by via a royal marriage with each of these choices triggering a unique Imperial Incident for the Emperor!

Should Marie choose to marry into the HRE, the Emperor will be presented with a choice as to how he distributes his newfound lands and territories.

The first option is to cede lands and territories to France while keeping the rest of Burgundy under personal union. This will of course make France happy, but will be of little benefit to the Emperor outside of that.

The second option is to just keep Burgundy in its entirety which will grant France cores all over Burgundy’s territories in the French region and give France a righteous cause to declare war.

The third option (and my personal favorite) is to integrate Burgundy into the Empire. What this means in practice is that you will “balkanize” all of Burgundy’s territory into smaller independent imperial Princes, leaving Burgundy with only its namesake while Luxembourg and the like are freed from their control.

Should Marie choose to marry outside of the HRE, however, this triggers an entirely different incident altogether. Burgundy can marry back into the French Kingdom or seek the support of a strong marriage partner, and choosing to do so will put the future of their kingdom entirely in the hands of their new overlord.

The Emperor may demand the Low Countries from Burgundy’s new overlord, and should they accept; Flanders, Holland, etc. will be released back into the Empire as free Princes. Should Burgundy’s overlord refuse, the Emperor may go to war to press his imperial claims.

The Emperor can also declare Marie’s marriage entirely illegitimate and attempt to force a union on the entirety of Burgundy.

A particularly cowardly Emperor may choose to just let this issue slide and allow the succession to take place without his interference.

Whomever Burgundy marries, they shall exist under personal union until an event declares Marie’s death and Burgundy in its entirety is integrated in a manner similar to the old system; with all of Burgundy’s territories becoming a core part of one’s own nation.

For those who enjoyed gaming the old triggers in script for the old system, such a thing will still be possible with AI Burgundy; with their various options for marriage partners being decided by a number of factors by the AI. Optimize these factors, and Burgundy will very likely choose your nation to be their protector.

However, Marie de Bourgogne is not forced to marry into any particular house in Europe at all, and may in fact choose to stand on her own against the French Kingdom and the HRE. Doing so will likely lead to war with both, so surviving this version of the crisis will be quite a challenge for the Burgundian player, but may yield some interesting rewards.

That's all for today! Next week we'll take a look at some of the mission trees we haven't yet had the opportunity to reveal. Until then, have a great week.
Apr 29, 2020
Europa Universalis IV - MagnusPDX
Dev Clash day has arrived! Tune in on Twitch at 1500 CEST to see the live continuation. Who else is ready to see a Sunset Invasion!?

Watch live on Twitch

Catch up on previous streams here on YouTube
Europa Universalis IV - MagnusPDX
Good morning! Those of you who have been watching the dev clash with a keen eye will have noticed that a new religion has appeared on the map, emanating from the Kingdom of Bohemia. Today I’ll talk about the Hussite faith and its associated content, as well as the new mission tree for Bohemia coming with the Emperor expansion.

The Hussite faith may now experience a resurgence.

The Hussites were in many ways a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. It was a very broad movement encompassing both moderates who merely wished to reform the Catholic Church and radicals who denounced the Church entirely in favour of strictly Biblical authority. Jan Hus, the leader of the movement and its namesake, was executed as a heretic in 1415, sparking a series of conflicts known as the Hussite Wars which lasted until 1434. This was not the end of the Hussites however, as the wars ended in an uneasy agreement between the Church and the moderate Hussite faction, and many people in Bohemia still believed that Jan Hus knew the truth.

In our 1444 start date, Bohemia begins with several Hussite provinces, but retains its Catholic state religion. Early in the game the Return of the Hussites event will fire, which gives Bohemia the opportunity to elect Jiri z Podebrad, a Hussite noble, as King. This event chain has been reworked to allow for three outcomes:
  • Bohemia adopts a Hussite state church and permanently breaks with Rome
  • The Hussites and Catholics reconcile, causing the remaining Hussites in Bohemia to revert to Catholicism. This is the path the AI will usually pursue.
  • Bohemia pursues an aggressive policy of Catholic orthodoxy and strives to convert the remaining Hussites to win the favour of the Pope.
When the Protestant Reformation begins, Hussite nations will be given the choice of whether to retain their unique Hussite faith or convert the nation and all Hussite provinces to Protestant instead. Hussites are only eligible to become Emperor under the Religious Peace.

The Adamites were a curious sect that believed that church services should be held entirely in the nude. Note: numbers are not final

The Hussite faith uses the Church Aspects mechanic, much like Protestant nations. Hussites get an entirely unique list of Church Aspects to distinguish them from Protestants. We’ve aimed to make these Aspects, as well as the base bonuses of the religion, relatively powerful to offset their diplomatic isolation. And of course no rework of Bohemian content would be complete without a button to enact Regular Defenestrations. Here’s the full list in script for those curious:

Click here for to see the scripts

This is the new Bohemia mission tree, available to owners of the Emperor expansion after the release of 1.30. The upper left branch concerns the matter of the Hussites in Bohemia. The requirements and rewards change depending on which path the nation takes through the event chain. One notable reward is that if Bohemia becomes Hussite and breaks with Rome, a Hussite Center of Reformation will spawn in Prague upon completion of the Hussite Resurgence mission. To avoid an overwhelmingly non-Catholic Europe (as we’ve seen in dev clash), we’ve decided to make this CoR last only 100 years rather than until the end of the Age of Reformation.

At various points in the not-so-distant past, the Kings of Bohemia held prestigious titles such as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Poland, and King of Hungary. The majority of the Bohemian mission tree is aimed at regaining these titles and cementing a dominant position in Central Europe and the Empire, and rewards include powerful Restoration of Union CB’son Poland and Hungary. With Hungary under the Bohemian heel, they must contend with the greatest threat to Christendom: the Ottoman Turks. Bohemia is able to subjugate both Brandenburg and Saxony, keeping them as subjects without the usual penalties for subjugating electors if they are able to first Humiliate Austria. The Reformatio Sigismundi mission requires Bohemia to become the Emperor and pass the Perpetual Diet reform, which then rewards you with a 20% bonus to Imperial Authority Growth. The final mission in the Imperial branch, Peace in Europe, requires you to expand the borders of the HRE to 250 provinces while being at peace, and rewards +1 Monarch Diplomatic Skill as well as -5 Years of Separatism for the rest of the game.

That’s all for this week! The dev diary schedule for the next few weeks is content-focused, with next week’s dev diary being about the Burgundian Inheritance and their shiny new mission tree. So stay tuned for more mission trees and other associated content. And remember to catch the weekly Dev Clash every Wednesday at 15:00 CEST at https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive. If you can’t watch the stream, the vods are posted on youtube later. Go Milan!
Apr 23, 2020
Europa Universalis IV - BjornB
Greetings!

A vulnerability involving mods was discovered and patched. New checksum is b3ef

Changelog:
  • Potential security issue fixed
  • Using SDL 2.0.4 instead of 2.0.3 (addressing a graphical issue with some resolutions on MacOS 10.15)
This patch should hopefully not have any effect on save games.

Original Post
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