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Good morning! I’m skingrado, one of the new content designers for EU4 at Paradox Tinto, nice to meet you all! To begin with, I think it’s very important that you know that my favorite castle is Loarre, that’s my main personality trait, so I hope that gives you an idea of who I am (and, as you can imagine, I’m also a big fan of GSGs, and I used to play a lot of CK with my dad). But today I’m here to show you some of the things we’ve been working on for the North American Natives, since a lot of you asked for more content after the reveal of the new mechanics (nothing to do with castles, I’m afraid).

We’re creating completely new native mission trees (since until now they mainly had the generic missions) and we’ve started by designing six new geographical mission trees available to all tribes, according to their localization and culture at the time of contact (i.e. very close to the start of the game). You’ll notice that some of the traditional cultural areas have been merged into one single tree (Northwest Coast + Plateau, for example), more on this to come next week. I’ll be now talking about some that I’ve done:

(Notice that all icons are still placeholders).

The Northeastern Woodlands extend from the Atlantic Coast to the eastern Great Plains, going slightly above the Great Lakes in the north and bordering the Southeastern Woodlands in the south, roughly including the present Mid-Atlantic states. People from this region generally lived in villages with a few hundred inhabitants and used wigwams and longhouses for shelter, as well as canoes for traveling, fishing, trading and warfare. These villages were often placed near their crops, since the so-called Eastern Agricultural Complex was their main source of food, characteristic that they shared with the nearby Southeastern Woodlands.
Their social organization was based on clans, which were often named after some relevant animal to the area, such as wolf or bear (you’ll see more on clans in the events).

Some highlights of this tree include:

• Building tall and preparing for war with the missions Wigwams and Longhouses and Raising Palisades will grant you permanent claims in the Great Lakes, apart from local defensiveness and manpower modifiers.
  
• Conquering the Northeast after conquering the Great Lakes will grant you a +5% to the morale of your armies.
  
• I have talked before about the importance of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, so having 3 irrigation canals and a total of 50 development will improve your production efficiency and grant you some extra gold.

Then we have the North American Southwest, which mainly includes Oasisamerica and borders the Plains-Great Basin to the north. People from this region farmed as a complement to their hunter-gatherer economy (in the case of Aridoamerica tribes) or even had a truly agricultural society in the case of the Oasisamerican tribes. They also cherished precious minerals, like turquoise and cinnabar, and had some interesting ancestors that we will address now on some of the missions:

• “Against the Desert” and “Taming of the Sands” compensate the player’s concern for devastation and development, since the Chihuahuan Desert is home to some of these tribes and its harsh living conditions are rewarded with claims in the region that will provide a tool for the spreading of such knowledge to neighboring provinces.
  
• Yucca Palm Trees were used as food and as the base material for the making of baskets or even “shampoos”, so controlling their province of production will also increase the local production efficiency and boost the economy.
  
• Turquoise Mining will require owning provinces with gems, salt or gold, in which mines could be created, and will also boost production and prestige, since turquoise was a valued trade good.
  
• Lastly, Paquimé was the ancestral home of the Mogollon people, and includes a series of archeological ruins that were burnt around the year 1340, prior to the start of the game. Owning the province and helping rebuild it will decrease the construction and development cost by -10%.

Now moving to the part that is slightly more fun, we have designed mission trees specific to some of the best known native tribes. Today, I’ll be focusing on the Iroquois:


As you can see, culture groups in Native America have been changed, and these missions will be available to those that have “iroquois” as their primary culture. These tribes are mainly known for the famous “Iroquois League” or “Iroquois Confederacy”, which was established prior to European contact and granted these nations security and protection, as well as a saying in the Great Council that ruled over them, much like how the new Federation mechanic is going to work. The focus of this tree is to form said Confederacy and extend its power:

• The Great Peacemaker will require you to have a longhouse in which an assembly can be met, and a reduced local autonomy. This will grant you a theologian named The Great Peacemaker himself, who is the legendary founder of the Confederacy and will lower your unrest.
  
• After gaining some allies through Haudenosaunee (I know it’s a bit of a mouthful, but that’s how Iroquois called themselves), and annexing the five most prominent nations of the League, your duty will be to protect the eastern coast from European explorers, specially French, since the League engaged in the decades-long Beaver Wars against them in 1609.
  
• False Faces will require you to have a spymaster and a spy network of at least 25 in any other country, as well as some diplomatic power. False Faces Masks were used during ceremonies to conceal one’s true nature and completing the mission will boost your spy power and spy detection by +25% each.
  
• Wampum Shells were the main currency used in these nations, so building a storehouse to hoard them will increase your mercantilism.

And, of course, we have also added some events. Some are generic, others will be linked to the totemism “rework” and a few will be specific to certain tribes as well. In this case, the Iroquois culture group gets a new event chain called “The Mourning Wars”.

Mourning Wars were fought when some of the tribe’s warriors were killed in battle and the spiritual balance of the village had to be restored. For Iroquois nations, grief did not come only for the loss of a loved one, but also for the loss of harmony. Thus, they would try to compensate for it, and that compensation came in the form of mourning wars. Now, a series of events will let you decide whether you should kill in revenge for the killing, or maybe take some captives in replacement for the dead members of the tribe.

Expect more information on this matter next week! Thank you for reading :)

We are thrilled to be able to once again together with Turbolarp bring you the ultimate EUIV multiplayer experience, now in an online version inspired by The Grandest Lan Party events (2017-2019). We aim to recreate the atmosphere of the real life event, while we hope to be able to bring back the physical event soon. It is Paradox’s and Turbolarp’s vision to have a fantastic community get-together and make it an EUIV celebration.

Multiplayer Europa Universalis IV is the ultimate challenge for grand strategy game afficianadoes. Coordinating co-operative operations to take down big blue bullies before making that fatal backstab that undoes centuries of friendship. All in the name of history.

Participants will be divided into teams of three and together play one nation at the time. Collaborating in decision making, doing diplomacy and creating a nation’s chronicle will be among activities available. Adding to this, the stream audience will also have a chance to influence the experience of the participants.

Since 2017, The Grandest LAN has been the signature multiplayer event for EU4 fans, but, because of the history we are now living through, an elaborate castle event is impossible this year.

But that does not mean that the history wars have stopped! This year, the Grandest LAN is moving online, opening up the event to even more people who, in previous years, would have been deterred by the travel involved.


For more information, visit: https://www.eu4lan.com/


The whole event will be livestreamed all through the day on both the 21st and 22nd of November (9:30am - 10pm CET) over at our twitch channel!

The Setup
We will have the computers set up in an actual LAN within the Paradox Offices in Stockholm. Each team uses Parsec to connect to "their" computer from which they will control their country.
Interactions and diplomacy will be carried out over Discord, and it will all be casted on Twitch where we aim to bring our viewers insight into the current events and intrigues playing out behind the scenes on top of the usual spectating of the game.

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Hey everyone! So when we introduced the new natives mechanics several of you were asking why we weren’t changing Totemism as well while at it. So since then and while I was working on the Sikh Gurus and Zoroastrianism I figured I should give it a shot and try to give them something as many of you were pointing out, it is one of the major religions at the start of the game and it deserves some love. Be warned a lot of work in progress values & especially really bad coder art will be shown!

Now North America is a big place, and how we are using Totemism in the game is sort of a catch all for several very distinct mythoses and with that also comes the challenge of figuring out flavor that is general enough and fits all of these as well. What I could find as a best candidate for a fun mechanic that could fit for all of these very different cultures were that they all have legendary figures, and the oral tradition of great deeds. Like Gloosecap of the Abenaki, or Esa the Wolf of the Shoshone.

So now as you progress through the game, you can add one of your previous rulers to your mythos. You can have a maximum of 10 stories added at any point. This costs 100 Diplomatic power but they can also be removed later on for a severe stability hit. It’s not intended to be something that you switch around often but I don’t want to lock you in entirely either.

Adding an ancestor’s story to your religion will have them provide the personality they had in real life be applied to your country for all future, with some modifications which we will get into in a bit. It will be a weaker version than they had in real life but still a nice bonus for you even as they have died.

So with this change in order to keep things balanced rulers who follow Totemism will only have one personality, since it will be combined together with the benefits they get from the religion as well. But these are special and they scale with the rulers skill. This does mean that you can get a ruler with 7.5% discipline bonus instead of 5%. This is also to feed into the ancestor stories where not all rulers will actually be useful to be made into a story. This does mean that totemism needs it’s entire own setup of personalities scripted up but we are aiming to try and match the original ones.

The intent is since you have 10 ancestor stories you can collect, each will just provide a bit of the full picture. It's a religion you build up over time by reconnecting to previous rulers you’ve had.

Also here's a preliminary set of values for the Gurus and their teaching. The value next to the Guru's name is applied by the Guru while they are alive. The ones in the lists are their teachings and can be picked by you as the player. These values are still work in progress but I know people been asking for a complete list.
Guru Nanak: +1 Admin Power

• Share and Consume: -1 Unrest
  
• Work Honestly: 5% Production Eff
  
• Recite His Name: -2.5% Regiment Cost

Guru Angad: +1 Military Power

• Gurmukhi Script: -5% Tech Cost
  
• Temple Langar: +10% Church Loyalty
  
• Wrestling Akhara: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism

Guru Amar Das: +1 Diplomatic Power

• Dasvnandh Collection: +5% Tax Modifier
  
• Anand Karaj: +1 Diplomatic Reputation
  
• Sanghat Equality: +10% Nobles Loyalty

Guru Ram Das: +1 Admin Power

• Legitimize Inheritance: +0.25 Legitimacy (or +0.1 Rep Trad, etc. etc.)
  
• Scripture Hymns: +0.5 Prestige
  
• Masand System: +10% Manpower Modifier

Guru Arjan: +1 Diplomatic Power

• Adi Granth: +10% Institution Spread
  
• The Abode of God: +10% Rel Unity
  
• Martyrdom: 5% Land Morale

Hargobind: +1 Military Power

• Throne of the Timeless One: Same as Legitimize Inheritance
  
• Protection of the Poor: -0.025 War Exhaustion
  
• Miri and Piri: +2.5% Discipline

Guru Har Rai: +1 Diplomatic Power

• Impartial Manjis: -0.05 Corruption
  
• The Fragrance of a Flower: +10% Improve Relations
  
• One Guru: +5% Nobles Loyalty

Guru Har Krishan: +1 Diplomatic Power

• Treat the Sick: +1 Monarch Admin Skill
  
• Illiterate Recites Saloks: +1 Monarch Diplomatic Skill
  
• Young Humility: +1 Monarch Military Skill

Guru Tegh Bahadur: +1 Admin Power

• The Word of Sikh: +1 Missionary
  
• All Kings must Pass: +2 Tolerance of Heretics
  
• Resist Persecution: +1 Hostile Attrition

Guru Gobind Singh: +1 Admin Power

• Pluralism: -10% Advisor Cost
  
• Dharam Yudh: 50% War Taxes Cost
  
• The Khalsa Sikh: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism

Guru Granth Sahib: -50% State Maintenance Cost, -25% Regiment Drill Loss

• Eternally Living Guru: -10% Development Cost
  
• Divine Justice: 10% Trade Efficiency
  
• The Unchanging Writing: 50% Drill Gain Modifier

And that is it for today! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!

Hello and Welcome to yet another Europa Universalis development diary. Today we’ll first delve into the results of the survey we sent out earlier this autumn, and also do some comparisons with the analytics we have. We’ll also talk about some minor balance changes and an interesting new feature for our future expansion.

First of all, I’d like to thank the over 10,000 people who took their time to reply to all the questions in our survey. While this is but a fraction of the entire playerbase, it gives us an indication of what the more hardcore of the audience likes, with over half of the respondents having played over 1,000 hours.

The most common play-styles, by far, as reported was role-playing and changing history. It is probably not a surprise to anyone that you viewed Victoria to have the best economy, Hearts of Iron the best military, Europa Universalis the best diplomacy and Crusader Kings the best politics.

You also overwhelmingly prefer simulation over boardgame mechanics, and you think that we should focus more on the economical buildup and flavorful content.

While the Golden Century was easily the worst expansion in your eyes, the top 5 expansions according to you were.

• Art of War
  
• Common Sense
  
• Emperor
  
• Rights of Man
  
• Mandate of Heaven

While talking about the survey, I thought it would be fun to look at the top 10 most played countries right now.
France 6.16%
Ottomans 5.08%
Austria 4.39%
Byzantium 4.39%
Custom Nation 4.23%
England 3.35%
Castile 3.29%
Brandenburg 3.11%
Ming 2.24%
Portugal 2.12%
A minor balance change for the people who play multiplayer and play with victory cards enabled, is the small little change that Estates will now become less loyal if you ally with nations which you have victory cards upon.

And for those that play as Cossacks and have the Sich Rada government enabled, as requested by the community, you now have the ability to raze cities, just like hordes does.

Finally, it's time to reveal another feature for our upcoming expansion, a new unit mission called Carpet Siege. It is similar to the hunt rebels mission, but with the difference that the army actively will avoid combat unless it is sure of winning, and primarily focusing on sieging down hostile territory. You can set it to just targeting specific areas on the map, or let it decide on its own when there are valid targets to consider.

Stay tuned, because next week Groogy will be back, talking about a major religion without unique mechanics that will get one.

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Hello everyone! Today we are going to talk about some improvements in some interfaces for how you deal with governing capacity and one new feature that uses a lot of governing capacity but also let you “keep growing” on the land you already own.

First to make it easier to manage your governing capacity we’ve been adding needed information in two places. First we have added so when a building affects governing capacity it will now show that so you can get a sense of where you will get most value out of it in your realm, helping players with larger empires.

This means buildings such as courthouses will now show how much governing capacity they will remove if built in that specific province.

Next is a little help to everyone who have been amassing a lot of vassals to hold land for them. Previously there was no way to see how much governing capacity a vassal had or how much was being used.

We’ve now added so that can be viewed under the subject interface when you go into the details window for that subject.

Now to the new feature, for the one that has extra governing capacity, a Switzerland hiding in the mountains wanting to play tall. So in a province that is at least 15 development you can expand its infrastructure to allow for another building and manufactory in it. This increases the governing cost of the province by a flat 200 which can not be reduced by province modifiers.

Then for every 15 development of the province and further 200 governing capacity you can expand the infrastructure more for more slots of buildings and manufactories.

Hope you’ve enjoyed today's development diary! Next week we’ll be back with a new diary which will be written by Johan!

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Hello everyone! Today we’ll be exploring two of the smaller religions in Europa Universalis IV. Zoroastrianism and Sikhism. For the coming update we’ll be working on making these more interesting by giving them their own mechanics. Keep in mind that everything you see is very much work in progress, you’ll see a lot of my very temporary coder art.

So first let’s start with Sikhism. They already got some stuff in the game using events. Throughout the game's timeline as a Sikh you will go through the various Gurus that were a big part of shaping the faith in history. Each of these gurus would add their own modifier to the religion. We are now making this more integrated by making it a mechanic and adding some more player agency for what the player can do with this.

UX is very much WIP, here it is showing you currently have Guru Nanak as your incumbent Guru and that Guru Angad is his future successor.

You still get gurus over the decades giving you various modifiers as you progress through the game. But I’ve also done that each Guru will provide three teachings unique to that guru that the player can pick between. In total there will be 30 teachings to pick between throughout the game, and once the guru that gives that teaching is succeeded the picked teaching becomes permanent and you can’t switch to the other two anymore. You can at max have 6 teachings, and for each teaching you take you will lose 1 missionary strength. Each teaching is associated with either Adm, Dip or Mil mana and cost 50 of their respective category of monarch power to enact.

As Johan mentioned last dev diary I got sick so I don’t have a full list of the new guru’s values and teachings as some of these features got literally finished this morning and I haven’t had time to fix that yet. But I’ll provide a list as soon as it’s done for the people who love to crunch the numbers.

Next thing is my favorite religion of all time and why hedgehogs are holy. Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest religions still in existence and has a lot of fascinating things around it which is a shame that it has gone so long without having gotten any mechanics tied to it. If you didn’t know Hedgehogs are considered a sort of “holy dog” within Zoroastrianism, a creature of the light which is obviously why it’s the best religion.

Anyway so what are we actually doing with Zoroastrianism? Since in the start of the game they are not in any particularly strong position, a people in sort of a diaspora we’ve been focusing around that. We already have some remnants in Yazd but we are also adding the Parsi in Gujarat. At the start of the game the province Daman will start as Zoroastrians. But there is also an event that you will get if you employ a lot of Parsi Zoroastrian advisors that will let you convert the province to Parsi.

Continuing with the diaspora theme their mechanic added to them will be based on the Coptic Blessings but instead called Rituals. The Zoroastrians have been given 5 fire temples they need to rekindle, like in their old decision, and as they do they will be rewarded.

Keep in mind art here is WIP

The various rituals you can pick are as follows:
Yasna: -0.05 Yearly Corruption
Haoma: +5% Goods Produced Modifier
Navjote: +2% Missionary Strength
Manthras: +10% Governing Capacity
Dakhma: -5% Construction Cost

Also since we are talking about holy hedgehogs and zoroastrianism I believe it is only fair I show off my Lord Cyrus, King of Kings, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world(also known as my bedroom). Click on them for larger pictures.

Curious boi

Burrito boi

Hungry boi

Sleepy boi
Hope you’ve enjoyed today's dev diary! Do remember that today we are celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the EU Franchise. Among the hosts of the stream will be me so be sure to drop by! Cya there!

Stream Schedule (all times in CEST)
13-14 - Dev Stories from EU1 and the board game with special guest Philippe Thibaut
14-15 - Dev Stories from EU2
15-17 - Dev Stories from EU3
17-18 - Break
18-21 - EU4, events and the upcoming board game Europa Universalis: The Price of Power with Aegir Games

Stream Schedule (all times in CEST)
13-14 - Dev Stories from EU1 and the board game with special guest Philippe Thibaut
14-15 - Dev Stories from EU2
15-17 - Dev Stories from EU3
17-18 - Break
18-21 - EU4, events and the upcoming board game Europa Universalis: The Price of Power with Aegir Games

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Hello and Welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. Sadly Groogy is sick so we have to shuffle around our planning a bit and give you something that was not originally planned for today.

Today we’ll talk a little bit about what we are doing with Diplomacy for the expansion that is accompanying the 1.31 patch, as it's one of the major areas of it.

First of all, the concept of favors, which was introduced in The Cossacks, is now also unlocked by this expansion, as it will become far more used than just using it to get your allies to join you in offensive wars. More on that in later development diaries.

Secondly, we also changed how the favors were calculated, so instead of having a chance of getting a favor once a year, you now get favors overtime, depending on the same factors as impacted the chance of getting a favor before, ie the relative military power.

Finally, this new expansion will see a new diplomatic action called “Curry Favors”. This requires an active diplomat, and will slowly increase the amount of favors you have with them, depending on your diplomatic reputation and the target's opinion of you.

You will slowly lose favors over time with nations that are not your allies, nor you attempting to curry favors with.
As this was a rather short development diary, I’m adding a screenshot showing one of the events you can get if you have the horde ideagroup set.

Hopefully Groogy is back next week to write his development diary on Hedgehogs!