Apr 4, 2023

Europa Universalis IV - PDXRyagi

Hello everybody! Welcome to today’s Developer Diary!

My name is Arnau, I am an Internal QA Tester working at Tinto. And I'm here with Pintu to bring you this week's Dev Diary where we will focus on one of our favorite topics, the new Achievements that will accompany 1.35.

The idea we have about achievements is to try to give a new inspiration or goal to our beloved players. Some of them are to provide additional depth and difficulty of the campaign and others are paths that will diverge from your normal gameplay experience. We have tried to give a little bit of everything in these new achievements and we hope you will enjoy them.
With the focus of Domination being on some of the major powers of the time it was a bit more difficult than usual to find suitable Achievements, since a lot of these nations are already covered with a fair share of Achievements.
So here is the list of the achievements we at Tinto came up with for the 1.35 Patch.

-----------------

From Frankfurt to the Andes

Starting as Frankfurt, form Jerusalem, and then form the Inca while owning Mallorca.

Let’s start with a small history Lesson for this one. There once was a small group of people in the Imperial City of Frankfurt. After being kicked out of the City because of rebellious behavior they did find asylum on the Balearic Islands where they quickly established themselves as Pirates to live in true freedom. This newfound Freedom brough to a variety of new shores, but one place inspired them more than anything, the Holy City of Jerusalem. From there they spread their beliefs to the New World, where they gave refuge to expelled People from all over the world. With these people, and some inspiration found while looking into the wisdom of the Sun, they swiftly drafted a new plan to ensure their everlasting legacy. And so the Inti State of Jerusalem was born.
What? That sounds like a fantasy story to you? You better brush up on your history lessons then!
Jokes aside, this Achievement was born out of the Grandest LAN last year and the participants from our Studio might have joined a Cult in the process and this is the payment that is expected from us now.

Mehmet's Ambition

Starting as The Ottomans, own or have Core Eyalets own all the provinces required to form the Roman Empire before 1500.

Do you want to prove to everyone who is the true Successor of the Roman Empire? Make the Conqueror proud by establishing yourself as the true Roman Emperor Sultan.

Triple the Rome

As Russia, be the Emperor of China and the HRE.

You might ask yourself what there is to aim for as a mighty emperor. Obviously a second emperor title! Or two…

No Country for Old Tercios

As Spain have Reformed Tercios, 33 Tercio Units, and control 3 Great Power capitals at the same time.

Gonzalo, get the pike! It’s time to show them how to manage this. I think a third of the World should be ours.

All Blue

As Portugal, all Europe is owned by you or blue European countries that exist in 1444.

All the good things in life are blue. The sky, the sea and even Portugal. Live out your dream to find the All Blue! On your Journey you will find people who share the same Dream.

Stardust Crusaders

As Japan have the Land of the Christian Sun reform while Palestine and Cairo are Christian.

"Oh, you're approaching me? Instead of running away, you're coming straight to me?”

Copium Wars

Starting and playing as Ming, own the Britain region.

Don’t worry, they are just here to teach you about Tea.

Brentry

Starting as England, form the Angevin Kingdom and enact all the Acts of Crown parliamentary issues.

Guess who's back. And now with an even fresher color, new ideas and the desire to take it all around. Assert your claim to the french throne and guide Europe to your Dream of a true union.

The Reapers

Starting as Aragon, be a Peasant Republic and have Madrid and Paris owned by any Peasant Republic.

We are peaceful people who want to bring you freedom. What, you don't want to embrace our system? Well, we have other tools to make you see reason.

-----------------

So, that’s all for today! Since we are close to release this Dev Diary is a rather short one, since there is not much left to cover for this Updates Cycle.
In next week's Dev Diary we will talk about the Changelog for the coming 1.35 Update. We hope you are as excited as we are for the Release of the 1.35 Patch and Domination in just two weeks from now.

Oh and last but not least...

Don't worry achievement hunters we <3 you

Mar 28, 2023

Developer Diary - Domination art and unit models

Europa Universalis IV - PDXRyagi

The last few months have been incredibly busy for the art team, and our artists have created a staggering amount of work, with around 600 brand new 2D assets including event pictures, government reforms, and missions to support the content that was added for Domination and the 1.35 patch.

Here’s some of our favourite examples:

Ottoman mission art:

Japan mission art:

Ming mission art:

new event art:

But it’s not only 2D, as always we present a new unit pack that will be part of the Domination expansion.

We found that pretty much every major power is already outfitted with at least one unit pack, so we had to look elsewhere. We settled on the French appanages and revolters in the West (sure to interact with great powers such as France and England) and various Asian minors in the East (to oppose the great powers of China and Japan).

As always we go through quite a lengthy research and concept process before we even open up the 3D software. There’s so much information out there and it’s important to really grab the essence of what makes a certain culture or era unique.

France itself is pretty well-covered with unit packs, but fortunately the one thing that the French had in abundance was a broad range of different fashions and uniforms.

Veterans from the days of the pre-order bonus might already notice that some of these units cross-over with the Hundred Years War Unit Pack. If you have that DLC active, the Burgundy tag (for example) will continue to use the original Hundred Years War unit for Tier 1 before switching to the new Burgundian units for 2, 3, and 4. Other Burgundian-culture countries (such as Lorraine) will use all 4 tiers of the new Domination units regardless.

The Walloon units are used by countries like Liège and Hainaut, as well as their Flemish cousins. Their Tier 1 is based heavily on artefacts from the Gravensteen Museum in Ghent, including the very distinctive helmet. As Wallonia was ruled by Spain for much of this era, we drew inspiration from units under Spanish control for the Tier 2 and Tier 3. Their third tier specifically is based on grenadiers of the Walloon Guards, a unit raised in Spanish service during the early 1700. Their final unit is based on Belgian flanquers of the Netherlands infantry, who fought with distinction in the Battle of Waterloo.

The Burgundian units are used by countries in Eastern France, such as Burgundy, Lorraine, and a handful of other minors. We went with a closed sallet for the Tier 1 helmet to complement the heavy armour. The blackened steel cuirass and cocked hat of the Tier 2 is archetypical of cavalier officers in this era, and of course we had to use a ruff, which I think is criminally underused in EU4. The next tiers are based on elite grenadiers of the French army, complete with bearskin bonnets. Finally we have a unit based on the Old Guard, the most prestigious veterans of the Napoleonic Grande Armée.

The Northern French units are used by countries like Orleans and Champagne (as well as Normandy and Brittany, if you don’t have the Rule Britannia DLC). This kettle helmet with a neck bevor was a good match, and we liked the hybrid brigandine with cuirass visually. Dragoon hats are severely underused in EU4, so we went with a soft cap to avoid rehashing the old tricorn once again.

The southern French cultures use these units. The cloth orle on the helmet was adopted by crusaders to cool down hot armour in the Holy Land, and its usage was brought back to Europe, especially in warmer climates of the mediterranean. We enjoyed making more use of the dragoon aesthetic, even using the hussar jacket and impressive bearskin for the final tier.

The Ainu are close neighbours of the Japanese daimyos, and the indigenous people of the northern Hokkaido island. Their impressive beards and bold patterned clothing makes them stand out, and as hardy outdoorsmen they are keen users of natural materials, with wooden quivers, straw hats, and even salmon leather shoes. However, in later eras they adopt some technical advantages from their Asian neighbours, such as lacquered jingasa helmets and Tanegashima muskets.

The Filipino units are used by the many small countries that start in modern day Philippines. Of course in reality the Philippines was a highly diverse land, and so we chose different elements from across the archipelago. Hidden inside wooden sheaths, they have fearsome Visayan Binagon blades. The moro armour and salakot hat are also interesting historical elements that we included. The final tier is reminiscent of the Filipino soldiers in Spanish service towards the end of the EU4 era, and their straw hats are a nod to the iconic republican soldiers who fought for independence towards the end of the 19th century.

We were fortunate enough to have a Filipino colleague who helped us with these designs:

Hello! Ryan here, aka @ransomyu on the forums (don't bother looking, I'm just a lurker) and as Paradox' first (I think?) Filipino hire, I was delighted to be asked to consult on these Filipino units. My first Paradox game was CK2 but I fell in love with EU4 when I realized you could take one of the precolonial Philippine polities and essentially rewrite history by ensuring the islands were never colonized by European powers. Doing so with these newly designed units will make it a little bit more exciting!

As previously mentioned, the Philippine archipelago is a rich tapestry of different cultures, languages, and traditions. For example I have Kapampangan and Tagalog roots, but was essentially raised in (Imperial) Manila. So when I helped do the research on what units could represent the entirety of the Archipelago, I defaulted to suggesting what was most popular in the national imagination and mythology. So for example while Lapu-Lapu is Bisaya, he is the stand in for Filipino anticolonial aspirations, and features heavily in any media that aims to depict precolonial Philippines.

I hope that any Filipinos that play EU4 will be super pumped to try out the new DLC and join me in my quest to insert as much Filipino flavored content into Paradox games as humanly possible!

The Bai culture revolters, such as the Kingdom of Dali, receive their own units too. Their Tier 1 is equipped with a Guandao polearm and they wear an intricate and highly-detailed leather armour. The later units have inspirations from both Tibetan and Chinese cultures, and white dress synonymous with Bai traditional clothing.

The many cultures of south of China also receive their own unit pack to contrast with the Ming units. Their Tier 1 armor is early Ming dynasty Song-style armour, with curious interlocking scales. The armor was often adorned with intricate engravings and embellishments, making it both functional and aesthetically pleasing. The conical helmet used by Tier 3 is in fact also a form of armour.

And finally, behold the 1.35 loading screen: Mehmed II of the Ottomans, pictured as his bombards tear down the Theodosian Walls and his Janissaries storm Constantinople in 1453.

That’s all from me, let us know what you think of everything! Next week we will show the achievements we have created for this update, see you!

Mar 14, 2023

Developer Diary - 1.35 Free content & Government Mechanics

Europa Universalis IV - PDXRyagi

Good afternoon and welcome to another Developer Diary! This week we will be taking a closer look at various types of new content added to the game, starting with a review of the new Government mechanics that will come with Domination, and the additions we made to previous DLCs as well as to the base game.

Before we begin, let’s take a moment to address the concern around power creeping in 1.35 that has been discussed by the community in the past weeks. The content we showcase in Developer Diaries is usually in a rough form, not just from the perspective of numbers but also even from that bonuses. QA and Beta testing, along with your feedback, shape and changes the content vastly over the coming weeks. As a result, more often than not the content of the Dev Diaries does not reflect the final iteration. We take great pride in combing through and interacting with many of the comments under the Developer Diaries. We wanted to take this opportunity and note that in the cases of the Ottomans, France, Japan, and every other Great Power we have previously showcased, we have taken great steps towards rebalancing, snipping bonuses, nerfing, and even out-right changing modifiers completely. This is at least in part attributed to your stellar feedback, which helps guide us as we move through the development process. Having said that, thank you for taking the time to comment and contribute, even if we’re not always ready to answer as much as we’d like, but we genuinely appreciate it and try to take it into account as much as possible. Now that’s out of the way, let’s move on to today’s content!

Let’s start with an updated review of all the new Government Mechanics available with Domination. You may notice that they are using a similar box, which will now be part of the Government window (Note: the Purple box does not appear for countries who do not have mechanics). This has been done to make the expansion and maintenance of special Government mechanics easier, but also it will increase its modding possibilities (something we will talk about more in-depth next week):

New look of the Government window. When having more than one mechanic at your disposal, a lateral scrollbar inside the window will allow you to check them.

So, let’s showcase them:

Ottoman Decadence

Ottoman Devshirme

Russian Table of Ranks

Russian Rule

Spanish System of Councils

Japanese Land of the Christian Sun

The New Prussian Militarization

Following up on your feedback for Prussian Militarization, I went ahead and tweaked it a fair bit:

Removed Land Forcelimit and replaced it with Land Maintenance Modifier
Decay halved in tier 2 and 3
Added a decay countermeasure to slow down the loss of militarization
Militarization Interactions now cost 20 Militarization instead of 50

Mercenary Militarization

Note; This reform will NOT stack with other types of militarization!

Korean Perfectionism

Parliament vs Monarchy (which is used by the English Parliament)

And the Shogunate, which although not part of Domination, received a bit of a re-balance:

Forcibly Expel Ronin
- -1 Global Unrest for 10 years
- 50 Admin Power
- -5% Liberty Desire in Subjects for 10 years
Sankin Kotai
- +3 Diplomatic Reputation for 10 years
- 50 Dip Power
- +0.25 Monthly Autonomy Change in Subjects for 10 years
Sword Hunt
- -15% Regiments Cost
- 50 Mil Power
- -10% Manpower Recovery Speed in Subjects for 10 years

Starting off with non-Domination-related, let’s start with the Base Game. A while back we released a Developer Diary around the addition of new Idea Groups as well as the re-balancing of existing ones (this is also a great way to showcase the impact of your feedback by comparing the old iteration with the new one!). Since then, a lot has changed based on a multitude of factors. Here are the current iterations of the 3 new Idea Groups:

Infrastructure Ideas:

Note; Do not be alarmed by the Expand Administration Cost, granting it does not mean it’ll be free forever, read more HERE

Court Ideas:

Note; the idea “Respected Authority” also carries a unique mechanic that reduces Absolutism loss from every Estate Privilege by -20% (which effectively translates to +1 or +2 Absolutism per Estate Privilege in most cases!)

Mercenary Ideas:

Note; We decided to remove the ability to split Mercs because it led to the impossible situation of splitting them, then mixing their 1k stacks in the same province without being able to consolidate them between each other and then not being able to re-merge them properly. However, the modifier itself is still in the script so perhaps modders can find uses for it! But a warning ahead: it can cause some out of syncs, so use it with caution.

Now that the new idea sets are showcased, let’s take a look at some highlighted changes:

Religious Ideas:

Church Attendance Duty now grants +10% Manpower in True Faith Provinces

Economic Ideas:

Administrative Ideas:

Moved the Core Creation Cost to slot 3
Governing Capacity Bonus nerfed to 20% (used to be 25%)

Expansion & Exploration Ideas:

Changed the Idea Factories to - > -10% Trade Company Investment Cost & -10% Trade Company Governing Cost. It is now in the 5th slot of Exploration Ideas. Expansion now gets the Viceroys idea, which used to be in Exploration (We have also tweaked Global Tariffs, hopefully they will be a bit more worthwhile now!)
Additional Diplomats now grants +1 Diplomat and -5% Liberty Desire of Subjects in Other Continents
The goal of these changes is to turn Expansion into the “Americas” colonization idea whereas Exploration should now be more useful for general exploring and going into and beyond Africa!

Humanist Ideas:

Note; In the interest of time, we won’t showcase every change and instead focus on bigger and more impactful additions!

Espionage Ideas:

Note; spy_actions_cost_modifier is new and applies to all Espionage-related actions and notice can_claim_states is now a modifier as well! There is always a cost/benefit relationship between picking idea groups, hopefully Espionage will be more competitive now!

Aristocratic Ideas:

Note; the biggest change here is breaking down the strong cavalry idea and adding the cost to fabricate claims / reduction as well as unjustified demands

Defensive Ideas:

Note; Defensive Ideas have received a revamp in their policies as well! Now many of them focus on more worthwhile aspects of the game!

Quantity Ideas:

For this group, we have elected to increase the Manpower and Forcelimit a bit, to 33% each. It’s an experimental change and we would love to hear your thoughts on it!

Let’s briefly look into some policy changes:

Defensive Policies:

And one final look at the current version of the new Idea Group Policies (not much changed, for posterity’s sake)

Mercenary Policies:

Court Ideas:

Infrastructure Policies:

I should also note, that the AI is now far more proficient at not only picking but also combining Idea Groups based on a multitude of factors such as:

How militaristic their National Ideas are
What is their current mana generation of ruler, heir, etc. (as in, can they support the idea group AND not fall behind in the same type of tech?)
How threatened they are by neighbors and how they stack up against them
How defensible their terrain might be
What other idea groups they have picked (for better Policy combos)

While on the topic, let’s take a look at some of the events associated with the new idea groups!

Infrastructure Ideas:

Court Ideas:

Mercenary Ideas:

Note; Each Idea Group will come packing 10 new events, equally split between positive and negative!

Another impactful change in this line we decided to go forward with, is turning the "Slacken Recruitment Standards" into a 'toggle' button. Instead of magically making 20,000 dudes appear out of thin air, your conscription centers now lower their standards in order to fundamentally increase your Manpower Recovery Speed:

Since we are catching up on previously shown content, let’s take another look at the Artillery Units, here you have them with proper names, and their final pips:

Another interesting addition to the base game is the introduction of the Tier 5 Military Government reforms, which we talked about the past week. The vast majority of these (barring some tag-specific ones) will be free:

Note; Given the scope of the reforms, spanning nearly the entire globe, you won’t see them all by picking just 1 country. This is what Switzerland sees, as an example!

With 1.35 we introduce some new privileges for free, which add some estate-specific mechanics to estates that were lacking them:

Note; Of course there are the Indian equivalents of these privileges too.

Moving on, we have a good deal of new traits related to generals, admirals and even rulers, all of which will be part of the base game:

New General Personalities

Cuirassier Leader: +10% Cavalry Combat Ability
Cruel Tactician: +10% Morale Damage
Frontline Holder: -10% Morale Damage Received
Strict Drillmaster: +2.5% Discipline and -50% Drill Decay

New Admiral Personalities

Naval Strategist: +10% Disengagement Chance
Inspirational Captain: +5% Naval Morale and +10% Navy Morale Recovery Speed
Naval Cannoneer: +10% Number of Cannons Modifier
Wooden Waller: +10% Hull Size Modifier
Cunning Navigator: +1 Fleet Movement Speed

New Ruler Personality

Peasant Revolt Leader: +10% Morale Damage and -1 Global Unrest (available to Peasant Republics)
Patron of Arts: -5% Technology Cost and -5% Idea Cost

Now let’s move to the content that we are adding to previous DLCs!

For owners of Leviathan, we have added 7 new Great Projects (all shown at their Tier 3):

Aljaferia Palace, in Saragossa.

Note; Spelling of the province is correct, Aragon now starts with Catalan as its primary culture.

Divrigi Hospital & Mosque in Divrigi.

Edinburgh Castle in Lothian.

Grand Canals in the South Jiangsu area:

The Imperial City of Kyoto.

The Palace of the Popes in Avignon.

St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow

Taking your feedback into account, we decided to dedicate some of our artist time into reworking the visual for the Walls of Benin, to better reflect how they looked like in real life:

Note; I left the gfx of the old Benin Walls in the files with a different name, just in case we (or the modders) use it in a more appropriate place!

For owners of Golden Century, as pointed out in a previous Developer Diary, we added new Holy Orders:

Note; We see that 2 of the Holy Orders shown here have similar bonuses (Local Defensiveness) and we will get it fixed asap!

For owners of Rule Britannia we went on to add or re-balance the following new Naval Doctrines:

Venetian Arsenal (re-balanced):

Number of Cannons Modifier: +10%
Sailors Maintenance Modifier: -10%

Korean Panokseon:

Ship Durability: +5%
Morale Hit from Sunken Ship: -25%

Japanese Atakebune:

Heavy Ship Combat Ability: +5%
Naval Morale: +5%

Hanseatic Trade Fleet:

Global Ship Trade Power: +25%
Naval Tradition from Protecting Trade: +100%

Ottoman Great Navy:

Global Ship Cost: -10%
Naval Forcelimit Modifier: +20%

Maghrebi Corsairs:

Privateer Efficiency: +25%
May Perform Slave Raid
Available Province Loot: +50%

Letter of Marque:

Disengagement Chance: +10%
Movement Speed in Fleet: +1
Chance to Capture Ships: +20%

Novgorodian Ushkuiniks:

Allowed Marine Fraction: +15%
Sailor Maintenance Modifier: -10%

Dvoyane Admiralty:

Naval Tradition: +1
Naval Leader Shock: +1

Malayan Seafaring:

Disembark Speed: +50%
Naval Attrition: -25%
Naval Transport Attrition: -50%

Junk Fleet:

Light Ship Cost: -50%
Naval Forcelimit Modifier: +25%

Chinese Treasure Fleet:

Trade Range: +25%
Colonial Range: +25%
Treasure Fleet Income: +25%

Maratha Naval Bombards:

Naval Barrage Cost: -25%
Blockade Impact on Siege: +1
Blockade Efficiency: +25%

Polynesian Navigation Seas:

May Recruit Explorers
Colonial Range: +50%

Naval Tactica: (for Byzantium)

Disengagement Chance: +15%
Galley Combat Ability: +20%

Basque Marines:

May Recruit Explorers
Landing Penalty: -1

Furthermore, we have also reworked the UI for the Emperor of China that comes with Mandate of Heaven, as to accommodate the new Decrees and Reforms that were added (and which we showed a couple of months ago), and to improve the user experience associated with it:

Reminder; For Mandate of Heaven owners the Emperor of China now has over 10 New Reforms and Decrees. Reforms can largely now be completed in any order but many of them have certain requirements (have X idea group completed as an example)

Lastly, we tweaked the Reformed religion a fair bit, in order to add a lot more versatility, as we did previously with Protestantism! Now, Aspects are activated and deactivated as toggle buttons. Each toggled aspect will drain -8 Monthly Fervor. In most of our tests, players can attain a level of monthly fervor in which they can maintain at least 1 aspect at all times. Moreover, we added a new aspect: Diplomacy while stacking your Fervor higher gives its own different benefits!

Note; Numbers are not final, we’re openincorporatingrate feedback on them.

And now, to finish, a couple of additional cosmetic changes to the Base Game:

For those of you who love painting the map when it comes to forming Japan, I added the ability to adopt your Daimyo Color upon forming Japan, based on a selection of the top 15 most popular Daimyos. Here's how it would look for a handful of them:

Shimazu Japan

Oda Japan

Takeda Japan

So Japan

While these colors certainly look fresh, some may not like the color change and wish to play with the original Japanese color. For this purpose, I added a new decision available for 10 years that will revert your color to the original Japanese one:

Note; I added a similar decision for name-changes for peeps who want their original name!

To make a note on a previously discussed topic, we asked you guys for feedback on the various choices regarding the English and Angevin flags:

English Flag:

Angevin Flag:

Note; the flag looks a bit off-putting on the edges due to the zooming/stretching for the purposes of the Dev Diary!

And that’s all for this week! We hope that you like the changes and additions that we have made to the game, as we’ve put a lot of effort into adding more depth to it for 1.35, in parallel with the development of Domination. In that regard, the changelog will again be massive, with hundreds of issues fixed and tweaked.

Next week Ogele will talk about the new Usermodding features that we’re also introducing in the next update, so make sure you read it if you’re interested in the wonderful mods available for EUIV, as they will probably come with a bunch of novelty in the following months!

Oh and one final thing, every patches protocol:

Mar 7, 2023

Developer Diary - All Blue

Europa Universalis IV - PDXRyagi

Hello and welcome to another Development Diary! Today we will be talking about the new, yet undisclosed content for Europa Universalis IV: Domination, the new expansion that was announced yesterday!

We are very excited to show you the final features that we will include. But let's start by addressing some of the countries that may be on the list of what could be considered Early Modern Great Powers, the main theme of Domination, and that will not receive new content in this expansion. First of all, you may have noticed (and widely requested) new content to be included for two of the ‘historical winners’ in the Middle East during this time period, the Gunpowder Empires of Persia and the Mughals, and also for some other ‘historical losers’ in the area, as the Mamluks. To be clear, they were left out of this expansion on purpose, since we have future plans for the Middle East, so you can expect us to create new content for them in the future. Some of you may have also wondered why countries like Venice, Netherlands or Austria are not in this expansion. You’ll see later that some of them have received some extra flavor in Domination; but, apart from that, today we want to show some countries that we decided to focus on, and that received more extra content, which are:

Portugal
Prussia
Korea

On top of that, we will also be talking about the following new content:

Naval Special Units
Government Reforms
Estate Privileges

With that being said, let’s start with a country that I promised a couple of weeks ago would receive new content - Portugal! Or do we call it now Bluetugal? Anyway, we have reworked some of the older features of the country a bit. First, there was a redesign of its mission tree. Let’s take a look at its new shape:

We reorganized it for better consistency. On the upper part, all the missions related to Exploration and Colonization. We reworked some of their rewards, improved the flow of some of them, and added a few more as well, after reading your feedback in the forums over the past couple of weeks:

‘Sails of Exploration’ and ‘Charter the Seas’ add some flavor to the early Explorations made by Portugal.

‘Clash with the Ottomans’ adds a mid to late game objective regarding the Portuguese push for Hegemony in the Indian Ocean, also adding an extra buff to the Portuguese Marines.

‘Reform the Navy’ unlocks Caravels and Galleons special ships for Portugal, while ‘Lusitanian Empire’ makes for a more interesting reward if completing the lower half content of the Portuguese mission tree.

Apart from that, we also have created two unique Government Reforms for Portugal. The first one is a Tier 1 reform (meaning that Portugal will start with it):

While the second one is a Tier 5 unique Military reform, which opens a new decision on top of the reform modifier:

To complete the rebalance of Portugal, we also took into account your suggestions for the Order of Avis, and changed their sailors for a more defensive approach for them:

And we also added a couple of Salt resources in Portugal:

Now, let’s move to the Prussia rework, which is presented by PDX Big Boss!

Prussia

Hey everyone, Prussia has long been a great and fun nation to play as, in Single and (especially) Multiplayer. As we revamp the content of the Great Powers in Domination, I saw it fit to revisit Prussia to some degree and give them a touch-up to accompany the upcoming Expansion. The idea behind this content is that Brandenburg feels like it’s surrounded by very powerful neighbors and rarely is allowed to grow and evolve into Prussia. This is especially true in Multiplayer scenarios, where the Polish, Scandinavian and Austrian players end up bullying little Brandenburg out of key provinces, such as the areas of Eastern and Western Prussia or Silesia etc. Alongside the new Prussian Blue color, I worked through nearly every single mission, providing new requirements and rewards, estate privileges, mechanics and more! Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:

Starting off, Reclaim Neumark will offer a new dynamic reward as shown below:

Depending on your relationship with the Holy Roman Emperorship, conquering provinces outside of the Empire’s domain will yield a different bonus!

The mission ‘Ansbach Succession’ is now tied to a unique new “Timed Reward” challenge. Should you accept the union with Ansbach in the ‘Franconian Hohenzollerns’ event, you will trigger the mission’s timed challenge, starting the countdown. You will have 5 years at your disposal to reunite the Franconian lands, enjoying a powerful new reward if you are victorious:

However, as the reward is very powerful, failure will also set you back a good deal as your lands in Franconia will declare independence and in return worsen your relations with your neighbors.

This is an experimental feature due to the fact that I feel like it's a good bit of a challenge for those who wish it. Please keep in mind you can circumvent this feature should you feel like you don’t wanna deal with it!

The mission ‘The Balance of Power’ will empower the Brandenburg Gate Great Project (for owners of Leviathan) with the following reward:

‘Conquer Greater Poland’ will grant the following reward should you complete it with 200 Development in the Polish region, granting you access to a very powerful Age Ability, as the de facto ruler of the Polish domain:

To be clear, you won’t need to complete the mission DURING the Age of Reformation!

Lastly, as far as Brandenburg-accessible content is concerned, a small pet-peeve of mine has always been the canals. They always felt somewhat underutilized and I would love to see them being built more often as they can provide a strategic advantage and a dynamic change to wars, especially in Multiplayer. To (at least partially) address that, the mission ‘Construct the Kiel Canal’ has had its requirements and rewards changed, to spawn the Canal upon completion:

Note: An idea I had during development would be to have the ability of closing and opening the canal, either in general or towards foes but alas, it was not meant to be. More on Great Projects at a later DD.

Moving on to Prussia, they will gain access to some new missions as per the Emperor DLC dictates. What is important to note here however is that Militarization as we know it , as far as Prussia is concerned, has changed.

Prussia now starts with a new version of it, called Early Prussian Militarization:

A few easily-digestible points here:

The first level of Militarization is weaker than the 1.34 equivalent.
Only Prussia will have access to this, everyone else that uses Militarization will keep the 1.34 iteration.
I would like to reinstate the decay of Militarization so it’s not a button you press 10 times and then forget about for the rest of the campaign, that is not very engaging. The idea is that you should always weigh your Mil power and think “Do I want to get a temporary boost, cap my Militarization or boost it ?” especially during wars and crucial battles.
Prussia does not need a special unit per-se. The entire army should be bolstered by this mechanic instead, not a few select parts of it. The army IS the special unit.

And how will this mechanic evolve as the game goes on? By completing these 2 missions:

Each will upgrade the mechanic, not only by unlocking more powerful bonuses but also adding new interactions as we will observe further down.

So the second level is essentially similar to 1.34 Militarization. The only difference here should be the decay, notice how the jump from the first to the second level also increased the decay of it.

Which leaves us with the final level of Militarization. If you are an enemy of Prussia, I would highly advise you to NOT let them reach this stage:

Note: these icons are a WIP!

At this point I should note that these numbers are very much a WIP and I welcome all feedback, I love Prussia and I want this evolution of the Militarization mechanic to be as interesting and usable as possible. So as far as this new mechanic goes, feel free to chime in regarding stuff like the bonuses themselves, how much they should cost, the decay of each level etc.

Before we move on to another topic, I would like to thank Stiopa for providing me with a few new flavor events, which I plan on adding as part of the base game! And now, Ogele is going to show you the new content for Korea!

Korea

Heya!

While my two colleagues cover two “minor” great powers of Europe, I figured it would be nice to expand Korea a little bit with Domination as all of its neighbors were given extensive overhauls. Generally speaking, I have always been more or less happy with its mission tree, though some of its mission rewards and requirements are in need of a revisit which will happen over the next few days.

With that being said, I still felt like Korea deserves something to make it stand out amongst the hordes of the North, the Empire to its west and Samurai to the east. As such it was only fitting that they receive their own unique Tier 1 reform:

Its starting privilege - the “Inward Perfectionism” - has been turned into a three-button government ability for Korea, where they can set their path of how they interact with the world. As the community seems to dislike the idea that Korea expands, the AI will always choose Inward Focus and is prohibited from declaring any wars while they have the Inward Focus.

However, due to the nature of EU4, having only the Inward Focus is not necessarily a lot of fun for many players. As such, Korea also has access to the Outward Focus - one which focuses on interacting but not fighting with outside nations - and an Expansion Focus - the epitome of the EU4 gameplay loop. You can select a new focus every 20 years or when you get a new ruler.

Additionally to this, Korea’s ideas have been revisited. It was promised in 1.33 that they would get an update and it finally has happened:

KOR_ideas = { start = { build_cost = -0.1 land_morale = 0.1 } bonus = { infantry_power = 0.1 } trigger = { tag = KOR } free = yes kor_uijeongbu = { advisor_cost = -0.1 all_estate_loyalty_equilibrium = 0.05 } metal_movable_type = { adm_tech_cost_modifier = -0.05 innovativeness_gain = 0.5 } choi_mu_seon_gunpower_engines = { fire_damage = 0.1 } korean_artisanery = { prestige = 1 development_cost = -0.05 } hyanyak_system = { production_efficiency = 0.10 } geobukseon = { ship_durability = 0.1 naval_morale = 0.05 has_geobukseon = yes } kyujanggak = { idea_cost = -0.1 } }

Two things to be mentioned here: the Hangul Alphabet is a big part of Korean history and technology, and while it has been removed from the ideas, it has not been removed from Korea itself.

Note: there is also a revoke decision if you want to get rid of the increased unrest.

The Hopae System itself has become a decision too:

The Korean ideas also unlock a new special naval unit for Korea: the Geobukseon Galley:

The amount of Geobukseon you can construct scales with Navy Tradition. At 100 Navy Tradition, 50% of your Naval Force Limit can be made of Geobukseon ships.

Some other small additions for Korea are the additions of the Tripitaka Koreana and the Righteous Army military reform. Starting with the former, the Tripitaka Koreana is a permanent province modifier which is quite similar to the Emerald Buddha in Chiang Mai. Located in Jinju, the modifier has the following effects:

Note: Not shown is the Karma decay for Buddhistic nations.

It is possible for another country of the Eastern Religion Group to steal Tripitaka if the province gets occupied by outside forces:

In order to counteract this, the owner of the Tripitaka Koreana has two decisions which reinforce the defense of this collection.

Note: the latter decision is only available in a defensive war.

Finally let us tackle the unique military reform of Korea: the Righteous Army. Once just a mission in their mission tree, it is now a government reform in the fifth tier (which I will go into detail later) with the following effects:

Once selected, you will have access to the following decision when you are in a defensive war OR 10 provinces of your culture have been occupied:

The Righteous Army is an emergency mercenary unit with only 10% of its cost and can be recruited like any free company can be:

Note: I am aware that the Righteous Army is basically a force of peasants which defend their homeland from invaders. I excluded them from the Army Professionalism cost as it would be a bit awkward from a gameplay perspective to be punished for recruiting a special mercenary company with such a niche.

Once peace has returned you get the following event:

That is it for Korea for the time being. I want to express my gratitude towards Estaloy who helped me a lot with giving good ideas for Korea and as well as giving inspiration for many other aspects for 1.35. I wouldn't have gotten so far without her support.

Unlike other nations, Korea is one of the states which I personally would like to expand with every patch a little bit as there are still a few things to cover such as highly factionalized infighting. However, time is of the essence, and as such we have to move on now to another topic.

Korea, England, Portugal and Castile are not the only countries that have gained access to new special naval units, the new feature that we are implementing in Domination.

Countries of the Venetian or the Ligurian cultures have access to the following Tier 5 government reform:

Galleasses are similar to Geobukseon as the amount of available galleasses scales with your navy tradition. However, you can only construct them in provinces that have either a dock, drydock, shipyard or grand shipyard.

The other special naval unit went to the Dutch and Flemish countries which have one of the three Dutch governments (more about them later).

The VOC Indiamen is even for special units extraordinary as it is the only non-transport ship that can actually transport land units. Combined with their ability to protect trade and their additional cannons, the VOC Indiamen are a master of utility. However, you only have 20% of your naval force limit available for you. Any additional force limit available for VOC is increased by your Trade Efficiency. At 100% Trade Efficiency you would be able to recruit 25% more of your total naval force limit as VOC Indiamen.

Now, let’s move to the new Government Reforms and Estate Privileges that we created!

A big part of 1.34’s success was the introduction of many new government reforms which expanded the choices a player could make during their campaign. 1.35 and Domination will continue this trend with the addition of a new government tier and more tier 1 reforms all across the world.

Let’s get started with the new tier!

Note: These reforms and the tier are part of the 1.35 free update. It is a shared tier between Monarchies, Republics, Theocracies and Tribal governments.

You might have noticed that none of these reforms give “hard” land military modifiers. The general idea was that the generic military reforms should be somewhat of a utility reform for your army. Depending on the situation you might want to pick a different reform.

The three exceptions to these are the mercenary as well as the naval reforms. The former gives mercenary discipline in order to encourage active usage of mercenary units for combat (this is especially directed at players like me who love to park their merc units on a fort and forget about them until a siege is over) while the latter is more for the role play aspect.

With that being said, Domination itself brings additional reforms for the 5th tier. These reforms, however, are locked behind specific culture groups in order to give variety to the world. Here are are some examples:

Note: As usual, neither numbers nor modifiers are final.

Some reforms enable certain mechanics unique to the government reform. For example, completing the mercenary ideas unlocks the following government reform:

Note: The actual price is 0.1 Years of Income.

Now that we have covered the tier 5 reforms, let us return to Tier 1. While the addition of many additional reforms was highly praised, we still were feeling that a bit more variety is missing. As Domination is already a DLC focusing on a global scope, it was only fitting that we introduce new Tier 1 reforms in order to make regions have something to look forward to with the upcoming update and DLC:

A few other new Tier 1 get unlocked as you play through your campaign and form other countries:

Additionally, Domination will unlock some “over-the-top” government reforms for achieving a difficult-ish feat:

Last but not least, Domination enables two new generic Tier 1 reforms for Monarchies and Republics:

Whenever a new ruler ascends the throne you get the following event pop-up:

You always have the option to choose one from your nobility to become the new ruler. Additionally, if you border a country that is not independent, has the Nobility (or its Indian equivalent) estates, is a monarchy, is not at war with you and is not in a regency then you get the choice to elect one of the said country’s relatives to your new ruler. However, this specific ruler is the only one whose stats you cannot see before.

The event will always pick the most developed country as the origin of this foreign noble. Of course I want to point out that this is subject to changes.

The other reform is one for the Republics:

Unlike other Republics, this reform tries to mix things up by introducing max terms for a ruler to rule.

Of course this stands to the antithesis of the optimal play of Republics where you want to re-elect the same guy over and over again. Because of that, this reform aims for making modifiers which increase the length of terms and more stats for random candidates more attractive by giving new rulers a new lifetime long modifier which makes choosing a new candidate:

There are in total 15 modifiers, 5 for each category (ADM/DIP/MIL). Here is the list of possible modifiers to get from your ruler:

civic_republicanism_focus_government = { reform_progress_growth = 0.1 } civic_republicanism_focus_expansion = { core_creation = -0.05 } civic_republicanism_focus_technology = { idea_cost = -0.05 } civic_republicanism_focus_stability = { stability_cost_modifier = -0.1 } civic_republicanism_focus_religion = { global_missionary_strength = 0.01 } civic_republicanism_focus_diplomacy = { diplomatic_reputation = 1 } civic_republicanism_focus_court = { all_estate_influence_modifier = -0.05 } civic_republicanism_focus_trade = { trade_efficiency = 0.1 } civic_republicanism_focus_subjects = { diplomatic_annexation_cost = -0.05 } civic_republicanism_focus_development = { development_cost = -0.05 } civic_republicanism_focus_defensive = { defensiveness = 0.2 } civic_republicanism_focus_sieges = { siege_ability = 0.1 } civic_republicanism_focus_leaders = { leader_land_shock = 1 leader_naval_shock = 1 } civic_republicanism_focus_quality = { land_morale = 0.1 } civic_republicanism_focus_naval = { naval_morale = 0.1 global_ship_trade_power = 0.1 }

These were the government reforms, but I am not done yet. Domination also unlocks up to 60 new Estate Privileges, distributed amongst all the estates (Janissaries and Eunuchs not counted in). It would be a bit too much if I go into detail for every privilege, so instead I will showcase a set of privileges which can be expected for the major estates (Clergy, Burghers and Nobles) and then a few highlights for the more niche estates.

Every estate gains one privilege which allows you to develop your provinces without the affected estate to lose crown land. While this seems like a drawback for a few estates, for others like the Nobility which has access to Increased Levies or the Rajputs whose access to their special units is tied to the crown land they have it will be a powerful tool.

Most estates will also gain access to a privilege whose modifiers directly scale with the influence said estate has.

Finally, there is a privilege whose modifiers directly scale with the loyalty of your estate. So an estate with 100% Loyalty would give the full modifiers.

Now, you might have noticed that the last privilege has an “Estate Decision” or, synonymously called “Estate Action”. For those who did not play EUIV before 1.30: the estates used to have interactions that you can press in order to get a one-time effect from the estate. Some might even remember the old golden rule of giving the estates 80% influence and then demanding their support every 20 years for 200 Monarch Power.

Well, this has now returned in form of decisions that are unlocked by the estates:

While other interactions have been reworked into an effect that interacts with your estate agendas.

While other interactions have been reworked into an effect which interacts with your estate agendas.

Finally a few estate privileges from the less prevalent estates:

And that’s all for today! Here Pavía again! We hope you enjoy all this new content we have created for Europa Universalis IV: Domination. But on top of that, next week we will be talking about more new content we have created… In this case, free content! We are adding a fair amount of content to the previous DLCs and the base game as we wanted to give the gameplay even more depth and continue to expand some of the features that are included in them, and also as a reward for the large player base that continues to support Europa Universalis IV after almost 10 years of development. See you next week!

Feb 28, 2023

Developer Diary - Monarchy of Great Britain

Europa Universalis IV - PDX vasi

Greetings! A new week, a new Dev Diary, and this time it is about our final big country of the DLC, England, and its follow-up nation of Great Britain. Similar to Russia, England and Great Britain received their content update with 1.25 which is now almost 5 years old. While the British mission tree was one of the most extensive in its time, it has become quite outdated and was in dire need of receiving an update in order to keep England on the same level as the other great powers which are seeing a liftover with 1.35.

So, let’s get started!

[center]

These are all the missions you have available as England and as Great Britain. These missions are available to everyone who forms GB.[/center]

The mission tree is split into several themes:
- The internal affairs and issues of England, which were the War of the Roses, the English Reformation, and of course the English Civil War
- The classic conquest of the British Isles
- Trade Dominance in Europe
- Colonizing the New World
- The conquest of India
- Internal development

Starting with the classic missions, the British Isles conquest missions are what their name suggests: unifying the British Isles under your banner. The highlight of these missions is the ability to unlock the “Act of Union” which is a unique parliament issue to form Great Britain - more on it later. Also a ,QoL addition has been added to these conquest missions: if you conquer Scotland you can get the following event if Norway did not sell Orkney to Scotland yet.

[center]

The AI is very likely to accept as long as they don’t have any negative opinion of you.[/center]

The missions regarding colonizing the New World are also quite self-explanatory. However, these missions do have some unique rewards which make colonization a little bit more interesting. The mission “Found the Royal Navy” grants you +33% Colonial Range and the ability to recruit explorers and conquistadors for 25 years. It also unlocks a parliament issue that gives you the same modifiers once the mission reward runs out.

“Discover the Americas” unlocks another Parliament issue with a rather experimental and unique effect:

[center]

As long this modifier is active and you fully colonize a colony you get the following event:

[/center]

You get a selection of trade goods to choose from. The province will then start producing the selected trade goods. The first option keeps the current trade good if you don’t want to select any new production.

Keep in mind that the trade goods you can choose from have the same requirements as they would normally have when you colonize a province. In other words: you cannot select every province in North America to be a gold province out of nowhere.

Speaking of gold: selecting a certain trade good to be produced has a price that is calculated by the following formula: (1 + <the times you selected the trade good>) * 5 * <base cost of trade good without any modifications from events>.

In this example, we decide to create our own Fish & Chips monopoly, so we choose fish for every colonized province:

[center]

Some trade goods are inherently more valuable than others. If a trade good has a higher base cost than 2.5 then it will also have an Administrative cost in order to be produced:

Note: The admin cost will be rounded down to 7.[/center]

Again, the formula for this is also rather simple: (<base trade good price> - 2.5) * 25 * <the times you selected the trade good>.

Now of course I have to address the elephant in the room: Gold. In order to avoid a world where a Great Britain player would put a gold province in every single eligible province of the New World, I decided to give Gold an “estimated value” of 10 Ducats base cost. This is reflected in the price you have to pay for a Gold province in the new world:

[center]

[/center]

The only limit for how many gold provinces you want in the end is not any hard block but your tolerance for pain in paying for the establishment of another gold province.

Of course there is a decision which toggles this off if you are not interested in micromanaging every single colony you create:

[center]

[/center]

The missions “Settle in America” and “Colonize the Caribbean” modify your colonial capabilities even further with more unlocked parliament actions:

[center]

Note: You have access to a sugar and spice version of this Parliament Action in the mission tree.[/center]

Finally, the mission “Dominate the New World” gives a permanent modifier which also benefits your colonial subjects too.

[center]

Note: The Trade Efficiency might look weird considering that you siphon the trade from the New World, but Tariffs in their current iteration are calculated from the production income + trade income. As such, this bonus is an indirect bonus to how much tariff you receive from your colonies.[/center]

Of course a British mission tree would not be complete without a trip to India. The mission “East India Company” gives you an early choice of how you want to manage your territory in India.

[center]

[/center]

The first option will release a unique subject in the form of the East India Company and it gives all permanent claims you get in India to your subject. The second option lets you keep the claims, but you won’t have access to your new subject, while the third option is for the purpose of role-playing where you can play as the company yourself, which might be an interesting campaign for some people.

The East India Company starts with a unique version of the Merchant Republic:

[center]

[/center]

And of course it has its own set of ideas:

EIC_ideas = { start = { global_prov_trade_power_modifier = 0.2 tolerance_heathen = 3 } bonus = { global_trade_power = 0.15 } trigger = { tag = EIC } free = yes #will be added at load. eic_governors_general = { global_unrest = -1 governing_capacity_modifier = 0.1 } eic_indian_trade = { global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.15 } eic_chartered_merchants = { merchants = 1 placed_merchant_power = 10 } eic_presidency_armies = { global_manpower_modifier = 0.1 global_sailors_modifier = 0.2 } eic_intercontinental_trade = { trade_steering = 0.25 trade_range_modifier = 0.1 } eic_colonial_monopoly = { trade_efficiency = 0.1 } eic_colonial_exploitation = { trade_company_investment_cost = -0.1 build_cost = -0.1 } }

This trade company subject has some special properties which aim to make it competitive to the trade companies we already know and love. A trade company behaves in many ways like a colony, which means it is able to declare its own wars, it will pay tariffs to its overlord and you can use the “Modify Subject Relationship” on them (modifications for Self-Governing Colonies are applied here). However, when an external nation attacks your Trade Company you are called into war. There are also some additional subject interactions which are not available to normal colonies such as “Siphon Income” and “Fortify Subject” (in the past it was March, but it has been renamed now).

“Masters of India”, which requires you to own or have a subject own 200 provinces in India, gives an additional bonus to your trade company subject:

[center]

[/center]

These were the colonial missions. Now we move on to the internal missions.

The missions of the “War of the Roses” path are all about your religious internal affairs. Depending on what is your stance towards the clergy, you unlock one of the two government reforms for the 4th tier:

[center]

[/center]

The missions “Strengthen the Kingdom” and “Acts of the Parliament” play heavily into the conflict between the monarch and the parliament during the Age of Absolutism, which eventually led to the English Civil War.

Completing both missions give you access to both mutually exclusive government reforms:

[center]

[/center]

Speaking of, in order to properly represent the struggle between crown and constitution, you will eventually receive the following event as you enter the Age of Absolutism:

[center]

Note: Background UI is still work in progress. The Monarchists will start the civil war when it reaches -100, not 100. Not shown in the image: if the value drops below 0 the modifiers change to: +4 Global Unrest, -10 Years of Nationalism, -10% Idea Cost and -1 Yearly Absolutism.[/center]

Resetting Debates, letting debates fail and revoking parliament seats increase your Absolute Power while giving away seats and letting debates win decrease Absolute Power. There are two ways of handling the mechanic altogether: you either juggle with the Absolute Power until the Age of Revolution starts or you try to reach either direction as fast as possible in order to trigger the following event:

[center]

If this event fires then the conditions to fire the English Civil War change to the following:

[/center]

The disaster itself has seen little change per se. Pretender rebels on the parliament side have been replaced with a new, Parliamentarian rebel type which are basically Pretenders, but republican versions of them. The big change for the disaster is the end reward when you go through them.

[center]If you side with the Royalists and end the Civil War without breaking to rebels you get the following reform:

Letting the Parliamentarian win and choosing to become a republic will unlock the following reform:

And finally, if you let the Parliamentarians win, but decide to become a monarchy after Cromwell’s death:

[/center]

If you complete the mission “The Three Kingdom Wars” (which really should have been called “Wars of the Three Kingdoms”, but there was no space for it) by going through the hassle of the English Civil War, you unlock the following reward:

[center]

[/center]

These parliament issues are unlocked as you also unlock your national ideas. You have up to three issues which negate one of your national ideas in order to introduce a new strength.

[center]

[/center]

These issues are, however, limited to three national idea groups in total though - they do not cover you if you form a nation which would not be typical in your England run like, let’s say France or Spain.

Of course you can toggle them off with a decision in order to have the space of your parliament issues not be occupied with them anymore, and you can revoke all of the adjustments - though at a heavy cost:

[center]

Note: Forming a different country will automatically revoke these modifiers. I am also considering making this cost a lot less severe though in order to promote flexibility. Maybe 75 ADM cost per adjusted idea is more manageable.[/center]

While these were the internal disasters and issues, there is more to the mission tree. The mission “Issue the Royal Warrant” goes more into the economical direction of your country. While the mission itself can be completed rather early, its big reward is more something you will unlock later on as you get the following reform unlocked for tier 8:

[center]

Note: Numbers are not final, as usual.[/center]

As it is somewhat of a running theme with 1.35, another mechanic of the old EU4 has returned once again, though this time it is a little bit different. Trade Protectorates are a voluntary relationship between you and the target country, and some AIs might even request to become such a subject in order to be protected from foreign forces. The Trade Protectorate and the overlord are free to annul the treaty, though they have to pay with 1 Stability unless the liberty desire is 100.

Only countries whose capitals are within your trade range are eligible to become your protectorates.

I should also mention that these Protectorates are not Great Britain only as any country which “Confirms Thalassocracy” unlocks the following government reform, which is part of the free update:

[center]

[/center]

The missions following “A House Divided” (which is more a reference to how the “House of the Parliament” is split into the House of Common and the House of Lords) are more internally related missions. Highlights here are “Expand the Royal Navy” which unlocks the special unit of your country:

[center]

Note: The color should be actually green as a reduced Engagement Width means more ships are in combat at the same time.
You have 20% of your Naval Force Limit available for constructing Man of War.[/center]

The mission “The Royal Marines” makes your marine units to be the “special land unit” of your country as it gives -10% Shock Damage Received and +5% Discipline while “The Redcoats” is a flat +10% Infantry Combat Ability until the end of the game.

Now that was the British Mission Tree. As you have seen, it is relying heavily on colonization and overseas ambitions. But not everyone might enjoy this kind of playstyle. Because of that there is a second path of the mission tree which is unlocked as soon as the Hundred Years’ War goes into its final phase. The mission “The Hundred Years’ War” fires an event which gives you the choice to play England in a new way which focuses a lot more on the continent:

[center]

This will of course update your mission tree accordingly:

[/center]

All of the colonial missions are replaced with missions which nudge you into conquering vast territories of Europe. Of course, your first target is France and securing the personal union over it. In order to complete the mission “Shatter French Nobility” you will have to enact a unique Parliament Action which might cause pain in the short run, but ensures France’s loyalty to the English throne:

[center]

[/center]

I mentioned earlier about the Acts of Union. For players, the Acts of Union will be an actual parliament issue which is available to you when you complete this mission “Unify the Isles” and have reached Administrative Technology 10.

[center]

The AI will keep its decision though.[/center]

For the Angevin path we have something similar. The mission “The Angevin Kingdom” unlocks the English-French Acts of Union parliament issue which allows you to form a new tag:

[center]

Note: Historically speaking, it would make more sense to have it as a name change as the “Angevin Empire” was mostly a name for the possessions of the Plantagenet dynasty and not a real political entity per se. For the sake of gameplay, however, I decided to make a new tag for it with unique ideas, colors and, most importantly, the flag.

[/center]

You might have noticed that the Angevin flag is already included in the already used English flag. We are aware that it can feel kinda weird when you form the Angevin Kingdom and your flag, which was previously a combination of the Angevin and the French flag, just returns to being the Angevin one.
Because of that we request your opinion on that matter, and want to know what you guys prefer:

Keep the way it is presented here (same flag for England, three lions for the Angevin Kingdom).
Give the Angevin Kingdom the current English flag and give England the three lions as starting flag.
Give the Angevin Kingdom the current English flag and give England the St. George cross as flag.
Other ideas / suggestions.

With that being said, let's take a look at the ideas:

AVE_ideas = { start = { global_manpower_modifier = 0.2 improve_relation_modifier = 0.3 } bonus = { years_of_nationalism = -5 } trigger = { tag = AVE } free = yes #will be added at load. angevin_decentralized_rule = { core_creation = -0.2 } english_common_law = { global_tax_modifier = 0.15 num_of_parliament_issues = 1 } lessons_of_the_anglo_french_wars = { discipline = 0.05 } the_many_thrones = { heir_chance = 0.5 years_to_integrate_personal_union = -10 } reformed_angevin_infantry = { infantry_power = 0.1 } seneschal_of_france = { governing_capacity_modifier = 0.15 } rule_of_the_plantagenet = { legitimacy = 1 devotion = 1 horde_unity = 1 republican_tradition = 0.3 meritocracy = 1 } }

Note: England and Great Britain too received a +1 Number of possible Parliament Issues. The Horde Unity and Meritocracy (as well as Devotion / Legitimacy / Republican Tradition) have been added to all ideas which give one of the 5 government measurements in order to promote more variety in campaigns where you can switch your governments without feeling at a disadvantage because of it.

From here on out your path is set to conquer Iberia and Italy, as well as pushing into the Lowlands and the HRE. Each of these regions unlocks a “Crown of <Region>” Parliament issue which lets you decide how to properly deal with your newly conquered territory:

[center]

Note: There will be a tooltip saying that you unlock HRE related parliament issues.[/center]

These issues will affect the HRE as a whole and not just your country.

Another highlight would be the ability to adapt the British culture group into the French culture group with the mission “The Angevin Culture”:

[center]

A final highlight would be “Claim the Empire Title” which gives your country a name fitting to your situation.

And if you, somehow, manage to fall from grace…

[/center]

That was it for mission tree content. However, there is still a lot more to talk about. As you might have noticed, the parliament plays a large role in the content. As such, it was only natural to improve the parliament mechanics in general and then to add something special to the parliament of England / GB / Angevin to make it stand out from the other parliaments.

So, let us take a look at the general improvements for the parliaments. First thing first, parliaments have now the ability to reset a debate.

[center]

[/center]

You can reset a debate only every 20 years and it brings some penalties with it. Still, it can be a nice QoL addition when you accidentally select the wrong debate.

Secondly, parliament bribes will no longer spawn for an issue which would give this resource as an effect when the issue gets passed. Example: the parliament issue “The Draft” which gives manpower scaled to the seats will never have any parliament bribe which requests you to pay with manpower.

Thirdly, the prices of bribes have been revisited and have been tuned down to a manageable number.

Fourthly, parliaments of a size of 40 seats unlock new bribes which have “National” in their name. These bribes are more expensive than their local version, but have the bundled effect to automatically flip all seats with this kind of bribe in favor of the bribe. This way parliaments of big nations with many seats are not as annoying anymore as they were in the past.

[center]

[/center]

Finally, manually placing a parliament seat no longer reduces absolutism. Getting seats assigned automatically, on the other hand, does cost absolutism.

All of these parliament updates are available if you have Common Sense (the original DLC which unlocks Parliaments) or the new DLC (which unlocks Parliaments too in case you don’t have Common Sense).

Now back to England / GB which have a bit more refined version of their parliament. Most issues they have access to now scale in their effect power with the influence of one of their estates:

[center]

Note: I consider to push this all one level up, so that the 100% of the normal effect would be achieved between 20% and 40% already.[/center]

This has not an effect on the modifiers from the issues themselves though, only on the instant effects, so keep this in mind.

Bribes, on the other hand, scale with the loyalty of the estate:

[center]

[/center]

If an estate is disloyal, the cost of the bribe increases by 100%. However, if the estate is loyal then the bribe gets reduced by 50%. This stacks with the government mechanic of halved parliament issue costs, so it is possible that a single bribe might be as cheap as 1 Monarch Power.

Now with that all being said, let’s end this dev diary with the additional events England / GB / Angevin receives:

[center]

Note: This event is the starting point of 8 events in total which depict the different ways of how the English monarchs handled the reformation. Each option leads to different events. The AI always picks the one option which fits their ruler’s religion - even if it is against their country’s religion.

Note: the conditions for this event to happen are similar to the ones for its Reformed equivalent.

And of course, this week's comic:

[/center]

And that was it for this week. Next week Pavía will present content for the minor Great Powers, unique government reforms and additional estate privileges.

Until then I wish you all a nice week!

Feb 21, 2023

Developer Diary - Crown of Iberia

Europa Universalis IV - PDXRyagi

¡Hola a todo el mundo, y bienvenidos! In this week’s Development Diary, we will be talking about the content that we have created for Spain and the different Iberian countries, mainly Castile and Aragon, as they are the top runners for its formation.

First of all, for the redesign of Spain’s content for the upcoming DLC, we took a bit different approach than other countries that have been shown in the previous weeks, following this line of thoughts:
- We thought that its mission trees did not need a major overhaul, as it was already quite developed in Golden Century, covering most of the Conquest & Colonization paths required as Spain; therefore, we aimed to redesign its structure, adding a few missions here and there to get some extra flavor, and to rework triggers and rewards, to update them in line with the other Great Powers.
- We also decided to put more effort into adding more ‘mechanical content’ instead.
- On top of that, we also decided to add more unique content, linked to new game mechanics, but also to older ones, such as adding new Holy Orders for Golden Century owners, in order to keep adding more depth to the game as a whole.
- I tried to add some not-so-known chunks of Spanish History to the content, because, you know, I have a previous background as Historian!

That said, let’s get started with the new content for Castile! When we started designing it, we decided that nothing could be more iconic that adding another civil war disaster:

Note: Effects and numbers are not final, as usual.

The Infantes of Aragon were the sons of Fernando/Ferrán I, the first king of the Trastámara dynasty in Aragon, and therefore cousins of Juan II, king of Castile; his first wife, María de Aragón, was their sister. Early in the reign of Juan II, they tried to puppet the king, and seize power, leaning on their large properties in the country, and the support they had from a big sector of the Castilian Nobility. This is also portrayed by a new starting privilege for Castile’s Nobility, which will cause the following disaster to progress:

A cursed start for Castile, I know, I know.

What will happen after the disaster fires is that this event will be triggered, giving two different choices to the player:

The disaster will now be possible to be ended, and as you may have noticed, it will impact the outcome of a new mission:

The first path will reduce the effects of the Factionalist Nobility, making it easier to get rid of it earlier, apart from giving a temporary boost to Juan II, but also comes with a bunch of rebels. The second decision means that the ‘Factionalist Nobility’ will be empowered, fewer rebels will appear, and it will give Castile early ‘Restoration of Union’ Casus Belli on Aragon and Navarra, as it means the supremacy of the same line of the Trastámara dynasty over all the three countries. But, on top of that, the event ‘Isabella of Castile’ won’t be triggered if you decide to back the Infantes in their fight against the king, thus making it more difficult to have ‘The Iberian Wedding’ event, and the peaceful unification of Spain. It’s up to the player to decide which path to follow, with its own trade-offs: Back the king and face the Nobility early on, or side with the Infantes, and aim for an early military push to form Spain.

Although the start of Castile will be troublesome, as there will still be the possibility of the 'Castillian Civil War' trigger, we wanted to make it rewarding to get out of it in any of the ways decided, and we also made a minor change in order that early game is a bit more bearable:

Enrique IV ‘the 0/0/0’ is nevermore a 0/0/0!

Now let’s move on to see what the new mission tree for Castile and then Spain looks like:

Note: As usual, the design and art of the tree are not final.

You may have noticed a big change in the redesign, as we decided to leave the upper half of the tree as the Conquest & Government part of it, while the lower half will be for Trade & Colonization. There is a reason for this, which you will see later on the DD. For now, let’s discuss the most important changes for the Castile path to Spain.

The right-most part of the tree is designed around a new set of missions covering the evolution of the Modern State in Spain in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The first one is about the final appeasement of the Castilian Nobility:

This leads to ‘Law and Order’, which will give nice flavor bonuses to the provinces of Valladolid and Granada until the end of the game, being the seats of the two main courts of justice in the country, the Reales Chancillerías:

Related to these, although not connected to them, we have another set of 3 missions down in the mission tree that is about the Government of the Spanish Empire:

The first one will trigger the following event after completion:

The second is directly linked to the construction of the ‘El Escorial’ monument. Meanwhile, the third one will lead to a new mechanic we are implementing for Spain, the ‘System of Councils’, based upon the historical Polysynodial System which will be unlocked by a Government Reform of the same name:

How is this mechanic working? It will open a new 0-100 progress bar, the ‘Council Consensus’, which will be slowly refilled depending on your Monthly Average Autonomy and Monthly Average Liberty Desire of your subjects. Numbers are still WIP, but our initial design is to make it so that the bar can be filled at 10 years the fastest, while not progressing at all if Monthly Average Autonomy and Monthly Average Liberty Desire are 100%:

Note: Ruler ability modifiers are placeholder ones to make the mechanic appear in the game, there is still some code support needed to make it fully work with the ‘Monthly Average Autonomy’ and ‘Monthly Average Liberty Desire’ that I’ve mentioned. Also, take into account that the other numbers are also WIP.

The ‘Council Consensus’ will give an increasing escalating effect, giving you Monthly Splendor and Administrative Efficiency, but that’s not its only benefit, as when you reach 100 ‘Council Consensus’, you may be able of spending that amount in one of the three Government Actions, tied to each of the monarch powers. After clicking the button, you will get +1 monarch power of the chosen type for 10 years, and an event similar to the Estate Agendas will trigger, upon which you might be able to pick one of the Councils of that branch to support for 10 years, getting an additional modifier for that period.

Note: UI is WIP, but in the last pic you’ve got the current design of the new buttons, for the ‘Royal Council’, the ‘Council of State’, and the ‘Council of War’, respectively.

So, coming back to the new mission trees, let’s go to the leftmost part of it. We have moved there the already existing missions for the Spanish Armada and Invade England, but we have added 3 more there, making it the ‘Military Branch’ of the mission tree:

The first mission, ‘Armies of Iberia’, will unlock the Navy and Army paths of the branch. But the meaty new content is on the Land part, to be honest, as we have created a new government reform for the Spanish Tercios:

Which is, obviously, a new type of Land Special Unit!

Note: Grey color is provisional.

This unit might be recruited from provinces of the Iberian culture group, and their availability will be increased by the Army Tradition that Spain has at the moment. So, that means that you will be able to recruit double the amount of Tercios if your Army Tradition is 100. About its combat performance, these units will have at the start the same modifier as Spain’s Tercios Age bonus, -30% Shock Damage Received (therefore, that means that we will change Spain’s Age bonus, although it is not yet decided, as we want to wait for a bit more to get results from our internal tests to give a proper new modifier).

But wait, this is not the end of the (Spanish) road! There is another mission, ‘Refine the Tercios’, which will allow you to modernize your Tercios units if you have a fixed number of Tercios (right now is 60, but this may change), and either 75% Army Professionalism or 90 Army Tradition, giving them the following effects on top until the end of the game, allowing Spain to extend the dominance of Tercios on the battlefields for a longer period than historically:

Note: Again, numbers are provisional, and might be changed.

This fits for us with the expanded Conquest missions of the tree:

‘Rein in France’ can be completed either by defeating or by allying with France, giving permanent Power Projection as a modifier.

‘The Spanish Road’ aims to connect your dominions in Italy with the rich (and maybe cursed) Netherlands, which will now grant a big reward if completed.

We have also reworked a bit the ‘Austrian branch’ flow and links and added a stronger reward for completing it (again, numbers are not final).

If you manage to complete all the different branches of Conquest & Government, you will unlock a ‘finishing mission’ for Spain, giving a reward to your now Universal Empire.

OK, now we’re done with the Hegemonic Ambitions of Spain, so let’s move to the lower part of its mission tree, devoted to Trade & Colonization. The first redesign we made covers the commercial expansion and the new maritime routes that were established at the Age of Discovery. By completing it you will get some nice commercial bonuses, but most importantly, you will unlock two new types of ships:

Here you have a new feature that we are adding to the upcoming DLC: Naval Special Units! A few countries will get them, on top of the 3 new special units that we have already presented (Samurai, Musketeers, and Tercios). And these are the Caravels and Galleons that are mentioned here:

After completing the ‘Reales Atarazanas’ mission, you will be able to recruit as much as 10% of your Naval Force Limit as this type of special ship (again, numbers are provisional).

This will help you with the Exploration branch, which we have not touched much, as it was already quite well developed. As you may have noticed, we have redesigned a bit the position and flow of the different missions, added a few different triggers and rewards here and there, and made a final mission after finishing the conquest of both México and Perú:

Here I’ve got to say that we have not added more content to the Colonial Nations and America. To be honest with you, it’s in our backlog, but it fell outside of the scope of the upcoming DLC, so this will have to wait for a future moment. What we are adding, on the other hand, is more types of Holy Orders, which will be part of the free update for the Golden Century DLC owners, and which will be the following ones (this list includes the 3 older ones, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans):

Monastic Orders (ADM)

Benedictines
- -1 Local Unrest
- +10% Trade Goods Size Modifier
Carthusians
- -10% Local Construction Cost
- -10% Local State Maintenance Modifier
Hieronymites
- +10% Local Tax Modifier
- -10% Local Governing Cost
Jesuits
- +1% Local Missionary Strength
- +10% Local Production Efficiency

Mendicant Orders (DIP)

Augustinians
- +1 Institution Growth
- -10% Local Missionary Maintenance Cost
Carmelites
- +20% Local Religious Conversion Resistance
- +20% Local Religious Unity Contribution
Dominicans
- +1.5% Local Missionary Strength
- +10% Local Institution Spread
Franciscans
- -1 Local Unrest
- -0.05 Monthly Devastation

Military Orders (MIL)

Order of Calatrava (CAS/NAV)
- +10% Local Defensiveness
Order of Avis (POR)
- +25% Local Sailors
Order of Montesa (ARA)
- +25% Local Garrison Size
Order of Alcántara (LEO/AST)
- -10% Local Fort Maintenance Modifier
- -25% Local Construction Time
Order of Santiago
- +5% Local Manpower
Order of San Juan
- Blocks Slave Raids
- -0.25 Local Monthly Devastation

A sneak peek of the new WIP art of the Holy Orders!

Let’s now move to Aragon! This country has received an update over its former mission tree, aiming at improving its game flow, but also to make it work with the Spanish one:

First and foremost, the mission ‘Intervene in Castile’ is new, giving the player different options for completing it:

But to achieve dominance over Iberia, you will have to tackle first your internal problems, mainly the inflight between the Remença Peasants and the Catalan Nobility that was ongoing in the middle of the 15th century. You will have to wait for the ‘Sindicat Remença’ event to trigger, which has been reworked, giving an extra option that leads to turning Aragon into a Peasant Republic:

This will open up the option of resolving ‘The War of the Remences’ mission, which will also allow you to deal with the Catalan Nobility, with different starting conditions depending on what you picked in the ‘Sindicat Remença’ event:

Afterward, you will be able to focus on the Conquest and Expansion branches of the mission tree:

‘Crowns of Iberia’ will give you the ‘Hegemon of Iberia’ modifier until the end of the game.

‘Consulate of the Sea’ mission and event have been reworked, opening up a new government reform:

‘Mediterranean Ambitions’ now unlock the expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean:

Some of the reworked rewards of the mission tree:

And, finally, if you manage to form Spain as Aragon, what will happen is that you will keep the Aragonese mission tree, AND you will get the Trade & Colonization branch on the lower half, making for a different mission tree than that of a ‘Castilian’ Spain:

Finally, we made a limited rework to the Spanish Ideas, to make it work a bit better with all the other content:

Buffed Spanish Naval Doctrine
- Move the 'A Spanish Armada' Idea modifiers to the Naval Doctrine
Ideas
- Changed 'Devout Catholicism' name to 'Devout Christianism'
  - Added Church Power and Fervor in case of being Protestant or Reformed
- 'Treasure Fleet' replaced by the Castilian Idea 'School of Salamanca'
  - Added +10% Reform Progress Growth (also to Castilian Idea)
- 'A Spanish Armada' now gets:
  - +25% Naval Force Limit modifier from Treasure Fleet
  - +25% Available Marines
- Changed 'Rein in the Cortes'
  - -5 Reduced Absolutism from Privileges
- New Idea order:
  - Devout Christianism
  - Inter Caetera
  - School of Salamanca
  - A Spanish Armada
  - Casa de Contratación
  - Siglo de Oro
  - Rein in the Cortes

And speaking of the Spanish ideas, we are currently having a debate in the team about what to do with the Artillery Fire modifier, if to keep them as they are in the different idea sets, or replace them with something else. On this topic, we would like to hear out the opinion of the community, as this might be somewhat of a controversial issue (so, please, be civic while debating it!)

And what about the other Iberian countries? We have also added new content for Portugal and Navarra! But we are going to talk about that in a couple of weeks, along with other countries which were not considered to be part of the ‘core’ of the upcoming DLC; but trust me, we’re not diminishing Portugal’s role in the Early Modern Age! In fact, this is also a good opportunity to share with us which tweaks you would want to see, as we’re right now polishing that new content. What I can show now is a sneak peek of something that the Portuguese players have been asking for a while, and that we have changed for good:

A wild Blue Portugal appeared! So many fado vibes <3

That’s all for today! I’ll be spending some time this week on the forums, reviewing all the feedback from this DD, and also of the previous one, so please leave your comments and thoughts on the new content! And next week, @Ogele will be showing the content for Great Britain!

Gonzalo, get the pike!