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.

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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.

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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!