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EU4 - Development Diary - 11th of June 2019

Welcome once again to the weekly EU4 development diary. I’m neondt, and today I’ll be talking about the French and Provençal mission trees, before handing you over to @Ofaloaf who will have more than a few words to say about the Dutch. I’ll also show you a few new government reforms just for fun.

I’ll start by addressing the elephant in the room: where’s Burgundy? We do indeed have a mission tree for Burgundy, but it is not yet time to reveal it. The Burgundian mission tree is tied to features yet unannounced and to reworks of certain significant events that we are not yet ready to talk about. The same is true of the Pope in Italy, and to a lesser extent some of the German nations. We’ll come back to this once we’ve started to talk about some of the mechanical changes and features coming in the European expansion.

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The French mission tree now stands as one of the most extensive in the game. When we re-worked the mission system during the development of Rule Britannia, France was one of the winners as our policy was to adapt as many old missions as possible to the new system and France happened to have rather a lot of those. The European expansion will go even further, adding 25 more missions for France.

For the sake of brevity we’ll focus only on what’s new rather than covering content you’re likely well familiar with already. Early on in the new tree are missions to develop two crucially important naval bases, neither of which begin in French hands in 1444. These are Brest, in Brittany, and Toulon, in Provence. Each will serve a slightly different purpose. Toulon’s dockyard mission will add a permanent modifier to the province giving Navy Tradition, as well as reducing ship cost and repair time in the province, making it an ideal base for your Meditterainean operations. Establishing the Brest dockyards meanwhile will reward you with an early Drydock building in the province, as well as 5 heavy ships for your fleet, which will be helpful for the proceeding missions which focus on defeating the English. To that end, the first step is to strengthen the Auld Alliance - you must ensure that a friendly nation in the British Isles (doesn’t have to be Scotland but it’s the most likely candidate) has at least 70 development. Completing this mission rewards claims on only those parts of the British Isles owned by England or Great Britain, with the goal of the Defeat the English mission simple being to reduce their power and drive them out of London. With the English defeated, France will truly rule the waves and you’ll have 10% more Naval Morale for the rest of the game.

France also has a shiny new set of missions that deal with its internal situation. Beginning as a feudal state ruled largely by regional nobles, France must move towards centralization in all of its forms. Breaking the power of the nobility is only the first step. Next you must impose religious unity through the institution of the Dragonnades, a set of policies designed to expel heresy from the nation. But it is not enough to rule the state - you must become the state. Crushing all notions of regional autonomy and bringing stability to the nation will enable the L’Etat c’est moi modifier, replacing the old decision of the same name. Also replacing an old decision, Versailles Palace will provide you with a significant prestige boost, some development in Paris, and fire the Commissioning of Versailles event. Next comes the Revolution. Embrace the Revolution or crush it, the choice is yours. Regardless, this will be a turning point for France and will lead you towards establishing a buffer of Client States and ultimately proclaiming French Hegemony over Europe. Moving back up the tree, France must also Establish the Musketeers, possible only under a highly skilled military ruler and fires the reworked and improved Royal Musketeers event. With a disciplined elite regiment of musketeers, you’ll need a place for them to recover from their injuries so that they can return to active service as quickly as possible, and so just must construct Les Invalides. You must have a high land forcelimit, a university in Paris, and at least 20 provinces with a military building. The reward is something I shamelessly stole from @Ofaloaf ‘s Venetian missions - an effect that reduces the likelihood of negative events about ill-health. In addition your manpower recovery rate will be improved by 10% for the rest of the game.

Several additional conquest missions appear throughout the tree. Following the Annex Alsace mission, you’ll be on the path to recreating Napoleon’s campaigns. Invading Switzerland, abolishing the Holy Roman Empire, “protecting” Poland and ultimately attempting an invasion of Russia will be on the to-do list. A successful siege of Moscow will fire the new Fire of Moscow event, bringing utter ruin and devastation to the city. Enforcing the French Claim to Naples will give you a claim on the Spanish crown, allowing you to start a war for the Spanish Succession.

Finally we’ve added new colonial missions for France. France will now be tasked with expanding in South America, establishing the France Antarctique colony. The missions will also follow historical French activities in North America and their struggle to dominate the fur trade through establishing relationships with the native peoples. These missions culminate in a mission to bring liberty, equality, and fraternity to the oppressed colonies of your rivals, supporting American Independence. If you successfully liberate one of these colonies, you’ll be rewarded with permanent access to the Liberation CB. France will also be incentivized to sail eastward. Indian Dominance tasks you with expelling all other European powers from India in the Age of Revolutions (granting cheaper Trade Company Investments), while French Indochina aims at the early conquest of Vietnam.

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Good King René was a man with a lot of titles. Or at least a man who believed he had a lot of titles. Certainly he ruled as Count of Provence and Duke of Anjou, and Duke of Lorraine through his marriage to Duchess Isabella. Only a couple of years before our start date he ruled as King of Naples before being ousted by the Aragonese. In addition to Naples, René also claimed to be the rightful ruler of Sicily, Aragon, and Jerusalem, and professed through his coat of arms a connection to Hungary.

The Provençal mission tree will task you with making these bold pretensions a political reality. René must begin by finding some way for his claims to be taken seriously, and this can be achieved either by conquering Corsica or reaching 100 total development (Provence begins with 73 in the current iteration of the map). This will grant you cores on Naples. You heard right, that’s cores on Naples, rather than permanent claims. This is a rare case where we feel it makes sense to grant cores as a mission reward, as René lost Naples so close to the start of the game. Retaking Naples will be quite a challenge, but should you succeed the world will recognize you as a King, improving your government rank. You’ll also get permanent claims or Union CB’s (as appropriate to how the political situation has developed) on your rightful possessions in Aragon and Sicily. These campaigns again will be no easy feat, as you’ll likely have to battle the Iberians quite extensively on both land and sea. Accomplishing this task will not be the end of your struggles however. You’ll then be tasked with pursuing the more outrageous claims of the House of Anjou - the Kingdoms of Hungary and Jerusalem. Taking up the mantle of the Crusades will likely put you on a collision course with the mighty Ottomans, while claiming to be the King of Hungary is unlikely to sit well with the Habsburgs. Besides being an opportunity to snag the Good King René achievement, being King of Jerusalem will present some new in-game opportunities which we’ll talk about another time.

Provence also has many somewhat more local and immediate concerns besides the (re)conquest of René’s birthright. Uniting Provence with Lorraine is critical, as is establishing a relationship with the Holy Roman Empire. Joining the Empire, despite its name, need not involve Provence being a member state - becoming the Emperor or abolishing the HRE will also suffice. The status of Avignon is also a concern. Once the seat of the Avignon Papacy, it is no longer quite so vital to the Holy See. It may be possible to convince the Pope to part with the city with some careful diplomacy, or failing that a good old fashioned siege will also do the job. With Avignon integrated into Provence, the logical next step is of course the conquest of all Occitania, and from there the conquest of France itself. The King of Kings mission closes much of the mission tree, requiring in addition 1000 total development. It grants not only the Empire government rank but also a permanent boost to your Legitimacy and a 20% reduction to the cost of Diplomatic Annexation, useful for integrating all of the Personal Unions you’ve likely accumulated along the way.

Good King René was more than a holder of unrecognized titles. He was also a great patron of the arts, sponsoring the Renaissance and patronizing the Church. Completing the Sponsor the arts mission will reward you with the means to Develop Provence, which requires Aix to have at least 30 development and all other provinces in the state to have at least 15. The next priority will be the establishment of the aforementioned naval base at Toulon. Although it is the French national anthem, La Marseillaise was originally a marching song of the Marseille National Guard. This mission requires 80% Army Professionalism, and on completion reward a permanent 25% boost to your Drill gain and decay.

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Hey again, @Ofaloaf in the saddle again and it's time to talk about our good pals, the Dutch. EU4's timeframe saw the Low Countries go from a disparate collection of feudal vassals and small duchies into one of the preeminent powers of Europe and, dare I say it, the world. Distilling this rich history into a mission tree, needless to say, has been a heck of a challenge.

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Dutch missions are shared between the Netherlands proper and the Dutch minors that are present in the game in 1444. All of the missions except for the two rightmost mission chains are available to the minors, although the available missions should naturally prod a minor to eventually reach the conditions to form the Netherlands anyways. Their missions are largely concerned with three themes: protecting the Low Countries, getting rich, and going places to get even more rich.

A lot of the early missions are concerned securing and protecting the state's independence; 'Assert Our Sovereignty' straight-up requires the country to be independent and own four provinces, which means if you're playing as one of Burgundy's vassals you'll want to backstab that big wine-colored blob at the first opportunity. 'Sea Beggars', meanwhile, encourages you to build up a respectable fleet of light ships, useful for both harassing your naval enemies in a pinch and hogging all the power in trade nodes.

As the country develops, the scope of its economic interests should gradually push it to look beyond Europe for greater trade opportunities. It starts off humbly enough; historically, the Netherlands began trading in Baltic grain decades before it ever really started investing in transatlantic and East Indies ventures. From its initial forays in the Baltic, however, the Dutch began to rapidly expand, challenging Iberian commercial monopolies by sending their own merchants to places previously visited only by the Spanish and Portuguese.

Soon, two significant trading companies were chartered, the Dutch East India Company (or Vereenigde Oostindische Compangie, known also as the VOC) and the West India Company (Westindische Compangie, WIC, sometimes known with a 'Chartered'/Geoctroyeerde slapped to the front of its name as well). The VOC founded colonies from South Africa to the East Indies, and even briefly had a foothold in Taiwan. The WIC tried to emulate the VOC's wealth and extent in the Americas, but its New Netherlands colony was eventually taken by the British and its main port, New Amsterdam, became the obscure town of New York City, and its attempt to seize Brazil from Portugal floundered. I trust that you can do better than that.

Lastly, the Netherlands has two mission chains solely for it, starting with 'Strengthen the Vroedschappen' and 'Merge the Stadtholders'. Both these chains play into the Dutch Republic government's mechanics and the struggle between the Orangists (big fans of the House of Orange) and the Statists (big fans of being a republic where they get the money and the glory), because all the missions in those chains affect the Orangist-Statist balance of power. None of them require a certain level of Orangist or Statist control, but, for example, if you manage to pull off a Glorious Revolution where the Prince of Orange successfully subjugates Britain, oh man you bet the Orangists would enjoy a boost to their popularity and influence. Any swing from completing a mission can be mitigated with an election or by completing Orangist and Statist missions at the same time, or you can just let politics fluctuate as the fortunes of the Orangists and Statists ebb and flow.

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And now back to me for one last thing. We heard you liked interesting new government reforms, and I even heard a few pleas for “stable dictatorships”. Displayed below are three new government forms that are exactly that:

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[As always, all numbers are WIP and may not represent final values at release]

Protectorate Parliament is a unique government reform available to England only if they choose to side with the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. It represents the ‘Rump Parliament’ of Lord Protector Cromwell and his successors. The Protectorate Parliament is a tier 1 government reform (and legacy government) that does not have elections, but uses the Parliament mechanics and has a higher absolutism cap than other republics.

The Junker Stratocracy is unique to Prussia, serving as a republican equivalent to the Prussian Monarchy reform. Stratocracy enables the Militarization mechanic, has a very high absolutism cap, and grants passive Militarization gain. Most importantly, rulers are not decided by either elections or by birth. When the ruler of a Stratocracy dies, they are succeeded by the nations’ best General, who will become the new Field Marshal. The Field Marshals’ stats are based on the number of pips they had as a General, much like the Pirate Kings of Golden Century.

Speaking of Pirate Kings, the Board of Admirals reform allows non-pirate republics to abandon any semblance of democracy and give total political power to the Navy, with the Lord High Admiral serving as head of state and new rulers being raised from the ranks of your Admirals. Enacting this reform will require you to complete Naval ideas.

All of these reforms are far from the ideals of republicanism, and so will have a reduced base republican tradition gain.

That’s all from this rather wordy dev diary! Next week I hope you’ll join us for the last in our series of map dev diaries, this time focusing on Austria and the Balkans.
 
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For the Provencal Mission Tree, there isn't many preparations to war, just immediately into conflict with France and/or Aragon, I think that there should be something about taking on the Savoyards and/or other Italians in order to improve strength.
 
They are not published but I see no problem entertaining the question.
The bottom 5 starting from least played:
1. Bundelkhand, 5 development OPM vassal of Malwa
2. Mong Nai, 11 development tributary of Ava
3. Baghelkhand, 10 development vassal of Jaunpur
4. Hadiya, 12 development vassal of Ethopia
5. Keonhjar, 4 development vassal of Orissa

Just because I find it interesting, any possibility that at some point we can get like some stickied "EU4 Statistics" topic from the developers to get updated somewhat irregularly? Just would be interesting to have the perspective for when people talk about things like how popular nations are by picks, percentage of games running to 1821, number of world conquests completed, etc? Dunno how much it's set up for. Just think it'd be handy perspective to have when people kind of get into loggerheads about how easy/hard/common/rare certain things are.
 
Overall looks pretty decent. Few questions though:

this will be a turning point for France and will lead you towards establishing a buffer of Client States and ultimately proclaiming French Hegemony over Europe.
Will this be represented with the historical client states (like Westphalia, Confederation of the Rhine [which could function like Deccan for Mughals], Kingdom of Italy and Batavian Republic)? Or is it just an incentive to.... make client states?
being King of Jerusalem will present some new in-game opportunities which we’ll talk about another time.
So Jerusalem is finally getting a much needed buff and an actual reason to exist outside of the achievements? I would really like Jerusalem to have some sort of importance to the Christian world and incentivize nations to release it rather than hold on to it for the extra missionary. That's actually one of my complaints in my disappointing in-game accomplishments thread.
We heard you liked interesting new government reforms
Will Council of the Indies be changed or axed? It's blatantly wrong and counter to history as it currently stands.
 
Your lack of historic knowledge concerning Belgian history is disturbing.
First off, Flanders and Brabant were two of the richest regions in Europe at this time. Brugge was called the 'Venice of The North' and was a direct rival to London and Paris. Amsterdam wasn't even a proper city at this time and wouldn't become one untill you Dutch (bastards) decided to turn Antwerp into a shithole and steal all of our trade and wealth. 2 million "Belgians" migrated to the north because of economic and religious reasons which is why you had your golden age to begin with. Without us you would have been nothing, just remember that the next time you start to act like a nationalistic douche again.

There's a reason Flemish people still refer to themselves as Burgundian instead of Dutch. Because they did more than you lot ever did for us. They gave us wealth and power, you gave us taxes and exploitation.

Still love you guys, hugs and kisses. xxx
(Too bad you didn't win the Nations League, I was supporting for you guys)
(Also congrats on eurovision)
You are missing the point. Flanders was dutch, it was where the flag of the dutch rebellion was first raised it was the dutch heartlands, the north only became important because once flanders ended up back under spanish rule a mass migraiton out of flanders into what's today's netherlands occured. You could almost say that the netherlands were colonized by the dutch after the independence war, well actually you really could say they were it just began before the independence war but originally most of the present day netherlands were frisian not dutch (we're talking early ck2 period here though), the dutch who back then lived in flanders and Brabant moved in and colonized the region because of their greater numbers. Even in 1444 the north is very much a frontier region even if firmly dutch at this point (aside from friesland and ostfriesland). Flander is not only dutch in 1444 it is the original dutch homeland, the core of dutch territory.
And here we run into language problems because dutch doesn't get across the same as the term Nederlanders (and as such I will be switching to the endonym netherlanders instead of the exonym dutch), nederlanders simply meant the people of the low countries (well the Germanic people's of the low countries, possibly excluding the frisians) in 1444, it is by the neatherlands that the term neatherlanders come to refer specifically to the people of that country and not to the people outside of it's politcal borders. It's like with Swedes in Finland when asked what they are do they respond Swedes? It makes sense because it is what they are, but on the other hand they will almost certainly be mistaken to actually be from sweden is they do that. Hence why they adopted a new term for themselves which did not cause the confusion, Finland Swedes, well the Flemmish did the same, except they fell back on an earlier regionym for themselves, flemmish. When the later became part of the netherlands they realized that while they were now netherlanders in the political sense the flemmish identity had grown apart from the netherlandish one, they were not netherlanders like all other netherlanders.*

But it is the formation of a country called the netherlands that precipitate this divide, before the netherlands became a political term it was simply a collective term for flemmish brabantian hollanders whatever the regionyms for the other provinces are, the existance of the country made it into something else.

Or I could be totally wrong but that is how I having discussed this and seen it discussed many many times on these boards have understood it.

So essentially Flemish and dutch should be one culture in 1444 forming the netherlands should fire some timer a certain number of years any dutch provinces in the south not owned by the netherlands should flip flemmish. Heck it could be made interactive with the netherlands being given the option of sacrificing things to keep the flemmish invested in their kinship to the netherlands, the netherlands could ever get cores on the dutch provinces in the south which they the gradually lose as the flemish slip away from them and whoever owns them being able to invest in breaking the flemish of from the dutch.

*Edit: It is very similar to the Rus, there Kiev was the heartlands of the Russian people then it get conquered by a foreign power, mass migration into what was earlier a frontier region making that reigon powerful, when that region reconquers the original homeland they find that they and the people there have to much history apart from each other, they have become different. The stronger party tries to standardise the culture the "weaker" party breaks free proclaiming themselves a culture separate from the original one.
There's also the problem on how the "senior" partner views the cultural drift. First of they view themselves as the original culture, unaltered, something which just isn't true, things always change. A Dutchman from Brügge in 1568 would not be at home in either Brügge or Amsterdam in 1815. (nor a Kievian from 1223 in either Moscow or Kiev in 1686)
Secondly they view any difference of the junior culture from their own as a trauma inflicted upon them by the third party, and even worse set out to correct it by essentially assimilating the junior. And... well... that doesn't go over well.

Wait so now, Flanders and Brabant are eligible to complete the 'Interest in Holland' mission in their new mission tree? How ludicrous. I can already imagine, as Flanders to sell out your country to Holland.

As much as my game and my home region. I would really love it if Brabant and Flanders have a modified version of the dutch mission with slight variations. Instead of focussing developing on the north, Holland in particular, the Flemish mission trees should focus on the south. As the economical gravity of the lower countries was in the south at the start of the game with the main trade centers Ghent, Antwerp and Bruges. Furthermore, Amsterdam would not become a major trade center until the second part of the 16th century.

Besides I want to point out the obvious that has been mentioned before. Both diamond capitals of the world, Antwerp and Amsterdam do not seem to produce diamonds in eu4. Why is that?
View attachment 490219
That mission really should be "Intrests of [capital area]" as I said above only because Flanders and Brabant was lost to the revolution did Holland become the heart of the netherlandish state if they had remained in possession of Brugge then Brugge would almost certainly had been the capital of the republic.

I think mostly because they don't produce diamonds there? I mean they control the trade but the actual mines are elsewhere.

And yes, I'm aware that throws in the face of Istanbul's Diamond District event changing them up to Gems. Which... no idea why that is other than they wanted to buff Istanbul for the Ottomans. It'd probably be more apt to have it producing Cloth to represent the carpet trade they specialized in. And not like Cloth is a terrible trade good either. Which is probably what I'd have done it if it was up to me.
It's not Istanbul's mission it can happen to any glass producing province with enough development.
During this period, sure, as it was prior to Turkish genocide of 20th century. This is not represented in the game though, since all of mainland Anatolia is Turkish culture.
Culture and genetics is far from the same thing, also Turkish is not Turkic, Turkish has had substantial influence from the byzantine empire.
 
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Thanks that you call me Dutch. We did fight with Dutch in the eighty years war, but that was not because we were Dutch, it's more that we had a lot of ties with the Northern neighbors. You could see us as being of the "Lage Landen" culture. In that group you also include the Wallonians. Don't forget that they too did join the eighty years war. They did leave early because 1) much closer to Spain 2) they were fervent catholics like the Spanish.

After that war, Flanders and Wallonia got overshadowed for a long time by the Dutch, as we were part of the Habsburg lands. Before that war, it was one of richest regions in Europe, and that did decline, but the region was not suddenly some backwater territory. France for example had to build the Pré Carré at the borders, and proto-industry was also common in Belgium (like broadcloth and the iron industries in Namur)
And please, don't export the current nationalism to the past, that's just wrong. And Kongo is also outside the timeline.

Belgian should be in the game, it was part of the timeline after all, but it should be something for the age of revolutions, and certainly after the eighty years war. Belgium revolted around 1789 in the Brabant revulotion for example.

And of which glorious republic were we part of??? The Batavian republic? Was that so glorious?

Edit: I had to write this because I found your tone like you.re looking down at the Belgians. Try to write more neutral pls

Your lack of historic knowledge concerning Belgian history is disturbing.
First off, Flanders and Brabant were two of the richest regions in Europe at this time. Brugge was called the 'Venice of The North' and was a direct rival to London and Paris. Amsterdam wasn't even a proper city at this time and wouldn't become one untill you Dutch (bastards) decided to turn Antwerp into a shithole and steal all of our trade and wealth. 2 million "Belgians" migrated to the north because of economic and religious reasons which is why you had your golden age to begin with. Without us you would have been nothing, just remember that the next time you start to act like a nationalistic douche again.

There's a reason Flemish people still refer to themselves as Burgundian instead of Dutch. Because they did more than you lot ever did for us. They gave us wealth and power, you gave us taxes and exploitation.

Still love you guys, hugs and kisses. xxx
(Too bad you didn't win the Nations League, I was supporting for you guys)
(Also congrats on eurovision)

I am Dutch, not from Holland but from the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a union or federation to whom Flanders chose to be a part of.
We have many different lands in our Union, we got Friesland, Gelderland, Vlaanderen, Brabant, Limburg, Holland, Utrecht, those were the big boys, and all of them have some form of own nationality or identity, but together we are Nederland, or as we used to call ourselves the Republic of the United Netherlands.
its people are one, with small regional differences, but every village, every county, has its differences, but for the most part the flamish people are Dutch.

I at least, just as most dutch people consider you as our long lost cousins or brothers, its like we lost you, not because you wanted to go away from us, but because the Filthy and villainous British wanted to seperate our mighty Republic. Just like the spanish did, i dare say if we had more soldiers during the 80 Years war , we could help liberate our southern brothers and i think a lot of them would have converted to Protestantism aswell, they probably just didnt because of the spanish influence. (im catholic myself) But at the times, the Protestants were top dog in our country.
And sure, wealth was divided in different ways, and the south in the netherlands now is still not as prominent as the [Randstad] Holland/Utrecht, but thats is just because of location with the cities and the work that is their, that is only natural, and i doubt that we stole anythings from our southern provinces, including south Brabant and limburg/ Vlaanderen.

and Honestly , most flemish i spoke with dont harbor resentment towards the dutch, rather towards the wallonians.

But back on topic, in this time, the time of the game we love so much, the fact is that the 'Belgians' as a seperate country , apart from the republic just didnt do anything, or at least not noteworthy. And i do mean that with respect.

@FreyrDS the southern dutchies also call themselves bourgondian, i dont know how stupid they must be to call themselves that, but still they do. I myself refuse to call myself Hollander , just because i am not from Holland. I am Dutch, i am from province of Utrecht (sticht) and i am from my local village. just like you are either Flemish/Limburger/Brabander, and if you are one of those, then i will still call you Dutch, for i believe you still are.
 
You are missing the point. Flanders was dutch, it was where the flag of the dutch rebellion was first raised it was the dutch heartlands, the north only became important because once flanders ended up back under spanish rule a mass migraiton out of flanders into what's today's netherlands occured. You could almost say that the netherlands were colonized by the dutch after the independence war, well actually you really could say they were it just began before the independence war but originally most of the present day netherlands were frisian not dutch (we're talking early ck2 period here though), the dutch who back then lived in flanders and Brabant moved in and colonized the region because of their greater numbers. Even in 1444 the north is very much a frontier region even if firmly dutch at this point (aside from friesland and ostfriesland). Flander is not only dutch in 1444 it is the original dutch homeland, the core of dutch territory.
And here we run into language problems because dutch doesn't get across the same as the term Nederlanders (and as such I will be switching to the endonym netherlanders instead of the exonym dutch), nederlanders simply meant the people of the low countries (well the Germanic people's of the low countries, possibly excluding the frisians) in 1444, it is by the neatherlands that the term neatherlanders come to refer specifically to the people of that country and not to the people outside of it's politcal borders. It's like with Swedes in Finland when asked what they are do they respond Swedes? It makes sense because it is what they are, but on the other hand they will almost certainly be mistaken to actually be from sweden is they do that. Hence why they adopted a new term for themselves which did not cause the confusion, Finland Swedes, well the Flemmish did the same, except they fell back on an earlier regionym for themselves, flemmish. When the later became part of the netherlands they realized that while they were now netherlanders in the political sense the flemmish identity had grown apart from the netherlandish one, they were not netherlanders like all other netherlanders.*

But it is the formation of a country called the netherlands that precipitate this divide, before the netherlands became a political term it was simply a collective term for flemmish brabantian hollanders whatever the regionyms for the other provinces are, the existance of the country made it into something else.

Or I could be totally wrong but that is how I having discussed this and seen it discussed many many times on these boards have understood it.

So essentially Flemish and dutch should be one culture in 1444 forming the netherlands should fire some timer a certain number of years any dutch provinces in the south not owned by the netherlands should flip flemmish. Heck it could be made interactive with the netherlands being given the option of sacrificing things to keep the flemmish invested in their kinship to the netherlands, the netherlands could ever get cores on the dutch provinces in the south which they the gradually lose as the flemish slip away from them and whoever owns them being able to invest in breaking the flemish of from the dutch.

*Edit: It is very similar to the Rus, there Kiev was the heartlands of the Russian people then it get conquered by a foreign power, mass migration into what was earlier a frontier region making that reigon powerful, when that region reconquers the original homeland they find that they and the people there have to much history apart from each other, they have become different. The stronger party tries to standardise the culture the "weaker" party breaks free proclaiming themselves a culture separate from the original one.
There's also the problem on how the "senior" partner views the cultural drift. First of they view themselves as the original culture, unaltered, something which just isn't true, things always change. A Dutchman from Brügge in 1568 would not be at home in either Brügge or Amsterdam in 1815. (nor a Kievian from 1223 in either Moscow or Kiev in 1686)
Secondly they view any difference of the junior culture from their own as a trauma inflicted upon them by the third party, and even worse set out to correct it by essentially assimilating the junior. And... well... that doesn't go over well.


That mission really should be "Intrests of [capital area]" as I said above only because Flanders and Brabant was lost to the revolution did Holland become the heart of the netherlandish state if they had remained in possession of Brugge then Brugge would almost certainly had been the capital of the republic.


It's not Istanbul's mission it can happen to any glass producing province with enough development.

Culture and genetics is far from the same thing, also Turkish is not Turkic, Turkish has had substantial influence from the byzantine empire.

Why do you think that the word Dutch existed at that time before the Netherlands were proclaimed? I prefer to use the name Lowlandic, referring to the Lage Landen (Lowlands), partially because it hasn't the connation of the Flemish being lost sons of the Dutch, and who says that Brabantian or Flemish was not "mother culture" instead of "dutch". The difference of Flemish and Dutch was something that became a thing after the 80years war.
Edit: oh nice, I posted this at the same time as a Dutch person who does consider me a lost son.
 
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Have you guys thought about the Flemmish duchies? Are they going to have the Dutch missions? And the Walloon duchies the French?
I would guess that since the Wallonian states (except Liege) aren't independent at the start, they don't get missions
 
Why do you think that the word Dutch existed at that time before the Netherlands were proclaimed? I prefer to use the name Lowlandic, referring to the Lage Landen (Lowlands), partially because it hasn't the connation of the Flemish being lost sons of the Dutch, and who says that Brabantian or Flemish was not "mother culture" instead of "dutch". The difference of Flemish and Dutch was something that became a thing after the 80years war.
Edit: oh nice, I posted this at the same time as a Dutch person who does consider me a lost son.
I do indeed, my long lost son.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeventien_Provinciën
 
And sure, wealth was divided in different ways, and the south in the netherlands now is still not as prominent as the [Randstad] Holland/Utrecht, but thats is just because of location with the cities and the work that is their, that is only natural, and i doubt that we stole anythings from our southern provinces, including south Brabant and limburg/ Vlaanderen.

The southern Netherlands were richer than the northern ones at the start of the game and this did not change just due to location (unless you see location as defensive position): During the 80 years war Flanders chose the side of the rebels and they paid for it as the Spanish conquered large parts of Flanders back and drove away a big part of the protestant population (an example would be the Fall of Anwerp and the demand of the Spanish that the protestants would convert or leave the city. Almost 60% of its population left and most of those went to northern cities such as Leiden or Amsterdam and so helped to create Golden Century of the republic).
 
The southern Netherlands were richer than the northern ones at the start of the game and this did not change just due to location (unless you see location as defensive position): During the 80 years war Flanders chose the side of the rebels and they paid for it as the Spanish conquered large parts of Flanders back and drove away a big part of the protestant population (an example would be the Fall of Anwerp and the demand of the Spanish that the protestants would convert or leave the city. Almost 60% of its population left and most of those went to northern cities such as Leiden or Amsterdam and so helped to create Golden Century of the republic).
yes , so it is not, as some people claim that we from the Netherlands, stole that wealth, if anyone did, it was the spanish fault.
 
yes , so it is not, as some people claim that we from the Netherlands, stole that wealth, if anyone did, it was the spanish fault.
To be honest, keeping Antwerp blockaded did kinda do that