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EU4 - Development Diary - 15th of October 2019

Good morning once again, and welcome to today’s dev diary. Following on from last week, I’ll be covering a couple more Imperial Incidents, this time focusing on our reworked Dutch Revolt and Shadow Kingdom.

Another reminder in case you’ve forgotten how Imperial Incidents work:

“The other thing for us to look into today are Imperial Incidents. One thing we wanted to do was to make the Empire feel alive and rife with bickering princes. To that end, we have rolled some existing occurrences throughout EU4 and History, as well as many others, into a system that has the HRE both create and react to issues in Central Europe and the immediate vicinity.

When the conditions are ripe, an Imperial Incident can trigger for the Empire. All member states will be informed of the incident, and it will prominently be displayed in the HRE interface. The Emperor will then have 6 months to make a decision on the incident, with wide-ranging knock-on effects.”

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Let’s start with the Dutch Revolt. You’ll be pleased to hear that this is no longer represented as a potentially endless series of events spawning hundreds of thousands of separatist rebels in your Lowlands provinces. We’ve instead opted to use the Disaster system to constrain the time-frame for when these rebellions crop up. Most conditions should be relatively familiar: don’t have any of the Lowland culture (now including Frisian!) as your primary culture, own at least 5 provinces in the Lowlands region with Dutch/Flemish/Frisian culture, don’t have your capital in the Lowlands region, etc.

We do however have a new set of conditions: there must also be some kind of existing cultural or religious tensions in your Low Countries provinces. In practice, this means owning Low Countries provinces that do not have your religion or have a culture that is not accepted in your nation.

When these conditions are true, the Dutch Revolt Disaster will begin ticking for your nation. When the Disaster fires a large number of rebels will spawn in some of your Low Countries provinces and of said provinces will get extra Unrest until the end of the Disaster. Events will give you the option of fighting additional rebels or granting high autonomy to your Lowlands provinces.

The Disaster ends when one of these sets of conditions is true:
  • The Disaster has been present in your country for 20 years, there are no rebels in your provinces, and you have at least 1 Stability
  • The Netherlands exists
  • You own less than 5 Dutch/Flemish/Frisian provinces in the Low Countries region

If at any point during the Disaster you own at least 5 provinces that are Dutch/Flemish/Frisian culture and either controlled by rebels or 90% autonomous, the Dutch Independence event fires and you’ll find yourself in a bloody war. Not only will the Netherlands be spawned from all appropriate provinces, but an Imperial Incident will begin and all of your rivals will be invited to support the new Dutch state in their quest for self-determination. These events will now directly call your rivals into the independence war rather than simply creating an alliance that is unlikely to be useful for the Netherlands during the initial war, which gives them much more of a fighting chance.

The Dutch Revolt Imperial Incident gives the Emperor a chance to intervene, assuming that the Dutch are not revolting against the Emperor and that the Netherlands are part of the HRE. The Emperor has three options:
  • If the Emperor chooses to support Dutch independence, they are called into the independence war (assuming that it is still ongoing), become an ally of the Netherlands, and get a significant opinion boost with the fledgling nation.

  • If the Emperor chooses not to intervene in the conflict, they lose some prestige and send a clear message that the Empire cares not for the Dutch cause. The Netherlands will leave the HRE after the independence war has concluded.

  • If the Emperor chooses to suppress the Dutch revolt, the Emperor will gain an alliance with the former overlords of the Dutch, and again the Netherlands will leave the Empire after the war is over.

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We’ve also taken another look at the Shadow Kingdom event chain that leads to Italy leaving the Holy Roman Empire. In the past this has set a challenge to the Emperor to force Italy into the Empire often through strange and obscure means. In the European update we’ve turned it on its head; you’ll now need to rein in the Italian Princes that are already in the Empire but who are slipping away from Imperial rule. The Emperor gets an event near the beginning of the game about this state of affairs and what must be done to avert a total loss of control in Italy.

An Italian state is considered “reined in” after it has lost a war (any war) against the Emperor or if it has very good relations with the Emperor. We’ll be displaying which nations are at risk of abandoning the Empire in the HRE interface.

Some time around the 1460’s, an Imperial Incident begins for the Emperor in which he has two options:
  • Continue attempting to rein in the Italians: this begins a timer for the Emperor to attempt to rein in as many Italian states as possible. The risk the Emperor takes here is that failing to hold to this promise will incur a greater penalty to Imperial Authority than simply abandoning Italy early on.

  • Abandon Italy: all of Italy will be removed from the Empire immediately at the cost of 20 [numbers subject to change] Imperial Authority and 10 Prestige.
If the Emperor attempts to keep Italy within the Empire, they’ll get a follow-up event after 20 years. Italian Princes that were in danger of leaving, if any remain, will leave the Empire and the Emperor will incur a penalty to Imperial Authority for each Prince that leaves.If the Emperor has succeeded in reining in every Italian state they’ll gain 25 Imperial Authority, the Italian Princes will remain in the Empire, and certain future Incidents will be unlocked or barred due to your actions.

That’s all for this week! As you can see the Imperial Incidents system has given us a great excuse to go back and revisit some of the game’s oldest and most impactful content, and what I’ve talked about today is far from all we’ve done in this regard. Have a good week, and for those of you attending PDXCON, I’ll see you there!
 
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Netherlands is a successful power in about 1/3 of our overnight games right now, which is about right. This will likely change as development continues so we need to keep checking up on things like this.

1/3 of the time doesn't sound promising. It should be 2/3 of the time at least. Especially with a Catholic foreign overlord while the Netherlands becomes Reformed/Protestant.

Very interesting changes. I like the rivals joining the war so the Dutch have a bigger chance to win. About the Italian minors you mentioned them being a secondary participant in the war is enough. So you can basically have 10% warscore and easily reign them all in? Or will this be made more difficult? It almost seems easier to do now.
 
Is it still possible for Spain to get the Burgundian's Land while not being the Emperor of the HRE? In your screenshot Lowlands are Spanish, but according to your previous DD only the Emperor can get the burgundian inheritance now
I guess the "A very strategic marriage" event will be reworked and the PU will be transfered to Castille while giving it a Habsburg heir.
 
Every single event, mechanic, gameplay decision, everything added to EU4 lately fails to pose ANY threat to the player whatsoever. Taking even old events and removing any teeth they had just because the player MIGHT be hurt is insane to me. There's supposed to be some difficult in the game isn't t here?
 
Every single event, mechanic, gameplay decision, everything added to EU4 lately fails to pose ANY threat to the player whatsoever. Taking even old events and removing any teeth they had just because the player MIGHT be hurt is insane to me. There's supposed to be some difficult in the game isn't t here?
Crisis of the Ming is pretty threatening
 
There will be more mechanical dev diaries in the future.



It will depend on the outcome.



Not explicitly, but being at war incurs a relations penalty and a truce so they'll be harder to rein in in that sense.



Netherlands is a successful power in about 1/3 of our overnight games right now, which is about right. This will likely change as development continues so we need to keep checking up on things like this. I'm still tweaking Shadow Kingdom but right now the AI will typically abandon Italy early rather than trying to rein them in. This allows for earlier and more interesting Italian Wars.



Yes they will.

Why is 1/3 the goal?
 
Some more questions. Can Dutch minors now form the Netherlands without leaving the HRE? Is the Emperor gonna be involved in this like the Prussia Kingdom thing? Before this you had to become elector or emperor as a Dutch minor to stay inside the HRE if you formed the Netherlands so I hope this will be changed as well. Will there be changes to the minority expulsion mechanic? It's really easy for player and AI to expel Dutch minorities to prevent the Dutch revolt disaster.

How do Venice and the Pope get involved in the Shadow Kingdom now? Same as other Italian nations?
 
Every single event, mechanic, gameplay decision, everything added to EU4 lately fails to pose ANY threat to the player whatsoever. Taking even old events and removing any teeth they had just because the player MIGHT be hurt is insane to me. There's supposed to be some difficult in the game isn't t here?
We don't know the final numbers for the revamped merc system. They could make the game more difficult in every respect except in the amount of carpal tunnel caused by hiring mercs.
 
1/3 of the time doesn't sound promising. It should be 2/3 of the time at least. Especially with a Catholic foreign overlord while the Netherlands becomes Reformed/Protestant..
Why the assumption that 100% of the time the Netherlands have a Catholic foreign overlord, while the Netherlands are Reformed/Protestant? It may very well be 1/3 of the time, because half the time the Lowlands do not have a Catholic foreign overlord, while the Lowlands are Reformed/Protestant.

Just for reference:
Burgundian Inheritance may not happen, leaving Netherlands divided between small states or united under Burgundy that accepts all Dutch cultures.
Burgundian Inheritance may happen but the inheritor may be tolerant.
Burgundian Inheritance may happen but the Lowlands may end up fragmented afterwards.
Burgundian Inheritance may happen but the Dutch may be let go by the inheritor.
Netherlands may form by other means.
Reformation may be very successful or very unsuccessful, resulting in no religion tensions in the region.
And obviously, that is 1/3 of the time that the Netherlands are successful. They may very well be unsuccessful if they are brought low by another power.
 
Those dev diaries are filled with emptiness. Im getting scared by the idea the great European update could be a meh DLC.
Give us new mechanics, new will to play this game, dont "fill" whatever you can with missions and incidents that are just old EUIV event reworked.
Thx for your dedication
 
Yes Imperial Incidents are DLC locked, but in cases when we rework old stuff like the Dutch Revolt and Shadow Kingdom they'll still be available to people without the DLC by conventional means.
 
  • If the Emperor chooses to suppress the Dutch revolt, the Emperor will gain an alliance with the former overlords of the Dutch, and again the Netherlands will leave the Empire after the war is over.
Even if the former overlord and the Emperor are rivals? Wouldn't it be weird? Maybe an opinion boost to make alliance more likely would be more fitting.
The rivals getting called in to support the Netherlands, are they nations you have set as rivals or nations that have set you as their rival?
Nations that have set you as their rival are called enemies not rivals. Though we should ask if enemies too will be called into war? @neondt
 
There will be follow-up content for that, but more on that later.

As we are talking about Rome, could you please consider adding the HRE to the list of countries that can hold Rome without getting the Occupation of Rome event?

Also concerning the Dutch revolt, will the Dutch revolting against the Emperor while the religious leagues are active still lead to them getting roflstomped by half of Europe?
 
There will be more mechanical dev diaries in the future.



It will depend on the outcome.



Not explicitly, but being at war incurs a relations penalty and a truce so they'll be harder to rein in in that sense.



Netherlands is a successful power in about 1/3 of our overnight games right now, which is about right. This will likely change as development continues so we need to keep checking up on things like this. I'm still tweaking Shadow Kingdom but right now the AI will typically abandon Italy early rather than trying to rein them in. This allows for earlier and more interesting Italian Wars.



Yes they will.
Not the first time the Italian Wars are mentioned for this DLC.
Hoping for a DD exploring that further.
 
Every single event, mechanic, gameplay decision, everything added to EU4 lately fails to pose ANY threat to the player whatsoever. Taking even old events and removing any teeth they had just because the player MIGHT be hurt is insane to me. There's supposed to be some difficult in the game isn't t here?
the stuff revamped in this Diary was just annoying, awful design. there's no fun in a challenge if it's tedious and badly implemented
 
Yes Imperial Incidents are DLC locked, but in cases when we rework old stuff like the Dutch Revolt and Shadow Kingdom they'll still be available to people without the DLC by conventional means.
Will the no-DLC version use the same mechanics like the DLC one, just without the Emperor's decision or will it instead be a slightly updated previous implementation?
And how will a free Shadow Kingdom work?
 
The Disaster ends when one of these sets of conditions is true:
  • The Disaster has been present in your country for 20 years, there are no rebels in your provinces, and you have at least 1 Stability
  • The Netherlands exists
  • You own less than 5 Dutch/Flemish/Frisian provinces in the Low Countries region

Does it mean that I can start disaster with 5 provinces in the Lowlands, create an OPM vassal and end disaster immediately? Or just convert the culture/expel minorities in one province to end this? Another way would be to force some other country to release The Netherlands from their provinces.