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Welcome back to our weekly series of development diaries about Europa Universalis. This time we’ll talk about two features that will be part of the next expansion.

Theocracies
This is based on something we read in the suggestions forum. Monarchies and Republics have had their Legitimacy and Republican Tradition, but Theocracies haven’t had a unique mechanic yet. The next expansion will add a concept we call Devotion. Devotion ranges for 0 to 100, and impacts several thing.

Devotion impacts your religious abilities, your prestige gain and your tax-income.

You primarily gain devotion from high religious unity and the devoutness idea. Low stability will decrease it, while being Defender of the Faith will increase it.

There are also a lot of events that impact your devotion.

Another unique mechanic for theocracies is the fact that they always have an heir, and they have somewhat of control of it.

If you do not have an heir, you get a chance to select one heir. Heirs are age 40+ with random stats. You can then pick one of the following.

  • A Local Noble – Loses 5 devotion, but gains +10 Prestige
  • A Foreign Noble - Gains +100 relation with a random nation.
  • A Merchant's Son - +25% yearly income, lost 10 devotion
  • A Papal Protege – Catholic only. Gains +10 Papal Influence
  • A Talented Theologian: +10 Devotion
  • A local preacher – +5 Devotion & -10 Prestige


Government Ranks
A new feature in the next expansion is the introduction of proper Government Ranks. In previous versions, most countries would either be simply a Kingdom or a Republic, with a few special cases like Byzantium's Imperial Government and vassalized Kings becoming Dukes. If you don't get the expansion, this changes little, but for those with it most government types will come in three ranks: Duchy, Kingdom and Empire. While these are the names of the ranks, it doesn't mean there aren't any ranks for Republics - Venice's Serene Republic is on the same level as a Kingdom, for example.

Countries will start with whatever is closest to the rank they had historically, so the King of Burgundy becomes the Duke of Burgundy, while Byzantium is very much an Empire despite no longer having a special government form. Vassals, Marches and non-Elector members of the HRE are always Duchy rank, and certain government types only come in a single rank (such as Ming's Celestial Empire, which is always an Empire). Countries that are not locked to a particular rank can raise their rank through the Government screen by fulfilling certain requirements such as a certain level of prestige and total development level of your nation.

So what benefit do you get from a higher government rank, besides a new title and fancier headgear? Well, for one, higher government ranks are able to change their National Focus more often, with the default 25 year cooldown being 20 years for Kingdoms, and a mere 15 years for Empires. The bonuses granted from each government are now also set per rank, with government types getting more autonomy reduction from the higher ranks, while others such as Steppe Hordes have their base government bonuses to force limits, manpower and looting speed increased by higher government ranks.

Finally, this system also comes with a complete and mod-friendly overhaul of how government names and titles are handled. Under the old system, if you wanted to for example call your Greek Emperor a Basileus, you would have to create a particular localisation string that might get overwritten by other localisation strings, and there was no ability to differentiate between the titles of say, a Greek Western Technology Group Emperor and a Greek Eastern Technology Group Emperor. Under the new system, you script specific government name/title entries that might look something like this:


Code:
byzantine_monarchy = {
rank_1 = PRINCIPALITY
rank_2 = KINGDOM
rank_3 = EMPIRE


ruler_1 = AUTOKRATOR
ruler_1_female = AUTOKRATEIRA
ruler_2 = DESPOT
ruler_2_female = DESPOTISSA
ruler_3 = BASILEUS
ruler_3_female = BASILISSA

trigger = {
   government = monarchy
   tag = BYZ
}
}


The game goes through the government entries, picks the first one it finds where the trigger evaluates true, and applies those government titles to that nation. This means that if you so desire, you could create a complete unique set of government names for each and every country in the game!


AQP3Ng9.jpg
 
HOLY CRAWFISH, A THEOCRACY EXPANSION.

You know what this EP needs though? It needs more sand Theocrat Rebels. If you mistreat the Church, the Church should turn on you.

Also, the "gives random +100 approval of another nation" should be doable from any nation sharing your religion. So, if Cambodia was Catholic Christian and AI Mainz chooses this (rare) option, there should be a chance of a Cambodian Archbishop.
 
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Cool, Gov ranks, I was just thinking these would be a good idea yesterday in fact!

So I have two questions/suggestions for you:
1: Are you going to add a Theocratic version of Aristocratic-Plutocratic group?
2: Are you thinking of replacing Religious Idea group for something similar to the Aristocratic-Plutocratic switch? Say, have Catholic Idea group, a Reformed Idea group, ect. (Or even simply a Christian Idea group, Muslim idea group, ect.)
 
Duchy of Milan sounds much better
 
How about the Ottoman and Mughal Empires? The ruler should be still Sultan and not Padishah that is Persian title like in EU3.
The change should be that Empire is stronghold with at least 45 provinces on the same continent or a continent that is connected to another. Is there a decision to increase rank or is it a button/mechanic?
Another question: What is the rank of American tribes?
 
A higher government rank is purely beneficial for the same reason national ideas purely beneficial - upgrading your government should feel like you've progressed, not "I gain this but I lost this, was it worth it?" so we bundle better administration into the title itself.


With all due respect I slightly disagree with this statement. Overall yes, founding an empire should feel like an achievement and better than being a duchy. I believe most people agree with that.

That said, I think there should be nonetheless some trade off between the ranks. And from what I understand some in the community (myself included) find that there is a conceptional divergence regarding the meaning of government rank between developers and the community.

The way I see it, the government rank will not make your nation straight up more efficient but instead enables you with more choices. In effect separating your rank from your government form.

Lets take the government form of an Administrative Monarchy for an example what I mean:

kWh1LhJ.png


Note how the government rank doesn't change the bonus you get from your government form.

Edit: As someone stated before, calling yourself an king or emperor woudn't incline your citicens to suddenly be more productive or accept your authority faster.

No, what the act would do is (if it's legitimate)
  1. improve your international prestige and opinion (aka diplomatic reputation in EU4).
  2. Once your kingdom/empire is established, the title is worth something even when it is temporary weakened (slower prestige decay in EU4). See the byzantine empire as a extreme example.
  3. Furthermore, prestige attracts people and it was a matter of prestige that they are accordingly paid. As money and prestige attract people you get additional advisers but you have to pay them more.
  4. Also, in a mighty and vast empire it should take more time to change the focus then in a small duchy.
  5. Lastly I haven't seen an empire in history that has not engulved two or more cultures. As emperors rule over many differnt people they have to come in terms with them (Thats why reduced cultural acceptence makes sense).
Edit end

To summerize, a higher rank provides you with more diplomatic reputation, a bigger advisor pool, a lower accepted culture threshold and lower prestige decay. The downside is that you pay slightly more for your advisers and that focus timer reset bonus is gone (which isn't a bonus on itself rather a matter of convenience).

So, most of the times there is incentive to increase rank if it is possible, especially if the changing of rank in itself (trough event) provides additional benefits (prestige gain, temporally morale boost etc.).

Thank you

Edited in a later post of mine for more clarity.
 
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First of all, what I want is choices/ alternatives.
If you want to have a 200 province duchy, why not. It might not be optimal but nobody prevents you from that.

P.s. Finland was quite a large duchy for a long time
Not to comment your other point, but Finland was not independant at start of the EU4 timeframe, and really never was during it neither. It is composed out of a few poor provinces too.
 
First of all, what I want is choices/ alternatives.
If you want to have a 200 province duchy, why not. It might not be optimal but nobody prevents you from that.

P.s. Finland was quite a large duchy for a long time
I prefer having at least a few rewards and goals. Going up a rank was a goal of many notable monarchies (Burgundy, Austria, Prussia, Russia just to name a few). If anything in a Europa Universalis game can work as a clear goal then attaining a higher rank can. It's one place where being purely beneficial is perfectly sensible as it motivates the player to pursue the same goal that monarchs of the era pursued.

The game already has to many cases where the goals of the player are completely unaligned with the goals a real ruler would pursue.
 
How about having autonomy and kingdoms empires relate but diffrently.Say, you need to have lower than 80% autonomy on all provinces in order to form a kingdom, but once you've formed a kingdom no province can get above 80 autonomy (Unless it already is above 80 for some reason). Same with empire but say 60%. That way you are locking down the centralisation of the country but you are also causing friction bbecause you're limiting yourself in how much you can lower authority to prevent insurrection. Now I just pulled 80 and 60 out of the air game testing would be required to balance those numbers.
 
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@Me_

Yes, as I stated before I agree with that an empire should be a goal for the player.
I just don't like the way it is portrayed.

The concept feels arbitrary and wrong. Let me elaborate:
As someone stated before, calling yourself an king or emperor woudn't incline your citicens to suddenly be more productive or accept your authority.

No, what the act would do is (if it's legimite)
  1. improve your international prestige and opinion (aka diplomatic reputation in EU4).
  2. Once your kingdom/empire is established, the title is worth something even when it is temporary weakened (slower prestige decay in EU4). See the byzantine empire as a extreme example.
  3. Furthermore, prestige attracts people and it was a matter of prestige that they are accordingly paid. As money and prestige attract people you get additional advisers but you have to pay them more.
  4. Also, in a mighty and vast empire it should take more time to change the focus then in a small duchy.
  5. Lastly I haven't seen an empire in history that has not engulved two or more cultures. As emperors rule over many differnt people they have to come in terms with them (Thats why reduced cultural acceptence makes sense).
I hope that makes my point somewhat clearer.
Edit: typos
 
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P.s. Finland was quite a large duchy for a long time

Geographically big. It had estimated population size of like 300 - 500 000 in eu4 period. Living in villages and small cities.

By 1900 (1900! Not 1600!) seventy percent of the population was engaged in agriculture and forestry, and half of the value of production came from these primary industries.