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EU4 - Development Diary - 18th of June 2019

Hello and good morning. Today we will finally unveil our long-anticipated changes to the map and political setup of the Balkans, as well as taking a look at Austria. This will be our final dev diary on map changes for the European update.

As befits the fragmented nature of the Balkans, today’s dev diary will be divided into three parts, each written by a member of the Content Design team who personally worked on each region.

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I’ll begin with my own work on Greece and Bulgaria. You’ll notice that province density has noticeably increased, but rest assured we have taken care to avoid adding a net development boost to the Ottomans. We feel that their current level of development makes them a sufficiently powerful force, and any further advantages would harm the experience for players in their vicinity.

We’ve split the Bulgaria area in two, with most of Bulgaria remaining in “Bulgaria” but with the east in the new Silistria area. Bulgaria in total has gained 3 new provinces: Tolcu, split from Silistre, allows for a more accurate Ottoman-Moldavian border. Tirnovo, once a major cultural, military, and economic center for the Bulgarian Empire, declined under Ottoman rule but remained a thorn in the side of the Turks as it was a hotbed for Bulgarian resistance. Finally, Kyustendil/Kostendil was the center of an Ottoman sanjak and an exploitable mining site.

Thrace and Macedonia have also been updated with new provinces. Edirne has lost its access to the sea to the new province of Gelibolu/Gallipoli, home to a mighty fortress and naval arsenal. Parts of the former Edirne have also been added to the new Gumulcine province. Lastly, Selanik is now confined to the area around the city of Thessaloniki, as Siroz now occupies the outer reaches.

Moving down into Greece proper, a new nation has appeared while another is notable by its absence. Epirus, with its capital in the new province of Arta, is ruled by the Tocco dynasty who for whatever reason were previously represented as the rulers of the Venetian vassal-state of Corfu. Corfu no longer exists in 1444, but it retains its core on the island. Epirus also rules the island of Cephalonia, which has been separated from the Corfu province and gives Epirus the ability to produce wine. Fans of Byzantium will be pleased to hear that they now possess an additional province at the start of the game, based around the historic city of Corinth. And in the Aegean Sea, Lesbos has been split from Scio - Lesbos has a strait connection to Biga while Scio connects to Sugla.

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I'm @Caligula Caesar, and I'm here to tell you about our changes to Austria. Now, some of you may be aware that there is a good case for splitting Austria in three at the start of the game and requiring them to unify their territories. However, as a team we elected NOT to do this. Our reasoning is simple: For an enjoyable and challenging game on continental Europe, it is necessary for there to be a strong Austria. As Austria is already one of the more vulnerable superpowers in the early game, making their starting position significantly weaker by reducing their directly held territories by 2/3 would simply not make a better game experience.

We felt that Austria's starting development was fine as it was, but its province density was not quite at the level we wanted, so we added some new provinces by splitting existing provinces' development. As we have already shown, Tirol was split between Inntal and Etschtal and South Tirol became Trent, now an independent tag; also, some impassable mountains were added between Tirol and Venetia. Moving east, we split Kärnten in two between Oberkärnten/Villach and Unterkärnten/Klagenfurt. In the north, Linz's province (now known as Oberenns) was reshaped significantly and room was made for Traungau (with the significant ironworking town of Steyr as its capital) to the south of it. Wien province, too, has been split, with Wienerwald/Sankt Pölten taking its place to the west.

Finally, in the south, we added the Slovene culture. This culture is present in Görz, Krain and Celje. The last of those is owned by a new tag, the Counts of Cilli - known by their German name as its rulers were the German von Cilli family (the tag itself retains Slovene culture, however, and has some dynamic province names for surrounding areas).

Now on to @Ofaloaf 's work on the Western Balkans:

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This work owes a tremendous amount to @otaats and his suggestions in Serbia & friends, which (in a truncated form) served as an inspiration. I also want to give a shoutout to @Wokeg, whose enthusiasm for the region and its history has been an excellent inspiration and motivation.

Most of the mapwork simply provides greater provincial fidelity, but there are some significant changes and additions. Starting with the smaller stuff, Venetian holdings along the Adriatic coast are better defined, with old Dalmatian province now split between Zara and Spalato and Cattaro now spun off from the province of Zeta. Albania also gets a second province, Krüje, which was one of the strongholds of the Albanian ruler Skanderbeg. Fortified and mountainous, Krüje should be a real pain to crack early in the game.

One of the most major additions to the region is the inclusion of Herzegovina. It's a relatively new state in 1444, being largely the creation of Stjepan Vukčić, who inherited those lands in 1435. Stjepan was an incredibly ambitious nobleman who took on the title of herceg (borrowed from German herzog) and ruled a portion of the Kingdom of Bosnia as a de facto independent realm called the Duchy of Saint Sava, which is the name its contemporaries knew it as. While Stjepan had the chops for independent rule, his sons weren't quite as canny, and in 1483 the realm was conquered by advancing Ottoman forces. However, Stjepan's title, herceg, lived on in the Ottoman name for the territory, and this eventually became the name Herzegovina, which is what we know the area now as and, for the sake of familiarity, the name which the realm (and its capital province) is called in-game.

You may have also noticed that Croatia is now present on the map. It starts in a union under Hungary, and depending on Hungarian fortunes may now either break away in one fell swoop or be more firmly incorporated into the Crown of St. Stephen. While the inclusion of Croatia does provide some interesting opportunities for Hungarian expansion or wresting parts of the Hungarian domain away from Budapest, the inclusion of Croatia as a separate entity has called for a little historical fudging. Rule of Croatia and Slavonia was split in 1444, although the two entities were ruled by Croatian brothers at the time of the Grand Campaign, and the titles would be merged together into a united Banate in 1476. To prevent Hungarian diplomatic relations from being eaten up by subjects and give it a slightly more powerful vassal to keep in check, Croatia here is unified slightly early.

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Thank you all for reading this and our other map-based dev diaries, it’s been a pleasure to present our work to you and to read your feedback and ideas. Next week we will take a look at some of the new mission trees coming to this region - most likely Austria, one of the Balkan minors, and something you might not expect. We’ll also talk a little about the Hungarian succession. Until then, have a great week!
 
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I feel like Iberia is already going to feel dated after this update. Some huge provinces there still and Portugal is in dire need of some more. Since it'd end up being at least a year until it's revisited hopefully some changes can be made with this European update.

Is it really the case or is it just a very vocal minority? I never had a problem with iberian provinces size.
 
We thought about it. For a few seconds. It would very definitely be a bad idea.
How about making them historical friends?
IMHO Austria needs a little buff. In mostly all of my games Austria never PU's Hungary or Bohemia. It just allies Hungary and fights Bohemia.
It's because they're historical friends with Hungary. I mixed it up in my personal mod made Hungary HF with Poland instead. And both Hungary and Austria HR with the ottomans. Also I removed the HR between Austria and France. It gets added back by the burgundian succession. Also it would be nice if great powers that border the HRE always have a malus to relationship with the emperor.
Please nerf African Trade Companies and buff American Colonial Nations
Yes to the first no to the second. Most colonial nations in the Americas never ran a profit at all. It was the east India trade that was valuable not the west Indies one. Both the British South sea company and the Dutch counterpart was essentially worthless.
Well I think a few opportunities were missed with the Balkan revision so I just submit this in case you want inspiration for any further changes ;)

I still feel Bulgaria could use another province in the north, you can never show the Balkans too much love!

View attachment 492771
I do like Varna being on the map.
 
No he isn't, and this might be, no offense, the result of learning all your history from Paradox titles. The medieval Hungarian kingdom was a bastion of the Catholic church in eastern Europe and exerted massive influence over the minor Balkan states and was an important rival of the Byzantine empire while it was still at the height of its power during the Komnenoi Renaissance. This entire game is about alternate history, so why not bring in the possibility of Hungary resisting Ottoman advancement? Ottomans won battles against the whole of Europe but also lost against lone petty kings like Stefan III and Vlad Tsepesh.
so many problems and why people don't want things changed is because they learn history from these games, when these games could learn a lot from history. people have a completely skewed view of which states were strong at the start of this game's period because of what they "learn" from eu4.
 
Okay, so my comment about the new west Balkans being inaccurate got tons of downvotes, but no reply to elaborate on how I was wrong. I'll make an explanation of all the mistakes made in the new map.
dd_serbia.jpg

First of all, let's start with the province names and positioning.
In Serbia, they've added a new province for Smederevo, but kept the capital at Braničevo? This is probably just an overlook so I won't give it too much time. They did however, make Serbia infinitely weaker by denying it a coastline, and I ask for what reason? Venetian holdings in the Balkans were, at this time, very tame compared to what the game depicts. The province of Durazzo was never this large and the Venetians only held the city itself, but that isn't a major issue as it didn't rob Albania of its coastline, But now they're getting rid of a coastline for Serbia and just making them an easier lunch for Venice, as they already were in the last few patches. Cattaro was indeed Venetian territory at this time, but Serbia did have both a cost, the important port of Bar, and land contacts with Ragusa, which it also loses with this patch. Here's a map of what the coast of the despotate roughly looked like in this time period.
640px-Serbian_Despotate_1423.png

Now let's get into the horror show that is Bosnia;

Why is the province of Bosnia (not translated into Bosna btw, just like they did with Belgrade not being called Beograd under Serbian rule) located along the Vrbas river? The territory of Bosnia gets its name from the river Bosnia, which begins near modern day Sarajevo and contemporary Vrhbosna, so for what reason is Bosnia there? The province of Visoki is the territory that should get the name Bosnia, and the province of Bosnia should be renamed to Usora. Also, what's up with Herzegovina? I'm glad that the country was included as it is historical, but there's absolutely no reason to rename Travunia into "Herzegovina". Herzegovina means land of the Herzeg, and is such a carpet term for all territories held by the Herzeg of Saint Sava (the new country in question). The province of Herzegovina should be renamed back into Travunia. The positioning of Hum is horrible as well, Hum or (Zachumlia) was much smaller and closer to Travunia historically. This region should be renamed to Tropolia (Latin/English) and Tropolje in Serbo-Croatian.

In Croatia, the names aren't standardized yet again with Slavonija labeled as Slavonia.

That's for the issues with province naming, now for the inclusion of Croatia as an independent country:

Croatia, first of all, did not have these borders in this time period. The province of Slavonia was at this time not called that, and the toponym of Slavonia referred to the wider area of Zagreb. The in game province of Slavonia was under complete Hungarian control. Now that we've removed that out of the picture, Croatia should be divided into two territories; Croatia and Slavonia, Croatia occupying the provinces of Lika and Rijeka, and the northern three provinces going to the new Slavonian state. Here's a map for reference:
Hungary_13th_cent.png

While we're on the topic of that, is there a particular reason that Croatia is depicted as a separate realm, but Szekerland, German and Saxon possessions are not? The territory of Croatia was in name a constituent kingdom in the king of Hungary's demesne, but he didn't rule directly over it, and a ban was appointed as a provincial governor. The only thing that separated Croatia from other territories is that it had its own sabor (parliament), but given the fact that an accurate map of Croatia would only hold two provinces in the game, the country will not have a parliamentary government. So what is even the point?

Please don't mindlessly downvote this post unless you can point out that I'm wrong about what I've said, and thank you for reading.

You have a number of good critiques, but some of them are out of place
  • Smederevo province is in the game for a long time, it was the capital of Serbia before the Hungary patch. Since then, they ahistorically allocated capital to Kruševac, true. I admit that Kolubara was my original idea, and nowadays i don't like it - i'd much prefer Toplica or some province in central Serbia due to topographic factors (and central Serbia was most densely populated and had the most towns at the time).
  • Serbian Despotate lost all of it's coast in 1443 and early 1444 to Venice and Herzegovina. Your map is correct, but it's from 1421, way before Crusade of Varna, which put a stamp on the situation on the coast. Stefan Lazarević fought two wars (Scutari wars) against Venice for the coast and Skadar, managing to keep Budva, Bar, and everything in between. However, during Crusade of Varna, Branković first fled to Bar, then to Dubrovnik, when Serbian coastal holdings were besieged by Kosača. As he was in good terms with Venice at the time, he asked for their help with defending Bar and Budva, but Venetians just kept it for themselves once they installed their garrisons after beating Kosača. Losing the coast makes life very hard for Serbia, as it was during 1440s and 1450s. However, game start should be set up in a way that Venice doesn't wilfully and swiftly declare on Serbia for Zeta.
  • Why wouldnt it be called Hercegovina though? It stopped being reffered to as Travunija in 15th cent. Makes much more sense in terms of 1444-1821. Hum province is indeed hurrky-durrky, and there's more than one province shape they can improve in the region.
  • I'd much rather prefer 'Usora' being 'Soli' because saltworks represented the most important factor in Bosnia's trade.
Downvotes aren't mindless, you should take a few steps back, because some of your critics are on spot, but some of them not so much.
 
Is it really the case or is it just a very vocal minority? I never had a problem with iberian provinces size.

I am speaking for myself - my own opinion. Haven't actively posted on the forums in months, cannot even remember the last time I even spoke about the Iberian provinces.

Just look at the map, it's hard to miss the difference in province sizes in north iberia compared to the southern half. Places like Galicia, for some reason, was split into 4 provinces. Places like Badajoz, Toledo, La Mancha, Cuenca, Extramundera (sp?) remain huge. Seeing as Galicia had so much attention paid to it's provinces, it's hard to dismiss proposals for southern Portugal getting more provinces. Portugal needs more power, the poor region of Galicia did not. Even the Balleric islands were split, for reasons unknown to mankind, this just makes it feel even more strange that a good chunk of Iberia is missing some much needed detail.
 
As much as I like these new provinces (though not used to seeing Croatia nominally independent of Hungary, I know what to do now in game lol), I strongly dislike how Edirne juts into Bulgaria now (if you were to release it as a vassal/play as Bulgaria, it'd jut a wee bit into Greece).

Besides that, I don't have any criticisms. (EDIT QUESTION THOUGH: Will Slovene be a unique culture or not within Austria's Slovenian provinces?)
 
You have a number of good critiques, but some of them are out of place
  • Smederevo province is in the game for a long time, it was the capital of Serbia before the Hungary patch. Since then, they ahistorically allocated capital to Kruševac, true. I admit that Kolubara was my original idea, and nowadays i don't like it - i'd much prefer Toplica or some province in central Serbia due to topographic factors (and central Serbia was most densely populated and had the most towns at the time).
  • Serbian Despotate lost all of it's coast in 1443 and early 1444 to Venice and Herzegovina. Your map is correct, but it's from 1421, way before Crusade of Varna, which put a stamp on the situation on the coast. Stefan Lazarević fought two wars (Scutari wars) against Venice for the coast and Skadar, managing to keep Budva, Bar, and everything in between. However, during Crusade of Varna, Branković first fled to Bar, then to Dubrovnik, when Serbian coastal holdings were besieged by Kosača. As he was in good terms with Venice at the time, he asked for their help with defending Bar and Budva, but Venetians just kept it for themselves once they installed their garrisons after beating Kosača. Losing the coast makes life very hard for Serbia, as it was during 1440s and 1450s. However, game start should be set up in a way that Venice doesn't wilfully and swiftly declare on Serbia for Zeta.
  • Why wouldnt it be called Hercegovina though? It stopped being reffered to as Travunija in 15th cent. Makes much more sense in terms of 1444-1821. Hum province is indeed hurrky-durrky, and there's more than one province shape they can improve in the region.
  • I'd much rather prefer 'Usora' being 'Soli' because saltworks represented the most important factor in Bosnia's trade.
Downvotes aren't mindless, you should take a few steps back, because some of your critics are on spot, but some of them not so much.

My first comment got 35 downvotes with me just stating that the map was inaccurate. To be fair, I didn't elaborate on it, but people just took it for granted that I was wrong and downvoted me, that's why I wrote that in the end. Sorry if it sounded weird.

I haven't played the game in a while and totally forgot the central province was called Smederevo. Still, the capital should be moved there. If they take the time to change up the map I don't understand how that skips their radar.

You're right about the coastline of Serbia. I'm not well read on the late despotate. However, if they're going to make Austria a unitary state for gameplay purposes it makes no sense to give the Venetians this much leverage in the Balkans that they at this time didn't have. Venice steamrolls Serbia every time in 1.25 and 1.26 as far as I remember it. Now they have 4 huge provinces in the west Balkans, as far as I can tell all fortified. Serbia should at least get a core on Kotor and some development in this patch that they can lose after the Ottoman conquests via events, kind of like it was historically (mass migrations to the north). Same goes for Bosnia. "Balkanizing" the Balkans makes it too easy for Venice to do something it shouldn't be able to in the first place.

I already elaborated on why it shouldn't be called Herzegovina. Because all territories ruled by the state are hypothetically Herzegovina. Hum is Herzegovina. The game is an alternate history, and they should make the toponym that just appeared in this time period reflect that. It's just quality of life. If not Travunia, they can call the territory after an important city in the area. It's not like they've not done that prior.

The "Bosnia" province corresponds more to the location of Usora than Soli, as half of Soli is in the "Podrinje" province. The name is optional, it just shouldn't in any case be Bosnia.
 
I would like to try to change Greece better. Adding two new provinces to Thebes and Lemnos. Adding the kingdom to lesbos vasala of Byzantium.
Thebes, have forts. it gives you more time to react in the event of an ottoman attack

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I would like to try to change Greece better. Adding two new provinces to Thebes and Lemnos. Adding the kingdom to lesbos vasala of Byzantium.


I don't have anything to say about the extra provinces...
But I think that is a perfect way to show the Byzantine holdings north of Constantinople!

Surprised no one (that I have seen) has done this before.
 
I would like to try to change Greece better. Adding two new provinces to Thebes and Lemnos. Adding the kingdom to lesbos vasala of Byzantium.
Thebes, have forts. it gives you more time to react in the event of an ottoman attack

From what I can see online, adding the Kingdom of Lesbos as a potential Byzantine vassal is actually 100% correct historically, as it was ruled by a Genoese brother-in-law of John V. An argument could be made for it as an independent kingdom, too, but there's no evidence to support it being part of Genoa besides that the founder of the nation was Genoese and an alliance the last ruler of the island formed with Genoa to oppose Venice in a war.

It seems like Constantinople was still directing their affairs to some degree, though, so vassalage is appropriate as well.
 
Will Serbia (and Bosnia) have a mission tree to restore the Bulgarian empire?

There were not many differences back then. The language at and east of morava river was more similar to Sofia than Belgrade or Trebinje. AFAIK, the literary language became even more similar to bulgarian due to large migrations of scholars since Bulgarian's fall to the Ottomans.

Serbia is in place where it can integrate itself deeper to Croatia (as happened historically) or continue strenghtening ties Macedonia as started by Tsar Dusan. Neither the Tsars of Serbia nor Bulgaria ever intended to remain 'independent'. The goal was to conquer Constantinople and form a new 'roman' empire with slavic as the dominant culture.
 
My home city of Steyr old capital of Styria has taken it's rightful place on the Map
I'm so happy right now.
Thank you Paradox

By the way has Styria finally a core on Steiermark?
It has always been strange for me that as Styria's real name is Steiermark, and then not even has a core on the province.
Also the Province should probably called Obersteiermark anyway and the capital should rather be Leoben than Judenburg.
I study in Leoben so I know more than a litte bit about the regions history and Leoben at that time (as it is today) was vastly more important and lager than Judenburg.
 
I hope that Hungary's province density will also increase in the European update. I'm also looking forward to see Hungarian and Transylvanian events and more historically proper modifications. Because I think that Hungary has a very important roll in the region and I also suppose that powering all states in the region but Hungary is going to not just ruin the fun of playing in the region but also ruin the historical accuracy.
(Also talking about Budapest in that age is quite inaccurate, because Budapest as a city didn't even existed then.)
 
Why Ohri is a part of Rascia area? And why isn't it called just Ohrid as it should be? (Nevermind, it is a turkish name)
Why give Ohri province to Macedonia area while moving Gumulcine province to the Thrace area?

It just makes Rascia area look a bit odd, makes shape of Macedonia area a bit weird and... just in general seeing Ohrid outside of Macedonia is really weird, as in general it is a part of overall Macedonia area. Even under Ottomans most of Gumulcine wasn't a part of Macedonia...

It also makes little geographic sense, it's separated from Serbia by the extremely impassable Šara
 
Looking forward to see mission tree for Bosnia which may include something regarding reconquest of Tvrtko I Kotromanic's territories.
Also, Herzegovina should be either named Travunia, since many sources are telling that Herzegovina is an alias of the territory ruled by Kosača/Hercegović dynasty.
 
I did a small bit of research as well with that Lesbos situation and I'm in agreement with the Lemnos/Lesbos split, adding them as a Byzantine vassal and not as a Genoese territory. Historically, it is correct. And Thebes would be a cool province to add. And a lot more in this thread and the others. And I've read all of them so far.

Though I am sympathetic to the devs and many of the reasonings for their changes, as well as the fact that they do often have to deal with incredibly critical and sometimes outright hostile responses to what is/isn't included, they did tell the community that they would incorporate and take their feedback into account more after Golden Century. I know that that doesn't promise everything we want will get in, but it also is disingenuous of them to essentially refute their promise to incorporate more of what the community asks by now saying that no more major changes will be made to the map. There are some really good ideas in here and valuable feedback - I know you can't change everything, and that July is coming up, but there is a lot that the community has provided with all of these map dev diaries that is worth more than a second look.

After all, why ask for feedback and then not use it? Sometimes I understand that it can't be used until later, or is out of scope of the expansion, but map/history changes are probably some of the easier things than entire mechanics changes to look into. Again, I do understand that you can't make complex mechanics to accurately recreate every starting nation to the perfect degree, but it feels like the call for feedback was hollow if it is being simply dismissed at this point. I love the games this company makes, and all of the time and content put into them, but it just feels wrong to feel like the feedback is just being ignored.

EDIT: And look, I really like these changes and updates. I just do agree with many of the people on here that there is more that can be done and that the tools are there.
 
Just look at the map, it's hard to miss the difference in province sizes in north iberia compared to the southern half.
The issue is not a north-south difference, but a east-west difference. Aragon has a very high province density while Castille has a very low density, especially in the Central and Western areas. Galicia is the only exception where Castille has high density.
Portugal is a bit denser than Castille, which is acceptable since Portugal has always had the highest populational density in Iberia, but it is considerably less dense than Aragon (Xativa is literally half the size of Lisbon) which is not acceptable since Aragon was actually very sparsely populated outside their major urban hubs of Barcelona, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Places like Galicia, for some reason, was split into 4 provinces
They did it because they wanted more playable tags, and they wanted to add Galicia as tag. So they gave it 4 provinces to be more viable. Also, they did it to make Galicia a state.

While Galicia has always been one of the most densely populated regions of Spain, spliting it into 4 was indeed too much, 3 regions was enough and Central/Western Castille could use another one (like Merida) instead.

like Badajoz, Toledo, La Mancha, Cuenca, Extramundera (sp?) remain huge.
Badajoz and Cuenca (Western Castille) are the largest provinces in Iberia, they could indeed use some spliting.
Cuenca is also quite large, but it's in the dead center of the least populated area of Iberia, so since one province has to be the largest, Cuenca is an acceptable pick.
Toledo and La Mancha are indeed large, but there aren't many relevant cities in that area, La Mancha is one of the most sparsely populated regions in the peninsula.

it's hard to dismiss proposals for southern Portugal getting more provinces.
I'd disagree, Southern Portugal as always been very sparsely populated and somewhat unimportant. Also the area it's considerably more uniform, with the same climate and terrain to justify splitting.
Northern Portugal on the other hand had a higher populational density, severe cultural and historical relevance and a quite diverse number of climates and terrains to justify more provinces. (Also more cultures, there is actually a second culture in Portugal, the Mirandese, living in Northeastern Portugal, although they are too few and insignificant to be added to the game) And also, Galicia is bordering it, making the contrast in density very glaring.
The largest province in Portugal is ironically Lisbon.
If you ask me, the provinces Portugal needs the most are the following: Braga (Split from Porto), Setubal (Between Lisbon and Beja) and Santarem (Split from Lisbon) by that order.
 
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