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EU4 - Development Diary - 20th of August 2019

Good day and welcome to another EUIV Dev Diary. This week we shall be tackling the Ecumenical matter of Catholicism in the game.

Catholicism is a bit of a funny one when it comes to religions in EUIV. When the game came out, it was one of the few religions that actually had mechanics attached to it, which helped in making it an attractive choice, both in terms of power for your nation, and flavour for your campaign. Over the many years of EUIV's updates and expansions, many religions across the world have been given their own mechanics and flavour, leaving Catholicism in the lurch. Its mechanisms have dulled in the face of those from other Christian denominations, and it is often blasted as a poor pick of religion for a budding European power, when Protestantisms and the Orthodox and Coptics are such tantalising alternatives.

In the upcoming European Expansion, we want to empower the Catholic faith, and bring a sparkle back to the appeal of remaining faithful to Rome, as well as allowing the Papal States themselves to thrive in the power and authority as being head of the faith, and really feel the impact of the faith being torn apart when reformation hits.

Firstly, as anybody knows, the root of all power is money. To this end, the upcoming expansion will be introducing the Papal Tithe. There will be a treasury in the game, not owned by any nation but belonging to the Curia itself.

As will be a common theme, numbers and UI are far from final

20th Aug Tithe.jpg


The Curia Treasury fattens up based on the number of Catholic nations in the world. The money is not taken from the nations, but rather is added to the Curia based on the amount of Crown Land held by the Clergy Estate in these nations. Nations who pass the Dissolution of Monasteries will stop their lands from contributing to the Tithe.

The Tithe can also be directly paid into by particularly pious nations. Nations can buy indulgence which pays directly into the Tithe, and in addition to feeling relief from avoiding purgatory, can enjoy added Papal Influence and temporary defence from Excommunication.

The Curia Treasury can of course be dipped into, and the privilege few who can do so are the lofty Curia Controllers themselves. Each Curia Controller can pass one Papal Bull in their tenure, which is an action the exclusively costs money from this Curia Treasury. Papal Bulls are unique actions that affect all of Catholicism:

  • Illius qui se pro divini: Enables Crusades after the Age limit is imposed.
  • Apostolicae Servitutis: 50% Cheaper Curia Powers (Levy Church Tax, Proclaim Holy War etc..)
  • Praeclara Carissimi: -5% Development cost
  • Immensa Aeterni Dei: -10% Embracement cost, 25% Institution Spread
    Cardinals will spread institution if the institution has been embraced in a province of another Cardinal or the capital of the Curia(Rome).
  • Libertas ecclesiae: +20% Imperial Authority Growth
    Available if Emperor & Catholic Empire. (Not White Peace)
    All Catholic Nations in HRE get +15 towards approving HRE reforms
  • Dei Gratia Rex: +0.5 Yearly Absolutism & -2 Unrest in Catholic Provinces & -25% Drill Decay
Costs for these are a base of 1,000 ducats from the Papal Treasury, and increase as Reform Desire does. If devout Catholic nations wish to maintain the ability to empower their entire faith in the face of growing Reformation Desire, then they will have to expand Catholic lands or force convert their heretical neighbours.

The Pope himself has also been empowered with the option, but not the obligation, to play as a Kingmaker within the Catholic Faith. Cardinals will still spawn within Europe, but the Pope has the choice to directly appoint cardinals to other nations out of his own pocket.

20th Aug Appoint Card.jpg


The Papal State can assign Cardinals to nations who he thinks will best serve Catholicism. The cost for doing so is relative to the target nation's development and number of existing Cardinals. The Papal State will enjoy added influence to becoming the Papal Controller themselves through this action, and the target nation will have a longstanding boost to relations towards the Pope. Of course, the Papal States can assign Cardinals directly to their own land, but this action will come with a boost to their corruption. To make the traditionally invisible Cardinal mechanic somewhat more omnipresent, Cardinals are now visible on the (placeholder?) religious mapmode.

Finally the Pope can himself add directly to the Tithe with his own treasury. This may be of use for a particularly expansionist Pope who dismays other Christians by declaring themselves Kingdom of God. This Decision will no longer disable Curia mechanics.

Italy and Catholicism remain focus points for the upcoming Update and Expansion, and we're not done talking about them. When the situation in Europe gets a bit spicy thanks to theses being nailed onto doors, there may be more popping up, but for now that's [REDACTED]

Next week, we'll be talking about something completely different, and hopefully welcome news to those who have been wondering what's happening with that 64-bit support we were talking about earlier in the year.
 
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Curia Controler will still be chance-based from papal investment and Cardinals



Once a Papal Bull is enacted, it will last until the death of the current Pope, which will also trigger the next Curia controller.
I'm eagerly anticipating whatever [REDACTED] is, but hearing these is very disappointing. Especially the chance-based Curia controller, which topped the list of things I hoped to be changed. It'd be cool if whenever a pope died, some event happened in which every country with cardinals participated in an election for the next one (or maybe they vote for one when they get a cardinal in something kinda like the HRE's election system). That'd have gone a long way to making Catholicism more interesting. To me, the chance-based Curia controller is the single worst/most irritating aspect of Catholicism.
 
Especially since in the game's time frame, Catholicism really outpaces the other branches of Christianity in terms of spreading outside Europe.
Giving Catholicism something like Cradle of Civilization's propagate religion mechanic in colonial regions would be perfect for that.
 
"Curia Controler will still be chance-based from papal investment and Cardinals"
Sucks a entire rework to a religion just to make it as bad as it was before. It´s kinda sad to think the only positive changes this DLC has announced right now are the map changes and missions.
 
one day before eu5, please do a little patch for Indonesia, australia, and oceania. I know those tags werent relevant to 1444, but by 1700 if the colonial powers can reach those regions then i think a few tags (the most standout of the native tribes and nations) should be represented. Look at "oceania expanded" mod by Meka, but honestly i think he/she (idk) put too many tags. Australia and New Zealand are kinda too full. I like how the Philippines were done were their was still a decent chunk to be colonized.

Great work though, love the catholic updates
 
Once a Papal Bull is enacted, it will last until the death of the current Pope, which will also trigger the next Curia controller.
So these are completely useless then? They are massively expensive, will last at best a few years, and if one is extremely unlucky could last as little as a day. Sure, the curia controller isn't directly paying for it themselves, but still........ I already thought this update was somewhat underwhelming. Now its completely underwhelming.

Will the Cardinals still be locked to Europe, or can Kongo/Japan/North America get in on that action now? If they can't, what benefit is there for these nations to remain Catholic?
This is also true. I can see not granting colonial nations or places that lack the feudalism instituion cardinals, but Japan or China? If nay of the great East Asian civilizations had become Catholic, there's no way they wouldn't have been granted at least a Cardinal or two. They'd be too important politically.
 
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Are the bulls the only use for Curia Treasury? Can it be dipped into by e.g. winning a crusade or just being best buddies with the pope? Can it be used in any other way e.g. to strengthen religious unity or increase conversion chance or interact with Clergy estate in some way?
 
I'm eagerly anticipating whatever [REDACTED] is, but hearing these is very disappointing. Especially the chance-based Curia controller, which topped the list of things I hoped to be changed. It'd be cool if whenever a pope died, some event happened in which every country with cardinals participated in an election for the next one (or maybe they vote for one when they get a cardinal in something kinda like the HRE's election system). That'd have gone a long way to making Catholicism more interesting. To me, the chance-based Curia controller is the single worst/most irritating aspect of Catholicism.

They said they are not going that way but it could have been an interesting anti-blob mechanic and deepen diplomacy which to me is where EU4 really shines.

I wonder if the popes will primarily come from Italy like they did historically?

And will outside of Europe Catholics get something special in place of cardinals and curia controller?
 
So these are completely useless then? They are massively expensive, will last at best a few years, and if one is extremely unlucky could last as little as a day. Sure, the curia controller isn't directly paying for it themselves, but still........ I already thought this update was somewhat underwhelming. Now its completely underwhelming.
Surely this would depend on how much money the Curia would gain and have to spend? Furthermore, any good player would wait for the current pope to die before spending that sweet money stack Rome's got in his pocket. I do agree it seems somewhat pointless when it's partially based on RNG, but without knowing the exact numbers in this scenario listing it as "underwhelming" seems... pointlessly pessimistic?

Without making Rome / the Curia Controller a pinata, we do want to have some sweet sackings of the Tithe.
If I can provide an idea that came to mind upon reading this, perhaps a peace option similar to taking war reperations would be the solution here? As in, taking a set percent of the total money that the Curia has at that specific time. Taking 5, 10 or 20 percent of the total stack can be a real boon, whilst perhaps not being enough for any country to specifically target Rome - also because you do not know when a Bull will be enacted.
 
Papal succession is currently boring and unengaging. It's simply throwing loads of money on the cardinals and hoping for the best with no real player agency to be had. EUIV is a game, so give the Catholic realms, IDK, something to do about the biggest featured religion's unique succession mechanism? There was so much papal influence in early modern Europe, yet now there simply isn't enough to play around/with.
 
Curia Controler will still be chance-based from papal investment and Cardinals

Once a Papal Bull is enacted, it will last until the death of the current Pope, which will also trigger the next Curia controller.
I thought you intended to improve Catholicism. Looks like I was mistaken!
 
I don’t mind the Curia controller being chance based, but unless you can find a reliable way to be the controller it isn’t a good reason to stay Catholic.

If you want to change the general view of Catholicism, then you need to add consistent bonuses for most Catholic nations (the new bulls don’t work since you need to rely on the AI activating the right one at the right time).

The Curia controller should just be a “sometimes you get a bonus” thing.
 
I disagree with most others in that I like that bulls are temporary. Some level of RNG means players are rewarded for waiting for opportunities and paying attention, such as strategically spending points when the development bull is active, for example. As an HRE emperor you're working towards an end goal that gives you super powers. The Papal bulls are better compared to Ming's "checklist" of mandates. The bonuses aren't crazy good and it's just a boring checklist that sits in the background.

The problem I see is that Catholicism is weak and this doesn't fix that. Some kind of direct bonus for all Catholics is needed. Some type of trade node policy, significantly cheaper mercenaries or a chunky flat AE reduction for Catholic nations which gives players a strategic reason to play them.
 
I disagree with most others in that I like that bulls are temporary. Some level of RNG means players are rewarded for waiting for opportunities and paying attention, such as strategically spending points when the development bull is active, for example. As an HRE emperor you're working towards an end goal that gives you super powers. The Papal bulls are better compared to Ming's "checklist" of mandates. The bonuses aren't crazy good and it's just a boring checklist that sits in the background.

The problem I see is that Catholicism is weak and this doesn't fix that. Some kind of direct bonus for all Catholics is needed. Some type of trade node policy, significantly cheaper mercenaries or a chunky flat AE reduction for Catholic nations which gives players a strategic reason to play them.

I think temporary Bulls are more interesting. But permanent Bulls would create some degree of reliability for the benefits and make Catholicism on the whole better.

But, yes, temporary Bulls plus some other benefit to Catholics seems like the best idea.
 
Very disappointed to hear that papal bulls are temporary...was hoping they would stack like HRE reforms. To be frank none of the bull effects sound very impressive. Curia controller is still (mostly) RNG...bleh. Unless the devs have some impressive things to reveal in the future even Anglicanism will be able to run circles around Cathlolicism in the update.
 
I'll underline suggestions I guess, since there's a nonzero chance a dev might read it.

One other thing to make Catholicism better is some system to elect a new controller. It seems like a tragic missed opportunity to not introduce some sort of fun mini-game to keep players engaged and on their toes. This could be added to the horrifically short list of "things to do while at peace."

Like in vanilla. I miss it. Of course it was way too easy to lock down that election, but the current system was a complete overreaction. (And I mean it's way too easy to lock down the HRE and that never got changed so...) The main problem with Catholicism now is there's no agency to become Pope, just a low RNG chance. Making the cost increase 5, 10, 15, etc. to invest in a chance killed the mechanic, since even if I wanted to prioritize winning the election as opposed to the other papal point uses, it becomes prohibitively expensive long before you get decent odds. In essence this is too "buffered". The cost to invest in becoming pope should be a flat 10 points, as you still won't be able to lock it down and prevent AI's diluting your chances. The other problem is there's virtually no agency in acquiring cardinals. The formula for next cardinal is complex, basically "get higher dev". Problem is your highest dev province isn't always next to gain a chance at getting a cardinal. And once it's on the list (which I'm sure many players never even find) dev pushing it barely affects its chance of getting the next cardinal. And even if you rolled with all this nonsense, gaining that cardinal decreases the chance of gaining a new cardinal, and leaves you more susceptible to the terrible cardinal borders event, which happens way too frequently and inexplicably gives the person LOSING the cardinal 1 corruption. Lower the MTTH and remove the corruption penalty for the loser.

Another issue is the papal actions are relatively weak. Crusade is decent, but not really a crusade. Excommunication is pretty garbage since the pope needs to have a neg opinion and that basically only happens on the pope's rivals since everyone loves the pope. And those rivals are likely to get excommunicated without your intervention. To fix excommunication, get rid of the hard cap at neutral opinion and instead charge an exponentially increasing amount of gold for each positive opinion point. Can still hard cap it at 50 or something.

Instead if anything excommunication is getting nerfed, as there's now a better way to get out of it. And the papal bull system requires you to be pope to have any agency. But you have no agency to become the Pope, so this whole change is wasted potential. And it's quite complex, I mean implementing the Tithe system seems totally unnecessary and a huge drain of dev time. But I know.... the goal is to add a screenshot to the DLC's steam page. There's also more spam of Institution Spread modifier, which is terrible, incredibly misleading, and further erodes any tech disparity. Please replace the IS%+ papal bull with anything else.
TPS gains the ability to pay money to grant someone cardinals, I mean I see no reason why the player would do this. Assuming the AI papal states will do it, well, if the player wants papal points they already have a huge incentive to improve relations with TPS. This is now doubly incentivized for the same goal lol.

I'll end on a positive note, at least Kingdom of God is getting fixed. Thanks for that.
 
Surely this would depend on how much money the Curia would gain and have to spend? Furthermore, any good player would wait for the current pope to die before spending that sweet money stack Rome's got in his pocket. I do agree it seems somewhat pointless when it's partially based on RNG, but without knowing the exact numbers in this scenario listing it as "underwhelming" seems... pointlessly pessimistic?
The last few patches to EU4 have given me plenty of reasons to be pessimistic. What are the reasons I have to be optimistic?
 
More than any other patch in recent history it actually will be like playing a new game.
That's not a reason to be optimistic though. The fact that something is changing is completely unrelated to the idea that those changes will improve that something. Given the recent changes the game has made and the description of the mechanical changes so far, these changes don't really seem to be improving the game much. If this is actually like playing a new game, it very much appears to be a worse game.