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

Free Cities of the Holy Roman Empire
Now the Emperor can designate up to seven free cities in the empire. A free city is a one province minor with a minimum of 10 development.

Free cities provide Imperial Authority to the emperor, as well as manpower and income. A Free City also have some rather nice bonuses to their development.

If a Free City gains another province or leave the HRE. they lose the free city status. And a Free City is always a type of Republic, so countries that aren't a Republic will become one upon accepting Free City status.

A Free City is always protected by the Emperor if attacked, so be careful when expanding in the HRE. A Free City can never be the subject of another nation.

Of course, as the ruler of a OPM, you can always refuse the offer of becoming a free city, and the emperor can spend some Imperial Authority to revoke a cities rights.

Remove Electorate
The next expansion lets you get even more control over your electors. If your religion is now official in the Empire, you can now spend IA to remove the Electorate status of your disloyal Electors.

Pause Westernisation
Sometimes while you are westernising, you end up where you need to use your power for something else, like boosting stability, but currently you can’t. Now we have added the option to pause westernisation. You’ll still get the unrest from westernising, but there will be no events spawning while westernisation is paused. Most importantly though is the fact that your power is accumulating again instead of contributing to the westernisation process.

Retire Advisor
Have you ever sat there with a lot of money, but cursing the options you for advisors. In the next expansion, you can now spend the amount of money it would cost to hire an advisor, and permanently retire him. Within a month, if there is available space in your pool of advisors, you will get a random new one in the same category. Maybe you get the +discipline one you wanted..


Next week we’ll focus on Luther and Buddha.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

Defensive is gonna be so good now. Can't wait for the expansion. What unit packs will we get? And how will u incorporate fort graphics with provinces with unique building models and will they be visible with all mapmodes?

 

[Delta21]

There really has to be a long (10 years or so) cooldown period for retiring advisors, as that would make the "+1 advisor" ideas nearly useless.

Defensive is gonna be so good now. Can't wait for the expansion. What unit packs will we get? And how will u incorporate fort graphics with provinces with unique building models and will they be visible with all mapmodes?

You have to consider that there would be a LOT less provinces to siege and loot (I am still unsure of how looting will actually work), and as a result hordes will be weakened yet again and the attrition mechanic won't be as damaging as it is at the moment. The new forts mechanic will impact the way humans conduct warfare a lot. I'm not against it, but the implications are very dramatic for many military modifiers (defensive ability, siege ability, attrition, land leader maneuver etc.). Defensive may not end up being the best idea group overall, or at least won't be as heavily favored by the siege mechanic as before.

 

[Voggle]

Sounds great - but the HRE are becoming quite powerful

 

[A-150]

Is all this part of the new expansion? Including the new pause westernization (which seems like something that needs to be part of the base game)?

Does it have any name yet (the expansion)? Or an estimated price?

 

[Witto]

Is all this part of the new expansion? Including the new pause westernization?

Does it have any name yet (the expansion)? Or an estimated price?

Looking at the level of new content in this DLC / Patch I'd shoot at around 15$ to 20$ like CoP or AoW.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

There really has to be a long (10 years or so) cooldown period for retiring advisors, as that would make the "+1 advisor" ideas nearly useless.

Or make a separate cooldown for each advisor slot so you can roll one more time with +1 advisor bonus. Or just replace the bonus with cost rreduction.

 

[cpm4001]

The "Retire Advisor" thing sounds really good. The number of times you have a Level 3 Diplo Rep guy and you can only afford a Level 1...
Also like the Imperial Free Cities mechanic, and like the hints that SEA religions (as well as Protestantism) might be getting some new mechanics as well.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

Looking at the level of new content in this DLC / Patch I'd shoot at around 15$ to 20$ like CoP or AoW.

I think they said it will be like COP and it was 15. I think i saw it in first dev diary, but i'm not sure. I know they said all their expansions will be in that cost range so it really doesn't matter if it will be 15 or 20 IMO. I bought el dorado and this is bound to be better so GG.

 

[Witto]

it really doesn't matter if it will be 15 or 20 IMO.

I mean... I will buy it regardless but it kinda does matter for me. Lower price is always more welcome to be honest. I can save them 5$ for CK2 DLC or a cup of coffee.

 

[eddyr]

I mean... I will buy it regardless but it kinda does matter for me. Lower price is always more welcome to be honest. I can save them 5$ for CK2 DLC or a cup of coffee.

$5 for a coffee, ouch.

 

[A-150]

Looking at the level of new content in this DLC / Patch I'd shoot at around 15$ to 20$ like CoP or AoW.

I prefer $15, it's half of the game price $29.99 (disc version from walmart). But I'm ok with 20, anything over that is overpriced. Honestly I just glad PI continues to update/release things for EU4 on a regular basis, sometimes other game developers ignore their games after a year they're released.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

I mean... I will buy it regardless but it kinda does matter for me. Lower price is always more welcome to be honest. I can save them 5$ for CK2 DLC or a cup of coffee.

That's true, but more content is better in my book so they can add that bit of content and I'll gladly get the expansion. Besides, i don't drink coffee.

 

[jrgen3]

$5 for a coffee, ouch.

What do you mean? That's extremely cheap. It costs 2x as much here.

 

[TomosCaerllion]

This and development opens up the possibility of some sort of Free City Challenge... I'd like to have a go seeing whether I can survive til the end as a OPM-locked Ravensburg, relying on the development mechanic to stay competitive and creating a sprawling mega-city.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

What do you mean? That's extremely cheap. It costs 2x as much here.

Under one euro here where I am atm.
Edit: 0.5 euro. Just checked the price.

 

[jrgen3]

Under one euro here where I am atm.
Edit: 0.5 euro. Just checked the price.

WHOA... That's cheaper than water. I actually don't know what the price is here as I don't technically drink coffee, but I guess it's really expensive like everything else.

 

[eddyr]

What do you mean? That's extremely cheap. It costs 2x as much here.

Around 2 pounds. Anyways I was joking with the fella. Don't take it to heart.

 

[Witto]

By the way, talking about the patch in general, is this going to be patch 1.12, 1.2 or 2.0?
I wonder.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

There really has to be a long (10 years or so) cooldown period for retiring advisors, as that would make the "+1 advisor" ideas nearly useless.



You have to consider that there would be a LOT less provinces to siege and loot (I am still unsure of how looting will actually work), and as a result hordes will be weakened yet again and the attrition mechanic won't be as damaging as it is at the moment. The new forts mechanic will impact the way humans conduct warfare a lot. I'm not against it, but the implications are very dramatic for many military modifiers (defensive ability, siege ability, attrition, land leader maneuver etc.). Defensive may not end up being the best idea group overall, or at least won't be as heavily favored by the siege mechanic as before.

Well you will have to siege with larger stacks so attrition should work better. More defensiveness means more time on siege and that means more dmg from attrition. Forts will finally do their jobs and not just be there as a time saver. Regarding hordes and looting, well they are gonna be killed with new forts if they dont change hordes from scratch

 

[apg]

By the way, talking about the patch in general, is this going to be patch 1.12, 1.2 or 2.0?
I wonder.

I believe wiz said 2.0