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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.

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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.
 
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It seems that the map changes are still going on, in every DD the map is different, so we should not make too much assumptions from those. I'm still hoping that France's vassals will be back! And I like how the name of the cities is used for the name of the province (Paris, Nantes, ...).
 
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Would be great if I could spend money to "permanently retire" my failure of an heir.
 
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Will this have any implications for the Hanseatic League? Hamburg to this day calls itself "Free AND Hanseatic city"... maybe there can be an event at some point that spells the end of the League and turns the remaining provinces into free cities?

I was thinking about the Hanseatic League as well, especially Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen still uphold the traditions of being Hanseatic cities. In general some additional Hanse flavour wouldn't hurt (mercatores imperii, for example).
 
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AFAIK, HRE starts with 50 Princes, while the screen shows 57.

7 could not be the exact number of new provinces/tags, but it would probably close to it.

(I look forward to see if they finally reworked Hansa...)
 
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The Emperor can make any one-province state with at least 10 development into a Free City, but they must accept. Monarches and Theocracies will be a lot more reluctant to say yes.

Can the Emperor force said OPM into Free City status via war? "I bring you freedom! One way or another..." :D
 
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So the new HRE countries so far are:
  • Brabant
  • Holland
  • Luxembourg
  • Hainaut
  • Nassau
  • Memmingen
  • Ravensburg
Additionally, Thuringia seems to be removed, so that means 6 tags, while it's the number of increased tags is 7 (57-50 = 7). Anyone who knows what the last one is?
 
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Will this have any implications for the Hanseatic League? Hamburg to this day calls itself "Free AND Hanseatic city"... maybe there can be an event at some point that spells the end of the League and turns the remaining provinces into free cities?

Not only Hamburg but Bremen to. Both consider themselves the only free cities left due to having their own state within Germany besides Berlin. I'd love to see a new Hanseatic league mechanic similar to the one VeF mod has. Where they can invite other cities to be part of the trade group, etc. One thing I loved about EU3 and wish this game had was the old Merchant Republic trade options where you can increase trade value of goods, etc.
 
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So the new HRE countries so far are:
  • Brabant
  • Holland
  • Luxembourg
  • Hainaut
  • Nassau
  • Memmingen
  • Ravensburg
Additionally, Thuringia seems to be removed, so that means 6 tags, while it's the number of increased tags is 7 (57-50 = 7). Anyone who knows what the last one is?
Flanders?
 
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So the new HRE countries so far are:
  • Brabant
  • Holland
  • Luxembourg
  • Hainaut
  • Nassau
  • Memmingen
  • Ravensburg
Additionally, Thuringia seems to be removed, so that means 6 tags, while it's the number of increased tags is 7 (57-50 = 7). Anyone who knows what the last one is?

Are you sure about Brabant? I thought it's capital province was outside the HRE border. I may be wrong.
 
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Not in the HRE. It's de joure French.
Ah yes, I was confused because I had Flanders pop up in the HRE in my last game, so I thought the province of Flanders was in the HRE too, but that's not the case.

Whose flag is that in the third row between Bremen and Ferrara?