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EU4 - Development Diary - 23rd of July 2019

Hi there, and welcome to another EU4 dev diary. This week, myself, @neondt and @Ofaloaf have decided to talk about Hungary, its starting situation, its new missions and some further flavour we have added.

Now then, first a few words for the starting position. This has changed in a few ways, although the provinces on the map are the same. Firstly, as we have seen in previous dev diaries, Croatia is now a lesser partner in a PU. The two nations had been ruled together for centuries by the 15th century, hence the status quo where Croatia was a releasable tag. However, we have opted to make Croatia be a personal union partner in the upcoming patch so as to better represent the separate administration it had from that of the rest of Hungary. If, however, both Hungary and Croatia become lesser union partners of another nation e.g. Austria, Croatia will be annexed by Hungary so that the two crowns are counted as one (e.g. for the purposes of subject liberty desire).

A further change concerns trade nodes. I will hand over to @Ofaloaf to discuss these changes.

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Hey folks, @Ofaloaf here. Along with all the other work we've done on Hungary, we also decided that with all the new provinces in Europe, it was high time we revisited the trade node setup and considered some new additions. To that end, we've added a new node in Pest.

Pest itself, along with neighboring Buda across the Danube, had been a prosperous town in the Middle Ages, although the Mongol invasions of Hungary in the late 13th century caused so much destruction that Pest had to be rebuilt practically from the ground up. By the 15th century, Buda and Pest had regained a fair amount of their former strength, and their role as a trading center only began to decline again during the Ottoman occupation.

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At the moment, it has only a few routes, but we're still experimenting with it to see how it'll work best with the new setup. Its primary purposes are to break up the relatively large Balkan nodes and give a little opportunity to break up the flow of trade to Austria from the Mediterranean. Along with that, Pest offers a Transcarpathian route to Krakow that should help feed northern trade a bit and make Hungarian-Polish relations a little more interesting.

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The third major change to Hungary's start, which we have also already mentioned and which leads into the mission tree, is in Ladislaus Postumus now representing a viable way for Hungary to become a lesser union partner to Austria – if he comes of age and becomes both Archduke of Austria and King of Hungary, Hungary will fall under an Austrian personal union. To give a bit of background on him, Ladislaus, the Posthumous son of Albert the Magnanimous, had rightful claims to a vast territory, specifically Hungary, Bohemia and Austria. However, his claim to Hungary was disputed by Polish King Wladislaw Jagiellon, who seized the throne and led Hungary to the Crusade of Varna, which ended the day before Europa Universalis IV’s campaign starts with Wladislaw’s defeat and death. At this point, Ladislaus’ supporters sought to reassert their claims, but unfortunately for them, he was to die of suspected leukemia aged 17.

The story behind Ladislaus’ life is now tied into Hungary’s missions. A new branch of the event tree begins with navigating the perils of the Hungarian succession, requiring you to not be a subject and have an adult ruler and an heir. Since one can do this by getting Matthias Corvinus via events, it is fitting that further missions in this branch are inspired by Matthias’ career. He sought to strengthen his position by the modest gambit of claiming the Bohemian crown – with Austrian support, since the Bohemian king’s son was in the process of invading Austria (besides, the Bohemian king was an excommunicated heretic). He first seized Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia, then became King of Bohemia, although his hold on the crown was decidedly shaky. We added a mission for each of these stages.

The Austrians had in fact promised Matthias that he would be made King of the Romans (heir to the HRE) if he did this, but now Emperor Frederick changed his mind. Ingame, if Hungary becomes the senior PU partner of Bohemia, Hungary will be allowed to ask the Emperor to allow Hungary into the HRE and transfer Bohemia’s electorate to Hungary; however, Hungary will not find it easy to appease the Emperor enough that it will grant this. In history, the dispute would escalate to the point that Matthias invaded Austria and sought first to have Frederick recognize him has King of Bohemia, and later to take his lands. Hence, we added missions to first weaken Austria (Austria and its subjects own less than 13 provinces, Austria is not Emperor and has fewer troops than Hungary), then claim the Duchy.

upload_2019-7-22_15-23-45.png


In another change to the starting missions, the mission “Old Alliances” will now no longer give claims on Moldavia if you ally Poland and Moldavia is a subject of Poland; however, annexing Moldavia will open up new opportunities to restore the Jagiellonian Union that existed a day prior to EU4’s start: First you must weaken Poland (like the Austrian mission “The Decline of Hungary”: Have a larger army and more development than Poland and its subjects), then you can claim the Polish throne.

Phew, that’s a lot of thrones for Hungary, if they can play it well and take them all. Anyway, that’s nearly it for military-themed missions: The last two are, firstly, one that plays into the rework of the Black Army that @neondt will be talking about below; it also requires you to have better morale than all your neighbours, and gives your military a temporary boost. Secondly, as a logical end-point to the existing Balkans expansion missions, Bulwark of Christianity makes Hungary have a larger army than any Muslim neighbouring or Turko-Semitic country, and gives +3 missionary strength and -15% AE for 20 years, so that Hungary can make use of its superiority by pushing the Infidel back further.

The final seven new missions are focused on the economy, prestige and governance. Since Hungary was not historically one of the richer countries, it is makes it all the more reason for them to pursue missions such as A Strong Economy and The Great City of Buda, which both strengthen the economy through the very act of completing them and through their rewards. Bibliotheca Corviana, meanwhile, reminds us that Matthias Corvinus founded one of the largest libraries in Europe and asks us to emulate him by adopting the latest innovations in the form of embracing the Renaissance and having 50 prestige. Finally, Fund the Monasteries is a reference to the influential Pauline Order and involves building a lot of churches; Unity in Belief involves achieving 100% religious unity in some way or other; and Nagyszombat University involves building a university in the Pozsony province. Each of these missions have moderate but useful temporary bonuses that, if taken when they are needed, will surely prove useful to the Hungarian player.

Finally, I hand over to @neondt to talk about the new changes to the Black Army.

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Hello, I’m neondt and I’m here to talk about a little extra flavour we’ve added for Hungary. This is very much tied to the upcoming [REDACTED] which I can’t go into detail about yet, so there’ll be some well-placed redactions to avoid saying too much.

Right now in EU4 there are a few events about the Black Army of Hungary, essentially a standing army of mercenaries founded by Matthias Corvinus and historically disbanded before the turn of the century. They’re currently represented as a modifier that improves mercenary discipline, and we felt there was room for improvement given the shiny new tools available to us.

In next year’s European update the Black Army will instead become a [REDACTED] with [REDACTED] modifiers, enabled by the same event that once gave the old modifier. With each passing ruler you’ll still have to decide whether to maintain it, but the monetary cost for doing so has been removed as that’s covered by [REDACTED].

The End of the Black Army event which removed the Black Army modifier will now occur somewhat earlier, but we’ve added a new option. You’ll now have the option to reform and institutionalize the Black Army, enabling a new Government Reform:

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The Institutionalized Black Army reform grants a passive bonus to both mercenary costs and mercenary discipline, as well as enabling [REDACTED]. The Nobility estate will not however be pleased that the King has personal control over the army, thus relying less on levies mustered by the nobles themselves. You'll also never need to renew the Black Army on ruler death.

That's all for today! We're once again not sure what we'll talk about next week, so feel free to give us some suggestions in the comments.
 
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Can I get more information about the Bohemian Crown mission? After mission completion Hungary will ask of an elector title, if it's accepted, all Hungary provinces will be part of HRE and Hungary will become kingdom ranked elector taking over the position of Bohemia. If it's rejected, Hungary will gain some claims of Austrian land so they'll be possible to weaken Austria. Is this correct?
 
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these are interesting changes, although in the mission tree there should be an option for a more pecaeful mission tree with poland considering that Hungary and Poland are historical friends (even if its not represented in the game at all as paradox worry about a polish-lithuania-Hungary hugbox).

The black army update we getting at this point a bit iffy as we simply do not know what else you guys did with mercs so its a bit early to judge it. On the other hand is is the black army now affordable? in the current game hungary is simply too poor to consider ever using it even after gold mine boosting.

The new trade node looks interesting how does it influence Hungarian wealth? Also did Hungary's dev changed at all? "Since Hungary was not historically one of the richer countries" this is not exacly true as you see Hungary at the starting time boasted a larger pop than the English and England and France are at the final years of the 100 years war so both of these wealthy nations should be poorer at start. I personally would add to normandy and some french provinces devastation as well as a 100 war modifier that reduces tax and monthly manpower representing the effects of the long war and should give both nations an incentive to finish the war quickly. Should one side win the 100 year war they should get a nice bonus on the other hand which should make an interesting choice for the player of trying to end the 100 year war quickly or to fight on. But Back to Hungary, Hungary were not so poor as it is represented in the game and it should at the very least have a fighting chance aganist the ottomans like it held of the turks until 1526.
 
I will wait for that in the meantime will You tell us more about HRE neighbors like Denmark or PLC? Do You plan anything for them?

I think it was specified that Scandinavia and Poland-Lithuania would be outside the scope of the DLC-

We have more content for Poland than you might expect but we're not ready to talk about most of it yet.

-...Huh. Could this mean that the scope of the update has been expanded beyond France, Germany, Italy and the Balkans?
 
Each of these missions have moderate but useful temporary bonuses that, if taken when they are needed, will surely prove useful to the Hungarian player.

Just a bit of a design philosophy question here. Is the intention with these missions that the requirements should be completed but then the reward be sat on and not actually taken until such a time as it's convenient? I know that's always been an option, but I've never found it a fulfiling one. It's always felt too gamey to me, too much like "if we don't tell anyone that we've conquered this land then they won't notice and then they'll be super happy when we do tell them in twenty years". I appreciate that there's increased tactical depth to being able to delay taking rewards, but I've never been able to rationalise it and have it not feel forced, so I am interested to hear if it is baked into the design intent for the system.
 
I think it was specified that Scandinavia and Poland-Lithuania would be outside the scope of the DLC-



-...Huh. Could this mean that the scope of the update has been expanded beyond France, Germany, Italy and the Balkans?

If you make content for Hungary/Bohemia/Prussia etc, then you'll have to involve Poland in it. This doesn't mean that they make content specifically for Poland itself.
 
Have you added more flavour to Bulgaria or since its a releaseble you haven't

The developers did mention that they added some "encouragement if you want to restore the Bulgarian Empire as a player", indicating that released Bulgaria has gotten some sort of additional content relating to its past greatness. It could be as little as a decision which allows Bulgaria to gain an empire government rank if they hold the historical provinces of the Bulgarian Empire, though personally, I think Bulgaria may get a small mission tree.

A powerful Ottoman Empire will remain a stable in most games. But there will be some.. encouragement if you want to restore the Bulgarian Empire as a player.
 
Considering we already had stuff un the past few weeks for Italy, Germany and now Eastern Europe, I think the next dd should focus on a faction in the French area. Britanny, maybe? Or [REDACTED]
 
Secondly, as a logical end-point to the existing Balkans expansion missions, Bulwark of Christianity makes Hungary have a larger army than any Muslim neighbouring or Turko-Semitic country, and gives +3 missionary strength and -15% AE for 20 years, so that Hungary can make use of its superiority by pushing the Infidel back further.

Can the AI really benefits from this bonus ?
 
The effect will be even more prominence of bankruptcy in campaigns. For example, the Ottomans now will use mercs when they run out of manpower, as will the player. With the changes the Ottomans will just hire giant pre-assembled merc stacks. The player probably won't be able to afford to do that. I'm thinking about attacking the Ottomans in my current game with 50k units. They have 200k. I could win without declaring bankruptcy in the current patch being able to hire mercs from individual provinces to pad my numbers. When I have to hire unsplittable 15k stacks that are likely in limited supply I'll be in a bankruptcy spiral in no time flat.

Well, there could be smaller companies too.
 
@CaligulaCaesar

Unfortunately a rather disappointing and barebones Dev-Diary considering this is likely the last attention Hungary will ever get from the EU4 dev-team.

Could the devs alter the conditions for the appearance of Erdély (Transylvania), as it practically never appears in any game, yet it's independence was and is extremely important to Hungarian history. For a long time the Kingdom represented the hopes of Hungarians under Austrian and Ottoman to independence, whilst it kept Hungarian culture alive. Transylvania was even a signature to the Treaty of Westphalia and was considered a middle-power in Europe for sometime.

There is so much rich Hungarian military-diplomatic history that has always been ignored in EU4, especially it's complex relationship with the Turks. For instance, the Kuruc uprising of Thököly against the Austrians, where later he even fled to the Ottoman Empire, hoping they would finance a future invasion under his name.
Or the fact the Principality of Transylvania's declaration of independence was reluctantly supported by the Turks so that Austria couldn't lay claim to all of historic Hungary.
Nor was Hungary simply partitioned between Austria and the Turks after Mohacs, the entire country fell into an extended state of anarchy for decades, something almost like the Italian Wars, with Turks, Austrians, Transylvania and Poland all fighting and devastating the country.

Or that absolutism in the Austrian Empire was always limited by the fact the Austrian Emperor was also the King of Hungary, and thus subject to the Golden Bull, which even led to Joseph II never taking the oath, which led to all sorts of unrest there. There should be some sort of major penalty to Austria should they take personal union of Hungary.

Austrian rule over Hungary was always very shaky, and aside from usual local uprisings, there were at least 2 major revolts against Austrian rule that were only put down due to foreign intervention, yet in EU4 Austria invariably annexes Hungary without any issue.

I for one don't particularly care for Mission-Trees, as despite the interest in their fine details, in-game they ultimately don't affect much but facilitate player blobbing. Mission Tree in particular don't seem to influence AI behavior at all.
Events however, are a whole different story, as they always effect how the game plays even in absence of the player, and just as importantly from a game-balance perspective, aren't just a series of buffs.
 
It s looking nice but im going to one again start my speach about why PLC needs a rework (maybe my prayers ll be heard one day). Today i ll start with some suggestions about govenment reforms.
Firstly i would suggest changing the Polands ambition (+3tolerans of heretic) into sth else. Tolecerace acts were given by kings and sejm (govement) so i suggest making it into a reform like + 2heretic/ heathens. Secondly i suggest making a govement reform or mechanic like muscv have for"pospolite ruszenie" (fr levee en masse) which allows u to rise an army from the whole nobility of the country. It was very common in Poland that "pospolite ruszenie" was rised since usualy national army was very little in numbers and the state was strong because the strenght of nobilty at its golden age was overwhelming. It was common that magnates houses could rise much bigger army than the king. Since u are changing the gov form bonuses so a change for elective monarchy is required as well. i suggest a bonus for ruler or sth totaly diffrent like bonus relation or diplo anex cost reduction.
I expect a spec unit like janissaries to be added. Suggest cav unit (winged hussars) or infantry (piechota wybraniecka).
Very often coutries that were puting up candidates tried to interfere after election was lost so there is a possibilty for some improvment here as well.
Tradition that gives -10% cav cost is strange for me because it was acctualy the opposite. For example the famous winged hussar thier equipment costed the same ammount of money that would allow u to rise a whole team of soldiers.
U could add a jewish esstate for Poland (sth like dhimmi i guess)
It s a shame that PLC doent have trading bonus. After reconquest of Polish pomerania (east prussia) it became a huge trading hub mostly for grain but other goods as well.
I think that it has too many negative events compared to other countries.

Now let get to the missions. I ll repeat myself once again that missions of Poland and Lithuania should merge after forming PLC. U get much more awarded from them if u start as Lithuania. Break they rus should be remade into a whole branch of missions leading into PU. By the way at 1600 muscovy should get a dissaster lvl event chain called wielka smuta ( rus.Смутное время) and it should be sth symilar to polish struggle for power.
Sweedish missions should be remade as well. Those missions are badly made because they give claims. They should give force union cb. Polish king Zygmunt III Waza was hier to Sweedish throne and king of PLC-Sweeden for 7 years. He didnt claim the right to some part of land but to the throne.
Turkish missions are giving claims as well.Holy war cb or cb to liberate christian nations should be correct. Well it was a time at the rule of one of the best Kings called Stefan Batory. He acctualy was about to start a war with Ottomans and claim the Konstantinopole. There was a long diplomatic actions happening which were leading to form a coalition against them with the help of Persian state from Asian part. But unfortunalty he died 1 year before deadline.
Economic missions are like... what ever. Lets look a the restore the ruthenia. It require a lot of development and for it im getting dev redution and unrest reduction ??? What and why ? why should i even bother to do it ?

Lastly im going to speak about AI of those coutries. Its just terrible. In 7/10 games Lithuania explodes. Polish AI is very likely to attack Hungary (almost always allied with Austriaand some minnor) in 20 years of game and terrilby lose. And then we have particioned Poland in 1480.
 
Just a bit of a design philosophy question here. Is the intention with these missions that the requirements should be completed but then the reward be sat on and not actually taken until such a time as it's convenient? I know that's always been an option, but I've never found it a fulfiling one. It's always felt too gamey to me, too much like "if we don't tell anyone that we've conquered this land then they won't notice and then they'll be super happy when we do tell them in twenty years". I appreciate that there's increased tactical depth to being able to delay taking rewards, but I've never been able to rationalise it and have it not feel forced, so I am interested to hear if it is baked into the design intent for the system.

It's not the intent, the modifiers are made to always be useful. But looking over it, it occurred to me that it might be optimal to make sure that e.g. you can complete the two missions (the library and university ones) that stack up to -15% ideas cost at the same time (ideally you could time it in a Golden Age too ;) ), and some that give monetary boosts might be most useful when you are planning a punishing war on the Ottomans. So to give the short answer - in this and other trees, it is never our intention that you should not complete the mission when it is completed, but there are likely many cases where doing so would be optimal.
 
Why the "Weaken Poland" mission? Hungary and Poland have been historical friends for longer than any other two European powers except England and Portugal.
They briefly had the same crown, both sent thousands of volunteers for each other's independence wars, Hungary even refused to send troops to invade Poland whilst under the Axis.
 
In another change to the starting missions, the mission “Old Alliances” will now no longer give claims on Moldavia if you ally Poland and Moldavia is a subject of Poland; however, annexing Moldavia will open up new opportunities to restore the Jagiellonian Union that existed a day prior to EU4’s start: First you must weaken Poland (like the Austrian mission “The Decline of Hungary”: Have a larger army and more development than Poland and its subjects), then you can claim the Polish throne.

Can you still get the PU if they are an elective monarchy?
 
Does the black army modifier still give 10% merc discipline, and the reform is just nerfed down a bit, or have they both been nerfed?

also, merc cost doesn't make a *whole lot* of sense. Merc maintenance would surely be more appropriate? It would make sense that, since they are giving them a long term contract, Hungary could pay the mercs less each month, but the cost of recruitment would probably be the same. And since the maintenance cost of Merc's isn't based on Merc cost but rather normal regiment cost, this does nothing to impact their maintenance
 
Looking at Hungarian events, one major issue for many of them (Advance of the Turks, The Fall of Hungary) is that they never firing is that they require both Austria to be the Emperor, Hungary to be under PU, and the Ottomans to be controlling large swathes of Magyar territory.


In most games this confluence of things never happen, as a strong AI Austria usually controls nearly all of 1444 Hungary, and if the Ottomans are pushing hard into Europe, Austria usually loses the Emperorship.
That and Hungary is usually diplo-annexed before the Turks get anywhere close to Budapest.
 
It s looking nice but im going to one again start my speach about why PLC needs a rework

I doubt it is getting a rework. Despite Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania having tons of issues, they were getting only more issues.
The most laughable thing is the whole "restore Ruthenia" mission thing and the Lithuanian tradition of tolerance of heretics. There is no connection to a history.

Lithuania is also the most centralized state in Europe, being huge without any vassals. Just let this sink in, it was far more centralized than France or Iberia somehow.

Oh, and "Break Rus" is ofc a big "f*** you" to the region and history.
 
Huh, so I'm guessing the "Anatolian Threat" mission is a way to prevent Hungary getting permanent claims in the southern Balkans and Anatolia when a resurgent Byzantium means it makes less historical sense? Good.

Also, does the Polish PU thing mean it doesn't nonsensically switch to elective monarchy anymore while the Jagiellonian dynasty still exists?