• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

EU4 - Development Diary - 23rd of October 2018

Hello! We’ll finally reveal some features of the upcoming Immersion Pack coming with the 1.28 patch. However I need to warn you: HEAVY USAGE OF CODER ART INCOMING!

Our artists nor me have had time to get our hands on the new features yet to make sure the interface is up to par for user usage. So everything is just how the programmer left it. Terrifying thought.

We’ll start with a feature only available to the Catholic Iberians. Establishing Holy Orders. Keep in mind numbers are as usual up for tweakage!

upload_2018-10-23_9-16-19.png


These are inspired by Jesuit Reductions in the new world but an Iberian nation can put them anywhere as long as the nation own the entire state and that it is fully cored and stated. The available orders are: The Society of Jesus, The Order of Preachers and The Order of Saint Francis.

When an order is selected for a state these following effects are applied to all provinces in that state.
  • Jesuit Order
    • +1 Tax Development
    • 1.5% Local missionary strength
    • -10% Local Build Cost
  • Dominican Order
    • +1 Production Development
    • Removes slaves if trade goods and replace it with something else
    • -30% Culture Conversion Cost
  • Franciscan Order
    • +1 Manpower Development
    • -3 Local Unrest
    • -0.05 Local Monthly Devastation
Each of these costs 50 monarch power to put in place, 50 of the type that order represents. Administrative for Jesuits, Diplomatic for Dominican and Military for Franciscan. As an overlord of a colonial nation you can still place these in their land. The AI will know if a player is involved and restrain itself from placing these orders themselves letting the player optimize their usage.

For the few that manages to recreate the Cremé Pheonix, an Andalusian Muslim, we'll see what we can do for you ;)



Next Feature is one for every colonizer which we have done together with trying to improve the Colonial Diversity, to try and prevent the Colonial AI to spend so much dip points on purging away cultures. Instead allowing the Americas to become the melting pot of cultures it was. Also yet again I warn you that everything you see is in a state of work in progress.

upload_2018-10-23_9-16-44.png


With Expulsion of Minorities feature you can now tell those damned Puritans in East Anglia to head off to Plymouth Harbor and get on the Mayflower.

Using this costs you diplomatic points akin to how much it would take to culture convert in that province, but upon colony completion it both converts the religion and culture of the province while making the colony have the old religion and culture of home. Also upon completion you get some extra development in the finished colony based on how big the home province were for the minority you sent to live in the colony.

Besides the Culture conversion cost modifier reducing the cost to do this action, in Exploration ideas there is now an idea that will also reduce this cost if you own the Immersion Pack.



Now I’m going to hand it over to our beta who have helped us out with the map in this iteration and helped us overhaul the Spanish Main.

Hello, I’m Evie. You may remember me (as GuillaumeHJ) from old Dev Diary classics like “How to add provinces to Western Africa without getting bored” and “There’s no such thing as too many provinces in North America”. For those of you who joined us since Art of War: nice to meet you.

As you can probably gather, I’m here to talk to you about more map changes. After all, it’s one thing to add provinces to Spain, but much of Spanish history in the Europa Universalis timeline happened outside Spain, in the part of the world that would receive the apt name of “Spanish Main.”

Stretching from the coast of Texas all the way to the mouth of the Orinoco, across the Caribbeans, and back into Florida, the Spanish Main was the heart of the Spanish colonial empire, where the great Treasure Fleets sailed to gather the wealth of the New World. As a result, the “Spain” update also includes extensive additions to the region.

upload_2018-10-23_9-27-8.png


Map-wise, the changes are extensive – upwards of eighty new provinces and twenty new tags in Mesoamerica, Central America, the Southwestern United States, the Caribbeans, Florida, Colombia and Venezuela. But Cuba and Hispaniola are now up to nine provinces. Colombia and Venezuela get a plethora of new provinces as well along the coast, bringing them much closer to the density found in Central America. The lion’s share, of course, goes to Mexico, especially the heart of Mesoamerica.

upload_2018-10-23_9-27-37.png


The most important (and by far the most requested) of those provinces are, without a shadow of a doubt, the two we split off from the original Mexico province, representing Texcoco and Tlacopan, the two cities that (along with Mexico-Tenochtitlan) formed the Aztec Triple Alliance. Reducing the Valley of Mexico and the Aztec power base to a single province always felt wrong, so when the opportunity came to update the region’s map with smaller provinces, adding these two was the very first item on the list of changes that needed to happen.

More than new provinces, though, the heart of the update is the new tags. Nine in Mesoamerica proper, six in the Mayan regions, six in the deserts around the US/Mexico border, and one each in Central America and Colombia bring a great deal of depth to the region. Who are they? Read on to find out.

upload_2018-10-23_9-27-56.png


Mesoamerica

Northwestern Mesoamerica, beyond Colima and the Tarascans, is often thought of as a void, but actually it was a Greece-like patchwork of cities. Representing them all is beyond the scope of this patch, but we’ve added two of the more significant local powers, Tonala and Xalisco, to bring relief to the area.

At the northern edge of Mesoamerica lived a plethora of people that the Aztecs collectively called the Chichimeca (roughly compared with the Greek “Barbarian”). Though they didn’t have the great cities of Mesoamerica proper, they played a fundamental part in regional history, and provided formidable resistance to Spanish expansion for half a century. For them, we’ve added three tags: Otomi and Guarames are two of the more significant people, while Chichimeca covers a variety of smaller groups.

Near the Chichimecan, we find a historical oddity: a Mayan group that wandered far from Yucatan and Central America, to the opposite end of Mesoamerica, the Huastec people.

Closer to the Aztecs, a number of additional states represent various regional powers of some note. To the south, Coixtlahuaca, a mixtec kingdom, fell early when their king defied the Aztecs. To the south-east, Teotitlan became a loyal ally of the empire. To the west, meanwhile, Matlatzinca served as a buffer between Aztecs and Tarascans - until the Aztec invaded it, precipitating war with their powerful rivals.

The South: Mayans, Central America and Colombia.

Further south, the Yucatan peninsula was home to about sixteen Mayan polities in this timeline. Having them all would, again, be impossible, but instead of just having the two rival dynasties of Cocomes and Xiu (whose rivalry dominated Mayan politics in the era), we’ve added two of the better known late post-classic city-states, in the form of Can Pech (Campeche) and Chactemal (Chetumal).

In south-eastern Mexico, a pair of additional Mayan tags add depths to the Tabasco and Chiapas regions. In the former, they’re the Yokotan (or Chontales), who claim descent from the ancient Olmec civilization. In the later, the Tzotzil, one of the more significant local group, serve a similar role.

In Honduras and Guatemala, the Kiche kingdom no longer can afford to get complacent – their perennial rivals (and erstwhile vassals), the Kaqchikel, are now in the game plotting to gain the upper hand, while further east, the Chorti people could also turn into quite the threat.

In Colombia, the Tairona, sister people to the Muisca (who are already in) form a new addition at the northern edge of the country, where the last of the Andes come to die in the Atlantic.

Last, but not least, we have our first non-Mayan Central America tag, based in the coastal jungles of Nicaragua: the Miskito people, who remained independent of Spain long enough to become a British protectorate instead.

The North: Pueblos and Natives.


IgbC0QGuk3upg8uvhpjk-0HX4OCW7aXXXyS4lf9KytamL5ThuS98ci1AcAdoa44WWeL89QJbbdexjzabvLTY5qvj9ZhftojjVsnTVH1_StMpZl1kul0sFaGQJrvx6F1KkAtZKJv0


To the north, we find ourselves drawn to the upper end of the Rio Grande valley. There, the old Pueblo tag has been split in three to represent the various groups that together formed the Puebloan people. In addition to the old Pueblo tag (now limited to the Rio Grande valley itself), we now have the Keres tag (covering famous pueblos like Acoma and Zia, to the west of the Rio Grande), and the Zuni one, near the New Mexico/Arizona border.

Beyond the Rio Grande valley, our additions take the form of Native American tags. Adding depths to the Apachean people on top of the already-present Navajo and Apache tags, we find the Lipan and Mescalero ready to make trouble for colonizers in New Mexico and Texas, where they were a formidable obstacle to the Spanish historically. Further west, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, California finally get representation of its native people in the form of the Yokuts. Finally, in the deserts of north-western Mexico, the Yaqui people, who resisted Spanish then Mexican dominion into the twentieth century, join the fray.

Together, all these additions bring a lot more depth to the areas of the map that ended up being conquered by Spain.


Thanks Evie! Next week I'll be back to talk about more features, one of which that Sweden had quite an excellence of building ....
 
Last edited:
It feels really uncomfortable having Mesoamerica being worked on in a Spanish update, is there any chance of FINALLY seeing the ginourmous lake that dominated Central Mexico being featured in the game at long last.


Some provinces are being added to Central Mexico as well, are important cities in the region that were not part of the governing bodies of this last Triple Alliance being planned like Culhuacan, or Huejotzingo?
 
Last edited:
Which it already does, as of 1.27.x. At least in colonial territory.
Are you referring to the province itself? I'm talking about the Colonial Nation.
 
Really? The more I think about it, the more I feel the exact opposite. But maybe that's because I was expecting an Iberia focused immersion pack ("put the Europa back in Europa Universalis" and all that, as DDRJake said). Instead so far we appear to be getting a very underwhelming map update in Iberia and the Maghreb; 3 flavourless, zero-strategy buttons to click that are locked to Iberians for no appreciable reason; and an "expulsion of minorities" mechanic that has nothing to do with Spanish and Portuguese colonialism and seems to have an interface so painful to use that I would avoid it just to be spared the headache (I hope the lists thing is just a work-in-progress, or that at least they make it sortable alphabetically or something).

We were also promised better AI, which would be fantastic but I'll believe it when I see it. And I really like the map updates to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. But I hope they have much more to show us, because to me this is in worse than RB territory at the moment.
Come on this is already better than RB.
I cna even understand why they are careful, RB messed up the balance of the game so badly that they are wary of overpowering some other power now. That said they still need to nerf britain.

Rework state UI if you wanna expand it, please.

Add possibility to end after condition (time, whole state converted) to edicts.

I hoped for colonization rework, really hope there will be something, orders seem boring.
This is an immersion pack you likely won't see the rework of a major mechanic in it.
 
Floridian here... appreciate all the work being made on Spain and the Americas as their fates were intertwined in this period.

My suggestion for Florida would be to add one or two tribes that represents the Seminoles and/or Miccosuke Indians that were present throughout the state and had many interactions with Spain after St. Augustine was formed and often fought with England and later the US. Let me know if you need any info.
 
27 Mesoamerican nations. I remember when it was just 3.
 
Really? The more I think about it, the more I feel the exact opposite. But maybe that's because I was expecting an Iberia focused immersion pack ("put the Europa back in Europa Universalis" and all that, as DDRJake said). Instead so far we appear to be getting a very underwhelming map update in Iberia and the Maghreb; 3 flavourless, zero-strategy buttons to click that are locked to Iberians for no appreciable reason; and an "expulsion of minorities" mechanic that has nothing to do with Spanish and Portuguese colonialism and seems to have an interface so painful to use that I would avoid it just to be spared the headache (I hope the lists thing is just a work-in-progress, or that at least they make it sortable alphabetically or something).

We were also promised better AI, which would be fantastic but I'll believe it when I see it. And I really like the map updates to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. But I hope they have much more to show us, because to me this is in worse than RB territory at the moment.

Isn't the third dev diary a little premature to be judging the whole pack?
 
27 Mesoamerican nations. I remember when it was just 3.
And ironically spain was better at conquering them back then.
 
Are all the features gonna be colonization/american related in a spanish Impack? Because next week features for sweden (in an spanish Impack). So im begninning to wonder if iberia is gonna get unique features at all.

So far I know Im not paying 10 euros for some three button system to gain dev in america and a culture conversion system.

Still waiting for Iberia Impack. Next week, something about Sweden. Yay!
 
Last edited:
Really? The more I think about it, the more I feel the exact opposite. But maybe that's because I was expecting an Iberia focused immersion pack ("put the Europa back in Europa Universalis" and all that, as DDRJake said). Instead so far we appear to be getting a very underwhelming map update in Iberia and the Maghreb; 3 flavourless, zero-strategy buttons to click that are locked to Iberians for no appreciable reason; and an "expulsion of minorities" mechanic that has nothing to do with Spanish and Portuguese colonialism and seems to have an interface so painful to use that I would avoid it just to be spared the headache (I hope the lists thing is just a work-in-progress, or that at least they make it sortable alphabetically or something).

We were also promised better AI, which would be fantastic but I'll believe it when I see it. And I really like the map updates to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. But I hope they have much more to show us, because to me this is in worse than RB territory at the moment.
So far both "Immersion packs" turned out to be very underwhelming (and that may even be considered an understatement with regards to Third Rome), but I wouldn't write the new one off before we know all the features. Then we can complain.
 
Isn't the third dev diary a little premature to be judging the whole pack?
Indeed, hence the "so far", "at the moment" and "hope there's more".
Come on this is already better than RB.
I think I appreciate Innovativeness more than most. Still not enough to actually buy RB, which so far is the only DLC that I have had zero interest in buying (I don't have Dharma yet, but will definitely get it at some point).
 
@Groogy Will you do something about getting a malus from the Treaty of Tordesillas after tag switching or releasing and playing as a Catholic colonial nation?

Also maybe being able to have cardinals, after a certain age, outside of Europe?
 
Last edited:
I like most of it.
For the Spanish Holy Orders... Is there any way it could tie into the (now base game) Clergy estate? Like, making an area a holy order also grants all the provinces in the land to the Clergy? Or something else like that?

Right now it's all boons and no consequences, which is boring gameplay. At least tying to estates would make it more interesting.
 
Puebloan people.

lol, the Peoplean people.

Honestly it´s quite shocking that the main changes to the map in the Spanish update are done to America, when the "Main" is colonised by England half of the time.
 
Looks like we got priority AI fixes, if we are to judge by prior DD, and some more work in progress. Doesn't look too promising, i got the feeling that they'll fix what they must and stop on that. Lets hope for much more work on AI, good AI would be much better/desirable than just "working AI".

Concerning Immersion pack and new features. Map changes are welcome and nice.. map team was really doing good job recently. As said Iberia could use a bit more details, so hopefully we will get some extras there.

Feature-wise ... looks bleak so far. I have very low expectations atm so i am not surprised. Lets hope this won't end up like Rule Britannia's feature bloat additions. Dharma features... had bloat and thing that are not bloat are imbalanced - while we did not get fixes that were much needed.
 
Since you are adjusting native tags, will there be any changes to how native reformation affects government reforms with Dharma? Having the Incan Empire suddenly turn into a republican duchy because you passed the last religious reform while bordering a colonial nation is profoundly ridiculous. Not to mention all those cases of the Aztec tlatoani for some reason thinking adopting an English Parliament is a great idea.
 
What about fixing all the things that make natives unplayable and CNs the worst subjects to manage?

I guess thats why this is the SPAIN update, sigh, I really wished they hadnt touched America here, it annoys those who wanted an indept look at Iberia, and it worries people like me who want the current American continent to just be thrown out of the window and properly looked at.
 
Are you referring to the province itself? I'm talking about the Colonial Nation.

I’m not sure I follow, but what is different from the way things are now?