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EU4 - Development Diary - 25th of September 2018

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Good day all. Today is our second and final dev diary for the upcoming 1.27 Poland Update. Wait, the final one already!?

Yes, we shall be releasing the Poland Update on Monday 1st October. This is, as some will rightfully point out, very swift following Dharma's release. The reason for this is that, in addition to the usual bugfixes and improvements that come along with a post release patch, our Poland update is also bringing EU4 in line with the General Data Protection Regulation. We have set this as our date for ensuring that our games follow these new EU laws. Rather than getting bogged down in the details about the what's and whys of GDPR in our games myself, I instead encourage inquiring minds to read this link.

The long and short of it is that once the Poland Patch goes live, we will be requiring you to read and agree to our privacy policy, which will be displayed to you in the game the first time you load up after the update. A truly painless process.

Things diverge here a little for those who like to play on our older versions. If you are, for example, one of the people playing on the previous versions, anything from 1.4 up to 1.26, you will be in for a rude awakening as your game will no longer be set to that version on Steam. Unfortunately, we cannot legally have those versions available for play as they are not GDPR compliant due to having no capacity for gaining your consent to our privacy policy.

Fret not though, as we have a solution ready for everyone who want to continue playing on old versions. We are have a webpage ready for players to log in with their Plaza account, read our privacy policy and retrieve codes for the old versions of our games. Plug these into Steam and you can continue playing on our old versions to your heart's content. More information here again!

With the joys of GDPR info over, let's get back to looking at the Poland update.

@neondt was kind enough last week to share the bulk of what's changing in the Poland update: Map changes, new ideas, missions, events, Government reforms, even a hulking great Mongol Empire. I'm in a tough position to match such a meat dev diary myself. Let's have a couple of highlighted balance changes and enjoy the Patchnotes today.

Balance changes.

Conversions

Firstly, the removal of religious conversions in territories was by all measures a contentious one. It is certainly our ambition that religious conversion not come with such ease and arcade feel to it. None the less, one particular piece of feedback which truly resonated with me was that people who build religious focused nations whose goal is to combat heresy are unable to do the one thing they are setting out to do. To that end, in 1.27, there are two particular changes being made here:

  • Religious Ideas finisher allow for conversion in territories
  • Territories have a -2% conversion strength
We have other small changes in mind for conversions, but we'll be going into those in due time.

Institutions

Since institutions were introduced, the tech situation in the world was made vastly less divergent. While to a degree we don't want it being a trivial task to roll over anyone not blessed enough to hail from Pisa or Lothian, things were looking a touch too normalized, so a few tweaks are coming in 1.27 to widen the tech gap.

  • Global Trade
    • No longer gain embracement boost from Marketplace, Trade Depot, Stock Exchange because you already get a lot from trade power which these buildings boost.
    • Gain 0.5 embracement scaled from level 3 CoT, 0.1 from Level 2 CoT
  • Manufacturing
    • Restricted somewhat where it can spawn so we don't get it spawning in 5 dev desert province
    • Reduce how much you get on continents where it did not spawn.
  • Enlightenment
    • Restricted somewhat where it can spawn so we don't get it spawning in 5 dev desert province
    • Reduce how much you get on continents where it did not spawn.

Of course for the full changes to digest, here are the patchnotes:

###################
# Free Features
###################
- Added support for Steam Rich Presence.
- New Lottery Election mechanic
- New unique government for Venice
- New Sortition reform on tier 3 that enables Lottery election. (Dharma)
- Added Bureaucratic Aparatus and Appointment by Committee government reforms for republics. (Dharma)
- Removed old Sortition reform. (Dharma)
- Added Arrival of the Kalmyks event
- Added Prussian Confederation event chain
- Added Roman of Moldavia event chain
- Added mission trees for Poland, Lithuania, Romanian Group, Tatar Hordes.
- Added descision to form the Ilkhanate.
- Added Great Mongol State government for Mongol Empire (Free), allowing Banners in primary culture provinces(Mandate of Heaven).
- Added new government reform 'Permanent Marathas Council' for Indian nations with the Maratha estate. +5% discipline and changes Recruit Minister interaction to give a general with +1 shock instead of an advisor. (Dharma)
- Added new government reform 'Governmental Purbias Register' for Indian nations with the Rajput estate. Changes Recruit Purbias interaction to give +5% discipline to Rajput regiments. (Dharma)


###################
# Gamebalance
###################
# Economy
- Disable Charter Company if the country is highly in debt to avoid saving money in other countries.
- Tariffs are now only counted on income from Production, Gold and Trade.
- Tariffs overlord operate on now match how much the CN actually pays.

# Governments
- Added the missing max absolutism malus for republics.
- Increased losing 4 reforms to 7 for Seize Executive Power Reform.
- Increased losing 6 reforms to 8 for Proclaim Divine Guidance Reform.
- Nepotism candidates in elections are now aged randomly between 30 and 50.
- Reduced losing 6 reforms to 3 for Become a Republic Reform.
- Tribals Civil Society Reform now gives additional -0.05 corruption
- Tribals Lip Service Reform modifier reduced to 10% Land Maintenance Modifier.
- Tribals Religious Societies Reform now gives additional 15% Religious Unity
- Bishoprics can no longer have their rulers made into generals at all while the Monastic Orders can have any of their rulers made into a general. The Hochmeister strikes back.

# Units
- Rajput regiments base modifiers changed to -25% drill decay, -50% reinforce cost, and +5% morale

# Other
- Added 0.33 monthly support for local heir on loyal nobility estate
- Switched out Papacy government prestige gain to Prestige per development from missionary.
- Switched out Prestige gain in Glory of Rome of the Pope idea set for -1% Prestige Decay.
- Switched out The Vatican Museums for -10% Dip Advisor Cost(+1 Free Dip Policy for Dharma)
- Vatican Library Administrative Edition now gives -5% administrative tech.
- Vatican Library Diplomatic Edition now gives -5% diplomatic tech.
- Vatican Library Military Edition now gives -5% military tech and 50% army tradition from battle.
- Vatican Library Military edition no longer gives 5% discipline.
- Contamination Detected, initiating Quarantine Protocols.
- Vijayanagari mission 'Divert Trade from Bengal' will not only upgrade CoT's to level 2.
- World Port now gives 0.2% naval tradition decay instead of 0.25 yearly naval tradition.
- Religious ideas finisher now let's you convert in territories.
- Territory provinces have an additional -2 missionary strength malus.
- Dhimmi given provinces now provide less to the overal religious unity. -50% at Neutral, -100% at Loyal.
- No longer gain Global Trade embracement boost from Marketplace, Trade Depot, Stock Exchange because you already get a lot from trade power which these buildings boost.
- Gain 0.5 Global Trade embracement scaled from level 3 CoT, 0.1 from Level 2 CoT
- Restricted somewhat where Manufacturing can spawn so we don't get it spawning in 5 dev desert province
- Reduce how much Manufacturing spread you get on continents where it did not spawn.
- Restricted somewhat where Enlightenment can spawn so we don't get it spawning in 5 dev desert province
- Reduce how much Enlightenment spread you get on continents where it did not spawn.


###################
# AI
###################
# Economy
- Fix AI taking unnessecary loans when recruiting
- Fix AI not disbanding fleets when over force limit
- Fix AI offering no money in charter province action to players.

# War
- Include forts ZoC when recomputing path for unexiled armies
- sieging the wargoal does not give anymore a penalty if the AI is the defender and a peace is offered

# Other
- Fixed indecisive colonisation/settlement growth planning and budgeting AI


###################
# Interface
###################
# Country
- In subject view, clicking on the shield of a trade company will center the map on that trade company.
- Parliament issues now have a scrollbar so you can see the entire effect of some of the issues.

# Icons/Art
- Cleaned up gender icons to look a bit clearer.

# Other
- Add history entries when a province is subject of Charter Company diplomatic action.
- Battles involving condottieri should pop up the combat view.
- Do not show the automatic transport dialog if trying to move during battles.


###################
# Usermodding
###################
# Effects
- Can no longer set dynasty on republican leaders in define_ruler effects. Dynasty argument is reused to let you set last name now.
- Added add_next_institution_embracement_scaled which behaves like devving in a province
- Added adm_power_cost, dip_power_cost, mil_power_cost effects & triggers that scales with the power cost modifier
- All Variable effects can be defined with `= { var_name = value }` now.
- Added set_base_tax, set_base_production, set_base_manpower effects

# Modifiers
- Implemented monthly_support_heir_gain modifier
- Added new modifier that increases how much PP you get from an insult.
- has_banners modifier now will work for every country and is no more limited to Manchu
- Added static modifier that is applied to all territory provinces.
- Added local_religious_unity_contribution modifier.

# Triggers
- Added has_unembraced_institution trigger.
- All Variable triggers can be defined with `= { var_name = value }` now.

# Other
- Can now access exiled monarchs in localisation
- Can now define the age range of a ruler
- Can now flag a government reform that it triggers elections upon death.


###################
# Script
###################
# Decisions
- Added decision to form the Mongol Empire
- Added decision to restore the Ilkhanate as a March
- Moving the capital to St. Petersberg will now upgrade its Center of Trade level.

# Events
- Added option to 'Cultural Ties Weakened' event to convert to American primary culture. First option now adds American as an accepted culture.
- Rewrote Vlad the Impaler event. Vlad will now appear more regularly as a ruler.

# Ideas
- Added Chernigov national ideas
- Added Crimean national ideas
- Added Ilkhanid national ideas
- Added National Ideas for dynamic Cossack nations
- Added Rigan national ideas

# Setup
- Added the Mongol Empire and Kalmyk tags
- Poland now accepted Ruthenian culture in 1444

# Other
- Added new free and possible policy modifiers as custom ideas
- Added startup screen for Wallachia and Moldavia
- Added startup screen for the Tatar hordes
- Transoxiana is now a slightly different shade of blue


###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed CTD when when loading old saves with owned provinces changed to wasteland in later version
- 'Japan Discovered' event now allows for Anglicans
- 'Missionaries in the Spice Islands' event now converts some provinces in the Spice Islands to Catholicism
- Added fallback requirement for VIJ War Plunder mission
- Added missing % sign to Nobles of the Robe tooltip
- Added tooltip for Conform to Template view when province is not controlled by you or your overlord
- Added tooltip to Italian Wars event explaining that relations with Spain will be worsened.
- All subsidies are now canceled when going bankrupt
- Anglicanism will no longer spawn in a country that is a junior partner in a PU
- Any siege is now ended when abandoning a colony
- Apply local autonomy penalty from estate removal after it been removed.
- Aristocracies and Hordes once again have access to Aristoractic ideas
- Army Professionalism parliament bribe now costs 2 army professionalis rather than 200
- Assigned Cayenne to correct colonial region
- Aurangabad modifier from Mughal mission now gives local rather than global development cost.
- Can no longer become an Iqta as an Indian Sultanate (no Dharma)
- Can no longer form Mughals as the Celestial Emperor
- Can no longer get Talented and Ambitious Daughter event with States General reform
- Can now hear elephants in battle without Dharma enabled if you have any Dharma unit pack enabled
- Changing to and from Steppe Horde government with Dharma will now change your tech and unit group to and from the nomad group.
- Colonial subjects are now blocked from fabricating claims overseas
- Corrected province highlighting in VIJ mission 'South Indian trade'
- Countries in Random Setup that get specific tags can no longer get reforms unique to those tags
- Dimitri event for Russia will no longer fire if country is a junior partner in PU
- Election event will use correct pronouns if current ruler is female.
- Event option to cede Goa to Portugal will no longer be available if a player owns Goa
- Event to pick Dutch Republic now removes Parliament reform if it has been picked
- Event to remove Free City reform now fires correctly
- Events that change government type refund some reform progress
- Fix the automatic transportation feature
- Fixed CTD when selecting abandoned colony with invalid siege
- Fixed Eat Your Greens and The Ostenders achievements being completable by any nation despite not being visible.
- Fixed Gujarati Textiles mission applying wrong trade goods size modifier
- Fixed Kiowa culture not being on map
- Fixed Mughal Open China mission attempting to reward local goods produced modifier to the whole country.
- Fixed Question of Rights event being able to take land from own colonial nations
- Fixed Sleepless in Seattle achievement requiring wrong province. Seattle is actually in Salish province.
- Fixed Trade Company Region not updated on Trade Nodes after loading save, leading to CTD trying to access deleted memory
- Fixed Unite Japan decision tooltip claiming that Daimyos will become Feudal Monarchies
- Fixed Vaishyas estate event using country instead of province flag, prevent modifiers from being applied
- Fixed breaking to rebels sometimes causing an extra stab hit, especially as the Pope
- Fixed changing away from Muslim as Feudal Theocracy without Dharma not giving new government
- Fixed city placement in Garwhal
- Fixed decision to convert ruler religion being available to junior union partners
- Fixed event allowing female consort for female ruler
- Fixed highlighting issues in Bahmani mission Persianate Empire
- Fixed missing title text for Mamluk event 'The Emissaries return with good news'
- Fixed spelling of Minnesota area
- Fixed wrong culture name in nation designer trigger for Gond Kingdom
- Fixed wrong institution in Cabinet of Curiosities event
- Fixed wrong legacy government given in election event for tribes
- Fixed wrong mission icon for Taungu mission Annex Prome
- Foreign Talent event will no longer fire for subject nations
- Forming Egypt now gives claims on unowned provinces in the Egypt region
- Forming Great Britain now always completes the War of the Roses mission
- Forming Ireland now requires owning all of Ireland. Decision now refers to areas instead of provinces.
- Forming Japan now disallows the Japanese gov reforms (Shogunate, Daimyo, Ind. Daimyo)
- Forming Qing decision description no longer refers to having already united China
- Forming Rajputana or Marathas now sets tech and unit group to Indian
- Forming the Mughal Empire will now enact unique Mughal government reforms up to the currently unlocked reform tier.
- Forming the Mughals with States General reform will now remove that reform
- Gujarati event 'An Embassy to the Ottoman Sultan' now only fires if Portugal owns a province in India
- If you don't have elections, taking reforms that gives you duration time no longer gives you term election.
- Indian Sultanate reform no longer invalid when switching capital outside of India
- Jain and Hindu Merchant Community event no longer affects Jain loyalty twice.
- Janos Hunyadi now has fixed stats and appropriate age
- Junior monarchies in a personal union under a non-monarch will now have their own legitimacy instead of being stuck at 0. (Yes there are very strict specific circumstance where non-monarchy can have a PU)
- Korean mission "Conquer Huncun" reward is no longer redundant. Adds claims needed for next mission.
- Land of Churches mission will now accept either churches or cathedrals in any arrangement
- Mewar mission Rajput Trasde Guilds now completable with any set of estates
- Move Capital to Pegu mission now requires Pegu to be the capital.
- Natives no longer use legitimacy mechanic
- No Dharma - Indian Sultanates can no longer Indianize their Sultanate
- Novogorod mission now gives claims on Vologda
- Only provinces within the country border (or the non-tributary subjects' ones) can be released in a peace deal.
- Orangist candidates no longer get double names. They should simply be Van Oranje now.
- Piety change when declaring war as Muslim now refers to Mysticism as well as Legalism
- Primitives are no longer able to select Naval Doctrines
- Qing now uses 'Empire' government name at rank 3 instead of 'Khaganate'
- Random events no longer give reform progress to primitives
- Reduce Champaner mission now requires a core on the province
- Reduced size of mission tooltip for Bengali Clear the Delta mission
- Releasing Deccan from Mughal mission should now give Deccan a government
- Remove Presidential Dictatorship reform when dictator dies and a new republican leader is elected.
- Removed references in several events to old center of trade modifiers
- Removed remove_non_electors_emperors_from_empire_effect from some Dharma formables
- Rulers given by pretenders and events now add +200 support for monarchists with the States General mechanic
- Sweet Home Qaraqorum, Ganges Khan and Maharana Pratap achievements no longer allow custom nations.
- Tartar and Altaic nations with Tribal government type can now pick Steppe Horde
- The Anjou Claims event now gives a claim on Abruzzi
- The effects of Rise of a Despot event now happen immediately rather than after choosing the option
- Unite Japan mission now requires direct ownership of most of the Japan region.
- When playing without CoC, a tooltip will now inform the player that The Janissaries event will fire in 12 years when enacting the Devshirne System decision.
- Will no longer swap mission trees when forming an Indian nation without unique missions except for Punjab
- players cannot anymore create infinite-points custom nations exploiting the play button enabled while confirmation modal is visible
- Fix OOS caused by not updating religious school modifiers
- Remove invalid reforms on tag switch
- Fixed Daimyos sometimes having two vassals
- Fixed papacy not being restored when releasing PAP as vassal
- Education of Daughters custom idea is temporarily disabled because of unforseen bug right before release, will be returned as soon as we can.
- Fixed so One King To Rule achievement requires 50 absolutism. Should now be possible for people not owning Dharma to get the achievement.
- Fixed bug where define_advisor was not creating advisors
- Fixed trade league disbanding after forming a new nation.
- Fix raze tech power decrease being uncapped
- Can no longer scorch earth with exiled units.
- Fix primitives being able to select Naval Doctrines
- Junior legitimacy no longer affected by dynasty change in overlord.
- Junior legitimacy will no longer be reset on monthly if overlord is not a monarchy.
- Former tributaries shouldn't be considered ex-subjects when going at war against their overlord.
- Shogun can no longer move their capital to prevent bunch of nasty bugs with that.
- Supply Convoys policy increased to 0.2% liberty_desire_from_subject_development from 0.02%
- Fixed Revolutionary governments losing all reform progress. They will now get reform progress as if they had switched using reforms.
- Mewar Never Changes achievement now visible to any nation that can access its mission tree
- Fixed broken Combat role bonus modifier for sieges with blockade.
- Fix game not exiting properly on Alt.-F4 when music player is open.
- Human should now be removed properly if player drops and ingame lobby does not exist.
- Fix alert about AI team member wanting to break alliance
- The seller of a province in Charter Company will gain inflation like province selling, but only based on the amount of money gained (not the administrative costs).
- Fixed exploit where Europeans could get Trade Company Trade Goods bonus in their own province.
- Optimized code that generated the weather texture.

You can look forward to the 1.27 Poland Patch this coming Monday 1st October!
 
Last edited:
- Added support for Steam Rich Presence.
Is that the locking behind a password or is it something else?

It's a common misconception that new provinces break old save games. We have code that handles new provinces, assigning them with an owner, culture and religion based on what's around them. Sometimes there are changes we make which very explicitly makes old save games incompatible, like when we fixed Hotjoin in Cradle of Civilization, because the changes ran so deep that old save games wouldn't stand a chance.
So new provinces in old saves no longer show up as 0 0 0 uncolonised provinces, and hence uncolonisable, anymore?
 
The Republics have a +25 max absolutism reform to compensate, they were always supposed to have their maluses (and only the special Republics had their maluses right now which is def unfair.)
+25 absolutism can compensate but it needs 2700 progress which should be gathered for nearly whole years of EU4 timeframe and using it to get +20 absolutism from Court and Country disaster is nearly impossible.
 
It was the normal republics that didn't have absolutism malus, all the special ones still had their ones left. Merchant republic have -50, Oligarchy I believe was set to -40 and Noble Elite is -20.
Republics shouldn't have an absolutism penalty, period. They already lose out on legitimacy (-10 max absolutism, possible further reduced absolutism from lower tolerance --> religious unity). Administrative efficiency is the most important modifier in the game bar none. Losing out on any of it makes republics uncompetitive. The patch that introduced absolutism practically deleted republics from the game. Reintroducing the penalty for republics is the game moving backwards.

The Republics have a +25 max absolutism reform to compensate, they were always supposed to have their maluses (and only the special Republics had their maluses right now which is def unfair.)
This is silly. It takes 1350 government reform points to get to the 7th reform (the max for monarchies). It takes *another* 1350 reform points to get to the 10th reform. A nation's total autonomy level is going to increase over time as conquests accelerate, further reducing the speed nations get later reforms. Furthermore, switching to a republic nukes 4 reforms. Given all this, the 10th reform is practically unattainable unless you start as a republic and do no expansion all game. Basing balancing decisions on the 10th reform is wrongheaded.
 
Why would they change one of the best sets in the game? Also; Hungary; Japan and Prussia neither got elite units or Idea changes. [Japan did get idea changes but not in the Japan patch itself.]

So there's absolutely 0 precedent for idea changes or elite units in a free update.

Also; Winged Hussars are already the Cav unit type for Eastern Tech; and their 'elite' status is reflected by +13% cav combat ability over any other NI set.
Polish ideas are very strong, but not really accurate . I expected some mechanics and strong cavalry balanced by ideas nerfed a little. Cavalry unit type is that stupid type of point I heard before, Anatolian units have jannisaries types(Janissary Infantry tech 9 and Reformed Janissary Infantry tech 19) but also elite jannisaries troops, so we are already used to have multiplied units. If something is wrong here then it is hussars for everyone in eastern tech group.

Hungary got black army, it is in fact real elite unit, so there is precedent, ideas are precedents in every patch(even this one, but Crimea is changed, not Poland)

Prussia hasn't got own free patch, they got multiply changes after game release and own great mechanics in rights of man (and it was before elite units concept so still wrong point), their ideas are accurate and matched, while polish "focus on field defense" didn't get new fire damage received added some time ago instead of strong high morale, Piechota wybraniecka gives poland unfair bonus making it's infantry much stronger than they were, but hussars with this 33% u emphasized
are still like 2x worse than amazing manchu banners while they deserve much more attention as elite unit they were in history.(maybe due to fact eastern cavalry for some reason is one of the worst type in the game)

About Japan, this free patch was year after getting huge changes with own mechanics in Mandate of Heaven, Poland wasn't really touched after res publica in 2014 that at most tried to match other european great powers but stopped in halfway (and no, these mechanics aren't cool, it's just very bad chain events and government is all about silly unions catching or deleting this to normal monarchy). Japan was nice flavored before Japan patch.

This patch looks really lazy, only one dev diary with content , and while it's focused on Poland, the main country hasn't even half of the diary, for now i see only op missions(and i don't know how flavored they are, probably it's on top of the game but nothing compared to india and mughals for sure ) and new provinces, today we got some minor changes, most are cool, especially convert one but it's only small microsection and there is nothing about Poland

But i can agree with you, it's just free patch while i expected Poland to be second best target for immersion pack after Spain, so it's my source of bitterness.
"events" are something i look to self-defend this patch, if these changes are going to shake the foundations and change these terrible chain events + add something comparable to Hungarian events then I'll be content and see this as ambulance to equate this country with flavored neighbours (Hungary Bohemia Denmark) but far away from comparable great powers neighbours like Ottoman or Russia (and any other great powers actually).
Anyway for now it's not enough for me, being free patch doesn't change the fact that Poland isn't fondled enough, being free content isn't real point for me who preorder every DLC(generally I was dissapointed finding polish patch free), while I've got nothing bad to say about content itself I can rightly criticize this patch for being too tiny until i find some news that Poland will get something more with incoming bigger DLCs (maybe HRE?)
 
But i can agree with you, it's just free patch while i expected Poland to be second best target for immersion pack after Spain, so it's my source of bitterness.
"events" are something i look to self-defend this patch, if these changes are going to shake the foundations and change these terrible chain events + add something comparable to Hungarian events then I'll be content and see this as ambulance to equate this country with flavored neighbours (Hungary Bohemia Denmark) but far away from comparable great powers neighbours like Ottoman or Russia (and any other great powers actually).
Anyway for now it's not enough for me, being free patch doesn't change the fact that Poland isn't fondled enough, being free content isn't real point for me who preorder every DLC(generally I was dissapointed finding polish patch free), while I've got nothing bad to say about content itself I can rightly criticize this patch for being too tiny until i find some news that Poland will get something more with incoming bigger DLCs (maybe HRE?)
I agree that the PLC was a top candidate for the next ImPak along Spain (and Italy if that wasn't par of an HRExpansion). I feel like that this paves the way for a Swedish ImPak.

Anyhow, Bohemia has to be the least flavoured neighbour Poland has. Especially when you consider that the Hussites aren't represented at all, the succession of Emperor Albrecht II is completely garbage currently and the number of flavour events is nowhere comparable to Poland or Hungary.
 
@neondt can we have a little bit more documentation into this and how it will be modded?

Notably: Will the defines still work? Can the territory conversion strength malus be changed (for bigger/smaller amounts) or entirely removed? If so, how?

  • Religious Ideas finisher allow for conversion in territories
  • Territories have a -2% conversion strength

It'd be very helpful to get more documentation on changes and whatnot, specially for us modders, provided every update tends to generate quite the shitshow for us.
 
Republics shouldn't have an absolutism penalty, period. They already lose out on legitimacy (-10 max absolutism, possible further reduced absolutism from lower tolerance --> religious unity). Administrative efficiency is the most important modifier in the game bar none. Losing out on any of it makes republics uncompetitive. The patch that introduced absolutism practically deleted republics from the game. Reintroducing the penalty for republics is the game moving backwards.

Absolutism represents Tyranny, lack of representation, absolutism of a Monarch, disregard for the common opinions... you know, Absolutism, stuff that regular Republics are not supposed to have. Republics and representative monarchies are supposed to be gimped on this.

The answer to the problem is not that they should have Absolutism, but that PDS should turn Enlightenment into its own feature which should boost democracies and generally representative governments while severely punishing Absolutists.
 
I agree that the PLC was a top candidate for the next ImPak along Spain (and Italy if that wasn't par of an HRExpansion). I feel like that this paves the way for a Swedish ImPak.

Anyhow, Bohemia has to be the least flavoured neighbour Poland has. Especially when you consider that the Hussites aren't represented at all, the succession of Emperor Albrecht II is completely garbage currently and the number of flavour events is nowhere comparable to Poland or Hungary.
I can agree partly. Least flavoured neighbour is Teutonic(it's justified because in 1444 it's dying country but there isn't any comeback flavour that i think teutons deserve), anyway i can agree Bohemia is in simililar position to Poland after this free patch. They got "something" but not enough for one of most important HRE member with Golden age and the peak of power getting over just before game start date with so stormy(and juicy from our point of view now) history in 15 century. Both countries needs a lot in HRE dlc
 
I can agree partly. Least flavoured neighbour is Teutonic(it's justified because in 1444 it's dying country but there isn't any comeback flavour that i think teutons deserve), anyway i can agree Bohemia is in simililar position to Poland after this free patch. They got "something" but not enough for one of most important HRE member with Golden age and the peak of power getting over just before game start date with so stormy(and juicy from our point of view now) history in 15 century. Both countries needs a lot in HRE dlc
Poland also borders Pommerania which has even less going for it, as it doesn't even have a (nearly) unique government like the Teutons, but I digress ... :p
 
@DDRJake , do you plan to do a dev-diary in the future about the direction that you want EUIV to go?

Yes, please. I second this.
Wiz does a great job at laying out a roadmap for Stellaris. Everyone know what general goals he has for Stellaris, and which aspects of the game he wants to improve on, which focuses future expansions might have etc.
There are no promises or "we definitely gonna do this" in there, but it's still nice to see where Stellaris' development is headed in a general way.

It would be awesome to have something like that for EU4 as well, just a general roadmap, where you want to take the game, which aspects do you want to focus on, if time and money allows etc.
 
Poland also borders Pommerania which has even less going for it, as it doesn't even have a (nearly) unique government like the Teutons, but I digress ... :p
Going back to post before Poland has more events than Bohemia but it's quality isn't so cool.

About Pomerania you are right, but i see pomerania as "one of many duchies" This region is totally on bottom from the beginning, worse than India before Dharma for example
 
Going back to post before Poland has more events than Bohemia but it's quality isn't so cool.

About Pomerania you are right, but i see pomerania as "one of many duchies" This region is totally on bottom from the beginning, worse than India before Dharma for example
This post reminded me back when I was a total noob. The first nation I formed Prussia with was Pommerania, and after I did so, I started winning ALL the battles. ;)
 
Poland also borders Pommerania which has even less going for it, as it doesn't even have a (nearly) unique government like the Teutons, but I digress ... :p
Ruthenia, especially Left Bank, and The Steppes are even worse. The fact that Ruthenians are added as an accepted culture is also very debatable... And unlike Spain, Bohemia and others, the region has 0 chances to get ImPack content now that Poland, Lithuania, Crimea and Russia got some good updates. Zaporozhia is just doomed to be a joke, the region with a lot of going on in the history is deprived of it.