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EU4 - Development Diary - 31st of March 2020

Hello everyone! Today’s Development Diary will be focusing on features part of the Emperor expansion. These features aim to enrich the gameplay surrounding the Holy Roman Empire, both for Emperor and Princes part of the Empire.

You might have noticed that there’s been some quite heavy changes to a very old interface in our Developer Clash.

upload_2020-3-31_11-57-4.png


So now let’s go through these changes today. First up is the new reforms. We wanted to accomodate more playstyles than simply always uniting the Empire under the Emperor. So the Reforms have been divided up to three types, Common, Decentralized and Centralized. In order to access either the Decentralized or Centralized path you need to first get some of the Common reforms. Specifically you need to establish a permanent diet for the Empire.

The common reforms are

Call for Reichsreform
  • -5% Construction and Development cost in Imperial Provinces.
  • Enables Imperial Ban
Institute Reichsregiment
  • Emperor gets +1 Diplomat, +1 Diplomatic Reputation
  • Imperial Provinces gets -2 Unrest
Absolute Reichsstabilität
  • Imperial Provinces gets -25% State Maintenance
Enact Gemeiner Pfennig
  • The Emperor gets 0.5 Tax Income per Prince.
  • All Princes gets +1 Diplomatic Reputation.
Perpetual Diet
  • +50% Imperial Authority Gain
  • Establishes the Perpetual Diet in a Free City.
Create the Landsknechtwesen
  • Mercenaries with home in HRE are cheaper for HRE Members by 25%.
Ewiger Landfriede
  • Emperor gets 0.5 Monthly Prestige
  • All members gets -5% Tech cost
  • Imperial Provinces gets +10% Institutional Spread.
  • Disables internal HRE Wars
After you’ve taken the 5th reform, Perpetual Diet, you can go into one of the specialized paths. However these are mutually exclusive and you can’t go into both.

upload_2020-3-31_11-57-25.png


Following is the Decentralized Reforms

Establish the Reichstag Collegia
  • +3 Free Cities
Expand the Gemeiner Pfennig
  • Emperor gets +100 Manpower per Prince
  • Electors gets 200 Manpower per Prince
  • Imperial Princes gets 10% Friendly Movement speed.
Embrace Rechenschaft Measures
  • +1% Imperial Authority per Prince.
  • +1 Max Electors
Geteilte Macht
  • Electors get +0.5 Tax Income per Prince.
  • -5% Development cost in Imperial Provinces
Reichskrieg
  • Emperor & Electors get +500 Manpower Per Prince when at war against Imperial Enemies
  • Enables Reichskrieg Diplomatic Interaction.


Following is the Centralized Reforms

Reform the Hofgericht
  • Emperor gets -10% Core Construction cost
Curtail the Imperial Estates
  • +25% Imperial Authority
Proclaim Erbkaisertum
  • +25% Imperial Authority
  • HRE becomes hereditary
Revoke the Privilegia
  • +25% Imperial Authority
  • Princes & Free Cities gets -10% Stability Cost
  • Members are given a choice to stay within the empire and become a vassal under the Emperor or to leave the empire.
Renovatio Imperii
  • The Emperor unites the empire under the Holy Roman Empire tag.

The centralized reforms are based on the old vanilla reforms to unite the empire with some slight changes. The idea is still that you are uniting the empire under one monarch. The Decentralized path has more of a focus on a strong united empire by devolving some of the responsibilities and powers to the Electors.

upload_2020-3-31_11-57-49.png


The last reform on the Decentralized path might not unite the entire Empire in one tag under the Emperor, but it does give the Emperor a powerful tool to call upon the entire empire in a war against the empire’s enemies. This costs 25 Imperial Authority.

If you become Emperor and the previous Emperor has gone into a path you didn’t want, you can now also revoke reforms once per Emperor. This act costs 50 Imperial Authorities just like adding a reform.



To give the Empire a bit of life we’ve implemented something we call the Imperial Incidents. These are big dynamic historical events that affect huge swaths of Europe. From the Burgundian Inheritance, the German Peasant War, the Question of the Swiss to the Dutch Revolt. In total we’ve made 13 of these.

upload_2020-3-31_11-58-3.png


Every single prince will be allowed to weigh in on the issues at hand. For instance, in a case where Burgundy is properly invited to join the Empire, Princes at the border worried about the duke’s ambitions might not want to permit that.

However the Emperor still gets to pick what option he wants to happen, but if it goes against the diet it will hurt the unity of the empire considerably. The Emperor will either gain or lose imperial authority depending on how the diet positions itself in the incident. It calculates this relative between your pick and the option with most support (besides your pick so if you picked the most supported one it takes the second most picked). Princes are worth 0.2 Imperial Authority each and Electors are worth 1 Imperial Authority. Besides the Imperial Authority there’s also opinion changes with members of the empire depending on what you pick.



Together with these new features we’ve done quite a few balance changes. First let’s cover how things are added to the empire. We don’t want you to keep a “reserve of provinces to add” in order to burst through the reforms of the HRE. We want a “healthy” empire is what leads to progress within it. So when you join all legible provinces gets added at once and a lump sum of 10 IA is given. You can add more provinces as you conquer but this is also done with all provinces all at once in the HRE screen instead for one by one. This does also mean that when the Reformation hits and if left unchecked, it becomes a serious blow to the authority of the emperor.

Of course we’re giving the Emperor some more ways to garden his Empire though, for starters there are now 12 Free Cities at start which gives a good baseline of Imperial Authority generation. Overall there’s a lot more princes & fabricating claims within the empire is 50% more expensive. This together means it’s easier to keep the empire above the 25 princes limit for a lot longer. We’ve also made it easier for the Emperor to enforce peace within the Empire by being able to ignore the opinion requirement so you no longer only have the Imperial Ban as an option.

We’ve also added a Force into HRE CB that the Emperor can use. Nations that have their capital in the same continent and that borders the Empire can be forced in through this treaty.



That’s it for today! Next development diary will be two things you’ve seen hinted here and there from time to time in various screenshots from previous development diaries and in the dev clash.


Edit: Since I keep getting asked this no matter how many times I try to clarify....
You do not get 10 IA for adding provinces to the empire, that's only for when a new prince joins the empire. You do not get IA for adding provinces to the Empire.
 
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I know this isn't a naval related dev diary but I had thought of an update for navies and was wondering what everyone thought of the idea? I was thinking that it would be great if nations had naval professionalism in the same way they have army professionalism now. On top of this I thought it could tie in to a chosen naval doctrine? Say for example if you choose the doctrine that gives your light ships increased trade power you would get the base bonus, and then at 20 professionalism you would get a new bonus (maybe increased power projection from protecting trade), and then at 40 you would get the next bonus (perhaps an extra leader for free) and so on and so forth till you get to 100 professionalism. If you switch naval doctrine you might automatically lose 30 professionalism or something like that (so if you were on 80 before, you would be put down to 50, meaning you would only have the first three bonuses from the new doctrine you selected)? Naval professionalism could be gained from naval missions such as privateering, protecting trade, and hunting pirates etc. (and also from blockading and hunting navies in wartime). These additions could represent the slow transition nations had towards permanent navies?

It could also be cool if navies had 'mercenaries' too that you could hire in the same way armies will have mercenaries you can hire in the coming patch. As for one last idea in this post, I reckon it would be good if breaking down fortress walls with your navies cost diplomatic power instead of military power (giving players an extra reason to use their navy to assist in wars, considering how precious military power usually is).

Thank you for reading!
 
As some others have said, the vassal swarm and unification on the same path seems counter-intuitive.

I was expecting a special vassal type, similar to daimyos, that automatically fall under the current emperor, but instead of disallowing external wars, disallow internal wars. Maybe only electors stay free? I don't know.

The way it is now the reforms will stay the same. people will go down centralized, which is basically the old reforms anyway, and stay at revoke.
So the, in my experience, most complained about aspect about reforms stays the same.
 
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Would be really great if interface would scale with size of your monitor. Even just having small, medium or large interface options would be great. I hate when there is lot of stuff somewhere while most of my monitor goes unused. And i just like to have little larger icons and pictures.

Also, once HRE is unified into single state, are there any bonuses it gets or does it just become one big nation like all the others?
 
The last reform on the Decentralized path might not unite the entire Empire in one tag under the Emperor, but it does give the Emperor a powerful tool to call upon the entire empire in a war against the empire’s enemies. This costs 25 Imperial Authority.

France: " i'm Inevitable"

Austria: " "

* avengers theme starts while the whole hre slowly joins*

Austria: " HRE, ASSEMBLE!"
 
Hello !

some time my games are often unbalanced around the year 1600 (when I take a powerful country, I become too strong in 1600 which pushes me to stop the game because too easy)

So, would it be possible to boost countries in particular with the same bonus system per country as on Hearts of iron 4 (strengthen Germany, Russia ...)? with in addition an option which would cause the boost to be triggered at a certain moment for example: When we play France, often we become much too strong from 1600, the game is in some ways ruined because we can beat everyone , so we should be able to regulate that Austria gets boost and becomes aggressive around 1500? England around 1600 , Russia on 1800 ?

I think any idea to boost a certain nation that we want too see in our game is good. This would allow us to shape our experience according to our wishes (and see real great European wars)

secondly, the doctrine of “balance of powers” which was in force at the time is not well represented (that is to say that one power alone cannot be able to beat all the others together): The France, for example, has often been at war with numerous coalitions when it became too powerful. It would be great if the game had a similar mechanic, because coalitions are only managed with aggressive expansion and an experienced player understands how to control it and grow little by little without worrying about other powers. An idea of mechanics would be the following: When a country is the first great power and that its development are superior at least of double of the development of the second, the others great powers get a casus belli of coalition?

finally here, I think that the lifespan is mainly dependent on the balancing.

thank you ! and sorry for my bad english .
 
@Groogy
If I remember correctly, the intent for the decentralization path of reforms was to avoid the fact that revoking the privilege and not uniting the empire was almost always the best way. To give players who want their vassal swarm a dedicated path, and making uniting the empire more viable in the other path.

Now you have changed nothing about the vassal swarm being super powerful, and you did not add any further reason to unite the HRE in the centralization path. In fact it still seems the best to just not unite the HRE and keep the vassal swarm.
Meanwhile the decentralization path just leads to a very weak version of the vassal swarm. The fact that you have to pay a currency to use the HRE swarm makes it a lot weaker than the centralization vassal swarm which will always join your wars (and is even available one reform earlier in the path!)

How does that live up to the intentions you stated waaay earlier, months ago when you first hinted at the new reform system? It seems like it does not actually do what you set it out to do.
 
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As Emperor there is no way to get additional IA by adding provinces.

You do get 10 IA if a free country decides to join the HRE.

There no longer is any easy/cheesy/gamey way to farm IA to do early revokes!

So the earliest revoke will be in the age of absolutism?

I wonder if forming the HRE/being the emperor is even worth it anymore. So much policing has to be done.

It sounds like they did to the HRE what they did to the EOC. Giving it a few new stuff but making it very undesirable in a normal expansionist play through.

The regular player probably doesn't realize what a big impact being able to increase IA by expanding has on the HRE strategies. And how not having it will make it more of a novelty item as opposed to something fun again and again.
 
So if you start as England and become elected emperor are you forced into being a member state and getting down ranked into a duchy? I would prefer that no imperial authority was gained from provinces if the desire is to balance imperial authority gain around the idea of having as many princes as possible.
In an earlier dev diary they told us that in this patch the Emperor will get Empire tier gov, for the duration of his life so just keep getting re-elected.
Will there be an actual incentive to unite the HRE? Any National Ideas? Something? Because as it stands right now, using the vassal swarm is far more effective than uniting the Empire. You actually become weaker as a result of uniting it.
An earlier dev diary showed both a mission tree, and unique ideas.
 
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I know this isn't a naval related dev diary but I had thought of an update for navies and was wondering what everyone thought of the idea? I was thinking that it would be great if nations had naval professionalism in the same way they have army professionalism now. On top of this I thought it could tie in to a chosen naval doctrine? Say for example if you choose the doctrine that gives your light ships increased trade power you would get the base bonus, and then at 20 professionalism you would get a new bonus (maybe increased power projection from protecting trade), and then at 40 you would get the next bonus (perhaps an extra leader for free) and so on and so forth till you get to 100 professionalism. If you switch naval doctrine you might automatically lose 30 professionalism or something like that (so if you were on 80 before, you would be put down to 50, meaning you would only have the first three bonuses from the new doctrine you selected)? Naval professionalism could be gained from naval missions such as privateering, protecting trade, and hunting pirates etc. (and also from blockading and hunting navies in wartime). These additions could represent the slow transition nations had towards permanent navies?

It could also be cool if navies had 'mercenaries' too that you could hire in the same way armies will have mercenaries you can hire in the coming patch. As for one last idea in this post, I reckon it would be good if breaking down fortress walls with your navies cost diplomatic power instead of military power (giving players an extra reason to use their navy to assist in wars, considering how precious military power usually is).

Thank you for reading!
Suggestions would be best place to post.
Having naval professionalism to contrast army professionalism sounds good to help nations have more than just a large trading fleet, actually being equipped for war. But you already have light ships protecting trade giving naval tradition, and heavies & galleys hunting pirates. Army professionalism was said by the devs to not match their hopes.
Mercenary navies is a cool thought to help show emergency drafting of ships in times of war, but you've already got it in an interaction with the Burghers, which might be kept going forward. Renting naval condoterri is an idea I'd like to see just for inland HRE minors to more easily siege coastal HRE minors if nothing else
 
Great stuff, I'm loving all the new content and the cool new mechanics. There is only two things that I wish for, as they would gretaly reduce the tedium, since you have decided to keep the vassal swarm in the game, please make it so that vassal interactions actually do something, so that it is a little in our control what the swarm does. Maybe allow us to tell one vassal to always stick with the armies of another? Also please make one of the reforms give monthly war exhaustion reduction. The emperor after the revoke will want to be constantly at war which means that the vassals often rack up war exhaustion without ever losing it apart from events. You can of course easily crush any rebels but it is still annoying.

Secondly will forming new nations still drop a tag out of the HRE? I wish that you all princes can form nations and stay in the empire if it is decentralized and as long as they have positive relations with the emperor. That would make some roleplaying campaigns a lot less complicated.
 
Great stuff, I'm loving all the new content and the cool new mechanics. There is only two things that I wish for, as they would gretaly reduce the tedium, since you have decided to keep the vassal swarm in the game, please make it so that vassal interactions actually do something, so that it is a little in our control what the swarm does. Maybe allow us to tell one vassal to always stick with the armies of another? Also please make one of the reforms give monthly war exhaustion reduction. The emperor after the revoke will want to be constantly at war which means that the vassals often rack up war exhaustion without ever losing it apart from events. You can of course easily crush any rebels but it is still annoying.

Secondly will forming new nations still drop a tag out of the HRE? I wish that you all princes can form nations and stay in the empire if it is decentralized and as long as they have positive relations with the emperor. That would make some roleplaying campaigns a lot less complicated.
You could send single stacks for vassals to attach to and have certain vassals stick together that way.
Forming a tag only drops you out the HRE if you aren't an elector, so just make them an elector, although this would have to be before you revoke, as only prussia can form whilst being a vassal
 
I know the work arounds but they only work so well and they require a lot of tedium for something that would make sense to be available in another form. Paradox wants players to have these things but they lock them behind a lot of work and often unintuitive game mechanics. EU4 is an amazing game, the biggest thing holding it back is the amount of sheer clicking and workarounds you need to reach your goals.
 
So for one of the reforms it says emperor gets +100 manpower per prince and electors get +200 manpower per prince so what if you are both an elector and the emperor? Do you receive +300 or what?
 
I guess one way of making the vassal-swarm only viable in the Decentralised path would be making the vassals of the Centralised path sort of like a Scutage, where they don't get called into wars.
This way keeping them as vassals won't be worth it and you will be incentivized to unify the Empire.
 
@Groogy, would you please show us Enables Reichskrieg Diplomatic Interaction?
the Decentralized Reforms, I would like to see the emperor weaken somehow. Yeah, it is a favorite activity for the emperor to give up their power and just let rulers tell them how to think or act.
the Centralized Reforms, I hope this type of reform has some kind of negative relationship because I see many rulers welcome another ruler to just tell them what to do. So give the electors the CB to cube the emperor power.
 
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I know the work arounds but they only work so well and they require a lot of tedium for something that would make sense to be available in another form. Paradox wants players to have these things but they lock them behind a lot of work and often unintuitive game mechanics. EU4 is an amazing game, the biggest thing holding it back is the amount of sheer clicking and workarounds you need to reach your goals.
Could use objectives in individual provinces as well, and growing the minors into majors by feeding
 
Hello !

some time my games are often unbalanced around the year 1600 (when I take a powerful country, I become too strong in 1600 which pushes me to stop the game because too easy)

So, would it be possible to boost countries in particular with the same bonus system per country as on Hearts of iron 4 (strengthen Germany, Russia ...)? with in addition an option which would cause the boost to be triggered at a certain moment for example: When we play France, often we become much too strong from 1600, the game is in some ways ruined because we can beat everyone , so we should be able to regulate that Austria gets boost and becomes aggressive around 1500? England around 1600 , Russia on 1800 ?

I think any idea to boost a certain nation that we want too see in our game is good. This would allow us to shape our experience according to our wishes (and see real great European wars)

secondly, the doctrine of “balance of powers” which was in force at the time is not well represented (that is to say that one power alone cannot be able to beat all the others together): The France, for example, has often been at war with numerous coalitions when it became too powerful. It would be great if the game had a similar mechanic, because coalitions are only managed with aggressive expansion and an experienced player understands how to control it and grow little by little without worrying about other powers. An idea of mechanics would be the following: When a country is the first great power and that its development are superior at least of double of the development of the second, the others great powers get a casus belli of coalition?

finally here, I think that the lifespan is mainly dependent on the balancing.

thank you ! and sorry for my bad english .
Friend, you should put this in the suggestions forum. It won't be noticed 9 pages deep on a dev diary