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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 think the only thing with their vassal is their unique perk from estate giving them extra diplomatic relation and increased nobility influence.
For more info check the dev diary about estates
It's more, it's only been mentioned in the dev clash because it's flavour. Relationship with nobility estate affects their liberty desire, also probably changes to integration of them. Also hopefully flavour events for them to form a coalition against the Kings centralisation efforts as happened before the death of Burgundy, as well as the Fronde
 
Excellent dev diary but the "force into the HRE" is a terrible mistake and is going to break both SP and MP. The commonwealth into the HRE? Really? The emperor only has to kill a single elector and give it to him so that poland can remain a kingdom and that is, no more need for alliances with him and Poland gets yet more dev reduction modifiers. Not to mention that now thanks to a single fake war with another player the Holy Roman Empire stretches from Barrois to Moscow.
It can currently be done in two wars with careful calculation... I am really not seeing why force into the HRE is a big deal.
 
The fact you cant explain it, is proof enough that you have no idea yourself.

I can't explain what I don't know.

What is your specific question?

It could be why does France have vassals?
What are the vassals mission trees?
Who are the vassals?
Etc.

I'm trying to be helpful and some of those questions can be answered.
 
I don’t get the people arguing that the vassal swarm should be on the decentralized side from a flavour perspective. Logically it is a stage of centralization: you go from having no effective control (start), to following your rules (no internal wars), to doing your bidding (vassal), to betting yours (for the HRE tag).

Decentralization should reduce your control over the Empire. What I would have liked to see is much larger bonuses to the Emperor based on the number of members and a massive defensive pact.
 
Will there be a way of getting a CB on Heretic princes? The current method requires you putting little pockets of your territory everywhere so you can border all/most princes and justify on them. Would be nice to have a method that doesn't require stab hits or methods like the above.
 
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
Thank you for your reply, I have moved my ideas over to the suggestions thread now with a few adaptations based on your suggestions.
 
Will there be a way of getting a CB on Heretic princes? The current method requires you putting little pockets of your territory everywhere so you can border all/most princes and justify on them. Would be nice to have a method that doesn't require stab hits or methods like the above.
You can No CB them, which is why ideally you respawn until only OPMs flip, the AE from this gets you something similar to the first protestant leagues if more AI flipped religion. But yeh some sort of conformity CB once the counter reformation is in full swing and the protestants are seen as completely broken from Rome would be nice if the AI flips more often by itself in the next patch
 
Decentralized path is significantly weaker. I understand that making HRE members vassals wouldn't probably work (it's still non-hereditiary empire, so either emperor would be the only candidate or victorious contender would gain independence and re-vassalize all members - or maybe making members daymios?), but currently it doesn't really strengthen neither the emperor (no vassal swarm equivalent in case of defensive war) nor average members (maybe all members could get "add into HRE" CB or something?).
 
Decentralized path is significantly weaker. I understand that making HRE members vassals wouldn't probably work (it's still non-hereditiary empire, so either emperor would be the only candidate or victorious contender would gain independence and re-vassalize all members - or maybe making members daymios?), but currently it doesn't really strengthen neither the emperor (no vassal swarm equivalent in case of defensive war) nor average members (maybe all members could get "add into HRE" CB or something?).
Members get the Reichskrieg and if an elector extra manpower per month, as well as the member state buffs. From the fact you no longer add sole provinces to HRE I'd guess any province you conquer and state joins the HRE
 
Members get the Reichskrieg and if an elector extra manpower per month, as well as the member state buffs. From the fact you no longer add sole provinces to HRE I'd guess any province you conquer and state joins the HRE
Reichskrieg interaction is for emperor only, most member state buffs comes from common reforms and manpower buff for electors isn't that much. Still, being HREmperor following centralization path is way more profitable than not (or not being HREmperor at all). Decentralization path should offer more for individual members, a lot more for electors and a bit more for the HREmperor to follow that path.
For now, if empire is decentralized:
- individual members gain next to nothing beyond common reforms buffs
- electors gain manpower that may or may not handle (too weak economy to build/sustain regiments)
- HREmperor gets CB but needs IA to use it (is it really good equivalent of vassal swarm/united HRE?)
I was hoping that decentralization would cause being within HRE a lot better than being fully independent even for stronger nations, while HREmperor wouldn't loose that much (he sacrifices very profitable centralization route, after all).
 
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I'd humbly ask for the HRE window to be enlarged so there will be no need to scroll (or at least making it easier) to see the free cities and the princes. This could also be applied to other windows as the longer the game is in active development, the more things are crammed into whichever space is left and the need arises for windows to be resized or reworked.
 
Are there any special mechanics in the Reichskrieg when a Decentralised Emperor calls it?

The wording in the Diary makes me assume that all the Princes get an unrefusable offensive Call to Arms when it is used. If that's the case and it's like a regular war with allies, that would make it worse than the wars that the Centralised Emperor wages for free with their vassal swarm in the following ways:

1) Any princes that are allied with your enemy would end up fighting against you instead (unless this takes priority, then it would be a nice way of breaking annoying alliances)
2) Some Princes might be prevented from joining the war if they are involved in another war on the same side as the target (for example a war called by a third country that is allied with both the Prince and your enemy).
3) Unlike vassals, the Princes called to war may end up taking separate peace out when occupied, in the worst case giving away some HRE land in the process.
4) Last and definitely not least: Princes who desire land from your target may refuse to transfer occupation to you if they are the first to siege a province you also want.

The actual CB from the ability would need to be insanely good to justify taking the Decentralised path for a non RP-reason.
 
I have a question, if you (as byzantium) restore the pentarchy, will there be an event similar to the one that the papal states have when they end the schism? I think that restore the pentarchy it's like the anthitesis of this event and deserve more than just prestige and all that

Thanks for your answer