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EU4 - Development Diary - 3rd of April 2018

Good morning all. It's Tuesday and that means time for another Dev Diary. As I mentioned in the last non-alcoholic dev diary, we're going to start looking at changes and features coming with the 1.26 and its accompanying, unannounced expansion.

Before that though, we are currently looking to iron out the kinks with the open beta 1.25.1 hotfix (AI allies deciding that money is more important than friendship and nations sometimes failing to explore for a long time). These fixes will be made, applied to the open beta and rolled out in due time.

Governments

The way governments work have remained mostly unchanged for the duration of Europa Universalis IV, still being almost entirely lifted from EU3. While we have added new government types and their own mechanics such as Theocracy devotion, Steppe Nomads and American Natives, the government progression has remained quite stale, where tech sometimes unlocks a new tier within your government tier and you will switch to it at a cost of 100 ADM if you want its better effects, different election times, absolutism etc.

As a feature in 1.26's accompanying expansion this goes out the window and instead we introduce the system of Government Reforms where you will hand-craft your own government through a series of reforms as the game progresses.

The start of any great project starts with burning a few things down, so to set things straight:

All Monarchy types are merged into one
All Republic types are merged into one
All Theocracies are merged into one
All Tribals are merged into one

The differences we had between government types, for example between Administrative Republic and Oligarchic Republic, or Steppe Nomad and Tribal Despotism, will now be modeled through the reforms

Each Government has a starting reform and maximum number of reforms available. When a Reform value ticks up to a required value, a Governmental reform can be made granting a choice of modifiers and effects and advancing Government reform by 1 step. Each bonus gets incrementally more expensive to increase.

Each reform costs 100 Government Reform Progress, plus 50 for each additional reform. Each nation gains +10 Government Reform Progress towards reform per year, multiplied by 1-(its average autonomy across all provinces. As ever, the numbers we talk about today are subject to balancing and can and likely will change by release, but the net effect is that nations who crack down on autonomy are going to have a far easier time passing their government reforms.

We will cover all the different types of governments over the course of a few dev diaries, but today we will focus on the reforms for a Monarchy.

  • Feudalism vs Autocracy
    • Feudalism: +25% Income from Vassals

    • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands
    • [Other Special monarchies]*
  • Hereditary Nobility
    • Enforce privileges: +15% Manpower

    • Quash Noble power: +10% Tax Modifier
  • Bureaucracy
    • Centralize: -0.05 Autonomy reduction

    • Decentralize: +2 Accepted Cultures
  • Growth of Administration
    • Clergy in Administration: +1 [HIDDEN] , +5% base loyalty of Clergy

    • Of Noble Bearing: -10% hire leader cost, +5% base loyalty of Nobility

    • Meritocratic Focus: -10% Advisors Cost

    • Seizure of Power: [Early path for Government type change]
  • Deliberative assembly
    • Parliamentary: Enables Parliaments if Common Sense DLC enabled, else -1 Unrest

    • Royal Decree: +5 max absolutism

    • Aristocratic Court: -0.5 Army Tradition Decay

    • States General: +10% Production Efficiency
  • Absolute Rule v Constitutional
    • l'etat c'est moi: +5 States, -15% State Autonomy

    • Regional Representation - 25% lower autonomy in Territories
  • Separation of powers
    • Political Absolutism: +5 max absolutism, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism

    • Legislative Houses: +1 Possible [HIDDEN]

    • Become a Republic

    • Install Theocratic Government
"What about unique government types?"

The game is host to various different unique government types, with their own effects or mechanics. some examples:

  • Shogunate - +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy Travel Time, +2 Number of states, +5 Max Absolutism. Dynasty is fixed, Enable Shogun-Daimyo mechanics
  • Daimyo - +10% Morale of Armies, 10% Infantry CA. Dynasty is fixed, enable Daimyo mechanics
  • English Monarchy - +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, -1 National Unrest, 1 states, -30 absolutism, uses Parliaments
  • Prussian Monarchy - -2 Unrest, -0.02 War exhaustion, +3 Monarch Military skill, uses Militarism.

These special tools will now be modeled by unique reforms. In most cases, it will be a special reform on the first level (Feudalism vs Autocracy) ready-unlocked for said countries. We will also be making the system more flexible in that if you fulfill the criteria for having a certain government type, but previously had no way of switching into it, you will be able to change your reform to pick it up. Changing reforms that have already been passed comes at a cost (currently 10 corruption)

This system is still Work in Progress, so expect changes along the way. Here's a screenshot of it in-game at this current time:

government.png

Return of the pink coder-art and overflowing GUI. Games are like sausages, beware of seeing them made.

Next week we will have more information about this feature as well as looking at another reform path. Which shall we look at, Republics, Theocracies or Tribals? See you next week for it!
 
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Spain dominated militarily Europe during the 16th century and half of the 17th century. The colonies weren't that important until the 17th century.

The Spanish Empire's strength was in Europe. When Europe was lost (Netherlands independence, Spanish Succession War, etc) the colonial empire became Spain's strength.

Most of you guys think that Spain was only powerful because it colonized America. You are wrong. Spain started to be a superpower because its military strength in Europe (Tercios). France was beaten by Spain in almost every war (Italian Wars, Burgundy, etc). A French-English-Dutch coalition was needed to defeat Spain. At that time, the colonies in America were irrelevant because they were just starting to be formed. Also remembered it was mainly Spain who kept the Ottomans away from Italy and the Mediterranean coasts (Battle of Lepanto).

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Well, and they could carry on all the european wars thanks to loans from italian banks backed by the americn gold, so yeah, the colonies were crucial even to sustain the europan ambitions of the spanish monarchs.

That pisses me off as well..and I'm not even Spanish (Austrian, the Habsburg connection made me interested in Spanish history)

Fun fact: in the late 16th century the Spanish army in the netherlands, the ejército de flandes, was 80k strong. The total Spanish army was almost 300k strong.
Meanwhile France before Louis XIV had between 100k and 150k soldiers

In the game France has a higher base force limit and better national ideas. And they pick military ideas, while Spain picks Expansion. I get Exploration, but Expansion is trash. Picking Exploration+Offensive or Quantity would help Spain a lot

Then there's the fact that the Spanish tercios, the most feared infantry of it's timeframe is only a DLC feature. And even then, it only exists for half of the timeframe of it's historical dominance (from adm tech 10 @1530 till the and of the Age of Reformation @1610, while in history the tercios were founded in the 1490s and remained dominant until Rocroi in 1643)

Those are fair points (though one could argue that a good part of the spanish forces would be mercenaries that were "over the forcelimit", sustained by the influx of gold).
 
I just thought about it, but since the new government system will be dlc content, does it means that even though you will keep special governments there will be no new ones in the future, since it would systematically require to make different versions for those who do or don't have the dlc?
 
Hoping the Unique governments keep their unique features and flavor and have unique reforms
From first post

"What about unique government types?"

The game is host to various different unique government types, with their own effects or mechanics. some examples:

  • Shogunate - +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy Travel Time, +2 Number of states, +5 Max Absolutism. Dynasty is fixed, Enable Shogun-Daimyo mechanics
  • Daimyo - +10% Morale of Armies, 10% Infantry CA. Dynasty is fixed, enable Daimyo mechanics
  • English Monarchy - +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, -1 National Unrest, 1 states, -30 absolutism, uses Parliaments
  • Prussian Monarchy - -2 Unrest, -0.02 War exhaustion, +3 Monarch Military skill, uses Militarism.

These special tools will now be modeled by unique reforms. In most cases, it will be a special reform on the first level (Feudalism vs Autocracy) ready-unlocked for said countries. We will also be making the system more flexible in that if you fulfill the criteria for having a certain government type, but previously had no way of switching into it, you will be able to change your reform to pick it up. Changing reforms that have already been passed comes at a cost (currently 10 corruption)
 
If it was added as a free feature it would most likely be a half finished/nerfed version, implemented to sell future/previous DLCs, like the new mission system.
So, just like the old government system? With new government types (or rather features they offer) locked out behind paywall? Nothing at all would change.
 
Seems like an interesting concept, It will at least make governments more interesting than before. I've got some questions though:

How will the ambrosia republic work? The main advantage it has currently is that it's a government type that gives late game bonuses in the early game.
Will Poland's elective monarchy be a unique starting reform?
How will the merchant republic be handled?
Will Islamic monarchies be treated the same as other monarchies, and have similar bonuses?
Tribal nations can be broken down into three categories, nomadic, republics, and monarchies. Is that still going to be the case, or will they be handled differently?
Are some reforms going to block or unlock latter reforms?
Are reforms something that a government can lose, due to rebels or other actions?
Is the meritocracy going to be rolled in with another government type, or will it be separate?
How will government changes via events, like a republic that has low tradition, work in the new system?
 
Will Islamic monarchies be treated the same as other monarchies, and have similar bonuses?

Are reforms something that a government can lose, due to rebels or other actions?

These two are very good questions that have not been explained by the devdiary.

And that's what I dont like about being behind a paywall. I'm guessing all the reforms are going to be the same for all the world, which completely destroys immersion, from my point of view, since 3/4 of the world never even heard about those institutions during EU4 timeline. So it would be wise to have every part of the world have its own reforms different to those of europe. But that would require the system to be in the core game so they can keep expanding on it in future patches to give the sam flavour for TROTW's goverment reforms. Because they are in no way going to put that amount of work into one DLC's feature.

And the second one would need answering as well. I don't know how this new system will affect the government changes via events and rebels etc...They havent talked about that. Hopefully they will clear that up in future expansions.
 
Each nation gains +10 Government Reform Progress towards reform per year, multiplied by 1-(its average autonomy across all provinces.
Autonomy seems a curious choice to be the influencer of reform progress. I would've figured something more like Legitimacy (/Republican Tradition, etc.), since reforming the government does represent a break from the past, no? Legitimacy also seems like one of the weaker currencies at current, I'd say.

Either way, from what little has been revealed, the change seems quite neat. Lot of potential for adding RP flavour to one's country.
 
no, sunni mechanics are far more worse than catholic, protestant, orthodox or reformed. why all of them have "click/get permanent bonus" while muslims don't? getting those bonusses are too hard to achieve because of that ridiculous slider.

i want to click a button and get permanent land moral or discipline bonus like the protestantism, calvinism, orthodoxy or hindu does.

i played an ottoman game recently and between 1444-1650 i could only be able to get manpower bonus from mysticism 1 or 2 times and everytime i declared war on wrong country or after my ruler dies all of points on slider got lost. so this religion is kinda joke along with the other super religions such as protestantism, calvinism, orthodoxy or hindu.

"Even without their own Immersion pack, they have one of the biggest mission trees in the game"

there are still lots of missing claims and missions in ottoman mission tree. also i don't understand why you compleining about it ottomans were one of the best countries in the world who conquered lands too rapidly. i mean all of these missions are historical they are in the game because they were in the history.
I was able to keep legalism as 100 for nearly the whole game..
 
can we have a "spain" quarantine threat like we got with Stellaris Sectors? I dont mind people discussing the subject, but it is starting to make a lot of the dev diary threats pretty unreadable. And I think it's getting worse. This one didnt even mention provinces^^
I've considered it, tbh.
 
Guys, the dlc is clearly going to be the Balkans - the region of Europe with the most starts (if you count restarts, since all the countries there rely on RNG). It's also the most frequently overhauled, yet still shittiest region in the game. Anyone else with me on this :)?
 
Is this a progress bar or mana?


I assume they'll keep their magic charging buttons?


Eh... that's not constitutionalism that's federalism. Constitutionalism is about the law being above even the head of state. It's nice that you have federalism but it should be opposed by Unitarianism.

Go easy on them. Paradox isn't very strong in Political Theory. They are the company that insists that "Authoritarianism" is the opposition to "egalitarianism." Two words that in no world go on the same axis.
 
Spain AI never get's in 1st position.

I'm not saying this as a nationalist fanboy. I just want the game to be historically accurate. Just as a I want to the UK to be powerful in Vic2, or Germany in HOI4.

But nevermind guys. If you want to see a crippled Spain conquered by Morocco and France in most games and without colonizing America, enjoy it then.

Let Spain be a meme.
ottomans gets in 1st position, yes
 
@DDRJake Will the governments have dynamic names dependent on what reforms you select? Similar to what CKII does? Would be a nice little flavor addition
 
can we have a "spain" quarantine threat like we got with Stellaris Sectors? I dont mind people discussing the subject, but it is starting to make a lot of the dev diary threats pretty unreadable. And I think it's getting worse. This one didnt even mention provinces^^
It's becoming a meme, Jake loves memes