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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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I would very much appreciate a reply on the moddability of this rework, or someone pointing me to the page in this thread where such a reply may be found.
This is all I could find on it:
How moddable will the feature be?
Will there be a hard maximum of categories and options per category?
Will there be moddable side effects of passing a reform, i.e. additional unrest etc?

  • It will be highly customisable, you will be able to mix and match mechanics and modifiers in reforms. There are a few exceptions (E.g. Daimyo/Shogun mechanics)
  • No
  • Yes
 
I don't think that anybody is against Spain/Iberia getting a nice update/immersion pack.
It is just a matter of priority.
Apparently, Paradox has decided to do make 1.26 a meaty content patch, with a fundamental rework/enhancement of base game mechanics.

Paradox have said that they plan to continue making immersion packs. It is (I think) quite save to assume that all countries that already got a "named" patch are out of the running for an immersion pack.
I.e., no (more) immersion packs for Prussia, Denmark, Ming, Hungary, Russia, Persia, Japan and England. Among the "Tier 1" countries (according to Johan, way back: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-3-tiers.636355/ , this leaves France, the Ottomans, Spain, Sweden, Portugal and Austria, and among the second tier the Netherlands, Poland, Venice and the Mughals. While Paradox's design philosophy has certainly shifted to a certain extent since 2012 - and they already named one patch after a tier 3 country -, I do not think that the likely candidates for an immersion pack are outside those two tiers.

What I am trying to say is: Spain is almost certain to be pegged for an immersion pack by Paradox. They are not going to "waste" a Spain update on a content expansion, because that would prevent them from subsequently making a Spain immersion pack. Which is a marketing decision that people can legitimately disagree with, but still a reasonable decision.

The good news is, if you look at the tier 1 and tier 2 list and the candidates that are already out of the running, I would say that Spain is basically the top candidate for the next immersion pack (which, I assume, will come along with patch 1.28, with 1.27 a smallish update on the new features of 1.26) - the only real contenders, in my opinion, are Austria (along with a general HRE immersion pack) and Sweden (which is probably an objectively less "deserving" possibility, if such a thing exists, but always a likely pick with Paradox ;) ).

I´m agree with that and I think that Spain needs changes but not is urgent, a better DLC for me could be Von Hasburg dynasties (Austria, Spain, Bohemia...and their allies Poland, the Balkans...) aganist the power of the Ottos; (France of course too, is an important power in this historic moment)
 
This looks really good, and I'm glad you're reworking the relatively arbitrary current system of government & governmental reform, but I'm slightly worried about how you'll handle the massive variations in tribes. I mean, Jianzhou, Caddo, and Kamchadals are all technically within the same wide "tribal" umbrella but their technology, mechanics, and specific government forms are wildly different. It worries me slightly that this system leaves the game in a position by which either all natives become pseudo-Khanates and dominate the entire continent, or the Jurchens get eaten in one fell swoop by 1446.
 
I like the streamlining of ''cluttered'' mechanics. A special government form for every country makes the game more complicated in my opinion.
I do wonder whether it will be easier to switch to a republic if you want to.
 
I like the streamlining of ''cluttered'' mechanics. A special government form for every country makes the game more complicated in my opinion.

:) I guess that's one way of looking at it.

Another, and the one I'm leaning towards is that it's re-hashing existing material and re-selling up-selling it to us.
 
:) I guess that's one way of looking at it.

Another, and the one I'm leaning towards is that it's re-hashing existing material and re-selling up-selling it to us.

The government rework is not a paid feature right? Regardless of what you think should be DLC, it would be very unwise to split the community like that. I think that would mean an immense amount of extra work for the developers to make it work for both ''versions''.

This would be something of the scale of institutions and those would be easier to exclude from the base game I think.

I might be wrong, but I don't think this will be paid DLC. If it is I think I'm done with EU4.
 
The government rework is not a paid feature right? Regardless of what you think should be DLC, it would be very unwise to split the community like that. I think that would mean an immense amount of extra work for the developers to make it work for both ''versions''.

This would be something of the scale of institutions and those would be easier to exclude from the base game I think.

I might be wrong, but I don't think this will be paid DLC. If it is I think I'm done with EU4.

Sry - to be perfectly honest I hadn't put any thought into whether it was paid/unpaid.
Personally, and it's the wrong way to look at it but I never pay too much attention as to what's in the free update and what's paid content.

I'm a little salty because I haven't been terribly impressed by Rule Britannia.
There have been a couple of less that stellar expansions in the past, but on each occasion the next one was good enough that I didn't just stick to playing an old version.

Hopefully this Govt stuff turns out to be impeccably implemented and is just a minor part of the features to come.
 
I might be wrong, but I don't think this will be paid DLC. If it is I think I'm done with EU4.
It seems as if it will be paid:
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 government rework is not a paid feature right? Regardless of what you think should be DLC, it would be very unwise to split the community like that. I think that would mean an immense amount of extra work for the developers to make it work for both ''versions''.

This would be something of the scale of institutions and those would be easier to exclude from the base game I think.

I might be wrong, but I don't think this will be paid DLC. If it is I think I'm done with EU4.

It is a paid feature. Theyve said it many times.
 
Return of the pink coder-art and overflowing GUI. Games are like sausages, beware of seeing them made.

As a man who is making a HOI4 mod...and sucking at it...and constantly needs to change things due to simple oversights...
...and who had to figure out how to add in a tech window...

I can attest this statement is very true.