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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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@DDRJake @Groogy what about Polish Elective Monarchy? Can this be used by other nations? Or when I will be playing Poland can I use Parliament to represent power of Sejm in Polish history?
 
Dear paradox, please please please bring the artifacts system from CK2 to EUIV. I mean, I would love a game feature that enable me to make decision on how my crown looks like, my royal jewels, my throne, my levee ceremony details, my crowning ceremony details, my courts fashion etc. etc. etc.
 
How will the AI manage those reforms? Will it have some sort of "role play" directives not to stray away too much from the historical path? I'm thinking especially to trade republics, where the trade component is a huge identity element for the country: will we see Venice repudiate its legacy and become something else on a random basis?
 
So the ottoman, mamelukean and russian principality govern forms will be removed from the game?
You are seriously writing this two posts after a dev post that explicitly states "No special government mechanics are getting deleted"?
 
i want to meet the guy who makes the art for this game. because basically he is obsessed with white christian western europe. he literally never uses art from eastern europe. there are hungarians, poles, turks, russians etc. in the eastern europe. you can represent them in the pictures. this game is europa universalis not white western christian europa universalis.

so at least the map on "growth of administration" could be show turkish or russian borders not western europe.

it reminds me the infamous standing army picture in meiou & taxes. outdated roman legionaries were in the picture instead europe's first modern standing army janissaries which fits perfectly to this idea group and the game.

seeing this really makes me sad despite i love most of you.
 
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You are seriously writing this two posts after a dev post that explicitly states "No special government mechanics are getting deleted"?
Unfortunately, but the ability a "read" is low for great part of people in Pplaza :(
 
Iberia is not the focus of 1.26 or its expansion.

I knew Ulm deserved a full expansion, and not just an immersion pack. Good job!
 
For flavour I'd personally add a -0.25 (or smth) to interests to countries with parliaments. Because parliaments give an institutional inscentive for lower loans as it encourages Kings to actually pay them back. This was for example the case in England after the Bill of Rights, when the parliament got the power over the government finances the interests went down.
 
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

No "when Cossacks is enabled" PLEASE PLEASE, let this mean you've integrated estates FINALLY! This has so much potential to interact with estates...

On topic: I think what the growth of the administration meant, was a reduced estates influence. And so it should be here. Instead of the loyalty bonuse, a -5% influence for both Clergy and nobility.
 
it reminds me the infamous standing army picture in meiou & taxes. outdated roman legionaries were in the picture instead europe's first modern standing army janissaries which fits perfectly to this idea group and the game.

seeing this really makes me sad despite i love most of you.

seeing janissaries as ordinary units that no one uses (except noobs) draws me into deep sorrow...
 
Bureaucracy
  • Centralize: -0.05 Autonomy reduction

  • Decentralize: +2 Accepted Cultures

I think you shouldn't make the same mistake as alwyas, and some of the reforms should have drawbacks. This is a clear example. It makes no sense that centralize reduces autonomy (which makes total sense) but decentralize doesn't precisely what the word says it does, increase autonomy, for it is THE OPOSITE, of centralize.

Deliberative assembly
  • Parliamentary: Enables Parliaments if Common Sense DLC enabled, else -1 Unrest

Does this mean technology will change? In this case I'm guessing you will not be able to issue this reform until parliaments are unlocked? So I'm guessing that thecnology will no longer unlock "constitutional monarchy" but "parliaments", right? Or will it finally be something independent from technology? Because it's not like parliaments were invented with the Constitutional Monachy at tech 22, but they go all the way back to the spanish kingdom of Leon, 1187, way before the english one.
 
It looks really interesting, and if you're planning to center 1.26 around government types, I hope there will be a few additional features such as:
- dynamic flags and sometimes names depending on the government type/ruling dynasty.
- new alternatives to aristocratic/plutocratic ideas for theocracies, tribal, native councils and hordes.
- make the estates part of the base game, and add new estates.
- maybe add a few alt-his government, such as Russian Republic so a Veche Republic wouldn't instantly become a monarchy when forming Russia, and Russia would still have a special government form if it reforms into a republic.

However, some of the choices you made for the reforms presented in this dev diary are strange, in my opinion.

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

    • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands
  • Hereditary Nobility
    • Enforce privileges: +15% Manpower

    • Quash Noble power: +10% Tax Modifier
  • Deliberative assembly
    • Aristocratic Court: -0.5 Army Tradition Decay

If you don't plan on removing/changing the estate mechanics, maybe you should add modifiers to base loyalty OR base power of nobility depending on what you chose. Feudalism vs Autocracy should also affect the percentage of estates the nobility expects to be granted.

  • 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]

Once again, maybe Clergy in Administration and Of Noble Bearing should also improve the Clergy or Nobility's base power. By the way, will the Meritocratif Focus be available only to the Emperor of China?

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

    • Regional Representation - 25% lower autonomy in Territories

This one I don't understand. Where is the constitutional part? Regional Representation looks more like a geographic decentralization choice, while it should be about decentralization of power. By the way, the France absolute monarchy which we owe the "L'état c'est moi" quote to had parliaments in every province, the king had all the powers in the court but there was also regional representation. If anything, local parliaments should be a late alternative to Feudalism vs Autocracy.
 
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It would be cool to be able to use this mechanic to set your cultural policy, giving more accepted cultures or give some buffs if you are just 1 culture. In the late game, non-accepted cultures will despise you, but it can be easier to convert them via repressions. Something along those lines. It could be used to simulate rise of nationalism. At any case, this seems like some great modding material.