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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 do believe (and hope) this could be an HRE patch. It's the place with the greatest diversity of government forms (after the merger of individual monarchies and republics). I think HRE or france, would be the most fitting place to do a revamp of government forms like this. However it is also quite possible that the patch does not come with particular regional updates, or covers several regions instead of just one.
 
I like the idea of custom govertment, extra layer for RP or minimax.
Hope there will be enought region/country specific reforms like Rus land Tsardom to keep things different.
 
Hmm, considering Iberia is not getting a map rework, I wonder where it will be... HRE seems like the more likely candidate now, as there aren't terribly many more map changes that an entire expansion could bring. The Balkans are too small and would most likely be part of a free patch or possibly an immersion pack, and Anywhere outside of Europe does not correlate to how the government is changing. It will honestly suck if there aren't any map changes, as that is what I personally look forward to the most out of any update. SO perhaps, HRE + Baltic + Poland?? Please have at least some kind of map update :(
I’m guessing HRE and Italy. Both areas have plenty more detail that can be added. HRE to ridiculous amounts (over 200 historical princes to pick from), and Italy has contained entire wars and campaigns between various Great Powers, not to mention both areas are ripe for potential unit models.
 
This is great an all, but, for my mods, this is TERRIBLE. My mods like Furverlance, Rome, UFC, and Code Geass all rely on unique government types for lore and playstyle. Half of the stuff on Code Geass itself requires the custom governments as a whole just to function. Primarily because the governments NEED some mechanics, abilities, decisions, or events just to play out right. It'll take at least two weeks to get it updated just because of the new government system and how it affects everything. I'll need to reinvent some parts of my mods from the ground up so they continue to work.
So because of my concerns I have many critical questions and some requests if these really do come to pass.​
  • What's going to happen to the factions for unique government types like China, Revolutionary Republic/Empire, and Merchant Republic?
  • What'll happen to the custom subject types?
  • Will there moddability for more than the original five categories of government?
  • How moddable will the new government system become?
  • Will there be moddablility for more reform categories?
  • Will there still be the special mechanics like meritocracy and how?
  • How will DLC or updates heavily affecting countries like China, Russia, or Japan and their region and culture specific governments be compensated to stay accurate and keep their events working?
  • How will countries with different religious beliefs keep their governments accurate to how they would work considering options and descriptions if everything is universal?
  • How will systems like the HRE work with it's special free cities and other mechanics?
  • Will there still be the possibility to make special governments without it being over-generalized/generic and unified with everyone else's across cultural, religious, and political values?
  • Will some categories be able to have multiple reforms active at one time or only have one at a time?
  • Please let there be the ability to lock and unlock certain reforms onto certain countries based on tag, flags, events, decisions, or missions.
  • Please let there be the ability to restrict certain reforms from certain countries based on tag, flags, events, decisions, or missions.
  • Please let there be the ability to change reforms via events, decisions, and missions.
The importance of these questions and requests will make or break my mods after this upcoming update.
 
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This seems like an interesting change, but I hope that with these changes in mind, the development team include every government type with equal consideration.

For example, most Monastic Orders in the game were historically militaristic, but no perks are given to portray this. All MOs receive is an additional state, and decreased Fort maintenance. I noticed that all the monastic orders in the game have a national idea that gives them Fort Defense, but I feel that this could've been built into the government type and a new idea be put in instead. MOs are more of a downside than anything, even the Pope doesn't care that they're fighting for their cause. (Cyprus for example has all the perks of meta crusader state ideas, without being limited as a Monastic Order). Compare Monastic Orders to the Japanese Daimyo government type, who were also historically militaristic, they have a morale and infantry combat ability bonus built in, why don't MOs?

Overall Theocracies feel pointless, bland, and seem to give the player no impact or interactions relating to their religion in question, the powerful ones like the Papal States are only better off as a Theocracy due to their starting position and built in game support, so they have tools to do interesting things.

With this being said, I am sure there are numerous other pointless government types, but personally the way Theocracies are underwhelming was the most visible for me.
 
Let's get the discussion back on topic, please.
Reminder : this thread's topic is the DD on changes regarding governments.
 
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:

View attachment 354187
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!

All anatolian beyliks could be a tribal federation..:)))
 
@ the developers (@DDRJake @Trin Tragula ); will we get new some new provinces, though? As not all expacks have featured them. Just curious, it's always a thing that gets me excited and all nerdy.

Just curious.
If I'm correct in guessing this is HRE/Italy focused then we'll definetly get lots of new but small provinces. And either lots of new tags or a dynamic system like Colonial Nations and Client States so we can have Brunswick, Brunswick-Luneberg, Brunswick-Gottingen etc etc.
 
  • Please let there be the ability to restrict certain reforms from certain countries based on tag, flags, events, decisions, or missions.
  • Please let there be the ability to change reforms via events, decisions, and missions.
The importance of these questions and requests will make or break my mods after this upcoming update.
Really hoping for dynamic formations of Free cities, Riga and Danzig especially, along with Sweden going from absolutist to parlimentarian back to absolutist, along with a Stadtholderless period for the dutch.
 
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:

View attachment 354187
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!
do we get to keep the pink pyramid symbol warning things
 
It's a good thing that Paradox is looking to change how internal politics and governing work. It really is! I just don't think another slider and another mana pool (if I'm understanding this post well) is the way to do it. I hope EU5 (whenever they get on that) moves away from mana pools and sliders
 
Feudalism vs Autocracy
  • Feudalism: +25% Income from Vassals
  • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands
change vassal income to vassal forcelimit contritution and unjustified demands to -10% harsh treatment cost



Hereditary Nobility
  • Enforce privileges: +15% Manpower
  • Quash Noble power: +10% Tax Modifier
decrease manpower to 10%. manpower is much more precious than money. why does it have higher value?


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

change aristocratic court to -10% army professionalism decay. innovativess gives tradition decay already. prevent same modifiers cumulation


Absolute Rule v Constitutional
  • l'etat c'est moi: +5 States, -15% State Autonomy
  • Regional Representation - 25% lower autonomy in Territories

lower autonomy is so OP. lower the value. to 20% or 15% I guess
 
Feudalism vs Autocracy
  • Feudalism: +25% Income from Vassals
  • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands
change vassal income to vassal forcelimit contritution and unjustified demands to -10% harsh treatment cost
Those are the starting reforms representing the current Feudal Monarchy and Despotic Monarchy.

Vassal forcelimit contribution? Really? So instead of the vassals giving 1, they give 2? (if made 100%)

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

change aristocratic court to -10% army professionalism decay. innovativess gives tradition decay already. prevent same modifiers cumulation
Army Professionalism is a DLC mechanic. That change would require giving the reform another modifier.
 
Now, I haven't read all 18 pages of replies, but I logged in just to say--surely I'm not the only person who is completely fine with how governments work right now? As someone working on a big fantasy overhaul mod, I have really appreciated the ability to create different 'government types' that are still monarchies, or whatever type. This dev diary makes it sound like the ability to have different types of government under the same loose type of rule (monarchy, republic, theocracy), or rather the ability to mod in new ones, is going to go completely out the window.

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. Additionally, I'm not entirely sure that ripping out features to replace them with more basic types is actually 'always good'. This governmental reforms thing seems like it COULD be kind of interesting--I'm trying to imagine how it might work for the Aztecs, who are my main country to play as in vanilla--it ALSO seems like a half-hearted attempt to have the same type of civics-style government customisation of Stellaris. I will give this new feature a try, but I'm not confident it will be better than what we have now as far as modding is concerned. I think it's just lucky that I hadn't gotten around to modding in missions before patch 1.25 rolled out, or I might have burned out on my mod because of the frustration!

I'm basically trying to skirt around saying I don't like the look of this new feature--interesting does not always mean fun to use--which seems to try to condense and scrub the disparate government types until they are uniform and can be easily categorised into either 'this' or 'that', with some modifiers so that different government types are still 'different' (yeah, air quotes, I know). Trying to reinvent the wheel, one might say, while the cart is still in motion. And I'm trying to skirt around saying that because I hear horror stories of people being banned or reported for having opinions that aren't "I love it". Missions have turned out alright, though I do miss the old wheel of chance mission selection, and maybe this will be ok too--but if it breaks my mod, you can bet I'll be staying on patch 1.25 even when playing vanilla.

Unless they release another Mesoamerica-focused update/DLC in which case you know I'm starting a new Aztec run on the latest patch.

Sincerely, a concerned user.

P.S. It might be relevant that I'm on the same boat of people who really, REALLY hated what the Apocalypse patch did to Stellaris. (Personally I call it the 'demake' patch.) But I try to give everything a fair chance, and like I said, the new missions have turned out alright (they'll actually be really great for my mod).

Ultimately, if the new system is "This government is a monarchy" or "is a republic" and I can still make unique types of government that just check that box and have modifiers X, Y and Z, then there won't be much negative change, and in fact the different governments could have reforms to work towards. But, it really depends on how moddable it is.

P.P.S. A more thorough re-read, keeping an eye on specific terminology, would tend to suggest that all will be well. But I will watch with a weather eye, just in case.