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EU4 - Development Diary - 4th of June 2019

Hello again! In previous weeks we’ve shown you revamped maps of Italy and German and the revitalized political setups in these regions. Today will be no different as we delve into the land of cheese, wine, and élan!

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The most striking thing you’ll notice about this new setup is the return of the French “vassal swarm”. The Duchies of Orleans, Bourbonnais, Auvergne, Armagnac, and Foix will be returning to the game alongside their glorious but rarely-seen Hundred Years War unit models. But how will you balance this, I preemptively hear you asking? Won’t France need extra diplomatic relations to cope with this? Won’t France be horrendously overpowered in the early game? Fear not, for we have answers and solutions - which I am not going to reveal today.

So, what's up with balkanized France? The reality is that in 1444, the Kingdom of France was quite decentralized. The Hundred Years War had forced the King to enact new taxes to finance his troops which led to several revolts and conspiracies from its nobility. That conflict continued for most of the second half of the 15th century. Historically the crown prevailed and managed to bring France toward centralization and absolutism, but in EU4 it won't be a given. Hence we decided to make that part of the French gameplay by representing the strongest Dukes and Counts as vassals in 1444.
  • Orléans was the strongest of them and often the leader of the resistance against the Crown. The head of the House of Orléans in 1444 was Charles the First, a cousin of the King who spent 25 years in English captivity. His son Louis would historically become King of France later on following the extinction of the main Valois branch.
  • The Duchy of Bourbon (or Bourbonnais) is held by Jean II, an up and coming noble that illustrated himself in combat the same year our game starts. Historically, he sided with the King's party, but changed side later on after losing a prestigious office.
  • Armagnac is in a tight spot. The result of CK2-style border gore, his possessions are spread across central and southern France. Its leader, Jean IV, recently took part in a failed revolt against the King and is kept on a tight leash.
  • Foix is held by Count Gaston IV, also General Lieutenant of the French Armies of Gascony and Guyenne.

You’ll also notice that France and its subjects (nominal and otherwise) have a handful of additional provinces. I mentioned in a previous dev diary a desire to include Foix, Carcassonne, Toulon, and La Marche. All of these have made it in to this iteration of the map. Toulon felt especially valuable due to its status as a major base of naval operations for France later in the timeframe, and as you’ll see in an upcoming dev diary the establishment of this great arsenal is an important part of more than one new mission tree. We also found room for Forez, which allows us to represent the divide between the crown and Bourbon territories. Blois beefs up the Duchy of Orleans, the most powerful of the French vassal states and often a thorn in the side of the French kings.

To better represent the divide between western (Ducal Burgundy) and eastern (Free HRE Country Burgundy), we added the province of Salins and its large salt mine. This lead us to split Burgundy in two, but instead of following the Imperial divide we elected instead to make two balanced states with one holding land on both sides, making any division an imperfect choice that is sure to spark more conflict in the future.

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Another addition to the political setup is the city-state of Geneva, here represented in 1444 as a vassal of Savoy. Geneva was subject to Savoy until 1524, and up to that point had a troubled relationship with its overlord. The House of Savoy repeatedly attempted to increase their control over the city to little avail except to alienate its citizens and foster a desire for independence. Local authorities sought to ally with the Swiss cantons, and the city would eventually join the Swiss Confederacy. In addition, the old province of Savoy has been split between Anessi and Ciamber.

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Moving further away from France, we’ve also made some changes to the Low Countries. I’ve spoken before regarding our concerns about adding provinces to this region. We want it to retain the feeling of being a highly developed and densely populated region, and adding new provinces would force us to split development to the point that it might lose that feeling. We have however managed to squeeze in two additional provinces: ‘s-Hertogenbosch has been cut off from Breda, and Rysel adds a province to Flanders. We’ve also revised the Utrecht-Frisia border to reflect historical divisions of the Dutch provinces. Speaking of Frisia, we have at long last added Frisian culture to the game. You’ll find Frisians inhabiting the provinces of Friesland, Groningen, and Ostfriesland. We’ve also redrawn the area map, doing away with the “Netherlands” area and adding a distinction between North and South Brabant.

Last week I promised a look at the Balkans alongside France, but we’ve decided instead to dedicate an entire dev diary to this topic. Expect to see that in a couple of weeks, as our next dev diary will cover some of the new mission trees in the French and Dutch region. Until then, let us know what you think of the new map setup as well as which mission trees you want to see next week.
 
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Nothing about Lothringen and the free city of Metz? And the mislocation of Nancy?
Why no flavor for this independant duchy during 800 years?
Hey, stem-duchy Lothringen just got some content in CK2. Though that content likely revolves around getting immediately conquered by Germany or France.
 
's Hertogenbosch looks like it'd fit better as Nijmegen perhaps. 's Hertogenbosch is a little bit to the west of where it is in the game, pretty much on the border of the Breda province right now. Nijmegen was also fairly prominent at the time and I think the shape of the province might suit it better. Also, the province is already small; a shorter name might be more easily visible on the map.

Also noooooo what did you do to Limburg! It's now a weird combination of the modern Dutch province and the old medieval duchy of Limbourg. It's weird because the Belgian province of Limburg is quite nicely represented as Loon, but the Dutch one makes little sense.

Combining the duchy and the modern province of Limburg just makes for bad borders and makes barely any sense from a historical standpoint. The Duchy of Limbourg-bit should be absorbed into Liege (basically the way it is in the game in the current patch). The rest then resembles the Dutch part of the province of Limburg, which was created during EU4's timeline. I could understand however that you may be uncomfortable actually naming it Limburg as the name was adopted for the province in 1815 (despite not really containing the old duchy at all), but then I'd just suggest renaming Limburg to something like Overmaas or Maastricht. But this proposed Limburg just looks... bad, both historically and aesthetically.
 
Fear not, for we have answers and solutions - which I am not going to reveal today.

If you guys have the audicity to combine a revamp of the HRE with the addition of more HRE-like mechanics for other nations this would be fantastic. It would be great to have HRE, France, united Spain, united GB, PL commonwealth, Russia have their vassals function way more like a confederation of initially more decentralized powers united under one ruler with more or less direct power over them. Create some nice internal dynamics involving reforms from the king and counterbalance that with internal dynamics where vassals try to work towards a more HRE like situation where the top dog is voted upon instead of heriditary and where they can internally wage war. Integrating things like the Burgundian inheretance happenings into this system, the foundation of the PL commonwealth, the hungarian succession etc. into this would be fantastic

The internal HRE game in the current game allready is one of the better parts of the game with respect to internal dynamics and politics, improving upon this and rolling it out towads other great kindoms could be fantastic and precisely the kind of meaningfull gameplay that EU should improve upon.
 
I feel like the with different vassal swarms creating more and more problems for you in balancing like the renovatio imperii problem for example, it might be time to find a solution to the problem all together, I think its time to find a way to make a vassal weaker than if the land was controlled centrally, maybe getting rid of the stuff every nation gets for existing would help.
 
I feel like the with different vassal swarms creating more and more problems for you in balancing like the renovatio imperii problem for example, it might be time to find a solution to the problem all together, I think its time to find a way to make a vassal weaker than if the land was controlled centrally, maybe getting rid of the stuff every nation gets for existing would help.
That would undermine the idea of making vassals an alternative to conquest that has been advocated by Paradox for years.
I guess some adjustments are necessary, though.
 
Well, I think the solutions teased in the DD should (will?) be that those vassals are under another subject type and not the regular vassal one: fiefs or appanages were mentionned in the suggestion sub-forum.
It would be great if such a new type would include new interactions and possibilities like:
- ability to declare war on other fiefs/appanages, and ability for the overlord to take sides and/or stop such wars (for a LD price)
- ability to have a somewhat independant foreign policy, like royal marriages (and thus access to PUs).
Historically, the Duke Charles of Orléans (father of the future Louis XII of France) became the titular Duke of Milan (opposed to Sforza) due to his mother being Valentina Visconti, the daugther of the Duke of Milan Gian Galeazzo Visconti. This could be a way for fiefs/appenages to seek independance of France: Land a prestigious duchy/county as a PU to expand the powerbase, then seek independence. This is I think actually what happened to Burgundy: appenage of France > get the county of Flanders via a PU > expand outside of France > become factually independent from France. There are actually many examples of this:
-> Burgundy getting the county of Flanders
-> Orléans claiming the duchy of Milan
-> Foix getting the Kingdom of Navarre
-> Bourbon getting the Kingdom of Navarre (I sense a theme here)​
- ability for the overlord to help the fiefs/appanages to act on those claims, with the idea that the lands gained might integrate the crown in the future.

Ideally, those fiefs/appenages wouldn't cost a diplo slot, with the trade-offs being that they couldn't be inherited as regular vassals, but only if the main dynasty would die off, or if the vassals somehow would align with ennemies/rivals of France (based on what happened for Bourbon).
 
's Hertogenbosch looks like it'd fit better as Nijmegen perhaps. 's Hertogenbosch is a little bit to the west of where it is in the game, pretty much on the border of the Breda province right now. Nijmegen was also fairly prominent at the time and I think the shape of the province might suit it better. Also, the province is already small; a shorter name might be more easily visible on the map.

Also noooooo what did you do to Limburg! It's now a weird combination of the modern Dutch province and the old medieval duchy of Limbourg. It's weird because the Belgian province of Limburg is quite nicely represented as Loon, but the Dutch one makes little sense.

Combining the duchy and the modern province of Limburg just makes for bad borders and makes barely any sense from a historical standpoint. The Duchy of Limbourg-bit should be absorbed into Liege (basically the way it is in the game in the current patch). The rest then resembles the Dutch part of the province of Limburg, which was created during EU4's timeline. I could understand however that you may be uncomfortable actually naming it Limburg as the name was adopted for the province in 1815 (despite not really containing the old duchy at all), but then I'd just suggest renaming Limburg to something like Overmaas or Maastricht. But this proposed Limburg just looks... bad, both historically and aesthetically.
To be honest, I think almost the entirety of the Netherlands (especially the Southern Netherlands) could do with a major redraw, not in terms of adding new provinces but the borders.

I think I'm going to make a suggestion sometime later because it seriously feels like an afterthought compared to other regions.
 
French Vassal Swarm... i suppose that should be fixing what I've been noticing with the AI wars in my recent runs. France getting absolutely curb stomped by the Unholy Alliance of England, Castile, and Portugal. Unless I interfere in some way to save France (and depending on politics, I may not be inclined to) I just find that they're toppling like a house of cards every run.
 
@neondt You should at least give us a good Balkan-teaser to dissect! :p

Anyway; good diary, I hope you guys will also look at feedback for France, as it's close to perfection.
 
I just hope that the new mechanics for the French vassals take same ideas from the Voltaire's Nightmare mod. Their own 'French union' reform mechanic (reform points can be related to LD) with ultimate goal of centralization. Otherwise, wait 10 years, use diplo points to integrate desired vassal strategy was pretty bland in the first versions of the game.
 
Great to see some feudality back!

However, after speaking with a friend for Savoy, we have a few concerns.
First, Anessi (or Annecy in French, the Dukes of Savoy at that time were Francophone, according to him who works on XIVth & XVth century's Savoy) isn't where Annecy lies in reality, which would be inside "Ciamber", while Annecy here is more Bourg-en-Bresse.
Second, by Ciamber, do you mean Chambéry? In Italian it's Ciamberi, but you miss the "i" right now.