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EU4 - Development Diary - 6th of November 2018

It's Tuesday, and that means it's time for another EU4 dev diary. This week and next I’m going to be showing off some of the new mission trees, events, and national ideas coming in the 1.28 ‘Spain’ update and the accompanying Immersion Pack.

NB: Most mission icons are currently using placeholder art

Let’s start with the star of the show, Spain itself:

spanish missions.png


The Spanish mission tree is available to nations beside Aragon that form Spain, while Castile immediately has access to a reduced version of the tree prior to forming Spain.

For the most part these missions follow Spain’s historical expansion overseas; from the Pillars of Hercules to California and the Philippines, the Spanish Empire was one of the largest the world has ever seen. Driven by the quest for gold and silver, Conquistadors such as Cortez and Pizarro will join your service to lead the conquests of Mexico and Peru. You’ll also be encouraged to spread the word of God in the New World by establishing Holy Orders in your colonies.

Spain will also have opportunities to expand in Europe. If the Iberian Wedding or Burgundian Succession don’t work out for you, permanent claims on Naples and Wallonia will help you seize your rightful inheritance through conquest. With a foothold in the Netherlands, Spain can then pursue powerful Personal Unions with both England (depending on their religious choices) and Austria, with the ultimate goal of establishing a Universal Monarchy.

We’ve also split up the National Idea sets for Castile and Spain, as we did for England and Great Britain in Rule Britannia:

Spanish national ideas:
Code:
SPA_ideas = {
    start = {
        land_morale = 0.15
        global_colonial_growth = 25
    }
 
    bonus = {
        discipline = 0.05
    }
 
    trigger = {
        tag = SPA
    }
    free = yes        #will be added at load.

    devout_catholisism = {
        papal_influence = 2
    }
    inter_caetera = {
        idea_claim_colonies = yes
        colonists = 1
    }
    gold_fleet = {
        global_tariffs = 0.15
        global_prov_trade_power_modifier = 0.1
    }
    spanish_armada = {
        heavy_ship_cost = -0.1
        leader_naval_manuever = 1
    }
    spa_casa_de_contracion = {
        envoy_travel_time = -0.33
    }
    spa_cortes = {
        free_adm_policy = 1
    }
    siglo_de_oro = {
        prestige = 1
    }
}

 spa_casa_de_contracion:0 "Casa de Contratación"
 spa_casa_de_contracion_desc:0 "We must extend the reach of the House of Trade of the Indies. Our colonial agents must have a presence in every part of the world to ensure the smooth functioning of our empire."
 spa_cortes:0 "Rein in the Cortes"
 spa_cortes_desc:0 "Each constitutent Kingdom in the Spanish realm has its own corte, an assembly of the most powerful elements of society in the region. There is often tension between the Crown and the Cortes over such issues as taxation and regional autonomy. We must rein in these institutions so that they primarily serve the Crown rather than their own interests."

Castilian National ideas:
Code:
CAS_ideas = {
    start = {
        land_morale = 0.15
        missionaries = 1
    }
    bonus = {
        artillery_fire = 1
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = CAS
    }
    free = yes        #will be added at load.
    the_reconquista = {
        army_tradition_decay = -0.01
    }
    spanish_inquisition = {
        global_missionary_strength = 0.02
    }
    cabildos = {
        production_efficiency = 0.1
    }
    inter_caetera = {
        idea_claim_colonies = yes
        colonists = 1
    }
    infantas = {
        diplomatic_reputation = 1
        heir_chance = 0.33
    }
    salamanca_scholars = {
        global_institution_spread = 0.1
    }
    nueva_planta = {
        yearly_absolutism = 0.1
    }
}

 cabildos:0 "Cabildos"
 cabildos_desc:0 "Representing the interests of the cities, the 'Caboldio' councils have a wide variety of functions and duties. They are responsible for both advocating the interests of the city to the Crown and for many aspects of local governance. We must continue to establish Cabildos in newly-founded or newly-conquered cities, particularly in the New World where the need for Castilian institutions is felt most severely."
 infantas:0 "Infantas"
 infantas_desc:0 "The Princes and Princesses of the Crown are among our most valuable assets. They can be sent as royal envoys, married off to secure alliances, or appointed as regents when the need arises. It is important that we ensure that our monarch's loins continue to bear fruit."
 salamanca_scholars:0 "School of Salamanca"
 salamanca_scholars_desc:0 "Based in the University of Salamanca, the School's interests lie in fields as diverse as theology, economics, and political philosophy. As one of the leading schools of thought in the Catholic world, its entrenched presence in Castile ensures that our nation is always at the forefront of intellectual affairs."
 nueva_planta:0 "Nueva Planta"
 nueva_planta_desc:0 "It is time to assert true royal authority in the realm; under a single set of laws and a common language, a renewed and centralized Castile will directly appoint officials and enshrine the absolute rule of the monarch."


aragon missions.png


Aragon has an entirely different focus, with a distinct Mare Nostrum theme. An Aragonese player will be encouraged to dominate the Mediterranean both militarily and economically. This mission tree will take Aragon into southern France, Italy, the Maghreb, Egypt, Anatolia, and Greece.

Aragon also has access to several purely economic missions. By establishing trade dominance in the Genoa node and developing the city, Valencia will gain access to the rare Silk trade good as well as a sizable bonus to production of this luxury resource. Completing Aragon’s economic missions will reward the player with the versatile ‘Golden Century’ modifier, giving a 1% reduction to all monarch power costs for 100 years.

portugal missions.png


Portugal’s mission tree is larger than any other in the game besides Great Britain with Rule Britannia. Like the Spanish mission tree, it is largely concerned with the recreation of Portugal’s historical overseas empire, particularly in Brazil and Asia. Missions have been added for the conquests of Malacca, Oman, Ceylon, and other ports in the East. When Portugal has discovered the Far East they will have the opportunity to negotiate for the purchase of two historically important ports: Macau and Nagasaki. In Brazil the Portuguese player can lead the Bandeirantes in the search for gold in Minas Gerais and acquire an increased chance to discover Gold as a trade good in all of their new colonies.

brz.jpg


The times were not always kind to Portugal. In 1807, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, the situation became so dire that the Portuguese court abandoned Lisbon, fled to Brazil, and made Rio the new seat of government. This will be represented in the game as a decision available to Portugal should they find themselves in dire straits. Your tag will change to Brazil, and Portugal will be released as a junior partner controlling your remaining European provinces. Note that by doing this you will lose access to Portuguese missions.

Not shown but will be in the final version: taking the decision will also change your primary culture to Brazilian.

Navarra missions.jpg


Finally we have Navarra. Navarra’s mission tree will be entirely free for anyone playing on the 1.28 ‘Spain’ patch. As you might expect, this mission tree takes the player down a very different path than history intended. Navarra must reclaim its unjustly stolen coastline, and from there pursue an invasion of France that can culminate in a Personal Union. With access to the sea, the New World beckons. In homage to the time-honoured strategy of migrating to the Americas to escape the cutthroat politics of Europe, Navarra will have the opportunity to move their capital to Terranova if they so choose.

Some of you may have noticed that Navarra’s starting monarch is also Aragon’s designated heir in 1444. A new event chain will bring Navarra under a Personal Union with Aragon if Navarra remains independent upon the death of King Afonso. If Navarra is being controlled by a player, they can of course choose to accept this union. But a truly ambitious player can instead reject the union and instantly gain a Restoration CB on Aragon.

nav_event.jpg


That’s all for today! Next week I’ll be back with more mission trees and national ideas with a focus on North Africa.
 
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The blacked out mission is probably an evacuation to one of your colonies. If your country is being reduced slowly then you will most likely lose your colonies eventually. The best option would be to abandon your country and rule from the New World.
 
When I said "nation building" I was refering to the process of building a brazilian identity, a homogeneization process that happened in most of the States in the world. France, for exemple, was "occitan", "provence" and many others (like in the game) before all of them turned to a "french" one. Like you said, many secessionists revolts happened in Brazil even before independence, because none of the revolters "felt" they were "brazilian". In the same way, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay were part of the viceroyalty of the rio de la plata, but with no elite's homogenization, they fighted for their own interests and created differente centers of power. Buenos Aires tried to impose her project but failed (this opened the way for the portuguese conquest of Cisplatina) and we now have all this countries. In Brazil, for many reasons, keep a monarchical regime and a centered power in Rio strong enouth to mantein its borders under control, but the "feeling" about a brazil identity, the links that binds unknow people (with things like a common history, national heroes, national simbols etc) were built mainly by Vargas.

I understand what you are saying, but if you want to be that nitpicky, I would argue that this actually began during Juscelino Kubitscheck's government, with the construction of Brasilia and trying to integrate the hinterlands to the coast.

Tiradentes was declared a national hero during the First Republic anyway, so the notion of national identity was already something happening way before Vargas.
 
TFW when they remove "The Spanish Inquisition" idea from Spain. Nobody expected it.
TFW when they add "Universal Monarchy" quest, which is a concept of an universal catholic monarch, One christian king to rule them all and you remove religous ideas from Spain.

When you introduce something called "expulsion of minorities" and then don't give Spain a related idea to that when they expelled jews, muslims and moriscos.

TFW when a random nation has stronger ideas than the world's first superpower.

Did you just hit random ideas???
 
I have a question.

Why do Castille and Spain have a mission called "Recover Portugal" when neither have ever owned Portugal to begin with as of 1450?

That mission should belong to Léon or Galicia, not Castille.

PS: I don't know who disagreed with this, but ya clearly don't know how the Christian Kingdoms of Iberia developed. I clearly meant to say that they should revise the text, not replace the mission, before we're stuck another 5 years with a bad kind of typo.
 
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Pretty close to truth gotta gotta say it. They did lately invest some effort to acknowledge feedback - idea group balance and religious changes are result of that. They also finally worked on AI a bit.

Its just a bit said lots of it comes late and after looooots of forum complaints.. Also they present what changes they did and then get negative feedback... instead of them proposing changes first - then implementing it in shape they want. Not the other way around. Its devs decision in the end afterall... the way they do it just takes them more work/rework and more players are annoyed. Can't make everyone happy obviously.

Still lots better than being totally blind dumping a mobile version of game to pc audience ^^.
The negativity for those changes have mainly 2 reasons.

1. A certain group of players think rapid world conquest is the only valid way to play EU4 and they complain about anything which would make conquest slower or harder.

2. The problems of EU4 are so big that you need a dedicated DLC to solve one of them. A small footnote in a patch doesn't solve the problem in the slightest and only annoys people, also because it is not really clear what the purpose if that change even is.

As for why PDX does not do a trade or military rework DLC and instead does regional ones, even fir the big DLCs, I wonder how many coders the EU4 team has left or if they all have been drafted into Imperator. That would explain why the last few DLCs were all art heavy (mainly map changes) but did not have any serious mechanic changes.
 
The negativity for those changes have mainly 2 reasons.

1. A certain group of players think rapid world conquest is the only valid way to play EU4 and they complain about anything which would make conquest slower or harder.

2. The problems of EU4 are so big that you need a dedicated DLC to solve one of them. A small footnote in a patch doesn't solve the problem in the slightest and only annoys people, also because it is not really clear what the purpose if that change even is.

As for why PDX does not do a trade or military rework DLC and instead does regional ones, even fir the big DLCs, I wonder how many coders the EU4 team has left or if they all have been drafted into Imperator. That would explain why the last few DLCs were all art heavy (mainly map changes) but did not have any serious mechanic changes.


This and the fact that, despite all these difficulties, Brittania Rule was such a broken piece of love given to BI players as compared to this DLC.

It really makes the "Oh, they need time and insight and research and balancing to do things" excuse really difficult to believe.

There's also the fact that some of the things introduced were done poorly and with shenanigans sprinkled on it. Don't let this DD distract you all from the fact that Sweden will be given +100 cannons.
 
Here's a thing I'm working on:

View attachment 415687
Does this mean you've found a way to prevent the colonial nation from culture converting the provinces right back? Because otherwise, I can't see this new culture surviving much longer than American culture in the Thirteen Colonies currently does after the event that spawns that culture fires.
 
Based on these comments one might think Paradox just cancelled all future DLC for EU4 and announced Europa Universalis: Immortal.

I do agree however that based on how things stand at the moment, new Spanish ideas seem weaker than old ones. Perhaps you should have another look at them and tweak a thing or two.
 
The Philippines was found by magellan during the first circumnavigation via the Pacific ocean and spain didnt really have a hold or influence in the indian and african routes... so why does the mission needed spain to go east rather than go west?. And also a side note that it is more historical to change the trade route from the philippines -> panama to philippines -> mexico to symbolise the importance of the manila-acapulco galleon trade.
 
So, to recap everything so far:

1) We got a blatantly incompetently-done map revamp to the point that the devs have acknowledged a correction thread started by forum posters;
2) We got a Spanish Main map revamp that makes the first point look even worse;
3) We got a flagship modification system that has pissed off Britain players and snuck a dumb Sweden meme in that everyone is mad at;
4) We got an "national idea revamp" that has changed one or two things about Castille and left everything else the same (Portugal still a paper tiger for some reason);
5) And we got a mission tree revamp that, while extensive, missed huge interesting and ambitious opportunities and bloated itself with one-province-conquest missions;

.....

Golden Century, indeed, lol :v

Is anyone who knows anything thorough about the history of these empires satisfied so far?
 
Also, if you guys think Spain is being 'nerfed'....

.... man, walk a mile in Portugal's shoes, for crying out loud. It has conquered the African, American and Asian coasts with no military traditions or ideas since 2013. Geez.

And before you get mad at me, I'm not defending it, just trying to offer some perspective.
 
Also, if you guys think Spain is being 'nerfed'....

.... man, walk a mile in Portugal's shoes, for crying out loud. It has conquered the African, American and Asian coasts with no military traditions or ideas since 2013. Geez.

And before you get mad at me, I'm not defending it, just trying to offer some perspective.
:) To counter the countless buffs, I mean "flavor," I play as nations without MIL buffs just to keep things interesting.
And my BIG worry about the new mission system, is PDX stated that they want to get rid of all generic ideas. Five years later, we have Delhi ideas. Does this mean that Ardibil will get a new mission tree in 2024?