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EU4 - Development Diary - 8th of October 2019

Good morning, and welcome to today’s dev diary! As Jake foretold last week, today I’ll be talking about some of the Imperial Incidents coming in next year’s big expansion.

For those of you who have forgotten or for some reason do not read our dev diaries with fervent religiosity, this is what an Imperial Incident is:

“The other thing for us to look into today are Imperial Incidents. One thing we wanted to do was to make the Empire feel alive and rife with bickering princes. To that end, we have rolled some existing occurrences throughout EU4 and History, as well as many others, into a system that has the HRE both create and react to issues in Central Europe and the immediate vicinity.

When the conditions are ripe, an Imperial Incident can trigger for the Empire. All member states will be informed of the incident, and it will prominently be displayed in the HRE interface. The Emperor will then have 6 months to make a decision on the incident, with wide-ranging knock-on effects.”

These Incidents give us the opportunity to both revisit old content and to design something new. Last week Jake gave a description of the reworked Burgundian Inheritance (which we might revisit in more detail in the future). Today I’ll show off two new event chains and their associated Incidents: The King in Prussia, and The Great Peasants’ War.

dd_prussia.png


Prussia is no longer awarded a shiny Kingdom-rank crown simply for existing. An independent Prussia must establish itself as a relevant power before it has the opportunity to claim its crown. After this event fires, the Imperial Incident begins and the Emperor must decide on how to proceed.

  • If the Emperor decides to elevate Prussia to an Imperial Kingdom in the fashion of Bohemia, they will lose 10 Imperial Authority but greatly improve their relations with Prussia. This will also anger any electors that have rivalled Prussia.

  • If the Emperor decides to accept the historical compromise - that the monarch may call himself “King in Prussia” but not “King of Prussia” - the effect is similar but reduced. The Electors will not be angered but Prussia will be only mildly grateful to the Emperor.

  • If the Emperor refuses to acknowledge any Prussian monarch bearing the title of “King”, Prussia must make a decision between their Kingly crown or their status as an Imperial Prince, potentially being ejected from the Empire. This will greatly anger both Prussia and its Elector allies.
dd_peasants.png


The Great Peasants’ War was a time of great upheaval in the Holy Roman Empire. Driven by religious, economic, and social woes the oppressed masses rose up across Germany against their feudal masters. This event can happen prior to the League War, which is delayed until this conflict is resolved. National unrest is increased throughout the Empire, peasant rebels are more likely to spawn, and countries that break to peasant rebels may become a Peasant Republic. While the Great Peasants’ War rages on, the game will track the success of the rebels throughout the Empire. After several years have passed and the dust has settled, the Emperor must make a resolution:

  • [Available only if the rebels are not highly successful] If the Emperor chooses to crush the rights of peasants, the Noble estates across the Empire will become more loyal and more powerful. This effect is reduced if the rebels are moderately successful.

  • If the Emperor chooses to grant concessions to the peasantry and enforce their rights, the Noble estates across the Empire will not only lose Influence but also some of their Land Share. The strength of this effect depends on the success of the rebels. This will mean that Princes of the Empire have more Crown Land, but they will also collect less taxes due to their concessions to the peasantry. If the rebels are highly successful, nations in the Empire will continue to become Peasant Republics when breaking to peasant rebels even after the Great Peasants’ War ends.

We have a lot more Incidents left to talk about: in the unspecified future I’ll talk about such Incidents as the Dutch Revolt and the Shadow Kingdom. For now though that’s all I have to say, I hope you all have a great day and that you return for next week’s dev diary!
 
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Prussia is no longer awarded a shiny Kingdom-rank crown simply for existing. An independent Prussia must establish itself as a relevant power before it has the opportunity to claim its crown. After this event fires, the Imperial Incident begins and the Emperor must decide on how to proceed.

  • If the Emperor decides to elevate Prussia to an Imperial Kingdom in the fashion of Bohemia, they will lose 10 Imperial Authority but greatly improve their relations with Prussia. This will also anger any electors that have rivalled Prussia.

  • If the Emperor decides to accept the historical compromise - that the monarch may call himself “King in Prussia” but not “King of Prussia” - the effect is similar but reduced. The Electors will not be angered but Prussia will be only mildly grateful to the Emperor.

  • If the Emperor refuses to acknowledge any Prussian monarch bearing the title of “King”, Prussia must make a decision between their Kingly crown or their status as an Imperial Prince, potentially being ejected from the Empire. This will greatly anger both Prussia and its Elector allies.
Just clarifying; is this incident only an event and then a response from the Emperor or is there more to it?
 
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As for Prussia becoming a kingdom is the event pure RNG? Or does high relations with the emperor improve the chances of him making you a kingdom?

It's very reliable. Once you meet the conditions, which is easily achievable in a normal Prussia playthrough, the event should fire in under a year.
 
Of course some specific HRE flavour is important, but keeping the whole "incident" things only for the HRE seems a bad idea to me.

With the possible exception of the empire of China, I’m not sure where else Incidents would be appropriate, as opposed to just using normal events.
 
With Italy, Prussia, Burgundian lands and potentially Switzerland (?) having events and incidents to leave the HRE, this might really shape every game differently as it might dramatically change the size of the HRE. Looking forward to all that being implemented.
 
I have a feeling like a lot of people didn't read how the incidents work. Most of the questions of "will X become an incident" are in the same group of weirdness as "will Tengrii be able to syncretize with mercantilism and state edicts".
 
I have a feeling like a lot of people didn't read how the incidents work. Most of the questions of "will X become an incident" are in the same group of weirdness as "will Tengrii be able to syncretize with mercantilism and state edicts".
Syncretize with Absolutism to get +5% Administrative Efficiency
 
A whole incident about elevation to a kingdom rank? I mean, sure it's a big deal, but not so much in the game. It will be nothing more than an annoying AI Emperor decision, because it's not like a kingdom rank is worth leaving the Empire for. The effects are quite underwhelming and it certainly can wait.

Basically you don't automatically become a kingdom, but there is a chance you won't... how very fun. If it's never worth leaving the Empire (at the time of forming Prussia), then it means it's purely a decision made by the AI about you country.
No idea why so many disagree with this statement. The AI making decisions and offering Hobson's choice doesn't strike me as fun.

As much as some events add a little fun to the game and serve to align a little with actual history, I'm disappointed by this. Why are we getting a ton of events when we should be seeing mechanical changes that add new ways to interact with the game.

Events have always been a cheap way to include history that cannot be represented by gameplay easily, I'm sad to see the vassalage system in this particular case is being dealt with in this boring fashion.

Especially given how shallow the internal game still is.
 
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Any changes around the Polish-Prussian border maybe?
Trying to form Prussia/Germany with historical borders always ends up looking weird right now
If You mean changing Polish provinces so they reflect the post-Partitions situations, then that would be rather weird to make last 30 years of the game somehow more prominent than the past centuries.
However perhaps You have something else in mind?
 
No, these are one-time decisions that can't be reversed. Usually they'll have a direct and immediate effect that has a big impact on the political landscape, so reversing them would generally not make a lot of sense.

"Oi Fritz, I'm gonna need that crown back... Kiss your what now?"
 
Any word on an imperial incident for Hannover forming. Could even fire if just you have lots of favours (with DLC), or joined X number of wars (without dlc), for any nation in westphalia region which allies the emperor. Can also tie 8th elector slot to this as until Napoleon's tomfoolery he was the only extra elector post Golden Bull.
 
What happens in the Prussian Crown incident if Prussia is the Emperor or a junior partner under the Emperor?