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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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Will you introduce an in-game list of all possible HRE incidents with their conditions to fire, like with Shintoism?
 
They're tied to the Holy Roman Empire, and they'll be displayed prominently in the HRE interface, so no plans to expand this elsewhere. Given that the Incidents themselves function largely to present a choice to the Emperor in a way that's visible to the HRE at large, I'm not sure it would really be applicable outside of that context.

I think some generic regional incidents could have its place, like drought, civil wars with emigrees/pretender refugees. Decline of the spice trade, little ice age, european traders in china and maybe crisis of the maghreb should have some descisons tied to them.

For kingdom level countries maybe royal justice/courts.
 
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".
If you're Venice, mercantilism is your religion.
 
I think some generic regional incidents could have its place, like drought, civil wars with emigrees/pretender refugees. Decline of the spice trade, little ice age, european traders in china and maybe crisis of the maghreb should have some descisons tied to them.

For kingdom level countries maybe royal justice/courts.
Expand the spice and Indian cotton trade events.
Currently Indian cotton is a one off for the first European nation there, either getting mercantilism and a reduction in trade power, or a change in trade good prices. Whilst the spice trade price drop event mentions attempts were made to keep it rare but they failed.
Indian cotton varying from nation to nation on imports could be quite nice, and spice trade could offer you to swap production of spice provinces you own to other goods, much like emancipation getting rid of slaves.
But for a more direct imperial incident, you could have events around importation of new world crops, prussia taking up the potato, and a margrave of brandenburg (but not the main branch) becoming the leading tobacco producer in Central Europe.
 
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.
Achievement idea:

Holy Roman Republic: Unite the HRE as a Peasant Republic.
 
Unfortunately the Emperor title requires you to be a monarch :(
Think we've had bugs over the years where the Dutch managed to become Emperor being a pseudo republic. So might be possible in some way I am not thinking of.
 
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.

Could you make this for all monarchies in the Age of Exploration? I've wanted peasant rebels to have more teeth, other than an a simple tax and production hit.
 
Unfortunately the Emperor title requires you to be a monarch :(
Think we've had bugs over the years where the Dutch managed to become Emperor being a pseudo republic. So might be possible in some way I am not thinking of.

There isn't an equivalent to Erbkaisertum where the limits on HRE Emperorship get removed?
 
Could Catholicism use a similar Incident mechanic?
The Pope gets to decide what happens, and all Catholic nations get informed. Acting against the interests of nations with Cardinals upsets them based on how many Cardinals they have.
It could also help communicate who's been causing Reform Desire to change.
 
I've asked this before, unfortunately no response. So hoping I might get a little insight into this:

Will Germany have a new set of national ideas? Considering that most European formables get unique idea sets and this being a Europe DLC focusing on the HRE and Christianity, would love to see Germany have a good set of ideas. :)
 
I've asked this before, unfortunately no response. So hoping I might get a little insight into this:

Will Germany have a new set of national ideas? Considering that most European formables get unique idea sets and this being a Europe DLC focusing on the HRE and Christianity, would love to see Germany have a good set of ideas. :)

Yes
 
Will Hussites (Calicstines and Taborites) be represented as an Imperial Incident, with their potential resurgerence within first years of campaign and historical crushing of Taborites?
 
They're tied to the Holy Roman Empire, and they'll be displayed prominently in the HRE interface, so no plans to expand this elsewhere. Given that the Incidents themselves function largely to present a choice to the Emperor in a way that's visible to the HRE at large, I'm not sure it would really be applicable outside of that context.

Such a great chance missed here. I hoped that it would be a system to rework things like dissasters and succession wars to be more meaningful in the future for neighbors and more people involved in it. The spanish succession war for example is something that just cannot really happen in EU IV without a scenario setup - and I think thats a pity.
 
What happens if for some reason you've formed formed the HRE tag before something like the Peasants War happens? Does it still happen or will it not fire at all? People have done more outlandish things in this game than forming the HRE in the early 1500s so it's probably not completely impossible for that situation to occur.

Also will there be any plans for Imperial Incidents on things like the Schmalkaldic league and Peace of Augsburg or are they too much for such a short time period?