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EU4 - Development Diary - 9th of February 2021

Good morning, everyone! Today we're back to some exciting content, talking about a whole new feature we'll be introducing in our next expansion: Monuments!

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Similar to the Wonders feature in CK2, you'll be able to build some of the most iconic and stunning buildings that serve as landmarks for many of our different playable nations. And, of course, given how important they were (and some still are), they will also grant you special and permanent bonuses. Let's cover some of their major points!
  1. Monuments are a special type of building that can only be built in certain provinces (according to their real life location), already set at the beginning of the game. However, some of them will be able to be relocated to your capital if you own their province. This is true for some "non-settled" monuments, like Stonehenge or the Moai, but will be impossible to do when it comes to other bigger monuments, like Nôtre-Dame.
  2. Monuments will be displayed in the province view in a separate window, each of them having a new and unique 2D art that portrays the monument at its highest (but also according to our time period). In this view you'll be able to see the benefits of upgrading it, the cost and the requirements for doing so, as well as the current tier, represented by medals.

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  3. Monuments have 4 different tiers, ranging from 0 to 3. Tier 0 implies that said monument is completely devastated or not even built yet and you will get no bonuses from it; each building will have a default tier at the beginning of the game, according to its real life state in 1444. Achieving a new tier is both time and resource consuming, costing a total of 1000 gold to upgrade each time and taking 50 years to complete. This process can be sped up by using an extra 300 gold to bring the project forward by 730 days or by using 10000 manpower to get the same result.
    The modifiers you get from reaching every tier are permanent and linked to the purpose of each building: for example, the Alhambra will reward you with some diplomatic and administrative bonuses, whilst the Shwedagon Pagoda will help you boost your karma and legitimacy, also reducing the unrest in the area. These bonuses may apply to your province, its area or the entire nation, growing stronger and wider as you upgrade your monument.

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  4. Monuments will require you to meet certain conditions before building or upgrading them and, if you fail to meet them, you will also lose their bonuses even after having completed their construction. Normally these conditions are to have a certain culture or follow a certain religion, but some monuments, like the Ambras Castle, are available for everyone that owns their province to build.

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  5. After conquering a province with a monument, its tier is reset to 1 to show the impact of the war in the city, even if it was already in an upper tier. However, it won't be reset to tier 0, as if it was completely destroyed. Also, provinces with a monument cost more warscore, as they hold a special significance to their owner. The new owner, however, will be able to upgrade it again, as long as the requirements are still met.
  6. Some missions will also be linked to certain monuments, specially if they were relevant for a tag during the time period we are covering. For example, you can see that in this Majapahit mission one of the requirements is to have the Borobudur temple upgraded to its maximum tier. Some other missions will also give you a great projects' building cost reduction or time reduction bonus, making it easier to upgrade your monuments.

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    (Please notice that our icons are still placeholders).
As you can see in the first screenshot, certain monuments will also have 3D art displayed on the map. Those models that were already implemented in the National Monuments cosmetic dlcs will be added as proper monuments, and you'll be able to see them both in the political and terrain mapmodes.

Thank you for reading and I hope you're as excited as we are about this! See you next week!
 
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The fact that bonuses for Stonehenge only apply if you turn England or GB into paganism is the biggest trolling I've seen in a while :D :D :D
Why would any Christian nation care about Stonehenge? Its only use is tourism and that came way after EU4s timeframe (or rather at the very end).
 
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I see a lot of people saying the Alhambra is PO, and it's definitely very strong. But every nation lost 10% admin eff from absolutism in 1.30, which kind of balances it out.
I'm more worried about monuments like the Himeji castle with weak local effects that seem totally useless
 
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Nice, recycle some features from other games, add some new tags that maybe 1% off the playerbase will play, ignore the real problems of the game and charge 20 € for it. Sure, i am on that.
 
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I see a lot of people saying the Alhambra is PO, and it's definitely very strong. But every nation lost 10% admin eff from absolutism in 1.30, which kind of balances it out.
I'm more worried about monuments like the Himeji castle with weak local effects that seem totally useless
The problem is absolutism is for everyone.
Alhambra can only be used by a few specific states and those will beeline for it because it is so good while other nations might even do culture shifts etc. to use its bonus.

Its the old india trade companies all over again
 
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I really like this feature. Will it be possible to add more via mods? I really hope so!
 
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So first 10 adm eff was removed from absolutism with no reason what so ever in 1.3. And now 15 adm eff added us a paid feature of otherwise compleatly unintresting for me 1.31. Thay just feel wrong imo, that not the way to treat yuor clients.
 
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Is there a Monument mapmode or an easy way to spot all the provinces with Monuments? Seems like they are something you want to aim for.
 
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I'd be really interested in seeing a full list of all the Monuments being added once the update releases, especially the ones tied to crazy requirements.

On the subject of requirements. What about you are able to get the bonuses of any Monument you own, but being able to upgrade it is locked behind the special requirements. Monuments are already reset to Level 1 Whenever someone conquers them, so that would be a sort of self balancing system for most of them.

So for example, England can get the Tier 1 bonuses for Stonehenge since they have it, but Pagans can upgrade it to get the bigger bonuses.

That way I can see things like that absurd Alhambra Admin Efficiency Bonus being a bit more balanced. Well maybe balanced isn't the right term. Maybe reward for your investment. If anyone can have Alhambra at Tier 1, but you need to be Andalusian Primary Culture for Tier 3, then outside of people going on crazy Culture Conversion quests, the bonuses serves more as a reward for a player doing a successfully White Phoenix playthrough as Granada.

Another question I have. Will there be any Monuments in the new World? People are asking about Canals like the Suez and Panama, but what about El Dorado and the other Wonders of the New World spawning as Wonders/Monuments in the provinces they are discovered it? Or would that mean they would need to be fixed in certain provinces? I don't know what the coding requirements would be.

I'm wondering if the Great Temple of Cholula would qualify as a Monument for the Nahuatl. Or something for the Inti.

If it is possible to code a Monument being added to a province that doesn't have one at game start, and isn't just moving one, what about some missions that reward you with a Tier 0 Monument of some kind in a Province.

For example in the future if you gave the Aztecs a mission tree, including sections for doing a Sunset Invasion. A reward for a mission to take Rome and sacrifice the Pope to the Nahuatl Gods might reward you with a Tier 0 Nahuatl Mega Temple on Rome, that you could then level up as a huge Monument to your successful invasion.

Just a few suggestions.
 
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So, first thing I have in mind when I read the title is, "Borobudur!" and thankfully, it is here!
Great!

Then second thing I have in mind is "Prambanan!" and I think Prambanan should be here too.

I know Prambanan is less famous than Borobudur, but in term of historical importance and thematic resonance, Prambanan should be included in the game too.
Borobudur was built as a distinctly Buddhist complex, and Prambanan was built as its Hindus counterpart. As Majapahit (and Javanese at the time) was following a syncretic form of Buddhism and Hinduism, if one monument is in the game, then it only make sense for the other to be in the game too.
 
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+1 Diplomatic reputation, +1 diplomatic relation, +15% adm eff and +25% vassal income is hella powerful. This is going to be a balancing nightmare!

From a RP-perspective, I don't think the bonuses from owning a pretty old building should be larger than those from cornering the global market of a certain trade good (e.g. how controlling a huge chunk of the global silk trade only gives you +1 accepted cultures).
 
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