Europa Universalis IV - 8 June 2021 - New monuments chosen for 1.31.5

[Pavía]

Good news everyone! Today we’ll be presenting the new monuments that shall be introduced in 1.31.5 (coming soon, for those who wonder).

But first, let me introduce myself. I’m Pavía, and I’ve been a forumite for more than 15 years before joining Paradox Tinto team, a couple months ago. Apart from being in the Forums, I’ve spent most of this time playing Paradox games for thousands of hours, since the first Europa Universalis. Oh, and I also hold a Ph.D. in Medieval History, but that’s probably the less important thing in my current CV.

That said, onto the monuments. First I’ll present to you the ones that were most voted among the community:

The first is El Escorial, the famous palace-monastery built at the orders of king Philip II in the outskirts of Madrid:

Modifiers:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Global modifiers: −0.01 Monthly autonomy change +5% Governing Capacity	Global modifiers: −0.025 Monthly autonomy change +10% Governing Capacity +10% Global Tariffs	Global modifiers: −0.05 Monthly autonomy change +15% Governing Capacity +20% Global Tariffs

The second one is the Holy City of Jerusalem. As it’s known, this city is a sacred place for Judaism, Christianism and Islam, and that religious crossroad is portrayed:

Modifiers:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Area modifiers: +1% Local missionary strength Global modifiers: +0.1 Yearly Prestige +1% Missionary strength against Heretics	Area modifiers: +2% Local missionary strength Global modifiers: +0.25 Yearly Prestige +2% Missionary strength against Heretics	Area modifiers: +3% Local missionary strength Global modifiers: +0.5 Yearly Prestige +1 Missionary +3% Missionary strength against Heretics

Finally, the last one most voted was Cerro Rico del Potosí, the richest silver mine in South America, and a place that once hosted the most populous city in the region.

Modifiers:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Province modifiers: +1 Local Goods Produced Area modifiers: +5% Local Goods Produced Modifier Global modifiers: -0.1% Interest	Province modifiers: +2 Local Goods Produced Area modifiers: +10% Local Goods Produced Modifier Global modifiers: -0.25% Interest	Province modifiers: +3 Local Goods Produced Area modifiers: +20% Local Goods Produced Modifier Global modifiers: -0.5% Interest

But, apart from that, the Tinto team also voted for three more internally:

The first is the Kaaba in Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims worldwide, and the place were the Hajj pilgrimage, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is made.

Modifiers:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Global modifiers: +0.1 Yearly Prestige +10% Religious Unity	Global modifiers: +0.25 Yearly Prestige +15% Religious Unity -5% War score cost vs other religions	Global modifiers: +0.5 Yearly Prestige +20% Religious Unity -10% War score cost vs other religions

Next one is the Great Mosque of Djenné, one of the worship places built during the times of the Mali Empire in a very unique adobe brick style.

Modifiers:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Global modifiers: +0.1 Monthly Piety +1% Missionary strength against Heathens	Global modifiers: +0.2 Monthly Piety +2% Missionary strength against Heathens +1 Missionary	Global modifiers: +0.3 Monthly Piety +3% Missionary strength against Heathens +1 Missionary

Last, but not least, is the Imperial City of Hue, built by the Nguyen dynasty as a symbol for a unified Dai Viet.

Modifiers:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Global modifiers: +0.25 Yearly harmony increase +0.5 Yearly legitimacy	Global modifiers: +0.33 Yearly harmony increase −10% State maintenance −5% Minimum autonomy in territories +1 Yearly legitimacy	Global modifiers: +0.5 Yearly harmony increase −20% State maintenance −10% Minimum autonomy in territories +1 Yearly legitimacy

Finally, we got a lot of feedback from the community, and we also think that it’s a good idea to replace one of the current monuments for other more interesting choice, and reworking it, as this was pretty requested:

That is the Belém Tower replacing the Pena Palace in Lisbon, as we think that it’s a symbol of the city since the Age of Discoveries.

Modifiers:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Province modifiers: +5 Local trade power Area modifiers: +15% Local manpower modifier Global modifiers: +5% Global trade power	Province modifiers: +10 Local trade power Area modifiers: +25% Local manpower modifier Global modifiers: +10% Global trade power +10% National sailors	Province modifiers: +15 Local trade power Area modifiers: +50% Local manpower modifier Global modifiers: +15% Global trade power +25% National sailors

About the modifiers, take into account that this is work in progress, so both modifiers and values may be reviewed and changed, depending on testing and feedback received.

We hope that you like the new monuments chosen by both the community and the team, and that you also enjoy the wonderful work made by our artists, while playing with them in 1.31.5. See you!

 

[Pavía]

First, thanks for your kind comments!

Nice! Will there be missions for some of the nations affected? For example, Spain could have a small mission to upgrade El Escorial, and could be tied to winning a battle against a rival. In fact, El Escorial was built as a result of the Battle of San Quintín against France. Also, they have a mission related to Potosi, which could reward monument upgrade bonus to the colonial subject owning that province so that they can upgrade it.

We'll rework current missions, events and modifiers for this set of new monuments, yes. Probably at the first moment that will be done as with Versailles and Forbidden City decisions, so they'd depend on available DLC of the player, but perhaps in the future we can rework them in the style you're suggesting.

Interesting. Just one thing bothers me. Why do all muslim monuments give positive piety? One granting mysticism would be a nice change (iirc the samarkhand one did in its first iteration)

We're currently balancing that, so any of the current piety monuments would give mysticism instead of legalism.

Looking forward to them. A map mode showing the monuments would be very useful as well.

It will be added in 1.31.5.

When listing the benefits, it would also be useful to list the requirements (religion, culture?)

Well, I didn't put them because the post would be too blobby IMHO, but they will be:

- No requirements: Potosí and Belém Tower.
- Culture requirements: El Escorial (Iberian group).
- Religious: Muslim (Kaaba and Djenné), Muslim, Christian or Jewish (Jerusalem), Confucian (Hue).

Nice addition. I hope Korea & Italy & Germany get monument next time.

Santa Maria del Fiore and Brandenburg Gate were really closed on being added, so those will probably be part of next addition wave.

Shouldn't the Jerusalem one be more about tolerance than conversion? Also most of the Spanish Empire's silver came from Potosi. Maybe it should give a bonus to filling up treasure fleets.

That's an interesting focus about Jerusalem; we'll be thinking about that for next versions, for sure, as some rework may be done.

@Pavía

For future references and suggestions, what would constitute a great project/monument?

You've got a huge bunch of proposal in Monument Megathread, of very different types. We'll try to keep a balance between history, geography and gameplay when choosing and adding more.

I find it odd that the Dai Viet one only gives Confucian bonus and no Buddhist bonus when Dai Viet can go either way. I would expect it to have a karma decay modifier as well.

We'll think about that, for sure.

 

[Johan]

Grande Pavía! Finally we have a spaniard inside giving Spain the love it deserves among so many anglo lover.

Heh.. we have 19 employees at tinto so far.. 3 swedes, 2 brits, 1 german and the rest from Spain.

 

[Pavía]

Grande Pavía! Finally we have a spaniard inside giving Spain the love it deserves among so many anglo lover.

As Johan just said, we're right now a multinational team here at Tinto. That will be interesting in the next days, as Euro goes on.

Looks quite interesting, I wonder if we going to have more new stuff with this update

@Pavía , do you plan to release it as a beta first like 1.31.4 ?

hope to play with this update soon

Yes, we're going to release 1.31.5 first as a beta, take account of stability and bug issues, and then continue working on fixing.

Nice selection, but I am surprised the Brandenburg Gate didn't make it since I saw a lot of votes for it.

If there will ever be a round focussed on monuments in the German region, we have quite a lot to choose from - many of which relevant to the HRE as a whole:
- Hofburg or St. Stephans
- Herrenhausen Gardens
- Aachen Cathedral
- Ulmer Minster
- Speyer Cathedral
- Brandenburg Gate
- Sanssouci
- Dresden Zwinger
- Malbork Castle


I really hope that monuments will continue to get expanded on, but I also feel like monuments should be tied to certain ages or finished NI milestones to ground them more - as they are right now they feel a bit too ahistorical in terms of their requirements.

There are really a lot of monuments that may be added worldwide, and we may also some requirements/modifiers rework on the future, as versions get more stable, and we have enough feedback to better balance things out.

Those look like some good Monuments!

Has there been any thought given to the universal costs/time of each monument, perhaps some giving lesser bonuses being cheaper/quicker to build?

We're going to do some changes on monuments upgrade and speeding up cost in 1.31.5, but we're already thinking on improving it in future patches.

@Pavía Lovely… more monuments…

Could we expect at some point an option to disable all the wonderful additions of Leviathan and to play in a (slightly) more believable world, one where special buildings don’t give magical bonuses and natives don’t blockade the colonisées (from what I heard, since I never bothered to play 1.31)?

Well, it's really easy to take care of this if you don't really like Leviathan features. Meanwhile, we'll continue working on improving the content both for the DLC and the 1.31 versions.

This is nice, but shouldn't the priority be to fix the major bugs and errors still remaining in the 1.31 update group before moving on to new content? Or is it being done simultaneously?

We shall fix a bunch of bugs and issues in 1.31.5 apart from adding monuments, and our roadmap for the next few weeks is to keep working on fixing stuff.

 

[Aldaron]

Good stuff overall, especially promising to see you guys changing an existing monument to another that is more fitting.
Kind of wish you went with Casa de Contratación instead of El Escorial as I think that would fit the theme better, but overall good additions

It was discussed, but we all agreed in the end that El Escorial is more "majestic" as a building.

 

[Pavía]

Paradox... I feel like you forgot that Dai Viet starts as Mahayana, is one of the very few Mahayana tags, and has achievements to stay Mahayana. You have essentially railroaded players into converting to Confucian every game.

Already fixed.

Fantastic news. A Manueline style building, and an iconic one and relevant to the timeline. Wonderfull.

A suggestion of I may, wouldn't it be better to buff Marines or increase the amount of units available for recruitment instead of manpower? Since lvl 2 and 3 increases the sailor amount, it would work better for the Portuguese Player to send Marines instead of army units around the globe.

We decided to keep the Manpower modifier from Pena Palace as it fits the barracks that Philip II ordered to build by the tower in 1580's. Anyway, we can take into account the Marine modifier in further versions, although Portugal already has an edge in that type of warfare.

Interesting! I'm glad you're deciding to do more monuments than the initial 3. I'm also happy to see this post on the account of given feedback. This always encourages to give more feedback!

A question: the monuments currently on the holy sites, do they the replace the province modifiers as well? If not: great! If so: losing the missionary will hurt!

I really like the artwork of the monuments too.

Also, a return of the weekly dev diaries? (I hope)

Nice to see a fellow historian working at Paradox, makes me happy
About the monuments, I really loved the choices and the art style. Kaaba and Jerusalem are a must, and I'm glad they'll be added soon. Will The Conquest of Jerusalem modifier still exist or will it be replaced by the monument modifiers?

As I said previously, we'll rework on the existing modifiers of some provinces, events and missions, so they fit the new monuments properly.

May I suggest Kaaba gives Mysticism instead of Warscore vs Heathens?

That could be taken into account, OFC.

Looks nice! Although I think El Escorial should require being catholic as well. It's a monastery after all and the way it works right now it coud be used by Granada/Andalusia being muslim countries

It was already in our minds as El Escorial is actually a palace-monastery, you're right. Finally, we decided to give it the Iberian culture requirement, so it works pretty much as Versailles and the Tower of London.

add something for easter europe malbork or something its sick how you ignore that part of a world

Malbork Castle was already proposed in the 12 monuments vote list. To be clear, the remaining monuments in that list is our current 'shortlist' of next monuments to be added, sooner or later.

Wonderful! Excited to see these new mechanics in action and how the balance is managed for them.
Any updates on a map mode to show monuments and their upgrade status? That is my main gripe, it's just hard to find them unless you know where they are.

Cheers Tinto! Thanks for the continued hard work!

As I already announced, there will be a monuments map mode in 1.31.5.

 

[Pizzicato]

Nothing about the expand empire cb causing too much agressive expansion has been said yet. Are we finally going to see fixes to game breaking bugs in this patch?

Please...please... Fix the bugs first. You can't play the HRE emperor right now because of the expand empire cb bug. It's frustrating. I've been wanting to play Austria for months and wasted many hours testing to see if the glitch has been fixed yet.

As @Mordred Viking said, different people work on different areas. Just because today we announced new Monuments does not mean we do not work on bug fixes or that we are sacrificing bug fixes for them.

In your specific case the expand empire AE bug should be fixed for 1.31.5 as far as I can see.

 

[Pavía]

Again, thanks everybody for your kind words, and the good reception for the new monuments; now we can see reactions to the post, and they're already pretty positive!

Very nice changes! I just have a few points/questions, some have already been asked and even answered like the Jerusalem holy city maybe being more about religious unity whereas the Kaaba could be more about conversion, but my main question would be:

Since the holy city now gives an extra missionary at lvl 3, will the missionary from having Jerusalem itself disappear?

Will the monuments give extra bonuses for building them on top of controlling the holy cities as various religions, or will they completely replace them? Will Christian denominations no longer get a bonus for controlling Mecca and Medina for instance?

Will conquering Jerusalem and Mecca still give you an extra missionary? If not I’d consider it a big nerf especially for European countries trying to conquer Mecca.

Jerusalem modifier will be replaced for people with Leviathan by the monument itself, as it can be used by Muslims, Christians and Jewish. For people without Leviathan, the modifier will remain as it is.

About Mecca modifier, it will also remain, as the modifier is only for Christian countries, while the Kaaba monument is restricted to Muslim countries.

No love for Korea...?

It's not like there's a lack of historically important monuments in the Peninsula, nor the lack of Korean players to incentivise doing so - both Japan and China get three monuments each, Korea having zero's kinda sad.

Mt. Paektu is a must, imo. If Jp has Fuji. Why not Korea would have Paektu. Given the Korea and Manchu MT has some flavour related Mt Paektu. Some other korean man made would be nice as well.

We already have some suggestions for Korea in our 'long list', and it's a region where a monument would be worth. Can't promise when we'd be able to add more monuments to the game, we'll have to think about it in the next months.

Dai Viet already has +1 Yearly legitimacy in her ideas. Too much legitimacy in my opinion.
Since the Imperial City of Hue was technically one of many Vietnamese star forts. Maybe you should consider replacing legitimacy with a defense/fort modifier.

Good suggestions. For the moment we'll keep the Legitimacy modifier, but that can be changed in a future version, OFC.

I welcome the new additions, altough i'm pretty saddened by the fact that the only other monument being considered for future addition in Italy is S. Maria del Fiore in Florence. There are plenty of equally iconic buildings in the peninsula, staying on sacred ones you could think of many like the Duomo of Milan or the Holy complex of Pisa with its world renown leaning tower.
I have not understood clearly what you guys think constitues a monument, i think it might have to do with the fact that, i assume, multiple people worked on them so each one of you had a different idea on that and the final outcome wasn't very standardized. For example I'm pretty baffled by the fact that Stonehenge is a monument (maybe you just needed at least one thing for pagans?) while something like the largest industrial complex in Europe before the industrial revolution, the Venetian Arsenal, isn't. No big deal tho, i guess that the list of possible future additions can grow some more!

Again, we already received a lot of good suggestions in Monuments Megathread, for new monuments in Milan, Venice, Pisa, Naples... We'll take that into account and decide when the time comes.

Exciting changes! I’m glad to see that you’re listening to community feedback. While you’re at it, could Moscow’s monument be changed to St. Basil’s Cathedral? That’d make far more historical sense, and it’s what many people (even if wrongly) think of when they hear “Kremlin”, anyway.

Also, while I’m at it, I really hope that the new Monuments mapmode is integrated into an existing mapmode— my candidate being Government— rather than set out all on its own. We have far too many mapmodes that individually don’t provide enough information to be useful, such as Metropolitan (which should really be integrated into the Religious mapmode, along with cardinals).

St. Basil's already suggested as a monument, we'll study about that (although 'The Kremlin' is not so bad IMHO).

About the map mode, it will be a separated one for the moment. Perhaps in the future we could think about doing some merging, but we'll see.

Question: Can something be done with monuments that you don't fullfill requiremtns for? Ideally, if you upgrade them you get nice perks with cultures/relgions that benefit from them: e.g. upgrading one of the monuments that require to be Buddihst will increase tolerance of them in your nation despite your actual religion.

I think that, overall, the requirements system for monuments doesn't work ATM as we'd desire; or, said in other words, that it could work better than it does now. We're already thinking about that for future versions, but I'll ask for some patience to reach a much more satisfying solution to it.

Can we have a mechanic penalizing Pokemoning monuments by bloody rape pillage and murder?

Taking monuments linked to religions/cultures other than one's own should cause a penalty with all nations of said religion/culture at the very least lowering diplomatic relations and probably also increasing revolt risk in provinces of said culture/religion and giving a CB to "reclaim our heritage" to nations of the given religion/culture.

This could have an interesting benefit of actually giving a reason to establish client states/vassals so that the monuments would be owned by (subject) nation of appropriate culture/religion and let one avoid the penalty.

There have been some interesting suggestions along this way of thinking. Again, we'll think if we can revamp the feature to make it more interesting in the future.

Can we have the cathedral of Aachen as a monument. The place where the emperor was crowned? Surely that one was more important than the cathedral of cologne that wasn't even finished until the 19. century or a castle in Austria I didn't even know existed.

Already in Germany's 'long list', with a bunch of other monuments.

Wow, a Vietnam monument, I did not expect this. This is great, my country is getting representation. Thank you a lot Paradox team.

Edit:

@Pavía could we have some change to the Vietnam's mission 'The Imperial Citadel' so that it can be tied in with this monument?

Maybe instead of a 30 development requirement, the mission would require construction of the 1st tier of the monument and a lower requirement in development (maybe 20)? Or maybe, having a discount for construction of the monument as a reward instead of the current reward?

I am new to EU IV so I am not sure if there is other missions for other countries that directly referring to a monument. However, since the Dai Viet's mission and the upcoming monument are both referencing the same object, I just think that it should be connected somehow.

Glad that you're happy about having proper cultural representation. I for me will say that Vietnam is a beautiful country, with lots of interesting monuments, and adding one is worth it, IMHO.

That said, this mission will be changed for 1.31.5, so the reward for it will be adding 1 tier to the monument.

 

[Aldaron]

Very nice... I was hopping for Jerónimos Monastery, but Belem Tower also makes sense.

PS: also kudos to @Pavía and all the other content designers!

We had on the table Jeronimos Monastery, Batalha Monastery and Torre de Belem to replace Pena Palace but in the end Torre de Belem is more recognizable by non iberians so it had an edge. We all agree that any of those three would have been a good decision.

 

[Pavía]

I have an idea:
How about dynamic artwork for monuments ? As you upgrade your monument to the next stage, the artwork changes slightly
Kind of like how the art for forts changes in the siege view as the siege progresses. (But obviously in reverse )
I know the art team already has a lot on their plate regarding monuments, so it could be applied on a few of the monuments rather than all of them, and the artwork doesn’t have to change significantly.

for example older monument which were constructed before the games timeline, like the great pyramids could look worn out and rocky, and once you finally upgrade it to the final stage, it’ll look all shiny and white like the days it was first constructed.
For the monuments which were constructed during the games timeline, the beginning stages could show the monuments under construction, and the final stages could show it fully constructed.

I think it’d give a lot more satisfaction to the player too!

This is a fantastic idea, but I don't think they will do it because it will require a lot of work from the artists. And they probably want to dedicate more resources to content that they can monetize rather than improve features we've already paid for (unfortunately).

Well, think about this as a math problem. We already have about 50 monuments. Having dynamic artwork for each level would mean having another 100 images of similar quality instead of those in the game.

Instead of that, we could have Art Team working on having 100 new images for 100 new monuments. What would make community happier? As a former long-time player, I'd think the second path is the best.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that we'll do another 100 new monuments. That's a decision we've not taken yet. Anyway, answering the second post, we're already improving features players have already paid for (these new monuments are a good example, IMHO), and we'll do it for a while, as we're currently working hard to improve the state of the game.

How will the Tower of Belém monument Interact with the Tower of Belém event?

I assume the Tower of Belém event still happens for those without Leviathan, but what about for those with it?

Do they still get the event to Build the tower? Do they lose the event? Or will they get a different event instead?

And in that case, what about the +25% Defensiveness modifier that Lisbon would normally get from the Tower of Belém event? This new monument doesn't have any defensiveness modifiers, so does this mean Leviathan owners will still get the defensiveness modifier from the event or will they lose the defensiveness bonus?

This tower was first and foremost a defensive structure, it's primary effect should be local defensiveness, so if it's not part of the monument itself, it should at least remain part of the event bonus for Leviathan owners.

Belém Tower event will have two different effects for people with or without Leviathan.

I don't really understand Austria's national monument being anything but Schönbrunn palace. Also, the Ottomans aren't able to use the pyramids of Giza after their historical conquest of Egypt. Is that intentional?

It is frustrating to play paid content only to have every other monument locked behind a cultural or religious barrier. Monuments are flexible and are often twisted to the uses of conquerors. It is quite historical, actually, to reappropriate the symbols of the past (a famous example being Hagia Sophia). Maybe some kind of decision?

Some ancient monuments requirements (Parthenon, Petra and Pyramids) are a bit reworked for 1.31.5. Anyway, we'll continue thinking about monuments requirements for future patches.

well... time to conquer spain , and accept their culture!

for Jerusalem, does it stack with current modifier? or will it lead to a removal?

I read in a separate thread that the monuments of Jerusalem and Kaaba are replacing the triggered modifiers. Users playing without leviathan have the triggers as usual still.

Jerusalem province modifier will be replaced by the monument for people with Leviathan, while Mecca province modifier will remain, as it's for Christian countries, while Kaaba is only useful for Muslim countries.

Good, but sorry, Potosí shouldn't have been even considered for Monument.
The city passed from 165k inhabitants in 1625 to 70k en 1750, and finally just 8k in 1825 when mines were exhausted. The loss of precious metals was extremely fast, not even the population lasted, contrary to monuments which are meant to last.

With Potosí, just make Cuzco and Mexico City a monument. (But hey, actually you can't take a real life man made edification from those as a monument, not a city or mountain, as for example Tenochtitlan temples as monuments but only work for Aztec culture and religion).

But Potosí truly doesn't fit the concept of monument.

How could you upgrade such monument when in real life it ONLY declined??

I strongly recommend taking some from the Flavor Universalis mod. Estern Europe, Africa, and Asia need some monumental love.

It already is.

The solution is simple: tie it to whether or not the precious metals of the province are depleted. The upgrades could be justified as "expanding mining operations". Duh.

Ahhh, no, didn't see, my bad.

And yes, that can be a solution, but still doesn't fill completely the monumentality concept of others.

We replaced the +3 produced goods Potosí province modifier for a +1 produced goods modifiers in each tier of the monument. So, the point is investing in the great mine exploitation will give you more money, as historically happened, instead of just taking and exploiting the province. As Potosí doesn't have any requirements, that can be done by Andean countries, but also by foreign conquerors.

From my personal POV, having 165K inhabitants in a place as Potosí in 1625 is pretty impressive; but the idea about its "monumentality" was also shared by other members of the team, and the people that voted it. Anyway, adding some effects about the mine depletion is an interesting suggestion, we'll think about how that fits the current monuments feature.

 

[Pavía]

In that case, wouldn't it make sense for the +25% defensiveness from the event in non-leviathan to be included in the monument bonuses in Leviathan?

Because otherwise Leviathan would be essentially removing the defensiveness modifier of the Belem Tower, which was the whole point of the tower.

Unless the event has different effects that also include the defensiveness modifier?

While redesigning this monument, we already thought about the Defensiveness modifier, and even about something akin to Coastal Defence buildings modifiers. But we also wanted to keep the Manpower modifier, for historical and gameplay reasons, and coupled with that, we thought that the monument would be left a bit weak. Anyone, as we keep receiving feedback, this may be changed in the future, OFC.

Could the Mosque of Djenne give a religious unity benefit if occupied by a Pagan nation? Since there's a lot of them around there. Mali itself is mostly Pagan with only its capital being Sunni IRC. Or some other benefit? The one thing I don't like about monuments is that many of them don't do anything at all unless you are the right religion/culture. Some of them I think would have some if not lesser benefits. I admit it, Benin is my most played start. I like their tier 3 and tier 4 unit models .

I mean I get it, you don't want to encourage people to blob like crazy and get stacks of benefits for taking all the monuments but if they were improved and invested upon, their benefits could theoretically change to reflect the nature of the 'new' owners. So while the baseline benefits could be 'only if you meet x', upgrading them could be more universal but would still be best if you had the matching religion. It makes sense to me giving some degree of heathen tolerance or religious unity for improving a religious structure that does not match the nations religion, especially if they are humanist.

Hum, FTM this is an Islamic mosque, and was designed as that for requirements. Perhaps in the future we'll think about how requirements work more generally, as we've got two different POV's from players (it's funny to have all monuments unlocked for every country, but at the same time it could be too overpowered).

@Pavía I did not notice this post but I don't think having religious constriction for The Huế Imperial City is a good idea. Đại Việt starts off as a Mahayana rather than Confucian and only changes to Confucian after this event:

Granted, its MTTH is 60 months, but there is still a chance that it will never fire at all, correct? Further more, it will restrict the freedom of playstyle as some players may want to play as Buddhist instead of Confucian. Let not forget that the only Đại Việt achievement requires that you stay Mahayana instead of converting. Also, if you think about it, the Imperial city is just a palace & citadel. It is no different that The Grand Palace of Bangkok or The Versailles and don't really have that much religious connotation.

For China's Forbidden City, it is probably make sense for Confucian requirement since the monument is tied in with China's Mandate of Heaven gameplay. However, Dai Viet probably don't toy around with the mandate that much and thus it should not restrict the players to go another route.

We already tackled this issue, and it's going to be out in 1.31.5 with both Harmony and Karma Decay modifiers, so it'd work for a Confucian or a Mahayana Dai Viet.

Will the 1.31.5 update and the new monuments be compatible with 1.31.4 save games?

No, as the new monuments won't be in 1.31.4 files, and we even replace one in the new patch (Pena Palace in 1.31.4, Belém Tower in 1.31.5).

 

[Pavía]

What are the requirements to get the bonunses for these monuments? For instance, do you have to have a certain culture or a religion etc for these to work?

Well, I didn't put them because the post would be too blobby IMHO, but they will be:

- No requirements: Potosí and Belém Tower.
- Culture requirements: El Escorial (Iberian group).
- Religious: Muslim (Kaaba and Djenné), Muslim, Christian or Jewish (Jerusalem), Confucian and Mahayana (Hue).

So if I understand this correctly these new monuments are a nerf to Christian and Muslim religious playthroughs? Since there are less missionaries and it is now very costly to get a worse modifier than what was once free?

Not necessarily a nerf, but a way of playing differently. And not all players do wide/WC runs or MP, where this kind of 'meta' is more important.

Is upgrading Potosí going to be cheaper than the current upgrade costs? Because with the current upgrade costs of 1000, 3500 and 7000, the higher tiers are not really worth it:
Assuming a rather favorable situation of 20 production development(=4 goods produced) in the two gold production provinces in the area (Potosí and Quillacas) and prosperity in the state, the incomes for each tier are: (ignoring the goods produced increase in the other two non-gold provinces, because that accounts for less than 0.1 ducats per month)

Tier​	goods produced​	goods produced modifiers​	Monthly income​	monthly income increase​	years to pay back the upgrade cost (includes upgrade time)​
0​	4​	25 %​	16.6​	​	​
1​	5​	30 %​	21.6​	5​	26.6​
2​	6​	35 %​	27​	5.3​	74.6​
3​	7​	45 %​	33.8​	6.8​	125.3​

26 years to pay back the investment for tier 1 is quite good, but 74 years for tier 2 is not so good and 125 years for tier 3 is very bad. For comparison building a temple in a province with 3 tax development gives 0.1 ducats per month and pays for itself in 83 years. And that is something I almost never do, because there are usually much better investments in the game.

Monument upgrades costs are going to be lowered in 1.31.5, so the RoI for Potosí and other monuments will be better.

So no update today? No 1.31.5 beta available?
A week ago you said "soon" so when we will get access to beta version?

I'm going to paraphrase @Johan on this: A patch is never late! Nor is it ever early. It arrives precisely when I mean it to do!

So release date is still: soon.

Does forming Rome (which converts your primary culture to Roman) mean your primary-culture monuments go inactive?

Most of the culture requirements work if you have that culture as accepted, so that would depend on the monument.

 

[Pavía]

All of the culture monuments require the province to have the original culture. I.e Versailles require Paris to be French culture group, or Parthenon requires the province's culture to be Greek, so if you form Rome as France all of a sudden your monuments go inactive. It just seems like a slap in the face since forming Rome is one of the most difficult prospects of a European nation, and now you lose access to a monument you invested so much into.

Oh, now I see what you were saying. We'll think about that; as I said, we're already analyzing how requirements should work in the next versions of the game.

why does the Holy City of Jerusalem give missionary strength against heretic and not just a flat-out increase? As a Christian who is trying to form Jerusalem, it wouldn't be worthwhile to upgrade it as everyone in the area is Muslim and as a Judaic country it would be a useless modifier as they have no heresy religions.
And as an Islamic nation it would work if you are either Ibadi or Shia. But as the majority are Sunni in the region it doesn't seem like a worthwhile monument when Kaaba is an option.

Just curious was this intentional or did you forget MSH doesn't work on Islam as a Christian or Jewish country?

Well, we wanted to work that way; for converting provinces around Jerusalem you already have the missionary area modifier. Coupled with Great Mosque of Djenné, what Muslim countries would have is a strong conversion modifier for every other confession, instead of pilling up with same kind of modifiers.

Take your time , a patch is to change some behavior of the game, it is not like a fix which allow the game to run properly,


Since Patience is a good virtue, I will cite the loading screen :

"You don't have to take all of your enemy's provinces in one war. There is plenty of time for more wars later."

Thanks for your patience. As I said, a patch comes only in due time - and it was today, as you may already have noticed.

Next week I'm taking a (well deserved) vacation time, so please post any concern, doubt or comment into the 1.31.5 beta patch thread, so my colleagues and CM's could properly answer to you there.

 

[Pavía]

Hello, i have question.
parthenon, as some another monument in europe has condition - culture = greek. If i as Byzz form roman empire, and greek culture vanished, parthenon stop working?

This is a known issue, yes. We'll look if we can solve it in next patches.

Do you plan to add more monuments with future patches?

Yes, although art takes time to be done, so we can't promise when will this be done.

Tfw Vietnam's proposed wonder is only fully utilised by a conquering China/Korea

Why? It can be used by either a Confucian or a Buddhist Dai Viet.