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Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 10th of October 2023 - Yemen and Arabia

Greetings everyone! Today we will take a look into Yemen and the Arabic states, coming back to a more regular type of DD.

Let us start with the content for the Yemeni countries:
rassid missions.png

yemen missions.png

Note: Mission icons are still WIP.

As you might notice, the first mission tree is for the Rassids while the second one is for all Yemeni countries. The reason for this is that they are one of the two unique tags that follow the Zaidi school of Islam (the other one is Gilan on that note) and even are a Feudal Theocracy, so figured they deserve a bit more attention.

In general, though, the Yemeni tags are relatively similar with a similar focus which is the unification of southern Arabia, expansion into the Horn of Africa, and, of course, trade.

The Yemeni tags won’t have any big gimmicks to play with as you will probably either form the Mamluks / Egypt or Arabia later on. With that being said, they still have some interesting additions and small design experiments. An example is the addition of more age-lasting rewards like in the “Unite Yemen” mission:
age rewards.png

Note: Completing missions with age-limited modifiers after the age has passed will just give some small monarch power instead.

These kinds of rewards should incentivize you to focus on certain missions and allow us to give impactful rewards without having to worry about them stacking too much indefinitely as this was the case with permanent rewards.

A bit of a theme for the Yemeni mission rewards is to strengthen the Propagate Religion Trade Policy as you can see in the following missions:
propagate religion.png

And as a trade-focused nation, you will gain the ‘Thalassocracy’ reward when you manage to make the Gulf of Aden the highest-valued trade node and make a monthly income of 300 ducats.
thalassocracy.png

What is a Yemeni country without its focus on coffee?
coffee.png

The “Port of Mukha” requires you to have a workshop, shipyard, and 20 development in the coffee province. The resulting plantation will then pretty much carry your economy while you can focus on “Qahwah Monopoly”.

Now a short insight in the Rassids-specific missions:
rassids missions 1.png

rassids missions 2.png

And when you are done with the Yemen mission tree then you can form into Arabia to continue your campaign. With “Unite Arabia” you will be able to form Arabia a lot earlier too:
unite arabia.png

With that being said, let’s take a look at the Arabic content. Before I go into the Arabic mission trees, I should mention that Arabia has received new ideas so they are no longer a drawback to form:

Code:
ARB_ideas = {
    start = {
        tolerance_own = 2
        years_of_nationalism = -10
    }

    bonus = {
        siege_ability = 0.15
    }

    trigger = {
        tag = ARB
    }
    free = yes

    ARB_arabian_pincers = {
        cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.25
        cavalry_power = 0.25
    }
    ARB_pact_of_umar = {
        dhimmi_loyalty_modifier = 0.1
        global_tax_modifier = 0.2
    }
    ARB_engage_in_indian_ocean_trade = {
        trade_steering = 0.2
    }
    ARB_conversion = {
        global_missionary_strength = 0.03
    }
    ARB_jihad = {
        warscore_cost_vs_other_religion = -0.1
    }
    ARB_new_caliphate_rising = {
        missionaries = 1
        missionary_maintenance_cost = -0.25
    }
    ARB_mubarizun = {
        army_tradition_decay = -0.01
    }
}

Also forming Arabia will now fire the following flavor event, allowing you to change your capital to one of the important provinces from the Caliphate states:
arabia_capital_event.png

Now to the mission tree for the Arabic countries and Arabia as a whole:
arabia_missions.png

These missions are available to all Bedouin and Hejazi countries. The mission tree is split into 5 parts, 2 of them are inspired by Hejaz while the other 2 smaller parts are inspired by Najd. The last and biggest part is telling the narrative of the formation of a new Arabic Caliphate, and as such possesses a large number of conquest missions.

Starting with the Hejaz-flavored mission parts which branch from the missions “Promote Shura” and “Protectors of the Two Cities”. Here are some highlights of these missions:
wahabism.png

protectors_of_the_cities.png

expand_jeddah_port.png

Note: Jeddah is a Coastal Desert province. So in total, the province will have a -5% Local Development Cost from mission rewards after completing these missions.

As for the Najd-flavored part, here are the following highlights:
befriend_local_amirs.png

Note: Countries which do not have the government mechanic gain +15% Permanent Reinforce Speed instead.
the_harsh_desert.png


found_riyadh.png

Before moving on to the last part of the mission tree, I should mention a special decision available to Bedouin and Hejazi countries. Near the city of Medina used to be an old gold mine which was virtually exhausted in EU4’s timeframe. However, as your early economy in Arabia is barely sufficient enough to cover your state maintenance, we have added a decision that allows the Medina province to help boost your economy for the early years:
restore_cradle_of_gold.png

And once gold runs out of its usefulness to you, you can restore Cloth production once more.
close_cradle_of_gold.png

At last, we now take a look at the core of the mission tree which is heavily dedicated to expansion to mirror the past achievements of the Islamic conquests. As these missions are quite self-explanatory, I will focus on the big highlights of this part:
topple_mamluks.png

abbasid_legacy.png

unite_the_homeland.png

caliphal_ambitions.png

Note: The mission is significantly easier to complete than the Unify Islam decision.

rightly_guided.png

That was it for this week. Next week @Pavía will present you a feature breakdown of 1.36 as well as new and exciting QoL and modding additions. Until then, I wish you all a great week!
 
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Wahhabism seems a bit anachronistic, but I suppose I can live with that. The more important question is can we get some flavour for non-terrible interpretations of Islam as well? I for one would enjoy the roleplay of a tolerant, scholarly Caliphate more than that of fanaticism, though I understand it does compliment the more expansionist, caliphate restoring narrative.
 
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Small correction. Neither Wahhabism nor its founder "oppose all forms of Sufism". On the contrary, Muhammad ibn Abd il-Wahhab praised those forms of Sufism that comply with the Islamic Sharia. So Wahhabism opposes many popular sufi practices, but is not categorically opposed to mysticism.
 
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Nice to see an update for Arabia, I found my Najd game to be almost completely insufferable. Mecca should really be an option for the capital.

Trebizond tree? Hello??? How am I supposed to LARP as Alexios without it?????
 
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Hi there! We understand that there might be some disappointment with the countries not getting content in the DLC (all in honesty, I had a list of like 20 interesting countries when we started planning it, so some would always be out of the final list).

However, we'd like this DD to be more focused on receiving and gathering valuable feedback about Yemen and Arabia; for instance, I like the suggestions of making Mecca and Medina possible capitals of the Caliphate, let's see if we can get it into the release version of the DLC.

I'll talk next week of the main features of the DLC as a whole, what was our design focus, and also about the 1.36 free patch, and how both are set together. I think that it will be a more appropiate moment and place to discuss about the final content list. ;)
 
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Hi there! We understand that there might be some disappointment with the countries not getting content in the DLC (all in honesty, I had a list of like 20 interesting countries when we started planning it, so some would always be out of the final list).

However, we'd like this DD to be more focused on receiving and gathering valuable feedback about Yemen and Arabia; for instance, I like the suggestions of making Mecca and Medina possible capitals of the Caliphate, let's see if we can get it into the release version of the DLC.

I'll talk next week of the main features of the DLC as a whole, what was our design focus, and also about the 1.36 free patch, and how both are set together. I think that it will be a more appropiate moment and place to discuss about the final content list. ;)

I'd like a confirmation regarding wether Mamluks/Egypt and/or Yemen will keep their mission tree if they form Arabia or get the Arabian one. I suspect it's the former for Egypt and the later for Yemen, but I haven't seen anything about it. Maybe I missed something.
 
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@Pavía Some of us mentioned this in the Mamluks thread, but will we see Coptic as a culture and more Coptic flavour for Egypt? Will we see the "Coptic religion" finally renamed "Miaphysite" (which would be a more accurate term)? It seems like the Copts are kind of getting shafted this update.
 
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However, we'd like this DD to be more focused on receiving and gathering valuable feedback about Yemen and Arabia; for instance, I like the suggestions of making Mecca and Medina possible capitals of the Caliphate, let's see if we can get it into the release version of the DLC.

All I know is that scramble for colonies was one of the main stake during modern era, mainly between european powers, except one : Oman.

Other than this, I am respectfully sorry to tell you that I have no valuable feedback to give about countries that achieved "nothing" during EU4's timeline (Or maybe I'm just too disappointed at the moment). Yemen has been in trouble for centuries and still is. I get the the short Tahirid era but it was quickly demolished by the Mamluks. Arabia is meant to represent an achievement for the player which can only be left to free interpretation.
I can name a single country that was relevant in Arabia during this timeline, and this is Oman.

That's a HUUUGE let down. I fail to understand how Oman can go through the drops. It would have brought a nice touch of diversity and flavor to the gameplay in the region. Meanwhile, Hadramut has a colonist...
 
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Hi there! We understand that there might be some disappointment with the countries not getting content in the DLC (all in honesty, I had a list of like 20 interesting countries when we started planning it, so some would always be out of the final list).

However, we'd like this DD to be more focused on receiving and gathering valuable feedback about Yemen and Arabia; for instance, I like the suggestions of making Mecca and Medina possible capitals of the Caliphate, let's see if we can get it into the release version of the DLC.

I'll talk next week of the main features of the DLC as a whole, what was our design focus, and also about the 1.36 free patch, and how both are set together. I think that it will be a more appropiate moment and place to discuss about the final content list. ;)

Personally, I've been eagerly awaiting a DLC for my favorite region to play in, for years. If you say it would be best to discuss this next week then I shall oblige, but I hope you guys can truly engage and work with us then, and lay out clear intentions for the future.

There were passing comments about what we could expect from the fabled ME update, and also, common sense steered us to believe certain interesting nations were a guaranteed. As it seemed we were wrong, it would be great to be clarified about what expectations can be put aside for the forseeable development of the game.
 
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Hi there! We understand that there might be some disappointment with the countries not getting content in the DLC (all in honesty, I had a list of like 20 interesting countries when we started planning it, so some would always be out of the final list).

However, we'd like this DD to be more focused on receiving and gathering valuable feedback about Yemen and Arabia; for instance, I like the suggestions of making Mecca and Medina possible capitals of the Caliphate, let's see if we can get it into the release version of the DLC.

I'll talk next week of the main features of the DLC as a whole, what was our design focus, and also about the 1.36 free patch, and how both are set together. I think that it will be a more appropiate moment and place to discuss about the final content list. ;)
By the way of this response I would like to ask if it would be possible to get an answer in the next DD why the Timurids,the most important power in the Middle East and Persia was skipped over the Byzantines who have a lot more flavor with the Purple Phoenix,while the Timurids mission tree is extremely dated and if not in this dlc is there a possibility of a rework.
 
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Hi there! We understand that there might be some disappointment with the countries not getting content in the DLC (all in honesty, I had a list of like 20 interesting countries when we started planning it, so some would always be out of the final list).

However, we'd like this DD to be more focused on receiving and gathering valuable feedback about Yemen and Arabia; for instance, I like the suggestions of making Mecca and Medina possible capitals of the Caliphate, let's see if we can get it into the release version of the DLC.

I'll talk next week of the main features of the DLC as a whole, what was our design focus, and also about the 1.36 free patch, and how both are set together. I think that it will be a more appropiate moment and place to discuss about the final content list. ;)
I think the main issue is that you sell this as a “Middle East DLC” and start with only 20 of the tags as an acceptable base line to begin with. There is little ambition in this dlc, and considering the history of the game, that is sad.

It is most disappointing to know one of the final dlc’s to come seems rushed and shallow.

I have been a fan since EU4 came out, and in no way oppose all you do. In fact I thank you and the team for providing longevity for so long. However, in my opinion, this should not come out in the state it is in, as the definitive Middle East sendoff. If these are the only countries to be featured, and as plain as the trees are; it feels like half a dlc, if that.
 
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There should be an option to have a mechanic similar to Sinicization for Arabia, where some cultures can be converted to become part of the larger Levantine culture group. This would allow for more flavour and would also be a nod to modern pan-arabism. The requirements and effects can function similarly to what we saw for AQ.

This could include:
-Algerian
-Moroccan
-Tunisian
-The Sudanese culture group

Some other cultures that could be added, although a bit less directly representative
-Somali
-Berber
-Kurdish
-Tuareg
-Andalusian
 
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Hi there! We understand that there might be some disappointment with the countries not getting content in the DLC (all in honesty, I had a list of like 20 interesting countries when we started planning it, so some would always be out of the final list).

However, we'd like this DD to be more focused on receiving and gathering valuable feedback about Yemen and Arabia; for instance, I like the suggestions of making Mecca and Medina possible capitals of the Caliphate, let's see if we can get it into the release version of the DLC.

I'll talk next week of the main features of the DLC as a whole, what was our design focus, and also about the 1.36 free patch, and how both are set together. I think that it will be a more appropiate moment and place to discuss about the final content list. ;)
I assume this is just flat out confirming that Oman nor any other ME countries are getting content. Honestly extremely disappointing, I was super excited for this middle eastern dlc and it ended up being barely middle east at all.
 
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Strong, but kinda outdated one. AFAIK there's no mission in their tree that gives them any permanent bonus, just 25 years bonuses and permaclaims. IMO, pretty boring.
And lack of flavor content like events or gov reforms is showing.
It gives you a path into forming the Mughals, ie the Kings of Permabonuses.
 
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Would it not make sense to have Mecca as an eligible capital?
No, not exactly. None of the caliphates, and not even the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم, had Mecca as their capital. Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali رضي الله عنهم all ruled from Medina. Their successors moved capitals around to Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo.
 
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I've just watched a couple of EU4 Youtubers commenting this dev diary, but I noticed that the core creation cost in the Arabian ideas has been changed with tolerance of the true faith. Did you change it between the early access and the release? Or was it a mistake?
Personally, I think CCR fits the theme of one of the biggest empires and fastest conquerors in history a bit better.
 
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