Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 18th of January 2022

[Kauê II]

Post Scriptum II: Fixed an important detail in the event I mentioned in Tuesday's post that was not included in my initial post due to a typo. I also partially changed the color for emphasis and better visibility for developers.

 

[Pavía]

Since we are talking about changes in Portugal, including the idea “Encourage the Bandeirantes”. Can there be any more changes there? As when acquiring such an idea, Portugal and / or the colonial nations of this can disrespect the Treaty of Tordesilhas without suffering penalties or suffering in a mitigated way. The bandeirantes were largely responsible for the current territorial size of Brazil and the breakup of the Treaty of Tordesilhas. This should have the possibility to be replaced later by the Treaty of Madrid in game[1] and may have some different mechanics to be discussed. In fact, this should be worked out better, also considering the events of the Guarani nation.

Currently in the game, to trigger the event “Sepé Tiaraju” it is necessary that Guarani is not catholic and that has knowledge of a catholic neighbouring country that he has its capital in Europe or is the colonial subject of a European country that follows catholicism. Very strange considering that we are dealing with indigenous villages founded by Spanish Jesuits and I also believe that Sepé Tiaraju is still in the process of canonization defended by the diocese of Bagé (Brazil).

On the subject, I think it is relevant to complement [2] :
“... The Guarani's objective was to maintain the status quo in which they lived. In other words, it was not intended to defend an original system of life, but rather to maintain the usual lands, expanded with catechesis. The fight was not against the Spanish Crown, or its representatives, but against the provisions of the Treaty of Madrid and the usual enemies: the Portuguese. They had an idea of the historical moment they were going through and tried to reverse the decision based on political contributions.”

Post scriptum: I continued the subject in the next post.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Madrid_(13_January_1750)

[2] https://lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/62024/000867567.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (in portuguese)

There is yet another snippet from the source above that I think is important to share here:

“...Lia Quarleni affirm that the indigenous people understood that there was a vassalage pact, with rights and obligations, which ended, for example, the Guarani militias. As the Spanish Crown broke this pact, armed resistance would be a natural response on the part of the Indians. In order for a vassalage pact to exist, it was necessary that a land: in the case of the Missioneiro. In their eyes, the Guarani possessed a land they had inherited from their ancestors. Their presence in the Tape region, however, would be linked to the need to garrison and patrol this border. They would be “auxiliary troops” of the Catholic king to protect the Province of Paraguay and the lands close to the Rio de la Plata. Júlio Quevedo highlights that “the cry for land implies land” in an attempt to “maintain the status quo”, that is, the territory.
This situation is perceived as is clear in the letter of the caciques of São João writing to governor Andona in the sixteenth of july 1753: “we were not conquered by any Spaniard, by reason and words of the priests we became vassals of our King””.

I may like to take look over how the Treaty of Tordesillas work at some point, but it's a low priority issue at this point of development.

The Guaraní situation and revolts is indeed really interesting, as it's probably one of the best documented indigenous revolts in American Colonial Age, yes.

Seeing how Portugal finally got a decent idea set after a long crusade by a few well-known members of the forum *cough* @Sete *cough* @Bandua_of_Gallaecia , would it be possible for you to look into Korea's idea set too? It's currently both weak and bland, and whilst Korea was never the expansionist hegemon that some other tags in game were, you could gear their idea set towards playing tall, along with buffing the Korean navy to match its incredible historical prowess.

Spoiler: Korean Ideas

Traditions:
-10% Development Cost
-10% Advisor Cost

1. The Hangul Alphabet
-10% Technology Cost

2. Geobukseon
+10% Ship Durability
+20% Galley Combat Ability

3. The Righteous Army
+10% Land Morale

4. The Gyeong’guk Daejeon
-10% Stability Cost Modifier

5. The Ginseng Trade
+10% Goods Produced

6. Gyujang’gak
-10% Idea Cost
+25% Harmonisation Speed

7. Geojung’gi
-15% Construction Cost

Ambitions
+10% Fire Damage Dealt

Notable changes include the dev cost reduction and a buff to the construction cost reduction, so that Korea has a better time 'playing tall', along with the removal of the national manpower modifier (Korea never really had that big of an army), and the addition of galley combat ability to represent the Geobukseon.

The -10% advisor cost ambition replaces the +25% domestic trade power, considering how trade was discouraged in Korea due to Confucianist teachings (and also because the Korean government was managed in a way that made it hard to tax merchants). This, coupled along with the now buffed Hangul Alphabet, should mean that Korea has an easier time keeping up on tech and ideas, providing flavour to the previously bland idea set.

The Grand Code for State Administration has been renamed to its Korean name — Gyeong'guk Daejeon — because I didn't really see why this idea in particular stands out from the others.

Spoiler: Code

korean_ideas = {
    start = {
        development_cost = -0.1
        advisor_cost = -0.1
    }
    bonus = {
        fire_damage = 0.10
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = KOR
    }
    free = yes

    hangul_alphabet = {
        technology_cost= -0.1
    }

    geobukseon = {
        ship_durability = 0.1
        galley_power = 0.2
    }

    righteous_army = {
        land_morale = 0.10
    }

    gyeongguk_daejeon = {
        stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
    }

    ginseng_trade = {
        global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.10
    }

    gyujanggak = {
        idea_cost = -0.10
        harmonization_speed = 0.25
    }

    geojunggi = {
        build_cost = -0.15
    }
}

Spoiler: Descriptions

korean_ideas: "Korean Ideas"
 korean_ideas_start: "Korean Traditions"
 korean_ideas_bonus: "Korean Ambition"
 hangul_alphabet: "The Hangul Alphabet"
 hangul_alphabet_desc: "The Korean language is so fundamentally different from Chinese, that the use of Chinese characters renders all but the most highly educated illiterate. The Hangul Alphabet, developed under the direct guidance of King Sejong, is said to be so simple to understand that a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over, while even a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."
 geobukseon_princes: "Geobukseon"
 geobukseon_desc: "While the ordinary Panokseons make up the bulk of the Korean navy, the legacy of defending against piracy and naval invasions has led to the development of the Geobukseon, an armoured ship lined with spikes that resembles a turtle, giving it its name."
 righteous_army: "The Righteous Army"
 righteous_army_desc: "As local militias that operated independently, the Righteous Armies of Korea would rise to defend their homeland when their government failed to defend them."
 gyeongguk_daejeon: "Gyeong’guk Daejeon"
 gyeongguk_daejeon_desc: "The Gyeong’guk Daejeon was a written constitution based on the previous constitutions of the Joseon Gyeong’gukjeon and the Gyeongjeyukjeon. Created to codify exactly how the government was to be run, it would serve as the basis of Korean administration for centuries."
 ginseng_trade: "The Ginseng Trade"
 ginseng_trade_desc: "Korean Ginseng was widely renowned throughout East Asia, fetching high prices in both goods and silver. We should encourage the production of Ginseng to further enrichen the country."
 gyujanggak: "Gyujang’gak"
 gyujanggak_desc: "Created by King Jeongjo as the royal library, the Gyujanggak would serve as the repository for Korea’s most important historical records and cultural documents."
 geojunggi: "Geojung’gi"
 geojunggi_desc: "The Geojung’gi was a crane designed to use pulleys, increasing the efficiency and speed of construction."

Interesting. We may take a look on it, although I can't make any promises for the moment (as I did with the Portuguese NI's, because it took us a bit of time to review and improve them, as some testing of the region is involved with these kind of changes).

@Pavía , a question. Would there be new ways for Celestial Empire to establish tributaries especially the overseas tributaries in SEA? The current way of establish tributary is having a shared border in order to accept diplomatically or having waged war against them and select make tributary. Historically Qing have some tributaries in maritime SEA which included Sulu Sultanate, Lanfang Republic. So if a player claimed the Mandate of Heaven and want some tributaries to stabilize the mandate they only able to do so with neighbouring nations which severely limit the path of expansion.

Perhaps the modifier Are not neighbours can be reduced and the Distance between Borders can be increased exponentially so that maritime tributary still be able to diplomatically establish yet at the same time prevent long distance tributary.

This is really interesting suggestion, we'll think about it after current testing of MoH/EoC is finished.

 

[wobarch]

Hello @Pavía I really hoped for an anwser - it would be so cool to hear something about the monument status. I also really hoped to get more details about making monuments more usefull (I suggested 3 ideas with your positive response a while back ago)

• Alert. There need to be an alert when I can upgrade a monument. (As we have it for buildings, trade comp etc.) – a lot of players will then first see that they even have a monument (esp. if they start in a country with a monument) or will remember, that they have one. As the “first” alert will be starting at 1000 D. it will not collide with the other alerts that start normally around 100D or 200D. Ofc, the alert need to work for all 3 stages.
• Peace Deal. In the Province Screen of the peace deal should be a simple sign (like triangle) behind the province name (or likewise) to show the player that there is a monument in that province, as it really is a strategic decision to take a certain province or not, and would help to reduce a lot of frustration by simple forgetting, that the opponent had a monument in that province. When you hover over the sign, there should be tooltip showing the monument name, stage and effects.
• Makrobuilder. There is the need of a separate overview about every owned monument in the makrobuilder. In the Building section, right after the ledger of normal Buildings and the trade company building ones. indirect owned monuments by Vassals, Colonial Nations and PUs should be also seen there in a different colour. In this Makrobuilder tab you should see the current stage and effect. Also you should be able to upgrade the stage and use the 2 possibilites to make the build process faster in that monument.

As a historian: One big missed opportunity with monuments was for me, that there are no informations about the herritage/reason for the monuments. WIth most of the other things you could actually learn something. It is a shame, that there is not even a small tooltip with 2-3 sentences about the monument itself as we have it for most of the other immersive and also educating features. I don't think it would be a big effort, but a very good thing to give it a bigger quality!

Hello -

Regarding 1.33 I really hoped for some more balancing and adjusting of 1.31 and 1.32 features. For example its kinda harsh to add new mechanics for the jewish faith and then have almost no possiblity to play with it. Besides much needed new events/possibilities to get jewish (or give an input of the important role a lot of jewish minorities had in a lot of countries/goverment), there are 5 things that are gameplaywise i.m.o. a bad choice. I played a lot with jewish after the patch.

1. Christians can crusade you - why? Is there any reason for that? There should be at least a variation if its need to be possible.

2. You loose the mameluk goverment reform if you convert to jewish after conquering the ethiopian provinces. - Why? The Mameluk Goverment is a lot about diversity of his rulers etc, but suddently you lose all of it (without any warning or reasoning) I guess it would be great to allow the goverment to be also jewish to don't miss out a big part of immersive events and content just for switching to jewish.

3. You can't form ethiopia while being jewish - you need to be coptic. Why? As a ethiopian minor you just lose out of the possiblity of converting and reforming later in ethiopia and are stuck now forever with a bigger missiontree as the minors don't get any love. Also as jewish reformed ethiopia your coptic missions are not pssible.

4. You can't form Israel as a jewish mameluck or likewise

4. The temple of jerusalem event. You need to know the wiki for that - why? As there are just a few and very soon repetitiv events for the jewish faith you miss out about this possiblity. A very simple solution would be, that you get an event when conquering jerusalem, that it maybe would be a good reason to convert the holy city back to his faith, as it could help the glory of the old monument or something like that.

Estates:
Kilwa. The 30 Influence for their unique Estate privileg about the gold mines is waaay to high, so I would never pick it, as it would be very hard to get away ever again (together with the +5 Power Costs, what is fair). I guess 15-20 Influence would be still high, but managable. Maybe you could combine it with -5 Crownland for picking. (or smth)

Please also consider to make the estate overview tab more apealing and logical for newer players - there are alreay a lot of good mods to to that.


China: I still thing its a big downer to let people feel that first play ming, that they don't have missions. Conquest missions are not needed, but it would be very nice and userfriendly to make just a few missions that tell the people to handle the situation in the north (and warn them about the disasters or let him rebuild the "great wall"), to harmonize one religion (and give them a buff one time), to use the mandate of heaven once or gather 2-3 new tributaries and one about the estates. With that you could get 4-5 missions without overpowering ming, but give the player a nice connecting of existing features for ming and the player wouldn't feel, that mings missions tree would be empty (and ofc you could transfer this missiontree to ming revoltertags)

 

[Pavía]

Hello @Pavía I really hoped for an anwser - it would be so cool to hear something about the monument status. I also really hoped to get more details about making monuments more usefull (I suggested 3 ideas with your positive response a while back ago)

• Alert. There need to be an alert when I can upgrade a monument. (As we have it for buildings, trade comp etc.) – a lot of players will then first see that they even have a monument (esp. if they start in a country with a monument) or will remember, that they have one. As the “first” alert will be starting at 1000 D. it will not collide with the other alerts that start normally around 100D or 200D. Ofc, the alert need to work for all 3 stages.
• Peace Deal. In the Province Screen of the peace deal should be a simple sign (like triangle) behind the province name (or likewise) to show the player that there is a monument in that province, as it really is a strategic decision to take a certain province or not, and would help to reduce a lot of frustration by simple forgetting, that the opponent had a monument in that province. When you hover over the sign, there should be tooltip showing the monument name, stage and effects.
• Makrobuilder. There is the need of a separate overview about every owned monument in the makrobuilder. In the Building section, right after the ledger of normal Buildings and the trade company building ones. indirect owned monuments by Vassals, Colonial Nations and PUs should be also seen there in a different colour. In this Makrobuilder tab you should see the current stage and effect. Also you should be able to upgrade the stage and use the 2 possibilites to make the build process faster in that monument.

As a historian: One big missed opportunity with monuments was for me, that there are no informations about the herritage/reason for the monuments. WIth most of the other things you could actually learn something. It is a shame, that there is not even a small tooltip with 2-3 sentences about the monument itself as we have it for most of the other immersive and also educating features. I don't think it would be a big effort, but a very good thing to give it a bigger quality!

Hi wobarch! We've come through your detailed post, yes, and added some of your suggestions, while on others we were already working on. The Alert for upgrading monuments will be included in 1.33 for sure, Ethiopia can now be formed even if you are not coptic, we've done some tweakings to the Temple event and the gold mines privilege (downed from 30 to 15 influence, indeed), and maybe some other things I'm missing now; I'll be talking about some of these changes on next week's DD. Others won't probably do the cut for 1.33 (the macrobuilder thing, I think, e.g.), but we'll keep working on implementing these kind of balancing and QoL stuff for the next patch (that is, 1.34), for sure.

 

[Mindel]

Hi wobarch! We've come through your detailed post, yes, and added some of your suggestions, while on others we were already working on. The Alert for upgrading monuments will be included in 1.33 for sure, Ethiopia can now be formed even if you are not coptic, we've done some tweakings to the Temple event and the gold mines privilege (downed from 30 to 15 influence, indeed), and maybe some other things I'm missing now; I'll be talking about some of these changes on next week's DD. Others won't probably do the cut for 1.33 (the macrobuilder thing, I think, e.g.), but we'll keep working on implementing these kind of balancing and QoL stuff for the next patch (that is, 1.34), for sure.

On the topic of QoL, would it be possible to add a checkbox to the state window to make edicts automatically expire as soon as possible? I tend to forget about them and leave some edicts running unwanted for decades, and I suspect I'm not alone.

 

[wobarch]

oh wow! Thank you so much @Pavía thats already so great!!

 

[Mamluksultan]

Please tell me if the 6 reformed vassals by the ming well have they Independent independent calculation and diplomatic points that do not occupy a position？In the history China impire have a very special vassals called “都护府” maybe it can be a new type of the vassal belong to Heaven impire? Sorry about my bad English.

 

[Sete]

1.33 is gearing up to be a great patch.
Edit: @Pavía
Created a mod with what i think it should be the order of Portugal ideas, for future reference.
Beyond the Cape

 

[MoorishBro]

it's getting painfully clear that Morocco (and the maghreb) needs some attention and flavour

 

[Jihem]

it's getting painfully clear that Morocco (and the maghreb) needs some attention and flavour

Yes. Also entire persian region (i'm afraid that Paradox will forget the Uzbeks and their so particular khanate of Bukhara), baltic area, indian peninsula, arabic area (Hormuz could be probably very exciting if correctly reworked) etc.

What unbalances the game so much is that there are regions entirely devoid of decent mission trees and events. And since these improvements are being made in dribs and drabs...

 

[MoorishBro]

Yes. Also entire persian region (i'm afraid that Paradox will forget the Uzbeks and their so particular khanate of Bukhara), baltic area, indian peninsula, arabic area (Hormuz could be probably very exciting if correctly reworked) etc.

What unbalances the game so much is that there are regions entirely devoid of decent mission trees and events. And since these improvements are being made in dribs and drabs...

The islamic world needs a real revamp that's for sure; currently the only muslim nations that's actually worthwile to play are the one recently reworked in the african update The rest are really meh without any interesting events, dilemmas and mission trees The ottomans get a braindead conquer this conquer that without cool events linking it with indonesia and its influence in the middle east
The timurids and mughals share the same fate Mamluks and Hisn Kayfa don't even have anything and the rest of the muslim nations are plain boring
Tunisia has a small mission tree totally devoid of life or flavour They didn't even give the maghrebi nations interesting mechanics to represent the barbary pirates in those countries as a seperate entity

 

[Jihem]

The islamic world needs a real revamp that's for sure; currently the only muslim nations that's actually worthwile to play are the one recently reworked in the african update The rest are really meh without any interesting events, dilemmas and mission trees The ottomans get a braindead conquer this conquer that without cool events linking it with indonesia and its influence in the middle east
The timurids and mughals share the same fate Mamluks and Hisn Kayfa don't even have anything and the rest of the muslim nations are plain boring
Tunisia has a small mission tree totally devoid of life or flavour They didn't even give the maghrebi nations interesting mechanics to represent the barbary pirates in those countries as a seperate entity

So little interest in this area by Paradox that the ruler of Mushaha, and another local country that I forget, is a "duke". I hope that Paradox will finalize the game by giving most countries a reworked mission tree of the same type as the Africans recently, but I am skeptical, the various announcements rather point to botched updates. Time would however be saved by enlisting the services of the Missions Expanded team (although some of their trees are crazy at times) or others.

 

[kafuuchino]

If Vietnamese and Korean cultures can move into the Chinese culture group ,Dali should can do it,also tibet.

 

[Vapiritapiri]

If Vietnamese and Korean cultures can move into the Chinese culture group ,Dali should can do it,also tibet.

What about Japan?

 

[Pavía]

So little interest in this area by Paradox that the ruler of Mushaha, and another local country that I forget, is a "duke". I hope that Paradox will finalize the game by giving most countries a reworked mission tree of the same type as the Africans recently, but I am skeptical, the various announcements rather point to botched updates. Time would however be saved by enlisting the services of the Missions Expanded team (although some of their trees are crazy at times) or others.

Already fixed the title of the ruler of Mushasha for 1.33.

If Vietnamese and Korean cultures can move into the Chinese culture group ,Dali should can do it,also tibet.

Tibetan countries will also be allowed to Sinicize in 1.33, yes.

What about Japan?

We took a look on Japan, too, but the Shogunate/Daimyo government reforms make things a bit more complicated regarding taking the Mandate of Heaven, so we decided to be a bit more conservative regarding it.