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Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 28th of February 2023 - Great Britain

Greetings! A new week, a new Dev Diary, and this time it is about our final big country of the DLC, England, and its follow-up nation of Great Britain. Similar to Russia, England and Great Britain received their content update with 1.25 which is now almost 5 years old. While the British mission tree was one of the most extensive in its time, it has become quite outdated and was in dire need of receiving an update in order to keep England on the same level as the other great powers which are seeing a liftover with 1.35.

So, let’s get started!
british_missions.png

These are all the missions you have available as England and as Great Britain. These missions are available to everyone who forms GB.

The mission tree is split into several themes:
- The internal affairs and issues of England, which were the War of the Roses, the English Reformation, and of course the English Civil War
- The classic conquest of the British Isles
- Trade Dominance in Europe
- Colonizing the New World
- The conquest of India
- Internal development

Starting with the classic missions, the British Isles conquest missions are what their name suggests: unifying the British Isles under your banner. The highlight of these missions is the ability to unlock the “Act of Union” which is a unique parliament issue to form Great Britain - more on it later. Also a ,QoL addition has been added to these conquest missions: if you conquer Scotland you can get the following event if Norway did not sell Orkney to Scotland yet.
flavor_gbr.2.png

The AI is very likely to accept as long as they don’t have any negative opinion of you.

The missions regarding colonizing the New World are also quite self-explanatory. However, these missions do have some unique rewards which make colonization a little bit more interesting. The mission “Found the Royal Navy” grants you +33% Colonial Range and the ability to recruit explorers and conquistadors for 25 years. It also unlocks a parliament issue that gives you the same modifiers once the mission reward runs out.

“Discover the Americas” unlocks another Parliament issue with a rather experimental and unique effect:
colonial_venture.png


As long this modifier is active and you fully colonize a colony you get the following event:
colonial_venture_event.png

You get a selection of trade goods to choose from. The province will then start producing the selected trade goods. The first option keeps the current trade good if you don’t want to select any new production.

Keep in mind that the trade goods you can choose from have the same requirements as they would normally have when you colonize a province. In other words: you cannot select every province in North America to be a gold province out of nowhere.

Speaking of gold: selecting a certain trade good to be produced has a price that is calculated by the following formula: (1 + <the times you selected the trade good>) * 5 * <base cost of trade good without any modifications from events>.

In this example, we decide to create our own Fish & Chips monopoly, so we choose fish for every colonized province:
colonial_venture_event_2.png


Some trade goods are inherently more valuable than others. If a trade good has a higher base cost than 2.5 then it will also have an Administrative cost in order to be produced:
colonial_venture_gems.png

Note: The admin cost will be rounded down to 7.

Again, the formula for this is also rather simple: (<base trade good price> - 2.5) * 25 * <the times you selected the trade good>.

Now of course I have to address the elephant in the room: Gold. In order to avoid a world where a Great Britain player would put a gold province in every single eligible province of the New World, I decided to give Gold an “estimated value” of 10 Ducats base cost. This is reflected in the price you have to pay for a Gold province in the new world:
colonial_venture_event_gold.png

The only limit for how many gold provinces you want in the end is not any hard block but your tolerance for pain in paying for the establishment of another gold province.

Of course there is a decision which toggles this off if you are not interested in micromanaging every single colony you create:
colonial_venture_toggle.png

The missions “Settle in America” and “Colonize the Caribbean” modify your colonial capabilities even further with more unlocked parliament actions:
taxation_vs_representation.png

gold_act.png

Note: You have access to a sugar and spice version of this Parliament Action in the mission tree.

Finally, the mission “Dominate the New World” gives a permanent modifier which also benefits your colonial subjects too.
new_world_domination.png

Note: The Trade Efficiency might look weird considering that you siphon the trade from the New World, but Tariffs in their current iteration are calculated from the production income + trade income. As such, this bonus is an indirect bonus to how much tariff you receive from your colonies.

Of course a British mission tree would not be complete without a trip to India. The mission “East India Company” gives you an early choice of how you want to manage your territory in India.
east_india_company_event.png
The first option will release a unique subject in the form of the East India Company and it gives all permanent claims you get in India to your subject. The second option lets you keep the claims, but you won’t have access to your new subject, while the third option is for the purpose of role-playing where you can play as the company yourself, which might be an interesting campaign for some people.

The East India Company starts with a unique version of the Merchant Republic:
trade_company_reform.png

And of course it has its own set of ideas:
Code:
EIC_ideas = {
    start = {
        global_prov_trade_power_modifier = 0.2
        tolerance_heathen = 3
    }

    bonus = {
        global_trade_power = 0.15
    }
   
    trigger = {
        tag = EIC
    }
    free = yes        #will be added at load.

    eic_governors_general = {
        global_unrest = -1
        governing_capacity_modifier = 0.1
    }
    eic_indian_trade = {
        global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.15
    }
    eic_chartered_merchants = {
        merchants = 1
        placed_merchant_power = 10
    }
    eic_presidency_armies = {
        global_manpower_modifier = 0.1
        global_sailors_modifier = 0.2
    }
    eic_intercontinental_trade = {
        trade_steering = 0.25
        trade_range_modifier = 0.1
    }
    eic_colonial_monopoly = {
        trade_efficiency = 0.1
    }
    eic_colonial_exploitation = {
        trade_company_investment_cost = -0.1
        build_cost = -0.1
    }
}

This trade company subject has some special properties which aim to make it competitive to the trade companies we already know and love. A trade company behaves in many ways like a colony, which means it is able to declare its own wars, it will pay tariffs to its overlord and you can use the “Modify Subject Relationship” on them (modifications for Self-Governing Colonies are applied here). However, when an external nation attacks your Trade Company you are called into war. There are also some additional subject interactions which are not available to normal colonies such as “Siphon Income” and “Fortify Subject” (in the past it was March, but it has been renamed now).

“Masters of India”, which requires you to own or have a subject own 200 provinces in India, gives an additional bonus to your trade company subject:
masters_of_india.png

These were the colonial missions. Now we move on to the internal missions.

The missions of the “War of the Roses” path are all about your religious internal affairs. Depending on what is your stance towards the clergy, you unlock one of the two government reforms for the 4th tier:
religious_reforms.png
The missions “Strengthen the Kingdom” and “Acts of the Parliament” play heavily into the conflict between the monarch and the parliament during the Age of Absolutism, which eventually led to the English Civil War.

Completing both missions give you access to both mutually exclusive government reforms:
more_reforms.png

Speaking of, in order to properly represent the struggle between crown and constitution, you will eventually receive the following event as you enter the Age of Absolutism:
strife_king_and_parliament.png

absolute_power.png

Note: Background UI is still work in progress. The Monarchists will start the civil war when it reaches -100, not 100. Not shown in the image: if the value drops below 0 the modifiers change to: +4 Global Unrest, -10 Years of Nationalism, -10% Idea Cost and -1 Yearly Absolutism.

Resetting Debates, letting debates fail and revoking parliament seats increase your Absolute Power while giving away seats and letting debates win decrease Absolute Power. There are two ways of handling the mechanic altogether: you either juggle with the Absolute Power until the Age of Revolution starts or you try to reach either direction as fast as possible in order to trigger the following event:
escalation_event.png


If this event fires then the conditions to fire the English Civil War change to the following:
new_disaster_conditions.png

The disaster itself has seen little change per se. Pretender rebels on the parliament side have been replaced with a new, Parliamentarian rebel type which are basically Pretenders, but republican versions of them. The big change for the disaster is the end reward when you go through them.

If you side with the Royalists and end the Civil War without breaking to rebels you get the following reform:
absolute_britain.png

Letting the Parliamentarian win and choosing to become a republic will unlock the following reform:
parliamentarian_republic.png

And finally, if you let the Parliamentarians win, but decide to become a monarchy after Cromwell’s death:
british_monarchy.png
If you complete the mission “The Three Kingdom Wars” (which really should have been called “Wars of the Three Kingdoms”, but there was no space for it) by going through the hassle of the English Civil War, you unlock the following reward:
english_civil_war_mission_reward.png
These parliament issues are unlocked as you also unlock your national ideas. You have up to three issues which negate one of your national ideas in order to introduce a new strength.
ideas_altering_issues.png
These issues are, however, limited to three national idea groups in total though - they do not cover you if you form a nation which would not be typical in your England run like, let’s say France or Spain.

Of course you can toggle them off with a decision in order to have the space of your parliament issues not be occupied with them anymore, and you can revoke all of the adjustments - though at a heavy cost:
toggle_off.png

Note: Forming a different country will automatically revoke these modifiers. I am also considering making this cost a lot less severe though in order to promote flexibility. Maybe 75 ADM cost per adjusted idea is more manageable.

While these were the internal disasters and issues, there is more to the mission tree. The mission “Issue the Royal Warrant” goes more into the economical direction of your country. While the mission itself can be completed rather early, its big reward is more something you will unlock later on as you get the following reform unlocked for tier 8:
royal_charters.png

trade_protectorate.png

Note: Numbers are not final, as usual.

As it is somewhat of a running theme with 1.35, another mechanic of the old EU4 has returned once again, though this time it is a little bit different. Trade Protectorates are a voluntary relationship between you and the target country, and some AIs might even request to become such a subject in order to be protected from foreign forces. The Trade Protectorate and the overlord are free to annul the treaty, though they have to pay with 1 Stability unless the liberty desire is 100.

Only countries whose capitals are within your trade range are eligible to become your protectorates.

I should also mention that these Protectorates are not Great Britain only as any country which “Confirms Thalassocracy” unlocks the following government reform, which is part of the free update:
thalassocracy.png

The missions following “A House Divided” (which is more a reference to how the “House of the Parliament” is split into the House of Common and the House of Lords) are more internally related missions. Highlights here are “Expand the Royal Navy” which unlocks the special unit of your country:
expand_royal_navy.png

man_of_war.png

Note: The color should be actually green as a reduced Engagement Width means more ships are in combat at the same time.
You have 20% of your Naval Force Limit available for constructing Man of War.

The mission “The Royal Marines” makes your marine units to be the “special land unit” of your country as it gives -10% Shock Damage Received and +5% Discipline while “The Redcoats” is a flat +10% Infantry Combat Ability until the end of the game.

Now that was the British Mission Tree. As you have seen, it is relying heavily on colonization and overseas ambitions. But not everyone might enjoy this kind of playstyle. Because of that there is a second path of the mission tree which is unlocked as soon as the Hundred Years’ War goes into its final phase. The mission “The Hundred Years’ War” fires an event which gives you the choice to play England in a new way which focuses a lot more on the continent:
angevin_path.png

This will of course update your mission tree accordingly:
angevin_missions.png

All of the colonial missions are replaced with missions which nudge you into conquering vast territories of Europe. Of course, your first target is France and securing the personal union over it. In order to complete the mission “Shatter French Nobility” you will have to enact a unique Parliament Action which might cause pain in the short run, but ensures France’s loyalty to the English throne:
curtailed_nobles.png

I mentioned earlier about the Acts of Union. For players, the Acts of Union will be an actual parliament issue which is available to you when you complete this mission “Unify the Isles” and have reached Administrative Technology 10.
acts_of_union_britain.png

gb.png

The AI will keep its decision though.

For the Angevin path we have something similar. The mission “The Angevin Kingdom” unlocks the English-French Acts of Union parliament issue which allows you to form a new tag:
acts_of_union_issue.png

angevin_kingdom.png

Note: Historically speaking, it would make more sense to have it as a name change as the “Angevin Empire” was mostly a name for the possessions of the Plantagenet dynasty and not a real political entity per se. For the sake of gameplay, however, I decided to make a new tag for it with unique ideas, colors and, most importantly, the flag.

angevin_flag.png
You might have noticed that the Angevin flag is already included in the already used English flag. We are aware that it can feel kinda weird when you form the Angevin Kingdom and your flag, which was previously a combination of the Angevin and the French flag, just returns to being the Angevin one.
Because of that we request your opinion on that matter, and want to know what you guys prefer:
  1. Keep the way it is presented here (same flag for England, three lions for the Angevin Kingdom).
  2. Give the Angevin Kingdom the current English flag and give England the three lions as starting flag.
  3. Give the Angevin Kingdom the current English flag and give England the St. George cross as flag.
  4. Other ideas / suggestions.
With that being said, let's take a look at the ideas:
Code:
AVE_ideas = {
    start = {
        global_manpower_modifier = 0.2
        improve_relation_modifier = 0.3
    }

    bonus = {
        years_of_nationalism = -5
    }
   
    trigger = {
        tag = AVE
    }
    free = yes        #will be added at load.

    angevin_decentralized_rule = {
        core_creation = -0.2
    }
    english_common_law = {
        global_tax_modifier = 0.15
        num_of_parliament_issues = 1
    }
    lessons_of_the_anglo_french_wars = {
        discipline = 0.05
    }
    the_many_thrones = {
        heir_chance = 0.5
        years_to_integrate_personal_union = -10
    }
    reformed_angevin_infantry = {
        infantry_power = 0.1
    }
    seneschal_of_france = {
        governing_capacity_modifier = 0.15
    }
    rule_of_the_plantagenet = {
        legitimacy = 1
        devotion = 1
        horde_unity = 1
        republican_tradition = 0.3
        meritocracy = 1
    }
}

Note: England and Great Britain too received a +1 Number of possible Parliament Issues. The Horde Unity and Meritocracy (as well as Devotion / Legitimacy / Republican Tradition) have been added to all ideas which give one of the 5 government measurements in order to promote more variety in campaigns where you can switch your governments without feeling at a disadvantage because of it.

From here on out your path is set to conquer Iberia and Italy, as well as pushing into the Lowlands and the HRE. Each of these regions unlocks a “Crown of <Region>” Parliament issue which lets you decide how to properly deal with your newly conquered territory:
the_three_crowns.png

îberian_crown.png

italian_crown.png

imperial_diet.png

Note: There will be a tooltip saying that you unlock HRE related parliament issues.

These issues will affect the HRE as a whole and not just your country.

Another highlight would be the ability to adapt the British culture group into the French culture group with the mission “The Angevin Culture”:
anglois.png


A final highlight would be “Claim the Empire Title” which gives your country a name fitting to your situation.
empire_name.png

republican_name.png

theocratic_name.png

And if you, somehow, manage to fall from grace…
sadge.png

That was it for mission tree content. However, there is still a lot more to talk about. As you might have noticed, the parliament plays a large role in the content. As such, it was only natural to improve the parliament mechanics in general and then to add something special to the parliament of England / GB / Angevin to make it stand out from the other parliaments.

So, let us take a look at the general improvements for the parliaments. First thing first, parliaments have now the ability to reset a debate.
reset.png
You can reset a debate only every 20 years and it brings some penalties with it. Still, it can be a nice QoL addition when you accidentally select the wrong debate.

Secondly, parliament bribes will no longer spawn for an issue which would give this resource as an effect when the issue gets passed. Example: the parliament issue “The Draft” which gives manpower scaled to the seats will never have any parliament bribe which requests you to pay with manpower.

Thirdly, the prices of bribes have been revisited and have been tuned down to a manageable number.

Fourthly, parliaments of a size of 40 seats unlock new bribes which have “National” in their name. These bribes are more expensive than their local version, but have the bundled effect to automatically flip all seats with this kind of bribe in favor of the bribe. This way parliaments of big nations with many seats are not as annoying anymore as they were in the past.
national_bribes.png
Finally, manually placing a parliament seat no longer reduces absolutism. Getting seats assigned automatically, on the other hand, does cost absolutism.

All of these parliament updates are available if you have Common Sense (the original DLC which unlocks Parliaments) or the new DLC (which unlocks Parliaments too in case you don’t have Common Sense).

Now back to England / GB which have a bit more refined version of their parliament. Most issues they have access to now scale in their effect power with the influence of one of their estates:
influence_scaling.png

Note: I consider to push this all one level up, so that the 100% of the normal effect would be achieved between 20% and 40% already.

This has not an effect on the modifiers from the issues themselves though, only on the instant effects, so keep this in mind.

Bribes, on the other hand, scale with the loyalty of the estate:
loyalty_scaling.png
If an estate is disloyal, the cost of the bribe increases by 100%. However, if the estate is loyal then the bribe gets reduced by 50%. This stacks with the government mechanic of halved parliament issue costs, so it is possible that a single bribe might be as cheap as 1 Monarch Power.

Now with that all being said, let’s end this dev diary with the additional events England / GB / Angevin receives:
flavor_gbr.3.png

flavor_gbr.4.png

flavor_gbr.5.png

flavor_gbr.6.png

flavor_gbr.9.png

flavor_gbr.7.png

Note: This event is the starting point of 8 events in total which depict the different ways of how the English monarchs handled the reformation. Each option leads to different events. The AI always picks the one option which fits their ruler’s religion - even if it is against their country’s religion.

flavor_gbr.8.png

flavor_gbr.10.png

Note: the conditions for this event to happen are similar to the ones for its Reformed equivalent.
flavor_gbr.11.png


chapel_ENG_DD.png

And that was it for this week. Next week @Pavía will present content for the minor Great Powers, unique government reforms and additional estate privileges.

Until then I wish you all a nice week!
 
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A follow-up to my earliest post in this thread. One other thing I just thought of is the disappointing lack of elections for the Parliament mechanic. Elections become especially more important after the 1660 Restoration, particularly after the political parties (in a rather loose sense compared to today's political parties) came into existence and which coalesced as the Whigs and the Tories.

Given the nature of the so-called unreformed House of Commons, bribery and corruption were rather common in the elections, which were pretty much considered acceptable at the times, especially for the boroughs. Though, sometimes, such acts went too far to the extent that the Parliament would, on occasions, punish the offending boroughs by transferring their seats to the county constituency and on other occasions by enlarging the said borough to include additional electors to reduce the influence of those violating electors in future elections held for these seats.

What I am thinking of, of course, is not the bribery to entice the parliamentary seat(s) to vote for the "issue" under debate. That is already in. What I would like to see is an ability to influence the elections itself by various means which are not strictly limited to bribery. For example, in some of the so-called "pocket boroughs", the tenants on the Crown lands may be obligated to vote for whoever the Crown wish for. Bribery in elections may provide a small chance modifier for MPs to vote for the issue, though by no mean guaranteed, if the candidate won the election. And what if you were to have lobby from the East India Company? Boy, that is going to compete with your government and the opposition over the control of numerous seats in the Parliament.

I think there could be a new type of seats to represent boroughs. Each province may have up to one or two boroughs internally. The provinces itself would be basically county constituencies, at least in the British Isles.

I suspect that such a deeper parliamentary mechanic is unlikely to happen in this generation of Europa Universalis IV, so perhaps it is something we can hope for in Europa Universalis V.

Speaking of the future sequel, I also hope to see some things carry over from Victoria 3 in relation to the parliamentary mechanic. For example, I personally think consumption taxes are a pretty good part of the treasury mechanic in that game, but it may require actual POPs, so I am not sure. But such taxes could require consent of the Parliament. After all, in actual history, an English/British monarch could not hope to collect a substantial amount of tax without the assistance of the landed gentry that dominated the House of Commons, for they were effectively the only group within the English society who could collect and remit the taxes.

I think the history of the English fiscal system is fascinating in itself, showing the evolution of how the government finances itself.

Anyway, this is just a general commentary with observations, as it is doubtful that anything will come out of this at least for Europa Universalis IV which is pretty much over ten years old by now, so I suspect it is just a matter of time before the end of lifetime comes for this particular generation of the game franchise.
 
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3. As some said, EIC should have 0 liberty desire as it was a company. Microsoft etc. wouldn't have liberty desire from the USA (well, as of yet at least).
Yes… and no…
I mean, I agree that the company board itself, being a private group of nobles or burghers inside the overlord country (with them actually residing in England in general) should not have an independence desire.

At the same time though, and to take an historical example, some of the 13 colonies were actually stock joint companies (Virginia company), or private charter (Pennsylvania…)
That did not prevent the colonists from having an independence desire in the end, which they achieved.

Thus, although I agree with your point, I believe that the current game mechanics don’t allow for a realistic representation of that. To take the American revolution as an example, that would mean that the independence movement should be modeled as “provincial unrest” rather than independence desire from the colony in this case.

That being said, the case of India is more tricky since it’s not actual colonization with migration, but local culture is already different from the one of the joint stock company
 
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A lot of interesting updates. My notes:
-I really love the idea of forming an East India Company vassal, but I really hope the option is available to other colonizing nations if they conquer enough of India.
-A shame no mention for content in the rest of the isles, particularly for Scotland. In particular I'd really appreciate if the Scots were given their own parliament which they operated until the acts of Union in 1707. Potentially the English Monarchy reform could be reworked as a 'British Parliament' reform that England and Scotland share, and maybe a formable Ireland could access (or other British tags if they reach kingdom rank).
-It's nice to see a branching path between the historic English/Great Britain and a continental focused Angevin playstyle, that should be a binary choice that leads to two different playstyles. I think it's also interesting to francofy the English in the Angevin path, but I abhor that the Lowland Scots will get roped into it. On that note, I really do beg that you undo the Celtic culture group being seperate from the English, it's something that really triggers me, particularly with how you have two halves of Scotland in two different culture groups. I understand you want to model the tensions the English had with integrating their lands in Scotland and Ireland, but I'd argue this is much more due to the English acting like dicks about everything than it is about how disparate the cultures are- I point to the American Revolutionary War as an example, a conflict that could have easily been avoided had the English just listened to the concerns of the colonists more. I think a better way to simulate it would instead give England some debuff to how it accepts cultures within it's own culture group- or perhaps some branching decisions on how to handle the union within Great Britain. Other nations throughout the game have several events or decisions or missions handling how much they want to integrate cultures or suppress them that touch on similar disputes.
-On the note of England trying to form the Angevin Empire, there should probably be some tweaking to the AI in case England loses the Hundred Years War. It'll probably be unlikely they can form a real counter-invasion of france again, but all else being equal the English will likely still gobble up Ireland and Scotland without being able to form Great Britain leaving a notable power vacuum. So the AI should probably be tweaked that Scotland, or perhaps occassionally an Irish minor (or maybe a releasable tag in Engand) manages to eat up the English territory instead so they have the chance of forming Great Britain instead. You know, since it's very rare that a non-English nation forms Great Britain anyway.
-While it's nice seeing England get more colonization options, I think it's a missed opportunity to not put some more content regarding the American Revolution in there. Granted I suppose to not weigh things too in their favor you'd have to rebalance the American side of the equation too.
-I think the misison tree could be better balanced if you moved some of the English missions into Great Britain's tree to make forming Great Britain more key to unlocking thier potential- as well as balancing England better against the rest of the British tags (rather than just leaving England as the obvious choice because they get access to pretty much all the cool stuff GB does at the start of the game).
-I definitely prefer that British Marines get a unique buff than Britain getting a new unique unit. But it makes me want to see marines getting unique buffs in other countries- particularly pirate republics. Maybe it could be a decision since not every pirate republic gets it's own set of mission trees, but it'd make sense if they got buffs to looting speed and such.
 
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Seaking of Scotland, shouldn't the Scottish culture be part of the Celtic group, instead of Britannic?
The fact that we have two Scottish cultures – one in Celtic group and one in a British group – is a simplification, but imo a well-founded one.

Scottish culture represents the Lowland Scots, who spoke Scots language (similar to English). Their nobility, society, and general culture was also much closer to that of England than that of Gaelic Ireland.
 
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In terms of the Angevin flag, I think option 2 is best - Give the Angevin Kingdom the current English flag and give England the three lions as starting flag.

But can I make a small suggestion about the name: Call it the Dual Monarchy and have there be an event about where the capital should be.
Paris (default ai choice), London, or a neutral 3rd site (No idea where that could be, maybe Normandy?)
 
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It's not, actually.
There was no "Kingdom of Castile and León" the Kingdoms of León, Castile AND GALICIA (eternally omitted for no practical reason) were technically all distinct kingdoms under a personal union and were only merged under a single "Kingdom of Spain" in 1715.

For the sake a simplicity, people tend to simply call "Kingdom of [Senior partner]", or more accurately, "Crown of [Senior Partner]".

There was never a "kingdom of Castile-Leon", it was simply the Crown of León, but people often mention Castile in the name too because of the political role it had later on in the formation of Spain.
Well, then It makes all the more sense for Castille to have only Castilian coat of arms on it's flag gameplay-wise, right?
 
100%. “Angevin X” is an absurd name and possibly the worst historical blunder I’ve seen in EUIV. Obviously the existence of the tag is a pure abomination (England should just form France if it wins HYW) but if we have to have it, the name shouldn’t be something that sounds like it was dreamed up by a historically illiterate twelve year old Richard the Lionheart LARPer.

“England-France” would be terrible, but still better. “Anglois” would be terrible but better. What happened to the devs rejecting absurdities like “Latin Empire” and “Angevin Empire” formables? What’s next, Austria forming “Austria-Hungary”? Norway forming “North Sea Empire” when it conquers London? A formable “Africa”? I hate the direction this game has taken. :(
Well, the same can be said about Byzantium, right? And yet we have Byzantium and Roman Empire as separate tags.

Anglo-French Commonwealth is the best choice, I think. It can share it's dynamic name mechanic with Polish-Lithuanian/Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth, introduced with Lions of the North DLC, depending on the condition who forms it. If "Angevin" is dynastic stuff, then it's better not use it, since the ruling dynasty can change. Plus, this way we can avoid the myriad of events concerning Angevin Empire/Republic/Whatever depending on your government's type.
 
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I hope, "minor GP" category will include Netherlands and it's minors, because it's mission tree now rather for 1600+ bookmarks, but not for 1444 start date. Now it's especially needed, cuz it stuck between new France and England(like Korea) and might be challenged by new Spain or Portugal(in colonies).
 
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The fact that we have two Scottish cultures – one in Celtic group and one in a British group – is a simplification, but imo a well-founded one.

Scottish culture represents the Lowland Scots, who spoke Scots language (similar to English). Their nobility, society, and general culture was also much closer to that of England than that of Gaelic Ireland.
Hmm... I guess that makes sense. Would it be possible to have cultures that belong more than one culture group? Breton could fit into French and Celtic, Balten could be German and Baltic, Scottish could be Celtic and British, etc.? Sort of an "either/or" rule in the coding?
 
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Hmm... I guess that makes sense. Would it be possible to have cultures that belong more than one culture group? Breton could fit into French and Celtic, Balten could be German and Baltic, Scottish could be Celtic and British, etc.? Sort of an "either/or" rule in the coding?
It's a cool idea, but we don't plan to make any significant changes to the culture system. There's a lot of moving parts there, so a major code/script rework like this is out of scope.
 
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This would require Hindus and Muslim nations to form PUs, which currently is mechanically impossible.

Only the senior partner need to be christian, you can already get PU on muslim/hindu countries if you managed to share a dynasty as a christian nation.

On the other hand... forming those PU can be really heavy for the number of diplomatic relations.
 
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As many have already noted, Scotland is left in the mud of old content. Scotland at this time also had a Parliament and other institutions, and Scotland through James VIII and I would be the driving force for the eventual unification of Scotland and England as Great Britain. This important aspect of the Union is ignored, and instead Scotland is relegated to being conquered and/or subjugated, as unless it is in the hands of the player or a very fortunate AI, the Scots never fare all too well.
I think it's a side effect of the focus of this DLC: By focusing on the major powers, even when we already agreed those powers were in need of an update, it makes much of their neighbours who arguably needed the update even more look even worse by comparison. China is probably the best handled of this as most of their neighbours can get the mission tree by taking the mandate. Ottomans definitely needed an overhaul, but Mamluks and Persia and the Caucuses needed it more. England's tree never struck me as in desperate need of an update, but Scotland and Ireland did. I think that's where frustration with this DLC is coming from, by doubling down on some countries whose missions were already reasonably servicible at worst we're just seeing the contrast of neighbours in their respective regions who never had a good tree to begin with, or whose tree quickly aged like milk once stuff like Dharma came along. At least with a geographically focused DLC you could understand the scope. And it also fails to model some of the interactions the buffed countries had with their neglected neighbours. Acts of Union are a cool idea, but Ireland was very much integrated by similar means, even if the Kingdom of Ireland never had the autonomy Scotland did.

EDIT: It also doesn't help that unlike DLCs like Lions of the North, we haven't actually had a thesis statement on what this DLC represents yet. We've inferred it from the content shown, Empires and Great Powers, but there's still a lot of speculation about whether this or that country will be covered and resulting disappointment when they're not.
 
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The fact that we have two Scottish cultures – one in Celtic group and one in a British group – is a simplification, but imo a well-founded one.

Scottish culture represents the Lowland Scots, who spoke Scots language (similar to English). Their nobility, society, and general culture was also much closer to that of England than that of Gaelic Ireland.
The issue is though it implies that the two flavors of scottish culture were wholly separate from one another- say as separate as german and italian. I understand wanting to portray that the lowlands had more similarities to the english, but it creates a rather illogical divide within Scotland itself.

I think it double makes less sense considering that the game also groups in a bunch of distinct cultures like the 'Carpathian' culture group that had a lot of it's own historical repression and infighting for the sake of geographic consistency, and the Ottomans are lumped in with the Arabs despite a lot of cultural differences there causing alot of headaches for the Ottoman Empire.

I understand that it's impossible to replicate everything historically, but if the game is going to err on having culture groups be there for the sake of geographic simplicity, as well as to help the formation of historic empires, I'd rather this also be the case in the British Isles, which I'd argue has much less cultural friction to it than in the case of the Carpathian group, or the Levant group.
 
Well, then It makes all the more sense for Castille to have only Castilian coat of arms on it's flag gameplay-wise, right?
Well, not really, since the tag Castile is supposed to represent the Crown of Castile (so, including the P.U with Leon and Galicia) rather than exclusively the kingdom of Castile, and their kings used a CoA that included the Castilian and Leonese CoA, so the same as in the game.

Aragon is also supposed to be a Crown, not a kingdom, Valencia was it's own kingdom and Barcelona was a County, but de jure not part of Aragon. Ironically the flag/CoA of Aragon is more similar to the Catalan and Valencian CoAs than Aragon itself (which was blue with a white cross on the corner)

The Spain Tag itself isn't really the Kingdom of Spain either, but a simplification of the P.U between the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. In the game moment when the Iberian wedding happens and Castile P.U's Aragon (so 1470s usually) was technically not even a P.U but only a Royal Marriage+Alliance, the moment Spain usually forms (1510s) is when the actual P.U happened, but the real Spain only formed in 1715.

However the game simplifies this and portrays both the Crowns as Tags and their union as a single unified tag as well. And honestly i believe that from a gameplay and balance prespective it's better to keep it as it is, as historically speaking "Spain" did indeed behave almost as a single cohesive political entity since the crowns united, at least as far as the foreign policy is concerned. And there are other tags who are simplified in this similar fashion.
At most they could be given a unique starting Goverment Reform "Composite Monarchy" to reflect this reality while keeping them a single tag.
 
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Well, not really, since the tag Castile is supposed to represent the Crown of Castile (so, including the P.U with Leon and Galicia) rather than exclusively the kingdom of Castile.

Aragon is also supposed to be a Crown, not a kingdom, Valencia was it's own kingdom and Barcelona was a County, but de jure not part of Aragon.

The Spain Tag itself isn't really the Kingdom of Spain either, but a simplification of the P.U between the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. In the game moment when the Iberian wedding happens and Castile P.U's Aragon (so 1470s usually) was technically not even a P.U but only a Royal Marriage+Alliance, the moment Spain usually forms (1510s) is when the actual P.U happened, but the real Spain only formed in 1715.

However the game simplifies this and portrays both the Crowns as Tags and their union as a single unified tag as well. And honestly i believe that from a gameplay and balance prespective it's better to keep it as it is.
I see your point about the simplification of real-life not-so-centralised unions for gameplay purposes, but if Crown of Castille was the main title for the ruler of Castille-Leon-Galicia Union, then why not portray it simply as Castille and that's just that? As you said with Aragon example, it's also was a Crown, but both in this game and in real-life Aragon's coat of arms is just Aragon's (although "Kingdom of Valencia" was quite an artifical title created by the kings of Aragon after the reconquest of Valencia area form the moors, right?).

Just think about it: wouldn't it be weird to see an Independent Leon and Castille with it's current coat of arms? Sure, one can argue that Castille doesn't recognise the now-independent Leon and still considers it's own domain (like England kept it's English-French coat of arms for centuries after Hundred Years war has concluded, abandoning the title of French King only during the Napoleonic wars and France for a long time had a French-Navarrese coat of arms before the French Revolution), but in my opinion it creates less confusion and distinguishes the Castilian tag from Leon tag. If we never had Leon as a separate tag, I wouldn't argue at all.
 
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As it says that next week is content for the „minor“ great powers I really hope that this does not mean that this would be the last DLC and that there are at least 2 more DLCs about Arabia/Caucasus/Middle East and one about Colonial Nations and the new world. (+- more)
 
The fact that we have two Scottish cultures – one in Celtic group and one in a British group – is a simplification, but imo a well-founded one.

Scottish culture represents the Lowland Scots, who spoke Scots language (similar to English). Their nobility, society, and general culture was also much closer to that of England than that of Gaelic Ireland.
Speaking of the latter, are there any proposed changes to Irish minors missions? They acquired their missions (a grand 14 in total which is less than standard generic missions) in Rule Britannia and they haven't been touched since. There is so much scope for making Ireland more interesting (and making England playthroughs more challenging) by incorporating many of the historic events of the period. The rebellions of Silken Thomas, the Earl of Desmond, Hugh O'Neill, the Irish Confederacy, come to mind, the religious conflicts, aid from Rome, Spain and then France. The Gallowglasses, the Redshanks, the Irish reformed bonnachta. The cost of English campaigns in Ireland. The 9 years war was thought to have cost England 30,000 soldiers in total and the Earl of Essex's 17,000 strong army was obliterated in 1599 by ambushes, disease and open battle which forced him to come to terms with O'Neill. It would be nice if this wasn't ignored and there was some recognition in the missions for building a force both by both diplomatic and military means that would prove a challenge to the expansion of the English crown.
 
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