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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 While the British mission tree was one of the most extensive in its time, it has become quite outdated and was in dire need of receiving an update in order to keep England on the same level as the other great powers which are seeing a liftover with 1.35.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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I'm gonna miss my big, blue, continental sledgehammer. :( I usually try to keep France just as a personal union and take advantage of their missions and claims when I play England.
I kind of wish that the Angevin mission were like the French revolutionary missions. Where if you go for the French throne successfully you can unlock them, but still hold onto your other missions.
 
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So many comments about not liking the idea that one has to make a choice between focusing on the continent or focusing on Great Britain, Ireland and colonisation. This is the historical decision that England indeed had to make, as loss in the Hundred Years' War was what caused England to become far more hands off, with it ultimately being marriages to the Portuguese Royal House, the House of Welf, and during the Glorious Revolution, the House of Oranje-Nassau that were the scale of England's ambition on the continent. And the second of those three houses would end up becoming Britain's royal family from 1714 to the death of Victoria. Even so, England's attention to the continent was usually something that had to be pried over to the continent, and even then, a lot of England's achievements in terms of warfare with other European powers were done overseas (think the Seven Years' War, the War of Spanish Succession, etc.) If England got it's hands dirty on the continent, it was usually through meaner methods, and it was only in the Napoleonic Wars that England would directly engage in proper campaigns against another European power on its own turf, that being France in the occupation of Toulon and later on engaging France at Waterloo (today part of Belgium).

Angevine England would be in truth Angevine France, as the majority of its people would be speakers of either a Lang d'Oil or a Lang d'Oc. An Angevine England would also likely see the adoption of French military ethos, tactics and generalship, and thus it would be more than appropriate to be able to focus on continental affairs at the expense of the colonial game.

One should keep in mind that England during this period still had a generally nastier time trying to compete with other European powers on a land basis, which is where sea power and the efforts to colonise became key to England's successes later on. It appears to me that if one loses the Hundred Years' War, they are given the route that allows England to bounce back in both its prestige and power, while the Angevine path gives us the rather frank (see what I did there) scenario of playing as an England, or rather France with an English dynasty, that has not been forced to be an indirect player in continental affairs, and it allows one to use France's might to dominate the continent as an English monarch.

A last point I'd like to make is that you still will be able to colonise the New World, even as the Angevines. It's just that you'll not be pushed by the missions, so it's going to be a less rewarding process, and it will also be a possibly unnecessary division of one's attention. Knowing from experience, it's hard to push simultaneously into Europe and the rest of the world. Honestly, Angevine colonisation sounds like a fun personal challenge, and I fail to understand the complaints by those who want two separate soups mashed into one odd mystery broth.

P.S. Scotland, Ireland and Wales deserve better! I bring that up again because these three countries have received the short end of the stick since 2013. The main driver of the Union (and now main detractor because of reasons that I had to write a research paper on) is deprived her weapons of driving the Union.
 
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I'm gonna miss my big, blue, continental sledgehammer. :( I usually try to keep France just as a personal union and take advantage of their missions and claims when I play England.
I kind of wish that the Angevin mission were like the French revolutionary missions. Where if you go for the French throne successfully you can unlock them, but still hold onto your other missions.
Would you miss it if the AI could regularly wield it at you?
 
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It wouldn't be more prestigious though would it, the English throne would become more prestigious as a result of seizing the French throne. Where's the prestige in a throne that's just been seized by another? The English kings would never choose to change the name of their possessions to that of their rivals who they just defeated and humiliated. France would be integrated into England, not the other way around.

What makes the French throne so prestigious enough in the first place to justify changing the name of your country anyway?

I'm not against the mission trees being split in two, I never said that. I'd be happy with having to choose between colonial and continental missions as long as it didn't involve creating a nonsensical new tag.
Looks like you don't know how that worked back then.

And France was more prestigeous due to it being bigger, richer and ascendent of Charlemagne's kingdom (West Francia)
 
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Would you miss it if the AI could regularly wield it at you?
I would LOVE it if the AI were competent enough to regularly win the HYW. Can you imagine what that would be like? As it stands, there is almost 0% chance of that ever happening. I have seen it once in over 2,000 hours where England did manage to win because Burgundy came in and stabbed France in the back as it was sieging down Portugal (The Maine event had taken forever to fire and England somehow got enough favors to pull Portugal in right at the 30 month limit.) But England still didn't take the union and just conquered some French land instead and stole one vassal. Brilliant!
 
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It's not just settler growth, though, is it? It's also conquering native land, which allows you to get Colonial Nations up quickly (which then produce more colonists).
I mean, that makes sense though, the reason why Castile blobed in Mesoamerica so fast as they did was because they were conquering already established civilizations, not setting up colonies from scratch.

Indeed, settler growth alone isn't the whole issue, but at least it's a start. It could be easily adressed by simply changing a couple of digits and it would probably help even if not fix it entierly.

I'm also tired of seeing AI Portugal taking over the Caribbean in just about every game, instead of going for Brazil and also working its way down the African coast to get to India and the Spice Islands. Also France always seems to colonise in Columbia instead of Canada. I wouldn't mind if Portugal/France did this in just some of my games, but it seems they do this in almost all of them
In Golden Century, in another classic move that seems to make sense from an English point of view but makes no sense for Iberia, the Idea "Quest for the New World" was moved to be the first idea in the Exploration group.
As a result, Portugal is able to discover the Caribbean before even reaching the Ivory Coast, despite the fact that in real life Portugal got to India before getting to America.

The best solution to this is reworking the idea "Quest for the New World". Keeping the unlocking of Explorers and Conquistadors as the first idea, but moving the "unlocks high seas exploration" to the last idea.
This way Portugal will take Exploration ideas and be stuck exploring and Colonizing Africa until they finish the Exploration ideas, which should happen sometime around 1500 like irl.

Then in the Christopher Colombus event, it should not only give you the explorer, but also enable high seas exploration for 25 years. So that Castile can reach the Caribbean before Portugal does.
 
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I mean, that makes sense though, the reason why Castile blobed in Mesoamerica so fast as they did was because they were conquering already established civilizations, not setting up colonies from scratch.
It makes sense in the case of "advanced/civilized" pre-columbian polities, but not in the case of NA. In the real world no NA native tribe was conquered and incorporated into the European colony, because there was nothing to conquer. NA was just too sparsely populated and too "primitive" (or rather too drastically different societally) for that to be viable. Instead, NA tribes were forced into smaller and smaller areas by expanding colonies, until eventually wars happened and the natives were forced to move elsewhere.

In game, this can be fixed by not allowing NA tribes' land to be conquered. Instead, the tribe could be forced out of their territory in the peace deal, freeing it up so the European aggressor can send a colonist.
 
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It makes sense in the case of "advanced/civilized" pre-columbian polities, but not in the case of NA. In the real world no NA native tribe was conquered and incorporated into the European colony, because there was nothing to conquer. NA was just too sparsely populated and too "primitive" (or rather too drastically different societally) for that to be viable. Instead, NA tribes were forced into smaller and smaller areas by expanding colonies, until eventually wars happened and the natives were forced to move elsewhere.

In game, this can be fixed by not allowing NA tribes' land to be conquered. Instead, the tribe could be forced out of their territory in the peace deal, freeing it up so the European aggressor can send a colonist.
I agree with how to treat NA native land and would go a step further and treat conquered land from Aztec/Inca level peoples under 10 dev as frontier colonies with a completion level of dev/10%, which will be free to grow but will count against the excess colony limit should it be exceeded by regular colonies.
 
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I think giving England the exclusive ability to choose what resources spawn in a colony is a bit OP. I'd make it possible for anyone to do that, possibly as a result of a specific reform or decision. Also, perhaps instead of choosing exactly what resources, you could choose which broad category.
 
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It's not just settler growth, though, is it? It's also conquering native land, which allows you to get Colonial Nations up quickly (which then produce more colonists).

I'm also tired of seeing AI Portugal taking over the Caribbean in just about every game, instead of going for Brazil and also working its way down the African coast to get to India and the Spice Islands. Also France always seems to colonise in Columbia instead of Canada. I wouldn't mind if Portugal/France did this in just some of my games, but it seems they do this in almost all of them.
Couldn't agree more, God, I am so upset everytime I see the Caribbean Portugal, cause I am sure that castille is, in that case in Brazil
 
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I'm gonna miss my big, blue, continental sledgehammer. :( I usually try to keep France just as a personal union and take advantage of their missions and claims when I play England.
I kind of wish that the Angevin mission were like the French revolutionary missions. Where if you go for the French throne successfully you can unlock them, but still hold onto your other missions.
I agree, this would be much better.
 
So many comments about not liking the idea that one has to make a choice between focusing on the continent or focusing on Great Britain, Ireland and colonisation. This is the historical decision that England indeed had to make, as loss in the Hundred Years' War was what caused England to become far more hands off, with it ultimately being marriages to the Portuguese Royal House, the House of Welf, and during the Glorious Revolution, the House of Oranje-Nassau that were the scale of England's ambition on the continent. And the second of those three houses would end up becoming Britain's royal family from 1714 to the death of Victoria. Even so, England's attention to the continent was usually something that had to be pried over to the continent, and even then, a lot of England's achievements in terms of warfare with other European powers were done overseas (think the Seven Years' War, the War of Spanish Succession, etc.) If England got it's hands dirty on the continent, it was usually through meaner methods, and it was only in the Napoleonic Wars that England would directly engage in proper campaigns against another European power on its own turf, that being France in the occupation of Toulon and later on engaging France at Waterloo (today part of Belgium).

Angevine England would be in truth Angevine France, as the majority of its people would be speakers of either a Lang d'Oil or a Lang d'Oc. An Angevine England would also likely see the adoption of French military ethos, tactics and generalship, and thus it would be more than appropriate to be able to focus on continental affairs at the expense of the colonial game.

One should keep in mind that England during this period still had a generally nastier time trying to compete with other European powers on a land basis, which is where sea power and the efforts to colonise became key to England's successes later on. It appears to me that if one loses the Hundred Years' War, they are given the route that allows England to bounce back in both its prestige and power, while the Angevine path gives us the rather frank (see what I did there) scenario of playing as an England, or rather France with an English dynasty, that has not been forced to be an indirect player in continental affairs, and it allows one to use France's might to dominate the continent as an English monarch.

A last point I'd like to make is that you still will be able to colonise the New World, even as the Angevines. It's just that you'll not be pushed by the missions, so it's going to be a less rewarding process, and it will also be a possibly unnecessary division of one's attention. Knowing from experience, it's hard to push simultaneously into Europe and the rest of the world. Honestly, Angevine colonisation sounds like a fun personal challenge, and I fail to understand the complaints by those who want two separate soups mashed into one odd mystery broth.

P.S. Scotland, Ireland and Wales deserve better! I bring that up again because these three countries have received the short end of the stick since 2013. The main driver of the Union (and now main detractor because of reasons that I had to write a research paper on) is deprived her weapons of driving the Union.

It was not until 1801 that British Monarchs officially abandoned their claim to the throne of France and e.g. Henry VIII invaded France twice in the hope of securing the French throne. Also the fact that both England/GB and France entered the colonial game makes it a puzzling conclusion that an England/GB that had conquered France would not also engage in acquiring colonies, especially since it would have been a natural way of competing with the Spain/the Habsburg Empire its most likely continental rival.

That an English conquest of France would simply have meant the English becoming French is far from certain, remember the language at court in England at that time was no longer French. Also the notion that there is nothing to complain about since you can just colonise as the Angevines overlooks the point that I and others have made that we do not want to play as Angevines or France or any other country but as England/GB. By all means give others a separate formable nation if they wish to play it, but don't force those of us who wish to play England/GB to abandon our continental ambitions. If you retain England/GB's continental missions, then anyone who only wants to play a colonial or a continental game can do that, just like those of us who like to do both can do that. However, looking continental missions behind changing into a different country and becoming French is simply an affront. The options and playstyles available to anyone wanting to play England/GB (not Angevin) will be locked into a historical route a specific play style. Its natural rival France on the other hand gets to do it all, without ever having to choose and without ever having to give up being France. This is in part a game that allows players to go beyond what countries achieved historically, with e.g. France getting missions to conquer England (a feat they never managed in the EUIV period) and historically plausible routes into e.g. Italy. Yet British missions seems limited to only allowing them to achieve the historical expansion that they actually managed in the period, hiding a major ambition and claims of British monarchs (their claim to the French Throne) behind abandoning everything else, including the name and culture of the country. I really cannot understand why people find it difficult to see why I and others are greatly concerned and saddened by this development.
 
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Because most of the time as Angevin kingdom you will focus on European conquest untill mid-late game when you will start colonising, but by then most of the stuff will be colonized by Spain and Porugal (unless you conquered them but then you get possibility to make Spain a PU so they will colonize for you).
Also it wouldn't be strange if Paradox did that to avoid making England too OP compared to any other nation
But you are effectively pigeonholing GB into playing the colonial game, as you have to change to a completely different country to get the continental missions. Just leave the existing missions for conquest of France in the GB tree and then once you conquer France give the player the choice if they want to focus more on Europe or keep colonial missions, and if they change, if they want to stay as England/GB or change to Angevin. For some of us it matters which country we play as.
 
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I love this idea of culture group switch. I Know it is not in the scope of this dlc but I think Livonia should have the ability to switch prussian culture into Baltic group, as they belong before german colonisation.
 
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Am I the only one who feels that the devs seem to shine with the absence in the discussion of this dev diary. Maybe it is just because I am a lot more vested in this dev diary and have some real concerns and hence the absence of any interaction is more noticeable, but my impression is that there is normally a lot more responses from devs to player comments than is the case this week. The only responses have been from the art lead SaintDaveUK (and thanks for that Dave :) ). But I guess maybe everyone else is on holiday. :D
 
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But you are effectively pigeonholing GB into playing the colonial game, as you have to change to a completely different country to get the continental missions. Just leave the existing missions for conquest of France in the GB tree and then once you conquer France give the player the choice if they want to focus more on Europe or keep colonial missions, and if they change, if they want to stay as England/GB or change to Angevin. For some of us it matters which country we play as.
Playing colonial doesn't stop you from conquering France, and vice versa, it will be just less rewarding and harder. And that's good because one country being able to easly conquer all of Western Europe and colonise half of the world in so short time would be just OP compared to anything we have seen before

Am I the only one who feels that the devs seem to shine with the absence in the discussion of this dev diary. Maybe it is just because I am a lot more vested in this dev diary and have some real concerns and hence the absence of any interaction is more noticeable, but my impression is that there is normally a lot more responses from devs to player comments than is the case this week. The only responses have been from the art lead SaintDaveUK (and thanks for that Dave :) ). But I guess maybe everyone else is on holiday. :D
Your only concern is fact that you have to pick between going easy Colonial and easy Expansion in Europe and lack of possibility to do both at once
 
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It was not until 1801 that British Monarchs officially abandoned their claim to the throne of France and e.g. Henry VIII invaded France twice in the hope of securing the French throne. Also the fact that both England/GB and France entered the colonial game makes it a puzzling conclusion that an England/GB that had conquered France would not also engage in acquiring colonies, especially since it would have been a natural way of competing with the Spain/the Habsburg Empire its most likely continental rival.

That an English conquest of France would simply have meant the English becoming French is far from certain, remember the language at court in England at that time was no longer French. Also the notion that there is nothing to complain about since you can just colonise as the Angevines overlooks the point that I and others have made that we do not want to play as Angevines or France or any other country but as England/GB. By all means give others a separate formable nation if they wish to play it, but don't force those of us who wish to play England/GB to abandon our continental ambitions. If you retain England/GB's continental missions, then anyone who only wants to play a colonial or a continental game can do that, just like those of us who like to do both can do that. However, looking continental missions behind changing into a different country and becoming French is simply an affront. The options and playstyles available to anyone wanting to play England/GB (not Angevin) will be locked into a historical route a specific play style. Its natural rival France on the other hand gets to do it all, without ever having to choose and without ever having to give up being France. This is in part a game that allows players to go beyond what countries achieved historically, with e.g. France getting missions to conquer England (a feat they never managed in the EUIV period) and historically plausible routes into e.g. Italy. Yet British missions seems limited to only allowing them to achieve the historical expansion that they actually managed in the period, hiding a major ambition and claims of British monarchs (their claim to the French Throne) behind abandoning everything else, including the name and culture of the country. I really cannot understand why people find it difficult to see why I and others are greatly concerned and saddened by this development.
I agree. The English never gave up wanting the French throne during this period no matter how far fetched it may have been for them to seize it. Just completely giving it up doesn't really seem in the right spirit of the legendary centuries long feud between the nations.
 
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It was not until 1801 that British Monarchs officially abandoned their claim to the throne of France and e.g. Henry VIII invaded France twice in the hope of securing the French throne. Also the fact that both England/GB and France entered the colonial game makes it a puzzling conclusion that an England/GB that had conquered France would not also engage in acquiring colonies, especially since it would have been a natural way of competing with the Spain/the Habsburg Empire its most likely continental rival.
The continued claims upon the French throne were by that time more a matter of principle than a seriously pressed claim. It is not puzzling precisely because if England had succeeded becoming the French kings, they would indeed have had little reason to establish colonies aside from the very same reason that the French engaged in colonialism, which was extra money for little investment. We would not see the same settler colonies that England did establish in the New World given that England wouldn't need them as badly as they ended up.
That an English conquest of France would simply have meant the English becoming French is far from certain, remember the language at court in England at that time was no longer French. Also the notion that there is nothing to complain about since you can just colonise as the Angevines overlooks the point that I and others have made that we do not want to play as Angevines or France or any other country but as England/GB. By all means give others a separate formable nation if they wish to play it, but don't force those of us who wish to play England/GB to abandon our continental ambitions. If you retain England/GB's continental missions, then anyone who only wants to play a colonial or a continental game can do that, just like those of us who like to do both can do that. However, looking continental missions behind changing into a different country and becoming French is simply an affront. The options and playstyles available to anyone wanting to play England/GB (not Angevin) will be locked into a historical route a specific play style. Its natural rival France on the other hand gets to do it all, without ever having to choose and without ever having to give up being France. This is in part a game that allows players to go beyond what countries achieved historically, with e.g. France getting missions to conquer England (a feat they never managed in the EUIV period) and historically plausible routes into e.g. Italy. Yet British missions seems limited to only allowing them to achieve the historical expansion that they actually managed in the period, hiding a major ambition and claims of British monarchs (their claim to the French Throne) behind abandoning everything else, including the name and culture of the country. I really cannot understand why people find it difficult to see why I and others are greatly concerned and saddened by this development.
English as the court language in England was relatively new by 1444. In fact, it was the previous King, Henry V, who was the first to speak English as his mother tongue. On the point of your claim that becoming Angevine/French is an affront to England or however you wish to put it, England by that point still had a deeply Anglo-Norman nobility, which considered French, first and foremost, the mother tongue, while English was only becoming more prominent due to recent defeats in France (Orleans, Verneiolle, Patay, Burgundian Defection, etc.). English continental ambitions were dead in the water by 1444, and it was only another 9 years that England would be confined to the Channel Islands and Calais. Calais would be lost in the mid 16th century. Thus, just like an England that manages to win the Hundred Years' War will now be forming colonies in a manner far more similar to France, an England that loses the Hundred Years' War or refuses to form the Angevine Empire will have the same difficulties experienced already in game and now with the upcoming DLC in forming a continental empire. France's missions to conquer England are a direct reference to Napoleon's planned invasion and the Capetian monarchs' meddling in English succession affairs, including the Jacobite Rebellions. So this is rather not as much of complete fiction as much as it is more the possible successful outcome of those Capetian and Napoleonic plans.
 
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Am I the only one who feels that the devs seem to shine with the absence in the discussion of this dev diary. Maybe it is just because I am a lot more vested in this dev diary and have some real concerns and hence the absence of any interaction is more noticeable, but my impression is that there is normally a lot more responses from devs to player comments than is the case this week. The only responses have been from the art lead SaintDaveUK (and thanks for that Dave :) ). But I guess maybe everyone else is on holiday. :D
They've been absent pretty much for a month now, although in each DD they promised to look at the feedback. I don't doubt they are looking, but there were a couple of things raised in each of the February diaries that In my opinion would have warranted at least an acknowledgment, even if not outright engagement with the player response. So it's not just this DD they are absent from, it's also the past 3-4 where we haven't heard a single squeak from them after the diary dropped.
 
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