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Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 31st of January 2023 - Japan

Konnichiwa! Welcome to another week’s Dev Diary, this time around focusing on Japan. As a region, it already received a good amount of interesting content during ‘Mandate of Heaven’, with the introduction of the Shinto interactions, as well as the Shogunate. The goal of revisiting Japan is to expand its mechanics & tie them around new flavor in the form of a mission tree for Japan, new events as well as government reforms. Let’s take a look!

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[WIP] All values, art and even layouts showcased here are work in progress![WIP]​

Note, as you probably might have guessed already, Japan also gets access to the Emperor of China dedicated branch that I showcased a few weeks ago albeit the descriptions and titles are curated for immersion and accuracy reasons.

The tree will be granted upon forming Japan and it houses 30 new missions, 46 if you count the Emperor of China branch, as well as a dozen new events (both tied to the missions AND independent from it) as well as several new government reforms and even a special new unit, the Samurai.

The top half of the mission tree will deal with the internal affairs of the island, instructing you to guide the nation through military, commercial as well as administrative changes you may wish to enact. As we will see in detail further down, nearly every single mission is tied to either a new mechanic specifically made for Japan or a dynamic set of rewards.

Alongside all these cool new additions, we have also created a new special unit for Japan, the Samurai! They will not be easy to recruit and the intention is that they make about 10-25% of your forcelimit as your elite frontline, as shown below:

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Give us some ideas about what color they should be and feel free to chime in with some overall feedback regarding these very powerful bonuses​

Every Daimyo, Shogun and Indep. Daimyo will have access to the new unit either via their national ideas or via their government type, which are accessible in the base game. Furthermore, Japan has a +15% Samurai Forcelimit in its ideas!

Let's take a look at some highlights around new events and missions:

The mission ‘Bushido’ has not only been reworked from the ground up, but it also interacts with the aforementioned new special unit for Japan, the Samurai. By elevating your army professionalism and presenting a robust and powerful army, you will be rewarded with the following event:


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Kept you waiting, huh ?
These options will reform a significant part of the following 2 missions, based on your choices.
Should you choose to focus on the matter of land, you will be greeted by the mission ‘Bugeijuuhappan’ (or ‘18 types of martial arts’), a carefully curated combination of warfare techniques. Here’s Bugeijuuhappan’s reward:

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While, opting to focus on maritime warfare, would yield the mission ‘A New Naval Academy’ with the following reward:

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[This will probably be nerfed, it’s quite powerful!]​

But the dynamic nature of these missions does not stop there! The mission ‘Train the Samurai’ will also be impacted by your choice in the Book of Five Rings event as shown below:

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A very interesting part of the missions revolves around the fact that many of them will have their outcome depend on how you handle certain Shinto Incidents (if you own MoH and are yourself Shinto):


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[Glorious Nippon steel, folded over 1000 times!]

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The tree also plays around some new government reforms, as shown below:

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[That trade value will definitely be nerfed, at the very least! Please keep in mind these numbers are FAR from final]

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[Max Effect of Absolutism amplifies your current Absolutism’s potency. If 100 Absolutism grants
30% Administrative Efficiency, then “20% Max Effect of Absolutism” will amplify the 30% up to 36%]

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Before we move on to the conquest, second part of the tree, here are a few events that are independent of the mission tree:

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Moving on to the conquest branch of the tree, you will have the opportunity to seize land in both Korea and China as well as the Malacca Trade Node:

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[Should you claim the Mandate, you will be able to fabricate Tributary CBs on anyone, as long as they are weaker than you development-wise and independent]

The event ‘Fate of the Mandate’ which is granted after finishing the ‘Mandate to Rule Them All’ mission may grant you the opportunity to seize the Mandate, mid-war, and gain a powerful modifier to go with it:

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[Should you complete the mission while already a hegemon, you will gain a special easter egg modifier called 'Unleash the Shinkirou']

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The above 3 missions will have their rewards depending entirely on the current level of isolation! While we are at it, I took the liberty of changing the bonuses of isolation as I felt that the Open-side was incredibly more powerful than the Isolated side. I chose to have the extremes (0 and 4) be somewhat more powerful in most ocassions, so they are something a player will actively work towards during the entire game. Of course, this does not mean the other levels of isolation are useless, on the contrary:


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Finally, let’s take a look at the mission ‘A New Buddha?’ This one will deal with the relationship between Edo-Period Japan and Christianity:

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Note, the modifier Protectors of Eastern Catholicism will also grant Papal Influence, which is not visible right now​

Should we complete the mission by eradicating Christianity, we will gain access to the following mission and reward:

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Note; all these new reforms will also bolster the amount of Samurai you can recruit, by +10%​

Siding with the Shogun will rename your country to ‘The Shogunate’ and grant you a new and powerful T1 reform whereas siding with the Emperor, will yield the following event:

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[Note; your title with this reform is ‘God-Emperor’]

HOWEVER, if you choose (for whatever reason) to embrace Christianity in the Shinto incident, you will gain the following mission and reward:
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The above event proclaims the ending of the Kirishitan Incident. You won't need to conquer any land outside


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[NOTE; the art is PLACEHOLDER!]

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Please keep in mind the art and the numbers showcased here are a WIP!
The Government buttons showcased here were created from scratch with our new and fully moddable mechanic, which will allow you to create your own government buttons as you see fit should you wish to mod them. You can add 0 buttons or up to however many you can stuff on the UI and have them act accordingly or even evolve based on requirements or rewards you subscribe to them.

These particular ones operate much like the Tsardom buttons, but I could just as easily remove them and have a large bar in their stead, akin to the one we showcased last week for the Ottoman Decadence.


Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this Dev Diary. Next week we will be discussing new content for Russia with @Ogele!

This week's chapel comic, courtesy of Father Lorris:

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It is important to reiterate that it is not just that some of these modifiers are individually very overtuned. It is just as much that there are so many of them. It is fine for there to be many, that is the fun part, but if you make the modifiers both permanent and plentiful, you need to make them individually small.

Also, "All our trade buildings will be upgraded and gain 1 base production development" is an extremely big reward that easily flies under the radar. This should be restricted at least to the region, if not further. Remember the old Polynesian "Upgrade all your trade centers" reward for comparison.
 
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As there are lots of suggestions from other parts of the game - I just wanna say thank you!

Really the last DDs all were crazy good. So many good ideas in the sets. Finally it feels more like a “complete“ touch of a Country as you‘re touching different aspects of gameplay mechanics and finally adding new country specific mechanics to new nations to feel them even more unique just from the Interface.

So thanks for that. I agree that the isolationism before felt quite strange to understand. Even as expierenced player. Now I got a better understanding what to do and really the feeling to „form“ the Country in a specific way.

Also like the idea that some goverment reforms are behind ideas. Normally maybe the „bonuses“ from missions would just appear as modifiers - as a goverment reform it feels more elegant to me. (And also understandable after some time passed)


For me samurai colorsare green OR burgund red.

Lots of people will be happy that you also adress russia. This really feels like the ultimate immersion/flavor DLC. But please don‘t forget all the smaller countries that are bland yet.
 
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Also, "All our trade buildings will be upgraded and gain 1 base production development" is an extremely big reward that easily flies under the radar. This should be restricted at least to the region, if not further. Remember the old Polynesian "Upgrade all your trade centers" reward for comparison.
PLC has very similar mission that gives +1 dev for military buildings. It doesn't ugrade them but still +1 manpower is usually better than +1 production and you build more military buildings
 
You are obviously right.
The same also applies to Japan turning catholic and starting crusades against its neighbors, as it did happen within the time period, hence it's very reasonable that it's a part of the tree.

Not to mention that the Japanese Emperors did attempt to regain their authority several times even during this period, and many more dreamed about it.
While we don't need Meiji Restoration per se, a chance for an Emperor to try and regain his power and then reform the country should really be there. Not for the sake of "cool stuff that happened", but because the rivalry between the Emperor and the Samurai was far from non-existent.
 
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Why is Christian path so militarily powerful?

Gameplay-wise, probably to make up for having somewhat harder time holding territories and doing diplomacy due to no longer being in the same religiosu as everyone else around you.

Immersion-wise, probably represents the Japanese government using the religious fervor received from mass conversions to motivate its people for conquests across the continent.
 
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What if the nation(s) introducing Christianity to Japan are Protestant, Reformed, or Hussite?
Adding to that, Its a bit frustrating that Orthodox and Copts are always left out of such potential events and missions. I mean, granted, in this example, Orthodox Japan with these bonuses would be a nightmare, but nevertheless, it would be nice for these opportunities to exist anyways.
 
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Great work. Especially the Naval Bonus Options alternative path, having Japan Player being able to pick a naval or army based approach is a great use of branching missions.

For multiplayer Japan is the only real nation that has the potential (in Multi Player) to combat a mid/late game naval focus Great Britain. This is because it has the freedom to pick naval military idea as it doesn't need to compete on land.

To ensure this is the case it would be great if you could expand on the naval route for Japan players. With perhaps an alternative government form and name change? And perhaps at the same time you can get a different set of national ideas and a unique naval doctrine (looked at wiki looks like there is already one :))
Why would a britain go naval only?
 
Please make the name changes optional. I hate having name changes forced on a country. Also, please make the Caliphate one optional too while you're at it. If I'm dominating the world as the proud house of Osmanoglu I want to be known as such, not just as the Caliphate.

Other than that part, it sounds great. Always nice to see extra content for Japan!
 
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What if the nation(s) introducing Christianity to Japan are Protestant, Reformed, or Hussite?

Protestant missions didn't spread to East Asia until the 19th century,
 
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I cant believed how great these changes are. This dlc will truly be one of the best yet. Its honestly so incredible what youve been doing. I only hope that my favourite nations will be included in this dlc. Amazing work guys
 
While your attention is focused on East Asia, you might want to fix this incredibly annoying bug in the German translation of the game. The Trade Good Tea is not named "Tee" as it should be (and was, for many years), but instead is named "Ngati Ranginui" which apparently is a Maori tribe in New Zealand (I don't even know how this bug slipped into the game). IIRC it has been around since late 2021 (Origins)

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will we get any conversion bonuses upon becoming christian?

Christians already have multiple decisions for missionary strength by Admin 10.
 
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Wouldn't ashigaru be better than samurai as a reward for long mission tree? Seeing as theyre much like the caroleans of revolutionising infantry tactics by conscripting a new class rather than common at game start
 
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Idk, it sounds dumb, but just don't use them to carpet siege
By the sounds of it, you'll have at max 20/30 of these things in the early/midgame,
which means you'll likely be able to pad out your military with other units quite a bit, and probably use those to carpet siege instead. Though a button to separate the two easier may be pretty useful in that regard.
Theres a button already
 
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Will you be able to access the new missions if you start as a non-Japanese country, flip Japanese and become a Daimyo/Independent Daimyo/the Shogun?

Also, will there be religious options for the really silly cases, like Animist (Ryukyu starts as Animist after all) or Confucian, or really out there cases like Sikh?
 
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Very cool. Since I'm playing as a Protestant Japan, I feel I should ask if there will there be any bonuses for non-Catholic Christians?
Sunni japan is a /gsg/ meme, Catholic Japan is its only alt his most care about
As before, there are a few re-wordings you may wish to consider:

  1. "Marine Samurai" might be better as "Samurai Marines".
  2. "pawns of power and mandate bureaucracy" should be "advisors and bureaucrats behind the scenes".
But why?
  1. "the big dragon" should be "the mighty Dragon".
Yes
  1. "A New Buddha?" should be "A New Faith?".
But the new buddha makes sense because of how missionary work often is
  1. "Petition Holy Favor" should be "Petition for Church Support"
But why
 
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You mean Hideyoshi landed in Busan on April 14, occupied Seoul on May 2, and occupied Pyongyang on June 15?
If we judge every war by how it starts rather than how it ends, we might as well just end the game and say France wins when the Revolutions Era kicks off.

Japan didn't win that war (or wars, since there was really two of them) on land. And they weren't only fighting Chinese troops either time. The fact is, they failed to take over Korea despite launching one of the biggest naval invasions in history (almost as big as the Normandy landings). So a super overpowered Japan that can squash Korea like a bug - which is what we have here, and honestly what we kind of have in the game already - is unfair favouritism.
 
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Will Japanese culture sinicize after being Emperor of China like Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan and Vietnamese?

A question about the Ming updates: A new great project that spans several provinces has been introduced. Is that the Great Wall of China or the Jinghang grand canal? In fact, I suggest you do both;).

Moreover, I suggest that more Buddhistic great projects could be added to China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia since, at the time period of EU4, Buddhism had been widely spread in these regions.
 
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