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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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Protestant missions didn't spread to East Asia until the 19th century,
It is possible, although not especially likely without player input, for a not-Catholic Christian variety to reach East Asia first. I understand that the developers are inspired by the history of Catholicism in Japan, but I would like to see Isolation mechanics accommodate not-Catholic Christian outcomes, if perhaps just at the end of the chain. Of course, I would also like to see "Spread of [Religion ID here]" incident chains for more religions despite lacking historical basis.
 
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So, let's address this. The way the Yuan missions are scripted right now is kinda convoluted in the sense that they are not tied to a tag of Yuan - if memory serves right - and rather, they are attached to certain cultures. If I were to add the EoC missions on top of those cultures, I would have to re-script the same missions into the Yuan file, with different names in the script (because same names conflict even between different files). I did this process already for Japan and it's a bit tiring and may itself present more conflicts in the future.

I know people really want Yuan to have access to these but I can't in good conscience promise it. If there is time, I will attempt it though, I got your back :D
this development process is becoming hell at this moment, game goes too complex and you guys have to consider optimization too, thank you for your hard work, i see this dlc will be biggest of all time, even greater than emperor or cradle of civilizations, hope it wont end like leviathan.
 
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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!
Completely agree. The same should apply to Manchu and Great Jin, as well.
 
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Keep up with the great work team! looking good so far i just wish for you to notice and maybe try to "fix" that thing about:
- european only institutions like reinasance for non european countries as china or indian african etc countries.
- natives developing their cities even though not being settled having tribes with more developed provinces than big asian cities or european making little sense. its quite boring going colonial to north america bcs of them : /
- Persia and Mameluks & Aztecs Incan Mayans (as i guess u are working on one of the last updates of the game to make it whole i think most of the long forgotten regions are perfect now but these feel a bit old now) (indians, africans, asians europeans are all perfect now even russians but if u want to improve them great go for it looking forward for next week as a novgorod player).
ps as i said excelent work by the team so far ; )
 
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Can you explain where's this "different playstyle" in these modifiers & mechanics?
Shogunate/isolationist favours tall play. Chinese emperor favours tall play with tributaries/Chinese emperor mechanics. Christian favours military ideas(especially ideas that improve generals, as generals become rulers) and being an expansionist theocracy, and using Catholic mechanics. The Christian path will enable, with smart play, continuous use of Curia powers and even be curia controller.

Each of the 3 will involve taking different ideas, and playing differently.
 
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I'm a bit confused about what the distinction between The Mandate of Heaven DLC and this one will be. Will you need both to fully play Japan and China now, or will the new DLC effectively replace MoH?
 
I'm a bit confused about what the distinction between The Mandate of Heaven DLC and this one will be. Will you need both to fully play Japan and China now, or will the new DLC effectively replace MoH?
Mandate of Heaven is heavily focused on Far East Asia. This one focuses on every part of the world a bit. Mainly Great Powers or countries that have potential to become one. Note that this is what i have observed from DD ever since they showed us rework of China, followed by Ottomans and Japan. Next week we get Russian DD and because of that i think this will focus on GP. I also don't think MoH will be removed nor this will be case scenario of MoH 2.0 but instead it's own DLC. And no you don't nead this DLC or MoH in order to play in China or Japan but you will miss all the content and features that are part of those DLCs (including this one).
 
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I think it is very commendable what Tinto is trying to do.
"The Lions of the North" seems to be the blueprint for this and perhaps future DLCs.
As LotN has received quite favourable reviews I am quite likely to buy it one of these days.
However I am glad that I usually give it some time before I decide on a purchase as I wait until the new game mechanics become more apparent.
This way I avoided "Leviathan". "Concentrated Development" is not for me.
I am also still sceptical about the Teutonic Order turning into a Horde.
But nobody forces me to pursue that part of the mission tree and the other additions presented in LotN are certainly tempting.

So is this upcoming DLC.

I will continue to lurk and read on the forums, however, as I am a martial artist who has lived in Japan for four years, I just wanted to say how happy I am with the love that Yamato receives in this expansion - and yes, very much OP ;)

jamatta
 
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The major regions that need a dire rework are
-Arabia, levant, mashriq and northern africa
-The hordes
-The caucasus and the iranian plateau

If these regions don't get their due
Opera Momentopname_2022-10-04_233259_duckduckgo.com.png
 
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Protestant missions didn't spread to East Asia until the 19th century,

To be fair that was only because Japan isolated itself, an open Japan would inevitably get non-Catholic missionaries opening the way to other sects.

I think the better way of handling it would be Christian Japan should be locked to Catholicism initially, showing that they have no idea about the Reformation, once they meet other Christians then they can switch as they learn about how fractured their new religion is. In theory it's a whole missing part of a Christian Japan tree and events, how does society react to the news that they could be following the wrong faith? Should they even still be Christian or was it a European trick? Rebellions should appear for Shintoism, Buddhism and Christianity and Japan should devolve into religious anarchy until one faith is chosen and the country united. All forms of known Christianity should rise up as society fractures, this would also allow a Japanese player to pick one faith he wants, and would add variety to a Christian Japan AI, Protestants, Anglicans, Orthodox, etc. It's strange that the mass struggles of the Reformation hitting Europe don't appear much for a Christian Japan. Discovering the Reformation should be a massive identity crisis for a Christian Japan.
 
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And no you don't nead this DLC or MoH in order to play in China or Japan but you will miss all the content and features that are part of those DLCs (including this one).
You don't need MoH to have a satisfactory gameplay experience as Ming, but you do need it to have a satisfactory (not even good, just satisfactory) gameplay experience as Mongolia (and probably Jianzhou, for that matter).
 
I only ask for ONE thing. I want Hungary to be a formable. They are one of the biggest and strongest nation at that time with a really prestigious history and still, they can't be formed. But a whole bunch of african and asian countries that are only played by a very few people are formables. I just don't understand why Hungary is not a formable.
 
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Why would a britain go naval only?

Because ruling the waves mean you control all the new world. Which means you have all the cash?

Idea groups (old meta): Economic, Naval, Maritime, Trade, Quality = gg for everyone else.
 
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Please make sure that the house of the rising sun event changes the dynasty to the Yamato-dynasty.
I also think the emperors title should be Tenno, not the english translation of that title (God-emperor)
Someone also suggested this, but the daimyo states should really be renamed to Han. Their ruler's title should be daimyo instead.
 
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What if the nation(s) introducing Christianity to Japan are Protestant, Reformed, or Hussite?
I've always believed that Japan should be converting in its Incident to whatever form of Christianity the first European that discovered them follows. Usually that will be Catholic, but there might be a time or two that a Protestant, Reformed, Hussite, or Orthodox nation can get to them first.
 
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I don't have a problem with more flavour for Japan, but given they historically failed miserably when they tried to conquer Korea and China, Korea at the very least also needs significantly more buffs and flavour. It's been kind of a thing in Paradox games for a long time that Japan gets disproportionately more power and attention than Korea, which seems to be projecting backwards from the 20th century rather than being a fair accounting of reality in most of their history. Korea should be weaker than a united Japan, yes, but not a cakewalk.
But a reading of history would put Korea as far weaker, with how it was unable to expand beyond starting borders since 1444, was turned into a qing subject without much will, and then was successfully invaded by the Japanese, until the Emperor of China could arrive on the scene
 
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