• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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!

japantree.png

[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:

samuraibonkers.png

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:


Screenshot_3.png

Screenshot_4.png
Screenshot_5.png

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:

Screenshot_6.png
While, opting to focus on maritime warfare, would yield the mission ‘A New Naval Academy’ with the following reward:

Screenshot_7.png

[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:

Screenshot_8.png

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):


Screenshot_10.png

[Glorious Nippon steel, folded over 1000 times!]

Screenshot_13.png

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

Screenshot_12.png

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

Screenshot_11.png

[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%]

Screenshot_14.png


Screenshot_15.png


apgain.png

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

Screenshot_2.png


Screenshot_9.png


Screenshot_1.png


Screenshot_17.png

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:

imjin.png


false.png


hegemonasia.png

[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:

Screenshot_18.png


surpasswest.png

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

Screenshot_19.png

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:


Screenshot_20.png

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:

Screenshot_21.png

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:

Screenshot_24.png

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:

Screenshot_25.png

[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:
Screenshot_27.png

The above event proclaims the ending of the Kirishitan Incident. You won't need to conquer any land outside


christiansun.png


t1reform.png


button1.png
[NOTE; the art is PLACEHOLDER!]

button2.png


button3.png


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:

chapel_japan_dd.png
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_24.png
    Screenshot_24.png
    450,7 KB · Views: 0
  • shintotocatholic.png
    shintotocatholic.png
    3 MB · Views: 0
  • 79Like
  • 42Love
  • 18
  • 4
  • 3Haha
  • 2
Reactions:
The Kristian Realm event shows isolationism changing, but in the current game isolationsim is a religious mechanic which does not work with a Christian Japan. Does this mean isolationism is no longer associated with Shinto?
 
  • 6
Reactions:
We actually have people in the team that have lived in Japan, and that do research on Japanese sources. But we have to take into account how to make that material attractive and funny to play, so it's impossible to have a game being 100% historically accurate (and, to be honest, tackling correctly Japanese Early Modern history would require a new Sengoku GSG).
It's fine to focus on "attractive and fun" but in this case it's pretty much at the expense of anything authentic or historical. Japanese armies were certainly not that significantly more disciplined or trained than most other militaries in the time period, or at least not as much as the new modifiers suggest.

And in the case of the God-Emperor you're basically just amplifying ultranationalist propaganda. The divinity and religious importance of the Emperor was significantly exaggerated by the Imperial regime to help make the Emperor a rallying figure for nationalism and give an excuse to crush Buddhist temples, in EU4's time period the Emperor cult was a minor part of folk religion and to most "Shintoists" (in reality they were all just Buddhists who also practice folk religion) the central figure of their worship and practices was just the local animistic deity.
 
  • 42Like
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
1. There's all this content for Japan converting to Christianity, which is cool. However, there is also another event chain where if you side with the Ikko-Ikki during their incident, you can convert to Buddhism. Will that interact with the mission tree at any point? I understand if it's not optimal gameplay wise but I love the flavor behind that path.

2. If Japan goes down trying to claim the mandate, can they Sinicize Japanese culture like how Korea, Vietnam, and the Altaic cultures can? Japan absolutely viewed itself in the same Little China system as the other counties listed, and there were times (particularly around the Imjin War) where members of the Japanese court referred to themselves with the same characters they would use to refer to China. If you're going to give them Emperor missions, I think that's a very important flavor element of that questline.
 
  • 24Like
  • 5
  • 1
Reactions:
It is nice to see that the isolationist bonuses and rewards are being changed to better fit with isolationist gameplay. I would love to get that military parade button too, but that would require going Christian, which means giving up much of what is unique about this region...
 
  • 1
Reactions:
But, please, it's not necessary to repeat it on every single DD

Respectfully disagreed. When people don't nag about persistent issues, then we have Devs saying things like "I haven't heard much complaining about it lately, so it must not be a problem." There's no real limit to how many posts can exist on the forum, so we may as well be persistent.
 
  • 17Like
  • 17
  • 3
  • 3
Reactions:
Pretty cool.

I just have to ask: any new stuff for Ryukyu?
I'd like to point out that this is not a joke. I have very limited knowledge of the region, but from what I've heard Ryukyu had an important role in facilitating trade between Japan and China and I think it would make sense to represent this in some capacity.
 
  • 5Like
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
The entire flavour of japan just seems to stop after you unite it and entirely skipping over the fractured internal issues they all had (which was kinda their thing for a few centuries). Which I understand is hard to implement but..they are just rly, rly quickly skipped over
Like if it were that easy to fully stabilize japan
then they would have done so historically but it simply wasnt that easy and at least a little of acknowledgment to that in the tree would have been nice xD
And as reward then those modifiers

Japan could for example also locked out of their expansion tree like the teutons who need to conquer part of poland. In their case korea with different flavours if you fail or win
 
Last edited:
  • 4Like
  • 3
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
Dumb question, but wasn't Japan not "recently" changed, so that forming it allows you to keep the Shogunate. I thought that I read this in older Dev Diaries (like when they changed the asia region, or Mandate), but I havn't played it in the last years.
If yes, how does the event 'taking the mandate' works with being Shogunate. Both are tier 1 reforms, and originally the Shogunate prevents you from taking the mandate.

If this was just a possible idea in a dev diary, and never actually a change, my bad.
 
  • 8
Reactions:
This is fine, but give Byzantines.
 
  • 6
  • 3Haha
  • 3
  • 2Like
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions:
I personally really dislike the idea of my country being renamed as a direct result of a mission. I want to play as Japan, not as ''the shogunate''.

Maybe have it pop up an event in which you can choose to rename your country, or to just stay as Japan.
 
  • 37
  • 9Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
We actually have people in the team that have lived in Japan, and that do research on Japanese sources. But we have to take into account how to make that material attractive and funny to play, so it's impossible to have a game being 100% historically accurate (and, to be honest, tackling correctly Japanese Early Modern history would require a new Sengoku GSG).
Sengoku 2 confirmed???
 
  • 6Haha
  • 2
Reactions:
I have a question, will there be any changes to the map in this Dlc. Of course, I'm not talking about new provinces, but about new countries?
When will you add indigenous religion for Polynesians?
Will the Buddhist religion get reworked?
Can you change the religion of Shirvan Country to Sunni Islam and the same applies to its provinces. Shiite Islam got introduced there by the Safavids.
In general, the majority of Iran should follow the Sunni religion.

@Pavía @PDX Big Boss

 
  • 6Like
  • 2
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions:
I personally really dislike the idea of my country being renamed as a direct result of a mission. I want to play as Japan, not as ''the shogunate''.

Maybe have it pop up an event in which you can choose to rename your country, or to just stay as Japan.
I know the Ante Bellum mod makes it a decision, which feels like the best solution.
 
  • 2
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions:
It's pretty weird to me that going Catholic renames your country to "Kirishitan Japan". It would be like if forming Prussia changed your name to "Protestant Prussia". There should at least be an option for keeping your country name as is.
 
  • 39Like
  • 11
  • 1Haha
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Will Ryukru and Ainu have anything new?
 
  • 15Like
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1Haha
Reactions: