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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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Overall looks really great, I like a lot of the flavor that is being shown off here (Though I hope that Of Spice and Herbs event is not kept as exclusive to Japan) like The First Geisha event. Would another event for Japan in a similar vein to that but on the topic of Rakugo (with a Rakugoka coming to our court) be out of the question? I feel like it is relevant enough to the Edo period and has some fun history that could be mentioned.
 
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Concerning Kirishitan Japan, will they still be able to become the Emperor of China even if they are Catholic? Or will they be prohibited from doing so like most non-Eastern Religion Countries? Additionally, if they are prohibited, will there be some sort of alternate reward for conquerering/destroying the Mandate as Christians?
 
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In the future will India get a rework? The nations in that subcontinent has woefully bland and underpowered mission trees and government reforms, compared to the current standard and hasn't been touched since the release of Dharma. Dharma now feels less and less valuable with no important mechanics tied to it, meh mission trees, wonky estates which require sacrificing much absolutism to use and in some cases doesn't have the flexibility of the base estates. If there are no plans then can you let me know so I can let go of such hopes.
 
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I like the changes in 1.35 for the land of the rising sun. I can't wait for the update and dlc to come out!
But I was really looking forward to the reworking of the shogun-daimyo relationship system. Japan needs a unique shogunate mechanic like the HRE mechanic in Europe. In 1444, I'm tired of watching Ashikaga Shogun's swarm of vassals begin to devour each other like spiders in a jar until a single challenger emerges victorious.
 
I like the changes in 1.35 for the land of the rising sun. I can't wait for the update and dlc to come out!
But I was really looking forward to the reworking of the shogun-daimyo relationship system. Japan needs a unique shogunate mechanic like the HRE mechanic in Europe. In 1444, I'm tired of watching Ashikaga Shogun's swarm of vassals begin to devour each other like spiders in a jar until a single challenger emerges victorious.
That's kinda how the Sengoku Jidai went, one Daimyo overpowering his rivals and getting the emperor to appoint him Shogun and thus unify the country. What other aspects do you need?
 
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So the only path for christian Japan is the stratocracy one? No regular monarchy path, with maybe the Pope recognizing the Emperor divine right to rule and Japan becoming a European style monarchy? And what about the third religious path where you tolerate christians without converting? The dev diary only explains what happen when you go down the other two paths.
 
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It would be interesting with a government reform or permanent modifier which focuses on colonization, e.g. a massive boost to colonization range in order to enable Japan to reach western America before it is all claimed by Europeans. Maybe tied to the naval paths?
 
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While I'm quite pumped for a much-needed Japan rework, I'm sad that, rather than expanding the colonization missions, they've been eliminated entirely (and that no daimyo gets a unique mission tree, not even Oda/Tokugawa). Some questions:

Will there be events tied to the Emperor moving the capital? If so, will it be tied to Edo/Tokyo, or will other places be allowed (preferable with alternate names like Nankyo, Saikyo/Seikyo, or Hokkyo for a south, west, and north capital respectively)?

Since so many of the changes are coming to East Asia, will names be changed to family name first, given name last in the appropriate cases?

Has the Sengoku Jidai been reworked in any way?

What happens if Japan goes republican (by caving in to the Ikko-ikki)? Will they have a unique republican government reform?

Do you plan on adding unique CN names for some of the nations updated? Japan (and China, to a lesser extent) are popular colonizers.

Will there be a mechanic like the Statists vs. Monarchists for the Shogun and the Emperor?

Are there any plans for Hindu or Muslim Japan? If Japan colonizes south, they will encounter nations of both religions.
 
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Um... I'm happy for Japan and all, and I get that a lot of internet likes Japan because of anime. But there are regions of the world that haven't been touched in almost a decade.
 
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Great content as usual. Happy for all of these additions to beloved nations, but still waiting for that South America/Colonial nations update. The area looks... sad.
 
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Christian Japan?! Meh, I don't want it.

JAPAN IS THE COUNTRY WITH 8 MILLION GODS.

Nobody dare can't make Japan believe 'only-god'.
Instead, Yahweh should be 'a member' of 8 million gods!
 
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The idea with giving bonuses only to a certain region ist great. And i think it should be used more offen especially with monuments. It always felt kinda weird that some, even though impressive building, half way around the world would impact your nation on a global scale. Bring more prerequisites in, limit the bonuses and maybe give the global modifiers only, if you have the monument in the capital province or vis versa. Other than that great flavor, although i agree with the rest: the powercreep is real and you should keep balance in mind.
 
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Seeing those absolutism modifiers... are you considering somewhat reworking bonuses of absolutism? Right now it is much more worht to keep estates than go authoritianism in all types of cases except when you are doing world conquest.
Maybe dev efficiency scalling same way as adm eff?
Also what about some small all power cost modifier when having 100 maximal abs and maybe even make this modifier increase when max absolutism is above 100? (like starting at 5% and then 0.2% for each 1 point, so 10% at 125 max abs, what would be new maximum limit)
also the bonus would only activated when your actual abs is at least 90.
So player needs to think if it is more worth it to keep +1 privilegias or go for max absolutism...

Thanks for improving the game!

P.S.
(also did anyone noticed the bug if you form colonial tag as non former colony which doesnt have one of specific colonial coulters, you will be getting rulers of pre-determined coloniser... as protestant romagnol Texas ( from bologna spagethi achievement), i was recieving castilian catholic rulers, normally not big issue, except the case when you would like to stack up bonuses for advisors of ruler culture)
 
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Russia content next week! Hype! Been wanting a bit of a refresh from the old Third Rome tree's for a while. Intiailly I was agiant making them more powerful but since Poland, Ottomans and Sweden as so strong now it only makes sense to refresh them a bit.
 
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Will you fix the Japanese Ruler/Government Titles?

Daimyo = title of the ruler
Han = Domain of a Daimyo

currently this is represented wrong, with "Daimyo" being used as the name of the Domain, and "Lord" being used as the ruler title
 
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