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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!

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:


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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:

Screenshot_6.png
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:

Screenshot_18.png


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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:

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


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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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- Limiting the conditions for a country to be a Daimyo vassal

First, there should be limitations to be a Daimyo.
Without this, the Shogunate becomes to OP, and unifying Japan (becoming Japan tag) would have less meaning.

A country can become a daimyo, when...
  • The country's capital is within Japan region (regardless of culture & religion. See Crimson provinces in the map below)
Or...
  • If the country's capital is a coastal province, within either one of these regions.. (see Orange provinces in the map)
    • Far East super region (except Japan)
    • Manchuria region
  • The country must be either one of them
    • Primary culture is in Japanese group
    • State religion is Shinto
1675200027001.png


Any shogun's vassal not meeting none of these cannot become a daimyo. (And, the Shogunate must be allowed to also own normal vassals, which couldn't be Daimyos)

And any ex-daimyo not meeting none of these, will be forcibly become a normal vassal state with Feudal Nobility reform.



- Addtional conditions to make sure the Unification of Japan

[1] 'Japan is Unified' Decision


Japan is Unified decision must require...
  • One must own all of 'mainland of Japan'. (See the map below)
  • No provinces owned by any daimyos allowed within Japan region.
    • (But it doesn't matter even if there are any daimyos' provinces outside Japan region)

1675200546153.png


You can see that deep red-marked provinces are those owned by daimyos & Ashikaga shogun in 1444GC.
At first, you must own all of them as core provinces. No exception!

So I suggest (both version of) the decision 'Japan is Completely United' to be changed like this.

Allow
Flag of JapanJapan does not exist.
The country:
  • is not a subject nation other than a tributary state.
  • owns ALL these provinces, as cores
    • Oshima (4193)
    • Musashi (1028, Tokyo)
    • Shimousa (4190)
  • owns ALL provinces of following areas, as cores.
    • Tohoku
    • Northern Kanto*
    • Hokurikudo
    • Inland Chubu*
    • Tokaido*
    • Kinai
    • Sanindo
    • Sanyodo
    • Shikoku
    • Northern Kyushu
    • Southern Kyushu*
  • No daimyo vassals own any provinces within Japan region.
  • is not at war.
Effects
The country:
  • changes to Flag of Japan Japan.
  • becomes an Empire rank empire.
  • gains Icon legitimacy monarchy.png100 legitimacy.
  • gains Administrative power.png100 administrative power.
  • gains Diplomatic power.png100 diplomatic power.
  • gains Military power.png100 military power.
  • obtains new missions (which are Japanese missions).
All subject daimyos of the country:
  • Gain -100 Diplomatic relation with Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
  • Gain +50 Liberty desire against Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
All subject daimyos with capitals outside Japan region:
  • Gain -50 additional (-150 in total) Diplomatic relation with Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
  • Gain +25 additional (+75 in total) Liberty desire against Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
If subject daimyos:
  • have either Negative opinion, or at least 100% liberty desire against Japan...
    • become independent.
If Flag of JapanJapan:
The AI will always take this decision.


With current 'Japan is Unified' decision, this could be happened.

1675200723301.png

Nobody think that this is the 'complete unification'.
This situation is rather the 'partition' of Japan!


Or this also can be happened.

1675200837171.png

This is yet another reason why both conditions of becoming a Daimyo vassal & unifying Japan should be fixed.


[2] 'Unify Japan' Decision

This is the requirements in current version to execute 'Unite Japan!.

First, make it require at least 30 cities within Japan region. (And let the AI take this decision with 35 cities or more)

And then, only demanding Kyoto and Musashi is not enough. There should be more essential provinces to be required.
Those will be, from South-West to North-East..
  • Chikuzen (Hakata) - 1818
  • Suo (Shimonoseki) - 1017
  • Settsu (Osaka) - 1021
  • Kyoto - 1020
  • Owari (Nagoya) - 1030
  • Musashi (Edo) - 1028
  • Rikuzen (Sendai) - 1026
1675201597638.png


Yes. As you can see, it represents modern major cities of Japan.

Once again, the requirements and effects to execute Unify Japan! decision, should be..
  • Allow
    Flag of Japan Japan does not exist.
    The country:
    • is not a subject nation other than a tributary state.
    • is not a nomad nation.
    • is not at war.
    • owns at least 30 cities.
    • owns...
      • Chikuzen (Hakata) - 1818
      • Suo (Shimonoseki) - 1017
      • Settsu (Osaka) - 1021
      • Kyoto - 1020
      • Owari (Nagoya) - 1030
      • Musashi (Edo) - 1028
      • Rikuzen (Sendai) - 1026
Effects

All subject daimyos of the country:
  • Gain -100 Diplomatic relation with Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
  • Gain +50 Liberty desire against Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
All subject daimyos with capitals outside Japan region:
  • Gain -50 additional (-150 in total) Diplomatic relation with Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
  • Gain +25 additional (+75 in total) Liberty desire against Japan (with a yearly decay of 1)
The country:
  • changes to Flag of Japan Japan.
  • becomes an Empire rank empire.
  • obtains new missions (which are Japanese missions).
  • gains permanent claims on all provinces of Japan region.
If Flag of Japan Japan:
If subject daimyos:
  • have either Negative opinion, or at least 100% liberty desire against Japan...
    • become independent.

The AI will not take this decision with less than 35 cities within Japan region.
 
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So you removed the missionary from isolationism 3 but to compensate you gave defender of the faith to shinto through the mission tree.
I guess it's fine, but the province of Ise should really give an extra missionary.
 
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Great i am already looking forward! And i was looking trough the game and it would really be a great addition if you guys could also highlight the rivercrossing provinces like on the picture! that would really be appreciated!
 

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You guys play Japan?

It has been an even more boring Britain for me. Once you are done with uniting the Island, the AI basically never poses you a threat because it can never navigate a naval invasion. It is disappointing to see all this content (and most of them are OP modifiers really) for a region I will not play. Would be neat if the same effort went to an actually fun and competitive region (Balkans, Italy, Maghreb, Iberia anything really).
 
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If I had any doubts that those in charge of new content don't even play the game I don't have them anymore. Guys wtf are those modifiers.
 
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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.

It s no secret I really like renaming my country, would you like to offer alternative suggestions ? I am all ears!

Was there a name that Christian missionaries referred to Japan as? If Christianity spreads, it would be make sense that the name caught on

So I looked into this, when Francis Xavier went to Japan for the first time, he refered to the land as Japan. Europeans had been introduced to name of Japan via Marco Polo, meaning that it might make sense for a Christian Japan to keep its name the same.
I would argue that Holy Orders should be available to all Catholic nations, it makes little sense that they are exclusively an Iberian feature.

Massively agree. Holy Orders would give players of Catholic nations something to do with their extra monarch points.
Uhhh
So now Korea is the country, blocked by two big "regions" of reworked missions trees of China and Japan. Now, culture convert to Japan as Korea is absolute must, and it is very sad...

My main concern is kinda this. With Japan and China getting a rework, Korea is going to be too weak to resist either of them. Historically, Korea was able to resist Japan, and with this rework Japan will most likely steamroll Korea. That being said, Korea should still be weak on land, but an absolute beast at sea. Japan wasn't really a naval power until out of this timeline, so its naval bonuses should be minimal and it should only really be getting Land Warfare bonuses. This would make invading Japan more problematic, but blockading and defeating Japan at sea wouldn't be problematic.

All in all, this looks really good it just really needs to severely be balanced. My main concern is the newer mission trees allow the nations with them to absolute roll over nations without/older mission tree. I really hope that Tinito understands that I want good mission trees, but not missions on steroids.
 
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You guys play Japan?

It has been an even more boring Britain for me. Once you are done with uniting the Island, the AI basically never poses you a threat because it can never navigate a naval invasion. It is disappointing to see all this content (and most of them are OP modifiers really) for a region I will not play. Would be neat if the same effort went to an actually fun and competitive region (Balkans, Italy, Maghreb, Iberia anything really).
If you don't play in Japan doesn't mean others also don't. Personally, I don't play in Maghreb, Iberia or Balkans.

A Japanese OPM is one of my favorite starts for a WC, for example.
 
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Konnichiwa! ...

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:

Im sorry what? A perma 10 percent buff to tactics? Is that percentage increase applied before the percentage multiplier from discipline because if so Japan will be highest quality army in the game bar none. Im assuming from the wording that this buff is treated differently than discipline because otherwise youd just call this +10 percent discipline (which would still be absurdly OP IMO, at least Prussia has a drawback for getting a unique +10 percent disc)

Say you have 2.25 tactics from mil tech and +20 percent disc. Currently that would produce combat tactics of 2.25 * 1.2 = 2.7
If you apply the 10 percent tactics buff to the base before accounting for disc youd get 2.25 * 1.1 = 2.475 * 1.2 = 2.97
This is the equivalent of permanently being ahead on mil tech

Also siege cycles are impacted by "base" tactics differences unmodified by discipline; are you planning on letting this mod speed up siege cycles?

Please stop doling out absurdly overpowered military buffs like candy for the sake of "flavor".
5 percent disc is a good sweet spot because its incentivizing without being so good that it removes the player choice ("take this reward or you have messed up big time")


Also I think someone said this already but Samurai unit color should absolutely be pink
 
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Im sorry what? A perma 10 percent buff to tactics? Is that percentage increase applied before the percentage multiplier from discipline because if so Japan will be highest quality army in the game bar none. Im assuming from the wording that this buff is treated differently than discipline because otherwise youd just call this +10 percent discipline (which would still be absurdly OP IMO, at least Prussia has a drawback for getting a unique +10 percent disc)

Say you have 2.25 tactics from mil tech and +20 percent disc. Currently that would produce combat tactics of 2.25 * 1.2 = 2.7
If you apply the 10 percent tactics buff to the base before accounting for disc youd get 2.25 * 1.1 = 2.475 * 1.2 = 2.97
This is the equivalent of permanently being ahead on mil tech

Also siege cycles are impacted by "base" tactics differences unmodified by discipline; are you planning on letting this mod speed up siege cycles?

Please stop doling out absurdly overpowered military buffs like candy for the sake of "flavor".
5 percent disc is a good sweet spot because its incentivizing without being so good that it removes the player choice ("take this reward or you have messed up big time")
That modifier is broken :)
It's not 10% military tactics, it's +0.1 tactics.
Not very sure if Big Boss is aware of this.
No worries
 
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Some of these bonuses are a nit broken... well they said there'd be nerfs.
maybe you could add the effect of shinto incidents do you do'nt have to play with wiki open?
 
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Christian Japan has a lot of content now, but what about other possible religions that might take-over? Say the Buddhists if the warrior monks take over, or Neo-Confucianists?

Also is there any new content related to ninja's? It's a real shame there isn't any currently given that the Japanese Civil War era saw the rise of the Ninja, there should at least be special bonuses if a japanese nation takes espionage ideas. Also it'd be nice if there's any flavor events that occur if two samurai armies fight one another and leaders get into duels with each-other.

Also is there going to be any added flavor for the nearby Ryukyu and Ainu tags? I don't think they need much, but a little bit of flavor for them would be appreciated since they are some of the first expansion roots for a unified Japan. Perhaps the option to vassalize them more peacefully rather than straight up annexing them if they become tributaries or something.

For expansion, is there anything involved possible expansion into Taiwan or the Philippines? It's ahistorical, but so is expansion into Malacca and they are closer by. Not to mention in EUIV's timeframe Samurai mercenaries were used in a power dispute in the Philippines. Speaking of- I know that the Philippines gets access to a unique samurai mercenary company, but will that company now use the special Mercenary units? I think unique unit mercenaries were added in Lions of the North with some Finnish cavalry, but expanding that sort of thing I think would make Mercenaries more flexible. In particular with Japanese tags, I think what with Ronin being former Samurai it would make sense if the Ronin company used the Samurai unit, it'd help distinguish them from other small mercenary companies like the Wokou. Who speaking of, could also be given a bit of flavor to justify their pirate origins. Perhaps they'd be marines, or have extra looting speed similar to the Buccaneers in the Carribean (who probably also should be marines too).

Lastly will any of the Daimyo get unique mission trees? I think that early Japan is a bit boring when the different Daimyo save for So (who can become a pirate nation) all play basically the same with only separate ideas. Different mission trees for the Daimyo would make conquering Japan a lot more fun with different playstyles, say the Oda are much more brutal in their conquests while the Hideyoshi are much more diplomatic, the southern clans being more focused on trade and wealth.
 
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You guys play Japan?

It has been an even more boring Britain for me. Once you are done with uniting the Island, the AI basically never poses you a threat because it can never navigate a naval invasion. It is disappointing to see all this content (and most of them are OP modifiers really) for a region I will not play. Would be neat if the same effort went to an actually fun and competitive region (Balkans, Italy, Maghreb, Iberia anything really).

Japan's main problem is not a lot of room to expand once it is united. There's a couple missions for taking Korea, but that's about it. A lot more flavor added to the Korean War would help since OTL it was a very big affair for all sides. Not to mention one of the ultimate goals was to take China, so more flavor added there, and it also seems there's a couple of alt-history new world missions.
 
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So I looked into this, when Francis Xavier went to Japan for the first time, he refered to the land as Japan. Europeans had been introduced to name of Japan via Marco Polo, meaning that it might make sense for a Christian Japan to keep its name the same.
Europea got the name of Japan from the Chinese name for the region, which was Zaipan.
My main concern is kinda this. With Japan and China getting a rework, Korea is going to be too weak to resist either of them. Historically, Korea was able to resist Japan, and with this rework Japan will most likely steamroll Korea. That being said, Korea should still be weak on land, but an absolute beast at sea. Japan wasn't really a naval power until out of this timeline, so its naval bonuses should be minimal and it should only really be getting Land Warfare bonuses. This would make invading Japan more problematic, but blockading and defeating Japan at sea wouldn't be problematic.
The problem was a couple-fold. Japan invaded when it still wasn't fully unified. A lot of the Shogun's Daimyo didn't want to commit troops because they didn't support the Shogun. This is actually mirrored pretty closely if you attempted the war at the correct date with the timeline feature- vassal swarms can be strong, but they also don't know how to concentrate their forces, and you can't always order them to do what you want, especially if they disloyal. You'd have one big strong force, and then a half dozen 3 stacks that could be knocked out by Chinese reinfocrments, which is basically what happened IRL. Similarly for the navy- as you said there wasn't a real investment in a navy, but each clan largely handled their own logistics, meaning several small japanese fleets ferrying over troops. Third was the fact the Samurai just completely ignored southwestern Korean, bypassing it to get to Seoul, which gave the Koreans there a base to continually strike at the Japanese. And by the time the Japanese realized this was a problem they were too busy arguing with themselves to really solve the problem. Lastly of course was Admiral Yi the lynchpin of Korean resistance who professionalized the chunk of the Navy he could control and innovated the Korean turtle ships, and being smart enough to only strike when he had the advantage losing very few ships.

In a sense the OTL korean invasion plays out like you had one player playing Japan with ai Daimyo, a bunch of people playing Korea, with a pro-player micro-ing the shit in southwestern korea being Admiral Yi until the Chinese doomstacks show up. Getting it to play out exactly as it did in real life would be impossible to replicate in any circumstance.
 
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An event for Yasuke (black slave who became a samurai) would be dope.
I could imagine you get an event and an advisor if you play as the Oda clan. Or perhaps a general, though I think that's a bit much (he was Oda Nobunaga's bodyguard so I don't think he led any troops- but he definitely would have been considered part of Oda's court).
 
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