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Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 7th of March 2023 - All Blue

Hello and welcome to another Development Diary! Today we will be talking about the new, yet undisclosed content for Europa Universalis IV: Domination, the new expansion that was announced yesterday!

We are very excited to show you the final features that we will include. But let's start by addressing some of the countries that may be on the list of what could be considered Early Modern Great Powers, the main theme of Domination, and that will not receive new content in this expansion. First of all, you may have noticed (and widely requested) new content to be included for two of the ‘historical winners’ in the Middle East during this time period, the Gunpowder Empires of Persia and the Mughals, and also for some other ‘historical losers’ in the area, as the Mamluks. To be clear, they were left out of this expansion on purpose, since we have future plans for the Middle East, so you can expect us to create new content for them in the future. Some of you may have also wondered why countries like Venice, Netherlands or Austria are not in this expansion. You’ll see later that some of them have received some extra flavor in Domination; but, apart from that, today we want to show some countries that we decided to focus on, and that received more extra content, which are:
  • Portugal
  • Prussia
  • Korea
On top of that, we will also be talking about the following new content:

  • Naval Special Units
  • Government Reforms
  • Estate Privileges
With that being said, let’s start with a country that I promised a couple of weeks ago would receive new content - Portugal! Or do we call it now Bluetugal? Anyway, we have reworked some of the older features of the country a bit. First, there was a redesign of its mission tree. Let’s take a look at its new shape:

Portugal 1.png

We reorganized it for better consistency. On the upper part, all the missions related to Exploration and Colonization. We reworked some of their rewards, improved the flow of some of them, and added a few more as well, after reading your feedback in the forums over the past couple of weeks:

Portugal 2.jpg

Portugal 3.jpg

Portugal 4.jpg

‘Sails of Exploration’ and ‘Charter the Seas’ add some flavor to the early Explorations made by Portugal.

Portugal 5.jpg

Portugal 6.jpg

Portugal 7.jpg

‘Clash with the Ottomans’ adds a mid to late game objective regarding the Portuguese push for Hegemony in the Indian Ocean, also adding an extra buff to the Portuguese Marines.

Portugal 8.jpg

Portugal 9.jpg

Portugal 10.jpg

‘Reform the Navy’ unlocks Caravels and Galleons special ships for Portugal, while ‘Lusitanian Empire’ makes for a more interesting reward if completing the lower half content of the Portuguese mission tree.

Apart from that, we also have created two unique Government Reforms for Portugal. The first one is a Tier 1 reform (meaning that Portugal will start with it):

Portugal 11.jpg

While the second one is a Tier 5 unique Military reform, which opens a new decision on top of the reform modifier:

Portugal 12.jpg

Portugal 13.png

To complete the rebalance of Portugal, we also took into account your suggestions for the Order of Avis, and changed their sailors for a more defensive approach for them:

14 Portugal 14.jpg

And we also added a couple of Salt resources in Portugal:

15 Portugal 15.jpg

Now, let’s move to the Prussia rework, which is presented by @PDX Big Boss !



Hey everyone, Prussia has long been a great and fun nation to play as, in Single and (especially) Multiplayer. As we revamp the content of the Great Powers in Domination, I saw it fit to revisit Prussia to some degree and give them a touch-up to accompany the upcoming Expansion. The idea behind this content is that Brandenburg feels like it’s surrounded by very powerful neighbors and rarely is allowed to grow and evolve into Prussia. This is especially true in Multiplayer scenarios, where the Polish, Scandinavian and Austrian players end up bullying little Brandenburg out of key provinces, such as the areas of Eastern and Western Prussia or Silesia etc. Alongside the new Prussian Blue color, I worked through nearly every single mission, providing new requirements and rewards, estate privileges, mechanics and more! Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:

15.5 Blue Prussia.png

Starting off, Reclaim Neumark will offer a new dynamic reward as shown below:

16. Reclaim Neumark Mission.png

Depending on your relationship with the Holy Roman Emperorship, conquering provinces outside of the Empire’s domain will yield a different bonus!

The mission ‘Ansbach Succession’ is now tied to a unique new “Timed Reward” challenge. Should you accept the union with Ansbach in the ‘Franconian Hohenzollerns’ event, you will trigger the mission’s timed challenge, starting the countdown. You will have 5 years at your disposal to reunite the Franconian lands, enjoying a powerful new reward if you are victorious:

17. Franconian Conquest Timed Reward.png

However, as the reward is very powerful, failure will also set you back a good deal as your lands in Franconia will declare independence and in return worsen your relations with your neighbors.

Disaster in Franconia.png

This is an experimental feature due to the fact that I feel like it's a good bit of a challenge for those who wish it. Please keep in mind you can circumvent this feature should you feel like you don’t wanna deal with it!

The mission ‘The Balance of Power’ will empower the Brandenburg Gate Great Project (for owners of Leviathan) with the following reward:

Balance of Power Mission.png

‘Conquer Greater Poland’ will grant the following reward should you complete it with 200 Development in the Polish region, granting you access to a very powerful Age Ability, as the de facto ruler of the Polish domain:

Conquer Greater Poland Mission.png

To be clear, you won’t need to complete the mission DURING the Age of Reformation!

Lastly, as far as Brandenburg-accessible content is concerned, a small pet-peeve of mine has always been the canals. They always felt somewhat underutilized and I would love to see them being built more often as they can provide a strategic advantage and a dynamic change to wars, especially in Multiplayer. To (at least partially) address that, the mission ‘Construct the Kiel Canal’ has had its requirements and rewards changed, to spawn the Canal upon completion:

Construct the Kiel Canal.png

Note: An idea I had during development would be to have the ability of closing and opening the canal, either in general or towards foes but alas, it was not meant to be. More on Great Projects at a later DD.

Moving on to Prussia, they will gain access to some new missions as per the Emperor DLC dictates. What is important to note here however is that Militarization as we know it , as far as Prussia is concerned, has changed.

Prussia now starts with a new version of it, called Early Prussian Militarization:

Militarization 1.png

A few easily-digestible points here:

  • The first level of Militarization is weaker than the 1.34 equivalent.
  • Only Prussia will have access to this, everyone else that uses Militarization will keep the 1.34 iteration.
  • I would like to reinstate the decay of Militarization so it’s not a button you press 10 times and then forget about for the rest of the campaign, that is not very engaging. The idea is that you should always weigh your Mil power and think “Do I want to get a temporary boost, cap my Militarization or boost it ?” especially during wars and crucial battles.
  • Prussia does not need a special unit per-se. The entire army should be bolstered by this mechanic instead, not a few select parts of it. The army IS the special unit.
And how will this mechanic evolve as the game goes on? By completing these 2 missions:

23 Army Reforms and An Army with a State.png

Each will upgrade the mechanic, not only by unlocking more powerful bonuses but also adding new interactions as we will observe further down.

23 Army Reforms.png

25 Militarization 2.png

So the second level is essentially similar to 1.34 Militarization. The only difference here should be the decay, notice how the jump from the first to the second level also increased the decay of it.

Which leaves us with the final level of Militarization. If you are an enemy of Prussia, I would highly advise you to NOT let them reach this stage:

26 Prussia Mil.png

Note: these icons are a WIP!

Scharnhorst Manuevers Button.png

Reform the Military Manual Button.png

At this point I should note that these numbers are very much a WIP and I welcome all feedback, I love Prussia and I want this evolution of the Militarization mechanic to be as interesting and usable as possible. So as far as this new mechanic goes, feel free to chime in regarding stuff like the bonuses themselves, how much they should cost, the decay of each level etc.

Before we move on to another topic, I would like to thank Stiopa for providing me with a few new flavor events, which I plan on adding as part of the base game! And now, @Ogele is going to show you the new content for Korea!



Heya!

While my two colleagues cover two “minor” great powers of Europe, I figured it would be nice to expand Korea a little bit with Domination as all of its neighbors were given extensive overhauls. Generally speaking, I have always been more or less happy with its mission tree, though some of its mission rewards and requirements are in need of a revisit which will happen over the next few days.

With that being said, I still felt like Korea deserves something to make it stand out amongst the hordes of the North, the Empire to its west and Samurai to the east. As such it was only fitting that they receive their own unique Tier 1 reform:

korea_reform.png

korean_focuses.png

Its starting privilege - the “Inward Perfectionism” - has been turned into a three-button government ability for Korea, where they can set their path of how they interact with the world. As the community seems to dislike the idea that Korea expands, the AI will always choose Inward Focus and is prohibited from declaring any wars while they have the Inward Focus.

However, due to the nature of EU4, having only the Inward Focus is not necessarily a lot of fun for many players. As such, Korea also has access to the Outward Focus - one which focuses on interacting but not fighting with outside nations - and an Expansion Focus - the epitome of the EU4 gameplay loop. You can select a new focus every 20 years or when you get a new ruler.

Additionally to this, Korea’s ideas have been revisited. It was promised in 1.33 that they would get an update and it finally has happened:

Code:
KOR_ideas = {
    start = {
        build_cost = -0.1
        land_morale = 0.1
    }
    bonus = {
        infantry_power = 0.1
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = KOR
    }
    free = yes
    kor_uijeongbu = {
        advisor_cost = -0.1
        all_estate_loyalty_equilibrium = 0.05
    }
    metal_movable_type = {
        adm_tech_cost_modifier = -0.05
        innovativeness_gain = 0.5
    }
    choi_mu_seon_gunpower_engines = {
        fire_damage = 0.1
    }
    korean_artisanery = {
        prestige = 1
        development_cost = -0.05
    }
    hyanyak_system = {
        production_efficiency = 0.10
    }
    geobukseon = {
        ship_durability = 0.1
        naval_morale = 0.05
        has_geobukseon = yes
    }
    kyujanggak = {
        idea_cost = -0.1
    }
}

Two things to be mentioned here: the Hangul Alphabet is a big part of Korean history and technology, and while it has been removed from the ideas, it has not been removed from Korea itself.

31 alphabet.png

Note: there is also a revoke decision if you want to get rid of the increased unrest.

The Hopae System itself has become a decision too:

32 hopae.png

The Korean ideas also unlock a new special naval unit for Korea: the Geobukseon Galley:

33 geobukseon.png

The amount of Geobukseon you can construct scales with Navy Tradition. At 100 Navy Tradition, 50% of your Naval Force Limit can be made of Geobukseon ships.

Some other small additions for Korea are the additions of the Tripitaka Koreana and the Righteous Army military reform. Starting with the former, the Tripitaka Koreana is a permanent province modifier which is quite similar to the Emerald Buddha in Chiang Mai. Located in Jinju, the modifier has the following effects:

34 tripitaka_koreana.png

Note: Not shown is the Karma decay for Buddhistic nations.

It is possible for another country of the Eastern Religion Group to steal Tripitaka if the province gets occupied by outside forces:

tripitaka_stolen.png

In order to counteract this, the owner of the Tripitaka Koreana has two decisions which reinforce the defense of this collection.

36 tripitaka_defense.png

37 tripitaka_evacuation.png

Note: the latter decision is only available in a defensive war.

Finally let us tackle the unique military reform of Korea: the Righteous Army. Once just a mission in their mission tree, it is now a government reform in the fifth tier (which I will go into detail later) with the following effects:

38 righteous_army.png

Once selected, you will have access to the following decision when you are in a defensive war OR 10 provinces of your culture have been occupied:

righteous_army_decision.png

The Righteous Army is an emergency mercenary unit with only 10% of its cost and can be recruited like any free company can be:

40 righteous_army_merc.png
Note: I am aware that the Righteous Army is basically a force of peasants which defend their homeland from invaders. I excluded them from the Army Professionalism cost as it would be a bit awkward from a gameplay perspective to be punished for recruiting a special mercenary company with such a niche.

Once peace has returned you get the following event:

41 righteous_army_peace.png

That is it for Korea for the time being. I want to express my gratitude towards Estaloy who helped me a lot with giving good ideas for Korea and as well as giving inspiration for many other aspects for 1.35. I wouldn't have gotten so far without her support.

Unlike other nations, Korea is one of the states which I personally would like to expand with every patch a little bit as there are still a few things to cover such as highly factionalized infighting. However, time is of the essence, and as such we have to move on now to another topic.

Korea, England, Portugal and Castile are not the only countries that have gained access to new special naval units, the new feature that we are implementing in Domination.

Countries of the Venetian or the Ligurian cultures have access to the following Tier 5 government reform:

42 merchant_arsenal.png

43 galleass.png


Galleasses are similar to Geobukseon as the amount of available galleasses scales with your navy tradition. However, you can only construct them in provinces that have either a dock, drydock, shipyard or grand shipyard.

The other special naval unit went to the Dutch and Flemish countries which have one of the three Dutch governments (more about them later).

44 VOC.png

The VOC Indiamen is even for special units extraordinary as it is the only non-transport ship that can actually transport land units. Combined with their ability to protect trade and their additional cannons, the VOC Indiamen are a master of utility. However, you only have 20% of your naval force limit available for you. Any additional force limit available for VOC is increased by your Trade Efficiency. At 100% Trade Efficiency you would be able to recruit 25% more of your total naval force limit as VOC Indiamen.

Now, let’s move to the new Government Reforms and Estate Privileges that we created!

A big part of 1.34’s success was the introduction of many new government reforms which expanded the choices a player could make during their campaign. 1.35 and Domination will continue this trend with the addition of a new government tier and more tier 1 reforms all across the world.

Let’s get started with the new tier!

45 new_tier_5.png

46 tier_5_reforms.png

Note: These reforms and the tier are part of the 1.35 free update. It is a shared tier between Monarchies, Republics, Theocracies and Tribal governments.

You might have noticed that none of these reforms give “hard” land military modifiers. The general idea was that the generic military reforms should be somewhat of a utility reform for your army. Depending on the situation you might want to pick a different reform.

The three exceptions to these are the mercenary as well as the naval reforms. The former gives mercenary discipline in order to encourage active usage of mercenary units for combat (this is especially directed at players like me who love to park their merc units on a fort and forget about them until a siege is over) while the latter is more for the role play aspect.

With that being said, Domination itself brings additional reforms for the 5th tier. These reforms, however, are locked behind specific culture groups in order to give variety to the world. Here are are some examples:

47 specific_reforms.png

Note: As usual, neither numbers nor modifiers are final.

Some reforms enable certain mechanics unique to the government reform. For example, completing the mercenary ideas unlocks the following government reform:

48 elite_mercs.png

49 meme_build.png

Note: The actual price is 0.1 Years of Income.

Now that we have covered the tier 5 reforms, let us return to Tier 1. While the addition of many additional reforms was highly praised, we still were feeling that a bit more variety is missing. As Domination is already a DLC focusing on a global scope, it was only fitting that we introduce new Tier 1 reforms in order to make regions have something to look forward to with the upcoming update and DLC:

50 starting_tier_1.png

A few other new Tier 1 get unlocked as you play through your campaign and form other countries:

51 formables_tier_1.png

Additionally, Domination will unlock some “over-the-top” government reforms for achieving a difficult-ish feat:

special_formables_tier_1.png

Last but not least, Domination enables two new generic Tier 1 reforms for Monarchies and Republics:

52 elective.png

Whenever a new ruler ascends the throne you get the following event pop-up:

53 election_event.png

You always have the option to choose one from your nobility to become the new ruler. Additionally, if you border a country that is not independent, has the Nobility (or its Indian equivalent) estates, is a monarchy, is not at war with you and is not in a regency then you get the choice to elect one of the said country’s relatives to your new ruler. However, this specific ruler is the only one whose stats you cannot see before.

The event will always pick the most developed country as the origin of this foreign noble. Of course I want to point out that this is subject to changes.

The other reform is one for the Republics:

54 civic.png

Unlike other Republics, this reform tries to mix things up by introducing max terms for a ruler to rule.

55 max_terms.png

Of course this stands to the antithesis of the optimal play of Republics where you want to re-elect the same guy over and over again. Because of that, this reform aims for making modifiers which increase the length of terms and more stats for random candidates more attractive by giving new rulers a new lifetime long modifier which makes choosing a new candidate:

56 candidate_bonus.png

There are in total 15 modifiers, 5 for each category (ADM/DIP/MIL). Here is the list of possible modifiers to get from your ruler:

Code:
civic_republicanism_focus_government = {
    reform_progress_growth = 0.1
}
civic_republicanism_focus_expansion = {
    core_creation = -0.05
}
civic_republicanism_focus_technology = {
    idea_cost = -0.05
}
civic_republicanism_focus_stability = {
    stability_cost_modifier = -0.1
}
civic_republicanism_focus_religion = {
    global_missionary_strength = 0.01
}


civic_republicanism_focus_diplomacy = {
    diplomatic_reputation = 1
}
civic_republicanism_focus_court = {
    all_estate_influence_modifier = -0.05
}
civic_republicanism_focus_trade = {
    trade_efficiency = 0.1
}
civic_republicanism_focus_subjects = {
    diplomatic_annexation_cost = -0.05
}
civic_republicanism_focus_development = {
    development_cost = -0.05
}


civic_republicanism_focus_defensive = {
    defensiveness = 0.2
}
civic_republicanism_focus_sieges = {
    siege_ability = 0.1
}
civic_republicanism_focus_leaders = {
    leader_land_shock = 1
    leader_naval_shock = 1
}
civic_republicanism_focus_quality = {
    land_morale = 0.1
}
civic_republicanism_focus_naval = {
    naval_morale = 0.1
    global_ship_trade_power = 0.1
}

These were the government reforms, but I am not done yet. Domination also unlocks up to 60 new Estate Privileges, distributed amongst all the estates (Janissaries and Eunuchs not counted in). It would be a bit too much if I go into detail for every privilege, so instead I will showcase a set of privileges which can be expected for the major estates (Clergy, Burghers and Nobles) and then a few highlights for the more niche estates.

no_crownland_loss_from_deving.png

Every estate gains one privilege which allows you to develop your provinces without the affected estate to lose crown land. While this seems like a drawback for a few estates, for others like the Nobility which has access to Increased Levies or the Rajputs whose access to their special units is tied to the crown land they have it will be a powerful tool.

58 influence_scaling.png

Most estates will also gain access to a privilege whose modifiers directly scale with the influence said estate has.

59 loyalty_scaling.png

Finally, there is a privilege whose modifiers directly scale with the loyalty of your estate. So an estate with 100% Loyalty would give the full modifiers.

Now, you might have noticed that the last privilege has an “Estate Decision” or, synonymously called “Estate Action”. For those who did not play EUIV before 1.30: the estates used to have interactions that you can press in order to get a one-time effect from the estate. Some might even remember the old golden rule of giving the estates 80% influence and then demanding their support every 20 years for 200 Monarch Power.

Well, this has now returned in form of decisions that are unlocked by the estates:

estate_decisions.png

While other interactions have been reworked into an effect that interacts with your estate agendas.

61 minister_decision.png

While other interactions have been reworked into an effect which interacts with your estate agendas.

62 agenda_completer.png

Finally a few estate privileges from the less prevalent estates:

63 cossacks.png

64 hordes.png

And that’s all for today! Here @Pavía again! We hope you enjoy all this new content we have created for Europa Universalis IV: Domination. But on top of that, next week we will be talking about more new content we have created… In this case, free content! We are adding a fair amount of content to the previous DLCs and the base game as we wanted to give the gameplay even more depth and continue to expand some of the features that are included in them, and also as a reward for the large player base that continues to support Europa Universalis IV after almost 10 years of development. See you next week!

eu4-prussia-dd.png
 

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Yay Middle east update confirmed ^^

Hope that the tatar countries will get covered in that too and maybe a branching path for either settling down and form tatarstan/tataria (or even turkestan??) or mongol empire.


Domination looks sick! Will 100% buy it!
 
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I've never played a peasant republic, I like the sound of it though. Overall, despite my many issues with the Domination DLC, it's a great addition to the game and it's the most I've looked forward to a new patch in a while.
I have played with Frisia, it was fun, but since I'm playing tall and have a lot of vassals, it was very hard to keep them loyal, because there's no nobility estate and thus no Strong Duchies privilege.
 
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I noticed for the Portuguese mission "English Alliance" it uses the British flag as opposed to the English one. England and Great Britain aren't the same thing. This is disrespectful to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. You guys should really know better by now. The Alliance between England and Portugal predates the Acts of Union in 1707 so just use the English flag. How people still mistake Great Britain and England as the same thing is beyond me.
 
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I have played with Frisia, it was fun, but since I'm playing tall and have a lot of vassals, it was very hard to keep them loyal, because there's no nobility estate and thus no Strong Duchies privilege.
I love playing tall. I'm currently doing a tall Scotland run, just trying to survive against England and help unite Ireland. I'm then hoping to ally them, they will probably rival me though so I may need to vassalise them. Annexing them as the Scots just feels dirty haha.

It would be great if we got more means of projecting soft power in the future to make playing tall more fun.
 
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I noticed for the Portuguese mission "English Alliance" it uses the British flag as opposed to the English one. England and Great Britain aren't the same thing. This is disrespectful to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. You guys should really know better by now. The Alliance between England and Portugal predates the Acts of Union in 1707 so just use the English flag. How people still mistake Great Britain and England as the same thing is beyond me.
Cause England keeps treating Great Britain as 'Greater England', which is why the empire fell apart.

Like honestly, I think that either England or Great Britain need some debuff to cultural acceptance within their own culture group. The welsh rebelled constantly under English rule, something not simulated in the game (this btw is why Wales has the most castles per square mile in all of europe), the Scots fought dozens of wars with the English and to this day the British National Anthem contains a line about 'murderous scots' and how we need to shoot them to save the queen, and every year the Scots ask if they can remove that part and the English say no. The American colonies originally didn't want independance, just greater autonomy or some representation in parliament, and even after the shots at Lexington and Concord they offered to disarm and go home if they got one or the other. When the British said no that was when the founding fathers decided independance was the only path forward. And of course there was how the irish were treated.

Anyway I agree that the isles could use a non-english focused overhaul, because as of now the devs largely treat the region as Englands playground. Now sure, I don't really think say if the Irish conquered everything that they wouldn't try to form some cultural union and go colonize things, but I do expect it'd end up quite different than how the islands faired under English rule.
 
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i hope mamluks are still viable after this ottomans buff!
I would grasp this opportunity to address some of the balance concerns in general. When we showcase something in a DD, especially the ones about Russia, France, GBR, Japan etc, the numbers are very far off from where they will be on release.

What does this mean ? While the content may appear unbalanced and OP at first glance, keep in mind that most of the outstanding high number have already been slashed and at times outright replaced / removed. While I do believe that EU4 is an nigh impossibly complex game with tons of variables and factors, we do our best to take your feedback into account and tweak as we go forward, keeping in mind that the game must be appealing to players of all skill levels.

As a player, I don't want my enemy Ottomans to have OP stuff right off the bat, that is unfair. So, to tackle that, we go back and re-read nearly every single comment on a dozen platforms (Twitter, Reddit, Forums etc), make a list and decide based on that.

Having said that, there's a few observations I want to make here regarding balance in 1.35:

1. Inevitably, when adding more content / reforms / events / missions to a country, said country will potentially have access to more tools / bonuses etc to be stronger, so when it comes to balancing (e.g.) France, we will be way harsher than we would have been if we were to balance a minor nation. Based on this principle, I would be happy with giving a minor country strong bonuses.

2. As someone with a lot of hours in the game, I want the content I make to be not only re-playable, but also have depth. I don't want to make a simple claims-only mission tree. It would not be as fun or attractive to me, as a content creator and a player. I want to add twists, dynamic paths, events, reforms, mechanics, stuff that will excite you and keep you playing and give you a good bit of excitement even if you have thousands of hours by showing you something fresh.

3. I remember when previous updates came out and introduced substantial changes to the starting setup, such as the Maine War, Morocco starting with way fewer provinces but a lot of vassals and no longer having a Gold province, and the list goes on. These changes were unpopular and caused a lot of debate. But, nowadays nobody really bats an eye. Keeping that in mind, we should be aware that the vast majority of the bonuses (and especially the strong / permanent ones) ONLY come later in the game in 1.35 and after at least some effort, as a worthwhile reward. Yes, as the Ottomans you will get access to some privileges, an estate and a couple modifiers you would not otherwise have access to, but in the grand scheme of things it's nowhere near as impactful as it may seem from my perspective behind the scenes, looking at nightly games and participating in internal MPs.

4. As for the Mamluk / Ottoman balance, I firmly believe based on the starting situation of both countries that Mamluks have a good chance to win against the Ottomans early on, much like they do in MP lobbies before Ottos hit tech 5 (remember, Ottoman Tech 5 inf is not as strong right now in 1.35 as it was in 1.34!)

tl;dr Your feedback is extremely valuable, as much as we love making the game, sometimes we can't help but have tunnel-vision and we absolutely want your opinions on the balance, as it helps is correct the course of the update <3

Have a wonderful evening!
 
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Cause England keeps treating Great Britain as 'Greater England', which is why the empire fell apart.

Like honestly, I think that either England or Great Britain need some debuff to cultural acceptance within their own culture group. The welsh rebelled constantly under English rule, something not simulated in the game (this btw is why Wales has the most castles per square mile in all of europe), the Scots fought dozens of wars with the English and to this day the British National Anthem contains a line about 'murderous scots' and how we need to shoot them to save the queen, and every year the Scots ask if they can remove that part and the English say no. The American colonies originally didn't want independance, just greater autonomy or some representation in parliament, and even after the shots at Lexington and Concord they offered to disarm and go home if they got one or the other. When the British said no that was when the founding fathers decided independance was the only path forward. And of course there was how the irish were treated.

Anyway I agree that the isles could use a non-english focused overhaul, because as of now the devs largely treat the region as Englands playground. Now sure, I don't really think say if the Irish conquered everything that they wouldn't try to form some cultural union and go colonize things, but I do expect it'd end up quite different than how the islands faired under English rule.
Addendum- perhaps a solution would be that the Great Britain misison tree has a line for ruling the isles themselves that varies between the different powers that could form Great Britain? So one for Scotland, one for Ireland, one for Wales/Cornwall and the default one for England. Perhaps this could include a decision about moving the capital of the Great Britain from London to another city such as Edinburgh or Dublin depending on who forms it, alongside some missions that develop the lands of your starting country, and dealing with the Scots/Welsh/Irish/English from your perspective. Scotland might go easier on the Irish and Welsh, but instead of dealing with murderous Scots trying to kill the Queen they instead have some missions regarding rebellious English trying to kill the King. This could also tie into a bit of religious differences- sure Ireland CAN go protestant, but it's not super in character for them to do so, so perhaps Irish GB has a mission dealing with the pope. Likewise there could also be missions regarding the fate of the Anglican Church. I mean if it's the Church of ENGLAND and you're not England, what's your position on them going to be? Also if Scotland forms Great Britain there should be an option to keep France as a historic friend. I mean- it rather sucks if France helps you form Great Britain and then they now hate you because you changed flags. That should probably be an option for all non-english tags that form GB since in all likelihood your strategy will rely on allying France.

I don't think this line of missions needs to be super deep, but it'd add that much needed flavor to the isles to help make Great Britain feel less like England+ that it currently does. England would remain an important tag since they'd still have that option to invade France that other British tags wouldn't have.
 
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Love the work that is being done! And while we are touching up Prussia and especially the idea of Brandenburg growing into Prussia, @Pavía, might it be cogent to look at this?

As stated here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/ducal-prussia-should-be-a-monarchy.1547908/ and in several other threads if you search the topic.

The flavor event (that I adore btw) that releases ducal (royal) Prussia as a result of the Peace of Thorn (flavor_teu.3) changes Danzig into Prussia, mimicking what happened historically, but keeps the new tag as a republic (or rather, keeps the government form of Danzig). This prevents Brandenburg from ever inheriting that Prussia, something that happened in the real world, something that has its own flavor event and something that would help Brandenburg in growing into Prussia.

Also making them a march would prevent them from also disappearing almost instantly, which would be nice!
 
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I really dislike restricting something to the player. Let the AI leave Inward Focus only 10% of the time if you must, but don't restrict them to Inward-only.
 
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Darn it, I'm gonna have to wait another 6 months and spend another 20 dollars to finally get a better Mamluk mission tree :c I just wanna restore the Bahriyya... Oh well, a Korea update is super exciting!
 
3. I remember when previous updates came out and introduced substantial changes to the starting setup, such as the Maine War, Morocco starting with way fewer provinces but a lot of vassals and no longer having a Gold province, and the list goes on. These changes were unpopular and caused a lot of debate. But, nowadays nobody really bats an eye. Keeping that in mind, we should be aware that the vast majority of the bonuses (and especially the strong / permanent ones) ONLY come later in the game in 1.35 and after at least some effort, as a worthwhile reward. Yes, as the Ottomans you will get access to some privileges, an estate and a couple modifiers you would not otherwise have access to, but in the grand scheme of things it's nowhere near as impactful as it may seem from my perspective behind the scenes, looking at nightly games and participating in internal MPs.

4. As for the Mamluk / Ottoman balance, I firmly believe based on the starting situation of both countries that Mamluks have a good chance to win against the Ottomans early on, much like they do in MP lobbies before Ottos hit tech 5 (remember, Ottoman Tech 5 inf is not as strong right now in 1.35 as it was in 1.34!)

tl;dr Your feedback is extremely valuable, as much as we love making the game, sometimes we can't help but have tunnel-vision and we absolutely want your opinions on the balance, as it helps is correct the course of the update <3

Have a wonderful evening!

Regarding point 3, I only see Morocco actually surviving if Castille rivals and attacks Portugal (which is pretty rare by itself) AND morocco allies the Ottomans, or if they get kicked into songhai/mali area.

Regarding point 4, in over 1000+ hours played, I have never, ever seen the Mamluks win ANY war against the ottomans without player intervention (meaning destroying the Ottomans pre tech 5 so that the mamluks are fighting an already defeated nation with no troops). Not much of a "balance" in there.

If the changes for the new DLC however manages to change this trend, it would be really awesome to see the Mamluks blob into anatolia-persia, that would also allow for Hungary, Austria, Poland or Venice to expand into the balkans, even if the frequency of this situation is low.

I guess that the outcome of the conflict must be resolved early into the game, so that an empire that serves as an "end game boss" exists in the area later into the game, but having the ottomans serve that purpose every game, and having to deal with them the same way every time is just not that fun.

Please notice that regarding the rest of the announced content I´m really happy, but the concerns around the ottoman strength remains there, so keep up with the good work.
 
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I would grasp this opportunity to address some of the balance concerns in general. When we showcase something in a DD, especially the ones about Russia, France, GBR, Japan etc, the numbers are very far off from where they will be on release.

What does this mean ? While the content may appear unbalanced and OP at first glance, keep in mind that most of the outstanding high number have already been slashed and at times outright replaced / removed. While I do believe that EU4 is an nigh impossibly complex game with tons of variables and factors, we do our best to take your feedback into account and tweak as we go forward, keeping in mind that the game must be appealing to players of all skill levels.

As a player, I don't want my enemy Ottomans to have OP stuff right off the bat, that is unfair. So, to tackle that, we go back and re-read nearly every single comment on a dozen platforms (Twitter, Reddit, Forums etc), make a list and decide based on that.

Having said that, there's a few observations I want to make here regarding balance in 1.35:

1. Inevitably, when adding more content / reforms / events / missions to a country, said country will potentially have access to more tools / bonuses etc to be stronger, so when it comes to balancing (e.g.) France, we will be way harsher than we would have been if we were to balance a minor nation. Based on this principle, I would be happy with giving a minor country strong bonuses.

2. As someone with a lot of hours in the game, I want the content I make to be not only re-playable, but also have depth. I don't want to make a simple claims-only mission tree. It would not be as fun or attractive to me, as a content creator and a player. I want to add twists, dynamic paths, events, reforms, mechanics, stuff that will excite you and keep you playing and give you a good bit of excitement even if you have thousands of hours by showing you something fresh.

3. I remember when previous updates came out and introduced substantial changes to the starting setup, such as the Maine War, Morocco starting with way fewer provinces but a lot of vassals and no longer having a Gold province, and the list goes on. These changes were unpopular and caused a lot of debate. But, nowadays nobody really bats an eye. Keeping that in mind, we should be aware that the vast majority of the bonuses (and especially the strong / permanent ones) ONLY come later in the game in 1.35 and after at least some effort, as a worthwhile reward. Yes, as the Ottomans you will get access to some privileges, an estate and a couple modifiers you would not otherwise have access to, but in the grand scheme of things it's nowhere near as impactful as it may seem from my perspective behind the scenes, looking at nightly games and participating in internal MPs.

4. As for the Mamluk / Ottoman balance, I firmly believe based on the starting situation of both countries that Mamluks have a good chance to win against the Ottomans early on, much like they do in MP lobbies before Ottos hit tech 5 (remember, Ottoman Tech 5 inf is not as strong right now in 1.35 as it was in 1.34!)

tl;dr Your feedback is extremely valuable, as much as we love making the game, sometimes we can't help but have tunnel-vision and we absolutely want your opinions on the balance, as it helps is correct the course of the update <3

Have a wonderful evening!
I really like your point of view overall, I also think that, from what I've seen, the permanent buffs doesn't seems as overpowered as everyone mentioned, we will see when the dlc is out anyway.

I would have some quick questions concerning the IA capabilities towards the news missions/events/mechanic

Especially 2, first, do the IA muscovy know to attack and take the right province from great horde to remove the debuff ? Sarai seems a bit far for the AI to take it in a first war.

And are ottomans often doing the total annexion of mameluks ? (I clearly would like to see it in most of my games after 1.35, aswell as the vassalization of Tunis and Alger)
If it's a bit too hard to code the AI to specificly doing it or that it might cause more bugs, I would understand if you didn't insist on that feature for the AI.
 
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I guess the future DDs will contain more info about this, but I believe there are some changes that needs to be done concerning Quantity, Espionage and Defensive.

They are either luckluster on its own, or lack policies that would justify taking them. (-def x humanist). And Quantity got nerfed too hard.

The "War taxes" mechanic is useless in the current state. The only reason you'd sacrifice 2mil pts, is when your name is Florry and you re making another challenge without loans. That means, that you will use it only during Age of Discoveries or when you have the Japan Wonder giving you free War Taxes.

The thing I am afraid about, is that you'd nerf the curren Military Ideas "meta" which are Offensive, and to a lesser degree Quality, which would significantly increase the meaning of National Ideas- thus buffing historical great powers even more.

AND PLEASE add some UI to the Church Aspects giving temporary bonus in Protestanism - the fact that I dont know when or which aspect bonus is expiring/just expired is sad. Would be a cool to have a progress bar or something like the one that show you the missionary progress, just reversed.

Also Condottieri system would like to see a revamp, as I ve never seen anyone use it, I might be wrong though.

Looking for the new update, can't wait for the next DD.
 
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I love playing tall. I'm currently doing a tall Scotland run, just trying to survive against England and help unite Ireland. I'm then hoping to ally them, they will probably rival me though so I may need to vassalise them. Annexing them as the Scots just feels dirty haha.

It would be great if we got more means of projecting soft power in the future to make playing tall more fun.
Nice to see another fellow tall player. I always try to make my empires realistic and do some research before I start my run, like how large was the country at its greatest extent and what it attempted to conquer (or colonise), but failed to do.

I have yet to have a run in the British Isles, but I'm looking very forward to it. Scotland run would be nice, but the reason, why I haven't tried them yet is because they don't have an access to any monuments that I could directly control. I hope that they'll add something either in Ireland or Scotland. But yeah, I'm also looking forward to do an England -> Great Britain run.
 
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Why not? Because you are basically asking for a dlc focused on Portugal which this is not. You are arguably asking for even more than what the nations this dlc focuses got. Just be glad that you are not Scotland, your country rework is pretty good. Access to the new naval units, new mission tree with nice buffs, new holy orders, new unique reforms, yeah more events and a unique mechanic would be good but not even France has unique mechanic, they have a disgustingly overpowered mission tree but no unique mechanic as far as I remember.

I would have to check but I think Portugal, Spain and definitely Aragon are gonna get more content in domination than in the golden century dlc despite being dlc focused on the iberian peninsula, the devs are doing a really good job with domination.
it's a paid DLC, so a bigger rework on Portugal would be a very welcoming factor in the decision of buying it. If it was free content, maybe i wouldn't ask for more, but since they don't touch Portugal that often, im for sure pushing for a bigger and better rework in atleast the mission tree.


In the mission tree, it was actually only added 4 new missions.,1 mission was actually removed, and the rest was rearranged. It had 38 missions, now it has 41. Plus, the rewards are often disapointing when you get to see the huge amount of permanent modifiers, special events, PU's, Casus belli, claims that most other countries get in theirs. Watch the reward of "clash with the ottomans" for example. What reward would you expect from a mission that expects you to have more dev and a bigger fleet than literally the biggest superpower in the game often, aswell as 35 army prof or 70 army tradition? Certainly not only 5% discipline applied ONLY to marines and 15 army prof... It is a very underwhelming and totally not worth it.

The special naval units for Portugal are good adition, but I still need to see their bonuses to see if they are worth it. While the VOC actually have a unique feature introduced, these two units will problably just be two ships with two different bonuses, which I bet will still be way underwhelming when compared to other special units.

Lastly, the two new government reforms are good adictions and they actually please me. I wish there were more obviously, but these are unique enough to add some real flavour and uniqueness in the gameplay.

It is not in my objective to disrespect any country's history, but Scotland poor mission tree is higly compensated with the missions from the United Kingdom, which by itself has tons of flavor. Meanwhile, Portugal can only form Spain, which, in terms of flavor, has nothing to do with Portugal.
 
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@PDX Big Boss
I think the “Inward Perfectionism” for Korea (the AI will always choose Inward Focus) is also suitable for Ming.
Your idea is very good, but have you ever considered that it would make Ming unable to declare war on Oirat, which would directly lead to the explosion of Unguarded Nomadic Frontier in a sit-in situation? Isn't it ridiculous?This also makes the previous update to Oirat a waste paper for AI.
Nevertheless, I think your idea is very interesting, but this change needs to be careful.:)
 
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