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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!

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Ming or Qing must have a good update!As the ruler of East Asia,it's necessary to give them enough power.
It's good to give Ming or Qing a better mission tree.I know Ming gained some mission these days,but that's not enough.Since European,Indian,or even Australian aborigines have the mission to conquer China,why can't China gain some mission to conquer some areas that we never conquered?
Besides,the provinces of China is too big.A province in China is much bigger than a province in India,Japan or Southeast Asia.
As a rich area,China may have more development.
Lastly,I think it's good to let Tibet become a Tributary state of Ming in 1444.
i think the qing is so powerful that he need not anyother strenthen。
great ming need a high- quality army as a reward when he ends his crises。if other han-chinesekingdom get the mandate
and unit the china,they can get the reward as ming。
Qing (manchu、jianchou) is the east tartarian 。they Invading China in the Chinese civil war at 17ct。


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I see many people criticising Prussia having been "nerfed".

The only "nerf" i see is the fact that militarization now decays, which it ABSOLUTELY should from a logical standpoint. In fact i always imagined it did, I only very recently played Prussia and when i realised it didn't decay i actually felt underwhelmed by how insignificant (as far as my interaction with it was) the mechanic ended up being.

Not only should militarisation naturally decline, it should also not be increased immediately by simply clicking a button, this user put it perfectly:
Instead of paying a lump sum of Mil points for an instant Militarization boost, how about making it work like War Taxes? There's a button you toggle on, and while it's on it costs say 1 Mil/Month, and in exchange you get a decent (should be able to overcome passive decay) Militarization tick per month? So if you want to guarantee you have your max discipline, you can, but there's a cost, albeit one Prussia is more adept at paying than the average tag.
I wholeheartely agree. The state simply cannot decree "We are militarised now" Militarisation is an abstraction of many distinct concepts that cannot simply be adopted on a whim, it requires a sustained, gradual political and societal effort. I like the idea of it being something you toggle to increase over time, It could possibly even be increased by other means such as having high military tradition, professionalism, being at the officer limit, having your army drilling, being at war, and hiring high-level military advisors. You shouldn't be able to completely neglect it and then suddenly max it because you got into a tricky war. Prussia in the Napoleonic wars "neglected their militarisation" and wasn't simply able to immedietely pump it back to 7-years-war levels by the time the French came knocking.


Now, i understand that from a purely objective point of view Militarisation did get nerfed, and implementing this "gradual increase" would be yet another nerf. Yet i see them as only logical changes and very beneficial to the gameplay flow/realism, so the best solution I see is to buff its effects to compensate making them harder to achieve (for example having Militarisation ALSO lowering army maintenance, so that Prussia can actually make use of their increased Force Limit as well).
 
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Regarding the new T-5 government reforms, the Military Doctrines, if I'm playing Mongolia and restore the Great Yuan, and the culture shifts from Mongolian to Sino-Altaic, will I still have access to Subutai's Strategies (the Altaic/Tatar exclusive reform)?
 
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While I'm by no means questioning the quality of the Prussian military historically, i also think that there is an almost mythological view of their military in popular culture. The reason why Prussia was so impressive to all of it's neighbours at the time was first and foremost because of how unbelievably large their army was for their size. It was the country with the largest standing army per capita in the world at that point. Hence the term "Army with a State".
So true, not to mention how Russia has a 50% forcelimit modifier even though per capita they SUCKED at fielding an army. Alot of the effects of ideas are wrong or anachronistic. But, I will say I immensely enjoy the gameplay feel of entirely unique army playstyles incentivized by ideas and governments, personally I think Prussia has a really amazing gameplay feel with it's focus on quality, making it distinct from other European powers which focus on fielding large armies like Russia or France. So in general, I want to make sure Prussia keeps it's current quality which makes it unique and fun to play, rather than turning it into lil' Russia.
 
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Also, are there going to be changes to Age Bonuses?

Especially the Age of Absolutism, where Bonuses that you can grab are either super strong (5 admin eff) or useless (-50% change rival cost, harsh treatment and autonomy cooldown are also very debatable).

When you consider that for example Age of Reformation Bonuses vary from ones focused on religion, to the more military ones, trade power or even Institution spread, Age of Absolutism Bonuses seem very one dimensional - most of them are focused on getting you Absolutism.

And while I understand the premise of that, reality shows, that by the time you have the ability to take third age bonus (as you take +1 y abs and +5 adm eff first, pretty much no matter the situation), your Absolutism is already high enough, that Bonuses have little to no impact on your gameplay.

If I were to give an idea of how I'd like to see this one function - the game should reward the player with highly centralized country, where the ruler actually wields the absolute power.

Would also love to see a bonus to republics, that are left behind when Absolutism kicks in - the powerful bonus that republics get, that would make up for the lack of Absolutism in the form of an economic advantage.
 
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Also, are there going to be changes to Age Bonuses?

Especially the Age of Absolutism, where Bonuses that you can grab are either super strong (5 admin eff) or useless (-50% change rival cost, harsh treatment and autonomy cooldown are also very debatable).

When you consider that for example Age of Reformation Bonuses vary from ones focused on religion, to the more military ones, trade power or even Institution spread, Age of Absolutism Bonuses seem very one dimensional - most of them are focused on getting you Absolutism.

And while I understand the premise of that, reality shows, that by the time you have the ability to take third age bonus (as you take +1 y abs and +5 adm eff first, pretty much no matter the situation), your Absolutism is already high enough, that Bonuses have little to no impact on your gameplay.

If I were to give an idea of how I'd like to see this one function - the game should reward the player with highly centralized country, where the ruler actually wields the absolute power.

Would also love to see a bonus to republics, that are left behind when Absolutism kicks in - the powerful bonus that republics get, that would make up for the lack of Absolutism in the form of an economic advantage.
Ages certainly could be expanded upon.
With the exception of the Age of Discovery and expecially during the Age of Revolutions, Splendor becomes trivial as you can reliably unlock all (not that you need all, only 2-3 are strong and a must, the rest are usually super circumstantial) the bonuses about halfway through the Age without really trying much. The AI seems to also unlock them just as quick, considering that most Majors (at least in Europe) seem to go into a golden age straight up in the Age of Discovery. Which feels a bit anticlimatic when it's tags such as Spain, France and England but at a time when they are still regional powers and you just know they are still going to snowball and become much stronger by the mid game.

There could be added a couple of more missions and rewards added to every age,
or perhaps something else to sink extra splendor on, such as purchasing a second Golden Age for example.
 
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Ages certainly could be expanded upon.
With the exception of the Age of Discovery and expecially during the Age of Revolutions, Splendor becomes trivial as you can reliably unlock all (not that you need all, only 2-3 are strong and a must, the rest are usually super circumstantial) the bonuses about halfway through the Age without really trying much. The AI seems to also unlock them just as quick, considering that most Majors (at least in Europe) seem to go into a golden age straight up in the Age of Discovery. Which feels a bit anticlimatic when it's tags such as Spain, France and England but at a time when they are still regional powers and you just know they are still going to snowball and become much stronger by the mid game.

There could be added a couple of more missions and rewards added to every age,
or perhaps something else to sink extra splendor on, such as purchasing a second Golden Age for example.
Early exploration means most European nations discover America before the Reformation kicks in, so add Renaissance and only one other box need be ticked.
 
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Ages certainly could be expanded upon.
With the exception of the Age of Discovery and expecially during the Age of Revolutions, Splendor becomes trivial as you can reliably unlock all (not that you need all, only 2-3 are strong and a must, the rest are usually super circumstantial) the bonuses about halfway through the Age without really trying much. The AI seems to also unlock them just as quick, considering that most Majors (at least in Europe) seem to go into a golden age straight up in the Age of Discovery. Which feels a bit anticlimatic when it's tags such as Spain, France and England but at a time when they are still regional powers and you just know they are still going to snowball and become much stronger by the mid game.

There could be added a couple of more missions and rewards added to every age,
or perhaps something else to sink extra splendor on, such as purchasing a second Golden Age for example.
Ages should be regionalized by tech groups in my opinion. I mentioned a few times how the native tags need an update, ages could be one of them, since a lot of the goals and rewards are pretty useless to the native tags in an era where native american civilizations were at their height prior to colonization by europeans- and gameplay wise where they should recieve a lot of buffs to withstand colonizers, as it's really their make it or break it era. This could be tied into some of their mechanics- like instead of 'have a feudal empire' it could be 'be the leader of a federation'.

Now I don't think each individual tech group needs it's own set of age bonuses and goals, but you could group them into regions and different tech groups could go in and out of them in different ages portraying how regions fell into the sphere of other groups.

It could go something like this-
-Natives (North American, South American, Andean, Mesoamerican, Polynesian, Aboriginal)
-Africa (Western, Eastern and Central African)
-European (Western and Eastern)
-Asian (Asian, Indian, Nomadic)
-Muslim (Muslim, Anatolian)

Different objectives could be pertaining to say Muslim tech nations owning Mecca and Medina, or in late game forming the Caliphate, African could have one about embracing feudalism rather than Renaissance in the early game, Asian could be centered around owning a buddhist monument since there are so many of those things, a good midgame objective could be embracing global trade instead of owning colonies (since that was a more worldwide effect of colonization than directly owning a colony), natives could have a counterpart to discovering the new world in discovering an old-world capital instead. I could also see maybe in different ages the Anatolian or Indian groups swapping to different categories, maybe a few others.
 
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Besides Ages. the game would definitely benefit for more regionalisation; instead of having jsut a world powers great list, we can have numerous lists of powerful countries in Europe, Asia, Africa etc. area- and continent-wise. Plus, the "world's great power" list should be visible only in late stages of the game - I mean, why would you care that Vijayanagar suddenly surpassed you in terms of millitary and economics when you are in Europe and never even heard of Vijayanagar yet?
 
With a new solution for making sure AI Korea isn’t expanding into Manchuria, will you think about revisiting Korea’s starting development? Their development was lowered in 1.29 to stop them from bullying the Manchus, but in doing so brought Korean development far below what it was in reality. I know development is an abstraction, but considering Hanseong was nearly as big as some of the biggest Chinese cities, I think it at the very least should start with more dev
Hanseong is much smaller than MOST OF THE BIG CITIES IN MING.
 
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Instead of paying a lump sum of Mil points for an instant Militarization boost, how about making it work like War Taxes? There's a button you toggle on, and while it's on it costs say 1 Mil/Month, and in exchange you get a decent (should be able to overcome passive decay) Militarization tick per month? So if you want to guarantee you have your max discipline, you can, but there's a cost, albeit one Prussia is more adept at paying than the average tag.
That's a great idea on paper but it's currently outside of our means, as I am just tweaking values. As a player, this is a wonderful suggestion however!
Thanks for the changes. But could you please remove the Land Forcelimit and bring the Land maintenance modifier back. Prussia's economy is not strong enough to support such large armies, only the army's professionalism would suffer from this. And if I'm in the mood for big and miserable forces, I can always play Russia.
Yes, I think you are right. Land Maintenance is better in most occasions for the reasons you specified
The only "nerf" i see is the fact that militarization now decays, which it ABSOLUTELY should from a logical standpoint. In fact i always imagined it did, I only very recently played Prussia and when i realised it didn't decay i actually felt underwhelmed by how insignificant (as far as my interaction with it was) the mechanic ended up being.
Yeah, it should NOT be a button you press 10 times then forget about, there's no gameplay depth or strategic thinking behind that, I very much disliked the removal of the decay as a player
 
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How about getting out of the HRE and goi g for Austrian Empire? Would be a nice choice for dynamic MTs.
Definitely, that was my suggestion in the previous dev diary, to form the Austrian Empire like in the gecko mod. Although in gecko Austria does not leave the Empire after forming the Austrian Empire, but it would definitely be an interesting and nice for dynamic MTs, lets hope that Paradox surprises us :D
 
Never played the mod, so interesting read indeed!
Definitely, that was my suggestion in the previous dev diary, to form the Austrian Empire like in the gecko mod. Although in gecko Austria does not leave the Empire after forming the Austrian Empire, but it would definitely be an interesting and nice for dynamic MTs, lets hope that Paradox surprises us :D
Although, Austria ought to leave the Empire when forming it, since there can only be one Emperor in Europe. And the Austrian Empire itself came only to be, since the HRE was abolished and Napoleon crowned himself Emperor.
So the choice (in general) should be: HREmperor or Austrian Emperor with respective paths. That would also be nice when the league war is won by the protestants and you as Austria wanna stay catholic. That way you can just abandon the Empire to its fate.
"Im going to make my own empire, with Hungarians and Czechs!", so to speak.
 
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I would let me colleague @Ogele talk about Muscovy, as that is his work. As for the Ottomans (which is also his work) I can say judging from nightlies that they are doing fantastically well a good % of the games, even though there are games where they collapse, likely due to Decadence. I believe AI-wise the Ottomans are in a good spot right now, but Ogele once again knows a lot more on the topic than me!


Yes, I have made a lot of changes to these ideagroups, especially on the Policies of Defensive and more! I would love to return to the topic at some point and showcase all the changes I made alongside my colleagues on Ideagroups in general, we will see!

I share your concerns and I always keep them in mind, we should definitely be very careful as Ideagroups are a common source of power that help countries with less powerful National idea sets.

It's mostly used in MP to troll players but I have a dream that with the new Merc Ideas which have received so much feedback and changes, a Swiss MP player will be a serious force to be reckoned with :D

I totally agree in regards to your example of Statists vs Orangists, it would be far better in my opinion if it worked more like Piety functions for Muslims. As for the modifier changes, I will have to review them if I ever get some free time, but I will try.

In regards to Militarization, I made some key changes. Namely, right now the 2 new buttons in Tier 3 cost 20 Militarization, and Tier 2 now has a bit more Land Forcelimit and less decay. Less decay also for Tier 3 as well. I think it's a good first step and it only happened because you guys gave great feedback, so please keep it up!

Thank you so very much
Thank you for listening to the comments of the community! :)
The question I ask myself, can't these buttons cost something other than militarization? Maybe -1 admin/mana points/month, -x% tax and production +0,0X corruption, improve relations, dip rep .... It's like in the real world. The civilian life is driven down and the military goes up (keyword war economy).
They could be activated similar to war taxes and militarism would be unaffected. So you could buff military tactics, morale, shock dmg during war while neglecting civilian life in the meantime
 
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Thank you for listening to the comments of the community! :)
The question I ask myself, can't these buttons cost something other than militarization? Maybe -1 admin/mana points/month, -x% tax and production +0,0X corruption, improve relations, dip rep .... It's like in the real world. The civilian life is driven down and the military goes up (keyword war economy).
They could be activated similar to war taxes and militarism would be unaffected. So you could buff military tactics, morale, shock dmg during war while neglecting civilian life in the meantime
I suggested something similar, and they said they don't have the bandwidth to change how Militarization works right now.
 
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Thank you for listening to the comments of the community! :)
The question I ask myself, can't these buttons cost something other than militarization? Maybe -1 admin/mana points/month, -x% tax and production +0,0X corruption, improve relations, dip rep .... It's like in the real world. The civilian life is driven down and the military goes up (keyword war economy).
They could be activated similar to war taxes and militarism would be unaffected. So you could buff military tactics, morale, shock dmg during war while neglecting civilian life in the meantime

I suggested something similar, and they said they don't have the bandwidth to change how Militarization works right now.
So let's address both comments at once

To introduce a toggle button (for militarization, like War Taxes) is a lot more work than to add some malus / cost upon clicking the button as it is right now. I think the idea to pay something else other than Militarization (or something alongside it) is very good and we should definitely explore it if time allows.

It could cost money, monarch power, manpower, autonomy on your provinces, unrest
 
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Hanseong is much smaller than MOST OF THE BIG CITIES IN MING.
I don't agree with your pont。At 1444,hanseing is the largest city in the word。The hanseing is larger than constantinopolis plus Paris 。more than five millions people (include two millions east tartarian)lived in hanseing。
 
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So let's address both comments at once

To introduce a toggle button (for militarization, like War Taxes) is a lot more work than to add some malus / cost upon clicking the button as it is right now. I think the idea to pay something else other than Militarization (or something alongside it) is very good and we should definitely explore it if time allows.

It could cost money, monarch power, manpower, autonomy on your provinces, unrest
Thanks for your feedback, i'm already looking forward to the next patch. hope the idea with buff and nerf at the same time will be used more often in the future
 
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