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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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The changes to Portugal indeed have vastly exceeded my expectations.
Clearly the developers HAVE listened to the feedback, as almost all the changes were often suggested and discussed in the forums.
Let's go over the Good, the Great, and the "could have been better".


New Missions:

-Sails of Exploration: Good (Not much else to say about it, historical, easy and early to achieve, good reward)

-Charter the Oceans: Good? (The requirements seems interesting and historical, but we know nothing of the reward)

-Clash with the Ottomans: Good/Great (I'm very happy and partial here because it seems the suggestions I made concerning missions about competition/confrontation with the Ottomans/Dutch/Spanish/French were heard, even if only the one with the Ottomans, and even if with completely different requirements/rewards. The requirements are good and flexible, I assume the naval one will be the one most often achieved, I love the reward of +5% Discipline to Marines, many people have requested for a Marine-exclusive buff to Portugal, England oppened the precedent, so I'm happy to see Portugal was extended the courtesy)

-Reform the Navy: Good (Obviously Portugal was also going to have access to these units, i suspect some users might have expected the Nau or the Square-Rigged Caravel instead (The Dutch VOC ships would fit the role and uniqueness of the Nau perfectly), but really there is no need to go overboard with unique naval units. The only thing that "could be better" here is the Caravels being unlocked only after this mission, which seems a mid-game mission, whereas they have been using Caravels at the time of the game start, for example being unlocked as part of their unique government reform. No biggie though, artillery is also unlocked ahistorically late for most of Eurasia).

-Lusitanian Empire: Good/Could have been better (The mission itself is perfectly fine, what could have been better about this is that it could have been tied to the Castilian Succession War (with it being a more important event with actual war and involving all players in the peninsula, rather than a mediocre disaster with a couple of inconsequential events) and introduce a tag about a Portuguese-formed Spain. Aragon gets this and Lithuania too in the Commonwealth.)

-Switching the order of the Malacca and Indonesia missions: Good, a seemingly very minor change, but has big implications if you are trying to follow a historical route.

More "Could have been better"s:
-I assume the "Wine Monopolies", "Trade with Cathay" and "Trade with Japan" missions were not tweaked? It's a shame, these missions had some potential to be very fun and interesting, but have some really tricky requirements that make them basically impossible to achieve without some severe ahistorical and gamey gymnastics.


New Goverment reforms:

Portuguese Monarchy: Good/Could be better (Nothing much to say about this, nice modifiers that are useful for Portugal's specific needs, definitely better than the default Feudal Monarchy)

Ordenanças: Could have been better (I'm not a fan of giving Portugal any manpower/sailor boosts ever. If anything i would go out of my way to nerf Portugal's manpower. Portugal suffered a lot from manpower shortages, it's largest force ever fielded in the timeframe was 60K in 1815, which is extremely low for any tag in 1815. Losing a 20K stack in Morocco in 1578 (also basically nothing for any tag in 1578) plunged the country in a severe economic and political crisis and remains the worst loss of military life in Portuguese history until today (Worse than WW1 even). Instead the Ordenanças could be something like the Korean "Righteous Army" decision, only availabe when waging defensive wars (The Ordenanças were militias explicitly created to complement the standing army in national defense situations) which could have something like -20% Fire Damage Recieved (Representing the advantages of irregular, defensive warfare) but also -10% Morale (Representing the lack of "staying power" in battle in comparison with regular infantry).


New Holy Orders:
-Order of Avis: Great (Perfect, the highlight of the changes, my expectations were so low that this alone would make me satisfied honestly)


New Resources:
Good
(Not much to say here, it's accurate and serves a strategic purpose, however as far as the map is concerned, my greatest grievance is how winters in Iberia are portrayed, although maybe the entire world should be given a look at in this regard, many places in the world don't add up)
Climate.png(Left: How it is, Right: Two ways it could be)


General "Could have been better"s:
Portugal really could have given access to the Tercios too, Portugal did use them in real life and there isn't really any evidence that sets the Spanish Tercio apart from the Portuguese ones, other than the fact that Spain used them earlier.
In 1580 Spanish Tercios did defeat the Portuguese ones (Although Portugal was outnumbered)
But then again, Portuguese Tercios did defeat the Spanish ones in 1659, 1663, 1664 and 1665 (With Portugal being always outnumbered)

Perhaps after Spain reforms the Tercios, Portugal could get an event to pay a substantial fee to Spain in order to hire military reformers and unlock Tercios for 100 years or so. If not as a unique unit, maybe as a mercenary company at least.
 
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Every DD just feels like a nerf to Netherlands since all their rivals are getting OP buffed while Netherlands only gets a ship it can only have 20% of its NL.
Until the Napoleonic wars which is pretty much the end of endgame, Netherlands were easily the richest country in western Europe had the largest or 2nd largest navy and could pretty much go head to head on Britain but in eu4, The Netherlands is treated like that 3rd rate power that everyone would easily conquer in one war if not for the AE.

The Netherlands/Dutch nations has underwhelming missions where you have no claims on the low countries but you are expected to conquer it. Tiny claims in India and Asia even Austria has more claims in Asia than the Netherlands even though the Netherlands were pretty much the most powerful in india and asia until the Napoleonic wars.


The Dutch ideas are pretty bad when compared to it's rivals in England, France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, even Denmark has a better idea even though it fell off pretty early
 
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Well it's really the issues with how the AI handles the reformation that I'm currently unsatisfied with. Exactly one year (plus a few days) after the first truly random center of reformation appears, two of the following countries (and possibly others, this isn't exhaustive) will immediately flip:

Protestant - Denmark, Sweden, Bohemia, England/Britain, Saxony, Brandenburg
Reformed - Switzerland, Scotland, Three Leagues

It's not an event that causes this, it's not because there's already some of the agitating religion in their country, it's because their AI has been given a preferred religion of Protestant/Reformed. The downsides to this are the Reformation is less dynamic and yet more difficult to crush (not automatically bad, but you'd like a broader range of difficulty for it than always having to snake to Prague and Stockholm), and the fact it's two countries making this decision at exactly the same time make it feel forced and railroaded. And the English decision to flip is especially weird, because half the time they'll flip religion again when Anglican opens up, which means a Center of Reformation for Protestantism is wasted if you're playing that route. The 1.33 approach where Brandenburg would sit with 0% religious unity and refuse to flip wasn't great, but we're too far in the other direction. If there isn't a scripted event for a country to change religion (like Geneva), maybe they should have some diegetic reason to change.
The English tendency to flip Protestant as early as possible is especially egregious because Henry VIII was actually proclaimed "Defender of the Faith" by the Pope for a time. England didn't join the Reformation until the Pope refused to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. If the AI is coded to try and follow a "historical path" then England needs to prioritize staying Catholic until the Anglican event fires.
 
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Ok but where is revamped Scottish and Irish mission trees?
Where is Persia revamped?
WHERE IS MAMLUKS REVAMPED

I am waiting for DLC which includes whole North Africa, Middle East (excluding Ottomans) and really Persia & Caucausus.
Please Paradox im waiting.
(Lets ignore that Aztecs and Incas exists for now)
 
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Ok but where is revamped Scottish and Irish mission trees?
Where is Persia revamped?
WHERE IS MAMLUKS REVAMPED

I am waiting for DLC which includes whole North Africa, Middle East (excluding Ottomans) and really Persia & Caucausus.
Please Paradox im waiting.
(Lets ignore that Aztecs and Incas exists for now)
Johan has hinted that the next patch's focus will be on the Middle East. Fingers crossed that holds up!
 
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@Pavía

Regarding Middle East, it's honestly something i really anticipate and can't imagine what you have in store for us. Persia and Mughals, i'm all for it. However regarding ME i have to ask in the tearms of content (missions, modifiers ect.) do you plan something for Nubia? If it's not to early to reveal of course.

As for HRE members like Austria and Netherlands i'm again all for it that these countries get updated modifiers however i would suggest to expand into other HRE members as well that have potential to become Great Power, like Bohemia, Bavaria, Milano and Savoy. United Germany and Italy as well. As for Italian republics updating Genoa and Venice would be nice.

Overall i do like changes Brandenburg/Prussia is receiving.
 
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@Pavía

Regarding Middle East, it's honestly something i really anticipate and can't imagine what you have in store for us. Persia and Mughals, i'm all for it. However regarding ME i have to ask in the tearms of content (missions, modifiers ect.) do you plan something for Nubia? If it's not to early to reveal of course.

As for HRE members like Austria and Netherlands i'm again all for it that these countries get updated modifiers however i would suggest to expand into other HRE members as well that have potential to become Great Power, like Bohemia, Bavaria, Milano and Savoy. United Germany and Italy as well. As for Italian republics updating Genoa and Venice would be nice.

Overall i do like changes Brandenburg/Prussia is receiving.
During the Origins Dev Diaries they explicitly said they were reserving Nubia for a Middle East update.
 
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Pls Guys The one Think i would like You to change here is hindustani culture group Reform Veryy Ussles and i can Guarantee u That no one will use ever -50% war tax its the same like u did with monument in japan First when it went of it was Very ussles and then u changed it to Pretty nice One So i hope it will be the same Here .
 
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Great updates! With all the DD, the Domination would be a contentful updates. The Korean gov-reform seems to be an interesting one. New KOR ideas are quite powerful, which would aid a smooth transition for players from a regional power to EoC for sure.

But, I wonder what's to do with the culture_group reforms though. For WeiSuo in particular, its description seems to be about manpower whilst its modifiers are about local garrison? To my knowledge, Wei Suo is more like the Byzantine themata, and more leanning towards the peasant farming side of things. The founder of the Ming dynasty, Mr. Zhu believed by giving his armies their own farm, he won't need to pay them any more. Moreover, because the land marked under Weisuo would be in the government record and managed by the military, it is easier and simpler for tax collection to take place. At least for the early years of the Ming Dynasty.

So, I would think it should be more like a reform bounus manpower or taxation? The regiment cost bounus as the modifier and the house of soldiers' change are good choices though.

And for the new Prussian Militarization, isn't -50 Militarization = Army Tradition +0.5 + Land Attrition -10% + 25% Reinforce Speed quite imbalance? -50 Militarization basically is -5% discipline and other buffs provided by Militarization.

Just some thoughts.
 
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Prussia now starts with a new version of it, called Early Prussian Militarization:


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:


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


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:


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.
Nice Update! I like the introduction that militarism is no longer a button you push once, but drops every month. I hope you'll play around with the values a bit more, though. -1/month are equal to 5 mana/month. I can tell you that at least the 3rd expansion level no one will take, because the difference to the 2nd is just too small, especially with the immense costs. You said it yourself, that's there to be better in the war in the short term. No one will invest so much mana for just 10% manpower because of a few months/years length of war. Do you add modifiers that slow down the decay in absolute or relative terms? Won battles/wars, army tradition, power protection or even lost wars (revanchism) can influence the population's desire for war.
 
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The changes to Portugal indeed have vastly exceeded my expectations.
Clearly the developers HAVE listened to the feedback, as almost all the changes were often suggested and discussed in the forums.
Let's go over the Good, the Great, and the "could have been better".

New Missions:

-Sails of Exploration: Good (Not much else to say about it, historical, easy and early to achieve, good reward)

-Charter the Oceans: Good? (The requirements seems interesting and historical, but we know nothing of the reward)

-Clash with the Ottomans: Good/Great (I'm very happy and partial here because it seems the suggestions I made concerning missions about competition/confrontation with the Ottomans/Dutch/Spanish/French were heard, even if only the one with the Ottomans, and even if with completely different requirements/rewards. The requirements are good and flexible, I assume the naval one will be the one most often achieved, I love the reward of +5% Discipline to Marines, many people have requested for a Marine-exclusive buff to Portugal, England oppened the precedent, so I'm happy to see Portugal was extended the courtesy)

-Reform the Navy: Good (Obviously Portugal was also going to have access to these units, i suspect some users might have expected the Nau or the Square-Rigged Caravel instead (The Dutch VOC ships would fit the role and uniqueness of the Nau perfectly), but really there is no need to go overboard with unique naval units. The only thing that "could be better" here is the Caravels being unlocked only after this mission, which seems a mid-game mission, whereas they have been using Caravels at the time of the game start, for example being unlocked as part of their unique government reform. No biggie though, artillery is also unlocked ahistorically late for most of Eurasia).

-Lusitanian Empire: Good/Could have been better (The mission itself is perfectly fine, what could have been better about this is that it cold have been tied to the Castilian Sucession War (with it being a more important event with actual war and involving all players in the peninsula, rather than a mediocre disaster with a couple of inconsequential events) and introduce a tag about a Portuguese-formed Spain. Aragon gets this and Lithuania too in the Commonwealth.)

-Switching the order of the Malacca and Indonesia missions: Good, apparently a very minor change, but has big implications if you are trying to follow a historical route.

More "Could have been better"s:
-I assume the "Wine Monopolies", "Trade with Cathay" and "Trade with Japan" missions were not tweaked? It's a shame, these missions had some potential to be very fun and interesting, but have some really tricky requirements that make them basically impossible to achieve without some severe ahistorical and gamey gymnastics.



New Goverment reforms:

Portuguese Monarchy: Good/Could be better (Nothing much to say about this, nice modifiers that are useful for Portugal's specific needs, definitely better than the default Feudal Monarchy)

Ordenanças: Could have been better (I'm not a fan of giving Portugal any manpower/sailor boosts ever. If anything i would go out of my way to nerf Portugal's manpower. Portugal suffered a lot from manpower shortages, it's largest force ever fielded in the timeframe was 60K in 1815, which is extremely low for any tag in 1815. Losing a 20K stack in Morocco in 1578 (also basically nothing for any tag in 1578) plunged the country in a severe economic and political crisis and remains the worst loss of military life in Portuguese history until today (Worse than WW1 even). Instead the Ordenanças could be something like the Korean "Righteous Army" decision, only availabe when waging defensive wars (The Ordenanças were militias explicitly created to complement the standing army in national defense situations) which would have -20% Fire Damage Recieved (Representing the advantages of irregular, defensive warfare) but also -10% Morale (Representing the lack of "staying power" in battle in comparison with regular infantry).



New Holy Orders:
-Order of Avis: Great (Perfect, the highlight of the changes, this alone would make me satisfied honestly)



New Resources:
Good
(Not much to say here, it's accurate and serves a strategic purpose, however as far as the map is concerned, my greatest grievance is how winters in Iberia are portrayed, although maybe the entire world should be given a look at in this regard, many places in the world don't add up)
View attachment 954333



General "Could have been better"s:
Portugal really could have given access to the Tercios too, Portugal did use them in real life and there isn't really any evidence that sets the Spanish Tercio apart from the Portuguese ones, other than the fact that Spain used them earlier.
In 1580 Spanish Tercios did defeat the Portuguese ones (Although Portugal was outnumbered)
But then again, Portuguese Tercios did defeat the Spanish ones in 1659, 1663, 1664 and 1665 (With Portugal being outnumbered)

Perhaps after Spain reforms the Tercios, Portugal could get an event to pay a substantial fee to Spain in order to hire military reformers and unlock Tercios for 100 years or so.
Based on an answer to a similar question, I believe Wine Monopolies are there because taking it out would undo a previous DLC to a degree they wish to avoid.
 
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Great DD with a lot of new and good changes!

But the Dutch minors / Netherlands not getting a real update really bugs me. Don't get me wrong, the VOC Indiamen is a very good special unit, but it feels a bit underwhelming for what the rivals of the Netherlands are getting (like all the missions and the EIC from the English). They were a lot more influential than is being portrayed here.
The Dutch trade, science, and art and the Dutch military were among the most acclaimed in Europe in the late 1500s until the 1800s. The Dutch were big traders and had a lot of influence around Europe, even centuries before their golden age.
 
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Ok but where is revamped Scottish and Irish mission trees?
Where is Persia revamped?
WHERE IS MAMLUKS REVAMPED

I am waiting for DLC which includes whole North Africa, Middle East (excluding Ottomans) and really Persia & Caucausus.
Please Paradox im waiting.
(Lets ignore that Aztecs and Incas exists for now)
Here let me help you with that. If you just read the first paragraph right at the veeeeeeeery top of the DD. You know, about four or so lines down.

"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."
 
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Jesus, another underwhelming update for Portugal...

Portugal was a great power on first half of eu4 time, where is that power?

PU on Castille or Spain? Where is it?
I agree, really the castillian civil war should let the iberian wedding happening or for portugal or for aragon depending on player decisión (if Juana have win the war the union should be with Portugal) Also as Portugal even if the pro aragonese win the castillian civil war you should have the option to claim castillian throne after the event.
 
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