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Welcome to the third development diary for Europa Universalis 4: El Dorado. Today, we’ll be talking about America and Liberty… and no, it’s not about the USA. Specifically, we’ll be talking about the Mesoamerican and South American Inti and Maya religions added in the expansion, and the new Liberty Desire system included in the free patch.


Maya
The Maya were divided into a large number of city-states vying for supremacy. In the past, these states were united in a large confederation called the League of Mayapan until infighting shattered the league. In El Dorado, we’ve attempted to simulate this expansion and contraction through Religious Reforms similar to the ones available to the Nahuatl (for details, see El Dorado Dev Diary 1). For a Mayan nation to pass a reform, they will need to own at least 20 provinces, have positive stability, no revolts, and no overextension. This is a little daunting.

Upon passing a reform, a Maya state will lose about half its territory, shrinking to a size of 10 core provinces determined by culture, religion and distance to capital. Other provinces will break away, joining existing nations or forming new nations and requiring you to reconquer them again. For each reform you have passed, you will be able to keep hold of more territory, retaining an extra province in addition to the original 10. As with the Nahuatl, when the last reform is passed and you border a Western nation, you will be able to reform your religion, getting a tech boost and gaining the permanent benefit of the religious reforms.

The Maya religion starts with +1 Tolerance of the True Faith and +1 Possible Advisors and their reforms give -10% Land Maintenance, -2 Global Unrest, +10% Infantry Power, +1 Colonist and -20% Core-Creation cost.


Inti
Where the Maya and Nahuatl religions are about expansion and contraction, the Inti faith is about maintaining the authority of the Sapa Inca by having the people worship him as a God. Inti nations have an Authority value that goes up from owning vast stretches of territory, and goes down when the ruler grants autonomy to a province (either from granting autonomy via by the grant autonomy action, being forced to by rebels, or choosing to do so in an event). Authority is also affected by a number of unique events added for the Inti religion. Authority reduces unrest and makes it cheaper to increase stability.

An Inti state that has 100 Authority and owns at least 10 provinces can pass a Religious Reform, but doing so will remove all their Authority and spark a civil war as a pretender exploits the loss of authority to attempt to seize the throne for themselves. After all, every reformer is challenged if they go too far.

If you lose this civil war, two Religious Reforms are lost, greatly setting back your progress towards reforming your religion.

As with the Nahuatl and Maya, when the last reform is passed and you border a Western nation, you will be able to reform your religion, getting a tech boost and gaining the permanent benefit of the religious reforms. Because the Inti religion does not have the same cycle of expansion and contraction as other two, Inti religious reforms are generally weaker than those of the Maya and the Nahuatl, but easier to accomplish.

The Inti religion starts with +1 Tolerance of the True Faith and -0.05 Monthly Autonomy in all provinces and their reforms give +10% Manpower Recovery Speed, +1 Colonist, +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, +0.05 Land Morale and -10% Core-Creation Cost.

As the Nahuatl reforms were not finalized in DD1, I will also take the time to share them: -0.05 War Exhaustion, +1 Diplomatic Relations, +5% Discipline, +1 Colonist and -20% Stability Cost Modifier.


Liberty Desire
In Conquest of Paradise, we introduced the concept of Liberty Desire for Colonial Nations, measuring their desire to break away from their parent country, but the system has always been a bit too simplified revolving almost entirely around tariffs and very rarely resulting in said Colonial Nations winning their independence.

In the 1.10 patch, we will be introducing a major rework of Liberty Desire that turns it into a much deeper and more interesting system, but also expands it to all other subjects such as Vassals and Personal Union juniors. In 1.10, each subject has a Liberty Desire towards their Overlord, calculated based on a large number of factors such as opinion, diplomatic reputation, relative power, and relative diplomatic technology levels. Certain subject types like Marches and Client States are more loyal and thus have inherently lower Liberty Desire, while the Daimyos of Japan are an unruly bunch and have a large bonus to their LD. Vassals will also be aware of the power of all vassals relative to their liege, and their Liberty Desire will go up if they think that they could, together, bring you down. (This might even tame early game France - a little.)

While Liberty Desire is lower than 50, the subject will be considered ‘Loyal’ (as seen in their attitude). They will dutifully pay taxes, send their armies to help you in war, and refuse any offers of Support for Independence.

If Liberty Desire is above 50, but below 100, the Vassal is considered ‘Disloyal’. They will refuse to pay taxes and tariffs, won’t send their armies to help you in war (only defending their own territory) and will both look for foreign powers to support their independence and seek to ally with other rebellious subjects of their liege. If they find allies and supporters, their Liberty Desire goes up by an amount depending on the power of said supporters and allies.

At 100, the subject will be ‘Rebellious’. They will not only refuse to pay taxes and send help, but will declare war for independence the moment they think they have a shot at winning. When a subject declares war for independence, they will automatically call in all other subjects of their liege that they are allied to, and all independence supporters of both themselves AND their allies, meaning that their liege can be faced with quite the independence war indeed.

All in all, this system is meant to make vassals feel more lifelike - they are no longer mere slaves to their liege’s whims, but independent entities with their own goals who may turn on their ‘overlord’ if he does not take care to maintain their loyalty.


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Check out all the videos for #EuropaUniversalis IV: El Dorado expansion here:
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While the changes to liberty desires make sense for PUs and colonial nations, I don't think it makes much sense for vassals.

I think there are other factors that should lower liberty desire from vassals, like same culture / culture group as the liege, same religion / religious group, same dynasty, distance to liege's capital, etc.

The French vassals revolting from France would be unrealistic. They'd have no reason to do this.
 
Do I understand the vassal behaviour correctly?

If I have like passed the Privilegia HRE reform and are not all that large, will my vassals quickly band together for independence as they calculate their combined strength against mine?
That's a very good point. Why would vassals swear fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor and, the next year, declare independence from the HRE because their collective strength is greater than the Emperor's?

The HRE vassals are a special case and maybe they should be treated specially as well.
 
While the changes to liberty desires make sense for PUs and colonial nations, I don't think it makes much sense for vassals.

I think there are other factors that should lower liberty desire from vassals, like same culture / culture group as the liege, same religion / religious group, same dynasty, distance to liege's capital, etc.

The French vassals revolting from France would be unrealistic. They'd have no reason to do this.

As I understand it, same culture/religion/culture group modifiers are already in the relationship modifier, but you may be right : it would be better if they were more heavily taken into account. It is a very important decision, to declare war to your liege, and you probably don't want to endanger your whole cultural world by doing so.

However, I like the change all in all. I think I will be able to retain my personnal union with France in one of my game, but it will probably be close, as it should.
 
One question: what would happen in real life if a vassal stopped paying taxes to his overlord? My point is does the overlord get a CB to make unruly vassals pay their obligations (i.e. lower their "liberty desire" by force of arms in order to receive taxes) or are these new rules more fantasy on top of an already fantasy heavy game?
 
Is vassal taxation on the horizon?
 
One question: what would happen in real life if a vassal stopped paying taxes to his overlord? My point is does the overlord get a CB to make unruly vassals pay their obligations (i.e. lower their "liberty desire" by force of arms in order to receive taxes) or are these new rules more fantasy on top of an already fantasy heavy game?

Nice question
 
I feel like the complete axing of vassal payment/tariffs when they hit 50% LD is a little harsh. I think a sliding scale would be better, with perhaps the tax decrease the same as the LD (20% LD = -20% tax/tariff, 21% LD = -21% tax/tariff) or maybe more thresholds than just a full cut-off at 50% LD (perhaps -1/3 tax at 30% LD, -2/3 at 50% and no tax at 70%).
 
I feel like the complete axing of vassal payment/tariffs when they hit 50% LD is a little harsh. I think a sliding scale would be better, with perhaps the tax decrease the same as the LD (20% LD = -20% tax/tariff, 21% LD = -21% tax/tariff) or maybe more thresholds than just a full cut-off at 50% LD (perhaps -1/3 tax at 30% LD, -2/3 at 50% and no tax at 70%).

I was thinking the same thing. There should be a form of middle ground where, for example, them joining you in a war is somewhat random instead of switching completely from 49% to 50% LD
 
i like the LD idea , but only if you balance the need of powers - adm power is with the existing vassal feeding needed for f***ing everything and diplo power for nothing , mil power is kinda useless too if you´re ahead of time and leveling no mil idea atm

maybe make province coring cost like 70/15/15 adm/dipl/mil or something like that or balance it in an other way , but plz balance adm power before you make it even more needed and dipl power even more useless...
 
Man I hope you are right.
If someone revoked my hard-earned privilegias, I'd be really pissed off!
Only a very strong emperor should be able to pull this off.

In the case of the HRE, wouldn't all those small vassals have a hard time building a large enough alliance within their relations cap?
 
I am SOOOOO hyped for this now! Especially since the protestant league vs protestant league bug has been identified.
I don't think Ive ever put this many hours into a game (Possibly Civ4)

France might have just been hit HARD with the nerf bat!

Id really like some more events/situations to affect power projection though (In my current game, I had 60 power projection, falling by 8/yr and lost a rival due to eclipsing them and was 20 PP shortly after)
 
Having Vassals of differing faiths and cultures can now be reflected in LD.
 
How so? The French vassals revolted fairly frequently in the years before EU4 and into the timeline.

So it's clear: I'm not disputing the assertion, I'm merely interested. Do you have any quick references, stories, notes, etc. you've seen online that talk about rebellious French vassals in the later period? Even a timeline-in-brief would satisfy my curiosity. All beyond the quite rebellious vassal France had in English kings, of course.
 
They get the same LD system as everyone else now, meaning for example they don't pay tariffs at 50+ LD and they will start allying each other and fighting for independence together.
Will colonial nations that are <50 LD ally with other colonial nations? I'd really like it if my colonial nations could band together some times for colonial wars without me having to intervene every damn time Colombia starts getting picked on by Spanish-whatever.
 
While I'm ecstatic that vassals and PU partners will no longer be permanent and ultra loyal slaves, I hope some of the costs and constraints around them will be adjusted accordingly. It just doesn't make sense for the monarch point costs, war score costs, AE, size prohibitions, etc. to be so high, if vassals' utility is going to be diminished significantly.

Do the Devs plan to adjust the other side of the equation? Already, vassals are really only efficient if your nation tends to run a surplus of dip points.