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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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So, does the New Liberty Desire feature mean that Espionage, Diplomacy and Influence will get buffs? Also, will Same Dynasties and Legitimacy have any affect on Liberty Desire? I also take it that, based on what you said in regards to all vassals' strength, it means that all vassals can ally with each other now regardless of overlord gov type?

And I apologize for forgetting to ask this in the second dev diary, but since you created a Norse nation, does that mean we can use all Converter religions in the Nation Designer?
 
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Doesn't sound like it will be much fun for colonial powers, especially if you plan to conquer all of it. Some of the larger colonial armies can get very huge armies if you get all the land. I think I saw Mexico with 60k troops.

But that's kind of great though. World conquest is a bit too easy as it is once you reach critical mass. Instead of getting easy once you're large, world conquest should always be that almost-unreachable goal, to keep the end-game challenging!
 
The Burgundian war is completely unrelated, but you are right in the idea. :p This conflict however, is relevant a few years before start: Praguerie.

I beg to differ:
an episode of the burgundians war is when Louis XI is forced to sign a treaty after being captive from Charles. Should the treaty be broken, Burgundy would consider itself free of its vassal obligation.
Since the treaty was made by constraint, it was broken by an assembly of the lords of the realm and the burgundian territory in France to be confiscated, hence the legal claim of France on flanders that would give bad relation with the hapsburgs.
 
So, does the New Liberty Desire feature mean that Espionage, Diplomacy and Influence will get buffs? Also, will Dynastic politics have anything to do with Liberty Desire and willingness to vassalize? I also take it that, based on what you said in regards to all vassals' strength, it means that all vassals can ally with each other now?

And I apologize for forgetting to ask this in the second dev diary, but since you created a Norse nation, does that mean we can use all Converter religions in the Nation Designer?
Diplomacy and Influence are inherently buffed through the addition of this mechanic.

A couple converter religions will be available (Jewish and Norse), with some others probably coming later.
 
Changes to the Liberty Desire mechanic are welcome!
 
And I apologize for forgetting to ask this in the second dev diary, but since you created a Norse nation, does that mean we can use all Converter religions in the Nation Designer?
I don't have the link, but somewhere in the responses I recall only the two religions mentioned are going in now, the rest are to be added at another date.
 
Is there a way to force (as in CB/war) or persuay (as in use Diplo points) to decrease LB of one or all vassals/PUs etc.?
And are the benefits that loyal vassals give increased? esp Colonailnations currently give nearly no benefit to the holder at all(they currently provide you with almost nothing tbh, a little bit of money and tradepower in nodes you dont need TP in b.c. if other nations CNs would be there the trade would flow the same way anyway...)
Why not a sliding Scale von lets say 30% - 70% LD before there are no more Taxes and supports? (Like the local People start to hide stuff away from your taxcollectors when they come by etc.)
Arent the Bonuses for the New Religions abit Unbalanced towards other Religions after a Nation manges to reform their religion? (Or even before then). They currently seem to be much more Powerfull then evry other Religion and given the the AI usually is really bad at conquering the Natives in America (eps the Incas) it is most likely that we will see fully reformed and westernized Natives all the time (which sounds funny but isnt really funny in my mind b.c. it is strongly ahistoric)
 
I beg to differ:
an episode of the burgundians war is when Louis XI is forced to sign a treaty after being captive from Charles. Should the treaty be broken, Burgundy would consider itself free of its vassal obligation.
Since the treaty was made by constraint, it was broken by an assembly of the lords of the realm and the burgundian territory in France to be confiscated, hence the legal claim of France on flanders that would give bad relation with the hapsburgs.
The treaty, perhaps. The war that you linked, no as it was strictly between Switzerland and Burgundy. Burgundy is not even modeled as a French vassal ingame.
 
Well, working on a "sunset invasion" achievement run now (hope it finishes before patch), I allready have a relatively good idea on how to deal with the new mechanics as the aztecs.
The only thing to keep in mind is that we haven't yet had a specific explanation on the "flower wars" CB, except it probably gives permament CB on all neighbouring/meso-american/existing nations and it will most probably will have "win battles" wargoal.
So, what would be the most likely strategy:
* Get claims on high base tax provinces of neighbours.
* Attack them with "flower wars" CB
* In peace deal only take high-value province(s) (if any, but prefferably allways with claim). (note. this is because amounth of provinces increase the doom counter).
* If possible, try to expand further south-east towards mayan land so you can DOW them as well and cycle vassals... (unless you truce-timers aren't an issue here).
* In the meantime try to get admin-tech 4 ASAP to get exploration for explorers to meet-up with the europeans ASAP (did the same in my current run and it worked like a charm, not sure how it'll work in after el-dorado though).

As for the incas (read cuzco), which I have a habbit to play with since EUIII, their ideas coupled with religious reforms make them absolute masters in colonisation if you take exploration (4 colonists ftw!), unless PDOX decides to rework cuzco/inca ideas because of this offcource.
 
I really hope that vassals auto cancel alliances and support independence when they go under 50 Liberty Desire again.

Hopefully this doesn't turn a clusterf*** that ends up half broken and not fun.
 
I think it might be interesting for the overlord to have a sort of "Bring back into the Sphere" casus belli against disloyal vassals, in which the overlord can declare war to force the vassal to pay taxes or tariffs, but increase the liberty desire of the vassal that had the war declared and her allies, and decrease desire and relations with all other subjects as a "show of force".
 
Influence does not increase your vassals' forcelimits, it increases how much forcelimit YOU get from your vassals.

Ah, good to know. It's not one of the groups I take most often. But now I will look at it differently (ie correctly :p ).

Dont know about you, but I have never seen any kind of subject break free ever (except for those more-or less scripted to do so in 1444 start, like Sweden).

And for it to be any kind of interesting, it needs to be a concern for the player and not only the AI nations.

So it has to be tough. Vassals need to have an actual desire to break free, and do anything it takes to do so. If not they are just moronic slaves, artificial extensions of the overlords territory with a different colour.

No, I've never had anything break free.

I guess overall, I'm just wondering how much deeper my game experience will be with this feature.
 
I think Paradox is moving in the right direction with these changes, and it will be interesting to see how everything has been balanced. In line with that, can you please make the following aspects of diplomacy more directly mod-able?
1. the diplomatic reputation hit for annexing a vassal (magnitude and duration)
2. the base number of diplomatic relations slots (I know government and other such things have an effect, but we need a global variable in defines.lua)
3. which agreements count toward the relations cap (guarantee, military access, personal union, vassal, etc.)
4. base number of military leaders without upkeep (global variable in defines.lua)
5. diplo-annexation process (cooldown period, monthly rate, cost per base tax... these may already be in defines.lua?)
6. liberty desire parameters (if not already planned, as Wiz suggested)
 
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Sorry if already asked, looks very nice, two questions

1)Will this be possible to actually lower Liberty desire ?

2)Does this mean that relation improvement can help with Libery desire ? (example : UK raise the opinion of Newfoundland from 75 to 200)
 
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?

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.

Was hoping for answers to these as well. It seems like liberty desire can be an interesting new twist on vassal mechanics, but there's been a lot of workaround solutions to make vassals more balanced that this change seems to replace. Will some of those added issues be rolled back since this new mechanic is handling it rather than double dipping on penalties?

And what about a vassal and war? Are you able to deal with a disloyal vassal? If the disloyal vassal fails to break free, is there any bonus on your side that will make it easier to integrate or keep the vassal under control? After all, a failed attempt for independence would probably leave all the leaders without a head a new puppet regime in its place.
 
Sorry if already asked, looks very nice, two questions

1)Will this be possible to actually lower Liberty desire ?

2)Does this mean that relation improvement can help with Libery desire ? (example : UK raise the opinion of Newfoundland from 75 to 200)

Observe the opening SS carefully. It's probably the best one Wiz could have chosen to give us some specifics without bothering to type it up. As of that SS:

1. 100 opinion = -10% liberty desire. Presumably this is linear so 200 opinion = -20% liberty desire, each 10% being worth -1%.
2. The subject power is worth nearly 50% LD. It appears the combined vassal power is pretty close to that of France, so you can guess that if the combined forces of all subjects is = to that of their overlord, they'll get 50% LD from that by default.
3. WE is adding some, but not a great deal.
4. IIRC, you start with 1 diplomatic reputation at 100 legitimacy, and this is giving 3%. If you were to add another 4 from idea groups, you could get 12% (which goes down when you annex subjects unless they change that aspect to be in line with the new mechanic).
5. Trust is apparently not insignificant, but I don't know day 0 trust values to get a picture of how it factors. People will pay more attention to it in the future to be sure, because it's already on the order of having a statesman or diprep from idea group in the opening SS.

What is not pictured is the extent to which diplomatic technology factors into the equation, which is mentioned but not detailed.
 
Observe the opening SS carefully. It's probably the best one Wiz could have chosen to give us some specifics without bothering to type it up. As of that SS:

1. 100 opinion = -10% liberty desire. Presumably this is linear so 200 opinion = -20% liberty desire, each 10% being worth -1%.
2. The subject power is worth nearly 50% LD. It appears the combined vassal power is pretty close to that of France, so you can guess that if the combined forces of all subjects is = to that of their overlord, they'll get 50% LD from that by default.
3. WE is adding some, but not a great deal.
4. IIRC, you start with 1 diplomatic reputation at 100 legitimacy, and this is giving 3%. If you were to add another 4 from idea groups, you could get 12% (which goes down when you annex subjects unless they change that aspect to be in line with the new mechanic).

What is not pictured is the extent to which diplomatic technology factors into the equation, which is mentioned but not detailed.

It should be the combined power of all the ones that will revolt vs overlord + loyal vassals though.

Otherwise it's the same flaw that CK2 factions have where it only counts strength of the overlord's troops disregarding the troops of the vassals that will fight for their overlord. Resulting in 1 count with 1k troops counting as 10% strength against an overlord that can raise 10k by himself and 70k from vassals.
 
It should be the combined power of all the ones that will revolt vs overlord + loyal vassals though.

Otherwise it's the same flaw that CK2 factions have where it only counts strength of the overlord's troops disregarding the troops of the vassals that will fight for their overlord. Resulting in 1 count having with 1k troops counting as 10% strength against an overlord that can raise 10k by himself and 70k from vassals.

Actually that sounds like a pretty significant potential issue in the design. If you count all subjects, but not all go over 50%, you're going to wind up with a lot of junk wars. If you don't, then you can get chains of "this doesn't count" making the modifier trivial to manage.