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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:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqRhPbyFDQWjGgEWYgQwby-H4Lm7xrNGD
 

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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?

Don't know if they need buffs but Sabotage Reputation can now help CNs break away since Opinion now matters.
 
Will this patch break saves?
And why in Dev Diarythere is patch 1.10 ;P? Shouldn't it be 2.10?
 
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.

Yup, would get even more annoying if they don't instantly(ish) drop alliance and independence support upon becoming "loyal" again, or you'll end up with vassals that go disloyal for just a short time being part of the war against you.

I'm also concerned about how warscore works here. I really hope that winning the war returns all my vassals back to vassal status, instead of telling me "guess what persia is too big, so either you only vassalize them again and let everyone go, or you let persia go to get the rest, because Warscore".
 
Don't know if they need buffs but Sabotage Reputation can now help CNs break away since Opinion now matters.

AI will not have meaningful vassals other than PUs by the time you complete an idea group, unless the AI itself is changed massively. CNs you can break that way, but you can break them loose now just by WE camping their overlord in 1.8-1.9. It will be super easy if the mechanic works as stated in this DD next patch though, because you can wipe out their army (combined subject army >> overlord then) and drive up WE.

Players will probably just lean a bit more on coring early and emphasize dip/influence to top off relations + diprep. This is a nerf to the viability of player vassals, mostly early game player vassals. Vassals aren't going to do crap to you when you have a FL of 300+ later on.
 
Can a vassal/colonial nation declare independence against its liege while its fighting alongside its liege in a war. For example, I’m playing as the Thirteen Colonies and my overlord England has just lost a major battle reducing its military strength to the point where I think I can win a war of Independence. Am I allowed to revolt or am I prohibited from doing so because we are fighting on the same side of a war?
 
It will be super easy if the mechanic works as stated in this DD next patch though, because you can wipe out their army (combined subject army >> overlord then) and drive up WE.
Finally a benefit to the AI's 90K troops in exile with no boats picking them up.
 
Can a vassal/colonial nation declare independence against its liege while its fighting alongside its liege in a war. For example, I’m playing as the Thirteen Colonies and my overlord England has just lost a major battle reducing its military strength to the point where I think I can win a war of Independence. Am I allowed to revolt or am I prohibited from doing so because we are fighting on the same side of a war?

? You've been able to do that since 1.6 or 1.7, I forget which one.

It's just a question whether the AI will do it.
 
Players will probably just lean a bit more on coring early and emphasize dip/influence to top off relations + diprep. This is a nerf to the viability of player vassals, mostly early game player vassals. Vassals aren't going to do crap to you when you have a FL of 300+ later on.
early game, maybe. For midgame I think there are a couple of tricks available...initial testing looks promising ;)

I am curious how much vassal aggressiveness will be ramped up. In my first trials regarding AI aggressiveness in current patch, you have to be doing some very sketchy stuff (like intentionally running your country into the ground, going bankrupt, getting a peasants war, and disbanding your troops) for AI to declare for independence on you even with an overwhelmingly powerful vassal.
 
Will this patch break saves?
And why in Dev Diarythere is patch 1.10 ;P? Shouldn't it be 2.10?
You don't understand software version numbers. The '.' is not a decimal point, it is a field separator distinguishing the Major Version (1) from the Minor version (10).
 
early game, maybe. For midgame I think there are a couple of tricks available. Initial testing looks promising ;)

Of course there are tricks, and more will be discovered. Everyone's favorite super-nerfed whipping boy hordes are going to lag in diplo tech like hell too lol.
 
Very, very much in favor of the new LD changes, but why no references to the John Wayne movie "El Dorado" yet?
 
Of course there are tricks, and more will be discovered. Everyone's favorite super-nerfed whipping boy hordes are going to lag in diplo tech like hell too lol.

Nah man, don't you know? Hordes don't have vassals historically, just like they don't get better units! :D

It's a good thing I can't say that with a straight face.
 
Has having vassals been strengthened in any way or is the change purely a negative one? E.g. is the amount of money you get from vassals at 0 LD the same as now or bigger?
 
Before the vassals were like zombies in Left 4 Dead: You was like the Boomer: Puke bile( declare war) on the enemy and (vassals) an horde start to attack him, like mindless zombies :) . Now the vassals are proper autonomous actor, so we can say that they filled an empty spot of the game.
 
Patch 1.10: Multiplayer love Patch.

Nation designer: far more options in MP to play

Liberty Desire: Finally a way to break static america colo game, were one big colonizer hold everything in north and south america. Now, you have to focus on 1-2 colo regions, maximum. more means only higher chance for breaking the empire. it pushes colonation for save colo game more into africa and asia, whichs spice the world.
At the moment, a good player could simply let his colo nations under 50% forever...no chance for breaking his empire.

Vassal change is OK, but a Sp nerf, in MP no player runned big vassal...they would only break independet at next rehost.

PU mechanic...we will see how it influence in SP :)