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Hello, and welcome back to Europa Universalis IV. Last week we talked about features, where most of them will be in the free update, but todays feature will all be part of the next expansion.

First of all, I’d like to mention that we are adding a new government form called English Monarchy, which England will start with. It will give +0.5 Legitimacy, -1 Unrest, -0.1 Monthly Autonomy and give them access to a Parliament.

So what is a Parliament? It is a new mechanic that Constitutional Monarchies & Constitutional Republics has as well. A Parliament is a political body inside your country, which will have debates that if they pass will give you benefits for a decade.

There is quite a lot of different possible debates, and you are allowed to pick one of five random eligible ones.

To have a debate pass, you need to have a majority of the seats backing the issue. Of course, when an debate is started, all seats are against it, and you need to convince them to back it.

Every Seat of Parliament will have their own reasons you must fullfill to have them back an issue, and their reasons will be different for each issue. A coastal Seat of Parliament may want to be Granted Navy commissions, which reduces your naval tradition, while another Seat may want monetary compensation, while another want some military support, or a fourth want some more autonomy. Luckily, you only have to get half of them to support you to get the debate passed.

Any non-overseas province can be granted a Seat in Parliament and your capital will always have a Seat. There is no way to remove a seat in Parliament, unless the province is lost.

A Seat gets +10% to tax, production & manpower, while reducing autonomy by 0.01 per month. However each Seat increases stability & war-exhaustion costs by 2%.

You are also required to grant at least of 20% of your non-overseas cores a Seat in Parliament, and if you have less than that, one random will be picked for you. There is alert if less than a third of your non-overseas cores have a Seat.

If there is no current debate, nor any active benefits of an issue, you will slowly lose legitimacy & republican tradition. And if a debate fails, you will lose 20 prestige, so it is not the end of the world, but its not something you want to happen all the time.

Here are three examples of current issues that can be pushed through your parliament.

Backing the War Effort is available if you are at war, and will give you +1 stability when passed, and a 10 year benefit of -0.05 War Exhaustion, and +10% Manpower recovery

Charter Colonies
is available if you have either filled the Expansion or Exloration ideagroup, and gives a +10 year benefit of +1 colonist and +20 colonial growth.

Increase Taxes
will give you about 1/4th of a years income, and increase your tax-income by 10% for 10 years.

Of course, all of these values will change the more we playtest it.

Only countries with Parliaments will get a button, opening the Parliament View, near the Papacy & HRE buttons. And yes, the button you talked about last week, in the province interface, is the one indicating if its a seat of parliament or not.

U4wjCj1.jpg


Next week, we'll focus on why we build walls.
 
This will be the City of London Local Council where most of the voters are businesses. Business votes were only abolished in the rest of the country in 1969, in 2002 the number of business votes in the City of London Local Council was actually increased. And they call it a democracy?

To avoid going too far OT I'll just leave this link for anyone interested. Political analysis and interpretation aside the facts within would, I imagine, be an eye opener for your average person. I certainly was ignorant of them.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval
 
The special thing about the English Parliament is that it survived through history while the others succumbed to absolutism.
 
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The special thing about the English Parliament is that it survived through history while the others succumbed to absolutism.

Like Poland?

I mean, the English Parliament is special now, but it wasn't in the XVth Century, at all. My point was that more government forms require parliament in the early game, other than England and Constitutional monarchies.
 
You are so wrong. Parliaments were very influential, and especially in the 1400's. Look at Poland, a kingdom already on its way to become a noble republic in the late 1300's; at Hungary, already one in all but name by 1420. At Aragon, which had such a strong Parliament that it had built an institution to rule and collect taxes parallel to the King's bureaucracy, a kingdom in which the king had no power to call armies or collect new taxes. Not as much a noble republic as Poland, but in 1410 the Parliament decided to try and become an elective monarchy (it didn't work in the long run). In England, Parliament was losing ground in the 1500's, and especially thanks to the War of the Roses messing it up a lot, but in most of Europe, saving France and Castile, powerful Parliaments were the norm, not the exception. In some places they'd grow to become even more powerful, to the point of being the government themselves (Poland-Lithuania, the Netherlands), in others they'd vanish away slowly (Spain), but to say "Palriaments were not worth a damn" in 1444 is not knowing your history, sorry.

You could use to be more polite while debating, especially if you wish to state that others do not know history.

Sorry, but if history serves, in European medieval times power has been something that belonged to royalty, nobility, and the church; extensions of the governments like Parliaments were no more that para-organizations, or regional assemblies to better organize the tax levy, the military levy, and generally administer a country without telegraphs, telephones, automobiles, newspapers, and whose population's illiteracy rate made most thing inefficient compared to modern era.

The proof is the fact those Parliaments (call them influential, if you feel like that), never changed anything significant, never overthrew a dynasty, never forced rulers to promulgate laws.
Constitutions are something belonging to 1848.
(or earlier in some case, but all of them in the last stages of EU4 timeframe if not beyond, and certainly not 1444)

If an existing institution (no matter if it existed from 1000 AD) never did anything significant, I do not see why it should receive special attention in a game like EU4 where a score of other, more important things are not existing for the sake of simplification.

Much more significant features could be developed if a more deep historical approach is to be taken, fellow players and modders always show many of them.
 
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Like Poland?

I mean, the English Parliament is special now, but it wasn't in the XVth Century, at all. My point was that more government forms require parliament in the early game, other than England and Constitutional monarchies.

Poland didn't survive through history, plus it has it's own unique system.
 
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Constitutions are something belonging to 1848.
Simply for your information, the first written liberal European constitution was that of May 3, 1791, adopted by the Great Sejm in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
 
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You could use to be more polite while debating, especially if you wish to state that others do not know history.

You're right, my tone was out of place. I apologise.

Sorry, but if history serves, in European medieval times power has been something that belonged to royalty, nobility, and the church; extensions of the governments like Parliaments were no more that para-organizations, or regional assemblies to better organize the tax levy, the military levy, and generally administer a country without telegraphs, telephones, automobiles, newspapers, and whose population's illiteracy rate made most thing inefficient compared to modern era.

I maintain my stance; I think you're also wrong. Parliaments were not para-organisations, they were real institutions that weilded the "power of the land". The power belonged to the members of the assembly, not the institution, sure, but that's the whole point. You also define Parliaments in a very strange way. Let me break it down:

1- Parliaments were regional aseemblies -- This is wrong. Medieval Parliaments (big parliaments, not regional assemblies; different things) didn't administer anything, they were the embodiement of all the power in the land that was not the crown. They represented the land and in most parliaments, they could overrun or outrule the king. In Aragon this happened all the time.

2- Parliaments administered the minutae of small government -- Wrong again, most Parliaments only existed in session, when the King or some other head of state convoked them. Then they came toghether, discussed, proposed, requested, demanded, accepted, and when it was all done and said, disbanded until the next time. The nobles in Aragon forced the King to summon Parliament once a year, for instance.

3- Parliaments never changed anything or did anything significant -- Wrong again. Is keeping the king in check not doing anything? The English Civil War? That was Parliament. The English Parliament is special, as Viking said, for one thing: keeping the English monarchy far from absolutism. This is not a small thing. Parliament in Aragon also quelled one of the first modern peasant revolutions, the War of the Remences, by playing stakes and bets with the King, who wanted the Remences to succeed in order to have more power over the nobility.

4- Illiteracy? Why bring illiteracy into it? Parliament is not about rule or government of the land, it's about power. Who has status and power is in Parliament, who doesn't, isn't.

The proof is the fact those Parliaments (call them influential, if you feel like that), never changed anything significant, never overthrew a dynasty, never forced rulers to promulgate laws.

Yes they did force rulers to promulgate laws. In most cases, laws were not valid until they ratified them. In some cases, they had the power to make laws. I'm talking about the Sejm and the Corts of Aragon, for instance, two kingdoms were the king's power was most constrained by the laws of the land, which Parliament represented and protected (which sometimes protected them from tyranny, but also prevented the king from consolidating central power or benfitting the lower classes).

If an existing institution (no matter if it existed from 1000 AD) never did anything significant, I do not see why it should receive special attention in a game like EU4 where a score of other, more important things are not existing for the sake of simplification.

Much more significant features could be developed if a more deep historical approach is to be taken, fellow players and modders always show many of them.

Because they did matter. Where did you get the notion that they didn't?

Constitutions are something belonging to 1848.
(or earlier in some case, but all of them in the last stages of EU4 timeframe if not beyond, and certainly not 1444

With that, I agre (except for the American and French constitutions)


Poland didn't survive through history, plus it has it's own unique system.

It didn't survive the 1790's, but I'd say 1444-1790 is a good chunck of the game, if not 90% of it.
 
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Simply for your information, the first written liberal European constitution was that of May 3, 1791, adopted by the Great Sejm in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Well, there was corsican one too decades earlier.

As of this point, English Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy and Republic, and US specific govts are confirmed to have parliaments, but what about Revolutionary Empire and Revolutionary Republic? Will they have parliaments?
And what about governments which currently have flavour "parliament" events (like: republics.17, republics.19, republics.23, republics.24, republics.38, republics.39), like Republican dictatorships, Administrative republics, and Merchant republics? Shouldn't they also get parliaments, even if less important ones?
 
Well, there was corsican one too decades earlier.

As of this point, English Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy and Republic, and US specific govts are confirmed to have parliaments, but what about Revolutionary Empire and Revolutionary Republic? Will they have parliaments?
And what about governments which currently have flavour "parliament" events (like: republics.17, republics.19, republics.23, republics.24, republics.38, republics.39), like Republican dictatorships, Administrative republics, and Merchant republics? Shouldn't they also get parliaments, even if less important ones?
Really? I didn't know. That's quite interesting.

Don't Republics have the features from Res Publica to compensate?
 
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The UK doesn't have a written constitution to this day, but most people would class it as a constitutional monarchy.
Just so that it's not ambiguous, as a constitutional lawyer I can confirm that despite the lack of a codified constitution, the UK is definitely a constitutional monarchy and is classed as such by international law (well treaty, there's no such thing as actual international law), the European Union and the United Nations.
 
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If there is no constitution, then obviously it's not a constitutional monarchy. Laws and customs are not the same as a constitution, almost every state ever has had customs and laws, yet they weren't constitutitonal monarchies. You have to have elections and a constitution that limits the monarch's power for it to be a constitutional monarchy. And if a 12th century king had said "I am the State", they'd have thought he was mad because his, de facto, power was rivaled by some of his vassals.

The UK doesn't have a written constitution to this day, but most people would class it as a constitutional monarchy.

I'll try to add my two cents.

In my opinion, we cannot talk of a "constitutionnal monarchy" before the 17**. I think one of the core differences between having a constitution and not having one is the way legislation and legitimacy is seen.

A constitutionnal monarchy is based on a sort of contract between the people and the king. The kings who gave a constitution or the people who demanded a constitution asked for a contract regulating the State. And this contract recognize that an institution can make new rules (whereas in an absolute monarchy only the king can make new rules). The basis is the same : sovereignty (of the people/of the king).

On the contrary, the premise of some feudal system (not all of them) is that the ultimate king is God, and that the king must follow His commands and rules. In a system like that, the only thing one can do if he wants to effectively rule over the kingdom is to pretend that he understand better the rules of God, who is the supreme legislator and the one who grants the king his legitimacy (just see how it was important for french kings to be crowned at Reims).

There is still something else. The rule of the land could be considered as a proto-constitutionnalism, because in it there were a set of rules which concerned the people and which the people (usually the nobles) had to live within. However, in this kind of scheme, neither the king nor the "people" had a recognized right to change the rules. So it was the power of tradition.

So the players who ask to be able to do whatever pleases them in the game "because they are the king" would be wrong in that a king acting as if everything was due to him before the age of absolutism would be treated as a mad person who disregard established rules. Even Louis XIV had a tiresome routine which he followed and wasn't expected to break.
 
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If there is no constitution, then obviously it's not a constitutional monarchy. Laws and customs are not the same as a constitution, almost every state ever has had customs and laws, yet they weren't constitutitonal monarchies. You have to have elections and a constitution that limits the monarch's power for it to be a constitutional monarchy. And if a 12th century king had said "I am the State", they'd have thought he was mad because his, de facto, power was rivaled by some of his vassals.
Britain has an 'unwritten' constitution. That isn't the same as not having a constitution at all. Any act of parliament that affects the relationship between the state and the people, the state and other entities and the ways that the state work are part of the 'unwritten constitution' in the UK. The Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, the Human Rights Act, all constitutional law.

That also includes other important principles such as Parliamentary Sovereignty as well. These are all part of the 'unwritten constitution'. The UK very much is a constitutional monarchy.
 
However each Seat increases stability & war-exhaustion costs by 2%.

This seems like overkill. The main deterrent to filling your parliament with hundreds of seats should be the fact that having more of them means you have to commit more resources to getting a bill passed. With the extra stability and WE cost per province, having a big state with equality in mind would cripple the country to the point it would be unmanageable.
 
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Seems to me that granting a seat should just give an unrest bonus, no other bonuses or penalties, other than whatever hoops your monarch jumps through to grt their vote.
 
Yes they did force rulers to promulgate laws. In most cases, laws were not valid until they ratified them. In some cases, they had the power to make laws. I'm talking about the Sejm and the Corts of Aragon, for instance, two kingdoms were the king's power was most constrained by the laws of the land, which Parliament represented and protected (which sometimes protected them from tyranny, but also prevented the king from consolidating central power or benfitting the lower classes).

I believe the above even without checking, but a law not valid until the monarch ratifies it sounds like a bureaucratic system where the monarch still holds basically all the power.

This thread became long, due to the contribution of savvy posters I think the only thing we cannot argue about is the existence of Parliaments throughout Europe, therefore restricting them to England would be a wrong choice imo.

I still think that while adding details to the game is paramount, this particular one does not feel so thrilling to me.

Even if your and others' opinion is that Parliaments were more influential than I think, I'm not sure they were significant enough to bypass the "game simplification barrier" and debut in the game, compared to other already present historical features.
 
After looking around a bit, seems that the Irish parliament wasn't nominally subordinate to the crown until 1707.
 
The nation designer was expanded significantly in the next patch and there are still plans to add stuff, like religions I understand.

That's true, but it is very recent, we will see in the future if it gets much attention (I doubt it will). Look at the random new-world and natives mechanics introduced in CoP. I don't see a viable financial model in which the new parliament system could be significantly expanded.