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Welcome back to our weekly series of development diaries about Europa Universalis. This time we’ll talk about four new features that will be part of the next expansion.

Free Cities of the Holy Roman Empire
Now the Emperor can designate up to seven free cities in the empire. A free city is a one province minor with a minimum of 10 development.

Free cities provide Imperial Authority to the emperor, as well as manpower and income. A Free City also have some rather nice bonuses to their development.

If a Free City gains another province or leave the HRE. they lose the free city status. And a Free City is always a type of Republic, so countries that aren't a Republic will become one upon accepting Free City status.

A Free City is always protected by the Emperor if attacked, so be careful when expanding in the HRE. A Free City can never be the subject of another nation.

Of course, as the ruler of a OPM, you can always refuse the offer of becoming a free city, and the emperor can spend some Imperial Authority to revoke a cities rights.

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Remove Electorate
The next expansion lets you get even more control over your electors. If your religion is now official in the Empire, you can now spend IA to remove the Electorate status of your disloyal Electors.

Pause Westernisation
Sometimes while you are westernising, you end up where you need to use your power for something else, like boosting stability, but currently you can’t. Now we have added the option to pause westernisation. You’ll still get the unrest from westernising, but there will be no events spawning while westernisation is paused. Most importantly though is the fact that your power is accumulating again instead of contributing to the westernisation process.

Retire Advisor
Have you ever sat there with a lot of money, but cursing the options you for advisors. In the next expansion, you can now spend the amount of money it would cost to hire an advisor, and permanently retire him. Within a month, if there is available space in your pool of advisors, you will get a random new one in the same category. Maybe you get the +discipline one you wanted..


Next week we’ll focus on Luther and Buddha.
 
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A Free City is always protected by the Emperor if attacked, so be careful when expanding in the HRE.

Meaning both attacks by other HRE states and outsiders, I assume? Does the emperor get to decide whether to answer a call or do they auto-join the war like with vassals?

A Free City can never be the subject of another nation.

Does this mean you cannot vassalize them in a peace treaty or do they simply lose their free city status if you do?
 
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The little fort graphic is nice and helpful and it was my hope that we'd be able to see where the forts are from the political map. But it looks a little out of place; seeing a 2D graphic randomly around the map will take some getting use to. It would look so much better with a 3D graphic on the province instead.

Like in victoria 2 where you build a fort and you can see it right on the province. Now that forts have a very large importance in this game it is my opinion that while the current 2D fort graphic is useful, a 3D fort graphic would serve the purpose of being useful while not hampering the visual experience of the game

We're adding 3D models as well, likely the 2D ones will only visible on distant zoom levels.
 
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Yes I am. Your theory is based on the idea that we are being deliberately misinformed about an overly complicated system that would barely make sense and be completely ahistorical.

I can't believe you cannot see it, so I am left speechless.
Diary has been edited. Reread it.
 
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No. You cannot ask for it, you have to be a republic and you need to have at least 10 development. Plus there can be only 7. Just read the diary. It's really short.

The Emperor can make any one-province state with at least 10 development into a Free City, but they must accept. Monarches and Theocracies will be a lot more reluctant to say yes.
 
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With the recent changes to Memel and the fact that Johan took over posting the diaries, I'd suspect that Wiz might have been removed from EU4 development team.

There is no facepalm great enough to accurately reply to this post.
 
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More like Wiz is being given time off answering questions on this forum so he can concentrate on making the game.

More like Johan has always been the main writer of EU4 dev diaries and I just fill in when he's too busy to do it.
 
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Having one of your cities turn into a Free City is by no means something positive at all. For you. For the city it's great, but you should lose basically ALL influence over the city. Military access should not be given for free by the Free City either and the Free City should probably have to be recognised/approved by the Emperor.
It would be bad-ish, that's why you could DEMAND it in a PEACE DEAL, or you could let go of one of your provinces give a city rights. You'd lose a province with all it provides, but gain something else. Since you released it, it wouldn't belong to you any more, however for the same reason it should love you and give you a few privileges, like permanent mil access. There's so many conditions and modifiers we could tweak... Either way, I would ecstatic if every kingdom could establish them.
 
The Emperor can make any one-province state with at least 10 development into a Free City, but they must accept. Monarches and Theocracies will be a lot more reluctant to say yes.

Is a free City's government rank higher than normal republics? Like Venice's serene Republic? And after they accept can they get rid of it? Plus elector and free City at the same time possible?
 
Is a free City's government rank higher than normal republics? Like Venice's serene Republic? And after they accept can they get rid of it? Plus elector and free City at the same time possible?

They have a special Free City republic that is always rank 1, they lose that government if they stop being a Free City.

Free Cities cannot be electors.
 
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I wonder what's the biggest empire you could make while staying a Free Imperial City. And before people start making fun of what I'm saying (Free Cities being forced to stay OPMs), by empire I mean: overlord + vassals.
Keeping a lid on liberty desire seems like quite a challenge.

I hope the Paradox devs add something like this as an achievement :)
 
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They have a special Free City republic that is always rank 1, they lose that government if they stop being a Free City.

Free Cities cannot be electors.
What is the Free City government? Does it have any special mechanics or something to stop them from losing too much republican tradition because I almost never see the AI maintain republics they almost always seem to be come monarchies a few hundred years in
 
They have a special Free City republic that is always rank 1, they lose that government if they stop being a Free City.

Free Cities cannot be electors.

What government will they get if they stop being a Free City? Their previous one? A different type of Republic?