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.

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.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Victoria III confirmed!

And so is Rome II.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Decent stuff here, not sure about pause westernization but it's not actively harmful at least. Advisors are a welcome change and paying to retire them is an okay tradeoff, but how does that impact +advisor ideas?

 

[Wagonlitz]

I disagree but this is neither the time not the place.

You know who cares let's consider the game, if sweden enver goes protestant then the whole 30years war will be a curbstomp and that's not fun for anyone.

Or you could have another country have genius rulers; nothing said that Sweden was destined to get genius rulers. With actually competent rulers Denmark for instance could have played a much bigger part in the 30 years war. Or what about Poland going protestant and having genius rulers?

 

[Chief of Staff]

Each one increases IA, so it'd get a bit ridiculous if you could have 40 of them.

Could always add a penalty on IA for each free city over limit of 7, so that each free city you add over the limit would give you less IA.

For example, 7 free city gives full IA effect but each additional free city would have its IA effect reduced by, say, 1/4 of what a free city would normally give for IA effect. That way, you could safely either remove the hard limit on how many free cities the HRE has OR raise the limit to 14 with penalty added for each free cities added over 7.

 

[LastSalian]

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..

Despite I like the feature goal, the concept of "retiring" an advisor looks awkward to me. If there are available advisors, why you don't just hire them? You don't actually need to retire one to allow another to show up.

Would be better something like "get foreign advisor" for the same price, but it will just add into your advisor's pool.

 

[Delta21]

I've just read what I wrote I meant that you can't siege a fort that has more men in it than you have in army. I think new forts will have more men in garrison than the old ones had. I'm not talking about sizes of CK2 garrisons, just about the ability to siege a fort with a smaller army than in the fort. I think that EU 4 has that actually, only all forts have at least 2k men and it's hard to have less than that. Even stack of 4 or 5k men in Russia will get burned pretty much by attrition in winters, and you shouldn't be able to siege with less men than that if the garrison is that size.

Well yes, but that was fairly obvious. That's why in my example I said that about 10k men inside a fort is what I'd expect to see unless they plan to balance things out in a different manner. Weather could have a much bigger impact I guess... but then troop movement should be slowed down. I don't even know , that's why I'm not working on the game.

 

[volseraph]

But why? Most of them were bought by Burgundy and should be owned directly.

They weren't bought by Burgundy, they were bought by the Dukes of Burgundy. For example, Philip the Good bought the Duchy of Luxembourg from Elisabeth (and then sent troops to kick her out anyway). But that did not mean Luxembourg became part of the duchy of Burgundy, it just became part of Philip's personal lands—i.e. a personal union.

Basically, this is a situation that EU4 doesn't model well, but this seems a fairly reasonable way of handling it, and hopefully removes the need for the frustrating Burgundian Inheritance events.

 

[TheDungen]

Or you could have another country have genius rulers; nothing said that Sweden was destined to get genius rulers. With actually competent rulers Denmark for instance could have played a much bigger part in the 30 years war. Or what about Poland going protestant and having genius rulers?

Denmark? That's hillarious. It doesnt matter how genius denmarks leader is they're to small to affect the war in any significant way. Unless they happened to hold on to sweden. Doesnt matter if they hold on to norway because if denmark joins one side sweden joins the other and blocks öresund. (also denmark are nearly as bad at going protestant as sweden)
And poland are even less likely to go protestant than sweden. In most cases england is the only major country that goes protestant and they as rivals to france (who are rivals to asutria) join the catholic side. And the way centres of reformation work if england goes protestant they quickly make all of the brittish isles protestant removing the whole internal religious struggles dynamic from them. I'm sorry but the reformation doesnt work well. Simply because province x in the HRE goes protestant and becomes the first centre of reformation, it converts the opm next to it which becomes the second centre of reformation. then they convert another one which becomes the third centre of reformation. And guess what they're all minor states really close to each other. I dont know how the reformation centres work but they seem to ignore any larger countries unless those chose to go protestant or if they conquer an already protestant province.

Just give us an option random centres of reformation yes/no. You can play on yes I can play on no and we're both happy.

 

[Plastic_Duke]

Shouldn't franconian kind of reach all the way to france? it's the culture that the franks who created the frakish realm came from right?

Not at all. Here's the trick : franconian mainly designate the inhabitants of the duchy of Franconia, wich was called that way during the 10th century because the first dukes of the place were of frankish lineage. People back then had a great imagination, indeed. But there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any direct relations between the people of Franconia and the actual frankish people, at least culturally or ethnically speaking. Frankish only ruled the place at the time it was given its name.

Edit : in fact, the same can be said about Francia, France, etc... the frankish did ruled the place for a long time and since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, by right of conquest, but they had to eventually blend in, culturally, religiously etc.... As far as I know, frankish never represented the bulk of the population anywhere they came and conquered, mainly the elites. Voilà.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

Well yes, but that was fairly obvious. That's why in my example I said that about 10k men inside a fort is what I'd expect to see unless they plan to balance things out in a different manner. Weather could have a much bigger impact I guess... but then troop movement should be slowed down. I don't even know , that's why I'm not working on the game.

Every level of the fort gives 5k men Well, we can wait for the expansion to come out and whatever the result, it will be awesome, at least i think it will be

 

[Wagonlitz]

Denmark? That's hillarious. It doesnt matter how genius denmarks leader is they're to small to affect the war in any significant way.

Back then we were stronger than Sweden. With genius leaders I don't see why we couldn't do the same as the Swedes did. Denmark was the one dominating the North until the mid 1600s. And even after that Sweden never got to dominate us even though she gave us a bloody nose in 1658.

Unless they happened to hold on to sweden. Doesnt matter if they hold on to norway because if denmark joins one side sweden joins the other and blocks öresund. (also denmark are nearly as bad at going protestant as sweden).

Why would Sweden join the other side if Denmark joins the protestants? In reality both Denmark and Sweden was on the protestant side; as far as I remember the Torstenson war even erupted due to Sweden thinking Denmark didn't do enough for the protestant side...
And Sweden blocking Øresund? That is what is hilarious. Are you Swede by any chance?`Because if there was one thing which was constant over the centuries it was that Denmark dominated the seas. There is no way Sweden could have blocked the Øresund; also remember both sides were Danish back then and mounted with large cannons in Helsingør and Helsingborg. And Sweden couldn't just march through Skåne and take one side, because Skåne actually was the part of Denmark Sweden had the hardest time occupying. As far as I remember Sweden actually didn't really occupy anything of Skåne when the treaty ending the 1658 war was signed.

 

[WeissRaben]

Denmark? That's hillarious. It doesnt matter how genius denmarks leader is they're to small to affect the war in any significant way.

...yeah, sorry, but your knowledge of history is at most paper thin. Please, read something about the period before defining Denmark in 1600 a small country.

 

[Thracian]

new expansiton?
when was it announced?

 

[Wagonlitz]

new expansiton?
when was it announced?

It hasn't been announced. But a month ago PDS started doing weekly dev diaries; they will continue doing that after the expansion has been released.

 

[Demetrios]

While I like more HRE states, I'm a bit concerned to see Wurttemberg reduced to a OPM, seeing It was a relatively important mid-sized state.

 

[iShurik]

I'm wondering whether the Hansa will be changed. Weren't Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck free cities?

 

[Wagonlitz]

I'm wondering whether the hansa will be changed. Weren't Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck free cities?

As far as I remember they were. Though there were many more than 7 free cities, so perhaps the Hanse is kept and the 7 free cities are used elsewhere.

 

[Damiani]

"Luther and Buddha". I'm sure those to would get along just great

 

[Metz]

Does anyone think Brittany, Portugal, or Spain need more provinces?

 

[LordofWarN02]

Luther and Buddha I would like to see a good improved mechanic.

Hope there will be an improved mechanic for Reformed, Confucian and Orthodox.