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EU4 - Development Diary - 17th of January 2017

Hello everyone, in today's development diary we’ll go into details about the Age of Absolutism and the Absolutism mechanic. The absolutism mechanic is part of the free patch, while the Age abilities and objectives are part of the expansion.

So, how does the absolutism mechanic now work?

First of all, we’ve removed the Absolute Monarchy government form.

Secondly, administrative efficiency from technology is now 10% from each tech giving it.

Governments now have an “Absolutism” value, which ranges from 0 to 100, and this increases your administrative efficiency with up to 40% and your discipline with up to 5%, and makes foreign cores on you decay 3 times as quick at maximum absolutism.

There is also a maximum value to absolutism a nation can have, which defaults to 65, with legitimacy increasing it up to +20, republics decreasing it by 30, religious unity increasing it by 5, great power by 5, being empire by 5, and several other factors.

Several events and ideas talking about absolutism now affect absolutism either by directly increasing it, or having a yearly increase.

Absolutism is not just a number that ticks up or down like so many others, this is tied into the actions you do as a player.

Doing harsh treatment on rebels, increasing stability and decreasing autonomy in a province each increase absolutism by +1.

Increasing autonomy reduce it by 2, debase currency reduce it by 1, accepting rebel demands reduce it by 10, assigning a seat in parliament by 3 and reducing war exhaustion reduce it by 1.

These numbers will be tweaked during the development, and actions impacting absolutism may be added or removed from this list.

Whats cool for modders is that you can script absolutism impact individually for your age.
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Here is the special things regarding the Age of Absolutism, which lasts from 1620 until 1710.

Rules

Absolutism mechanics are enabled.
English Civil War & Court & Country Disaster, can only happen in this Age.

Objectives
  1. Have 3 Trade Companies
  2. Own and Control at least 3 Universities.
  3. Have 90%+ Absolutism
  4. At least 5 different cultures promoted.
  5. Be Emperor of China
  6. Reach a force-limit of 200 regiments.
  7. Be on victorious side of the religious war.

Abilities
  • 50% shorter unrest impact from changing autonomy (shorter cooldown)
  • +1 Yearly Absolutism
  • 50% cheaper and quicker to change rivals
  • Forts bordering rivals are free to maintain
  • +5% Administrative efficiency
  • Allow Edict “Edict of Abolutism” 10 years less separatism in state.
  • Harsh Treatment 50% cheaper
  • France - 20% extra firedamage
  • Netherlands - 0.2 corruption reduction
  • Sweden - +35% manpower recovery
  • Manchu - +50% Larger Banners
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Next week, we’ll look into the Age of Revolutions.
 
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Huh, I was thinking about an extremaly similar mechanics, only I wanted to call it "legalism". It's pretty cool, but how does it work without the Ages?
 
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This is really really great. Really nice to get mechanics which aren't isolated from what you do, but instead are closely tied into everything and hence affected by your actions. We need more of that kind of mechanics.

Why does Great Britain get that -30 when they're a kingdom? Wasn't it republics getting a -30?
English Monarchy?
 
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Will be absolutism mechanic also enabled in age of revolution?

Edit: EMUd - it will be
 
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Are there any reasons not to make absolutism as high as possible?
I'd expect that rebels might be a bigger problem the more absolute you are. And in any case you can't raise autonomy---too often at least. Though historically going as absolute as possible was something that everybody strove for and which, to a large degree, mainly had upsides. (As long as you didn't overdo it and ended up getting revolutioned and guillotined.:p)
Speaking of revolution then I'd imagine that you'd be likelier to get a revolution the more absolute you are---it would be great if it was tied into revolutions that way at least.
 
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Max adminstrative efficiency is now 70%? Nice. Are there any reasons not to make absolutism as high as possible?

Liberalism is likelier to happen at high absolutism.
 
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I'd expect that rebels might be a bigger problem the more absolute you are. And in any case you can't raise autonomy---too often at least. Though historically going as absolute as possible was something that everybody strove for and which, to a large degree, mainly had upsides. (As long as you didn't overdo it and ended up getting revolutioned and guillotined.:p)
Speaking of revolution then I'd imagine that you'd be likelier to get a revolution the more absolute you are---it would be great if it was tied into revolutions that way at least.
You say that like going revolutionary is a bad thing...

Liberalism is likelier to happen at high absolutism.
Ugh, do those bothersome liberals have to ruin everything? L'Etat c'est moi!
 
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English Monarchy?
I was thinking that, but it still is a monarchy and not a republic so it getting the full republic malus seems a bit strange. Plus they also only get 10 from full legitimacy despite the DD mentioning that others get 20 from full legitimacy. That seems strange.
 
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Why does Great Britain get that -30 when they're a kingdom? Wasn't it republics getting a -30?

Possibly due to the English Monarchy being somewhat weak due to (historical) power of the parliament? Does seem a bit much to make it equivalent to a Republic. Sure, the monarchy wasn't as absolute as the French, or even the Swedish, but it wasn't that weak.
 
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I'd expect that rebels might be a bigger problem the more absolute you are. And in any case you can't raise autonomy---too often at least. Though historically going as absolute as possible was something that everybody strove for and which, to a large degree, mainly had upsides. (As long as you didn't overdo it and ended up getting revolutioned and guillotined.:p)
Speaking of revolution then I'd imagine that you'd be likelier to get a revolution the more absolute you are---it would be great if it was tied into revolutions that way at least.

Arguably the revolution happened partially due to the monarch's rule not being absolute enough, as they couldn't tax the nobility (furthering the financial crisis)
 
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What government forms do former Absolute Monarchies use now?

Interesting, but it's common to increase autonomy when you conquer loads of lands, so it will be really hard to stay at high absolutism
Given the fact that Absolutism is purely beneficial, that's definitely deliberate.
 
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Please @Johan tell me more about the dragon icon in the lower right corner
That, I assume is the current "Mandate" value for the current emperor of China. Which we currently know nothing about.
I was thinking that, but it still is a monarchy and not a republic so it getting the full republic malus seems a bit strange. Plus they also only get 10 from full legitimacy despite the DD mentioning that others get 20 from full legitimacy. That seems strange.
Doesn't seem odd to me. England's parliament, in its various forms, represents a vague form of anti-"absolutionism" stretching back to 1215 and the Magna Carta. Makes sense to me that parliament and constitutions are the opposition to absolutism.
 
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