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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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To, idk, emulate history better? With the ages mechanic they can nerf some stronger nations(Ottoblobs) and make them do well in their respeticve age instead

Huh? The Ottomans and most of the other majors only benefit wholesale from everything in the Ages mechanics revealed so far.
 
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Huh? The Ottomans and most of the other majors only benefit wholesale from everything in the Ages mechanics revealed so far.
They can nerf the ottomans themself and make them get their nation specific bonuses in their relative age
 
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I assume that a high Absolutism is always good and a low is always bad? I kinda hoped that even if they would not cancel each other out there would be some disadvantages when having high Absolutism (and advantages for having a low one)
 
I assume that a high Absolutism is always good and a low is always bad? I kinda hoped that even if they would not cancel each other out there would be some disadvantages when having high Absolutism (and advantages for having a low one)

Liberalism is likelier to happen at high absolutism.
 
A country which has only 2kk of population by 1700 will have a huge manpower recovery bonus. Seems legit.

Manpower is not population. (Though I do think manpower recovery is a bit weird, since it was one of the main weaknesses of the swedish system, force limit or merc bonuses would be more historical)
 
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Manpower is not population. (Though I do think manpower recovery is a bit weird, since it was one of the main weaknesses of the swedish system, force limit or merc bonuses would be more historical)
You know, they are correlate with each other. Bigger population means bigger manpower.

I agree with you, that it's a bit weird to give a huge manpower recovery bonus to Sweden, which population increased only by 8kk since early XVIII century. It's almost 300 years. For example, the population of Germany increased by 12kk since 1960's.
 
You know, they are correlate with each other. Bigger population means bigger manpower.

I agree with you, that it's a bit weird to give a huge manpower recovery bonus to Sweden, which population increased only by 8kk since early XVIII century. It's almost 300 years. For example, the population of Germany increased by 12kk since 1960's.

Not as much as you might think, especially in the 17th century. It had much more to do with structures of recruitment and money than any absolute number of subjects. And remember, manpower recovery is relative in any case.
 
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Absolutism seems like an engaging mechanic, although I hope Liberalism will be expanded and be more than it is currently. I presume absolutism just triggers at a fix date without the DLC.
May have been answered in a previous dd, but has it been said if it is possible for modders to script dynamic age transitions, so the start of an age isn't linked to a year but to flags? The years feel too railroady for some of the more fantasy mods, but could work great with dynamic triggers.
Most fantasy mods would presumably just disable it outright, it is more the mods in general which will have issues with the system as it doesn't allow for an accurate simulation of history or a fantasy scenario due to the deterministic nature. We haven't gotten any answer though as far as I'm aware.
 
@Johan Will there be any unique mechanics for being the Holy Roman Emperor?

Will there be any unique mechanics for being the Roman Emperor (Byzantium)?
Okay, this one I genuinely can't tell if it's ironic.
 
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Manpower is not population. (Though I do think manpower recovery is a bit weird, since it was one of the main weaknesses of the swedish system, force limit or merc bonuses would be more historical)
Force limit and merc bonuses would be totally wrong sweden's armies were never large and in that era sweden switched out it's reliance on mercs for a professional army.
 
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Forts bordering rivals are free to maintain

Time to build those Walls of Forts.

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%20 more Fire damage for France....now that will be painful.
 
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Could you make it so that Zungar is a formable nation? they already exist from a 1635 to 1755 ingame

Maybe formable by Oirat or Chagatai if owning some provinces in the east asian steppe
 
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Own and Control at least 3 Universities.
what does this mean! if they are just buildings like they've always been that "Owning" and "controlling" would be the same thing. do Universities now have some level of autonomy? is there a risk of them being a breeding ground for political dissent? are they like centers of reformation for institution spread(or maybe this yet unexplained 'liberalism' mechanic?)?
 
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what does this mean! if they are just buildings like they've always been that "Owning" and "controlling" would be the same thing. do Universities now have some level of autonomy? is there a risk of them being a breeding ground for political dissent? are they like centers of reformation for institution spread(or maybe this yet unexplained 'liberalism' mechanic?)?

You can control a province by occupying it. So if your universities are in occupied provinces during a war, then they wont count for this objective
 
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