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EU4 - Development Diary - 7th of March 2017

Hello everybody. When rounding off last week's Dev Diary, I was planning on bringing up a certain mechanic which has everyone who has touched it dazzled and not wanting to ever be without it. Something about Diplos and building with macros, I forget. Those who have been poking around the store page and done some leg work have been speculating over it.

In view of that and how I do love to read speculation, I will let you stew over what it could be for a couple weeks and instead take this week's Dev Diary talk about the first of our religion overhauls: Confucianism

It's high time Confucian got the spotlight. It's been a troubled child of religions in EU4, existing almost exclusively in China and Korea without its own mechanics. For owners of Mandate of Heaven though, that changes with the introduction of Confucian Harmony.

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Confucian nations will have a value for the Harmony in their nation. As it grows, so too does their tolerance of the True Faith. By default, it grows by one every year, faster if they keep stability high and complete Humanism Ideas. Low Harmony will reduce tolerance of the True Faith as well as causing higher costs in development and hurting Meritocracy.

So keeping your nation's Harmony high will ensure good times for your nation, but there is a choice to be made. Converting provinces in your realm will cause Harmony to fall, scaling on the development of the province you convert, so at least in the short term, wiping out heathens may cause rough times for your nation.

For Confucian Nations though, they have the unique ability to Harmonize with other religions and religious groups. While Tengri nations have the ability to instantly Synchronize with one other faith, Confucian nations can gradually adopt and mesh with many religious. For Heretics, they can choose to gradually Harmonize with that religion, treating it as the True Faith. For Heathens, this process applies to that religious group.

Harmonizing with a religion is a process taken in the religious tab. A religion or group to Harmonize with is selected and the process of adapting with their beliefs will begin. This process will cost 3 Harmony per year, so more stable empires will have an easier time adopting new faiths, and will tick up a progress bar from 0 to 100 by 3 per year. Harmonizing is a long process punctuated with events, but the end result will be a religion or religious group that is treated as True-Faith for your nation for the rest of the game (Assuming you yourself remain Confucian)

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Each Harmonized religion also gives a nation-wide bonus for 25 years

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My totally Legit Korea in the above screenshot will now enjoy +2 tolerance of the True Faith for 25 years. Some of the other religious bonuses include:

Muslim: +10% Trade efficiency
Shinto: +10% Infantry Combat Ability
Jewish : +33% institution Spread

We'll leave the others for you to explore, and next week we'll discuss another religious mechanic added in Mandate of Heaven
 
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Hmm.. it seems like this is forcing me to tolerate other people's believes... But I really like to paint maps, and who can resist that beautiful shade of white to be all over the map?
Still though, some confucian love, I like it.
 
So we can harmonise with multiple religions at the same time? This could make Confucian my favourite religion!
 
Random question:

With all that talk about the Mandate of Heaven and inclusion of various other religions into 'China' I wonder if there is any chance that we will get a dynastic naming system for Asian nations, similiar to CKII. During much of it the game's time frame, Korea for example was refered to as Goryeo or Choson, both being the name of a ruling dynasty. It would also make more sense for a dynasty to take over the Mandate instead of Korea suddenly becoming China while still being labeled 'Korea'.
 
You teeeeaaassssseeee!

Yes

Next one is Shinto?

Who's to say?

Sweet. A religion where "convert ALL the things!" isn't the be all and end all is very welcome.
Hmm.. it seems like this is forcing me to tolerate other people's believes... But I really like to paint maps, and who can resist that beautiful shade of white to be all over the map?
Still though, some confucian love, I like it.

Indeed, Confucian nations have the choice between the old fire and sword method and their new Harmonization. You may, for example, look to remove the pagans from your land but harmonize with Theravadan to make expansion into South East Asia all that smoother.

What is this Yin Yang button next to the Harmony bar?

That is the button to toggle between converting provinces and Harmonizing with religions.

I believe there will be an achievement to harmonize all religions in the next patch.

Achievements for new mechanics, genius! "As Korea, Harmonize Zorastrian by 1450".

The post states that we harmonize with religious groups- all Muslims get Harmonized simultaneously, as I assume is also the case for Pagans.

Indeed, you harmonize by religious groups, so Christian, Pagan, Muslim, Dharmic.... The exception is for the Easten Religious group, which Confucian is part of, those are harmonized individually (Theravadan, Shinto, Mayahana, Vajrayana)

How much is this "Harmonization" mechanic compatible with One Faith Achievement?

One Faith means One. Syncretics and Harmonizers need not apply.

So we can harmonise with multiple religions at the same time? This could make Confucian my favourite religion!

You can be harmonized with multiple religions and groups at once. You undertake the Harmonization one at a time, mind, but over the course of the game it may even be possible to catch them all.
 
I feel this mechanic is wasted by being just for Confusianists. Yes they are a special case (the only religion in game that is not really a religion) but still, you have humanist and tolerant gameplay but its kinda meh compared to just converting everything. To let one religion excel at tolerant gameplay, but only that one seems strange.

If Confusianists can be tolerant and adapt other religions, why cant Pagans? Or Fetichists (Cults) or Inca, Aztec and Totemic and so forth. Hell even the Ottomans were ptretty tolerant and adapted a tolereance for Orthodox and Jews, why cant they adapt tolerance for Hindus but Confusianists can?
 
"As Korea, Harmonize Zorastrian by 1450".

Genius, Jake! But it is too Easy! How about, As Korea, Harmonize Totemist by 1450".
 
We'll leave the others for you to explore, and next week we'll discuss another religious mechanic added in Mandate of Heaven

I hope you reworked bland Muslim and Orthodox mechanic. Or made Catholicism at par with Protestant.
 
Next one is Shinto?
Almost certainly yes given how we know, from the dev MP, that there's been extensive work done to it.
Probably not, it's just that they define a bonus for all existing religious groups. Just in case for some reason they happen to surive and thrive (through chance or player intervention).
Yep. It's so that should somebody encounter Judaism then it isn't a void. Similarly I'd wager that Norse is remembered too---although it's probably part of the pagan group.

Huh, this perplexes me. At game Start there are only two provinces with Jewish as the religion. So are you teasing us by saying "Well if you can conquer your way to the horn of Africa before Judaism is eradicated then be our guest enjoy your institution spread" or is there now a possibility for Judaism (or other religions) to resurface at some point. It's just I find it curious that you mentioned Jewish over say Shia or Tengri, two religions much more likely to stick around and Harmonize with.
You're forgetting that there's also the converter. You could well have a large Jewish/Norse realm converted from CKII and then it would be quite a shame if Confusianism didn't have boni for those.

You undertake the Harmonization one at a time, mind, but over the course of the game it may even be possible to catch them all.
So it's impossible to do multiple at a time?
 
I hope you reworked bland Muslim and Orthodox mechanic. Or made Catholicism at par with Protestant.
They might have done work to some of the other religions, but it's almost certainly Shinto next week since we know there's been extensive work done to it.
 
Sooo.... I guess the new thing 'to do' as the Ottomans (or any world power) is as follows?
- Convert to Christianity and become Holy Roman Emperor.
- Save a Judaeic province in Africa.
- Reform HRE to the point of hereditary title.
- Convert to Confucianism.
- Secure the Mandate of Heaven.
- Harmonize what's left of the world (even if this'd take 30 years per religious group / eastern faith).

...granted, if you could do all these things, you wouldn't really need all these bonuses anyway - and I assume there will be new checks to ensure you can't be twin emperor of both China and Rome... unless there will be an achievement for that too? Unite both crowns by 1600 and bring in the Jewish advisors? :p
 
and I assume there will be new checks to ensure you can't be twin emperor of both China and Rome...
A dev has stated that you can get both titles.
 
So Confucianism's entire thing is just super-tolerance? That seems strong for world conquest, but also super boring.