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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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I have two questions.
1. If Confucianism accepts Christianity, is it possible to marry?
2. Can Confucianism embrace Christianity and become emperor of the Holy Roman Empire?
You're not changing your religion group or the rules that apply to you, so I'd say definitely not. Just like Tengris with syncretic Catholicism aren't suddenly able to marry Christians or eligible for the HRE.
 
For this change I strongly hope that the religious setup in East Asia will be changed to have far more provinces be Mahayana now that its syncretism with Confucianism can be properly implemented. Mahayana was, as far as I know, even during this period by far the most widespread Buddhist branch in the world, being the vastly dominant branch in China (and Japan for that matter) and I've always found it weird how the most popular form of Buddhism was practically absent from the map.

Speaking of Japan, I also hope that a given Shinto overhaul will also show that Religion's overwhelming syncretism with Mahayana. It simply cannot be overstated how much Shinto and Mahayana were two sides of the same coin in Japanese culture, a situation that remained all the way until the Meiji restoration.
 
Are new nations formed from you (separatists, created vassals, colonial nations ect) reset to 0 harmonizations or do they keep yours?

Do harmonizations affect diplomatic relationships with other nations of that faith?
 
For this change I strongly hope that the religious setup in East Asia will be changed to have far more provinces be Mahayana now that its syncretism with Confucianism can be properly implemented. Mahayana was, as far as I know, even during this period by far the most widespread Buddhist branch in the world, being the vastly dominant branch in China (and Japan for that matter) and I've always found it weird how the most popular form of Buddhism was practically absent from the map.

Speaking of Japan, I also hope that a given Shinto overhaul will also show that Religion's overwhelming syncretism with Mahayana. It simply cannot be overstated how much Shinto and Mahayana were two sides of the same coin in Japanese culture, a situation that remained all the way until the Meiji restoration.
Judging by the achievements stream last week Mayanana is still confined to Dai Viet at game start.
 
Does Humanism result in faster harmonisation as well? Or is it just faster growth of harmony? 33 years to tolerate one religious group does not seem very good compared to the loss of the tolerance from legitimacy you get with changing to meritocracy.

I suppose you could still fully tolerate heretics thanks to neo confucianism, though. So there is that.

And I guess it's pretty powerful if you don't plan on going for Humanism.
 
i hope we can get cardinals as catholic nation in asia (or even americas!), its tough to have +200 papal points as japan and get every bonuses (and defender of faith!) but still dont get cardinals.
 
@DDRJake could you please help work towards sorting out the vassal feeding issues in the hre? Maybe the unlawful territory request going to the overlord, and the overlord getting the diplo hit but the vassal getting the land debuffs?
I feel like its a bit weird the vassal gets to decide which lands belong to us and which lands go back to filthy greyskin, instead of the overlord.
 
If only prussia could harmonize with shinto. ;)
Who says you cant? If you can form the Manchu (and hence get banners) with Prussian culture (which is something Johan confirmed to be possible) then why shouldn't you be able to convert to confucianism?
Though by then you've long since won the game.
 
I approve this change in subject matter, the diplo microbuilder seems like a fantastic QoL addition, but it hardly warrants an entire DD, and I am much more interested in the new religions than a convenience button.

For Confucian: I am a big fan! It looks really neat, seems like a fantastic addition to the game and a very unique one at that. Can't wait until Shinto next week :D
 
Speaking of Japan, I also hope that a given Shinto overhaul will also show that Religion's overwhelming syncretism with Mahayana. It simply cannot be overstated how much Shinto and Mahayana were two sides of the same coin in Japanese culture, a situation that remained all the way until the Meiji restoration.

Shinto already includes Mahayana as there was no such thing as State Shinto during this period. The only way I can see full Mahayana provinces becoming applicable is for the Ikko.
 
Much as I love the idea of this mechanic, I hope harmonizing with entire religious groups as opposed to just individual sects will cost more or take more time or so on, as it seems it would be rather OP otherwise.
 
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.

Obviously the way to go is to start as Ethiopia, conquer your way to Asia, then change religion to Confucianism.
 
Harmonizing with Nahua is going to be....interesting.