• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

EU4 - Development Diary - 16th of May 2017

Hi everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. I hope you all enjoyed PdxCon last weekend, either in person or from watching the streams.

As you all know, we announced our new Immersion Pack, Third Rome, which will be out in June this year for 9.99$. So what is an immersion pack then? Well, it is something between a full expansion and a small graphics pack, similar to the story pack Leviathans for Stellaris.

Closest comparison to Third Rome of our previous releases for EU4 would be Wealth of Nations when it comes to amount and size of features. Third Rome also comes bundled with a portrait pack for russians, and 3 new sprite-packs, for 12 countries in the russian region, including Ryazan, Lithuania and Perm.

So, what cool features will we talk about today then?

We’re adding three new russian government types. The actual types are in the free patch, but the abilities we give them as well, belong to the Immersion Pack.

Veche Republic
This is a new republic form, which works like a merchant republic and have access to the russian abilities as well. They are always duchy rank, and their bonus is +1 merchant. Novgorod and Pskov starts as Veche Republics. It also gives +3 to states.

Principality
This is the new monarchy governmentform, which all russian monarchies start with. It has access to the russian abilities, and while they are locked to duchy rank, they have a bonus of -1 unrest and +5% Tax Modifier. It also gives +3 to states.

Tsardom
This government form is given when forming Russia, and is automatically empire rank. Besides giving +10 to amount of states and access to the russian abilities, it gives the following bonuses. +20% Manpower, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism & -0.05 monthly autonomy.

eu4_43.png



The russian abilities work like this. All actions have a bar to fill up before they can be used. Bar fill up from 0 - 100, increasing yearly by the ruler’s monarch point in the category, and a base +3. The actual bar can hold 150, so you don’t lose by not using it immediately.
  • The Administrative ability is called Reform Sudebnik, and reduces autonomy by 10% in all provinces you own.
  • The diplomatic ability is called Support Oprichnina, and reduces progress of all your rebelfactions by 30% each.
  • The military ability is called Raise Streltsy, and reduces war exhaustion by 2, and raises 20% of your forcelimit as Streltsy Infantry in your capital.

So what is Streltsy units? Previously we had three categories of units, with regulars, mercenaries & banners. In 1.22 there are two more categories added, and one of those is the Streltsy.

Streltsy arrive at full strength, but low morale, and do not cost manpower nor gold at recruit, but otherwise works like a regular unit, if not for two distinct differences. First, the amount of streltsy compared to your force.limit increases your stability costs, while each streltsy regiment provides +10% fire damage.

The other category we add for 1.22 is Cossacks, which is there for everyone that bought the “The Cossacks” expansion. Cossacks work like regulars, except they do +10% extra shock damage.

Cossacks are recruited as an estate interaction, where each province assigned to the Cossacks estate will give you 1 cavalry cossack regiment.

Of course, fittingly for the focus on this update, we have added three new interactions to the Cossacks estate.
  • Conscripting Elites: gain army tradition, lose loyalty
  • Supply Arms: lose MIL, gain loyalty and influence
  • Permit Self Governance: give autonomy to cossack lands, gain loyalty and influence

Next week, we’ll take a deeper look into more abilities of Russia and the Tsardom.
 
That is a Merchant Republic icon indicating that the MR has too much provinces in stated areas (that is, more than 20 provinces). It tanks Reb. Tradition.

Thank you <3 Never played MR after that update =(
 
Closest comparison to Third Rome of our previous releases for EU4 would be Wealth of Nations when it comes to amount and size of features.
- would not Res Publica be a closer comparison thou? WoA brought plethora of rather broad changes to basic gameplay, while Res Publica was smalish DLC that mostly focused on few republican themed nations, also Res Publica ( if i remember correctly ) had lower cost than fully priced WoA.

Veche Republic
This is a new republic form, which works like a merchant republic and have access to the russian abilities as well. They are always duchy rank, and their bonus is +1 merchant. Novgorod and Pskov starts as Veche Republics. It also gives +3 to states.

Principality
This is the new monarchy governmentform, which all russian monarchies start with. It has access to the russian abilities, and while they are locked to duchy rank, they have a bonus of -1 unrest and +5% Tax Modifier. It also gives +3 to states.

Tsardom
This government form is given when forming Russia, and is automatically empire rank. Besides giving +10 to amount of states and access to the russian abilities, it gives the following bonuses. +20% Manpower, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism & -0.05 monthly autonomy.

The russian abilities work like this. All actions have a bar to fill up before they can be used. Bar fill up from 0 - 100, increasing yearly by the ruler’s monarch point in the category, and a base +3. The actual bar can hold 150, so you don’t lose by not using it immediately.
  • The Administrative ability is called Reform Sudebnik, and reduces autonomy by 10% in all provinces you own.
  • The diplomatic ability is called Support Oprichnina, and reduces progress of all your rebelfactions by 30% each.
  • The military ability is called Raise Streltsy, and reduces war exhaustion by 2, and raises 20% of your forcelimit as Streltsy Infantry in your capital.
- sheesh, no wonder russia stomped everything in your tests.:eek:

Although i do pity a Pskov and Novgorod republican demise with this update. Now you are basically forced to become monarchy as a russian country and in case with Novgorod you could not even keep your ideas without hurting yourself ( ivan hundred +0.5 rep tradition ).
 
While all of this is interesting, I question whether Russia needed or deserved any more work on it, not to mention additional privileges, while other places of the world, no matter how recently touched upon, could use said work.
 
I remember asking this before at the convention, but since Novgorod is getting a new government form wouldn't it make sense to remove that "too large" merchant republic modifier? Because even in the screenshot you can see that from the start they have that modifier making it unnecessarily more difficult to bring about a Novgorodian Russia, or at least an increasingly more powerful republican state in the Russian region. I also believe that a grand republic as Novgorod should be by all means possible, they shouldn't be forced to become a monarchy just because they want to establish themselves as the true nation of all the Russia's. If anything it's even less immersive to be playing as Novgorod with these limitations.
 
Do the Russian governments start the game with all the bars filled like the screenshot in OP suggests? If so this is a huge boon since it takes 10-30 years for them to fill up naturally depending on the monarch's skills.
 
Those interactions look really nice. In the hypothetical case you have a 6 on one of your ruler's monarch power you can activate them every 11 years, not bad. And with Novgord/Pskov's new republic type you can focus on the one you want.

I'm loving the addition of new unit types, I hope this will expand to more countries. It adds more micromanegment to warfare, as you have to take your time and think where you want to place these elite units. And also the interaction with states giving you I found it good (although I think the number of units that gives you should be proportional to the development of the province they control), I wonder if we see more of these with other states so other countries can benefit from them.

Finally, more unit sprites yey! I know there are people that don't really care about the graphical aspect of the game, but I really do. It makes the game more alive to me. I appreciate the work that's been done lately, with the overhaul of western units, now its great to look at every corner of Europe. I wish it happen with other regions in the future. Can't wait for the render pictures to see what's coming.
 
Cheers for the DD Johan :). I like this increased uniqueness of the different areas (am currently very much enjoying a Korea playthrough at the moment with the new Mandate of Heaven interactions and influences), goes well. The increasing number of new types of units sounds interesting as well - I've no idea about the historical plausiblity side, but I like the sound of the estates/cossack regiment interactions a lot :).
 
So, all these interactions available for any russian government form start? You don't need to forming Russia for this?
And you can raise Streltsy before mil tech 12? Why?
 
So, all these interactions available for any russian government form start? You don't need to forming Russia for this?
And you can raise Streltsy before mil tech 12? Why?

Cause pishalniky were gathered from cities even before Streltsy :) Streltsy were THE BEST from them (which is represented by other ideas i assume).
 
Do the Russian governments start the game with all the bars filled like the screenshot in OP suggests? If so this is a huge boon since it takes 10-30 years for them to fill up naturally depending on the monarch's skills.

no
 
So, all these interactions available for any russian government form start? You don't need to forming Russia for this?
And you can raise Streltsy before mil tech 12? Why?

its cheap troops.
 
So is forming russia more restricted now? This seems... very very powerful.

I'm imagining sweden or poland forming prussia and keeping their ideas and ending up with a not-difficult to form yet exceedingly powerful country. In MP especially this looks sort of ridiculous.
 
Last edited:
Looks cool! Are you going to go full historical and make whole Russia poor again, with glorius gold Moscow?
Also, Russia is getting free military units with "Raise Streltsy". Why PLC famous from their nobility conscription in defensive wars (Pospolite Ruszenie) don't have similiar mechanic?